TVSquad

The Mystery Science Theater 3000 alums at Rifftrax are taking Christmas down a notch in a nationwide event next month, and you can win a trip to sunny San Diego to watch in person.

Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett will team up again with partner and live event specialist Fathom to bring a collection of old-school Christmas shorts to theaters across the country in a live big screen broadcast.

Some more sad news from Tinseltown. Movie star and recent television star Patrick Swayze has lost his 20 month battle with pancreatic cancer at his ranch in Los Angeles. He was 57 years old.

Barbara Walters will air the actor's final television interview in a one hour special titled Last Dance tonight at 10 PM eastern/9 PM central on ABC.

He's probably best known for his work on the big screen in movies like Ghost, Dirty Dancing and (of course) the timeless Road House, a movie that became a cult sensation for all the wrong reasons and helped birth the sense of humor of MST3K and Rifftrax's Michael J. Nelson. But like all Hollywood actors, he made his presence known on the small screen, and his reach goes much further than his recent venture into cable drama glory with A&E's The Beast.

Rifftrax, the Mystery Science Theater 3000 descendant written and performed by Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett, is taking its show live to the nation's movie theaters on August 20.

In a move sure to draw desperate MST3K fans from out of their parents' basements (this reporter among them -- though my folks' old house only has a washer/dryer downstairs), Fathom Events will present the Rifftrax trio live in theaters via vid-cast up on the big screen.

They'll take on Ed Wood's classically inept Plan 9 from Outer Space, a movie they've wrestled with on DVD and in past live shows.

Actor, comedian and classically trained suit wearer Joel McHale has taken his talent for riffing to the next level.

The star of The Soup and the upcoming NBC sitcom Community has joined forces with Michael J. Nelson's Rifftrax.com to provide a running comedy commentary for the perennial craptastic 80s classic Red Dawn. Nelson announced the guest commentary on the Rifftrax site and his Twitter blog earlier this week.

Rifftrax, for those who may not be familiar with the site and are therefore in no way cool, is the comedy website that provides downloadable MP3s of funny movie commentaries featuring the voices and talents of the minds behind Mystery Science Theater 3000 including Nelson, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy. It is the only reason I still own all three Matrix films, that and the fact that my desk is missing part of a leg.

Mike Nelson is a good guy. And he has always seemed like a reasonable guy to me. But now I think he's lost it a little.

For the entire month of February, the Mystery Science Theater 3000 host/head writer is going to eat nothing but bacon. That's right, nothing but bacon for an four weeks. Make sure you have your best suit dry cleaned for the inevitable funeral in March.

OK, maybe he'll survive like Morgan Spurlock did, though Spurlock's whole experiment was rather lame and misleading, in my opinion. But eating nothing but one of the most incredibly unhealthy foods (the fat! the grease! the salt!) for an entire month? I'm not too sure about that. He'll be drinking liquids, but most of them are alcohol (and water). No veggies or fruits for an entire month. Wow, even if you ate nothing but pizza for an entire month you'd at least get dairy and fiber and maybe some veggies. Mike will be keeping track of his progress (with bacon photos!) at Rifftrax.

Godspeed Mike. Godspeed.