Michael J. Nelson

The storied history of Mystery Science Theater includes many, MANY cheap rubber monster suits... and somehow, some way, Sting of Death may have the worst so far. MSTies might recognize director William Grefé as the director behind the MST3K Season 2 experiment Wild Rebels. You'll be happy to know he made Sting of Death first, so Wild Rebels was a movie he made as an even more experienced filmmaker. As an added bonus, this movie also features the aptly titled "Do The Jellyfish" by Songwriting Hall of Fame inductee Neil Sedaka. Does this tune warrant TWO extended dance sequences? Probably not, but it is an earworm that will still be drilled into your head long after the credits roll.

In the not-too-distant future, the evil Dr. Forrester forces a temp named Mike into a series of experiments, where he's forced to watch cheesy movies so the mad scientist can monitor his mind. However, as Mike can't control where the movies begin or end, he'll try to keep his sanity with the help of his robot friends.

Someone is taking the Doctor's past selves out of time and space, placing them in a vast wilderness – a battle arena with a sinister tower at its center. As the various incarnations of the Doctor join forces, they learn they are in the Death Zone on their home world of Gallifrey, fighting Daleks, Cybermen, Yeti and a devious Time Lord Traitor who is using the Doctor and his companions to discover the ancient secrets of Rassilon, the first and most powerful ruler of Gallifrey.

If you put everything about the 80s in a blender, then somehow ran the resulting smoothie through a translator that only speaks languages from another dimension, what you’d wind up with still wouldn't be half as hilarious, weird, and oddly charming as Miami Connection. It's 1987, and the Biker Ninjas behind the Miami drug trade are finding themselves facing the newest heroes in town: the Taekwondo-loving rock band Dragon Sound! They'll focus all of their black belt skills, alongside performing their hit songs "Friends" and "Against the Ninja" at a popular Orlando night club - to end the threat of Ninja Biker violence once and for all!

Bob Honcho orders the Film Crew to provide a commentary track for the bizarre prehistoric adventure film, "The Wild Women of Wongo" (1959).

Shorts, Volume 2 is a compilation release featuring six popular shorts from Mystery Science Theater 3000, including Catching Trouble (Episode #315), What to Do on a Date (Episode #503), Last Clear Chance (Episode #520), A Day at the Fair (Episode #608), Keeping Clean and Neat (Episode #613) and The Days of Our Years (Episode #623).

Is there any possible downside to accepting an invitation from Vincent Price to spend an evening in a creepy mansion that was built on something called “Haunted Hill?” If so, Mike, Kevin and Bill couldn’t find it! In fact they were so eager to join Mr. Price and his terrifying moustache that they riffed the film live, on-stage, and now you can reap the rewards from the safety of home with this live show DVD! Yes, horror classic House on Haunted Hill provides a mesmerizing walk down “people actually used to find this SCARY?!?” lane. Join the RiffTrax guys as they bring their special brand of rapid-fire comedic commentary to every skeleton-hanging-from-visible-wires, clumsy sexual overtone, and a stunningly inept test pilot whose “heroics” typically lead him to bloody his own nose after locking himself in a broom closet!

Shorts, Volume 3 is a compilation release from Rhino Entertainment featuring seven popular shorts from Mystery Science Theater 3000. It was originally released on VHS and later as a limited bonus with The Essentials DVD set if the set was ordered through a special website offer. Shorts, Volume 3 has since been re-released by Shout! Factory in The Singles Collection. The seven shorts featured are: Speech: Using Your Voice (Episode #313), Aquatic Wizards (Episode #315), Is This Love? (Episode #514), Design for Dreaming (Episode #524), The Selling Wizard (Episode #603), Out of This World (Episode #618) and Once Upon a Honeymoon (Episode #701).

Mike, Kevin and Bill were joined on stage by their MST3K colleagues at the State Theatre in Minneapolis to bring it back to their roots in an MST3K cast reunion the likes of which have never been seen before! Joining the guys are their old cohorts Frank Conniff (TV's Frank), Trace Beaulieu (Crow, Dr. Forrestor), Mary Jo Pehl (Pearl Forrester), Bridget Nelson (Nuveena, Mr. B), as well as Mystery Science Theater 3000 creator Joel Hodgson, AND the host of the revived MST, Jonah Ray, for a hilarious night of riffing for RiffTrax's 20th Live event. Taking turns in various permutations to riff on a slew of old-timey shorts, the show culminates in a Super Riff-A-Palooza finale with all nine riffers on stage at once!

The former Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew rip apart the 1954 sci-fi classic "Killers from Space".

Star Wars: lots of people hate it, and those are just its biggest fans. But even if you’re a casual Star Wars fan who can’t tell Jyn Erso from Jizz Wailing, you have to admit, it inspired a whole lot of crap. Hunks of Junk is a collection of this crap, which a generous critic might say was “inspired by Star Wars” and a more accurate critic might say “appears to be at least 60% stolen footage from Star Wars.” There’s Turkish Star Wars, Japanese Star Wars, Italian Star Wars, He-Man Star Wars, John Boy Star Wars, direct-to-video Ewok Star Wars, animated Star Wars, even Donny and Marie Star Wars. We’ve even riffed Ernest Cline’s Fanboys, which shows that the author of Ready Player One can write a deeply emotional work without relying on tired pop culture references (we’re kidding, it’s worse than his poetry). Mike, Kevin, and Bill provide bantha fodder, er, host segments in between riffs. So what are you waiting for? Get into the garbage chute, flyboy, it’s time for Hunks of Junk!

Santa’s sleigh is stuck on the beach, and only one creature can help him: The Ice Cream Bunny! Unfortunately, the fire truck that the Ice Cream Bunny drives needs repairs, so he’ll be a little late coming from Pirates World, the run-down theme park that he lives in. We’d like to take this moment to remind you that, yes, this is a REAL movie that people ACTUALLY made. Filmed in front of a live audience at the historic Belcourt Theatre in Nashville, Mike, Kevin and Bill are delighted to inflict, er, present it LIVE for the very first time!

From the strange and ridiculously colorful world of K. Gordon Murray comes the 1959 Holiday classic Santa Claus. Made in Mexico and dubbed into glorious English, Santa Claus tells the story of, well, Santa Claus, who lives in a big white castle above us in Geosynchronous Orbit and watches over us all in a way that would make the NSA jealous. It’s Christmas Eve, and on Earth poor little Lupita wishes for a doll. Santa hears her wish and prepares for his yearly visit, helped by the heavily medicated Merlin the Wizard and Santa’s unintentionally creepy mechanical reindeer.

Mike Nelson, Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo from MST3K review the summer blockbusters of 1997 in their usual ironic style.

Mike Nelson, Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo from MST3K review the summer blockbusters of 1998 in their usual ironic style.

Join Mike, Kevin and Bill, along with guests Bridget Nelson, Mary Jo Pehl, the Mads from MST3K Trace Beaulieu and Frank Conniff, and special guest Paul F. Tompkins and relive this amazing summer-themed night of riffing and comedy!

He’s back! You probably didn’t know that he was gone, but he was and now he’s back! Swamp Thing, AKA Swampington Montgomery Thing, returns to thwart the sinister plans of the evil Doctor Arcane, who apparently is also back. But! Here for the first time is Heather Locklear, the young woman who is drawn to the mysterious charms of Mr. Thing and desires a love that is both human and plant-based. A sequel to the Wes Craven cult classic, The Return of Swamp Thing is decidedly NOT directed by Wes Craven, but that’s fine, because it means this one is bigger, more fun, and way more riffable. Plus, to kick things off, a puppet goes to the dentist in Danny's Dental Date, a short that's way scarier than anything you'd find in Dr. Arcane's lab.

For our fifteenth year of RiffTrax Live, we've selected the 1990's cult classic about bank robbing, presidential masks, and surfing: Point Break! It was directed by Academy Award Winner Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty) and stars Keanu Reeves (The Matrix, John Wick, Keanu), Patrick Swayze (Road House), and one of our all-time favorite character actors, Gary Busey (A Star Is Born, Predator 2). Mike, Kevin, and Bill will riff Point Break LIVE at the State Theatre in Minneapolis on July 27th, and the resulting hilarity will be broadcast to over 700 movie theaters across America on Thursday, August 8th with an encore on Tuesday, August 13th thanks to our partners at Fathom Events.

Shorts, Volume 1 is a compilation release featuring seven popular shorts from Mystery Science Theater 3000. It was originally released on VHS by Rhino Entertainment in July 1998; it was later re-released on DVD as part of the Volume 2 set from Rhino and its re-issue, Volume II from Shout! Factory. The featured shorts are: The Home Economics Story (Episode #317), Junior Rodeo Daredevils (Episode #407), Body Care and Grooming Episode #510), Cheating (Episode #515), A Date with Your Family (Episode #602), Why Study Industrial Arts? (Episode #609} and The Chicken of Tomorrow (Episode #702).

It’s the year 2762. The galaxy is plagued with warring factions using hokey special effects to destroy each other. Out of this chaos a hero rises: the dashing, exquisitely bearded Captain Saber Raine (Casper Van Dien). Saber and his elite squad of commandos (other actors) embark on a dangerous quest to save the Prince and Princess of an unnamed planet from the clutches of the Evil Overlord Sinjin - an overlord so evil HIS VERY SKULL IS FILLED WITH CHERRY JELL-O. Can our heroes fend off Sinjin’s army of mutant androids and rescue the Prince and Princess? Probably! After all it’s Space Opera, but you never know! Join Mike, Kevin and Bill for an unforgettable Sword-And-Laser Swashbuckling-ly fun time, beamed to theaters nationwide!

Starship Troopers is the tale of young trooper Johnny Rico, played by Casper Van Dien, star of this and...well, some direct to video sequels of this, mostly. He’s joined in the war by Denise Richards, impossible to believe as a gifted starship pilot long before she was impossible to believe as a gifted nuclear scientist in that Bond movie. He’s also joined by the great Neil Patrick Harris, who is somehow much easier to believe as an intelligence officer with psychic abilities that help him communicate with the giant bug aliens. Throw in Michael Ironside, because duh, it’s a war movie, you’re gonna need Michael Ironside, and Jake Busey, because duh, he just showed up on set and wouldn’t leave, add a love triangle, heaps of alien splatter, and you’ve got the sprawling, great, goofy mess that is Starship Troopers! Join Mike, Kevin, and Bill for this gorilla-gram free version of the blockbuster live show!

Like a comet streaking across the sky with a trail of suffering, ennui, and industrial puncture wounds behind it, GrimTrax Returns! Five shorts too grim to release individually, including one we recorded TWO YEARS AGO and held onto for just this moment.

The Film Crew rip apart B-Movie legend Steve Reeves and "The Giant of Marathon."

Rifftrax Live: Carnival of Souls! Mike, Bill, and Kevin riffed this spooky midnight-movie cult classic live in Nashville, and now it's available for you to download or stream in Anywhere-Ville! When young Mary survives a horrible car crash, she tries to start her life over with a new church organist job in a small Utah town, as one does. But along the way she’s haunted by a gaunt pale figure in a nice suit who leads her to an abandoned old pavilion on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. Soon Mary doesn’t know if she’s awake or dreaming, alive or dead, which makes her really dull at parties. Fans of Rifftrax Live: Night of the Living Dead will love this one. Weird, creepy and very silly, our live riff of Carnival of Souls is not to be missed!

A stranded spaceship pilot captured by mad scientists survives a blitz of cheesy B movies by riffing on them with his funny robot pals.

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The RiffTrax Experiments is a 2026 limited series that reunites legacy MST3K writers and performers Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett. Serving as an official collaboration between the RiffTrax team and the MST3K production house, the series brings the core cast of the show's 1990s era back to the Satellite of Love.