Before the show, the audience seemed to be in as good spirits as our group was. At some point shortly before the show started, Joel stuck his head out from the wings on the right side of the stage, presumably to check us all out. He was wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a tannish, tweedy-looking jacket, not unlike what he wore for the host segments of "Stranded in Space". He seemed happy about what he saw, and then his head disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared.
Lizz Winstead came out and announced each member of the panel, who entered from the right side of the stage, and crossed to his or her seat, starting on the left side of the stage. Josh Weinstein was first, then Kevin Muphy, Trace Beaulieu, (Lizz Winstead was in the middle), then Joel, Frank and Mary Jo. Each one received thunderous applause.
Lizz asked the questions throughout. Of all of the panelists, Josh and Frank were the most garrulous, Trace and Mary Jo the quietest. But they also all seemed to be glad to be there.
We were all having such a good time, and things were happening so quickly, it's difficult for us, even as a group, to remember a lot of what was said. But what we do remember, after putting our collective heads together, is as follows:
Lizz asked questions about how the show started, and Josh said that he played Tom Servo before he came out, that Kevin was the gay Servo. (Josh said some really funny things that night, if only we could remember them, but we were all laughing so much...)
Kevin spoke about the utility of a bottle of Jim Beam in the early days of the show.
There was quite a bit of banter about the fact that Joel's feet were practically in the faces of the puppeteers during the host segments. One of them, perhaps Kevin, mentioned how Joel's feet were quite, um, fragrant. The subject of Joel's jumpsuit also came up when either Trace or Kevin mentioned that Joel had needed to cut off the legs because his pants had caught fire. Then someone (perhaps Kevin) said that Joel had nice legs, which prompted Joel to roll up one of his pants legs to show off his shapely calf.
Trace mentioned how they had learned that they had to watch movies all the way through before selecting one because of the unexpected brutal rape and murder scene in the unMSTed "Sidehackers". Frank and Mary Jo also talked a little about how they selected movies for the show, but damned if we can remember what they said.
They also talked about setting up an answering machine when the show first aired, and how they knew that they were onto something when it was completely filled up with messages immediately afterwards. Somebody (perhaps Joel) also said that he knew the show was more than just an obscure cult thing when it got rave reviews from media critics he respected, such as Tom Shales from the Washington Post and Richard Corliss from Time (which was a really nice thing to say, since Richard Corliss was in the audience).
When someone mentioned how people had ripped off the MST format, Frank talked about how he had been one of them, and that people in LA wanted him to keep doing what he had always done. (Frank got in a number of GREAT quips all night, and he made lots of topical remarks, including one having to do with that fake critic the movie studio guys made up. He was really funny. And he was wearing shorts, which helped. We all agreed that Frank looked lobster-red to us, which we all hoped was from a sunburn.)
Lizz Winstead told Joel that many considered him to be a very different thinker. In response, he started twisting in his chair until he was sitting sideways with his feet nearly touching her, his legs hanging over the arm of the chair closest to her.
In another Joel moment, he announced that he had to take a "wicked pee", and he left the stage with a huge smile. After that came the sound of running liquid, which caused Frank to declare that he was wearing Depends under his shorts.
Joel later threatened to "take a dump", too, but he didn't, thank God.
In discussing the most obscure references they had ever made on MST, Kevin brought up the keyboard incident (an Asian woman running away, who supposedly was Mike's old girlfriend, who had stolen his keyboard). Mary Jo talked about an experience that she'd had at college when she joined hands in a circle with other freshmen, and the arm of her deaf neighbor came off, causing her neighbor to ask "Wha' hoppen?". Of course, this made it into the show. (Mary Jo laughed delightedly as she recounted this story.)
When asked which movie experience had been the most painful, Joel said "Manos" had been for him. Surprisingly, Trace said that making the MST movie had been a "joyless" experience for him.
As for their favorite movies, Joel said that "I Accuse My Parents" had been his, which caused pandemonium with the audience.
When they were asked what they were all doing now, Mary Jo said that she had moved to New York and was growing out her bangs. (She also looked quite slim.) Trace said something about having a foundry, so that kids could come by and make their own stuff. Josh mentioned that he was currently writing on a show (a comedy) called "A Young Person's Guide to Becoming A Rock Star" which will premiere this winter on WB. Kevin is doing a book on movie going, so he's been doing a lot of...well, movie going. Joel said he is developing a feature project with his brother and Sam Simon (one of the creators of the Simpsons). We can't remember what Frank said he is doing, sorry.
We also cannot remember how this came up, but, at some point, Trace recalled a conversation he'd had with Bridget regarding their discomfort about the dress she'd worn in that operatic GM short being sold on Ebay for $5,000.
The last event of the panel was the duet between Josh and Joel, when they sang the KTMA version of the MST themesong. Josh accompanied them on acoustic guitar, and the audience added the la la las. It was a wonderful moment.
And that's all we can remember of what happened onstage. Sorry. We really should lay off the cough syrup.
The photos you see here were taken backstage and on the street in front of Columbia, when Trace and Josh came out and met with their fans for an extended period of time. They signed autographs, talked with whoever came up to them, and let people take innumerable photos.
It was quite an evening! We all hope that they do this again, sometime.