Mystery Science Theater 3000: Season 1 box set... maybe

You mean, The Crawling Hand" (episode 106). There was a lot of "Crawling" going around that year.

actually you're both correct

0101 The Crawling Eye
0102 The Robot Vs. The Aztec Mummy
0103 Mad Monster
0104 Women Of The Prehistoric Planet
0105 The Corpse Vanishes
0106 The Crawling Hand
0107 Robot Monster
0108 The Slime People
0109 Project Moonbase
0110 Robot Holocaust
0111 Moon Zero Two
0112 Untamed Youth
0113 The Black Scorpion

$200!!
Count me out if that turns out to be true.

$200/13 episodes = $15 each.

Then again $200 will be MSRP

I realize it's not a bad price for what your getting, but thats a big chunk to fork over for any set.

Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price.

This would be pretty cool even at the price they want. The price still beats what alot of people charge for their homemade DVD-R copies too.

Fun rumor to discuss and fantasize about, but highly unlikely. I posted this rumor for people to see at the mst3k review discussion board and the gentlemen who runs mst3k.com restates that BBI doesn't view season 1 as their best work by any stretch of the imagination and really doesn't have much interest in releasing these episodes.

A season 7 boxset would be great though since none of the episodes have been released on VHS or DVD before plus it's a shortened season, which would be more cost effective for everyone involved. Of course it makes more sense to start with season 1, but there's no way they'd be able to follow it up with the complete second season anyway...

This seems unlikely. Didn't the MST3K guys actually request that Comedy Central not rerun the first season eps anymore at one point? I'd welcome season sets, though I would hope they could keep the costs down somehow.

All of those are public domain titles except THE BLACK SCORPION, which is owned and was released on DVD by Warner.

JohnAP, BBI did do that, yes. Their main reason for doing so was because they were trying to get the feature film made and didn't want some exec stumbling across a season 1 episode and get the wrong impression of the show. MST3K, like many shows (Seinfeld, The Simpsons, etc.), wasn't in full swing in the first season: no Dr. Forrester, riffs in the films were a little less frequent, etc.

Overall though, season 1 is still highly entertaining and I don't see any reason why BBI has any reason to withhold these eps from the public anymore. By the same token, I don't see any reason why they would go out of their way to get a complete box set made out of them.

The complete 7th season is a much better idea. It's short, none of them have been released, and it's superior in quality to season 1.

I realize discussion of bootlegs is taboo here, but most fans of MST3K realize that "sharing" fan copies is the only way most of these episodes will get to be enjoyed. I think season sets of MST3K is probably not going to happen. As much as I love the show, the thought of paying hundreds per season to replace my recordings is hard to stomach.

season 1?
what does that mean or refer to?
season one as shown on comedy central?

wasnt there a season of shows before that, that included a bunch of gamera eps?
i always thought that was "season 1".

edit: ok just did quick research and found out that what i thought was season 1 apparently is season zero.

K00 - The Green Slime
K01 - Invaders from the Deep
K02 - Revenge of the Mysterians
K03 - Star Force: Fugitive Alien II
K04 - Gamera Vs. Barugon
K05 - Gamera
K06 - Gamera Vs. Gaos
K07 - Gamera Vs. Zigra
K08 - Gamera Vs. Guiron
K09 - Phase IV
K10 - Cosmic Princess
K11 - Humanoid Woman
K12 - Fugitive Alien
K13 - SST Death Flight
K14 - Mighty Jack
K15 - Superdome
K16 - City on Fire
K17 - Time of the Apes
K18 - Million Eyes of Su-Muru
K19 - Hangar 18
K20 - Last Chase
K21 - Legend of the Dinosaur

Considering the great bulk of shows would be costly to re-sign the rights for, Season One, with all those PD movies, would be a natural to release, whether or not they think the shows are that good. I'd rather see that than most of the later Sci-Fi Channel episodes.

"no Dr. Forrester"

Well, he is definitely in The Crawling Hand, but TVs Frank is missing -- perhaps that's who you meant?

Anyway, I'd definitely pick this up. Any MST3K is good by me. I'm hoping to avoid picking up home-brew season sets of the first few; I don't feel like I need the "Season 0" ones, but I'd really like to see the Godzilla/Gamera ones and the Amazing Collossal Man/Beast episodes (ACM is the only DVD+R one I have and while it is watchable, I'd really prefer a proper DVD release with all the quality that entails).

Looking forward to Volume 7!

Sean,
We'll probably never see the godzilla/gamera mst3k versions on dvd (or time of the apes, fugitive alien) since Sandy Frank was so upset by what MST3K did with those movies....

I'd love to see amazing colossal man rear its ugly head again but since the rhino vhs quickly went out of print over rights issues i'm guessing that that might not happen either;/

Indeed Dr Forrester appeared on season one and tv's frank didn't show up until the season 2 premier. Josh Weinstein played the second mad scientist (he never impressed me in the episodes I've seen with him in it). I'd definitely buy this box in an instant though.

I'm really glad to see rhino continuing to release mst3k episodes. I thought they were going to stop once all the vhs episodes made their way to dvd. Hopefully that means they're selling pretty well (for a show like this at least).

TonyD,
The 'season 0' episodes as you put them are generally referred to as the KTMA season after the local tv network on which they originally aired. K00 isn't a complete episode from what I've heard but merely a few minutes used to secure funding for the first KTMA episodes. Most of the KTMA episodes have been available to fans for years except for K01, K02, and K03 which I don't believe exist outside of the BB archives. The couple episodes I've seen from this season aren't as funny and the props definitely are not as refined as season 1 comedy central. Interesting to fans but would not do well on dvd probably.

Michael

well if they do it I would get it. I buy all the DVDs available to make sure I do my bit for encouraging more to be released. I even have The Essentials, so 2 copies of Manos .

Don't forget the first new "mst3k" in years tomorrow, when Mike and the bots rif on Cheap Seats.

Here is the preview "Creative Breaking Championships/K-1 Fighting"

oh yeah and check out my MST3K DVD Covers here.

Haven't done more due to Warcraft addiction.

Sadly I would pay for this.

Here's the list of PD movie episodes that don't already have a release. Season 4 is PD heavy (10 remaining... plus 6 eps from that season are already out on DVD by the release of collection 7). That would leave 8 episodes not in PD to acquire the rights to. None of these are Godzilla or Gamera movies either! Season 1 would still have 6 movies not in PD to acquire rights to. Not a huge difference. Plus, I'll bet season 4 would sell better...

101- The Crawling Eye
102- The Robot vs. Aztec Mummy
103- Mad Monster
105- The Corpse Vanishes
107- Robot Monster
108- The Slime People

206- Ring of Terror
210- King Dinosaur
211- First Spaceship on Venus
212- Godzilla vs. Megalon

323- Castle of Fu Manchu

402- Giant Gila Monster
409- The Indestructible Man
411- The Magic Sword
412- Hercules and the Captive Women
414- Tormented
415- The Beatniks
417- Crash of Moons
418- Attack of the The Eye Creatures
419- The Rebel Set
423- Bride of the Monster

502- Hercules
503- Swamp Diamonds
520- Radar Secret Service
521- Santa Claus

602- Invasion U.S.A.
605- Colossus and The Headhunters
610- The Violent Years
621- The Beast of Yucca Flats
623- The Amazing Transparent Man
624- Samson vs. The Vampire Women

701- Night of the Bloodbeast

806- The Undead
807- Terror from the Year 5000
810- The Giant Spider Invasion

909- Gorgo
912- The Screaming Skull

1007- Track of the Moonbeast

There must be some rights issues with this title, because Sci Fi only aired it twice AFAIK.

There are so many great episodes in that public domain list. I would love to see King Dinosaur (one of my favorite episodes), Santa Claus, The Violent Years, etc. They should get going on THOSE.

I seriously doubt this rumor, if only because I can't see Rhino getting the rights to the Black Scorpion, since Warner has a fine DVD out already.

THE UNDEAD is not in the public domain.

I have most of the season 1 episodes and they are indeed very weak in comparison to virtually every season that followed. Josh Weinstein not only played the second mad scientist, Dr. Erhardt, but also played Tom Servo.....IMO not very well at all in comparison to Kevin Murphy's Servo & Frank Conniff's "TV's Frank"....in fact the man grated on my nerves in an extremely un-funny way as Erhardt and was so low key and positively "mumbly" as Servo that I practically fell asleep whenever I heard his voice.

Wouldn't it make (some) sense to release the public domain episodes in order instead of the random order that they have on the volumes now? It wouldn't be season sets but I'd like it more than a few episodes here and a few there.

Even if the early episodes don't work that well, I'd like to see their humble beginnings. I know that the KTMA episodes will see a release on the 12th of Never but I hope they do more early Comedy Central episodes

I got that list from MST3K Review DVD Discussion Board. No one disputed the titles on that list there, so I didn't do any digging to verify that all of them were indeed PD.

If The Undead isn't PD, it doesn't have a region 1 release that I can find. Whoever has the rights isn't taking advantage of it. That's usually a good sign for Rhino in trying to acquire said rights.

Thanks for the tip on "Cheap Seats", Nigel! I had no idea. It was nice to have new MS3K after all these years, however briefly. Interestingly, it seems the shadow-vision was pulled from stock rather than shot anew--there were several jump cuts.

Minus that feature, though, I will not be watching any more of that show. Good concept, but the guys just aren't very talented or funny. Kudos to them for being secure enough to allow themselves to be lampooned on their own show, though.

THE UNDEAD is one of the AIP films owned by the Arkoff estate. It was released on DVD in Region 2 as part of the "Arkoff Vaults" series of 25 AIP favorites, but is not available in Region 1.

Nigel McN,

Those are AWESOME covers.