Q (Forrest):  Thanks for your time, Mary Jo, we really appreciate it!  First let’s start out with what I always have asked everyone else we’ve interviewed.  What do you believe was the very worst movie shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000?

A:  Probably Overdrawn at the Memory Bank.  That’s the first one that comes to mind – after all, there’s an embarrassment of riches in the bad movies I’m choosing from!  Maybe it was doubly painful since such a talented actor as Raul Julia was in it.  There was just something about its specific painfulness – forced and labored, and hard to look at it – that brings it to the forefront of all those awful, hideous movies.  Brute Man was difficult too – I hated the idea that Rondo Hatton had to pimp his freak factor to make a living.

Q (Forrest):  Which movie was your favorite to write for?

A:  They were all special in their own way.  I liked Killer Shrews and the one about the Giant Leeches (maybe that was the name of it – my mind has waxed over the trauma!!).  Eye Creatures was fun and Human Duplicators.

Q (Forrest):  You joined BBI in Season Four, if my memory serves correctly.  How did you learn about the show, and how did you get your job at Best Brains?

A:  I knew Joel, Frank, Bridget, Trace, Mike and Josh from doing stand-up comedy in the Twin Cities.  I’d heard rumblings about the show, since it was produced in the Twin Cities, but those guys were all pretty low-key about it and I didn’t really have my radar on it.  Then I heard that they were looking for another writer, and the comedy boom of the mid-80s was winding down AND I was sick of being on the road doing stand-up and the idea of never temping again… well, it was enough to make me screw up my courage and call Mike Nelson, Head Writer, and, with trembling voice and shaking hands, let him know that I was interested in the job.

    They had me audition over a two week trial period and toward the end of it, nobody had said anything one way or the other about me staying or leaving.  So I again mustered up all my courage and thanked everybody for the opportunity.  I clearly remember each of them in turn – Mike, Joel, Kevin and Trace – looking at me blankly as if they’d forgotten it was just a trial period.  There was a quick meeting and they let me stay for another two weeks.  I think then I really got my “legs” writing for the show.  And then I’m quite sure they just forgot I was there.

Q (Forrest):  I’ve also realized that after Frank departed, you were assigned the task to pick out movies for the show.  How hard was it to pick out the movies?  What exactly were you looking for?

A:  Actually, I volunteered to do the initial screening of movies.  We were looking for movies that didn’t have too much dialogue – yet just enough – and not too much icky violence or horrible implications of such.  It had happened that Sidehackers was chosen before it was viewed all the way through, and when they went to write it, turns out there a nasty rape scene – or some nasty implication thereof.  After that, we changed the policy: watch allllll the movies allllll the way through.  Plus, we had to make sure they were watchable in the first place: the image was discernable AND the dialogue was comprehensible.

Q (Forrest):  Were there any movies that you’d screen, and you realized it was perfect for MST3K and you were just about to secure the rights to it, but then you lost the rights?

A:  Moment By Moment would have been so wonderful to do, and we also screened an Elvis Presley movie, Charro, that would have been terrific for the show.  There was also a old B&W film about a guy who turns into a tree to exact revenge upon whomever – I can’t remember the name of it – and I wanted to do that movie soooooo bad…!!!  [Note: the movie’s title is the very appropriate From Hell It Came]

Q (Forrest):  Personally, I really enjoyed the Pearl character.  Was there any real person that inspired the concept for Pearl?

A:  Wellllllll…she was very much a hybrid of some women I’ve known.  The seed from which she sprouted was my mother when she was in a bad mood, taken to the Nth degree.  Please do not misunderstand me – my mother is great, we are very close, but they just don’t make ’em like that any more.  She’s hilarious.

Q (Forrest):  What were your favorite episodes of MST3K before you joined BBI (Seasons 0 through 3)?

A:  Would you believe I had never seen the show before I went to work for it??  I didn’t have cable when it was on Comedy Central and I’d been on the road so much for the network episodes that it really got away from me.  I think in the end, it served me.  I didn’t go into the situation with any preconceived notions about it.  Yes, that’s how I will explain away my ignorance.

Q (Forrest):  I asked Bill Corbett this question, but I’d be interested in your response.  Kevin Murphy and Mike Nelson have made it clear that they are sick of big, dumb blockbusters.  We all know that Hollywood is going down hill, there’s no doubt, but are you as strict as them (Kevin and Mike)?

A:  Oh, yeahhhhhh.  I’m really sick of the big, huge movies that we’ve somehow been mandated to LOVE LOVE LOVE and yet I would leave the theater awfully baffled, like.. WHY AM I SUPPOSED TO LOVE THIS??  Certain movies you dare not bring up in polite company as questioning their appeal for fear of being ostracized.  Not unlike the Seinfeld episode where Elaine confesses she didn’t like The English Patient.  I didn’t like it either and yet whenever I would broach the topic, the room would fall silent, faces would harden and eyes narrow in my direction.  I remember saying to someone that I didn’t like Forrest Gump, that it was disingenuous on so many levels and a woman screeched at me “You didn’t like Forrest Gump?  How could you not like Forrest Gump?”  (Yep, I’m still bitter about Forrest Gump.)

Q (Forrest):  Fans always like to hear BBI’s reactions to Manos: The Hands of Fate.  Where the hell did you get this movie from?

A:  I can’t remember from whence it came.  We got most of our movies from distributors who’d bought up the rights to soooo many of the stinkburgers, but I can’t imagine ANYONE ever buying the rights to THAT particular stinkburger!  Manos was the project of an auteur/fertilizer salesman.  ’Nuff said.  By that time in my MST career, I was feeling much more comfortable and getting the hang of it all… and then we watched Manos.  I remembering wondering, “What have I gotten myself into?”

Q (Forrest):  We fans really enjoyed The Amazing Colossal Episode Guide.  Will there ever be an updated version, with Seasons 7 through 10?

A:  Don’t know.  Would love to, though.

Q (Forrest):  Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie had obviously been more trouble than it was worth.  It seems Gramercy did everything in their power to not make the movie successful.  Personally, I LOVED the movie, and if Gramercy released it the right way, and it made a ton of money, would you have made more movies?

A:  I really couldn’t say.  I don’t know that bringing that format to the big screen necessarily adds anything to it or brings it to a new level. I definitely think it’s a small screen thing.  I think we found that we reached a point of diminishing returns when we worked on the episodes for television: that is, at a certain point, we weren’t bringing anything new to the table after we’d watched a movie so many times.  When we did the movie, we watched it many more times that we ever did any TV episode, and we labored over every second, and it sucked the joy and spontaneity out of it.  I think with the TV show, there’s always a little bit of the feeling that we’d done it by the skin of our teeth – there was a spontaneous, hit or miss feeling about it and that’s what I loved about it.  Another reason why I think it’s a small screen thing.

Q (Forrest):  Was there any specific reason you chose This Island Earth for the movie?

A:  It was the only one we could get!  It was definitely not our first choice.  There were a lot of problems with it, and required a lot of editing to facilitate the format.

Q (Forrest):  One last question for MST3K: The Movie.  Fans have always been eager to see the cut scenes in the movie, which only a small fraction of us fans have.  But besides these cut scenes on the SOL, were there any cut scenes from the movie segments?

A:  Oh, gosh, I’m sorry – I have such a terrible memory!!  I can’t remember what scenes were cut! I do remember the most best-est joke ever, uttered by Bridget Jones in the writing room, referring to the monster as “Bootsy Collins”!!  And I think a lot of the details of the Servo segment, in his room and all, got whittled significantly.

Q (Forrest):  If MST3K were to ever go back onto television, would you want to do it again?

A:  Yes, yes, yes. Oh, indeed!  However, with all due respect to my former colleagues, I think it would be necessary for my new writing colleagues to be George Clooney, Oded Fehr, Steve Harris, Joe Montegna, Djimon Hounsou and Johnny Depp.

Q (Forrest):  If you could pick one last movie for MST3K, any movie, what would it be?

A:  Oh, geez, it seems like just about every movie I see could be subjected to the MST treatment.  I deeply resented K-19: The Widowmaker, Windtalkers, and Road to Perdition just to name a few.  I’d love to do Change of Habit, among others…

Q (Forrest):  We all wish you well on your upcoming book: I Lived With My Parents and Other Tales of Terror.  But before you go, one last question: who would win in a fight, Rowsdower or Mitchell?

A:  Mitchell!

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