A:  I suppose for me it would be Red Zone Cuba.  I have a lot of animosity towards the Coleman Francis oeuvre.  But I also hated those movies, like Time of the Apes, that seemed to end and then kept going and having more false endings.  But you have to realize I’m coming at it solely from the perspective of how difficult it was to write.  How it ended up on screen I have to leave to you.

Q (Forrest):  About your books, how in the world did you come up with the idea for Death Rat?  And do you plan to write more humorous novels in the-not-too-distant-future?

A: Death Rat! came about from an idea I had to quickly whip together a fake ’true life adventure’ book, with each writer from MST taking four or five chapters, and then giving it to a handsome writer to sell.  I was convinced that it would work, because at the time, all those Perfect Storm / Into Thin Air books were the big thing.  But I was rebuffed by my fellow writers (they probably didn’t want to go to jail, the babies) so I just took it on myself to write about it.

I have some ideas for novels, but right now I don’t have the time.

Q (Forrest):  Do you ever see your book Death Rat! becoming a movie?  And, if you got the chance, would you want to direct it?

A:  Yes, I do think it would make a good, rollicking satire.  But no, I wouldn’t want to direct.  It seems like a lot of responsibility.  Plus, they might resurrect MST with one of those guys from The Man Show and end up mocking my movie.

Q (Forrest):  Are you currently working on any projects with your former Best Brains co-writers?

A:  Yes, I am.  There are several things, and as always, I can’t say much about them right now, but hopefully can in the very near future.

Q (Forrest):  Your book Movie Megacheese was specifically about bad movies.  What makes a movie bad, and I mean really bad?  Because, the way I see it, there are two kinds of bad movies, one like Road House, which was bad in a good way, and then there’s Batman & Robin, which was just plain bad.

A:  It’s hard to say what exactly it is.  I would guess it has something to do with Patrick Swayze – witness Point Break and Next of Kin.  But it has more broadly to do with not being boring.  Be stupid, sure, just don’t be boring.

Q (Forrest):  Television shows show no sign of slowing down their stupidity as well as Hollywood.  First it was stupid sitcoms like Home Improvement, now it’s even dumber reality shows like The Bachelor.  You mentioned in Movie Megacheese that you didn’t care for Reality TV, but this book was published when Reality TV was only beginning, what now do you think of reality shows?

A:  Reality shows make my skin crawl.  Honestly, it’s not an intellectual thing.  They simply repulse me on a basic level.  In fact, they’ve chased me away from TV, for the most part.  I’m down to baseball games and that’s pretty much it.  At least for me, TV sold out and trashed the brand, as it were.

Q (Forrest):  In Movie Megacheese you took some time to say some nice things about Jackie Chan.  Even though some of Jackie Chan’s movies are pretty stupid, I still love them all; my favorite Chan movies are the Rush Hour movies.  What are your favorite Jackie Chan movies, and what do you like about Jackie Chan as opposed to other action film icons, like Jean Claude Van-Doofus, “AH”nold Schwarzenegger, and even Joe Don Baker?

A:  I enjoyed Drunken Master and Police Story (or Police Force as it’s sometimes known). Jackie’s the real deal.  Incredibly gifted and quite hilarious. Some of the stuff he pulls off makes me laugh giddily (which is an ugly thing to witness.)

Q (Forrest):  There was a dark time in the early 90’s known to many as the Pauly Shore Years, where we exposed to such horrors as Encino Man.  What deep, dark memories do you have of this terrible time period in our history?

A:  I have wiped it from my memory.  But I do think that Pauly Shore’s detached, witless and crude style contributed to the general decline of society.  Seriously.  There are consequences to such wholesale idiocy, and we’re starting to see it now.

Q (Forrest):  Do you ever think a movie will surpass Road House in its genre?  Is there a movie that you believe has already surpassed it?

A:  I doubt it.  There was an earnestness to Road House that we seem to have lost.

Q (Forrest):  Now about your experiences at MST3K.  I could not help but notice that you laughed more than anyone else in the theater segments, whether at the stupidity of the movie, or at the robots’ jokes.  I remember one time in The Brute Man, there’s this old man who says: “Creeper, Creeper, Creeper, YOU give me the creeps!”  You just could not stop laughing, and neither could I.  Were there any other times such as this, where you laughed a bit too much, and almost missed some of your lines?

A:  It happened, but not too often.  Though I seriously still crack up when I think of the unprovoked rage of that old man in The Brute Man.  It made Trace laugh a lot too, and the same with Bill Corbett. 

Q (Forrest):  Was there any specific character from a movie shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000 that you remember and always will remember?  For me, it was Rowsdower in The Final Sacrifice.  Do you remember any character that still even today pops in and out of your head from time to time?  If so, who and why?

A:  The guy from The Undead who yells, inexplicably, “Stay!” at the top of his lungs, was pretty memorable.  The moment where Cameron Mitchell, in Space Mutiny, says “I’m thinking of the possible mo-teev,” was one we must have said a thousand times in the writing room. Also, “I had such a pretty mind,” from Girl in the Gold Boots.

Q (Forrest):  Manos: The Hands of Fate was obviously the most technically inept movie seen on MST3K, as well as generally the most favorite episode among fans. When you first saw the film, how did you and your co-writers react to it and each other?  Where did you get this film from?

A:  Frank, Mary Jo, Paul and I watched that film from beginning to end, an extremely rare thing for a screener.  We just couldn’t believe what we were seeing.  And though we wanted to do it, we kept turning to each other and saying, “We can’t do this movie, can we?”  We had to pitch it to the rest of the people, but they were pretty easily convinced.  I love that movie, because it seems to have come from another dimension – which is kind of true.

Q (Forrest):  If you got the chance to make one more episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, what movie would you pick, and why would you pick it?

A: Probably Titanic.  It’s entertaining enough, I guess, on it’s own, but so overblown and hammy that I think it would work well.

Q (Forrest):  These are things that fans often wonder about the show.  First, why does Pearl call Crow "Art"?  Second, why does Frank sometimes call Dr. Forrester “Steve”?

A:  The “Art” thing came about because of a drawing of all the characters that this sweet little girl sent in.  Everyone was labeled accurately, save for Crow, who had the neatly labeled word “Art,” under him.  We only figured it out years later when by accident, we saw an early episode where Joel introduces the ’bots as though they were the cast of The Honeymooners.  “Art Crow!” he shouted.  So that solved the mystery.
      The “Steve” thing was just a quirk we gave Frank.  I think it came from the movies we were doing where all the square-chinned guys from the ’60s were named Steve.

Q (Forrest):  You appeared in many Joel episodes and even some of your episodes as different characters from some of the films, such as Torgo, The Amazing Colossal Man, Toeblerone, J.C., and you also dressed up as Jack Perkins for The Mystery Science Theater Hour.  Which of all the many characters was you favorite to do?

A:  It was Torgo, I think.  It just amused the heck out of everyone, and we tried to use him judiciously, so it was always a treat to do it.  Jack was great, but it was just so physically nasty to do that I really didn’t look forward to it.

Q (Forrest):  Rhino Entertainment says you will be hosting introductions to the MST3K DVDs in the next boxed set coming in November.  Could you tell us anything about that?  Will your Jack Perkins alter-ego possibly show up?

A:  I actually haven’t taped that yet. I’m going to do it next week, but no, it’s not going to be Jack, I’ll guarantee that. (Unless they hold me down and apply the make-up against my will.)

Q (Forrest):  Last, but not least, who would win in a fight: Jim Carrey or Adam Sandler?

A: Adam Sandler.  He can kill at fifty yards with that baby voice of his.

On To Part 2 of the Interview with Mike

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