That applies to innumerable other movies that have somehow made it to DVD, though. It looks like the ball is pretty squarely in Universal's court.

If I could ever get Master Ninja 2 on DVD, I could die a happy man.

MASTER NINJA THEME SONG! God, that was hillarious. I think I might have to check out that distribution center.

Does Boggy Creek II have the scene where

Cause I think that is one of the funniest things, MST3K or otherwise, I've ever seen on TV.

That one is up to Universal.

FYI, in case anyone reading doesn't know this, the 4/20 release of the colorized "Reefer Madness" includes a commentary by Mike Nelson.

"My God, [Milo], put your shirt on!"

Yes I believe it's from there. I'm not 100% sure, because I spent most of the time laughing at naked man jokes.

Thank You, I didn't know that.

Interesting title lineup. The only one I've seen is "Boggy Creek II," and that was pretty decent.

Cool....thanks for the news. I just love A Touch of Satan!

"This is where the fish lives".

And Time Chasers....that guy's chin scares the beejeezus out of me!

A Tough of Satan was the only episode I didn't get from the DAP. I'm glad I can replace my VHS tape with a DVD.

It seems that every one of these MST3K collections has one film that most consider to be the "anchor" of the set. Like the way "Pod People" and "Space Mutiny" were the most celebrated on their respective sets. Of the upcoming title lineup, the only one I've seen is "Boggy Creek II," and I thought that was one of the better Sci-Fi episodes.

Which upcoming title will be considered the "anchor" of this new set?

I guess that the anchor is kind of based on the individual's preference. I am amazed at the variety of preferences people have for the various episodes. I have a bunch of the sci-fi era episodes on VCR and Touch of Satan is one that we go back to time and again. There's so much to love: the dumpy lead actress with the huge forehead, granny, the nerdy lead with the cheezy car, the walnut farm, I could just go on. As stated earlier:

"This is where the fish lives."

Time Chasers is another classic, maybe not in the same league as Touch of Satan but there are a lot of great things in this one too. One of my favorites is where they are in the corporate big wig's office, and it's obviously a mezzanine in a library - too cool.

I'm really looking forward to these. My heart would be all aflutter if they'd release:

Parts: A Clonus Horror
Soultaker
Werewolf
Quest of the Delta Knights
Diabolik!
Incredibly Strange Creatures...

mud...

So although I really enjoy the show, I've only really seen a handful of episodes. Are these ones with Mike or Joel?

These are with Mike and after they moved to Sci-Fi Channel. Frank AND Dr. Forrester are gone at this point (thus Crow's voice is slightly different). I lost interest in the show at this point probably because I've watched it for so long, but also I found the new characters and host segments a bit annoying.

Just watched this off TiVo last weekend.
It's definitely in there.
Classic line.

gbub, I know how you feel; I actually lost a lot of interest after Joel left, but still semi-stuck with it, but once they moved to Sci-Fi, I pretty much gave up. (I did make a point of watching the last episode, though, when it aired.)

But then, years and years later, I woke up early one Saturday (well, actually, I went to bed really early the night before, and couldn't fall back asleep when I woke up despite it being 9:30 AM) and flipped on the TV. I couldn't find anything until I said, "Hey, I wonder if MST3K is still on?"

And, given a little distance from Joel eps, the Sci-Fi ones aren't too bad. Mike really came into his own, got much much funnier than he ever was on Comedy Central. The host segments are bizarre and often lame, but lets be honest ... the host segments were always pretty lame. There are exceptions with Joel, of course (and they worked better with him because he was a prop comic), but there are exceptions with Mike. 'Girl in the Gold Boots' is one which comes to mind as having at least one if not two really, really funny host segments (at least one was a song, I think).

At this point, I went back and bought a bunch of MST3K videos and DVDs and taped them off of Sci-Fi channel, and I've almost got all the officially released stuff including the movie (plus Season 7), and I credit that all to the fact that Sci-Fi was still showing MST3K, and that it was better than I'd given it credit for at the time.

I find the in theater stuff in the Sci-Fi era to be better overall than the Joel stuff. I agree the hosts segments went way downhill after Joel left, but most of the show is in the theater and the Sci-Fi episodes are great there. Boggy Creek and Touch of Satan are episodes I've watched many times and I'm glad to have them on DVD.

I have a question for the more knowledgeable MST3K fans.

I notice that "Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders" is episode 1003. Yet, after checking the original air date guide, it was first broadcast after episode 1013 ("Diabolik"; the series finale). Why was it numbered before "Diabolik," yet originally shown after the series finale?

BTW, what is "Merlin's Shop..." about? Never seen it. Actually, for that matter, besides "Boggy Creek II," what are the individual films in this set about?

Merlin's Shop ran into major rights problems for Sci-Fi. The episode was the third one for season 10, but it took Sci-Fi awhile to get it cleared to air. When it was finally shown it was called the "lost" episode.

I honestly don't know what the details of the problem was. Not sure if that information was ever released.

As far as the plots. From the imdb

Plot Summary for
Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders (1996)

This is a movie within a TV movie within a made-for-video movie. A boy is watching TV when a power outage forces him to talk to his grandpa for entertainment. His grandpa, a former screenwriter, re-tells an old screenplay about Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders. In it, Merlin sets up an enchanting store in a modern-day strip mall, accompanied by his gleeful wife and gnomes, snakes, dragons, etc. From this framing device, we then see two stories about people's encounters with items from the shop. The first sequence (created for this film but looking like an episode of "Tales From The Darkside") involves a pompous, cranky newspaper critic who begins casting spells using Merlin's spell book. The second story, obviously a short film from the early 1980s, is about an evil monkey doll (you know, the wicked grin and the cymbals?) who kills every time his hands clap. Merlin of the 1990s is disjointedly tied-in with the 1980 movie.

Boggy Creek was just about guys searching for a Big Foot monster and it killing a bunch of them. Very bad movie even for MST3K.

Thanks darkside. Interesting stuff to know. Had no idea that was the case regarding "Merlin's..."

The only episode I've previously seen was "Boggy Creek II," and I actually really enjoyed it. I am looking forward to this new collection, mainly because I've not seen three of the four episodes. On the last set, I had just seen three out of four. So it was rather disappointing.

It's very encouraging that Rhino is releasing another colleciton a mere four months after the last one. Hopefully they will keep up this same pace for many years to come.

The funny thing about that is that it was shown after the show ended. Possibly even the next week, but certainly very soon after. Despite the final episode being very much a "finale".

Yeah, but the best part is that it's Ernest Borginine.

Some may be interested to know the Sci-Fi episodes will no longer air at the end of Jan:

"The contract extension between Best Brains and Sci-Fi Channel expires at the end of January. No further extensions are planned. MST3K will leave the television, perhaps forever, at 11 a.m. Eastern and Pacific time, on January 31, 2004, when episode 912-THE SCREAMING SKULL ends."