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You know, I bet each of us has seen a movie that just practically shouts out "AWFUL!" For me, that movie was My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but that's a story for another day. The point I'm trying to make is that somewhere out there, there may be a guy who has to sit through all of history's greatest wastes of celluloid.

In Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K for short), that's just what happens: a human male (Joel Hodgson/Robinson in the earlier seasons, Mike Nelson in the later episodes) is subjected to horrible films. But one aspect that remains constant is that the human is accompanied by his robotic pals Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo (along with supporting droids Gypsy, Cambot and Magic Voice). Since Joel/Mike has no say in the weekly movie choices, he, Crow and Servo just heckle and mock the movies all the way through to keep themselves from going nuts. Depending on the season, our heroes are pursued by the insidious Dr. Forrester, his mother Pearl, TV's Frank and other crazy characters.

During the movie (and an occasional bonus educational short or something), Joel/Mike, Servo, and Crow are all represented by silhouettes at the bottom of the screen. This, in my opinion, is much more realistic than having voice-overs, although the snide remarks sometimes make it hard to follow the movie (if you actually care enough).

Nevertheless, these guys crack a great mixture of obvious and subtle jokes. They don't alienate either the casual viewer or the hardcore trivia wizards. And since many of their flicks hail from the USA in the 1950s/60s, there's time enough to beat up the squeaky-clean, woman-hating, perfect-hair conformity stereotypes present in cinema of that era. Moreover, the producers were careful to pick up only movies that were too horrible to become famous (although Manos: The Hands of Fate owes the majority of its fame to MST3K), yet there are a few episodes with movies featuring well-established sci-fi icons like Godzilla and Gamera.

MST3K has disappeared from television broadcast, but the show is being released on DVD by Rhino Entertainment in boxed sets of four episodes each. It will unfortunately take a very long while for every possible episode to show up, but until then, MST3K has found a loving home in the home video trading scene--possibly inspired by the "keep circulating the tapes" message in the credits of several episodes. (Don't tell the industry bigwigs, though.) Best of all, they're non-sequential, so pop a show in and enjoy one of the thoroughly funniest programs in the universe...

'Home Movies' has an interesting history. First given a brief run on UPN, it later found a new home on Cartoon Network's then-new "Adult Swim" block. The first season was animated in a jittery, amateurish style called "Squigglevision" (think "Dr. Katz"); subsequent seasons were rendered using Macromedia's popular Flash software. And yet it never gained much more than a small, loyal cult following. (Fortunately, the complete series has been released on DVD.)

Brendon Small (loosely based on the show's creator, also named Brendon Small) is a 4th-grade kid living with his divorced mom Paula and bespectacled baby sister Josie. And he has an interesting hobby: creating shoestring-budget home movies on his camcorder with his friends Melissa and Jason. These movies often run parallel to his day-to-day misadventures, including those involving school, rabid pets, bullies, road safety, and even little Josie's curious tendency to shove marbles into her nostrils.

Other acquaintances include angsty rocker kid Duane, Melissa's father Erik, the hyperactive pals Walter and Perry, a spoiled brat named Fenton, and the dorky cat-loving teacher Mr. Lynch. On top of that, Brendon has a rather unwanted mentor and adult figure in the form of his soccer coach, Jon McGuirk, a beer-bellied, obnoxious, loud, money-squandering oaf.

The episode which introduced me to 'Home Movies' was, in fact, the one in which Josie is sticking marbles in her nose; Brendon makes a film instructing kids about the dangers of doing such and also has Duane's band perform a metal-rock song about not putting marbles in your nose. (As it turns out, Brendon's production unintentionally encourages children to do just that.) It's situations like these and the show's brand of sarcastic, off-the-wall humor that made me fall in love with it.

On the other hand, the first season was the most enjoyable to me because, behind the scenes, the show was somewhat improvised in that the actors were given the general idea for a scene and basically just ad-libbed it from there. The spontaneity of it all made the show funny, while the squiggling animation gave it the look of something a child such as Brendon would make. That said, while the show remained funny (the gross-out humor was largely phased out, thankfully) and the transition to Flash made the animation easier on the eyes, the later seasons lost some of the first season's humanity, so to speak.

In the end, although Brendon and his pals give the impression that they act like miniature adults, this is a goofy look at childhood that aims more toward high-brow humor than 'South Park', and I think it's worth it to check out at least the first season.