Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Okay, here's the most interesting thing that will probably happen to me all year. I'll start at the beginning...ahem...
A few nights ago, I was browsing several online tape traders specializing in videos of the old Mystery Science 3000 show, a longtime favorite show of mine. I happened to notice while glancing at a list of episodes fan-taped from the old KTMA era, that the final host segment from episode K15, Superdome, was missing on all known copies of the show. A bell rung deep in the inner recesses of my mind, and then I suddenly remembered - I HAD that final segment on videotape. Long ago, I was an avid fan of the show when it was running locally on Channel 23 and I taped every episode I could. Unfortunately, my Dad was not quite as big a fan as I was (he hated the show in fact,) and he managed to tape over most of them, except he left the final host segment of K15 intact. Why? Because it had MY artwork featured in it! A Godzilla poster that I had submitted to the show and which Joel showed on the air (although, sadly he wasn't able to read the name I scrabbled in the corner of the poster so I wasn't given any on-air credit for the work. I was pretty bummed by this, thinking my one grab at fame and glory was gone forever. But now, destiny calls again! ) Lee Lovingood and Michael Slusher, two MST3k archivists wrote to me asking if they could dub the tape and I agreed to let them have exclusive rights to it (in exchange for free eps on DVD. I'm told I'll be sent the entire series, and I'm hopin' that promise pans out 'cause that would be COOOOOLLLL.) I sent the tape to them, (first sneaking it out of my family's home movie collection. My Dad is notoriously territorial about his tapes, no matter how pointless and uninteresting the footage on it might be, so I had to be discreet.) To make a long story short, the footage of the lost host segment got digitized and will soon be made available. Here's Lee's site, detailing the story of how the tape came to be in his hands. And the MST3K Satellite News has an article on it as well (although it differs slightly from da truth. My Dad wasn't the one who originally taped the episodes. He just wanted to use the video tape that I had used to tape them on so he dubbed the host segment featuring my artwork onto one of his home movie tapes and erased everything on the original. Not a big deviation from Le Truth, but I thought I'd set the record straight.)
In other news, I have more Naruto cosplay items up for sale on ebay for anyone who's interested. I've been raising some funds for what I thought would be a big dentist bill. Well, I went to see ol' Dr. Popp today (traveling 2 hours to visit him in St. Cloud, because he charges less than most dentists do in the Twin Cities.) I found out that the slight chip on my teeth was nothing to be immediately concerned with (and that I should probably come back once I had some insurance.) Hmmm. Well, THAT seemed like a waste of time. Feh....
Anyway, I gots work to do...Have a nice rest of the week y'all...
