MST3K Convention Report - Day 2

Provided by The Tom Servo Fan Club
Written by Patrick Delahanty

WOW! What word could better describe this day? I dunno. Wow!

I started out the day by heading over to the Question and Answer session an hour early. Before the cast of MST3K started answering questions, they drew winners for the "Shop Ahoy!" drawing. One MSTie entered herself many times, so they threw her off the trip. The 20 winners would get to go shopping with Mary Jo and Bridget on Sunday. Then Mike drew winners for his "Doom" contest. I was one of the winners! I got to play against him! Woo hoo! For each name he pulled out, he'd make fun of it and claim, "You're dead" or "lying a pool of blood".
Although there were some stupid questions, the Brains answered every question they could in their own unique style. Although a large number of questions were interesting and informative, I can't remember them all.
After the crowd left, I headed over to my volunteer job to watch the prop room.

After about an hour and a half, my shift was over. Time to seek out some food. I eventually gave up looking for food and headed over to "Gypsy's Basement" to spend some hard-earned cash. Two posters, two postcards, a CD, a pin, a watch, a magnet, and $58 later, I was out of there.

[Kevin Murphy] Before I knew it, it was time for my studio tour. On the way to the bus, I found Trace and Kevin talking with people in the halls. I probably wouldn't even have noticed Trace if it wasn't for the group of people around him. I introduced myself as the one responsible for the Tom Servo Screen Saver a few years back (which juliewa claimed he installed). He claimed to remember it...although he might have just done that to make me feel better.
By the way, Best Brains doesn't allow me to distribute the screen saver so I can't give you a copy. Sorry.
[Kevin Murphy] I next introduced myself to Kevin. He said he was happy to meet me in person and was honored by this web site. (I got e-mail from him a week or two before the con.) We couldn't talk long since a crowd began to gather. Other MST3K stars were also milling about. Juliewa herded them back into the autograph room and my brush with greatness was over for the time being.

The tour was amazing. I used up more than a roll of film and plan to put pictures online for all to see. So I'll save descriptions until then.
Basically, we got to walk through the office areas to the studio. In the studio, we could freely walk around and touch the Deep 13 set. The Satellite of Love and the bots were roped off. At this part in the tour, there was a short video presentation by Mike and Kevin.
Next was the writing room where the Satellite of Love movie model was on display. Kevin's wife showed us about and presented a video of Paul and Mary Jo explaining the writing process. Interestingly enough, there were some videos of season 8 shows on the bookshelf...some WELL KNOWN titles! The calendars on the wall behind the Satellite of Love model indicated that they were somewhere in the process of shows 803 and 808.
Finally, we got to peek in the makeup room and at some props from various shows. It was all so overwhelming!

After returning to the Hilton and finally hunting down food and making some copies at Kinko's, I headed over to the convention center and got in line for the movie. An hour and a half later, I was inside and the Brains took the stage once again. They were preceeded by a behind-the-scenes video segment set to the MST3K: The Movie theme (never before played to the public). The theme was REALLY great and I hope that's not the last time I'll hear it. (If you have a copy of it on your videotape of the con, please contact me!
The Brains showed about 20 slides of behind-the-scenes movie production (and praised the lunches during movie production to no end.) They then showed two scenes which were cut from the movie (against their will) as the result of a few members of a focus group. One of the scenes had Gypsy, Crow, and Tom saving Mike's life after a meteor shower. The other scene was an alternate ending which was longer and much funnier than the existing one. At the very end of the alternate ending, Crow is seen with a chainsaw in the basement of the SOL again...singing "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" again.
After answering some movie-related questions for about 10 minutes, they left and the movie began. There's nothing quite like watching MST3K: The Movie in a room full of 3000 raving fans.

After arriving back at the hotel, I went with four Internet MSTies to a convenience store to get food. After hanging around the official Internet MSTie conference room for a while (and declaring war on the AOL MSTies), I headed up to my room to type this in and get some sleep. Afterall, Sunday was a big day...I've had to kick Mike's ass in Doom. I kept hoping that Marathon prepared me enough!