The Film Crew
The Film Crew is a film-commenting-and-riffing project featuring MST3K alums Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy that was active from 2004 to 2007. It began with the website filmcrewonline.com and expanded to radio and television appearances, DVD bonus content, and four DVD productions of a MST3K-like show.
Early days[]
The early activity of The Film Crew centered on their web site and content created for various outlets, such as National Public Radio (for which they also created a show pilot, 3 Men & The Movies), American Movie Classics, and the Sundance Channel. They worked regularly for Starz/Encore, hosting marathons and the like.
They also provided content for Legend Films' Three Stooges DVD series, particularly The Three Stooges in Color, which is fully hosted by The Film Crew.
Original episodes[]
In 2006, The Film Crew announced that they would be producing episodes of an eponymous series for Rhino Home Video.
In the series, Mike, Kevin and Bill play fictionalized versions of themselves, hired to provide commentary tracks to movies that don't have them. Unlike Mystery Science Theater 3000, The Film Crew does not have any silhouettes over the movie. The riffing is only voice-over.
The concept seemed too similar to Mystery Science Theater 3000, so Jim Mallon (via Best Brains, Inc., the then-rights holder for MST3K) threatened to stop licensing episodes of the original show to Rhino if they produced The Film Crew DVDs. Rhino opted to cancel the DVDs after four episodes had been produced.
The episodes were eventually picked up by future MST3K distributor Shout! Factory and released in 2007. The move from Rhino necessitated a few changes through overdubs. The guys' boss "Mr. Rhino" was renamed "Mr. Honcho" and all references to Rhino were changed to Shout! Factory.
End of the project[]
During the delay in releasing the DVDs, Mike took a position with Legend Films, for whom he had been providing humorous DVD commentaries before Legend's work with The Film Crew. At Legend, Mike developed RiffTrax, a movie-riffing site that was initially dedicated to riffing major Hollywood films. Both Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett joined Mike at RiffTrax, eventually buying the operation from Legend. They continue to work primarily with RiffTrax. The success of RiffTrax spelled the de facto end of The Film Crew.
The four Film Crew features can be purchased digitally from RiffTrax or streamed for free at ShoutFactorytv.com and tubi.tv. They are also available on Pluto.tv.
List of The Film Crew episodes[]
- 01 - Hollywood After Dark - July 7, 2007
- 02 - Killers from Space - August 7, 2007
- 03 - The Wild Women of Wongo - September 11, 2007
- 04 - The Giant of Marathon - October 9, 2007