We are drawing closer to the end of my Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan fiction based on Grant T Ettinger’s late-90s Sonic the Hedgehog fan fiction FX Down To Mobius by the week. Last week, FX and Liz were accepted into Mobian society and built a hut and everything, and now it’s time to do the traditional raid on Robotnik’s world-encompassing war machine. And how does that go?
The whole of my MiSTing of FX Down To Mobius should be at this link. After this week’s segment I’ll explain the riffs that seem too obscure to stand unexplained.
> "Please, people. From what I can tell, their story checks
> out. Give them a chance, please!" Silence.
JOEL: They have proposals for introducing Total Quality Management
and just-in-time inventories of snappy comebacks for when the
villains try stupid plans against us.
> "Believe me, I am not
> joking. This will be their first chance to prove themselves.
TOM: So we’ve picked a critical mission with plenty of opportunities
for an enemy agent to subvert and betray us.
> Now
> that it’s about time to get going, everyone get the laser rifles,
> oh, and Sonic, you might want to take a power ring."
CROW: Or maybe just some velamints instead.
> Everyone began
> to leave.
JOEL: Wait…wait, doesn’t anyone want to run the counterrevolution
with me?
> Freddy and Liz went back to the hut and got a ProtoLaser rifle
> and a canteen of water.
TOM: ‘Cause that was all they ever brought anywhere.
> After joining up with the rest of the rest
> of the group, they went to the outskirts of Robotropolis.
CROW: Okay, look for the Anheiser-Busch factory…the turnoff for
Newark International is right after that.
> As they silently approached the factory, FX noticed something
> out of the corner of his eye. It took him only a second to realize
> what it was: Robots.
TOM: Hooray!
CROW: Yay!
> "It’s a trap! A SWATbot squad is coming!" He yelled.
> Since they all knew that retreating would just show the bots
> where Knothole was,
TOM: They all sat down, put on costumes and pretended to be having
a picnic.
> they decided to stay and fight. Sally was kicking
> some bots when Sonic noticed another bot aiming its laser at her.
JOEL: And here we see the traditional Sonic fanfic plot point of The
Secret Raid Going Horribly Wrong.
> "Sally! Get outta the way!" She couldn’t hear him. Running as
CROW: Soon to be followed by the traditional Sonic fanfic plot point
of The New Guy Saves The Day.
> fast as he could (which is pretty dang fast), he ran over to Sally
TOM: Maybe we should just take a break or something.
> and pushed her out of the way. But not in time to save himself. He
JOEL: We really ought to say something about the story.
> was hit square in the chest by the SWATbot’s laser and was severely
TOM: Well, it’s got words.
> burned.
CROW: So. Guys, you know, we ought to get fresh bagels up here.
> "Wha–Sonic!" Sally screamed, seeing the blue hedgehog lying
TOM: Yeah, they’d be nice.
> in a blue heap. "He was really hit hard. We have to get him back
JOEL: I’ll see what we can come up with.
> to Knothole!"
CROW: Girlfriend get zapped by the bad guys yet?
> As the crowd retreated, the few remaining SWATbots followed
JOEL: It’ll happen soon enough.
> them. One of them fired its laser, hitting Liz in the back. FX was
TOM: Story’s running on time, at least.
> really angry now. That blow at Sonic had ruined the mission,
CROW: And put a dent in their plans for a thirty-city concert tour.
> but
> now that Liz had been hit, it was _personal_. After taking a quick
> gulp of water,
JOEL: He started to look for the bathroom.
> his eyes began to glow quite bright again. Using his
> fire powers, he surrounded himself with a sphere of fire
TOM: Suffocating himself in seconds.
> (A fire
> shield, for you gamers out there)
CROW: That will be on the quiz; non-gamers won’t be graded on it.
> and approached the bots. Flaring
> up his hand, he punched it right through a bot, screaming,
TOM: [ Jumping, as if punched ] Owie!
CROW: Serves you right, Tom!
TOM: Don’t make me come over there, banana-nose.
> "This
> one’s for Sonic!"
JOEL: [ Standing up, punching repeatedly ] And this one’s for ‘X-Files!’
And this one’s for ‘Star Wars!’ And this one’s for ‘Battlestar
Galactica!’ And this one’s for ‘Sliders!’ And this one’s
for ‘Star Trek!’ And this one’s for ‘Next Generation!’ And this
one’s for ‘Deep Space Nine!’ And…
TOM: Joel?
CROW: Joel? Calm down, buddy.
JOEL: Oh… [ sitting down ] Sorry, guys.
TOM: It gets us all sometimes.
[ To continue … ]
Riffs don’t need explaining this time, although the structure of this segment might. Sometimes on the show the Brains would ignore the movie and start talking about whatever, and my impression is that’s usually a late-show thing. Writing MST3K fanfic, you really start seeing why.
It’s not boredom. Not necessarily, anyway. Sometimes it’s hard finding a hook in the text to build a joke on. Ordinarily that’s fine; there’s another sentence coming up. When you notice a couple paragraphs in a row that don’t have any good jokes? I’d usually acknowledge this is a hard stretch, put it away, maybe come back later, but if nothing appears, even when you’ve riffed through to the end and have an idea what your running gags are?
So if nothing else comes to mind, then taking anything and building a conversation around it is tempting. It can be even a bonus host sketch, like many talking-during-the-long-credits were in particularly the Sci-Fi Era of the show. And if it’s interesting enough people won’t notice you going so far off-script.
Joel punching the story out is way out of proportion for the story, which even back then I thought was fine enough. I think I put it in just because the idea of punching for the different genres of shows was funny. Back then, there was only one Battlestar Galactica that could have had fan fiction. Believe it or not; I’ll never know which you choose.
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