'MST3K' crew is back for more movie mocking

The ''Mystery Science Theater 3000'' team (from left: Joel Hodgson, J. Elvis Weinstein, Mary Jo Pehl, Trace Beaulieu, and Frank Conniff) has joined again to make fun of movies.

CAMBRIDGE - Three and a half hours into their appearance at MIT last month, Joel Hodgson and Trace Beaulieu were determined to match their fans' dedication. They had given a nearly two-hour presentation on their creations - the bad-movie-bashing sci-fi comedy TV series "Mystery Science Theater 3000" and their current movie-mocking project, Cinematic Titanic - and almost all of the hundred or so fans stayed to stand in line for autographs. Hodgson and Beaulieu indulged a group that had made drawings of the "invention exchange" sketches from the show and beamed proudly at a kid, barely out of elementary school, wearing a "Mystery Science Theater" sweatshirt.

Both realize that the show wouldn't have lasted for 10 years, first on Comedy Central and then on the Sci-Fi Channel, without the "MSTies" who spread the word. "It wasn't like a network show that got shoved down your throat," Beaulieu says. "This was discovered and harvested by those guys." A decade after the Sci-Fi Channel canceled "Mystery Science Theater 3000," Hodgson, Beaulieu, and their fellow original cast members (J. Elvis Weinstein, Mary Jo Pehl, and Frank Conniff) are counting on that same kind of support for Cinematic Titanic, which brings its live show to Somerville Theatre tomorrow and Saturday.

"Mystery Science Theater" was responsible for one of the most distinctive television images of the '90s: the back-of-the-head silhouettes of Hodgson (later replaced by head writer Mike Nelson) and two robots watching and making fun of movies in a theater. The Cinematic Titanic concept is similar - the cast members (no robots this time) watch quirky sci-fi or action movies and savage them. On the six Cinematic Titanic DVDs they've made, the silhouettes of all five actors can be seen on the side of the screen, standing on what looks like the forward deck of an ocean liner as they make snide comments about movies they're watching.

The result is just as funny as anything from "MST3K." In Cinematic Titanic's wrecking of "Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks," for instance, Weinstein compares the henchmen moving a freshly dug-up body to day laborers waiting for work: "You think the hunchbacks in Transylvania just stand outside the Home Depot?" he cracks.

Performing live is a new twist for the cast, and it keeps them sharp for the DVD tapings. "You get so much energy from the audience and that just helps the material," said Beaulieu "And you know that the jokes are landing."

Hodgson put the new group together because he missed riffing on movies. The cast members, who are spread out across the country and have been focused on their own projects, from writing novels to working on TV shows, aren't necessarily looking for a return to television, unless a really great offer comes along. "But it'd have to be pretty juicy," Beaulieu says.

Cinematic Titanic will probably keep going for another five years, Hodgson says, but being able to hide behind their silhouettes could allow the cast to go even longer. "We've probably got 10 more years," Hodgson says, "and we don't have to worry about our looks."