Found at the Fair
Back when I commented on the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode "The Rebel Set," I mentioned how I'd heard of a recent follow-up to that episode's short, "Johnny at the Fair," without being able to see it. With that said, I more or less put it out of my mind. Just a few days ago, though, when taking a look at the "Satellite News" site I saw a short notice the video "Charlie at the Fair" had been found on YouTube, and took it in at last.
It turned out the little boy who played "Johnny" grew up to become a Canadian artist of some note; Charles Pachter suggested this hadn't just been a coincidence for him through two weeks of filming at "The Ex" imprinting a sense of "Canada being amazing" on him. (So far as that perhaps having been a little unusual for people his exact age, all the flags flying in the period short are Union Jacks; things hadn't even worked up to the "Red Ensign" yet.) As with some of the extra features on the official Mystery Science Theater DVDs, the short just happening to wind up being included in the MST3K canon isn't mentioned; however, the show never aired on cable up here so I was willing to let that go. One person commenting on the short in the video did bring up the "Chemical Wonderland" MST3K had some fun with. The bits of the short excerpted in the video, though, caught my attention for having different music (the music in the "MST3K version" seemed to be stock material; it can be heard in some of the other shorts the show featured...) and a different narrator (Lorne Greene, still a few years away from moving south to become a television patriarch). Hearing the short had originally been a National Film Board of Canada production had me wondering if it might be available for streaming on their own site; when it didn't turn up there I turned to YouTube, and it turned out it was there alongside the MST3K version, which did have rather more views.
While I've admitted to not quite having the courage to tackle many movies from the MST3K canon "raw," I was willing to make an exception; I soon had the impression that whoever had made up the short that had wound up an "ephemeral film" had been supplied with footage from the National Film Board and had cut it together in a slightly different way, even managing to include a few moments from the cutting room floor. The anonymous narration might been a little less serious and involved than Lorne Greene's, but perhaps that just added to the potential for Mystery Science Theater.
This entry was originally posted at http://krpalmer.dreamwidth.org/261769.html. Comment here or there (using OpenID) as you please.
It turned out the little boy who played "Johnny" grew up to become a Canadian artist of some note; Charles Pachter suggested this hadn't just been a coincidence for him through two weeks of filming at "The Ex" imprinting a sense of "Canada being amazing" on him. (So far as that perhaps having been a little unusual for people his exact age, all the flags flying in the period short are Union Jacks; things hadn't even worked up to the "Red Ensign" yet.) As with some of the extra features on the official Mystery Science Theater DVDs, the short just happening to wind up being included in the MST3K canon isn't mentioned; however, the show never aired on cable up here so I was willing to let that go. One person commenting on the short in the video did bring up the "Chemical Wonderland" MST3K had some fun with. The bits of the short excerpted in the video, though, caught my attention for having different music (the music in the "MST3K version" seemed to be stock material; it can be heard in some of the other shorts the show featured...) and a different narrator (Lorne Greene, still a few years away from moving south to become a television patriarch). Hearing the short had originally been a National Film Board of Canada production had me wondering if it might be available for streaming on their own site; when it didn't turn up there I turned to YouTube, and it turned out it was there alongside the MST3K version, which did have rather more views.
While I've admitted to not quite having the courage to tackle many movies from the MST3K canon "raw," I was willing to make an exception; I soon had the impression that whoever had made up the short that had wound up an "ephemeral film" had been supplied with footage from the National Film Board and had cut it together in a slightly different way, even managing to include a few moments from the cutting room floor. The anonymous narration might been a little less serious and involved than Lorne Greene's, but perhaps that just added to the potential for Mystery Science Theater.
This entry was originally posted at http://krpalmer.dreamwidth.org/261769.html. Comment here or there (using OpenID) as you please.