Making Fun Of Movies Serious Business For Former 'MST3K' Host Mike Nelson

fSAN DIEGO (TNA) – Whoever said "Do the thing you love and the money will follow" will get some skeptical support from Mike Nelson.

He’s best known as the second host of the cult movie series, "Mystery Science Theatre 3000," where he hosted 121 episodes during the show’s 10 seasons on Comedy Central and the Sci-Fi Channel.

Nelson is the first to acknowledge his career hasn’t followed any predictable path.

"Nobody plots this career path," Nelson said. "No one says, ‘I’d like to be on a puppet show and make comments at movies.’"

Although he has experience as a stand-up comic, when Nelson was hired to work on "MST3K," it was as a typist, not a writer.

Still, the writers allowed Nelson to throw in lines and he quickly impressed them with his wit and comic timing. And when original host Joel Hodgson left the show after doing 83 episodes, he handpicked Nelson to take his place because, the story goes, he looked great standing next to the show’s puppets.

That led to the beginning of Nelson’s fame and the death of his stand-up career – which he doesn’t miss one bit.

"Stand-up comedy is the best training for someone who wants to be in show business," Nelson said. "It’s a crash course in using the microphone, how you appear to an audience, stagecraft.

"But I find it limiting to do the same thing over and over again. I know some comics who do the same routine for 14 or 15 years."

"MST3K" ended its run in 1999, but Nelson didn’t stop making fun of cheesy movies. He wrote two books, "Mike Nelson’s Movie Megacheese" and "Mind Over Matters" while focusing on his view of life and movies, and an original novel, "Mike Nelson’s Death Rat: A Novel."

Now, he’s back to riffing on movies like he did on "MST3K," but using MP3s instead of TV.

Nelson’s newest project is www.rifftrax.com, a Web site that sells commentaries of films like the "Star Wars" series and "Fantastic Four" that, for $2.99, can be downloaded onto MP3s and played along with the original movie.

It’s a slight departure from filming the TV show, but Nelson doesn’t mind not having to deal with the logistical nightmares inherent with that medium.

"Doing "MST3K," the live action parts caused the most heartache, but it was the stuff viewers remembered the least," Nelson said. "Now, we just read the script without worrying about the make-up."

There is another advantage to the new style of cinema snarkiness: Because his audio commentaries aren’t available on the actual movies, there aren’t the rights issues that often popped up with "MST3K."

"Now and then, you’d want to make fun of a movie and the person who owned the rights wouldn’t want people making fun of it."

So far, Nelson and various collaborators, including fellow "MST3K" alums Kevin Murphy (who did the voice of robot Tom Servo) and Bill Corbett (the second voice of Crow), have done more than 40 commentaries and add a new one every 10 to 14 days.

Nelson enjoys the reunions with his former collaborators, and likens the chemistry to "a string quartet that has been together for years."

But that doesn’t mean Nelson doesn’t allow for outside help. Neil Patrick Harris volunteered to do commentary on "Willie Wonka And The Chocolate Factory," and Darth Vader’s younger brother, Chad, appears on the Riff Track for "Star Wars Episode 2: Attack Of The Clones."

Nelson hopes to get other celebrity guests as well. For instance, he’d like to get former Vice President (and self-proclaimed "MST3K" fan) Al Gore to comment on "An Inconvenient Truth," but says his dream would be to have George Washington in the studio with him.

"He’d be confused at first about the moving pictures, but after that, I think he’d just be a great guy," Nelson said.

Nelson recognizes that he does something for a living that millions of people do at home for free. That’s why, as the Web site builds up its catalog, he hopes to make it more interactive by allowing fans to make their own commentary tracks.

Now that Nelson has more than 17 years of movie bashing under his belt, it’s obvious it’s a career for him. It’s also a family affair, since his wife, former "MST3K" writer Bridget Nelson, sometimes joins him on commentary tracks like the one he did for the very first two episodes of "Grey’s Anatomy."

However, Nelson doesn’t want to consider the possibility that his kids may follow him into the "family business."

"We never wished it, but both of our kids are funny," Nelson laments. "But it’s not like ‘American Idol’ where you can be trained from the get-go. Comedy is different. You take a rambling path."