In the peanut gallery with Mystery Science Theater 3000: essays on film, fandom, technology, and the culture of riffing

Acknowledgments --

Foreword: Riffing and you (and riffing ) / by Kevin Murphy --

Foreword / by Robert Moses Peaslee --

Introduction / by Robert G. Weiner and Shelley E. Barba --

PART ONE. DIRECTORS --

There's been an accident at the studio: How we made hobgoblins! / Rick Sloane --

"Remember: Only you can prevent Roger Corman": The king of the Bs under siege / Cynthia J. Miller --

PART TWO. SPECIFIC FILMS --

Communists and cosmonauts in Mystery science theater 3000: De-Camping East Germany's First spaceship on Venus/Silent star / Sebastian Heiduschke --

The semiotics of spaceflight on the satellite of love / Matthew H. Hersch --

Resurrecting the dead: Revival of forgotten films through appropriation / Cheryl Hicks --

PART THREE. FANDOM --

Becoming "The right people": fan-generated knowledge building / Kris M. Markman and John Overholt --

Converging fan cultures and the labors of fandom / Megan Condis --

"Consume excrement and thus expire": conflict resolution, "fantagonism," and alt.tv.mst3k / Jeremy Groskopf --

Cinemasochism: bad movies and the people who love them / David Ray Carter --

PART FOUR. MEDIA TEXTS, AUDIENCES, AND THE CULTURE OF RIFFING --

Double poaching and the subversive operations of riffing: "You kids with your hoola hoops and your Rosenbergs and your Communist agendas" / Ora Mcwilliams and Joshua Richardson --

Frame work, resistance and co-optation: how Mystery Science Theater 3000 positions us both in and against hegemonic culture / Michael Dean --

"Not too different from you or me": the paradox of fiction, joint attention, and longevity / Michael David Elam --

Mystery Science Theater 3000: a media-centered exploration / Zachary Grimm --

Authorship and text remediation in Mystery Science Theater 3000 / Kaleb Havens --

PART FIVE. MENTAL HYGIENE: THE MST3K SHORTS --

"People were Whiter back then": film placement and in-theater commentary as sociopolitical dialogue / Erin Giannini --

Endearing educational shorts / Amanda R. Keeler --

Writing history with riffs: the historiography of the "shorts" / Miranda Tedholm --

PART SIX. SATIRE AND GENDER --

Robot roll call: Gypsy! (Hi girls!) / Michele Brittany --

What's the difference? Satire and separation in that "Little Puppet Show" / Alana Hatley --

PART SEVEN. TECHNOLOGY AND EPISODE COLLECTING --

Design and speculative technology of MST3K: Joel Hodgson and Trace Beaulieu at MIT / Jason Begy and Generoso Fierro --

"Cambot eye": the synthesis of man, machine and spectatorship / Danielle Reay --

MSTies and mastery: circulating the tapes in a digital age / Joseph S. Walker --

PART EIGHT. HISTORY AND PRE-HISTORY --

"Hamlet will return in Thunderball": historical precedents of riffing / Mark Mcdermott --

From techno-isolation to social reconciliation / E. Mitchell --

Fishing with cheese on a Blood Hook: MST3K's unlikely origins on a lake in the woods of Wisconsin / Robert G. Weiner --

Afterword / Mary Jo Pehl.