Plaidophile

Last night I went to Cinematic Titanic Live with some friends. The "original" MST3k crew^* certainly has their act together.

^* Frank wasn't actually on the original crew — he came along when J. Elvis left the show at the end of the first season, which was the same time Bill Corbett came on board to voice Servo. Bill Corbett has just as much a claim to the "original crew" designation, but he's in the RiffTrax camp. And, strictly-speaking, Mary Jo Pehl, who came on board even later, joined the crew after Mike Nelson, although before Mike became the host.

Unsurprisingly, they their biggest laughs and cheers when they made direct MST3k references.

I did miss a chance to chat with Trace Beaulieu in the lobby while I was trying to get to the bathroom (I actually didn't recognize him, what with him not wearing a chartreuse lab coat and having a full beard). One of my friends talked to Joel a bit though.

Also, while consulting the Internet to get the right spelling of Trace's last name, I came across this typical bit of Wikipediaing (emphasis mine):

Oddly enough, although Pearl would've thus murdered Dr. Forrester some forty years to fifty years after the events of Episode #706, when the SOL crew returned to the 20th century, it was at the same time they had left it, i.e. at the end of Episode #706, which would mean that a second Pearl and a baby Clayton were still alive at that time. However, because MST3K is "just a show" which advises its viewers to "really just relax", this was never addressed.

In 2008, Trace Beaulieu, Joel Hodgson and Frank Coniff reprised their characters for a brief DVD skit explaining the rights issues for one of the films. The skit depicted Joel and the 'bots back on the ship and Forrester (as an adult) back at the lab with Frank. It's not known where (or if) the scene fits within the show's continuity.