Exclusive Interview: Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett of ‘The Film Crew’

Posted by Kevin Carr (kevin@filmschoolrejects.com) on August 17, 2007

I was in college when I first discovered “Mystery-Science Theater 3000.” This was back in the early 1990s, and the episode I saw was the Ross Hagen biker classic “Sidehackers” from the show’s second season. These were the golden years of the show, and I was hooked from the moment Crow T. Robot said, “Postage Stamp Theater presents…” (True MSTies will understand the reference.)

Trust me, I was a MSTie geek. I even went to their first ConventioCon Expo Fest-a-Rama in 1994. When I had a chance to interview Kevin Murphy (who played, among others, Tom Servo and Professor Bobo), I mentioned this fan convention to him by name, and his eyes widened. Some might have taken the expression to mean that he was terrified that he was standing in front of a potential stalker. I chose to take his expression as being impressed that I knew the full name of the convention.

“Mystery-Science Theatre 3000” had a good run, ten seasons on two different major cable networks. However, it was eventually canceled by the SciFi Channel, much to the chagrin of MSTies around the world.

While the stars of the beloved cult television show had a few chances to relive the MST glory days through Mike Nelson’s RiffTrax with major Hollywood movies, the exploitation of bad cinema by Mike and the Bots seemed lost forever.

Now fans of talk-back bad cinema can rejoice in the return of the twisted minds behind “Mystery-Science Theatre.”

Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett have joined forces to become “The Film Crew.” Using a familiar MST-3K premise, the three guys take their aggressions out on the worst Hollywood has to offer. Not only do the “Film Crew” episodes not require syncing up your iPod to an existing DVD, they also feature some of the worst movies ever made in the world.

Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett took some time with me during Comic-Con to chat about this new, and hopefully long-lived, DVD project.

“It was sort of a mutual decision,” Murphy told Film School Rejects. “It seemed like people were demanding what we do, and there was no new Mystery-Science Theatre in the offing, and so when the opportunity came up, it seemed like the perfect thing to do and the perfect way to do it.”

The premise of the show follows three working stiffs who have been saddled with the task of giving every movie a DVD commentary. “Before ‘Mystery-Science Theater’ started, there was no such thing. People get it for us joking at the movies. There are very few experts at what we do, so we can confidently call ourselves experts at talking back to movies professionally,” Murphy said.

“We didn’t want to exactly what MST did, which would have been inventing two new puppets and have a guy sent into the core of the earth,” Corbett explained. “But we did want to have a little bit of fiction just to have a live presence. It may be time when you’re in your 40s to stop playing with puppets, but tell that to Sheri Lewis.”

Without puppets, the Film Crew had to rely on the dreadful nature of the films, and their premier DVD covered a wretched 60s number called “Hollywood After Dark.” The biggest draw to this film, Golden Girl Rue McClanahan as a stripper.

You heard right, folks. And even though she filmed this about 20 years before starring in “The Golden Girls,” Rue was no spring chicken. As Mike Nelson pointed out in the Film Crew commentary, she was actually less attractive in this than in “The Golden Girls.”

But for bad movies, this is a selling point. “I’m very glad we started out with the one featuring Rue McClanahan stripping because it’s very enticing to people for some reason,” Murphy said. “God knows why.” With a sour look on his face, Corbett added, “I don’t want to know why, really.”

There are four episodes of The Film Crew in the first wave. “Hollywood After Dark” and the Peter Graves stinker “Killers from Space” are already available on DVD. “The Wild Women of Wongo” is due out on September 11. The final film in the first wave, “The Giant of Marathon.” is due out on October 7.

Read more articles by Kevin Carr