Only when the movie I was watching ended on TCM did I notice in the listings that MST3K was on Comet tonight. I caught the last several minutes of Manos and began waiting patiently for Teenagers to begin.
Thirty minutes later at 10:30 the show begins. An uninterrupted half hour of commercials and promos is just surreal.
edit: several embarrassing typos
I wholeheartedly agree. Glad MST3K is back but the amount of ads is over the top!
Maybe life is a dream and we wake up when we die?
I'm surprised. I know Comet has bad happen of having long gaps between movies, but I figured it was the old B movies home media horror, which are kinda short anyway.
But this? I really thought they got MST3K so they could fill the whole 2 hours!
Where do you get comet?
shareIf there are no commercials during the show on Comet, then that's not a bad deal. Typically, two hours of network prime time includes over 30 minutes of commercials, so, if there were no commercial interruptions on Comet during the show, then it's no worse than tv.
Actually, it's better. I remember when Bravo used to be a quality channel and they showed movies without commercial interruptions. Instead, they ran all the commercials before the movie started. Personally, I loved that.
It is worse. They have longer commercial breaks during the show than normal networks have, then tack on about 20 minutes of ads after it is done until they air the next episode(I didn't count this part but I know it wasn't 30 minutes.) All in all it is 2 hours and 30 minutes for one episode that took up 2 hours on Comedy Central/The SciFi Channel. I saw it the first Sunday, and couldn't bring myself to come back the next. 55 minutes of commercials for a 96 minute show is just obscene.
shareOk, that does sound bad. I've never watched Comet, and I couldn't tell how it worked from what the other posters had written. If there's a long commercial block before, plus commercial breaks during the show, that's pretty annoying.
shareI'm watching the show on COMET right now and it doesn't feel like the commercial breaks are too long. Maybe it's because I watch a lot of cable tv and I've had to endure networks which play 5-7 minutes of commercials during breaks but it doesn't feel like they're showing more than 90-120 seconds of commercials.
A few other notes although users can tell me if I'm wrong, since this is the first time I've watched the series on COMET but it looks like commercials are only being played during the show's normal commercial points (they didn't hack up the show to add more commercial breaks like Nick did with Ren and Stimpy) and it looks like the episodes are otherwise intact. Maybe the fact that the 90 minute show has so many preset commercial breaks (trust me it does) that 2 minutes here and 90 seconds here can add up to 30 minutes. Anyone remember how long the episodes would be scheduled for when they ran on Sci-Fi?
And right after I post that it looks like I'll be waiting 7 or so minutes until "I accuse my parents" begins...
shareAnyone remember how long the episodes would be scheduled for when they ran on Sci-Fi?
"The standard amount of commercial for a two hour program on network television is around 22 or 23 minutes."
Would that it were so! The standard amount of commercial time during prime time is approximately 16 to 18 minutes per hour. One way to check this: watch any tv show from the last couple decades on DVD. Episodes of one hour shows will run between 42 and 44 minutes on DVD.
As for MST3K, again, if one watches a DVD of an episode, the total run time will be approximately 90 minutes--hence, 15 minutes per hour of broadcast time.
I can attest to this. Turn on any modern broadcast network these days and you could boil an egg in the time it takes for the show to come back on. Easily commercial breaks on channels like TBS, Comedy Central and BBC America last 5-7 minutes long. They get away with doing this by cutting parts out of their shows and overlapping the credits. MTV is the worst they'll just cut the beginning of a show and make an excuse that they "ran a little late"
shareThe Episodes range from 94 to 96 minutes in length, not 90 minutes flat. Check the time stamps on the shows when you watch them. I was not talking about an hour program here with that commercial time. I was talking about a two hour licensed show(NOT original programing) running at 22 to 23 minutes of commercials. So, a 95 - 110 minute theatrical movie with it's credits lopped off(among other edits), most of the time. I haven't seen a two hour ORIGINAL piece of programing in more than ten years, but I was going by what they used to be at the time, when referring to MST3K's commercials being standard.
I think you will also find networks have increased the commercial time over the decades. Would you believe, in the 1950's they had roughly 5 minutes of commercials for 30 minute shows? Back when MST3K was on Comedy Central, it was 6-7 minutes for the same 30 minute show(it's worse now of course.) This is why older shows have the credits removed when they air them now. Even things from the 1990's still need to have segments sped up or removed if they are trying to fit them into the standard commercial blocks of today. Despite them not needing to, since they are reruns and don't need the additional revenue a new show would.
This is where some networks come in with older programing. They air them with the standard commercial blocks for the show when it was made, and don't speed it up or trim it off. It is just licensed, so they don't need the modern commercial block length to bring in enough revenue. METV is a good example of one of these networks. It is kind of neat to watch Perry Mason, and see the space where the main sponsor would be, preserved for the, well, main sponsor. :) I just Wish COMET would follow their example and air them in the format they were intended to be.
Strangely enough they seem to have mixed up the fourth segment with the third segment for I Accuse My Parents, and then aired the fourth segment again in the proper place this time. I am not sure how that happened. I can
only imagine what it must be like for people who haven't seen this before missing the opening to I Accuse My Parents. "Why are they talking about an essay?" At least I remember the film, so I know what they mean.
Ouch! I was afraid something like that would happen when I saw them skip over the segment with the opening of the film. I am glad you found the missing segment. Are you just getting into the show watching it on COMET?
shareno, I caught the last few years on the (then-spelled) Sci-Fi Channel (I don't think we got The Comedy Channel/Comedy Central when it was on there, and I don't live in the Minneapolis area), so I favor Mike's eps, but I find funny in Joel's too :)
and I did get the 'essay' bit enough from what they did show, to get it, and giggle :)
...what I didn't get, is that guy as a less-than-21-year-old! my gosh, I'd have figured him for 25, maybe even in his 30s! who thought he could pass for such a youngster?! IMDb doesn't have a birth year for him, but he couldn't have been less than 20-something
My family watched it back in the KTMA23 days(not that I remember much from those years of my life, being only 5 years old.) I started watching the Comedy Central years onward starting in 1991 all the way to 1999. I am glad you were able to experience some of it when it first aired, and also know what The SciFi Channel was like when they were still good. Back before they were The SyFy Channel. Ahhh... those were the days. And a fellow Mike fan to boot. :)
Yes, they had more adult actors playing "teenagers" back then. Although a lot of the child labor laws were not in effect yet for films, the reason why they often used actors in their 20's was because the studios disliked underage actors because they are usually harder to work with on a tighter schedule(which was common for most films then.) When a studio found a Shirley Temple, they covetously hung onto them. I Accuse My Parents was done on the cheap, so I doubt they could afford to get a good actor the right age.
I am not surprised they don't have a birth year, but I would hazard a guess he was in his early twenties. What really surprises me is that a D list actor from that era was in a project as recent as 1994!
Eh, us Tivo. Yeah it's surreal, but a lot of late night cable is full of infomercials. The thing they promoted with cable when it started was television with no ads.
They dont care if you watch them, or if you're happy, they get money from running the ads anyway. Hell, I remember the first time I saw an ad at a movie theater, why did I pay to watch a 2 minute Sprite commercial?
my guess...it cost a lot of money for Comet to get the rights to show these, so they have to air lots of ads, and stretch them to more than a 2-hour block...frankly, it's fine with me, I tape it, and I use fast forward liberally
shareI can't believe it's on TV again. I thought the cost of securing rights from the original movie plus Best Brains would put them out of line with profit. I record them then blow through the ads like the previous poster said. In "I Accuse My Parents" they showed the same movie sequence back to back around a commercial break. I don't care, it's back on TV! Woohoo!
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