Our Day at BBI By Christopher "Sampo" Cornell It was cold, and we were late. My partner Brian Henry and I had a 12:30 p.m. appointment at BBI studios. We were scheduled to sit down with the entire writing team so that I could do an interview for a story I was writing for the Philadelphia Inquirer -- and so we both could find out as much as we could for the old MSTieNews web site. We met in the lobby of the hotel and headed out across the snow-covered parking lot to my rented Ford, the molecules in its structure moving very very slowly following a -20 degree Minneapolis night. It had warmed up to a tropical -5, but I had my doubts the thing would start at all. Astonishingly, it turned right over and off we went. I had visited the studios several times before, but always during snowless seasons. I knew it was only about ten minutes away, but thanks to the snow covering all the landmarks I was used to, I was completely turned around in my bearings and, coolly assuring Brian I knew the way, we headed off in the completely wrong direction. After about ten minutes of me going "um....um....this is right...um...not it isn't...yes it is...um...no it isn't. . ." we stopped at a convenience store to ask directions. We were directed to go back the way we came and by this time we were late. We finally arrived at the studio and were buzzed in by Barb, who took us in right away to the writing room where Mike, Jim, Kevin, Mary Jo, Bill and Paul were waiting, having apparently just finished their lunch. Sitting around a table with that crew is quite a thing, lemme tell ya. I'd talked to all of them before, except Bill and Mary Jo, but it never ceases to amaze me what an amiable, witty bunch they are and how much fun it is just to chat with them on virtually ANY subject, and how funny they all are when they are TOGETHER bouncing stuff off of each other. Mike lounged comfortably, his feet up on another chair. To his left was Brian. Jim sat next to Brian, those steely eyes--under which I never feel entirely comfortable--watching the proceedings carefully. Mary Jo sat at the head of the table, eyeing us nervously. Next to her was Bill, looking at first like he wished he wasn't there. Next to him, on one side of me, sat Kevin, and I was once again reminded what a bear of a man Kevin is, but that it's the twinkle in his eye that you notice most about him. On the other side of me was Paul, who though we'd met and talked on several occasions, did not remember me and said, "Hi I'm Paul Chaplin" when we were introduced. I replied, "We've met, Paul," and he squinted at me, baffled. There began a half hour discussion about all manner of topics. I asked Jim how relations with the Sci-Fi Channel were going and what the chances were of them getting picked up. Jim said TV "is a bottom-line business" and that a lot of the future depends on the ratings the show gets. But he added that the relationship with Sci-Fi has been getting more and more comfortable now that each side has gotten to know the other one better. Unavoidably, the topic of the show's fans and how they have reacted to the many changes the show has been through, came up. In fact, this was an area when they seemed interested to hear what WE knew about what the fans were saying. Jim asked if there were still "Joel vs Mike" arguments and Brian and I conceded that occasionally there are. Mike, Bill and Kevin laughed heartily, but Mary Jo was simply stunned. "No way!!" she shouted, looking to Brian and me for confirmation. Brian and I ruefully nodded. "What I was told is that you just don't talk about it, because it brings up too many personal issues for people," Mike explained to Jim. Everyone seemed genuinely perplexed that some fans seem unwilling to let the show change and go in new directions. "That's not a very gracious attitude," Jim noted. "To push on to the show--and the people that write the show--this baggage that 'it must be as it is to my liking and never evolve,' I think you have to turn around and look at the person that's leveling that charge and wonder why." To which Kevin added: "Rick Nelson said it all: 'It's all right now. I've learned my lesson well. You can't please everyone, and so you've got to please yourself.'" Paul then made the sound of an explosion. (Rick Nelson joke, ya see.) Mike added: "You know, just recently I watched some of the season one episodes, just to make sure we weren't repeating ourselves. And I'll just flat out say it: what we are doing now is much better than season one. Some people didn't want us to change from season one--" "Hell, people didn't want us to change from KTMA..." Jim interjected. Paul added: "Yeah, a guy once said to me: 'You know, the show was better before it had writers.'" The room exploded with laughter and Mary Jo joked, over the din, "I'd like to tender my resignation." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I asked Mary Jo about her character and if it had changed at all as a result of what has been sometimes withering disapproval online. She said she doesn't go online and never ever reads the fan mail, so fan reaction had nothing to do with any changes in the role. One of the things that became very clear as we talked, and Mary Jo's cheeks flushed red with emotion and at one point tears seemed to well in her eyes, is that she is very sensitive to negative criticism. She said she was genuinely taken aback during a recent Sci-Fi Channel-sponsored chat, when she was asked how she felt about fans who had said she should not be taking Trace's place. I got a real sense that Mary Jo is baffled and a trifle irked to know that there are people out there spending time and energy thinking about and discussing whether she ought to be doing her job. As for her character, she said that the main change was that she will no longer be focused on "trying to help Clayton" and instead she will just be trying to "just take over everything." "I'm hoping, through the season, that she's not completely one-dimensional. I'm hoping to add at least one other dimension. Hopefully she won't always be yelling at everything all the time and that she's not always assaultive or confrontive." We then turned to Bill, who was aghast to learn that there was already a "Trace vs. Bill" thread on the newsgroup. "Part of me cares too much, I'm sure, but I'm just not going to expose myself to that. 'Cause, frankly, the bedrock part of the show has not changed at all--the movie and the good writing. If it takes me a season to get on my feet, I'm willing to allow myself that. Or never! I really do think Trace was pretty ingenious with the puppet. I mean, he invented it. . ." "Careful, now," Jim interrupted. "Don't say that because then the Joel fans will get mad. . ." There was nervous chuckling around the table and Bill just replied "Whatever...I don't think of it as me versus him at all." I asked Kevin about Tom Servo's adventures on the edge of the universe, and he assured us that we will hear more about them, adding that Tom has been through some "tough times and there's a real frontier macho about him now that pops up every now and again." I also asked Jim if Gypsy had changed at all and he shook his head with a smile. "She's still a rock," he said. "Somebody has to be." With that the interview broke up, and after a few words of thanks to each of them they went their separate ways...a few moments later Jim, Mike, Bill, Kevin and Paul were slam dunking mini-basketballs in the studio. We headed off through the garage/fan merchandise room (which is now serving its primary purpose -- housing the converted VW microbus that is Pearl's spaceship), and into the prop room where who to our wondering eyes should appear but none other than Jef Maynard, back on special assignment. He was making a special Crow for hush-hush reasons and we got a look at what a lot of the parts look like before they are painted gold. Brian was really in his element here, asking questions, poking around, handling things he probably shouldn't have been handling. We asked to see the nanites and Patrick fetched them down from a shelf, where they were lounging in a large tupperware box. They're about eight inches long and made from audio tapes and video tape parts, among other things. The exact ingredients will be posted in the FAQ soon. We headed into the studio, where we closely inspected the new SOL set and Barb poured us each a cup of STRONG coffee (thanks, Clamguy!) and we headed off to Barb's office (formerly Julie's). As we strolled through the hallways, we saw numerous poster-sized photos from the new show, including lots of pictures of the apes. We learned that they were created by a large-format printer that BBI had recently gotten access to ("Jim's new toy" was how Barb put it). We sat in Barb's office and chatted for hours about just about everything we could think of. Barb said info club enrollments were coming in at the rate of hundreds every week, so much so that it is overloading the Barbbb AOL mailbox. As we sat and talked, the phone rang and Barb answered it (one of her duties). She spoke pleasantly to the person on the phone for a moment or two, then smiled to us, hit the intercom button and, her voice reverberating through the halls, said "Beez, Trace is on line one to talk to you." There was an explosion of applause and laughter from the writing room as voices called out "Trace! Trace!" "They're at the airport on a layover," Barb told us. I turned to Brian, wild eyed. "Let's go!" I yelled and Barb laughed. After another hour or so of chatting we finally wandered toward the door, meeting, on our way, Jill Roozenboom, who has taken over most of the production and publicity responsibilities Julie had. To our surprise, she admitted that she had never seen an MST3K episode. "Maybe next weekend," she said (which was the weekend of MST3K's premiere on the Sci-Fi Channel). Sitting at the receptionist's desk as we stood saying our goodbyes was a tape of episode 805- The Thing That Couldn't Die. "Mind if we borrow that?" I asked Barb. She politely declined. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I came away with a very positive feeling from my visit. Whatever difficulties there were or may have been at BBI in recent years, there was no sign of them now. The group has re-formed into a cogent working team. More than at any time previously, Mike seemed clearly in command, and displayed a relaxed confidence. Kevin, too, seemed as downright joyous and cheerful as I have seen him...and I've seen him in some pretty good moods. Jim's face looks more lined and care-worn than it did even a few months ago at the con. Seems like the uncertainty of the last two years has worn on him. But, like Gypsy, he's a rock. Somebody has to be. In an interview in 1990, Jim told me that working at Best Brains was the best job in America. I reminded him of that on this visit and asked him if it was still true. He smiled and nodded. "I think so," he said. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archived from http://www.mst3kinfo.com/satnews/feature1.html on 4/13/01