Crummy Movies, Funny Jokes

That ''cutting edge'' first took shape on a tiny UHF station in Minnesota, where Hodgson settled after abandoning a successful stand-up career in L.A. ''I was on Late Night, doing guest spots on SNL, NBC was offering me a sitcom,'' he recalls. ''All my dreams were coming true, but I was really unhappy.'' So he beelined it back to Minneapolis and took a string of odd jobs — ironing decals onto T-shirts, building and selling puppets.

Then, in 1988, Minneapolis' KTMA-TV approached him looking for new ideas, and on Thanksgiving Day, MST made its local debut. ''The station got a really great response,'' Hodgson says. ''The switchboard lit up.'' Hodgson sent clips to HBO, which snapped up the series for its Comedy Channel (which later merged with the HA! comedy network to form Comedy Central).

Part of what made MST so attractive was its price tag. The series costs only $50,000 per episode (compared with $300,000-$600,000 for network sitcoms). It uses only the cheapest possible movies, and the sets and props are almost all homemade, including the robots (Tom is made of bits of an old bubble-gum machine, a penny bank, and a flashlight; Crow's basic parts are a lacrosse face mask, a plastic bowling pin, and a soap dish).

Sitting in the screening room at MST's studio, Hodgson and cowriters Trace Beaulieu, Kevin Murphy, and Mike Nelson are absorbed in their sixth viewing of Godzilla vs. Megalon. Each of the 800 one-liners per movie is practiced over and over until you'd swear every word was ad-libbed. On the monitor, three cars bounce around the streets of Tokyo in a jumpy, ineptly edited chase sequence. ''Action sequences filmed in Confuso-vision!'' cracks Murphy. ''You know in France this scene would be considered genius,'' Hodgson quips. ''Suddenly we're watching Mannix,'' sneers Beaulieu. ''You know, in France Mike Connors is considered a genius,'' says Hodgson. ''I haven't seen this much action since Herbie Goes to Mexico,'' Murphy jeers. ''You know, in France Dean Jones is considered...'' ''Joel!'' the writers screech in unison. ''Shuuuuuuttttt up!''

Please, Joel, anything but that.