SILVERMAN!! ENTOURAGE!! L-WORD!! HOW I MET YOUR!! BIRDMAN!! SPACE GHOST!! HercVault!!

I am – Hercules!!

Strictly speaking, The Film Crew: Hollywood After Dark? Not a TV title! But I’m covering it here anyway because this direct-to-DVD project does mark a bold return to the vintage-cinema mocking of three “Mystery Science Theatre 3000” vets: Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett, who played Mike, Servo and Crow. These are not, I grant you, the original “MST3K”-ers. Corbett replaced Trace Beaulieu as Crow in 1997. Head writer Nelson replaced comedian Joel Hodgson as series lead in 1993. Even Murphy replaced Josh Weinstein as Tom Servo way back in 1990. “Film Crew” Mini-FAQ: Is it as funny as MST3K? The commentaries for “Hollywood After Dark” and “Killers From Space” both qualify as laugh-out-loud funny, as both literally made me laugh aloud. As with many MST3K installments, there are dry patches aplenty, but they’re worth sitting though to get to the good stuff. Is a pre-feature short mocked? There are no pre-feature shorts. Do we see the commentators’ shadows in front of the screen? No. During the movie, Nelson, Murphy and Corbett are heard but not seen. (The trio watch their movie on a tiny monitor; Kevin Murphy’s shadow alone could obscure the entire picture.) Isn’t this already downloadable on Mike Nelson’s website or something? You might be thinking of rifftrax.com, which offers audio-only commentaries that you’re supposed to synch up with expensive DVD swill like “The Phantom Menace,” “Star Trek: Generations” and “Fantastic Four.” Nelson often does these with Murphy, and sometimes with Murphy and Corbett, and other times with his hot, funny wife and at least once with the dude who played Doogie Howser. But Rifftrax is a separate, similar, project separate from The Film Crew. Did I mention separate? Are there Film Crew skits? There are! How can there be skits without commercials to break up the movie? There’s a pre-movie segment, a “lunch break” segment and a post-movie segment. Each disc also comes with a brief bonus skit featuring one of the players. Do the commentators dwell in space on a super-secret satellite? Are the commentators put there to see how much filmic torture they can endure? No and no. The three commentators are merely hired by a mogul named Bob Honcho to create commentary tracks for DVDs that have none. Is there a funny title song explaining the premise? Is the phrase “you should really just relax” employed? There is some goofy, twangy title music. The premise is so simple, however, that no lyrics are required (or offered). Do you miss the bots? I miss the bots. The graying, well-fed team of Murphy and Corbett are rather less telegenic than their puppet counterparts.

Space Ghost went on to about 100 segments of “Space Ghost Coast to Coast, but the interplanetary space-cop’s origins can be traced to the 20 episodes of Space Ghost & Dino Boy: The Complete Series that ran on CBS Saturday mornings from 1966 to 1967 and introduced the world to space-villains Zorak, Brak and Moltar. It premiered a year after CBS’ “Lost In Space” (a likely inspiration) and two days after “Star Trek.” In those days, Space Ghost ran with a masked monkey and a pair of equally-masked fraternal twins named Jan and Jace. Jace was voiced by a kid actor named Tim Mathieson, who would grow up, change his last name to Matheson, and play Otter in “Animal House” and vice president John Hoynes on “The West Wing.” Space Ghost was voiced by future “Laugh-In” announcer Gary Owens. Each of the 18 half-hour first-season episodes contained two self-contained 8-minute “Space Ghost” stories separated by one 7-minute “Dino Boy” story. Dino Boy, who never met Space Ghost in the show, was a tween whose plane crashed on a prehistoric island where dinosaurs (and a friendly caveman named “Ugh”) dwelled. Dino Boy was pushed out of picture in September 1967 when two more “Space Ghost” half-hours (containing a total of six “Space Ghost” segments) aired. These two episodes, also included on the new set, served to introduce audiences to guest-stars who were about to star in their own Saturday-morning series on CBS that season, among them the Mighty Mightor, the Herculoids, Moby Dick, and Shazzan the Genie. Not included on the set are the “Space Ghost” segments made in 1981 to serve as components of NBC’s 11-episode hourlong “Space Stars” show (which featured also new episodes of “The Herculoids,” the “Jetsons” spin-off “Astro and the Space-Mutts,” and “Teen Force”).

NBC’s answer to “Space Ghost” was Birdman & The Galaxy Trio , which premiered in 1967. Birdman’s real name in those days was Ray Randall, who was drafted by a top-secret government agency after the sun-god Ra endowed Ray with wings, a solar shield and the ability to project solar rays. Birdboy, Birdgirl, Mentok, Vulturo and the eagle sidekick Avenger, familiar to fans of “Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law,” made their debuts here. The Galaxy Trio, who had their own segments (and never met Birdman in the series), were Vapor Man, Meteor Man and Gravity Girl, superpowered extraterrestrials who worked for the Galactic Patrol interplanetary law enforcement agency. They share their superpowers with other natives of their respective homeworlds, suggesting they may have been inspired, in part, by DC Comics’ Legion of Super-Heroes. Gravity Girl came from the planet Gravitas. “Gravitas” is Kiefer Sutherland’s favorite word. Following the pattern of “Space Ghost and Dino Boy,” each of the 20 “Birdman and the Galaxy Trio” half-hour episodes on the new set . Each episode features two self-contained “Birdman” segments and one self-contained “Galaxy Trio” segment. It's not cool that the Galaxy Trio didn't play a bigger role in "Harvey Birdman."

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