Monday, January 28, 2008


I've been rewatching old episodes of 'Mystery Science Theater 3000' that I've borrowed from Shane's extensive collection. Terrible B-movies watched by a guy and two robot puppets who make wisecracks throughout.

I remember being in high school and loving the show, my mind boggling at the fact that that was someone's job. Just coming up with those jokes. I remember having similar feelings about the computer trivia game You Don't Know Jack. Someone gets paid to write these questions and these jokes.

MST3K doesn't exist anymore. But You Don't Know Jack does. In fact, that's my job now, writing those questions and those jokes for the on-line game.

One of the question types that I write is called a Dis or Dat. A list of things flash by and you have to guess if it's, say, a Muppet, a character from the musical 'Grease' or both (Zoot, Frenchy, Rizzo).

Today I tried to write a Dis or Dat inspired by my recent MST3K viewing. Riffing off a news story that 'Cloverfield' is making movie-goers vomit, I pitched "anti nausea drug or Godzilla-like movie monster." Dramamine, Barugon, Reglan, Rodan, Cannabis...

Couldn't quite get it to work. But that's what I do all day.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Arnie, don't miss the MST3K "The Final Sacrifice." It will change your life. One wi=ord: "Razdower."

Anonymous said...

for the record, the actual name for "godzilla-like giant monster" is Giant Kaiju. also it's spelled Baragon. they mispell alot of things when they localize movies.

Anthony