The Film Crew was acomedy team which succeededMystery Science Theater 3000 that launched in 2004. The Film Crew comprised formerMST3K cast membersMichael J. Nelson,Bill Corbett, andKevin Murphy. The team produced segments for television, radio, andhome video. They hostedLegend Films'colorizedThree Stooges DVD release, which packaged the four Stooge shorts that have fallen into thepublic domain:Disorder in the Court (1936),Malice in the Palace (1949),Sing a Song of Six Pants, andBrideless Groom (both 1947).
The Film Crew also maintained a website with humor columns and other content geared toward its fans, and contributed comedy segments toNPR.
The Film Crew, stuck in the confines of their work basement, lay downcommentary tracks to whatever obscure movie dished to them by their boss, Bob Honcho. As part of their job, each of the three wears a matching "working-class" uniform and an unwieldy headset while riffing. Each release contained a short "Lunch Break" sketch, in which they would act out a humoroussketch.
The Film Crew occasionally hosted segments between movies onAmerican Movie Classics,Sundance Channel, and theStarz/Encore cable channels in theUnited States.
In August 2005, duringEncore's "Midnight Movies" schedule, The Film Crew provided introductions for the documentary on the subjectMidnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream and for thecult classicsThe Rocky Horror Picture Show,Reefer Madness,Night of the Living Dead,The Harder They Come, andPink Flamingos.
The Film Crew created a pilot for a comedic radio program called3 Men & The Movies forNPR which was well-received but ultimately not picked up. Despite this, the troupe went on to contribute a few comedic, movie-related segments for NPR'sAll Things Considered program in the fall of 2004, including a review ofSky Captain and the World of Tomorrow[1] as well as an examination of film score cliches.[2]
The Film Crew hosted a now defunct website that featured original content including comedic essays. The tone and format was somewhat evocative ofTimmy Big Hands, a short-lived "webzine" involving several of the same entertainers.
On October 19, 2006, it was announced that The Film Crew would be providing commentary tracks for a series ofB-movies onDVD. To promote their announcement, the Crew offered a poll on their website asking viewers to sample clips of each contender and choose which they would prefer to see released first out of the four announced.
The four titles, in order of votes received (and, as a result, their release order), are:
The episodes were produced in association withRhino Entertainment, who had been the intendedfilm distributor. However, they parted ways before the episodes were released. It wasn't until 2007 that arrangements were made withShout! Factory to release the material. The change required some "looping" of lines from the original scripts—specifically, "Bob Honcho" was originally named "Bob Rhino" and this had to be changed as Rhino was no longer the distributor.
The DVD releases were inNTSC format but haveno region encoding. Each released episode contains at least one extra feature ("Ode to Lunch" inHollywood After Dark and "Did You Know..." inKillers from Space).
During the delay when there was no DVD distributor, the sets were destroyed and the cast moved on to the similar projectRiffTrax, complicating any possible future Film Crew episodes.[3] Murphy indicated that "We haven’t gotten any new orders from Shout Factory – the new home ofMST by the way – and since RiffTrax is becoming so much fun, I think you may have seen the last of The Film Crew."[4]
As of July 2008, The Film Crew's former website, filmcrewonline.com, is defunct. Shortly thereafter, Shout Factory put three Film Crew movies onHulu. On April 5, 2009, all four riffs became available onYouTube. In February 2016, RiffTrax began selling the Film Crew episodes, either via download or streaming, starting withKillers from Space.[5]