Title: Mystery Servo Theater 3000 Presents: Despair MiSTer: John W. Wells Original author: Axikal Genre: Comedy/Horror Included files: Despmst.txt, Despmst.zzt All MST3K-related characters and settings are the property of Best Brains, Inc. Despair was written by Axikal, and used at his request. Notes: What is MiSTing? MiSTing is the practice of adding heckling comments to a movie/game/fan story in the style of the TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000. What is MST3K? MST3K is a show about a man and his robots, trapped upon a satellite and forced to watch bad movies in a twisted experiment. In order to maintain their sanity, the trapped guinea pigs continually heckle the movie. Every so often, they stage "host segments", which range from short sketches to brief video productions. Ten Somewhat Obscure References: 1) But first... we sing! A reference to Danny Kaye's "Gypsy Drinking Song", which he used in the movie "The Inspector General." 2) "Buck did not read the newspapers." Well, the real reason is that Buck's a dog - but the riffing response seemed appropriate. 3) "ESP and Me" A reference to a game which I have yet to release. 4) "A sight to dream of, not to tell!" A quote from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Christabel." 5) "The Book of Love" A reference to a song of the same title. 6) "The Biography of Felix Klein" Felix Klein was the topologist who invented the impossible three-dimensional shape known as the Klein Bottle. It is the equivalent of two Mobius glued together by their edge. Try to picture that. Confused? 7) "Puzzling tomb has twitch (7)" A cryptic crossword-style clue. The answer is CRYPTIC (crypt + tic). 8) "The Codex Hammer" The title of a collection of Leonardo da Vinci's documents that Bill Gates bought. 9) "A History of the Pail-and-Shovel Party, by Jim Mallon" Jim Mallon, one of the original brains behind MST3K, founded the "Pail-and-Shovel Party" to run for the college presidency during his college years. He won, along with Leon Varijan, and they became a set of wacky rulers, who built a replica of the Statue of Liberty's torch and put it on a frozen lake. They stated that the cables holding the statue had snapped during shipping by helicopter, and it had crashed through the ice. 10) "MITCHELL!!" Mitchell was the lead character in a MiSTed movie. If you aren't a MiSTie, you won't get it...