The Mysterious Science Of Turning Christian: The Mike Nelson Interview
Editor-in-chief Kyle Mann and creative director Ethan Nicolle welcome Mike Nelson, former star of Mystery Science Theater 3000, RiffTrax dude, and host of some podcasts. Mike talks to Kyle and Ethan about his story of becoming a Christian, working in an industry that's not really down with that, making comedy for all, and how he and Ethan helped ruin VeggieTales. You can hear more from Mike Nelson on his podcasts: Like Trees Walking (about Basic Christian Apologetics), 372 Pages We'll Never Get Back (about bad books) and he semi-regularly joins in with Doug TenNapel and Ethan Nicolle on Audio Mullet! Check out the RiffTrax Live 2020 Kickstarter! Pre-order the new Babylon Bee Best-Of Coffee Table Book coming in 2020! Get a Sneak Peak! Topics Discussed The guys plan out Mike's tombstone listing his accomplishments Mike Nelson's story and his work on MST3K How Ready Player One is terrible Coming to faith in Hollywood Facing doubts, finding ammunition in C.S. Lewis' God in the Dock Working with people who disagree with you RiffTrax events and other podcasts Mike Nelson worked on the infamous Netflix run of Veggietales with Ethan Hollywood name-dropping and funny things that happened to Mike's wife Seat-fillers at award shows Mentioned in this episode: MST3K: Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders (This episode may be a good gateway into MST3K according to Mike Nelson) Subscriber Portion (Begins at 00:42:09) The entire interview is available for Babylon Bee subscribers only… Become a paid subscriber at https://babylonbee.com/plans
I just have to say that I object strenuously to your use of the word hilarious.
Hard-hitting questions.
What do you think about feminism?
Do you like it?
Taking you to the cutting edge of truth.
Yeah, well, Last Jedi is one of the worst movies ever made, and it was very clear that Ryan Johnson doesn't like Star Wars.
Kyle pulls no punches.
I want to ask how you're able to sleep at night.
Ethan brings bone-shattering common sense from the top rope.
If I may, how double dare you?
This is the Babylon Bee interview show.
All right, we are here in the Babylon Bee interview studio.
And we have a megastar this week.
A man I grew up admiring deeply.
Worshiping at the altar of.
Worshiping at the altar of.
And he was a guy who, if you're ever flipping through the channels and you saw little theater seats, and then you saw a couple robots, and then you saw this guy, and they're making fun of old movies, he's the guy.
That's Mike Nelson.
He's the robot?
No, he's not.
He's the guy.
Oh, sorry.
Not the robot.
And he is the guy making one of the movies with the robots.
His name's Mike Nelson from Mystery Science Theater 3000, Riff Tracks, and some podcasts.
And here he is.
Here's Mike.
Hello, Mike.
Hey, everyone.
When you said we'd have like a mega star or something, I forget what your term was, but I looked over my shoulder.
I'm like, who's on this?
This should be fun.
I just met within the realm of celebrities who are self-proclaimed Christians.
Sure, sure.
It narrows it down a lot.
It very much narrows down.
That is much more appropriate.
I'm picturing your tombstone, Mike.
Yeah.
Yes.
And it's a book.
It's going to say Mystery Science Theater.
Wait, what did you say?
Mystery Science Theater.
Couple of podcasts.
And some podcasts.
And some podcasts.
Yeah.
There was a comedian who, I forget who did this gag, was that he wanted to be famous enough where, you know, if before he was that famous and he had his, the byline in the paper would be a comedian dies in pool of blood, that it would just be like famous comedian dies in pool of blood.
Just want to get just over that edge to get to famous enough.
Mine would be obscure puppet show host, you know, killed in whatever.
Maybe at least if it was like a fiery gun battle, then it would at least get to page three or something like that.
Yeah.
Well, I didn't get you at like the height of, because I remember I was a big Mystery Science Theater geek.
Like this is one of the few things I was a geek for.
So it's really weird that we're friends now, which I should mention.
Like I fully disclose me and Mike actually, well, it's weird.
It's a weird relationship because we technically have a podcast together, but Mike's never on it anymore.
When I did the special pop-up podcast the other day with Doug is just like, are you available right now?
And I just happen to be sitting there eating a sandwich.
I'm like, I guess.
And it was very strange to be on the podcast that I'm technically on, but not on.
So yeah, that's a very good.
And I was too sick.
I thought we were going to cancel this movie.
Right.
And I'm just barely well enough to do a podcast right now, so I apologize.
You do sound slightly tubercular.
Tubercular?
Is that something like Michelangelo says in Indy Turtles?
That's what they say.
Totally tubercular, dude.
Well, he did say, I don't remember if we were recording yet, but he did say he was born in the 1930s.
He did say that.
That's right.
And that is a 1930s reference, I think.
We'll often revert to like old prospector talk or yes, talk about diseases that no longer exist.
Like the chill blane.
Like the black toe, I see.
Okay.
You're the one who taught me about the chillblanes.
And you discovered that's a real thing.
Yeah, it's real.
Yeah.
Chillblains.
That's very ancient.
I was referring to my, it's kind of warm here in Minnesota, which is rare for early March.
And my grandma used to say when warm in the middle of winter, she'd go, well, open winter, open graves.
Like, what?
People die when it gets dark when it gets warm in cold.
Oh, yeah.
So it's able to resurrect.
No, no.
It just means that they're going to be digging graves because people die.
And she was not normally a very, you know, she was a pretty happy person, but that wasn't too many.
Yeah, she wasn't.
She was not.
Not a big Trent Reznor fan.
That reminds me of the great line from Chris Farley's excellent movie, Almost Heroes, where he says an old saying, white water in the morning.
What?
That's it.
Is that perhaps a reason why that movie is fairly obscure?
I've never heard of it.
That's it.
Yeah, it was like Chris Farley's last movie.
It was the last movie, right?
Oh, wow.
I thought it was pretty good.
It came out like after he died, I think.
It got panned.
Yeah.
But I thought it was hilarious.
Doesn't that mean to pan a movie after a guy dies?
Come on.
That doesn't mean they should have been in solidarity, 100% rotten tomatoes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're not supposed to.
I mean, yeah.
Never speak ill of the dead, never speak ill of the dead movies either, I think, is a rule.
Yeah.
So, Mike, where do you get your ideas?
You should explain because Kyle's a youngin and a very sheltered young'un.
So he's 12.
But I don't got the number 12.
He's like, let me explain my relation to mystery science theater.
And it's basically not.
There's nothing at all.
Non-existent.
Well, I recently, like within the last year or two, I had heard, you know, Ethan had been raving and saying, oh, he's got his little altar to Mike Nelson here in the office.
He's like slobbering and digging at my boils with pottery.
Every morning he bows in your direction, you know.
Yes, I require it.
Thank you.
You're ruining our friendship, making it awkward.
No, I had heard, you know, this was good.
And so I turn it on.
And I don't know.
You have to pick the right episode.
Right.
So I go on Netflix and I didn't understand what was happening.
And it seemed like maybe I jumped in the middle of something.
And then my wife, her taste is completely different than mine.
So we sat down and she was like, what is this?
I'm like, well, this is.
Was it an episode with Mike?
I think so.
Because there's Joel and Mike.
And she goes, what is this?
Like, why are these people watching this movie?
This movie is dumb.
And I'm like, well, yeah, the movie's dumb.
That's the point.
And they're going to talk about it.
And she just didn't.
So we changed it to something else.
I would just say that's not a new phenomenon.
Ever since I started doing it many, many years ago, that has been an attitude.
And even now, when we're doing something like doing some sort of pitch to people about riff tracks, like, hey, do you remember Mystery Science?
The guys will watch a movie.
And if they say no, then you just go, have a good day then.
Because there's nothing you can do to explain it, obviously.
I mean, people who haven't heard of it, who are listening right now, are going, I don't, what?
What is this?
I remember being on a podcast once where there was an older gentleman who hadn't heard of it because he was an older fella.
And he was like Statler and Waldorf or something.
Like, what do they do?
Why would you do that?
Why wouldn't you sit and watch a movie?
And I was on the podcast with him going, well, I mean, you know, it's funny.
Like, doesn't sound funny to me.
Thanks, man.
So, no, it comes from all directions.
So you have nothing to worry about there.
Well, now you're on a podcast where I'm insulting you saying, I tried to watch your show, but.
I need to find the right gateway.
What are some gateway episodes you'd say, Mike?
I think.
That's what I need to know.
I think Werewolf is a great gateway episode.
Yeah, I don't know.
It's been so long since I watched them, and I'm always doing something new and purging out of the way.
My kids had a little period where when they were younger, they were trying to figure out like, what do you do?
And we would get Shout Factory, who had been producing it, would send us sets.
Like, here's the new set.
And I get it.
And I'm not very sentimental.
I don't keep anything, but my wife will throw them in a closet.
So my kids discovered them and they started watching and they laughed.
And so that was the only time I'd ever see anything I ever done.
And so it's hard for me, but maybe Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders?
Does that resonate with you at all?
It's like an 80s movie, I remember it.
Yeah, I remember Ernest Borgnine.
Yeah.
So that should sit well with you, Kyle.
Ernest Borgnine, huh?
For the kids?
All right.
Yeah.
We should do some Christian rapture fiction.
Some Kirk Cameron movies.
Have you ever done any of?
No, although I did a live podcast for one of my, with the pastor, I do a podcast with a pastor, just sort of basic apologetics.
We did live Christian Mingle selected things from that.
Are you aware of that movie?
Oh, it's a movie?
I know, it's a website.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's a movie.
No, it's a movie based on the website.
When you and I wanted, we wrote that movie pitch about a Christian dating site or something.
Well, this is our Christian Mingle.
We were trying to make fun of it.
Wait, they brought it up?
Yeah.
People were aware of Christian Mingle?
I thought I was the only one who ever saw it.
That's amazing.
I had heard of it.
It's that same girl who's in all the Christian movies now.
Lacey Shaber, I believe is her name.
Like rules, there's a stable of actors and actresses on the, oh, I'm sorry.
They're all actors now.
See, I just showed that I'm from the 30s.
Wow.
Man, that is bad.
The actors on the Hallmark channel, there's like a stable of them, and they just rotate them through.
Like, you're a person who has, you're a princess who has amnesia who gets caught in a small town.
You're a guy who owns his father's company, but she doesn't know, you know, and they all just rotate in these roles.
Like it's Comedia del Arte.
Again, for the kids, Comedia del Arte.
Do you call the flight attendants stewardesses?
I do.
When me and Joe Biden.
Oh, wait, he doesn't fly.
He takes the train.
What am I saying?
Smoke on the airplane.
Yeah, I smoke.
Stewardess, Stewardess.
I'm going to have to ask you to put that out, sir.
Remember, I flew at a time where they still had the ashtrays in the seat or in the armrests.
Wow.
Remember that they, because they didn't get rid of them all immediately.
There were still a few planes where it's like, wow.
It's weird.
Can you imagine sitting next to a guy just chain smoking his way through a pack?
That's my life every day because I have to work next to Ethan.
But it's a do you go into a smoking lair with him?
It's pack of cigars, but yeah.
But at the cigar shop, I don't smoke in the office.
People smoke a pack of cigarettes.
He has a 12-pack of cigars that he goes through.
Yeah.
18 packs, whatever the pack.
Lights one off the other.
Yep.
I just wrap them all together in one long cigar and it goes across the entire room.
It's like the party sub from Subway.
So what was the episode I was supposed to watch?
I missed it.
We'll have a mystery science night at my house, but the other great thing, I think a great gateway actually is to do riff tracks.
This is the other newer thing that you've done.
You're currently doing.
But I have had gatherings where we put, because you can actually sync an MP3 up with a movie.
Yeah.
So you can watch more modern movies.
So Kyle, your wife would then say, why are we watching this movie?
And you'd say, well, because it's Harry Potter or it's Star Wars or Titanic or whatever, whatever you want to.
She's like, why is this guy making fun of Harry Potter?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Certain ones, yeah, it's, it's, but yeah, the Marvel movies are often really good anyway.
So that could be a lot of fun.
So we want to get into really, I mean, we're having young because we are a Christian podcast.
Right.
And we only talk to Christians.
Actually, that's not fun.
That's good.
Yes.
Wall yourself off.
Do that.
Don't ever.
As Jesus taught.
Yeah.
Yeah.
As Jesus taught.
But no, I find it interesting.
I remember I was already a big slobbering fanboy of you.
And then I was hanging out with our now mutual friend, Doug Tenaple, who has been on this podcast.
And one day he's like, you know, I was telling him I'm such a fan of Mystery Science Theater.
He's like, oh, yeah, that guy emailed me one time, told me he's a Christian.
I'm like, what?
What?
He is?
And then, because I guess you guys have both listened to Greg Cocole.
I think Doug was on Greg Coco.
Greg Coco has also been on this podcast.
You can see how I'm like networking everybody into the podcast.
Wait, Greg did yours as well.
Yeah.
Wow.
We're a good podcast.
You got to listen.
You're netting all the big ones.
I mean, I will listen.
I, you know, you're making podcasts all the time.
I know, I don't know how I'm doing it.
Yeah.
Well, you do more podcasts than I do.
That's what I'm saying.
We're both like, you know, when do you have time to do one or the other?
You don't listen to my book podcast.
You'd be a madman, right?
I can't keep up.
You have to read along.
This is pretty great.
You know, Mike comes on and I say, I don't watch your show.
And he goes, well, I don't listen to your podcast.
Have a nice day, Mike.
Really, we were talking about it the other day.
Someone found a book quote that I put on the back of someone's book.
I gave them the little quote that they asked for.
And the person waved it in my face and said, you did not read this book.
And I'm like, no, of course not.
I had my own book out at the time and you just do that.
So yeah, that's, come on.
That's, we're all working.
Yeah.
If we listen to each other's stuffs, we'd be madman, right?
Yeah, I got no time.
That's right.
I'm mostly listening back to our podcast to see how much we messed up or how it went because I'm always like, how'd that go?
Right.
Okay.
So anyway, you, I was fascinated by this to find out you're a Christian.
And I thought at the time, I was like, I can't imagine if I was able to smoke a cigar with, because Doug was a kind of a hero of mine at the time, too.
Like, he's the only Christian I'd ever heard of in comics.
So it was just already a big deal that I'd become friends with Doug Tenaple at that time.
It was like, wow.
So then Mike Nelson's a Christian.
And I'm like, what if we had, what if we could have cigars with Mike Nelson?
That'd be amazing.
Just one time.
This would be so cool.
We went, we did it.
We met up.
And there was like this, I don't know if soulmate is the right word, but we were on this wavelength.
We hit it off so well.
It was so cool because I had the same experience only just from the kind of the just flip it around a little bit, but I'm a huge Ax Cop fan.
I was.
Well, it was, I mean, it was all the buzz in my office.
Yeah.
And everyone was.
Yeah, I forgot about that.
That's the ass Kevin Murphy and the guys that work with you were some of the first early adopters of Axe Cop.
Yeah, everyone was talking about it in the office.
And then Doug, I had heard him on Coco years before, and I sent him the email, and he sent me back a friendly thing.
And then I think it had to be at least eight years later before I met him.
And another mutual friend I saw at Comic-Con, and he said, he said, oh, wow, Mike Nelson, I always wanted to meet you.
And he said, I know Doug Tenaple.
I'm like, oh, I'd like to meet that guy someday.
And he said, I do the Chestertons with him.
So maybe you can.
And I think then I got in touch with both of you guys and said, you know, drive down to San Diego.
And yeah, it was just like instantaneous.
Like, all right.
Hey, these are bros forever.
That was so much fun because I was dying in San Diego being, you know, being a Christian who was in the arts and there just wasn't, I just didn't know.
anyone and there was no access to anyone.
Yeah.
For those who don't know San Diego, I don't know if it's proximity to LA, but the Ron Burgundy portrayal of San Diego is pretty much true.
There's not a lot going on down there.
They're kind of their own thing.
And so, yeah, it was so, so great to meet you guys and become instant friends.
Yeah.
And you were driving the two-hour drive up from San Diego on Sundays to come join us for Chestertonians just to have a few hours of cigars and whiskey and reading Chesterton.
I was.
It was my favorite thing to get whiskey up and drive down the drive down the highway.
The Babylon B does not endorse drinking and driving.
I didn't.
I didn't.
That was a joke for what they call humor's sake.
So I would love to hear the story of coming to Christ in that, because most people, it's like high school youth group.
You came to your faith later in life in the midst of the later.
Yes, I was a pretty, I was a hardcore atheist in that I was not a deep thinker at all.
And just said, yeah, I don't want to go to church anymore when I was a kid, high school, because my dad said, I think I'm an atheist.
I'm like, well, well, then yes, duh, so am I.
And so, yeah, it was in adulthood.
It was probably during the middle of the run of mystery science theater.
I won't get into, you know, you have a crisis in life.
I think it was about the same time my son was about the age that I was when my mother died.
I don't know if that's anything that sort of triggered something in me, but I really just felt empty.
It was pretty young, right?
Just right.
It was like my mom died when I was just about four years old.
Wow.
And so I just remember, and I started getting these just massive, massive headaches, which I still have to this very day.
But so I would, I did everything to try to find a solution to it.
And one of them was, I'll never forget this, like a yoga thing.
And the person said, just like, be alone with your thoughts and your being and yourself.
And I remember going, I don't know what that is.
Whatever it is, I don't like it.
And so it probably was maybe a year later that I went to a therapist who was sort of, they couldn't say anything themselves, but you could kind of tell they were Christian friendly and sort of nudged me, like, look into this.
And then slowly, it wasn't like a lightning bolt.
I just started reading more and more.
And then one day I was like, oh yeah, well, this, I believe it.
So I'm stuck with it.
And that was it.
And it was kind of luckily around the same time my wife became a serious Christian as well.
She was raised Catholic, but I think it was just sort of, I don't think she internalized it as much as she did after that.
So it was kind of a lucky coincidence.
So what were you reading?
Like, what was that first, like you went from reading whatever comedians from Minnesota read, you know, some magazine or something.
Right.
And you're like, oh, I think I'll read, I think I'll read A Little Mere Christianity.
I did.
Oh, that was my phone.
Sorry.
You don't even need to edit that out.
It's very, it adds a nice soundtrack to this whole thing.
No, I'm very whimsical.
I was telling someone this story the other day about how I read something.
I accidentally read a book.
I think it was like a biography of Jesus by one of the, do you remember the Jesus seminar?
That was like, they were this group of kind of very, very liberal scholars who kind of voted on whether the Bible was real or not by putting beads into a red bead or the black bead or something like that.
So I accidentally read something by one of those guys and it was kind of like, you know, Jesus is a nice guy, but come on.
And so my very nascent faith was pretty much shattered.
And so I was driving home one night and I and I was just like despairing.
Like, I thought you just kind of, he existed, but you either bought what he said or you didn't.
Isn't that the deal?
But apparently it wasn't, according to this book.
He was just, he was barely even existed at all, or he was an amalgamation of, you know, other teachers or whatever.
I don't know what his theory was, but it sort of shattered me.
And so I drove home and I went to a bookstore that was just closing and I just walked in and the guy said, sir, you know, we're closing.
I'm like, yeah, fine, whatever.
And I just walked to the religion section.
And I think that a book by C.S. Lewis called God in the Dock, which is just a collection of his, it just thrust itself into my hand.
And I, I just, without, I mean, I swear I don't even remember it.
I just walked home in despair or drove on.
Sounds like a Me Too thing.
Like you could accuse that book of thrusting itself in your hand.
Yes, it was without my permission.
But I just sat and stayed awake all night and read it and went, oh, wow.
So this is how you can think about it and how you can approach it.
And then I started to kind of devour all the apologetics and theology that I could after that.
So it was the effect of, I mean, you were pretty heavily into the comedy scene.
Your wife's a stand-up comedian, I believe, right?
Yeah, I mean, she wasn't doing, at the time, she wasn't doing as much stand-up, but she was on the show in bit parts.
She wrote on the show as well for many years.
So yeah, we were both firmly in the comedy camp.
At the time, we were kind of perennially nominated for Emmys.
And boy, this is really dating it to Ace Awards.
That was back when there still was a thing for separate cable awards.
And so we had to, you know, we were going out to Hollywood and to LA a lot.
So it was, yeah, it was a weird time.
So how'd that impact your relationships?
Is you suddenly are like, I mean, I don't know what, I know that it's weird already for me being in the arts.
I feel so distant from everybody in general.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think it probably, I think we had the good fortune to both of both my wife and I have, I mean, I think she's cool, but she thinks that people don't think she's cool.
And I have never for a single second been cool or anything at all.
And so we were never kind of in with Hollywood because we, you know, it was just a weird puppet show from the Midwest.
So there really was no cachet for it at all.
And so it didn't really change things a lot with the relationship with Hollywood because we just never hung with those people.
If we did, it would be with the guys from like Kids in the Hall and stuff because they're from Canada and they kind of looked around the same way we did.
Like, this isn't, this isn't our crowd.
So, but yeah, so it didn't, it didn't change a lot, really.
Interesting.
Yeah.
What do you think, Kyle?
I just want to remind everybody that I'm still here.
And Ethan is going to be here for another maybe 10 minutes.
How long do you have to live, Ethan?
Yeah, I can last much longer.
Incubating very quickly.
This is like it's the time, the cycle of this virus that's killing Ethan is like an alien.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
So he's going to implant you first and then he bursts or how does it work?
No, because he's been implanted.
It's incubating in his stomach right now.
And any second, it's going to burst out.
Are you seeing like the ripples on his t-shirt?
Yeah.
He's always got ripples on his t-shirt, though.
Okay.
It's those muscles.
Those ripply muscles.
Hey, I made a sci-fi reference with Mike Nelson.
Look at that.
That's an obscure movie.
See, on common ground, Kyle.
Have you heard of this obscure movie?
Right.
Called Alien.
Now in its 14th reboot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's that phone again.
You know, maybe I should just turn this off.
Let's do that a lot.
Two different rings.
These are all spam calls, I should note, that no one wants to talk to me except people trying to sell me cruises or whatever.
I don't know.
Do you run a phone bank?
I do.
Excuse me for one second.
I got to try to sell a guy on it.
No, all right.
So now it's shut off.
See, I never get called.
That's why I never even think to turn off my phone.
Kids, if you make a successful puppet show, you also can pay the bills by being a telemarketer during the day.
Please, correction, mildly successful puppet show because there are puppet shows, you know, the Muppets, you know, I get to buy and sell me 500 million times over.
That's true.
That would be good for you, though.
Yeah.
Yeah, even Jeff Dunham could kill me in broad daylight and get away with it.
I mean, let's be honest.
But he would kill you with his puppets.
Yeah.
I envisioned you on a stick.
I envisioned him as the puppet murderer.
That's his signal.
I just blame it on his terrorist puppet.
I did tour with that fellow for a brief time.
And he, I mean, he killed, of course.
He was the headliner.
But the other comedians would sit backstage and go, can you believe this guy?
This guy is the worst.
And, you know, now he could, you know, buy and sell us all, of course.
That's funny.
We've had two comedians on who have had Jeff Dunham experiences.
We had another guy on Kellen Erskine.
Was his extremely positive?
He said he opened it for him and then he killed.
He had an amazing he killed in this huge theater.
And he went back and Jeff Dunham was like, hey, can you just, could you wheel my cart of puppets out there for me?
And so whenever he saw it, after he went offstage, he came back slowly pulling this giant car, like, dragging it onto the stage as like some kind of stagehand for Jeff Dunham.
Perfect.
Perfect.
Jeff became the assistant.
Did he ever make you wheel his cart of puppets?
He did not.
He did not.
Although I will say there's, I think I told this on one of my other podcasts, so I apologize if you listen to this and that.
But that once I was.
It's not a problem for me.
I don't consume any of your content, Mike.
Exactly.
You've made that perfectly clear.
And likewise.
No.
But we were, all these comedians were sitting at a table at an open stage.
And back then, comedians were not supportive of each other.
Like I think they kind of are now, which I find bizarre.
But we would just dig at each other.
And, you know, you're joking about how bad the person is.
And there's this new guy.
And he did his 10 minutes.
And he came back, walked towards us.
We're like, why is he walking right at us?
And he went and picked up his recorder that he had set down on our table to record his set.
So no.
So on it was 10 minutes of like, can you believe this piece of garbage?
That felt so bad.
He seemed like a really nice guy.
It's like, that's what we do.
Who are comedians?
You think he does that?
He puts the recorder on the table.
He wants to hear the criticism.
He's like, I wonder what these guys would say about me.
Yeah, I don't think so.
I don't think anyone would sign up for that.
And nobody goes looking for criticism these days.
He's smart, though.
Yeah.
He's smart.
Yeah, what do you think of all the, you know, this weird divide?
Comedy has taken this strange position with all the Dave Chappelle stuff going on.
You're not allowed to punch up or punch down.
I mean, you are allowed.
There's all these rules about comedy there people are trying to take.
And I've seen a lot of comedians becoming more political because, like Rob Schneider, he's all podcasting now about free speech.
What's the Mike Nelson take?
Well, I mean, when I started out in the 30s, you know, as a Bowery boy, the comedy was just slapstick.
No, I, you know, I've never been particularly political myself, and it never seemed to be.
There were a few back when I was doing stand-up comedy, which I only did for a brief period of time, maybe two years or something like that.
But it was always just, you know, be funny.
Anyone who can be funny is okay.
So I'm looking at it with a little bit of amazement.
Like, I'm really, really glad that I don't do or have to compete in stand-up comedy because of that.
And I find it fairly depressing, the politicization of everything, like, you know, your chicken meal and your comedian, and you got to fight about it all at all times.
I find it exhausting.
And I personally will have no part in it, but it seems, oh man, I don't know if I could even, I wouldn't survive a day.
If I did my act that I used to do, I'd probably be, you know, I would be jailed.
And I did nothing.
I mean, I'm not saying that I did anything that was even remotely controversial.
It was like, you know, just sort of goofy stuff.
But still, I'm sure I'd step in so many, so many man traps when I did my act.
So yeah, I just find it mostly depressing and I don't, I don't watch it.
Yeah.
And do you think that there's an importance to comedy?
I always try to like parse that out in my head.
Like I can never really quite outline why, but I do believe comedy needs to be defended.
Yeah, I think so.
And I mean, I've heard this from other people.
So it's not, this is not a, like, some sort of weird, humble brag, I assure you.
I guess I can try to assure you, and you can make your own judgment.
But we've constantly over the years gotten letters, very heartfelt letters and things from people and emails saying, you know, your comedy is the only thing that I could watch with my dad.
We didn't agree about anything or my mom or my aunt.
And when he died, we'd sit in his hospital room and we'd watch either Riff Tracks or MST and we'd just laugh.
And that's, and so thank you.
And I've always just thought, well, that's, I mean, that's a pretty good, that's a pretty good thing that we kind of take care to make it just a thing that's sort of goofy.
And as many people as who want to watch it, there's no secret signaling to teams.
Like, it's okay to watch it if you're on this team.
It's just supposed to be funny.
And people have testified to us to the importance of that.
So yes, I do think, I do think it is important and can be healing.
And again, take my caveat that I'm not humble bragging.
I think that's true of all comedy.
I will watch Mystery Science Theater on my deathbed.
Which is going to be one, do you think?
Well, if Ethan keeps coughing on me.
That's what I was kind of getting at.
That you're both just steps from it, I feel.
Gonna be pretty soon.
I think the Christian Mystery Science Theater is a pretty good idea, watching some of those crappy ones.
You should have me and Kyle on to guests.
We should do a Christian Riff Track.
We set up this whole interview without Mike, but Mike's the master, though.
We set up this whole thing so we could get on your show.
Yeah, yeah, let's do it.
A show you don't even like, self-admitted, can't even watch it, and now suddenly you're angling for a part on it, Kyle.
Kyle, all about himself.
I liked it, but it's very hard for me to watch things my wife does not like because we're always sitting on the couch together watching it together.
Oh, sure.
Yeah, yeah.
And it's not that she didn't like it, it's that she just didn't understand it.
It's a very common thing where marriages are split, where we'll do these VIP events in Nashville where husband and wife will come because that's their vacation.
Like we'll meet them and we'll have lunch and do the pictures and the meet and greet and all that.
And there'll be one person and you can see immediately like, oh, they dragged that guy along or that spouse does not want to be here.
And so it's always fun to sort of win them over at least personally.
Like by the end, they're like, well, I don't like what you do, but you seem like a decent chap.
We'll take it.
The gateway for my wife to get her to like it was what are the ones with the vampires and the werewolves and the girl?
Oh, Twilight.
Twilight, yeah.
So we watched Twilight.
I just watched a friend say that same thing that his family, his daughter said, I want to re-watch all the Twilights that I watched.
And they said, not without Riff Tracks.
She said, what is Riff Trax?
Fine, whatever.
And then she was a convert after that.
So, yeah, that's a good gateway.
So how would I watch Twilight with Riff Tracks?
You give the audio file, right?
That's a good question.
I'm glad you asked.
You could use our handy Riff Tracks app that's available for free on the site.
And it automatically syncs it up with your material.
Hey, Mike, if I wanted to give you money, how would I do that?
I'm so glad you asked.
But yeah, it's all there at Riff Tracks Instructions.
But the app is really the app is amazingly cool.
Back when we were starting Riff Tracks, if we had known that we could do that in the future, that would have been a boon for us because there are a lot of people who said, I'm not going to sync up something.
I don't know how to do that.
And we'd say, well, it's very easy.
And they'd still say, ah, can't do it.
Podcasts, I can't download a podcast.
Yeah, everybody in the room, like when I would do those, because you guys do this countdown, and as soon as the logo pops up, you go, now, and then like you start the MP3 or whatever.
Yeah.
And then everybody in the room is trying to tell if it's on sync.
Like they're all trying to decide if you should skip back or forward, like keep it on sync.
Should I go forward?
Backward?
Yeah.
We'd all feel like we were like technicians.
Right.
Yeah.
I guess it's all done for you.
That's why I've never tried it because I didn't know how to, I'm not very savvy at these kinds of things.
So I thought you had to get like the record and drop the needle at the exact part about it.
I mean, you do have to.
And I both grew up in the 30s, I guess.
You have to have a separate audio source for the Riff Tracks to be coming out of.
That's what I was thinking.
Okay.
So you do have to put like a Bluetooth speaker or something.
Is that still the case?
But with your app, you could actually go to a theater and watch it, or you could be in your car or watching Netflix or whatever.
I'm assuming you watch movies in your car while you're driving.
It'll come out of your phone.
So that's where I want everybody else to hear it.
That's the main way that I watch movies.
Right, right.
Driving.
Anyway.
Yes.
You guys should check out Riff Tracks.
You should check out Mystery Science Theater.
I think it's on Netflix.
What was the big you did a big one on Phantom Menace?
You did all the Star Wars.
Yeah, but I always hear, oh, you got to watch the.
And what's the big event coming out?
You guys are doing another big theater event because make sure people know to come out and see that if they want to.
Oh, yeah.
Well, we're in the middle of our Kickstarter.
So we're doing, it was an old MST favorite.
Speaking of favorites, Hobgoblins.
We're redoing that.
It's Rembrandt.
Yes, I've forgotten everything about it.
So rest assured, it'll be all new jokes.
And then we're doing the Amityville for Amityville 4, I think, which is like escape from New York or Return to the Hood or something.
I don't know what it is.
It's about an evil 4 link.
Yes.
So that's, anyway, Kickstarter right now if you want to get some of the goodies for that.
We'll get the link up for that.
And your podcasts, you got Trees Walking is my, that's sort of my basic Christian apologetics website or website.
Podcast.
Yeah.
Do hickey.
And then I do one on bad books, as if I don't watch enough and consume enough terrible stuff.
But that is called 372 Pages Will Never Get Back.
I do that with my producer and writer from Riff Tracks, Connor Lestoka.
That all started with Ready Player One, and you guys moved on to Armada.
Yeah, we've done, man, we've done, I think, 12 books.
Wow.
So, yeah.
And that's Steven Long.
Did you do the sequel to Ready Player One?
Not the sequel.
The writer's next book.
Armada?
Yeah.
We sure did, which is amazing.
The takeaway from that was Ready Player One was on people's lists of best books of the year, you know, Time Magazine and Esquire.
And that was the premise of it was my Connor said to me, there was a piece of an excerpt that was being sent around and he sent it to me and said, if I know anything on earth, I will know you hate this more than anything that has ever been created by man.
And I'm like, you are absolutely right.
So we read that book and it was just terrible.
I mean, like almost technically unreadable.
And we got a lot of, made a lot of hay out of that.
And then we decided, well, let's just do the follow-up for the next one.
And if people like it, we'll move to something else.
But Armada is, it's the same book.
And that book was panned by everyone.
And people are going like, yeah, I guess he only had one good book in him.
It's like, the first book isn't good.
You need to, when someone writes its second terrible book, you need to go back and reevaluate.
They're both awful.
They're both beyond terrible.
I think the second book, he references the book of Revelations in there.
He has that old lady Christian character or something.
Yeah, there's one in the first one who he does a sort of performative atheist screed in it that is just absolutely awful.
And then the end of not no spoiler.
Well, this will be a spoiler because we're going to spoil this book for you.
But in Armada, the conclusion of it is that he goes into a room and Neil deGrasse Tyson and Richard Dawkins and they all saved the world.
That is 100% true.
If I can back that up.
Yep.
What I love out of this is that if you ask Mike to talk about his faith, he stays pretty kind of in control of himself.
But if you really want passion, have him talk about Ready Player One.
That's right.
That is true.
The energy comes out.
I've often said jokingly, because this is not really true, but when people don't like my opinions on if I pan a movie or something and they'll write me and say, you know, I used to like you for 20 years, I followed you, but this is too far, sir.
And I would always say, man, I don't have that much passion about my faith as you do about this terrible movie that we disagree about.
You can continue to watch it on your, you know, your Blu-ray player and continue to enjoy it.
And I will continue to not.
What's the big deal?
Well, the other podcast we should mention is Audio Mullet, even though you might not be on a lot.
But that's a podcast that me and you and Doug, in theory, do together, but it's always usually two of the three of us.
This is such a prayer circle.
That's such a prayer circle.
You two just.
Why am I even hearing you?
I'm just throwing that in there.
You're throwing that in there.
You know, people like Mike, you're like, oh, this guy's great.
Listen to the first However many episodes of Audio Mode that he's on and a couple other ones.
I actually have listened to some audio mode.
You were on one.
And I was on a video.
You were on our biggest episode.
Yeah.
Yes.
You were our big draw.
Yeah, if you want to listen to a podcast starring me, Doug Tenapel, and Ethan Nicole, only I'm not there, then listen to Audio Mode.
It's a great podcast.
I think I've been on it more than you have.
You have, because you've easily lapped me on that.
Yes.
The funny thing is, all the artwork says Mike Nelson.
I have a photo of Mike that I photoshopped a mullet onto him.
And every time I've just started to think, I better change this artwork and just can't say Mike's not on the show anymore.
You come back for an episode and it resets it all.
So I got to.
Is there an easily removable stamp over my face?
I hate redoing.
It's already such a project to do artwork.
I don't want to do anymore.
Right.
So unless you really aren't on for like three years, I'm going to keep it on there.
Plus you it gets going to influence my decision whether to come back on or not.
I think I'll just continue to do it intermittently to bug you.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, we're going to go into the subscriber portion.
I would like to talk about working with people who you don't necessarily agree with on politics, faith, stuff like that.
Sure.
Being in the midst of the arts and being a horrible knuckle-dragging Christian caveman.
And also maybe some funny stories from, you know, maybe you've made some celebrities mad from making fun of their movies.
You're going to get Ethan's favorite interview question, which is, hey, do you have anything cool to say?
You got any funny stories?
Ethan has asked some very big names this question.
I just go, so you got any funny stories from like, you know, going out there and doing stuff?
I think he asked Greg Kogel this, if I remember right.
They always just mock me.
They're like, well, everybody has a few great stories.
Just tell your stories.
Nobody takes me up on it.
It is a good question because nobody asks that question.
Is there a question that you always hoped somebody would bring up?
Yeah.
Speaking of the late, great Chris Farley, that's a bit Chris Farley-ish, isn't it?
Yeah.
That's what we remember when you were in the Beatles.
Did you like that?
Yeah.
Did you like that?
All right.
Well, let's slip into the subscriber lounge and let's keep talking.
Let's get on our slippies and our robes.
Let's do it.
Light up the cigars, boys.
Coming up next for Babylon Bee subscribers.
Speaking of being a Nazi in hiding.
Yeah.
What's it like?
What's it like being a Nazi and conservative leaning?
No, no, Mike, this is a subscriber portion, so this is much less public.
Right, the Veggie Tales that ruin Veggie Tales.
Yes.
You know, I know you're complaining about your lack of creative freedom.
Yeah.
But having edited for you, I get it.
He came up and handed her a bunch of cash and said, I know that opening acts and MCs don't get paid anything at these junky clubs, so here you go.
Hey, Mike, have you ever met Carmen?
Enjoying this hard-hitting interview.
Become a Babylon Bee subscriber to hear the rest of this conversation.
Go to BabylonB.com/slash plans for full-length ad-free podcasts.
Kyle and Ethan would like to thank Seth Dylan for paying the bills, Adam Ford for creating their job, the other writers for tirelessly pitching headlines, the subscribers, and you, the listener.
Until next time, this is Dave D'Andrea, the voice of the Babylon Bee.
I'm recording, and the signal looks fat and sassy.
Everything is good on my end.
So if you guys want to do the clap down.
That's what people call me and Kyle, fat and sassy.
He's fat and I'm sassy.
It's the morning zoo with fat and sassy.
If you're ashamed of Trump, Trump will be ashamed of you on the last days.
That's right.
Sorry, that's right.
Hey, Kyle.
Kyle's here.
Heard about your bladder, Kyle.
So sorry.
You got a snob on it.
I have a bladder the size of a juice glass, my college mates used to say.
Is that big?
Yeah, is that big?
Oh, I'm juice glass from my day.
I was born in the 30s.
The little glasses that you get, the little like child glasses.
Oh, the kids' glass, yeah.
Yeah, but I can hold it for a long time, but then if you break the seal, then it's like just every 15 minutes.