Happy New Ear everyone! Just in time for 2007, the first WikiMsting is done. Check it out below:

Thanks to for helping to write it. There’s some stuff I really like about it, and other things I don’t. But I think it came out pretty well for a first effort. Thanks to all who helped out (especially AgentQ, HanoverF, Matteus and Pumaman2.o).

You can help make the next one even better by going to the capper wiki now and helping us pick the next film to riff. Then check back after the seventh to help write riffs and join in the production. In fact, more than anything else what the project needs is at least one more person who can record lines for it.

The polling on our next serial is closed, and the results were as follows:

Dick Tracy 4
Zorro 3
Radar Men 2
Undersea Kingdom 2

Admittedly, that’s pretty close for a polling system that would make Diebold blush. That said, we’re still sticking with Dick. And just to change things up, I’m going to show them on Wednesdays at 6 PM eastern instead of Mondays. The first episode premieres on January 10th.

While I’ve only gotten grabs for one episode so far, it looks like it may supply some good capping moments, and the guys in suits running around syndrome manifests itself more mildly than I’d feared. It’s worst symptom is the fact that on wide shots it can be hard to tell if our hero is present. I will say that I’m pretty frustrated by the image quality to file size ratio on the archive files, publicdomaintorrents looks like a viable option though, but that’s my problem.

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The new year will start with the capping of the last episode of Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe, which means it’s almost time for me to start getting screengrabs from the next serial. It also means that since the last two episodes will be running on holidays, I’ll play them each on their regular spot on Monday at 6 PM AND Tuesday at 8 PM for those of you who’ll be celebrating/hungover on the 25th/1st. At any rate, I’m going to let you good folks vote on the next serial to get capped. Also, if anybody has any suggestions for a new time slot, I’m open to that too. Here then, the choices:
1. Radar Men From The Moon:

Pros:

• Some cappers may already be kind of familiar with it thanks to its presence on mst3k.
• Goofy looking moon men and cool looking jet packs.
• I’ve already got all 12 episodes grabbed, so I can sit back (though I’ll probably go ahead and redo some episodes and trim the chaff from the rest).
• Grabs coming from relatively decent prints.

Cons:

• The first nine episodes have been part of the last four Turkey Week marathons.
• Suffers from GISRAS (Guys In Suits Running Around Syndrome).

2. Dick Tracy (1937):

Pros:

• I haven’t watched this one, but I imagine it’s fewer goofy suits, if you don’t care for that sort of thing.
• It’s entirely new to Inventing Situations.
• Dick Tracy. It’s a funny name.
• Familiarity born of being on the funny pages for decades.

Cons:

• Looks like chapter two might be missing from the archive.
• Probably also suffers from GISRAS.
• Questionably print quality.

3. Undersea Kingdom

Pros:

• Unspeakably goofy.
• MST-borne familiarity.
• Only two episodes have appeared on IS so far.

Cons:

• Unspeakably goofy.
• Questionably print quality.

4. Zorro’s Fighting Legion

Ok, this one’s a total unknown for me. I just figured it probably doesn’t suffer from GISRAS as badly as some of the others, but apart from that, all I know is I can get the whole thing from the archive.
p.s. Wasn’t it sporting of me not to mention the drama over at that other capping site? Darn. Guess I just did. Ooops.

Phase Two of the msting project has begun over at the Capper Wiki. If you missed phase one, it’s a great time to join. If you did help out in phase one, first off - thanks, and second off, you should be sure to keep participating now by voting on the riffs to make sure yours make the final cut! In addition to needing people to mark off the riffs they think should be in the final film, we need folks to volunteer to record lines or add to the production in whatever ways they can think of, like maybe suggesting a title for the series. VOTE NOW.

Anyway, here’s the movie we’re riffing:

In my latest experiment to serve you’ve better, I’ve started adding pictures that I’ve taken myself into the capping stream. Right now it’s just a handful of images that will show up randomly during the “Stills from the Library of Congress and other sources” hour nightly at 7 PM eastern. I’m hoping these will add some variety and excitement into the mix, rather than just a jarring shock of modernity and bad photography. I’ll freely admit that I’m not the world’s greatest photographer and I’m also avoiding anything staged or that has an explicit joke of its own. It’s your job to actually find the humor in these shots. Right now it’s still only 2% of one hour a day, so you’ll still need a little luck to see them.

If you’ve got some photos of your own you’d like to add, contact me. My general criteria are that they should be (1) photos you actually took, (2) not staged, (3) already cropped so the area of interest will be legibile at 200×200 resolution, (4) avoid too many recognizable faces at said resolution.