Because it’s Mary Jo Monday here on the CT blog, and I get to tell all about the USA Film Festival in Dallas over the past weekend.

And let me just say this about that: it was grrrrrrrrrreat! We had such a wonderful time with everyone, and we thank you!

We did the MST3K panel on Saturday afternoon at the lovely Angelika Film Center. Kevin Murphy couldn’t make it because he was sick, so that was disappointing. The folks at the film festival put together a terrific clip reel, and it brought back a lot of memories – and made for a lot of laughs. Alonso Duralde moderated the panel and asked a lot of splendid questions, which got us all going.

Then folks in the audience asked us a lot of questions. We couldn’t get to a lot of people because of time constraints. Not only that, in the glare of the lights we just plain couldn’t see who was raising their hands. Husband RAD noticed a guy next to him who had his hand raised for some time but never got called on. He asked the fellow what his question was, and then told me. I thought it was a wonderful question and I’ll put it to all of you. Thanks to Brian, wherever you are.

Question: who would win in a fight among all the MST3K writers/performers?

What do you all think? I’ll tell ya what I think next week.

After the MST3K panel, Cinematic Titanic did a live show riffing on the Roger Corman classic Wasp Woman. We’d worked on this movie writing jokes individually, then rehearsed during the day before the show, but nothing beats seeing it on the big screen the way nature intended and trying the jokes in front of a live audience. We sat in the very front row with our scripts and microphones, and the energy of the theater was contagious. It was a total gas to look to my right and watch as Joel made a joke; then look to my left and watch Trace assume a certain facial expression to deliver a gag. My colleagues make me laugh a lot - sometimes I was laughing so hard I lost my place in the script. Thank you all for making it so much fun. We can’t wait to bring you more.