Netflix has released the trailer for season two of Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Gauntlet, which will be streaming later this month, along with all six titles Jonah and his plucky robot sidekicks will be subjected to this time around. Among the films are Atlantic Rim (2013), Lords of the Deep (1989), The Day Time Ended (1979), Killer Fish (1787), Ator, the Fighting Eagle (1982), and, last but not least, the 1988 science fiction masterpiece, Mac and Me.
Mac and Me followed on the heels of Disney’s popular Flight of the Navigator (1986) and is about a disabled boy named Eric Cruise who befriends an alien named MAC (short for “Mysterious Alien Creature”) after it escapes from NASA. While it may have been a commercial flop (grossing $6.4 million at the domestic box office on a $13 million budget), Mac and Me has since gained cult status as one of the “worst movies ever made.”
This is in no small part thanks to Paul Rudd, who has been trolling Conan O’Brien with a running gag using a clip from the movie, for over a decade, in which Eric loses control on his wheelchair and goes barreling down a cliff into a lake. The setup is that instead of rolling a clip of whatever film he’s promoting, Rudd instead plays the scene from Mac and Me. It’s basically art.
In a 2016 interview with Chris Evans promoting Captain America, Rudd explained that he and he brother “legitimately” loved the movie growing up. If anyone can do the movie justice, it’ll be the MST3K crew.
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Gauntlet streams on Netflix November 22.
