The sloppy joe experiment

A story of how my favorite TV show prompted a culinary addition

One of my favorite, perhaps my all-time favorite, episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 is based on the tedious, near-plotless Air Force drama “The Starfighters.” The movie stars future Congressman Bob Dornan as he learns to fly a specific model of fighter jet, the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, while romancing a corn-fed Iowa girl and resisting his father’s pleas that he seek transfer into a bomber unit. The movie is bad in ways that enable the riffers (Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy…