When I re-watched the very first episode of MST3k, I had a similar sensation to when I watched the first ever episode of Dr. Who after having seen all the new series to date: I was impressed by just how much of the product as it exists today was already in place from the very beginning. The bot and set designs are pretty much as they would remain for the rest of the series, the bookend premise didn't change until it had to, and it was pretty clear Joel had some things in mind that hadn't been quite ready in time for shooting the first episode -- I couldn't help but notice Joel slapping the desk where the lighted indicators would eventually be at movie sign. Obviously not everything remained this way; Dr. Ehrhardt is an artifact, as J. Elvis Weinstein was replaced by Frank Conniff before the overwhelming majority of MSTies (including yours truly) would even discover the show, and the relationship between Forrester and Ehrhardt is vastly different from that between Forrester and TV's Frank. The RAM chips were eventually faded out, and the character of Gypsy was clearly still a work in progress.
The movie segments are similar; it's like a George Clooney fan accidentally watching some old Facts of Life episodes. You can see everything you love about the thing you know today; his charming smile, those dreamy eyes, but it just doesn't feel the same. Um, I imagine. First, The Crawling Eye isn't really a bad movie; it's just low-budget. It's a British suspense film with an alien payoff, and up until the monster shows up to underwhelm modern audiences spoiled by Stan Winston and photorealistic CGI, there's an actual mystery that's a little bit tense, not that that prohibits it being good riffing fodder.
Which brings me to the riffing. This was the first national foray into broadcast movie riffing; before that, if you've never watched a KTMA episode, trust me when I say it feels like a cable access show -- in large part because the movie segments were unscripted. If KTMA was cave paintings, then The Crawling Eye is the beginning of the Industrial Age. This was the first time they'd actually written riffs, and you can tell, because when Forrest Tucker's name comes up in the credits, Joel says "Forrest Tucker; he was on F-Troop." That's not even a "state park*" joke. There are some good, very funny riffs in there ("Dibs! Everything in my lap, I get to keep!"), but for some reason "Forrest Tucker" makes me think "he's the guy who goes around making sure trees' shirts aren't sticking out of their pants." Anyone got a source for that, or did I just make it up?
Essentially, The Crawling Eye would have been brilliant if you'd seen it before any other MST3k (and were predisposed to enjoy it), but as it's the first of ten years worth of series and it predates what TVTropes.org calls "growing the beard" by about two years, it now probably has less entertainment value than it does historical. This is essentially a perfectly preserved archaeological sample. Every so often you might enjoy it the way it was intended, but it's probably more important to have than to watch. For entertainment value, though, I'd recommend watching the first episode of MST3k before suggesting you go see Rocky Horror Picture Show -- the primordial form of movie riffing, and these days it's really just a shell of what it once was. Seriously; RHPSies (that's what they call themsleves, right?) can't do half the naughty stuff they could in the '70s.
* I forget where I read it -- the ACEG, I think -- but a state park joke is a term coined by BBI, and it refers to a riffer just saying what something looks like. "It looks like a state park!" for example. Funny, because you're not supposed to be drawing that link, but it's the easiest link to draw and is nothing more than a simple observation of a similarity.
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