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Update: RetroTV Will Air Episodes

A little teaser promo from RetroTV:

Thanks to @GlitchyParadox for the catch.

================================================================
Well, this came out of the blue:

Retro TV Adds Cult Classic Mystery Science Theater 3000

Chattanooga, Tenn. (March 25, 2014) – Luken Communications is proud to announce the long-awaited return of Mystery Science Theater 3000 to television on Retro TV.

A cult favorite since its inception in 1988 as a cable-access show, Mystery Science Theater 3000 follows a man (played first by series creator Joel Hodgson, then head writer Mike Nelson) forced by a mad scientist to watch the most terrible movies ever produced. To stay sane, he and his robot sidekicks (Tom Servo, voiced by Kevin Murphy and Crow T. Robot, voiced by Trace Beaulieu) provide a hilarious running commentary making fun of the film.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 ran for 11 years, spawned a feature film, won a Peabody Award, was nominated for two Emmy Awards (for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program), was nominated for a CableACE Award, and was recently named the #4 Best Cult TV Show Ever by Entertainment Weekly.

Matthew Golden, Luken’s Vice President of Production, said “We are absolutely thrilled to return Mystery Science Theater 3000 to the airwaves. With its marriage of sharp humor and vintage films, MST3k is tailor-made for Retro TV, and our audience will fall in love with it all over again.”

Mystery Science Theater 3000 will make its Retro TV debut in the “not-too-distant future”: Saturday, July 5th, 2014.

Luken Communications is a Chattanooga, TN-based broadcast group with networks including Retro TV, The Heartland Network, The Family Channel, PBJ, Frost Great Outdoors and TUFF TV. Luken Communications offers diverse, family-friendly programming on its networks reaching approximately 80 percent of all U.S. households via a blend of over-the-air, cable and satellite television. For more information about Retro TV, please visit www.WatchRetroTV.com or www.facebook.com/WatchRetroTV.

I spoke with Mr. Golden and he says they have the rights to 26 episodes:
103- The Mad Monster
105- The Corpse Vanishes
211- First Spaceship On Venus
320- The Unearthly
323- The Castle of Fu Manchu
402- The Giant Gila Monster
409- The Indestructible Man
412- Hercules And The Captive Women
419- The Rebel Set
424- Manos: The Hands of Fate
507- I Accuse My Parents
511- Gunslinger
517- Beginning of the End
518- The Atomic Brain
610- The Violent Years
616- Racket Girls
619- Red Zone Cuba
701- Night Of The Blood Beast
812- The Incredibly Strange Creatures…
820- Space Mutiny
821- Time Chasers
822- Overdrawn at the Memory Bank
908- The Touch of Satan
1002- Girl in Gold Boots
1003- Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders
1009- Hamlet

What is RetroTV? It’s one of those networks that sprang up after local TV affiliates were all required to go digital. It runs over-the-air on local affiliates’ digital sub-channels and low-power stations.
A list of their affiliates is here.

What a week, huh?

74 Replies to “Update: RetroTV Will Air Episodes”

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  1. Luther Heggs aka Number 6 says:

    This blows my mind. I feel like we are mentally forcing all this to come to a head as we create the universe WE want.

    Narcissistic and “magical thinking,” I know. But I can’t help but have that weird feeling, what with all the good news as of late.

       3 likes

  2. Cheapskate Crow says:

    Figures we lost our Retro TV station a couple of years ago here in Boise, I can’t believe Twin Falls (possibly the smallest television market in the entire country) will get it and I won’t in the big city. Of course I get MeTV, thisTV and a bunch of other networks I have never watched. ARGH!

       0 likes

  3. I’m glad everyone is excited! We’re thrilled to bring it back. We hope it’ll be extremely successful and we’ll be able to bring more and more episodes to everyone. If you don’t have Retro TV in your area, let your local stations (and cable providers) know you want it; it helps us out, too. :-)

       14 likes

  4. Wally Earl says:

    One of those “good news/bad news” situations. Great that it’s coming back to the airwaves, really sucks that no Twin Cities affiliate carries RetroTV. We have Antenna TV and MeTV, but no Retro. Somebody needs to talk to channel 4 and ask why they have no secondary channels like every other station does….

       1 likes

  5. FordPrefect says:

    Yes, I just noticed that Retro TV doesn’t have any affiliates in Minnesota. The closest is one on the edge of South Dakota. I hope they get a Minnesota affiliate sooner rather than later. It would be nice if we could convince WUCW to create a subchannel for it since they have a major historical connection to the series. (They used to be KTMA back in the day.)

       3 likes

  6. Geoff says:

    Most of the episodes you can find on YouTube, or some other video site, but at the same time, it does seem exciting in some way to see MST on television, which it hasn’t been for ten years.

       0 likes

  7. SAVE FERRIS says:




    WHAT ??? NEW episodes of MST3K on a channel I should be able to get ???


    WOW !!! That’s GREAT !!! I CAN’T BELIEVE IT, THIS IS SO COOL !!! I CAN HARDLY………………………..uh,what’s that you say?


    oh.


    They’re not NEW episodes, just rebroadcasts of the old episodes……………well, that’s cool too.


    What’s that you say? Here in Wisconsin, Wausau is the only place to see RetroTV, so I won’t be able to get it in the Milwaukee area?


    oh.


    Well……………………………..that just sucks now, doesn’t it ???? :poop:

       0 likes

  8. BIG61AL says:

    It’s great that the show will back “on air” even if the market it plays in looks like spit-take on the map of the USA. Why have these shows not been replayed anywhere until now? Surely some of the episodes are public domain. I did notice that all of the titles have been released on dvd.

       0 likes

  9. pondoscp says:

    I wonder which Blood Beast it will be, Turkey Day, Regular or Both? And how often will it air? Weekends or weeknights at midnight, like old school, and/or Saturday/Sunday morning airings? Wouldn’t it be crazy if they retrofitted the old promos and reused them? The possibilities….

       1 likes

  10. pondoscp says:

    @55, that would be pretty crazy, if what was once KTMA started showing MST3K again

       2 likes

  11. KidFlash25 says:

    @58: Part of the reason why the show went away instead of being rerun in perpetuity is because the rights for each of the movies would make it cost-prohibitive to a network looking to reair it. Since RetroTV is connected to a company that has the rights to a handful of movies that became episodes (per @45), being able to air those eps becomes much easier.

       4 likes

  12. Dr. Batch says:

    No affiliate where I live. Oh well, I have the DVD’s. But it’s still a special feeling seeing it on an actual TV channel.

       1 likes

  13. pondoscp says:

    Those of us without Retro TV will just have to synch up our dvd copies so we can all watch in unison. Then we can all live tweet while the episode is on

       3 likes

  14. GodzFire says:

    ‘SAVE FERRIS says:
    March 31, 2014 at 4:32 pm

    WHAT ??? NEW episodes of MST3K on a channel I should be able to get ??? WOW !!! That’s GREAT !!! I CAN’T BELIEVE IT, THIS IS SO COOL !!! I CAN HARDLY………………………..uh,what’s that you say?

    oh. They’re not NEW episodes, just rebroadcasts of the old episodes……………well, that’s cool too.

    What’s that you say? Here in Wisconsin, Wausau is the only place to see RetroTV, so I won’t be able to get it in the Milwaukee area? oh. Well……………………………..that just sucks now, doesn’t it ???? Poop’

    But guess who lives in Wausau? ;-)

       0 likes

  15. SAVE FERRIS says:



    But guess who lives in Wausau?


    Wink indeed, “GodzFire” !!!


    From one CheeseHead to another, here, enjoy a cold one on me !!! ===> :beer:


    :-))

       0 likes

  16. doug says:

    This may be the only time that El Paso is relevant to anything except making Manos. We get their stations in southern New Mexico and one of them offers Retro. Way to go, EP

       2 likes

  17. Philski says:

    Hopefully Retro will substitute “Off Beat cinema” with MST3K. I’ve become a MeTV junkie also. Cannon, in color!
    MeTV also airs Svengoolie on Saturday night. It’s listed as th movie title in TV listings and EPG’s. Joel even mentioned him at a CT show.

       1 likes

  18. Luther Heggs aka Number 6 says:

    While one of my televisions is unable to pick up the signal, I just verified my other one can.

    I’m in.

    July 5th never looked so good.

    The very first instance an episode provides the P O Box fan club address, I’m going to create (and send!) a snail mail letter in honor of the deja vu.

    Might draw a picture of a flaming Gamera with blue and orange crayons. Not sure.

       0 likes

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  20. Richard the Lion Footed says:

    So Cox Cable in Santa Barbra has it but Cox Cable in San Diego doesn’t???
    Why is St. Barbra so special but our saint, St. Diego discriminated against?
    This is one of the feminist things again, isn’t it?

       1 likes

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  24. yukichigai says:

    Part of me was hoping that they might be airing episodes that hadn’t seen a DVD release, but after thinking about it I realized the reason why certain episodes haven’t seen DVD release is the same reason why they wouldn’t be broadcast again either: rights issues. It would take a bizarre set of circumstances for episodes to be totally okay to be rebroadcast by some other channel, yet not okay for DVD release.

    Still, I may have to watch these when they’re on. At the very least it’s an easier way to introduce friends to MST3K.

       0 likes

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