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. Not to be confused with Me-TV and other similar services.
Since we announced this, there were some rights issues — dull surprise! — and the new lineup of episodes is:
103- The Mad Monster
105- The Corpse Vanishes
211- First Spaceship On Venus
301- Cave Swellers
303- Pod People
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
504- Secret Agent Super Dragon
506- Eegah!
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…
908- The Touch of Satan
1002- Girl in Gold Boots
1009- Hamlet
They have added: Cave Dwellers, Pod People, Secret Agent Super Dragon and Eegah!
Removed from the list are: Space Mutiny, Time Chasers, Overdrawn at the Memory Bank and Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders.
The schedule for the next two months:
July 5: The Mad Monster
July 12: The Corpse Vanishes
July 19: First Spaceship On Venus
July 26: The Unearthly
August 2: Cave Dwellers
August 9: Pod People
August 16: The Castle of Fu Manchu
August 23: The Giant Gila Monster
August 30: The Indestructible Man
Does Retro-TV have an affiliate in your area? Check here.
No affiliate in your area? Write/email all the TV stations in your area and ask them to add Retro-TV to their digital lineup.
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Ouch! “Overdrawn at the Memory Bank” and “Time Chasers” are two of the best.
Cave Swellers? Sounds painful…
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I HAVE RetroTV in my area but I can’t seem to get a clear signal. I’ll have to mess with my antenna, see if I can’t find it somewhere… this is too cool.
We know that Retro-TV plans to air the show Saturday nights at 8 PM Eastern. However, their site indicates that Saturday’s episode will be played again on Sunday afternoons. Does anyone know what time these Sunday afternoon encores will air?
I’m hoping they’ve removed “Overdrawn…” from the schedule ‘cuz The Criterion Collection bought the rights and are planning a special edition Blu-ray.
Looks like I’ll have to start pestering Cablevision again to add RetroTV to our channel lineup.
I just found out that we started getting Retro TV in my area. Huzzah! I am so glad I can watch MST on TV. I’m not sure what that matters, but it really does to me.
Okay, I’m confused and need help here.
I have DirecTV in HD and in my local stations I don’t see Retro-TV, but I know I have one broadcasting within range. I do see MeTV all the time though, and I was under the assumption that it was another OTA substation. So I’m having a hard time trying to figure out if I have OTA substations or if I need to get a tuner. Apparently some DirecTV HD receivers carry OTA tuners built in and I don’t know if I have one of them.
I’d like to have Retro-TV if I can figure this out. Not just for MST3K, but they’re also supposed to start playing classic Doctor Who soon and I’m looking forward to that as well.
Where are you located (you checked the list of affiliates)?
I found this information in a chat room – don’t know if it helps or not, and it’s a couple years old…
“MeTV, Antenna TV and Retro TV are not nationally registered TV stations, but affiliates from local networks that wish to carry them as a substation over the air.
To carry the substations on all local spot beams that have an affiliate, would cost enourmous amounts of capacity, anywhere from 1 to 3 on each spotbeam.
To carry them as a national network and be placed on a CONUS transponder, they would need to register with the FCC as a fully fledged TV station, and get a full license, which they currently not have (and/or willing to pay for).
In other words, the likelyness of this happening is slim. If they are OTA in your local area, your best bet would be to get the OTA add-on tuner for your DirecTV DVR, install an antenna under the roof (or on it), and run a cable to it. The DirecTV guide will have the OTA stations for your region with the OTA tuner, so you can then tune into local substations seemlessly, and record from them.
Cable TV can get these because they are LOCAL, they can pick up the LOCAL OTA feed, and distribute it accordingly. The same is true for U-Verse and FIOS and the like.
Remember: Their income will primarily depend on LOCAL commercials, and DirecTV doesn’t (can’t) broadcast different local commercials to national TV stations, unless they are on a specific spot beam. (And even then, a spot beam often carries multiple local areas, e.g the one for Los Angeles als carries the Palm Springs DMA, the San Diego DMA, the Santa Barbara DMA, and others…. it would become a real capacity cruncher if they needed to add MeTV for all DMA’s.
There really isn’t much DirecTV can do here…. not until the stations in question register themselves as a national network, get national advertisers instead of local ones, and they have already chosen a completely different licensing route.
And although old TV programs are indeed cool….. I don’t think the demand is high enough for them to become a national TV station and go head to head with stations like TVLand etc.”
OK. I was just informed that my joy of finding RetroTV on my cable system was premature because what I have is apparently not THE RetroTV that will be airing MST3K. It is a different RetroTV. Now how does that happen?
Yeah, I was reading up on the stuff about needing an OTA tuner, but I don’t really get how I could be picking up our local MeTV substation and not the Retro-TV one. Anyway, it’s a shame stations like these aren’t national because TVLand has been worthless in recent years.
Some station with the call letters “Soon” is carrying RetroTV here in the Tampa area.
I have RetroTV in my area, but the cable package I have doesn’t include it. I’d need a more expensive one that includes more channels. That sucks. I have MeTV, I wish THEY were showing these.
Retro TV was recently dropped in Boston. Nearest station is now in Maine. Is it worth a two hour drive for episodes I have on video? Most likely!
@ #3 – where did you see 8 PM EST? All I’m seeing is the mention of Saturday evenings with a Sunday afternoon encore. If it’s 8 PM on every affiliate, that could cause an issue for me, as our affiliate runs local programming from 7-9 PM. Doesn’t seem like the schedule for our WAOH TV-29 has been updated as of yet…
I had been guessing they were going to replace the 10 PM Saturday Off Beat Cinema airing, which in turn had replaced Wolfman Mac’s Chiller Drive-In (also at 10 PM) some time back. We’ve been getting Off Beat Cinema twice at week, Saturday and Sunday at 10 PM, since Wolfman Mac left. MST3K would fit naturally in that spot, I’d think.
It would be pretty cool if some new fans are made seeing the show for the first time between Bonanza and Lost In Space reruns, but I can watch any of these episodes whenever I please, so…
http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/554/189/b10.gif
I gotta say, running the available episodes in chronological order seems like a bad idea to me. Mad Monster is arguably the weakest episode of the first season, right up (Down?) there with Robot Vs Aztec Mummy. And I’m no Season One hater. I love a bunch of those episodes, but Mad Monster’s a honk-shoo. Plus, I think Mad Monster has probably the worst print of any film featured on MST3k. (Or maybe Slime People. Crawling Eye is pretty bad, too. They must’ve raised their visual standards after Season One.)
@13: That may be my problem as well. Odd. You’d think that OTA stations wouldn’t be suspect to only being included in more expensive packages since they’re local. :/
good thing Overdrawn was withdrawn, that could have hurt somebody!
RetroTV doesn’t exist anywhere in Massachusetts or Rhode Island. But I already own every episode either digitally or on DVD, so, y’know, who cares.
Granted, it would be kinda cool to just turn on the TV and have MST3K right there, back on the airwaves, but in all honesty I don’t really need to see the reruns that badly. Not badly enough to drive two states over, that’s for damn sure.
The more I think about it, the more I’m starting to understand why you folks seem excited about this. Like so many hardcore MSTies, I have every episode at my fingertips in one form or another, but it’s only just occurred to me that I’ve NEVER actually seen MST3k broadcast over the air in my own home. During the SciFi years I often watched the show at a friend’s house (Saturdays at 11 PM if my increasingly unreliable memory serves), or got new episodes from him recorded on VHS. (SP, first generation please.)
And when the show was on Comedy Central I was only vaguely aware of its existence. Heck, the existence of a 24-hour, all-comedy cable channel was barely more than a rumor when “fine-tuning the TV reception” meant tossing a Nerf football at the antenna on the roof.
So I guess what I’m saying is that it’s kinda neat that MST3k is back on TV again, but it’s sort of like hearing that your favorite band just re-released a classic album on Edison cylinder.
I’m glad they get to see Cave Dwellers and Pod People. I have an official Pod People VHS (yes) I got off the MST3K website and I watch it once in a while. Wouldn’t mind see the MST3K Eegah! either. I can see why people are so excited. It just brings back memories of just sitting down and watching MST3K on Saturdays and just enjoy it. Basically, Saturdays (during the Joel years when I usually wasn’t doing anything) would be MST3k, Star Trek: The Next Generation, COPS (I think), Headbangers Ball, and/ or Saturday Night Live. Man, I wished I’d taped Saturday Night Live back then. I’d have quit the collection, now. I wish they would get that show on Retro-TV and just show the good seasons, say the 87-94 seasons. It would go great with this MST3K revival.
I’m to lazy to get more MST3K right now. I wish I had this channel just watch something. All you see on the weekends are ‘news’ shows about convicts and murders, but enough about CSPAN. It’s great that it’s back on the air.
MST3K not airing in WI just seems wrong :)
Like many I also have every DVD out there. Still if I had Retro TV and I was home, you bet I’d have it on. There’s just something nice about watching it that way. I can’t describe the joy I had streaming last year’s Turkey Day marathon, especially as I sat there at the end when Crow and Tom sat down with Joel for Thanksgiving dinner. I actually choked up.
7.2 in Little Rock.
The nearest towns to get RetroTv is Wichita and Joplin. More then three hours away. And I dont like either town enough to day trip there for my favorite cow town puppet show.
To bad cable isnt a la carte.
Someday. Otherwise TimeWarner and Comcast will wake up one morning and discover that every individual in America has cancelled their subscription. Cut the cord, America! All the cool kids are doing it. It just feels so good.
@10:
Likewise. I was excited to discover that I had Retro TV, only to determine a couple days ago I actually have RetroPlex, a TV channel that uses RETRO as a code but only broadcasts classic movies. They are ultimately two different channels. *sigh*
This Boston gal, like many others on this thread, will go without syndicated MST3K it seems! :cry:
Just a note for DirecTV people, their OTA database is spotty at best. They don’t update it very often so the scenario can happen where you could have an OTA receiver in your DVR, have a good signal for the Retro TV station in your area, and it still might not show up in your program guide if DirecTV hasn’t felt like updating their guide for your area.
We used to have RetroTV in Tampa, but they replaced it with MeTV.
I love Cave Swellers!!! Cave Dwellers is my favorite Mst3k!!! I look forward to seeing The Atomic Brain again!!!
Preparation H cleared my Cave Swellers right up.
I could SWEAR that when we first talked about this a few months ago that there was an affiliate in San Francisco and now there isn’t. Was I just imagining it? I mean I know I could watch these whenever I want but just would be cool to watch it “on TV” for nostalgia sake…
@12 If memory serves, WFLA actually carried Retro-TV up until a year or so ago, but then swapped it out with another service. No idea if another station down here will pick it up anytime soon. :(
Wow, somebody actually WANTS to protect their right to broadcast Overdrawn at the Memory Bank. That’s chilling…. :-)
@3 – Encores at 5:00pm Sundays on most stations.
There aren’t any Retro-TV affiliates in my area. Poopie. :(
Sent an email to my cable provider. Actually got a response.
“Brandon,
Until recently, KIRO was carrying Retro TV through their networks and we were rebroadcasting it in our Sports & Family, and Click! ON Digital packages. KIRO switched this broadcast to getTV a few months ago, and we lost our feed of Retro TV because of this. We are considering adding Retro TV directly, but do not have a contract signed yet, or an announcement to make at this time.
Sincerely,
Click! Customer Care”
Looks like I should hit up Kiro (the CBS affiliate in my area)
I just assumed I had it as well, because there is a ‘Retro’ station on my Comcast cable, then realized it was a different Retro, but THEN checked the affiliates link above & realized I do have it after all, but it’s listed as a WHTM (local?) station. I’ll definitely be watching, on Sundays at 5:00, most likely.
I think the wonderful thing about this is that it gives younger people, or anyone who somehow hasn’t been exposed to the show for that matter, the chance to just stumble onto it out of the blue and become a fan, the way I did.
No no no. Cave Swellers is the parody porn remake of Ator l’invincibile 2.
I found out that while WBNA is showing MST3K Saturday nights at 8 PM, they were planning to air local programming on Sunday afternoons instead of the encore. I wrote them a polite message asking them to consider showing Retro’s encore feed on tape delay in a different two hour time slot that wasn’t doing well ratings wise. To my surprise I got a rather quick reply from the general manager saying that he liked the show too and he’d see what they could do. :)
Does anyone know if episodes will be trimmed for ads or syndication?
Pretty much all of the public domain films they featured. Fingers crossed for the BLOODLUST episode.
Okay, looks like Northeast Ohio’s RetroTV affiliate (WAOH TV-29 in Akron, WAX TV-35 in Cleveland – channel 11 via Time Warner digital cable here in Akron) probably won’t be showing the Saturday night broadcast. At least not the COMPLETE broadcast. Y’see, Son of Ghoul airs locally Saturdays from 7-9 PM. BUT, they usually don’t preempt whatever is on at 9 PM with local programming, so we may get to catch the last hour before Off Beat Cinema comes on at 10 PM. Not ideal, of course, but SOG followed by ANY amount of MST3K would still be a fine Saturday evening for me!
I don’t know how the Sunday encores will work. From previous experience, they’re either going to run MST3K, or infomercials. We have a local car show called Handy Randy that airs on Sundays, but I don’t think that’s on till 8 PM.
I think I’ll try to track down a phone number and give them a call, maybe tomorrow.
In my area Retro Tv is listed as WFMZ RTV Ch 480 (Verizon cable). The Saturday time slot at 8pm is currently just listed as MOVIE. On a side note, starting at 10pm they are apparently showing the non mst3k versions of The Violent Years and Teenage Caveman.
The cable companies and direct tv are screwing up everything. It’s a miasma of crap that is overly controlled by legalese “rights” and never ending lawsuits and threats. The winners are the attorneys and big faceless corporations who don’t care WHAT you want individually. They are going to over-lowest-common-denominator you to death.
Answer:
Pirate TV.
I’m setting up a floating dummy buoy server in international waters and broadcasting all episodes via satellite piggy back on the NSA spine.
The NSA thought they were tapping MY system.
bwaaaaaaaahahahahahaha
So many mirror sites, so many wifi hosts infiltrated…
MST3K … 24 7…..
bwaaaaaaaahahahahahaha
(cough cough cough)
I mean, (panting) count on it.
Someone must have noticed that The Unearthly was going to premiere out of sequence before Cave Dwellers and Pod People. The schedule now appears to have been updated accordingly.
July 5: The Mad Monster
July 12: The Corpse Vanishes
July 19: First Spaceship On Venus
July 26: Cave Dwellers
August 2: Pod People
August 9: The Unearthly
August 16: The Castle of Fu Manchu
August 23: The Giant Gila Monster
August 30: The Indestructible Man
http://www.myretrotv.com/mystery-science-theater-3000.html
Watching now!
Was cool to see the RIFFTRAX commercial for SHARKNADO!
I was right: Northeast Ohioans can catch the last hour of the Saturday night airings following Son of Ghoul. Even better though is that they are indeed running the Sunday encores! It’s on right now! Cool winnins! Fingers crossed the ratings are good enough that they don’t replace the Sunday afternoon airings with infomercials at some point.
Does anyone who has Comcast in South Jersey/Philly area know if we get RETRO-TV? The map in the link doesn’t give a Comcast channel. :cry: