Joel Hodgson, Creator of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Announces Kickstarter to #BringBackMST3K For a New Generation
For more than 25 years, the award-winning comedy television series Mystery Science Theater 3000 has been known as one of the best cult TV shows in history. The story of a human host and his robot sidekicks, trapped aboard a satellite and forced to watch cheesy movies by his captor, MST3K has maintained its reputation thanks largely to its fervently devoted fan base, known as MSTies. This morning, Joel Hodgson, creator and former host of the beloved show, announced that he is turning to the fans to bring back Mystery Science Theater 3000 for a new generation.
“I don’t think there’s ever been a show more dependent on its fans than Mystery Science Theater 3000,” Hodgson says. “Twenty-five years ago, we asked our fans to ‘Keep Circulating The Tapes’ and sharing MST3K with their friends and family to help the show find its audience. Now, I’m hoping the fans will join me again to “Keep Circulating the URL” of our Kickstarter, so that we can bring MST3K back to life for a new generation.”
Through Kickstarter, Hodgson hopes to raise at least $2 million – enough to make three brand new, feature length episodes – with an ultimate goal of raising the $5.5. million needed to make a full season of twelve episodes. While Hodgson will be involved in writing and all facets of production of the new series, the new episodes will feature a new host, new Mads and of course, new cheesy movies to riff.
To contribute to the campaign and for updates, visit www.bringbackmst3k.com, and follow MST3K on Facebook (facebook.com/MST3K), Twitter (@MST3K) and Instagram (@MST3K).
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The Reboot Moves Forward. Step One: Crowdfunding.Here’s the press release:
332 Replies to “The Reboot Moves Forward. Step One: Crowdfunding.”Commenting at Satellite News
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In for $225.
If I could put a “Shut Up and Take My Money” meme from Futurama in this comment, I would. :laugh:
Woo-hoo!
That is all.
Any idea who voiced the bots in the campaign video and who that guy was in the seats? Are they indicative of the new cast? Crow sounded fine, Tom will take some getting used to, I’m iffy on the human.
Jim Henson’s Kickstarter Babies
This has put me in such a good mood that I’ll be doing a Volume 34 giveaway as part of a Mystery Theme Contest next week on my twitter: @NameThatMST3K
RonPaulItsHappening.gif
> Tom will take some getting used to
I HATE TOM SERVO’S NEW VOICE!
Wait, is this reboot happening in the original timeline or the one created by Nero’s incursion into the past killing Kirk’s daddy?
I swear that is Matt Mira as Crow and Jonah Ray as the human. Who’s Tom?
Big doings, man!!! Glad tidings! Relieved to hear that the Crow & Servo characters will remain …yeah, new people doing the voices will perhaps be a tad odd, take a little getting used to, but at least it won’t be completely new robot pals …doubt that would’ve panned out well had they decided to go that direction, and completely ditched Crow and Tom.
I still think the streaming model would make the most sense, to pitch new episodes to a Netflix or Hulu, but perhaps Joel soured on that route based on his experience with Other Space on Yahoo Screen.
That is an excellent show, but good luck finding it. The app it self has become a big, expensive boondoggle for Yahoo, and Joel probably just doesn’t want to deal with the money men again. Also, crowd sourcing appeals to his futurist sensibilities.
Jonah Ray just backed the campaign a few minutes ago, so looks like the host may be him.
Please link to the actual Kickstarter
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mst3k/bringbackmst3k
This is excellent news! There are a couple of questions, though: Is three episodes for $2 million ($666,666 per episode… Timmy and Pitch must be the producers!) or twelve episodes for $5.5 million ($458,333 per episode) considered a standard per-episode cost for an online-exclusive show? Certainly, obtaining movie rights is a huge chunk of the expense, but it’s hard to imagine MST3k costing THAT much to produce per episode. Of course, if their goal is the catch the eye of, say, a major network or Netflix, they would want to invest a lot into these first episodes by upping the production quality and obtaining top talent. However, MST3k traditionally has a very small cast and crew that pull double-duty in acting, writing, directing, and producing, which saves on your overall costs. Does anyone have any knowledge of previous production costs for MST3k?
Additionally, even though it may be reading into something that’s not there, it feels as though Joel took a few not-so-subtle stabs at Jim Mallon and the rights issues:
Granted, Jim is listed as the CEO of the newly-christened “Consolidated Puppets Incorporated”, but it’s somewhat clear who the “eccentric old heiress” is in Joel’s story.
Aside from the questions, this project seems really promising, and let’s hope that $5.5 million is reached!
I know I’m probably in the severe minority, but no. Just no. Let it go.It was beautiful and special, and a product of it’s time. It has two children, one of which is still going strong. We can still enjoy it and it’s humor is broad enough to allow new generations to still enjoy it. Re-animiating it will just cause disappointment.
It sure seems like Jim has been bought out or just surrendered his controlling interest to Joel. The “official” site MST3K.Com site now defaults directly to the Kickstarter page.
I’m ok with bringing in some new talent, but if this reboot means somehow “getting the band back together” to some degree, then let’s do this thing!
I sure hope this isn’t an actual *reboot*. I’d like to hope for appearances by the classic cast as well as the new guys…
A command+F of the Kickstarter page brought up zero results for “reboot” and several results for “new” and “new season”. So it looks like the notion of this being a reboot is not in Joel’s mind. It’s a new season.
Woah.
Very curious to know how they were able to wrestle the rights to MST3k back from Mallon.
I kinda hate Jonah Ray but that won’t stop me from backing this. I like Rifftrax but I want puppets and silhouettes, dammit!
I don’t mind the idea of new actors – but I’d hope that at least some of the original cast would return as writers. (Probably not Mike/Kevin/Paul but maybe some of the others that were involved in CT.) I would be more worried about the concept if we haven’t seen that both CT and Rifftrax can do VERY funny stuff.
Basically in short – I’m in.
BTW – I break it down as
$900,000 to get things started and then
$367,000 to produce each individual episode (1 through 12).
This doesn’t seem like an outrageous sum of money when you break it down like that.
And also, at $100 per pledge average – they need only 20,000 pledges to get the minimum. Hard to believe there aren’t that many MST3K fans out there willing to pony up for new episodes.
No worries. As Joel states in the ew.com interview that we linked to:
Oh – and I’ve been saying this for a while – JOEL should be the “mad” running the experiment. Just think about it.
Yes. This. I would love this. A bit like when Tom Baker suggested he come back and play the Master on Doctor Who.
Well, one thing I’ll say: This news gives me about a dozen new Weekend Discussion Thread ideas…
http://www.bringbackmst3k.com is the campaign URL, and it’s the url that the campaign requests you circulate. It’s one that can be kept in use once the campaign is over.
I’m totally behind this project…but I’m not a fan of this option:
“If we can raise even more than that, I’d love to shoot some (or all) of the new season LIVE in front of an audience”
I’d prefer the show be shot in a studio as before. Live events similar to how Rifftrax does it would be welcome, but the seasonal episodes should be recorded behind closed doors, in my opinion.
I quite agree.
In for $300.
This show is why I moved to Minnesota.
It’s my thanks to Joel for countless hours of entertainment.
They’re almost 10% there already! :-))
you’re hardly alone. i posted on reddit that i wasn’t for it, and got many people agreeing with me. (maybe some people saw me? i’m /u/imuglywhenimpeein)
“Finally, if we raise $1 BILLION – stay with me on this one – we’re going to adopt a real live teenage boy and “Truman Show” him into believing he is the Pumaman!”
Somewhere on the Internet, some jackass is gonna take that seriously…..
In a relaunch, I’d hoped for the majority of characters to be from the CC & SciFi-era, and am not fond of the new voices (was hoping for Kevin & Trace). Since they were all in the same room at the Comiccon reunion, and the original MST3K was what these folks will be most remembered for, it didn’t seem 100% out of the question w/ some new blood added. But this project is going to proceed as is. The fact that it doesn’t fully represent my “dream” return for MST3K won’t alter their course.
So I’ll trust those involved with this project as they’ve been so funny all these goddamn years.
That reminds me of that time when Pepsi was selling things for points found on the caps of their products.
The commercial had a fighter jet as one of the (joke) prizes, however one person took it seriously, saved up the points and tried to get a fighter jet out of Pepsico.
But, knowing the internet, that’s just an isolated incident. ;)
I have to admit I’m a little pessimistic how this will actually turn out, but let’s give Joel the benefit of the doubt. At very worst, it’s not really successful, and we’re still left with the great episodes we have already.
The up-front cost breakdown does make a bit more sense. Also, since the show will apparently be shot in Los Angeles, that automatically increases your production costs by a ton versus shooting in your own little studio in Minnesota.
Plus, Kickstarter takes a 5% cut, and 3% more for the transaction fees. Also, It’s been over 15 years since the last episode of MST3K was produced. Everything is more expensive these days.
So the vibe I’m getting is something like what I think Elvira’s been doing lately with direct to DVD releases. I can get behind that. If this doesn’t lead to a new series, it’ll be fun regardless. And with Joel behind it, I think we can trust it’ll be successful at least as far as the Kickstarter goals are involved.
I’m not sure if I’ll be participating in the AMA later or not, but can someone try to find out who our new talents would be and what movies they’re potentially looking at doing? My guess is it’ll all be PD movies, but I’d like to know what they have in mind.
He’s got my money. I’m excited to see what’s up his sleeve. The production costs make me nervous only because MST3k shouldn’t look too slick IMO. I know getting nicer equipment is a real boost to a show, but it’s one of the reasons the SciFi era looks too different. Still, HD MST3k will be nice.
And the Peanuts Movie, oddly, offers me hope for this. The CGI, Fox…everything seemed to scream disaster. But it wasn’t. They kept Charlie Brown to being Charlie Brown. So long as Joel keeps close to the soul of MST3k, everything else will fall into place. Just need a little faith is all.
And we just crossed the first quarter of a million!! Just need to do that seven more times!
I share the reservations of @16 The Guy Bringing the Room Down and @31 Tormented. I’m sure they will have no problem funding their kickstarter so I will hold out and reserve judgment until I see some finished material. I think the success of this will really depend on who the on air talent is and we don’t know that yet. They have some huge shoes to fill.
oh yeah i agree. i’m not turning down new mst3k if it’s good. just… can’t help but be pessimistic. it’s my favorite show of all time… not totally bizarre that i have reservations about a reboot that’s coming 16 years later!
I’m a bit confused by the experiment numbering. The campaign says experiment 1001 will be the premiere, but didn’t season 10 already use this numbering? Shouldn’t the new episodes be 1101 and beyond?
I just don’t know. I’m pro in theory, but I’m skeptical that it will be the same. Joel is great and all but he didn’t make MST3K alone and without the involvement of the other people who made the original special I think this is going to wind up being a disappointment. That being said I’ve been wrong before and hope I’m wrong now.
Two million dollars. One for Joel, one for Jim. Because there’s a lot of little old ladies out there. Not that I’m implying that he’ll skip to Rio with a Swedish model once he’s got the funds. At the time I write this, they’re up to 13%.
In a loosely related development, the Kickstarter for Celluloid Wizards in the Video Wasteland has less than three days to go and is a little under $4500 shy of its goal.
Yeah, I totally understand your reservations and I’d probably be right there with you except for one thing. It looks like Joel has total creative control over this. He’s the only person in the world I’d trust with making new MST3K episodes.
Those numbers are just the backer rewards names, and they relate to the price of the reward. Cute but also confusing.
I think I would be more hesitant about this if it was the old cast than a new one. To have it be a new cast I think will make it different enough that I wont compare it to “the old days”. I think I trust Joel to make it something really good. Now please just take all of my money Joel… :)
Susan Hart, right?