Mystery Science Theater 3000 | Wikipedia audio article
Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) is an
American television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Alternaversal
Productions, LLC. The show premiered on KTMA (now WUCW) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in November
24, 1988. It later aired on The Comedy Channel/Comedy Central for seven seasons until its cancellation
in 1996. Thereafter, it was picked up by The Sci-Fi Channel and aired for three seasons
until another cancellation in August 1999. A 60-episode syndication package titled The
Mystery Science Theater Hour was produced in 1995. In 2015, Hodgson led a crowdfunded
revival of the series with 14 episodes in its eleventh season, first released on Netflix
on April 14, 2017, with another six-episode season following on November 22, 2018. To
date, 217 episodes and a feature film have been produced.
The show initially starred Hodgson as Joel Robinson, a janitor trapped against his will
by two mad scientists on the Satellite of Love and forced to watch a series of B movies
as a part of the scientists’ plot to take over the world.
To keep his sanity, Joel crafts
several robot companions—including Tom Servo, Crow T. Robot, and Gypsy—to keep
him company and help him humorously comment on each movie as it plays, a process known
as riffing. Each two-hour episode would feature a single movie in its entirety, sometimes
with various shorts and educational films, with Joel, Tom, and Crow watching in silhouette
from a row of theater seats at the bottom of the screen. These scenes were framed with
interstitial sketches. The show’s cast changed over its duration; most notably, the character
of Joel was replaced by Mike Nelson (played by Michael J. Nelson) in the show’s fifth
season. Other cast members, most of whom were also writers for the show, include Trace Beaulieu,
Josh Weinstein, Jim Mallon, Kevin Murphy, Frank Conniff, Mary Jo Pehl, Bill Corbett,
Paul Chaplin, and Bridget Jones Nelson. The revival features a primarily new cast, including
Jonah Ray as the new human test subject, Jonah Heston, along with Felicia Day and Patton
Oswalt as the mads and Baron Vaughn, Hampton Yount, and Rebecca Hanson as the bots.
MST3K’s original run did not garner high viewership numbers, but the show’s popularity spread
through word-of-mouth over the Internet from its fans known as MSTies (or “Mysteries”), frequent
repeats and syndication, and home media offerings produced by Rhino Entertainment and currently
Shout! Factory, who along with Hodgson now own the rights to the show and supported the
revived series.
MST3K was listed as one of Time magazine’s “100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME”
in 2007, and TV Guide has noted MST3K as one of the top cult television shows. The show
won a Peabody Award in 1993, was also nominated for two Emmy Awards in 1994 and 1995, and
for the CableACE Award from 1992 to 1997. The show was considered highly influential,
contributing towards the practice of social television, and former cast members launched
similar projects based on the riffing of films, including The Film Crew, RiffTrax (ongoing
as of 2018), and Cinematic Titanic. MST3K also brought to light several older movies
that had fallen into obscurity or had received little or no public attention when originally
released. Many of these films were subsequently identified as among the worst movies ever
made, most notably Manos: The Hands of Fate. == Premise == While the cast of MST3K has changed throughout
its history, the premise of the show remains relatively unchanged: a human test subject—first
Joel Robinson (Joel Hodgson), then Mike Nelson (Michael J.
Nelson), and most recently Jonah
Heston (Jonah Ray)—has been imprisoned aboard the spacecraft Satellite of Love by mad scientists
and their henchmen (collectively called “the Mads”) and are forced to watch a series of
bad movies to find one that will drive the test subject insane.
To keep his sanity, Joel built himself a series of sentient robots (the “‘bots”) from parts
aboard the Satellite, and who subsequently remain aboard with the other test subjects.
The ‘bots include Tom Servo, Crow T. Robot, Gypsy (who is in charge of running the satellite’s
operations) and Cambot, the silent recorder of the experiments.
Crow and Servo join the
human as they watch the film in the Satellite’s theater, and to keep from going mad, the trio
frequently comment and wisecrack atop it, a process known as “riffing”. At regular intervals
throughout the movie, the hosts leave the theater and return to the bridge of the Satellite
to perform sketches (“host segments”) that satirize the film being watched. == Format ==
The general format of an MST3K episode has remained the same throughout the series run.
Episodes are approximately 90 minutes in running time (excluding commercial breaks) and begin
with a short introductory segment in which the human host and the ‘bots interact with
the Mads before being sent the movie.
During Joel Hodgson and Jonah Ray’s tenures as hosts
(and for a brief period at the start of the Mike Nelson era), the hosts and the Mads engage
in an “invention exchange” in which they each show off their latest inventions. Sirens and
flashing lights (“Movie Sign”) then signal the characters to enter the theater. In the theater, the human host and ‘bots’
Tom and Crow sit in a row of theater seats, shown in silhouette along the bottom of the
screen, an approach Hodgson called “Shadowrama.” The three then riff on the film (which is
sometimes accompanied by one or more shorts) as it plays for both them and the audience.
Occasionally the silhouette format is used as a source of humor or as a means of creating
unobtrusive censor bars for scenes containing nudity.
The show transitions into and out
of the theater via a “door sequence”, a series of six doors that open or close as the camera
(ostensibly Cambot) passes through them. At regular intervals throughout the episode,
the characters leave the theater and perform sketches usually inspired by the events of
the film/short being shown, frequently making use of original songs and prop comedy. Some
sketches bring in new or recurring characters or other devices; the host would consult an
external camera “Rocket Number Nine” to show events happening outside the Satellite, and
the “Hetfield Viewscreen” would be used to communicate with other characters from the
ship’s bridge. At the end of each sketch, “Movie Sign” is triggered again and the characters
must re-enter the theater. During Hodgson’s period on the show, the final
sketch aboard the Satellite often included the reading fan mail from the “MST3K Fan Club.”
Fan mail readings decreased during Mike Nelson’s tenure as host and were dropped entirely once
the show moved onto the Sci-Fi Channel.
The final sketch of an episode typically ends
on the Mads, with the lead Mad asking their lackey to “push the button” to end the transmission
and transition to the credit sequence. After the credits, a humorous short clip from
the presented film is replayed as a “stinger” to end the episode.
In 1995, a limited selection of episodes was repackaged into an hour-long show titled Mystery
Science Theater Hour is meant to be better suited for off-network syndication. In these, the
original episode was split into two parts of roughly 45 minutes each excluding commercials.
New skits leading and ending each episode incorporated Mike Nelson portraying television
host Jack Perkins in a parody of Perkins’ Biography series in mock flattery of the MST3K
the episode being shown.
== Production history == === Concept ===
Hodgson is credited for devising the show’s concept. Before the show, Hodgson was an
up-and-coming comedian from Minneapolis having moved to Los Angeles and made appearances
on Late Night with David Letterman and Saturday Night Live. He had been invited by Brandon
Tartikoff to be on an NBC sitcom co-starring Michael J. Fox, but Hodgson felt the material
was not funny and declined (the proposed sitcom went unrealized). He further became dissatisfied
with the Hollywood attitudes when they tried to double their offer, acquiring what he called
a “healthy disrespect” for the industry. He moved back to Minneapolis-St. Paul took
a job in a T-shirt printing factory that allowed him to conceive new comedy ideas while
he was bored. One such idea was the basis of MST3K, a show to comment humorously on
movies, and that would also allow him to showcase his prop comedy-style humor.
Hodgson called
these jokes as “riffs”, based both on the idea of musical riffs as well as the idea
of comedy riffs, a term he attributes to The Simpsons’ writer Dana Gould. In terms of
movie selection, Hodgson had recalled that his college roommate had a copy of The Golden
Turkey Awards, and he had previously wondered why no one had made any program about these
“adorable, weird movies” are listed within it.
Hodgson said that part of the idea for MST3K
came from the illustration for the song “I’ve Seen That Movie Too” (drawn by Mike Ross)
in the liner notes from Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album, showing silhouettes
of two people in a theater watching a movie. Hodgson also likened the show’s setting to
the idea of a pirate radio station broadcasting from space. Hodgson credits Silent Running,
a 1972 science-fiction film directed by Douglas Trumbull, as being perhaps the biggest direct
influence on the show’s concept. The film is set in the future and centers on a human,
Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern), is the last crew member of a spaceship containing Earth’s
last surviving forests.
His remaining companions consist only of three robot drones. MST3K
and the Joel Robinson character occasionally reflected Lowell’s hippie-like nature. Hodgson
wanted the feel of the show to appear homemade and cited the example of a crude mountain
prop used during the Saturday Night Live sketch “Night on Freak Mountain” which received a
humorous reaction from the studio audience as the type of aesthetic he wanted for the
show. Both old movies and music inspired several of the show’s character names as developed
by Hodgson. The show’s name came from the promotional phrase “Mystery Scientist” used
by magician Harlan Tarbell and a play on the name of Sun Ra’s band, the Myth Science Arkestra.
The “3000” was added to spoof the common practice of adding “2000” to show and product names
in light of the then-upcoming 21st century, and Hodgson thought it would set his show apart
to make it “3000”.
Dr. Forrester was named after the main character of The War of the
Worlds. The Satellite of Love was named after the song of the same name by Lou Reed. Crow
T. Robot was inspired by the song “Crow” from Jim Carroll’s Catholic Boy, while Rocket Number
9’s name was inspired by the original name of Sun Ra’s album Interstellar Low Ways. The
theater shots, the primary component of an episode, are taped in “Shadowrama”. The “seats”
were a black-painted foam-core board sitting behind the seat (towards the camera) for the
host, and stages for the Crow and Tom puppets.
The human host wore black clothing while the
robot puppets were painted black; the screen they watched was a white luma key screen
to create the appearance of silhouettes. The actors would follow the movie and the script
through television monitors located in front of them, as to create the overall theater
illusion. The “door sequence” was created to transition from skit segments to the theater
segments, which Hodgson took inspiration from the Mickey Mouse Club, noting that the commonality
to the title credits of Get Smart was coincidental.
Devising this sequence, also led to
Beaulieu created the dogbone-like shape of the Satellite of Love with additional inspiration
taken from the bone-to-ship transition in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Hodgson had
wanted to use a “motivated camera” for taping, a concept related to motivated lighting; in
this mode, all the shots would appear to have been taken from an actual camera that was
part of the scene to make the scene appear more realistic. This led to the creation of
Cambot as a robot that the host would speak to during host segments or record them
while in the theater, and Rocket Number Nine to show footage outside of the Satellite of
Love. The show’s theme song, “Love Theme from Mystery Science Theater 3000”, was written
by Hodgson and Weinstein, which helped to cement some of the broader narrative elements
of the show, such as the Mads and Joel being part of an experiment.
The song was composed
by Charlie Erickson with help from Hodgson in the style of Devo, The Replacements, and
The Rivieras (particularly their cover of the song “California Sun”) and sung by Hodgson.
Initial shows used foam letters to make the show’s title, but they later created the spinning-moon
logo out of a 2-foot (0.6m) diameter fiberglass ball, covered with foam insulation and the
lettering cut from additional foam pieces. Hodgson felt they needed a logo with the rotating
effect as opposed to a flat 2D image, and though they had envisioned a more detailed
prop, with the letters being the tops of buildings on this moon, they had no time or budget for
a project of that complexity and went with what they had.
Musical numbers would also
be used as part of the host segments, which Hodgson said came out naturally from the riffing
process; they would find themselves at times singing along with the movie instead of just
riffing at it, and took that to extend songs into the host segments. === KTMA era (1988–1989) ===
Hodgson approached Jim Mallon, at the time the production manager of KTMA, a low-budget
the local television station, with his idea of a show based on riffing on movies, using robots
that were created out of common objects. Mallon agreed to help produce a pilot episode, and
Hodgson hired local area comedians J.
Elvis Weinstein (initially going by Josh Weinstein
but later changed to J. Elvis to distinguish himself from Josh Weinstein, a well-known
writer for The Simpsons) and Trace Beaulieu to develop the pilot show. By September 1988,
Hodgson, Mallon, Weinstein, and Beaulieu shot a 30-minute pilot episode, using segments
from the 1968 science-fiction film The Green Slime. The robots and the set were built by
Hodgson in an all-nighter. Joel watched the movie by himself and was aided during the
host segments by his robots, Crow (Beaulieu), Beeper, and Gypsy (Weinstein).
Hodgson used
the narrative that his character named “Joel Hodgson” (not yet using his character name
of Robinson) had built the Satellite of Love and launched himself into space. Camera work
was done by Kevin Murphy, who was employed by KTMA. Murphy also created the first doorway sequence
and theater seat design. These initial episodes were recorded at the long since-defunct Paragon
Cable studios and customer service center in Hopkins, Minnesota.
Mallon met with KTMA station manager Donald O’Conner the next month and managed to get
signed up for thirteen episodes. Show production was generally done on a 24-hour cycle, starting
with Mallon offering a few films from KTMA’s library for the writers to select from. Riffing
in these episodes was ad-libbed during taping using notes made during preliminary viewings
of the selected film. The show had some slight alterations from the pilot — the set was
lit differently, the robots (now Crow, Servo, and Gypsy) joined Joel in the theater, and
a new doorway countdown sequence between the host and theater segments was shot. The puppeteers
worked personalities into their robots: Crow (Beaulieu) was considered a robotic Groucho
Marx, Tom Servo (Weinstein) was a “smarmy AM radio DJ”, and Gypsy (Mallon) modeled after
Mallon’s mother had a “heart of gold” but would become disoriented when confronted with
a difficult task.
The development of the show’s theme song would lead to establishing elements
for the show’s ongoing premise, with Hodgson now portraying himself as the character Joel
Robinson. Mystery Science Theater 3000 premiered on KTMA at 6:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day,
November 24, 1988, with its first episode, Invaders from the Deep, followed by a second
episode, Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars at 8:00 p.m. The choice of running the premiere
on Thanksgiving was by happenstance, as the station felt the show was ready to go at that
point, according to Hodgson. Initially, the show’s response was unknown, until Mallon
set up a phone line for viewers to call in. The response was so great that the initial run
of 13 episodes was extended to 21, with the show running until May 1989. Hodgson and Mallon
negotiated to secure the rights for the show for themselves, creating Best Brains, Inc.,
agreeing to split ownership of the idea equally.
During this time a fan club was set up and
the show held its first live show at Scott Hansen’s Comedy Gallery in Minneapolis, to
a crowd of over 600. Despite the show’s success, the station’s
overall declining fortunes forced it to file for bankruptcy reorganization in July 1989.
At the same time, HBO was looking to build a stable of shows for their upcoming Comedy
Channel cable network. HBO approached Best Brains and requested a sample of their material.
Hodgson and Mallon provided a seven-minute demo reel, which led to the network greenlighting
MST3K was one of the first two shows picked up by the new network.
=== Comedy Channel/Comedy Central era (1989–1996)
=== The Comedy Channel offered Best Brains $35,000
per episode but allowed Best Brains to retain the show’s rights. Best Brains was also able
to keep production local to Minnesota instead of the network’s desire to film in New York
City or Los Angeles, as it would have cost four times more per episode, according to
Hodgson.
Best Brains established an office and warehouse space in Eden Prairie for filming.
With an expanded but still limited budget, they were able to hire more writers, including
Mike Nelson, Mary Jo Pehl, and Frank Conniff, and build more expansive sets and robot puppets.
They created the characters of Dr. Forrester (Beaulieu) and Dr. Erhardt (Weinstein) and
crafted the larger narrative of each episode being an “experiment” they test on Joel. The
show began its national run shortly after the Comedy Channel went on the air in November
1989. MST3K was considered Comedy Channel’s signature
program, generating positive press about the show despite the limited availability of the
cable channel nationwide. After the second season, The Comedy Channel and rival comedy
cable network HA! merged to become Comedy Central. During this period, MST3K became
the newly-merged cable channel’s signature series, expanding from 13 to 24 episodes a
year. To take advantage of the show’s status, Comedy Central ran “Turkey Day”, a 30-hour
marathon of MST3K episodes during Thanksgiving 1991.
The name of the event was not only inspired
by the traditional turkey meal served on Thanksgiving but also by the use of “Turkey” from The Golden
Turkey Awards to represent bad movies. This tradition would be continued throughout the rest
of the Comedy Central era. Though the show did not draw large audience numbers compared
to other programming on Comedy Central, such as reruns of Saturday Night Live, the dedicated
fans and attention kept the show on the network. Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie was produced
during the latter half of the Comedy Central era and had a very limited theatrical release
in 1996 through Universal Pictures and Gramercy Pictures.
It featured Mike and the bots subjected
to the film This Island Earth by Dr. Forrester. Though well-received by critics and fans,
the film was a financial disappointment due to its limited distribution. ==== Writing and taping ====
The cable network was able to provide a wider library of films for Best Brains to riff from.
To assure that they would be able to produce a funny episode, at least one member of the
staff would watch the suggested films completely, generally assuring that the movie would be
prime for jokes throughout; Conniff stated that he often would have to watch around twenty
films in their entirety before selecting one to use for the show. In one specific case,
the second-season episode with the film Sidehackers, they had only skimmed the first part of the
movie before deciding to use it, and only later discovered that it contained
a rape scene. They decided to stay committed to the film, but cut out the offending scene
and had to explain the sudden absence of the affected character to the audience. After
this, they carefully scrutinized entire films, and once one was selected and assured the
rights, committed to completing the episode with that film.
Obtaining the rights was handled
by the cable networks. Some licensing required buying film rights in packages, with the selected
bad movies included in a catalog of otherwise good films, making the negotiations odd since
the network was only interested in the bad film. Other times, the rights to the film
were poorly documented, and the network would follow the chain of custody to locate the
copyright owner to secure broadcast rights. In contrast to the ad-libbing of riffs from KTMA,
the riffs were scripted ahead of time by the writers.
An average episode (approximately
90 minutes running time) would contain more than 600 such riffs, and some with upwards
of 800 riffs. Riffs were developed with the entire writing staff watching the film together
several times, giving off-the-cuff quips and jokes as the film went along, or
identifying where additional material would be helpful for the comedy. The best jokes
were polished into the script for the show. Riffs were developed to keep in line with
the characterization of Joel, Mike, and the ‘bots. Further, the writers tried to maintain
respect for the films and avoided making negative riffs about them, taking into consideration
that Joel, Mike, and the ‘bots were companions to the audience while watching the movie,
and they did not want to come off sounding like jerks even if the negative riff would
be funny.
Hodgson stated that their goal in writing riffs is not to ridicule films as
some often mistake, and instead consider what they are doing as “a variety show built
on the back of a movie”. Production of an average episode of MST3K
during the Comedy Central period took about five to nine days once the movie was selected
and its rights secured. The first few days were generally used for watching the movie
and scripting out the riffs and live-action segments. The subsequent days were then generally
used to start the construction of any props or sets that would be needed for the live-action
segments while the writers honed the script. A full dress rehearsal would then be held,
making sure the segments and props worked and fine-tuning the script. The host segments
would then be taped on one day, and the theater segments on the next. A final day was used
to review the completed work and correct any major flaws they caught before considering
the episode complete. Live scenes used only practical special effects, and there was minimal
post-editing once taping was completed. ==== Cast changes ====
Weinstein left the show after the first Comedy Channel season, reportedly in disagreement
with Hodgson about moving toward using scripted rather than ad-libbed jokes.
Murphy replaced
him as the voice of Tom Servo, portraying the ‘bot as a cultured individual, while Dr.
Erhardt was replaced with TV’s Frank (Conniff). Hodgson decided to leave the series halfway through
Season Five is due to his dislike of being on-camera and his disagreements with producer Mallon
over creative control of the program. Hodgson also stated that Mallon’s insistence to produce
a feature film version of the show led to his departure, giving up his rights on the
MST3K property to Mallon. Hodgson later told an interviewer: “If I had the presence of
mind to try and work it out, I would rather have stayed. ‘Cause I didn’t want to go, it
just seemed like I needed to.” Though they held casting calls for a replacement for Hodgson
on camera, the crew found that none of the potential actors fit the role; instead,
having reviewed a test run that Nelson had done with the ‘bots, the crew agreed that
having Nelson (who had already appeared in several guest roles on the show) replace Hodgson
would be the least jarring approach.
The replacement of Joel by Mike would lead to an oft-jokingly
“Joel vs Mike flame war” among fans, similar to the “Kirk vs Picard” discussions in the
Star Trek fandom. Conniff left the show after Season Six, looking to get into show-writing
in Hollywood, On screen, TV’s Frank was soon replaced by Dr. Forrester’s mother, Pearl
(Pehl). ==== Cancellation ====
By the show’s sixth season in 1996, Comedy Central had started creating an identity for
its network under the new leadership of Doug Herzog, which would lead to successful shows like
The Daily Show, Win Ben Stein’s Money, and South Park, leaving MST3K as an oddity on
the network taking up limited program space. Herzog, though stated that MST3K “helped
put the network on the map” and that its fans were “passionate”, and believed it was necessary
to change things around due to the show’s declining and lackluster ratings.
The network
canceled MST3K after a six-episode seventh season. === Sci-Fi Channel era (1997–1999) === The show staff continued to operate for as
long as they still had finances to work with. MST3K’s fan base staged a write-in campaign
to keep the show alive. This effort led the Sci-Fi Channel, a subsidiary of USA Networks,
to pick up the series. Rod Perth, the president of programming for USA Networks at that time,
helped to bring the show to the Sci-Fi Channel, stating himself to be a huge fan of the show
and believing that “the sci-fi genre took itself too seriously and that this show was
a great way of lightening up our presentation”.The writing and production of the show remained relatively
unchanged from the Comedy Central period. Before Season Eight commenced filming, Beaulieu
opted to leave the show, feeling that anything creative that would be produced by Best Brains
would belong to Mallon, and wanted to have more creative ownership himself. To replace
Dr. Forrester, two new sidekicks to Pearl have been introduced: Professor Bobo (Murphy) and
the Observer a.k.a.
“Brain Guy” (Corbett). In addition, Corbett took over Crow’s voice
and puppetry and Best Brains staffer Patrick Brantseg took over Gypsy in the middle of
Season Eight. With this replacement, the series’ entire original cast had been turned over.
MST3K ran for three more seasons on the Sci-Fi Channel. During the Sci-Fi era, Best Brains
found themselves more limited by the network: the pool of available films was smaller and
they were required to use science fiction films (as per the network’s name and programming
focus), and the USA Network executives managing the show wanted to see a story arc and had
more demands on how the show should be produced.
The conflict between Best Brains and the network
executives would eventually lead to the show’s second cancellation. Peter Keepnews, writing
for The New York Times, noted that the frequent cast changes, as well as the poorer selection
of films that he felt were more boring than bizarre in their execution, had caused the
show to lose its original appeal. Another campaign to save the show was mounted, including
several MST3K fans taking contributions for a full-page ad in the trade publication Daily
Variety magazine, but unlike the first effort, this campaign was unsuccessful. The season
10 finale, Danger: Diabolik, premiered on August 8, 1999, during which, in the show’s
narrative, Pearl Forrester sent the Satellite of Love out of orbit, with Mike and the ‘bots
escaping and taking up residence in an apartment near Milwaukee.
A “lost” episode produced
earlier in the season but delayed due to rights issues, Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders,
was the final season 10 episode of MST3K (and the last of the original run), broadcast on
September 12, 1999. Reruns continued to air on the Sci-Fi Channel for several years, ending
with The Screaming Skull on January 31, 2004. The shows later moved to off-network syndication. === Netflix era revival (2017–present) === ==== Kickstarter funding ====
Starting in 2010, Hodgson had been trying to bring back MST3K, spurred on by fan appreciation
of the cast and crew 25 years after the show’s premiere and the success of his Cinematic
Titanic project. Hodgson also considered the timing to be ideal, with non-traditional outlets
like Netflix picking up original series, and the success of crowdfunding for entertainment
projects. However, Hodgson needed to reacquire the rights to the series, which then were
still held by Mallon and Best Brains.
By 2013, Hodgson was working closely with Shout! Factory,
the distribution company handling the home media releases of MST3K, and completed negotiations
with Mallon to buy the rights for MST3K for a seven-figure sum by August 2015, enabling
a Kickstarter campaign to fund the revival to move forward. Hodgson felt the Kickstarter
the approach was necessary so that the show’s style and approach would be determined by
fans rather than through a network if he had sought traditional broadcast funding, as well
as to demonstrate the demand for the show through a successful campaign.The Kickstarter
was launched in November 2015, seeking $2 million for the production of three episodes,
with stretch goals with additional funding for 12 total episodes.
The Kickstarter effort
was led by Ivan Askwith, a consultant that also worked on Veronica Mars and Reading
Rainbow Kickstarter campaigns. Hodgson estimated each episode would take $250,000 to make,
in addition to five-figure movie licensing rights, in contrast to the $100,000 needed for
the original series. The campaign reached its base funding within a week of its launch.
On the final day of the campaign, Hodgson and Shout! ran a streaming telethon that
included appearances from the newly selected cast and crew, and various celebrities that
supported the revival to help exceed the target funding levels for twelve episodes.
The campaign
ended on December 11, 2015, with total funding of $5,764,229 from 48,270 backers, with an
additional $600,000 in backer add-ons, which allowed Hodgson to plan two more additional
episodes, including a Christmas episode, to bring the total season to fourteen episodes.
Kickstarter became the largest one for Film & Video, surpassing the $5.70 million
raised for the Veronica Mars film. ==== Casting ==== Hodgson believed that the revival would need
a wholly new cast, considering that the cast had completely turned over in the original
series. Comedian Jonah Ray plays Jonah Heston, the new host aboard the Satellite of Love,
watching and riffing on the films. Hodgson had met Ray while recording an episode of
The Nerdist Podcast, and felt he would be a good fit. The voices of Crow and Tom Servo
are provided by comedians Hampton Yount and Baron Vaughn, respectively, both of whom Ray
recommended to Hodgson.
Hodgson felt it was important for Ray to have his say on who would
play these parts since it would help Ray be comfortable in the role. Felicia Day plays
Kinga Forrester, Clayton Forrester’s daughter and one of the new Mads in charge of the experiments,
now operating out of a moon base known as “Moon 13”. The day had been one of the last to
be cast, as Hodgson had scripted out the concept for Forrester’s daughter while casting Ray
and the others. Hodgson had met Day at the 2015 Salt Lake Comic Con, where she stated
her love of MST3K to him. Hodgson had seen Day’s performance in shows like The Guild
and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and felt she matched his idea for the character he
had envisioned. Patton Oswalt plays Kinga’s henchman, Max, or as his character prefers
to be known, “TV’s Son of TV’s Frank”; Hodgson had already planned to invite Oswalt, a longtime
friend, and self-professed MST3K fan, as a special guest writer for an episode of the
revived series, but decided during the Kickstarter that he would also be a good fit on-camera.
Rebecca Hanson, an alum of The Second City, took the role of Gypsy as well as Synthia,
a clone of Pearl Forrester that assists Kinga.
Har Mar Superstar leads the “Skeleton Crew”,
a house band in Kinga’s lair.Pehl, Corbett, and Murphy cameo on the revival, reprising
their roles as Pearl, Brain Guy, and Professor Bobo, respectively. Hodgson opened up to the
show any of the other cast members to make cameo appearances or aid in the creative process.
However, Nelson and Beaulieu stated that they would not be involved with the MST3K revival;
Nelson said, “The brand does not belong to me, and I make and have made (almost) zero
dollars off it since it stopped production in 1999.” Conniff noted on his Twitter that
Shout! The factory would be “cutting [the former cast members] in, financially at least” on
the profits from the series. In addition, other cameos on the new episodes include Neil
Patrick Harris, Jerry Seinfeld, and Mark Hamill. Weinstein initially expressed disinterest
in returning to the show but eventually reprised his role as Dr. Laurence Erhardt in the second
season of the Netflix revival.
==== Writing and recording ====
Hodgson aimed to follow the pattern of what made for fan-favorite episodes from the
original series, borrowing equally from the Joel and Mike eras; he noted there were about
30 episodes that he and fans universally agreed were the show’s best, and expected to use
these as templates as the basis of the new show. The new episodes include The Invention
An exchange that had been part of the Joel era (and some of the Mike era) of the show. Additionally,
while not required by the streaming format of Netflix, the new episodes include bumpers
that would have wrapped around commercial breaks if shown on network television; Hodgson
considered these breaks necessary as a “palate cleanser” as well as to support the narrative
for Kinga attempting to commercialize on the MST3K brand.Behind the scenes, the lead writer
was Elliott Kalan, former head writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Dan Harmon
and Joel McHale also wrote for the show, along with the on-screen cast members. Hodgson also
brought in guest writers for certain episodes that included Justin Roiland, Dan Harmon,
Rob Schrab, Nell Scovell, Ernie Cline, Pat Rothfuss, and Dana Gould. Additionally, Paul
& Storm and Robert Lopez composed original songs for the new episodes. The revival retains
the live, handcrafted look from the original, a decision that Hodgson had to set down against
others involved in production. Set and prop designers included Wayne White, Pendleton
Ward, Rebecca and Steven Sugar, and Guy Davis, while live and practical special effects were
planned by Adam Savage.
Among other staff included returning MST3K crew, including:
Charlie Erickson, who composed the original show’s theme song and composed the new show’s
theme and other musical arrangements; Beth “Beez” McKeever, who worked on the original
show’s props and designed costumes and props for the new show; Crist Ballas performed hair
and makeup design; and Paul Chaplin, one of the show’s original writers to help write
the new shows, along with contributions from Pehl and Corbett. Hodgson himself remained
primarily off-camera as the executive producer for the remake though does appear briefly
as Ardy, one of Kinga’s henchmen that send Jonah the episode’s movie.
Hodgson was assisted
by Kalan, Richard Foos, Bob Emmer, Garson Foos, Jonathan Stern, and Harold Buchholz.
The revival was produced by the companies Satellite of Love, LLC, Alternaversal Productions,
and Abominable Pictures. Production for the new season began on January 4, 2016, with
movie selection and script writing. The film selection was narrowed down to about twenty
movies as of February 2016, with the rights secured to about half of them, while Shout!
The factory was working to assure worldwide distribution rights for the others; Hodgson noted that
the films were more recent than those used in the original series, with “maybe one” from
the 1950s/1960s, but did not want to reveal what these films were until the episodes were
broadcast as to have the biggest comedic effect on the audience. Recording and most of the
production were completed over September and October 2016 in Los Angeles on a very condensed
schedule.
In the revival, Ray, Yount, and Vaughn recorded the riffs for all fourteen
episodes in a sound studio over a week, allowing them to better synchronize
the riffs with the film. This also helped to simplify the process of recording the theater
segments, since they then only needed to act out their parts. The ‘bots were controlled
by multiple puppeteers both in the theater and in skits; Yount and Vaughn used radio-controlled
equipment to move the ‘bots’ mouths, while members from The Jim Henson Company helped
with manipulating the bodies, allowing them to achieve effects they could not do in the
series’ original run such as having Crow appear to walk on his own. All skits for the episodes
were completed within a single day, which did not allow them for doing multiple takes
unless necessary. Backers of the campaign at higher tiers were able to see the first episode
at limited “Red Carpet Kickstarter Screening” events shown in a few theaters during February
and March 2017. The fourteen episodes were released on Netflix on April 14, 2017, though
Kickstarter backers had the opportunity to see the episodes in the days preceding this. During
the 2017 “Turkey Day” Marathon, Hodgson announced that Netflix had greenlit a twelfth season
of MST3K.
The shooting of the twelfth season started on June 4, 2018, and would have six episodes,
written to encourage binge-watching and make the series more amenable to non-fans. Further,
they created a stronger narrative in the host segments, so that casual viewers would recognize
the series having a definitive start, middle, and end. Among other changes included Rob
Schrab coming on as co-director, and actress Deanna Rooney, Ray’s wife, playing Dr. Donna
St. Phibes, a “B-movie monster conservationist” that works with the Mads. Former cast member
Weinstein returned to reprise his role as Dr. Erhardt. Hodgson had been trying to also
bring back both Beaulieu and Conniff for this season, but could not work out the logistics
in time. The 12th season was broadcast on Netflix on Thanksgiving aka “Turkey Day”, on November
22, 2018, which coincided with the show’s 30th anniversary. As to avoid conflicting
with the new episode release, the annual Turkey Day Marathon was pushed forward to November
18, 2018. == Cast == Notes == Episodes == By the conclusion of the Sci-Fi era, a total
of 197 MST3K episodes across eleven seasons had been produced. This does not include The
Green Slime pilot episode, which was used to sell the concept to KTMA but otherwise
was never broadcast.
The revived show currently consists of two seasons fourteen and six
episodes respectively, bringing the total episode count to 217.
None of the KTMA episodes were rerun nationally or have been released onto home video due
to rights issues. For many years, the first three KTMA episodes were considered to be
“missing episodes”, as no fan copies are known to exist, but master copies of all these episodes
still exist according to Mallon.
In November 2016, Hodgson reported that master copies
of two of the episodes, “Invaders from the Deep” and “Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars”,
had been found. The episodes were made available to Kickstarter backers of the new series on
November 25, 2016. The credits in the first four seasons on Comedy Central included the
phrase “Keep circulating the tapes” to encourage fans to share VHS tapings they made with others
(as Comedy Central was not widely distributed then), despite the questionable copyright
practice. Though the phrase was removed from the credits due to legal reasons, the concept
of “keep circulating the tapes” was held by the show’s fans to continue to help introduce
others to the show following its broadcast run. === Turkey Day marathons ===
An annual event in the Comedy Central era was the Turkey Day marathon that ran on or
near the Thanksgiving holiday.
The marathon would show between six and twelve rebroadcasts
of episodes, often with new interstitial material between the episodes from the cast and crew.
While the show was Sci-Fi, one Thanksgiving Day marathon of MST3K was held during its
first season but lacked any new interstitial material. Following its acquisition of the
series rights, Shout! The factory has streamed Turkey Day marathons on Thanksgiving since
2013, broadcasting six of the MST3K episodes and wrapped with introductions from Hodgson
alongside other cast members at times. The event was intended to be a one-off, but the
fans’ reaction to it led Hodgson and Shout! to continue the tradition in subsequent years.
The 2015 Turkey Day coincided with the Kickstarter for the show’s revival, while the 2016 Turkey
The day includes the revival’s new host Ray co-hosting alongside Hodgson. The 2017 Turkey Day was
hosted by Hodgson, Ray, and Felicia Day, and concluded with a surprise announcement that
the show had been renewed on Netflix for another season.
=== Home media === Home video releases of MST3K are complicated
by the licensing rights of the featured film and any shorts, and as such many of the nationally
televised episodes have not yet been released onto home video. Through the current distributor,
Shout! Factory, over 100 of the films have been cleared for home media distribution.
With Shout’s release of the 39th volume of MST3K episodes in 2017, the company anticipated
that only about a dozen episodes out of 197 from the original series run will never make
it to home video due to licensing rights issues of the movies featured. Original home media
releases were issued by Rhino Entertainment, initially starting with single disc releases
before switching to semi-regular four-episode volume sets. According to Hodgson, the people
at Rhino that were involved in the distribution of MST3K eventually left Rhino and joined
Shout!, helping to convince that publisher to acquire the rights from Rhino.
Since 2008,
all releases of MST3K have been through Shout! (including some reprints of the first Rhino
volume set) and have typically been multi-episode volumes or themed packs.
In 2014, 80 episodes of the show were made available for purchase or rental on the video
streaming site Vimeo. Shout! has uploaded some episodes to YouTube with annotations,
as documented by The Annotated MST fansite, to explain some of the sources of the jokes
in the riffs. In February 2015, Shout! launched its streaming service, Shout! Factory
TV, of which selected episodes of MST3K were included in the service. Selected episodes
were also made available on demand through RiffTrax starting in November 2015. Twenty
episodes from previous MST3K seasons were released by Netflix in all regions in anticipation
of the revival series. All episodes of Season 11 were released on a DVD/Blu-Ray box set
on April 17, 2018, which includes a documentary behind the making of the first revival season. == Adaptations == ===
Syndication === In 1993, the show’s staff selected 30 episodes
to split into 60 one-hour segments for The Mystery Science Theater Hour. The repackaged
series’ first-run airings of these half-shows ran from November 1993 to July 1994. Reruns
continued through December 1994, and it was syndicated to local stations from September
1995 to September 1996, allowing stations to run the series in a one-hour slot, or the
original two-hour version.
MST3K returned to television for the first time in ten years
in July 2014, when RetroTV began broadcasting the series on Saturday nights, with an encore
on Sunday evenings. The following year, they started showing on PBS member stations. In
the summer of 2016, Sinclair Broadcast Group and MGM’s joint venture sci-fi network Comet
picked up the series for a weekly Sunday night double-run; by coincidence, Sinclair’s CW
station, WUCW in the Twin Cities, which had originated the series when it was KTMA-TV,
carries Comet on its second subchannel, returning the series to its original home
for the first time in 27 years. As of June 1, 2018, the show has been removed from Comet’s
schedule.
=== Feature film === In 1996, Universal Pictures released Mystery
Science Theater 3000: The Movie, a film adaptation in which Mike and the bots riffed This Island
Earth. The film was released on DVD in the United States by Image Entertainment. Universal
re-released the film on DVD on May 6, 2008, with a new anamorphic widescreen transfer,
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound mix and the film’s original trailer. === Print ===
In 1996, the book, The Amazing Colossal Episode Guide (written by many of the cast members),
was released, which contained a synopsis for every episode from seasons one through six,
and even included some behind-the-scenes stories as well. In it, Murphy related two tales about
celebrity reactions he encountered. In one, the cast went to a taping of Dennis Miller’s
eponymous show; when they were brought backstage to meet Miller, the comedian proceeded to
criticize the MST3K cast for their choice of movie to mock in the then-recent episode
“Space Travelers” (a re-branded version of the Oscar-winning film Marooned).
Murphy also
discussed how he met Kurt Vonnegut, one of his literary heroes. When he mentioned
the show and its premise to Vonnegut, the author suggested that even people who work
hard on bad films deserve some respect. Murphy then invited Vonnegut to dine with his group,
which Vonnegut declined, claiming that he had other plans. When Murphy and friends ate
later that night, he saw Vonnegut dining alone in the same restaurant, and remarked that
he had been “faced…but nicely faced” by one of his literary heroes. Dark Horse Comics
announced on February 16, 2017, that it had planned an MST3K comic book series that was
set for initial release in 2017. In June 2018, Dark Horse affirmed that the six-issue series
will launch in September 2018, which will feature Jonah and the bots riffing on public
domain comic books. The first comic was released on September 12, 2018, and it focuses on Jonah
and the Bots trying to get out of comics while trying to save Crow when he started to become
a monster in the pages of Horrific.
Hodgson is overseeing the writing. === Live shows === The first MST3K live event was held on June
5 and 6, 1989 at the Comedy Gallery in Minneapolis. Jim Mallon served as the emcee of the event
that featured stand-up sets by Joel, Josh Weinstein, and Trace Beaulieu. A Q&A session
about the show was conducted, and the show’s original pilot was shown. The robots and various
props were on display for attendees to see. The first live riffing event, called MST Alive!
was held at the Uptown Theater in Minneapolis on July 11, 1992.
There were two showings,
both with live riffing of the feature film World Without End, as well as sing-alongs
of different songs from the show, and a Q&A session. The events were hosted, in character,
by Dr. Forrester and TV’s Frank. Hodgson and the team for the 2017 revival
announced an MST3K “Watch Out For Snakes Tour” in mid-2017 covering 29 cities in the
United States and Canada. Jonah and the Bots riff on one of two films live for audiences,
either Eegah (which had already been featured on the original run of MST3K, and which popularized
the riff “Watch out for snakes”, but featured new riffs for this tour) or an unannounced
surprise film: Argoman the Fantastic Superman.
The tour featured Ray, Yount, and Hanson reprising
their roles as Jonah Heston, Crow, and Gypsy/Synthia. Vaughan was unavailable to perform Servo due
to the birth of his child and the role was covered by Tim Ryder. The tour also featured
Grant Baciocco as Terry the Bonehead, pre-recorded appearances from Day and Oswalt as Kinga and
Max, and a live introduction from Hodgson. Hodgson and Ray also toured in late 2018 as
part of the 30th anniversary of MST3K in a similar format to the 2017 tour. Hodgson reprised
the role of Joel Robinson and riffed movies alongside Ray and the bots during these shows.
Ryder continued to perform Tom Servo, while Grant Baciocco, the lead puppeteer, voiced
Crow.
Rebecca Hanson also joined in her role as Cynthia as the host of the show. Movies
riffed at these shows included The Brain and Deathstalker II. During the tour, Hodgson
announced that Deana Rooney will be joining the cast in the twelfth season as a new “Mad”
working with Kinga and Max. === Other appearances ===
In 1996, during the promotion of the film, Nelson and the bots were interviewed in-character
on MTV, and seen in silhouettes heckling footage from MTV News.
Also that year, Hodgson was
a featured guest on Cartoon Network’s Space Ghost Coast to Coast. In 1997, the E! network
Talk Soup show, starring John Henson, featured guest appearances from Mike, Crow, and Tom
Servo. In 1997, the videogame magazine PlayStation Underground (Volume 2, Number 1) included
a Best Brains-produced MST3K short on one of their promotional discs. The video opened
with a host segment of Mike and the Bots playing some PlayStation games, only to go into the
theater to riff on some videos from the magazine’s past. The feature is about seven minutes long.
An Easter egg on the disc has some behind-the-scenes footage of Best Brains filming the sequences. In
2007, a new online animated web series, referred to as “The Bots Are Back!”, was produced by
Mallon. The series planned a weekly adventure featuring Crow, Tom Servo, and Gypsy, with
Mallon reprised his role as Gypsy and Paul Chaplin as Crow. However, only a handful of
episodes were released, and the series was abandoned due to budgetary issues. The general
internet response to the webisodes was largely negative. == Reception ==
In 2004, the show was listed as No. 11 in a featured TV Guide article, “25 Top Cult
Shows Ever!”, and included a sidebar that read, “Mike Nelson, writer, and star (replacing
creator Joel Hodgson), recently addressed a college audience: ‘There was nobody over
the age of 25.
I had to ask, “Where are you seeing this show?” I guess we have some sort
of timeless quality.'” Three years later, TV Guide rewrote the article and bumped MST3K
to #13. In 2007, the show was listed as one of Time magazine’s “100 Best TV Shows of All-Time”.
In 2012, the show was listed as #3 in Entertainment Weekly’s “25 Best Cult TV Shows from the Past
25 Years”, with the comment that “MST3K taught us that snarky commentary can be way more
entertaining than the actual media.”The 2017 relaunch was generally met with similar praise
as the original series, keeping with the spirit of the show’s premise but with enough improvements
to make it accessible to modern audiences.
=== Reactions by those parodied ===
The reactions of those parodied by MST3K have been mixed. Some notable negative reactions
include that of Sandy Frank, who held the rights to several Gamera films parodied on
the show. He said he was “intensely displeased” by the mockery directed at him. (The crew
once sang the “Sandy Frank Song”, which said that Frank was “the source of all our pain”,
and “thinks that people come from trees”, Steven Spielberg “won’t return his calls”, and implied
that he was too lazy to make his films). Because of this, Frank reportedly refused
to allow the shows to be rebroadcast once MST3K’s rights ran out. However, this may
be a rumor, as other rumors indicate that the Gamera film distribution rights
prices were increased beyond what BBI could afford as a result of the show’s success.
According to Shout Factory, the Japanese movie studio Kadokawa Pictures were so horrified
with MST3K’s treatment of five Gamera films they refused to let Shout release the
episodes on the home video.
Brian Ward (one of the members of Shout! Factory) explained to
fans on the forums of the official Shout! Factory website that they tried their best
to convince them, but the Japanese take their Gamera films very seriously and do not appreciate
their being mocked. However, eventually, Shout was able to clear the episodes for a special
2011 release due to the rights in North America shifting away from the Japanese to another,
North American entity that had no such qualms. Kevin Murphy has said that Joe Don Baker wanted
to beat up the writers of the show for attacking him during riffing of Mitchell.
Murphy later
stated that Baker probably meant it in a joking manner, although Mike Nelson has said that
he had deliberately avoided encountering Baker while the two happened to be staying at the
same hotel. Jeff Lieberman, director of Squirm, was also quite angry at the MST3K treatment
of his film. Director Rick Sloane was shocked at his treatment after Hobgoblins,
in which Sloane himself was mercilessly mocked over the film’s end credits. In a 2008 interview,
however, Sloane clarified his comments, saying that “I laughed through the entire MST3K episode,
until the very end. I wasn’t expecting the humor to suddenly be at my own expense. I
was mortified when they dragged out the cardboard cutout and pretended to interview
me. I was caught off guard. I had never seen them rip apart any other director before on
the show.” However, he credits the success of the MST3K episode with inspiring him to
make a sequel to Hobgoblins, released in 2009. Others, however, have been more positive: Robert Fiveson
and Myrl Schriebman, producers of Parts: The Clonus Horror, said they were “flattered”
to see the film appear on MST3K.
Actor Miles O’Keeffe, the star of the film Cave Dwellers,
called Best Brains and personally requested a copy of the MST3K treatment of the film,
saying he enjoyed their skewering of what he had considered being a surreal experience;
according to Hodgson, O’Keeffe said his friends always heckled his performance in the film
when it was on, and he appreciated the MST3K treatment. In the form of an essay and E.
E. Cummings-esque poem, Mike Nelson paid tribute to O’Keeffe with a humorous mix of adulation
and fear. Rex Reason, star of This Island Earth, made appearances at several MST3K events and
credits MST3K with introducing the film to a new generation. The crew of Time Chasers
held a party the night the MST3K treatment of their film aired and, while reactions were
mixed, director David Giancola said, “Most of us were fans and knew what to expect and
we roared with laughter and drank way too much. I had a blast, never laughed so hard
in my life.”Actor Adam West, star of the 1960s Batman TV series, co-starred in Zombie Nightmare,
another film MST3K mocked.
West held no grudges, as he hosted the 1994 “Turkey
Day” marathon in which the episode featuring Zombie Nightmare had its broadcast premiere.
Mamie Van Doren (who appeared in episode 112, Untamed Youth, and episode 601, Girls Town),
Robert Vaughn (star of episode 315, Teenage Cave Man, which he called the worst movie
ever made) and Beverly Garland (who had appeared in many MST3K-featured Roger Corman films)
also hosted at the marathon. === Awards ===
In 1993, MST3K won a Peabody Award for “producing an ingenious eclectic series”: “With references
to everything from Proust to Gilligan’s Island, Mystery Science Theater 3000 fuses superb,
clever writing with wonderfully terrible B-grade movies”.
In 1994 and 1995, the show was nominated
for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety
or Music Program but lost both times to Dennis Miller Live. Every year from 1992 to 1997,
it was also nominated for CableACE Awards. Its DVD releases have been nominated for Saturn
Awards in 2004, 2006, 2007, and 2018. === Influence ===
Through MST3K, many obscure films have been more visible to the public, and several have
since been considered some of the worst films ever made and are voted into the Bottom 100
on the Internet Movie Database. Of note is Manos: The Hands of Fate, which was riffed
on by MST3K in its fourth season. Manos was a very low-budget film produced by Hal Warren,
a fertilizer salesman at the time, taking on a dare from a screenwriter friend to show
that anyone could make a horror film. The film suffered from numerous production issues
due to its limited filming equipment, and many critics describe the result using a riff
from MST3K, in that “every frame of this movie looks like someone’s last-known photograph”.
The MST3K episode featuring Manos was considered one of its most popular and best episodes
and brought Manos into the public light as one of the worst films ever produced.
The
the film gained a cult following, and presently there is an effort to restore the film to
high-definition quality from its original film reels. MST3K also riffed on three films
directed by Coleman Francis; Red Zone Cuba, The Skydivers, and The Beast of Yucca Flats,
which brought awareness of Francis’ poor direction and low-budget films, similar to that of Ed
Wood. MST3K also brought to the limelight lackluster works by Bert I. Gordon, primarily
giant monster B-movies, that gained attention through the show, and many Japanese kaiju
movies imported and dubbed through producer Sandy Frank, particularly those in the Gamera
series.MST3K’s riffing style to poke fun at bad movies, films, and TV shows, has been
used in other works. In 2003, the television series Deadly Cinema, starring Jami Deadly,
debuted, which featured the cast making fun of bad movies, MST3K-style. In 2004, the ESPN
Classic series Cheap Seats, debuted, which featured two brothers making fun of clips
of old sporting events, MST3K-style, and is noteworthy for containing an episode in which
Mike, Crow, and Tom Servo briefly appeared in a cameo to make fun of the hosts’ skits.
In 2008, the internet and direct-to-DVD comedy series Incognito Cinema Warriors XP debuted,
which used the same “host segment-movie segment” format the show established, while featuring
completely original characters and plot.
ICWXP gained a similar cult following, even earning
the praises of former MST3K host Michael J. Nelson. In 2010, the television series This
Movie Sucks! (and its predecessor Ed’s Nite In), starring Ed the Sock and co-hosts Liana
K and Ron Sparks debuted. It features the cast making fun of bad movies. Creator Steven
Kerzner, however, was quick to point out that MST3K was not “the creator of this kind of
format, they’re just the most recent and most well-known”.
In 2011, the theater silhouette
motif was parodied by golf commentator and talk show host David Feherty in an episode
of Feherty. He is shown sitting in front of a large screen and “riffing” while viewing
footage of golfer Johnny Miller and is joined in the theater by his stuffed rooster (Frank)
and his gnome statue (Costas). Further, the riffing style from MST3K is considered
part of the influence for DVD commentaries and successful YouTube reviewers and Let’s
Play-style commentators. DVD releases for both Ghostbusters and Men in Black used a
similar format to Shadowrama for the “in-vision” commentary features. The concept of social
television, where social media is integrated into the television viewing experience, was
significantly influenced by MST3K. This social media practice of live-tweeting riffs and
jokes on broadcast shows, such as for films like Sharknado, has its roots in MST3K. The
MST3K approach has inspired Internet movie critics to create comedic movie review approaches,
such as through RedLetterMedia and Screen Junkies which are considered more than just
snarking on the movie but aim to help the viewer understand film and story techniques
and their flawed use in poorly-received films. Public performances of live riffing have been hosted
by various groups in different cities across the U.S.
And Canada, including Cineprov (Atlanta,
Georgia), Master Pancake Theater (Austin, TX), The Gentlemen Hecklers (Vancouver, BC
Canada), Counterclockwise Comedy (Kansas City, Missouri), FilmRoasters (Richmond, Virginia),
Moxie Skinny Theatre 3000 (Springfield, Missouri), Riff Raff Theatre (Iowa City, Iowa), Twisted
Flicks (Seattle, Washington), and Turkey Shoot (Metro Cinema at the Garneau, Edmonton, Alberta,
Canada). Canadian sketch comedy group LoadingReadyRun produced the show Unskippable for The Escapist
website, which applied the MST3K premise to video game cut scenes. === Fandom ===
MST3K, broadcasting during the emergence of the Internet for public use, developed a large
fan base during its initial broadcast; which has continued to thrive since then. The show
had already had its postal-based fan club, which people could write into and which some
letters and drawings read on subsequent episodes, and the producers encouraged fans to share
recordings of their episodes with others. At its peak, the “MST3K Fan Club” had over
50,000 members and Best Brains were receiving over 500 letters each week. Fans of the show
generally refer to themselves as “MSTies”.
Usenet newsgroups rec.arts.tv.mst3k.misc and
rec.arts.tv.mst3k.announce was established in the mid-1990s for announcements and discussions
related to the show. A type of fan fiction called MiSTings, in which fans would add humorous
comments to other, typically bad, fan fiction works, was popular among these groups. The fan-run
website Satellite News continues to track news and information about the show and related
projects from its cast members. Another fan site, The Annotated MST, attempts to catalog
and describe all the obscure popular culture references used in a given episode. In addition
to the show’s fandom, several celebrities have expressed their love for the show. One
of the earliest known celebrity fans was Frank Zappa, who went so far as to telephone Best
Brains, calling MST3K “the funniest fucking thing on TV” according to Beaulieu. Zappa
became a friend of the show, and following his death, episode 523 was dedicated to him.
Other known celebrities fans include Al Gore, Neil Patrick Harris, Penn Jillette, and Patton
Oswalt. There were two official fan conventions in Minneapolis (run by the series’ production
company Best Brains) called “ConventioCon ExpoFest-A-Rama” (1994) and “ConventioCon
ExpoFest-A-Rama 2: Electric Bugaloo” (1996).
At least 2,500 people attended the first convention. == Related post-show projects == The various cast and crew from the show’s
broadcast run have continued to produce comedy works following the show. Two separate projects
were launched that specifically borrowed on the theme of riffing on bad movies. After
the short-lived The Film Crew in 2006, Nelson started RiffTrax, providing downloadable audio
files containing MST3K-style riffs that the viewer can synchronize to their copy
of a given popular movie (such as Star Wars: Episode I); this was done to avoid copyright
and licensing issues with such films. RiffTrax’s cast expanded to include Murphy and Corbett
along with occasional guest stars and can use a wider range of films, including
films and shorts in the public domain, and films that they could get the license to
stream and distribute. In addition, they launched the production of RiffTrax Live shows for various
films, where they perform their riffing in front of a live audience that is simultaneously
broadcast to other movie theaters across the country and later made available as on-demand
video. As of 2018, RiffTrax continues to offer new material and shows. As part of a tribute
to their roots, RiffTrax has performed some works that previously appeared on MST3K, including
Manos: the Hands of Fate, Santa Claus, and Time Chasers.
Similarly, Hodgson, after some experimental creative works such as The TV Wheel, started
Cinematic Titanic with Beaulieu, Weinstein, Conniff, and Pehl in 2007.
Like MST3K, the
five riffed on bad movies they were able to acquire the licenses for (including Santa
Claus Conquers the Martians), which then were distributed through on-demand video and streaming
options. They later did several live shows across the United States, some of which were
made available for digital demand. Production of Cinematic Titanic was shut down in January
2014. Other related projects by the MST3K crew following the show’s end include:
In 2000, most of the cast of the Sci-Fi era show collaborated on a humor website,
Timmy Big Hands, which closed in 2001.In 2001, Mike Nelson, Patrick Brantseg, Bill Corbett,
Kevin Murphy and Paul Chaplin created The Adventures of Edward the Less, an animated
parody of J.
R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and others in the fantasy genre, with
additional vocals by Mary Jo Pehl and Mike Dodge, for the Sci-Fi Channel website.In 2008,
Bill Corbett and fellow writer Rob Greenberg wrote the screenplay for Meet Dave, a family
comedy starring Eddie Murphy about a tiny Star Trek-like crew operating a spaceship
that looks like a man. The captain of the crew and the spaceship were both played by
Murphy. Originally conceived as a series called Starship Dave for SciFi.com, it was dropped
in favor of Edward the Less. The script (along with the title) was changed drastically by
studio executives and other writers, although Corbett and Greenberg received sole screenwriter
credit.In 2010, Trace Beaulieu, Frank Conniff, Joel Hodgson, Mary Jo Pehl, Josh Weinstein,
Beth McKeever and Clive Robertson voiced characters for Darkstar: The Interactive Movie, a computer
game created by J.
Allen Williams.In 2013, Frank Conniff and animation historian Jerry
Beck debuted Cartoon Dump, a series of classically bad cartoons, which are also occasionally
performed live. In 2015, Trace Beaulieu and Frank Conniff began performing together as
“The Mads”, riffing movies at live screenings across the U.S. ===
Reunions === In 2008, to commemorate the show’s 20th anniversary,
the principal cast and writers from all eras of the show reunited for a panel discussion
at the San Diego Comic-Con, which was hosted by actor-comedian Patton Oswalt. The event
was recorded and included as a bonus feature on the 20th Anniversary DVD release via Shout!
Factory. Also that year, several original MST3K members (including Joel Hodgson, Trace
Beaulieu and Frank Conniff) reunited to shoot a brief sketch to be included in the web-exclusive
DVD release of The Giant Gila Monster. The new disc was added to Volume 10 of the “MST3K
Collection” DVD boxed set series, replacing the Godzilla vs. Megalon disc which could
no longer be sold due to copyright conflicts. The new package was sold under the name “Volume
10.2”, and the sketch was presented as a seminar to instruct consumers on how to “upgrade”
their DVD set, which merely consists of “disposing” of the old disc and inserting the new one.
In 2013, Joel Hodgson and Trace Beaulieu reprised their roles as Joel Robinson and Crow T.
Robot
for cameo appearances in the fourth season of Arrested Development. As part of its live
show events for 2016, RiffTrax presented an MST3K reunion at a live show in Minneapolis
in June 2016. Hodgson, Bridget Nelson, Pehl, Conniff, and Beaulieu all joined the three
regulars along with Jonah Ray from the revived series. The gathered cast riffed on a variety
of shorts as part of the event. == See also == List of films considered the worst
Horror host.
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