this has suddenly become a very good month if you are a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000, which if you aren't then I don't even know why we're friends. On the one hand, Joel Hodgson, creator of the movie mockery series and original host, has launched a Kicker Starter to bring the show back with new episodes. The funding is already at 50% of the 5.5 million dollar goal, which is enough to guarantee 3 new episodes, and almost nearly but not quite enough to get six. As of the date of this writing, there are 15 days left in the campaign, which makes me hope they'll get to the $3.3 million mark, and give us at least half a season of new episodes.
As the campaign has progressed, which has been a brisk pace, Hodgson has announced who will be stepping into the Satellite of Love, to endure torture and misery at the hands of some of the worst films ever made. Jonah Ray, podcaster for Nerdist and the Meltdown, will don the jumpsuit as the new host, named Jonah Heston. Comedians Hampton Yount and Baron Vaughn (formerly of the series Barely Legal) will take over the voices of Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo respectively. And in internet-nerdgasm producing levels of excellent, Felicia Day has been announced as the new Mad, playing Kinga Forrester, the daughter of original mad Clayton Forrester, who had been played by Trace Beaulieu.
As of yet unannounced is who will be playing Day's faithful henchmen. Hodgman has also yet to announce which films the series will skewer, likely waiting until he sees how many he'll be able to produce, so he can cherry pick what he has on offer. The good news is, based on the way he's set up this campaign, we'll be getting new episodes regardless of whether they reach their maximum goal. the more money raised just means more episodes made. But at this point, in the not to distant future, we'll be getting brand new MST3K episodes, and that is a lot to be thankful about.
But the old episodes also continue to exist, which is whether the further good news comes in. Rifftrax, run by the second host of MST3K Mike Nelson, as well as former Servo and Crow Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy, have worked a deal with Shout Factory to distribute the individual episodes via Rifftrax through download or stream. They are doing a slow roll out of choice episodes (aka the Mike era at this point) now, with six currently available, including the amazing Pumaman, Mitchell, and Final War. Importantly, the profits from the sale of these episodes will be distributed to the artist who created the episodes, which has been an issue with the DVD reissues in the past.
So... yeah. everything about all of this make me happy.
Via Kickstarter and Rifftrax.