Cult classic, Mystery Science Theater 3000, returns
Huge Kickstarter campaign helps bring series back to life on Netflix this week
As TV shows go, “Mystery Science Theater 3000” has a pretty simple setup. Play a lousy movie — the 1988 “Gremlins” rip-off, “Hobgoblins,” or the 1986 Adam West thriller, “Zombie Nightmare” — then have three smart alecks weigh in on the lacklustre acting and nonsensical plot. What could be easier, or more thrifty, if not necessarily Golden Age of TV worthy?
But what could have been gratingly bad instead became a longrunning cult hit, on the air for 10 seasons, first on a single UHF station in Minneapolis in 1988 and eventually on Comedy Central. The show inspired books, marathon screenings, a 1996 feature film, and numerous parodies and copycats. It also earned two Emmy nominations and a Peabody Award, in 1993, alongside “60 Minutes” and NPR’s “Fresh Air With Terry Gross.”
And on Friday, April 14, after one of the largest Kickstarter campaigns so far, the series is being revived on Netflix with 14 new 90-minute episodes.
Joel Hodgson, the creator of the series and one of its first hosts, who has worked as a magician, ventriloquist, standup comic and toy designer over the years, said he can’t quite believe his show has reached the big time.
“Our show has never been on prime time, and now it kind of is,” Hodgson said. “We were always on at 2 in the morning on cable, or on Saturday mornings. Now people can watch at 7 in the evening, if they want.”
Hodgson’s original (and ridiculous) conceit is still intact on “Mystery Science Theater 3000:
The Return.” A hapless pilot aboard an orbiting spacecraft (the Satellite of Love) is forced to watch the endless parade of B-movies as part of a diabolical experiment conducted by mad scientists. To keep himself company (and to stave off madness), the pilot creates two robot pals, Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot, who join him in tossing incredulous zingers at the screen as the movies unspool.
While several former cast members will return in cameos, including the men who voiced the original Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot, the three wisecrackers and supporting cast are all new. Jonah Ray stars as the hapless pilot, Jonah Heston; Baron Vaughn (Servo) and Hampton Yount (Crow) voice his two robotic friends.
“A lot of people wanted the old cast,” Hodgson said. “They were like, it’s got to be you or Mike (Nelson, who replaced Hodgson as the lead in the show’s fifth season). And I was like: ‘No, I’m 57. I can’t be the guy. That would be like a reunion show.’”
The new version will also have something else the original lacked: big-name stars. In addition to the show regulars, Patton Oswalt (“Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”) and Felicia Day (“Supernatural,” “The Guild”), who play the series villains, guest stars will include Jerry Seinfeld, Mark Hamill, Joel McHale and Neil Patrick Harris.
Last September, the cast and crew were filming an episode of the show here at the Apache Studios, which was swarming with producers, puppeteers, artists and deeppocketed Kickstarter donors. (In one month, more than 48,000 backers contributed $5.7 million to the cause.) Outside the sound stages, freshly painted brains were drying in the warm California sun; in a nearby prop room were extra robots — full-colour ones for the skits, all-black ones for the signature theatre scenes, when the characters are shown in silhouette.
The featured movie is top secret (the showrunners would rather that viewers come to the movies cold), but it involves a large reptilian monster (not Godzilla) trashing a large metropolitan area (not Tokyo). Although the show often feels as if it were created on the fly, all the episodes are scripted. “A lot of people assume it’s improvised, which would be crazy, because we’d just be talking over each other all the time,” Yount said.
Riffing aside, the series lives or dies on the featured movies. Over its 10-season run, the show has favoured forgotten monster movies, schlockey sci-fi and martial arts films, with a particular emphasis on battles royale between unlikely opponents (“Santo vs. las Mujeres Vampiro,” “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians”) and small animals made terrifyingly large (“Attack of the Giant Leeches,” “The Killer Shrews”).
And not just any forgotten movie will do. At the very least, it has to have copious amounts of dead air to accommodate all that riffing, and a decent print to accommodate today’s giant HD television screens.