‘MST3K’ ready to blast off on new voyage
Rejoice, fans of bad movies: “Mystery Science Theater 3000” is back.
Also known as “MST3K,” the series that made a cult phenomenon of openly mocking less-than-superior films originated on a Minneapolis station, then went national on the forerunners of Comedy Central and Syfy. Still with the silhouettes of some highly sarcastic on-screen viewers leading the charge as they also watch the movies, the show will be revived with a Kickstarterfunded season of 14 new episodes that begins streaming on Netflix in its entirety Friday.
Holding to “MST3K” tradition, the titles won’t be revealed before the premiere date ... but the reboot marks the return of franchise creator Joel Hodgson. He also was the show’s original star, as the captive of two scientists who forced him to watch B-movies. One of the robots he built to keep him company, Tom Servo, is back in the new version (voiced by Baron Vaughn); the new “experiment” subject is played by Jonah Ray, with Felicia Day as the daughter of one of the original experiment conductors and Patton Oswalt as her assistant.
“The idea was to use all new people and new methods and new tools, and to make a run at ending up back in the universe where we started,” former stand-up comic Hodgson said of the “MST3K” revival. “That’s not exactly easy to do. It wasn’t exactly clear how to get there; all I knew how to do was to start, but I’m really grateful that we’ve come out the other end. We showed the pilot to about 1,500 backers, and they all really liked it, so that made us content that we did it.”
Indeed, a lot of support — financial as well as creative — has enabled “MST3K” to live again.
“I’m really glad I didn’t spend a lot of time surveying how badly it could have gone,” Hodgson said. “I got to shake hands with everybody at the cocktail party after the screening and ask them very directly, ‘What did you think?’ and there wasn’t a single person who told me they didn’t like it. They all felt like they did the right thing, and it’s a slightly unreal feeling (for me).
“We do have new people puppeteer ing and voicing the robots, and this is the third time we’ve had talented people (doing that),” he said. “That’s kind of built into the show. The original people are in their 50s now, and the new ones are in their 30s. You can feel that difference, just being 20 years younger, that the attack and the attitude are slightly different. You want that new perspective and new interpretation of the characters.”
If left to their own devices, movies such as “The Crawling Eye,” “Jungle Goddess” and “The Amazing Colossal Man” might not have the lasting followings “MST3K” has given them. That’s thanks also in part to home-video sets (with the label Shout! Factory also helping to bankroll the newest round) and current repeats on the sci-fi- oriented Comet channel.
“Securing the movies has had a really crooked path,” Hodgson said, noting the series started as “a really cheap show. The idea that you were going to riff and talk over someone else’s work was unheard of, so if we did it only with public domain movies, no one could sue us. Then, when we got paid to do it, it was a very confusing time. These distributors would have a group of 22 movies, and 11 of them would be movies you would want to see ... and the other 11 would be the ones we’d want to use.
“They were like, ‘Wait, you want the bad ones?’ and now, everyone understands,” added Hodgson, who had left “MST3K” over creative control issues before the show’s Comedy Central run ended. “I think a lot of distributors look at it as a great way to make extra money, and long story short, it’s easier (to get the films) now.”