Posts Tagged ‘MST3K’

MST3K’s 14th Season Fundraiser Going Slow

Monday, November 20th, 2023

You may have noticed that Joel Hodgson and MST3K gang are having a new kickstarter for the next season (for values of “kickstarter” that include “not on the Kickstarter platform”). There are five days left and they are only 38% of the way to the first goal of $4.8 million, which will be six features and six shorts.

The last two Kickstarters they had blew past their goals.

This one? Not so much. Despite announcing that Plan 9 from Outer Space will be among the riffed films.

Donor fatigue? The Biden Recession? Not doing enough promotion? Not enough boost from a non-Kickstarter platform? Disgruntlement over how long it took people to get their promised rewards from the last campaign?

I think it may be some combination of all the above.

Maybe the usual Turkey Day festivities will kick it into higher gear. But if they don’t, this may be the first MST3K fundraising effort to fail.

MST3K Kickstarter Update: Fully Funded, New Joel Episodes, Dueling Hosts, More!

Friday, May 7th, 2021

For those who still haven’t backed the new Mystery Science Theater 3000, they just roared past their $5.5 million goal to make 12 episodes and they still have (as of this writing) 13 hours left to go.

I previously covered The Gizmoplex, but here are few of the more interesting tidbits about Season 13 that have been revealed since the campaign launch:

  • Grand Poobah Joel Hodgson will reprise his role as test subject Joel Robinson for two episodes.
  • In addition to Jonah Ray returning as test subject Jonah Heston (and Felicia Day and Patton Oswalt returning as the Mads), Emily Marsh (who appeared on the most recent MST3K live tour) will be appearing as test subject Emily Crenshaw. Evidently there will be separate Jonah and Emily (and Joel) episodes.
  • They’re going to do at least one 3D movie.
  • Two of the films to be riffed will be Robot Wars and Demon Squad. Since the latter came out in 2019, that has to rank as the shortest release-to-MST3K gap ever.
  • If you haven’t backed the Kickstarter yet, now would be a good time…

    Joel Hodgson Launches Another MST3K Kickstarter

    Thursday, April 8th, 2021

    MST3K creator Joel Hodgson has launched another MST3K Kickstarter to help fund the show that was dropped by Netflix after two seasons. Their minimum goal is $2 million for three more episodes (which I think they’re going to breeze past today), with stretch goals out to $5.5 million for 12 episodes (plus 12 short films).

    Plus something called “The Gizmoplex,” which he describes as “an online theater for live screenings & special events!”

    1. Live Premieres & Events: Each month for our first year, The Gizmoplex will host at least* one live event, where you can join me, our cast and writers, and some special surprise guests. Each live event will be like a night at the theater, and will have a lot of fun surprises. Our live events could include new sketches, trailers (done “MST3K style”), live Q&A panel discussions, interviews, contests… even the return of the MST3K “viewer mail” segment.

    2. The MST3K Watch Club: To make it easier to watch MST3K with your friends, The Gizmoplex will also be the official home of the MST3K Watch Club! Each month, you’ll get on-demand access to a new selection of episodes, and the ability to host your own live screenings for up to 10 people! Anyone with a Gizmoplex Pass can join for free, and if you want to invite someone who doesn’t, they can get a “Day Pass” for just $0.99!

    And, if we reach our stretch goals, the Gizmoplex Pass will get even more valuable!

    3. Gizmoplex Apps: If we raise $3.3 million, we’ll be able to develop apps that bring The Gizmoplex to mobile devices and TVs! Right now, the plan is to include apps for six of the most popular platforms: iOS, Android, AppleTV, AndroidTV, FireTV and Roku. Like Crow says: we’re gonna conquer cyberspace, man!

    Also: “I really want The Gizmoplex to feel like something new: less like another Netflix with nothing but MST, and more like a charming, off the radar, suburban cineplex that plays movies for 99 cents, long after their first run.”

    Though not stated, the ad campaign suggests they’re keeping the Season 11 and 12 cast, and Jonah Ray appears in the Kickstarter video.

    There’s also some interesting discussion of the economics behind the show and Kickstarter:

    1. Without a network supporting us, we need to fund everything ourselves. During our first Kickstarter, we estimated that, once production was up and running, we’d be able to produce new episodes for about $250K each. In the end, though, the budget for each new episode ended up being closer to $350K. For the last two seasons, we were able to cover the difference through our deal with Netflix… but this time, we’re on our own. We’ve got a lot of ways we can keep the budget lower, but, you know… it’s still going to cost something. And when you think about it, $350K for 90 minutes of television is still one of the best deals in show business.

    2. We still can’t spend everything we raise on Kickstarter to make the show.

    Campaign Fees: Between Kickstarter and the credit card processor, we pay about 8% of your pledge in fees. There’s also a fee for CrowdOx, the platform we’ll use to manage all of your surveys and rewards after the campaign ends.

    Making Rewards: We reserve about 20% of your pledge in order to design, produce, print, sort and pack all of your rewards. And that’s not even including shipping, which we’re not collecting until after our Kickstarter campaign ends!

    Dedicated Support: During our first Kickstarter, we underestimated the amount of work involved in providing customer support and creating detailed backer updates, so we had to depend on volunteers to do a lot of it. This time, we want to make sure we’re prepared, so we budgeted about 4% of each pledge for that.

    Building & Running The Gizmoplex: We really want The Gizmoplex to be great, but getting it started will take some work – and keeping it running also means we’ll have some monthly fees to cover. We also need some budget to support all of the special live events we’re planning to host. So, we’re using about 3% of your pledge for that.

    When you put it all together, we have to spend about 35% of what we raise just to cover Kickstarter expenses, and to keep all the promises we’re making to you.

    He thinks that if they do 12 episodes, per episode cost will be down to just under $300K.

    You may remember that MST3K already had the biggest Kickstarter in history up to that time. It’s since been surpassed by several smart watches and board games, among other things.

    Despite the caveat that “this might not be a good time for some people to offer financial support to a robot puppet show dedicated to cheesy movies,” I expect them to blow the doors off the totals of their last Kickstarter.

    Naturally I’ve already pledged.

    Update: Just ticked over the first goal of $2 million.

    The Bizarre Story Behind Space Mutiny

    Friday, October 9th, 2020

    A perennial Mystery Science Theater 3000 favorite, Space Mutiny is a grade Z science fiction film feature bad acting, a bad script, bad direction, ludicrous sets, thoroughly incompetent continuity, and special effects licensed from the original Battlestar Galactica TV series.

    Here the people behind The Bad Movie Bible (which I may need to pick up) take a look at the story behind the film:

    I didn’t realize that ostensible director David Winters was also the choreographer for The Star Wars Holiday Special. While that’s an awful lot of evil to pack into one career, any teenage boy whose parents had The Movie Channel in the 1980s are certainly willing to forgive a lot of sins for producing late night “classic” Young Lady Chatterly. (In the “non-evil” department, he was also a Jet in West Side Story.)

    The MST3K episode of Space Mutiny is available as part of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Vol. 4. BLAST HARDCHEESE says you should pick up a copy…

    Interviews with Mike Nelson and Kevin Murphy on MST3K

    Thursday, March 12th, 2020

    I came across these interviews of Mike Nelson and Kevin Murphy from Mystery Science Theater 3000. These were evidently an extra on Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders from Volume 5 of the Rhino boxed sets (and presumably on the Shout! Factory reissue). Talks about the early days of the show and some of the films too awful for them to riff.

    Every MST3K Reference in Rush

    Wednesday, January 15th, 2020

    As a guy who only owns Moving Pictures, I’m not the right person to talk about the passing of Rush drummer Neil Peart. So instead, here’s every Rush reference in Mystery Science Theater 3000:

    (Dwight already posted all the Archer references, though I think that video is missing an incarnation or two Krieger’s van.)

    Sad Thanksgiving News: No MST3K Season 13 on Netflix

    Thursday, November 28th, 2019

    I Haz a Sad:

    Things have been far too quiet on the MST3K front lately. It has been over a year since Mystery Science Theater 3000 season 12 hit Netflix, and since then, we’ve heard nary a peep about production on new episodes. Sure, series creator Joel Hodgson has been busy with the live tour and various other efforts, but you would think that after a year, and with Thanksgiving looming (an all important date on the MST3K calendar) Netflix would get the ball rolling again. You would be wrong. It’s time to find another home for the Satellite of Love.

    Hodgson sends out regular email updates to an MST3K mailing list, and today’s email blast brought the news fans have dreaded. Mystery Science Theater 3000 season 13 isn’t happening. At least not on Netflix.

    “As some of you might have guessed, we won’t be making new seasons of the show for Netflix,” Hodgson wrote. “However, I want you to know that we’ve had a wonderful time working with the Netflix team, and will always be grateful to them. After all, they gave us the opportunity to spend the past few years aboard the Satellite of Love, and made it possible for new generations to discover the joys of riffing cheesy movies with your friends.”

    This is sad news, but not unexpected, since rumors had been flying that another deal was not forthcoming from Netflix for months.

    Hopefully they’ll be able to land on their feet and find another channel or service willing to continue the show. (Disney? It’s pretty family friendly and relatively inoffensive…)

    Netflix Reveals MST3K Turkey Day “Gauntlet”

    Monday, November 12th, 2018

    The cat is now officially out of the bag:

  • Mac and Me
  • Atlantic Rim
  • Lords of the Deep
  • The Day Time Ended
  • Killer Fish
  • ATOR The Fighting Eagle
  • Quick thoughts:

    1. Going to be an awfully wet season.
    2. Since the Joel era already did Cave Dwellers, does that make ATOR the first movie they’re riffed twice? Edited to add: People on Facebook are telling me that Cave Dwellers is actually the second Ator movie, not the first.
    3. Jonah should go on Conan, promise to show a clip from them riffing Atlantic Rim…and then it be a clip of them riffing the wheelchair falling scene from Mac and Me…

    Every MST3K Intro Song, Line by Line

    Wednesday, November 29th, 2017

    Including the KTMA intro, which I had never seen before. It’s a chance to see and hear just how the intro has changed over the years.

    MST3K Renewed For 12th Season

    Thursday, November 23rd, 2017

    This news just broke via MST3K Kickstarter mailing list: They’ve been reviewed for a 12th season by Netflix!