Y’all, get ready for the news that’s bringing the nerd world sweet deliverance like we all just blessed ourselves with a slice of #PattiPie.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 is back and for the first time in nearly two decades they’re bringing us brand new material. You read that right, an entire 12 episodes have been in the works and the news only gets better from there. As of yesterday the MST3K crew surpassed their $2 million goal on Kickstarter with a full three weeks left to go, so the first quarter of the projected season has been locked in already!
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Originally starring Joel Hodgson as ill-fated Joel Robinson and his wise-cracking robot crew aboard the Satellite of Love, MST3K pioneered the art of pop culture riffing on a public scale. Sure, we at Black Nerd Problems areundoubtedly the #KillaClipps of the livetweet game, but without MST3K this kind of shadonfreude shade wouldn’t have a cultural context to support it.
One hang up that has fans divided, however, is the announcement of a completely new cast, including never before seen robots. Admittedly it’s hard to let go of a tried and true dynamic, but in a show that’s had two hosts and a variety of enemies and robot voice actors it’s difficult to argue that updates don’t often come with new faces. Let’s also not forget that this opportunity could bring much needed representation to a program historically very white and very male. So far the big reveal has been Nerdist’s Jonah Ray playing the part of newest host Jonah Heston, but the new bad and robot actors are still wide open.
As we anxiously await the not too distant future, though, there’s still a bounty of great ways to enjoy classic riffing goodness. MST3K alumni Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett recently completed their third successful kickstarter campaign for RiffTrax, a venture composed of live, video recorded, and audio recorded commentary on various popular but awful movies. This year will also mark the third annual MST3K Turkey Day on hosted by Shout! Factory on November 26th (there’s even still time to comment or tweet your suggested episodes to stream!).
In the end, perhaps only MST3K’s creator can sum up what makes us all so thankful for the show in all its iterations after all this time. “MST3K is more than just movie riffing,” Joel mentions in the campaign’s description. “It’s a stranger and denser recipe than just saying smart aleck things to a forgotten movie, but I think this is the secret ingredient: we believed that it’s easiest to survive the cheesy movie that we’re living in with friends who keep us from taking it all too seriously.”
You can contribute to the Kickstarter today by donating, sharing the url, or using the hashtag #BringBackMST3K.
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