Mystery Science Theater 3000 crowdfunding 14th season

[brightknightie]

Are you, or is anyone you know, a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K)? If so, you may be interested to learn that they're currently crowd-funding a new fourteenth season, completely independent of any studio or other corporate overlords (unlike the revival eleventh and twelfth season done in cooperation with Netflix, but very much like the revival thirteenth season in which they launched their "Gizmoplex" independent streaming, and of course also different from the old Comedy Central days, or Sci-Fi Channel days, or even the primordial local cable days).

Learn all about it at mst3k.com! Or on their YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter/X. This effort runs through this Thanksgiving Day (November 23, 2023), after which they will lock in the number of new episodes they'll produce for the season, so, to get more episodes, fund them before their deadline. And of course there will be their traditional "turkey day" marathon of "turkeys" (bad movies) being mocked in signature style.

I've personally backed each of the revival seasons so far, including this hoped-for fourteenth. I'd be happy to describe my experience with their "Gizmoplex" streaming and as a backer; please ask any questions.

(Never heard of MST3K? It's not like anything else, so it's kind of hard to explain, but don't worry -- as the theme song says, "it's just a show," so we can "just relax" about the backstory in which mad scientists trap a victim alone in space and force him or her to watch endless cheesy genre movies, but the victim fights back by creating sentient robots to watch the movies with, together endlessly mocking everything about the movies in a rain of jokes so dense that even if you catch only every fourth joke, you laugh all the way through. It's not for everyone! But it is very much for some. It's something I get to share with my sister, so I value it even more highly for that.)

Addendum: With 13 days left, they are currently at 33% of goal for a 6-episode season. Ouch. It really hurt that the studios didn't settle contracts earlier, so that the actors weren't able to do any promotion on social media or elsewhere. (They want to do a 12-episode season if they can get the money; they set the 6-episode season as the minimum goal.)

Comments

[sholio]

My friends group was really into this in college (edit: mid-90s), and so all my memories of it involve VHS tapes or late-night TV and dorm rooms. I'm amazed and impressed that it's still going on a full generation later.

[brightknightie]

MST3K has a loving fan base who are now raising children and grandchildren in the faith. ;-) When my family discovered it, it was on The Comedy Channel (later Comedy Central) on Saturday nights, right after TNG, so, as kids during the school year: dinner (my dad often made us pizza on Saturday nights) > TNG > MST3K was a pretty sweet Saturday night.

My sister and I have been to 3 live riffing performances over the [many] years, one in their "Cinematic Titanic" days (when they couldn't use the MST3K name or the bots), and two since the revival. (The last was in February 2020. Um.)

As you may or may not know, there have been four total hosts over all the years -- Joel, Mike, Jonah, and Emily -- and presently, in-story, the scenario is that evil entrepreneur Kinga Forrester (granddaughter of the original evil Doctor Forrester, played by Felicia Day (!)) has used time travel to scoop up three of the four hosts (Joel, Jonah, and Emily) and has trapped them in her cineplex on the dark side of the moon, where she forces them to (separately, with their own bots) watch cheesy movies as she seeks investor backing for her evil schemes across time and space...

“How much Keefe is in this movie anyway?”

[switchbladeeyes]

Oh, fun!! I didn’t realize there had been another season after Netflix.

I've been a fan since the early 90s. I still remember some of the jokes decades later lol.

Mr. SwitchbladeEyes is also a fan and we enjoyed the Netflix run (peak episode: “Cry Wilderness,” we could not stop laughing :-D). I’ll have to tell him there was another season after Netflix and crowdfunding for a new season.

Re: “How much Keefe is in this movie anyway?”

[brightknightie]

Yay! I'm glad to have reached you both with the news!

Hmmmm. According to the episode list on Wikipedia I misnumbered the seasons in my original post here; I'll mend that. Netflix backed both season 11 (14 episodes) and season 12 (only 6 episodes), but then the crew went independent with season 13 (13 episodes).

Cry Wilderness is indeed very good/horrible! The one that I absolutely cannot get over from that season, myself, is Starcrash, the one with David Hasselhoff as, essentially, Princess Leia.

The subsequent little season is a romp, with the agonizing badness of Mac and Me and Atlantic Rim... and then in the most recent season, I can't forget The Bubble, where the genres have folded in on themselves in ridiculousness...

Re: “How much Keefe is in this movie anyway?”

[switchbladeeyes]

The funny thing for me about “Mac and Me” is I had actually seen that movie before in the 80s. Multiple times. I’d hang out with the neighbors’ kids and they had the movie on tape and LOVED it lolol.

Thanks for sharing the news. Mr. SwitchbladeEyes was pumped. We’re definitely backing.