Mystery Science Theater 3000: C/D, S/D.

i've seen some official Rifftrax feat. guest riffers and they were shockingly boring. like any comedy it's all about the delivery

New fully public update from Joel, worth a read:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mst3k/bringbackmst3k/posts/1817172

The big news is talking about the return of Gypsy, per the cast photo, and that she's actually played by a woman this time out, Rebecca Hanson, who sounds like she's also being increasingly involved in behind-the-scenes stuff as well. For a variety of reasons I approve of that, and Joel talking about how the character was originally planned/designed/approached/voiced is a pretty good owning up, I think.

The other chunk of news was talking about the backers-only screenings of the first new episode over the past couple of weeks, which apparently went down well. Here's the bit from Joel I was most interested in:

Actually, even some of the most hesitant backers who came to our screenings came up to all of us afterward, and told us that they think we got the tone of the show "just right," and that they're really pleased to see how well Jonah, Baron, Hampton, Felicia and Patton picked up the tradition and kept it going. If you're still worried about the new cast, I hope that will help you relax a bit and enjoy the last few weeks of waiting a little more.

It's nice to see him admit that there ARE hesitant backers, for whatever reasons we all have had. (I only chipped in a buck just so I could keep tabs on the news.) Not surprising he'd share positive news and all but this gives me a little more hope.

Anyway, whole bunch of original episodes coming to Netflix:

http://theshoutfactory.tumblr.com/post/158405283795/fan-favorite-classic-episodes-of-mystery-science

"Hey, ever since Dad got murdered, things have been great!"

Teaser Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ct0Z2bQndM

not much to go on but i for one hate the digitally-inserted stuff. i'm pretty down with the prop/miniature stuff though.

Yeah...huh.

Well, I guess in a WEIRD way, if the original series was supposed to be/reference cheap programming in the UHF/video era, maybe referencing cheap programming in the streaming/digital insert era is the only way to go. But I think I just retconned the whole thing.

Frankly I would have been happier with, you know, an actual version of the THEME SONG.

You should really just relax.

Astounding!

I had forgotten Felicia Day was involved with this?

What digital stuff? I saw some stop motion and chromakeyed or composited stuff but it didn't look like idk an Empire flooring commercial or the mucinex bee

I meant the composited stuff like the stuff on their monitors. Makes it look like a YouTube channel with a little bit of money and time behind it, not like MST (to me).

sweet they are going to riff Starcrash. i love that movie.

Yeah Starcrash is prime meat for sure.

The other movies in the trailer are apparently Reptilicus and The Time Travelers (1964).

I hope there's at least one post-ironic aughts or teens movie in the season, something for the millennials like me

Makes it look like a YouTube channel

but that's totally the cable access equivalent of the 21st century. Honestly I just hope the riffs are funny.

i saw reptilicus a few years ago, it's pretty amazing in its own right

I've also seen Reptilicus (in college) and was floored back then when I found out MST3K hadn't tackled it. Eager to see what they do with it

Watched Sidehackers for the first time in a long time last night. Still great to see how far the sport has come from its humble desert origins.

This had me rolling:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTKWAgiZs5M

My own FLESH I don't love better!

Mike was so fantastically great in the guest/one-off spots during the Joel years. And I could be wrong but I think that's Frank's only 'guest role' ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQR78U6zvGI

"...breakfast, actually."

Frank was also the voice of Winky (Mike)'s mom in Manhunt in Space.

Hahah that's right.

WTF kind of name is "Kinga" though

it's Hungarian/Polish

https://www.behindthename.com/name/kinga

Fair enough

#ByeKinga

Sidehackers is still a really gross, uncomfortable movie, and not one I would have put on a playlist for neophytes. But it does have some good riffing. Love Tom's talkin' country song during the backyard practice scene.

The YT search that got me the Mike/Frank thing above also taught me that BMX sidehacking is apparently...a thing? Dudes in Ukrainian forest trails doing sidehacking races and shit. I'll let you go look for yourself if interested rather than clog up the thread with unwanted real life sidehack footage.

New interview with Joel

http://io9.gizmodo.com/creator-joel-hodgson-on-the-return-of-mystery-science-t-1793682355

And I will say this is spot on:

We’re 50/50 partners in the new MST. They helped motivate this just as much as I did, too. They wanted it to happen, too, and it made a lot of sense because they had done so well with the brand distributing [the MST3K] DVDs. They were demonstrating over time that people were still interested in it—“Hey, this thing isn’t really going away. People are still interested in it and talking about it. So it’s possible we could have a shot at buying it and trying to bring it back.”

So, that had a lot to do with it. And also, the good thing is it created a relationship with these people buying DVDs over the years. And people really like them. They did a good job.

Kinda (in)famously, part of the whole origin of Shout Factory has to do with MST3K and DVDs -- it was a partnership of three folks at Rhino, who handled the original releases/sets, getting dissatisfied with the company as a whole, compounded by notable problems with some of the (eventually last) Rhino DVD releases -- bad masters here and there and, even more notably, two cases where entire sets had to be recalled/modified because they screwed up obtaining formal rights (for Women of the Prehistoric World and even more notoriously Godzilla vs. Megalon). Shout Factory pretty much said out of the gate that they would aim to do things right instead and pretty much that's exactly what happened. The fact that we're down to just a handful of titles left to reissue shows it paid off.

And given the VERY unsettled/negative vibes that Trace and Frank in particular have expressed towards the revival to this day, this is very interesting:

I always felt like the experiment was going to be Kinga Forrester, who’s Dr. Clayton Forrester’s daughter and Pearl Forrester’s granddaughter. But when we were starting, right before the Kickstarter, I was planning on [original villains] Trace Beaulieu and Frank Conniff being part of it. We were planning on doing the Kickstarter video and we were actually planning their travel and I had written them into the script for the Kickstarter and so, it was going to be Forrester and Frank and Kinga—and also Mary Jo Pehl, who played Pearl. They were more like an ensemble and Kinga was more of a reluctant super villain-in-training.

And just before we shot the video, for different reasons, they couldn’t be part of the Kickstarter. Trace, Frank, Mary Jo, etc. And so, I had to kind of change my posture because I realized, “Oh, all-new people we’re just going to have to proceed with...” and lean more strongly on Kinga, Jonah Ray, and the ‘Bots. So I was really faced with that. I knew I’d have to get a second banana for Kinga, and I was already wanting to use Patton. He just dropped in and it was fantastic. As you can see, they’re like, unbelievable together. It’s really crazy how good he and Felicia are.

Have to wonder about those 'different reasons' there -- especially since Mary Jo is guesting in the new season (along with Kevin and Bill IIRC -- Rifftrax and MST3K have clearly worked out a modus vivendi, referencing each other's projects on Kickstarter, the Rifftrax ads in the Turkey Day streams, etc.)

One last big snippet -- I was very much wondering how they were going to do this:

Q: Given that the new series is on Netflix, and has no commercials or time constraints, I didn’t expect that it would still stick to being 90 minutes long, with three host segments in the middle, and even bumpers for commercial breaks. Why do that?

Hodgson: I love those little remnants that are in TV shows, like, they’re going to a commercial break. If you watch The Walking Dead... there are moments where you know it’s supposed to go to a commercial. You can feel it. And it doesn’t. But it’s a little reminder that, “Oh, they were going to go to commercial there.” I really love that. And I think it’s good for the viewer. It’s a little bit of a palette cleanser.

And it was also kind of a remnant from the original show that I was trying to send a little love tap to people who were longtime fans and watched the shows on VHS. And in the narrative of the show, Inga’s kind of maniacal and wants to blow up the brand, and so she’s using that to kind of reinforce that you’re watching this slick TV show, and they have a house band... they’re promoting it back to you as you’re watching it. You know?

good interview but i paused when the interviewer said this

I never really thought about how carefree Mystery Science Theater 3000 was

You should really just relax!

Thanks for that backstory on Shout Factory, Ned. I love that company so much it hurts (my wallet).

I watched MST3K Giant Gila Monster today on Netflix.
I am very fond of Trace's Crow, I love how cynical and almost-blue his material is.

More stories and things:

http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/mystery-science-theater-3000-season-11-netflix-satellite-of-love-1202012740/

http://www.vulture.com/2017/03/mystery-science-theater-3000-joel-hodgson-jonah-ray-netflix.html

http://uproxx.com/tv/mystery-science-theater-3000-revival-profile-mst3k-joel-hodgson-jonah-ray/

Of the three, the Vulture one is the most extensive/interesting -- Joel and Jonah answering a slew of questions together. Scratching my chin a bit at this answer:

This is a heavily scripted show. Do you improv jokes at all?

Hodgson: We call that vamping. Vamping is creating the illusion that it’s spontaneous, but it’s written. To me, it’s like music — you have to know who says what or you’re gonna crash into each other. At the same time, it’s a living, breathing thing. There is room in there to have those moments. But I’ll say one thing: We didn’t put any fake laughs in. The only laughs that are in there are genuine laughs. And I think back in the day there are some fake laughs.

Though the Uproxx one is more intriguing than I thought -- it's an interview with all three of the new stars, so Vaughn and Yount as well, plus Joel.

This bit from the Uproxx one sheds rather more light on the whole question of what happened exactly with the first version of the revival:

“When we first started talking with Shout! Factory,” (Joel) says, “I think the idea was, oh it’s a reunion show. We will have Joel and Mike and all the different Mads and all the guys who put… You know we’ll have Josh (Weinstein) as Servo and Kevin (Murphy) as Servo and the two Crows (Trace Beaulieu and Bill Corbett) and it became a logistical headache. I remember doing a graphic with a parallel universe where there’s a Satellite of Love in one universe and there’s another Satellite of Love in another universe and that was how I was trying to figure out, how do we do this? How do we arrange two seasons with two completely different casts? And once I spent enough time with it, I realized it was impractical. Trace and I wrote like six pages, to try to justify how it all worked and it just was really hard.

“After that I just felt like, ‘Why am I doing this?’ We’ve had two iterations of the cast, let’s have a third one and then people can come back and visit, you know and do their characters and have cameos. So, that’s what I’ve been thinking about for the last seven years. It should be a new cast.”

Again, given Trace (and Frank's) clearer antipathy for what's resulted here...interesting.

Have either of those guys (Trace/Frank) gone into much detail or is it just a collection of passive aggressive tweets etc? I feel like I don't know anything but it makes me equal parts sad and curious to learn that there is an uncomfortable cloud of unclear resentment hanging over this whole revive...

Tweets but also random comments on their podcast etc -- it's not an endless litany or anything, more like when the subject comes up.

I would think all parties involved come off best by not airing out too many grievances

in other news i watched the rifftrax to Stone Cold starring Brian "The Boz" Bosworth last night and boy that movie was something else.

xpost -- I still find it interesting that the one person who hasn't had much to say since the sale is Mallon.

Trace and Frank were on the MST3K Reunion live special that Rifftrax did, right? And they were part of Cinematic Titanic, so I doubt they hate Joel or something. And Trace was also on their one-off "The Heat" commentary (w/ Josh!), though maybe that had more to do with them all being friends of Paul Feig. Either way I don't think they have any serious grievances that couldn't be resolved.

I think they were worried it was gonna be shit, and didn't want to get involved with shit. If it's amazing, or even just pretty good, I imagine there could be several cameos of them in Season 12.