MST3K - Coming back via Kickstarter

[Famous Mortimer]

Every now and again, I have a shuftie on eBay to see if someone's labelled a box wrong and I can get vol. 10 for cheap, but no luck. Actually, I'm only up to 27 on the box sets, I guess there's a few more since then.

[Spiral King]

None of this will affect shout factory's releases will it? Because we're incredibly close to reaching what was inconceivable a decade ago and having every episode released (bar Godzilla vs The Sea Monster which even they surely can't pull off a deal for).

I bought the volume that had Godzilla vs Megalon on as soon as it was available, knowing it wouldn't last long. As luck would have it, that one got nicked. It's still haunting me almost ten years later.

Seeing as Shout Factory outright own MST3K now, I doubt it'll affect anything DVD-wise.

[Rev]

I remember when the episodes were being uploaded on youtube in ten parts with wierd code names you had sign up to emailing list to receive. All those C&Ds, all those copyright strikes, all those forum bans. All Lost. Like tears in the rain.

Youtube?  Luxury!  I remember the weird dance of acceptance that you had to do in order to be able to download them via eMule - the one and only thing I ever used that for.

[colacentral]

I forgot about dapcentral's insistence on using emule, before they started torrenting. I tried it but could never get through to it on virgin (or NTL if it was those days.) I ended up going through IRC and using FTPs to queue up an episode and take an entire day to download it. Then someone on MySpleen torrented the DAP DVDs and forced them to think about torrenting. Some of those DAP DVDs were unwatchable too, really shit quality tenth generation vhs dubs with bits missing.

It's been a long journey for MST3K fans wanting copies to own, especially for those of us in the UK who never got to watch the Comedy Central episodes on TV.

I'd like to concur that Red Zone Cuba is a classic, probably my all time favourite episode. I'm also fond of The Incredible Melting Man.

People often talk about the difference between Mike and Joel, but the bigger divide for me is the two Crows. I really thought Trace's Crow with his sillier sense of humour had great chemistry with dry, sarcastic Mike.

[great_badir]

People often talk about the difference between Mike and Joel, but the bigger divide for me is the two Crows. I really thought Trace's Crow with his sillier sense of humour had great chemistry with dry, sarcastic Mike.

Interesting - I came to it when Sci-Fi (the UK one) were showing them in the mid-and-to-late 90s, so my first introduction was the Mike and Bill era, and it's that Sci-Fi era that will always have a special place in my heart.  I love both equally, but a lot of my favourite episodes are from the latter days.

But, really, and as I've said before, the only episodes I struggle to watch at all are the very early pre-scripted ones.

[colacentral]

I discovered it through Sci-Fi too and I didn't mean to take anything away from Bill's Crow. I love all eras of the show for different reasons. I just love seasons 6 and 7 most of all.

[great_badir]

I discovered it through Sci-Fi too and I didn't mean to take anything away from Bill's Crow. I love all eras of the show for different reasons. I just love seasons 6 and 7 most of all.

And, whatever season, whoever the host/mad/Crow, and whatever is going on in the world, it's always like a warm, gentle and reassuring hug.  I'm sure I've written about it before on CaB, but MST was about the only thing that got me through a very very difficult time in my life about 6 or 7 years ago.  Even Vic and Bob couldn't sort me out then.

[Attila]

One of the lucky ones here-- I was living out in Mlps when the show went on the air originally as a silly filler on an indie channel. Admittedly didn't see much of it, as this was about the time I was packing up to leave one university and come back to the East Coast for another -- it wasn't until I was quite ill with the flu that I ended up seeing parts of Teenagers from Outer Space in the US version of Comedy Central that I realised, 'Hey, this is a really funny show! My brother used to riff movies when I was a kid!'

One reason I'd avoided it up til then was CC had a habit of putting advertising bumpers together and effectively making shows horribly unappealing (I avoided Absolutely Fabulous for years because of the relentless and misdirected advertising produced by CC).

The first one I caught on YouTube was back in YouTube's earliest days, and someone had uploaded Outlaw in two parts (this was before they limited videos to 10 minutes to try to prevent people uploading whole shows and videos).  I had to leave the window open all night for each part to load up.

Mr Attila was only vaguely familiar with the show from night-owl channel surfing, but I sent him a link to Tom's 'Song About the 70s' and it intrigued him enough to track down and watch Riding with Death which baffled the shit out of him[nb]He still doesn't believe me that we American type folk called each other 'turkey' back in the 70s -- my mom still calls people turkeys when she's exasperated with them.[/nb] (I guess in the UK you don't make 'movies' out of slamming two unrelated episodes of a tv show together -- very commonplace at home when you get shows that don't make enough episodes for syndication or you've got a two hour busted pilot for a show that doesn't get picked up, etc. ) His increasingly baffled and indignant questions about the plot were lovely...

He went on to watch Squirm on his own randomly ('How come you don't talk like that?' 1. because NO ONE is that Southern and 2. I'm NOT from the South[nb]and will get very cross if you assume that I am.[/nb])

He did some reading around the internet on the show subsequently, and wanted to watch this Manos that everyone was talking about -- I told him to wait, because I do'nt think Manos is a good episode for someone who's not more familiar with the show, and loaded him up with some of the more accessible ones to start with.

I went to buy him the MST3K book (which I picked up for about $10 when it was first published -- whoa doggies did it go up in price subsequently!), and he's envious of my MST3K Info Club bulletins that I still have.

I hope they don't take them off YouTube, as we're still wending our way through them, usually on winter weekend evenings.

I've got too many fave episodes to list; Mr Attila likes anything where Tom and Crow panic and subsequently fall apart, catch on fire, etc.

[Famous Mortimer]

Latest update is to introduce Felicia Day as the main Mad, Dr Forrester's daughter.

She's fine, I suppose, and I'm sure she'll do a decent job. But...it just feels like same old, same old, with LA's most famous nerds doing the same thing they've done on a thousand podcasts and convention appearances. I appreciate I'm being a bit negative before it's even shot a single frame, but it's getting further and further from the thing I loved.

The other interesting bit of news (far more interesting than the idea of new episodes with this cast) is Joel hinting at one of the bonuses for them hitting a stretch goal will be the release of the KTMA episodes, hopefully cleaned up a bit  - the sound quality on some of those episodes is almost unbearable, and a few of them had weird groupings, like one or two didn't have Joel in at all because he was doing standup elsewhere. I've seen the available ones, and while they're occasionally rough (mostly improvised, with lots of silence from the three riffers) cleaned-up versions would be wonderful.

[dr_christian_troy]

I had a very strong feeling that the new Mad would be Felicia Day...not sure why. I guessed it from the silhouette from the previous update video, which makes me feel a bit creepy, especially since I don't really know much of her work at all. Still, in the latest video alone she brings good energy. I'm not familiar with Hampton Yount, but Baron Vaughn's good fun on the Maltin On Maltin podcast.

[Bhazor]

Latest update is to introduce Felicia Day as the main Mad, Dr Forrester's daughter.

She's fine, I suppose, and I'm sure she'll do a decent job. But...it just feels like same old, same old, with LA's most famous nerds doing the same thing they've done on a thousand podcasts and convention appearances.

They announce Will Wheaton as the new Mad's sidekick and I am fucking out.

[Old Nehamkin]

She's fine, I suppose, and I'm sure she'll do a decent job. But...it just feels like same old, same old, with LA's most famous nerds doing the same thing they've done on a thousand podcasts and convention appearances. I appreciate I'm being a bit negative before it's even shot a single frame, but it's getting further and further from the thing I loved.

Yeah, I feel similar. A big part of the original show's appeal was that it was clearly cobbled together by a group of genuine friends who were as far out on the fringes of showbiz as it was possible to be. Nobody on screen ever came across as a media type at all and the show always had a very distinctive voice with a specific sort of mid-western flavour to it, if that makes sense. It's hard to see how they can come close to recapturing that magic by simply assembling a bunch of career pop culture commentators out of Hollywood.

[clingfilm portent]

Yup, its going to sound like a hell of a lot of other stuff, be too polished and over-produced. Also over-performed. I'm really not keen on Servo's voice either.

[Spiral King]

I'm sure I've written about it before on CaB, but MST was about the only thing that got me through a very very difficult time in my life about 6 or 7 years ago.  Even Vic and Bob couldn't sort me out then.

Hey, if you could find a link for this, I'd like to read it.

Unrelated: I just finished acquiring Season 2 for myself. Once I have Season 1, I'm going to start watching them chronologically, as I feel as I've seen so little of the Comedy Central era, and I really should go about fixing that.

[Gulftastic]

It was never going to be what it was, but I love Felicia Day more than a bit, so I'm pleased she'll be involved.

[Famous Mortimer]

And the new assistant is Patton Oswalt.

I've enjoyed some of his standup and occasional bit of his acting, but it's such a nothing move, like Joel just hired nerd-famous people who've kissed his ass about how great MST3K was. Because it bears repeating, it's not like any of us were fans of just the location, or the idea - it was about those writers and performers, and the atmosphere they created. If you were asked before the Kickstarter to name 10 LA people who might be picked in some horrible corporate reboot of the show, those three would be among them.

Okay, so now I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that one of the rewards is the remastered KTMA episodes. I'll drop money on those.

[EFB]

Okay, so now I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that one of the rewards is the remastered KTMA episodes. I'll drop money on those.

Holy potatoes YES. So many fantastic host segments that I watch over and over, having to ignore the bad VHS tracking and audio interference.

[clingfilm portent]

I'm sure Patton Oswalt is a lovely person and everything, but I wish he'd kind of disappear.

[great_badir]

Well, Patton is my favourite working US comedian, so I'm pleased as punch.  Mind you, it does look like they've just mocked him up to be a direct replacement for TV's Frank.  Granted, they are both "doughy guys", but I would have thought Joel might go for something totally different.  Ah well, whatevs and such.

[Spiral King]

There is a REALLY icy disconnect between Hodgson's enthusiastic Kickstarter updates about the Mads' off-spring and Beaulieu and Conniff's reactions on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/TraceBeaulieu/status/671471939488079872
https://twitter.com/TraceBeaulieu/status/671455418447564801

https://twitter.com/FrankConniff/status/671448617216049153
https://twitter.com/FrankConniff/status/671448880026918916

Joel needs to get better at communication. Or give them the money they might be owed. Or whatever.

[Famous Mortimer]

http://www.themadsareback.com/

"Minnesotan puppet show"

I imagine people in this thread made up about half the audience for Trace and Frank's Q & A in London a while ago? I wish I'd asked a less stupid question. And that the next show hadn't elbowed them out quite so quickly.

Joel needs to get better at communication. Or give them the money they might be owed. Or whatever.

http://mst3k.com/kickstarter/addons/digital/episode - when the sale stops, episodes (all of which appear to still be free on Youtube, someone should have a word) will be $10 a pop, so one would hope there'll be a cheque or two in the mail.

[colacentral]

Rifftrax are selling mst3k episodes now too and make a point of saying that the profits will be sent to all of the principal cast, ie not like shout factory.

I'm a bit suspicious of their issue with the residuals. There can't be that many people buying the dvds can there? Shout Factory have released a lot of episodes that were previously thought impossible to obtain the rights to, so you have to wonder what they did to make those deals. On top of that, none of the cast were in every single episode. I can't imagine Shout Factory making that much of a profit on the DVDs, and when that's split between everyone who's owed a cut on a particular episode, the residuals probably wouldn't amount to much.

Obviously Joel has the theme music royalties, creator credit etc, so he probably would get a decent chunk.

[Famous Mortimer]

Re: the relatively small number of people buying them, they're really not cheap though. Even second-hand, you're lucky to find one of the box sets for less than £30, so given those box sets are essentially four episodes of a TV show, someone's making some money somewhere.

[Bhazor]

Just noticed there's an official  Shout Factory MST3K youtube channel uploading the episodes that Rifftrax has been selling. I don't even know. But I guess it means the episodes will still be available on youtube. For cheap bastards like me who don't want to spend $2k getting the whole set.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFzph9x-n9FR52BI94Zfgww

Oh and I'd just like to point out I fucking called it. The purpose of the campaign isn't for new episodes its just to get the rights back for the old episode and start flogging them online. Again, if he'd said that from the start I'd been all for it and might have even handed over a few groats.

[Spiral King]

Just noticed there's an official  Shout Factory MST3K youtube channel uploading the episodes that Rifftrax has been selling.

I mentioned this AGES ago in the thread but it's worth repeating: each episode YouTube upload has amazing annotations that detail EVERY cultural reference made in it. Very comprehensive.

[Famous Mortimer]

From the latest update:

We've revealed our next cast – Jonah, Felicia, Patton, Baron and Hampton – who have all agreed to join the show once our Kickstarter ends, and have brought a lot of new future MSTies with them.

"We hired the people with the most Twitter followers"

[Spiral King]

From the latest update:

"We hired the people with the most Twitter followers"

Famous "Fuck Jonah Ray" Mortimer, over here.

More intriguing in this update is that offers have finally been made to the old cast and crew to help out. Beaulieu has made it clear he's not doing it, but Conniff has seemingly realised that it's not worth being grumpy about. I really hope they can get Nelson to pitch in as a writer. He was head writer for most of the original show and getting him back to write some lines for this new season could make or break the revival IMO.

[EFB]

I really hope they can get Nelson to pitch in as a writer.

Same here. His riffs are much more consistently funny. Joel's host segments were better than Mike's though.

[Spiral King]

Same here. His riffs are much more consistently funny. Joel's host segments were better than Mike's though.

I've always stood by the opinion that Joel was a better at the host and communal aspect of the show, but that Mike was a lot funnier. Joel was a little too amiable and light in the theater, where as Mike could get very dark very quickly which allowed for more amusing riffs.

[tubularnametag]

Well, they're the two different sides of that personality - Joel seemed happy to be working, a willing partner in the relationship, whereas Mike was sent there against his will and wanted to get out.

On the subject of the latest update, there's something nice about the mission patches that raises a subtle but important point - Joel and Jonah's patches have the Gizmonic Institute logo on them. This was a term from Joel's prop comic days, and one of the points in negotiating his leaving the show to Jim Mallon to run was that they never refer to Gizmonic again in the show - hence Mike being a temp without any specific connection to that company.

This also suggests to me that Jonah's role will be more like a Joel mk 2 - how can it not be with him behind the scenes?