MST3K with the hat out again

[Rev+]

Let's make more MST3K!

https://showmaker.mst3k.com/makeseason14

I can understand the last crowdfunding campaign, as it involved making new episodes and launching their own subscription-based platform.  The whole point of that approach should have been that it could sustain itself, but here we are again, and this time not on Kickstarter but their own skin of a crowdfunding site.

Get fucked Joel, it's time for it to die.  I'm kind of generous about the new episodes but none of them stack up to the old ones.  The live shows seem to have been well received so just do those.

Looking at the site though, the pledges are pouring in.  Can't seem to find a way of seeing the total, which you'd think would be a basic thing to display.

[Famous Mortimer]

I feel like everything I could say about this was said in one of the previous threads about it. Joel knows he can have his cake and eat it - charge people on the front end before it's been made, and charge people on the back end afterwards. It makes the whole "TV networks are watching this, so the more you donate, the better chance we have of getting picked up" spiel during the first Kickstarter seem ever more hollow.

(hopefully @Skip Bittman , who knows "people close to the original production", will see this tag and chime in with anything he knows)

It does seem odd, though, that four years after Netflix said "thanks, but no thanks", they're still doing it this way. Ah well. Still, it's nice to see Trace and Frank still riffing new things on their own and being funny doing it. Drop them a few dollars, if you're interested.

[madhair60]

would happily see these cunts destitute

[DelurkedToHelp]

Let's make more MST3K!

https://showmaker.mst3k.com/makeseason14

I can understand the last crowdfunding campaign, as it involved making new episodes and launching their own subscription-based platform.  The whole point of that approach should have been that it could sustain itself, but here we are again, and this time not on Kickstarter but their own skin of a crowdfunding site.

Get fucked Joel, it's time for it to die.  I'm kind of generous about the new episodes but none of them stack up to the old ones.  The live shows seem to have been well received so just do those.

Looking at the site though, the pledges are pouring in.  Can't seem to find a way of seeing the total, which you'd think would be a basic thing to display.

$621,420 raised of $4.8M goal
32 days left

https://showmaker.mst3k.com/profiles/mystery-science-theater-3000

[Lemming]

Thought the Jonah episodes were mostly good, especially the first round of them, but yeah this is getting absurd. They've spent vastly more time begging for money than they have actually filming anything at this point.

[Sonny_Jim]

Trace and Frank still riffing new things on their own and being funny doing it.

100% this.  The two of them is absolutely delightful:

[Attila]

MST3K  has brought me a lot of joy over the years -- I was out in Minneapolis when it all started on a local station. We revisit the original 10 series fairly frequently (a current fun thing is watching the Cinematic versions).

I was thrilled when it came back -- it's one of the reasons we subscribed to Netflix. The first revived series was all right, but the riffs were too fast (and I don't think they were all actually in the same room making the recordings) -- not their fault -- Netflix gave them what, two weeks to make all of them? The host segments have continued to be great fun.

I'ves dipped in and out of subsequent series offerings, but not with the same passion I used to chase up the original show -- again, the reason we splurged on a giant satellite dish back in the 1990s was because we'd moved to rural Virginia with no TV reception unless you bought on the the 10 footers...and the impetus was to get Comedy Central for new MST3K episodes.

I was given a year's subscription to the Gismoplex last year, and while I appreciate that the giver was thinking, Hey, one of the few TV things you actually watch is MST3K! I don't think I looked at even half of the new ones from the latest series. The spark isn't there the same way I'll revisit an older one.

Some of the newer ones have raised a smile or chuckles, but nothing has flattened me the way Tom Servo's 5-year plan in Manos has, or that I never fail to laugh at 'The answer my friend, is blow out your arse' from the made-for-TV hippie in San Francisco International. Loads of riffs from the original are permanently lodged in my brain, but I can't tell you any memorable riff (for me) from any of the new ones).  Some of the original shorts are absolute killers when it comes to making me happy, an increasinly rare thing under current circs.

We usually stick to Rifftrax for more recent riffing fun, and sometimes Trace and Frank.

[Alberon]

Just wondered yesterday what was happening with this show. It's been obvious for a year that the Gizmoplex model just didn't work so I thought if it ever came back it would be with another kickstarter type thing.

I enjoyed the last series, but I also watched Cinematic Titanic for the first time last year and that's a clear step up (especially the live shows). I'll have to try some of the Trace and Frank stuff.

[Attila]

Yeah, I was given a year's subscription to the Gismoplex last year by someone who meant well -- had I been asked I would have said thanks, but please don't. I think we looked at only a handful of the new episodes produced last year, so it was a great loss of money that we can't really afford to throw away (especially as I'm not much of a tv-watcher at the best of times) -- we didn't watch any of the episodes 'live' as apparently there were so many transmission issues, as well.

Some of the Rifftrax stuff is great, too, especially Bridget and Mary Jo's stuff.

[Rev+]

Rifftrax has gone off the boil in recent years, for me at least.  Possibly partly due to a change in writing staff, with the old guard having a reduced role, but mainly because they just pump out so much stuff it's bound to be a bit half-arsed.  Trace & Frank are definitely the best of the three right now, particularly as it allows Frank, a man who gives zero fucks, to fully go for it.

https://showmaker.mst3k.com/profiles/mystery-science-theater-3000

Cheers!  They've added a total display to the main page too now, so must have still had their spanners out last night.

[Attila]

Admittedly, we haven't done any new Rifftrax in a couple of years, aside from a few shorts, simply because it's become pretty expensive (and we need to be very careful with budget at the moment for reasons).

[Alberon]

The pledge drive seems slower this time round, it's only up to $863K at the moment. Hodgson has added a five question FAQ which includes this one.

3. Wasn't the Gizmoplex supposed to eliminate the need for any more crowdfunding?

It's really important to me that we clear this one up: your Gizmoplex passes paid for season 13 to be made, plus the extra bonus material we created for the Gizmoplex's first year, and the development of the Gizmoplex itself.

It's true that we had some additional revenue come in from new members who purchased Season Passes after the Gizmoplex opened, but that would've been a fraction of what we needed to fund even a single episode.

The truth is that to make a new season of MST3K, we need a substantial amount of money up front, and the Gizmoplex can't do that on its own. If we were owned by a network, like Star Trek , they would pay for our production costs, but we've chosen the road less traveled, and we are instead relying on you, our tenacious backers, to help us make future seasons.

I sincerely apologize if we suggested the Gizmoplex was going to be the business model for us to fund new seasons, like Netflix or Disney Plus. We simply aren't that big.

Though they did say this on the Season 13 kickstarter two years ago.

Part of our goal in launching the Gizmoplex is to make sure we can distribute our own episodes from now and bring in some ongoing revenue to support more new episodes, instead of depending on another Kickstarter for each new season.

He goes on to say he wants to have physical sets again (for the non-film bits obviously), but I have to say it's looking iffy that they'll reach the lowest goal.

https://showmaker.mst3k.com/stories/eKeJ0b?ref=tw_8CffQ6&mibextid=Zxz2cZ

[Sonny_Jim]

"Here's my impersonation of Chet Baker in a Holland hotel room"

[Rev+]

It's really important to me that we clear this one up: your Gizmoplex passes paid for season 13 to be made, plus the extra bonus material we created for the Gizmoplex's first year, and the development of the Gizmoplex itself.

This is really disingenuous.  He's making it sound like the last Kickstarter was just a sale of one year Gizmoplex passes, rather than a Kickstarter with some hugely expensive tiers that actually got backers.  It was a clearly a big push to get a new series made, with a view to it then being self-funding.

It was always doomed:  unless it's changed recently, Gizmoplex had one new episode a month, and a handful of revolving old ones.  And then nothing new for a year.  That's not nearly enough for a subscription service.

The live shows were, as Morecambe and Wise used to call them, absolute bank raids.  None of that money going into producing the show, then?

[13 schoolyards]

Sounds like they've put their personal wages and expenses at the top of the outgoing funds column of their business model, instead of at the very bottom

[jofo]

listen, see those "skits" between the breaks.... fuck off back to Second city and SNL with that shiiiiiiiiiiiite. No one wants to pay for those.

the 3000 in the title isn't what it should cost to watch the fucking thing.

Has there been one good thing post netflix?

[Famous Mortimer]

I wonder if this'll be the last of it - Netflix binned them off, looks like not enough people are using the subscription service and the Kickstarter money is way down, indicating they've already lost the casual fans and even the hardcores are getting a bit bored.

From the beginning of the new era, there've been enough odd public statements to make you think Joel should let someone else do the promotion. From saying "yeah, I'm going to ask the old cast as soon as X level is hit" (never happened, as far as I can tell, unless it was a declined offer for a one-episode cameo), to things like the above, where he says "we're going to move to this Gizmoplex service", then a few months later "sorry if I made anyone think we were actually going to support ourselves with Gizmoplex"...

[Alberon]

Even the MST3K reddit seems a bit lukewarm on this new drive.

The show as it was is dead. The only way it could possibly carry on is in the Cinematic Titanic live show format.

[Alberon]

Watching the fundraiser dying on its arse. It's not managing $100k a day at the moment.

Joel's announced the first movie will be Battle Beyond the Stars. The first MST3K film I saw at the cinema first and as Star Wars/Seven Samurai knockoffs go it's a fun film.

[madhair60]

mystery thieving grifters 2000 more like.

mad idea, they could make something themselves and i'll record a commentary shitting on it with lame quips

[Famous Mortimer]

Watching the fundraiser dying on its arse. It's not managing $100k a day at the moment. 

Unless they've got some extremely rich person on board who's agreed to cover whatever isn't raised on the last day or something, it does seem rather unlikely that they're going to make that total. And only 7,200-odd backers is not great.

mad idea, they could make something themselves and i'll record a commentary shitting on it with lame quips

They missed a trick by not having a commentary track on the blu-ray of "Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie".

[Rolf Lundgren]

I always thought the great thing about MST3K was that it was cheap as chips to make. How does it cost $4.8 million dollars to make 6 episodes? Never understood why they want to faff about making the skits which were always the least funny parts of the show anyway.

[JesusAndYourBush]

Is there anyone making podcasts that are basically commenting and making wisecracks etc on whatever movie they're watching?  As long as you're watching the same cut as they are so the timing matches it should work and it'd be a really easy thing to make (and for someone already set up to make podcasts it'd cost nothing.)

[Alberon]

Joel hit on the right successor format with Cinematic Titanic. Tour it round a few cities then film it and sell it on the web.

The next movie has been announced. It's something from 1978 called Deathsport starring John Carradine. Though this is all academic, the crowdfunder has gained just $72,000 in the last day and a half.

[convulsivespace]

I was an obsessive fan of the original series but have never gotten into any of the post-90s stuff. Just feels off to me and messes with my nostalgic memory of how the show should be. That being said, I don't know why anyone in here is angry at them for fundraising. Seems like they've delivered with a new season every time they've done it before, so it's not like they're scamming anybody. They may have hoped a subscription model would be selfsustaining but that obviously wasn't going to work on this scale.

And yes some of my favourite episodes (including the produced skits) are ones they did on Minnesota local television for peanuts, but they are semi-famous old men now and it's not an unreasonable $$ ask for a full season of a professionally done television show.

Is there anyone making podcasts that are basically commenting and making wisecracks etc on whatever movie they're watching?  As long as you're watching the same cut as they are so the timing matches it should work and it'd be a really easy thing to make (and for someone already set up to make podcasts it'd cost nothing.)

Red Letter Media has free commentary tracks on their Bandcamp page that aren't full on riffing but something similar at least. It's my favourite thing they do because it's the least produced. Not a huge number of them though.

[Famous Mortimer]

That being said, I don't know why anyone in here is angry at them for fundraising.

Who's angry?

[convulsivespace]

Who's angry?

Here, I'll link you to the thread with a bunch of angry posts about them fundraising again: https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=105467.0

[Famous Mortimer]

Here, I'll link you to the thread with a bunch of angry posts about them fundraising again: https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=105467.0

I'm trying (and failing) to not sound like a prick, but  I dread to think of what your reaction to actual anger, not just a bit of disappointment, would be.

[convulsivespace]

I'm trying (and failing) to not sound like a prick, but  I dread to think of what your reaction to actual anger, not just a bit of disappointment, would be.

Very sorry for terrifying you with my offhanded use of the word "angry"

Feel free to revise my original post in your head:

That being said, I don't know why anyone in here is disappointed in them for fundraising.

[Uncle TechTip]

Very sorry for terrifying you with my offhanded use of the word "angry"

Feel free to revise my original post in your head:

Well, they're disappointed because it was strongly suggested that the previous round of funding would be the last and future projects would be self-sustaining.