$6.3 Million goal has been reached and FOURTEEN new episodes are coming!
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#BringBackMST3K Kickstarter Tracker
704 Replies to “#BringBackMST3K Kickstarter Tracker”Commenting at Satellite News
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Let me tell you why *I* was so pessimistic (even though I went ahead and backed it because, well, Joel has given me a lot of happiness).
Not nostalgia or even wanting the old cast back — just that a reboot was likely to have different comic sensibilities due to the times. I’m an old guy, and what RT has done (to *some* extent CT also, but less so) was to appeal to this new audience — Conor at RT basically confirmed that’s exactly what they are doing, in that they really don’t care about the older crowd.
I totally understand this — while the boomer generation was once king, it is now just a footnote and it’s fair that those with the most disposable income will be served. So I was sure I wouldn’t like the show only for that particular reason.
The last video (with Day) kind of reversed my thinking — I actually thought it was funny and enjoyed the chemistry between them all and thought, “Well, maybe this old man WILL like the new show.” Now, without writers I could be completely off base, but if the cast that was shown (who were either ad libbing or at the very least sort of winging it from a general script) is doing most of the writing I may very well enjoy the tone that is set. (Which is why I am going to bump my pledge up tomorrow during T-Day).
So there is at least one category (perhaps very slim, but real) of folks who were huge fans of the original show who might be more than concerned this new one won’t be for them. I don’t think it’s a case of “New Monkees” more of a case of worrying it might be one of these huge new soaps that are on the air right now (Is “Revenge” one of them? Seems to me it might be) that in no way are targeted towards anyone over 35 or so. Or, to make this analogy even slimmer, perhaps it will be like the “Mission Impossible” movies, which aren’t a thing like the TV show I used to like, but are even better. Only time will tell.
OK, then, allow me to rephrase: People need to stop acting like they deserve to be taken seriously when they insist that the original crew were the only people capable of movie riffing at the level of quality that the old series had. You can hold that opinion and I won’t stop you…because frankly, that would be weird and intrusive, even if I could, which I kind of doubt…but you’re wrong.
Not that you’re dumb or stupid or any Internet argument stuff, just that you apparently don’t pay a lot of attention to the comedy scene. Not that I’d call myself an expert or anything, but that’s kind of the point–I know very little about comedy and I can think of four or five people off the top of my head that would do just as good a job as Mike, Bill, Kevin, and all the other current and former cast members. I’ve seen them in action. There are a few I’m actually hoping are going to be in the writers’ room (Joseph Scrimshaw, for example, who was a Minnesota comic who went out to LA a while back). Again, the primary criteria for the classic crew wasn’t that they had unique talents, it was that they were a few talented people out of an extremely large pool of talented people who happened to be in the right place, at the right time, knowing the right people to be involved in this particular project.
To clarify–I’m not saying that they weren’t talented. If it hadn’t been MST3K, they’d probably have wound up somewhere else doing something else because they are funny people. But by the same token, if it hadn’t been them it would have been someone else, because there are a lot of funny people out there. Joel is looking for funny people, and he will probably find a bunch because he has a good eye for talent. We know this because he found the original gang. Maybe he won’t, of course, but basing your assessment on whether they are the same people who made you laugh thirty years ago is just plain and simple not the best of criteria. You can continue to hold the opinion that it totally is, of course! …but expect a lot of people like me to explain to you in long-winded and irritating fashion why you’re wrong. :)
I don’t think we’re really as different as some folks are making us out to be. I’m on the older side of the Millennial generation (two months younger than Jonah Ray and a few years younger than Felicia Day); I was in high school the first time I saw MST3K. My friends and I were (and are) fans of it — it was on the Sci-Fi Channel then, but we caught a lot of the old stuff by way of borrowing and renting video tapes.
I’m sure your tastes and mine don’t overlap 100%. But we both enjoyed the same cowtown puppet show. Jonah and Felicia are closer to my age than yours, but they liked it too.
No generation’s — heck, no person’s — comic sensibilities are a monolith. But everybody here has at least one thing in common.
Anyhow, nice to hear the new video changed your mind. Welcome aboard.
I think the big difference, Thad, is when the show was first on the air (not reruns and not by the time it was on sci-fi) there was no real internet (at least the way it is now) and riffs required a certain amount of, well, let’s say “life experience”. IOW, you really needed to have either lived through the times they were referencing or be very hip.
It was the reason that, watching it with my daughter, we needed to explain about 2/3 (or more) of the references — just no way for any person younger than, say, 35 (at the time) to have gotten most of it. Nowadays folks are SO much hipper, so much more tuned in to things, that riffs just can’t be obscure enough (or to put it another way, what I find now to be obscure are CURRENT references to pop culture, which are beyond me. Now I’d have to have my daughter explain to me, except she’s out on her own with her own family).
It’s hard to overstate how different this was — at the time if you said “Skipper… Little Buddy!” no one who had not ORIGINALLY watched “Gilligan’s Island” would have understood it. No Nick at Night, no vast, shared, communal cultural knowledge that could prepare anyone for the very deep and rich commenting that went on. So those of us who DID get most of the jokes felt like we were special indeed.
Heck, I can well remember trying to tell just *slightly* younger folks (not millenials but, again, my daughter’s age) about things like “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and she had no frame of reference. Not so nowadays. Not only is the proliferation of channels eating up old shows like there’s no tomorrow (so nothing is really wasted) but the net gives you instant answers to anything you might not “get”.
In any case, it’s a different landscape and one I find increasingly less aimed at me and that’s okay — I had my turn. But, yes, I am on board for at least giving it a shot (and my money — which is more important. I’m a big believer in voting with your dollars). If it doesn’t appeal to me perhaps, at least, my grandkids may find it worth their time (right now they are a *little* young to really care, but in a few years they will be in their teens and have their own time, replacing you ).
You may be overstating things a bit; I remember Gilligan’s Island, Get Smart, Dick Van Dyke, The Monkees, etc. from daytime reruns on local network affiliates. But I get what you mean; nothing’s obscure anymore and everything’s out there (aside, I suppose, from shows that were destroyed like most of the first few years of Doctor Who, or films that were never released, like The Day the Clown Cried).
Know what you mean about hitting that age where references to current pop culture become the mystifying ones — over the course of Weird Al’s last couple albums, I’ve realized I no longer recognize the songs he’s parodying.
Another update this evening from Joel: he’s offering to list backers’ names in the credits for anyone who pledges over $85 if we hit $3.3M before the end of the Turkey Day marathon. He also added an $85 reward tier, along with other rewards that will be posted tomorrow.
Then there’s this intriguing follow-up on a certain other reward we’ve all been eagerly awaiting: “If the KTMA episodes ARE what I was talking about in the last update — and I’m not saying they were, but IF they were… I just want to make sure we’ve confirmed that we have actual, working copies of whatever we’re promising before we promise anything we can’t deliver. We’re working out a last few details, but I’m optimistic! More news on that soon.”
Hmmmm … :-D
Well, for those wanting the first three KTMA episodes the latest update isn’t promising. It doesn’t mention it at all, and there was this reply to a member asking about it from Joel:
“If that’s what I was talking about in the last update — and I’m not saying it was, but IF it was… we just want to make sure we’ve confirmed that we have actual, working copies of whatever the bonus reward is before we promise it to you! More news on that soon.”
Hope is not completely lost, but it isn’t a hopeful as it seemed. Reading between the lines maybe it is a rights issue they need to sort out.
Where does he say that. Those words are not in his post.
“I just want to make sure we’ve confirmed that we have actual, working copies” doesn’t sound like a rights issue to me. Maybe I’m crazy, but it sounds more like he’s saying that he wants to make sure they have actual, working copies! In Jim Mallon’s interview with Satellite News a few years ago (in which he confirmed that he still had the K01-K03 tapes), he mentioned that transferring these 27-year-old old tapes to digital format can be tricky. I wouldn’t be surprised if Shout Factory simply needs to check them out and then complete the transfer before they can promise to begin distributing them digitally. Besides, as I said before, Shout Factory already has the rights to “Stingray”, “Captain Scarlet”, “Fugitive Alien”, and now MST3K itself, so what rights issue could they be talking about?
Sometimes, I get the impression that some of you immediately begin “reading between the lines” of these announcements and updates, and then come away with whatever meaning you think you see there, rather than what the words actually say.
Try reading the general comment thread. I copied and pasted directly from that.
Geez … :teeth:
Doesn’t change the fact you added “We’re working out a last few details, but I’m optimistic!” to the quote which are non-existent. And Incredible Melting Man is also out by Shout Factory as well, but from what I read that isn’t enough to put it on the MST3K DVDs. I’m not trying to be negative, just realistic. I have hundreds of dollars invested in this, I want it to succeed. I don’t want to boost pledges with false hope though.
THOSE WORDS ARE NOT NON-EXISTENT!!! LOOK IN THE GENERAL COMMENT THREAD (not the comments on the update, but for the whole project)!!! I COPIED THEM DIRECTLY FROM JOEL’S POST!!!
(Click on my name for a direct link.)
I whole heartedly apologize jaybird3rd , I pasted the quote from the update comments. Joel added that line in the other thread.
Am I mistaken, or did Joel hint that we will get the early KTMA episodes if we reach the Turkey Day goal in update #8? No mention of it in update #9.
@#164: See #156 above; Joel posted a follow-up. He may have first hinted about them in Update #8, but my guess is that he’s saving the KTMA shows as an incentive for later in the campaign, which would make sense. He’ll need a motivator for the weeks after Turkey Day to keep the momentum going, and making K01 through K03 available (if those are indeed the episodes) would certainly be a big one.
Of course, it’s all speculation until we get an official confirmation from Joel, but he’s given us some pretty strong clues in that direction.
Well, let me chime in here about the “rights” issues to the KTMA tapes.
Jaybird3rd said “Shout Factory already has the rights to “Stingray”, “Captain Scarlet”, “Fugitive Alien”, and now MST3K itself, so what rights issue could they be talking about?”
Just because Shout Factory has the rights to release those shows on DVD does NOT mean they have the rights to release MST3K versions. It’s all in how the contracts for the rights are written.
Lets look back at 80s movies that featured songs in the soundtrack by popular singers at the time. Fast forward a few years and that movie was released on VHS tape, BUT some of the songs were removed and replaced with other songs. Why? Because the contracts signed for the MOVIE did not allow those songs to be used in any other medium (video, TV showings, and future technologies).
Same thing could apply here. Gerry Anderson owned Stingray & Captain Scarlet. He wants the shows released on DVD, and makes a deal with Shout Factory. Think of it…the shows are out on DVD – not digital downloads, Bluray, or TV through Shout Factory. The contracts are specifically for DVD releases. There are a lot of movies coming out on DVD from one company and Bluray from another.
Just because Shout Factory has DVD rights to a movie or TV show does NOT mean they made a deal with the copyright owners of the show to release MST3K versions of them. Now it might make it easier for them to go back to the copyright owners & make a new deal to include the MST3K versions, but it isn’t a given.
Lawyers are very specific now days in their contracts over these type of properties. And the copyright owners of many movies change hands over time. Monogram Studios is long gone. some of their films fell into the public domain. 2 of the “Monogram 9” are owned by Paramount. They recently licensed Lugosi’s Voodoo Man to Olive Films for both DVD & Bluray.
So don’t get too excited and think that because Shout Factory released Halloween II or The Howling on Bluray so that must mean the MST3K can now riff on that film, because it doesn’t.
Did Joel remove all references to releasing early MST3K episodes?
Speaking as a backer, I cannot wait for the reboot of MST3K to begin and I look forward to seeing as many episodes as possible.
My only concern about this project is the end-result that Joel hopes will happen. Let’s say it raises $6 million for the full season and pulls in 50,000 backers, that’s no guarantee that a network, station or web platform is going to pick up MST3K for another season.
Sure, they would be idiots not to carry a show with such a devoted fan base willing to pony up money for season’s worth of episodes, but then again such places are full of idiots who do not see things the way we do.
Personally, I’d feel a little more comfortable if Joel were shooting for some way to sustain MST3K that didn’t rely on networks, stations or web platforms. Perhaps the Rifftrax model is not the right one, but I’d think something along those lines would be a better goal.
However, I realize that this is a minor quibble that I just wanted to air out to someone…somewhere.
That is all.
No. He gave his hint in Update #8, and if you click on the link I posted in #162 (in my user name), you’ll see that he dropped some further hints in the comments.
It is not removed, Hello It’s In the 72 hour challenge details… Now donate 2 million and ASAP!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mst3k/bringbackmst3k/posts/1423502/
Then, if we can reach $3.3M – our second goal – before the Turkey Day ’15 Marathon ends, we’ve got a much bigger bonus reward for you… and it’s something that a lot of you have been asking for!
I don’t want to get ahead of myself, so I’ll tell you about that challenge in another update this week. Hardcore MSTies, I’ll just give you a little hint: if you help us make the newest episodes of MST3K, you might just get to see the oldest episodes of MST3K.
“You might get….” that is no commitment, I am rolling my eyes.
I thought it would have been obvious, but he’s teasing future rewards. A lot of us find the prospect of seeing these old episodes pretty intriguing, but whatever. You just keep sitting in the corner sulking and rolling your eyes, grumpypants.
Right now (about halfway through the Turkey Day) it doesn’t look as if the goal will be reached anyway, so folks shouldn’t get too excited one way or the other.
Personally, unless Yahoo is doing some editing, I’m very disappointed there isn’t more Joel (and more of the sent in comments and best wishes from folks). So far there has been about 60 seconds total of him mentioning the reboot, which isn’t a very good way of taking advantage of this platform (I could not get the YouTube link to work on Tivo so I’m hoping there is more there).
I’ve really been enjoying this year’s Turkey Day but I absolutely can’t stand these dry, awkward skits with the Kickstarter employees who act like they don’t want to be around Joel. Does Kickstarter want me think it’s a really snobby, dull ass place to work at? The last employee in the theater sitting alongside Joel and the grown up fan (which was a very sweet and touching moment) looked dismissive and bored out of her skull as though she wanted to be anywhere else. Should have just done skits with the ‘bots.
I’m still waiting to see how much we net from the episode sales, which are NOT included in the Kickstarter totals yet.
The Kickstarter bumpers aren’t necessarily my favorites, but they’re serviceable enough. I loved that they brought out the young fan whose letter was read on “Fire Maidens of Outer Space”, exactly 23 years after that episode first aired. Very sweet moment, a reminder of the kind of heart we saw in the Joel shows.
Yes, they’ve been a little odd.
Great Turkey Day today! I even bought the Turkey Day box set from Shout! that will have Joel’s autograph on it…with the full amount applying to the Kickstarter campaign.
“I loved that they brought out the young fan whose letter was read on “Fire Maidens of Outer Space”, exactly 23 years after that episode first aired. Very sweet moment, a reminder of the kind of heart we saw in the Joel shows.”
Exactly, that’s my point. As I said that was a very sweet and touching moment which obviously could have stood on its own without the snotty looking, bored KS girl sitting next to them. Pro tip: Want to build additional hype for your KS Project? Don’t set your pledge drive at KS HQ and waste a good portion of your time talking to its people on camera because everyone there will all act as though they think your project is something they have zero interest in.
Agreed. Kinga and Josh got me really engaged in the brief video a few days ago… why not some of that and the bots to warm folks up to the new cast & chemistry? Maybe (hopefully) more of that to come over the next 2 weeks.
Steve
Maybe that was their way of appealing to the hip Millennial crowd, who are often snotty-looking and bored.
Speaking of “sweet and touching”: I just loved Ashley’s song at the end!
Looking back at last year I’m surprised how subdued this year was given it’s importance this time around. I wonder what KS bought to the table for it, they aren’t known for doing much promotion .
Kinga/Felicia got me. I smiled. After being out, I’m in. 6 episodes will give an arc, and I hope Joel gets there.
Perhaps the KS employee was nervous about being on camera, not ‘snotty’. Love the bots riffing on Joel, that cracked me up. And the ending song was so good! All in all I enjoyed the whole thing.
Bummed we didn’t get to 3.3M tonight, as this was clearly intended to be their big PBS Pledge Break push, but I have no doubt we’ll get there in the next two week. Six episodes puts us on par with Season 7, and at least gives the new cast a bit more room to stretch their legs and come into their own as characters.
I really hope we somehow make it to 4.4M, but I get the feeling that most of the really hardcore MSTies spoke with their wallets during week 1. They now have to try to win over all those on-the-fence people who are still missing Mike/Joel, and the only way they can do that is by releasing more videos with the new cast, showing they’ve got what it takes to carry that torch.
As an addendum, I will say that watching the Turkey Day marathon with my in-laws, they went from being highly skeptical to optimistic about the new series, after seeing less than a minute of Jonah and Felicia interacting together in character.
I just caught three of the bumpers and the very tail end of the song — you know, *family* sometimes get in the way of my MST3K binges. :cry: I hope they make those bumps available so I can catch them.
I’m disappointed too about not hitting 3.3M… but I’ve not given up hope. Joel may have a few more things planned to generate more buzz and $$$$. Still wondering about that evil henchman…
“It is bassooon”
I didn’t get to pledge yesterday as I wanted to, what with all the family and driving and stuff. I’ll probably send off a c-note in the next couple of day’s,
wowwy wow wow, don’t tell my wife. I did manage to get a crew together around the computer long enough to laugh at teenagers from outer space. “yeah”
one of my favorites. Everyone laughed and were excited to hear that Joel was raising money to bring back the show. Lets all be grateful, and what ever happened to the molemen, Sylvia and somebody? and what about Scarecrows brain? aaaaaaaAAAAAAHHH!
Missed the song and any Day or Jonah — can those still be seen at Yahoo (since it’s “On Demand”?) Personally, the Yahoo thing was pretty awful (when I used it on TiVo it played the first episode and then went on to play, not the others, but a ton of other Thanksgiving stuff they just cued up for me — so I went to the computer and switched to YouTube, which was much better but not on my TV, natch).
I knew they wouldn’t make it from almost the first hour — you could tell the “pledges” just weren’t coming in. I think I’ve spent as much as I can, but if they get ANYWHERE near 4.4 in the next 10 days I’ll see if I can scrape up a bit more (if you increase your pledge amount does it get you to another level, or is it just a “donation” that won’t give you anything more? Never done much Kickstarter stuff and NEVER “upped” a pledge before so I don’t know how that works).
Mike:
If you up your pledge, you’ll get all the rewards that come with it (I’ve done it before.) Click on ‘Manage Your Pledge’ and just follow the instructions.
The marathon was fun. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that Kickstarter is filled with hipsters, but it was all worth it for the song at the end (“ROBOT ROLL CALL!”) It was pretty clear that $3.3 million wasn’t going to happen yesterday; probably sometime by Monday. I’m guessing they’ll crack $4 million by the end of it (or come very close.) 14 more days…
Never mind, Farmland answered the question!
The fact that the basis for your support of art and the things you supposedly love are dictated by the opinions of anonymous people online is just more fuel to my initial point, and why I should thank you for proving it with your truly dumbfounding response. PLEASE take your money back and get off of the internet, no one will miss you or your measly $300.
I for one was a bit disappointed in the results from yesterday…I thought there might be more casual fans around that would finally get around to donating. I look at my personal projected numbers, and I am starting to see the $4.4 million (9 episodes) as being the best stretch goal we can hope for – which when you think about it is a pretty massive amount of money. However, it’s not the full 12 Joel was rooting for.
I just see yesterday made close to $200,000, and maybe another $100,000 today. To get to $4.4 million you are looking at nearly $100K per day average for the last 14 days. I’m just not sure I see that unless (a) there’s still a lot of people holding off – which I doubt or (b) they get a lot of extra kick-in for the KTMA stuff IF that comes out.
I would pretty happy if we get to nine episodes – I just want it to be enough to get even more seasons.
I too would have preferred to see more going directly to Kickstarter, where it would be added to the total right away. But, following the comments from backers, I get the impression that a lot of people went right to MST3K.com and bought one of the episode bundles instead. Once we see THOSE numbers, we’ll have a better idea of how well overall the Turkey Day marathon worked.
For me the funniest part by far was ICWXP’s Youtube promo. The scrolling list of riffs like an old K-Tel greatest hits commercial just cracked me up. But those Kickstarter employee skits were, I guess, going for the “awkward and embarrassing equals funny” style of humor that younger folks are used to. It’s just not funny to me, but then a show like “The Big Bang Theory” is like an unriffed “Manos” to me, just pure torture, but the kids seem to love that show and that style of humor.
Yahoo has different host segments than the live marathon. While it’s cool to get two sets of Turkey Day segments, I hope the live ones turn up on youtube soon.
Thanks for the info about upping your pledge. I will do that.
If the live host segments turn up hopefully someone here will post a link — it’s hard for this old man to keep track of such things .
(And I’m glad I’m not the only one here who sees “Big Bang Theory” and finds it unrelenting unfunny — I have a same-aged friend who LOVES the show and we sat down and watched an episode that he said was the best and I was sitting there wondering if perhaps I lived on another planet. It’s exactly that kind of thing that makes me question any sort of new-age reboot like this because if it’s aimed at folks who really like that approach to “humor” then I’m so far out of it it isn’t even, well, you know, funny).
While they weren’t live, they are up on YouTube, but the links are private. Freezepop was sharing this link of the closing segment/song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR6jKHhvlA0 and I’ve seen other people post different segments, don’t know where they are finding the direct links.
They usually post the Marathon segments later. Last year’s are still up.
Someone just pulled out and took $5000 with them.
Yeah, looks like a few people have gotten cold feet; we lost another $10K earlier in the day. Disappointing, but inevitable in a group of backers this big, and with Christmas shopping eating into everyone’s budgets. We’re still up ~$67K for the day, though. Smaller backers are already absorbing the loss.