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A Message from Joel47 Replies to “A Message from Joel”Commenting at Satellite News
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I get the desire to make the end goal reachable, but the corners that have to be cut actually make me less interested in backing the show. I already pledged in the first week, and I have no intention of cancelling it. But what’s now being proposed, I probably wouldn’t have been interested in pledging for to begin with. The notion of dropping the infrastructure that they’ve put together in PA, which has some of that “outside the system” charm that I think is in step with the original MN outpost, and just pretty much outsourcing more and more of the creative work to LA teams feels like it would be a sellout. I empathize with those who feel that as long as they make something, anything under the mst3k heading, then the legacy continues and we can celebrate that. Personally, I don’t see how what’s being proposed will be able to transcend what it would be – a less personal, more homogenized white-label product. I think it should be 4.8 million for the real deal or bust, but I realize work has gone into this to get it here and people need to get paid.
Of the reasons being bandied about for why the campaign has not gotten the usual traction, there’s no doubt that the timing with the strike was terrible. Also notable is losing the usual reach of Kickstarter for a promo boost, though it makes a lot of sense to keep more of the funds that are raised by doing it in house. Breaking 2 million without the promo efforts of a K.S. so far is nothing to sneeze at, but losing out on the larger promotional network has to be a factor here. Many people have suggested that money is tight with the holiday season coming up. I don’t know if that necessarily checks out, the original campaign was at this time of year and did great. Then again, the novelty of that time has probably worn off for casual fans. Kickstarter rewards not arriving promptly? That didn’t bother me, that’s par for the course with these things, maybe so many people are accustomed to same-day turnaround for existing products from online retailers that they don’t realize what product creation in a post-Covid supply chain looks like, but it’s no picnic.
While it’s probably uncouth to voice such quibbles, I do think that there may be other fans of the show out there whose enthusiasm for new mst3k was at least dampened by certain moves like the eleventh-hour gender change for the B Cast’s Crow. Some will undoubtedly read sexism into that critique, but look – Emily has done well and is a fine host. No qualms there. Crow is not some character of immense depth, but I think he’s only effective if he has a male voice, and I don’t think it should have been tinkered with at that base level. Kelsey is a fine performer, but her attempt to contort her voice into Crow range is so overwrought as to make me physically wince on nearly every riff no matter where the volume level is at. As a result, even though some of those episodes should be up to par, roughly every third line causes me pain so I can’t really enjoy them. I’m sure others have had a similar experience.
If they’re going to continue Kelsey in that role, I think it ought to be as a whole new bot so that the faux-Crow Bart Simpson tone can be ditched, because it just is not enjoyable. I would have had more respect for that change, which of course was not in the original plan, I’m aware. But that whole situation really tainted my ability to enjoy half the eps last time. I would not be surprised if that damaged the brand for some…combine that with no upfront assurance of who will be in any of the roles, and surely some have considered the possibility that we might get new nails-on-chalkboard surprises dropped into our laps next season. It didn’t stop me from pledging, we still got a lot of great stuff in S13, but I cannot be the only person who was disappointed in the results of that switcheroo last time.
I may be going out on a limb in saying that Demon Squad is one of the most unbearable movies I’ve ever seen on MST. Not in the usual Coleman Francis or Bill Rebane-via-HG Lewis manner of being a hideous, muddled transmission from some Kafkaesque alternate universe. It was just so smug and self-aware, it filled me with rage that was left unrequited because it really seemed that the writers “played nice” with it…not sure if that was precipitated by the friendly association that was struck up with the film’s producers or not, but it was a film that more than most, really could have only been made watchable for me with a more scathing, gloves-off approach because of how agonizingly pompous the whole thing was. Even then, it might not have been a great choice. But it merited termination with extreme prejudice, and I cannot revisit a single scene without just wanting to punch every single face that is onscreen at any given moment. Yet, this particular exp. continues to be touted as a highlight of last season, but I found it a waste of Joel and J. Elvis’s return. The Kelsey faux Crow presence is also a heavy detraction. While I do generally have a bias against flicks that are newer than the advent of high-def TV being reasonable fodder for the show, I really loved Atlantic Rim in S12 and have rewatched that one multiple times, so I think should show that my dislike is not on the basis of Demon Squad’s newness…I just found it to be a far more contemptible film, and the riffing never gave vent to my frustrations.
I may be alone in my opinion on DS, but I am sure that there is a larger pool who were not pleased with the castration/Bart Simpsonization of B-Squad’s Crow. If it had been politely acknowledged as a sub-optimal move, and we had assurance that it’s a mistake that they learned from and wouldn’t repeat, I think there would have been far less ambivalence in the base for this campaign. This late, you’d need some firm announcements of who will in fact be playing who, not sure if that’s forthcoming at this point. I hope they succeed in raising enough money to do the show right, and I’d rather see them postpone than settle for a more lackluster affair.
Also, what was up with the exceedingly awful-sounding commercial-break loops in the Gizmoplex for the Turkey Day marathon. That was sheer pain, I just streamed some of the great TD “broadcast editions” on YT and supplemented with Shout Factory DVD’s because the high-pitched tones for every break were upsetting everyone else in the house, and were definitely no fun for me. Hope that was not a harbinger of what’s to come. Complaints over – Happy Post-Turkey Day!
I thought Season 13 turned out fine. There was a good assortment of movies, they got the rhythm of the jokes right, I liked the work of all three hosts, SimCrow’s voice didn’t bother me at all, J. Elvis was back, and it was still funny. I’d be very happy to see Season 14 with the same crew.
Just thought I’d post this. Thanks.
Season 13 got mixed reviews.
I discovered MST3K during a Turkey Day marathon in 1992, back when Comedy Central still liked and promoted the show.
The original cast would introduce episodes and put on sketches.
The only ones who are involved with this current iteration are Joel Hodgson, J. Elvis Weinstein, and Mary Jo Pehl.
This new version of MST3K writers have no ties to the original series.
I’ll continue to watch the original series, The Mads, and Rifftrax.
I’ve read that official statement of yours a time or 12.
Only once before.
You like the new iteration of MST3K.
Let’s consider ourselves the Siskel and Ebert about it.
This is just wishful thinking on my part, but at this point I would sooner that fundraiser money be used to hire legal professionals to clear/license the final handful of episodes that have not had home media releases so we can finally have episodes like ‘Delta Knights’ or the seminal ‘Rocketship X-M’ (Mr. Williams has left this world, who is going to care now whether MST3k riffed it or not?) on DVD.
Having new episodes has been cool, but the 90s episodes will always be the ones I have the most interest in.
The sad truth is that MST went from being a passion project born of the early days of cable, made by a handful of talented performers and writers, to something entirely different that only has the trappings of the former.
As Andrew J said, it’s hard not to get the feeling that Joel “sold out” in order to try and get this off the ground. I wasn’t too impressed with the Netflix revival and am torn on whether Season 14 should even be made. Like mst3kme, I’ve mostly moved on to RiffTrax to meet my bad movie-shredding needs.
And oh yes, as Crow’s “Bart Simpson” voice was brought up, it’s also a shame that the Bots aren’t even the same characters anymore. They may as well have different names and designs, as they don’t have barely anything in common with their former selves. There’s no problem with having new hosts, but the Bots are essentially new as well. Sure, they did it before with Kevin replacing Josh and Bill replacing Trace, but those weren’t nearly as jarring.
At least Servo still kinds sounds like Kevin, and even sings well.
Haven’t watched all of the Season 13 episodes but the ones I have and the ones I’ve seen bits of on the MST3k Channel on Roku have been fine, plenty of laughs for me and the company I was with.
Kelsey Ann Brady’s Crow is alright by me and I’m happy they’re making more episodes. Been a fan since 1994 and still watch the old shows all the time, the more the merrier IMO.
Given Kelsey’s physically exhausting-to-listen-to attempt to be WACKY, and IMPISH, and IRREVERENT!, I still prefer to refer to it as “Mr. B. Crow”. (I liken a, quote, “Bart Simpson Crow” to something more like Trace’s “Baby Crow” in Season 1, where he had a mischievous-kid voice in the spirit of Charlie McCarthy.)
It’s one thing for Joel to insist that all post-SyFy Crows “have” to sound like Bill Corbett’s overdone attention-starved tagalong voice for chronological canon, but mix in the Emily Factor of female comics in love with their own riffing, and you got your chocolate in my peanut butter. It’s too much.
If bad 90’s direct-video of Soultaker, Future War and, yes, Werewolf (seriously, what’s with the Mike-love for this one??) during the SyFy years taught us anything, it’s that Good Bad B-movies died out with 80’s theaters, and Bad 90’s movies are NO FREAKIN’ FUN to watch….Well, maybe if Soultaker had better riffing, but still.
Once would-be filmmakers didn’t have to worry about theatrical releases, the earnest giggle-worthy hard work and delusions of artistic pretensions of a Coleman Francis were replaced by the backyard vanity home-movies of losers trying to break in or out of porn.
it felt cathartically fun to pick on Hobgoblins in the 80’s because the director was just such a self-absorbed loser who said “Look at me, I’m bad enough for MST!”, and learned the true meaning of what he was in for, but that needed Mike and Kevin’s level of personally directed rage.
Joel goes for general absurdity of the movie itself, which means, yes, a guy who makes backyard movies in a bar with his buddies got off easy, but also that it was too dang DULL to generate enough absurdity for a good laugh.
But now, we have Producer Joel, who thinks kids don’t want to watch 50’s Roger Corman or Bert I. Gordon, they want their widescreens filled, and in color, too!
So we get two more 70s-80s Corman New World’s, and three 90’s direct-videos, one with the same danged insular Minnesota jokes it already got from RiffTrax.
It’s getting tragic how Producer Joel’s heart is less and less in it with every season.
Even that one ad with the writer saying “Hello! Thank you!” was trying to mechanically fan-resurrect another Beloved Fan Reference from “Gamera vs. Guiron”, and the more he does that, the more it gets to the point that I think “You don’t GET to do that anymore until you start earning it.”
I said it about SyFy, but it’s true now, and one of the reasons I cautiously held off to see how the contributions were going: Sometimes, dead is better.
And while RiffTrax still sounds like three guys who’ve been trapped in a bar for twenty years, i’ve gotten over my MST3K withdrawal with Dark Corners’ Bad Movie Reviews over on YouTube:
Yes, it’s Brit-Woke around the edges, but the host is movie-buff enthusiastic about knowing his good movies from his good-bad movies from his bad-bad movies, and manages to intelligently pick the last two apart without it coming off as self-indulgent bullying–
Now THIS is how you shred Bad 90’s Direct-Video: https://youtu.be/wrw1RZxtFt8?si=r4uPsbKXHU0KDylc
I have made my pledge. No regrets, but it also wouldn’t upset me that much if Season 14 never happened. I liked S13 far more than I liked either of the Netflix seasons; it didn’t feel as over-produced and had more of the feel of the original show. I get why Kelsey Ann’s Crow is controversial, but I thought that hers was the only ‘bot with a personality. I still can’t detect anything that stands out in any of the others. As far as costs go, they would certainly save some money if they cut all of the superfluous characters: an extra set of ‘bots, the Synthias (Why are they even there? What do they do?), Dr. St. Phibes, Waverly & Growler, Dr. Kabal (though I kind of like him). Why do they even have Mary Jo if they can’t give her anything to do? In the end, S13 still felt far slicker than the original series, and it continued some of the faults of the Netflix years (the Mads are under-utilized, the host segments feel like the host and ‘bots “putting on a show”, the sets have none of the fun “home-made” quality of the original, etc.).
Anyway . . . I’ll watch Season 14 if it arrives, but I will probably still prefer S2-10, with S1 in reserve as needed.
I think people in fandoms have a tendency to forget that the vast majority of people are outside the fandom.
I really don’t think most of the target audience for MST3K has a strong opinion about Crow’s new voice, or knows any of the inside baseball about how somebody else was cast and the role was recast sometime during production. They just like the parts where the people make funny remarks over the movie.
There are a lot more casual fans than dedicated fans. In any fandom.
And there’s a much simpler explanation for why this campaign hasn’t attracted as many contributions as the last two: not as many people have heard about it.
As Joel has commented, the SAG strike, and the cast’s resultant inability to promote the campaign, has hurt.
I’ve also seen a lot less coverage on entertainment sites than the last couple campaigns, and suspect that may have something to do with the massive layoffs many of those sites have recently gone through.
Twitter’s having some pretty serious issues, too, and is a much less reliable tool for promotion than it’s been in the past.
And switching from Kickstarter to a self-hosted solution seems to have done more harm than good. I assume the reason is that Kickstarter keeps such a huge chunk of the contributions, but in exchange, they provide a whole lot of visibility and promotion, which is exactly what’s been lacking this time around. I understand why Joel and the crew thought it would be worth it to ditch Kickstarter, but it sure doesn’t appear that it was.
I’m pretty confident that all those things are much more significant reasons for the shortfall of this campaign than because people are mad about any particular casting or creative decision in season 13. Some people may indeed be mad about those things, but remember that the people you talk to online about MST3K are self-selected to be people who spend a lot more time talking, thinking, and reading about the show than the average viewer.
Well, it looks like they may not reach the minimum goal. That disappoints me, but I keep remembering the First Rule of Entertainment: If you wait long enough, everything comes back, in one form or another. I’m sure the show will continue. It’s still got a good fanbase (even allowing for the inevitable complainers), it’s relatively low-cost to produce, and there are more than enough bad movies to provide riff-fodder. Yes, we still have RT, the Mads, and MJ, but I still believe there’s a place for new material under the MST3K banner.
What does concern me is who’ll be doing the show. I thought that, after the two Netflix seasons of the new cast & crew getting into the groove, Season 13 finally got the show back on all cylinders. I’d hate to have to lose this group due to time, availability and budget issues. And I’m very concerned that Joel may decide that it’s not worth the hassle and go the Lucas route and sell the franchise to someone else, who may be more interested in using the brand name than in making great comedy. I really hope I’m overstating the issue, but I sense it’s a possibility. I’m sure Joel will clarify the situation ASAP. Until then, I’ll try to keep a good thought.
Just thought I’d post this. Thanks.
I’ve been a MSTie since 1992.
There used to be a MST3K board on Prodigy.
Sampo was the smart, cool guy there.
It was a safe, fun place.
I remember the pre-internet petitions to save MST3K after Comedy Central cancelled it.
I saw “MST3K: The Movie” in the local theater.
I’ve been on this website since its inception.
I’ve posted here often.
The MST3K alums have had their projects over the years: Timmy Big Hands, The Film Crew, Cinematic Titanic, Rifftrax, The Mads, the MST3K revival.
The only post-MST3K project I disliked was Jim Mallon’s short-lived cartoon shorts.
We are a community here.
Whatever happens next, we are in it together.
A must read for all of us MSTies: “The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Amazing Colossal Episode Guide”
Written by the cast of MST3K.
It covers seasons from KTMA to Season 7.
Those casual fans are the ones who wouldn’t contribute to something like this.
Remember in Overdrawn at the Memory Bank when Fingal starts watching Casablanca and Servo says, “Don’t show a good movie in the middle of your crappy one.” This year’s Turkey Day Marathon/Telethon has been like that. We see so much classic MST3K, and are asked to help fund a lesser iteration of the show.
I’m pretty much a Rifftrax guy, and though I’ve not done any backing of Joel & Co. in the past, I did decide to invest in the full season package to the new Gizmoplex last season to see what, if anything, I’ve been missing.
And though I did find some entertainment value in some of those shows, I guess, I came to the realization that what was once something I REALLY liked is now something different, and being done by a bunch of younger performers I don’t really know and don’t really feel anything for (though Emily Marsh is INCREDIBLY adorable!), and will just stick with what I DO like, which is that being done by Mike, Kevin, Bill, Bridget, Mary Jo, and their writers……
I said at the beginning that the ONLY thing–as opposed to anything from S13–that got me interested in contributing was their promise of “Surgically Enhanced” restorations of the Classic Episodes.
(And the wafting, elusive scent of Blu-ray that lingered on the air…)
And if their Turkey Day airing of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians was premiering a deliberate proof-of-concept plug for their Surgical Enhancements, dang, it looked good.
I compared it to the print on Cinematic Titanic’s version, and somebody’s had work done.
The last two Kickstarters set records and had tens of thousands of contributors.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that not all of them are the sort of person who reads the comments on this site.
I love movie riffing, I trust Joel. BUT…
Fund Raiser 1: it was a party, we set a record, MSTies came out and represented. We didn’t get the old people we loved but learned to enjoy Jonah & the bots.
Fund Raiser 2: it was a party, MSTies challenged one another to buy more stickers and small items, we raised lots of money, but Gypsy turned into GPC and more new bot voices. We did get the
Gizmoplex which would be a way to self fund and be the new safe home for MSTies (at least I thought that was the purpose.)
2023 Fund Raiser: No party, no cast promotion. I did tune into The Mask watch along, and it was Tim Ryder, Joel and Rebecca. Have to admit it was kind of low energy. That I think may be
why the goals were not reached. Combine that with the strike and inflation, maybe people were just a little too weary and not excited enough. I pledged and would have gladly given but
I was not going hundreds over my pledge to finance a new season. I would love to see Season 14, just within my price range.
Joel is grateful, not resentful.
He’s not charging anyone for their donations.
There is and will be many hypotheses about what went wrong.
MST3K almost ended with Season 7.
“MST3K: The Movie” was infamously mishandled by Gramercy/Universal.
We MSTies are sad, stunned, or have mixed feelings.
Do you want reviews of MST3K episodes and Rifftrax movies and shorts?
Go to “Faith’s Take” on Youtube.
She’s smart, funny, and clever.
I’m a longtime fan of Rutgers football, so I’m used to disappointments. But I also know that a setback is not a defeat. In time, Joel will try again, and we’ll all give it another shot. I know I’m up for it.
Long time poster here, posted under several names, but a fan since the Sci-Fi years. I started in reverse with Mike, then moved to the Joel years and I love them all. I got in after the “Joel vs Mike” discussions.
I can talk about things here that I can’t discuss on Facebook groups, because all discussion when you disagree come down to “you don’t like women” variety. You can’t have an honest discussion about what you like and dislike.
I was a season 11-12 viewer, but didn’t contribute to Season 13. I’ve seen some of the episodes and they’re OK, and I don’t wish to be derogatory, but I just don’t find it up to the standard I came to know and love.
That sentence above would get me shouted down, starting with yells of “ok boomer” and other alleged slurs.
Everyone here, including Eric J, who I often might disagree with, are my Mistie friends. Eric J, you are dead center on this thread, not that you need my confirmation. But it shows a genuine rift in the newer Misties and the Originals, or what I consider us to be. Where we often disagreed, we all gave each other the respect to speak our minds.
My take, for what it’s worth; MST3K is as much the people who perform as it is the roles they perform. They brought a special vibe that made MST3K special. And although I moved to seasons 11 and 12 and had my druthers about some of the cast, I enjoyed it.
We’re now 30 years down the road, with Joel at the head, and a whole new group. Been there, done that. Misties turned out for the Season 13 fundraiser. They didn’t for Season 14. I think everyone has their own reasons.
My thoughts; if this is the last season, I’m ok with it. Everything has a end. It’s been a great run. If it would have been only 10 years it would have been great. Led Zeppelin was 10 years, Beatles more or less 10, many other examples.
Let me also say that I would not want MST3K to hang on to irrelevance, or worse, where the fans start turning on each other. Look at the franchises that have been bought by corporations for the sole purpose of milking them dry. “The IT Crowd”, a British comedy, stopped at Season 4 because they had done their best and to do anymore would have cheapened their work. “The Honeymooners” only had one season, because Jackie Gleason said, “we did everything I wanted”.
If there were a way of preserving the special quality that made MST3K so good, I’m right in line. If it becomes a way to make money, then I’ll live with what came before.
Whatever happens, I’m a Mistie ’til the day I die.
What the revived MST3K lacked was ‘cheesiness.’ It looked corporate, not the threadbare production created by smart, talented boomers in a suburban Minneapolis warehouse.
I think this hits the nail right on the head. The classic show was produced by people for whom this was their only job. As Jim Mallon said in an interview a while back, “MST3K was a joy-based enterprise” (to paraphrase). For the reboot cast and crew, MST is just one gig out of many. That is not to say they don’t give it their all or that what they make isn’t worth watching sometimes, but Seasons 11-13 just lack . . . something, something that talent alone can’t replace.
Alas, she doesn’t even know I exist . . .
I’ll buy that as a criticism of the Netflix seasons, but I’m not sure how season 13 could have been much more threadbare than it was.
I must be the unicorn mystie that has loved all iterations. I’ve seen and own every episode (KTMA excluded except I’ve seen what I can on Youtube) and seen all the Jonah, Emily, Joel live shows. On re-watching S12 & 13 I find them as funny as the best previous seasons. The Day Time Ended and Beyond Atlantis are two of my favorite episodes of all time.
Ergo ipso facto MST3K remains my favorite show of all time.
I’ve played in several cover bands and get frustrated playing with others that think that all good music stopped in the 70’s. They hate all new music. Drives me nuts. Much of bashings of the new seasons of MST remind me of getting stuck in the rut of nostalgia.
Hey. I supported Seasons 11, 12 and 13. I attended one of the live shows and gladly made a commitment to Season 14. I feel badly that the crowd-funding goal was not reached. With all due respect to Joel, the cast and the writers, the lavish reboot simply lacked some intangible, essential element that defined the classic series.
I never watched all of season 11, but that’s because those two Wizards of the Lost Kingdom movies looked “deep hurting”.
Great to see good conversation here. Been a long time. I fully understand Sampo’s need to move on, but this conversation is why I still love this board.
Not true here. I’m still on Netflix after joining so I could watch Seasons 11 & 12, I happily contributed to the Kickstarter drive to get S13 off the ground, and I gave to the stillborn S14. I consider all 13 seasons part of the canon, and, dare I say, I prefer S13 to S1. My main complaints with the three reboot seasons are that they don’t get enough out of the cast they have, the ‘bots are bland compared to the Crow and Servo we all love from Comedy Central and ScyFy, the movies are generally just bad (not fun-bad) and the production is just too slick for a show this inherently goofy. But I would watch any of the better reboot eps over the Unwatchables from Seasons 1-10.
That they were. Season 12 had a lot of Deep Hurting in it, too. There’s a lot of good stuff in Seasons 11 & 13, though.
It’s never going to be the same as it was, but I can enjoy it for what it is. (Same goes for Rifftrax and the Mads.)
I definitely agree that the Netflix seasons felt overproduced. I liked the craftsmanship, and the more elaborate puppets and sets were interesting, but it felt too slick.
Most of the time. It still had moments where it picked up that wonderful homemade vibe of the original. One of my favorite moments is in “Every Country Has a Monster” where one of the cards falls over and Jonah kind of glances toward the camera to see if they’re going to cut, but they keep going. It’s such a wonderful little spontaneous and unpolished moment that’s so, so MST3K.
I feel like season 13 regained some of that cheap homemade feel, in a good way. I do miss the sets, but I understand why they’re not there, and the bluescreened backgrounds and “flatimation” have their own charm. (I particularly love the re-creation of Joel’s door sequence.)
I thought season 13 was great; I thought Munchie, Doctor Mordrid, and Demon Squad were all-timers. I know there are folks who disagree, and that’s okay too; you like what you like and you don’t like what you don’t like and that’s fine. But I stand by my earlier observation that online fandom can be an echo chamber and it can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking, because most of the people you’ve talked to online feel a certain way, that means most people *in general* feel the same way.
I did watch some of Demon Squad when it was playing on Pluto TV. I liked it. The movie wouldn’t have been out of place in the Sci-Fi Channel era.
I remember watching Commander USA on USA Network (whoa-hoah, holy CATS!) at Saturday noons, right after MST3K’s S2-3 10am EST Comedy Channel airings, and it felt like the crossroads:
The Commander was one of the last birth-of-cable survivors of what local stations and USA Network used to be–Stations that needed a goofy homemade station-built marketable excuse to sell their back library of scifi-horror movies to a clubbish community of regular teen and kid viewers, and play up the self-aware camp comedy value with a funny host making snarky scene-specific fun of what we’d watched.
And MST3K, like any new trending replacement, conquered the one tradeoff drawback, namely that the bad movies weren’t that great to sit through when the funny host wasn’t on screen..If only there was a way to make the MOVIES funny!
One thing we don’t have anymore is struggling 80’s birth-of-cable channels or local UHF stations trying to throw homemade programming together. (Qv. Gizmoplex’s own ads: “Call your cable company–Oh, wait, those aren’t around anymore, are they? Go to Gizmoplex.com instead!”)
And even if we did, we don’t have packages of Sandy Frank movies sent to struggling Minnesota stations trying to figure out how to market themselves into ratings.
And even if we had that, we don’t have a system where a community gathers to all watch the same show at the same time as fans (Turkey Day notwithstanding), and only hiply picks it off an online smorgasbord buffet IF he’s interested. And, in movies’ case, if he’s heard of it.
I’d blogged about it for years, but in movies, music and TV, we took a new technology that IV-fed more of what we selfishly wanted, not realizing the populist charm of the old-fashioned low-techs we had to throw into the trash to get it.
S14 can play the notes, but it can’t bring back the music.
I thought this was a good summation of what happened:
https://www.pastemagazine.com/comedy/mst3k/mst3k-season-14-crowdfunding-campaign-failure-gizmoplex-future-joel-hodgson
MST is always a nostalgia hit for me so i don’t expect much in the way of new versions of it, although i wish them well. I have supported Rifftrax, Film Crew and Cinematic Titanic, and have been very happy with the Bridget and Mary Jo riffs as well. But i didn’t get much out of the ‘new seasons’. I’m glad to see some other fans here had similar impressions; the new hosts, new mads, revolving door robot voices, renaming and re-personalizing robots, general ‘feel’ to the show… all a sort of uncanny valley of familiar but lacking something.
EricJ makes some good points about Dark Corners reviews and the very attractive promise of the “surgically enhanced” old episodes; the PumaMan shown over Thanksgiving was definitely a better looking show! Similarly I have been interested in watching the original movies more and more over the last few years and if anyone can still access them, the edits by GaryInMotion were particularly gratifying, as he combined the full original movies in better definition, with the riffing added in. If only we could get official releases for this work, i think others would enjoy them too.
I don’t think this is what you were going for, but you make a good point in that new MST3K feels more like a cover band than the real thing.
It’s a nice summation of MST3K’s money woes and general inability to get wider support.
One thing that stands out to me is the comment on the problems involved with the show having three rotating hosts and supporting cast. Which raises the question as to WHY the show even needs three separate casts? It suddenly struck me as being a major waste of resources, in addition to making it harder for the performers to become familiar and comfortable to the audience.
Why spend money on three sets of performers when one would do just fine, if not better?
Oh yes, and if you ever needed confirmation of just how f***ed up show business is, that bit about Netflix giving $55 million for a show that was never even made should help.
Now that we can agree on!
But I’ll say it again, I LOVED Em and her bots, Jonah and his, I FREAKIN’ LOVED THE NEW(ER) VERSION OF THE SHOW AS MUCH AS THE PREVIOUS VERSONS AND I’M NOT ASHAMED TO ADMIT IT OR EVEN TO CAPS TYPE THIS SENTENCE!
AND I freakin’ HATE cover bands! Not even a “lol” on that.
MST3K needs a home. Without a TV network or an established streaming service, how could any new writers/performers gel? I guess with season thirteen Joel was trying to do right by the people that were playing in those live shows, but throwing out a new format established with seasons eleven and twelve wasn’t the way to go. I got used to Jonah. The details about Netflix makes the note giving suits at the Sci-Fi Channel look reasonable.
While I hate seeing something I love fail, this campaign was just not executed properly and obviously hampered by bad timing for a lot of obvious reasons.
Plus a lot of the backer perks felt too expensive and or lacking in substance, why pay $600 to get your name in the credits but nothing else? How about throwing in a 14-month pass to the Gizmoplex and the season digitally?
I’ve backed other projects and got burned twice, the only person who delivered 100% was Ashens with his movies.
This year wasn’t a total loss for MST3K though, the Twitch channel has had about 200-300 more average viewers since the middle of November. Plus all that sub money rolling in.
I was hoping the campaign would succeed. I dug the new episodes and the Gizmoplex/MST3K app. I wish Rifftrax had something similar for the videos I’ve bought from them so I could put them on a TV easier. Hope they don’t give up and figure something out.
Have you tried the Rifftrax app for Roku? It works great, similar interface to Gizmoplex. I don’t have the Amazon fire stick so I don’t know if there is a comparable app for that, but there might be.