Joel and the Bots have successfully funded a full new season of MST3K
We’ve got movie sign once again, amazingly, as Mystery Science Theater 3000, the TV show that taught us all the true meaning of a Patrick Swayze Christmas, has once again brought home a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund a full new season of the beloved movie-riffing show. The “Let’s Make More MST3K & Build The Gizmoplex!” campaign—the latter referring to a new web portal that series creator Joel Hodgson intends to build as the permanent online home for the show—wrapped up yesterday, hitting all of its funding goals, including milestones for a full 12 episodes, as well as Halloween and Christmas specials.
In fact, the MST3K Kickstarter, which got a massive infusion of cash in its last few days of operation, managed to actually surpass its 2015 incarnation, which raised $5.76 million to create the season that ended up running on Netflix a few years back. The new campaign, to compare, ended up hitting $6.518 million (with options for late pledges still available), while bringing the show back to its independent, “a bunch of weirdos playing with puppets on TV,” roots.
Meanwhile, if you want a primer on this whole “Gizmoplex” thing, you can check out our interview with Hodgson from when the campaign kicked off a few weeks back; among other things, he discusses the decision to go back to weekly episode releases (rather than the Netflix binge model) and how he and his team are tackling the difficulties of filming the show during COVID-19 safety restrictions.
As far as plans for the actual shows, Jonah Ray is set to reprise his starring role on the series, although we’ll also be getting two new episodes with Hodgson’s Joel Robinson back in the theater, as well as a few with Emily Marsh, who joined the show for its live tours starting in 2019.