We’ve got movie sign, MSTies: Joel Hodgson, a.k.a. “Joel,” has officially launched a Kickstarter campaign to bring back Mystery Science Theater 3000 after 16 years. (It was canceled in 1999.) The campaign quietly appeared on the MST3K official website earlier this morning, confirming suspicions raised by vague promises of “big news coming soon” on the Rifftrax and MST3K social-media channels. The campaign has the rather lofty goal of $2 million, which Hodgson says will enable him to make three full-length episodes of MST3K to shop around to TV networks and streaming platforms. With three additional episodes per $1.1 million raised over the original goal, that’s $5.5 million for a full 12-episode season. But if Zach Braff can do it, so can Joel and the bots.
Speaking about the campaign to EW, Hodgson says he hopes the campaign will not only raise the needed funds to produce new episodes of the show, but to serve as a sort of MST3K Signal to lure the old gang back onto the Satellite Of Love. But they won’t be on screen: Hodgson also wants to cast a new host and new mad-scientist adversary for the new season, as well new voices for Crow and Tom Servo. “Mystery Science Theater has already refreshed itself once with a completely new cast, so I think it deserves to do that again,” Hodgson says. “The original cast is going to be invited back to write, produce, and do cameos as their mad science characters, and then there’s a new cast with new talent.”
The Kickstarter campaign is now live, and Hodgson is scheduled to participate in a Reddit AMA about the new season of MST3K at 4pm ET today. Until then, as the campaign page exhorts, “keep circulating the URL.”