Earlier this summer, Mystery Science Theater 3000 creator (and original host) Joel Hodgson reunited with Bill Corbett (Crow T. Robot) and J. Elvis Weinstein (Tom Servo) for some new shorts as part of a fundraiser to help rebuild facilities owned by Minneapolis-based Native American youth organization MIGIZI that were damaged when fires spread from the nearby Minneapolis Police Department precinct during the protests over the death of George Floyd. Naturally, Hodgson managed to raise a whole bunch of funds—currently sitting at $45,000—putting the trio on the hook for two new MST3K shorts.
This Friday, October 30, those two shorts (“A Busy Day At The County Fair” and “Behind The Scenes At The Supermarket”) will be premiered as part of Hodgson’s Puppet Camp event. There will also be a “telethon-style final push” on the MIGIZI fundraiser with appearances from Bear (from Bear In The Big Blue House), Puddles The Clown, “TikTok sensation” Toiley T. Paper, famous puppeteer Wayne White, and the crew from the MST3K live shows. You can see it on the MST3K Facebook and YouTube pages on Friday.
Also, because pop culture often has a fascinating tendency to align with regular news: A far-right extremist from Texas was just charged with traveling across state lines to participate in a riot after bragging about starting fires in Minneapolis and trying to escalate tensions between police and Black Lives Matter protestors, and The Guardian says he was seen in a video firing an “assault-style rifle” into the 3rd precinct building that’s just around the corner from the MIGIZI building that was destroyed by fires. He’s also supposedly a part of the same extremist group that allegedly tried to kidnap the governor of Michigan, “the Boogaloo Bois,” which Hodgson—intentionally or not—references with the Breakin’ 2 joke in his tweet about Puppet Camp. Wild, right?