Only crazy people would deny that Mystery Science Theater 3000 is one of the greatest TV series of all time, and only crazy people expected new episodes of the movie-skewering show would ever get made. Fortunately, the latter group is being proven quite sane indeed, as MST3K creator Joel Hodgson has taken to the Internet to try and get another season of the cult phenomenon on the way to rabid audiences.
If you’re ready to spend tens of dollars on all kinds of new Mystery Science Theater 3000 stuff, from feature-length episodes to show swag, then you’ll be jazzed to know that Hodgson has started up a Kickstarter campaign to produce new installments of the show. The initial goal is to raise $2 million for 3 episodes, and all it takes is an additional $1.1 million for three additional episodes, and the all-encompassing goal is to get a whopping 12 episodes made for $5.5 million. This is something that can be done, people. And it will be done. Seriously, the donations went up about $40,000 in the time it took me to write the previous two paragraphs.
If even more funding comes in, Hodgson wants to try and produce some of the episodes in front of a live audience and he aims to get the show streaming on the Internet. An additional goal for this project, of course, is to find a TV network that wants to air the episodes. One would think that Syfy and Comedy Central, both of whom aired the show in the past, would be down to bring the riff-tastic show back, especially since the bulk of the funding wouldn’t have to come from them.
You might be wondering why we’re getting more MST3K episodes now and not at any point in the past 16 years after its cancellation. That’s because the rights were tied up “thanks to the Last Will and Testament of one eccentric old heiress,” but the issues were resolved and the always amazing company Shout Factory stepped in to pick up the property rights. Thankfully, they have a mission to build the franchise back up with Hodgson, and there are basically zero reasons why we won’t be seeing more Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 2016 and beyond.
Check out Hodgson’s campaign video below, which will almost certainly have you pulling up whatever Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes you can find for a quick rewatch.
Hodgson unfortunately doesn’t mention what other members of the show’s cast he might be bringing back. (Given how popular Rifftrax is now, it’ll be interesting to see how this comes together.) In the meantime, you can catch Hogdson making some other sweet space jokes on the Yahoo Screen series Other Space.
