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MST3K Is Kickstarting Back To Life
New submitter kevin lyda writes: The creator of MST3K wants to bring it back. Anywhere from just three episodes up to a full season. Joel is also including options to make it DRM-free. Wired reports: "Hodgson officially launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund new episodes of the series. The initial goal of $2 million would fund only three episodes, but if the campaign does well enough, the project could make as many as 12 episodes (that maximum order would require $5.5 million). The rewards run the gamut from the typical t-shirt all the way up to fans contributing riffs to the episodes or hosting live installments of the show. But the real fun begins if MST3K finds an angel investor willing to splash some serious cash: 'Finally, if we raise $1 BILLION—stay with me on this one—we’re going to adopt a real live teenage boy and "Truman Show" him into believing he is the Pumaman!'"
Get syfy, spike, others to pick it up!
Miles O'Keefe.
shut up tosser.
That seems extremely expensive at $660,000 per episode/movie (approx).
I wonder how much of that is licensing with the owners of the films? I would have to guess quite a bit.
The Kickstarter doesn't seem to detail this. I will be donating though.
BlameBillCosby.com
Surely this fundraising is paying for the film? Why would there be any question about DRM?
I don't understand Kickstarters :/.
Please correct me if i am wrong but wasn't this thing all about some silhouette of a robot and another thing yaking it up with forced comedy commentary on old movies running in the background? Why does it cost on the high-end of tv production of $1 million per episode (or $5.5m for a full season) ? Good luck.
Without the writers, I doubt it will be the same. Unless I see evidence that they put their differences aside and work together, I won't be involved.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
It would have been good to see the acronym expanded at least once in TFS...
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
Cinematic Titanic which also has the people from MST3K that don't hate him. As a huge fan, this sounds fishy.
There's also the much MUCH more prolific and IMO funnier Rifftrax. The timing is interesting considering that RIfftrax just started bringing back old MST3K episodes every Monday with a new intro video by Mike Nelson. I backed one of the Rifftrax Kickstarter's and I don't regret it (I even have an mp3 I made of Kevin Murphy saying my name from one of the reward tiers.
I don't really know what caused the rift between Joel and Mike/Kevin but it seems clear that there is one. Personally, while he has his moments, I don't think Joel is as funny.
"I don't like it so NO ONE should like it!"
MST3K was totally unfunny. I hope the Kickstarter goal isn't met and MST3K doesn't come back at all. I'd gladly donate to bring the new series of Red Dwarf to American TV, though. That show actually was hilarious.
I've never seen Red Dwarf but I hope that the whole cast dies horrible deaths and are replaced by people you hate.
We really need to get off our nostalgia kick. Nostalgia isn't productive. The edgy funny shows of the past are now cliche and these attempt to bring them back will only fail to impress, as we look at these new shows now with our more experienced eyes.
Red Dwarf was an excellent show. But we shouldn't bring it back. They had a few episodes made a couple years ago, and the show had lost its edge. The main characters are getting old, they really don't have the same appeal for the shenanigans they did 20 years ago. Bringing it back even with excellent writers won't save it.
Same with Mystery Science Theater 3000 (I am not going to abbreviate it, at it took me 10 minutes to figure out what the heck they were talking about) When it was new it was good. Today not so. You want you commentary on stuff go to sites such as channel awesome But this bringing back the things that we loved in our childhood - early adult just isn't cutting it anymore. New episodes will not have the same charm any more. Because we don't get charmed the same way any more.
As a Kid, I Loved Star Trek, as an adult, I like it on a nostalgic kick, but not in the same way. The reason why Voyager and Enterprise didn't appeal to me, isn't about bad writing direction or acting. But the fact as I got older my tastes changed, what is new and exciting became predictable. Now I may watch a new show (or even an older show that I haven't seen before) and get interested in it, but after it is done reboots and spin offs appeal less.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 Has been replaced with You-Tube commentaries. The fact that there are two Puppets giving commentary will not add much, compared to the variety of quality that we can get online.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
the licensing rights for the movies?
It's about 360k per episode after initial ramp-up. Apparently 1M to get going. They mention an issue with rights, so I assume that's part of the 1M. They say "cleared up," with regard to rights, but that might not mean "cleared up and PAID FOR."
I also assume that like any show, gathering a bunch of people in a writer's room costs salaries, leasing space, blah blah. It's expensive to open doors on anything. That first new camera costs a lot of money.
High end TV production costs *way* more than 1M/episode. That wouldn't even crack half the salaries on NCIS. (Harmon 525k, Weatherly and the rest of the main cast get 250k/ea)
I hope this succeeds, but honestly I like Mike Nelson more than Joel. I'd be more inclined to help kickstart one from Mike.
I really like what Mike, Kevin, and Bill have going on with Rifftrax.com. One just needs to beware that some riffs are done by people other than them, and imho aren't nearly as entertaining.
MST3k typically had 24 episodes a season, and part of the shtick of the series was that it was a relatively cheap production with a small crew licensing movies that cost almost nothing to show.
I get that we're motivating folks to gather together later in their career than before, and 'competing' with other opportunities they have - but if you're going to start up the engine, seems a bit of a shame to pre-plan to shut production down after 12 episodes.
Heck, given the nature of the series, you should really be mixing crowdfunding sources a little. Yes, the Kickstarter is important - but you should connect your stretchgoals to Patreon income also, and permit a couple extra options.
1) After the "pre-funded" Kickstarter episodes, let Patreon income build up funds for future episodes - while still keeping a nice mid-season break and even cast shifts as needed for quality of life.
2) Let the show grow as you go - keep your megacheap ethos/comedy style - but if you find a nice line of comedy, you want to do a special on, let it get a sub-fund and decide how it can fit into the schedule. 100,000 patreon fans contributing 1-10 bucks can get you more than enough when you've already got the set and many other things. That, and likely chances to get secondary income streams.
3) You know you're VERY likely not going to get a really good deal with a cable channel. Don't let the shiny prize of a commercial-pushing income source let you shortchange your audience on things like DRM. Do it for you too - make a show you'd like to make first, compromise where it matters least as you can, and the audience can do more than the promises of any executive. Let us circulate the '.mkv's.
4) Stay cheap, the audience will help. Don't do silly things like commission CGI movies of fantastical comedy scenes as part of your budget. Ask the audience to help, and we will make the stupidest, most hilarious things for you. Use that - USE IT!
Ryan Fenton
Just in the last few months, Fantasic Four and Pixels.
As someone who Still loves TNG and DS9 and will rewatch those series once every year or two... no, Voyager and Enterprise sucked because they SUUUUCKED.
Dude, that's like saying "Rocky Horror Picture Show' is a bad movie. Well, it is. But if you're not enjoying it, you're doing it all wrong... You can't watch MST3K sober, and in a serious frame of mind, and expect it to be funny.
Okay. I need you to go into your medicine cabinet and eat everything. Don't come back to the computer until you have done so.
Basically, Shout Factory, the people who are doing the DVDs, bought all the shows rights from Jim Mallon/Best Brains, " including all brand assets and global intellectual property."
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Watching new MST3K episodes wouldn't be nostalgia. And it's not about charm or selling out for another payout. It'd just be a show making jokes about bad movies - and that's still funny, even today in our Internet-first world.
Other thoughts:
* The only thing that really hurts old MST episodes is that some of their humor was pop culture based - especially old TV shows and classic movies. A lot of the jokes go over younger people's heads because they haven't seen Gilligan's Island, Mary Poppins, The Brady Bunch, etc. New episodes would probably be more relevant.
* Joel should try and get Mike Nelson to help with writing. Regardless of whomever any MST3K fan was the funnier guy onscreen, nobody can argue that Mike Nelson was a key writer that drove the show - and that he carried the show on his shoulders alone for the last three seasons after Trace B. (the original voice of Crow T. Robot) left. Without Mike, it just won't have the same charm.
Dude, you need to call the police. Whoever forced you to watch MST3K against your will needs to be in jail so you won't have to worry about them doing it again if it gets funded.
--- Keep the choice with the user..
Hello. Thank you!
Happy people make bad consumers.
Apparently GP was stuck on a satellite, and couldn't stop the movies because he built some robots.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Regardless of whomever any MST3K fan was the funnier guy onscreen, nobody can argue that Mike Nelson was a key writer that drove the show - and that he carried the show on his shoulders alone for the last three seasons after Trace B. (the original voice of Crow T. Robot) left. Without Mike, it just won't have the same charm.
"Nobody can argue..." What's the name of that type of fallacy? Have you seen Cinematic Titanic? No Mike Nelson, and a hundred times better than those last seasons of MST3K. The key writers were always Joel and Trace. "Head writer" does NOT mean "the guy that writes the jokes." It's more "the guy who keeps all the joke writers from killing each other." Well, as long as there's no Kevin Murphy I'll be happy. He was always the weakest asset. Cinematic Titanic proved that Joel, Trace, and Josh have the most "charm," to use your term.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
That was a quick $100.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
The Phantom Menace
Attack of the clones
revenge of the sith
Voyager was terrible but I recommend rewatching enterprise as it was actually pretty good in parts. The xindi arc was almost up there with the dominion war for sheer epic scale
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Voyager was terrible but I recommend rewatching enterprise as it was actually pretty good in parts. The xindi arc was almost up there with the dominion war for sheer epic scale
Try rewatching TNG with the mindset that both Doc Crusher and Counselor Troi are actually total frauds with no knowledge of power. It is shockingly more absolutely F-ing hilarious and in no way reduces the other aspects of the show, aside from making you question the credulity of the rest of the cast. In fact, for many episodes (especially DC/CT heavy ones) you can view the entire ship as a mental asylum where everyone responds to everyone else's ridiculous claims with kindness and supportive care...
"Nobody can argue..." What's the name of that type of fallacy? Have you seen Cinematic Titanic?
Do you watch Rifftrax? Also hilarious.
Neither are MST3K hilarious. To quote another duo,
Couldn't split up Kato and Nash. (that's true) Couldn't split up Tango and Cash.
"Well, as long as there's no Kevin Murphy I'll be happy. He was always the weakest asset."
You can fuck right off. He is the best and Tom Servo is a god. You listen to him singing about Canada again and then come back here and say that he is "the weakest asset"... Bloody philistine.
I've watched about 7 episodes and only found one to be funny. The show concept is great but the critics were meh. If they bring in some big guns maybe then I'll consider supporting a comeback.
meh. look at the cast needed, fx budget needed and just look at the synopsis for mst3k and ST:TNG and it really starts to seem QUITE unreasonable.
but then again, americans seem to think that everything should give a 100k year salary and showbusiness double that.
basically, at 660k, they would be running a higher budget per episode THAN THE FUCKING MOVIES THEY'RE RIFFING TO. for example zombie nightmare had an adjusted for 1987 to 2015 inflation budget of 382,499.18 dollars.
and no, they didn't show it on tv where I'm from so I don't really care. probably would have more value if it was nostalgic, but, mst3k is still known largely for being a show made like it is made due to having to come up with a show that had as little expenses as possible, so comparing it to something like TNG is really fucking unfair.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Why wouldn't Netflix hire him to create this?
Oh, yeah; they also have a lot of these shitty movies in their catalog to placate the rights-holders that also own good movies.
Was it really deemed to be funny by a large percentage of the population? I watched it a couple of times and thought it puerile, trite and quite unfunny. I also don't know anybody who really liked it - at best, they tolerated it. What was the population segment that it appeals to?
Ah yes, those were the days. I fondly remember staying up with my friend on Friday nights and watching cheesy movies on broadcast TV -- because that was all we had way back then.
Watching a funny guy snark about a movie he is forced to watch was funny because back then we were all in the same boat. It was that or the test pattern.
Watching a funny guy snark about a movie ONLY he is forced to watch isn't as funny because -- why would you do that? What's the point again? What else is on?
I think that's the idea. New MST3k, original movies. (Making the movies is easy as they're required to be cheap and badly written and acted; writing jokes/riffs should be easier too!)
Everyone else is doing it:
Netflix
Amazon
Crackle
Hulu
Yahoo!
Xbox Entertainment Studios
I too like to keep my nostalgia in my past where I don't have to tarnish my rose-tinted memories with ugly realities. Too many times I've made the mistake of revisiting my nostalgic loves only to be let down (e.g. 8-bit and 16-bit video games, my childhood cartoons, original Dr. Who, pro wrestling, etc.). So, I get it...HOWEVER....
1. MST3K always used current events and pop culture references. They aren't going to reboot the show and use the same jokes from 20 years ago.
2. They will be able to put more efforts into production, editing, and writing than any competition on YouTube, particularly if they can get a major network behind them. Good shows don't just happen because someone stood in front of a camera... there a lot of work that goes into them that you rarely find with a YouTube production. The amount of money they are asking for was initially pretty astonishing to me, but it also shows that with or without a network supporting them they should be able to make a polished finished product.
3. There are examples of reboots being done well and being successful. Like the new Dr. Who TV series, Transformers, or Mad Max.If done right, these old themes can be revived and be relevant again in today's world, with the advantage of a legacy they can build upon and expand from.
Because most of the characters die off the first episode.
But how will MST3K dude make money if you don't contribute to his Kickstarter. You owe him. So throw a couple thousand his way so he can quit his job at Burger King.
P.S. WTF does he need millions for... the per episode budget of the original was under $100.
Hookers and coke?
If Cinematic Titanic had so much charm then Joel wouldn't have had to cancel it in order to bring back an old show he himself quit decades ago, now would it?