Get Joel and the bots back to Mystery Science Theater 3000—and help a good cause along the way
Aux Features Mystery Science theater 3000
Comic-Con@Home is online and underway, having kicked off this past Wednesday, July 22. It’s a grand experiment in capturing San Diego Comic-Con International’s heady mix of popular culture, camaraderie, and commerce without exposing attendees to a highly contagious and lethal virus, and as anyone who’s ever conducted a grand experiment—say, subjecting a human and his robot companions to the worst movies ever made—things don’t always go according to plan. Which is how Mystery Science Theater 3000 creator and original host Joel Hodgson, second Crow T. Robot Bill Corbett, and first Tom Servo J. Elvis Weinstein find themselves committed to resuming their old roles a few hours before taking the virtual stage Comic-Con stage and announcing they were doing so as part of a fundraiser for the Minneapolis-based Native American youth organization MIGIZI.
The fundraiser’s formal launch was intended to be part of tonight’s MST3K SDCC@Home panel, but word of the campaign spread early. As of this afternoon, it had reached the first of its two goals, with $10,000 in donations locking Hodgson, Corbett, and Weinstein in for a riff of the short film “A Busy Day At The County Fair.” (Let it never be said that MSTies aren’t passionate or quick to put money behind that passion.) If the fundraiser reaches $20,000—and, as of this writing, it’s less than $5,000 away from doing so—the trio will do another short, which, like its predecessor, will be a turkey with the full MST3K trimmings: The silhouettes, the doorway sequence, and a combination of host and bots never before seen on the Satellite Of Love.
Donors will receive early, VIP access to the shorts, which will later run on mst3k.org. Their donations will go toward rebuilding MIGIZI facilities damaged during May’s protests over the death of George Floyd, caused by fires that spread from the burning of a nearby Minneapolis Police Department precinct. The Minneapolis area was the longtime production hub for MST3K, which originated on Twin Cities UHF station KTMA and produced its 10 cable seasons in nearby Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
Looking for ways to advocate for Black lives? Check out this list of resources by our sister site Lifehacker for ways to get involved.
61 Comments
Joel, Josh, and Bill is a weird lineup–Josh and Bill didn’t even come close to overlapping on the show, nor did Bill work with Joel. They are three of the funniest cast members though so I for sure don’t hate it
Its weird that The Mads, Trace and Frank, are never involved in these things.
Trace & Frank seem to mostly do their own thing. They did a virtual riff together this week for the first time that I am kicking myself I didn’t watch live. Maybe I will catch the next one though:
Yah, I had hoped AVClub would cover this. It was also for charity.
I watched it (and reviewed it) and thought it was enormous fun – https://comedytowatch.com/2020/07/22/live-review-the-mads-glen-or-glenda-live-online-riffing-show/ – so I’d definitely recommend checking the next one out.
My very authoritative internet knowledge suggests that Trace and Kevin both hate Jim Mallon a lot more than Joel, who mostly accepted that Mallon always gets a cut.
Id be interested in a complete write-up on the MST3K behind the scenes stuff, it seems like theres some pretty high barriers around all of them just collaborating again
Well, but Kevin came back as Professor Bobo for a few Season 11 bits. Not sure why anyone would hate Joel. My impression was everyone felt slighted by Mallon, but pretty much got along for the most part. They all did that big Rifftrax/MST reunion show.
I thought Mallon was 100% out of everything now. Basically what made the return possible was Shout Factory buying him out.
All the new stuff has to have a credit that the show was originally produced by Mallon, but I don’t think he’s getting any of the profits.
Frank did an interview for Bill’s old podcast where he (Frank) made it clear Joel burned a few bridges with him and Trace at the time of the MST3K Kickstarter, including Frank having to find out on the internet that Patton Oswalt was playing his “son” because Joel didn’t inform him, and someone at the Kickstarter (I think Ivan Askwith) saying publicly that Trace and Frank were too old to reprise their roles and would look “ridiculous” in their costumes. Frank said Trace was particularly hurt by that, and that he himself found it hypocritical when Joel put the jumpsuit back on a year later for the 30th Anniversary Tour.
Ahh, see, I should have just scrolled down farther, I knew someone would probably know more about the Joel/Trace issues. It’s that age-old problem of what to do during TV reboots – whether to have the original cast come back and look kind of old and sad, or have a new cast take over even though they’ll be perpetually compared to the old cast. Sounds like either Joel handled it badly, or maybe Trace is being too sensitive. Either way, it’s unfortunate considering how long they’ve been friends, hopefully they can patch it up at some point; I really miss Trace’s presence in the riffing and overall humor.
Strangely enough, Frank was at one of the live shows Joel did around the time of the revival premiering. I know because I was in line right behind him.
The only thing they did was that summer riffing simulcast they had a few years back, which had most of the Joel and Mike casts combined. But I also got the impression there was a bit of bad blood between Joel and Trace regarding the reboot in 2016, although I was never clear on exactly what the issue was.
I’d obviously take Murphy over Josh, but it’s a pretty great line up in the theater. I was always a fan of Joel, Kevin and Trace but I genuinely love the Mike, Kevin and Bill line up a ton.I think it’ll be great.
I put my faith in Blast HardCheese
Well, their fathers and their fathers before them also glued fur to their face.
Whatever you do, don’t trust Ken. He’ll try to kill you with a forklift.
You mean Rocky.
Ken and Rocky were classmates at Forklift Murder School. Ken might have given up the practice, but he could backslide at any given moment.
How dare you insult my knowledge of ancient dentistry!
I am a right jolly old elf.
Calgon, blow me away!
Big Longhuge
Slab SquatThrust
Bob Johnson! Oh wait . . .
She’s presenting like a mandrill!
Oh, MST3K, will you ever raise enough money?
It’s for a charity, smart guy.
Too bad it was never as successful as Beavis and Butthead because those two shows would be a good back to back combination on Comedy Central. They can even have crossovers.
Heh heh…this movie sucks!
NEVER! You keep on making Simpson’s merchandise!!!
I love MST3K and all, but this is starting to feel a little like your brother-in-law coming over to ask for more money because he’s just got a feeling about this horse.
At least this is for charity
One part of Bill’s work that I’ve gained a whole new appreciation for after seeing Hampton Yount (the guy does good voice work, but man is he a lousy puppteer) is how good he was at making Crow look angry with just a slight posture change. Josh’s more laid-back delivery playing off that should be pretty fun.
Hampton never did the puppeteer work on Crow, it was other professionals. So it was probably harder for him to inject those subtleties into moments.
The history of MST3K should be the example in a book called “How NOT to handle rights and permissions.”
Take my sad up-vote, you bastard.
True but put yourself in Joel’s shoes at the beginning. It’s the late 80s, you are a struggling actor and comedian in a hard industry, you get a chance to do a silly local late night show and you just figure it’s a paycheck for a few weeks. Maybe a couple years if someone actually watches(or at least passes out with the Tv on). You couldn’t imagine it becomes a cult Tv show that spawns a genre of comedy film editing(or whatever)
Joel wasn’t struggling – he’d actually been offered a sitcom, he just didn’t want to be an actor.
He was at the point of deciding on his next step, and MST3K turned out to be it.
I believe I read this just the other day — are you thinking of the High School U.S.A. series? Because that was 1982 — and MST3K started in the late 80’s. Given that he was born in 1960, Joel would have lived most of his 20’s in the meantime. He may well have had a very different perspective.
Sorry, 1983 — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_School_U.S.A..
I’m going by things Joel said during the VIP sessions during the live shows and some other live things I’ve seen him do.
Could be he’s compressing things, but he’s never said he was struggling, AFAIK.
Where’s Crow’s New Hair to settle this?
To me this seems like the right way to do MST3K in 2020. Like a rock band that was really famous 35 years ago playing their big hits at a county fair. Like Loverboy.
But at least they got the original (and best) lead singer back. I went and saw Little River Band last year without realizing that none of the members on stage were the guys who performed “Reminiscing”
Sorry. I’m a Mike man. He’s the Bruce Dickenson to Joel’s Paul Di’Anno.
I did like Joel and even Jonah. But the invention exchanges were always dead space where comedy should have been and that dropped my enjoyment of the other two down.
To me, it’s more like Mike is Sammy Hagar to Joel’s David Lee Roth. Jonah is better than the guy from Extreme, however. The invention exchange is hit and miss, but Joel also has some of the best segments ever: the pants up song, Orville Popcorn, Patrick Swayze Christmas…As far as the show itself, seasons 3 through 8 (IMO) were the peak, although there are some gems in the Bill Corbett years as well. And I love Rifftrax a ton to boot.
Yeah, the whole “Mike vs. Joel” argument is pretty gauche and unfashionable these days, but I always felt like Mike was demonstrably better at the job.
Mike was more comfortable in front of the camera, and it showed.
yeah, Joel was a very lazy actor, and it really worked for him, but he was definitely not as good in the sketches as Mike.
The “Mike vs. Joel” argument was gauche and unfashionable from around the end of Mitchell to about the end of the series.
The last Joel / first Mike back to back are both excellent, there’s no need to argue. They are both fantastic in their own ways.
I would say Mike was overall funnier than Joel. But the show really had a particular philosophy and outlook on life itself when Joel was in charge; there was a sort of gestalt to the whole thing. It kind of lost that when Mike took over, and the sketches were definitely a lot weaker for the first couple of Mike years. I almost think SciFi did them a favor by mandating some serialization in the sketches, as they seemed to find their footing and get a lot stronger by that point. It probably helped that they had a new cast of characters and didn’t have to milk more gags out of the Forrester/Frank dynamic.
The best argument for Joel I’ve heard is that Mike was just technically much better, but his much more, for lack of a better word, “professional” approach robbed the show of its shaggy, low-budget, just-a-few-dudes-from-Minnesota-watching-movies vibe.
You didn’t see the appeal of the Daktari Stool? XD
Joel is nicer but Mike is funnier. and Jonah is…well, it’s kind of like watching myself front the band, because he’s my age and watched the show as a kid.
I love them all equally, as if they were my children.
Just make a new season with Joel, already.
Mr. B. Natural is hot!
I love them dearly, but the reboot on netflix……oof.