But this year Mystery Science Theater may finally get a long-rumored, heavily anticipated reboot. This spring Hodgson is hoping to start a new online incarnation of the show, one that will feature a fresh (and as-yet-unannounced) host and cameos from many MST3K alumni.
Hodgson: I’ve talked to a bunch of fans about their lives and what MST3K means to them. I’m overwhelmed by how people took to that show. It really affected them. I thought, if enough people still love it, maybe we can bring it back.
Even avid viewers sometimes don’t realize that every major role in the show had been swapped out over time. So in my mind, the show is built to be refreshed with new people and new ideas. It’s like Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle as it applies to MST3K: If it doesn’t change, it’s not the same show. And fortunately for us, as long as there are movies, there are always going to be cheesy movies.
All I can say is: I’ll be there! I regularly go see each RiffTrax and Cinematic Titanic live event, and a new version of MST3K will only be more gravy for my gravy train. Sure, there may be a new ignition of the Joel/Mike wars, but it will be like when Deep Space Nine uprooted the old Kirk/Picard battles and soon things became complicated.
Joel Hodgson seems to be embracing his role as MST3K creator a lot more readily in recent years, even hosting an online-only Turkey Day Marathon in 2013. His Twitter feed has been active, including a few cool designs of rejected and unused bots. The main question is if Crow and Tom Servo will return, or will there be a new generation of robots to battle bad cinema along with the new host? Perhaps one day soon we will get the answers to these and other questions, until then, we can only dream. And watch the hundreds of episodes of MST3K, RiffTrax, and Cinematic Titanic.
2 Comments
Perry Armstrong
April 23, 2014 at 5:58 pmPersonally, I thought ‘Cinematic Titanic – Live’ DVDs to be the pinnacle of this concept, as it was great actually seeing those guys having fun. Whatever format they come up with, I wish them well as there are oh-so-many narmtastic films they didn’t get around to riffing last time 😉
Tars Tarkas
April 24, 2014 at 12:16 pmThe Live DVDs are great, they are as close as you can get to the feeling of seeing them in person, and it would have been cool had they done some theater broadcasts of the last few CT films they never released. But maybe those jokes will get new life on the revitalized MST3K!