MST3K creator Joel Hodgson has launched a Kickstarter campaign to bring the show back for another season, as many as twelve episodes. His goal? $5.5 million.
Hodgson said the original cast will be invited back to write, produce, and cameo in the series, but that the idea is to introduce new cast members and new voices for the reboot. “Basically, I’m trying to blend the old with the new,” he said. “Mystery Science Theater has already refreshed itself once with a completely new cast, so I think it deserves to do that again.” After Hodgson left in 1993, Michael J. Nelson took over as the human captive, while everyone from the mad scientists to the voices and controllers of the iconic puppets Servo and Crow all saw various levels of turnover.
And while they will do new episodes if they raise as little as $2 million, and hope to be able to do a full season of 12, the ultimate goal is to get the ball rolling again and continue on with even more seasons after this first new one.
And why do this now, 15 years after getting cancelled?
Even though we’ve always wanted to bring MST3K back, it wasn’t that easy. Thanks to the Last Will and Testament of one eccentric old heiress, the rights were tied up for years. It took time to work those issues out, but with the help of my friends at Shout Factory, a special chokehold I perfected in WuDang that I like to call “The Persuader,” and a night I had to spend in a haunted house as a term of the the old lady’s will, we succeeded.
This summer, we finally got all of the rights cleared up… and now, like Orpheus, we can now descend into hell to hang out with a couple of wisecracking robots.
