MST3K superfans: This is not a drill.
Joel Hodgson, aka the founder and better of the two hosts (wanna fight about it?) of the beloved terrible movie and riffing-based comedy show Mystery Science Theater 3000, sent a missive out into the universe yesterday, Nov. 10, by way of a Kickstarter: If we raise $2,000,000, he says, we get our beloved MST3K back on the air, in some form, for the first time since the show was canceled in 1999. He even gets kind of zen in his reasoning:
MST3K is more than just movie riffing. It's a stranger and denser recipe than just saying smart aleck things to a forgotten movie, but I think this is the secret ingredient: we believed that it's easiest to survive the cheesy movie that we're living in with friends who keep us from taking it all too seriously.
Now, I don’t want to get too maudlin about it, because being too serious is the enemy of comedy. We weren't trying to send a message: job #1 was always to make a funny show. But while we were doing that, I hope we also helped show the kids that society, and the stupid things we say and do to each other, are "just a show, and you should really just relax.”
Hodgson went on to do a Reddit AMA in the afternoon in which he answered enough questions to occupy, you know, a guy stuck on a fictional planet for an undetermined amount of time. Questions such as: Will the cast be the same? (No. And sources say Joel/Mike will be Jonah Ray.)
In any event, the fundraiser has already garnered more than half its goal just 24 hours after launching. No, I do not care to disclose what percentage of that was donated by me. Suffice it to say this is the only '90s reboot to date that has me genuinely optimistic for something great. Meanwhile, over at the Atlantic, Megan Garber testifies as to why the show always belonged in this era to begin with.
