In the not too distant future, somewhere in time and space, Mike Nelson and his robot pals Tom Servo and Crow T Robot will return to the Satellite of Live and once again riff on cheesy movies. If this reads like gibberish, you are not familiar with Mystery Science Theater 3000, which originated on a Minneapolis UHF channel in 1988, and ran for seven seasons on Comedy Central, and three on the Sci Fi channel before vanishing for 18 years and re-emerging on Netflix in 2017.
The cast and crew changed a lot over the years, but the premise remained the same: A man and two robots are trapped in space and forced to watch bad movies by evil overloads. Their silhouettes are seen in the corner of the screen, but they occasionally leave the theater for brief comedy routines.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 creator Joel Hodgson was the original host, but he left in season 5 and was replaced by Mike Nelson, the show’s head writer. When the show came back in 2017, Hodgson was onboard as producer, but he assembled an entirely new crew, led by comedian Jonah Ray.
The revival fizzled out after three seasons, and the show truly seemed dead, until earlier this month when word hit that Hodgson had sold MST3K to Radical Entertainment, and they were reviving it with Mike Nelson as host, Kevin Murphy (Tom Servo seasons 2-10), and Bill Corbett (Crow T. Robson seasons 8-10). That trio has spent the past 20 years working at RiffTrax, an audio-only riffing enterprise that has taken on over 550 movies. (You simply start the audio file when the movie begins, and they provide the commentary.)
The new season of MST3K is called Mystery Science Theater 3000: The RiffTrax Experiments. As of now, only four movies are slated, including the 1978 Roger Corman/David Carradine film Deathsport. And in one episode, OG MST3K cast members Frank Conniff and Trace Beaulieu — who have their own riffing company The Mads — will make guest appearances. A GoFundMe was set up to raise funds for the productions, and so far it’s raised nearly $2 million.
All of this news is a lot for longtime MST3K fans (or Misties, if you will) to process. We hopped on a Zoom with Nelson to hear how it all came together, and what we can expect going forward.
You last hosted the show in 1999. That’s a long time ago. Did you think it was over forever when the show went off the air back then?
Pretty much. I remember at the time being really naive and just going like, “Well, these things happen. We had a good run. What are you going to do?” And everyone else was really sad. So, I didn’t really think of it. That’s how dumb I was. I just didn’t think of it that much.
I’m sure your 20 years at RiffTrax has been very satisfying because you made something that no one can cancel. You own it.
It is true. I was in Minnesota [when MST3K went off the air] and I was doing freelance writing, and all of a sudden I realized, “Hey, there’s not a lot of freelance writing out there. I better own something.” I thought about doing this RiffTrax thing and I teamed up with David G. Martin, who’s still our CEO and is shepherding this. We just did it on a “let’s try it and see what happens” basis, and obviously it worked out and it’s been a gratifying 20 years.
It’s brilliant in its simplicity. No one can stop you riffing, say, Star Wars or Titanic. There are no rights issues.
That is pretty nice. I mean, I’ve done a lot of stuff with executives. My gag about it is that an executive will come in and go, “Pretty good. I like a lot about it. Why don’t you throw a monkey in there.” Then they just leave the room and you got to go, “What does that mean?” And then the next executive goes in, “I like everything except the monkey. So get a monkey in there, but take the monkey out.” And you’re like, “How do you do that?” “You’ll figure it out. You’re the talent.” So to have 20 years of not having any of that, we’re spoiled.
They first brought back MST3K in 2017. Kevin and Bill both made guest appearances. Did they ask you at any point?
As I recall, they did. I’m sure they did. My standard answer back then was like, “I really got to do this RiffTrax thing right now.” I also remember, even with live shows I would have to demur and just go, “I can’t.” Also, when you’re raising children, now my children are full-grown, but back then you’re like, “I don’t know, man, I got a kid hanging on my ankle.”
As a fan of the show, I had mixed feelings about the first revival. I was happy it was back, but a whole new cast all at once was tough to swallow.
Yeah, I wondered about that for people. I remember at the time when Joel was the host and then I took over, I got some really, really personal hate mail. I hadn’t really thought of it. I was always there. I was on set all the time, so it didn’t really mean anything to me. And then all of a sudden, now I’m in their living room, and they don’t like me.
The changes were very gradual back then. You were the new host, but it was same Tom Servo, the same Crow, same Gypsy. This was an entirely new cast all at once.
Sure. Yeah.
They were on Netflix for two seasons but i was never a long-term home. Netflix rarely lets a show go for very long.
I’ve never been part of the Netflix universe, but from what I hear, and this is hearsay, take it or leave it, is that they’re very closed about that. You just walk in one day, and we’re all fired. That is a phenomenon even on networks too, where it’s kind of like working at a restaurant. You walk in one day and the doors are chained.
They did one more season that was entirely supported by fans. But that wasn’t a long-term plan either. You need some sort of production company backing you.
Yeah. I’m sure that’s part of it. How many times as a fan can you open your wallet? I don’t know.
This new era was a pretty big surprise to the fans. How did you first hear about the possibility of Joel selling the show and you guys being called back in?
It was really gradual. It was like, “Would you, in any universe, be interested?” And then it’s like, “Well, yes, would I like to own a unicorn? I mean. I guess so. Let me think about it.” And then you’re going about your day a couple months later and it’s, “Well, there’s a possibility. What do you think about this?” And I was like, “I don’t know. In a theoretical world, maybe, I guess.” So it was sort of gradual.
Did you feel any hesitation? You’ve been doing your own thing for 20 years. It’s pretty established at this point.
Probably a little. I think all three of us felt a little bit like you’re saying, “We’ve got our lane, and it’s been a while.” And then I think we gradually started to remember, “Man, we had so much fun doing this. Wouldn’t it be fun to be a grown person holding a puppet, Kevin?”
How did it get to the place where it’s at now where it’s going to be shot again in Minneapolis with the old sets and everything?
Kevin Murphy had produced for us before. It was him doing a lot of legwork with people we knew from the past. Most people we’re still in touch with. It’s like, “We’re thinking we’re going to do this, would you be interested?” And it’s gratifying to get a yes from people.
I thought it was a really joyful thing to be able to live your life in a way that when you contact people from the past, they don’t go, “Yeah, no, I don’t want to do that.” Everyone was pretty happy about it. And we shot that little video for the Kickstarter, and a lot of the old crew came back.
When does production start? What’s the timeline?
We have to wait to see what happens with the Kickstarter, but production will follow pretty much on the heels of it and we’ll try to get going on it and get them in the can, as they say.
How is it going to be broadcast?
I think we’ll deliver them all on our RiffTrax platform, being the RiffTrax experiments. People are kind of used to that, and I think they’ll just get them there. There’s talk of doing one of them as a live show with Fathom, which would be fun.
I’m sure it’s going to be surreal to put the jumpsuit back on, have the puppets next to you again, and be back in this universe you’ve been out of for 27 years.
When we did the shoot, the puppets came out of these cases. It was this weird thing of like, “I’ve been to the moon and now here’s the moon rock that you picked up.” It was a surreal feeling, but it was also very joyful to see people scrambling around again.
At the end of the series, Mike had escaped the Satellite of Love and was back on earth, watching a movie on a couch with Tom and Crow. Are you going to be back up in space for the new series?
The fiction is sort of TBD. We don’t really know. For most of us involved in it, we don’t have a lot of preciousness about the actual fiction. It’s space. You can do whatever you want.
Will Gypsy be back?
Again, TBD. It’s hard to say. I think we said goodbye to Gypsy in our final episode. Someone reminded me of that. I was like, “I don’t remember what we did.” She went to work somewhere.
You announced Deathsport as one of the first movies. What drew you to that one?
There was a lot of talk about the movies that we were going to do. And we’re still deciding that. Luckily, Deathsport is one of them that we’re able to get the rights to. But over the years at RiffTrax, a real attachment to David Carradine has formed for whatever reason. This is the one where he has a loincloth.
How did Frank Conniff and Trace Beaulieu get involved?
Trace is in our general area, and we’ve kept in touch with him and always been friendly with him. We are always aware that they were doing the Mads, and have been sort of, as they say, friends of RiffTrax. So that was an easy lift. And Frank, I saw him a couple months back. He had moved back to Minnesota from New York. It was like Old Home Week. It was good to see him again. So it’s a little bit easier to do rather than to say, “Hey Frank, can we send a car to pick you up in your Manhattan apartment and bring you to Minneapolis?”
Why just four episodes?
I think everyone thought that was a good starting place production-wise. Because one of the things about MST that’s far different from RiffTrax is that RiffTrax is much easier to produce since it’s just audio. MST is like spinning plates. When you start putting puppets under the lights and things like that, they tend to catch fire. It is harder and it’s unknown in a way that we’re not used to. Four was just like, “What do we feel comfortable committing to and what do we feel comfortable actually producing?”
It’s a crazy echo of history that you’re again replacing Joel 30 years later.
It is odd, and then oddly comfortable. When I first stepped aboard as host, people would say, “Why you?” I’d go, “Well, I was the head writer and I was always there on set. If they just left the camera on, you’d see me there anyway all the time. So it seemed natural.” So in the same way, this seems natural.
Are you in touch with Joel? Might he guest at some point?
I haven’t been in touch with him. I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s any plans for it because I think he’s out of the game, at least that’s our understanding.
If the four go well, might you make a lot more?
We’re leaving that open. If we were so lucky, we probably would. We’re going to be at a rental studio. If we don’t ruin it, and if people want us to do it, I think everyone is open to it. But we have our old cameraman and art director. They were like, “I’m retired, man, I don’t want to do this.” They’re chopping wood in their cabin and we’re like, “Come on, man, one more job.”
I want to briefly ask about some of the old movies. Manos: The Hands of Fate fascinates so many people. What is it about that movie that makes it stand out above all the others?
That is a hard one for me to understand. That was very polarizing even at the time. Frank Conniff and I used to sit in the room and screen together. He was like, “Oh, this one’s great.” And I’m like, “I hate that one so much. There’s no way we’re going to do it.” And then we showed it to everyone else and it was half-and-half, people just going, “I just don’t ever want to see that again.” And the other half going, “This is so good.”
There’s just something about it. It’s like that Tommy Wiseau and The Room. You can’t explain why some people are like, “I cannot believe you would sit and watch this once, let alone 300 times.”
I find Manos captivating. It’s like this weird form of outsider art, people making a movie that don’t know anything about the craft of filmmaking.
Yeah, I think it has that same feeling of, “Where did this get made? Who did this? Why?” You want to know everything about it. With almost every movie we do, we speculate about them. And then we do research and find out we’re right. With Manos, we were like, “This seems like it was made by a fertilizer salesman from San Antonio.” And then it’s like, “This was made by a fertilizer salesman in San Antonio. Okay. All right.”
Who is a worse director: Ed Wood or Coleman Francis?
Oh, I think Coleman Francis is worse than Ed Wood. In terms of just technical things, I feel like Ed Wood at least tried to capture the stuff on film. And Coleman Francis is like, “We got it. Who cares?”
We hear so often about the movies you dislike. What are your favorite movies?
People always say, “When you’re by yourself, do you watch bad movies?” No, I tend to watch good movies. I like Casablanca. I like The Elephant Man. My wife and I like old movies, so we watch a lot of black-and-whites, which I know some people go, “I can’t even watch a black-and-white movie.” You’re cutting yourself off from a lot of movies.
You must be surprised that you raised $2 million so quickly.
I’ve always been about, “Let’s make this the most joyful experience, the most fun for the most people that we can.” When you get a reaction like this, you’re like, “We’re on the right track.” There’s always going to be people who hate you. You can’t do anything about that, but for the most part, we try to make everyone included in the comedy. And so it’s gratifying.