Mystery Science Theater 3000 Teases Return of Joel for New Season

By Russ Burlingame

Mystery Science Theater 3000 has offered fans a first look at Joel Robinson's iconic red jumpsuit ahead of his return in the show's upcoming thirteenth season, which is now in production. Robinson, played by series creator Joel Hodgson, was the series' original protagonist, before he was replaced by Mike Nelson (played by Michael J. Nelson) in the fifth season. The series' original run began on KTMA, a local channel in Minnesota, but when the station went bankrupt, Hodgon shopped it around to bigger networks. At the Comedy Channel (now Comedy Central, a change that happened two seasons into MST3K's run) and then the Sci-Fi Channel (now Syfy), the series lasted ten seasons. A Netflix revival in 2017 and 2018 brought the total to 12 before Hodgson crowdfunded the current, 13-season run, which will be produced in conjunction with Shout! Factory, who made news yesterday by acquiring the rights to ALF.

The series was a cult classic, with bootlegs of the episodes being so ubiquitous that the phrase "Keep circulating the tapes" (which was on the first few years of Comedy Central episodes, due to the channel's limited reach at the time) became a motto for fans long after it was removed from the actual credits. The mentality would help keep some episodes of MST3K from becoming lost media, though, since many of the KTMA episodes were never re-aired or commercially released due to rights issues.

Why rights issues? Well, if you don't know, the premise of Mystery Science Theater 3000 is that a "test subject" (Hodgson, Nelson, or in the Netflix re-release a comedian named Jonah Ray) was kidnapped by mad scientists and deposited on a space station, then forced to watch terrible movies until the test subject lost his mind. Hodgson came up with the idea of staying sane by collecting spare parts from around the space station so build interactive robot friends he could mock the movies with. The "Bots" remained on the series after Joel escaped the Mads, although their voice actors have changed over time.

You can see the tweet below.

Joel's appearance as Joel Robinson on the new season is not a surprise to fans who supported the crowdfunding campaign. The 13-episode season will actually feature three different hosts, partially due to the challenges posed by filming during Covid. Each host will have their own set of voice actors for the Bots, although the Bots themselves will look and act the same.

Jonah Ray returns as Jonah Heston, Hodgson is Robinson, and the first woman to host the show will be Emily Marsh, who had been touring with Mystery Science Theater 3000's live show before COVID cut live performances short. Marsh introduced herself (and her character Emily Crenshaw) to the wider MST3K fan base in The MST3K LIVE Social Distancing Riff-Along Special, which aired in May 2020.

Hodgson's company Best Brains, which owns the rights to MST3K, and their new distributor Shout! Factory are working to develop a stand-alone website and app for the new MST3K episodes. Called "The Gizmoplex" (named after Gizmonics Institute, the fictional company in the show), Hodgson said during the crowdfunding campaign that the plan is for it to be more than just a screening platform.

"I think Mystery Science Theater is unique in that it's 90 minutes long and advertisers don't really like that," Hodgson told ComicBook at the time. "Where advertisers are at, is there they're most interested in understanding what a show is, and who's watching it and with Mystery Science Theater, cause it's long, it's hard for them to kind of visualize that. So they tend to go for other content."

He added, "We have a really strong fan base that is willing to help pay for this stuff, so people always kind of speculate, 'Geez, they should go to Disney+. Geez, they should go to Paramount+,' and you kind of go, 'but that's not really reality. If Paramount has the channel, they're going to want to sell their stuff, right? So they're going to want to focus on Star Trek, and all their big properties. And same with Disney+. I think what's meaningful is that, we represent a lot of shows that have been canceled, that have really robust fan bases that are willing to kind of do something like the Gizmoplex."

There is no firm release date for new episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 yet, but the series is currently in production and fans already know what movies will be featured.

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