MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 Launches Kickstarter in Hopes for More Episodes and an Online Platform

Mystery Science Theater 3000 creator, Joel Hodgson, has announced that the series has a new Kickstarter campaign to create a new, independent season of the series.

“The current goal is to raise at least $2 million to create new episodes of the beloved cult show and what Hodgson has dubbed the Gizmoplex, an online platform on which the show and related content will be released in the future. At the time of this publishing, nearly $500,000 has already been raised by over 2,000 backers.”

The news comes six years after the show’s record-breaking Kickstarter campaign to fund a new season, which ultimately aired on Netflix. Netflix then ordered a second season of the show but declined to pick up a third in 2019.

Hodgson wrote on the Kickstarter description:

“Today, I hope you’ll join us again to write MST3K’s next chapter: to prove that we can #MakeMoreMST3K without depending on a network to keep us alive, and to #BuildTheGizmoplex, a unique online theater where MST3K can continue to grow. But – and this is the important part – I also want to be cautious. We’re all just crawling out from COVID, and it’s been a difficult year. I know that things are more difficult for a lot of people than they were during our first Kickstarter. If you decide to pledge, please: only give what feels comfortable, even if it’s just a few bucks. And if you can’t afford anything, that’s okay too! We’ll find other ways for you to stay involved, and to make sure you can still get access to all of our new episodes and Gizmoplex events.”

The Netflix revival of the series is set on the Satellite of Love where the host (Jonah Ray) is held captive and is forced to watch an unending stream of bad B movies peppered with snide comments from his robot compadres. In addition to Ray, the series also starred Baron Vaughn as the voice of Tom Servo, Hampton Yount as the voice of Crow, Felicia Day as Kinga Forrester, and Patton Oswalt as Max, a.k.a “TV’s Son of TV’s Frank.”