r/videos 17h ago

New MST3K Theme and Intro

https://youtu.be/_plBSQv2ibw
Upvotes

43 comments sorted by

u/Richard_Sauce 14h ago

It really is impressive how this series has refused to die for nearly forty years. I'll definitely check it out. Feel bad that Joel is out of the picture, but his second era running the show just never seemed fully work out, despite some good episodes here and there.

u/hanoverf 17h ago

Bobo looking a lil Alton Brownish

u/frothy_cunt 7h ago

Bobo has too much hair

u/JaSchwaE 16h ago

ELI5 please. Is this a new series, movie, or live performance?

u/Romnonaldao 15h ago

Series

Joel sold MST3K to Mike.

u/georgecm12 14h ago

He sold the rights outright to Shout Studios, not to Mike.

Shout Studios partnered with Joel Hodgson back in 2015 to purchase the rights from Best Brains, Inc. (essentially what ended up being Jim Mallon's company). Shout Studios already had a distribution agreement with Best Brains; the purchase in 2015 transferred intellectual rights and the ability to produce new episodes.

This year, Shout Studios bought out the remainder from Joel, leaving them with full intellectual and distribution rights. Joel remains credited as "creative consultant." They then announced they were partnering with Rifftrax to produce this latest run of episodes.

u/RemLezarCreated 13h ago

He sold it to Radial (formerly Shout), not to Mike. Radial and Rifftrax have some kind of agreement for these four episodes. 

u/JaSchwaE 15h ago

Thanks what platform can I find it on?

u/Romnonaldao 15h ago

It will be on Riff Trax, but not until October. One of the episodes is releasing in theaters on the 9th

u/NecroJoe 15h ago

...the 9th, with a rerun on the 13th, Sunday afternoon (that's the one I'm going to, since 16 Volt and Acumen Nation are coming to town on the 9th).

u/hiro24 13h ago

WTF is Riff Trax?

u/Romnonaldao 13h ago

The version of "making fun of bad movies" that was created after Mike and his crew split from MST3K. It's very popular

u/hiro24 13h ago

Ok but… what is it? Is it a streaming service? How does one consume this new content?

u/Romnonaldao 13h ago

Well it's not new. It's been around for over 15 years

The format is that you listen to the audio over the movie. So usually you need to supply the movie.

Anyway, you can go to rifftrax.com to get the audio files, or you can subscribe to their streaming service and watch the movies they put up there. They have the movies with the audio on their streaming service. Not all thier content is on the streaming service though.

u/Khaldara 13h ago

It’s free as a channel on both Tubi and Pluto TV if you want to stream (might be on Twitch too? I forget), you can also find movies individually uploaded on YouTube as well (they also have some titles that are purchasable on their website directly).

Some of their biggest hits available for free have been:

Birdemic: Shock and Terror

Miami Connection

Samurai Cop

R.O.T.O.R (I don’t think this one is on YouTube but it should be on the other streaming sites)

They also re-riffed several MST3K classics like Manos: The Hands of Fate, Space Mutiny, and Time Chasers

u/georgecm12 13h ago

rifftrax.com

It's Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy's company where they do riffs to movies. They have their website, an app, and they also do live events distributed through Fathom Entertainment to movie theaters.

u/ImperialAgent 15h ago

oh man he will do a much better job, but netflix ones were horrible. out of all the episodes that came out maybe 3 were ok. They all sounded like they were trying too hard and forced. Rifftrax was my saving grace while that garbage was the newest content from MST3K.

u/digitaljestin 12h ago

Excuse me, but the Mac and Me riff is easily top 5 for the entire run. Probably top 3.

u/drfraglittle 7h ago

Pretty nice!

u/ImperialAgent 12h ago

That's one of my 3, the Hercules one and I don't remember the name of the other one.

u/sandm000 15h ago

4 new episodes MST3K: The Rifftrax Experiments

u/seaefjaye 15h ago

As someone who has only ever seen the MST3K for This Island Earth, what would people recommend? I absolutely loved it but for some reason that's the only I ever saw.

u/Khaldara 13h ago edited 12h ago

If you’re talking purely MST3K? My starting picks would be:

Werewolf

Overdrawn at the Memory Bank

Time Chasers

Space Mutiny

The Pumaman

Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders

Jack Frost

Manos: The Hands of Fate

Mitchell (This one is also one of the few episodes where MST3K ‘plot’ occurs, setting up the “trapped human” transfer from Joel to Mike)

Final Justice

Hobgoblins

u/porgy_tirebiter 11h ago

Not a big Joel fan?

u/Khaldara 11h ago edited 10h ago

I consider some of his stuff like Eegah!, I Accuse My Parents, and Pod People to be outright classics too, even Sidehackers though I know that one’s unpopular.

I think it’s more of a consequence where the show had less money at the beginning so they had to riff a lot of really rough black and white stuff (and for newer viewers still getting used to the format sometimes it can help to have slightly more modern films that are ‘kind of’ watchable versus some of their older offerings).

Though Forrester and TV’s Frank are my favorite of the Mads for sure, their interactions were just the best. Pearl was still great on her own but I’ve got a soft spot for those two

I wish they’d given Mary Jo more chances to riff with the guys like she did in Quest of the Delta Knights, I thought that was really fun as well

u/Ketzeph 10h ago

I'd especially push Final Justice. We're all Zap Rowsdower

u/Tyrannicus47 6h ago

I would also add Prince of Space to the list. One of my all time favorites.

u/ImperialAgent 15h ago

head over to Pluto.tv and there is a channel of JUST Mostly like 80% original, MST3K and a channel of JUST RiffTrax.

u/Xznograthos 14h ago

Also available through Tubi

u/Duchock 15h ago edited 15h ago

There's lots of episodes out there on the internet for free consumption (and by legitimate means). Check YouTube. Netflix has two (newer, modern) seasons. The rights for each episode are all kind of weird so they're all spread out between streaming platforms and purchase places.

Edit: I recommend random, chaotic viewing. Once you get a feel of the show and sample the Joel vs Mike eras, lookup best episode lists and seek out the favorites.

u/RemLezarCreated 13h ago

A few of my favorites are Space Mutiny, I Accuse My Parents, Final Sacrifice, and Time Chasers

u/inflatableje5us 12h ago

they have a youtube channel where they stream 24/7.
https://www.youtube.com/@MST3K

i think ive seen every episode several times, my dogs love it as well so i tend to leave it on while at work.

u/goatchumby 8h ago

Here's a few classics featuring Joel. The shorts listed at the top are a great quick way to jump in.

Mr. B Natural (short)

Here Comes the Circus (short)

Cave Dwellers

Pod People

Mighty Jack

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

Master Ninja I & Master Ninja II

and yes...

...Manos: The Hands of Fate

u/Argentothe1st 13h ago

Beast of Yucca Flats

Hercules vs The Moon Men

u/georgecm12 17h ago edited 17h ago

Hmm. No Gypsy? (Yes, I know, Joel decided to rename her GPC... I never cared for that. Plus I'm hoping that that this mostly disregards the Netflix and Gizmoplex episodes.)

u/Romnonaldao 16h ago

What was wrong with the Netflix or Gizmoplex episodes? They had some great episodes. Christmas that Almost Wasn't is an annual watch for me

u/georgecm12 16h ago

The Netflix episodes were just OK.

"The Gauntlet" was better than "The Return." In "The Return," It felt like they were doing too much riffing, rather than being a little more judicious and only doing the funnier bits. Plus, part of the fun of MST3K is that you can still "enjoy" the movie, and with as much riffing as they were doing in the first season, it was almost too distracting from the actual movie. They found their balance more in "The Gauntlet."

The Gizmoplex episodes were just all-around flat-out bad for me. The green-screen sets were horrible. The voices for Emily's bots were grating as hell. Emily just had so much of that "Theater Kid" energy that it was off-putting for me. Everyone's performance just felt so amateurish, like it was their first day in front of a camera. The list just goes on and on for me.

u/Insight42 13h ago

There were some gems in the netflix run, tbh, but they didn't have that "endlessly rewatchable" thing going.

The early ones were rough with exactly what you said, too many jokes a minute. Some of them are very solid riffs and you can easily miss them because nothing has time to breathe. This was fixed maybe halfway through that first season.

The Gauntlet had a good pace, didn't love a lot of the movie choices but it was mostly decent.

After that, things get tricky.

A lot of fans - me included - threw in some money for the Return and the Gauntlet. They did well enough. But the thought was "I'll pay to help get this going", not I want to finance every upcoming season. The point of changing the humor and the cast was to bring in new blood and not coast on nostalgia, and that would sustain the show. Apparently, it didn't.

Joel, being Joel, brought in the whole Gizmoplex stuff to add value. Cool stuff, but you can't expect me to shell out every time you want to make more episodes. It's just too much.

So I didn't see the new ones. I'm sure everyone did a great job but there was already a bad taste in my mouth from the repeated asks.

u/georgecm12 13h ago

I only caught the Gizmoplex eps once they landed on the FAST channels (the Pluto.tv channel and the main official channel). I didn't back them, and TBH, I'm kind of glad I didn't.

u/Tyrannicus47 6h ago

Didn't Gypsy become a millionaire or something at the very end of the final episode of Season 10? Maybe they're keeping that continuity.

u/Spjorker 3h ago

Apparently it was nixxed by PC people as "Gypsy" is a racial slur against people of Romani descent. Which means we can never listen to that Stevie Nicks song ever again.

u/andhelostthem 4h ago

I watch MST3K to fall asleep at night with a good laugh. The last thing I want to do is watch it in a theater.

I think they need to realize the real market for this show is making it as accessible to watch and as affordable to make as possible.

u/inGage 15h ago

Wow. I didn't think it would have been possible to make that theme LESS cool, but here we are.

It just sounds SO basic and low energy. 

Ugh. It sounds like it's Jonathon Colton, and I absolutely LOVE his "best concert ever" but this? .. bland.  meh.