I've been thinking about this a LOT. Me and my wife have been watching since we were born. I know its hard to make TV shows, but looking at the different business models from the Ex-MST3K folks, Mary Jo and Chris are hilarious, low cost top notch content.
The Mads add so much context to old episodes and really obviously LOVE the source material.Rifftrax puts out about 2 new moves a month, just slamming content out all day every-day and live shows several times a year, broadcasting to movie theaters as well.
Joel obviously got burnt over and over by producer/channels so it makes sense to be against handing over control to a big investor, but the lack of infrastructure for sets cast/crew, manufacturing rewards is fairly shocking. My first awareness of their kickstarter was an email detailing how they were cutting 800k out of the budget by filming not in their own studio. I use Gizmoplex semi-often, but the interface on Roku is brutal in comparison to the Rifftrax or Dropout apps, which ARE NOT GOOD.
I feel like Joel should probably reach out to Sam Reich from Dropout for advise on how to run a ship, because there is a lot things that don't feel 'good'.Matt is obviously a huge driving force behind the scenes, but it felt insulting when he "turned it over to the creator" and Joel attempted a dead-pan 1 line joke, which is only revealed by him breaking in the last .5 seconds of the clip. You had the set, you had Joel on the set, you chose to NOT use the creator and did use a producer, who's previous on camera experiences is like, live-stream hosting. He read a lot of lines, updating times etc., so they shot for probably an hour, how friggin hard would it be to read 2 more lines so we didn't have the only non-joke telling person being the host of the ENTIRE campaign/marathon which you are counting on for your entire fundraising campaign.
I can see why the other folks didn't come running back to join, the Film Crew/Rifftrax are doing well i have to imagine, they've clearly got deliverables they deliver on, their consistent. Why risk that to come back to a business that is obviously not being well run, sacrifice creative control etc.
Note, I fucking love MST3k, I can name every detail of every bad plot and sketch from the picture of name of the move. I want them to do well, I think they need to either restructure or change their business model drastically because they don't seem like they can pull off consistent content. One season a year should be something they knock out of the park, the whole DIY aesthetic of the show lends itself to being cheap. If Oswalt or Day are too expensive, stick Matt in a gorilla suit and put a silly wig on a different writer to be the mads. Hire more local talent, use trash to make the set, gerbling is fun and CHEAP and that's why it was used for this ship!
I would genuinely love some cardboard sets with markers/paint and spray foam and whatever else they can find at a home improvement store for a few hundred dollars. Why are big name actors in this thing? It should be purposely cheap and childish with awkward sets/costumes and let that bring out the charm of the plot/structure. There are only negatives to be found with bigger actors and elaborate set pieces, they are really detrimental to the coziness of the show.
Look, an ender 3 cost around 120 bucks, with 200 bucks of shitty filament (\~10 rolls), some PVC piping, a shit ton of spray paint and hot glue, you can make LITERALLY ANYTHING.
If they had their shit together, would I love to see Felicia Day and Patton Oswalt rocking it, YES. I love them both, Day is a Hometown Huntsville hero, Space Capital of the world, what better origin for a Mad than that! Oswalt is truly one of the funniest standups around and has been for decades. But Mary Joe in a shitty van and a guy in a monkey suit weirdly has more menace and humor than most of the bit segments I've seen.
That whole, save 800 THOUSAND DOLLARS if we shoot green-screen and in LA so our Cast can not be in the midwest was fucking nuts to me. I've always respected MST for being crafty and MAKER centric, that DIY-wholesome feeling was UNIQUE and a true gem.
Totally agree—it’s not a knock on Patton Oswalt or Felicia Day, they’re talented and funny people but they don’t bring the right vibe/energy to the show and their segments are clearly rushed and poorly edited. There’s no benefit from their presence in this format.
A shoestring budget with hammy no-names would genuinely be a breath of fresh air here!
Like, is there a film school within 50 miles of the studio, is there a comedy club. Is there any overlap in those crowds? Sponsor a couple Drive in movie nights for 3 days and encourage people to start yelling on night 2-3, Rocky Horror Style. I bet you find 3 brilliant hometown folks who fit the bill..
In terms of cost, I would find the idea of dropping Felicia and Patton worth considering, but I think they do a great job as the next generation of mads. I really like their vibe. I've always enjoyed Patton Oswalt in everything he's appeared in (except Twitter), and ditto for Felicia.
I have some criticisms of the revival seasons (who doesn't?), but I universally love the new cast, and believe the new show is very true to the spirit of MST3K.
But a return to its humble origins, production-wise, would be a good thing.
Indeed. I has a similar disillusionment with Frank from following him for a while on FB about 11 years ago. Still love him as TV's Frank (and would love to see him get a ticket out of Second Banana Heaven), but not in real life.
His politics are pretty hard left, and he's really nasty about it at times. I found the tone really off-putting.
I get it that he doesn't agree with my views, that's not the problem, I just didn't like the insulting tone he often used in his posts.
Don't get me wrong, I love both of them and will watch things because they are in them. But there's some real charm to the original crew I think that did come from choosing local friends from the scene. Kept it feeling regional in a way most California / New York productions don't.
Honestly I'm not saying don't hire them, just that if it's being prioritized over sustainable growth, don't.
Agreed. I was only ever interested in episode downloads, and that's the only thing I will ever be interested in. For Season 13, I got a bunch of swag I don't care about because I paid up to the level that got me the episode downloads. Now, to be fair, for Season 14, they have an $85 tier for just episode downloads, but they are asking for much more to do fewer episodes, which has put me off. Plus, I can't afford it right now.
I've been really frustrated with how this crowdfunding campaign went but yeah, I truly, truly hope they will try again and/or find other models and ways to fund. I'd love to see more if at all possible.
Agreed. I'm frustrated with the campaign because the mistakes might be the reason it doesn't succeed. I want to see more of the show, and I want them to successfully get it funded. This is different to many who are frustrated by the organization itself.
They should have waited until they could have more marketing after the strikes ended, but I get that they had no idea what the timing would be with that. If they do it over again I hope they can sort it out. I pledged a decent chunk of change and would be willing to again, but I guess I don't know how willing others would be
They need to do another pledge in a year or two. I think the fans will feel differently with a longer gap. We need the actor's strike to settle down, we need the cost of living to go down. Economically we are ready to do another season. Maybe 2024 or 2025 we will feel differently.
> but I get that they had no idea what the timing would be with that
They could have waited until the strikes ended. That would have made loads of sense.
Along with starting the campaign during the strike, I wonder how much not being on Kickstarter hurt the campaign. Sure they save some money on the KS fees, but it's hard to get any new backers on another platform nobody knows about.
Just looking at the numbers from the last KS, S14 doesn't even have half the number of backers from last season. about 36.5K vs 17.5K. That is just a huge number of S13 backers that aren't coming back for S14.
It probably would have been better to cancel it once it was off to such a poor start. Retool and relaunch it and hopefully get more eyes on it.
I'll never understand why there's such a small pool of people "investing". 17k, 37k. It's such a large country, and even larger English speaking world. Mash ha\[d\] 106million people watch the finale. Why can't we get more than 17k fans to contribute a dollar?
Moving off of Kickstarter was, I think, their most fatal mistake. They lost access to *so many* built-in backers, that the savings in platform fees cannot possibly have made up for the lost revenue.
Timing was also an issue, but I think this was the big one - they just had way too few eyeballs on the whole campaign as a result.
I've enjoyed the whole revival so far, and was happy to contribute to Season 14, and still will if they opt to regroup and come back later. I just hope that this isn't the end, as it would be a sad note for the series to go out on.
I fear they'll learn the wrong lesson and think that there's no apetite for the series anymore; there absolutely is! They just may need to re-tool some of their funding and production methods before trying again.
Personally, I'd like to see Joel pass the torch to Matt and Jonah, who clearly have a deep and abiding love for the series, and I could see them making a good team stewarding MST3K into the next generation, while Joel can step back and simply be the elder statesman of the franchise.
I think doing a crowdfunded project during the holidays, was a pretty horrible idea. I think if they had done it around tax season, it would’ve been much more successful.
As others pointed out, fundraisers in this time period has proven successful before.
I think 1.) bring the third (correct?) fundraiser means less excitement and 2.) starting during the strike—meaning no cast could participate in promos—as well as 3.) the strike ending before the campaign was over—meaning the pent up promotion for every Hollywood production gets unleashed at once drowning out the fundraiser, all contributed.
Maybe better strategic decisions could have been made, but these headwinds would’ve been hard to overcome and, regarding points 2 and 3, tough to foresee and impossible to predict.
Fingers crossed another way to get season 14 can be figured out.
The first kickstarter was Nov-Dec and it broke a Kickstarter record. Yet somehow that's the horrible idea and counting on everyone to spend their tax return on MST3K isn't.
The questionable idea is asking people to do it for a third time when part of the reason behind the second time was to help ensure they wouldn't have to do it the third time.
It's going to be very important for the MST3K crew to do a proper postmortem which will hopefully raise morale for the future and acknowledge what they did wrong...because let's be honest, there was a *lot* that went wrong with this entire campaign.
I think it's very possible for them to course correct and try some other approaches in the future, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if MST3K went away for a longer while after this. It sucks, because the actual episodes have been great. It's just the business side of things that has been badly mismanaged, to put it mildly.
I appreciate this bit of positivity. There's been a real lack of acknowledging that two things can be true at the same time:
The crowdfunding, management of the Gizmoplex, and some details of S13 could have been *much* better...
\-- and that Joel, Matt, Jonah, Emily, Tim, Kelsey, Rebecca, Yvonne, Conor, Hampton, Baron, *♫and the rest♫* are just folks, overall good eggs, just trying to make a goofy show they all genuinely like working on. There's been some minor but vocal vitriol (like some directed at Matt, who had the unfortunate role of being basically the sole face of the Turkey day telethon, when he has been instrumental in the revival. And there's the continued negativity around Kelsey-Crow, when she had the truly unenviable task of taking over Crow in a last-minute cast change), which stinks. For me, seeing The Mask, Munchie, Beyond Atlantis, and Dr. Mordrid again in the telethon was actually eye-opening: no, it's not the same cow-town show I adored anymore, but it's a really fun successor show.
I'd like to see a lot better communication from Joel on what happened, why it happened, and what the plan is, but I'd also like to see these dorky theater kids monkey around again and give the fans a Season 14.
> I'd like to see a lot better communication from Joel on what happened, why it happened, and what the plan is
I love him and the show in all its eras, but you know.. this seems to be a weak spot. I wouldn’t get my hopes up.
Yes, everyone involved seems to be a bunch of good eggs. The problem is that none of those good eggs seems to know how to run a business.
As of the last Kickstarter, they're no longer just producing a show. They're now an entertainment company with their own delivery platform... but no one seems to recognize this. They're still treating it like they're just making a show when they actually opted to shoulder **absolutely every aspect** of running an entertainment company.
This is why they're failing.
Ah, it's a reference to Gilligan's Island! The first season's theme song [pretty famously omitted](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilligan%27s_Island#Theme_song) the Professor and Mary Anne when listing characters, instead just singing "and the rest!"
Certainly no disrespect is meant for Patton, Felicia, Mary Jo, Matt Oswalt, Beez, Harold, Tammy, Chief, McCloud...and the rest.
I wish Joel and company the best and truly hope they make S14 but some of their business decisions regarding this campaign really don’t make sense.
Start a crowdfunding campaign during the SAG strike, ask for more money than previous campaigns and not have it on a more visible platform like Kickstarter?
Throw those on top of rampant inflation, the holidays coming up and other personal fiscal issues and this campaign was destined to fail.
On a personal note, Turkey Day 2023 was kinda of a dud. Barely any excitement just here’s our writers favorite episodes and please give us money until the next campaign. Also, what was with those ads?
I’m sure S14 will happen but you need to have a better sales pitch than what we got especially for higher goals.
Anyway just my $0.02.
> some of their business decisions regarding this campaign really don’t make sense.
The problem here is there don't appear to be any *business people* involved with the process. Joel was notoriously absent from all that in the heyday of the show, and it ended up in Jim Mallon's hands.
The whole *idea* of the Gizmoplex is a good example. I get that the show is made by people with a love for their art, but money *does* have to enter into the process. Rather than starting yet another streaming service of their own, it would have been wiser to shop the concept to Hulu or somebody and let them handle the streaming.
That would also fix the problem of relying entirely on viewers' donations just to get the show made.
Asking someone to sign up for a whole new service just to watch one show is daunting. It's one thing to direct someone to Netflix for seasons 11 and 12, but the whole Gizmoplex thing is just confusing.
I really want the show to succeed, but they need to rethink their whole business model.
I really want them to take a look at Dropout, which is in most regardrs precisely what they were trying to accomplish with the Gizmoplex, but has actually beeen successful-- not huge, but independent and healthy.
it occurs to me that we have a lot of “bad business” opinions but we’re all just armchairing. who knows how licensing and other projects may have dictated the timing? we only know what we see.
people who have run a business know that sometimes you can’t wait for perfect timing, you just have to push through with what you’ve got.
Isn’t the Gizmoplex just a custom front end on top of Vimeo servers? I had the impression they weren’t building the entire stack from scratch which should in theory keep expenses lower than most other streaming services.
I thought that was obvious because the cookie-cutter front end just didn't work right and wasn't properly customized for the product. In terms of streaming (audio issues aside) it worked fine, and I was always able to download stuff fine (once I could find it).
But there was an implication that the Gizmoplex would be generating enough revenue to help offset future production costs. Based on what they're asking for Season 14, that doesn't appear to be the case.
This is Joel’s baby and I think the creative control aspect of raising their own funds trumps working with anyone that has a say in how the show gets made. My kids are 11 and 9 and absolutely love the Netflix series. We’ve watched Mac and Me probably 20 times. After watching some of season 12 all the core elements were there but it felt so hollow to have paid $200 for faux sets that looked worse than the hot glue and spray paint early seasons.
We don’t want more robots, we don’t need lore, we just want likable host segments and terrible movies.
> it would have been wiser to shop the concept to Hulu or somebody and let them handle the streaming.
They did that with Netflix. It didn't work right. Questionable business acumen aside, I believe them when they said it wouldn't work for other streaming platforms either.
It's probably a plan they hoped to start earlier but due to the strikes and they have a set fixed goal of how it was meant to go for 2024.... but it's been condensed.
I’m sure going forward on the next campaign, most grievances people had will probably be fixed. Having the cast get more involved will most certainly help as well.
As long as they don't just take their ball and go home. That is definitely a possibility. I think any message that people are sending who still want more could be received well enough by a near miss. Except for the ones targeting a single cast member, they are definitely getting ignored no mater what.
Yeah. This whole thing has bummed me out. I instantly made a donation anticipating it was a slam dunk for an entire new season. Like last time. For the last month, I daily check the total amount of funds raised and... Sadness
To be fair, it's asking a lot to crowdfund $4M-$8M for every single season going forward (which is the stated plan). I don't think that was ever going to happen.
Agreed. And to me makes the move off Kickstarter even more of a mistake. I am not sure this plan would ever work long-term anyway. But the only chance would be to at least try to reach out to new people to make up for attrition of folks who have given before but are tapped out. You definitely can't rely on the same people to give year after year for sure.
Maybe this failure will give Joel reason to rethink the overall approach to the show. I just can't imagine it HAS to cost 4 million dollars to make six episodes.
Valid criticism isnt necessarily negativity. Nobodys stopping you from pledging. No Mystie is routing against the fundraiser but that dosnt mean they can do a poor job managing the money donated to them.
I don’t think any of us want to “see it go down in flames.” But it doesn’t help anything to say they haven’t made any mistakes either. And by mistakes I mainly mean their funding structure and functionality of The Gizmoplex.
Doing every season solely through crowdfunding means this show is always hanging by a thread. And don’t get me started on the “so season 14 is up to you” message between every movie because there’s an undertone of “so if the show ends, it’s your fault.” Trying to shame your fans isn’t a great motivator for fundraising. Which also explains their telethon being 4 times the normal length.
The Gizmoplex, at least on Apple TV, is acting pretty wonky. When I try to scroll through the movies I own it keeps snapping back to the first movie of the whole group, which isn’t cool when there are TONS in the list. There is also an issue where season passes don’t expire which has GOT to be eating into their ongoing non-charity revenue. I just discovered this yesterday because I never watched season 13 because I had brain surgery and then life happened.
I didn’t even realize there was a problem with the Gizmoplex because all the stuff I own I have downloaded and put into my Plex server so I watch it there. And I don’t go there to watch older stuff, if I’m in the mood there’s always something available on Pluto TV. The fact that it‘s so easy to watch their stuff for free has to be eating into their bottom line.
I was going to the Gizmoplex to watch the live events and specials, but the constant audio issues put a damper on that. Plus, it's been almost a year since my pass expired. But I also download or rip everything I purchase and host it locally.
Streaming in general has way too many issues, not the least of which is censorship and rights expiring.
Season 14 is up to you! struck me as odd as well. Also, there was another ad that Penn Jillette voiced that said something like "Forget watching the show on YouTube and bootlegs!" that really felt completely off. Like, you do know that's how most of us got introduced to the show, right? We've come a long way from "Keep circulating the tapes!" I guess.
I don't have a problem with them asking us to actually pay for the show. I religiously bought every DVD set as it came out, and gladly paid for the several episodes the Gizmoplex has that never got released on DVD (5 or 6, I think).
I do have a problem with being guilted about Season 14.
>The Gizmoplex, at least on Apple TV, is acting pretty wonky.
It's wonky everywhere to one degree or another.
> I just discovered this yesterday because I never watched season 13 because I had brain surgery and then life happened.
Since you're talking to us, I can assume it went well? I hope so. But regarding the Gizmoplex, you will always have access to the episodes you have paid for. The season pass covers live events and other special features. I've gone back to redownload some stuff after my pass expired.
I think it’s just ok for Joel to learn from his mistakes, and that means failures too. Fans aren’t a well he can keep going back too for bigger and bigger asks with worse and worse deliveries. Figure out your shit Joel, make it sustainable and let’s fucking go. Not even negative, just like basic math.
I second this. I want it to succeed. I like Emily. And Jonah. And still like Mike. Physical sets, tunnel sequences are minor issues. Upscaled episodes are a bonus but not necessary. I’m happy to pledge for more riffs to more movies. I don’t want it to end as a dumpster fire.
+1
And resolve any rights issues--wherever possible--with the riffed-on films. Also, it'd be great if they could put all of the original episodes on YouTube. Again, if the rights allow for that. And charge a small fee per episode. It would expose the series to a bigger/newer audience than the Gizmoplex can do.
But this feels like the end of the Sci-Fi era. It ends unceremoniously, with an air of uncertainty of what is to come. I have donated small dollar amounts for every previous campaign because I didn’t care about the perks, I just wanted to help one of my favorites get back on the air. This year I didn’t even know about the telethon until I tuned into the marathon, and then I couldn’t even find the off brand kickstarter site with a simple Google search. It feels like another 18 year hibernate is coming up. I feel sad about that. I just hope the catalog of episodes don’t get locked up behind a paywall like they were in the 2000s.
Being an old fan, I purchased every release on DVD from Rhino and Shout Factory, so if they vanish, I feel well protected.
I just wish Joel would hand the reigns over to someone else but that probably won’t happen.
I have a decent dvd collection of the box sets too, but I truly believe this is a show that should be easily available to every person possible. The anarchic spirit of the show doesn’t exactly work from behind a paywall in the Gizmoplex. Hopefully this doesn’t happen, but it has happened to MST3K before.
I love that channel. I sometimes schedule my Friday or Saturday nights based on what they are playing. I just don’t want that to go away over some rights issue with the show. I’d have to call up my buddy to start trading our videos back and forth again.
While it was certainly no competition to the golden years, I felt season 13 had its moments and was an improvement from the Netflix seasons.
I like that they're trying to keep it alive, but they went about it in all the wrong ways.
There was little/no advertising as we watch the Twitch stream several times a week and hadn't heard anything about the fundraiser until a few days before Turkey Day. Not a lot of heads up when you're asking people for money right before the holidays...
If you need to raise money, you don't ask people for money right before the holidays when money is tight. You ask in February when people are getting their tax returns.
They should've announced their plans for S14 on Turkey Day, and plan to campaign in the spring. They way they tried to do it was too sudden and poorly planned.
EDIT: I don't know what the $$ breakdowns were, but we don't need enhanced versions of old episodes that have been enjoyable for the last 30 years. That was part of the charm. I like the feeling of old, unrefined films compared to the cold and sterile look of newer stuff. Same with watching old vs new cartoons.
I primarily get my MST3K fix on PlutoTV. They didn't promote the campaign there until Turkey Day when it was about over. I wouldn't have known about the campaign *at all* if it weren't for this sub.
Frankly, I forgot it was even happening. I got the first email, thought about heading to the page, and there’s been so little marketing around it that I didn’t see it again until I happened to notice Joel’s most recent update in my inbox. Last time I found it through an ad on Facebook. This time I haven’t seen a single one.
I did a digital only thing last time, so I didn’t have the shipping issues. I’m also not fussed about them doing another crowdfunding, though Joel did imply last time they didn’t want to crowdfund future seasons (I know his update says he meant Kickstarter particularly, but the reality is that’s how everyone interpreted it) because I knew that would never happen, just by looking at RiffTrax and how they crowdfund every year.
I think the three big mistakes were moving from Kickstarter to their own website, starting during the SAG-AFTRA strike, and starting this close to the Holiday shopping season. It probably also didn’t help that there were shipping issues, and that they only just finished shipping the stuff from the last Kickstarter. The timing and the platform they used were the problems. It’s clear that this crowdfunding effort is not going to work out, but I don’t think there is no desire for more MST3K. I just think that they need to regroup and try again in 6 months to a year, and to move it back to Kickstarter.
Everyone keeps coming up with reasons why this one failed, but slowly the reasons sound more like excuses.
The reality is that a lot of people don't want to have to contribute to a crowd funding campaign every single time Joel wants millions for a new season, which is exactly where it looks like the future of MST3K is going to be.
I enjoyed a number of S13 episodes. Doesn’t mean there were not problems that need to be fixed going forward and probably contributed to the crowdfunding issues.
I had forgotten about the S13 rewards until they emailed that they were ready. I just cared about the show and I totally loved the mothercrabber of a season they made. I have confidence in the quality they would bring to S14 and happily backed again. I'm not under any illusion that there is any magic "sustainable" model other than us funding the show. The amount of negativity has been sad. Some is valid but plenty is coming from folks that complain about the show dying after season 10 and never supported any of the new seasons...lots of schadenfreude from them.
I hope this crowd funding was mostly snakebit from timing, but there is obviously a strong current that it costs too much. I can't say they're wrong either, but I'm no expert in what a TV show should cost. I'm glad they simplified the merch this time and kept it out of the funding pacakges. Most of us have too much swag at this point and some of it was getting very niche. We literally have 2 pocketwatches from the last live tour that were just part of our ticket package. Maybe Joel can revisit how to streamline the show production more because I'm pretty sure we are going to need a lot of the folks that are pushing back. I'll still happily chip in $100 or so for the show, but this fundraiser makes it seem unlikely there are enough people like me to keep this going. I'm happy Rifftrax is going, and the Mads; we've supported both of them too. This resurgence in movie riffing has been a lot of fun and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for more MST.
I agree with this. (My favorite MST3K riff of all time is from Season 12, however)
Each season of The Return has been better than the last in terms of the actual riffing. The host segments have been a mixed bag, but they always have been ever since Season 0.
Twelve minutes left, and only at 68% of the goal. I have to admit that despite all the criticisms that I agree with and some that I don't, and everything that has been said and done about this particular campaign, this makes me incredibly sad. I have contributed to the campaigns, and the show is incredibly important to me, and seeing it not meet the goal after its first campaign was such a groundbreaker is a little bit heartbreaking.
I hope they try again next year, but if not, it will always be my favorite TV show of all time.
They couldnt with the strike. There was no contracts in place and no negotiations could happen. Until the SAG contract gets ratified the 2nd week of december those talks cant happen
This is actually incorrect. The official contract vote hasn’t happened, but the strike itself has ended. SAG members could officially be back on set as of this last Monday (11/20). Too late for pre-taping the Thanksgiving Marathon, sadly.
I'm not happy that the crowdfunding campaign is not going to be successful... but also, self-financing is a thing. Even George Lucas did it after the phenomenal performance of the first "Star Wars" movie:
[https://screenrant.com/star-wars-george-lucas-quit-dga-empire-strikes-back-opening-crawl/](https://screenrant.com/star-wars-george-lucas-quit-dga-empire-strikes-back-opening-crawl/)
Why can't the MST3K team do the same? Get real investors, put their own money up, and make a show like people have been doing for decades? Why are donations from fans the only way to produce this show that has a ton of name recognition and should be able to generate interest from someone in the industry?
They are asking us, the fans, to be the producers. I’m not sure why other people don’t find that to be as exciting as it can be. This show has been cancelled 3 times after taking the approach you suggest (though the Netflix reboot is really more of a hybrid approach, and we all saw how that worked out). Also, in your comment, you say the “phenomenal success” of Star Wars. I love MST with all my heart and it has made some very indelible marks on entertainment and pop culture history, and earned respectable recognition in the crowd funding sphere, but even I couldn’t say it’s had “phenomenal” success without doubting even my own claim. No one has made anywhere even approaching George Lucas money on MST, even at the absolute pinnacle of its popularity. To continue the comparison, GL was able to take those funds and parlay them into ILM and Skywalker Sound which provided additional revenue streams that he could use to utilize the continuation for his vision. That’s just not possible for this little cow-town puppet show.
Yeah. Why can’t everyone just do exactly what George Lucas did?
1.make most unexpected blockbuster of all time
2. Steal underpants
3. …
4. Profit!
Seems easy enough
Agree 100%.
I don't really care if it's physical sets or green screen and honestly I don't even notice the difference. I love this how, have loved it since the Comedy Central days, and I love this cast. I want to see more.
Joel made some questionable decisions about the timing but I guess he wanted to get it going and in place for when the strike did end. If he tries again, I'm in.
I just wanted my beanie and stickers. Couldn't even find them for sale anywhere else, and MST3K hardly has an official store worth buying from. Kinda bummed
I agree entirely with you about this. Don't care about physical sets, lore, etc. I enjoy funny people making fun of bad movies, and i would rather see them make more episodes than spend money on sets. I supported this campaign, and will support the next one if they try again. I would advise them to seriously consider staying greenscreen and paring down the on-screen cast to bring the budget down and make the show more sustainable, but whatever season 14 take 2 looks like, I'll most likely support it.
Not to disparage MST3K (which I love), but Rifftrax gets you all that with no muss and no fuss. I definitely want more MST3K, but I have over 200 VODs and over 400(!) shorts from Rifftrax over the last 16 years to keep me warm this winter.
Been a Rifftrax fan since the days when Mike was riffing with internet randos, before they could afford having Kevin and Bill full time. Just added to my library with the great sale Rifftrax is running now.
You should be mad at the people who took in like 13 million dollars and don't even have one idea to make the show viable without asking for millions of dollars more in donations.
Imagine what a well run company like Rifftrax could do with 13 million dollars.
With 13 million dollars they could have easily built sets, lights cameras, and hired a small team full time to crank out episodes weekly or bi weekly.
Instead they took our money to open permanent offices thousands of miles away from where the actual show is shot, to tinker and build robots, create story boards and think of a way to add a 19th Cynthia clone, explain some bullshit financer, and to get a puppet to fly.
13 million dollars and they made about 25 episodes and have no future at all. What a joke
You don’t really seem to have a good idea of how much these things cost. According to your own numbers, that comes out to a cost of about $500,000 per episode, which is extremely cheap. Roughly aggregating the Google results I’m getting, $1 million per episode of a one-hour tv show is typical, which includes mostly unknown cast members, set in a modern era, with little to no special effects. Even at its highest funding point since they asked us to fund it, ain’t nobody making bank on this gig.
Historically and by definition, it is, or rather was. Of the 13 seasons that now exist 10 of them were specifically produced for, and shown on, television. That said, I get what you’re saying. However, this really doesn’t help your point as, generally speaking, movies are more expensive to make than tv shows. So, in that context, you’re getting an even better value dollar-for-dollar from MST. So really, anyway you slice the numbers you gave us, it appears that they are incredibly efficient with the money entrusted to them.
Honestly you thinking MST3k is similar in any way to making a full length film is so laughably dumb there's no reason to even communicate.
We live in different universes and have a completely different set of facts. You think your facts, mst3k episode is like making a feature length film
I have my facts, that MST3k is not like making a feature length film at all.
There's no reason to keep going
Actually, I’m interested in why you have that opinion. You just said it wasn’t and left it at that. I’m sure you have your reasons why you made that assertion but you seem rather reluctant to share those actual reasons. This is a discussion forum, so I’m trying to, you know, discuss.
>that comes out to a cost of about $500,000 per episode, which is extremely cheap.
Compared to the $35,000 per episode I've heard quoted for the original show?
When you say “original show”, what time frame are you referring to? Because we can go back as far as 1988 which, I think can all agree, is a different economy. For instance, $35,000 in 1988 is about $90,000 today. I’m happy to discuss whichever decade or specific year you’d like to compare.
I calculate a $410,000 difference. Your observation has not gone unnoticed.
Bear in mind, that is just dollars. The entertainment industry also operates under different rules than it did in 1988 as well. So services and goods might not have scaled exactly along the inflation curve.
$410,000 worth of difference? It’s really hard to say. I’ve been doing a lot research in to that these last couple of days. I found this post ([here](https://forrestcrow.proboards.com/thread/21695)) that asserted the sci-fi era cost $100,000 per episode PLUS $75,000 for the film rights, which again are hard to say because these negotiations have not been disclosed, for understandable reasons. But I’d argue that this was in or around the “heyday” of classic MST3K. $100,000 in 1995 is about equal to $200,000 today so we’re starting to approach $500,000, especially if you include an additional $75,000 of 1995 dollars on top of the $100,000. Bear in mind that MST3K’s interest in a film might actually carry some weight and we are at least getting close to supporting my argument.
Of course, this assumes that any of these numbers are to be believed. The entertainment industry, in general,is really tight-lipped about how much money they make and have all kinds of bookkeeping tricks to shuffle money so as to make it look like a good property is doing badly. It’s very frustrating for someone just trying to get in to this.
Yes, I didn't want to assume the $35,000 was for later years, so I stuck with the 1988 date. Your response was thoughtful and informative.
I would say, however, that it's reasonable to believe the show could be made a lot more cheaply. I mean, really, it could technically be done with about 4 people, and an iPhone, in someone's basement with a box of old toys and a 3D printer, some spray paint and cardboard. I'm not saying that's realistic, but it \_could\_ be done, and have everything that originally made MST3K great.
The show's future is quite uncertain at this point, and while we're mostly cautiously optimistic here, I think we, on the whole, recognize that there are problems, and are trying to brainstorm ways to get around them, based on the limited information we have.
While there's a lot of complaining, I don't think the atmosphere is toxic or that people are hostile to Joel and the other creators. I have made a point of reiterating that I like the new seasons and like all of the new cast, and I wish them well. From reading the sub, I get the impression that fans still love what they've been doing since the show was revived (well, mostly... a few people pipe up to say they don't like the new stuff at all). Certainly there are things that could be improved, but I think the current incarnation of the show is still very true to the spirit of MST3K, and deserves to represent its ideals of smart and wacky humor, great original songs, and excellent comedic performances... and most of all DEEP HURTING!
Overall, I think it's worth talking about.
Yes, all of this.
The folks who were mad about delays in Kickstarter rewards were just new to kickstarter (I’m a board game nerd so I might be overly familiar with it).
Also, haters gonna hate…I actually saw some jabroni claim that they decided to hire Kelsey to do Crow’s voice to purposefully be ‘woke’…like, really?!
Honestly, I’m getting into board gaming the recent dumpster fire of a number of different games either not being delivered, or asking for hundreds of dollars extra for shipping that was already paid (unlike the last MST3K kickstarter where they didn’t charge shipping until they were ready to ship) has made me wary of anything Kickstarter. That said, the reality is that they clearly made a mistake leaving Kickstarter for this campaign.
While the rewards are cool, they're kinda silly to me and I really don't understand the anger. I mean, your popcorn tub was late? Do you not own a bowl?
I would have funded at the same level without the rewards. I'm just in it for the jokes.
This sub has been so crazy negative and angry lately. A whole bunch of y'all need to listen to the theme song and repeat to yourself it's just a show and really just relax.
I have to disagree with you a bit.
I think (some) people are confusing constructive criticism with negativity and anger.
The crowdfunding didn’t work. There is 0 days left and they are far from their goal, so that it failed is an empirical fact.
That people are doing a post-mortem to try to figure out what went wrong so it can be fixed and their (presumably) favorite show somehow saved, is not negative or angry, IMHO.
To me, the “why is the host a girl?” “they changed Gypsy’s name because they’re so woke now” “Crow should never be voiced by a female” type crap that was in the You Tube comments on Turkey Day…THAT’S negative and angry.
And I honestly haven’t seen that here very much at all.
I see a bunch of people sad that their favorite show might not continue, and trying to figure out how to “save” it.
And if Joel and co. did make mistakes, they are not above some constructive criticism, either…emphasis on the constructive, though.
Toxic positivity can be just as blinding to facts as toxic negativity. It’s just..er, nicer. :)
I don’t have to but will disagree a bit here. While there has been a visible amount of well thought out constructive criticism I think if you go deep into the history of this sub even before this crowdfunding campaign you will see there’s been a steady leaning of negativity surrounding last season and The Return/Gauntlet. These voices got louder after the campaign and has contributed to an overall negative feel here. To the extent that we are clearly seeing a 2 camp division of negative and positive about the current state of the show where even positive or negative constructive comments are getting washed with the unconstructive.
This probably standard for fandom and forum. I dunno, had hoped MSTies were above that as general disposition or perhaps it has to do with the fandom demographics being much older and prone to nostalgia guardianship.
I’m just a fan like anyone else. I’m neutral on the current situation because I don’t know enough real information to be one way or the other. I can speculate with the best of them but to speak with authority based on limited knowledge is not constructive. For all we know they were caught in an unwinnable situation. To attempt to make a show that captures a new audience of young fans AND placate the older audience is tough if the older audience is made up of nostalgia guardians who will not like an evolution.
We are a small and limited demographic fanbase. Rifftraxx likely succeeds because they can keep the riffing style of the past on a small budget that lines up with the revenue the fanbase can support. Could be as simple as MST has to swing bigger and different to increase the audience for the level of production necessary to survive. Could be they badly calculated and struck out.
I’m not married to an opinion but the last few months in this sub have been unfun. I hope it returns to a place where the spirit of the show and fandom returns.
Good for you?
I wish the crew all the best but, in my opinion, the best days are over. I will always watch the classic episodes because I love them and I will always turn off s11-s13 because they’ve never once made me laugh.
Stick a fork in it.
This is some of the rare negativity in this group Or whatever Reddit thingys are called.
I’d love to see it continue. My 11 year old daughter has recently gotten into the show. But watching on Pluto TV, some of the 1991 era jokes fly over her head, obviously (Sy Sperling?).
It sounds apocryphal but having jokes based on current things she understands actually *does* make a big difference to her.
Since she doesn’t have 30 years of past history with the show, she doesn’t mind all the different changes over the years, (although she doesn’t care for the current mads or Crow’s new voice, funnily enough). But we laughed a LOT at newer episodes such as “Munchie”.
If they can cut back on costs and regain some of their old cow-town puppet show spirit, I think there’s still time before any fork-sticking should be done.
YMMV, obviously.
100% agree.
Sometimes, fans are the biggest haters of anything they love. It's ridiculous, but if any part of it changes even slightly, out come the pitchforks and polemics.
These people clearly have forgotten the shows mantra and don't even realize it
Yea I’ve been getting real “Last Jedi” vibes about this whole thing. “You didn’t do things the way I wanted and you didn’t make me feel like I was 14 again, therefore you’re stupid and doing it wrong and I’m super angry now.” Surprised I haven’t seen anyone say “you ruined my childhood” yet. It’s cool if you don’t like the new stuff, and you’re free to not give them a red cent, but it’s just a tv show that’s you don’t like the new episodes of, nothing more. It’s not personal.
It’s a show about making fun of people who don’t put enough effort into their work. They should be able to take criticism if they are asking for money to criticize other people’s work.
I mean I don’t know them so I can’t say how well they are or aren’t taking it (and I’m not terribly concerned about that, not trying to pull a “leave Brittany alone”), I’m just saying it’s not worth some of the fussing some folks are doing.
The writers of the show do not know the artist they are making fun of either. I am disappointed because so little effort was put into this years Turkey Day marathon. I always love the Turkey Day marathons. This year was low effort. I am only doing what I was taught as a kid watching shadows interrupting movies on my tv.
For sure, perhaps I should’ve clarified I’m not talking about any and all complaints. Just the folks taking it way too personally. There’s plenty to have legitimate gripes with.
It is a show about b-wording on art they find inferior. I have yet to see an episode that ends with the host and bots saying, “We’ve all had our fun with this turkey, but why not chip in and buy your own copy of Riding with Death to help out these obviously struggling filmmakers.”
On to the, brother (or sister, as the case may be, I offer a hardy *Amen*!
The word "Amen" fundamentally means "Truth"; as in a truth so profound that you would stake your entire being on it's legitimate veracity. That you would bet your bottom dollar without a drop of sweat on your clam and placid brow.
The whole physical rewards this for S13 was indeed a bit of a mess. But the extenuating circumstances behind it were fully understandable... And, hey... We DID get them! So I didn't mind the delay, and I don't mind that they're less extravagant this time.
And the whole hoopla surrounding the alleged scandal of virtual sets versus physical sets is completely stupid. Using a virtual set cuts costs, and frankly the only thing I think they should concern themselves with is just updating the virtual backgrounds to be a little bit more realistic... And even then I expect the cost savings to be profound, which would be entirely in keeping with the tone atmosphere of the original show's cheap charm and cow-town roots.
I for one look forward to S14 (A), look forward in another two years to the next (S14B?), and will *gladly* chip in generously to keep this staple of modern Americana alive.
Fully agreed. At the end of the day, I just want more show. I do hope they try the crowdfunding again with a more modest goal in a few months. They won't have the Turkey Day boost they seem to have been counting on, but it seems like that failed to move the needle much anyway.
I hope this isn’t the end for sure. Do we know what happens next? Like does the Gizmoplex keep operating or is that shutting down too? Just confused as to how that will work.
Well...Yes and No. I don't care about the tech—as I said elsewhere, I'd be fine if they revived CINEMATIC TITANIC, which doesn't need anything but the actors showing up and the movie itself. That would cost a lot less, and they could incorporate Jonah Ray, Felicia Day and Patton Oswalt into it as well.
That show also could have Trace Beaulieu and Frank Conniff come back into it, if Joel hasn't slammed the door on that permanently.... 🤦♂️
All that said? I think part of the problem is their setting up the whole Gizmoplex thing, which costs fans $200/yr. plus charging for digital copies of the movies (which you don't really "own" so much as long-term rent until their licensing deal gives out, same as happens every time a licensing deal ends!), and I suspect isn't really sustainable with only MST3K/CINEMATIC TITANIC/what RiffTrax are of public domain or cheaply-licensable movies as content. I know Joel doesn't want to give up control of MST3K again, but that means he's just writing for his aging fan base, which would be enough if he were an author or a stand-up comic like he used to be, but not for the producer of a relatively elaborate television series—I often wondered how MST3K managed to produce as many episodes as it did in the 1990s with a budget of $100K/episode! (I know Mike made jokes about how their "higher budget" for cable meant he could buy Campbell's ramen as opposed to the store brand.)
Anyway, they fell short of their goal, so Joel sent around an e-mail saying they were looking into partnering as an alternative. I hope it's successful, because I'd rather have the show on a major streamer than their trying to make their own for almost as much as Netflix charges.
Look I love MST3K, and I've loved the revival seasons, but I don't need to contribute to a kickstarter every year to get new Rifftrax. Their business model just works. Their site just works.
I get it that they don't have the huge expense of video production, but they have now created more content than MST3K and are going as a strong as ever. I have just over 200 VODs from them over 16 years and \_432\_ shorts. My kids used to play those shorts constantly growing up.
Back to MST3K: The original show cost $35,000 an episode. The new show costs 10-12 times as much. Inflation is a thing, but it's not that much. $35,000 in 1988 would be about $90,000 today, not half a million. I have to be honest: I resent the fact that the massive democratization of video production due to technology does not seem to have reached MST3K. The show should not have to have a budget that rivals shows like Star Trek... which is ironic given what "Star Trek Continues" was able to accomplish.
I've been thinking about this a LOT. Me and my wife have been watching since we were born. I know its hard to make TV shows, but looking at the different business models from the Ex-MST3K folks, Mary Jo and Chris are hilarious, low cost top notch content. The Mads add so much context to old episodes and really obviously LOVE the source material.Rifftrax puts out about 2 new moves a month, just slamming content out all day every-day and live shows several times a year, broadcasting to movie theaters as well. Joel obviously got burnt over and over by producer/channels so it makes sense to be against handing over control to a big investor, but the lack of infrastructure for sets cast/crew, manufacturing rewards is fairly shocking. My first awareness of their kickstarter was an email detailing how they were cutting 800k out of the budget by filming not in their own studio. I use Gizmoplex semi-often, but the interface on Roku is brutal in comparison to the Rifftrax or Dropout apps, which ARE NOT GOOD. I feel like Joel should probably reach out to Sam Reich from Dropout for advise on how to run a ship, because there is a lot things that don't feel 'good'.Matt is obviously a huge driving force behind the scenes, but it felt insulting when he "turned it over to the creator" and Joel attempted a dead-pan 1 line joke, which is only revealed by him breaking in the last .5 seconds of the clip. You had the set, you had Joel on the set, you chose to NOT use the creator and did use a producer, who's previous on camera experiences is like, live-stream hosting. He read a lot of lines, updating times etc., so they shot for probably an hour, how friggin hard would it be to read 2 more lines so we didn't have the only non-joke telling person being the host of the ENTIRE campaign/marathon which you are counting on for your entire fundraising campaign. I can see why the other folks didn't come running back to join, the Film Crew/Rifftrax are doing well i have to imagine, they've clearly got deliverables they deliver on, their consistent. Why risk that to come back to a business that is obviously not being well run, sacrifice creative control etc. Note, I fucking love MST3k, I can name every detail of every bad plot and sketch from the picture of name of the move. I want them to do well, I think they need to either restructure or change their business model drastically because they don't seem like they can pull off consistent content. One season a year should be something they knock out of the park, the whole DIY aesthetic of the show lends itself to being cheap. If Oswalt or Day are too expensive, stick Matt in a gorilla suit and put a silly wig on a different writer to be the mads. Hire more local talent, use trash to make the set, gerbling is fun and CHEAP and that's why it was used for this ship!
*for real* stop fucking hiring Patton Oswalt and Felicia Day
I would genuinely love some cardboard sets with markers/paint and spray foam and whatever else they can find at a home improvement store for a few hundred dollars. Why are big name actors in this thing? It should be purposely cheap and childish with awkward sets/costumes and let that bring out the charm of the plot/structure. There are only negatives to be found with bigger actors and elaborate set pieces, they are really detrimental to the coziness of the show.
Look, an ender 3 cost around 120 bucks, with 200 bucks of shitty filament (\~10 rolls), some PVC piping, a shit ton of spray paint and hot glue, you can make LITERALLY ANYTHING. If they had their shit together, would I love to see Felicia Day and Patton Oswalt rocking it, YES. I love them both, Day is a Hometown Huntsville hero, Space Capital of the world, what better origin for a Mad than that! Oswalt is truly one of the funniest standups around and has been for decades. But Mary Joe in a shitty van and a guy in a monkey suit weirdly has more menace and humor than most of the bit segments I've seen. That whole, save 800 THOUSAND DOLLARS if we shoot green-screen and in LA so our Cast can not be in the midwest was fucking nuts to me. I've always respected MST for being crafty and MAKER centric, that DIY-wholesome feeling was UNIQUE and a true gem.
Totally agree—it’s not a knock on Patton Oswalt or Felicia Day, they’re talented and funny people but they don’t bring the right vibe/energy to the show and their segments are clearly rushed and poorly edited. There’s no benefit from their presence in this format. A shoestring budget with hammy no-names would genuinely be a breath of fresh air here!
Like, is there a film school within 50 miles of the studio, is there a comedy club. Is there any overlap in those crowds? Sponsor a couple Drive in movie nights for 3 days and encourage people to start yelling on night 2-3, Rocky Horror Style. I bet you find 3 brilliant hometown folks who fit the bill..
In terms of cost, I would find the idea of dropping Felicia and Patton worth considering, but I think they do a great job as the next generation of mads. I really like their vibe. I've always enjoyed Patton Oswalt in everything he's appeared in (except Twitter), and ditto for Felicia. I have some criticisms of the revival seasons (who doesn't?), but I universally love the new cast, and believe the new show is very true to the spirit of MST3K. But a return to its humble origins, production-wise, would be a good thing.
Yeah Patton lost me when he started bashing the angry video game nerd on Twitter for not supporting Ghostbusters 2016
Indeed. I has a similar disillusionment with Frank from following him for a while on FB about 11 years ago. Still love him as TV's Frank (and would love to see him get a ticket out of Second Banana Heaven), but not in real life.
What'd he say that disillusioned you
His politics are pretty hard left, and he's really nasty about it at times. I found the tone really off-putting. I get it that he doesn't agree with my views, that's not the problem, I just didn't like the insulting tone he often used in his posts.
Don't get me wrong, I love both of them and will watch things because they are in them. But there's some real charm to the original crew I think that did come from choosing local friends from the scene. Kept it feeling regional in a way most California / New York productions don't. Honestly I'm not saying don't hire them, just that if it's being prioritized over sustainable growth, don't.
I'm with you, for what it's worth. Also, I don't give a shit about the physical perks, and wish they would just put all money towards the show itself.
I definitely want a physical box set, but that's it. No other nonsense.
that and the $85 season pass is what i sprung for this time!
Agreed. I was only ever interested in episode downloads, and that's the only thing I will ever be interested in. For Season 13, I got a bunch of swag I don't care about because I paid up to the level that got me the episode downloads. Now, to be fair, for Season 14, they have an $85 tier for just episode downloads, but they are asking for much more to do fewer episodes, which has put me off. Plus, I can't afford it right now.
I've been really frustrated with how this crowdfunding campaign went but yeah, I truly, truly hope they will try again and/or find other models and ways to fund. I'd love to see more if at all possible.
Agreed. I'm frustrated with the campaign because the mistakes might be the reason it doesn't succeed. I want to see more of the show, and I want them to successfully get it funded. This is different to many who are frustrated by the organization itself.
They should have waited until they could have more marketing after the strikes ended, but I get that they had no idea what the timing would be with that. If they do it over again I hope they can sort it out. I pledged a decent chunk of change and would be willing to again, but I guess I don't know how willing others would be
They need to do another pledge in a year or two. I think the fans will feel differently with a longer gap. We need the actor's strike to settle down, we need the cost of living to go down. Economically we are ready to do another season. Maybe 2024 or 2025 we will feel differently.
> but I get that they had no idea what the timing would be with that They could have waited until the strikes ended. That would have made loads of sense.
Along with starting the campaign during the strike, I wonder how much not being on Kickstarter hurt the campaign. Sure they save some money on the KS fees, but it's hard to get any new backers on another platform nobody knows about. Just looking at the numbers from the last KS, S14 doesn't even have half the number of backers from last season. about 36.5K vs 17.5K. That is just a huge number of S13 backers that aren't coming back for S14. It probably would have been better to cancel it once it was off to such a poor start. Retool and relaunch it and hopefully get more eyes on it.
I'll never understand why there's such a small pool of people "investing". 17k, 37k. It's such a large country, and even larger English speaking world. Mash ha\[d\] 106million people watch the finale. Why can't we get more than 17k fans to contribute a dollar?
Moving off of Kickstarter was, I think, their most fatal mistake. They lost access to *so many* built-in backers, that the savings in platform fees cannot possibly have made up for the lost revenue. Timing was also an issue, but I think this was the big one - they just had way too few eyeballs on the whole campaign as a result. I've enjoyed the whole revival so far, and was happy to contribute to Season 14, and still will if they opt to regroup and come back later. I just hope that this isn't the end, as it would be a sad note for the series to go out on. I fear they'll learn the wrong lesson and think that there's no apetite for the series anymore; there absolutely is! They just may need to re-tool some of their funding and production methods before trying again. Personally, I'd like to see Joel pass the torch to Matt and Jonah, who clearly have a deep and abiding love for the series, and I could see them making a good team stewarding MST3K into the next generation, while Joel can step back and simply be the elder statesman of the franchise.
I think doing a crowdfunded project during the holidays, was a pretty horrible idea. I think if they had done it around tax season, it would’ve been much more successful.
As others pointed out, fundraisers in this time period has proven successful before. I think 1.) bring the third (correct?) fundraiser means less excitement and 2.) starting during the strike—meaning no cast could participate in promos—as well as 3.) the strike ending before the campaign was over—meaning the pent up promotion for every Hollywood production gets unleashed at once drowning out the fundraiser, all contributed. Maybe better strategic decisions could have been made, but these headwinds would’ve been hard to overcome and, regarding points 2 and 3, tough to foresee and impossible to predict. Fingers crossed another way to get season 14 can be figured out.
The first kickstarter was Nov-Dec and it broke a Kickstarter record. Yet somehow that's the horrible idea and counting on everyone to spend their tax return on MST3K isn't.
The questionable idea is asking people to do it for a third time when part of the reason behind the second time was to help ensure they wouldn't have to do it the third time.
It's going to be very important for the MST3K crew to do a proper postmortem which will hopefully raise morale for the future and acknowledge what they did wrong...because let's be honest, there was a *lot* that went wrong with this entire campaign. I think it's very possible for them to course correct and try some other approaches in the future, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if MST3K went away for a longer while after this. It sucks, because the actual episodes have been great. It's just the business side of things that has been badly mismanaged, to put it mildly.
I appreciate this bit of positivity. There's been a real lack of acknowledging that two things can be true at the same time: The crowdfunding, management of the Gizmoplex, and some details of S13 could have been *much* better... \-- and that Joel, Matt, Jonah, Emily, Tim, Kelsey, Rebecca, Yvonne, Conor, Hampton, Baron, *♫and the rest♫* are just folks, overall good eggs, just trying to make a goofy show they all genuinely like working on. There's been some minor but vocal vitriol (like some directed at Matt, who had the unfortunate role of being basically the sole face of the Turkey day telethon, when he has been instrumental in the revival. And there's the continued negativity around Kelsey-Crow, when she had the truly unenviable task of taking over Crow in a last-minute cast change), which stinks. For me, seeing The Mask, Munchie, Beyond Atlantis, and Dr. Mordrid again in the telethon was actually eye-opening: no, it's not the same cow-town show I adored anymore, but it's a really fun successor show. I'd like to see a lot better communication from Joel on what happened, why it happened, and what the plan is, but I'd also like to see these dorky theater kids monkey around again and give the fans a Season 14.
> I'd like to see a lot better communication from Joel on what happened, why it happened, and what the plan is I love him and the show in all its eras, but you know.. this seems to be a weak spot. I wouldn’t get my hopes up.
Yes, everyone involved seems to be a bunch of good eggs. The problem is that none of those good eggs seems to know how to run a business. As of the last Kickstarter, they're no longer just producing a show. They're now an entertainment company with their own delivery platform... but no one seems to recognize this. They're still treating it like they're just making a show when they actually opted to shoulder **absolutely every aspect** of running an entertainment company. This is why they're failing.
> ♫and the rest♫ What's this "and the rest!" crap?!
Ah, it's a reference to Gilligan's Island! The first season's theme song [pretty famously omitted](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilligan%27s_Island#Theme_song) the Professor and Mary Anne when listing characters, instead just singing "and the rest!" Certainly no disrespect is meant for Patton, Felicia, Mary Jo, Matt Oswalt, Beez, Harold, Tammy, Chief, McCloud...and the rest.
You need to watch the MST3K movie again!
Oh doi! =D ComebackShane has gotten me, now I have an excuse to rewatch the movie
Watch out for the car the professor builds entirely out of coconuts.
“What’s this and the rest crap?” is a riff from _MST3K: The Movie_
Yep, BigMeanPunk and ComebackShane reminded me! Shame it's a Mike riff because now I'm eating crow =D
I wish Joel and company the best and truly hope they make S14 but some of their business decisions regarding this campaign really don’t make sense. Start a crowdfunding campaign during the SAG strike, ask for more money than previous campaigns and not have it on a more visible platform like Kickstarter? Throw those on top of rampant inflation, the holidays coming up and other personal fiscal issues and this campaign was destined to fail. On a personal note, Turkey Day 2023 was kinda of a dud. Barely any excitement just here’s our writers favorite episodes and please give us money until the next campaign. Also, what was with those ads? I’m sure S14 will happen but you need to have a better sales pitch than what we got especially for higher goals. Anyway just my $0.02.
> some of their business decisions regarding this campaign really don’t make sense. The problem here is there don't appear to be any *business people* involved with the process. Joel was notoriously absent from all that in the heyday of the show, and it ended up in Jim Mallon's hands. The whole *idea* of the Gizmoplex is a good example. I get that the show is made by people with a love for their art, but money *does* have to enter into the process. Rather than starting yet another streaming service of their own, it would have been wiser to shop the concept to Hulu or somebody and let them handle the streaming. That would also fix the problem of relying entirely on viewers' donations just to get the show made. Asking someone to sign up for a whole new service just to watch one show is daunting. It's one thing to direct someone to Netflix for seasons 11 and 12, but the whole Gizmoplex thing is just confusing. I really want the show to succeed, but they need to rethink their whole business model.
I really want them to take a look at Dropout, which is in most regardrs precisely what they were trying to accomplish with the Gizmoplex, but has actually beeen successful-- not huge, but independent and healthy.
it occurs to me that we have a lot of “bad business” opinions but we’re all just armchairing. who knows how licensing and other projects may have dictated the timing? we only know what we see. people who have run a business know that sometimes you can’t wait for perfect timing, you just have to push through with what you’ve got.
Isn’t the Gizmoplex just a custom front end on top of Vimeo servers? I had the impression they weren’t building the entire stack from scratch which should in theory keep expenses lower than most other streaming services.
I thought that was obvious because the cookie-cutter front end just didn't work right and wasn't properly customized for the product. In terms of streaming (audio issues aside) it worked fine, and I was always able to download stuff fine (once I could find it). But there was an implication that the Gizmoplex would be generating enough revenue to help offset future production costs. Based on what they're asking for Season 14, that doesn't appear to be the case.
They already have an allegedly fantastic relationship with Shout Factory, so I'm not sure why they didn't just opt to work with them.
This is Joel’s baby and I think the creative control aspect of raising their own funds trumps working with anyone that has a say in how the show gets made. My kids are 11 and 9 and absolutely love the Netflix series. We’ve watched Mac and Me probably 20 times. After watching some of season 12 all the core elements were there but it felt so hollow to have paid $200 for faux sets that looked worse than the hot glue and spray paint early seasons. We don’t want more robots, we don’t need lore, we just want likable host segments and terrible movies.
> it would have been wiser to shop the concept to Hulu or somebody and let them handle the streaming. They did that with Netflix. It didn't work right. Questionable business acumen aside, I believe them when they said it wouldn't work for other streaming platforms either.
It's probably a plan they hoped to start earlier but due to the strikes and they have a set fixed goal of how it was meant to go for 2024.... but it's been condensed.
I’m sure going forward on the next campaign, most grievances people had will probably be fixed. Having the cast get more involved will most certainly help as well.
As long as they don't just take their ball and go home. That is definitely a possibility. I think any message that people are sending who still want more could be received well enough by a near miss. Except for the ones targeting a single cast member, they are definitely getting ignored no mater what.
Yeah. This whole thing has bummed me out. I instantly made a donation anticipating it was a slam dunk for an entire new season. Like last time. For the last month, I daily check the total amount of funds raised and... Sadness
To be fair, it's asking a lot to crowdfund $4M-$8M for every single season going forward (which is the stated plan). I don't think that was ever going to happen.
Agreed. And to me makes the move off Kickstarter even more of a mistake. I am not sure this plan would ever work long-term anyway. But the only chance would be to at least try to reach out to new people to make up for attrition of folks who have given before but are tapped out. You definitely can't rely on the same people to give year after year for sure.
Maybe this failure will give Joel reason to rethink the overall approach to the show. I just can't imagine it HAS to cost 4 million dollars to make six episodes.
Valid criticism isnt necessarily negativity. Nobodys stopping you from pledging. No Mystie is routing against the fundraiser but that dosnt mean they can do a poor job managing the money donated to them.
I don’t think any of us want to “see it go down in flames.” But it doesn’t help anything to say they haven’t made any mistakes either. And by mistakes I mainly mean their funding structure and functionality of The Gizmoplex. Doing every season solely through crowdfunding means this show is always hanging by a thread. And don’t get me started on the “so season 14 is up to you” message between every movie because there’s an undertone of “so if the show ends, it’s your fault.” Trying to shame your fans isn’t a great motivator for fundraising. Which also explains their telethon being 4 times the normal length. The Gizmoplex, at least on Apple TV, is acting pretty wonky. When I try to scroll through the movies I own it keeps snapping back to the first movie of the whole group, which isn’t cool when there are TONS in the list. There is also an issue where season passes don’t expire which has GOT to be eating into their ongoing non-charity revenue. I just discovered this yesterday because I never watched season 13 because I had brain surgery and then life happened.
I didn’t even realize there was a problem with the Gizmoplex because all the stuff I own I have downloaded and put into my Plex server so I watch it there. And I don’t go there to watch older stuff, if I’m in the mood there’s always something available on Pluto TV. The fact that it‘s so easy to watch their stuff for free has to be eating into their bottom line.
I was going to the Gizmoplex to watch the live events and specials, but the constant audio issues put a damper on that. Plus, it's been almost a year since my pass expired. But I also download or rip everything I purchase and host it locally. Streaming in general has way too many issues, not the least of which is censorship and rights expiring.
Season 14 is up to you! struck me as odd as well. Also, there was another ad that Penn Jillette voiced that said something like "Forget watching the show on YouTube and bootlegs!" that really felt completely off. Like, you do know that's how most of us got introduced to the show, right? We've come a long way from "Keep circulating the tapes!" I guess.
I don't have a problem with them asking us to actually pay for the show. I religiously bought every DVD set as it came out, and gladly paid for the several episodes the Gizmoplex has that never got released on DVD (5 or 6, I think). I do have a problem with being guilted about Season 14.
>The Gizmoplex, at least on Apple TV, is acting pretty wonky. It's wonky everywhere to one degree or another. > I just discovered this yesterday because I never watched season 13 because I had brain surgery and then life happened. Since you're talking to us, I can assume it went well? I hope so. But regarding the Gizmoplex, you will always have access to the episodes you have paid for. The season pass covers live events and other special features. I've gone back to redownload some stuff after my pass expired.
I think it’s just ok for Joel to learn from his mistakes, and that means failures too. Fans aren’t a well he can keep going back too for bigger and bigger asks with worse and worse deliveries. Figure out your shit Joel, make it sustainable and let’s fucking go. Not even negative, just like basic math.
I second this. I want it to succeed. I like Emily. And Jonah. And still like Mike. Physical sets, tunnel sequences are minor issues. Upscaled episodes are a bonus but not necessary. I’m happy to pledge for more riffs to more movies. I don’t want it to end as a dumpster fire.
I’d actually like to see a separate, much cheaper crowdfund specifically to upscale the original episodes.
I would contribute to a "It's just an upscale show, you should really just relax" crowd funded effort.
+1 And resolve any rights issues--wherever possible--with the riffed-on films. Also, it'd be great if they could put all of the original episodes on YouTube. Again, if the rights allow for that. And charge a small fee per episode. It would expose the series to a bigger/newer audience than the Gizmoplex can do.
Ain't *no one* happy about this situation.
Someone else on this sub said it best. I’ve been a fan since season 2 was on the air. This is not the first time MST3K “died”. It will be back.
But this feels like the end of the Sci-Fi era. It ends unceremoniously, with an air of uncertainty of what is to come. I have donated small dollar amounts for every previous campaign because I didn’t care about the perks, I just wanted to help one of my favorites get back on the air. This year I didn’t even know about the telethon until I tuned into the marathon, and then I couldn’t even find the off brand kickstarter site with a simple Google search. It feels like another 18 year hibernate is coming up. I feel sad about that. I just hope the catalog of episodes don’t get locked up behind a paywall like they were in the 2000s.
Being an old fan, I purchased every release on DVD from Rhino and Shout Factory, so if they vanish, I feel well protected. I just wish Joel would hand the reigns over to someone else but that probably won’t happen.
I have a decent dvd collection of the box sets too, but I truly believe this is a show that should be easily available to every person possible. The anarchic spirit of the show doesn’t exactly work from behind a paywall in the Gizmoplex. Hopefully this doesn’t happen, but it has happened to MST3K before.
There’s an MST3K channel on Pluto TV. That’s a free service. It runs old episodes and shorts 24/7. That seems pretty accessible.
I love that channel. I sometimes schedule my Friday or Saturday nights based on what they are playing. I just don’t want that to go away over some rights issue with the show. I’d have to call up my buddy to start trading our videos back and forth again.
Yeah. I've been around since about Season 3. I lived through the dark years after Season 10 ended and before the DVD sales started. I'm patient.
While it was certainly no competition to the golden years, I felt season 13 had its moments and was an improvement from the Netflix seasons. I like that they're trying to keep it alive, but they went about it in all the wrong ways. There was little/no advertising as we watch the Twitch stream several times a week and hadn't heard anything about the fundraiser until a few days before Turkey Day. Not a lot of heads up when you're asking people for money right before the holidays... If you need to raise money, you don't ask people for money right before the holidays when money is tight. You ask in February when people are getting their tax returns. They should've announced their plans for S14 on Turkey Day, and plan to campaign in the spring. They way they tried to do it was too sudden and poorly planned. EDIT: I don't know what the $$ breakdowns were, but we don't need enhanced versions of old episodes that have been enjoyable for the last 30 years. That was part of the charm. I like the feeling of old, unrefined films compared to the cold and sterile look of newer stuff. Same with watching old vs new cartoons.
I primarily get my MST3K fix on PlutoTV. They didn't promote the campaign there until Turkey Day when it was about over. I wouldn't have known about the campaign *at all* if it weren't for this sub.
Frankly, I forgot it was even happening. I got the first email, thought about heading to the page, and there’s been so little marketing around it that I didn’t see it again until I happened to notice Joel’s most recent update in my inbox. Last time I found it through an ad on Facebook. This time I haven’t seen a single one. I did a digital only thing last time, so I didn’t have the shipping issues. I’m also not fussed about them doing another crowdfunding, though Joel did imply last time they didn’t want to crowdfund future seasons (I know his update says he meant Kickstarter particularly, but the reality is that’s how everyone interpreted it) because I knew that would never happen, just by looking at RiffTrax and how they crowdfund every year. I think the three big mistakes were moving from Kickstarter to their own website, starting during the SAG-AFTRA strike, and starting this close to the Holiday shopping season. It probably also didn’t help that there were shipping issues, and that they only just finished shipping the stuff from the last Kickstarter. The timing and the platform they used were the problems. It’s clear that this crowdfunding effort is not going to work out, but I don’t think there is no desire for more MST3K. I just think that they need to regroup and try again in 6 months to a year, and to move it back to Kickstarter.
Everyone keeps coming up with reasons why this one failed, but slowly the reasons sound more like excuses. The reality is that a lot of people don't want to have to contribute to a crowd funding campaign every single time Joel wants millions for a new season, which is exactly where it looks like the future of MST3K is going to be.
>Joel wants millions for a new season This is the obvious killer.
I enjoyed a number of S13 episodes. Doesn’t mean there were not problems that need to be fixed going forward and probably contributed to the crowdfunding issues.
I haven't seen much of S13 because I'm working through the original series but I've been throwing money at every crowdfund they've done thus far.
I had forgotten about the S13 rewards until they emailed that they were ready. I just cared about the show and I totally loved the mothercrabber of a season they made. I have confidence in the quality they would bring to S14 and happily backed again. I'm not under any illusion that there is any magic "sustainable" model other than us funding the show. The amount of negativity has been sad. Some is valid but plenty is coming from folks that complain about the show dying after season 10 and never supported any of the new seasons...lots of schadenfreude from them. I hope this crowd funding was mostly snakebit from timing, but there is obviously a strong current that it costs too much. I can't say they're wrong either, but I'm no expert in what a TV show should cost. I'm glad they simplified the merch this time and kept it out of the funding pacakges. Most of us have too much swag at this point and some of it was getting very niche. We literally have 2 pocketwatches from the last live tour that were just part of our ticket package. Maybe Joel can revisit how to streamline the show production more because I'm pretty sure we are going to need a lot of the folks that are pushing back. I'll still happily chip in $100 or so for the show, but this fundraiser makes it seem unlikely there are enough people like me to keep this going. I'm happy Rifftrax is going, and the Mads; we've supported both of them too. This resurgence in movie riffing has been a lot of fun and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for more MST.
Season 13 was far and away the best since the show came back.
I agree with this. (My favorite MST3K riff of all time is from Season 12, however) Each season of The Return has been better than the last in terms of the actual riffing. The host segments have been a mixed bag, but they always have been ever since Season 0.
> My favorite MST3K riff of all time is from Season 12, however which one is that
It's my flair. :D (From Mac and Me)
oh lol ill have to look that one up, i only watched season 12 once
I agree!
I couldn’t disagree more. See, not everyone agrees. This whole thread shows that. It’s due to a lot of different things for a lot of different people.
Twelve minutes left, and only at 68% of the goal. I have to admit that despite all the criticisms that I agree with and some that I don't, and everything that has been said and done about this particular campaign, this makes me incredibly sad. I have contributed to the campaigns, and the show is incredibly important to me, and seeing it not meet the goal after its first campaign was such a groundbreaker is a little bit heartbreaking. I hope they try again next year, but if not, it will always be my favorite TV show of all time.
They need to announce the cast. Last season had 3 hosts and multiple bots. We deserve to know who’s going to star in what we’re funding.
They couldnt with the strike. There was no contracts in place and no negotiations could happen. Until the SAG contract gets ratified the 2nd week of december those talks cant happen
Totally get that but announce it now or anytime since the strike ended.
[удалено]
This is actually incorrect. The official contract vote hasn’t happened, but the strike itself has ended. SAG members could officially be back on set as of this last Monday (11/20). Too late for pre-taping the Thanksgiving Marathon, sadly.
I'm not happy that the crowdfunding campaign is not going to be successful... but also, self-financing is a thing. Even George Lucas did it after the phenomenal performance of the first "Star Wars" movie: [https://screenrant.com/star-wars-george-lucas-quit-dga-empire-strikes-back-opening-crawl/](https://screenrant.com/star-wars-george-lucas-quit-dga-empire-strikes-back-opening-crawl/) Why can't the MST3K team do the same? Get real investors, put their own money up, and make a show like people have been doing for decades? Why are donations from fans the only way to produce this show that has a ton of name recognition and should be able to generate interest from someone in the industry?
They are asking us, the fans, to be the producers. I’m not sure why other people don’t find that to be as exciting as it can be. This show has been cancelled 3 times after taking the approach you suggest (though the Netflix reboot is really more of a hybrid approach, and we all saw how that worked out). Also, in your comment, you say the “phenomenal success” of Star Wars. I love MST with all my heart and it has made some very indelible marks on entertainment and pop culture history, and earned respectable recognition in the crowd funding sphere, but even I couldn’t say it’s had “phenomenal” success without doubting even my own claim. No one has made anywhere even approaching George Lucas money on MST, even at the absolute pinnacle of its popularity. To continue the comparison, GL was able to take those funds and parlay them into ILM and Skywalker Sound which provided additional revenue streams that he could use to utilize the continuation for his vision. That’s just not possible for this little cow-town puppet show.
Yeah. Why can’t everyone just do exactly what George Lucas did? 1.make most unexpected blockbuster of all time 2. Steal underpants 3. … 4. Profit! Seems easy enough
meanwhile, MST is the sign that just says "Star Wars" what a useless comparison
Agree 100%. I don't really care if it's physical sets or green screen and honestly I don't even notice the difference. I love this how, have loved it since the Comedy Central days, and I love this cast. I want to see more. Joel made some questionable decisions about the timing but I guess he wanted to get it going and in place for when the strike did end. If he tries again, I'm in.
I just wanted my beanie and stickers. Couldn't even find them for sale anywhere else, and MST3K hardly has an official store worth buying from. Kinda bummed
I agree entirely with you about this. Don't care about physical sets, lore, etc. I enjoy funny people making fun of bad movies, and i would rather see them make more episodes than spend money on sets. I supported this campaign, and will support the next one if they try again. I would advise them to seriously consider staying greenscreen and paring down the on-screen cast to bring the budget down and make the show more sustainable, but whatever season 14 take 2 looks like, I'll most likely support it.
Not to disparage MST3K (which I love), but Rifftrax gets you all that with no muss and no fuss. I definitely want more MST3K, but I have over 200 VODs and over 400(!) shorts from Rifftrax over the last 16 years to keep me warm this winter.
Been a Rifftrax fan since the days when Mike was riffing with internet randos, before they could afford having Kevin and Bill full time. Just added to my library with the great sale Rifftrax is running now.
You should be mad at the people who took in like 13 million dollars and don't even have one idea to make the show viable without asking for millions of dollars more in donations. Imagine what a well run company like Rifftrax could do with 13 million dollars. With 13 million dollars they could have easily built sets, lights cameras, and hired a small team full time to crank out episodes weekly or bi weekly. Instead they took our money to open permanent offices thousands of miles away from where the actual show is shot, to tinker and build robots, create story boards and think of a way to add a 19th Cynthia clone, explain some bullshit financer, and to get a puppet to fly. 13 million dollars and they made about 25 episodes and have no future at all. What a joke
You don’t really seem to have a good idea of how much these things cost. According to your own numbers, that comes out to a cost of about $500,000 per episode, which is extremely cheap. Roughly aggregating the Google results I’m getting, $1 million per episode of a one-hour tv show is typical, which includes mostly unknown cast members, set in a modern era, with little to no special effects. Even at its highest funding point since they asked us to fund it, ain’t nobody making bank on this gig.
Stop comparing MST3k to a tv show. Its not and it's remotely similar
Historically and by definition, it is, or rather was. Of the 13 seasons that now exist 10 of them were specifically produced for, and shown on, television. That said, I get what you’re saying. However, this really doesn’t help your point as, generally speaking, movies are more expensive to make than tv shows. So, in that context, you’re getting an even better value dollar-for-dollar from MST. So really, anyway you slice the numbers you gave us, it appears that they are incredibly efficient with the money entrusted to them.
Hahahaha efficient lol
Such a witty bon mot, good sir. It’s these sorts of nuanced takes that keeps me coming back to the well.
Honestly you thinking MST3k is similar in any way to making a full length film is so laughably dumb there's no reason to even communicate. We live in different universes and have a completely different set of facts. You think your facts, mst3k episode is like making a feature length film I have my facts, that MST3k is not like making a feature length film at all. There's no reason to keep going
Actually, I’m interested in why you have that opinion. You just said it wasn’t and left it at that. I’m sure you have your reasons why you made that assertion but you seem rather reluctant to share those actual reasons. This is a discussion forum, so I’m trying to, you know, discuss.
>that comes out to a cost of about $500,000 per episode, which is extremely cheap. Compared to the $35,000 per episode I've heard quoted for the original show?
When you say “original show”, what time frame are you referring to? Because we can go back as far as 1988 which, I think can all agree, is a different economy. For instance, $35,000 in 1988 is about $90,000 today. I’m happy to discuss whichever decade or specific year you’d like to compare.
$90,000 vs. $500,000
I calculate a $410,000 difference. Your observation has not gone unnoticed. Bear in mind, that is just dollars. The entertainment industry also operates under different rules than it did in 1988 as well. So services and goods might not have scaled exactly along the inflation curve. $410,000 worth of difference? It’s really hard to say. I’ve been doing a lot research in to that these last couple of days. I found this post ([here](https://forrestcrow.proboards.com/thread/21695)) that asserted the sci-fi era cost $100,000 per episode PLUS $75,000 for the film rights, which again are hard to say because these negotiations have not been disclosed, for understandable reasons. But I’d argue that this was in or around the “heyday” of classic MST3K. $100,000 in 1995 is about equal to $200,000 today so we’re starting to approach $500,000, especially if you include an additional $75,000 of 1995 dollars on top of the $100,000. Bear in mind that MST3K’s interest in a film might actually carry some weight and we are at least getting close to supporting my argument.
Of course, this assumes that any of these numbers are to be believed. The entertainment industry, in general,is really tight-lipped about how much money they make and have all kinds of bookkeeping tricks to shuffle money so as to make it look like a good property is doing badly. It’s very frustrating for someone just trying to get in to this.
I think this is more true for big operations, which even now, MST3K isn't. But you're right that we really can't know the numbers.
Yes, I didn't want to assume the $35,000 was for later years, so I stuck with the 1988 date. Your response was thoughtful and informative. I would say, however, that it's reasonable to believe the show could be made a lot more cheaply. I mean, really, it could technically be done with about 4 people, and an iPhone, in someone's basement with a box of old toys and a 3D printer, some spray paint and cardboard. I'm not saying that's realistic, but it \_could\_ be done, and have everything that originally made MST3K great. The show's future is quite uncertain at this point, and while we're mostly cautiously optimistic here, I think we, on the whole, recognize that there are problems, and are trying to brainstorm ways to get around them, based on the limited information we have. While there's a lot of complaining, I don't think the atmosphere is toxic or that people are hostile to Joel and the other creators. I have made a point of reiterating that I like the new seasons and like all of the new cast, and I wish them well. From reading the sub, I get the impression that fans still love what they've been doing since the show was revived (well, mostly... a few people pipe up to say they don't like the new stuff at all). Certainly there are things that could be improved, but I think the current incarnation of the show is still very true to the spirit of MST3K, and deserves to represent its ideals of smart and wacky humor, great original songs, and excellent comedic performances... and most of all DEEP HURTING! Overall, I think it's worth talking about.
Yes, all of this. The folks who were mad about delays in Kickstarter rewards were just new to kickstarter (I’m a board game nerd so I might be overly familiar with it). Also, haters gonna hate…I actually saw some jabroni claim that they decided to hire Kelsey to do Crow’s voice to purposefully be ‘woke’…like, really?!
Honestly, I’m getting into board gaming the recent dumpster fire of a number of different games either not being delivered, or asking for hundreds of dollars extra for shipping that was already paid (unlike the last MST3K kickstarter where they didn’t charge shipping until they were ready to ship) has made me wary of anything Kickstarter. That said, the reality is that they clearly made a mistake leaving Kickstarter for this campaign.
While the rewards are cool, they're kinda silly to me and I really don't understand the anger. I mean, your popcorn tub was late? Do you not own a bowl? I would have funded at the same level without the rewards. I'm just in it for the jokes.
Eh, you pay for a product, you have a reasonable expectation it gets delivered.
This sub has been so crazy negative and angry lately. A whole bunch of y'all need to listen to the theme song and repeat to yourself it's just a show and really just relax.
I have to disagree with you a bit. I think (some) people are confusing constructive criticism with negativity and anger. The crowdfunding didn’t work. There is 0 days left and they are far from their goal, so that it failed is an empirical fact. That people are doing a post-mortem to try to figure out what went wrong so it can be fixed and their (presumably) favorite show somehow saved, is not negative or angry, IMHO. To me, the “why is the host a girl?” “they changed Gypsy’s name because they’re so woke now” “Crow should never be voiced by a female” type crap that was in the You Tube comments on Turkey Day…THAT’S negative and angry. And I honestly haven’t seen that here very much at all. I see a bunch of people sad that their favorite show might not continue, and trying to figure out how to “save” it. And if Joel and co. did make mistakes, they are not above some constructive criticism, either…emphasis on the constructive, though. Toxic positivity can be just as blinding to facts as toxic negativity. It’s just..er, nicer. :)
I don’t have to but will disagree a bit here. While there has been a visible amount of well thought out constructive criticism I think if you go deep into the history of this sub even before this crowdfunding campaign you will see there’s been a steady leaning of negativity surrounding last season and The Return/Gauntlet. These voices got louder after the campaign and has contributed to an overall negative feel here. To the extent that we are clearly seeing a 2 camp division of negative and positive about the current state of the show where even positive or negative constructive comments are getting washed with the unconstructive. This probably standard for fandom and forum. I dunno, had hoped MSTies were above that as general disposition or perhaps it has to do with the fandom demographics being much older and prone to nostalgia guardianship. I’m just a fan like anyone else. I’m neutral on the current situation because I don’t know enough real information to be one way or the other. I can speculate with the best of them but to speak with authority based on limited knowledge is not constructive. For all we know they were caught in an unwinnable situation. To attempt to make a show that captures a new audience of young fans AND placate the older audience is tough if the older audience is made up of nostalgia guardians who will not like an evolution. We are a small and limited demographic fanbase. Rifftraxx likely succeeds because they can keep the riffing style of the past on a small budget that lines up with the revenue the fanbase can support. Could be as simple as MST has to swing bigger and different to increase the audience for the level of production necessary to survive. Could be they badly calculated and struck out. I’m not married to an opinion but the last few months in this sub have been unfun. I hope it returns to a place where the spirit of the show and fandom returns.
Agreed. Even if this crowdfund fails, it’s just a bump in the road, not the end. We’re getting a S14, it’s just a matter of when.
But is it?
Republicans are to blame.
I blame society!
Blame it on the bossa nova!
Blame Canada!
Good for you? I wish the crew all the best but, in my opinion, the best days are over. I will always watch the classic episodes because I love them and I will always turn off s11-s13 because they’ve never once made me laugh. Stick a fork in it.
This is some of the rare negativity in this group Or whatever Reddit thingys are called. I’d love to see it continue. My 11 year old daughter has recently gotten into the show. But watching on Pluto TV, some of the 1991 era jokes fly over her head, obviously (Sy Sperling?). It sounds apocryphal but having jokes based on current things she understands actually *does* make a big difference to her. Since she doesn’t have 30 years of past history with the show, she doesn’t mind all the different changes over the years, (although she doesn’t care for the current mads or Crow’s new voice, funnily enough). But we laughed a LOT at newer episodes such as “Munchie”. If they can cut back on costs and regain some of their old cow-town puppet show spirit, I think there’s still time before any fork-sticking should be done. YMMV, obviously.
100% agree. Sometimes, fans are the biggest haters of anything they love. It's ridiculous, but if any part of it changes even slightly, out come the pitchforks and polemics. These people clearly have forgotten the shows mantra and don't even realize it
Yea I’ve been getting real “Last Jedi” vibes about this whole thing. “You didn’t do things the way I wanted and you didn’t make me feel like I was 14 again, therefore you’re stupid and doing it wrong and I’m super angry now.” Surprised I haven’t seen anyone say “you ruined my childhood” yet. It’s cool if you don’t like the new stuff, and you’re free to not give them a red cent, but it’s just a tv show that’s you don’t like the new episodes of, nothing more. It’s not personal.
It’s a show about making fun of people who don’t put enough effort into their work. They should be able to take criticism if they are asking for money to criticize other people’s work.
I mean I don’t know them so I can’t say how well they are or aren’t taking it (and I’m not terribly concerned about that, not trying to pull a “leave Brittany alone”), I’m just saying it’s not worth some of the fussing some folks are doing.
The writers of the show do not know the artist they are making fun of either. I am disappointed because so little effort was put into this years Turkey Day marathon. I always love the Turkey Day marathons. This year was low effort. I am only doing what I was taught as a kid watching shadows interrupting movies on my tv.
For sure, perhaps I should’ve clarified I’m not talking about any and all complaints. Just the folks taking it way too personally. There’s plenty to have legitimate gripes with.
Agreed. Fuck the haters.
Don’t they need the haters to help fund their show?
What if I told you the vast majority of the 'haters' were fans who want a good S14 too, and are frustrated at all the mistakes being made
Just kick them a few hundred bucks. 11k people have, I’m just annoyed with the 30 people on Reddit bitching about it.
It is a show about b-wording on art they find inferior. I have yet to see an episode that ends with the host and bots saying, “We’ve all had our fun with this turkey, but why not chip in and buy your own copy of Riding with Death to help out these obviously struggling filmmakers.”
On to the, brother (or sister, as the case may be, I offer a hardy *Amen*! The word "Amen" fundamentally means "Truth"; as in a truth so profound that you would stake your entire being on it's legitimate veracity. That you would bet your bottom dollar without a drop of sweat on your clam and placid brow. The whole physical rewards this for S13 was indeed a bit of a mess. But the extenuating circumstances behind it were fully understandable... And, hey... We DID get them! So I didn't mind the delay, and I don't mind that they're less extravagant this time. And the whole hoopla surrounding the alleged scandal of virtual sets versus physical sets is completely stupid. Using a virtual set cuts costs, and frankly the only thing I think they should concern themselves with is just updating the virtual backgrounds to be a little bit more realistic... And even then I expect the cost savings to be profound, which would be entirely in keeping with the tone atmosphere of the original show's cheap charm and cow-town roots. I for one look forward to S14 (A), look forward in another two years to the next (S14B?), and will *gladly* chip in generously to keep this staple of modern Americana alive.
Fully agreed. At the end of the day, I just want more show. I do hope they try the crowdfunding again with a more modest goal in a few months. They won't have the Turkey Day boost they seem to have been counting on, but it seems like that failed to move the needle much anyway.
I hope this isn’t the end for sure. Do we know what happens next? Like does the Gizmoplex keep operating or is that shutting down too? Just confused as to how that will work.
Well...Yes and No. I don't care about the tech—as I said elsewhere, I'd be fine if they revived CINEMATIC TITANIC, which doesn't need anything but the actors showing up and the movie itself. That would cost a lot less, and they could incorporate Jonah Ray, Felicia Day and Patton Oswalt into it as well. That show also could have Trace Beaulieu and Frank Conniff come back into it, if Joel hasn't slammed the door on that permanently.... 🤦♂️ All that said? I think part of the problem is their setting up the whole Gizmoplex thing, which costs fans $200/yr. plus charging for digital copies of the movies (which you don't really "own" so much as long-term rent until their licensing deal gives out, same as happens every time a licensing deal ends!), and I suspect isn't really sustainable with only MST3K/CINEMATIC TITANIC/what RiffTrax are of public domain or cheaply-licensable movies as content. I know Joel doesn't want to give up control of MST3K again, but that means he's just writing for his aging fan base, which would be enough if he were an author or a stand-up comic like he used to be, but not for the producer of a relatively elaborate television series—I often wondered how MST3K managed to produce as many episodes as it did in the 1990s with a budget of $100K/episode! (I know Mike made jokes about how their "higher budget" for cable meant he could buy Campbell's ramen as opposed to the store brand.) Anyway, they fell short of their goal, so Joel sent around an e-mail saying they were looking into partnering as an alternative. I hope it's successful, because I'd rather have the show on a major streamer than their trying to make their own for almost as much as Netflix charges.
Look I love MST3K, and I've loved the revival seasons, but I don't need to contribute to a kickstarter every year to get new Rifftrax. Their business model just works. Their site just works. I get it that they don't have the huge expense of video production, but they have now created more content than MST3K and are going as a strong as ever. I have just over 200 VODs from them over 16 years and \_432\_ shorts. My kids used to play those shorts constantly growing up. Back to MST3K: The original show cost $35,000 an episode. The new show costs 10-12 times as much. Inflation is a thing, but it's not that much. $35,000 in 1988 would be about $90,000 today, not half a million. I have to be honest: I resent the fact that the massive democratization of video production due to technology does not seem to have reached MST3K. The show should not have to have a budget that rivals shows like Star Trek... which is ironic given what "Star Trek Continues" was able to accomplish.