MST3K, Rifftrax, and the rest

[Mothra]

Patton Oswalt is TV's Son of TV's Frank.

Welp, THAT'S going to drive up the pledges. Bet it makes it to $3.3M tonight.

Psyched about this.

Really hoping Oswalt's on the writing team, like Frank was during his era, but that might be a stretch.

[Thad]

Uncertain at this point. Joel said he started by asking him to guest-write an episode, which Oswalt agreed to, so presumably he'll be doing at least one, but he doesn't say anything about whether getting added to the cast means he'll also be doing regular writing.

Given how little screen-time the Mads get in every episode, they could really shoot all their scenes in a day and be done for the entire season. But yeah, I definitely hope that's not the case and they're in the writers' room too.

I'm sure scheduling will play a big part in it. And of course no contracts have been signed yet. I think it's fair to say Day and Oswalt are on board (and will be accepting a pay cut compared to what they usually get), but just how much that entails is still kinda up in the air.

[Mothra]

Yeah. I know Oswalt's in LA with a family, and Day's in the same area, so it's possible. They are all in the same area.

[Thad]

Latest update: They're running two episodes a night every night next week. Plus some new incentives. If they hit $3.96M by Tuesday, everyone at $35 or up gets a downloadable soundtrack album; if they hit $4.4M by then, everyone at $85 and up gets an extra 4 classic episodes (meaning the $85 tier comes with 9 new episodes and 10 old ones at that point).

Also, he says when they get to $4.4M he's going to announce a bonus reward provided by Rifftrax.

And that he's going to have updates every day next week.

They've been pulling pretty good numbers since the Oswalt announcement (today looks like it'll exceed $60K), and we'll see if this new stuff gooses them upward again.

[Thad]

Blood Waters of Dr. Z is currently running on Pluto. Presumably that link will be the same one for watching the rest of the episodes running this week (starting 6 PM EST every night).

And for MST3K Monday, Rifftrax has just put Werewolf up for sale.

[Thad]

Well now I'm not sure if the thing running on Pluto is the same thing as the double-feature Joel said would be running tonight, which apparently is this:



and is supposed to start in 25 minutes.

[Thad]

Latest update: there's going to be a telethon starting at 2PM PST on Friday.

We'll welcome a CAVALCADE OF TALENTED FRIENDS, both in person and via video, to help us reach the finish line, including…

• DAN HARMON & JUSTIN ROILAND (Rick & Morty)
• PENDLETON WARD (Adventure Time)
• ROBERT LOPEZ(The Book of Mormon, Avenue Q, Frozen)
• STEVE ZARAGOZA (SourceFed)
• DANA GOULD (The Simpsons, standup comedian)
• MICHAEL CARBONARO (The Carbonaro Effect)
• DEREK HUGHES (magician, AGT finalist)
• FREEZEPOP (electropop music)
• STARBOMB (videogame rock)
• JOHN CARNEY (comedian, magician and prestidigitation)
• GAME GRUMPS (Let's Play webseries)
• MASTER PANCAKE (movie riffers)
• AND MORE GUESTS, still to be announced!

[Mothra]

Whoa, that came out of nowhere

[Thad]

Also he says he'll be running his two favorite episodes that day.

He's said a couple times that Final Sacrifice is his favorite Mike episode, so I'm pretty sure that'll be one of the two.

[Thad]

So yeah I think it's pretty clear at this point that there are some hard feelings from Trace and Frank's corner, which makes me sad.

I've seen people claim that Trace said in an interview yesterday that he was offered a substantial paycheck to come back but he turned it down; the interview doesn't appear to be online yet, so grain of salt. But it appears that whatever offers Joel made, even if they were monetarily generous, were not enough to make Trace and Frank feel like they were really wanted on the new show.

Always a shame to see disagreements and hard feelings like this; hopefully they work them out someday.

Meantime, well, Frank's nonetheless been effusive in his praise of the new cast, and said MiSTies should be excited. And I am going to continue to do so.

-- AND --

Looks like we'll hit $4.4M tomorrow; if not then then almost certainly Thursday. A big pledge ($25K?) just pulled out so the Wednesday numbers over on Kicktraq are currently negative. I'm hoping that a high roller decided to pull the money out of Kickstarter and just write Joel a check; that's what I'd do if I had that kind of money to throw around. But of course I base that on nothing except the assumption that the pledge was legit in the first place (and I think anyone can put a high-dollar pledge in on Kickstarter; I don't think they check with your bank in advance or anything) and the reasoning that if somebody really did have that kind of money to put toward something like this, then that's not the kind of person who's likely to change his mind and need that money later.

Still, should hit 9 episodes tomorrow.

[Thad]

Latest update: all 5 cast members confirmed as writers. And:

But remember, now that we’re doing somewhere between 9 and 12 episodes, I’m happy to report that a lot of our amazing friends have agreed to come join us as guest writers. Here’s a list of writers who have already agreed to come help out:

DAN HARMON, the incredible mind who created Community, hosts the Harmontown podcast, and co-creator of the very funny Rick & Morty.

JUSTIN ROILAND, the other creator of Rick & Morty, as well as a very talented voice actor/comedian/artist, and a huge MSTie.

ROB SCHRAB, an original remote writer for MST3K, co-founder of the seminal Channel 101… and now, director of the next Lego Movie.

NELL SCOVELL, a long-time collaborator and friend, will be “in the house” too. She’s currently writing on the The Muppet Show but has worked on The Simpsons, Newhart and It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, among others.

ERNIE CLINE, the New York Times best-selling author of Ready Player One, which will soon be a movie from Steven Spielberg! If you’ve read RP1, you know how good Ernie is with cultural references.

PAT ROTHFUSS, the New York Times best-selling author of The Name of Wind, has offered to have a “story breakfast” with me and go over “story beats” for the next series… and a few of you can join us!

PAUL & STORM, the hilarious musical act, W00tstock founders and stars, musical contributors to Despicable Me 2, my good friends and the hosts for Friday’s live “Final Countdown Telethon” will be contributing riffs and some special music!

DANA GOULD, the brilliant comedian and former Simpsons writer, who will also probably appear on camera as well for a cameo or two. But actually, that gets into the area of our Guest Cameos, which is a topic I want to save for tomorrow.

ROBERT LOPEZ, the EGOT-winning songwriter from Avenue Q, The Book of Mormon and Frozen, has offered to write some original songs for us!

[...]

And actually, I'm happy to tell you that a few MST veterans have agreed to come back and “Pitch” in – not just as writers, but in other creative departments too – to make sure MST3K still has the spirit of the little cowtown puppet show you know and love:

CHARLIE ERICKSON,or, as he’s now known in the international DJ scene, Chuck Love, was the musical genius behind the original MST3K theme song, as well as the arranger of the haunting “MST3K Love Theme.” Charlie will be back to work on some new arrangements for us… and hopefully some new music, too!

BEEZ McKEEVER, MST3K’s original “Prop Diva,” will return to design special costumes for the bots. (Watch for her special line in the credits: “Robot Fashions created by Miss Beez of Duluth!”)

CRIST BALLAS, our original MST3K hair and makeup designer – and a long time friend – will also be joining us in that department, as well as plying his real trade: creating Academy Award-winning special effects makeup!

And finally...

PAUL CHAPLIN – old “Pitch” himself! – the veteran writer (over 144 MST3K episodes!) will be back demonstrate his mastery of “the craft we call riff”… and more important, to show the newer MST3K writers how we did it back in the day!

The $85 donation tier will now include 9 new episodes and 11 old ones for a round 20. God damn it I wish somebody would call and offer me a job.

[Mothra]

Oooooh fuck yes. THAT is awesome news.

[Blossom]

ERNIE CLINE, the New York Times best-selling author of Ready Player One, which will soon be a movie from Steven Spielberg! If you’ve read RP1, you know how good Ernie is with cultural references.

I would say that is a sick but subtle burn recognizing just how shitty a hack that guy was, except they're saying it themselves without sarcasm?

[Mothra]

Yeah I wasn't... nuts about that. I guess we've never seen him try intentional comedy, though?

[Thad]

Latest update concerns artists who will contribute to the new show.

WAYNE WHITE, one of the genius designers behind Pee-wee's Playhouse (and star of the documentary Beauty Is Embarrassing) is going to some design some cool-ass stuff for us... maybe even a spaceship or two!

PENDLETON WARD, creator of the magical Adventure Time, will be creating some special animation for us – and he'll be offering a few special rewards during our Final Countdown Teletho

REBECCA SUGAR, the creator of Steven Universe AND a creative juggernaut from Adventure Time is doing a specially designed piece for us, while her brother...

STEVEN SUGAR, the ingenious background designer of Steven Universe, has already started work imagining cool ideas for the interior of the SOL and the Mads' new lair.

And GUY DAVIS, the incredible comic book artist behind Sandman Mystery Theatre, writer and illustrator of award-winning series The Marquis, and frequent character and concept designer for Guillermo del Toro on projects like Pacific Rim and The Strain turns out to be a longtime MSTie too! Who knew?

[...]

FRENDEN, the brilliant digital brush designer and graphic artist supreme, has already started designing some characters and costumes ideas.

[...]

JOSHUA PRUETT, an exceptional storyboard artist and creator, who has worked as a story artist on The Croods, and writer on Book of Dragons, and as both on Disney’s wildly popular Phineas & Ferb, has already started work on storyboards for the next opening and closing of the show[.]

GARY GLOVER, a long time friend of MST3K, and top concept designer who’s done concepts and art for all manner of films and toys, has already begun to work his magic doing some beautiful illustrations for us. Here’s his latest take on a spacesuit for Jonah, and some new features for Tom Servo and Crow[.]

MARTY BAUMANN has been busy on concept art too. You already know Marty's work from these updates: he’s the man who designed both our Mission Patches and the "Satellite of Love" Art Print available as Add-On Rewards, and he's famous for his work on animated films like Toy Story 3 and Big Hero 6.

[...]

BRETT 2D BEAN, a wonderful visual development artist and conceptual designer for all sorts of projects and companies, has done designs for big companies, like Disney, Nickelodeon and Jim Henson's Creature Shop... and also little ones, like MST3K. He's been working on some character designs[.]

[...]

STEVE VANCE, our favorite MST3K poster artist, is gonna help me "seam it all together" visually.

[...]


PRACTICAL EFFECTS

As you might remember, "practical effects" are one of my favorite subjects, and I've gotta tell you: the new MST3K is gonna be lousy with them. So, we're planning to bring in an expert:

ADAM SAVAGE, from Mythbusters, has agreed to consult on some of the more ambitious "in camera" effects we're planning for these new episodes. With the help of people like Adam, I feel like we'll be able to pull off just about anything we can think of.


PUPPETS

And of course, MST3K wouldn't be MST3K without our many robot friends, so I wanted to save this for last: I've been waiting for the right time to introduce two guys who have been helping "beneath" the scenes – literally! – for over a year: Grant and Russ, who have been operating Crow and Servo since Turkey Day '14 and did all of the puppeteering for our Kickstarter, have agreed to tackle even bigger challenges as MST3K's official puppet producers.

Now, I first became aware of GRANT BACIOCCO through his funny musical act, "Throwing Toasters," but even though we've been friends for a lot longer, I still didn't know how great his puppeteering skills were until about four years ago, when I saw him perform live as part of Henson Alternative's Puppet Up! Uncensored.

Then, Grant introduced me to RUSS WALCO. In the puppeting world, Russ has done just about everything you can imagine: building and operating puppets for The Jim Henson Company, The Muppets, the puppet episodes of The Simpsons and Community, the Pee-wee Herman Stage Show… it's really pretty amazing, and we're lucky that Russ will also act as our team's

Check the link, because there are pictures. Including what appears to be a concept design for a Professor Bobo action figure.

Current total (including non-Kickstarter fundraising) is around $4.7M. Hitting $5.5M and a full 12 episodes tomorrow is going to be tricky, but it's doable.

[Thad]

And another update lists people who have expressed interest in appearing in cameos (their schedules permitting): Jack Black, Joel McHale, Bill Hader, Neil Patrick Harris, Jerry Seinfeld, and Mark Hamill. He apologizes for the lack of women.

[Thad]

$360K came in today from Kickstarter; that's not including add-ons.

Total now is over $5M. Given that they got $360K today, $500K tomorrow is not a tall order. I think 12 episodes are going to happen.

Joel said on tonight's cast that if it hits 12 new episodes, then the $85 tier will include 13 classic episodes, for a nice round 25.

[Thad]

New update; Joel adds a final stretch goal, $5.9M, and if they hit it tonight they'll make a 13th episode in the new season, a holiday special.

(The Veronica Mars Movie, the current recordholder for highest-funded Kickstarter video project, topped out a little over $5.7M. MST3K could conceivably pass that, but it's not going to surpass it in number of pledges; Veronica Mars had over 90,000 and MST3K's just over 40,000.)

[Thad]

They've passed $5.5M. 12 episodes are happening.

It's a good thing Joel added that last stretch goal, because they've hit the previous top goal and the telethon hasn't even started yet.

The double-feature just started its second movie; they wrapped up Final Sacrifice and now they're running Mitchell. So I guess that's what Joel's two favorite episodes are.

[Thad]

So far the telethon has:

* Started 20 minutes late;
* Had trouble getting an audio feed from the Frozen guy;
* Had horrible, deafening static on Patton Oswalt's mic;
* Had trouble getting an audio feed from Jonah Ray;
* Not actually updated the money counter at the bottom of the screen even once in the 40 minutes it's been running.

It is mostly Joel and Special Guests sitting there awkwardly and asking if things are working yet.

I'm not going to lie, I kind of love it. If I didn't enjoy watching people try and fail to produce technically-competent video content, I wouldn't be an MST3K fan.

On the plus side, according to the counter on Kickstarter (which is not 40 minutes behind), we're up around $5.8M, with nearly 4 hours to go. I think $5.9M is very possible.