Mystery Science Theater 3000 (Johnsonverse)

Mystery Science Theater 3000 (abbreviated as MST3K) is an American television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson. The show premiered on KTMA-TV (now WUCW) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on November 24, 1988. It has later aired on The Comedy Channel/Comedy Central for 19 seasons until its cancellation in 2008. In 2015, Hodgson led a crowdfunded revival of the series with 14 episodes in its eleventh season, first released on Netflix on April 14, 2017, with further seasons following. A 60-episode syndication package titled The Mystery Science Theater Hour was produced in 1993 and syndicated to stations in 1995. As of 2021, more than 400 episodes and a feature film have been produced as well as live tours.

The show initially starred Hodgson as Joel Robinson, a janitor trapped by two mad scientists ("The Mads") on the Earth-orbiting Satellite of Love, and forced to watch a series of B movies in order to monitor his reaction to them. To keep his sanity, Joel crafts sentient robot companions, including Tom Servo, Crow T. Robot, and Gypsy, to keep him company and help him humorously comment on each movie as it plays, a process known as riffing. Each two-hour episode would feature a single movie (often edited for time constraints), sometimes preceded by various old shorts and educational films, with Joel, Tom, and Crow watching in silhouette from a row of theater seats at the bottom of the screen. These "theater segments" were framed with interstitial sketches called "host segments". The show's cast changed over its duration; most notably, the character of Joel was replaced by Mike Nelson (played by Michael J. Nelson) halfway through the show's fifth season. Other cast members, most of whom were also writers for the show, include Trace Beaulieu, Josh Weinstein, Jim Mallon, Kevin Murphy, Frank Conniff, Mary Jo Pehl, Bill Corbett, Paul Chaplin, and Bridget Jones Nelson. In 2004, Nelson, Corbett (Crow) and Murphy (Tom Servo) left the series and were replaced by stand-up comedian Tim Harmston as Tim Randall, while Corbett and Murphy were replaced by Chaplin and James Moore, respectively. The 2017 revival features a primarily new cast, including Jonah Ray who plays the new human test subject Jonah Heston, along with Felicia Day and Patton Oswalt as "The Mads" and Baron Vaughn, Hampton Yount, and Rebecca Hanson voicing Tom Servo, Crow T. Robot, and Gypsy, respectively.

MST3K's original run did not garner high viewership numbers. However, the show's popularity spread through online word-of-mouth by its fans known as "MSTies" or "Mysties" (who would remind others to "Keep circulating the tapes"), frequent repeats, syndication, and home media offerings produced by Rhino Entertainment. Currently, this popularity continues through Shout! Factory, who along with Hodgson, now own the rights to the show and supported the revived series. MST3K was listed as one of Time magazine's "100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME" in 2007, and TV Guide has noted MST3K as one of the top cult television shows. The show won a Peabody Award in 1993, was also nominated for two Emmy Awards in 1994 and 1995, and for the CableACE Award from 1992 to 1997. The show was considered highly influential, contributing towards the practice of social television, and former cast members launched similar projects based on the riffing of films, including The Film Crew, RiffTrax (ongoing as of 2021), and Cinematic Titanic. MST3K also brought to light several older movies that had fallen into obscurity or had received little or no public attention when originally released. Many of these films were subsequently identified as among the worst movies ever made, most notably Manos: The Hands of Fate.

Premise
While the cast of MST3K changed throughout its history, the basic premise of the show remains consistent: a human test subject—first Joel Robinson (Joel Hodgson), then Mike Nelson (Michael J. Nelson), Tim Randall (Tim Harmston), and most recently Jonah Heston (Jonah Ray)—has been imprisoned aboard the spacecraft Satellite of Love by mad scientists (collectively called "The Mads") and is forced to watch a series of bad movies in order to find one that will drive the test subject insane.

In an attempt to keep his sanity, Joel built sentient robots ("the bots") from parts aboard the Satellite of Love, and they subsequently remained aboard with Joel's successors as test subjects. The Bots include Tom Servo, Crow T. Robot, Gypsy (who is in charge of satellite operations) and Cambot, the silent recorder of the experiments. Crow and Servo join the human test subject in watching the film in the satellite's theater. To keep from going mad, the trio frequently comment and wisecrack during the movie, a process known as "riffing". At regular intervals throughout the movie, the hosts leave the theater and return to the bridge of the satellite to perform sketches (commonly called "host segments") that often satirize the film being watched.

Format
The general format of an MST3K episode has remained the same throughout the series' run. Episodes are approximately 90 minutes in running time (excluding commercial breaks) and begin with a short introductory segment in which the human host and the 'bots interact with the Mads before being sent the movie. During Joel Hodgson and Jonah Ray's tenures as hosts (and for a brief period at the start of the Mike Nelson era), the hosts and the Mads engage in an "invention exchange" in which they each show off their latest inventions. Sirens and flashing lights ("Movie Sign") then signal the characters to enter the theater. In the theater, the human host and 'bots' Tom and Crow sit in a row of theater seats, shown in silhouette along the bottom of the screen, an approach Hodgson called "Shadowramma". The three then riff on the film (which is sometimes accompanied by one or more shorts) as it plays for both them and the audience. Occasionally the silhouette format is used as a source of humor or as a means of creating unobtrusive censor bars for scenes containing nudity. The show transitions into and out of the theater via a "door sequence", a series of six doors that open or close as the camera (ostensibly Cambot) passes through them.

At regular intervals throughout the episode, the characters leave the theater and perform sketches usually inspired by the events of the film or short being shown, frequently making use of original songs and prop comedy. Some sketches bring in new or recurring characters or other devices; the host would consult an external camera "Rocket Number Nine" to show events happening outside the Satellite, and the "Hexfield Viewscreen" would be used to communicate with other characters from the ship's bridge. At the end of each sketch, "Movie Sign" is triggered again and the characters must re-enter the theater.

During Hodgson's period on the show, the final sketch aboard the Satellite often included reading of fan mail from the "MST3K Info Club". Fan mail readings decreased during Mike Nelson's tenure as host and were dropped entirely once the show moved onto the Sci-Fi Channel. The final sketch of an episode typically ends on the Mads, with the lead Mad asking their lackey to "push the button" to end the transmission and transitioning to the credit sequence. After the credits, a humorous short clip from the featured film (or the accompanying short, on occasion) is replayed as a "stinger" to end the episode.

In November 1993, a limited selection of episodes were repackaged into an hour-long show titled Mystery Science Theater Hour, meant to be better suited for off-network syndication. In these, the original episode was split into two parts of roughly 45 minutes each excluding commercials. New skits leading and ending each episode incorporated Mike Nelson portraying television host Jack Perkins in a parody of Perkins' Biography series in mock flattery of the MST3K episode being shown.

Concept
Hodgson is credited for devising the show's concept. Prior to the show, Hodgson was an up-and-coming comedian from Minneapolis having moved to Los Angeles and made appearances on Late Night with David Letterman and Saturday Night Live. He had been invited by Brandon Tartikoff to be on a NBC sitcom co-starring Michael J. Fox, but Hodgson felt the material was not funny and declined (the proposed sitcom went unrealized). He further became dissatisfied with the Hollywood attitudes when they tried to double their offer, acquiring what he called a "healthy disrespect" for the industry. He moved back to Minneapolis-St. Paul, taking a job in a T-shirt printing factory that allowed him to conceive of new comedy ideas while he was bored. One such idea was the basis of MST3K, a show to comment humorously on movies and that would also allow him to showcase his own prop comedy-style humor. Hodgson referred to these jokes as "riffs", based both on the idea of musical riffs as well as the idea of comedy riffs, a term he attributes to The Simpsons's writer Dana Gould. In terms of movie selection, Hodgson had recalled that his college roommate had a copy of The Golden Turkey Awards, and he had previously wondered why no one had made any program about these "adorable, weird movies" listed within it. Hodgson said that part of the idea for MST3K came from the illustration for the song "I've Seen That Movie Too" (drawn by Mike Ross) in the liner notes from Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album, showing silhouettes of two people in a theater watching a movie. Hodgson also likened the show's setting to the idea of a pirate radio station broadcasting from space. Hodgson credits Silent Running, a 1972 science-fiction film directed by Douglas Trumbull, as being perhaps the biggest direct influence on the show's concept. The film is set in the future and centers on a human, Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern), who is the last crew member of a spaceship containing Earth's last surviving forests. His remaining companions consist only of three robot drones. MST3K and the Joel Robinson character occasionally reflected Lowell's hippie-like nature. Hodgson wanted the feel of the show to appear homemade, and cited the example of a crude mountain prop used during the Saturday Night Live sketch "Night on Freak Mountain" that received a humorous reaction from the studio audience as the type of aesthetic he wanted for the show. Hodgson had made dozens of such robots from random parts before as art that he sold to friends and others, and knew he could incorporate that into the show.

Both old movies and music inspired several of the show's character names as developed by Hodgson. The show's name came from the promotional phrase "Mystery Scientist" used by magician Harlan Tarbell and a play on the name of Sun Ra's band, the Myth Science Arkestra. The "3000" was added to spoof the common practice of adding "2000" to show and product names in light of then-upcoming 21st century, and Hodgson thought it would set his show apart to make it "3000". Dr. Forrester was named after the main character of The War of the Worlds. The Satellite of Love was named after the song of the same name by Lou Reed. Crow T. Robot was inspired by the song "Crow" from Jim Carroll's Catholic Boy, while Rocket Number 9's name was inspired by the original name of Sun Ra's album Interstellar Low Ways.

The theater shots, the primary component of an episode, is taped in "Shadowrama". The "seats" were a black-painted foam core board sitting behind the seat (towards the camera) for the host, and stages for the Crow and Tom puppets. The human host wore black clothing while the robot puppets were painted black; the screen they watched was a white luma key screen as to create the appearance of silhouettes. The actors would follow the movie and the script through television monitors located in front of them, as to create the overall theater illusion.

The "door sequence" was created to transition from host segments to the theater segments, which Hodgson took inspiration from the Mickey Mouse Club, noting that the commonality to the title credits of Get Smart were coincidental. In devising this sequence, this also led to Beaulieu creating the dogbone-like shape of the Satellite of Love with additional inspiration taken from the bone-to-ship transition in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Hodgson had wanted to use a "motivated camera" for taping, a concept related to motivated lighting; in this mode, all the shots would appear to have been taken from an actual camera that was part of the scene to make the scene appear more realistic. This led to the creation of Cambot as a robot that the host would speak to during host segments or recording them while in the theater, and Rocket Number Nine to show footage outside of the Satellite of Love.

The show's theme song, the "Love Theme from Mystery Science Theater 3000", was written by Hodgson and Weinstein, which helped to cement some of the broader narrative elements of the show, such as the Mads and Joel being part of an experiment. The song was composed by Charlie Erickson with help from Hodgson in the style of Devo, The Replacements, and The Rivieras (particularly their cover of the song "California Sun") and sung by Hodgson. Initial shows used foam letters to make the show's title, but they later created the spinning-moon logo out of a 2-foot (0.6m) diameter fiberglass ball, covered with foam insulation and the lettering cut from additional foam pieces. Hodgson felt they needed a logo with the rotating effect as opposed to a flat 2D image, and though they had envisioned a more detailed prop, with the letters being the tops of buildings on this moon, they had no time or budget for a project of that complexity and went with what they had. Musical numbers would also be used as part of the host segments, which Hodgson said came out naturally from the riffing process; they would find themselves at times singing along with the movie instead of just riffing at it, and took that to extend songs into the host segments.

KTMA era (1988–1989)
Hodgson approached Jim Mallon, at the time the production manager of KTMA, a low-budget local television station, with his idea of a show based on riffing on movies, using robots that were created out of common objects. Mallon agreed to help produce a pilot episode, and Hodgson hired on local area comedians J. Elvis Weinstein (initially going by Josh Weinstein but later changed to J. Elvis as to distinguish himself from Josh Weinstein, a well-known writer for The Simpsons) and Trace Beaulieu to develop the pilot show. By September 1988, Hodgson, Mallon, Weinstein, and Beaulieu shot a 30-minute pilot episode, using segments from the 1968 science-fiction film The Green Slime. The robots and the set were built by Hodgson in an all-nighter. Joel watched the movie by himself, and was aided during the host segments by his robots, Crow (Beaulieu), Beeper, and Gypsy (Weinstein). Hodgson used the narrative that his character named "Joel Hodgson" (not yet using his character name of Robinson) had built the Satellite of Love and launched himself into space. Camera work was by Kevin Murphy, who was employed by KTMA. Murphy also created the first doorway sequence and theater seat design. These initial episodes were recorded at the long since-defunct Paragon Cable studios and customer service center in Hopkins, Minnesota. On review, Hodgson found that of the robots, Beeper's design was not working well, and tried a quick modification by replacing its head with a toy gumball machine top, creating the basis of Tom Servo.

Mallon met with KTMA station manager Donald O'Conner the next month and managed to get signed up for thirteen episodes. Show production was generally done on a 24-hour cycle, starting with Mallon offering a few films from KTMA's library for the writers to select from. Riffing in these episodes was ad-libbed during taping using notes made during preliminary viewings of the selected film. The show had some slight alterations from the pilot — the set was lit differently, the robots (now Crow, Servo and Gypsy) joined Joel in the theater, and a new doorway countdown sequence between the host and theater segments was shot. The puppeteers worked personalities into their robots: Crow (Beaulieu) was considered a robotic Groucho Marx, Tom Servo (Weinstein) as a "smarmy AM radio DJ", and Gypsy (Mallon) modeled after Mallon's mother who had a "heart of gold" but would become disoriented when confronted with a difficult task. The development of the show's theme song would lead to establishing elements for the show's ongoing premise, with Hodgson now portraying himself as the character Joel Robinson.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 premiered on KTMA at 6:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 1988 with its first episode, Invaders from the Deep, followed by a second episode, Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars at 8:00 p.m. The choice of running the premiere on Thanksgiving was by happenstance, as the station felt the show was ready to go at that point, according to Hodgson. Initially, the show's response was unknown, until Mallon set up a phone line for viewers to call in. Response was so great that the initial run of 13 episodes was extended to 21, with the show running to May 1989. Hodgson and Mallon negotiated to secure the rights for the show for themselves, creating Best Brains, Inc., agreeing to split ownership of the idea equally. During this time a fan club was set up and the show held its first live show at Scott Hansen's Comedy Gallery in Minneapolis, to a crowd of over 600.

Despite the show's success, the station's overall declining fortunes forced it to file for bankruptcy reorganization in July 1989. At the same time, HBO was looking to build a stable of shows for their upcoming Comedy Channel cable network. HBO approached Best Brains and requested a sample of their material. Hodgson and Mallon provided a seven-minute demo reel, which led to the network greenlighting MST3K as one of the first two shows picked up by the new network.

Comedy Channel/Comedy Central era (1989–2008)
The Comedy Channel offered Best Brains $35,000 per episode but allowed Best Brains to retain the show's rights. Best Brains was also able to keep production local to Minnesota instead of the network's desire to film in New York City or Los Angeles, as it would have cost four times more per episode, according to Hodgson. Best Brains established an office and warehouse space in Eden Prairie for filming. With an expanded but still limited budget, they were able to hire more writers, including Mike Nelson, Mary Jo Pehl, and Frank Conniff, and build more expansive sets and robot puppets. They created the characters of Dr. Forrester (Beaulieu) and Dr. Erhardt (Weinstein) and crafted the larger narrative of each episode being an "experiment" they test on Joel. The show began its national run shortly after the Comedy Channel went on the air in November 1989.

MST3K was considered Comedy Channel's signature program, generating positive press about the show despite the limited availability of the cable channel nationwide. After the second season, The Comedy Channel and rival comedy cable network HA! merged to become Comedy Central (initially, it was known as CTV: The Comedy Network). During this period, MST3K became the newly merged cable channel's signature series, expanding from 13 to 24 episodes a year. To take advantage of the show's status, Comedy Central ran "Turkey Day", a 30-hour marathon of MST3K episodes during Thanksgiving 1991. The name of the event was not only inspired by the traditional turkey meal served on Thanksgiving, but also by use of "Turkey" from The Golden Turkey Awards to represent bad movies. This tradition would be continued through the rest of the Comedy Central era. Though the show did not draw large audience numbers compared to other programming on Comedy Central, such as reruns of Saturday Night Live, the dedicated fans and attention kept the show on the network.

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie was produced during the Comedy Central era and had a theatrical release in 1996 through Johnson Studios. It featured Mike and the bots subjected to the film This Island Earth by Dr. Forrester. Well received by critics and fans, the film was a financial success due to its widespread distribution.

Writing and taping
The cable network was able to provide a wider library of films for Best Brains to riff from. To ensure that they would be able to produce a funny episode, at least one member of the staff would watch the suggested films completely, generally assuring that the movie would be prime for jokes throughout. Conniff stated that he often would have to watch around twenty films in their entirety before selecting one to use for the show. In one specific case, the second-season episode with the film Sidehackers, they had only skimmed the first part of the movie before making the decision to use it, and only later discovered that it contained a rape scene. They decided to stay committed to the film, but cut out the offending scene and had to explain the sudden absence of the affected character to the audience. After this, they carefully scrutinized entire films for other such offensive content, and once one was selected and assured the rights, committed to completing the episode with that film. Obtaining the rights was handled by the cable networks. Some licensing required buying film rights in packages, with the selected bad movies included in a catalog of otherwise good films, making the negotiations odd since the network was only interested in the bad film. Other times, the rights to the film were poorly documented, and the network would follow the chain of custody to locate the copyright owner as to secure broadcast rights.

In contrast to the ad-libbing of riffs from KTMA, the riffs were scripted ahead of time by the writers. An average episode (approximately 90 minutes running time) would contain more than 600 such riffs, and some with upwards of 800 riffs. Riffs were developed with the entire writing staff watching the film together several times through, giving off-the-cuff quips and jokes as the film went along, or identifying where additional material would be helpful for the comedy. The best jokes were polished into the script for the show. Riffs were developed to keep in line with the characterization of Joel, Mike, and the 'bots. Further, the writers tried to maintain respect for the films and avoided making negative riffs about them, taking into consideration that Joel, Mike, and the 'bots were companions to the audience while watching the movie, and they did not want to come off sounding like jerks even if the negative riff would be funny. Hodgson stated that their goal in writing riffs is not to ridicule films as some have often mistaken, but to rather instead consider what they are doing as "a variety show built on the back of a movie".

Production of an average episode of MST3K during the Comedy Central period took about five to nine days once the movie was selected and its rights secured. The first few days were generally used for watching the movie and scripting out the riffs and live action segments. The subsequent days were then generally used to start construction of any props or sets that would be needed for the live action segments while the writers honed the script. A full dress rehearsal would then be held, making sure the segments and props worked and fine tuning the script. The host segments would then be taped on one day, and the theater segments on the next. A final day was used to review the completed work and correct any major flaws they caught before considering the episode complete. Live scenes used only practical special effects, and there was minimal post-editing once taping was completed.

Cast changes
Weinstein left the show after the first Comedy Channel season, reportedly in disagreement with Hodgson about moving toward using scripted rather than ad-libbed jokes. Murphy replaced him as the voice of Tom Servo, portraying the 'bot as a cultured individual, while Dr. Erhardt was replaced with TV's Frank (Conniff).

Hodgson decided to leave the series halfway through Season Five due to his dislike of being on camera and his disagreements with producer Mallon over creative control of the program. Hodgson also stated that Mallon's insistence on producing a feature film version of the show led to his departure, giving up his rights on the MST3K property to Mallon. Hodgson later told an interviewer: "If I had the presence of mind to try and work it out, I would rather have stayed. 'Cause I didn't want to go, it just seemed like I needed to." Though they held casting calls for a replacement for Hodgson on camera, the crew found that none of the potential actors really fit the role; instead, having reviewed a test run that Nelson had done with the 'bots, the crew agreed that having Nelson (who had already appeared in several guest roles on the show) replace Hodgson would be the least jarring approach. The replacement of Joel by Mike would lead to an oft-jokingly "Joel vs. Mike flame war" among fans, similar to the "Kirk vs. Picard" discussions in the Star Trek fandom.

Conniff left the show after Season Six, looking to get into writing TV sitcoms in Hollywood. TV's Frank was soon replaced on the show by Dr. Forrester's mother, Pearl (Pehl).

Before Season Eight commenced filming, Beaulieu opted to leave the show, feeling that anything creative that would be produced by Best Brains would belong to Mallon, and wanted to have more creative ownership himself. To replace Dr. Forrester, two new sidekicks to Pearl were introduced: Professor Bobo (Murphy) and the Observer a.k.a. "Brain Guy" (Corbett). In addition, Corbett took over Crow's voice and puppetry and Best Brains staffer Patrick Brantseg took over Gypsy in the middle of Season Eight. With this replacement, the series' entire original cast had been turned over.

After production on the fifteenth season ended in 2004, Nelson, Murphy and Corbett left the series after salary disputes with Mallon, forming The Film Crew and later RiffTrax. Best Brains hired local standup comedian Tim Harmston as Tim Randall (after actor Tony Randall), while Servo and Crow were now performed by fellow local comedian James Moore and longtime writer Paul Chaplin, respectively. Brantseg remained in the role of Gypsy for the remainder of the original series' run.

End
By 1996, Comedy Central had started creating an identity for its network, which would lead to successful shows like The Daily Show, Win Ben Stein's Money and South Park. Despite this, MST3K continued airing on Comedy Central, though ratings started going down after Nelson, Murphy and Corbett's departures, with many fans feeling that Harmston, Moore and Chaplin were poor compared to their predecessors. The series ended in 2008 after financial issues at Best Brains forced production to cease. The season 19 finale, The Astro-Zombies, premiered on October 20, 2008, during which, in the show's narrative, Monty Forrester accidentally sent the Satellite of Love out of orbit, with Tim and the 'bots escaping and taking up residence in an apartment near Milwaukee, where they continue to riff movies.

Kickstarter funding
Starting in 2010, Hodgson had been trying to bring back MST3K, spurred on by fan appreciation of the cast and crew 25 years since the show's premiere and the success of his Cinematic Titanic project. Hodgson also considered the timing to be ideal, with non-traditional outlets like Netflix picking up original series, and the success of crowdfunding for entertainment projects. However, Hodgson needed to reacquire the rights to the series, at that point still held by Mallon and Best Brains. By 2013, Hodgson was working closely with Shout! Factory, the distribution company handling the home media releases of MST3K, and completed negotiations with Mallon to buy the rights for MST3K for a seven-figure sum by August 2015, enabling a Kickstarter campaign to fund the revival to move forward. Hodgson felt the Kickstarter approach was necessary so that the show's style and approach would be determined by fans rather than through a network if he had sought traditional broadcast funding, as well as to demonstrate the demand for the show through a successful campaign.

The Kickstarter was launched in November 2015, seeking $2 million for the production of three episodes, with stretch goals with additional funding for 12 total episodes. The Kickstarter effort was led by Ivan Askwith, a consultant who also had worked on the Veronica Mars and Reading Rainbow Kickstarter campaigns. Hodgson estimated each episode would take $250,000 to make, in addition to five-figure movie licensing rights, in contrast to $100,000 needed for the original series. The campaign reached its base funding within a week of its launch. On the final day of the campaign, Hodgson and Shout! ran a streaming telethon which included appearances from the newly selected cast and crew, and various celebrities that supported the revival to help exceed the target funding levels for twelve episodes. The campaign ended on December 11, 2015, with total funding of $5,764,229 from 48,270 backers, with an additional $600,000 in backer add-ons, which allowed Hodgson to plan two more additional episodes, including a Christmas episode, to bring the total season to fourteen episodes. The Kickstarter became the largest one for Film & Video, surpassing the $5.70 million raised for the Veronica Mars film, but was ultimately surpassed in March 2019 for an animated series based on the web series Critical Role.

Casting
Hodgson believed that the revival would need a whole new cast, pointing out that the cast had completely turned over in the original series. Comedian Jonah Ray plays Jonah Heston, the new host aboard the Satellite of Love, watching and riffing on the films. Hodgson had met Ray while recording an episode of The Nerdist Podcast, and felt he would be a good fit. The voices of Crow and Tom Servo are provided by comedians Hampton Yount and Baron Vaughn, respectively, both of whom Ray recommended to Hodgson. Hodgson felt it was important for Ray to have his say on who would play these parts, since it would help Ray be comfortable in the role. Felicia Day plays Kinga Forrester, Clayton Forrester's daughter and one of the new Mads in charge of the experiments, now operating out of a moon base known as "Moon 13". Day had been one of the last to be cast, as Hodgson had scripted out the concept for Forrester's daughter while casting Ray and the others. Hodgson had met Day at the 2015 Salt Lake Comic Con, where she stated her love of MST3K to him. Hodgson had seen Day's performance in shows like The Guild and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and felt she matched his idea for the character he had envisioned. Patton Oswalt plays Kinga's henchman, Max, or as his character prefers to be known, "TV's Son of TV's Frank"; Hodgson had already planned to invite Oswalt, a longtime friend and self-professed MST3K fan, as a special guest writer for an episode of the revived series, but decided during the Kickstarter that he would also be a good fit on-camera. Rebecca Hanson, an alum of The Second City, took the role of Gypsy as well as Synthia, a clone of Pearl Forrester who assists Kinga. Har Mar Superstar leads the "Skeleton Crew", a house band in Kinga's lair.

Pehl, Corbett, and Murphy cameo on the revival, reprising their roles as Pearl, Brain Guy, and Professor Bobo, respectively. Hodgson opened up to the show any of the other cast members to make cameo appearances or aid in the creative process. However, Nelson and Beaulieu stated that they would not be involved with the MST3K revival; Nelson said, "The brand does not belong to me, and I make and have made (almost) zero dollars off it since it stopped production in 1999." Conniff noted on his Twitter that Shout! Factory would be "cutting [the former cast members] in, financially at least" on the profits from the series. In addition, other cameos on the new episodes include Neil Patrick Harris, Jerry Seinfeld, and Mark Hamill. Weinstein initially stated that he had no interest in returning to the show, but eventually reprised his role as Dr. Laurence Erhardt in the second season of the revival.

Writing and recording
Hodgson aimed to follow in the pattern of what made for fan-favorite episodes from the original series, borrowing equally from the Joel and Mike eras; he noted there were about 30 episodes that he and fans universally agreed were the show's best, and expected to use these as templates as the basis of the new show. The new episodes include the Invention Exchange that had been part of the Joel era (and some of the Mike era) of the show. Additionally, while not required by the streaming format of Netflix, the new episodes include bumpers that would have wrapped around commercial breaks if shown on network television; Hodgson considered these breaks necessary as a "palate cleanser" as well as to support the narrative for Kinga attempting to commercialize on the MST3K brand.

Behind the scenes, the lead writer was Elliott Kalan, former head writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and host of The Flop House, a podcast about bad movies. Dan Harmon and Joel McHale also wrote for the show, along with the on-screen cast members. Hodgson also brought in guest writers for certain episodes that included Justin Roiland, Rob Schrab, Nell Scovell, Ernie Cline, Pat Rothfuss, Dana Gould, and Tammy Golden. Additionally, Paul & Storm and Robert Lopez composed original songs for the new episodes.

The revival retains the live, handcrafted look from the original, a decision that Hodgson had to set down against others involved in production. Set and prop designers included Wayne White, Pendleton Ward, Rebecca, Justin Jacobs and Steven Sugar, and Guy Davis, while live and practical special effects were planned by Adam Savage. Justin was tasked with creating full sized versions of the new robots Mr. Waverly and Growler. Other staff returning included MST3K: Charlie Erickson, who composed the original show's theme song and composed the new show's theme and other musical arrangements; Beth "Beez" McKeever, who worked on the original show's props and designed costumes and props for the new show; Crist Ballas performed hair and makeup design; and Paul Chaplin, one of the show's original writers to help write the new shows, along with contributions from Pehl and Corbett. Hodgson himself remained primarily off-camera as the executive producer for the remake, though does appear briefly as Ardy, one of Kinga's henchmen who send Jonah the episode's movie. Hodgson was assisted by Kalan, Richard Foos, Bob Emmer, Garson Foos, Jonathan Stern, and Harold Buchholz. The revival was produced by the companies Satellite of Love, LLC, Alternaversal Productions, and Abominable Pictures. Netflix allowed Hodgson and the MST3K producers to produce the episodes at their own pace.

Production for the new season began on January 4, 2016, with movie selection and script writing. The film selection was narrowed down to about twenty movies as of February 2016, with the rights obtained for about half of them, while Shout! Factory was working to secure worldwide distribution rights for the others. Hodgson noted that the films were more recent than those used on the original series, with "maybe one" from the 1950s/1960s, but did not want to reveal what these films were until the episodes were broadcast as to have the biggest comedic effect on the audience.

Recording and most of the production was completed over September and October 2016 in Los Angeles on a very condensed schedule. In the revival, Ray, Yount, and Vaughn recorded the riffs for all fourteen episodes in a sound studio over a period of a week, allowing them to better synchronize the riffs with the film. This also helped to simplify the process of recording the theater segments, since they then only needed to act out their parts. The 'bots were controlled by multiple puppeteers both in the theater and in skits; Yount and Vaughn used radio-controlled equipment to move the 'bots' mouths, while members from The Jim Henson Company helped with manipulating the bodies, allowing them to achieve effects they could not do in the series' original run such as having Crow appear to walk on his own. All skits for the episodes were completed within a single day, which did not allow them for doing multiple takes unless necessary.

Campaign backers at higher tiers were able to see the first episode at limited "Red Carpet Kickstarter Screening" events shown in a few theaters during February and March 2017. The fourteen episodes were released on Netflix on April 14, 2017, though Kickstarter backers had the opportunity to see the episodes in the days preceding this.

During the 2017 "Turkey Day" Marathon, Hodgson announced that Netflix had greenlighted a twelfth season of MST3K. Shooting of the twelfth season started on June 4, 2018 and would have six episodes, written to encourage bingewatching and make the series more amenable to non-fans. Further, they created a stronger narrative in the host segments, so that casual viewers would recognize the series having a definitive start, middle, and end. Other changes included Rob Schrab coming on as co-director, and actress Deanna Rooney, Ray's wife, playing Dr. Donna St. Phibes, a "B-movie monster conservationist" who works with the Mads. Former cast member Weinstein returned to reprise his role as Dr. Erhardt. Hodgson had been trying to also bring back both Beaulieu and Conniff for this season, but could not work out the logistics in time.

The 12th season was broadcast on Netflix on Thanksgiving aka "Turkey Day", November 22, 2018, which coincided with the show's 30th anniversary. To avoid conflicting with the new season's release, the annual Turkey Day Marathon was pushed forward to November 18, 2018. Hodgson confirmed to Kickstarter backers that the show would return for a third season on Netflix. Ray stated in an April 2019 interview that "Joel's got some ideas in the pipeline, and it's pretty exciting, what he's working on", and expected further news later in the year. Production on the third season began on January 12, 2019.

Online era (2021)
On April 7, 2021, Hodgson launched a second Kickstarter campaign to create the Gizmoplex, an online platform to show these news episodes as well as show reruns of past episodes and host live events, though presented in-universe as another experiment by the Mads. Hodgson envisioned a sustainable production approach based on the support of fans and backers that wanted more episodes but without having to worry about financial support of a broadcast or cable network. In this project, Hodgson set out to produce more episodes and the creation of the new platform. Further, by establishing the continuation of the show in the Gizmoplex format, it would allow MST3K to continue even without Hodgson's involvement in the future as long there remain fans of the show.

The Kickstarter surpassed its minimum funding goal of $2 million in about a day of going live. Hodgson plans to make between three and twelve more new episodes initially depending on the final funding level, with the Netflix cast, including Jonah Ray, Felicia Day, and Patton Oswalt, returning in their roles.

Episodes
The series broadcast between 1988 and 2008 spanned 320 episodes across nineteen seasons. The 2017 Netflix revival of fourteen episodes (The Return) was followed by six additional episodes (The Gauntlet) the next year.

While the pilot episode of The Green Slime was used to sell the concept to KTMA, it never aired. The initial run of 21 episodes for KTMA were neither rerun nationally nor released onto home video, primarily due to rights issues. For many years, the first three KTMA episodes were considered to be "missing episodes", as no fan copies are known to exist, though master copies of all these episodes reportedly exist according to Mallon. In November 2016, Hodgson reported that master copies of two of the episodes, "Invaders from the Deep" and "Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars", had been found. The episodes were made available to Kickstarter backers of the new series on November 25, 2016.

The credits in the first four seasons on Comedy Central included the phrase "Keep circulating the tapes" to encourage fans to share VHS tapings they made with others (as Comedy Central was not widely distributed then), despite the questionable copyright practice. Though the phrase was removed from the credits due to legal reasons, the concept of "keep circulating the tapes" was held by the show's fans to continue to help introduce others to the show following its broadcast run.

Turkey Day marathons
An annual event in the Comedy Central era was the Turkey Day marathon that ran on or near the Thanksgiving holiday. The marathon would show between six and twelve rebroadcasts of episodes, often with new material between the episodes from the cast and crew. While the show was on Sci-Fi, one Thanksgiving Day marathon of MST3K was held during its first season, but lacked any new interstitial material.

Following its acquisition of the series rights, Shout! Factory has streamed Turkey Day marathons on Thanksgiving since 2013, broadcasting six of the MST3K episodes and wrapped with introductions from Hodgson alongside other cast members at times. The event was intended to be a one-off, but the fans' reaction to it led Hodgson and Shout! to continue the tradition in subsequent years. The 2015 Turkey Day coincided with the Kickstarter for the show's revival, while the 2016 Turkey Day includes the revival's new host Ray co-hosting alongside Hodgson. The 2017 Turkey Day was hosted by Hodgson, Ray and Felicia Day, and concluded with a surprise announcement that the show had been renewed on Netflix for another season.

Home media
Home video releases of MST3K episodes are complicated by the licensing rights of the featured film and any shorts, and as such many of the nationally televised episodes have not yet been released onto home video. Through the current distributor, Shout! Factory, over 100 of the films have been cleared for home media distribution. With Shout's release of the 39th volume of MST3K episodes in 2017, the company anticipated that only about a dozen episodes out of 197 from the original series' run will never make it to home video due to licensing rights issues of the movies featured.

Original home media releases were issued by Rhino Entertainment, initially starting with single disc releases before switching to semi-regular four-episode volume sets. According to Hodgson, the people at Rhino who were involved in the distribution of MST3K eventually left Rhino and joined Shout!, helping to convince that publisher to acquire the rights from Rhino. Since 2008, all releases of MST3K have been through Shout! (including some reprints of the first Rhino volume set) and have typically been multi-episode volumes or themed packs.

In 2014, 80 episodes of the show were made available for purchase or rental on the video streaming site Vimeo. Shout! has uploaded some episodes to YouTube with annotations, as documented by The Annotated MST fansite, to explain some of the sources of the jokes in the riffs. In February 2015, Shout! launched its own streaming service, Shout! Factory TV, of which selected episodes of MST3K were included on the service. Selected episodes were also made available on demand through RiffTrax starting in November 2015. Twenty episodes from previous MST3K seasons were released by Netflix in all regions in anticipation of the revival series.

All episodes of Season 11 were released on a DVD/Blu-Ray box set on April 17, 2018, which includes a documentary behind the making of the first revival season.