Mystery Science Theater 3000: C/D, S/D.

Christ on a cracker:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mst3k/bringbackmst3k/posts/1439433

4. OUR GUEST WRITERS

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!

Seriously, Cline of all people.

Somehow this explains this:

So, like I said, we've now made offers to all of MST's original writers. While it seems like most of them won't be available to join us, at least for now, I still hope they’ll decide to join us later. We'll always be glad to have them back, even if it's just for an episode or two when they can spare some time.

rolling thread of stuff worth reading on videogames is all i know about Cline and it's not good.

btw for those playing along at home, that's one woman out of ten guest writers. dunno what exactly that speaks to but it does intensify my worried sense that joel's circle of good people to draw on has gotten pretty lopsdied. :-/

still just totally contemptuous of that a-wings at yavin howler

oh god that list this is going to be insufferable

ugh fucking gross

never heard of w00tstock, are its founders and stars a bigger or smaller get than jonathan coulton would have been

I know you guys are nervous but I still want to be excited about this in general.

i've been to like 3 w00tstocks, love paul & storm but still dunno what i think of all this

witholding judgement til i see the thing

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Well THAT about sums it up.

BTW seeing this from Elvis T in 2003 shows how so much has rapidly changed:

Well, I do have broadband and a sum total of 150GB of storage over a couple of drives. My consumption rate of DVD-R blanks is pretty scary.

Ha! FYI Ned, whenever I think of how many MST episodes we've worked through over the past three years and think "Man, I've become quite the MST expert in my thirties," I see your first response in this thread before my eyes.

Is there anywhere else on the internet expressing doubts about this reboot besides ILX? Actually curious, I haven't been looking!

From the get-go most have made their peace with the idea that it wouldn't be MST3K the way we know it.

yes but over the slow drip of info it's crossed that line from being something new to being something you once cherished now being the realm of unfunny hacks. i would trade the new host and half the writers for TV's Frank

Harmon is involved, let me guess, the robots will be drunk, how funny

The 'bots have been drunk. Multiple times. Gypsy's days are wine and roses and Richard Basehart.

my favorite post itt

jess (dubplatestyle)
Posted: May 27, 2003 at 1:41:06 PM
mitchell roxx u r all john saxon

Now what.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mst3k/bringbackmst3k/posts/1440198

Now, listen: there's no way we can 100% guarantee this stuff, because these nice folks are all really busy… but they're also really big fans of MST3K, and they've each said that if we can fit into their schedules, they'd love to do a cameo in one of our new episodes!

So, here are a few performers who are interested in appearing on MST3K next season:

JACK BLACK, the brilliant comic actor and musician, star of everything from the Kung Fu Panda films to the wonderful School of Rock… though to some people, of course, he's better known as one-half of Tenacious D. So, I don't wanna tell you anything about what I'm planning for his character… but I think it would be a lot of fun to have him perform a song.
JOEL MCHALE, who I first knew as the hilariously dry host of The Soup, and who has been expanding his acting career into television (as the star of Community) and film (the Ted movies). I met Joel at a friend's wedding last year, and we became fast friends. He's a really nice guy, so even though he's in demand for big-time revivals like The X-Files, he says he's up for joining us too!
BILL HADER, the incredible changeling/actor/impressionist who has appeared in everything from SNL to Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs to Trainwreck. I’ve always been amazed by Bill's talents, and was finally introduced to him backstage at SNL by a mutual friend.
NEIL PATRICK HARRIS is a true renaissance man whose career spans film, TV, the broadway stage and the internet, where he appeared opposite our own Felicia Day in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Funny enough, though, I actually met Neil through mutual friends at the Los Angeles Magic History Conference, where we geeked out on magic together. Also, I'm honored to point out that Neil has always been a MSTie. In fact, he was included in first MST documentary – This is MST3K – all the way back in his Doogie Howser days!
JERRY SEINFELD, my long time friend, and of course, one of our most brilliant stand-up comedians. Jerry was also the co-creator of Seinfeld, and the creator and host of my favorite concept for a talk show, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. You know, I’ve known this guy for over thirty years. I actually remember him from when he only had one car.

A JACK BLACK SONG IN MST3K, GREAT.

Also, buried a bit beneath all the other news...a bit of a late pass here:

Now, those are just some of the amazing and talented performers who have offered to stop into the show. But you know, as much as I love all of these guys, let's face it: it's a little bit male-centric.

I've gotta tell you: that wasn't intentional. I guess I just have a harder time meeting women these days? But listen, if any female celebrities are reading this, and happen to be fans of MST3K, please let me know! And if your names happen to be Tina Fey, Lily Tomlin or Amy (Poehler and Schumer) – a few of my current comedy heroes – call me! We're bringing back MST3K and would love for you to do a cameo!

Bill Hader and Joel McHale actually make me a little interested in this again

Oh, Joel.

actually can we take control of this away from Joel and give it to Will Forte?

"i have a harder time meeting women these days"
"if your names happen to be Tina Fey, Lily Tomlin or Amy (Poehler and Schumer) – call me!"
side-eye emoticon

Yeah, Joel McHale, esp. if he's onscreen at all, seems a supreme way to balance out or deliberately hamstring the proceedings from getting waaay too pander-y or having its head so far up its own ass it needs close-circuit tv to call the game.

If anybody wanted a crystallized example of the coalescence of nerd shit from the Before Times contrasting to the monetization and concentrated marketing-demo development of the last 10 years of geek pop culture, this is it.

We go from a collection of Midwestern weirdos and stand-ups doing this cable-access thing that had to fight for airtime to something so potentially drenched in fan service as to make the guys who just record some funny mp3s to play atop your DVDs and sold online only look positively restrained.

Remember then-programming VP Vincent Faze showing up on the air to defend the network's airing practices of the show against fan outrage-as-delivered-by-post-and-phone in 94/95? The q&a was hosted by Marc Marin!

Fire up your thinkpiece churns.

Correction, Vincent Favale.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JCk93vx0M8

Oh man, and I just found the rec.arts.tv.mst3k FAQ. Fire up your copies of tin or nn or rn and remember How Things Were:

https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/rec.arts.tv.mst3k.announce/cCz63yOjDWc

seems like new mst3k is going to be far more aggressive

oh debbie

Is there anywhere else on the internet expressing doubts about this reboot besides ILX? Actually curious, I haven't been looking!

― Evan, Thursday, December 10, 2015 12:14 AM (14 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

BTW the reason I got curious was due to the discrepancy in positivity between the comments here and the comment section on the kickstarter posts. It seems overwhelmingly positive over there, and all doom and gloom here. Just finding that kind of funny! Even with this latest post about cameos.

well remember, most people love Jack Black

this reboot just seems designed for headlines like "MST3K has been rebooted, and who's involved is amazing. #17 will blows your mind."

trying to not be bummed out, failing

feel like this is the creation of someone on a bipolar upswing, like it's SO much

the bots will be shilling podcasts and such

every new name is like, "Why can't they get the old people back?" i did not watch mst3k for celebrity cameos. i guess it is a good kickstarter strategy and wish Joel all the luck but it sets a bad precedence for the new show.

it doesn't help that some of the writers i actively dislike as people, Harmon going out of his way recently to lord his fame over fan in a 2-hour verbal abuse session. it is ok "because he is an alcoholic genius" lol ok

Cline just being a farce of an author, a self-glorifying uber consumer heralding the intellectual nadir of capitalist culture.

can someone explain why TV's Frank, Dr. Forester, and the Rifftrax people can't come back? If Joel has the rights it seems like he could just ask them back if he wanted.

trace declined the offer and i'm guessing maybe frank did likewise. they seem pretty content in their current situation.

so you're telling me they don't want to party with Jack Black?

Stealing your descriptor of Cline, Adam, btw

Trace & Frank have their own thing going now, and will be meeting up with Mary Jo and J Elvis at SF Sketchfest:

http://www.themadsareback.com

I got to meet them at a charity "Plan 9" event in Portland about 2-3 years back and it felt like meeting Bowie or (insert other critical formative figure)

Just to be some glimmer of hope in here, we're not entirely sure how involved the various celebrity guest writers will be. Maybe Cline will write a few jokes or something that we'll get to ignore.

My biggest worry is not that Jack Black and other cameos will ruin it or something but that the whole run of episodes will be overthought. If I were to guess I'd say it's hard to keep something that has always been so loose, intimate and quirky the same after the millionth interview and kickstarter post that picks apart the formula and tone and its place in the universe, how we can make the robots fly around the set and all sorts of other gimmicks that are reasonable as stand alone ideas, then back it with a million "wouldn't it be cool if we got ____ on the show to _____?!?!", in the end you might get something so jam packed with calculation and expectation and epic promises that it'll feel both super stiff and super bloated. I hope among all of this over-analyzation of the whole concept coupled with the hypothesizing of perfect ways to take the show into 2016 that they don't forget the core light hearted, silly and loose pacing they had.

Like there are multiple ways to overthink a piece of art to the point you squeeze everything organic out of it before you even start, and that's my biggest worry. Hoping for the best anyway.

when is firesign theatre coming back i ask you
and can they get jack black

Meantime I do like the extra livestreaming marathons this week. _Warrior of the Lost World_ on now.

Well they're about at $5.2 million at this point counting the add-ons and the rest of today to go, 13 hours or so, so I'm willing to bet they'll get their full 12 episodes. But man did my initial foreboding when this all started play out, except in ways I honestly wouldn't've guessed.

Don't say that until we see the actual result!

You're going to have a long year ahead of you.

It will feel like 366 days.