RiffTrax returned to San Francisco Sketchfest for a shorts night at the Castro Theater on 1/7 with guests John Hodgman, Adam Savage, Paul F. Tompkins, Mary Jo Pehl, Bridget Nelson, Cole Stratton and Janet Varney.
On 1/13 we learned of an essay in the Los Angeles Review of Books, “He’ll try to keep his sanity / With the help of his robot friends” by Ian Williams about how the show saved his life at least twice.
January saw a couple Best of RiffTrax Live shows in theaters across the country. Starship Troopers aired on 1/14 and The Room on 1/28.
Frank and Trace attended Sketchfest 1/15 to appear on some panels and to riff live at the Bravo Theater in SF, CA and officially exclaiming that The Mads Are Back! On 2/19 Frank joined comedians Myka Fox and Freddy G riffing The Room at QED in Astoria, NY.
Production of episodes of the web series Vermin starring Trace were underway thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign with an "angel" donation by a local comic shop. Some behind the scenes photos were made available on 2/21.
3/1/2016 saw the first official podcast of the MST3K Revival League with hosts Greg Tally, Ryan Smith and Blake Sanchez. The first guest was Grant Baciocco. The show was recorded in the Roof Lizard Lounge at The Dino Hotel in Lakewood, CO. Upcoming guests would include cast members such as Mary Jo, Trace and Bridget, directors Rick Sloane and David Giancola and fans like bot-builder Ron McAdams and others.
In 2016 RiffTrax turned 10 years old. To celebrate, RiffTrax kicked off another Kickstarter campaign on 3/7. This time with the intention to re-riff the Vermont saga Time Chasers that had previously been done on MST3K as episode 821. They also announced plans for a show centered around an MST3K reunion. At the time of the original announcement Mary Jo, Bridget, Trace and Frank had already confirmed they would be participating. Not surprisingly the goal of $225,000 was easily achieved.
3/29 saw the release of MST DVD set XXXV with episodes Teenage Caveman (315), Being From Another Planet (405), 12 To The Moon (524) and Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell (703). Documentaries this time included I Was A Teenage Caveman, Richard Band Remembers, You Are There: Launching 12 To The Moon and Medieval Boogaloo: The Legend Of Deathstalker III plus the original version of Time Walker.
On 4/1 Joel and Jonah announced they were joining the MST Reunion in Minneapolis (fans made them assure that this was not an April Fools' joke). RiffTrax also announced that $1750 donors would be entered into a Meat Raffle.
An AV Club article on 4/4 discussed the evolution of Comedy Central. They included input from Joel, who was there from the beginning. The cool graphic below shows the history of the various channel logos.
Shout announced on 4/7 that the first 1000 to pre-order DVD set XXXVI would get a bonus disc of the 1997 and 1998 Summer Blockbuster specials.
There was a live stream event on 4/8 on Periscope to close out the RiffTrax Kickstarter. They successfully raised $620,999 USD with 11,686 backers.
Jeopardy chose Mystery Science Theater 3000 once again as an answer on 4/13. Then on 4/15 and 16 the Mads performed live movie riffs at the North Bar in Chicago. As they did in October 2015 they performed two different movies for the early and late shows. Next Mary Jo joined comedian Kristen Andersen-Anderson As Two Hot Tamales at Pepitos Parkway Theater.
RiffTrax Live of Time Chasers took place on 5/5 at the Polk Theater in Nashville, TN (while the Belcourt Theater was under restoration). All of the major cast members and the director David Giancola attended that performance and were all good sports, although some admitted that the jabs hurt a little.
RenFest featuring Mary Jo, Trace, Gruber and Paul Sadeghi started a Crowdfunding campaign on 5/10. It was announced that Frank was joining the project on 5/19. Mike, Kevin, Bill and Bridget cameos were announced on 5/24. Josh also signed on for a cameo on 5/27. During the time frame The Mads also performed at the Turner Hall Ballroom in Milwaukee, WI on 5/13.
On 5/20 we learned that Daily Show veteran Elliott Kalan was joining the MST3K Reboot as head writer.
Shout! reissued DVD set 2 on 5/24 with Cave Dwellers (301), Pod People (303), Angels' Revenge (622) and Shorts, Vol. 1 plus the MST3K Hour bumpers for Cave Dwellers and Pod People.
The Mads appeared at Public Square in Pensacola, FL on 5/26 with host Mike Ensley. Also in June we learned a cool Lego SOL set with all the characters had been submitted to the Lego Co. as a possible set. Fan’s support was requested by voting online.
A new web series debuted on 6/2 on Seeso hosted by Jonah Ray. Hidden America was a parody of an Anthony Bourdain style of travel show. All nine episodes premiered the same day (Boston, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, New Orleans, LA, Denver, Atlanta and Austin). In the Chicago episode we see a couple familiar faces.
Trace and Frank appeared at SCARE-A-CON New England at the MassMutual Center in Springfield, MA from 6/3-5. On 6/4 they both appeared on Svengoolie. That evening’s episode was She Wolf of London. Some fans were disappointed when Team Renfest announced on 6/5 that their Kickstarter campaign was being cancelled. They did state that “another opportunity" was being discussed. Next on 6/15 Frank and Trace appeared on Conversations With Jeff Weeks on WSRE PBS.
As June wore on we began seeing some information and press releases for the upcoming RiffTrax Live MST3K Reunion show. On 6/10 we saw the artwork for what would become the RiffTrax Ticketing Line t-shirts and posters. Then on 6/15 The City Pages in Minneapolis put out an edition with a cool cover just for the show. The Mads appeared at the Voodoo Comedy Playhouse in Denver, CO doing riffs and workshops on 6/19 and 20.
Kevin was interviewed by Rotten Tomatoes and when posted on 6/23 he offered his top 5 movies of all time - Local Hero, Young Frankenstein, Dr Strangelove, Casablanca and Way Out West. (Can’t say I disagree with any of them.)
As 6/28 approached there were a number of fan events held in Minneapolis that would culminate in the RiffTrax Live: Reunion show. Mike, Kevin and Bill would be joined by Trace, Frank, Mary Jo, Bridget, Joel and Jonah Ray at the State Theater in Minneapolis. Various meet and greets, press conferences and fan gatherings were held (I was lucky enough to attend many of them in person so please see my write up the event for more details on what happened and where). For the reunion itself a total of seven short subjects would be riffed by various groupings with the final two being a grand finale “SUPER RIFF-A-PALOOZA!” The shorts riffed were The Talking Car (1969) by Mike, Kevin and Bill, A Word To The Wives (1955) (w/ Darren McGavin) by Mary Jo and Bridget, More Dates For Kay (1952) by Trace and Frank, Americans At Work: Barbers (1959) by Joel and Jonah, Shake Hands With Danger (1980) by Mike, Kevin and Bill again (they also showed a special 10 year anniversary Best of RiffTrax montage), Stamp Day For Superman (1954) by everyone and finally At Your Fingertips: Grasses (1970) again by the whole group. And of course after the show was a VIP Meat Raffle.
Baron Vaughn made an appearance on the Chive Podcast on 6/30 talking about the revival.
Kevin was at the Smithsonian for an all night film festival at the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, DC. He riffed Destination Moon along with Phil "Bad Astronomer" Plait and museum curators David DeVorkin and Layne Karafantis.
To celebrate the 4th of July colonial soldier Beez attended the Twins/ As game at Target Field with redcoat friends Ian and Darren Scott from Wales.
The Mads appeared at O Comic Con in Council Bluffs, IA between 7/8 and 7/10 doing autograph signings and panel discussions. Then on 7/12 Trace and Frank along with Carolina Hidalgo premiered a new podcast Movie Sign with the Mads on Sirius XM.
Frank showed up at QED in Astoria, NY on 7/15 to join Mike Lawrence, Myka Fox and Freddie G for a riff on the awful Batman and Robin.
Leading up to their appearances at San Diego Comic Con there were a few interviews on 7/22. Joel and Jonah were interviewed by IGN on eve of SDCC events. Joel interviewed by Bryan Bishop for Verge. Finally, Felicia was interviewed by Sara Vilkomerson from Entertainment Weekly.
A lot of MST activity was jammed into 7/23/16 at San Diego Comic Con. The day featured a Q&A session with Joel Hodgson, Felicia Day, Jonah Ray, Baron Vaughn and Hampton Yount on the Conival Main Stage at Petco Park plus a huge autograph session on the main stage and finally an MST3K Is Back panel. Leading up to the panel Joel, Jonah, Hampton and Baron were interviewed by William Bibbiani from Crave and Joel posted a note that he had absconded with the funds from the Kickstarter to make a somewhat more personal purchase. The panel was hosted by Paul and Storm. During the panel we first learned that the new episodes are going to be carried on Netflix. An exciting announcement was that Mary Jo, Kevin and Bill would be joining the revival reprising their rolls of Pearl, Bobo and Brain Guy. Next we got to learn a lot about the creative process of developing things such as the Backjack, the ship that Jonah (who appeared via video) uses to gather asteroids in space, what the new Cambot will look like and MUCH more description of how the SOL is layed out. (I’ll will keep an eye out for images of these items to post here.)
I think it’s time for me to give you a little backstory on our new MST3K cast members. Each of them may be a newbie to performing on the show, but they’ve all had illustrious careers that got them to this point and most have been MSTies for years. Here are a few highlights for each of them. Since they are now part of the family any new items will be intertwined with the other cast and crew members going forward.
First off is Jonah Ray (Rodrigues). Born in Hawaii, he moved to LA early on and spent some time in the punk rock scene before getting into stand up. Achieving a height of 6’5” is only one of Jonah’s accomplishments. He was a member of the Nerdist Podcast beginning on 2/8/2010 with Matt Mira and host Chris Hardwick. Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail (Nanjiani) debuted on Comedy Central on 7/24/2014. Jonah even appeared on an episode of Drunk History on Comedy Central. He related the saga entitled James Cook Returns To Hawaii (Season 2, episode 7). And if there was any question about Jonah being a long time MSTie, I included an Instagram from Halloween 2011 of Jonah and his Master costume and his wife Deanna Rooney as Torgo from Manos: The Hands of Fate. Jonah had issed two 7" EPs on the Aspecialthing Records label. First in 2007 was This is Crazy Mixed Up Plumbing then in 2012 Mr Magic Plane Person Hello.
Hampton Yount (pronounced “Yunt”) is joining the cast as the voice of Crow T. Robot. He is originally from Washington, DC, an area which is of course still offering us daily doses of comic relief. Hampton got into performing stand up, including an appearance on the Front Yard Comedy episode of Adam Devine's House Party on 11/23/2013. He even showed up on Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail on 6/30/2015. Below we see him being energetically introduced by Jonah Ray. In fact it was Jonah that recommended Hampton for the part of Crow to Joel. Joel had decided that it was very important that the new host of MST have input on casting his robot pals since they would be the ones working so closely together. Hampton also appeared on a Comedy Central Half Hour Stand-Up Special (Season 4, episoide 2) on 8/22/2015 just a few months before being introduced as a new member of the cast.
Next we have Baron Vaughn hailing from the hot bed of comedy – New Mexico. He appeared in 23 episodes of USA Network show Fairly Legal as Leonardo Price from 1/20/2011 through 6/15/2012. He also showed up on 7 episodes of Comedy Bang Bang as Zeke beginning 6/5/2014. This was followed by 27 episodes of the Netflix series Grace and Frankie as Lily Tomlin’s son Nwabudike "Bud" Bergstein starting 5/8/2015. Baron was also recommended by Jonah and will be voicing Tom Servo. Joel has told us that from the first time the three primary SOL characters read lines together they clearly had a report.
Felicia Day’s resume shows that she has been kicking butt for years. She came from Huntsville, AL (where I also have family BTW) and even though she may sometimes look like a pixie, she has some serious acting chops. Starting on 1/7/2003 she made 7 appearances on Buffy the Vampire Slayer as the would be slayer Vi. On 7/27/2007 she created the web series The Guild. Not only was she the creator, producer and writer, but also starred as Codex the healer of The Knights of Good and even wrote and performed the song (Do You Want To Date My) Avatar for the show. The Guild first aired on Youtube, then various Microsoft channels and finally on Felicia’s own premium Youtube channel Geek & Sundry (launched in March 2012). The last episode of The Guild was seen on 1/8/2013. On 7/15/2008 she appeared as Penny in Joss Whedon’s three part web series Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (with another well known MSTie, Neil Patrick Harris). She starred in Red: Werewolf Hunter, a movie on SyFy loosely based on Little Red Riding Hood that premiered 10/30/2010. Then she was in 18 episodes of Eureka as Holly Marten on SyFy starting 7/18/2011. She next wrote and starred in the 6 episode web series Dragon Age: Redemption as Tallis beginning 10/10/2011. On 4/27/2012 she portrayed Charlie Bradbury in the first of what would eventually be 11 episodes of the SyFy series Supernatural. Felicia even had a book published on 8/11/15 entitled You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost): A Memoir. All in all I would say that’s a pretty good pedigree to play Kinga Forrester, the next generation mad scientist inflicting her will on the residents of the Satellite of Love.
Then we have Patton Oswalt. I am an unashamed fanboy of Patton and his many endeavors over the years. Coming from a military family in Virginia he is indeed named after General George S. Patton. His own pixie-esque stature of 5’3” hasn’t prevented him from being a constantly working TV and movie actor, comic and voice actor since the mid-1990’s. As of July 2016 he has 43 movie roles and 89 TV/ voice credits. His first movie role was as the Stingray radioman in the 3/1/1996 movie Down Periscope with Kelsey Grammer and Lauren Holly. On 12/8/1997 he starred in an HBO Comedy Half Hour. Beginning on 9/21/1998 he was in the first of his 154 episodes of The King of Queens as Kevin James’ friend Spencer Olchin (the last episode was on 5/14/2007). One of his most popular roles was as Remy the gourmet rat in Pixar’s Ratatouille released on 6/29/2007. The following summer Patton showed up at San Diego Comic Con on 7/25/2008 to moderate the MST3K 20th Anniversary panel. On 9/24/2013 Patton began a run of 52 episodes of the ABC series The Goldbergs. Although Patton is never seen he narrates every episode as the “adult” Adam Goldberg. (Since I don’t have a picture of Patton from The Goldbergs I added one of him and his Young Adult costar Charlize Theron at the 2011 Gotham Awards because…well, she’s hot.) Beginning 5/13/2014 he began appearing in the ABC series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as Agent Koenig (and his brothers Eric, Billy and Sam). The final episode aired on 5/5/2015. Patton has long been known as a MSTie and fans were excited to hear that he had been cast to play TV’s Son of TV’s Frank.
And now for something completely different, Boobie Sign a burlesque tribute to MST3K was performed at the Crush Bar in Portland, OR on 7/28. One of the guests of honor was Jackey Nehman Jones, Debbie from Manos: The Hands of Fate.
With the Republican and Democratic National Conventions wrapping up and many voters still trying to determine which candidate was the lesser of two evils, we were offered a ray of hope by the announcement that Frank and Forrester where throwing their hat in the ring. Finally, a candidate that openly admits that they are evil. A breath of fresh air (editor note: I’m joking so no political feedback is required.) Their next stop occurred on 7/29 and 30 Mads at the Voodoo Comedy Playhouse in Denver, CO to perform riffs and workshops. Also, on 7/28 Hampton appeared on season 8, episode 8 of MTV’s Ridiculousness.
Australia released MST3K: The Movie on DVD on 8/3/2016 in a Region 4/ PAL format. On 8/5 The Mads riffed Glen or Glenda at the Carolina Theater in Durham, NC. Frank’s latest book, mentioned above, officially went on sale 8/15.
On 8/11 Netflix began allowing fans to preorder the upcoming season on new MST3K episodes.
The next RiffTrax Live! took place 8/18/16 at the Belcourt Theater in Nashville riffing the 1961 Japanese monster movie Mothra, plus the short Soapy the Germ Fighter. An encore show was aired on 8/23.
Dragon Con took place in Atlanta from 9/2 to 9/4/16. Bill and Trace joined Joseph Scrimshaw for a lively improv event om 9/2. The next day Trace and Frank took time to meet the MST cosplay folks that would be marching in the annual parade. Then on 9/4 The Mads joined Carolina Hidalgo and later with Ken Plume for a few performances. This year’s MST Night 4: Jack Perkins and the Vaults of Deep 13 took place on the evening of 9/4.
During the same time that Dragon Con was going on Trace and Frank also appeared in a cameo on Svengoolie’s show on MeTV. Freddie “Boom Boom” Cannon appeared on that episode performing an original song called the Svengoolie Stomp.
On 9/17 Jonah shared a picture of himself wearing a black jumpsuit. He explained that he wore this one during the theater segments because his standard yellow jumpsuit reflected too much of the green screen and ruined the shadowrama effect.
Patton Oswalt was awarded an Emmy on 9/18 for his Netflix special Patton Oswalt: Talking for Clapping. (In 2017 he would also win a Grammy for this same performance.)
On 9/26 we got to see a photo of the new MST cast and crew getting ready to tape one of the new episodes.
The re-release of MST3K DVD set III came out on 9/27. Again, it had the episodes The Sidehackers, The Unearthly, The Atomic Brain and Shorts, Vol. 2. To the delight of many of us compulsive fans, Shout officials made sure that, yes, the Atomic Brain stinger was included, which had inexplicably been cut for the original release of Volume III by Rhino. The new set included alternate host segment takes, MST Hour wraps for The Unearthly and an interview with Sidehackers actor Ross Hagen.
We got a look at Mary Jo’s sassy, new short haircut on 10/6. Just a couple days later Beez was interviewed by puppeteer Grant Bacioccio for his podcast GrantCast #094. We learned a lot about Beez’s background, such as she was born in Duluth, MN, she earned a BA in Theater Arts from the University of Minnesota (where Peter Graves also went) and that she had worked on Sesame Street Live and Prince music videos. Even more exciting to MSTies was the release of the MST3K Revival League podcast episode 27 featuring an interview with Tom Noel (from 0:45:30 to 1:38:10). We learned absolutely nothing of value from Tom.
Some photos were posted on 10/19 to announce that filming of MST3K Season 11 had been completed. Some of the pictures included some lucky MSTies that were able to be on set for some of the shooting. We wouldn’t find out until later, but they also got to participate on screen some too as extras.
The next RiffTrax Live! took place on 10/27. This time they took on the 1962 classic Carnival of Souls along with the shorts The Dirt-Witch Cleans Up (1971) and Masks of Grass (1975). The show was rebroadcast on Halloween (10/31).
Also, on Halloween (10/31) season 6, episode 2 of the AMC show Comic Book Men premiered. The show features the exploits of the workers of a Red Bank, NJ comic book store called the Secret Stash which is owned by Jay and Silent Bob star Kevin Smith. In the episode, called Mistress of the Stash there is a section where the guys talk about the “joys of Mystery Science Theater 3000” when a customer is interested in buying a Tom Servo replica for sale at the store.
On 11/14 we first saw a new MST3K planet logo. Then on 11/15 Jonah and Joel posted a promo for the upcoming Turkey Day event that let us know that fans would pick the six episodes to be used in the marathon (poll was held earlier in year). Kickstarter backers received a link on 11/21 to verify how their name would be displayed in the closing credits of the new season.
MST3K DVD set XXXVII was released on 11/22/16. Included were episodes The Human Duplicators (420), Escape 2000 (705), Horrors of Party Beach (817) and Invasion of the Neptune Men (819). The first 1500 orders through Shout! Factory would receive the bonus disk MST3K Fancy Hollywood Awards Preview Specials, which included the MST Little Gold Statue Preview Special (1995) and MST3K Academy of Robots’ Choice Awards Preview Special (1998).
The 2016 Turkey Day Marathon took place on Shoutfactorytv.com on 11/24. The six episodes shown were Pumaman, Pod People, The Final Sacrifice, Mitchell, Space Mutiny and Manos: The Hands of Fate. Joel and Jonah hosted the event providing short bumpers announcing the upcoming episodes. To celebrate the marathon a large group of Revival League MSTies met up at the Best Western Denver Southwest Hotel to watch, eat and generally fan out.
On the same day fans were excited to see an announcement from Richard Parks Cards that series 1 of a brand new MST3K trading card set was being produced with the projected release in March 2017. A card set was something MST collectors had yearned for for many years. (I was very pleased to support the card sets and have some opportunity to work with Richard a bit behind the scenes.)
One more exciting announcement was made by Joel on 11/25. The previously promised “Bonus” episodes being made available to qualified Kickstarter backers would be none other than the extremely long-lost missing episodes Invaders from the Deep (K01) and Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars (K02). KTMA fans, which I am definitely one of, cheered the release and immediately started asking, “What about Star Force: Fugitive Alien II?” The word we received was that the source material for that last missing episode may not be acceptable to make a print off of. (Some of us still have our fingers crossed that we will see it someday.) A few things we learned: in K01 Josh voiced Crow and even though Beeper was mentioned he was never seen or heard. Trace performed Crow in K02 and from that point on. Servo, voiced by Josh, appears for the first time in this episode.
11/27 saw an interesting poster show up online. The inspirational style poster includes dozens of spaceships from various sources, including the Satellite of Love right above the “H” in “Oh, God.” Also, classic episodes of MST began airing on COMET TV that same day (although article from the time said they began 9/6/16).
RiffTrax presented a sort of live Christmas event on 12/1 when they rebroadcast their riffs of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and their Christmas Shorts-stravaganza to theaters across the country.
This was followed up the next day with some bad news from Shout! Factory. Much to the delight of many MSTies they had earlier announced that they were putting together a collection of all of the KTMA episode host segments. On 12/2 they posted an announcement that due to the poor quality of the source material the disk would not be available. They instead announced that they would be pulling ahead a disk of the Play MST For Me Triple Decker for the first 1500 to order DVD set XXXIII that was planned for a later release in 2017.
Felicia appeared as a waitress named Charlotte Holloway in an episode of The Librarians on TNT costarring Sean Astin. The episode titled And the Tears of A Clown (S3, Ep5) debuted on 12/18.
Beginning 12/19/16 MST3K Revival League backers began seeing items and rewards showing up in the mail. The first thing was a Thank You card with facsimile signatures of the new cast. This was soon followed by a Revival League membership card and certificate, some with a bright shiny stick-on seal.
Just in time for the holiday season Bridget and Mary Jo's 2nd Christmas Special came out on 12/16 and included special guest Beez McKeever. On 12/27 Frank's latest Podhouse 90 It’s the Steve the Talking Car Show came out, starring Frank, John Fugelsang, Trace, Carolina Hidalgo, Tiana Miller, Myka Fox, Karen Lloyd and Mike MacRae, with special guest stars Judy Gold and Catherine Popper.
Just after Christmas MST3K Revival League backers received a view more rewards. T-shirts and postcards showed up in a special blue envelope with a personalized Santa Crow packing slip.
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Keep checking back because I plan to continue expanding and updating this website for the foreseeable future, or at least until next Sunday, A.D.
