Fans of the classic comedy show Mystery Science Theater 3000, where a guy and two robots strike back against terrible movies while trapped in space, were excited over the chance last month to fund a new season of the show. Their Kickstarter campaign started on November 11th, and has earned more than four million dollars as of December 8th, surpassing their minimum goal of $2 million. They’ve also raised $255,000 selling assorted swag (t-shirts, DVDs, sweatshirts, posters and such) that will also fund the show.
What really stunned the fans is who was chosen to be the two new Mad Scientists:
That’s right: Felicia Day will be Kinga Forrester, who seems to be more interested in reviving the show as a way to make major cash than taking over the world, while Patton Oswalt will be TV’s Son of TV’s Frank. It’s not clear how their respective dads, Dr. Clayton Forrester and TV’s Frank, produced them, but tampering in God’s domain may have been involved. (For those not familiar with that term, see Bride of the Monster with Bela Lugosi.)
Of course, Felicia and Patton are connected with the Whedonverse. She’s been seen on Buffy, Dollhouse and Dr. Horrible. Patton is connected in two different ways: he was featured in the classic Dollhouse episode, “Man on the Street” and has a recurring role as the Koenig brothers on Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, and also wrote the Firefly comic book, “Float Out.”
The campaign will wrap up on Friday, December 11th, with an online telethon starting at 2pm Pacific. It will start with two classic episodes, followed by appearances by the new cast, including the new head riffer, Jonah Ray. They hope to reach their ultimate goal of five and a half million dollars, which will fund 12 episodes, by 10 PM.
You can go to their Kickstarter page for more info and the MST3K website to get MST3K swag that will help fund the new season.
Who knows, maybe Dr. Horrible will show up as a rival mad scientist, bringing us the unofficial sequel we’ve been wanting for years. He’ll probably be tricked into riffing a bad movie, but maybe he can handle that.
