Crowdsourcing Mornings: Let’s Make More MST3K & Build THE GIZMOPLEX

By Nathan Young on April 9, 2021

This is Crowdsourcing Mornings! This post takes place every weekday morning and highlights one crowdsourcing project I liked from Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or other crowdsourcing websites.

Please read our crowdsourcing guidelines at:

https://geekalabama.com/media-kit-pr/geek-alabama-crowdsourcing-guidelines

Joel Hodgson here. Before we get started, I know it’s been a really long, strange, difficult 12 months for a lot of us, so I hope everyone is doing okay and staying safe.

So… where were we?

In the not-too-distant past – about 6 years ago, November 2015 AD – we ran a Kickstarter to BRING BACK MST3K after 15 years in hibernation.

It was a little bit stressful, and a lot of work, but I’ve gotta tell you… the whole experience went better than we had ever hoped:

Thanks to you, our campaign broke a bunch of Kickstarter records.
Over 48,000 of you took up the cause… and together, we raised over $6 million.
With your help, we got picked up on Netflix and made 20 new episodes!

And you know, you can’t ever please everybody, but it seems like most of you were pretty happy with ’em…. and the critics were too:

Also, having those new episodes on Netflix, along with a lot of our “classic” episodes, helped a lot of folks discover Mystery Science Theater for the first time. So, if you weren’t there to help #BringBackMST3K… Welcome! We’re glad you’re here to help #MakeMoreMST3K.

Thanks to our Kickstarter, we also built up enough momentum to experiment with taking MST3K in new directions, including three live national tours, where we got to meet thousands of you in person! Also, during our live tours, it became really clear to me that MST3K works best when you can experience it together, with your family and friends, or your fellow MSTies.

Anyway: as you know, nothing good lasts forever. Sometime in late 2019, during our third live tour, we got word: even though Netflix liked how our new episodes came out, they wouldn’t be renewing us for a third new season.

(Sometimes, business is just business, you know? Was it disappointing not to get renewed? Well, sure. But starting now, we want to focus on looking forward, not back. And when you see what we’re planning now, I hope you’ll agree that this could end up being the best thing for MST3K in the long run.)

Then, the day after we finished the live tour, the whole world shut down for a year. And you know, as terrible as COVID has been, it did mean that I had plenty of time to think about where Mystery Science Theater can go next.

When I thought about it long enough, I realized three important things:

1. The world isn’t done with MST3K yet.

We still want to make more episodes of MST3K.
A lot of you still want us to make more MST3K.

2. It’s time to try something new.

If enough of you want more MST3K, maybe we don’t need anyone to renew us.
From now on, we want you to decide how long MST3K keeps going.
We don’t need a network to “let us” make more MST3K. We can make it for you.
When we do, you should be the first ones to see it.

3. We need a better space for sharing MST3K, and watching it together.

Without a network, we’ll need a home for new MST3K, and…
We want it to be easy to enjoy MST3K live with other people, so…
We need our own online theater for live screenings and events!

Thanks to all of you, Mystery Science Theater 3000 has come a long way since our first Kickstarter. Now, if you decide to get involved again, here’s what we can do next:

1. MAKE MORE MST3K episodes with a new, sustainable model, that lets you decide how long we should keep going, and lets us bring new episodes directly to you, without depending on a network to distribute or keep renewing us for new seasons.

2. BUILD “THE GIZMOPLEX”, our own virtual online theater, where we can host frequent live screenings, premieres, and community events – and you can host MST3K watch parties with friends whenever you want. More on that in a minute.

As of April 9th, this project has raised $2.2 million of their $2 million goal. This project has 28 days left to raise as much as it can. For a pledge of $15, you will get project updates and a project kit. For a pledge of $35, you will get a holiday card and 3 month GIZMOPLEX access. To learn more and to pledge money, go to: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mst3k/makemoremst3k?

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