Current MST3K star Jonah Ray (left) with series creator Joel Hodgson
Joel Hodgson spent his formative years in Wisconsin. Years before he started his cult classic television show “Mystery Science Theater 300” (MST3K), an early inspiration came when he was a student at Ashwaubenon High School. Paging through the liner notes of Elton John’s 1973 album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, he came across an illustration for the song “I’ve Seen that Movie Too,” which featured the silhouettes of two people in a movie theater. “I remember looking at that in high school in Ashwaubenon, and thinking, ‘That would be a really good show,’” Hodgson said. The image would become an iconic part of MST3K.
Growing up, Hodgson said Milwaukee “was like Avalon.” He still has fond memories of the Milwaukee Zoo, the Mitchell Park Domes and the Milwaukee Public Museum, where he still goes every time he is in town. Hodgson’s next appearance in Milwaukee will come on Thursday, Nov. 15, when he will reprise his role as Joel Robinson for the first time in 25 years for MST3K’s 30th Anniversary Tour.
“It’s slightly unreal,” Hodgson said. “I’m very grateful. I’ve been waiting a really long time to come back to ‘Mystery Science Theater;’ years and years probably. Since I left 25 years ago I’ve been wanting to come back to it. I’m really glad about that. It’s been worth the wait.”
In November 2015, Hodgson launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a new season of MST3K, the first since 2004. By December the campaign had raised $5.7 million from more than 48,000 backers.
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While Hodgson was behind the Kickstarter campaign, he did not star in the show. That role was left to Jonah Ray, who plays Jonah Heston, a character similar to Hodgson’s Joel Robinson. The new Netflix version of MST3K also starred Felicia Day and Patton Oswalt.
Hodgson’s return will see him riffing side by side with Ray for the first time. “I’m really excited,” he said. “It’s going to be really fun, but I don’t know what’s going to happen. There are a lot of dynamics at work.” Hodgson said that at this point, Ray has more riffing experience than even he does. “He’s done 20 feature-length episodes on Netflix,” Hodgson added. “Then he did almost 40 live shows last year. So, he actually has way more experience right now. I haven’t movie riffed in probably six or seven years.” Even though there may be some rust, Hodgson is excited to get back out there.
Along with the tour, MST3K will debut a new, six-episode season on Netflix on Thanksgiving. Hodgson said that he worked with the streaming company on ways to make this season better than ever. “I think the biggest thing is that it’s shorter,” Hodgson said. “We made 14 episodes because of the Kickstarter. Our backers funded 14 feature-length shows.”
For the die-hard fans, this was great. For most of the modern-day binge watching audience, it was a bit much. “There’s a shape to the length of a season on Netflix, and we were delivering three times more content than they were doing,” Hodgson said. “It’s kind of like inviting someone to go to a movie and it’s four hours long. They’re going, ‘Wait, we planned dinner. We were going to go out to eat. What’s going on?’”
“So now it’s just trying to grow it so more people find it, and obviously we’re on the biggest streaming platform in the world so that really helps,” Hogdson added. “It’s just trying to see how big ‘Mystery Science Theater’ is supposed to be in 2018. We just don’t really know yet.”
