First time since 1997.
Online and hosted by Joel. He’ll show 6 classic episodes and is taking votes on Twitter.
Very neat, though it’d be cooler if Syfy buckled down and did the marathon on TV.
SyFy is too busy running crap that nobody is riffing on.
I find it interesting that SyFy didn’t start making horribly cheesy movies of their own until MST3K was safely dead.
If they were smart they would extend the life of their cheesy movies by giving them the MSTreatment.
I can’t believe nobody is showing the original shows on TV. Are there intellectual properties issues or something?
It’s a big reason. They didn’t have the rights to broadcast the movies in perpetuity. Actually, this had a lot to do with the show finally being cancelled. As it got more & more popular the owners of crappy movies took advantage of this and started to demand higher licensing fees. The SciFi Channel (as it was then known) couldn’t get enough films cheap enough for the show to remain profitable. Essentially it became a victim of its own success.
The fact that the show is two hours long always made it a difficult syndication sale as well. Of course there’s always RiffTrax…
I guess that makes sense; thanks for the explanation. Damn shame, though.
It is, indeed.
Nonetheless, a few weeks ago I emailed the “nostalgia channels”–MeTV, AntennaTV, and CoziTV–to ask about the possibility of adding MST3K to their lineup (adding that I understood the rights issues, but that it might be something to consider). I also added that it might be nice for Thanksgiving to be “Turkey Day” once more. Only one of them sent an answer–the usual “well, we don’t have it in our plans now but we’ll consider it.” At least they answered.
Anyway, here’s hoping.
I am very excited about Turkey Day. Brings back a lot of fun memories! Cannot wait to “tune in” this year - with Joel, no less 
Did you know that there are a lot of MST3K episodes available if you have an Amazon Prime membership. I have taken the opportunity to educate my adolescent sons on the glory that is the Satellite of Love.
Cro-o-o-o-O-O-OW!
The two-hour run time was one of the reasons for its original success. Comedy Central was low on programming in its early days and being able to fill in two hour stretches was a real incentive to keep the show.
What would Mike/Joel and the bots have made of “Mansquito” or “Robocroc?”
Or Sharknado?
I also recently discovered this. Just watched King Dinosaur over the weekend!
King Dinosaur is a hard watch. Even with the riffing. On the other hand, it is such a perfect example of 50’s b-movie scifi.
Watch “Manos, Hands of Fate” “Final Justice”, and “Secret Agent Super Dragon” if Prime has them. Netflix used to have those and a bunch more.
If you haven’t looked recently, you might want to check netflix again. I swear they used to have nothing but the movie one and now there’s Soultaker and a Gamera movie and I just watched one that was horrible but had the great name Zap Rowsdower.
The Final Sacrifice
Damn, do I miss Turkey Day - one of my best memories is having all my friends over and watching until the tryptophan slayed us all.
I want to love this so much, but they never caption their shows, so it’s nearly impossible for me to follow the commentary. Fortunately the movie at least had captions available.