page_title: Mystery Science Theater 3000
section_title: Comedy Channel/Comedy Central era (1989–1996)
hierarchical_section_title: Mystery Science Theater 3000 / Production history / Comedy Channel/Comedy Central era (1989–1996)
caption_attribution_description: English: The cast of Cinematic Titanic at the Best Buy Theater in NYC on 09-24-2011 riffing on the movie East Meets Watts.
context_page_description: Mystery Science Theater 3000 is an American television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and currently produced by Alternaversal Productions, LLC. The show premiered on KTMA-TV in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on November 24, 1988. It later aired on The Comedy Channel/Comedy Central for seven seasons until its cancellation in 1996. Thereafter, it was picked up by The Sci-Fi Channel and aired for three seasons until another cancellation in August 1999. A 60-episode syndication package titled The Mystery Science Theater Hour was produced in 1993 and syndicated to stations in 1995. In 2015, Hodgson led a crowdfunded revival of the series with 14 episodes in its eleventh season, first released on Netflix on April 14, 2017, with another six-episode season following on November 22, 2018. As of 2019, 217 episodes and a feature film have been produced as well as two live tours.
  The show initially starred Hodgson as Joel Robinson, a janitor trapped by two mad scientists on the Earth-orbiting Satellite of Love, and forced to watch a series of B movies in order to monitor his reaction to them. To keep his sanity, Joel crafts sentient robot companions, including Tom Servo, Crow T.
context_section_description: The Comedy Channel offered Best Brains $35,000 per episode but allowed Best Brains to retain the show's rights. Best Brains was also able to keep production local to Minnesota instead of the network's desire to film in New York City or Los Angeles, as it would have cost four times more per episodes, according to Hodgson. Best Brains established an office and warehouse space in Eden Prairie for filming. With an expanded but still limited budget, they were able to hire more writers, including Mike Nelson, Mary Jo Pehl, and Frank Conniff, and build more expansive sets and robot puppets. They created the characters of Dr. Forrester (Beaulieu) and Dr. Erhardt (Weinstein) and crafted the larger narrative of each episode being an "experiment" they test on Joel. The show began its national run shortly after the Comedy Channel went on the air in November 1989.
  MST3K was considered Comedy Channel's signature program, generating positive press about the show despite the limited availability of the cable channel nationwide. After the second season, The Comedy Channel and rival comedy cable network HA! merged to become Comedy Central (initially, it was known as CTV: The Comedy Network). During this period, MST3K became the newly-merged cable channel's signature series, expanding from 13 to 24 episodes a year. To take advantage of the show's status, Comedy Central ran "Turkey Day", a 30-hour marathon of MST3K episodes during Thanksgiving 1991. The name of the event was not only inspired by the traditional turkey meal served on Thanksgiving, but also by use of "Turkey" from The Golden Turkey Awards to represent bad movies. This tradition would be continued through the rest of the Comedy Central era. Though the show did not draw large audience numbers compared to other programming on Comedy Central, such as reruns of Saturday Night Live, the dedicated fans and attention kept the show on the network.
  Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie was produced during the later half of the Comedy Central era and had a very limited theatrical release in 1996 through Universal Pictures and Gramercy Pictures. It featured Mike and the bots subjected to the film This Island Earth by Dr. Forrester. Though well received by critics and fans, the film was a financial disappointment due to its limited distribution.
caption: MST3K cast and crew Pehl (left), Beaulieu, Hodgson, Weinstein, and Conniff, as part of the post-show project, Cinematic Titanic in 2011
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