MST3K: Joel Hodgson on his final Mystery Science Theater 3000 tour and the series' future

Joel Hodgson's tour of duty aboard the touring Satellite of Love is coming to an end.

Hodgson is on the road one last time with "Mystery Science Theater 3000," the cult classic sci-fi comedy series that he created and originally starred in more than 30 years ago dedicated to poking fun at enjoyably bad cinematic oddities.

The current run of dates, dubbed "The Great Cheesy Movie Circus Tour," plays the Hackensack Meridian Health Theatre at the Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank on Friday, March 6, and the Wellmont Theatre in Montclair on Saturday, March 7.

"MST3K" — the silly saga of a host and a pair of robot friends marooned in space and forced by mad scientists to watch terrible movies — first aired on Minnesota public television station KTMA-TV in 1988.

The series, hosted by Hodgson and then Michael J. Nelson, grew to 197 canonical episodes across 10 seasons on the Comedy Channel and then the Sci-Fi Channel, in addition to a 1996 feature film. It earned a Peabody Award and two Emmy nominations along the way.

Following a spectacularly successful Kickstarter campaign raising more than $5.7 million, Hodgson revived the series, hosted by Jonah Ray, on Netflix for an eleventh season in 2017 followed by a six-episode run known as "The Gauntlet" in 2018.

"My whole point of coming back was to kind of try to refresh the brand and bring in all these new people, like all the stuff on Netflix with the new cast, new group of writers, new producers, etc., and just kind of demonstrate that 'MST' could kind of be refreshed beyond the Joel and Mike loop that had been playing for such a long time," explained Hodgson.

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The resurrected "MST3K" also hit the road, treating fans to the experience of seeing the host and robot puppet pals Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot crack wise while movies play out live on the big screen.

After introducing Ray and one tour and then riffing alongside him on a 30th anniversary outing, Hodgson is using the current "Cheesy Movie Circus" as his solo spotlight swansong.

"This third (tour), Jonah couldn't do it and so I wanted to do it and decided it would be my final one to kind of break that cycle so I was all done with doing the road," Hodgson said.

But rest assured, MSTies: While “The Gauntlet" marked the series' end on Netflix and Hodgson is retiring from the road, he promised that this is not the end of the "MST3K" adventure.

"It's the end of the beginning," said Hodgson. "It's kind of like 'The Matrix,' I think, where Neo goes, 'I can't tell you how it ends, but I'll tell you how it begins.' That's kind of what I'm saying: I'm Neo, and I'm about to start flying through the dark city of 'The Matrix.' "

Hodgson tells us "there are some really cool things emerging" that he's not ready to publicly announce, so fans are encouraged to stay tuned for more news on that front.

In the meantime, we still have "The Great Cheesy Movie Circus Tour" to be excited about.

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Four-time Emmy winner Elliot Kalan, who grew up in Millburn and wrote for "The Daily Show" and takes bad movies to task as co-host of "The Flop House" podcast before serving as the head writer of Netflix's "MST3K" revival, returned as head writer for the current tour.

"He's so good at being the head writer and he's so positive," Hodgson said of Kalan, "and that's a very unique quality for a comedian because a lot of times they tend to struggle with being negative. He has a very unique internal comedic engine, I would say."

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When the tour hits Red Bank, it will set its sights on the 1986 martial arts picture "No Retreat, No Surrender," co-starring Jean-Claude van Damme.

The film, Hodgson explained, is a "Karate Kid" knock-off with bonus supernatural elements — in this case, a fighter trained by the ghost of Bruce Lee who is played by an actor that happens to look nothing like Bruce Lee.

Meanwhile, Montclair witnesses the 1960 British shocker "Circus of Horrors," which happens to fit nicely with the tour's theme and co-stars genre icon Donald Pleasance.

How does Hodgson know a film is ready for the "MST3K" tratment?

"They're usually adorable movies, that's how I look at them," he said. "They're just funny and charming and weird, and so both of these movies are definitely that."

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With a cast that includes Nate Begle (Crow), Yvonne Freese (Gypsy and Mega-Synthia), Emily Marsh (Cambot and Crenshaw) and Conor McGiffin (Servo), the two-hour experience of "The Great Cheesy Movie Circus" promises to be an evening of songs, sketches and movie riffing galore.

"It's the full suite of everything you've come to expect," said tour operations manager and "MST3K" writer and producer Sharyl Volpe. "It's just so much fun to be in the audience and just feel the rush of that laughter."

It's a rush of laughter that Hodgson heard more than 25 years ago at the first "MST3K" live show in Minneapolis as the series made its live debut during its initial televised run.

That laughter, it turned out, can also pose something of a logistical issue: while a typical comedian can pause for laughter before moving on to their next joke, with "MST3K" the film is always rolling up on that big screen.

"In a way, (the live show) is stronger than the TV show, just the videotaped TV show because like you said there's all these moving pieces," Hodgson said. "The audience is there, (as are) the movie and our performance.

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"So it really is unique and I think the biggest thing is you're doing a fair amount of editing while you're riffing, because people will sometimes laugh over a set-up for your joke and so you're in this enviable position of the audience is laughing too hard for you to do your jokes, which is exactly what you want to be doing."

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Great Cheesy Movie Circus Tour

When: 8 p.m. Friday, March 6

Where: The Hackensack Meridian Health Theater at the Count Basie Center for the Arts, 99 Monmouth St., Red Bank

Tickets: $29 to $69, add-on VIP packages available $50 to $250

Info: 732-842-9000, thebasie.org.

and

When: 7 p.m. Saturday, March 7

Where: The Wellmont Theater, 5 Seymour St., Montclair

Tickets: $34.50 to $102,

Info: 973-783-9500, wellmonttheater.com

On the web: For more information on "The Great Cheesy Movie Circus Tour," visit mst3klive.com.