Congrats, Elliott! (Photo: Getty Images)

In a move that just made The A.V. Club light up like a kid at Cagemas, while we were busy making jokes about Daniel Craig’s fuckectomy Mystery Science Theater 3000 creator Joel Hodgson announced his choice for head writer of the new incarnation of the show, and it’s, to be quite honest, perfect. (And we don’t use that word lightly around here, ClickHole excepted.)


Anyway, Elliott Kalan, Emmy-winning former head writer for The Daily Show, current member of the Marvel writer’s stable, and one of the lovable goofballs-in-residence at The Flop House, has been tapped for the job. The A.V. Club likes to think we go way back with Kalan, since we’ve been singing the praises of The Flop House in our Podmass feature for several years now. And like we said, his years of experience writing for TV as well as making fun of bad movies on his podcast make him a perfect candidate for the job. Here’s (most of) what Kalan had to say on the MST3K Kickstarter page:

I’ve had the amazing privilege of working for Jon Stewart, Spider-Man, and now Mystery Science Theater. I’m the luckiest man in recorded history. Feel free to hate me for it. Even I kind of hate me for it. I’m so honored and so thrilled to be working with Joel and Jonah and everyone else on Team MST3K. This has literally been my dream job since I was an adolescent. Other kids were sneaking out of the house to go drink beer in the park. I was sneaking into the basement to watch the midnight MST3K rerun on Comedy Central. For roughly two decades I’ve rued the fact that I was too young and too not-in-Minnesota to work on this show. But now it’s finally happening! This is so exciting! All those hours reading and rereading the Amazing, Colossal Episode Guide are finally paying off! It’s been a blast working so far, and while I can’t tell you what we’ve got planned I will sum up most of it in one word: silliness. Like, a lot of it. Which is a huge relief to me – after more than a decade of looking into our nation’s political system, it’s nice to only have to look at the worst movies we can find. Which is not to say these movies aren’t bad. They’re terrible. Just not as soul-crushing as, say, Congress. Thank you so much to everyone who supported the Kickstarter and, as a happy side effect, made one of my lifelong dreams come true. You have no idea how much I appreciate it. All I can promise in return is that I will try to make this show even goofier than you thought was possible. To me, that is a solemn trust.


We eagerly await Crow T. Robot’s extremely lengthy weekly “Movie Sign” songs and post-movie “Moments of Meh.”