INTERVIEW: Jonah Ray Rodrigues & Felicia Day, MST3K Season 13

The true mystery of MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: How is this movie mocking cult TV show able to maintain its loyal cult of “MSTies” for 30 years and counting even as it enters the third season of its Kickstarter funded revival that’s moving from Netflix to the show’s very own Gizmoplex streaming app?

Well, it’s probably thanks to the awesome relationship with the fans on social media and otherwise from not only original host and creator Joel Hodgson (who again oversees production of the new MST3K *and* will be a guest riffer on the new season’s Christmas special), but from the show’s latest host Jonah Ray Rodrigues (The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail) and latest mad scientist Felicia Day (The Guild, Supernatural). Any fears that MSTies had of these new cast members and writers trying too hard to live up to the show’s original 90s run have been assuaged by their fantastic work on the Netflix revival, which sadly met the same fate as the original MST3K after getting cancelled 2 seasons in.

But now that the new show has moved to its own VOD platform in a model similar to other post-MST3K offshoots such as RiffTrax and The Mads Are Back, Jonah and Felicia are just getting better along with the rest of the cast now that the show is operating on a far smaller scale than the Netflix seasons and going back to the DIY aesthetic that works so well for this one-time public access TV show. It was a thrill to conduct my first virtual video interview for this site with these two very generous and funny people and let them know how much MST3K has influenced my own bad movie riffing work with Awfully Good Movies. For those who haven’t seen them early as a Kickstarter backer, check out the public premiere of MST3K Season 13’s first three episodes this weekend (Santo in the Treasure of Dracula May 6th, Robot Wars May 7th and Beyond Atlantis May 8th) at gizmoplex.com. Stay tuned this Wednesday for PART 2 of my MST3K interview with the show’s newest host EMILY MARSH and very first host/MST creator JOEL HODGSON!