MST3K Turkey Day Returns in 2019, as Questions About the Show’s Future Loom

This has been “a bit of good news, a bit of bad news” sort of week for the Mystery Science Theater 3000 faithful, as we today received confirmation that the show’s annual Thanksgiving Day/Turkey Day festivities would continue as they have in recent years, albeit seemingly without much in the way of input from the show’s current creative team. There was also some news making its way around the MSTie-verse suggesting that the show might be in search of a new platform for a post-Netflix continuation, which we’ll address in more detail below.

First things first: Turkey Day. Shout! Factory has announced that this year’s Turkey Day marathon will proceed as it has in recent years, with a livestream on the web of “six classic episodes of MST3K hand-picked by series creator Joel Hodgson.” Hosted by Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot, there’s no mention of Hodgson actually stepping in front of the camera to host this time around, as he has in a few of the recent years, nor his replacement aboard the Satellite of Love, Jonah Ray. Regardless, the marathon will run from 12 p.m. EST onward on Thursday, Nov. 28.

Perhaps even more significantly, Shout! Factory TV also announced the launch of a dedicated MST3K Twitch channel, which will lead up to Turkey Day with a full week of classic MST3K episodes playing in chronological order. That marathon will begin at 1 p.m. EST on Wednesday, Nov. 20, and according to Shout! Factory, “following the Turkey Day marathon, the channel will remain a dedicated home for classic MST3K episodes and related programming.” We’ll be curious to see what “related programming” is referring to in particular, but more streaming source of MST3K is always a good thing. You can already visit the Twitch channel that will host the marathon right here.

At the same time, though, the MST3K rumor mill was fired up this week, thanks to comments about the future of the series by beloved “prop diva” Beth “Beez” McKeever on Facebook, which suggested that Netflix had declined to pick up the series for a 13th season after the shortened “Gauntlet” that was Season 12. McKeever, who served as a costumer and stylist on the original series, and occasionally appeared in memorable roles like “Steffi” the babysitter in Ep. 908, The Touch of Satan, repeatedly said the show needed “a new platform,” making fans wonder if MST3K might be in search of a new home. McKeever’s full comments are screenshotted below.

Obviously, as McKeever herself points out, she is “not staff” and “not privy to any juicy insider info,” so we have to take this information with a grain of salt. It may be possible that Netflix is still interested in airing more new episodes of MST3K—we’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, at least we have such resources as the upcoming Twitch channel, and features such as Pluto TV’s 24/7 MST3K channel. And it’s always possible that Turkey Day itself will include some kind of announcement on the show’s future.

As for now now, as I am always compelled to do at this time of year, I leave you with the immortal classic that is “Stuffing vs. Potatoes.”