MST3K Timeline

1988
In August, Jim Mallon met with Joel Hodgson to discuss an idea for a TV show to fill up a 2-hour time slot on Sunday evenings. Thus, on November 24, Mystery Science Theater 3000 premiered as a local program on KTMA-TV in the Twin Cities. The episode was “Invaders of the Deep”, and kicked off a 21-episode season (plus an unaired pilot), that would become known as the KTMA season. Generally, it’s agreed by the cast and any viewers that this season was “rough”, to put it kindly, and no official effort’s been made to rebroadcast any of these episodes. The look of the show was far more crude, only a handful of the main cast and crew were present for its run, and most of these shows aren’t considered “canon”. It would be cancelled the following May.

1989
Using a “best of” tape compiled from the KTMA shows, MST3K’s creators pitched this to Comedy Channel (which would become Comedy Central) and was picked up by the station for its official first season. MST3K would go on to become Comedy Central’s biggest show for many years, before a nasty fallout with the station.

Season 1 (1989-90) began with the experiment “The Crawling Eye” (#101), and produced 13 episodes. It had MST3K staples Trace Beaulieu (Crow and Dr. Forrester), Joel Hodgson, and Jim Mallon (Gypsy). Josh Weinstein, who did Dr. Erhardt and Tom Servo, left after the first season due to being upset that the show was becoming more scripted and less ad-libbed.

1990
On the struggling Comedy Channel, MST3K’s future was in doubt, but with the help of a write-in campaign and fairly positive reviews, it was renewed. As MST3K barreled into its second 13-episode season (1990-91), Kevin Murphy came on the show as Tom Servo's "new voice", along with a new Mad, TV's Frank (Frank Conniff).

On labor day (9/1/90), Comedy Channel did a 24-hour marathon of MST3K, showing many of the first season episodes back to back (to back to back to you get the idea). Although the staff situation was shaky in the first couple years, it started to smooth out at this point. It helped that critics and audiences had started to discover — and praise — the show in increasing numbers. The show itself ended with a command instructing viewers to “Keep Circulating The Tapes”, founding a grassroots movement to draw in new Misties.

The sets received more budget love and detail, most notably being the hexfield viewscreen (where guest stars, such as Mike Nelson, could show up to chat with the SOL crew).

HBO (who owned The Comedy Channel) gave MST3K a three-year contract at this point.

1991
MST3K began its third season (1991-92), with its largest run yet: 24 episodes. The Comedy Channel merged with HA! channel to become Comedy Central as of April Fool’s Day that year. There were also talks about a possible MST3K movie.

The rate of jokes on the show had increased from a couple hundred per episode to around 750. Nine movies used in the KTMA days were reused to form new episodes. A 30-hour MST3K marathon ran around Thanksgiving with special promos and new bits.

1992
Season 4 (1992-93) concluded with MST3K’s most infamous experiment, “Manos: The Hands of Fate”. The MST3K crew came to an understanding with Comedy Central not to air any season one episodes any longer (due to the vast changes in the show since then).

On July 10, one of the boldest MST3K experiments occurred: “Mystery Science Theater Alive!”, a live theater show at the Uptown Theatre in Minneapolis, in which a movie would be shown and the cast would perform their roles riffing on the film.

1993
As season 5 (1993-94) aired, Comedy Central decided to repackage several MST3K episodes in a "Mystery Science Theater Hour" format, splitting one episode into two one-hour shows hosted by a very disguised Mike Nelson.

During this season, Joel leaves the show ("It’s time for me to hang up my red jumpsuit and move behind the camera,” he said) and was replaced by Mike. This sparked a great internet flame war between Misties, over who was better: Joel or Mike. We now know the answer: shut up.

While the show was doing well, fans and the MST3K crew were upset that Comedy Central kept fiddling with the show, such as adding unnecessary voice-overs by Penn Jillette, that detracted from the quality. By the end of 1993, CC agreed to stop the voice-overs. However, there were still problems with CC showing their logo over Crow, and adding an advertising scroll across the bottom of the show.

1994
Season 6 (1994-95). This season sees the only time that Dr. Forrester and TV’s Frank would go into the theater and riff on a movie (episode #611). Sadly, TV's Frank leaves the show after this season. It also looked like the show might end, as season six closed without a continuing contract.

MST3K received its first major award this year: the 1993 George Foster Peabody award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program. Later that year, they held the 1994 ConventioCon ExpoFest-A-Rama to the joy of thousands of fans.

1995
Tradewinds Television options MST3K for syndication. That March, the SOL crew hosted “The MST3K Little Gold Statue Preview Special”, their sarcastic and witty way to bookend the Academy Awards. While there were no new episodes for the rest of the year, MST3K continued to pop up in various specials with new material (such as the Thanksgiving Day marathon). Fears grew that Comedy Central was not going to renew the show for the 7th season. However, CC did relent to some intense fan pressure and negotiations, and agreed to let MST3K shoot a partial 7th season.

Following the sixth season, Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie was shot during March and April for a budget under $2 million.

1996
Season 7 (1996) aired only 6 episodes (instead of the 24 standard eps that were done per seasons 3-5). After a series of disputes, Comedy Central dropped the show like a dead crow, and MST3K fans launched a large-scale campaign to keep the show going (it was one of the first such internet campaigns).

The Amazing Colossal Episode Guide, covering seasons 1-6, was released (and is well worth a read). Trace Beaulieu (Crow and Dr. Forrester) left the show after this season and the movie.

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie arrives in theaters with the tagline “Every year Hollywood makes hundreds of movies. This is one of them.” It received fairly positive reviews (USA Today said, "From the opening spoof of 2001: A Space Odyssey to the end-credit yuks, MST3K:TM seizes your funny bone like a rabid mongoose and never lets go."), but failed to do anything major in box office grosses.

Happily, in June, the SciFi channel signed a contract to pick up MST3K for 13 episodes starting the next year. The only downside to this was the lost of Trace Beaulieu and the fact that no CC-era shows could be shown on SciFi.

1997
Season 8 (1997) premieres on SciFi, with vast changes to the show’s cast, look and story. Crow is played by Bill Corbett, and Jim Mallon gives up the role of Gypsy. At this point, the entire original cast had been entirely replaced. SciFi extends the run of the season for a total of 22 episodes.

MST3K lost their final Cable ACE award (they had been nominated, and lost, every year from 1992-97).

1998
Season 9 (1998) kicked off with 13 episodes, but does not pick up the option for the other 9. The MST3K crew once again does an Academy Awards special, this time called “MST3K’s Academy of Robots’ Choice Awards Special”. Later that summer, they would broadcast “The Second Annual Mystery Science Theater 3000 Summer Blockbuster Review”, riffing on, well, you’re not stupid. Figure it out.

MST3K celebrated its 10-year anniversary, counting the debut on KTMA. Toward the end of 1998, SciFi appeared to neglect the show’s promotion and casting doubts on its future.

1999
Early in 1999, news came that SciFi would be letting MST3K die after its 10th season run. Fans began yet another campaign to save the show, but this time it was in vain. Oh, the humanity! The filming wrapped up early in the year, and the MST3K studio closed.

Season 10 (1999), MST3K’s final season, airs with just 13 episodes. In episode #1001, Joel returned, along with TV's Frank. On August 8, episode #1013 airs as the series finale. The final show sees Mike and the ‘bots returning to earth… to sit in front of a TV and watch a movie called “The Crawling Eye”.

Total shows, including the KTMA season, stand at 199.