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Post by intonyeon on May 13, 2021 16:40:56 GMT -5
This has been on my mind for a while, after all, the Netflix series was cancelled after 2 seasons, and we are now in the independent stage of the series. The show has famously been cancelled 4 times in the past, and each time its come back somehow. The fanbase is the reason why, since it’s so dedicated.. And frankly, in terms of buying merchandise and spending money on the franchise, it’s a winner, they buy every dvd set and Kickstarter goals and live shows.
But is the show truly popular with the mainstream media? Even Rifftrax only gets like below 100k views on their YouTube channel, are they also sustained by a dedicated fanbase? (Perhaps that’s why piracy for hem them is such a massive blow?).
But then I hear about drama about how Penn Jillete from off of Penn and Teller was successfully taken off from speaking over the end credits, and how Comedy Central had to respond to angry MSTies all the damn time. (Maybe it was cancelled because they were so damn annoying? I dunno, I discovered the show myself in the mid 2000s!)
Then we come to today, I would love the numbers on the Netflix series and how many people watched it.. it would probably confirm that it isn’t that popular at all, but the numbers are good if Joel wants to continue with Gizmoplex.
Then again, maybe the movie would have been a hit if it was released normally and then MST3K would have expanded to international versions with unique bots and hosts and movies, wouldn’t that have been crazy? Oh what would I give to live in that universe..
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on May 13, 2021 18:13:36 GMT -5
Not very. Comedy Central kept as long as the did because it was one of the few shows that got press early in their network. It was cancelled because ratings still weren't huge and the network wanted to switch directions.
Sci-Fi was pretty much the same story. The viewers were reliable, but they weren't huge.
Netflix hasn't commented about why it was cancelled, but considering they've cancelled a lot of shows after two seasons because "algorithm," it's likely they didn't see any subscriber growth from it.
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Post by slainmonkey on May 13, 2021 18:23:28 GMT -5
Also Netflix seemed to have a lot of controversial cancellations around 2019, one show canceled around the same time (after only 1 season), Tuca and Bertie is actually currently being re-picked up by Adult Swim. In fact such an issue people had with the number 2019 cancellations that people were calling it “the purge”. While I can’t speak for MST3K’s viewing figures on Netflix, it did seem to be part of what created the current negative reception that many current have for it!
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Post by said43 on May 13, 2021 20:06:09 GMT -5
Netflix seems to cancel a lot of stuff without any rationale, so I wouldn't say that says anything about MST3K
I've heard that the show was one of Comedy Central's most popular in the pre South Park years, but I'm too young to remember.
Edit: Apparently a lot of the blame goes to Doug Herzog for the Comedy Central cancellation.
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Post by wedestroymyths on May 13, 2021 20:37:58 GMT -5
The show was popular enough in the CC years that I knew multiple kids in middle school and later high school with me who were fans, and not all of them were huge nerds like me. And it was on A LOT during the CC years. I remember at one point, Alien from LA was shown on MTV to try to bring some new fans, and it kind of worked. Kids were talking about that episode after it aired, and "dull surprise" became a bit of a thing. I wouldn't say it was ever huge, but it was beloved, and cheap to produce, and CC was, at peak MST, running the show, what, 9 times a week? (Nightly midnight episodes during the week, plus two Saturday showings, and 1-2 Sunday showings?) That's not even including the MST hour.
I guess you might say it was "popular for cable" at a time when cable shows weren't all that popular.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on May 13, 2021 20:38:42 GMT -5
Relative to what kind of ratings Comedy Central got back then, MST3K was likely one of their bigger hits, and the fact that they would use it to fill what airtime they could probably was a testament to that. I think it just got to the point where they looked at the numbers it was doing and said "Well yeah, but should we aim higher than this?" After MST gets cancelled the channel pushes in an edgier direction and pave the way for South Park and Chappelle's Show, shows that got media attention and were drawing more viewers to the network. Whether or not there was still a place for this little puppet show on this revamped network is debatable, but on paper it was the objectively correct call.
When the show was cancelled on Sci-Fi, if I remember correctly the highest rated show on the channel was Farscape, which I believe was averaging a bit above 2 million viewers. I believe second was Sliders with a bit below 2 million. So those were the GREAT ratings on that network, giving you an idea that MST must have been playing below that.
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Post by dudehitscar on May 13, 2021 21:34:53 GMT -5
"Because they enjoyed the show so much, they presumed that it was among one of our highest rated shows, which it was not," said Tony Fox, a network vice president. "It had experienced a decline to where it is one of the lowest rated shows on our network. I think that's something that has been overlooked."
this quote was from an article about the end of the show on Comedy Central. Sounds like the CC mike era wasn't as well received as the previous seasons.
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Post by dustincomplete on May 13, 2021 22:11:16 GMT -5
"Because they enjoyed the show so much, they presumed that it was among one of our highest rated shows, which it was not," said Tony Fox, a network vice president. "It had experienced a decline to where it is one of the lowest rated shows on our network. I think that's something that has been overlooked." this quote was from an article about the end of the show on Comedy Central. Sounds like the CC mike era wasn't as well received as the previous seasons. This quote hurts a little because there's probably some truth to it.
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Post by dudehitscar on May 13, 2021 22:38:01 GMT -5
"Because they enjoyed the show so much, they presumed that it was among one of our highest rated shows, which it was not," said Tony Fox, a network vice president. "It had experienced a decline to where it is one of the lowest rated shows on our network. I think that's something that has been overlooked." this quote was from an article about the end of the show on Comedy Central. Sounds like the CC mike era wasn't as well received as the previous seasons. This quote hurts a little because there's probably some truth to it. I know Season 6 has it's fans but look at the film choices in that compared to seasons that lead up to it.. not a lot of crowd pleasers and some of the most painful movies they have ever done (coleman francis films). It's understandable the ratings fell off quite a bit IMO.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on May 13, 2021 23:00:36 GMT -5
Season 6 was also the first full season without Joel. It wouldn't surprise me if that factored into a ratings decline.
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Post by jedicrippler on May 13, 2021 23:04:02 GMT -5
I remember at one point, Alien from LA was shown on MTV to try to bring some new fans, and it kind of worked. Kids were talking about that episode after it aired, and "dull surprise" became a bit of a thing. That's actually the first time I saw part of an episode on TV. Our cable company didn't have CC until after MST3K was over, but I distinctly remember watching part of Alien from LA on MTV. My first actual exposure was a few months earlier in my senior year of high school when a friend of mine was playing an episode on VHS during lunch in one of the classrooms.
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Post by wedestroymyths on May 13, 2021 23:19:46 GMT -5
This quote hurts a little because there's probably some truth to it. I know Season 6 has it's fans but look at the film choices in that compared to seasons that lead up to it.. not a lot of crowd pleasers and some of the most painful movies they have ever done (coleman francis films). It's understandable the ratings fell off quite a bit IMO. In all honesty, I'd guess it was more a cultural shift. Even in the Mike years when the tone got a little darker/angrier, MST was (and remains) at its core a sweet show. I think for many, by the mid 90s, we were seeing a shift toward angry, crude, cruel comedy--look at that era's SNL, driven by Sandler, Farley, McDonald etc..., and known as the "Bad Boys" era. 93-97 was also the Beavis and Butthead era. Comedy was inevitability heading towards South Park and what not, and that's fine. I came across MST at the perfect time that it is basically fused into my DNA (had a friend sleeping over in 7th grade, I think, and caught a midnight rerun of King Dinosaur and we were hooked, I started taping episodes the next day, and I think the first "New" ep I snagged was Teenage Crimewave), and even I went through a bit of a "MST is lame" phase in the late 90s, and didn't return to the show until I heard season 10 was its last season, and even then (in college by then) only managed to catch a handful of episodes in first run (of course, that's when I dug my old tapes out of the basement and started watching them obsessively, and never looked back...) I really don't think it was Mike or the movies--it's the culture that got small. (Just riffing on Norma Desmond, there--I like the shows that followed MST on CC (and I *love* Beavis and Butthead...but man, MST will always be my fave).
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Post by slainmonkey on May 14, 2021 9:21:45 GMT -5
I definitely agree that the cultural shift towards cynical 90’s humour played a massive part in ending MST3K, it’s likely by that time the show where bad movies being riffed by cute 80’s robots was starting to seem a little old hat, and the only people still watching were only the show’s most loyal fans. Incidentally that might also be part of why the Kickstarter’s have been as successful as they are, nostalgia is in and we’re in a time where they love to revive things from the past....hell even other shows from the same vintage have made returns, like the UK sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf. These days there seems to be money in nostalgia!
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Post by dudehitscar on May 14, 2021 15:04:28 GMT -5
as someone who loves MST3K and South Park I find this narrative really puzzling.
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Post by slainmonkey on May 14, 2021 15:43:49 GMT -5
as someone who loves MST3K and South Park I find this narrative really puzzling. It’s not that puzzling, as time changes so do demographics. There are plenty of people who love both shows, but to many at the time audiences wanted something that was far more jaded and edgy than MST3K, that was part of the culture of the mid to late 90’s (and early 2000’s if we’re to be perfectly honest). I think in the time MST3K was off the air was time that many started to reflect back on the show fondly, and the DVD releases allowed people to revisit old episodes they loved, and ones they might have even misses the first time round!
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