The rebooted cult classic Mystery Science Theater 3000 has found its head writer.
According to The A.V. Club, four time Emmy-winning The Daily Show writer Elliott Kalan has been tapped as head writer for the new iteration of the series. Kalan is also known for writing comics for Marvel, including Spider-Man and the X-Men. He is also co-host of podcast The Flop House which, like MST3K, focuses on bad movies.
The news was made public when MST3K creator Joel Hodgson posted an announcement on the show’s Kickstarter page. “He was at the top of my wish list, so I’m really happy to have him on board,” read the post. “Even though Elliott was also head writer at The Daily Show, it doesn’t mean that we’re planning to make MST3K more political. Elliot has been a MSTie since he was a teenager, and even more importantly — at least to me — he’s really fun to write with.”
Elliott Kalan introduced himself to fans and backers on the MST3K Kickstarter page. “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,” Kalan’s post reads. “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.”
Kalan’s post also touched on how it’s been writing for the show without giving anything away about what awful movies they have lined up. “It’s been a blast working so far, and while I can’t tell 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.”
Mystery Science Theater 3000, created by Joel Hodgson, originally premiered on KTMA in Minnesota in 1988 before being aired on Comedy Central for six seasons. It then got revived at Syfy for three seasons in the late ’90s before being canceled. Now it is coming back, having raised over $3 million more than their $2 million Kickstarter goal. The new version of the series, along with Kalan as head writer, will include Jonah Ray taking over the Joel Robinson part as the human who is trapped by two mad scientists and forced to watch terrible movies. Patton Oswalt and Felicia Day will be torturing Jonah Ray as the new mad scientists for the series.