With the promise of a brand new, four-episode return to Mystery Science Theater 3000 for Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett, it’s safe to say fans are excited. How excited? Well, since the Kickstarter launched on February 2, the RiffTrax Experiments has raised nearly $2 million at time of writing. And that’s with a goal of $20k. So, pretty good. But making new episodes of MST3K needs more than just a guy, two robots, and a movie. There’s puppets, costumes, lighting, props, and of course, that legendary theme song. Nerdist can exclusively announce that none other than geek music icon Jonathan Coulton will perform the new iteration of the theme.
Bill Corbett—one of the three RiffTrax poohbahs who will reprise his role as Crow T. Robot and Brain Guy in the new MST3K episodes—was overjoyed to share the news. He told Nerdist:
Besides being an incredibly skilled musician with the voice of a pop star angel, Jonathan brings intelligence and playfulness to everything he creates. And his fan base intersects pretty significantly with ours. He’s a bit younger than we old farts but we did start RiffTrax at pretty much the exact same time he started releasing his brilliant run of songs on Thing A Week. It’s fate, I say!
As of right now, Jonathan hasn’t recorded the theme yet. But from our discussions I know that he hopes to retain some sonic and musical elements from the original versions, but with some creative flexibility. I can’t wait to hear the results!
Nerdist spoke to Coulton on the eve of his forthcoming tour with Aimee Mann, and his annual JoCo Cruise. He took the time to talk with us about the prospect of tackling the earwormy tune, the halcyon days of very long TV openings, and why he’s excited for more Satellite of Love.
Nerdist: What was the conversation like when the RiffTrax folks approached you to to rerecord this iconic (echoic, really) theme song?
Jonathan Coulton: I mean, you know, they asked me to do it and I was like, yes, immediately. It’s the kind of thing, if you told me that’s when I was in college, that someday they would ask me to make the new theme song for that show, I would have said you were crazy. So I’ve been a fan for a long time and I’m just thrilled to to be a part of it.
It’s a very flattering, wonderful thing. So that was that was it was an easy yes, basically to start with.
We’ve had some back and forth about about what they’re looking for. It’s one of those things where, when you work on something that is this storied that has been around this long. You really have to walk the line between making it new and keeping the parts that are that have been there forever.
Nerdist: The Comedy Central years and the Syfy years of the show have a particular kind of soundscape, but the more recent Netflix years have a bigger, full-band attached. Do you have an inkling of the kind of version you’ll do, before you’ve started?
Jonathan Coulton: I’ll go with my version of full, whatever that is. I mean, yeah, the the most recent version had a lot of horns in it, which is not my specialty, so I probably won’t do that. But, you know, I’m working on a new album right now and I will be in the same studio [for the theme] where I’m recording that and working with the same producer and collaborator on that. So ideally, it’ll sound kind of Jonathan Coultony. I don’t know any other way to do it!
Nerdist: Naturally! Do you remember the first time you discovered Mystery Science Theater 3000 and what you initially thought?
Jonathan Coulton: I mean, so many things. There there have been a few times in my life as a young, budding creative person where I’ve heard a piece of music or seen a show or seen a movie or something where it’s like lightning struck and sparks were flying in my brain. Because it was like, ‘Oh my God.
You could do that!?’ I feel like the the closest thing I could compare it to is the first time I heard They Might Be Giants. I was like, I was like, oh, oh, oh, this is possible, you know?
And then the first time I saw Mystery Science Theater, I thought, ‘wow, you could do that on television.’ And it was just very inspiring because I’ve always loved stuff that sort of plays with the form. Like early David Letterman, just the sort of people who are making it are clearly asking themselves, why not? Yeah, sure. Yes, let’s do that. You have that idea. Great. Let’s do that. Why not?
Nerdist: What do you think makes the MST3K theme so memorable and clearly something that can stand the test of time the way it has?
Jonathan Coulton: It was from the end of this age in television where you could have a theme song that had three verses and a bridge. Now, you don’t even often you don’t even get a theme song. You just get like a sound then the show starts. And I really miss the days when the theme song was a whole song. You would hear TV theme songs on the radio.
It was also one of those theme songs that just describes what’s happening. It didn’t try to elevate the premise to something grander; it was just, here’s the backstory, here are the characters, here’s what’s going to happen. Just this very sincere and direct kind of entertainment. So it’s a classic of the genre in that way.
We at Nerdist can also share that there will be some new lyrics to the song, though exactly what they’ll be is a surprise. Corbett shared, “they’ll be about the same level as happened with cast changes at the original MST3K. And unfortunately I wrote [the new lyrics], not Jonathan! But he’s going to make them sound the best they can possibly sound, which I greatly appreciate. I BELIEVE IN JOCO.”
We all believe in JoCo.
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The RiffTrax Experiments Kickstarter is still going for the next few weeks, so if you haven’t donated and would like to, you can do so at the link here.
Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.
The post Jonathan Coulton to Perform New MST3K Theme [Exclusive] appeared first on Nerdist.
This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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