Exclusive: Jonah Ray’s Five Favorite Movie Punks
Prior to the Netflix release of Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Gauntlet, the 12th season of MST3K that arrives on November 22, ComingSoon.net got Jonah Ray to list his Five Favorite Movie Punks for us. If that seems out of left field, it’s good to realize that Ray started his career as a punk rocker in his native Hawaii before becoming better known as a comedian. Check out Jonah Ray’s Five Favorite Movie Punks list below!
This year’s Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Gauntlet will riff on six classic movies, including 1979’s Killer Fish, 1980’s The Day Time Ended, 1989’s Lords of the Deep, 2013’s Pacific Rim knockoff Atlantic Rim, the McDonald’s-sponsored E.T. ripoff Mac and Me and 1982’s Ator, the Fighting Eagle (another in the film series that also included MST3K classic Cave Dwellers!). In keeping with the binge-watching model of Netflix, all six episodes are part of one long story arc in which Jonah and the bots have to endure all six movies back-to-back.
RELATED: Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Gauntlet Trailer Released
Created and co-directed by Joel Hodgson, the Mystery Science Theater 3000 revival stars Jonah Ray (The Nerdist Podcast, Maron) as Jonah Heston, along with his robot sidekicks Tom Servo (Baron Vaughn, Grace and Frankie) and Crow T. Robot (Hampton Yount, The Eric Andre Show), who are forced by Kinga Forrester (Felicia Day, The Guild, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog) to watch (and hilariously mock) terrible movies onboard the Satellite of Love. Comedian Patton Oswalt (Young Adult) appears as TV’s Son of TV’s Frank, Kinga’s henchman.
In late 2015, Hodgson started a highly-successful Kickstarter campaign to fund the new season, which through voracious fan contributions netted $5.7 million, a Kickstarter record. The B-movie titles for the new season were licensed through Shout Factory, the label that also distributes the classic episodes of MST3K on DVD/Blu-ray. Highlights from Season 11 included the bigfoot kids movie Cry Wilderness, 70’s disaster flick Avalanche and the sexy sci-fi romp Star Crash, as well as a guest star roster that included Wil Wheaton, Erin Gray, Neil Patrick Harris, Jerry Seinfeld, Joel McHale and Mark Hamill!
The original Mystery Science Theater 3000 was created and hosted by comedian Joel Hodgson and produced out of Minnesota from 1988 to 1999 for 197 episodes, each cracking jokes over a different piece of trash cinema from badly-dubbed Japanese Gamera movies to the obscure sleaze masterpiece Manos: The Hands of Fate. Halfway through the show’s run, Hodgson left the show over creative differences and was replaced as host by head writer Michael J. Nelson, who also starred in 1996’s Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie.