NUTS & BOLTS: INTERVIEW WITH JOEL HODGSON, CREATOR OF MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000

By Tom Joyce

Like his friend Jerry Seinfeld, Joel Hodgson was a rising comedy star in the 1980s, with appearances on Saturday Night Live and Late Night with David Letterman. Then he realized he wasn’t having any fun, and walked away from Hollywood to start a low-budget puppet show in Minneapolis.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 began as a local TV oddity, distributed fan-to-fan via mailed VHS tapes. Its fan base has grown steadily over the decades, as the show picked up a Peabody Award, two Emmy nominations, and a place on Time Magazine’s list of “100 Best TV Shows …