Shout Releases The Final Classic MST3K DVD Set This Fall
How many DVD sets do you think it would take to print the entire original run of Mystery Science Theater 3000, minus the inaccessible KTMA pre-episodes? Apparently, it would take about 42. But we’re only getting 39.
Shout Factory has announced the very last MST3K volume will be released this November. It’s taken a long time, almost since the dawn of TV on DVD, to come to this point…and it required the cooperation of two different companies (Rhino released the first few volumes before Shout bought the property and took over).
Now about those missing numbers. There would have been three more volumes, but twelve of the episodes are unreleaseable due to the owners of the movies they lampoon forbidding their re-release in this form. They are as follows:
- Ep #201 Rocketship X-M
- Ep #212: Godzilla Vs. Megalon
- Ep #213: Godzilla Vs. The Sea Monster
- Ep #309: The Amazing Colossal Man
- Ep #311: It Conquered the World
- Ep #416: Fire Maidens from Outer Space
- Ep #418: The Eye Creatures
- Ep #807: Terror from the Year 5000
- Ep #809: I Was A Teenage Werewolf
- Ep #905: The Deadly Bees
- Ep #906: The Space Children
- Ep #913: Quest of the Delta Knights
There was one of these that actually did make it onto a DVD set, but by accident — in 2006 Rhino released a set containing Godzilla vs. Megalon, only to be met with ire from Toho. They forced a recall and Volume 10 was republished with a different episode. You can still buy the first version, but only used, and only for a ridiculous amount of cash.
The last MT3K volume will contain the remaining three releasable episodes — Girls Town, The Amazing Transparent Man, and the last ever episode to be seen on cable television, Diabolik. The fourth disc, in lieu of an episode, will be called “Satellite Dishes” and be filled with the skit material from the episodes Shout can’t fully release.
Your MST3K collection can become as complete as legally possible November 21, but if you want the set before then, order it directly from Shout. They’ll mail it three weeks early, and throw in a bonus disc, “The Complete Poopie.” This disc contains blooper reels for all eight seasons. The extra disc will only be sent to the first 1,500 customers.