Future KTMA in the Gizmoplex

Kids college was the working title for Billy Madison.

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To paraphrase Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade: they belong in a museum!

Seeing K01 & K02 for the first time was such a great experience. Yeah, riffing is the most sparse it ever got, but dang it, I loved seeing it, and I liked the two supermarionation films so much I’ve actually watched the episodes and various other Gerry & Sylvia Anderson puppet series since then. Heck, even Space 1999 is very engaging for me after watching Cosmic Princess (it had a fantastic Star Trek feel to it).

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Them KTMA’s is good for watching the movies.

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My favorite KTMA episode, SST Deathflight, is where riffing really started picking up. That said, I still want a reriff of this episode. This watering hole of B-movie actors film has the all-star B-cast in spades, plus early work of Billy Crystal and John de Lancie!

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during the virtual theater tour after the santo premiere, i’m fairly sure i spotted revenge of the mysterons in the collection while showing the ‘how to browse through your collection’ bit, which i think was ktma only and not rebooted in later seasons. may be wrong, but may be hope for some episides turning up.

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You’re not the only one:

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Having not discovered the J. Elvis Weinstein episodes until much later in my fandom, I’ve grown to love his time on the show. Thus, I would be thrilled if they included the KTMA.

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KTMA absolutely should be part of the Gizmoplex. I don’t know why there’s never a clear answer as to why they don’t rerelease them, but I would assume they simply don’t have a lot of the master tapes for them. K01 and K02 could be the only ones they have. I could be wrong though, and I would be happy to be proven wrong. KTMA episodes are not just historically significant, but they’re also a lot funnier than people would expect them to be. There are some solid improvised riffs in these early episodes, and I was even laughing a few times at them. KTMA episodes are begging to be released in higher quality, and I hope they can implement them into the Gizmoplex.

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Some cool fans could edit themselves into the other side of the theater and make lots of pre written jokes in the long stretches between when Joel and the bots do it. But when Joel and the bots do speak up, the cool fans could say “hey pipe down over there”.

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I brought this up elsewhere when I noticed Joel’s episodes for sale begin with #022. I didn’t get an official Gizmoplex reply. I would think that whatever problems they might have with rights, at least the Sandy Frank productions redone in Season 3 would already be cleared – that would be about a third of them. Another obstacle would be finding quality copies, but since K01 and K02 were found, there’s hope for others.

I like the KTMA season in small bites because it’s a documentary look into how the show developed and the many things they kept in place for the move to cable. By the end of the season they were genuinely funny, and you could tell the guys were runnig on fumes (of some sort). Anyway, I’ve got two episodes in my purchases list, and it would be great if others were available for all.

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Invaders from the Deep and Revenge of the Mysterons were part of the backer rewards for the first Kickstarter, so I guess now that they’ve been released into the wild they will probably be available on the Gizmoplex. I don’t know about any of the others.

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I’d love to see them as well. The quality does not matter, they would still be fun.

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Upon rewatching both invaders from the deep and revenge of the mysterons showed up, but where you normally see Joel in red at the bottom left corner on the canister artwork, they look grey , ep numbers 001 and 002. So yeah, if they had been released prior to this already , makes sense the space is there for them in the theater. :slightly_smiling_face:

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[cough] Nice night for it! [cough cough]

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If it doesn’t rain.

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It’s always a nice night if it doesn’t rain.

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If the moon isn’t too warm.

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The issue is the rights to the other material (i.e. the host segments). That material may still be technically owned by WUCW, KTMA’s modern incarnation. I always assumed that was the reason they didn’t release more of them. That appears to be the reason the “KTMA Host Segments” bonus DVD was cancelled at the last minute.

Joel was able to source the first two and wanted to get them out there, as they are part of the three that didn’t have any versions available. But I think that was only for that reason: to get them out there, first to those who were most dedicated to the show (the backers). They’ve never been available for individual sale and, unless the WUCW rights question is resolved, I don’t think they ever will be.

You won’t believe how many dreams die in kids college. In fact, most children die in kids college

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The reason I heard for the “KTMA Host Segments” bonus DVD being cancelled was due to video quality issues. If they were unable to located the master tape for K03, that might have been enough to scuttle that whole DVD.

I’m also dubious that KTMA/WUCW is holding up the releases in any significant way. I’m not convinced that WUCW still holds any rights to the show. It seems like that would’ve been something figured out way back when the show transitioned to the Comedy Channel. Even if WUCW still have rights of some sort, Joel was able to get two episodes released, so it’s clearly possible.

I think a big issue is how to properly frame/present these titles on the site. The two episodes with official releases were to Kickstarter backers, which were almost entirely diehard fans, who understood what they were. Putting them up in the Gizmoplex store with no additional context where new fans may end up buying them without understanding that those first episodes aren’t representative of the show overall could be an issue. And how to price? Make them the same as other episodes? And licensing of the films may be an issue, since unless it’s a movie they later redid, they’d have to factor in how much money they expect to make selling these niche episodes vs the cost of licensing the film.

There’s possible workarounds to some of these issues. There was mention of a secret room for the Gizmoplex, so maybe a special store for just the KTMA episodes could be placed in that room, where new users aren’t going to casually come across them. Maybe include a text or even video disclaimer people have to agree to before they can browse/buy those episodes. Alternatively, I always felt Rhine/Shout Factory missed a trick when they released an episode that was a re-watch of a movie they did in the KTMA season, and not including the KTMA version as a bonus. Maybe the Gizmoplex could include the KTMA version if you own the “standard” version, so say you buy/own episode 308 “Gamera vs. Gaos” in your collection, Gizmoplex adds the KTMA version as a bonus. Finally, as an incentive to keep re-subscribing, each year Gizmoplex could include a new KTMA episode as a bonus for purchasing another 12-month pass.

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