query: When was the first episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000?
passage: List of Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes
Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) is an American television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Best Brains, Inc. The show premiered on KTMA (now WUCW) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on November 24, 1988. The next year, in 1989, the show began its national run on The Comedy Channel/Comedy Central, running for seven seasons on that channel until its cancellation in 1996. The following year, it was picked up by The Sci-Fi Channel and aired for three more seasons there until another cancellation in August 1999 (although repeats continued until 2004). A sixty-episode syndication package titled The Mystery Science Theater Hour was produced in 1995. [1]
passage: Mystery Science Theater 3000
Hodgson believed that the revival would need a wholly new cast, considering that the cast had completely turned over in the original series. Comedian Jonah Ray plays Jonah Heston, the new host aboard the Satellite of Love, watching and riffing on the films. Hodgson had met Ray while recording an episode of "The Nerdist Podcast", and felt he would be a good fit. The voices of Crow and Tom Servo are provided by comedians Hampton Yount and Baron Vaughn, respectively, both of whom Ray recommended to Hodgson. Hodgson felt it was important for Ray to have his say on who would play these parts, since it would help Ray be comfortable in the role. Felicia Day plays Kinga Forrester, Clayton Forrester's daughter and one of the new Mads in charge of the experiments, now operating out of a moon base known as "Moon 13". Day had been one of the last to be cast, as Hodgson had scripted out the concept for Forrester's daughter while casting Ray and the others. Hodgson had met Day at the 2015 Salt Lake Comic Con, where she stated her love of "MST3K" to him. Hodgson had seen Day's performance in shows like "The Guild" and "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog", and felt she matched his idea for the character he had envisioned. Patton Oswalt plays Kinga's henchman, Max, or as his character prefers to be known, "TV's Son of TV's Frank"; Hodgson had already planned to invite Oswalt, a longtime friend and self-professed MST3K fan, as a special guest writer for an episode of the revived series, but decided during the Kickstarter that he would also be a good fit on-camera. Rebecca Hanson, an alum of The Second City, took the role of Gypsy as well as Synthia, a clone of Pearl Forrester that assists Kinga. Har Mar Superstar leads the "Skeleton Crew", a house band in Kinga's lair.