Shout Factory
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Shout! Factory's free video service is a cult movie and TV fan's dream
Grab some popcorn and settle into your favorite couch groove, nerds. Shout! Factory, a company best known for bringing cult shows and films to home video, is getting into the streaming video game with Shout Factory TV. The new ad-supported service (also accessible through a Roku app) will be the online home for over 2,500 TV episodes and movies, including Mystery Science Theater 3000, Home Movies, and The Weird Al Show. For the most part, the site is just rounding up content already available on Hulu and YouTube, but the new Roku app should at least make all that content more couch friendly. Shout! Factory says it's also working on bringing the service to more devices soon.
Watch an episode of 'MST3k,' with or without the jokes explained
Ordinarily, people talking during a movie is our idea of hell, but in Mystery Science Theater 3000's case, we're more than happy to allow it. The thing is, unless you've got a pop culture brain that'd make Tarantino blush, you're not going to know enough to get the joke. That's why a group calling themselves The Annotated MST have been painstakingly researching and explaining every single gag from the show so you don't feel left out. Thankfully, the group has teamed up with Shout! Factory, MST3k's DVD label, to release a fully-amended and legitimate copy of Mitchell onto YouTube (after the break) that you can switch on and off depending on if you need a joke explained. Just be glad they don't have this sort of thing in real life, or else no-one would go to the cinema ever again.
Vimeo snags 'MST3K' catalog and exclusive access to future releases
If Vimeo's determined to develop a pay-per-view streaming service, then the outfit is going about it in a rather strange way. The website has signed a deal with Mystery Science Theater 3000's distributors to bring 80 "cleared" episodes to the site's on-demand platform. Because of the myriad rights issues that surround the show, more than half of the episodes aren't legally available. Of course, that doesn't mean that you can't find them if you've got some time, a lax attitude to intellectual property and don't mind typing in phrases like "mst3k.s08.e20" into YouTube. If, however, you'd prefer to get your stuff through legitimate channels, you'll be able to rent each movie for $3, buy them for $10 or purchase the whole collection for a heavily discounted $300.
