Joel Hodgson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Joel Hodgson | |
|---|---|
 Hodgson as Joel Robinson |
|
| Born | Joel Gordon Hodgson February 20, 1960 Stevens Point, Wisconsin, U.S. |
Joel Gordon Hodgson[1] (born February 20, 1960) is an American writer, comedian and television actor. He is best known for creating Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) and starring in it as the character Joel Robinson.
Contents |
[edit] Early life and career
Hodgson was born in Stevens Point, Wisconsin in 1960.[citation needed] He began his career as a stage manager for Ashwaubenon High School, then moved on to prop-based stand-up comedy in the Twin Cities. As an avid amateur magician, a large number of his props utilized magic/illusion concepts. In 1981 he won the Campus Comedy Contest and then the first annual Twin Cities Comedy Invitational in 1982.[2] In November of the same year Joel moved to Los Angeles where he appeared on Late Night with David Letterman three months later. He would later make four other appearances on the Letterman show, as well as four on Saturday Night Live.[3] One of these SNL routines resulted in much chaos for Hodgson.
He performed several minutes of his act on a November 12, 1983, airing of Saturday Night Live, hosted by Teri Garr. An infamous prop during the performance was a time bomb. During the act, Hodgson would announce that he only had three minutes to perform. He would then reveal the time bomb, and proclaim, "We ALL have three minutes." The prop department thought they could make a better time bomb than the one Hodgson had, which was used in the show. They gave Hodgson the prop as a gift, but he decided that he liked his own bomb better, and left the NBC prop in his hotel room. When he arrived in Minneapolis, he was greeted by the FBI. It appears that a cleaning lady found the bomb, thought it was real, and three floors had to be evacuated. The next day, New York Daily News headline announced that "SNL Comedian Bombs In New York".
He worked at the Comedy Store while in LA, also doing traveling stand-up in San Jose, San Francisco, Detroit and Kansas City. He did several specials for Showtime and HBO during that time as well. It was these television appearances, however, that forced Joel to abandon comedy, citing a lack of spontaneity in his now well-known performances. He also had fears of ‘becoming a showbiz person,’[4] which was apparent in his refusal to star in the NBC sitcom High School U.S.A.. NBC Entertainment president Brandon Tartikoff offered Joel $10,000 per episode, but he refused because he didn’t believe the show was funny and honest[5]. Even after the offer was doubled, Joel refused and moved back to Minneapolis in 1984 for his farewell performances.
Between 1984 and 1988, Joel’s ‘official’ return to comedy, he built and sold sculptures, worked at a T-shirt factory, designed toys and he began designing and building props (including robots) for other comedians. In 1986 he co-wrote an HBO special with Jerry Seinfeld.[6] He met Jim Mallon in 1987, who would become production manager at the UHF station KTMA-Channel 23 in 1988. Hodgson was the first choice to portray "Philo" in the film UHF,[7] but at the time of the filming (1988), he had begun the production of a new form of television program that started at KTMA.[8]
[edit] Mystery Science Theater 3000
Building on his gift for designing toys and other gizmos, Hodgson built three robot puppets and created MST3K in 1988. He starred as the show's long-suffering but inventive protagonist, Joel Robinson, who in the backstory is the character responsible for creating his own robot companions.
MST3K originally aired on KTMA, before becoming one of the first two shows to be picked up by the Comedy Channel, the forerunner of Comedy Central. The other show, also created and written by Hodgson, was the shortlived Higgins Boys and Gruber, a sketch comedy program that primarily involved three guys sitting around and talking in between clips of Clutch Cargo and Supercar.
Hodgson surprised many fans when he left the show just as it became nationally popular in 1993. In contemporary interviews, Joel said he was uncomfortable with acting and being in front of the camera, citing that as the reason he quit the show just as he and MST3K began to gain popularity.[9] During an 1999 interview with The Onion A.V. Club, Hodgson added that he and producer Jim Mallon had been fighting over creative control of MST3K. His departure allowed the show to continue and gave him the opportunity to focus more on his preferred creation and production work than on performing, which he did only reluctantly.[10]
Hodgson reportedly chose MST3K head writer Michael J. Nelson to be his replacement as host because he felt that Nelson was a natural leader, a gifted comedian (as well as a musician, handling most of the show's musical numbers), and, additionally, he thought Nelson looked good standing next to the show's puppets.[11] Hodgson later made a surprise guest appearance in the season premiere for the final season of MST3K ("Soultaker", episode 1001).
In a 2008 Slashdot interview, Hodgson admitted that he felt leaving MST3K, "was a bit of a personal tragedy," and that he had, "...created the appearance to the press that I had other plans, but I didn't. It was all to keep [MST3K] alive." He also stated that he felt his run on MST3K, "...was the perfect job."[12]
In a 2008 interview with Public Radio International's The Sound of Young America, Hodgson said of his departure from MST3K, "I was like totally happy at Mystery Science Theater. I loved it. I wanted to stay, but I was basically having a fight with my partner, Jim Mallon. So we weren't getting along and so I just felt like -- I thought it really could possibly jeopardize the show. It would have been easy to create factions out of the group. And by that time it would not have been a fun show to work on. And so, I felt like I saw it coming and I just thought [leaving] was the best thing at the time."[1]
[edit] Work after MST3K
After MST3K, Hodgson formed Visual Story Tools (VST) with his brother Jim Hodgson. They created a live pilot episode for an interactive sketch comedy program called The TV Wheel for HBO, which Joel produced and hosted.[13] It aired only once, on Comedy Central, after the last new Comedy Central episode of MST3K; the show was never picked up as a series. Joel Hodgson's VST work has been primarily behind the camera, building gadgets and writing scripts.
Hodgson's other post-MST3K projects and contributions include Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves, You Don't Know Jack, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and Everything You Need to Know. He also played a recurring role as a disco-loving clothing store owner and DJ on the short-lived series Freaks and Geeks.
In 2007, he portrayed Blackbeard the pirate in two episodes of The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd and recently joined fellow MST3K alum Frank Conniff's monthly comedy revue Cartoon Dump, helming his self-created puppet "Dumpster Diver Dan."
Joel was featured as the cover story in the November 1996 issue of Genii magazine.
[edit] Cinematic Titanic
On October 30, 2007, Hodgson announced he was starting a new show with the same "riffing on bad movies" premise as MST3K called Cinematic Titanic, together with former MST3K cast and crew members Trace Beaulieu, J. Elvis Weinstein, Frank Conniff and Mary Jo Pehl.[14]
[edit] References
- ^ "Biography for Joel Hodgson". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved on 2007-04-10. IMDb cites "Joel Gordon Hodgson" as his birth name.
- ^ Strickler, Jeff (October 1, 1982), “Funnymen Fight to Knock Out Competition with Punchlines”, Minneapolis Tribune, <http://mst3k.booyaka.com/articles/mst-joel/8_1_82.html>
- ^ Protzman, Bob (October 18,1984), “Joel Hodgson Coming Home to Say Farewell to Comedy”, St. Paul Dispatch: B1,B10,B13, <http://mst3k.booyaka.com/articles/mst-joel/10_18_84.html>
- ^ Protzman, Bob (October 18,1984), “Joel Hodgson Coming Home to Say Farewell to Comedy”, St. Paul Dispatch: B1,B10,B13, <http://mst3k.booyaka.com/articles/mst-joel/10_18_84.html>
- ^ Kaplan, Steven newspaper =Star Tribune (August 6, 1989), pp. Sunday Magazine 4-6, <http://mst3k.booyaka.com/articles/mst-joel/8_6_89.html>
- ^ Covert, Colin (May 5, 1986), “Comics Team Up for Cable Special”, Minneapolis Star and Tribune, <http://mst3k.booyaka.com/articles/mst-joel/5_5_86.html>
- ^ "Trivia for UHF (1989)". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved on 2006-09-05.
- ^ Matheny, Dave (December 19, 1988), “TV Supplies Witty Companions to Help Watch Bad Old Movies”, Minneapolis Star and Tribune, <http://mst3k.booyaka.com/articles/mst-joel/12_19_88.html>
- ^ Henry, Brian. "MST3K FAQ -- West Brains: Aliens in L.A.". MST3K Info Club. Retrieved on 2007-05-24.
- ^ Phipps, Keith. "Joel Hodgson", The Onion A.V. Club, 1999-04-21. Retrieved on 2007-07-12.
- ^ Error on call to Template:cite press release: Parameter title must be specified
- ^ CmdrTaco (2008-01-25). "Joel Hodgson Answers". Slashdot.
- ^ The TV Wheel at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Cinematic Titanic - Homepage of MST3K alumni Joel Hodgson, Frank Conniff, Josh Weinstein, Trace Beaulieu and Mary Jo Pehl
[edit] External links
- Joel Hodgson at the Internet Movie Database
- Interview with Hodgson, Frank Conniff and J. Elvis Weinstein on public radio program The Sound of Young America
- Official Cinematic Titanic website
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
