Mystery Science Theater Renewed

Those wisecracking robots of Mystery Science Theater 3000 are coming back for a 10th season of ridiculing bad movies.

The Sci-Fi Channel is renewing Mystery Science Theater 3000 for another season starting early next year. It will be the show's third season on Sci-Fi since being dropped by Comedy Central.

Sci-Fi is ordering 13 episodes of the Peabody Award-winning show for the new season, with an option for nine more.

"We sort of get that Bob Hope sort of status," executive producer Jim Mallon said Thursday of the cult TV show's long run.

Mystery Science Theater 3000, known as MST3K to fans, is written and produced in suburban Minneapolis. The show features stranded-in-space Mike Nelson and his robot pals, Crow and Tom Servo, heckling Grade-Z movies.

"We get this crop of movies in, and we get angry all over again," producer-director-writer-puppeteer Kevin Murphy said Thursday, explaining how the show stays fresh.

The show debuted on a Twin Cities UHF station in 1988.