At this point, Mystery Science Theater 3000 is a comedy institution.

This simple idea — a man and his robot pals watching movies with the audience and gleefully poking fun at them — has spanned decades and generations.

And it’s been a good year for MST3K fans.

Not only has a copy of the last lost episode of the show been found — the KTMA-era version of Star Force: The Fugitive Alien 2,” which hasn’t been available since its original airing in November of 1988 — but the RiffTrax team of Bill Corbett, Mike Nelson, and Kevin Murphy have successfully crowdfunded a new quartet of episodes, MST3K: The RiffTrax Experiments.

Over the years, this show has gone from local cable to Comedy Central, then to the Sci-Fi Channel. It left terrestrial cable for a while, until crowdfunding resurrected it. Then it streamed on Netflix, and moved to its own private streaming platform (The Gizmoplex, which is sadly shuttering soon). Along the way, it has toured with live shows, inducted new hosts and new robot voices into the cast, and now has constant livestreams running on YouTube.

It has spawned spinoffs like The Film Crew, Cinematic Titanic, and most famously RiffTrax, and new generations of fans are continuing to discover the show. (Plus a very lucky few joined the writing crew in some of the latest seasons.)

And new episodes on the horizon aren’t the only reason to celebrate.

Today marks the start of Halfway to Turkey Day!

Thanksgiving marathons have been an MST3K tradition going back to the ’90s, and the Turkey Day Marathon is so beloved that fans simply can’t wait until November to celebrate.

So Halfway to Turkey Day was born. A marathon of all the previous Turkey Day events, Halfway to Turkey Day starts today and will run through June 2nd. It’s available on Amazon Prime Video, Tubi, RokuChannel, the CW app, plus Samsung, LG, VIZIO and Google Smart TVs and more.

And I’ve been working on a puzzle celebrating Mystery Science Theater 3000, so what better day to share it than today, I ask you?

I hope all of the MSTies out there delight in a puzzly little journey through the history of one of my all-time favorite TV shows.

(Click here to download a PDF of the puzzle.)

I’ve tried to make it as inclusive as possible, so no matter who your favorite host is or what your favorite episode is, there should be something for you to enjoy. (Plus I couldn’t resist coloring in a few black squares when I spotted Gypsy/GPC in the grid.)

Happy puzzling, MSTies! And Happy Halfway to Turkey Day!

[Thank you to Jennifer Cunningham, Troy Bond, and Crossword Gentleman Doug Peterson for your testsolving and input!]