Everything about Mystery Science Theater 3000 totally explained
Hodgson cites
Beany and Cecil as having likely been a subconscious childhood influence. The 1960s
Bob Clampett cartoon series centered on a boy and his sea serpent friend. In an interview, Hodgson made loose retrospective comparisons to elements between the two shows, such as the ship (the
Leakin' Lena, to the
S.O.L.), and the characters of Beany (to Joel), Cecil (to Gypsy), Huffenpuff (to Tom Servo), Crowy (to Crow), and Dishonest John (to Dr. Forrester).
The "3000" suffix was added later to sound like a version number, though Hodgson originally wanted it to be "2000". Unfortunately, a partner of his mistook this as being a year number and claimed that 2000 was "too close".
Once the series was picked up this was
retconned, with Joel now having been a janitor at a "satellite loading bay", who was launched into space against his will by his evil "mad scientist" bosses. Joel's captors (played by Beaulieu and Weinstein) didn't actually appear outside of the opening theme until several episodes later.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 premiered at 6:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day,
November 24,
1988 with its first episode, "Invaders from the Deep", followed by a second episode, "Revenge of the Mysterians"
[sic], at 8:00 p.m. Initially, the show's response was unknown, until Mallon set up a phone line for viewers to call in. Response was so great that aside from the first 13 episodes, the station extended the season to 21, with the show running to May 1989. During this time a fan club was set up and the show held its first live show at Scott Hansen's Comedy Gallery in Minneapolis to a crowd of over 600. Despite the success, the station's overall declining fortunes forced it to cancel
MST3K.
Comedy Channel/Comedy Central era
Just as its run at
KTMA was ending, the creators used a short "best-of" reel to pitch the concept to executives at the
Comedy Channel, a national cable channel that was being created. It became one of the first two shows picked up. New sets were built, the robots were retooled, and a new doorway sequence was shot. Another major change was the show's writing format: instead of ad-lib riffs in the theater, each show was carefully scripted ahead of time. Writer/performer Weinstein didn't care for this new format, and subsequently left after the first season. Murphy replaced him as the voice of Tom Servo and Jim Mallon took over as Gypsy. Frank Coniff was Weinstein's replacement in Deep 13. At the same time, Mike Nelson was promoted to head writer.
After the second season, The Comedy Channel and rival comedy cable network
HA! merged to become
Comedy Central. During this change,
MST3K became the cable channel's "signature series", expanding from 13 to 24 episodes a year, which would continue until its seventh national season, as the show gradually fell out of favor with the network's new management at the time.
Comedy Central ran a 30-hour marathon of previous
MST3K episodes during Thanksgiving, 1991, including special promos and a "making of" show (
This Is MST3K, hosted by
Penn Jillette) that featured a behind the scenes look at episode scripting, filming, voicing, and puppet construction.
Bill Corbett first stumbled upon
MST3K during this marathon and became an instant fan; he later assumed voice and puppeteer duties for Crow T. Robot, as well as the role of a new character,
Observer.
The show's run coincided with the growth of the Internet, and numerous fans (
MSTies) devoted
websites to the series.
Conventions
There were two official
fan conventions in
Minneapolis, run by the series' production company itself (zanily called "ConventioCon ExpoFest-A-Rama" (1994) and "ConventioCon ExpoFest-A-Rama 2: Electric Bugaloo" (1996), the second being a dual reference to the movie and the children's TV series
The Bugaloos).
Change of hosts
When Joel Hodgson decided to leave the series, halfway through season five, an episode was written in which his character escaped from the S.O.L. (after being forced to sit through the
Joe Don Baker movie
Mitchell). Joel escaped with the help of Gypsy and
Mike Nelson (a hired by Doctor Forrester to help to prepare for an
audit from the Fraternal Order of Mad Science), after they discovered an escape pod (named the
Deus ex Machina) in a box marked "Hamdingers". To replace Joel, Dr. Forrester sent Mike up in his place. The series head writer
Michael J. Nelson played Mike from 1993 until the end of the series.
The Mystery Science Theater Hour
Among the many troubles the Best Brains staff had with Comedy Central was the latter's desire to cut the show down to a 60-minute time slot. As part of this effort, in the summer of 1993, the
MST3K staff selected 30 episodes to split into 60 one-hour segments, hosted by Mike Nelson in his "
Jack Perkins" persona. The resulting repackaged series was titled
The Mystery Science Theater Hour, and its first-run airings of these half-shows ran from November 1993 to July 1994. Reruns continued through December 1994, and it was syndicated to local stations from September 1995 to September 1996.
Feature film
A feature film, in which Mike and the bots worked over
This Island Earth, was released in 1996 during the gap in the show's run between seasons 6 and 7. Unfortunately,
Universal Studios invested few resources into the resultant . Distributor
Gramercy Pictures had a limited advertising budget and devoted its funds instead to the marketing of the
Pamela Anderson film
Barb Wire.
The film was never given wide release, instead playing for a limited time in different cities and then moving to another city. The result was that many fans didn't even know it had been released. The movie was released on DVD in the United States by
Image Entertainment, but that release has since gone out of print. Universal Pictures announced plans to re-release the film on DVD, scheduled for
May 6,
2008. The re-release will feature a new anamorphic widescreen transfer, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound mix, and the film's original trailer. The movie is still available on DVD in Germany as of October 2007.
The film ran for 74 minutes, making it shorter than any episode of the actual series, and shorter than the original film,
This Island Earth, itself.
Sci Fi Channel era
When Comedy Central dropped the show after a seventh season of only six episodes,
MST3K's
Internet fan-base staged a precedent-setting write-in campaign to keep the show alive. This included taking contributions from
MST3K fans worldwide for a
full-page ad
in the television
trade publication Daily Variety magazine. One notable contributor to the campaign was TV personality and
Biography host
Jack Perkins, whom Nelson had impersonated on the series several times. This effort led the Sci Fi Channel to pick up the series, where it resumed with some cast changes and ran for three more seasons.
By this time, Trace Beaulieu, who had played Dr. Forrester and Crow, had already departed the series.
Mary Jo Pehl took over the lead "Mad" role as Dr. Forrester's mother,
Pearl, who had been featured as a regular in season 7. Her sidekicks were the idiotic,
Planet of the Apes-inspired
Professor Bobo (played by Murphy) and the highly evolved, supposedly omniscient, yet equally idiotic
Observer (AKA "Brain Guy"), played by writer
Bill Corbett. In addition, Corbett aptly took over Crow's voice and puppetry; with this replacement, the series' entire central cast had changed from the original KTMA / Comedy Central cast. In the middle of the first season on the Sci Fi Channel (the eighth national season overall), Mallon handed over the voice and puppetry work for Gypsy to BBI staffer
Patrick Brantseg.
At first, Sci-Fi Channel officials mandated that every movie featured on the revived series had to fit within the channel's broad definition of science-fiction (which included horror and fantasy), instead of the varied genres present in past shows. By the final season, this restriction appears to have been loosened, allowing movies such as
Girl in Gold Boots and the Joe Don Baker film
Final Justice.
Cancellation
The series finale, "", premiered on
August 8,
1999, although a "lost" episode produced earlier in the season, "
Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders", was the last new episode of
MST3K broadcast on
September 12,
1999. Reruns continued on the Sci Fi Channel until
January 31,
2004. Including the feature film, the
MST3K cast and crew produced
198 full episodes of the show.
As with the run on the Comedy Channel, the Sci Fi Channel run ended due to a change in management. As a two-hour show involving long negotiations for the use of third-party films,
MST3K was a tough sell for networks, despite the fan base and ratings. However, many former members of Best Brains insist to this day that they'd have loved to continue the show indefinitely, as evidenced by similar new projects such as
Cinematic Titanic,
RiffTrax and
The Film Crew.
The future
October 29,
2007 that the Tom Servo, Crow and Gypsy characters would be returning in a series of cartoon
webisodes. On
November 5, Best Brains, Inc. launched a new official website featuring a weekly series of "animated adventures". The project is headed by former Executive Producer Jim Mallon, who is joined by one of the original show's writers, Paul Chaplin. In addition, Chaplin provides the voice of Crow; the voice actor for Servo is James Moore. The animated series is exclusive to the relaunched mst3k.com along with various behind-the-scenes material from the BBI archives and a new, fully-online version of Best Brains' "Great Stuff You Can Buy"
MST3K merchandise store.
Reactions
In the
May 30-
June 5, 2004 issue of
TV Guide, a feature article listed
Mystery Science Theater 3000 among the "25 Top Cult Shows Ever!":
» "
11 - Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1989-1999)
A space traveler and his smart-ass robots watch and crack-wise about bombs like
The Brain That Wouldn't Die and
The Killer Shrews.
» Cult-ability: Mike Nelson, writer and star (replacing creator Joel Hodgson), recently addressed a college audience: "There was nobody over the age of 25. I'd to ask, 'Where are you seeing this show?' I guess we've some sort of timeless quality."
In the book
The Amazing Colossal Episode Guide (written by the season 6
MST3K cast members), Kevin Murphy related two tales about celebrity reactions he encountered. In one, the cast went to a taping of
Dennis Miller's eponymous show; when they were brought backstage to meet Miller, the comedian proceeded to criticize the
MST3K cast for their choice of movie to mock in the then-recent episode "Space Travelers" (a re-branded version of the Oscar-winning film
Marooned).
In the other, Murphy discussed how he met
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., one of his literary heroes. When he'd mentioned the show and its premise to Vonnegut, the author suggested that even people who work hard on bad films deserve some respect. Murphy then invited Vonnegut to dine with his group, which Vonnegut declined, claiming that he'd other plans. When Murphy and friends ate later that night, he saw Vonnegut dining alone in the same restaurant, and remarked that he'd been "faced... but
nicely faced" by one of his literary heroes.
The reactions of those parodied by
MST3K has been mixed. Sandy Frank, who held the rights to several Gamera films parodied on the show, was "intensely displeased" by the mockery directed at him. (The crew once sang the "Sandy Frank Song", which said that Frank was "the source of all our pain" and implied that he was too lazy to make his own films.) Because of this, Frank reportedly refused to allow the shows to be rebroadcast once MST3K's rights ran out.However, this may in fact be a rumor, as other rumors indicate that the
Gamera films distribution rights prices were increased beyond what BBI could afford as a result of the show's success.
Kevin Murphy had said that Joe Don Baker wanted to beat up the writers of the show for attacking him during "
Mitchell".
Murphy later said Baker likely meant it in a joking manner, although Nelson said he deliberately avoided Baker while the two were staying at the same hotel.
Rick Sloane was outraged at his treatment at the conclusion of
Hobgoblins and by the selling of the rights to his film without his permission.
In a recent interview, however, Sloane clarified his comments, saying that "I laughed through the entire MST3K episode, until the very end. I wasn't expecting the humor to suddenly be at my own expense. I was mortified when they dragged out the cardboard cutout and pretended to do an interview with me. I was caught off guard. I'd never seen them rip apart any other director before on the show." He also credits the success of the
MST3K episode with inspiring him to make a sequel to
Hobgoblins, due to be released in 2008.
Jeff Lieberman, director of
Squirm, was also quite angry at the
MST3K treatment of his film.
Others have been more positive: Robert Fiveson and Myrl Schriebman, producers of, said they were "flattered" to see the film appear on
MST3K.
Miles O'Keeffe, the star of the film
Cave Dwellers, called Best Brains and personally requested a copy of the
MST3K treatment of the film,
Adam West, star of the 1960s
Batman TV series, co-starred in
Zombie Nightmare, another film
MST3K mocked. West apparently held no grudges, as he hosted several
MST3K marathons on Comedy Central, including the "Turkey Day" marathon in which the episode featuring
Zombie Nightmare had its broadcast premiere.
Mamie van Doren,
Robert Vaughn and
Beverly Garland (who'd appeared in many
MST3K-featured
Roger Corman films) also hosted.
Rex Reason, star of
This Island Earth, has also appeared at several
MST3K events and credits
MST3K with introducing the film to a new generation.
The crew of
Time Chasers held a party the night the
MST3K treatment of their film aired. Reactions were mixed, but director
David Giancola said, "Most of us were fans and knew what to expect and we roared with laughter and drank way too much. I'd a blast, never laughed so hard in my life."
Awards
MST3K won a
Peabody Award in 1993, for "producing an ingenious eclectic series": "With references to everything from
Proust to '
Gilligan's Island,' 'Mystery Science Theater 3000' fuses superb, clever writing with wonderfully terrible B-grade movies".
In 1994 and 1995,
Mystery Science Theater 3000 was nominated for the
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program, but lost both times to
Dennis Miller Live.
MST3K was also nominated for
CableACE Awards each year from 1992 through 1997, the last year of the awards. Its DVD releases have been nominated for
Saturn Awards in 2004, 2006 and 2007.
Celebrity fans
Some noted fans of
MST3K include: film directors and producer
Steven Spielberg and
Martin Scorsese, songwriter-musician
Neil Young, musician-composer
Frank Zappa (whom the show honored at the end of episode 523 on
January 22,
1994, a month after his death), writer-director
Paul Schrader, cartoonist
Matt Groening, former
Vice President Al Gore,
Time film critic
Richard Corliss, TV critic
Tom Shales, singer/songwriter
"Weird Al" Yankovic (who later collaborated with Mike in a
RiffTrax of
Jurassic Park), actors
Emilio Estevez and
Neil Patrick Harris (who also collaborated with Mike on
Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory RiffTrax), the rock band
Rush (who mentioned the show in the liner notes of the
Counterparts album),
MSNBC anchor
Keith Olbermann
and film director and animator
Ralph Bakshi.
Brad Pitt also mentions the show in the first few minutes of the audio commentary for
Ocean's Eleven.
Characteristic elements
Several unusual elements of
Mystery Science Theater 3000 provide a unique feel to the show, and were featured in many (if not all) episodes.
Theater silhouette
The theater silhouette, trademarked as "Shadowrama" (sometimes "Shadowramma") — a row of chair tops with Tom Servo, Joel or Mike, and Crow sitting at the right side — is a simple row of rounded shapes cut from black painted foamcore board. Joel/Mike and the robot operators sit down in front of these, facing a white wall. When shot from the back it gives the illusion of sitting in a theater. A photograph of this appears in the book
The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Amazing Colossal Episode Guide, depicting Mike Nelson with a script on his lap and puppeteers Trace Beaulieu and Kevin Murphy working their respective robot puppets in front of the theater seat cutout.
Its characteristic appearance has been used in several works, often as an homage to the show.
Door sequence
Featured in most transitions between the theater segments and "host" segments is a camera tracking through a tunnel leading from the bridge of the Satellite of Love into the theater, or vice versa. Access to the tunnel from the bridge is through a
hexagonal doorway, originally decorated with a large, gear-like "G" (for
Gizmonic Institute, the original lair of the Mads) In mid season 5, upon Joel's departure, the main bridge door's Gizmonic "G" logo was altered to a full pinion gear wheel/hub design for the Mike Nelson episodes (season 5-7). This change was made per Joel Hodgson's request that all references and logos to Gizmonic be removed upon his leaving the show. For the Sci-fi Channel era, the main bridge door was redecorated again with a Satellite Of Love profile shape locking hinge and planet design. This replaced the "gear wheel" design. As the camera (implicitly Cambot) moved through the opening doorway, a countdown of hatches, decorated with unusual artifacts and numbered "6" through "2" (in the style of a
film leader countdown), moves out of its way, finally opening on the theater and the film. The doorway sequence was changed three times during the series duration. The first one was used for the KTMA season, and a more colorful and elaborate one was built and filmed for season 1 on Comedy Central which would remain in place until Joel left in episode 512. Beginning with episode 513, a newer more sophisticated doorway sequence was built and filmed in keeping up with the show's art direction at the time with more dark grey colors, more props and a more proportionally shaped hexagonal tunnel. This doorway sequence would remain for the duration of the series. The season 1-5.5 door sequence is known amongst fans as the "Joel Doors" and the season 5.5-10 sequence is known as the "Mike Doors". In, Best Brains acquired props to use an actual door sequence instead of recording one.
Hexfield Viewscreen (HVS)
The HVS was, as its name implies, a hexagonally shaped opening on the SOL's bridge that served as a kind of monitor, through which the inhabitants of the SOL could interact with a wide and diverse range of visitors, often characters taken directly from whatever movie they were watching at the moment (Gamera, Jan-in-the-Pan, etc), and sometimes not (Yakov Smirnoff, rowdy redneck neighbors, etc). While an ostensible viewscreen, it was actually a small stage area, covered with a dark fabric screen with an "iris" mechanical door in front of it; and was often "deactivated" by simply turning off its lighting at the end of a transmission, as the door moves rather slowly. The HVS was used more frequently during the Comedy Central years. During the SciFi Channel era, it was used on a few occasions, such as during the season 8 send up of "The Mole People" and during season 10 in episodes "Soultaker", "Final Justice", & "Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders". The Hexfield Viewscreen premiered in episode 201 ("
Rocketship X-M") and was originally manually operated with a hardware store bought window shade before episode 205 when the more familiar iris mechanism and frame backlight were installed. The HVS frame had different backlight colors through the years. It had a blue light from mid season 2-early season 3, white lighting in mid season 3, then yellow lighting in late season 3 and finally blue again from season 4 through 10.
Rocket Number Nine
Sometimes Joel/Mike and the Bots would become aware of something happening outside the ship, and would instruct Cambot to "give [them] Rocket Number Nine". Once they did this, they were provided with an external view of the ship and whatever was nearby. This is an oblique reference to a tune by
Sun Ra.
Light/button signs
During the host segments, a set of three colored light-up buttons was located on the table's left side (mid season 1 through 10) (to the viewer) and above the door to the theater (Season 2-10).
- The leftmost light was red and would light to indicate that the Mads were calling; Mike discovered in episode 517 (Beginning of the End) that the button could be pressed to contact Deep 13, but commented after seeing the Mads in an uncomfortable domestic scene, "So, I guess we can call the Mads... You know what, I don't think we should do that again."
The rightmost was yellow - "commercial sign" - and would light to indicate that the show had to cut to a commercial break.
The middle light was green (season 2 and 3) and purple/blue (season 4 through 7) and would light to indicate a visitor in the Hexfield Viewscreen (this occurred only during the Comedy Central episodes). While one of the characters would usually touch the flashing light to "execute" it, there were never any consequences for failing to do so.
When all three lights flashed, it indicated "movie sign". When this happened the camera would shake, a buzzer would sound, and everyone currently on the bridge would scatter while yelling "We've got movie sign!" or some variant thereof.
The lights were absent from the early episodes of the series, and didn't appear until halfway through the first season of the Comedy Central era. Before the lights appeared Joel would simply slap the table due to the lack of buttons. During Season 1, the color order of the light buttons were different than from later seasons. The green and red buttons were reversed. Green was used for commercial sign and yellow was for the Mads. Red was only used with the others during "movie sign". The rotating strobe lights above the doors didn't appear until the set was revamped for season 2. Beginning with season 4, the center green light and green desk button was now a purple-esque/blue colored light and button. This was due to the blue chroma key used for the door sequence having been replaced with a green chroma key and the green lights didn't show up well on camera with green chroma key and vice versa. When the S.O.L set was again revamped for the Sci-Fi channel era in season 8, the rotating strobe lights were replaced with solid square block lights (similar to the lights used in the feature film) and the color order above the doors was changed. The blue light was on the left, yellow in the middle and red on the right. However, the desk lights retained the same color order from the Comedy Central era.
Invention exchange
The Joel Hodgson era of the show (as well as the first five episodes of the Mike Nelson period) featured the "Invention exchange". This was always in the host segment which followed the first commercial. Joel and the bots would give their latest idea for a new invention to Dr. Forrester (often ending with the now-familiar line "Whaddaya think, sirs?") and vice versa. This ranged from a karaoke machine that only played public domain music to the machine that made fun gifts into practical gifts. The final invention exchange occurred in episode 519, "Outlaw" (only the seventh show featuring Mike Nelson as the host), wherein the Mads presented "the first really real time machine" opposite Mike and the bots' instant Fabio kit. The reason the invention exchanges were discontinued was, according to Kevin Murphy in The Amazing Colossal Episode Guide, that "Joel was the gizmocrat, the one who brought that invention exchange spirit on board" and "Mike is many things, but he isn't a tinkerer". Though the invention exchanges were discontinued, Dr. Forrester and Frank continued to present new inventions and experiments throughout Seasons 5 and 6, usually sending them to Mike and the bots to test them out.
Stinger
Rocket Attack U.S.A., with a shot of a blind man walking down the street, then suddenly stopping to exclaim "Help me!" The stinger was replaced for three episodes of season eight with images of the Observers, and for a fourth with a shot of Bobo after a disastrous fall.
The button
At the end of each episode during the "Frank" years (seasons 2-6), Dr. Forrester would instruct Frank to push "the button", which was located on a computer keyboard. When this was done, the image would shrink and leave a black screen to make way for the end credit roll. "Push the button, Frank" has since become one of the show's more recognizable lines among fans. (Some believe that the line is a reference to a running gag of "Push the button, Max!" in the film The Great Race.) Occasionally there were variations of this custom, as in Daddy-O where "the button" malfunctioned and would repeatedly interrupt the credit roll to switch the show back to the Mads in Deep 13.
Low budget
Just like the films that they riff on, part of MST3K's charm is its economical use of its low budget. Everything, right down to the sets, props and robots are made from household items found at thrift shops. Part of this started during the KTMA years, as there was little to no budget supplied to the crew for the set, so such items had to be made out of various "found junk". Despite an increasing budget, Best Brains never forgot their roots as a "cowtown puppet show" and subsequently kept the bric-a-brac motif of the show.
Midwestern references
Many of the riffs and cultural references made by the humans and bots in the show are specific to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, reflecting the origin of the show (filmed throughout its eleven seasons in this area) and the Best Brains staff's Midwestern roots. For example, in episode 422 (featuring The Day the Earth Froze), Crow remarks how Scandinavia resembles southern Wisconsin with the crack: "It's the Swedish Dells!" He then says in a heavy Swedish accent: "The Dooks! Ride the dooks!" (that is, the 'Ducks', an amphibious tour vehicle). There is also an episode where they reference former U.S. Sen. William Proxmire, D-Wis. The character of Mike Nelson is also from Wisconsin and in episode 810, "The Giant Spider Invasion", which is set in Wisconsin, the crew accordingly mocks riotous mobs by shouting variations of "Packers won the Super Bowl!!" (The show's cast and crew are ardent fans of the arch-rival Minnesota Vikings, even having Vikings running back Robert Smith in a dialogue-less cameo in one episode.) References to the Twin Cities suburbs such as Maplewood and Edina are also common for example "Featuring Music normally heard at the Days Inn lounge in Columbia Heights". Mary Jo Pehl's home town of Circle Pines, Minnesota is also mentioned in a number of episodes.
Riff density and callbacks
Once the Best Brains staff gained some experience from the earlier KTMA shows, they gradually increased the amount of riffing until they estimated they were doing about 700 jokes per 90-minute episode.
Many of those riffs are "callbacks", or references to earlier episodes and running jokes.
Letter readings and Info Club
A common feature on the show was the reading of fan mail during the closing segment of the show. Usually, only one letter was read per episode, although up to four letters have been read in some episodes. During the beginning of each letter, Cambot has the note up on "still store" so that the audience can see the text (or fan art, if any.) This began during the KTMA season of the show, though early episodes had Joel only playing phone messages from fans — the tradition didn't evolve to letter-reading until about halfway through the inaugural season.
MST3K also boasted an "Info Club", a system where you could write in to the specified address (the same one used to collect fan mail) and receive newsletters about events and information related to the show. The address would appear in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen twice during the theater segments, and again in conjunction with the letter readings.
The letter reading ended mid-season 7, with the last episode to feature letter readings being episode 705, "Escape 2000".
Musical numbers
The host segments of many episodes (almost every episode in the Joel era, less often in the Mike era) feature a musical number written by Michael J. Nelson. The songs usually mock the movie that's being watched (the "Sidehacking" song from "Sidehackers") or one of the people involved with production ("The Sandy Frank Song" from "Time of the Apes"). Several of these songs make up the majority of the archive material on MST3K.com.
Interestingly, the number of musical numbers featured on the show went into decline once Nelson's tenure as host began, despite the fact that he wrote almost all of the musical numbers.
Guest characters
The MST3K cast was occasionally augmented by "guest stars" from the films — characters so memorable that they made interesting visitors to the Mads' lairs or the Satellite of Love. (See "Recurring guest characters" below.) These film characters were always portrayed by Best Brains staffers, giving some screen time to behind-the-camera workers. Other "guests" were real-life people portrayed by MST3K cast and crew. MST3K has only had two non-staffers make guest appearances on the show: the aforementioned Smith cameo appeared in a season 8 episode, with Smith as "Howard", a "gift" to Pearl from her ape worshipers, and film critic Leonard Maltin, who had been mercilessly mocked for some of his ratings of MSTied films, appeared as himself in episode 909, "Gorgo".
Cast
Recurring guest characters
Jack Perkins (Michael J. Nelson) - in real life the host of the A&E Network's Biography program, Perkins first appeared in MST3K simply to annoy the Mads by describing the movie with glowing praise. When MST3K appeared in syndication as The Mystery Science Hour, Nelson's fake "Jack Perkins" hosted the show.
Jan-in-the-Pan (Mary Jo Pehl) - a woman's severed head from the movie The Brain That Wouldn't Die.
Jerry and Sylvia (various actors) - two "mole people" from the movie The Mole People (featured much later as a season 8 episode) who occasionally assisted the Mads and stopped by for social events. They also work Deep 13's camera in the first host segment of "Lost Continent". Presumably named after Sylvia and Gerry Anderson, the creative team behind and Supermarionation shows like Thunderbirds and Stingray, some of which were featured as KTMA-season episodes.
"Krankor" (Bill Corbett) - a vain, would-be conqueror with an unfortunately chicken-like appearance and a drawn-out, braying laugh (described by BBI as "like a Buick not turning over"), "Krankor" (technically, "The Phantom", dictator of the planet "Krankor" in the movie Prince of Space) appeared in a host segment during the "Prince of Space" episode, and returned three episodes later in a host segment for "Invasion of the Neptune Men", featuring a movie with a similar plot.
The Nanites (voiced variously by Kevin Murphy, Paul Chaplin, Mary Jo Pehl, and Bridget Jones) - self-replicating, bio-engineered organisms that work on the ship, they're microscopic creatures that reside in the S.O.L.'s computer systems. (They are similar to the creatures in episode "Evolution", which featured "nanites" taking over the Enterprise.) The Nanites made their first appearance in season 8. Based on the concept of nanotechnology, their comical deus ex machina activities included such diverse tasks as instant repair and construction, hairstyling, performing a Nanite variation of a flea circus, conducting a microscopic war, and even destroying the Observers' planet after a dangerously vague request from Mike to "take care of [a] little problem". They also ran a microbrewery. The Nanites were largely forgotten about during the show's last season, and we're not given an explanation of their fate following the series finale.
Ortega (Paul Chaplin) - an unintelligible, decrepit, cigar-smoking henchman from the movie The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies, Ortega recurred frequently in the three Sci Fi seasons.
Pitch (Paul Chaplin) - a devil from the Mexican movie Santa Claus, Pitch was one of the few characters from the Comedy Central seasons to return in the Sci Fi Channel seasons.
Santa Claus (Kevin Murphy) - appeared twice on the show, including a fight with Pitch, bellowing, "I'm here to chew candy canes and kick ass, and I'm all out of candy canes!"
Torgo (Michael J. Nelson) - a monster/henchman (with bad knees) in, Torgo was among the most frequently returning "guest characters" of MST3K. He got his knees fixed and returned as "Torgo the White" (an obvious parody of Gandalf the White) to accompany TV's Frank to "Second Banana Heaven" and was never seen again (episode 624, "Samson vs. the Vampire Women").
Flash series
October 29, 2007, Jim Mallon announced through the Official MST3K Web Site that Best Brains, Inc. was being reborn. To spearhead the production company's return to activity, a new online animated web series referred to as "The Bots Are Back!" is being produced. The idea is to release a weekly adventure based solely around Crow, Tom Servo and Gypsy, with Mallon reprising his role as Gypsy and Paul Chaplin as Crow.
All new actors and staff will round out the cast and writing crew. Never before seen behind the scenes footage will also be released through the MST3K.com site from the original series, in addition to an online store with all new merchandise. The website was launched on November 5, 2007.
Video releases and episode trading
Episodes MST3K episodes". No fan copy is known to exist.
(Jim Mallon had once mentioned that Best Brains' master copies are stored in a vault.) The long lost episodes are K01 ("Invaders from the Deep"), K02 ("Revenge of the Mysterians"), and K03 ("Star Force: Fugitive Alien II"), with K03 being redone in season 3. "Episode" K00, "The Green Slime", is often counted among those missing shows, but is actually only a never-broadcast, half-hour sample from the film used to sell the MST3K concept to KTMA.
Allusions to the show
Surf rock/sci-fi band Man or Astro-Man? performed a cover of the love theme which can be found on their 1994 singles compilation album Destroy All Astromen! and on their 1995 live album Live Transmissions from Uranus. Joel Hodgson became a fan of the band and performed the song with them during a 1996 Los Angeles concert. During Joel's return appearance to MST3K in the 10th season episode, Soultaker, his character mentions that he'd gone on to do pyrotechnics for Man or Astro-Man? concerts since his escape from the Satellite of Love. Man or Astro-man? recordings regularly feature audio samples taken from films riffed on MST3K (ex. The Leech Woman, It Conquered the World and Santa Claus) and the albums often make allusions to common themes and running jokes (ex. album credits for John Agar in Is It ... Man or Astroman? and Peter Graves and Richard Basehart in Destroy All Astromen!). Man or Astro-man? guitarist Hayden Thais (Dexter X) and drummer Brian Teasley (Birdstuff) were also members of the "all-robot band" Servotron, which was named for MST3K robot character Tom Servo's namesake. A handbill for at least one concert have featured an image of the robot puppet.
Matt Groening is reportedly a fan of the show, and homages to MST3K appear in both of Groening's animated TV series, The Simpsons and Futurama. The Simpsons executive producer Mike Reiss mentions in his commentary on the fourth season DVD that the theater silhouette scene in the episode "", was intended as an MST3K reference. Further, in the sixth season episode "Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part One)", MST3K can be seen playing on a TV in Moe's Tavern. In the second season Futurama episode "Raging Bender", Leela, Fry, and Bender briefly encounter Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo (in silhouette) while at a movie theater, and with a great sense of irony, Crow tells them not to talk during the movie. Also, in The Simpsons Movie, the end credits have a portion with The Simpsons watching the movie, in the "theater view".
The Special Edition DVD of Ghostbusters 2 features an option to watch the movie with Ivan Reitman, Harold Ramis and Dan Ackroyd riffing their own movie MST3K style, complete with the sillouettes at the bottom right.
The computer game Escape Velocity features many Mystery Science Theater references, including:
- An Easter egg where the player can fly the S.O.L.;
- A secret weapon called "The Forklift" which plays a brief snippet of the MST3K song "They Tried to Kill Me with a Forklift"; and
- By holding down the "Option" key, one can watch a parody of the MST3K theme song in place of the game's normal opening scrawl.
Wing Commander 3 has a mission set in the Torgo system. In addition, a player can type "Mitchell" (a reference to the Joe Don Baker movie MST3K parodied) to put the game in cheat mode. If successful, the game plays an audio snippet of Joel, Crow and Tom Servo saying "Mitchell!"
LucasArts' computer game contained an elaborate Easter egg that, if activated, would display the famous MST3K silhouette on the bottom of the screen. Afterwards, all the cut scenes in the game would display alternate, humorous dialogue in the style of the show.
In the 1997 Star Wars fan-made parody film Troops, the Imperial droid stolen by the Jawas is shown to be Tom Servo.
The silhouette of the MST3K crew is on the cover of Roger McGuinn's 1996 album Live from Mars.
In the CD case insert of rock band Weezer's 2001 self-titled album (aka The Green Album), an MST3K silhouette cut-out is shown sitting in front of the band playing on-stage. It can be found on the bottom right hand side of the crowd. Best Brains is given a courtesy credit in the liner notes.
The web-based MMORPG Kingdom of Loathing contains numerous references to MST3K including a "warwelf", an allusion to the "Werewolf" episode of MST3K, and the use of "hi-keeba", a popular MST3K meme first heard in the "Women of the Prehistoric Planet" episode. Also, the Satellite of Love appeared as "A Lovely Satellite" that players could view from an observatory.
Popular MMORPG World of Warcraft has an item called the "Hands of Fate", a reference to one of MST3K's most popular episodes. There is also an NPC in Netherstorm with a robot companion named "Servo-bot"
The flash animation site Homestar Runner makes a reference to MST3K in the cartoon "A Jorb Well Done", in which the HSR characters are trying to help Coach Z pronounce the word "job" correctly. At one point, they're forcing him to sit through a film on diction where the Tom Servo character can be seen briefly with the Theater Silhouette in front of the screen.
On their "No Strings Attached World" tour, the boy band 'N Sync played a small video on a jumbo-tron during set changes that featured interviews with fans while the members of the band could be seen in silhouette at the bottom right-hand corner of the jumbo-tron.
In Animaniacs, Vol.2 of the series disc set, the very first episode had a reference. In the segment called "Potty Emergency", they're watching a B-sci-fi movie in a theater. Above one of the doors in the movie it's labeled "MST3K". This was originally aired in 1993 and apparently the producers of Animaniacs were MST3K fans already.
In the Food Network series "Good Eats" with Alton Brown, several episodes include a MST3K-esque Mystery Food Science Theatre.
During the Fox News coverage of Paris Hilton's jail saga, Shepard Smith remarked, "I feel like Mystery Science Theater all of the sudden."
Influences and other appearances
The videogame magazine PlayStation Underground (Volume 2, Number 1) included a Best Brains-produced MST3K short on one of their promotional discs. The video opened with a host segment of Mike and the Bots playing some PlayStation games, only to go into the theater to riff on some videos from the magazine's past. The feature is about seven minutes long. An Easter egg on the disc has some behind-the-scenes footage of Best Brains filming the sequences.
During promotion for Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie Mike and the bots were interviewed in-character on MTV, and seen in silhouettes heckling footage from MTV News.
The only appearance to date of the cast in character since the final episode was an episode of ESPN Classic's Cheap Seats, where they briefly appeared in a cameo to make fun of the hosts' own skits. The show, which featured two brothers "riffing" in an MST3k-like manner at clips of old sporting events, aired from 2004 to 2006. Mike Nelson and Tom Servo were interviewed in character for the show, but the segment was never completed.
The anime convention Otakon ran a series of shows called "Mystery Anime Theater 3000" from 1997 to 2003. The show was one of the most popular elements of the convention.
Botcon, the annual Transformers convention, has featured a fan-produced MSTing of Transformers episodes, "TFMST", almost every year since 1997, with 2002 being the exception, as well as offering two performances in 2006, one at BotCon and a second at Iacon One, an unofficial show co-hosted by one of the TFMST writers.
A comedy group in Austin, Texas called Mr. Sinus Theater began a live version of the MST3K format in 2000, mocking popular films like Top Gun and The Terminator at the Alamo Drafthouse dinner theater. In 2004 they were sued by the creators of MST3K over trademark issues, and subsequently changed their name to The Sinus Show. As of January 2007, two of the original members of The Sinus Show left the troupe and it has since been renamed Master Pancake Theatre.
Writer/performers Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett have recently applied the format to major studio films by selling riffing-only audio tracks, called RiffTrax, on the web.
The three have also revived The Film Crew which, much like the later MST3K seasons, features Kevin, Michael, and Bill riffing on old movies (but in a different setting). The four-title initial run includes "Hollywood After Dark", "Killers From Outer Space", "Wild Women of Wongo", and "Giant of Marathon". A series of DVDs, each containing one title (plus skits and extras), are scheduled to be released beginning July 10, 2007. Subsequent releases will be made available at the rate of one DVD per month.
The Illinois-based Doctor Who convention -- Chicago TARDIS -- runs an activity called Mysterious Theatre 337, during which they view classic Doctor Who episodes and riff them using pre-scripted dialog.
The Library of Congress showed episode 1009, Hamlet, on August 21, 2007, as part of their "Screening Shakespeare" festival.
Joel Hodgson recently announced he's creating a similar project called "Cinematic Titanic" with original cast members Trace Beaulieu and Josh Weinstein, as well as former cast members Frank Conniff and Mary Jo Pehl. Conniff has been part of "Cartoon Dump", a series of classically bad cartoons from the collection of Jerry Beck. In addition to web appearances, live shows are being performed in Los Angeles and New York City and Hodgson will make guest appearances. Conniff plays Moodsy Owl while Hodgson is Dumpster Diver Dan.
Although MST3K was arguably the most successful television series to satirize the B movie genre, it wasn't the first. Prior to MST3K's 1988 debut, the nationally syndicated TV series, Mad Movies with the L.A. Connection and The Canned Film Festival, featured many of the same movies but each lasted for only a single season in 1985 and 1986 respectively.Further Information
Get more info on 'Mystery Science Theater 3000'.
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