Mystery Science Theater 3000 - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988–1999), usually abbreviated MST3K, is an American cult television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Best Brains, Inc. It features a man and his robot sidekicks who are trapped on a satellite in space and forced to watch particularly bad movies, especially (but not limited to) the science fiction genre. The gimmick of the show is that the man and his robots make a running commentary on the film, making fun of its flaws and wisecracking their way through the film, in the style of a movie theater peanut gallery. Series creator Hodgson originally played the stranded man, Joel Robinson. When he left in 1993, series head writer Michael J. Nelson replaced him as new B-movie victim Mike Nelson, and continued in the role for the rest of the show's run. The format proved to be popular. During its eleven years and 198 episodes (including one feature film), MST3K attained a fiercely loyal fan base, and much critical acclaim. The series also won a Peabody Award in 1993. Premise
The loosely-defined "plot" of the show serves chiefly as a pretext for the movie commentary and the comic sketches known as "host segments" which appear throughout each episode. Two mad scientists, Dr. Clayton Forrester (named after the main character in The War of the Worlds), played by Trace Beaulieu, and his sidekick Dr. Laurence Erhardt, played by Josh Weinstein, launch Joel Robinson (Hodgson), a janitor working for the Gizmonic Institute, into space and force him to watch truly horrible B-movies. They do this in order to measure how much bad-movie-watching it takes to drive a person crazy, and to pinpoint the perfect B-movie to use as a weapon in Dr. Forrester's scheme of world domination. Forrester's scheme was that when he found a movie so bad that it broke Joel's spirit, he would unleash it on an unsuspecting populace and turn everyone into mindless zombie slaves. (The sycophantic TV's Frank, played by Frank Conniff, replaced Dr. Erhardt in the second season premiere following Weinstein's departure from the series.) Trapped on board the Satellite of Love (S.O.L.) — a reference to the Lou Reed song — Joel builds four sentient robots that populate the ship (ostensibly because he is lonely, and as a homage to the 1970s film Silent Running). The robots are Tom Servo (voiced first by Weinstein, then by Kevin Murphy beginning in Season 2), and Crow T. Robot (voiced first by Beaulieu, then by Bill Corbett beginning in Season 8), who accompany Joel in the screening room; Gypsy (voiced first by Weinstein, inhaling as he spoke, then by Jim Mallon and later by Patrick Brantseg, both using a falsetto voice), who does not appear in every episode but handles the "higher functions" of the S.O.L. (such as steering the ship); and Cambot, the recorder of the experiments who is visible only in a mirror during the opening credits and occasionally interacts with the others. Also making intermittent "appearances" in the show's early years is Magic Voice, a disembodied female voice whose primary role is to announce the start of the first commercial break in each episode. Joel has no control over when the movies start, for, as the theme song states, "he used those special parts to make his robot friends". He must enter the theater when "Movie Sign" flashes, as Dr. Forrester has numerous ways to punish Joel for non-compliance (including shutting off all oxygen to the rest of the ship and electric shocks). As the movies play, the silhouettes of Joel, Tom, and Crow are visible at the bottom of the screen, wisecracking and mocking the movie (a practice they often referred to as "riffing") to prevent themselves from being driven mad. Just before or after most commercial breaks, Joel (and later Mike) and the bots perform skits, songs, or other short sketch pieces (called "host segments") that are sometimes related to the movie they are watching. These segments sometimes even feature "visits" by prominent characters from a shown movie, such as Torgo from Manos: The Hands of Fate, "Jan in the Pan" from The Brain That Wouldn't Die, and Mothra from Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster. But before too much frivolity can transpire, the "movie sign" lights flash, signaling the resumption of the movie. Many episodes without movies long enough to fill the show's runtime also include screenings of unintentionally hilarious short films or "shorts", including propaganda-style films from the 1950s, a training film for Chevrolet sales managers, and films intended to teach children about posture or personal hygiene. On one occasion a Gumby cartoon was used as a short. These are less frequent in later episodes. They are nonexistent in season 8 (the first Sci-Fi Channel season), as during that season the Sci-Fi Channel's executives required that every film be a science-fiction, fantasy or horror movie. The restriction was lifted for the last two seasons, with season 9 featuring two shorts (including the aforementioned Gumby film) and season 10 one short (in the penultimate episode). |
