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Mystery Science Theater 3000 (often abbreviated as MST3K) is an American cult television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Best Brains, Inc., that ran from 1988 to 1999.
The series features a man and his robot sidekicks who are trapped on a space station by an evil scientist and forced to watch a selection of bad movies, often (but not limited to) science fiction B-movies. To keep sane, the man and his robots provide a running commentary on each film, making fun of its flaws and wisecracking (or "riffing") their way through each reel in the style of a movie-theater peanut gallery. Each film is presented with a superimposition of the man and robots' silhouettes along the bottom of the screen.
Series creator Hodgson originally played the stranded man, Joel Robinson, for five and a half seasons. When Hodgson left in 1993, series head writer Michael J. Nelson replaced him as new victim Mike Nelson, and continued in the role for the rest of the show's run.
During its eleven years, 198 episodes and one , MST3K attained critical acclaim. The series won a Peabody Award in 1993, was nominated for two Emmy Awards (in the category of Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program) in 1994 and 1995, and was nominated for a CableACE Award.
In 2007, James Poniewozik listed Mystery Science Theater 3000 as one of Time magazine's "100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME."
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 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 to find a movie bad enough to break Joel's spirit, then to unleash the movie on an unsuspecting populace, turning everyone into mindless zombie slaves. The sycophantic TV's Frank, played by Frank Conniff, replaced Dr. Erhardt in the second season premiere on the Comedy Channel (third season overall), 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 1972 film Silent Running). The robots are Tom Servo (voiced first by Weinstein, then by Kevin Murphy beginning in Season 2 on Comedy Channel, Season 3 overall), and Crow T. Robot (voiced first by Beaulieu, then by Bill Corbett beginning in Season 8 [first year on the Sci-Fi Channel, ninth overall year of the show]), 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 (for example, when Cambot is asked a yes-or-no question, the onscreen image will shift up and down or left and right, as if Cambot were nodding or shaking itself in a "yes" or "no" gesture). Also making intermittent "appearances" in the show's early years is Magic Voice (eventually voiced by Mary Jo Pehl, who later played Pearl Forrester), a disembodied female voice whose primary role is to announce the start of the first commercial break in each episode (such as "Commercial Sign in 15 seconds"; "Commercial Sign in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1).
Joel has no control over when the movies start, because—as the original theme song stated -- "he used those special parts to make his robot friends." (Those "robot friends" being Cambot, Gypsy, Crow, and Tom Servo. The opening theme-song lyrics were changed repeatedly in later seasons to accommodate plot changes, like when Mike Nelson replaced Joel Robinson.) He must enter the theater when "Movie Sign" flashes, because Dr. Clayton Forrester (and in later seasons, his evil would-be tyrant mother Pearl) has numerous ways to punish Joel/Mike for non-compliance, including shutting off the oxygen supply to the rest of the ship, and electric shocks. As the movies play, the silhouettes of Joel/Mike, Tom, and Crow are visible at the bottom of the screen, wisecracking and mocking the movie (a practice they often referred to as "riffing") in order to prevent themselves from being driven mad.
Several times during each movie (about every half-hour when shown with commercials), Joel (and later Mike) and the bots perform skits, songs, or other short sketch pieces (called "host segments") that are usually related to the movie they are watching. These segments sometimes even feature "visits" by prominent characters from a shown movie, such as Torgo from , "Jan in the Pan" from The Brain That Wouldn't Die, Ortega from The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies, "Mega-Weapon" from "Warrior of the lost world", and Mothra from Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster.
Many episodes without movies long enough to fill the show's run time also include screenings of unintentionally humorous short films or "shorts," including educational films from the 1940s through the 1960s, a training film for Chevrolet sales managers, movie serials including Radar Men From The Moon, Undersea Kingdom and The Phantom Creeps, and films intended to teach children about posture or personal hygiene. On one occasion a Gumby cartoon was used as a short, and on three other occasions, segments from 1960s episodes of the soap opera General Hospital were used. These are less frequent in later episodes. They are nonexistent in season 8 (the first Sci-Fi Channel season), because 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 final two seasons, with season 9 featuring two shorts (including the aforementioned Gumby film) and season 10, one short (in the penultimate episode).
Although MST3K was arguably the most successful television series to satirize the B movie genre, it was not 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.
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 (as in "HAL 9000"). Drawing partly on his own comedy act (which he was performing in the area at the time), the show's format was to showcase Hodgson. These initial episodes were recorded at the now defunct Paragon Cable studios and customer service center in Hopkins, Minnesota.
In September 1988, Hodgson enlisted Twin Cities-area comedians Trace Beaulieu and Josh Weinstein, and producer Jim Mallon, to help him shoot a pilot for the show. The robots and the set, in their crudest format, were built overnight by Hodgson. The next morning, shooting commenced, and a 30-minute pilot was produced, in which selections from the 1969 science-fiction film, The Green Slime, were the test subject film. Joel watched the movie by himself, and was aided during the host segments by his robots, Crow (Beaulieu), Beeper, and Gypsum (Mallon). Camera work was by Kevin Murphy, who worked at television station KTMA and also created the first "doorway sequence" and theater seat design.
Mallon met with KTMA station manager Donald O'Conner the next month and managed to get signed up for thirteen consecutive episodes. The show had some slight alterations — the set was lit differently, the robots (now Crow, Servo and Gypsy) joined Joel in the theater, and a new doorway countdown sequence between the host segments and the theater segments was shot. The back story was also altered from the pilot; In the pilot episode it is explained that Joel Hodgson (not yet using his character name of Robinson) had built the Satellite of Love and launched himself into space (according to an interview with Hodgson on StarWars.com, it was set in a post-apocalyptic future). Once the series was picked up this was changed, 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) did not 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" 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 the initial run of 13 episodes was extended 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.
After the second season, The Comedy Channel and rival comedy cable network HA! merged to become Comedy Central. During this period, MST3K became the cable channel's signature series, expanding from 13 to 24 episodes a year, a rate 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. To take advantage of the show's status, 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.
Show creator Hodgson decided to leave the series in 1993, halfway through season five. He chose to quit the show due to his dislike of being on-camera, as well as his disagreements with producer Jim Mallon for creative control of the program. Hodgson later told an interviewer: "If I had the presence of mind to try and work it out, I would rather have stayed. 'Cause I didn't want to go, it just seemed like I needed to." In his final episode, Joel was forced to sit through the Joe Don Baker movie Mitchell; he escaped the S.O.L. and returned to Earth with the help of Gypsy and Mike Nelson (a , played by head writer Nelson, hired by Forrester to help prepare for an audit from the Fraternal Order of Mad Science), after the two 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, where he remained as the show's host until the end of its run.
Conniff left the show after season six, with Frank being taken to "Second Banana Heaven" by Torgo of Manos: The Hands of Fate (another movie MST3K previously took into their theater) played by Mike Nelson. Season seven saw the addition of Forrester's mother, Pearl (played by writer Mary Jo Pehl). In the last show of the seventh season, Laserblast, Dr. Forrester detaches the SOL from Deep 13 after his funding runs out, casting the satellite adrift in space. Eventually they reach the edge of the Universe and become entities of pure consciousness.
The show's run coincided with the growth of the internet and numerous fans (MSTies) devoted websites to the series. The new disc is meant to be added to Volume 10 of the "MST3K Collection" DVD boxed set series, replacing the Godzilla vs. Megalon disc which can no longer be sold due to copyright conflicts. The new package will now be sold under the name "Volume 10.2." The three-and-a-half-minute video is presented as a seminar to instruct consumers on how to "upgrade" their DVD set, which merely consists of "disposing" of the old disc and inserting the new one. Hodgson (as Joel), Beaulieu (as Crow and Dr. Forrester), and Conniff all reprise their roles. Frank Conniff played Tom Servo during the reunion.
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 did not even know it had been released. The movie was released on DVD in the United States by , but that release has since gone out of print. Universal Pictures re-released the film on DVD on May 6, 2008. The re-release features a new anamorphic widescreen transfer, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound mix, and the film's original trailer. The movie is also 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.
On 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 series planned to feature weekly adventure based solely around Crow, Tom Servo and Gypsy, with Mallon reprising his role as Gypsy and Paul Chaplin as Crow. However, only a handful of episodes have to date been released, and the series has been abandoned due to budget issues. The internet response to the webisodes was largely negative.
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. A 1997 episode of E! network's Talk Soup show featured guest appearances from Mike, Crow, and Servo.
The only authorized 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. (A segment with Joel Hodgson aired in 1996.)
An unofficial cameo by Crow T. Robot occurred in the Futurama episode "Raging Bender" in which Crow told that series' main characters to be quiet during the screening of a movie.
In The Cleveland Show episode "Hot Cocoa Bang Bang" , there is a scene where Cleveland Jr. is dressed like Mike Nelson and has a Tom Servo on his shoulder.
:"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 had to ask, 'Where are you seeing this show?' I guess we have some sort of timeless quality." In June 2007, TV Guide rewrote the list to include new cult hits and removed those that "have not stood the test of time." MST3K was bumped back two spaces to number thirteen.
In 2007, James Poniewozik listed Mystery Science Theater 3000 as one of Time magazine's "100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME." In the other, Murphy discussed how he met Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., one of his literary heroes. When he had 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 had other plans. When Murphy and friends ate later that night, he saw Vonnegut dining alone in the same restaurant, and remarked that he had been "faced... but nicely faced" by one of his literary heroes. The show also enjoyed a number of celebrity fans, including Frank Zappa, whose long-standing enjoyment of substandard B-movies had been documented in songs such as "Cheepnis" (as heard on Roxy & Elsewhere); Zappa went so far as to telephone Best Brains and became a friend of the show, and following his death episode 523 was dedicated to him.
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.
According to Shout! Factory, the Japanese movie studio Kadokawa Pictures were so horrified with MST3K's treatment of 5 Gamera films that they refused to let Shout release the episodes on home video. Brian Ward (one of the members of Shout! Factory) explained to fans on the forums of the official Shout! Factory website that they tried their best to convince them, but the Japanese take their Gamera films very seriously and don't appreciate them being mocked. However, eventually Shout! was able to clear the episodes for a special 2011 release due to the rights in North America shifting away from the Japanese to another, North American entity that had no such qualms. In another post on the Shout Factory message boards, Ward explained that the Godzilla films faced the same obstacle as Gamera, and explained that unless the rights shifted the way the Gamera rights have, these films would remain unreleased.
Rick Sloane was shocked at his treatment at the conclusion of Hobgoblins. 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 had 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, released in 2009. 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 (who appeared in episode 112, Untamed Youth, and episode 601, Girls Town), Robert Vaughn (star of episode 315, Teenage Cave Man, which he called the worst movie ever made) 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.
A 2005 DVD release of The War of the Worlds features audio commentary by director Joe Dante, film historian Bob Burns III and author Bill Warren. During the commentary, Dante points out that MST3K's "head scientist" is named after the film's leading character, Dr. Clayton Forrester. Warren then replies: "I don't like that show."
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 had a blast, never laughed so hard in my life."
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.
In the initial DVD releases, a polyvinyl silhouette was included, which could be affixed to a TV screen via static electricity to allow viewers to create their own MST3K experience with any feature at home.
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 lights were absent from the early episodes of the series, and did not appear until halfway through the first season of the Comedy Central era. Before the lights appeared Joel would simply slap the table instead. 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 did not appear until the set was revamped for season 2. Beginning with season 4, the center door strobe light and center desk button were changed from green to purple. 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 blinking square shaped lights and the color and order of color above the doors were changed. A blue light was on the left, yellow in the middle and red on the right. However, the desk lights retained the same color and order from the Comedy Central era red, purple, yellow.
Best Brains' copyright notice was shown during the stinger.
MST3K also boasted an "Info Club", a system where viewers 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".
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.
rec.arts.tv.mst3k.misc and rec.arts.tv.mst3k.announce were Usenet newsgroups established in the mid 1990s for announcements and discussions related to the show. The newsgroup had been created in April 1995 by renaming the existing unmoderated newsgroup rec.arts.tv.mst3k at the same time as the creation of the moderated general announcement group rec.arts.tv.mst3k.announce.
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