MST3K: History of MST3K - Brief Synopsis

What exactly is MST3K? What do they do on the show? Why should I turn my crank to FRANK? Well all of these questions and more (or less) will be answered in this section. More detail will be given in the timeline sections (which will be made later)

"In the not too distant future", a guy named Joel Robinson (played by Joel Hodgson) worked for a company named "Gizmonic Institute" as a janitor. Gizmonic Institute was a place where EVERYBODY was an inventor. Even Joel was an inventor.

Joel had 2 bosses. One was Dr. Lawrence Earhart (played by Josh "J. Elvis" Weinstein), who was quite young and dim-witted. He left after a short period of time.

Another boss of Joel's was Dr. Clayton Forrester (played by Trace Beaulieu). His hair and mustache have a white streak supposedly from being struck by lightning. The bosses didn't like Joel, since Joel was a better inventer. So they shot him into space on a space ship (named the "Satellite of Love"), and performed experiments on Joel.

While on the satellite, Joel created 4 robots. Cambot was created to film the experiments. Cambot is rarely seen, and only "spoke" during the pilot episode, which was unaired to the public. The only way we can see cambot is thru the use of a mirror.

Gypsy (voice by Jim Mallon, then later by Patrick Brantseg) was created to control the satellite. Gypsy is the only female on the ship, and since her mind is used to mainly control the ship, she speaks rather dim witted and in a very goofy voice. Really its because a man is doing the voice of a woman, but hey, this is the on-screen story.

Crow (voice by Trace Beaulieu, later by Bill Corbett) is the gold robot that joins Joel in the experiments. He is a spec screenwriter, and is more often the one with a potty mouth (when it does happen).

Tom Servo (voice by Josh "J. Elvis" Weinstein, later by Kevin Murphy) also joined Joel for the experiments. He is red, has a gumball machine for a head, and a great singing voice. Intellectual, has a little bit of an ego, but seems to get emotional a lot (especially cries).

What were the experiments about? The theory was that they could take extremely bad movies, force people to watch them to the point where they crack, and it will help them take over the world. So how do Joel, Crow and Servo fight back? Simple: they talk right back to the movie.

During breaks, they have "host segments", sometimes about the movie, sometimes something totally unrelated. Now these are not your average bad movies. Some of these are the type of movies that make "Plan 9" look good. Some are bad, some are awful, some are hideous. Movies that lacked a sensable plot, or any plot, or good dialogue, or contained things such as stock footage, jump cuts, and nonsense music. Some movies matched under a few of these categories, and a few even had all of these.

One odd thing about the show is that quite a few people have seen the show, remember it, but don't know what its called, simply because they haven't seen enough of it. When explained to them, and shown pictures of 2 robots and a guy at the bottom of their screen talking to movies, they remember it. They remember enjoying it for the short time they viewed it. But never looked more into it. Does this show sound or look familar now? Yes? No? It doesn't really matter. While the show IS canceled, they do have reruns on Sci-Fi (Saturdays 9-11AM EST), and Rhino Home Video has put some of the episodes aired on Comedy Central on video casette (availiable for purchase now for about $15-$22 per episode). There are also many fans who are making (or have made) amateur produced episodes. Why? Because they can. Because people refuse to see the show go away.

Why do we watch MST3K? Because its funny! Oh sure there are times when the humor is dry, but generally I've seen about 3 types of responses as to why people DIDN'T like the show. 1) They actually enjoyed the movie that was being made fun of, 2) They didn't see enough of the show and only ended up seeing small parts of the show that weren't very good, or 3) They got bored of it after the first few minutes. Generally it looks like people didn't like to sit around for 2 hours to watch this. Well with the Rhino Videos, its cut down by 1/2 hour. As for enjoying the movie, well, its your opinion. Though some movies were almost impossible to like, some were still likable than others. But they all still had their bad elements. Sometimes the movies were too bad, that people new to the concept couldn't like the show.

The uniqueness in this show is that it challenges accepted junk and many issues, while still keeping generally in bounds of clean fun. Kids age 10, to adults in their 40's, 50's even 60's have enjoyed this show. And there you have it. Mystery Science Theater 3000: ask for it by name.