by Robert Igoe

Created on: January 22, 2009

NARRATOR: "The Screaming Skull" is a motion picture that reaches its climax in shocking horror.
MIKE NELSON: But we cut that.
NARRATOR: This climax is so terrifying that it might have an unforseen event. It may kill you.
TOM SERVO: If you watch it in front of a moving bus.
"The Screaming Skull"

Mystery Science Theater 3000, or "MST3K" as the show's millions of fans refer to it, left the air on January 31, 2002 nearly two years after the last original episode was broadcast, which means that after 15 years of hilarity, fans were left with nothing but the tapes and the memories of the show, which went through a total replacement of its cast during its run but never lost its edge, getting more daring and biting as it went on, and the fans have responded just as rabidly, saving the show from extinction on more than one occasion.

"The show was originally slated to go off the air a couple of times, but Sci-Fi bought the rights (to the films used for the series) again so it continued," said Mike Nelson, the show's head writer who took over the hosting duties in 1993 following the departure of show creator and original host Joel Hodgson. "It's always nice to have the show on the air as a way of getting a foot in the door to pursue other projects. It's also amazing to have younger people come up to me and tell me that they just discovered the show. But even though I wish it would stay on the air, at least I don't have to worry about being compared to my younger self."
The show's premise was simple enough. A janitor for an invention development company, Joel Robinson (played by Hodgson), is trapped on a satellite and shot into orbit by two mad scientists, Dr. Clayton Forrester (Trace Beaulieu) and Dr. Larry Erhardt (J. Elvis Weinstein) and forced to watch bad movies by the scientists to gauge his reaction. Erhardt left the show after season one, to be replaced by new henchman and punching bag TV's Frank (Frank Conniff).
Probably a federal funded project.
Anyhow, to help him combat the films, Robinson invented a series of robots. Cambot is the name given to the camera itself, while Gypsy (voiced by Jim Mallon then Patrick Brantseg) is in charge of operating all of the ship's vital functions, though the emotional automaton fawns over Richard Baseheart and can be made ill just by mentioning Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
But the two key robots are Robinson's "inside bots," Tom Servo (voiced at first by Weinstein then by Kevin Murphy) and Crow (voiced by Beaulieu, then by Bill Corbett),

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• Next Page >>