50 Fun Facts About Mystery Science Theater 3000

Which film, made by a Texas fertilizer salesman on a bet, became Mystery Science Theater 3000's most iconic episode?

Manos: The Hands of Fate sat in obscurity until the 1993 episode made it a cult legend. Its maker, Hal Warren, had wagered a screenwriter that he could shoot a whole film himself.

The Satellite of Love, the orbiting prison of Mystery Science Theater 3000, is named after a song by which musician?

Lou Reed wrote Satellite of Love while still in the Velvet Underground, then released it on his 1972 album Transformer.

In Mystery Science Theater 3000, the see-through head of the red robot Tom Servo is made from which everyday object?

A gumball machine head arrived when Beeper, a pilot robot who spoke only in beeps, was reworked into Tom Servo. His body is a toy barrel-shaped coin bank.

On which holiday in 1988 did Mystery Science Theater 3000 debut on a local station, a date later honored with marathons?

Thanksgiving 1988 was happenstance: the station simply felt the series was ready. Annual marathons of old episodes later turned the holiday into a fan tradition.

What job did Joel Robinson hold before his bosses shot him into space in Mystery Science Theater 3000?

Janitor Joel was launched into orbit by his own bosses, who wanted to learn which bad movies could break a human mind. He was also an inventor, which is how he came to build his robot friends.

Which streaming service released the fan-funded 2017 revival of MST3K, eighteen years after the original run ended?

Netflix released all fourteen revival episodes at once in April 2017, though the campaign's backers were able to watch them a few days early.

In Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, what does Mike Nelson hit when the robots dare him to steer the satellite?

The Hubble Space Telescope takes the hit after Crow and Tom dare Mike to drive. The 1996 film runs only 74 minutes, shorter than a typical TV episode.

Which prestigious honor did Mystery Science Theater 3000 win in 1993 for fusing clever writing with terrible B-movies?

A Peabody Award went to the series in 1993 for what the judges called an ingenious, eclectic series. Two later Emmy nominations for writing both ended in defeat.

In which Midwestern state was MST3K made for its whole original run, despite network pressure to relocate?

Minnesota kept the production because its makers refused to move to New York or Los Angeles, where each episode would have cost about four times as much.

Which Disney direct-to-video sequel borrowed MST3K's silhouette format, with two sidekicks heckling its predecessor?

The Lion King 1½ seats Timon and Pumbaa in silhouette before a cinema screen to comment on the 1994 film, a format suggested by that film's co-director Roger Allers.

Which comedian plays Max, the henchman who insists on being called TV's Son of TV's Frank, in the 2017 MST3K revival?

Patton Oswalt, a longtime fan, hosted the cast's 20th-anniversary reunion panel at San Diego Comic-Con in 2008, nine years before he joined the series himself.

Which founding cast member voiced Crow and played Dr. Forrester until quitting Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 1996?

Trace Beaulieu also rebuilt the Crow puppet for the first national season; he left wanting more creative ownership, and both of his roles passed to other performers.

How is Pearl Forrester, lead villain of MST3K's Sci-Fi Channel years, related to Dr. Clayton Forrester?

Pearl is his mother, brought in as a sidekick once TV's Frank left; she inherited the whole experiment when the series moved to the Sci-Fi Channel.

Which talking gorilla, modeled on Planet of the Apes, did Kevin Murphy play in the Sci-Fi Channel seasons of MST3K?

Professor Bobo put Kevin Murphy on camera while he went on voicing Tom Servo, a role in which a stranger once mailed him a six-foot banner attacking his new voice.

Before replacing Joel as host of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Mike Nelson already held which job behind the scenes?

Head writer Michael J. Nelson had been hired while waiting tables at a T.G.I. Friday's; he got the hosting job after auditions failed to find anyone who fit.

Joel's surname on Mystery Science Theater 3000, Robinson, was borrowed from the heroes of which 1960s TV series?

Lost in Space, about a family marooned among the stars, supplied the name; the character went by plain Joel throughout the first national season.

Dr. Clayton Forrester, the mad scientist of MST3K, shares his name with the scientist hero of which alien-invasion film?

The War of the Worlds, in its 1953 screen version, has a lead character called Dr. Clayton Forrester, and the series borrowed the name whole for its villain.

Crow T. Robot's beak on Mystery Science Theater 3000 is a split plastic version of which piece of sports equipment?

A bowling pin, split lengthwise, forms the beak; the mesh on Crow's head is the webbing of a lacrosse face mask, and his eyes are ping-pong balls.

In some versions of MST3K's opening credits, which robot's name appears backwards?

Cambot is the unseen eye through which viewers watch every episode, and the reversed name has been read as a hint that he is filming himself in a mirror.

Which 1955 Universal science-fiction film do Mike and the robots mock in Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie?

This Island Earth was trimmed by about 30 minutes; its star Rex Reason later appeared at fan events and credited the riffing with bringing the film a new generation of viewers.

Which Joe Don Baker cop film was the last experiment Joel sat through before escaping in Mystery Science Theater 3000?

Mitchell was Joel's farewell in 1993, and its star was rumored to be so angry at the mockery that the next host later avoided him when both were staying at the same hotel.

Which 1962 film about a surgeon keeping his fiancée's severed head alive was Mike Nelson's first as host of MST3K?

The Brain That Wouldn't Die also gave the series a recurring guest: Jan in the Pan, the film's talking severed head, played in later sketches by Mary Jo Pehl.

Which 1988 film, its starship exteriors lifted wholesale from Battlestar Galactica, became a fan-favorite MST3K episode?

Space Mutiny licensed those borrowed shots for $20,000; the episode proved so popular that the cast riffed the film a second time, before cinema audiences, two decades later.

Which low-budget Canadian adventure, featuring the hard-drinking drifter Zap Rowsdower, became a classic MST3K episode?

The Final Sacrifice was shot by a first-year film student in Alberta, and one critic ranking the first twelve seasons named its episode the best of them all.

Which Shakespeare tragedy did MST3K mock in a dubbed German television production starring Maximilian Schell?

Hamlet reached the Satellite of Love as a 1961 German TV film whose English dub gave King Claudius the voice of Ricardo Montalbán.

Sandy Frank's dubbed imports of which Japanese monster series supplied five season-three episodes of MST3K?

Gamera films filled five episodes of the first local season, and the same five were riffed again in season three, where the jokes at Sandy Frank's expense left him intensely displeased.

Which Gremlins imitation got a sequel after its director saw how popular the MST3K episode mocking it had become?

Hobgoblins director Rick Sloane said he laughed through the episode until its closing credits, where the cast mocked him personally; he released a follow-up in 2009.

Which holiday film, with a young Pia Zadora in its cast, did MST3K mock in 1991?

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians has aliens kidnap Father Christmas to cheer up their listless children; several of the cast riffed it again years later as Cinematic Titanic.

Which future James Bond villain actor plays the giant caveman in Eegah, a film MST3K mocked on television and on tour?

Richard Kiel, later the steel-toothed Jaws of two Bond films, turned up in three films riffed by the series: Eegah, The Phantom Planet and The Human Duplicators.

Which Bruce Dern film, about a lone astronaut with three robot drones, did Joel Hodgson call MST3K's biggest influence?

Silent Running casts Bruce Dern as the only crewman left on a ship carrying the planet's last forests; Joel's gentle, hippie-like manner on screen echoes the film's hero.

A liner-note drawing of a couple in silhouette at the cinema, from which Elton John album, helped inspire MST3K's look?

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road illustrates one of its songs with a couple silhouetted before Gone with the Wind, and the picture stayed with Joel Hodgson when he designed the theater scenes.

Which avant-garde jazz bandleader's band name partly inspired the title Mystery Science Theater 3000?

Sun Ra led the Myth Science Arkestra, and the title blends that name with a stage magician's billing as a mystery scientist. One of his songs also named the ship's outside camera.

At what kind of factory was Joel Hodgson working, bored, when he dreamed up Mystery Science Theater 3000?

T-shirt printing was dull enough to leave his mind free for comedy ideas; he had walked away from Hollywood after turning down an NBC sitcom he did not find funny.

The sequence of doors leading into the theater on MST3K took its inspiration from which earlier TV series?

Mickey Mouse Club gave Joel Hodgson the idea, and he has called the resemblance to the corridor of doors in the Get Smart titles a coincidence.

The alarm that sends the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew into the theater plays on a warning cry from which novel?

Dune supplied the idea: the crew's shout at movie time is modeled on the novel's wormsign, the warning that a giant sandworm is near.

The dog-bone shape of MST3K's Satellite of Love nods to a famous cut from a thrown bone in which 1968 film?

2001: A Space Odyssey cuts from a bone tossed by an ape to an orbiting craft, and the ship's designer folded that joke into the outline of the satellite.

The 2015 campaign to revive MST3K broke a Kickstarter film and video record set by a movie based on which TV series?

Veronica Mars had raised $5.70 million for its film; the revival edged past it with $5,764,229 pledged by 48,270 backers, plus later add-ons.

Which MythBusters host planned the practical special effects for the 2017 revival of Mystery Science Theater 3000?

Adam Savage handled the effects, while cartoon creators Pendleton Ward and Rebecca Sugar were among those designing sets and props for the new episodes.

Which Star Wars actor appears as P. T. Mindslap in the 2017 revival of Mystery Science Theater 3000?

Mark Hamill was one of several famous guests in the revived series, alongside Neil Patrick Harris and Jerry Seinfeld.

Which venture did MST3K's Michael J. Nelson start in 2006 to sell joke commentaries synced to films fans already owned?

RiffTrax sold audio-only commentaries so it never had to license the films themselves, which let its writers take on blockbusters such as Star Wars: Episode I.

Which animated comedy saluted MST3K by having cinema-going lookalikes of Crow and Tom Servo shush its own heroes?

Futurama turned the joke around in its episode Raging Bender: when the regulars start heckling a newsreel at the movies, the two robot silhouettes tell them to be quiet.

Which rock star's private studio complex hosted the theater-riffing shoot for Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie?

Prince owned Paisley Park, the complex where the riffing scenes were shot instead of at the production's own studio.

Puppeteers from which famous firm helped move the robots' bodies in the 2017 revival of Mystery Science Theater 3000?

The Jim Henson Company puppeteers worked the bodies while the voice actors moved the mouths by radio control, so Crow could at last appear to walk on his own.

Which rock musician phoned the makers of MST3K with praise and had an episode dedicated to him after his death?

Frank Zappa became a friend of the production after that call, and episode 523 carried a dedication to him following his death in December 1993.

Which novelist told Kevin Murphy of MST3K that people who work hard on bad films still deserve some respect?

Kurt Vonnegut then turned down a dinner invitation, pleading other plans, and Murphy later spotted him eating alone in the very same restaurant.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 was beaten to the writing Emmy in both 1994 and 1995 by which late-night series?

Dennis Miller Live won both years; its host had once scolded the cast backstage over their choice of a film to mock, the Oscar-winning Marooned.

Which star of Kiss of the Spider Woman led Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, a public-TV film mocked by MST3K?

Raul Julia played an office worker whose mind ends up trapped inside his employer's computer, in a production shot cheaply on videotape for public television.

Reptilicus, which opened the 2017 revival of MST3K, is a giant-monster movie from which country?

Denmark released Reptilicus in 1961: a prehistoric reptile regrown from a frozen tail rampages through Copenhagen. An English-language version was made alongside it for American cinemas.

Which Mario Bava comic-book caper featured in the 1999 finale of MST3K, in which the Satellite of Love falls from orbit?

Danger: Diabolik closed the tenth season in August 1999; one leftover episode, held up by a rights dispute, was broadcast a month later.

After the Satellite of Love crashes in MST3K's 1999 finale, Mike and the robots share an apartment near which city?

Milwaukee is where the finale leaves them, still heckling movies together, after Pearl Forrester accidentally knocks the satellite out of orbit.