Dr. Clayton Forrester is the name of the scientist in War of the Worlds, The (1953). Trace Beaulieu wears the same oversized horned rim glasses as Gene Barry did in "War of the Worlds."
Jim Mallon cites one of his inspirations for the show as being "Rocky and Bullwinkle."
The original name suggested by Joel Hodgson was Mystery Science Theater 2000. It was changed to 3000 to sound more futuristic.
In the first year, when this was just a local show on KTMA-TV, no rights were obtained for the use of the films seen in the show, which is why none of the early episodes can be released on video.
At the end of the final episode (after screening Diabolik (1968)), Mike, Crow, and Tom Servo are living in an apartment and begin watching a bad movie on television, The Crawling Eye (aka Trollenberg Terror, The (1958)). This was the movie screened in the show's very first episode on Comedy Central.
Kevin Murphy was the longest lasting member of the crew, being one of the show's writers from the KTMA days on to the final episode, Diabolik.
Shortly before his death in 1993, musician/composer Frank Zappa planned to make a film with the members of MST3K. Zappa and Kevin Murphy had several conversations on this subject.
The space ship Mike/Joel and the bots are on is called the Satellite of Love, named after the song "Satellite of Love" by Lou Reed.
The walls of the Satellite of Love interior are made of randomly placed objects, such as a toy of the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars (1977) to the bottom left of the Hex-field, a Star Wars Darth Vader action figure holder, a plastic reindeer cut in half and glued over the theater door, plastic toy trumpets, silverware trays, bundt cake pans, and extra bowling pins that would have served as Crow's beak. The majority of these objects were kept on the walls of the Satellite even after the set was rebuilt to mark Mike's replacement of Joel.
An early eighth season episode, Mole People, The (1956), featured a cameo by Robert Smith, who was Running Back for the Minnesota Vikings at the time. Playing a mute caveman hunk, he was the show's first celebrity guest. Film critic Leonard Maltin, the show's only other celebrity guest, appeared in the ninth season episode Gorgo (1961) as himself.
Nearly every minor character that appeared on the show was played by various members of the production crew or a central cast member in another role.
The "T" in Crow T. Robot stands for "The".
The 3000 at the end of the title is supposed to be a version number, not a year, and was originally was 2000. Since it was fairly close to the year 2000, Jim Mallon changed it.
Kevin Murphy (II)'s dog is in episode 904 - _Werewolf (1996)_.
The set of Satellite of Love was made up entirely of toys that the show's creators bought at Goodwill. All of the robots were also made from common household items.
When the show ended production after its 10th season, the set and props were sold at auction on eBay.
Joel's sleepy-eyed appearance was a holdover from the pilot, which he recorded after not sleeping for four days.
The last episode to be produced was episode 1013 - Diabolik (1968), which aired on 8 August 1999. However, the last new episode to actually air was 1003 - Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders (1996), which was originally scheduled to run early in the 10th season but was pulled from the schedule due to problems securing the rights to the film, and ultimately aired on 12 September 1999 as a "lost episode". In January 2004, the Sci-Fi Channel opted not to renew its contract with Best Brains Inc regarding the show, effectively canceling the series for good. On 31 January 2004, The Sci-Fi Channel aired 912 - Screaming Skull, The (1958) as the last episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 to air on TV.
According to Barb Tebben (the second Info Club Poobah), the "classic" Satellite of Love set (used until the end of Season 7) cost $200 to build. Many of the same pieces were used when the set was remodeled for Season 8.
The Hexfield Viewscreen's iris mechanism was originally thought of by Best Brains, but they were unable to built it. As such the first few incarnations of the Hexfield ranged from nothing at all to a window shade to a slightly more advanced window shade. However, shortly into season 2's production Jim Mallon found an add in a magazine for a person who manufactures large iris. The builder was located not too far from BBI's office and being a fan of the show he agreed to build the Hexfield for cost of materials.
Joel and Dr. Forrester were originally employees of "Gizmonic Institute". When Joel Hodgson left the show, he wanted to use the word "gizmonic" (for which he already owned the trademark) for his own projects, so it was never mentioned again. It made little difference, as "Gizmonic Institute" had not been mentioned much since the early KTMA episodes, and had never actually been important, as the first episode on the Comedy Channel begins with the revelation that Forrester and Erhart was conducting the experiment without the knowledge of their employers.
Many of the "inventions" offered in the Invention Exchanges were created by Joel Hodgson for his stand-up act years before.
Until his departure in Season 6, Frank Conniff (I), who played "T.V.'s Frank", was the one mainly responsible for choosing the movies to be watched. When he left, this duty was given to writers Paul Chaplin and Mary Jo Pehl.
After the credits, a five second clip from the movie that has just been watched is shown. These have been called "stingers" by the cast and crew, and highlight a particularly stupid moment in the movie. The first stinger aired with episode 205 - Rocket Attack U.S.A. (1961). It featured a blind man saying, "Help me." The stingers remained a permanent fixture of the series in every episode following 205 except early in season 8. Four episodes (805-808) removed the stingers in place of a repeating clip of the Observers holding their brains up to the camera (in 805-807) as well as a clip of Professor Bobo lying on an asteroid in pain after falling out of Pearl Forrester's space-traveling van (808). These four "stingers" followed Sci-Fi's strict new story arc guidelines for the show but were the only times MST3K left out a stinger from the feature film.
The reason Pearl calls Crow "Art" is because in an earlier season Joel introduced the bots the same way Jackie Gleason (I) would introduce the cast of "Jackie Gleason Show, The" (1966), with Art Crow instead of Art Carney. A fan then sent a picture calling Crow "Art".
Ranked #11 in TV Guide's list of the "25 Top Cult Shows Ever!" (30 May 2004 issue).
The MST3K Crew was ranked #13 in TV Guide's list of the "25 Greatest Sci-Fi Legends" (1 August 2004 issue).
Joel's last words after escaping the Satellite of Love ("I can't come back! I don't know how it works! Good-bye!") are a reference to the wizard's last words in Wizard of Oz, The (1939).
The show gained a following after fans taped episodes and then gave them to other people to watch. An acknowledgment comes in the end credits of every episode in seasons 2-4, "Keep Circulating the Tapes". The tradition ended after BBI's lawyers questioned its support of piracy.
The escape pod Joel uses is called the Deus ex Machina.
In the final episode of season 7, the older Dr. Forrester seen at the end is played by Trace Beaulieu's father, Jack Beaulieu.
The mole people Gerry and Sylvia are named after Sylvia Anderson (I) and Gerry Anderson (I), the creators of _"Thunderbirds" (1964)_. In the KTMA years several films of their work were featured.
Originally a parody of Silent Running (1972) with Joel being captive on a satellite going nowhere, wearing a blue jumpsuit with patches all over it and having several robots as his companions to help him keep sane. Also the first episode was more of a direct parody as Joel finds some "vacuflowers" which start poisoning the crew similar to the way Lowell Freeman in Silent Running tries to keep his flowers alive.
Often characters from the films parodied, such as Torgo from _'Manos' the Hands of Fate (1966)_, make appearances in the show.
Trace Beaulieu based Dr. Forrester on some "jerk" club owners he had encountered on the stand up circuit.
Best Brains and Rhino Video played with the idea of continuing the show directly on video, but it proved to be too costly.
The invention exchange that took place at the beginning of each episode was ended shortly after Joel Hodgeson left the show. The tradition continued after Mike arrived but only for a few episodes, seeing as how Joel was always the one who came up with the inventions.
By the time the show entered its tenth and final season, none of the original cast members from the first season remained on the show. (Kevin Murphy did not take on the role of Tom Servo until season two.)
According to Mike Nelson, many amateur filmmakers who were fans of MST3K offered to make bad movies specifically for the show.
The reason that Mike and the Bots are constantly traveling to new planets during season 8 is because when the show was picked up by the Sci-Fi Channel, the network executives demanded that it have a "story arc". By the time the show entered season 9, the executives had lost interest in the idea, so the space and time traveling motif was dropped.
The lyrics to the opening theme song were changed four times during the show's eleven-year run. This was mostly done to accommodate story changes that were made necessary by the departure of key cast members from the show.
Whenever the characters are given the "movie sign", a blue-screen sequence follows which shows the camera moving toward the theater through a series of doors. When the characters are exiting the theater (either for a break or when the movie has ended), the "doors" footage is simply played backward to show the camera moving away from the theater and the set of doors closing and he props in the hallway (such as flames) also move in reverse.
Season 1 episode 10 Robot Holocaust and Season 7 episode 6 Laserblast both were executive produced by Charles Band. Both movies used the same theme music composed by Richard Band (apparently a means of saving money on the tight budget of Robot Holocaust which was produced 8 years after Laserblast). Despite several jokes made during Laserblast about the music's similarity to 1980s hard rock bands, the recycled theme music went unnoticed.
The black synthesizer guitar Joel uses during the skit segments in several episodes is a Casio DG-1.
The Crow and Servo puppets used in the theatre segments were not the same ones used in the host segments. The puppets used in the theatre segments were spray-painted black. This was done not only to ensure that the puppets appeared completely black in silhouette, but also to prevent the film from being projected through Servo's transparent head. The black Crow puppet was used in a host segment as Crow's alter ego, Timmy.
Kevin Murphy (II) has stated that for every film used, about ten to twenty were screened and rejected. This means from just over 200 episodes, nearly 2,000 films were watched by the writing staff to find "suitable" films for use in the show.
