Mystery Science Theater 3000/Characters

Joel Robinson

Played by Joel Hodgson

The original "guy shot up in space" and the creator of the robots. Joel was an employee at Gizmonic Institute, both a janitor and inventor. As part of Dr. Forrester's experiement, he was launched into space aboard the Satellite of Love and is forced to watch horrible movies. Joel has a rather laid-back personality, and as their creator, often acts as a father figure to the Bots.

• The Ace: But only in the season 10 premiere where he fixes the SoL in a few hours among other great things... poor Mike.
• Adorkable
• Cloudcuckoolander
• The Danza: Actually only a half-Danza--his real name is Joel Hodgson.
  • In the KTMA years, though, the character actually was called Joel Hodgson.
• Deadpan Snarker
• Eyes Always Half Shut
• Gadgeteer Genius
• Genius Ditz
• Hidden Depths
• Hot Scientist: YMMV of course.
• The Kirk (Original)
• The Leader
• Motherly Scientist: Often ends up disciplining/comforting the robots that he built.
• Only Sane Man
• Put on a Bus
• The Stoic: Well, Joel's more laid back than stoic, but he seldom ever gets upset. He's so laid back, according to the KTMA Opening Theme lyrics, Joel's response to being shot into space and being forced to watch bad movies?

Joel says, "When you got lemons, you make lemonade."

• • When he does lose his cool, it's startling. During Attack of the The Eye Creatures, Joel ends up apologizing for the the rest of the the male sex, and later, actually loses his cool, berating one character:

Joel: (angry) You know what? You are one sick mamma-jamma.

• • And then his infamous rare outburst in Manos: The Hands of Fate, after twenty seconds go by with nothing of any appreciable importance happening on screen.

Joel: ...DO SOMETHING!!! God!

• Team Dad

Crow: "You're not my real father!"

Mike Nelson

Played by Michael J. Nelson

The second "guy shot up in space" after Joel escaped from the Satellite of Love halfway through Season 5. Mike Nelson is a lifelong temp-worker, bouncing from job to job. Only the coincidence of him being temped out to Deep 13 for their audit at the time of Joel's escape led to him being employed long-term by Dr. Forrester. He's described by Dr. Forrester as a "disgustingly mild-mannered dope", which is pretty apt. To the bots, he's seen as a big brother, college roommate type, or amicable coworker, depending on the situation.

• Adult Child: He slips into this at times. Once quite literally.
• Ambiguously Gay: Or perhaps Bi.
• Beware the Nice Ones
• Big Brother Instinct: Towards the Bots...at times.
• Big Screwed-Up Family
• Butt Monkey
• But You Screw One Goat!: Applies to his descendants.
• Character Development: In a sense. Though he's decidedly not a tech guy, he does eventually learn how to make repairs and mild alterations to the 'bots.
• The Danza
• Deadpan Snarker
• The Kirk (Original)
• Kubrick Stare: Mike doesn't think that's funny.
• Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: The Trope Namer, no less, destroying a grand total of four planets in the eighth season alone.
• Mr. Fanservice: YMMV of course.
• Power Born of Madness: Mike's tendency to randomly assume the identities of other people during the Comedy Central years ended up saving the crew's lives during the Season 7 finale, when he transformed into Captain Janeway and rescued the satellite from a black hole via a stream of Techno Babble.
• Shirtless Scene: He's done this a few times.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Averted, Mike was very different from Joel. Unlike his predecessor he actively tried to escape from the SOL, gave up on the traditional invention exchanges early on, and was generally angrier and more savage in his riffing style.
• This Loser Is You
• Unfazed Everyman
• Unlucky Everydude
• Waiting for a Break: Apparently a very talented and prolific performer, still had to resort to temp work.
• Wholesome Crossdresser
• You Look Familiar: Mike played several small roles in the host segments (and most notably played the recurring role of Torgo) before taking over as host.

The Bots

• Five-Man Band
• Ping-Pong Naivete
• Second Law, My Ass: Applies to Crow and Tom Servo. Sometimes Gypsy as well.
• The Genie Knows Jack Nicholson
• The Other Darrin
• Robot Buddies
• With Friends Like These...

Crow T. Robot

Played by Trace Beaulieu (seasons 1-7), Bill Corbett (seasons 8-10)

TV's wise-cracking Crow is a gold-colored hominid. His most obvious features are his pronounced beak made out of a bowling pin, and a hockey mask he wears as a head crest of sorts. He tends to be the most immature of the trio, generally acting out the most or getting into various types of trouble. He also fancies himself a bit of an amateur screenwriter, and a Running Gag on the program is him routinely pitching new scripts at the other two. He sits to Joel/Mike's right in the theater.

• Bi the Way
  • Camp Bi
• Deadpan Snarker: Arguably the biggest one on the show.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath
• Kubrick Stare: Can pull off a very good one, due to the way his head is shaped.
• The Lancer
• Large Ham
• The McCoy
• Memetic Mutation: In MSTings, it's common for Crow to make suggestive riffs or joke that are otherwise in poor taste and get reprimanded by Joel or Mike shouting "CROW!", despite the fact that this happened maybe twice during the series. This will also be used (in the exact same format) in MSTings that don't use the series cast.
• Morality Pet: He's good friends with Pearl Forrester, of all people, and she treats him better than the rest of the cast.
• The Other Darrin / The Nth Doctor: Bill Corbett is The Other Darrin until a throwaway line by Joel saying that he'd changed his "bowling pin" part, making him The Nth Doctor.
• Spell My Name with a "The": His middle name.
• Split Personality: In the Sci-Fi Channel episodes, Crow has an occasional tendency to think he's something or someone he's not. Examples include a bear (Jack Frost), Mary Tyler Moore (It Lives by Night), and a Bellerian (Space Mutiny).
• The Starscream: Mirror Universe Crow.
• Stylistic Suck: His forays into screenwriting, especially the infamous Earth Vs. Soup.
• Telescoping Robot: Crow's arms look disproportionately small when he's behind a counter. A full body shot reveals he's really just folded his arms up to fit on the counter.
• Transparent Closet: Has had at least one kinky dream about Tom Servo, and gotten giggly over the thought of touching Robert Redford.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Tom Servo, Type 2.

Tom Servo

Played by Josh Weinstein (season 1), Kevin Murphy (seasons 2-10)

Tom Servo is a red robot. His most obvious feature is the fact that his head is a gumball machine. He also has inoperable arms on springs, and travels by floating on his hover-skirt. Despite these shortcomings, he's the most cultured of the crew and has a lovely singing voice. His jokes tend to be of the more intellectual type. He sits to Joel/Mike's left in the theater.

• Berserk Button: HE'S NOT MERRITT STONE!
• Casanova Wannabe: Mainly his KTMA-Season 1 persona.
• Deadpan Snarker
• Distressed Dude: Has gotten into this role a couple of times.
• Eyeless Face
• In Touch with His Feminine Side
• Large Ham: Gets into this on occasions.
• Last-Name Basis/Full-Name Basis: He was usually referred to as "Tom Servo" or "Servo". Rarely did anyone call him just "Tom".
• Reality Warper: During The Gunslinger, Tom Servo shows that he has such a complex understanding of reality that he's able to perform Offscreen Teleportation and warp time. He apparently uses it to scare Crow at night.
• The Smart Guy
• The Spock if, as Murphy puts it, 'kind of weepy'.
• Transparent Closet: Not quite as flagrant as Crow, but he is curvy, gifted with better fashion sense, and the best singer on the ship.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Crow, Type 2.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: If someone's going to get in a skirt as part of a skit, it'll probably be Servo.

Gypsy

Played by Jim Mallon (seasons 1-8), Patrick Brantseg (seasons 8-10)

Gypsy was a robot built by Joel to service the higher functions of the ship. As such, she doesn't (typically) go into the theater with everyone else. She's basically a snake form, with a long black tube as a body, and her head is a baby's car seat attached so she kinda looks like a vacuum cleaner with a flashlight that serves as her eye. She has a huge crush on Richard Basehart.

• The Chick
• Cloudcuckoolander: A running gag is that she is the smartest character by a wide margin, but most of her mind is taken up by actually running all the systems on the ship.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass
• The Ditz: While she was almost completely unintelligible in the KTMA episodes, this became gradually downplayed as the series went on, until she was more or less the (admittedly not completely lucid) Only Sane Woman during the Sci-Fi seasons.
• I'm Your Biggest Fan: Toward Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea star Richard Basehart.
• Mama Bear: Towards Crow and Tom Servo, most notably in "The Beatniks."
• Meaningful Name: Joel Hodgson named and designed her after his brother's pet turtle. Really.
• Only Sane Woman: Believe it or not, she's been this at times.
• Smarter Than You Look
• Team Mom
• Self Made Woman: After the SOL's crash (at the end of the series) she ditched Mike and the other Bots and founded a multi-billion dollar company.
  • Though since this was 1999 and near the peak of the dot-com bubble, when even TV Tropes might have been valued in the billions, it's sort of an open question whether her fortune lasted.
• The Smurfette Principle
• You No Take Candle: Only at first. She got over it after a few seasons.

Cambot

Played by Kevin Murphy (original KTMA and seasons 1-5), although he is only heard during Robot Roll Call in the official seasons.

Cambot serves as the camera on the Satellite of Love, projecting to the Mads in Deep 13. As such, he's never seen, never heard, and it's easy to forget he's even there, but he's obviously an essential member of the crew, without whom we wouldn't see all the wacky hijinx on the Satellite.

• He Who Must Not Be Seen: Kind of a given, since he's the one who has to film everything.
• In-Universe Camera.
• Never Found the Body: It is unknown whether or not Cambot survived the SOL's crash on earth at the end of the show.
• Sdrawkcab Name: During Robot Roll Call his name is backwards because he's taping himself in a mirror.
• Silent Snarker: Made his only riff in 'Sidehackers', though made clever comments in one of the host segments as well..

The Mads

• Affably Evil
• Cool and Unusual Punishment
• Failure Is the Only Option
• Large Ham: All of them.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: TV's Frank to Dr. Erhardt; Pearl to Frank, and later Dr. Forrester; though to be fair while they filled similar roles their characters were all quite different.

Doctor Clayton Forrester

Played by Trace Beaulieu

Dr. Forrester is the green-coated head scientist down in Deep 13 who oversees the experiment on the Satellite of Love. While he's evil with a capital E, he's also not particularly effective, given how after several years, he still has yet to find that perfect movie that will drive people insane. Oftentimes, the relationship between Dr. F and the folks on the Satellite tends to be strangely amicable.

• Card-Carrying Villain: "Supervillain" is his actual job title.
• Einstein Hair
• Evil Laugh
• Locked Into Strangeness: According to his Backstory, he was struck by lightning, which gave him his Skunk Stripe.
• Mad Scientist
• Nerd Glasses
• Skunk Stripe: In his hair and mustache.

Doctor Larry Erhardt

Played by Josh Weinstein

Dr. F's first assistant, who didn't get much characterization at all, since he was only around for one season. He pretty much aped Dr. F's tendencies towards loving evil and played the part of the sniveling aide.

• Geek Physiques: Of the fat variety.
• Hollywood Nerd: Type 1, big time.
• The Igor
• Nerd Glasses
• Mad Scientist
• Put on a Bus: And later implied to have been eaten by a giant spider.

TV's Frank

Played by Frank Conniff

Dr. Erhardt's replacement after Season 1, TV's Frank was, in the end, far more fleshed out than his predecessor. More laid back, goofy, and ineffectual than even Dr. F himself, Frank often found himself the butt of jokes, or just plain dead. He departed the show at the end of Season 6, where he was assumed into Second Banana Heaven.

• Attention Deficit Disciple
• Butt Monkey
• The Danza
• The Ditz
• The Igor
• Phrase Catcher: "Push the button, Frank!"
• They Killed Kenny He died a lot.
• Too Dumb to Live: Literally, as he was killed multiple times.

Pearl Forrester

Played by Mary Jo Pehl

Dr. F's beloved mother, who showed up a few times in Season 6, but became Dr. F's foil in Season 7 when she moves back in. Starting Season 8, after Trace Beaulieu leaves the show, she becomes the head scientist showing the movies. The story is that after Clayton died (again, it's a bit complicated), she was put in cyrogenic freezing, thawed by the future apes, and became the Lawgiver. Doesn't make much sense, but you know how it is.

• Black Widow
• Evil Matriarch
• Foe Yay: Possibly with Mike.
• Legacy Character: Especially once she moves into Castle Forrester in season 9.
• Mad Scientist
• My Beloved Smother: Her original characterization with regards to Clayton. She also literally smothered him to death off-screen between seasons 7 and 8, when she realized that being a nicer mother to the reborn Clayton still wasn't enough to prevent him from growing up to be a mad scientist anyway.
• Psychopathic Womanchild
• Skunk Stripe: Once she moves into Castle Forrester.

Professor Bobo

Played by Kevin Murphy

An evolved gorilla from the year 2525, from a future where apes evolved from men?. Yes, it's a madhouse. He's heard it all. First appearing in the beginning of Season 8, he's a professor of anthropology, but soon becomes little more than The Ditz often foiling Pearl's machinations.

• The Ditz
• Extreme Omnivore: He is constantly either eating or looking for food, and on top of that, is occasionally shown to eat things that aren't food.

Bobo: Well, you see, the fact of the matter is I've swallowed so darned many things over the years that there must be a key in there somewhere that'll work.

• Funny Animal
  • Fully-Dressed Cartoon Animal
• Took a Level In Dumbass: Bobo wasn't exactly the brightest knife in the full deck before Earth blew up, but afterward he became a complete idiot.

Observer ("Brain Guy")

Played by Bill Corbett

A member of an allegedly advanced species, the Observers. He and his kind first appear in Season 8 to observe the experiment, but Mike ends up blowing up their planet, leaving only the one behind to hang around with Pearl and Bobo. Allegedly, his species is just the brain, which his "host body" carries around in a salad bowl, but this show being what it is, the concept is only tangentially ever alluded to, and you may as well assume the guy in pale face with the robe is "Brain Guy".

• Achilles Heel: Turns out keeping your brain in a big, open salad bowl is kind of a crummy idea.
• Amusing Alien
• Ditzy Genius: Theoretically omnipotent and omniscient...unfortunately, he's a complete wimp and sad sack with no initiative.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Mostly. Very few people ever call him Observer.
• Only Sane Man
• Sufficiently Advanced Alien: Parodied.
• Transparent Closet