In 1999, Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett were the final crew to front the long-running movie-riffing series Mystery Science Theater 3000—Nelson as the human test subject of the same name, Murphy as the delightfully pompous Tom Servo, and Corbett as that wily rascal (you know you want him, baby) Crow T. Robot. Having formed a cohesive unit onscreen and behind the scenes on the show’s three Sci-Fi Channel seasons, the trio kept at the unique form of comedy perfected by MST3K following the show’s cancellation. In 2004, they released their first efforts as The Film Crew, before pivoting to (and going audio only as) RiffTrax in 2006.
But in their years of recording humorous commentary tracks for blockbusters and B-movie schlock alike, the Satellite Of Love was never far from their hearts. Their castmates and co-writers Mary Jo Pehl and Bridget Jones Nelson (the latter of whom is married to Mike Nelson) eventually joined the RiffTrax fold; Murphy and Corbett reprised the roles of mad-scientist second bananas Professor Bobo and The Observer for the first season of the 2010s MST3K revival headed up by series creator Joel Hodgson. And now they find themselves at the center of the search for the worst movie ever made once more, thanks to Mystery Science Theater 3000: The RiffTrax Experiments, the crowd-funded comeback that will subject Mike, Servo, and Crow to four new episodes of cinematic crud this fall. Before the premiere of the first Experiment—a riff of ’60s creature feature Sting Of Death that Fathom Entertainment is bringing to theaters September 9 and 13—Nelson, Murphy, and Corbett spoke to The A.V. Club about returning to MST3K’s not-so-distant future, the parts of the old show they wanted to maintain, and how they’ve managed to keep their creative collaboration going for multiple decades. (It probably has something to do with the way their natural, off-the-cuff banter just sounds and reads like Mike and the Bots going at it.)
The A.V. Club: When the opportunity to do these episodes presented itself, were you surprised?
Kevin Murphy: I was absolutely surprised, because we were done. 1999, we closed up shop and we all moved on. And so for this to reappear was intriguing. All the stars aligned at the exact same time, and it seemed like, “Well, there’s never going to be another good time to do this.”
Bill Corbett: We didn’t say yes right away. I think it’s fair to say we had to really think “Is this a mistake? On any number of levels?” We just seem like old dogs returning to the farm to the die or something. That’s what they do, old dogs.
How about you, Mike?
Mike Nelson: It is a weird thing to return to something that was formative in your life, but it was a long time ago. That is an odd thing, but there’s such a joy to it—like, “Wow. Hey, all these people!” It was weirdly, weirdly fun in a way that is hard to describe.
KM: The way I describe it is that we managed to get a big part of the old band back together. Our original director of photography. Two of our favorite prop people. Toolmaster Jef Maynard. Brad Keely, our editor. Beez McKeever, Patrick Brantseg—all these folks had worked in and day out to make this thing happen. We’d write these cockamamie scripts, and these people would just, like, move heaven and earth in order to get the stupid things we put on scripts onto the screen. That was the joy in it,…
