Just like Doctor Who fans have their personal favorite TARDIS team and comics fans their roster of X-Men, so too do fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 have their group of riffers and mad scientists. Affectionately called “The Mads,” these schemers subject the host and robot pals to the tormentous bad movies for our enjoyment. For seasons 8-10, aka the Sci-Fi Channel years, the main Mad was Pearl Forrester (Mary Jo Pehl) along with decreasingly intelligent talking ape Professor Bobo (Kevin Murphy), and the nigh-omnipotent Observer, aka Brain Guy (Bill Corbett).
Those seasons were where I became the MSTie I am today and, as a result, these three were my Mads. With the return of Mike, Tom, and Crow team from the Sci-Fi Channel years for Mystery Science Theater 3000: The RiffTrax Experiments, we also get to see Pearl, Bobo, and Brain Guy again. I got to speak to Bill, Kevin, and Mary Jo about creating their characters back in the ’90s and returning to them in 2026.
And don’t forget to check out the theatrical screening of the first of these new experiments September 9 and 13 from Fathom Entertainment.
NERDIST: You had obviously worked on the show for various periods of time before that, and Pearl was a character who existed on the show before, what was it like transitioning to here is the new mad scientist, here’s the new kind of setup for the show, and then adding Brain Guy and Bobo as the series was going on. Was that an intention to have more Mads along the way or did that just happen as you were going?
KEVIN MURPHY: I don’t think we though that far in advance.
MARY JO PEHL: Yeah, I think Kevin is right. I think we just sort of flailed forward one show at a time. And if memory serves, I think the idea that there were going to be several… There were several brain people. Do I have that right?
KM: Yes. Yeah. Observers, yes.
MJP: Yeah. And then I’m not sure, I don’t know why I’m even trying to answer this because I’m not sure how it evolved with just Bobo and Brain Guy.
KM: Well, my recollection was we needed something to start it and we came up with an idea of the Planet of the Apes. And Professor Bobo was sort of like the intermediary and sort of the foil for Pearl. And then we decided to blow up that planet because we wanted to move on.
At that time, the USA Network and the Sci-Fi Channel were on us about getting an arc going in the story, which is absurd because they’d show three episodes and then they show the first one again and they almost never ran in sequence, but put a pin in that. We’ll come back to that later. Okay.
BILL CORBETT: Pin inserted.
KM: Yeah. So they blow up the planet and Bobo’s the one that they [decided to keep]. I was on vacation somewhere and they called me up and said, “Guess what? Bobo’s going to keep being on the show.” I’m like, “Oh boy, that’s going to be fun putting on that makeup every week.” And Observer Planet, I think that was the very next place we went.
BC: Well, we spent a little time in the VW bus, which I enjoyed those episodes. The sort of on-the-road with Pearl and our guys. Yes. Yeah, I think you’re right, Kevin. I think the original plan was because. And yeah, everything was kind of happening while the channel, while the network was revising it or coming up with bright ideas. So built a pretty good set for Apes or whatever. So actually the closest we came to a legit set for sometime after.
It was going to be, you were going to be like Frank and Forrester as Apes kind of. But the big surprise was that Pearl was kind of the alpha dog in the room. So it was going to be you guys, I think. But then they started saying, “Hey, why don’t you guys do let’s get out into space because it’s Sci-Fi Channel. They want to see sci-fi elements.” So that plus I think the fact that Mike was not thrilled to be going into a mask all the time.
I mean, I think she would’ve been fine as the Lawgiver, but giving her the VW bus and just kind of making it her show, she kind of takes the boys on the road, I think really woke up. I think it would’ve been a tougher premise to sustain the Pearl and a bunch of apes. So, actually it was hard to produce because we had our poor art and props and set department, which basically Patrick [Brantseg] and Beez [McKeever] is making new stuff all the time. So we did the Brain Planet, basically just a scrim or two. Very easy. The cheapest of Star Trek effects. But there was no intention of keeping one of them on. It was just like, “Hey, kind of funny to have the three of you weirdos together.”
NERDIST: It was a good dynamic. Pearl as the sort of, honestly, you were the Three Stooges and Pearl was the Mo, for sure.
MJP: What every girl wants to hear.
NERDIST: And I think we can all agree that Observer was the Larry Fine of that trio as well.
BC: Absolutely. Mo!
NERDIST: Bobo became the Curly, but he wasn’t always the, well, dumb one. When did that come about?
KM: He devolved pretty quickly. Once he got in the company of Brain Guy and Pearl, I think he did start to devolve pretty quickly. And there’s a lot of jokes to be made about monkeys, so we had to go in the monkey route. Sure.
BC: He became more like Peanut, Mike’s character originally started as, which is the dumb dumb of the two. It’s true. And I became the effective Bobo. Also, Pearl existed before any of these dumb-dumbs in the season seven. I thought that was a fascinating transition from Trace’s, or sorry, Dr. F’s domineering mom to basically a kind of a mad scientist of her own.
NERDIST: What was that like for you, Mary Jo? Initially, Pearl was Dr. Clayton Forrester’s mother, kind of a joke on unsupportive moms, and then going on to be a mad scientist in your own right. You knew Trace Beaulieu was leaving, so was there a discussion, I guess, of changing the character a little bit to make her more the lead?
MJP: Oh, I’m sure there had to have been when we were figuring out how to move forward or what that was going to look like. Doing it with Bill and Kevin and everybody else. I mean, that part was easy because we had all worked together for so long and they just made it fun. I felt really comfortable and we just had a great vibe. But beyond that, I have very little recollection of any deep philosophical discussions.
BC: We were not given to those in any way, whatever. It’s like, what’s going to be funny for the next thing?
MJP: The skin of our teeth are just like, “Yeah, let’s do that. How about this? Yes, let’s do that.” And I think everybody sort of evolved for Pearl. I think it was a physical evolution in terms of pulling back on the extreme makeup, and it was even more extreme when Clayton was in the picture and she was playing Mom.
KM: Well, even from the outset, the first episode where Lawgiver is revealed, it was a whole new dimension to Pearl as the heavy and the big baddie and the boss for sure. And suddenly where before it was sort of a caricature, it became a real character. That was really sort of thrilling to see that happen.
BC: Slapping away apes. I just love that when she comes in and she’s telling him to get away from her. But I mean, that’s the thing. I think leading with Mary Jo’s just funniness as a comic actor just supplied it all, because I didn’t really know what I was doing either with Brain Guy. It was just vaguely kind of old. The only thing that I thought in my mind for that character, well, a lot of it was Star Trek parody, also he’s a middling British actor. A lot of the kind of guys we would see in our actual movies on MST3K who is in an undignified role. Maybe he’s been in Shakespeare and Stratford or something like that.
NERDIST: Obviously the three of you have played these characters again. All of you showed up in the Netflix era as well. When you knew you were coming back together for these new episodes, how was it like getting back into character? And what was it like falling back into that dynamic between the three of you?
BC: Super fun. There was no question we were going to do more. We didn’t know if Mary Jo would be up for it, but there was no question that’s what we were going to do, that we just wanted to have that fun trio back again because it just seemed like it was working and it was funny and it just gave us all kinds of places to go.
MJP: That’s so surprising because yeah, never a hesitation. It’s interesting that you weren’t sure. Of course you’d have to check it out with me, but oh yeah, in a heartbeat. And it just felt like right into the groove again.
KM: Yes, as soon as we were on the set, it felt like it had back when we were in Castle Forrester or on The Widow Maker.
BC: I think the only slight hesitation about having that trio back was Kevin had a moment, I hope I’m not telling tales out of school. I was like, “Do I want to put the mask on again? Do I want to go through that?” And I sympathized.
MJP: Kevin, what time would you have to arrive in the morning? It was something ungodly to get you squared away or underway.
KM: I would get there at six in the morning. It was three hours, but it came down and it got more efficient as we did it, but just recreating. There were some challenges creating the mask again so that it would actually look good on high def TV. Remember when we did this before, we were recording everything in 4-3 and on Beta SP. So it’s a videotape. And now you’re in the digital world and it’s 4K and it’s going to be on the big screen, at least the premiere.
So we wanted to make sure that it looked presentable on that, and the old Bobo mask just would not have cut it. So Chris, our makeup person, did an amazing job of bringing that thing up to date. I’ll just tell you a quick story. Jeff Stonehouse, our DP, begged for Chris to make Brain Guy a little less white, completely pale, and to make Bobo a little bit lighter, go in that direction. So it all came together and suitable for High Def, but still keeping the spirit of that old weird ass trio of ours.
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The RiffTrax Experiments will premiere the first of four episodes in cinemas September 9 and 13 from Fathom Entertainment
The post The Mads on Returning for MST3K: The RiffTrax Experiments appeared first on Nerdist.
This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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