Satellite of Love (MST3K)
Encyclopedia
The Satellite of Love is the fictional main setting of the comedy television series Mystery Science Theater 3000
. It is a giant bone-shaped spacecraft
that Joel Robinson
(later replaced by Mike Nelson) and his friends — robots Crow
, Tom Servo
, Gypsy
, Cambot
, and the noncorporeal Magic Voice
— live in. The vessel is in orbit above Earth
during much of the series, except for a journey to the end of the universe
and its flight throughout the space-time continuum
from Pearl Forrester
.
and Dr. Laurence Erhardt (aka "The Mads") kidnap Joel, place him on the Satellite of Love, and shoot him into space. In order to keep from going mad himself, Joel builds his robot friends from parts of the spacecraft — namely the controls used to begin and end the movie.
Eventually, Gypsy incorrectly overhears that the Mads are finished with Joel, and plan to kill him. With the help of Mike the temp, who discovers an escape pod in a box of "Hamdingers" after reading the SOL's manual, Gypsy forces Joel into it. Joel managed to safely return to Earth, where he crash-lands in the Australian Outback and eventually resumes his normal life. In response, the Mads kidnap Mike Nelson (who is working as a temp for Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank
at the time) and send him up to the Satellite of Love to take Joel's place.
At the end of season 10, the Satellite is deorbited and crash-lands near Milwaukee, Wisconsin
. Mike and the Bots move into an apartment nearby, and are last seen starting to watch and riff The Crawling Eye, the movie which provided the first nationally broadcast episode of the series. Gypsy founds an international conglomerate, ConGypsCo.
In the unaired pilot, series creator Joel Hodgson
(not yet using his character name "Joel Robinson") claims to have designed the Satellite of Love himself.
This was changed by the first aired episode to the more familiar storyline. The Satellite of Love during the KTMA era was also noticeably different from the version shown during the show's official run, built on a very low budget and not featuring the iconic "doggy-bone" shape.
However, some aspects can be determined from the episodes. Based on the opening sequence of season 10, where the crew is briefly seen looking out a window, the room where the "host segments" take place is on the bridge, which appears to be in the upper-right sphere of the dog-bone-shaped ship. The crew is able to communicate with the Gizmonic Institute (KTMA era), Deep 13 (seasons 1-7), the apes' laboratory (early Season 8), Pearl's Microbus, "The Widowmaker" (late Season 8), and Castle Forrester (seasons 9-10) via a viewscreen of some sort (never shown on the TV series but shown in the movie), accessible through Cambot, which enables the crew to see the Mads and vice-versa. (For all intents and purposes, it was the actual television camera that served this purpose, since whenever one group was communicating with the other, they looked at and spoke directly to the viewer.) Another viewscreen, the Hexfield, similarly provided two-way transmissions to spacecraft interiors and other locations. An exterior camera called Rocket Number Nine
enabled the crew to see the entirety of the SOL and any spaceships or creatures in its immediate vicinity; the crew evidently viewed this through the same forward viewscreen that communicated with the Mads (again, the actual television camera).
Each of the SOL crew has his own living quarters, the locations of which are unclear. Mike's room was only seen once when the Bots were stalking him by putting a "hidden" camera on a toy.
Servo's room is very messy, with underwear strewn about (Servo collects underwear, how he managed to find all of the underwear while having never been to Earth goes unexplained), and contains a car-shaped children's bed.
Crow's room has never been seen, nor has Gypsy's. It is unclear if Cambot had a room or if he simply lived on the bridge. From season 8 onward, the ship was also inhabited by billions of nanite
s, which apparently occupy the entire surface area of the ship's interior.
The Mystery Science Theater, in which the SOL captives watch and mock movies, is apparently located directly behind the bridge, on the opposite end of a long hallway with several oddly shaped doors (as suggested by the transition between host and movie segments), although the characters are rarely shown using it. As explained in one episode, life-support throughout the rest of the ship is shut off while the movies are playing, thus forcing the crew to remain in the theater.
A few sightings include one instance of Mike and the Bots walking down the hallway,
and three occasions when someone runs into Cambot's direct passage before apparently being run over by Cambot himself — Joel and the Bots after a game of tag during the KTMA season,
repeated in a later nationally telecast episode,
and Mike alone after dislodging the stuck door in the season 10 opener.
Given the sheer size of the SOL, it seems unlikely that the hallway extended entirely from one end of the ship to the other, given that Joel and Mike were able to run from bridge to theater in so short a time; however, if it didn't, precisely what was at the other end of the SOL was never revealed. In Episode #410 (Hercules Against the Moon Men
), Tom and Crow proved able to travel at least 50 yards (45.7 m) away from the theater doors while still on the non-theater side of the doors and corridor (i.e. at an angle to the viewer's left and forward, out of range of the camera).
During the Joel era, Joel was sometimes seen jumping into a separate entrance beside the main door to get to the theater, In later seasons this opening would be changed to, among other things, an airlock leading outside the satellite.
In a few episodes, this hatch allows the characters to send things back and forth between the satellite and Deep 13 via a long tube called the "Umbilicus", tethering the Satellite in orbit.
In its first appearance, the Umbilicus is directly attached to Gypsy's snake-like body, and the characters can receive and send objects through Gypsy's mouth. Later, it is reconnected to an oven-like device on the SOL's bridge.
This tether is cut in the season 7 finale, causing the satellite to drift off into deep space.
It is implied that, during the later seasons, Brain Guy is responsible for keeping the Satellite of Love hovering above Earth with his telekinetic powers, especially with the last episode Diabolik
, when Pearl douses his Brain with Mountain Dew
and causes him to lose control of the SOL thus sending it flying toward Earth.
The Satellite of Love is so large that many regions of it go unexplored, at least by Mike, who, during season 10, is surprised to learn that the SOL is equipped with a squash court, a silo, and a feed lot. (to which Crow asks "Do you even live here, Mike?") The presence of Joel's escape pod in "Docking Bay 14" implies there are at least fourteen docking bays. The Satellite even has its own time machine
which is built by the nanites during the episode Terror from the Year 5000
(like the time machine from the movie, this machine looks suspiciously like a water heater). Unfortunately, due to its emitting dangerous radiation, only the bots may use it, which they do a couple of times.
Another section, simply referred to as "the basement" by Tom Servo, is first featured in a scene where Crow attempts to "dig" his way back to Earth.
This part of the ship is located directly beneath the bridge. In season 8, Crow conducts an archaeological dig to uncover his forgotten 500-year solo occupation of the SOL since season 7.
The SOL crew also discovers albinos living in this area that happen to resemble the light-deprived Sumerian descendants of The Mole People
.
Also shown in the movie is a device referred to as the "manipulator arms", a set of robotic arms that extend from an opening near the back of the ship, controlled by a pair of virtual reality gloves.
The hands are labeled "Manos" (Spanish
for "hands"), a joke referring to the infamous season 4 episode, Manos: The Hands of Fate
. A similar mechanism appears in episode 104, Women of the Prehistoric Planet
, but is never featured again.
In Episode 820 "Space Mutiny," there are 3 escape ships onboard the SOL, which Tom, Crow, and Gypsy pilot, but inevitably damages them beyond repair blasting at each other for fun and crashing them into the SOL. In that same episode, Tom Servo builds many unnecessary, inconvenient railings on the bridge, one around an unseen pit going straight down from the bridge. There was also a railing around Mike's seat in the theatre.
Mystery Science Theater 3000
Mystery Science Theater 3000 is an American cult television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Best Brains, Inc., that ran from 1988 to 1999....
. It is a giant bone-shaped spacecraft
Spacecraft
A spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....
that Joel Robinson
Joel Robinson
Joel Robinson is a fictional character featured in the American science fiction comedy television series Mystery Science Theater 3000...
(later replaced by Mike Nelson) and his friends — robots Crow
Crow T. Robot
Crow T. Robot is a fictional character from the American science fiction comedy television series Mystery Science Theater 3000 . Crow is a robot, who, along with others, quips and riffs upon poor-quality B movies.- Overview :...
, Tom Servo
Tom Servo
Tom Servo is a fictional character from the American science fiction comedy television show Mystery Science Theater 3000 . Tom is one of two wise-cracking, robotic main characters of the show, built by Joel Robinson to act as a companion and help stave off space madness as Joel was forced to watch...
, Gypsy
Gypsy (MST3K)
Gypsy is one of the robot characters on the television series Mystery Science Theater 3000. She is larger and less talkative than the other robots. Gypsy normally only appeared during the show's host segments and introduction, but briefly took a seat in the theater to watch the movie in episode #412...
, Cambot
Cambot
Cambot is one of the fictional robot characters on the Mystery Science Theater 3000 television series. It is through Cambot's "eye" that viewers watch Joel Robinson and the other robots as they watch the movies that are sent to the Satellite of Love each week.- Appearance :Cambot is only seen...
, and the noncorporeal Magic Voice
Magic Voice
Magic Voice is the voice of the Satellite of Love's computer on the science fiction/comedy TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000.-Overview:...
— live in. The vessel is in orbit above Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
during much of the series, except for a journey to the end of the universe
and its flight throughout the space-time continuum
Spacetime
In physics, spacetime is any mathematical model that combines space and time into a single continuum. Spacetime is usually interpreted with space as being three-dimensional and time playing the role of a fourth dimension that is of a different sort from the spatial dimensions...
from Pearl Forrester
Pearl Forrester
Pearl Forrester is a character on the Mystery Science Theater 3000 television series, played by Mary Jo Pehl. Forrester was the mother of Dr. Clayton Forrester...
.
Story
According to the show's storyline, as part of an experiment to see how bad movies affected a person's mind, mad scientists Dr. Clayton ForresterDoctor Clayton Forrester (MST3K)
Dr. Clayton Deborah Susan Forrester is a fictional character on the television series Mystery Science Theater 3000 . Named for the hero of the 1953 film The War of the Worlds, Dr. Forrester was the chief mad scientist on the show from its inception in 1988 through the seventh season in 1996, and...
and Dr. Laurence Erhardt (aka "The Mads") kidnap Joel, place him on the Satellite of Love, and shoot him into space. In order to keep from going mad himself, Joel builds his robot friends from parts of the spacecraft — namely the controls used to begin and end the movie.
Eventually, Gypsy incorrectly overhears that the Mads are finished with Joel, and plan to kill him. With the help of Mike the temp, who discovers an escape pod in a box of "Hamdingers" after reading the SOL's manual, Gypsy forces Joel into it. Joel managed to safely return to Earth, where he crash-lands in the Australian Outback and eventually resumes his normal life. In response, the Mads kidnap Mike Nelson (who is working as a temp for Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank
TV's Frank
TV's Frank, played by Frank Conniff, is a fictional character, mad scientist Dr. Clayton Forrester's lab assistant in the television comedy series Mystery Science Theater 3000. He appears at the beginning of Season 2, with the departure of Forrester's earlier co-scientist Dr. Laurence Erhardt, and...
at the time) and send him up to the Satellite of Love to take Joel's place.
At the end of season 10, the Satellite is deorbited and crash-lands near Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Milwaukee is the largest city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, the 28th most populous city in the United States and 39th most populous region in the United States. It is the county seat of Milwaukee County and is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. According to 2010 census data, the...
. Mike and the Bots move into an apartment nearby, and are last seen starting to watch and riff The Crawling Eye, the movie which provided the first nationally broadcast episode of the series. Gypsy founds an international conglomerate, ConGypsCo.
In the unaired pilot, series creator Joel Hodgson
Joel Hodgson
Joel Gordon Hodgson is an American writer, comedian and television actor. He is best known for creating Mystery Science Theater 3000 and starring in it as the character Joel Robinson. In 2007 MST3K was listed as "one of the top 100 television shows of all time" by Time.com...
(not yet using his character name "Joel Robinson") claims to have designed the Satellite of Love himself.
This was changed by the first aired episode to the more familiar storyline. The Satellite of Love during the KTMA era was also noticeably different from the version shown during the show's official run, built on a very low budget and not featuring the iconic "doggy-bone" shape.
Layout
Little is known of the Satellite of Love's internal design and workings, following a general theme mentioned in the introductory song:- If you're wondering how he eats and breathes, and other science facts,
- Then repeat to yourself, "It's just a show, I should really just relax."
However, some aspects can be determined from the episodes. Based on the opening sequence of season 10, where the crew is briefly seen looking out a window, the room where the "host segments" take place is on the bridge, which appears to be in the upper-right sphere of the dog-bone-shaped ship. The crew is able to communicate with the Gizmonic Institute (KTMA era), Deep 13 (seasons 1-7), the apes' laboratory (early Season 8), Pearl's Microbus, "The Widowmaker" (late Season 8), and Castle Forrester (seasons 9-10) via a viewscreen of some sort (never shown on the TV series but shown in the movie), accessible through Cambot, which enables the crew to see the Mads and vice-versa. (For all intents and purposes, it was the actual television camera that served this purpose, since whenever one group was communicating with the other, they looked at and spoke directly to the viewer.) Another viewscreen, the Hexfield, similarly provided two-way transmissions to spacecraft interiors and other locations. An exterior camera called Rocket Number Nine
Space Is the Place (album)
Space is the Place is a jazz album by Sun Ra. It was released in 1973. This album was originally issued in LP format on the ABC Records label, Blue Thumb Records; in the CD era it was issued with the Impulse! label.-Track listing:...
enabled the crew to see the entirety of the SOL and any spaceships or creatures in its immediate vicinity; the crew evidently viewed this through the same forward viewscreen that communicated with the Mads (again, the actual television camera).
Each of the SOL crew has his own living quarters, the locations of which are unclear. Mike's room was only seen once when the Bots were stalking him by putting a "hidden" camera on a toy.
Servo's room is very messy, with underwear strewn about (Servo collects underwear, how he managed to find all of the underwear while having never been to Earth goes unexplained), and contains a car-shaped children's bed.
Crow's room has never been seen, nor has Gypsy's. It is unclear if Cambot had a room or if he simply lived on the bridge. From season 8 onward, the ship was also inhabited by billions of nanite
Nanorobotics
Nanorobotics is the emerging technology field of creating machines or robots whose components are at or close to the scale of a nanometer . More specifically, nanorobotics refers to the nanotechnology engineering discipline of designing and building nanorobots, with devices ranging in size from...
s, which apparently occupy the entire surface area of the ship's interior.
The Mystery Science Theater, in which the SOL captives watch and mock movies, is apparently located directly behind the bridge, on the opposite end of a long hallway with several oddly shaped doors (as suggested by the transition between host and movie segments), although the characters are rarely shown using it. As explained in one episode, life-support throughout the rest of the ship is shut off while the movies are playing, thus forcing the crew to remain in the theater.
A few sightings include one instance of Mike and the Bots walking down the hallway,
and three occasions when someone runs into Cambot's direct passage before apparently being run over by Cambot himself — Joel and the Bots after a game of tag during the KTMA season,
repeated in a later nationally telecast episode,
and Mike alone after dislodging the stuck door in the season 10 opener.
Given the sheer size of the SOL, it seems unlikely that the hallway extended entirely from one end of the ship to the other, given that Joel and Mike were able to run from bridge to theater in so short a time; however, if it didn't, precisely what was at the other end of the SOL was never revealed. In Episode #410 (Hercules Against the Moon Men
Hercules vs. the Moon Men
Hercules Against the Moon Men is an Italian/French sword and sandal film. It was directed by Giacomo Gentilomo and starred Alan Steel and Jany Clair.The film runs for 90 minutes and is dubbed....
), Tom and Crow proved able to travel at least 50 yards (45.7 m) away from the theater doors while still on the non-theater side of the doors and corridor (i.e. at an angle to the viewer's left and forward, out of range of the camera).
During the Joel era, Joel was sometimes seen jumping into a separate entrance beside the main door to get to the theater, In later seasons this opening would be changed to, among other things, an airlock leading outside the satellite.
In a few episodes, this hatch allows the characters to send things back and forth between the satellite and Deep 13 via a long tube called the "Umbilicus", tethering the Satellite in orbit.
In its first appearance, the Umbilicus is directly attached to Gypsy's snake-like body, and the characters can receive and send objects through Gypsy's mouth. Later, it is reconnected to an oven-like device on the SOL's bridge.
This tether is cut in the season 7 finale, causing the satellite to drift off into deep space.
It is implied that, during the later seasons, Brain Guy is responsible for keeping the Satellite of Love hovering above Earth with his telekinetic powers, especially with the last episode Diabolik
Danger: Diabolik
Danger: Diabolik is a 1968 feature film from Italian filmmaker Mario Bava based on the Italian comic character Diabolik.- About the film :...
, when Pearl douses his Brain with Mountain Dew
Mountain Dew
Mountain Dew is a citrus-flavored carbonated soft drink brand produced and owned by PepsiCo. The original formula was invented in the 1940s by Tennessee beverage bottlers Barney and Ally Hartman and was first marketed in Marion, VA, Knoxville and Johnson City, Tennessee. A revised formula was...
and causes him to lose control of the SOL thus sending it flying toward Earth.
The Satellite of Love is so large that many regions of it go unexplored, at least by Mike, who, during season 10, is surprised to learn that the SOL is equipped with a squash court, a silo, and a feed lot. (to which Crow asks "Do you even live here, Mike?") The presence of Joel's escape pod in "Docking Bay 14" implies there are at least fourteen docking bays. The Satellite even has its own time machine
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
which is built by the nanites during the episode Terror from the Year 5000
Terror from the Year 5000
Terror from the Year 5000 is a 1958 American science fiction film directed by Robert J. Gurney Jr. starring Ward Costello, Joyce Holden, John Stratton, Salome Jens and Fred Herrick....
(like the time machine from the movie, this machine looks suspiciously like a water heater). Unfortunately, due to its emitting dangerous radiation, only the bots may use it, which they do a couple of times.
Another section, simply referred to as "the basement" by Tom Servo, is first featured in a scene where Crow attempts to "dig" his way back to Earth.
This part of the ship is located directly beneath the bridge. In season 8, Crow conducts an archaeological dig to uncover his forgotten 500-year solo occupation of the SOL since season 7.
The SOL crew also discovers albinos living in this area that happen to resemble the light-deprived Sumerian descendants of The Mole People
The Mole People
-Plot:The film begins with a narration by Dr. Frank Baxter, an English professor at the University of Southern California, explaining the premise of the movie and its basis in reality...
.
Also shown in the movie is a device referred to as the "manipulator arms", a set of robotic arms that extend from an opening near the back of the ship, controlled by a pair of virtual reality gloves.
The hands are labeled "Manos" (Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
for "hands"), a joke referring to the infamous season 4 episode, Manos: The Hands of Fate
Manos: The Hands of Fate
Manos: The Hands of Fate is an American horror film written, directed, produced by, and starring Harold P. Warren. It is widely recognized to be one of the worst films ever made...
. A similar mechanism appears in episode 104, Women of the Prehistoric Planet
Women of the Prehistoric Planet
Women of the Prehistoric Planet is a 1966 film. It was featured in the first season of Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 1989.-Plot:A spacefaring crew from an advanced civilization is preparing to return home after an extended voyage...
, but is never featured again.
In Episode 820 "Space Mutiny," there are 3 escape ships onboard the SOL, which Tom, Crow, and Gypsy pilot, but inevitably damages them beyond repair blasting at each other for fun and crashing them into the SOL. In that same episode, Tom Servo builds many unnecessary, inconvenient railings on the bridge, one around an unseen pit going straight down from the bridge. There was also a railing around Mike's seat in the theatre.