Each two-hour episode would feature a single movie (often edited for time constraints), sometimes preceded by various old shorts and educational films, with Joel, Tom, and Crow watching in silhouette from a row of theater seats at the bottom of the screen.

Other cast members, most of whom were also writers for the show, include Trace Beaulieu, Josh Weinstein, Jim Mallon, Kevin Murphy, Frank Conniff, Mary Jo Pehl, Bill Corbett, Paul Chaplin, and Bridget Jones Nelson.

Initially MST3K did not garner high viewership numbers, but the show's popularity spread through online word-of-mouth by its fans known as "MSTies" or "Mysties" (who would remind others to "Keep circulating the tapes"), frequent repeats, syndication, and home media offerings produced by Rhino Entertainment.

While the cast of MST3K changed throughout its history, the basic premise of the show remains consistent: a human test subject—first Joel Robinson (Joel Hodgson), then Mike Nelson (Michael J. Nelson), and most recently Jonah Heston (Jonah Ray) and Emily Connor (Emily Marsh)—has been imprisoned aboard the spacecraft Satellite of Love by mad scientists (collectively called "The Mads") and is forced to watch a series of bad movies in order to find one that will drive the test subject insane.

At regular intervals throughout the episode, the characters leave the theater and perform sketches, usually inspired by the events of the film or short being shown, frequently making use of original songs and prop comedy.

[9] Hodgson said that part of the idea for MST3K came from the illustration for the song "I've Seen That Movie Too" (drawn by Mike Ross) in the liner notes from Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album, showing silhouettes of a couple sitting in a theater watching Gone with the Wind.

Hodgson felt they needed a logo with the rotating effect as opposed to a flat 2D image, and though they had envisioned a more detailed prop, with the letters being the tops of buildings on this moon, they had no time or budget for a project of that complexity and went with what they had.

[10] Hodgson approached Jim Mallon, at the time the production manager of KTMA, a low-budget local Minneapolis-area independent television station, with his idea of a show based on riffing on movies, using robots that were created out of common objects.

On review, Hodgson found that of the robots, Beeper's design was not working well, and tried a quick modification by replacing its head with a toy gumball machine top, creating the basis of Tom Servo.

According to Art Bell, one of the creators of the Comedy Channel, MST3K's arrival helped the network to fill space that they had originally planned to use short clips of films and television shows that they could not license in time for launch.

[6][21] With an expanded but still limited budget, they were able to hire more writers, including Mike Nelson, Mary Jo Pehl, and Frank Conniff, and build more expansive sets and robot puppets.

[23] In one specific case, the second-season episode with the 1969 film The Sidehackers, they had only skimmed the first part of the movie before making the decision to use it, and only later discovered that it contained a scene where a female character is brutally raped and murdered.

[6] Peter Keepnews, writing for The New York Times, noted that the frequent cast changes, as well as the poorer selection of films that he felt were more boring than bizarre in their execution, had caused the show to lose its original appeal.

[39] The season 10 finale, Danger: Diabolik, premiered on August 8, 1999, during which, in the show's narrative, Pearl Forrester accidentally sent the Satellite of Love out of orbit, with Mike and the 'bots escaping and taking up residence in an apartment near Milwaukee, where they continue to riff movies.

Factory, the distribution company handling the home media releases of MST3K, and completed negotiations with Mallon to buy the rights for MST3K for a seven-figure sum by August 2015,[42] enabling a Kickstarter campaign to fund the revival to move forward.

ran a streaming telethon which included appearances from the newly selected cast and crew, and various celebrities that supported the revival to help exceed the target funding levels for twelve episodes.

[59][68] Hodgson also brought in guest writers for certain episodes that included Justin Roiland, Rob Schrab, Nell Scovell, Ernie Cline, Pat Rothfuss, Dana Gould, and Tammy Golden.

[40] Set and prop designers included Wayne White, Aaron Somers, Pen Ward, Rebecca Sugar and her younger brother Steven, Justin Jacobs, and Guy Davis, while live and practical special effects were planned by Adam Savage.

The 'bots were controlled by multiple puppeteers both in the theater and in skits; Yount and Vaughn used radio-controlled equipment to move the 'bots' mouths, while members from The Jim Henson Company helped with manipulating the bodies, allowing them to achieve effects they could not do in the series' original run such as having Crow appear to walk on his own.

[81] Other changes included Rob Schrab coming on as co-director,[82] and actress Deanna Rooney, Ray's wife, playing Dr. Donna St. Phibes, a "B-movie monster conservationist" who works with the Mads.

These include: Santo in The Treasure of Dracula, Robot Wars, Beyond Atlantis, Munchie, Doctor Mordrid, Demon Squad, Gamera vs. Jiger, The Batwoman, The Million Eyes of Sumuru, H. G. Wells' The Shape of Things to Come, The Mask, The Bubble, and The Christmas Dragon.

[146] In another charitable event, Hodgson, alongside Weinstein and Corbett reprising their voice roles as Tom Servo and Crow, riffed two new shorts as part of a crowdfunded effort to support MIGIZI, a Native American youth non-profit group whose headquarters were destroyed during the George Floyd protests in May 2020.

The crew of Time Chasers held a party the night the MST3K treatment of their film aired and, while reactions were mixed, director David Giancola said, "Most of us were fans and knew what to expect and we roared with laughter and drank way too much.

In 1993, MST3K won a Peabody Award[3] for "producing an ingenious eclectic series": "With references to everything from Proust to Gilligan's Island, Mystery Science Theater 3000 fuses superb, clever writing with wonderfully terrible B-grade movies".

[175] MST3K also brought to the limelight lackluster works by Bert I. Gordon, primarily giant monster B-movies, that gained attention through the show, and many Japanese kaiju movies imported and dubbed through producer Sandy Frank (jokingly referred to as "the source of all our pain"), particularly those in the Gamera series.

In 2008, the internet and direct-to-DVD comedy series Incognito Cinema Warriors XP, debuted, which used the same "host segment-movie segment" format the show established, while featuring completely original characters and plot.

He is shown sitting in front of a large screen and "riffing" while viewing footage of golfer Johnny Miller and is joined in the theater by his stuffed rooster (Frank) and his gnome statue (Costas).

[6] Filmmaker Jordan Vogt-Roberts (Kong: Skull Island) also praised MST3K: "Mystery Science Theater built something artful, endearing and comedic on top of the foundation other people's work.

[6][202] In 2010, Trace Beaulieu, Frank Conniff, Joel Hodgson, Mary Jo Pehl, Josh Weinstein, Beth McKeever and Clive Robertson voiced characters for Darkstar: The Interactive Movie, a computer game created by J. Allen Williams.

Also that year, original MST3K cast members Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu and Frank Conniff reunited to shoot a brief sketch to be included on the DVD release of The Giant Gila Monster.