Tom Servo
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MST3kJoelAndtheBots.JPG
Tom Servo is one of the two wise-cracking robot main characters of the show Mystery Science Theater 3000. He was built by Joel Robinson to act as a companion and help stave off madness as he was forced to watch terrible movies. He is somewhat more mature and cynical than his companion Crow T. Robot.
Tom Servo is a red puppet that has a gumball machine for a head, a body composed of a toy "Money Lover Barrel" coin bank, and a bowl-shaped hovercraft skirt instead of legs. His arms are a pair of small white ventriloquist's dummy hands on the ends of springs that are not really functional as arms, a point that is commented on occasionally throughout the series. For the sequences of the show which involve filming before a blue screen, a second puppet is used; because Servo's head is transparent, chromakeyed images appear projected through it, and thus the second puppet has a head spray-painted black. This puppet appeared in a host segment in Season 6.
Servo's appearance has changed over time. In the pilot for MST3K, the robot who would become Servo was named "Beeper", who just spoke in beeps that only Crow could understand. He was an all-silver robot vaguely shaped like the ultimate Servo, with funnel-shaped shoulders, silver rubber tube arms, and a small fishbowl for a head. During KTMA season episode K02, his head was replaced with the now-familiar gumball machine used throughout the series. In Season 1 on the Comedy Channel, he was given a red color, longer black tube arms, squared white shoulders, a different hoverskirt, and a gumball machine with a large, white beak. The beak was changed back to silver later in the season. This physical form was kept throughout the remainder of the series, except for a brief flirtation (during episodes 205 and 206) with a slim cylindrical gumball-machine head to try to reduce the screen area Servo's head obscured. It was introduced as a "haircut" that Joel gave Servo, but quickly abandoned.
Servo's voice and personality also changed during the show's early years. While Josh Weinstein operated Servo during the KTMA season, Servo spoke rather slowly with a squeaky voice, and was somewhat immobile during host segments but oddly very active in the theater. In episode K06, Weinstein switched to a lower voice that Servo repeatedly proclaimed as his new "MIGHTY VOICE!". When Weinstein left at the end of Season 1, Kevin Murphy took over Servo's operation and tried to match Weinstein's Servo voice and personality, but gradually developed a somewhat new Servo sound and character. This was explained as tinkering by Joel. During Murphy's tenure, Servo took many opportunities to showcase his excellent singing. He also has an extensive underwear collection.
Whenever a member of the cast is required to dress in drag for a sketch, Servo usually does the honors. This is both because of the dichotomy of women's clothes amusingly contrasted with puppeteer Murphy's strong baritone voice and because, in Murphy's words, "Servo looks better in a dress than Crow."
Tom Servo also appeared in the Cops-style Star Wars spoof "Troops", as a droid purloined by Jawas.
External Links
- A page with instructions for building a Tom Servo (http://www.astroreverb.com/bots/servo/index.html)
- A custom Tom Servo graphic for Doom (http://www.tygerstudios.com/kepler.net.1999/asr3k/mst3k/servo/)