On 4/9/99, Jim Mallon (executive producer of MST3K) and Stu Baker came and reminisced about the good old days that they were here at UW-Madison, when they brought the Statue of Liberty to Lake Mendota, and put 1000 pink flamingos on Bascom Hill. Oh, that was neat, but not the best part. After it was all said and done (by the way, I got there an hour early to get a free postcard of the flamingos and the best seat that I possibly could), I went up to Jim and told him thanks for MST3K, and how much a fan I was of the show, and asked if they had any plans for a new show. Alas, they have none. He was really super nice, signed the postcard and clued me in on a nice little secret about the ending of season 10. Now that it's all said and done, I can tell all that he told me Mike and the Bots would be in Mike's apartment back in Wisconsin.
Read an artical about their visit by one of the school newspapers

1/15/99 - Today my uncle, his wife, my friend and I toured Best Brains! It was really, REALLY neat. We got there a little bit early, but seeing as we were the only people on the tour, Barbbb, the info club poobah, let us in and took us around. We started off in the lobby, discussing our favorite episodes and whatnot. Barbbb showed us the prototype Tom and Crow models that will be coming out soon. Oh, man, they are so neat, and really life-like. If you are a true MST3K fan, you better start saving all of your pennies right now. They'll run you about a hundred bucks each. The SOL model will run about $195 (but it's very detailed and worth every cent). For you cheapskates, they also have a little pewter Tom for around $35.

We walked down the main hallway. On the walls were pictures of cast members in costume. Very cute! They also had Servo's big painting of Crow.

As we entered a room at the end of the hall, my eyes saw one of the most awesome sights I have ever beheld. There before us were the SOL and Castle Forrester sets. The first thing that struck me was how little they were and how little space there was in this room. Barbbb explained the history of the SOL and Castle Forrester, then she took us up on the bridge to show us all the things that the camera doesn't see. You know, the puppeteer pits and so on. If you haven't caught it before, the walls of the ship are decorated with thousands of toys and rummage sale junk. Santas, Millenium Falcons, lots of bowling pins, you name it. We could have spent hours just looking at all the different things.

This is me, Lori, Becky, and Steve up on the bridge of the SOL. Movie sign!

Here is a picture of the set detail. Let's see...there is a race car, a huge key with hearts on it, two trumpets without bells, some hair curlers, a hampster wheel, and a bunch of other stuff.

Tom Servo and Crow were having a couple of brewskis when we dropped by. Yep, those are baby beer cans nestled in their little hands.
You can see the Kevin Murphy's puppeteer pit next to Tom here.

Barbbb took us back down over to the Castle Forrester side of the room. There, she explained how they film the movie sequences: they have a big sheet of cloth that is fastened to the ground so it's tight and looks like a flat surface to the camera, and they set up the theater seat cut-out, and the guys do the movie bit. Pretty simple. She also clued us in that in Season 10, the guys in Castle Forrester are going to be a lot more Mad-scientisty. Oh, and I got to play the organ!

We walked through the door that led to the prop room. It was better than being in a toy shop! There was stuff from every episode stored in there "just in case." Barbbb explained some of the props. There was just so much to look at and take in. I tried to get as many pictures as I could. She took us around and showed us where Toms and Crows are made. Oh, wow! I never really knew how many of those little guys there were around. If you look really close at the picture of Crow, you can see Timmy, the evil movie Crow right next to Barbbb's sweater. They even had the scary Mike puppet.

After that, we went and checked out the make-up room. We got to see all of the Bobo masks used, as well as the costumes. Barbbb took us a little farther down the hallway where there were even more props.

As we scooted back through the studio, we got to pause and pose by the MST3K moon. Smile!

A few more props to be seen, and that completed our tour. Any questions? Besides Barbbb, the only other Brains we saw were Brad Keely and Beez McKeever.

Did you know...
...that in 1001, Joel will be appearing on the SOL, and Frank in Castle Forrester.
...that the movie segments of MST3K:TM took three days to shoot, while the host segments took a whole month.
...that the 'stars' in the background of the opening sequences are actually little bits of tin foil glued to a black wall.
To be continued....

More pictures:

Here's Gypsy!	This was the scary Mike doll that was featured in 816 Prince of Space. You can barely see the Tickle-Me Carlo Lombardi doll in the background.
This is the model SOL used in MST3K:TM.	This is the other side of the Castle Forrester set. This season is said to be more 'mad-scientist-y'.
Props. See how many things you can pick out from in there.	More props. These ones are a little older. You can see the model escape pods used by Joel to leave the SOL
Here are some newer props. That shredded toilet plunger will be used in season 10. The observers' brains are also there.	More props. A broken Cambot is up there, along with one of the doors in the movie door sequence.
The Daktari Stool

This is really me and Mike Nelson, host of MST3K. I went to go see Best Brains, Inc. in February 1998, and he came to the door! He's a really nice guy! :o)

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This is my sister and our dog, Sadie. Yes, she really is that fuzzy. Ahh, winter in Wisconsin. You've got to love it!