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1[[WMG:Possible future movies to riff:]]
2* ''Film/TheSkateboardKid''
3* ''Series/TheSingingRingingTree''
4* ''Film/EllisInFreedomland''
5* ''Stardust (1998)'' (AKA ''Vac and Me'')
6[[WMG:Both Joel and Mike are subconcious reality-warpers.]]
7This was the real reason the Mads sent them into space- to get them away from the rest of the populace before too much harm could be done to those around them and then trying to break their spirit with showing after showing of bad movies. This explains how Joel could "create" a team of super-advanced RidiculouslyHumanRobots in no time at all, and why characters from the movies (Torgo, Krankor, Ortega) appeared in the real world. In fact, Joel escaped by subconciously creating the Deus Ex Machina and riding back to earth. Mike was less experienced with his powers, so he could not try and do the same thing.
8* Well, he did ''try'' and do the same thing, after watching Final Justice. He just didn't succeed. (And just what was the extent of the attempt? Do his reality-warping powers extend to mind control? Was he able to influence Pearl into sending up a Joe Don Baker-as-CowboyCop movie just to set the stage for his escape, to make the conditions match those of Joel's escape as closely as possible? Hmmmm...)
9* So that means that Literature/HaruhiSuzumiya is next... actually, I'd like to see that... Kyon, Haruhi, and Yuki mercilessly beating up on terrible anime has quite a bit of an appeal to me.
10** Someone ''has'' to do this! ''Please''!!!
11
12[[WMG:[=MST3K=] is in the VideoGame/HalfLife Universe.]]
13Gizmonic is a competitor to Black Mesa and Aperture Science, stealing the idea of mental warfare from Cave Johnson in 1978. Though Aperture and Black Mesa are well intentioned, Gizmonic decided to bask on the evil side.
14* Gizmonic didn't decide jack. It's made clear early on in the show that Gizmonic Institute doesn't approve of Dr. Forrester and Frank's experiments, which is why they fled to Deep 13, an old sub-basement which hasn't been used in forever and which the Institute no longer monitors. So Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank are former project heads who betrayed the company in order to carry on dangerous experiments which the company disapproves of... sort of like [=GLaDOS=]!
15
16[[WMG:Joel broadcast the show to Earth to try and get help.]]
17Joel specifically engineered Cambot with the ability to interfere with television broadcasts, and every time an experiment was about to begin Cambot automatically broadcast the goings-on of the experiments to the public in an attempt to get rescued. The Mads discredited Joel's plea for help by claiming that the broadcast was really a fictional television show, and Comedy Central simply added a theme song to the show to reassure their viewers that the program was 'normal'. Later, Mike attempted to outwit his captors by changing to the SciFi, but Pearl stayed one step ahead of her captives and similarly lied that it was a fictional show.
18* The main problem I see with this one is that the Joel episodes take place "next Sunday" -- presumably the Sunday after they air. Also, if you want to extend it to Mike, you have to deal with Season 8, which takes place in Roman Times and in 2525.
19* Alternatively, the "next Sunday" part of the theme song refers to the date that Joel was launched into space, which would mean that he was launched in 1989. Joel could have also modified Cambot to send the broadcasts backwards and forwards in time, depending.
20* WordOfGod states that Forrester sold footage of the experiments to cable--specifically, Comedy Central--to get funding, which makes sense as the show's final episode on CC shows Forrester saying they've lost funding. Forrester and Erhardt also complain about the show's high ratings ("we're ''mad'' scientists!") in the KTMA season.
21** There's also an episode (I believe Angel's Revenge?) where the Mads turn Joel and the Bots into the cast of Renegade to increase their ratings.
22*** It was MIKE that became the ''Series/{{Renegade}}'' guy and riffed ''Film/AngelsRevenge''.
23*** Don't forget Timmy Bobby Rusty in [[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S07E05Escape2000 Escape 2000]]
24** Joel himself confirms this in [[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S03E05StrandedInSpace Stranded In Space]]
25* Could we then say that Joel ''initially'' tried to get help by broadcasting a week into the past onto KTMA (so that he could create a stable time loop by getting rescued before he had to watch the movie), but the Mads realized what happened, hijacked the footage, and sold it to the highest bidder (Comedy Central, in this case)?
26** Can we also say that the first time the Mads intercepted Joel's footage was the week before they shot him into space, and that's where they got the idea to shoot him into space?
27* Mike attempted to contact people in the media to try and convince them the show was in fact real, but this only ended up in Hollywood getting its claws on the show and the movie moving the show even further into science-fiction, reducing his chances for rescue.
28
29[[WMG:Both ''Mr. B Natural'' and ''A Case of Spring Fever'' are paranoid delusions of the main character, seen from different perspectives.]]
30In Mr. B Natural, Buzz, a decently skilled trumpet-player, thoroughly confused socially and sexually, concocts an alternate history for his own life, creating a world that is entirely centered around school bands. In real life, he was introduced to the world of trumpeting by his school band leader, Mr. Bailey. Buzz found himself strangely attracted to him, but feels guilty about it, so he creates a new Mr. B who is actually a woman. At the same time, Mr. B represents Buzz himself -- he's male physically and socially, but he feels like he is actually female. Again, feeling guilty about having such feelings, he externalizes them. This, of course, adds a cruel irony to the name B Natural.
31
32In A Case of Spring Fever, Gilbert is a 50- to 60-year-old middle manager at a large spring factory. He has created a multitude of hallucinations in an attempt to give his life meaning, including a wife, but none of them have managed to satisfy him. Finally, one day, while fixing the springs on his couch for the thousandth time, he snaps, realizing subconsciously that the only way he can make his life seem satisfying is if he can be forcibly made to genuinely enjoy the springs that he spends his entire day around. Once he crosses over, his imaginary wife disappears, no longer needed. The major difference between Mr. B and Spring Fever is that in the second half of Spring Fever, we see from outside the main character's point of view. He has created a world in his mind where springs are the most useful, beautiful, and glorious things in the world, but almost immediately after he creates this world, we are ejected from it, and watch as his friends, like us, consider him to be nothing but a lunatic.
33
34* Alternately, he's a spring ''purchaser'' for Chevrolet Division, given how many of the cars in the filmstrip are new 1941 Chevys.
35** Does that mean this all happens within the ''Hired!'' universe?
36*** There's a shared Jam Handy universe. Remember to keep your preserves conveniently located!
37
38[[WMG:'' Mr. B Natural'' is:]]
39'''A Cthulhu-esque abomination that would melt your mind if ever encountered in real life.'''
40* You know it makes sense.
41** So is Coily.
42'''The adult version of Adam from Series/{{Degrassi|TheNextGeneration}}, as imagined by UsefulNotes/SarahPalin.'''
43* Gender transition including hormone therapy and reassignment surgery, on Canadian [[strike: public health insurance]] [[StrawmanPolitical socialized medicine]]? How else would the ex-governor picture it turning out?
44'''Loki, somehow imprisoned by Conn Music to do their bidding and sell their instruments.'''
45
46[[WMG:Vadinho was the real villain.]]
47So, this guy is strong enough to lift a car and is clearly the only one who has any idea of how to stop the BigBad, but he somehow feels the need to find some ineffectual puss and give him a magic belt that will bestow him with less-impressive powers? And even though he knew the father of the one guy he needs to track down, he eschews any kind of rational searching for birth certificates of whatnot, instead opting to randomly throw people out windows, knowing that when -- or if -- he finds someone that doesn't die a horrible death from being thrown out a window, that's the guy he's looking for. And then once he finds the guy, gives him the belt, and trains him, he forces him to stay behind instead of letting him join him in fighting the BigBad.
48
49Let's face it: the only reason Vadinho looked for Tony in the first place is that he wanted to get some jollies out of random murder. It was a complete accident that he even actually found Tony, and he only trained him because he knew that, weak and ineffectual as Tony was, his powers prevented him from being killed. The whole Kobras thing was all Vadinho's doing: a big ruse to get Tony to think that his job was done and he wouldn't need to use his powers for anything other than "making love in the air", so he would leave Vadinho alone. Of course, Tony wasn't supposed to show up at the big fight, and Kobras, Vadinho's BFF, wasn't supposed to die a horrible fiery death. When that complication arose, Vadinho could no longer get any joy out of random murder, and, his spirit crushed, he left on the space plane to mourn his friend (and possible lover) -- and, eventually, find a new planet to kill people on, once he'd gotten over Kobras's death.
50
51* Nononono... all those other guys were defenestrated by ''Kobras's'' henchmen; you don't have to take Vadinho's word for it: after being told that the "right man" had been found, Kobras himself says he hopes so "for the sake of the others".
52
53[[WMG:The Satellite of Love does not exist. Mike and/or Joel faked the whole thing from a TV studio on Earth.]]
54Some sort of connection (or at least geographic proximity) to ''Radio/APrairieHomeCompanion'' is also suspected.
55* Trudging a little close to TruthInTelevision here, seeing as the Satellite of Love really ''doesn't'' exist, the show actually ''was'' produced in a TV studio here on earth, and Mike and Joel's first names ''really are'' Mike and Joel.
56** Nah, that's just what they WANT you to think!
57
58
59[[WMG:Alternately, the Satellite doesn't exist and ''Mike/Joel aren't aware''.]]
60* Dr. Forester lacked the funding to create and launch a real satellite, so it's all just a sort of Truman Show type illusion, done in a set made up to look like space. The Satellite is actually just hanging from wires in a big circular room with stars painted on the walls and a model of Earth on the floor. That explains a lot of the stuff usually handwaved by the MST3KMantra; breathing is not a problem because they are actually on earth. Same with gravity. All that "Umbilicus" stuff where there's allegedly a tether between the satellite and Deep 13? Buncha' hooey, the tether is like 50 feet long and just reaching from the set to the next room. Why did Dr. Forester do this? Because the feeling of isolation would heighten the effectiveness of the experiments, as well as reduce escape attempts. He can pump the air out of the room outside of the satellite to simulate the vacuum of space (we already know he removes it from the satellite itself to keep the subjects in the theater). Any extraterrestrials encountered are hoaxes intended to further the illusion and push the subjects further into madness.
61** Then Kinga Forrester has the Simulator of Love built to simulate the conditions on the Satellite of Love, ''just to rub the test subjects' noses in the hoax'' and they ''still'' don't figure it out.
62
63[[WMG:Mystery Science Theater 3000 was filmed in and around [[Radio/APrairieHomeCompanion Lake Wobegon.]]]]
64* Alternately, Lake Wobegon is closer to the Minneapolis/St.Paul metro area than Keillor lets on.
65
66[[WMG:There is a logical explanation for ''everything'' that happens on the show.]]
67Any suggestion otherwise was made to throw off various Forresters.
68
69[[WMG:Deep 13 is an all-but-abandoned sector of Alpha Complex. (Any other hypothesis is treason.)]]
70* Dr. Erhardt and TV's Frank - Infrared Clearance
71* Dr. Forrester - Green Clearance
72* Joel - Red Clearance (most of the time. Wearing jumpsuits of other colors is treason.)
73* Mike - Green Clearance
74
75[[WMG:All characters played by the same actor are the same character.]]
76* [[Series/GilligansIsland The Skipper]] used to be a smalltown sheriff, until an invasion of giant spiders traumatized him and, fearing for his sanity, he fled for the spiderless ocean.
77* [[Series/GilligansIsland The Professor]] was leading the other castaways on the whole time. He knew he could get off the island, but he also knew that the helicopter he was building would only carry him, so he had to play dumb so as not to cause mutiny. He finally escaped one night, but the constant stupidity of the other castaways and the frustration of hiding his own genius led to some serious anger management issues with the new family he started. His wife's insistence that they move to the beach triggered constant flashbacks, which certainly didn't help matters.
78* After taking the Great Vorelli's body, Hugo faked his own death, ending the Vorelli phenomenon, then disguised himself from his loyal fans by dying his hair orange so he could fly under the radar as a scientist. His goal was to develop a scientific way to transfer souls, so he could liberate all the ventriloquy dummies of the world. However, he lacked the patience and deliberation of Vorelli, abruptly ending his life and the project through his recklessness.
79* Diabolik survived being coated in gold, but quite a bit of the lead in his suit soaked through to his brain, and so it is difficult to tell how much of Space Mutiny is the actual story of him aboard the space station he built with the money from selling all the gold and how much is hallucination.
80* After botching a drug bust and killing lots of Maltese men, Geronimo Mitchell got a sex change and became a scientist specializing in shiny metal plates growing out of chest scabs. The relatively low occurrence of such a medical phenomenon meant s/he had a lot of free time, which s/he continued to fill with food, beer, food, porn, food, and farting.
81
82[[WMG:Mike Nelson is [[Series/TwinPeaks Mike Nelson]].]]
83Just about ten years or so later. Considering that both [=MST3K=] and Twin Peaks are set in a hardly definable time, it's entirely possible.
84* If you take the theme songs literally, the Joel episodes are set on the Sunday following the original airdate, and Mike was hired by Dr. F and Frank shortly before the last Joel episode, which would have taken place on Sunday, October 24, 1993 (it aired on the 23rd). (After that, the timeline does get messy -- "somewhere in time and space...") Also, Mike had been doing various temp jobs since the 1980s, and he grew up in Wisconsin.
85** Oddly, the theme song always opened with "In the not-too-distant future" even when M&TB were in 2525 (which is distant) or in Roman Times (which is the past!).
86
87[[WMG:Joel Robinson is a mental patient.]]
88Despite the theme song that paints him as an ordinary everyman, Joel Robinson is [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness secretly criminally insane]] and undergoing rehabilitation through a more humane form of [[Film/AClockworkOrange the Ludovico treatment]]. The "Satellite of Love" is how Joel envisions the ward in which he's confined. The "mad scientists" are mostly harmless, yet slightly twisted doctors seen through Joel's resentful perspective. Their invention exchanges are attempts to get Joel to do something constructive with his time. Joel's "robot friends" are purely imaginary, or possibly secondary, personalities, meaning that he talks to himself almost constantly. The frequent [[BreakingTheFourthWall fourth wall-breaking]] is an acknowledgment of Joel's status as a person who is and should be watched closely; the "fan mail" is written by the doctors in an attempt to make their patient feel as though he has contact with other humans. Gypsy's finding the ''Deus ex Machina'' was Joel's triumphant breakout from the mental hospital.
89
90This hypothesis falls apart with the introduction of Mike...unless you consider that he could have been deemed similarly dangerous and was even ''more'' insane for imagining that his new doctors were an ape-man and an albino space alien. Unfortunately, he managed to take out the best of the doctors, and the others (including the new ones) were a little more reluctant to interact with him. This is why the invention exchanges were dropped a few episodes after Mike came on board.
91
92* Expanding on the above theory: Joel was, in reality, an avid moviegoer and invented in his spare time, but one day, after having a patent rejected, he finally lost it. In his hallucinations, all the bad movies that he had watched came back to torture him. The "Mads", the doctors at the institute, had nothing to do with the films in reality, but Joel projected his hatred onto the closest available targets, and envisioned the doctors as evil, twisted scientists that tortured him with these films. Though he did briefly break out, he was eventually reapprehended. Unable to rationalize his capture, he created an alternate personality for himself, which he called Mike, who continued to suffer through the "movies".
93** The movies could be shown by the doctors, or picked by other patients. Speaking as someone who works in a mental health facility, horrible movies are a constant feature. Guess how many times in a month they watched Matrix Revolutions. Go on, guess.
94
95[[WMG:All (Or at least some) movies watched by Joel and Mike are [[LiteraryAgentHypothesis fictionalized versions of real-life events in their own universe]].]]
96This would explain why characters such as Torgo, Mr. B, Pitch, Mothra, and Phantom of Krankor occasionally make appearances in the show. In cases where the movies take place in the future, the original writers were either psychic or encountered time travelers.
97
98This means that their universe is a CrapsackWorld, but that's confirmed in canon, so...
99
100[[WMG:The ending theme is loosely written around Lou Reed's "Satellite of Love" lyrics.]]
101Okay, kind of a boring Epileptic Tree, but the Lou Reed lyrics ''look like'' unused lyrics for the ending theme. Now, "Satellite of Love" sounds absolutely nothing like [=MST3K=]'s ending theme; nonetheless, see if you can hear these lines being delivered to the music's tempo (Joel and the 'bots did perform the Lou Reed song during a live riff):
102
103-->Satellite's gone up to the skies (to the skies)
104-->Things like that drive me out of my mind (out of my mind)
105
106-->I watched it for a little while
107-->I like to watch things on TV (on TV)
108
109-->Satellite's gone up to the skies...
110
111-->Satellite of love! Satellite of love!
112
113-->Satellite's gone way up to Mars
114-->Soon it will be filled with parking cars
115-->I watch it for a little while (a little while)
116
117-->I love to watch things... on TV!
118-->*twang*
119
120* You gotta admit, that's quite fitting...
121
122[[WMG:Dr. Erhardt is TV's Frank.]]
123Remember, from Laserblast, when Pearl finds Frank's spare head? It's not fully shown, and it's dark-haired. That means that it could be Dr. Erhardt's head.
124* Dr. Erhardt was somehow eaten by a spider in the film ''Earth vs. The Spider'' (No, not during the experiment -- within the film itself. Time travel was presumably involved). But Frank has died plenty of times, so it could work.
125** Maybe that was the first time he died, and Dr. F then built a more modular body for him.
126*** Which inspired the Johnny Longtorso action figure.
127* The fanfic ''3000: A Space Odyssey'' explained Erhardt was the guinea pig for a device Dr. F created that traps people in movies.
128
129[[WMG:The Satellite of Love is actually a Helium-3 mining station on the dark side of the Moon.]]
130The movies are the only form of entertainment other than building a model town and discovering the truth.
131* [[Film/{{Moon}} Oh goddammit.]]
132* Which would explain why the Gizmoplex was built there. To further disguise the mining operation. Are those lower levels ''really'' flooded? I mean, what would they be flooded ''with''?
133
134[[WMG:WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic is really Dr. Forrester.]]
135He's tall and skinny, with a goatee. He changes his name often, and the place where he posts his videos is very non-descript.
136
137He's Doctor Forrester. He's showing us these really horrible 80s/90s movies to find the one that drives us insane, and thus use it to rule the world. His comments are because, after seeing Joel/Mike and the Bots "riff" on movies, he decided to try it himself. And this "The Bum" guy? He's what happened to Dr. Erhardt.
138* Or better yet, the Critic will become Dr. Forrester. After years of seeing bad movies, the Critic goes mad and becomes evil, as he decides to show Joel, Mike, and the 'bots how it felt to be him.
139** Given the reviews that feature Future!NC in them, he seems to have more in common with [[Franchise/BackToTheFuture Doc Brown]] than Doctor Forrester, so, {{Jossed}}?
140* Okay, on the off-chance that this were true and Chester A. Bum and Dr. Erhardt were one and the same person, then what would that make TV's Frank? He certainly couldn't be Ask That Guy.
141** Maybe he becomes The Nostalgia Chick. Hell of an operation!
142* So you're saying that the events that take place in NC's reviews happen ''after'' this show? That sounds really confusing and contradictory. This show takes place some time in the future whereas NC's reviews are (almost) always within the time frame that the video is uploaded to the site, and Forrester's death between seasons seven and eight would just make this more confusing. Also, as it was mentioned earlier, the Nostalgia Critic episodes that contain NC's future self show that he becomes more like Doc Brown than Doctor Forrester. Confusing timelines and canonical contradictions aside, Forrester's attempts at riffing movies like in ''The Castle of Fu Manchu'' within the show didn't go very well and his riffs don't sound that much like something NC would say (not counting MirrorUniverse-Forrester), so overall I highly doubt this. I'll give you credit for trying to combine the two, but it just doesn't add up.
143* No offense, but this WMG has way too many holes in it for me to accept or even like it; overall it's too implausible. However, this did make me consider the thought that Santa Christ and Krusher Kringle are either the same person or at least related in some way. Just because.
144
145[[WMG:[[WesternAnimation/WallE The EVE units]] were engineered from Tom Servo.]]
146Think about it -- small arms, hovering ability, round head, similar body shape. After landing on Earth, Tom Servo and Crow lived the rest of their lives until the garbage crisis, when Buy N' Large used Tom Servo's design to create an advanced vegetation probe for the cleanup operation... you know the rest.
147* "Similar body shape"? The EVE probes look vaguely egg-shaped, while Servo... well, doesn't. The EVE probes don't have arms that are ''that'' small in comparison to the rest of their body, and unlike Servo's, they are fully functional (and can blow stuff up). Also, flying and hovering are not the same thing; EVE probes have the ability to hover ''and'' fly, whereas Servo hovers and only flew once in a deleted scene from the movie (and he can teleport himself from place to place, something which the EVE probes can't do). Are we thinking of the same 'bots here?
148
149[[WMG:WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}} and [=MST3K=] take place in the same universe.]]
150After landing on Earth, the Bots outlived Mike Nelson and began frequenting movie theaters, where they gradually picked up movie etiquette.
151* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTn7r5r2ieY Does this confirm it?]]
152
153[[WMG:[[Podcast/RiffTrax Disembaudio]] is Cambot.]]
154Cambot's been rebuilt multiple times, and it's notable that Disembaudio's most notable physical feature is his eyes. Crow and Servo don't need Cambot anymore now that they're Flash animations rather than physical robots. I can't be the only one who finds Disembaudio's occasional riffs reminiscent of Cambot's riff on Sidehackers. Relatedly...
155
156[[WMG:It actually happened.]]
157The Mike Nelson we know today really was the Mike Nelson on the SOL, which is how Cambot can exist in real life as Disembaudio. Also, there were two Joels sent into space by Dr. F. The one we now know as Joel Hodgson was the first one to go up, in a much more primitive satellite, as a temporary test for the program. Later, he was replaced by Joel Robinson, another janitor at Gizmonic Institute who bore a striking resemblance to him and who also shared his aptitude for inventing useless comical things. Joel Robinson was last seen running a hot fish shop in Osseo.
158
159[[WMG:Joel Robinson = Joel Hodgson.]]
160The previous WMG, except that there's only one Joel. He gets renamed for the same reason as the real-world one - because Hodgson is difficult to pronounce, and the experiment is specifically being broadcast to Comedy Channel. Joel was forced by the Mads to either change his name or read Literature/TheEyeOfArgon.
161
162[[WMG:Magic Voice never returned from the Edge of the Universe.]]
163At the end of Laserblast, Mike, Crow, Gypsy, Servo, Cambot, and Magic Voice reach the end of the universe, and become beings of pure thought and energy. 500 years later, the SOL is finally pulled back into Earth orbit, forcing Mike, Gypsy, Servo, and Cambot to snap back into mortal existence; Crow had already returned earlier. But Magic Voice isn't mentioned, and the few times a computer voice is heard for the rest of the series, it sounds different, and lacks sentience.
164
165Because she never had a physical form to begin with, Magic Voice couldn't be pulled back into reality when the SOL returned to Earth, and probably didn't want to go back to being an on-board AI after having independence for the first time in her existence. She's still somewhere at the edge of the universe, living it up.
166* The Magic Voice ''did'' actually return to the satellite, and she shows up infrequently throughout season 9/10.
167** Could be that she simply showed up for visits from time to time, but since she was explicitly not called back with the others she wasn't stuck on the satellite like they were and didn't want to give up roaming the universe in pure energy form? It would explain her infrequent appearances as well as give an explanation for why she wasn't mentioned during the finale -- she wasn't there at the time.
168
169[[WMG:By the time the show starts, Joel (and by extension, Mike) have already become insane from the movies.]]
170The show's real purpose is to drive the ''audience'' insane by watching the same movies. Since Doctor Forrester didn't set a control properly, he's not certain which movie caused insanity, and needs to play them all out again.
171* And Joel only talks to the movies because he's insane; he initially just watched the movies silently, but after losing his mind, he thinks that movies are talking to him, and thus feels the need to respond.
172** Mike's constant SanitySlippage of thinking he's various celebrities (Carol Channing, Kenny G, etc.) is just more evidence.
173
174[[WMG:The bad movies are powering the Satellite.]]
175Drs. Forrester and Erhardt have found some way to convert human (and robot) misery into energy and need to feed Joel/Mike a bad movie each week to keep the SOL going. That energy feeds air recyclers and hydroponic farms and such, and that's how they eat and breathe. The part of the dog-bone below the theater is the power converter, and it has to be in that shape to keep the living quarters separate from the theater for safety. Keeping Laserblast in the internal memory was a fail-safe in case communication with Deep 13 was lost, like a spare fuel tank.
176
177[[WMG:It's just a show.]]
178We should really just relax.
179* That's good, we should repeat that to ourselves.
180
181[[WMG:IT'S NOT JUST A SHOW!]]
182[[OppositeDay THEREFORE]] YOU CAN PANIC NOW!
183* THAT'S BAD, WE SHOULD NEVER SAY THAT TO OURSELVES AGAIN!
184
185[[WMG:Joel wasn't told about the special parts to make the movie begin and end.]]
186As the theme song tells us, he used those components to make the robots, and the lack of control over the movie would of course be inconvenient since you would need to stop it if you needed the toilet or something similar. However Joel used those components to make the robots but didn't know what they were for. Either Dr. Forrester never intended to tell him or didn't get round to it until the robots had been made.
187
188[[WMG:The bots (except Cambot) only exist in the minds of Joel, Mike, and Pearl.]]
189Yes, in TheMovie, Dr. F refers to "Ah, Mike...robots..." Note how he says 'robots'. With disdain, almost as if he was lowering himself to indulge in a child's fantasy.
190
191That's not to say that the robots don't have FORMS; Joel could've easily built them from junk lying around, becoming the [[Film/CastAway Wilsons]] to his Tom Hanks. Joel ''had'' gone insane from the movies, and imagined the Bots speaking to him. When Mike was sent up, he was, in fact, conked on the noggin. His imagining of the Bots is likely due to a head injury from said conking. Notice how no one else really refers to the robots besides the guest characters (obvious illusions on the part of Joel and Mike) and... Pearl. But, are you ''really'' shocked that she was nuts?
192* Nah. Dr. Forrester, Dr, Erhardt, Frank, Bobo and the Observers all interact with and respond to the bots from time to time, enough times that this theory doesn't hold up unless you want to claim that every single character is nuts and sharing the same delusions, or (like an above WMG) that the entire show is a delusion of Joel/Mike.
193
194[[WMG:Joel Robinson is some kind of IdiotSavant.]]
195First Joel was a [[Film/GoodWillHunting janitor]]. Then he was launched into space and proceeded to [[HiddenDepths build a bunch Turing-capable artificially intelligent robots]] to help him deal with the situation. Then he made it back home, and [[AntiClimax got a job at a Hot Fish Shop]].
196
197Apparently, the notion of doing something with his remarkable talent in the field of robotics[[note]](and we know it's remarkable in-universe from the results of Mike's brief foray into the field, and from the fact that the events of the series will be taking place not in the far future but ''next Sunday'')[[/note]] never occurred to him. Presumably, this could be the result of some sort of bad-movie-induced psychosis, but if Joel was ''always'' this much of a GeniusDitz, it would go a long way to explain why the egotistical but incompetent Drs. Forrester and Earhart "didn't like him" to the point where they devised an elaborate scheme to ''destroy his mind''.
198* Maybe he was working as a Janitor to get through post-graduate work?
199** That or he maybe just didn't want to make a career out of robotics? It might just a fun hobby for him.
200** Or maybe ethical concerns. He always treated the robots as his friends; he wouldn't want his creations to become a slave race.
201* This also explains how he's able to build robots out of parts that he ''could'' have used to control playback of the movies.
202
203[[WMG:Mike and the bots would go on to work at Joel's "Hot Fish Shop".]]
204After returning to Earth, Mike, Servo, Crow, and Gypsy move on, and decide to work with Joel at his fish shop.
205* That's actually quite a heartwarming idea.
206* Not the case for Gypsy, as she's stated to be running a massive corporation called [=ConGypsCo=]. The show never explains what Mike, Crow, Servo, and Cambot are doing, however, except to show that they're all sharing an apartment together, so perhaps they at least did go to work for Joel at the Fish Shop? And heck, maybe Gypsy moonlights there in her time off.
207* On slow days, they all go into the back room and watch bad movies to pass the time.
208
209[[WMG:The {{Retcon}} at the beginning of season 8 was [[Series/KamenRiderDecade Decade's]] fault.]]
210What isn't his fault?
211
212[[WMG:Dr. Erhardt is a Time Lord.]]
213That explains how he was eaten by a giant spider in the 50's.
214* Does this mean that he'll regenerate? Or that he already did regenerate? Ow, I'm so confused...
215** He regenerated into TV's Frank, who regenerated into Bobo.
216
217[[WMG:[=MST3K=] and Series/{{Andromeda}} take place in the same universe, and Gypsy will become the prototype for Ship Avatars.]]
218Or Magic Voice.
219
220[[WMG:Bot building Order:]]
221The magic voice is the ship's computer, programmed by Joel as his first attempt in bot building. Gypsy came next, but he cannibalized much of the ship's computer parts to build her. She is built similarly to the magic voice (In some senses, a "twin"), but the magic voice was built on the communications systems, while Gypsy on the life support systems. During this, Joel recorded himself via a camera the Mads sent up. He reffered to it as Cambot, then built him off communcations parts left over from the magic voice. Armed with experience and some new knowledge of cheesy movies, he built Crow and Servo as the wisecracking bots.
222* It's clear Servo was built last because of his lack of functional arms. Joel had completely run out of parts by this point.
223** This was confirmed in 2008 when the pilot, The Green Slime, was first shown at a convention. The episode features Crow, Gypsy and a robot called Beeper (who is similar to Servo, but clearly not the same). Cambot is implied to exist by the fact that the episode exists.
224
225[[WMG:The Mads shot Joel into space because they were jealous of him.]]
226The theme song shows that Joel was working as a lowly janitor at Gizmonic, but clearly he has a ton of engineering and mechanical talent. I mean, he built multiple sentient, free-roaming robots out of spare parts and what amounts to a VCR remote. Dr. Forrester and co. saw that their janitor was talented enough to put them all to shame and decided to get rid of him to save face. They needed a test subject for their world domination project, so rather than just offing Joel they figured they'd kill two birds with one stone and experiment on him in the isolation of space.
227
228[[WMG:Gypsy's voice is Joel doing falsetto.]]
229Joel built and programmed Gypsy as a female but then realized that he needed her to talk. In order to give her voice program something to work off of, he had to supply it with samples. Rather than talk normally and have her sound like a man, he put on his best falsetto. Hence her "guy-imitating-a-woman"-like voice.
230* But then, why does Magic Voice sound like a woman?
231** [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin She's magic]].
232
233[[WMG:The Mads stole the SOL for their experiment.]]
234In the first episode of the Comedy Central series the Mads mention having to move down into the Deep 13 area, a place that is pretty much shunned and avoided by the rest of Gizmonic because of how dangerous it is. Odds are that the SOL was meant for some other project but they decided to commandeer it for their own experiment, shoving Joel inside. Because of this they now more or less live down there because they're afraid of being caught by the institute and fired or arrested. Later on the institute shut down and now they just run the place as an independent project. Joel transforming some of the movie control parts into bots probably annoyed them but at least meant that it would be harder for Joel to resist the experiments (so they thought). The invention exchanges also were a means for them to try to find something marketable they could use to either get extra funding or get back in the good graces of Gizmonic.
235
236[[WMG:Future!Crow inspired Joel.]]
237In the episode "Time Chasers", after the first Crow travels back in time to stop Mike in 1985 from doing temp jobs, which would lead to him getting shot into space, but the new timeline led to Mike's death. The second Crow travels back in time to stop the first one from changing Mike's path, which resulted in the first Crow stuck in 1985 Wisconsin. Joel met Crow prior to the first episode, and inspired him to make the Crow of today. The future Crow gets killed off, thus preserving the loop.
238
239[[WMG:Joel did work on Gypsy to make her "smarter"]]
240He did work on Gypsy over time to free-up space in her brain so she would require less brain-power to run the ship and more to function as an individual. This is why she she got smarter as time went on.
241
242[[WMG:Joel is actually an alien genius.]]
243After all, Joel was "not ''too'' different from you or me", right? Plus there are a few indications throughout the series and in some meta info that he wasn't entirely as normal as he'd like us to believe.
244
245Some examples of his being an alien:
246
247The fact he survived the nuclear apocalypse (which was what happens before "next Sunday AD" according to Jim Mallon) with his mind intact.
248
249One KTMA episode reveals he designed and built the very odd and nigh-indestructible Satellite of Love - along with the bots - by himself (which explains why his bosses "didn't like him"!). He also created his own spaceship afterwards despite being a manager at a fish fry store. Another KMTA episode has, if memory serves, Joel talking to "the people ''from'' Earth.
250
251Upon leaving the Satellite of Love, Joel mentions that he's taught "everything" he knows of humanity to the bots; given how the bots tend to behave, we have to wonder what, if anything, he was teaching them off-screen.
252
253The fact that, unlike Mike, Joel doesn't seem to mind being up in space all that much, doesn't really hold any grudge towards the Mads despite the conditions (most humans ''would'' try to at least escape like Mike did), and even says his time on the Satellite were among "the best in his life" and that it made him "a man". But maybe not just any man - a ''hu''man.
254
255It's true that the song says we should just relax about things like eating or breathing, but that's because, as an alien, Joel doesn't ''need'' to eat or breathe. Hence why we should relax and not worry!
256
257[[WMG:Joel had a "secret stash" aboard the Satellite of Love.]]
258Think about it, the guy was pretty mellow for being trapped against his will on a satellite orbiting Earth.
259
260[[WMG:Joel died on his way back to Earth in Soultaker.]]
261Whatever he used to get up there was running low on oxygen or fuel or something vital to returning alive, and he knew it. That's why he wouldn't let the others go with him.
262
263[[WMG:Magic Voice and Cambot are the same character.]]
264In the Fire Maiden episode, Timmy tried to kill Cambot with Magic Voice begging for mercy. The reason Magic Voice in not heard in the later seasons because she decided that Mike was enough for announcing commercial sign.
265* No, Magic Voice addresses Cambot in that scene, so they can't be the same character.
266
267[[WMG:Joel is a space gypsy.]]
268Joel named one of his robots "Gypsy" and another "Tom Servo." "Servo" is the name of a Roma tribe. Coincidence? I think not!
269
270[[WMG:The Mads act the way they do because of the terrible movies.]]
271Presumably, they have to watch them first to make sure they're terrible enough to send to the [=SoL=]. This ended up driving them insane. The only reason the movies didn't do the same to Joel/Mike and the Bots is because of the riffing, which we've been shown Forrester and Frank can't do.
272
273[[WMG: The Mads became DenserAndWackier due to the radioactivity in Deep 13]]
274This is noticeable especially in [=Dr. F=] who went from a stern, deep-voiced pompous blowhard to a mincing, psychotic Charles Nelson Reilly clone. Likewise, [=Dr. Erhardt=] went from a raspy-voiced JerkAss to a squeaky-voiced weirdo (assuming [=KTMA=] and Season 1 share the same continuity) [[note]]This also explains Lawrence's personality and voice change in the Revival... he grew as a person and hadn't been in Deep 13 for years[[/note]]. Frank is an exception in that he didn't change much and is generally a strange human anomaly with HealingFactor.
275
276[[WMG:Joel Hodgson is Patton Oswalt's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5c9sktMB1s "angry magician."]]]]
277Patton says he started doing stand up in the late 80s, which was about the time Joel hit his peak with his stand-up magic routine just before starting [=MST3K=]. Patton has also professed to being a huge fan of the show and Joel and has opened for one or two showings of ''WebVideo/CinematicTitanic''. Also, given Joel's placid personality, he seems to be more the type to get revenge through the passive-aggressive manner that Oswalt describes.
278
279[[WMG:Dr. Forrester secretly hates the bots.]]
280Well, naturally he hates everybody on the satellite, and his line in the movie "Ah, Mike...robots." has a lot of contempt in the word "robots". But remember what the Mike opening says: "He'll try to keep his sanity/With the help of his robot friends". Specifically, Forrester feels that the only reason his experiments haven't delivered results yet is because of the other life forms on the satellite for Joel/Mike to converse with, as if they'd been stuck up there with only people who constantly insulted them and bad movies for company, they would have snapped much easier. Thus, he hates how the bots have kept Joel/Mike (usually) happy and (generally) in good spirits, making it much harder to break them with the movies.
281
282[[WMG:"Shot Him In His Face" is not a misheard lyric; Joel is actually dead.]]
283The lyric from the Joel opening theme song "his bosses didn't like him so they shot him into space" is often misheard by fans as "they shot him in his face." Well, turns out that wasn't a misheard lyric at all. Dr. Forrester really DID shoot Joel in the face. During his tenure on the show Joel is actually a soul in Purgatory. The Dr. Forrester of the show is actually a demon taking the form of the person Joel most feared in life, tormenting him as punishment for his sins. The bots are angels whose job is to keep his mind from falling apart from the torture. After watching Mitchell Joel had finally achieved absolution and was allowed to go on to Paradise.
284
285So what about Mike Nelson? He's also dead, by blunt force trauma to the head. Unlike Joel, Mike managed to escape from Purgatory on his own when the demon in charge was called away (this explains his ascendance at the edge of the universe). The original demon's superior, who took the form of Pearl Forrester, brought Mike back. Despite her best efforts, however, Mike was eventually able to escape from her as well.
286
287[[WMG:Gypsy ate all the [=RAMchips=] after Season 2 and became a lot smarter.]]
288Though she does get a little smarter through S2, Gypsy takes leaps and bounds in S3. Not to mention that [=RAMchips=] basically disappear for the other bots as treats after S2.
289
290[[WMG:The time paradox Crow from ''Time Chasers'' became Timmy.]]
291Back in ''Teenage Caveman'' Joel and the Bot's Invention Exchange were Home-Made Epecacs. TV's Frank made his own: the blue cheese Coke Slurpee. Paradox Crow, working in a cheese factory, decided to try one. The unearthly concoction turned Paradox Crow into the dark specter Timmy, who was then sent back in time by his own dark arts to mess with his former crew, specifically Servo.
292
293[[WMG:How do Joel/Mike and the Bots have time to set up their sketches before Cambot gets to the bridge?]]
294At some point in the corridor, Cambot pauses his camera feed to give them time, and to get his own costume on.
295
296[[WMG: Gypsy's expulsion of Joel Robinson from the SOL is a metaphor for Jim Mallon "forcing" Joel Hodgson into leaving the show]]
297Gypsy controls the higher functions of the ship, and without her, the SOL would be SOL. Joel told Gypsy he would never leave the SOL, even in a matter of life and death. Gypsy was under the impression that the Mads were going to kill Joel, even tho they were planning to kill Mike. At the end of the episode, Robinson's ready to just read a letter and keep on doing what he's always been doing, and Gypsy literally blows steam into his face and shoves him into an escape pod. Jim Mallon was the executive producer of the show, and without his businessman expertise, the show would fail financially. Jim Mallon and Joel Hodgson were having disagreements behind the scenes, and to ensure that the show survived, Joel "agreed to leave" even though he really didn't want to. Hodgson then wrote a goodbye note to the fans telling them it was totally his decision to leave, thus trying to make Mallon not look like the bad guy, as Mallon was supposedly doing what he needed to do to ensure the show's survival.
298
299[[WMG: Season 11 Cambot, Gypsy, Tom Servo, and Crow are newly-built recreations rather than the same characters from the previous ten seasons.]]
300Kinga Forrester built new copies of them (and the SOL) based on viewing her father's and grandmother's experiments, as part of her goal to become an entertainment mogul. That's why they don't quite look or sound the same as before. (Though - and this part is canon, not WMG - Gypsy's new voice and hanging from the ceiling are additional modifications made by Jonah. Kinga's version probably still had a harsh falsetto voice and was definitely still coiled all over the floors)
301* It'd explain why Crow's arms are more poseable now, even though Jonah claims in the first episode that he didn't change Crow at all. The episode Werewolf, from the Mike era, shows that the original Crow's non-moving arms are canon to a degree, since Werecrow!Mike had be told he couldn't use his hands and had to hit the commercial sign button with his mouth. Any other time in the past that Crow's arms actually worked were just AcceptableBreaksFromCanon, and [[ExpositoryThemeTune we should really just relax.]]
302
303[[WMG: Ardy ''is'' Joel]]
304Kinga kidnapped him and forced him to labor in Moon 14 for a dramatic reveal during sweeps week.
305** Or Joel infiltrated Kinga's operation so he could rescue the bots (and Jonah, if there's time).
306
307[[WMG: Joel was an aspiring mad scientist before being shot into space. He was secretly evil the whole time, and is the real mastermind in the new series.]]
308His ability to create things without really trying and mellow, laid-back nature infuriated the mads, so when he joined their division they relegated him to janitorial work hoping to crush his spirit or draw out the madness within, but it didn't work and his disposition angered them enough they shot him into space. The experiment was supposed to end when he was either sufficiently broken enough to serve as one of their mindless slaves, or driven mad enough to join their ranks. What they didn't know was that he was aware all along, and week after week smiled in their faces just to make them madder while enjoying the opportunity to not only finally show them his inventions but shove his superiority down their throats week after week.
309
310They never realized that he had goaded them into giving him the resources and feedback that he had been seeking when he joined the company, a chance to grow in his skills and see how other mad scientists perceived him. Unlike the mads, Joel was truly psychotic from the get-go, that's why he wasn't bothered by spending years isolated in space with no human companionship, a fate that would drive any normal person insane. Notice how he was often tender with his creations and frequently treated them almost as if they were his children, but could be ruthless with them when the mood struck him, nonchalantly electrocuting them or doing other experiments with them just to see what would happen, and being generally indifferent or even amused when they displayed their own psychotic tendencies.
311
312Eventually Joel got bored and realized that he had learned all he could from the experience, so orchestrated an escape. No one was ever the wiser, not even Gypsy knew she'd been had. They all really believed things happened as they appeared to. He also pulled the strings leading to poor, hapless Mike being shot up to take his place, to give his robotic experiments the human interaction he felt was needed to further their development. And also because he's sadistic, and knew a guy with as short a fuse as Mike would have an especially hard time trapped in isolation with a gaggle of psychotic robots.
313
314Pyrotechnics in the outback? Hot fish? Those were all just covers for what he was really up to. After he got back to earth he started building his own underground empire, using his cunning and inventions to work his way into existing circles and take over. Gizmonic was naturally saved until last, as a sort of final blow to the institute that laughed at him and failed to recognize his genius.
315
316Joel was content to rule with an iron fist, a shadowy figure no one ever saw except as a silhouette through a screen, but like all psychopaths, not even absolute power could satiate him forever. Tormenting people is so much more fun when it's personal. Eventually, he once again grew bored, and decided to take up his old experiment again. Last we had seen, his robots were with Mike, but obviously that's not the case anymore. We know his robots are now back in space, doing the job he made them to do so many years ago. As for what happened to Mike, who can say? Joel could have done away with him, or locked him up somewhere, or perhaps finds him amusing and has left him be. We don't know at this point.
317
318Joel likewise set up the whole thing with Jonah. Jonah was a promising employee adored by his co-workers and superiors with a promising future at Gizmonic Institute, a naturally talented young man with a good disposition. Of course Joel would notice any rising star, and he probably considered it an ironic twist that Jonah, beloved by the company that refused to acknowledge Joel's talent, would be chosen for the same fate. The moon base is, of course, another organization secretly run by Joel. Naturally Kinga and Max are unaware, as even most competent villains don't know just how much control the "puppet-master", as he's sometimes referred to, really has. Even if they were, no one could ever suspect that it's slow, good-natured Joel Robinson.
319
320Jonah's corruption will take some time, but Joel has plans for the boy. After all, all evil overlords need an eventual successor. Maybe, on some deep, subconscious level, Joel choosing Jonah is like a punishment for Jonah having the life Joel never could: acknowledgement of his genius, celebration of his skills, admiration of his peers. Jonah reminds Joel of himself, and that's what drew Joel to him, and made him ultimately choose Jonah.
321
322The real kicker, though? Joel is the one sending them the movies every week. You know Ardy, the maintenance man? He seems like just a lowly grunt who cleans the place, right? But what was Joel doing when he was at Gizmonic? He was a lowly janitor. In the ultimate irony, Joel is hiding in plain sight, now the one sending the movies instead of receiving them, getting to once again work on the experiment he devoted years of his life to, the experiment that made him who he is today. He doesn't even try to hide his voice, but no one seems to notice, because who would ever suspect? And so Joel has come full circle.
323
324[[WMG: The Man in the Purple Jumpsuit (AKA: Matt Claude Van Damme)]]
325He is Kinga's previous victim who didn't survive the experiment. The reason his image appears on the screen is because Kinga re-used some of the video fluid from his run.
326
327[[WMG: Potential movies for the reboot]]
328* ''Film/BattlefieldEarth''
329* ''Film/TheConqueror''
330* ''Film/{{Inchon}}''
331** All of these films were big-budget flops, more the territory of Podcast/RiffTrax than ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000''. ''[=MST3K=]'' has always been about finding poorly-made low-budget cinema and holding it up for both admiration ''and'' mockery, rather than delivering much-needed beatdowns to expensive-but-awful films.
332* Jossed: None of these films show up, but that doesn't mean they can't show up in a potential Season 12.
333
334[[WMG: The mystery of Kinga's mother will be cleared up in the official Dark Horse Comics series.]]
335In 2017, ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' is set to receive an official comic book adaptation, the details of which are still under wraps. Because riffing old comics could potentially be pricey, it's possible that the comic will delve deeper into the characters' backstories, eliminating the need to cast an actress for Kinga's mother (if she only appears in the comics), and/or allowing Dr. Forrester to show up again without the need to do a flashback episode or worry about Trace coming back.
336* Joel's said he's not even sure who Kinga's mother is, so even if she is mentioned in the comics it probably won't be canon.
337* In episode 1204 "''The Day Time Ended''", [[spoiler:Dr. Erhardt]] [[TheBusCameBack finally returns]] and tells Kinga that her mother was [[spoiler:Kim Cattrall]].
338
339[[WMG: Kinga and Max are siblings]]
340They're partial backup clones created in case Dr. Forrester disappeared.
341
342[[WMG: Max isn't Frank's son, he's his clone.]]
343In one episode of the new series, Kinga complains about clones after an encounter with Synthia and then casts a lingering scowl at Max, implying he may be a clone as well. That would explain why Max appears to be older than he should be if he were Frank's son.
344
345[[WMG: Jonah wasn't actually killed at the end of the season]]
346[[LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt Like they would really do it]] the figure in the spacesuit at the end of the season really was Jonah, he found a way out of the beast and rigged up a way to put his space suit on in case of emergency just in case off-screen between episodes.
347
348[[WMG: Jonah is a MeaningfulName.]]
349Just like his Biblical namesake, Jonah will spend three days in the belly of the whale--or giant robot snake, as the case may be. Then he'll get vomited out, alive and well, just in time for season 12. (Evidence against it: we do see Reptilicus Metallicus ''chewing'' a few times before swallowing Jonah...)
350
351[[WMG: Jonah escaped death by cloning himself.]]
352Fearing that marriage to Kinga would be a FateWorseThanDeath, Jonah prepared a way to escape. He cloned himself with the just-offscreen nutrient vat from the ''Reptilicus'' episode. Then, with his just-completed spacesuit, he hid outside the SOL for the duration of the ceremony.
353* Alternately: Jonah was too nice to force his own clone to marry Kinga in his place. So they flipped a coin to decide which of them would go on the spacewalk and which would go to the wedding. The original Jonah lost the coinflip. So season 12 will feature Clone Jonah Heston (Clonah Heston?) as the new host.
354
355[[WMG: The Purple Jumpsuit Guy is another experiment Kinga is working on just in case Jonah didn't gell with focus groups.]]
356He will briefly appear in the beginning of Season 12 as a result of the last season seemingly ending with [[spoiler:Jonah's death]]. The Crow and Tom with him are a few of several Kinga had created (for brand recognition in case anything happened to the originals) or alternatively, she never bot-napped the originals and they're all recreations.
357
358[[WMG: The bots actually want to get escape more than Jonah does.]]
359They were kidnapped off their usual places on Mike's couch and want to get back to Earth. Unfortunately they got stuck with a human who's just a bit too easy going and isn't trying too exceptionally hard with his escape attempts. In addition to this Mike (or even possibly Joel) are trying to get the bots, but Kinga has minions keeping them from interfering. If they dock the SOL Kinga will immediately rekidnap them too.
360
361[[WMG: Joel and Mike will join Jonah for a special 30 Year Anniversary episode]]
362It's already established Kinga likes milestone celebrations so it makes sense she'd want to play to the audience's nostalgia (and out of universe it seems like the kind thing Mike and Joel will be down for, especially now that Joel is writing for the show again). Their presence on the SOL will be be handwaved as doing repairs again. Or since Jonah, unlike Mike, is perfectly capable of doing repairs himself, Kinga kidnaps them especially for the anniversary special, and then once it's over ejects them and rigs up some kind of alarm that alerts her whenever their heat signatures are nearby or something, preventing them from saving them.
363
364[[WMG: Growler will stick around as a backup musician throughout season 12]]
365Or alternatively will be instantly destroyed once it's revealed that Jonah is [[spoiler: NotQuiteDead]] because Tom and Crow feel they don't need to show respect towards Jonah again. Growler will be oddly ok with it.
366
367[[WMG: The seemingly random numbers from the season 11 openings provide clues about season 12]]
368Not the episode numbers on the Iron Butterfly, but the non-sequential numbers that show up inside Jonah's ship.
369
370[[WMG:The bots were forced to work for Kinga due to Gypsy's company going bankrupt]]
371After escaping to Earth at the end of Season 10, Gypsy set up her own company. Originally, Crow, Tom Servo and Cambot didn't join her, but they changed their minds later on. Sadly, the financial crisis of 2007–2008 hit the company hard and left the poor bots with a huge financial debt, thus forcing them to start working for Kinga in the new SOL.
372
373[[WMG:The Bots in Season 11 aren't the original units]]
374Gypsy is a recreation from the large parts of her systems integrated with the SOL, Tom Servo is one of the many Tom duplicates that Kinga found on the SOL and repaired along with the rest of the satellite, and Crow is the time-travel duplicate last seen working at the cheese factory in Wisconsin. The originals are all still living happily with Mike, producing Rifftrax.
375** Crow could also have been rebuilt from the old loaner AMC Crow Gypsy was tooling around with.
376
377[[WMG: Similar to Dr. Erhardt being replaced by TV's Frank in season 2, Max will not show up in season 12 and will be replaced by someone else.]]
378Max will be fired by Kinga for ruining her wedding, and Kinga will be accompanied by Synthia instead.
379
380[[WMG: TV's Frank was one of Forrester's experiments]]
381Specifically, an experiment in cellular regeneration. That's how Frank keeps coming back every time he dies: he has a HealingFactor allowing him to reform FromASingleCell. It's possible that Max isn't even his 'son' in the traditional sense, but just a part of Frank regenerating a whole new body a la Reptilicus.
382
383[[WMG: Not only will Season 12 Jonah be a clone, Season 11 Jonah was one too.]]
384Jonah is a recombinant clone of Joel and Mike - literally their son. He is the prophesied one: Joike.
385
386[[WMG: The other eight rockets have functions besides looking at stuff outside the ship]]
387'Rocket Number Nine' is the only one Joel or Mike calls on because the other rockets do things like re-supply the [=SoL=] in emergencies, block people from seeing or detecting the satellite, destroying any space junk that might collide with them, etc.
388
389[[WMG: 'Rocket Number Nine' is part of a group with the same function of monitoring the outside.]]
390They're actually called the 'Rockets Numbered Nine', and work as a web of cameras around the [=SoL=]. When someone asks for 'Rocket Number Nine', Cambot activates the one nearest what he's supposed to be looking at, which receives the temporary designation of 'Nine', because it stands out from the other eight.
391
392[[WMG: Eventually, there will be a female protagonist/presenter trapped on the SOL]]
393I could see this happening sometime in the future in the possible new seasons if the show gets picked up somewhere. Maybe it won't happen right away if Jonah lives after the Netflix season, maybe it won't even happen right after he gets replaced, but I could see it happening eventually. I heard before Mike took over, someone on the show suggested his real-life wife play the main character before they decided on Mike (though the crew didn't go for this idea because rather than a new character, the suggestion was that she would play a genderswapped Joel, which they thought was weird), so it's not too out of the ordinary. It could be something like Kinga (or whoever the main villain would be then) would wonder how a girl would react to watching bad movies every day and trap a woman on the SOL. I could see them casting an unknown new actress, or if they were going for someone more well known, it could anyone like Aquafina, Kristen Schaal, Amy Poehler, or Jenny Slate. This trooper just hopes that if it happens, people won't be too mean to a female protagonist. I've seen how male sci-fi fans have tore apart stuff like Ghostbusters and Doctor Who when they got a female replacement main cast (while Ghostbusters I can understand as the movie sucked, I still thought people were too hard on the characters and/or cast members. Let's just hope people would show the same respect as they did for Jonah when he took over).
394** And now, with the appearance of Emily in the 2019 live tour and various online riffings, as well as the confirmation that she will appear in season 13, we can finally tick off the "confirmed" box for this one.
395
396[[WMG: IFC is being considered as a new station to air the show]]
397For those of you who don't know, some classic episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 are being aired on IFC in the US sometimes in the early morning, starting as of about January 2020. It could be a long shot, but maybe just maybe that channel is being considered to make new episodes for, after Netflix got canceled. Only time will tell if this theory is true or not. Hell, even if a different channel picks up the show for new episodes, it doesn't mean that IFC wasn't considered as a possibility. Hey, a troper can dream!
398
399[[WMG: Dr. Forrester (and possibly some of the other Mads) is a Stand User]]
400And the Satellite of Love is a [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure Stand]] that's trapping the protagonists in it, similar to Super Fly in DIU.
401
402[[WMG: Eddie Nelson used to be like Mike]]
403In ''Mitchell'', Joel escapes with Mike's help, but Eddie in ''Time Chasers'' is far too much of a jerk to help anyone. It's possible that Eddie used to be as nice as Mike and that he turned into the violent bully we see in ''Time Chasers'' because he couldn't handle the isolation and the experiments as well as Joel, Mike, or Jonah.
404
405[[WMG: Human Civilization Survived and Thrived Long After The Ape-Apocalypse]]
406They all mastered space travel and populated the near-galaxy, as evident by the goofy skit in the episode for ''Film/TheDeadlyMantis'' when Mike & The Bots end up in a part of the galaxy where [[https://youtu.be/YfaOQqTZzs4 incredibly hokey Country music]] is all the rage.
407
408In a way; Mike Nelson's dumbassery, while responsible for indirectly causing the "Ape-ocalype" and destroying the Earth, may have inspired Earth people to get serious about scientific advancement space travel and space colonies...thus making the whole story arc for humanity on the show a lot less depressing.
409
410[[WMG:Forrester turned himself into a star child]]
411Although it seems as if Forrester didn't care what happened to Mike and the Bots, he knew deep down that without them he had no reason to go on living. So he subconsciously aged himself to death so that he could be reborn anew. If only Pearl had been a better mother to him the second time around...
412
413[[WMG: The SOL resident test subject is a Time Lord! [[note]]Can't believe it got this many entries without this suggestion![[/note]] ]]
414Joel, Mike, Jonah, and Emily are all the same Time Lord. Their memory is wiped and a false backstory implanted during the post-regeneration trauma. Sure, they've met each other, but so have the Doctor and the Master!
415* Or maybe they don't remember each other because a ''later'' version of themself is present, too — the Forresters aren't a family, they're the equivalent of the [[RunningGag Valeyard]]!
416
417[[WMG: Kinga is actually an AlternateUniverse Penny from ''WebVideo/DrHorriblesSingAlongBlog'']]
418In this universe, Billy was the good one and Penny the evil one.
419
420[[WMG: Jonah is an animatronic duplicate from Season 12 onward]]
421Jonah actually died at the end of Season 11 and, with her project in jeopardy, Kinga got an animatronic duplicate of him made out of parts from old Chuck E. Cheese bots and implanted with his memories to keep things going with the intention of never having robo-Jonah finding out he wasn't the real Jonah. The reason she was so insistant on interrupting Jonah telling the Bots how he survived Reptilicus Metallicus at the start of Season 12 was because she was trying to stop him from thinking about it before he realized there was no way he actually could have, but the lid got blown off the whole thing because Kinga forgot to tell Dr. Donna St. Phibes to keep the info from him when giving out the results of their insurance-related physicals in Season 13. However, by this point robo-Jonah was so secure in his belief that he was the real Jonah, he only came away from it thinking he'd been an animatronic the whole time.

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