Crow T. Robot - Overview

Overview

According to the MST3K storyline, Crow — like his fellow robots Tom Servo, Gypsy, and Cambot — was built by Joel Robinson, who created them to help him withstand the torment of watching bad movies on the Satellite of Love. On the Satellite, Crow was forced with the rest of the crew to watch horrible B-movies sent by mad scientist Dr. Clayton Forrester and his assistants.

Crow's middle initial stands for "The". In episode #K19: Hangar 18, Joel stated that "Crow" was an acronym for "Cybernetic Remotely Operated Woman", but then claimed he built Crow merely to play this joke on him. Crow is also sometimes called "Art", primarily by late-series antagonist Pearl Forrester. This arose from a gag in episode 203, Jungle Goddess, in which Joel referred to "Art Crow" in a skit centered on the sitcom The Honeymooners; after Best Brains received a letter from a child who had evidently missed the cultural reference and labeled a drawing of Crow as "Art", the show's writers turned the name into a recurring joke.

Crow was voiced by Trace Beaulieu from the beginning of the series through the end of season seven, and Bill Corbett from the eighth season until the end of the show. Corbett's Crow was noticeably more irritable, bitter, and impatient with the movies than Beaulieu's Crow had been.

Crow's accomplishments during the show's run include:

• Writing several screenplays, including Earth vs. Soup (his seminal work) (seen in Earth vs the Spider), Peter Graves at the University of Minnesota (Beginning of the End), The Spy Who Hugged Me (Secret Agent Super Dragon), and Chocolate Jones and the Temple of Funk. He also wrote a rather poorly researched documentary titled Crow T. Robot's Bram Stoker's The Civil War, and created another called Let's Talk Women!, in which he denies the existence of women. He also wrote a one man show titled "Robot on the Run".

• Being an avid member of the Kim Cattrall and Estelle Winwood fan clubs.

• Co-writing a satirical musical called Supercalifragilisticexpiali-wacky!

• During the Christmas episode #321, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, he wrote a Christmas carol titled "Let's Have a Patrick Swayze Christmas", inspired by his favorite movie, "Road House".

• Though all the SOL prisoners make it their goal to escape, the cause is almost always desire for freedom, not a result of the slew of B-movies. But, in episode #903, The Pumaman, Crow actually succumbed to the Mads' experiment. He decided this film had finally pushed him over the edge and that he could no longer take all the movies. He attempted to run away, hoping to find a satellite where he would be forced to watch good movies, but gave up on his escape attempt after mere seconds.

• In between segments of the movie Werewolf he successfully turns Mike into a Werecrow.

During episode 416, Fire Maidens of Outer Space, Crow acquired a double named "Timmy", to whom the trio quickly took a liking. (Timmy was actually the painted-black Crow used for the Shadowrama in the theater.) However, the double began playing tricks on Tom Servo and Joel, who blamed Crow for the actions. He eventually joined them in the theater during the movie and attacked Tom, cocooning him in a material identical to the xenomorph in Alien, forcing Joel (who referenced Aliens by growling, "Let go of him, you bitch!") and Crow to stuff him into an airlock and blast him out of the ship and into space. Timmy's appearance was a parody of the evil twin concept.

Crow holds the distinction of being the only SOL robot who ever visited Deep 13 (although Tom Servo and Gypsy once visited the alternate-earth version): In episode 615, Kitten with a Whip, he slid down the Umbilicus in an attempt to bring the SOL back to Earth, only to be frightened back up by Dr. Forrester (who then had Frank put a giant mousetrap beneath the Umbilicus). In the "Turkey Day" version of episode 701, Night of the Blood Beast, Crow attended the Forrester Thanksgiving dinner alongside such guests as Mr. B Natural, Pitch the Devil, and others. During this episode, Crow seems to have a friendship with Pearl Forrester, who seems to enjoy his company and the fact he would listen to her complain about her inept son, Dr. Forrester. Due to a time travel paradox in episode 821, Time Chasers, a second Crow lives in Minnesota, working at a cheese factory.

In the theatrical film based on the series, Crow distinguishes himself early on by attempting to tunnel back to Earth using a pickaxe. Even he admits the faulty logic employed in this scheme when he examines his calculations: "Well, look at that! 'Breach hull, all die' — I even had it underlined!" / "Well, believe me, Mike, I calculated the odds of this succeeding versus the odds I was doing something incredibly stupid, and...I went ahead anyway."

A running joke of Crow's character throughout the series, particularly in the last few seasons of the Sci-Fi channel's running of the show, is his frequent costume changes into film characters during the host segments. Often Crow has been known to take on the appearance and sometimes the personality of one of the characters in the movie that is currently being shown, usually ending with Mike, Tom Servo, or Joel using Crow's role-playing as a plot device or setup to a joke that mocks the film even more. This continuing effect finally was recognized by Crow himself during Episode 902, The Phantom Planet. At the conclusion of the film, Crow encounters Tom and Mike dressed as a 'Solarite' (one of the cheesy alien monsters from the film) and, having no memory of ever making or even deciding to make the costume, asks them "Have you guys ever noticed how I will see a movie, snap, then suddenly pretend I'm one of the characters in the movie and run about the ship?"

Another recurring joke that was more prominent during the earlier days of the show - dating, in fact, from the KTMA run - was Crow's apparent inability to distinguish between different types of animal; he would joyfully cry "Kitty!" when an animal appeared on screen, regardless of whether it was at all feline, and regardless of whether it was cute enough to elicit such a positive response.