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MST3k’s” Kevin Murphy talks about the history of “Tom Servo,” the show, RiffTrax and why “Manos” is his favorite/least favorite movie ever. Ever.
From Wiki- Kevin Wagner Murphy (born November 3, 1956) is an American actor and writer best known as the voice and puppeteer of Tom Servo on the Peabody Award-winning comedy series Mystery Science Theater 3000. Murphy also records audio commentary tracks with Michael J. Nelson and Bill Corbett for Nelson’s RiffTrax website.
For eleven years Murphy was a writer for MST3K; for nine of those years, he also voiced and operated the robot Tom Servo, replacing original cast member J. Elvis Weinstein. After taking over the role of Servo, an anonymous person sent him a 6-foot-long (1.8 m) banner that read “I HATE TOM SERVO’S NEW VOICE.” Flattered by the enormous amount of effort taken to heckle him, Murphy hung the banner in his office for over a year. During the final three years of the series, he additionally portrayed Professor Bobo, an English-speaking mountain gorilla in the style of Planet of the Apes.
After the end of MST3K, Murphy spent the year 2001 going to a different movie every day and wrote a book about this experience, entitled A Year at the Movies: One Man’s Filmgoing Odyssey. During his year at the movies, Murphy samples theatres from small-town boxes to urban megaplexes, attempts (and rejects) a theatre-food diet, suffers a kidney stone, visits both the Sundance and Cannes film festivals, sneaks Thanksgiving dinner into a showing of Monsters, Inc., and records all of these experiences, both good and bad. His feat – viewing over four hundred films on four continents – was mentioned in Ripley’s Believe It or Not.
Murphy holds a BA in journalism from the University of Utah and an MA in directing for the stage and screen, from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Murphy resides in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area with his wife, Jane.
Semi professional show notes below.