When we did the pilot, I sort of pictured this guy pirating a signal and then this story unfolding of him building this satellite and these robots and watching these bad movies.

Then a friend of Jim's suggested we make a theme song to explain the story, and this is where the Mads came from. Josh and I wrote it into the theme song.

Beanie and Cecil was the first cartoon I remember watching and I think there are analogies.

Well, really the way worked was that I had probably built fifty robots before Mystery Science Theater, and I had sold them in a store in Minneapolis in a store called Props, which was kind of a high end gift shop.

Everyone's watching (to see) how Stern does for Sirius. For satellite, it could be transformational.

Then we tried to come up with ideas for the sketches, and then, when we actually shot the movie, we really just sat down - never previewed the movie - we just really winged it.