Cambot

Cambot
Played by	Kevin Murphy (1988) Emily Marsh (2019 tour) see Performers for details
Firstappearance	K01 - Invaders from the Deep
Latestappearance	1206 - Ator, the Fighting Eagle
Location	Satellite of Love
Charactertype	Regular

“	You're on!	”
	- Cambot

Cambot is one of the Bots created by Joel Robinson that appears in the series Mystery Science Theater 3000. Cambot is unique among the Bots as it is through their "eye" that viewers watch Joel, (and hosts after him) and the other robots watch the movies that are sent to the Satellite of Love each week. Cambot also frequently provides music, video clips, and other enhancements to host segments.

When Joel or another character requests to see Rocket Number 9 (the ship-mounted camera that supposedly allows the crew to see the ship's exterior and anything in its vicinity), it is Cambot who provides the image.

Appearances

Cambot is only seen during the "Robot Roll Call" portion of the opening credits, often with his name reversed, presumably to imply he are shooting his own image in a mirror. Cambot's appearance was changed with almost every re-shooting of the opening credits, most likely since there was little need to keep the puppet around once its one appearance had been shot. While originally being shown as a separate robot operating a camera during the Season K, Cambot would later be changed to a robot with a built-in camera during the show's national run.

Season one Cambot only vaguely resembled a camera, having been built from the KTMA season's Gypsy puppet. When the opening was re-shot for season two, Cambot was redesigned to look much more like a video camera. In a drawing that Gypsy presented during Experiment #507 of her "ideal family", Cambot's body was shown as long and snakelike, not unlike Gypsy's. Midway through the fifth season, the opening was once again re-shot and Cambot was re-designed, this time into a more compact round hovering ball with a camera lens for an eye. Cambot would keep this form for the remainder of the original run of the series, except for a color change from grey to blue (though the blue tone was likely hue from the darker lighting aboard the SOL the show adapted in the Sci-Fi Channel era).

With the relaunch of the series with Season 11, Cambot underwent another drastic re-design, now appearing much more like a giant lens now with mock studio lighting camera reflectors. Cambot appears to be attached to the ceiling by some kind of long mount. In Mac and Me, Crow and Tom develop a "Travel Cambot" at the tail end of Jonah's disappearance within Reptilicus Metallicus, which is the modern Cambot design mounted within a bin.

Role

From time to time, the characters on the show interact with Cambot in a Brechtian fashion. Cambot is apparently the conduit whereby the SOL crew and Deep 13's denizens communicate via a forward viewscreen (not unlike those of various Star Trek starships) that the characters look at, when they are in fact "looking into" the living rooms of the viewers. This screen should not be confused with the Hexfield viewscreen, which usually only receives transmissions from non-Deep 13 sources.

Cambot also watches the movies while recording the guys watching the movies. Although a number of episodes depict Joel/Mike, Crow, and Tom reacting as if traumatized by a particularly bad movie, Cambot suffered a severe reaction only once, weeping when several security cameras were systematically destroyed by the hero in episode 620, Danger!! Death Ray (signified by a watery effect over the camera lens). Another rare case of Cambot interacting during a movie segment came in episode 202, The Side Hackers, when Cambot added an ESPN-like mock scorecard on one side of the screen during one of the movie's race scenes. At the end of episode 401, Space Travelers, a letter suggested Cambot be featured more; Joel said this would be impossible as Cambot nodded agreement (the camera moved up and down).

During episode 821, Time Chasers, Observer interrupted Cambots broadcast during the credit sequence to deliver a "news" segment to mock the movies cheap made-for-tv look.

When the Satellite of Love crashed on Earth in the show's final episode, Cambot lived with Tom, Crow, and Mike in their one-bedroom apartment, and viewed them watching the first part of The Crawling Eye. The Cambot character was inferred in Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, but is never spoken to by any of the characters.

During the online Turkey Day '13 Marathon, Joel (appearing as Joel Hodgson rather than in character as Joel Robinson) addressed Cambot frequently, asking the robot to help with the clues to what the next movie would be.

Performers

As a primarily "behind-the-scenes" character, no performer has ever been identified on screen as performing Cambot. The only reference to a performer is a photo of Kevin Murphy supposedly voicing Cambot.

For Mystery Science Theater 3000 Live - The Great Cheesy Movie Circus Tour, Cambot was performed by Emily Marsh.

Notes

• In some promos for the Mystery Science Theater 3000 channel on the online streaming service PlutoTV, Cambot was referred to as "she".

Gallery

Cambot during the KTMA era.

Cambot in the Season 1 intro.(This Cambot was made from the KTMA Gypsy puppet.)

Cambot in the Seasons 2-5 intros.

Cambot as seen in the seasons 5.5-6 intros. (This Cambot puppet would be used for the rest of the original run)

Cambot in the Season 7 intro.

Cambot during the Seasons 8-10 intros.

Cambot during the Season 11 intro. (current design)

The new Bunraku performance of the Cheesy Movie Circus tour incorporates an actual camera into Cambot and for the first time, the robot can freely move around the stage.