Mike Nelson

Mike Nelson
a.k.a.	Destroyer of Worlds
Played by	Michael J. Nelson
Firstappearance	512 - Mitchell
Latestappearance	1013 - Diabolik
Location	The Satellite of Love
Charactertype	Regular

Michael J. "Mike" Nelson is a former temp worker for Deep 13 who was kidnapped by his employer, Dr. Clayton Forrester, and shot into space, becoming the second test subject of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 experiments.

Mike has been described as "intelligent as the average man" and often displays a comic unawareness of his limitations and foibles. He is also notoriously clumsy and unskilled, mechanically.

History

Early life

Mike is originally from rural western Wisconsin, where his father Elmer ran a mail-order burlap store out of Minong. Mike described his father as reserved, though Crow's experience via time-travel was apparently quite different.

Mike claimed that his parents relied heavily on guilt and shame as motivators during his upbringing and that it had "worked".

Mike has an older brother Eddie, an uncle Les (who is retired and lives in McAllen, Texas), and a cousin Al, who rebuilds carburetors.

His grandmother was still alive as of Experiment #514. One of his grandmothers gave him a St. Blaise's medal, intended to protect him from ailments of the throat.

According to his yearbook, Mike graduated high school in 1983. He apparently did not finish college.

Mike's former girlfriends include Carla, Ginger, and Denise.

Mike performed in a number of theatrical productions during his life, always appearing in a sailor suit (whether appropriate to the material or not). He also had access to a sailor suit on the Satellite of Love (as seen in Episode #620).

Mike, Patrick and Crow

In the 1980s, Mike and his brother Eddie began to work temp jobs. At one of these jobs, Mike "punched that guy from accounting". Another one of these jobs was at a cheese factory where he met Patrick and a robot from the future. At this time, Mike was in a band called Sex Factory, which he eventually quit to focus on temp work.

Mystery Science Theater 3000

Mike was hired by Dr. Forrester to help TV's Frank prepare Deep 13 for an audit, and he assisted Gypsy with her plan to orchestrate the escape of original test subject Joel Robinson from The Satellite of Love.

Upon Joel's escape, Mike was knocked unconscious and sent to the Satellite to replace Joel as the subject of the experiment. In this capacity, Mike found himself forced to watch badly-made movies with robot companions Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot while interjecting humorous quips and cultural riffs based on the action and dialogue of the films.

During his time on the Satellite, he attempted to expand his skill set a few times, including attempting to perform maintenance on Crow (but inadvertently changing Crow's personality to that of Arnold Horshack from Welcome Back, Kotter), building a robot of his own, and successfully reprogramming Tom and Crow with incompatible regional speech patterns.

Mike's time as the test subject saw several changes for the experiment, including the death of TV's Frank and the arrival of Dr. Forrester's mother Pearl.

When Dr. Forrester lost his funding and ended the experiment, the Satellite of Love was released from Earth's orbit and drifted to the edge of the universe where Mike, Crow, Tom, Gypsy, Cambot and Magic Voice transformed into beings of pure energy.

After an undisclosed period of time (approximately 500 years), the crew of the SOL returned to the ship. They were able to contact Earth, discovering that apes had evolved into more human-like form and taken over the planet. The ape scientists Professor Bobo and Dr. Peanut continued to send them movies at the behest of "The Lawgiver", who turned out to be Pearl.

This future Earth was eventually destroyed, and Mike attempted to pilot the SOL to safety. He was unable to evade Pearl Forrester, who had escaped the planet and pursued the Satellite in her own ship, known as The Widowmaker. She was joined by Bobo. After briefly becoming of interest to the group known as Observers, Mike inadvertently destroyed their planet as well. After accidentally destroying a third planet, Mike and the SOL were pulled through a space/time vortex along with Pearl and her associates (including a surviving Observer). At one point, Mike was put on trial by a cosmic entity for his repeated planet-destroying, but he was only sentenced to Community Service.

After a jaunt through time and space, the Satellite of Love came to orbit "modern-day" Earth, where Pearl, Bobo and Brain Guy took up residence in Pearl's ancestral home Castle Forrester. They continued to subject Mike to the movie-watching experiment, and Mike made several unsuccessful escape attempts.

After some time, Pearl accidentally damaged her control of the Satellite, leading to its inevitable orbit destabilization and crash-landing on Earth. Mike, Crow and Tom settled into a small apartment and continued to amuse themselves by making comments during movies they watched on television, including The Crawling Eye.

Mike's current status is unknown.

Notes

• Mike is known to have been subjected to 91 experiments on the Satellite of Love, not counting the training he received from Tom and Crow prior to The Brain That Wouldn't Die.
• Mike's relationship with the bots was that of an older brother, as compared to their view of Joel as more of a father figure.
• Mike's favorite movie is Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo.
• Mike is apparently a bit of an audiophile, given his elaborate stereo set-up and CD maintenance as well as his apparent fondness for music on vinyl.

Behind-the-Scenes

• Mike Nelson is a fictionalized version of the real Michael J. Nelson. Like Joel in the KTMA era, he shares his name and much of his backstory.
• While all other hosts have character names intentionally based on established fictional adventurers, "Mike Nelson" is also the name of the former US Navy frogman played by Lloyd Bridges on the TV series Sea Hunt (as referenced in Episode #909), thereby including Mike in that tradition.