The Observers

The Observers or the Brain Guys are an alien race who claim to be hyper-intelligent. They have highly-developed mental abilities, and all share the name "Observer". The race also claims to be without bodies (despite obvious evidence to the contrary) and carry their bright-blue brains in large bowls, rather than inside their (supposedly nonexistent) skulls.

They all claim to be omniscient and omnipotent, but they frequently fail to demonstrate these supposed abilities.

History

Having escaped from the destruction of the Earth, Pearl Forrester, Professor Bobo, and the residents of Satellite of Love are captured by the Observers and taken to the Observer homeworld, where they are subjected to a series of test to determine their mental capabilities. One of the Observers is surprised when Tom Servo scores higher than he had, which leads the Observer to be painfully punished.

Later, the Observer homeworld is accidentally destroyed by Mike Nelson and the punished Observer escapes with Pearl and Bobo onboard The Widowmaker.

In time, the surviving Observers are able to reconstitute their planet . Two Observers then tracked Brain Guy through time and space to Castle Forrester, where they attempted to take him back to their planet and blow up the Earth as they left. Brain Guy initially agrees, but later changes his mind and (with the help of Pearl and Bobo) separates his former comrades from their brains. He then changes them into Wisconsinites and sends them off to a life of cheering for the Green Bay Packers.

Some time later, a group of Observers attend Kinga Forrester's wedding to Jonah Heston, which is disrupted by Jonah's apparent death at the hands of Max and Reptilicus Metallicus.

Behind-the-scenes

• The Observers bear some resemblance to the Talosians, a race of beings with highly-advanced mental abilities seen in the unaired Star Trek pilot episode "The Cage". The Observers' abilities are also similar to those demonstrated by members of the Q Continuum, another group from the Star Trek franchise. The brains in pans is also reminiscent of the Providers from the episode "The Gamesters of Triskelion".
• According to Beez McKeever, the Observers' costumes utilized vintage church robes with a "Peter Pan collar", a gathered yoke, and bell sleeves. She also included "arm warmers" made with white tube socks so Bill Corbett didn't have to wear makeup on his arms.

“	There were also cotton, elastic waist- basically pajama pants under the robe. And they might have had brown sandals with socks. A MSTie wrote in complaining about Mike wearing socks with sandals in a scene so I made a point of bringing that look back where I could.	”