<P> The theater shots, the primary component of an episode, is filmed in "Shadowrama". The "seats" were a black - painted foamcore board sitting behind the seat (towards the camera) for the host, and stages for the Crow and Tom puppets . The human host wore black clothing while the robot puppets were painted black; the screen they watched was a white luma key screen as to create the appearance of silhouettes . The actors would follow the movie and the script through television monitors located in front of them, as to create the overall theater illusion . </P> <P> The "door sequence" was created to transition from skit segments to the theater segments, which Hodgson took inspiration from the Mickey Mouse Club, noting that the commonality to the title credits of Get Smart were coincidental . In devising this sequence, this also led to Beaulieu creating the dogbone - like shape of the Satellite of Love with additional inspiration taken from the bone - to - ship transition in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey . Hodgson had wanted to use a "motivated camera" for filming, a concept related to motivated lighting; in this mode, all the shots would appear to have been taken from an actual camera that was part of the scene to make the scene appear more realistic . This led to the creation of Cambot as a robot that the host would speak to during host segments or filming them while in the theater, and Rocket Number Nine to show footage outside of the Satellite of Love . </P> <P> The show's theme song, the "Love Theme from Mystery Science Theater 3000", was written by Hodgson and Weinstein, which helped to cement some of the broader narrative elements of the show, such as the Mads and Joel being part of an experiment . The song was composed by Charlie Erickson with help from Hodgson in the style of Devo, The Replacements, and The Rivieras (particularly their cover of the song "California Sun") and sung by Hodgson . Initial shows used foam letters to make the show's title, but they later created the spinning - moon logo out of a 2 - foot (0.6 m) diameter fiberglass ball, covered with foam insulation and the lettering cut from additional foam pieces . Hodgson felt they needed a filmed logo with the rotating effect as opposed to a flat 2D image, and though they had envisioned a more detailed prop, with the letters being the tops of buildings on this moon, they had no time or budget for a project of that complexity and went with what they had . Musical numbers would also be used as part of the host segments, which Hodgson said came out naturally from the riffing process; they would find themselves at times singing along with the movie instead of just riffing at it, and took that to extend songs into the host segments . </P> <P> Hodgson approached Jim Mallon, at the time the production manager of KTMA, a low - budget local television station, with his idea of a show based on riffing on movies, using robots that were created out of common objects . Mallon agreed to help produce a pilot episode, and Hodgson hired on local area comedians J. Elvis Weinstein (initially going by Josh Weinstein but later changed to J. Elvis as to distinguish himself from Josh Weinstein, a well - known writer for The Simpsons) and Trace Beaulieu to develop the pilot show . By September 1988, Hodgson, Mallon, Weinstein, and Beaulieu shot a 30 - minute pilot episode, using segments from the 1968 science - fiction film The Green Slime . The robots and the set were built by Hodgson in an all - nighter . Joel watched the movie by himself, and was aided during the host segments by his robots, Crow (Beaulieu), Beeper, and Gypsy (Weinstein). Hodgson used the narrative that his character named "Joel Hodgson" (not yet using his character name of Robinson) had built the Satellite of Love and launched himself into space . Camera work was by Kevin Murphy, who worked at television station KTMA . Murphy also created the first doorway sequence and theater seat design . These initial episodes were recorded at the since - defunct Paragon Cable studios and customer service center in Hopkins, Minnesota . </P>

Who sings the theme song to mystery science theater 3000