 tom servo is a fictional character from the american science fiction comedy television show mystery science theater 3000 (mst3k). tom is one of two wise-cracking, robotic main characters of the show, built by joel robinson to act as a companion and help stave off madness as he was forced to watch low-quality films (ironically, he, along with the other bots, is made from the parts that would have otherwise allowed joel to actually control the film). at least during the comedy central era, he was somewhat more mature and cynical than his companion crow t. robot. tom, more often than the others, signals the need to exit the theater to perform host segments. ==overview== tom servo is a red puppet that has a gumball machine (carousel executive snack dispenser) for a head, a body composed of a toy "money lover barrel" coin bank and a toy car engine block, and a bowl-shaped hovercraft skirt (a halloween "boo bowl") instead of legs. his arms are a pair of small white ventriloquist's dummy hands on the ends of springs that are not really functional as arms, a point that is commented on occasionally throughout the series. some episodes feature tom with objects already in his hands, raising the unanswered question of how they got there. his shoulders are made from the front of an eveready floating lantern. because servo's head is transparent, chromakeyed images appear projected through it, and thus a second puppet was built for use in the theater segments, entirely spray-painted black. this black servo also appeared in a host segment in episode #609, the skydivers. servo's appearance has changed over time. in the pilot for mst3k, the robot who would become servo was named "beeper," who just spoke in beeps that only crow could understand. he was an all-silver robot vaguely shaped like the ultimate servo, with funnel-shaped shoulders, silver rubber tube arms, a plastic flowerpot for a hoverskirt, and a small fishbowl for a head. he was renamed 'servo' after a vending machine called the servotron. sometime between the pilot and episode #k03: star force: fugitive alien ii servo's head was replaced with the now-famili
Fictional_robots Mystery_Science_Theater_3000_characters Puppets