Kevin Murphy (actor)

Last updated
Kevin Murphy
Kyle-cassidy-kevin-murphy.jpg
Kevin Murphy in August 2012
Born
Kevin Wagner Murphy

(1956-11-03) November 3, 1956 (age 66)
River Forest, Illinois, U.S.
Alma mater University of Utah (BA)
University of Wisconsin (MA)
Occupation(s)Actor, puppeteer, television writer, author
SpouseJane Murphy

Kevin Wagner Murphy (born November 3, 1956) is an American actor and writer best known as the voice and puppeteer of Tom Servo on the Peabody Award-winning comedy series Mystery Science Theater 3000 . Murphy also records audio commentary tracks with Michael J. Nelson and Bill Corbett for Nelson's RiffTrax website.

Contents

Biography

Early career

Murphy was born and raised in the Chicago suburb of River Forest, Illinois. After graduating from the University of Utah with a BA in journalism, he attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison, studying stage, film and television directing, and earned a Master of Arts degree. [1]

After graduation he worked on the staff of Madison PBS affiliate WHA-TV. Murphy's production work on Jim Mallon's 1987 horror film, Blood Hook , led to Murphy following Mallon to Minneapolis television station KTMA, where Mystery Science Theater 3000 began airing the following year.

MST3K era

For eleven years, Murphy was a writer for MST3K; for nine of those years, he also voiced and operated the robot Tom Servo, replacing original cast member J. Elvis Weinstein. After taking over the role of Servo, an anonymous person sent him a 6-foot-long (1.8 m) banner that read "I Hate Tom Servo's New Voice". Flattered by the enormous amount of effort taken to heckle him, Murphy hung the banner in his office for over a year. During the final three years of the series, he additionally portrayed Professor Bobo, an English-speaking mountain gorilla in the style of Planet of the Apes .

After the end of MST3K, Murphy spent the year 2001 going to a movie every day and wrote a book about this experience, entitled A Year at the Movies: One Man's Filmgoing Odyssey . During his year at the movies, Murphy samples theatres from small-town boxes to urban megaplexes, attempts (and rejects) a theatre-food diet, suffers a kidney stone, visits both the Sundance and Cannes film festivals, sneaks Thanksgiving dinner into a showing of Monsters, Inc. , and records all of these experiences, both good and bad. His feat – viewing over four hundred films on four continents – was mentioned in Ripley's Believe It or Not! . [2]

RiffTrax era

Murphy (right) with Bill Corbett and Michael J. Nelson performing at w00tstock in 2011 Bill Corbett, Michael J. Nelson, & Kevin Murphy Wootstock 2011 (6004301927).jpg
Murphy (right) with Bill Corbett and Michael J. Nelson performing at w00tstock in 2011

Since 2006, Murphy has joined Michael J. Nelson on many audio commentaries for Nelson's RiffTrax movie-riffing website, along with MST3K alumnus Bill Corbett. He was notably absent from Joel Hodgson's Cinematic Titanic series, which included most of the original cast of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

During a 2008 interview, Hodgson was asked if Murphy harbored any sort of animosity towards him or the Cinematic Titanic members; he responded: "I can't really speak for him. We saw him at ComicCon, and we did the Mystery Science Theater 20th anniversary panel, and he seemed totally happy to be there, willing to be there, but he's doing RiffTrax." [3]

Murphy also did not appear in a 2008 reunion sketch, which otherwise featured all of the original cast members from the Comedy Central era reprising their roles (excluding Weinstein). [4]

Other work

In 2013, Murphy recorded a voice for the computer game Tesla Effect , playing Smart Alex, a Siri-like AI assistant that serves as a sidekick to the main character and heckles the player's failures.

Personal life

Murphy resides in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area with his wife, Jane.[ citation needed ]

See also

Related Research Articles

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Mystery Science Theater 3000 is an American science fiction comedy film review television series created by Joel Hodgson. The show premiered on KTMA-TV in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on November 24, 1988. It then moved to nationwide broadcast, first on The Comedy Channel/Comedy Central for seven seasons until its cancellation in 1996. Thereafter, it was picked up by The Sci-Fi Channel and aired for three more seasons until another cancellation in August 1999. A 60-episode syndication package titled The Mystery Science Theater Hour was produced in 1993 and broadcast on Comedy Central and syndicated to TV stations in 1995. In 2015, Hodgson led a crowdfunded revival of the series with 14 episodes in its eleventh season, first released on Netflix on April 14, 2017, with another six-episode season following on November 22, 2018. A second successful crowdfunding effort in 2021 will bring at least 13 additional episodes to be shown through the Gizmoplex, an online platform that Hodgson will develop for future MST3K works that launched in March 2022. As of 2023, 230 episodes and a feature film have been produced as well as three live tours.

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Incognito Cinema Warriors XP is a post-apocalyptic zombie comedy DVD and web series created by Rikk Wolf and produced by Agonywolf Media. The show premiered on Myspace and was meant to be a one-time homage to Mystery Science Theater 3000, but after Wolf was contacted by the producers of RiffTrax to participate in the launch of their new site iRiffs, he decided to produce more episodes. The first season of the show follows the same "host segment-movie segment" format that MST3K established, while featuring completely original characters and plot. The second season is more plot-driven and riffs short films as opposed to full-length movies.

References

  1. ↑ Murphy, Kevin (July 18, 2007). "Interview: Kevin Murphy" (Interview). Interviewed by Kenneth Plume. Fred Entertainment.
  2. ↑ Graziano, John (2002-04-27). "Ripley's Believe It or Not by John Graziano for April 27, 2002 | GoComics.com". GoComics. Retrieved 2021-02-25.
  3. ↑ "Interview: "Cinematic Titanic"/MST3K". Chicagoist. Archived from the original on 2008-12-24.
  4. ↑ "DVD of the Day #259 - MST3K: The Giant Gila Monster". Icon. Showstoppah. Main Eventah. 2009-09-16. Archived from the original on 2017-08-19. Retrieved 2022-08-20.
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