Mad Scientist Guest of Honor - Trace Beaulieu

DucKon's Mad Scientist Guest of Honor this year holds a distinction somewhat different than Mad Scientists honored at DucKons past. Trace Beaulieu, actor, writer, and comedian, has a wealth of talents to his credit. But the ones that science fiction fans will know best are involved with the roles he played on the cable television show Mystery Science Theater 3000. As Dr. Clayton Forrester, Trace played a brilliantly maniacal, yet comically vulnerable mad scientist and inventor, who tormented his captive test subjects Joel Robinson (series creator, Joel Hodgson) or Mike Nelson (series writer, later turned lead), by subjecting them to bad movies and monitoring how much those movies made them suffer. As the wisecracking, irreverent Crow T. Robot, he acted as puppeteer and also provided Crow's voice. Crow was one of several robots keeping both Joel and Mike company on their space ship, The Satellite of Love; in orbit around the Earth.

His first association with Mystery Science Theater 3000 occurred prior to the series' first airing on the Minneapolis TV station KTMA. He and Joel Hodgson met during a gathering of the writing group Writer's Block that gathered at a local pizza restaurant. Joel invited him to come over to the TV station and maybe give them a hand with his latest project. When he arrived, he was invited to pick up one of the newly created robots and give it a try. Trace says he selected Crow because he was "shiny". Largely unscripted, MST3K quickly gathered fans, running from November 1988 to May of 1989 on KTMA. Hodgson then pitched the show to the Comedy Channel on cable. In 1990, with a new budget and an office park studio, the show went into production in earnest. Trace became a writer for the show, as well as model builder of the dogbone-shaped spaceship Satellite of Love (or "SOL" on display in the art show). In an earlier interview, he revealed that the peculiar shape of the ship was inspired by the alien "demon dogs" that menace the crew in the first episode. The ship survived 7 years of skits and bits during each episode as well as being used in the opening credits.

They went on to do MST3K: The Movie; an ambitious project wherein they lampooned the film "This Island Earth." While some fans felt that 'This Island Earth' was too much of a classic to be given the "MST treatment" it nonetheless had some terrifically funny moments that still make the film well worth seeing.

Trace left Mystery Science Theater 3000 after his 7th cable season and end of production on the movie, leaving the bracing Minneapolis, Minnesota climate for Los Angeles, where he has joined Vin Di Bona Productions as a writer for America's Funniest Home Videos. He works alongside former MST3K alumnus, Josh Weinstein, who'd left the series a great deal earlier. Jef Maynard, famed Toolmaster for MST, in a conversation with me much later, said somewhat wistfully that after Trace left the show, "we don't do so many effects with fire."

During his tenure on AFHV, he's pursued a number of other side projects and interests. He's ventured into comic books, played parts in shows such as West Wing and Freaks and Geeks, enjoys mig welding and scuba diving, and has successfully made, shown and sold artistic sculptures from found objects. He's creative, funny, and has a keen interest in all things techie. Lately, he's turned his attention to theremins.

As the longest continuously running mad scientist character in the history of television, Dr. Clayton Forrester still has a lot to say. During a tour of Fermilab a few years ago, I asked Trace what Dr. F would have thought about the particle accelerator. He replied:

"All this technology used for the good of mankind? What a waste!"