Val's Costume Page

Here I am at the MST3K convention in St. Louis a few years ago (Gateway SciFi Con, July 14-16, 2000), with actress and comedienne Mary Jo Pehl, who played Pearl Forrester on Mystery Science Theater 3000 when the show was on the SciFi Channel. I'm in my version of her evil mad scientist costume from the show.

Here she is on the show, below along the right, for comparison. I'm a big Pearl Forrester fan. I find her mad scientist so funny, and zany, she makes the show for me. For those who don't know, Pearl Forrester is the evil mad scientist who is running an experiment forcing Mike and his robots to watch bad movies on the satellite she has up in space.

You'll recognize the show-- it's the one you've seen late at night where there are some figures at the bottom of the screen making comments on bad movies, that you didn't know what it was but thought it was funny. Unless you are a fan.




























Here I am in line, Mary Jo has just signed my book for me (on table). This is the same time I got the picture taken with her. She was really great with all us crazy fans. So nice and easy to talk to, and she never ran away screaming (ha ha).







Here I'm asking Mary Jo a question during the panel portion of the convention. From left to right: Mary Jo Pehl (Pearl Forrester), Bill Corbet (Crow T. Robot), Mike Nelson (Mike Nelson), Kevin Murphy with microphone (Tom Servo).





They asked me to come up on stage and do the evil laugh (last picture). They really liked the costume!








The convention was a wonderful experience. There were costumers and fiction-writing workshops, people were in costume everywhere, we participated in the costume contest as Manos and his brides, and in the spontaneous riffing contest, and in the invention exchange. Never was a costuming Mistie geek more at home.

This costume was the first and only time I've ever been mistaken for the person I was imitating. I was stopped by a group of giggly girls in the hallway, and asked for an autograph. Of course I told them I wasn't Mary Jo, but it was a special honor to have been mistaken for her. It helps that I have a similar look, hair, and figure, to add to the costume. It's rare for there to be a plus-size anybody for me to make a costume of! It was a lot of fun for me.

Here are Ben, Marianne, and myself (Valerie) as Manos and his brides from the MST3k movie Manos, the Hands of Fate. I designed the costumes but each of us created our own costume and sewed them ourselves in a big workshop-type sewing afternoon together.




Here is action of us up on stage during the costume show and costest. First Marianne and I wrestled on the stage as discontented brides, then Ben/Manos comes in and breaks up the fight, spreading out his robe to show the arms.








Here he does a great Bela Lugosi hand gesture. We got lots of laughter from the audience, it was so much fun!












Here is the final costume line-up at the end of the show. You'll recoqnize Mr. B Natural and Brain Guy (that's Justin) among the crowd. We are in the middle.











After the costume contest the contestants got to mingle with the audience and the judges. We had no idea the judges were going to be the cast of MST3k!!! Here we are with (l to r) Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy (Tom), and Bill Corbet (Crow). Look how happy we are!

Here is a collage of photos of other impressive costumes, and a couple of bots, from the convention. This was sheer heaven to me.




























































And what would any SciFi convention be, without a Klingon???