An original Crow T. Robot (decapitated, right) along with fan-made replicas of Crow and Tom Servo at Dragon*Con 2009. Trace Beaulieu holds Crow's head. (Photo ©HowStuffWorks.com)

Confession time: My suspension of disbelief must have been cranked up to 11 back in the Comedy Central days of “Mystery Science Theater 3000.” I never wondered how Joel (or Mike) eats and breathes, or other science facts. And, until Sunday, I never thought of the ‘bots as puppets. I didn’t think of them as robots, either … I just thought of them as themselves. Crow was Crow. Tom Servo was Tom Servo. You get the picture.

Then, at Dragon*Con’s “Crow vs. Crow” panel, Trace Beaulieu described the original Crow puppet as a carpenter square, top-heavy and inflexible. He talked about how one of the first steps to making the puppet more complex was getting the eyes to move inside their soap dish skull — without falling out. At one point, Crow also had rods on his arms, like a muppet. But since the rods showed up on camera, they were ultimately vetoed. Bill Corbett, Beaulieu’s successor, said he never thought of himself as a puppeteer and that one of his biggest challenges was making the puppet look lifelike.

As Beaulieu and Corbett were talking, the idea that Crow T. Robot was just a puppet slowly dawned on me — and I immediately felt silly, supposing that everyone else in the room had equated “the ‘bots” and “puppets” about 20 years ago. But that’s when Beaulieu started dismantling the Crow puppet onstage, and the audience cried, “No!”

Beaulieu’s response? “He’s not real!”

The panel gave an interesting behind-the-scenes look at what it took to make Crow into a character — and, by extension, the other ‘bots. But I don’t want to give too much away. A camera crew was on hand to film the panel, and everyone who asked questions or spoke had to sign a waiver. (Presumably, Frank Conniff, who was also in the audience and asked a question as though he were an overly enthusiastic fan — topping it off with “I’ve been arguing about it on the Internet for 20 years” — was already covered.) So, eventually, the whole panel might be available on a Shout! Factory MST3K DVD release.

No word on whether a DVD extra might also include the best-of reel that kicked off the panel. My favorite clip: Turkey Volume Guessing Man. What’s yours?

Note: Anybody know who that fan is who made the ‘bots in the picture? If so, give me  a shout.

More on moving things that aren’t real:

Video: How Puppets Work
How Muppets Work
How Animatronics Works