Trace Beaulieu | |
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Trace at Dragon*Con 2008
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Born |
Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. |
November 6, 1958
Trace Beaulieu (/ˈtreɪs boʊlˈjuː/) (born November 6, 1958) is an American puppeteer, writer, and actor. He is best known for his roles on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) as well as his work with MST3K's successor Cinematic Titanic with the original creators and cast of MST3K. In 2010 he published a book of poems entitled Silly Rhymes For Belligerent Children with illustrations by artist Len Peralta. He recently filmed a musical short film entitled Frank with the original MST3K cast, including Bill Corbett, who assumed the role of Crow after Beaulieu left MST3K. (Joel Hodgson appears in "Frank" only as a voice over while a stand-in wears Joel's trademark red jump suit.) Beaulieu briefly attended the University of Minnesota.
For the first eight seasons of MST3K (1 at KTMA and 7 on Comedy Channel/Central), Beaulieu wrote for the show, operated and voiced the Crow T. Robot puppet, and played the role of Dr. Clayton Forrester, the head mad scientist at Gizmonic Institute. After the season five departure of series creator Joel Hodgson, the name of Dr. Forrester's company was changed to Deep 13 because Hodgson held the copyright for the word "Gizmonic" and requested that the show refrain from using the word after his departure. At the end of a truncated seventh season, Beaulieu left the series. Pearl Forrester (Mary Jo Pehl) replaced him as the head mad scientist and Bill Corbett took over the voicing and operation of Crow.