sigh. the original poster, I feel, had a good point. at the very least, people otherwise would have treated this thread in a fun, what if, kind of way. not kind of attack the original poster. on that ground, I wouldn’t mind seeing this one locked. not because someone had an opinion the ‘majority’ didn’t like. just my two cents.
Just pretend it IS a different robot. One that looks exactly like Crow. And this robot is also named Crow. There, problem solved.
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Repeat to yourself it’s just a show I should really just relax.
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This thread helped me get this all worked out in my head so I can really just relax. Thanks for leaving it open.
Seasons where the bots’ voices are more similar never bothered me because I care more about the humor. I love Kelsey’s riffing but my gut response was I really wish she would have made the artistic choice to more closely simulate the prior Crow voice because this feels wrong to me. Decades of Crow being voiced with similar tone through all of his incarnations set me up to expect the same.
I’ve been trying to deprogram my brain and get over it quickly and failing until reading this thread. The point that Crow is a ROBOT is key. Why change Crow’s color or eyes when you can change his VOICE, or vocal simulator, or whatever these robots theoretically have in them to create speech. That finally clicked with me. I’m going with that.
Kudos to Kelsey and Emily as talented additions to the cast. Now, time to go put on some red lipstick and a pink bow so my husband knows he can kiss me today. 
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This sparked something in my mind. I think Crow’s voice is indeed a high-pitched kid voice. You listen to Trace and it becomes clear that he differentiated his Crow and Forrester voices as being higher and lower registers of his own. Bill and Hampton definitely had an excitable high pitch. And I think this is best exemplified by Mike’s short-lived were-Crow experience. Crow’s voice is that of a kid hopped up on sugar.
So I now feel that Kelsey is indeed doing exactly the same thing as everyone else, and some reactions to it (I’m including myself here) are due to her having a higher-pitched voice to start with. This also neatly ties in with my assumption that over time she’s going to bring the Crow voice down a bit closer to her normal voice (as the other actors had done). But that heightened pitch is not going to go away entirely, because that’s part of Crow’s manic energy. If he didn’t have that energy, then I think there’d be a good argument for “this isn’t proper Crow.”
I am now a member of Team Analyze Everything Probably A Bit Too Much But Bite Me It’s Fun.
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Yeah this OP has some shades of some of the really ugly stuff when Mary Jo became the regular mad. The thing about that is, people went on to love Pearl Forester and accept her as an important to the show.
At least this time the discorse is a lot more respectful.
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I don’t necessarily disagree with this equation, but I do feel compelled to point out that by this math, RiffTrax is also MST3K. (Some of them, at least.) So maybe adding the Mads – which by implication gives us both the SOL and the interstitial non-riffing sketches – is the final piece of the puzzle?
I think Kelsey is doing a great job and I’m not bothered by her voice for Crow; is it similar to a lot of voices Tara Strong has done in approximately a million cartoons? Yes, but Tara Strong is a legend that frankly all of us should probably be trying to be more like. Crow’s a familiar presence and a familiar character and I don’t see a reason to say Crow can’t sound a little like Tara Strong.
(The thing that’s making me do the occasional double take is… Emily and the Bots are the same height when they’re standing at the desk! The hosts have always been much taller than the bots! My world is spinning on its axis!!!)
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Mmmmkay. I’ve actually been letting this thread stew in my head for a few days before I commented, partially because I have many swirling and contradictory feelings about the subject. So I’m gonna put my thoughts here carefully in the hopes that there is no explosion:
The entire concept of Emily’s version of Tom and Crow is kinda flimsy and a little confusing. I understand they are “copies” or “model numbers” or what have you, but I’m not sure if I’m supposed to think of them as different characters from Jonah’s or if they are exactly the same (but different). GPC just further muddies the issue. Jonah and Emily both have different GPC’s, to the point that Emily’s is actually CALLED GPC2 by name (which is INCREDIBLY clunky, might I add). So are her Tom and Crow actually Tom2 and Crow2? If not, why is GPC different? The whole thing is overly obtuse and much more confusing than it needs be. I personally wouldn’t be opposed to Emily’s Tom and Crow getting some kind of GPC2-esque makeover to differentiate them. Nothing major, just a color change or something, but that’s just me.
THAT BEING SAID…
The bread and butter of MST3K is the theater itself. The jokes in the theater are what you signed up for. Everything else, up to and including the host segments, exist to serve the theater. In that regard, having multiple Toms and Crows serves as an excuse to get more comedians in the theater to make jokes. This is a good thing as it brings a variety of people onto the show to be funny. And Emily, Connor, and Kelsey’s riffing has been top notch. When viewed through that lens, the concept of having “alternate” Toms and Crows doesn’t really NEED to make a lot of sense. MST3K isn’t a show like Star Trek or Star Wars or any of the other sci-fi properties that need a lot of continuity, since everything on this show serves the jokes. It’s right there in the theme song. So with all that, I don’t really care what they decide to do with the new Tom and Crow since the theater is funny and that’s all that matters.
We should all just relax.
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This is a good point, and perhaps at least with Tom we can refer to:
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All good math/science should be adapted based on data. Therefore, thanks to @Rellad and @Ajax, I present…
The updated fundamental equation:
Mads + Host + Tom + Crow + BadMovies + Riffs = MST3K
Where:
Mads = {Dr. Forrester, Dr. Erhardt, TV’s Frank, Pearl, Bobo, Brain Guy, Kinga, Max}
Host = {Joel, Mike, Jonah, Emily}
Tom = {J. Elvis, Kevin, Baron, Conor}
Crow = {Trace, Bill, Hampton, Kelsey}
BadMovies = constant
Riffs = constant
Whew, now I can sleep at night.
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I wouldn’t go that far. Some of both are better and worse than others. But always worth it.
I can’t put Dr. Modrid on the same level as Manos.
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There are always bad movies and riffs. They’re not necessarily better than others, but these are a constant part of every episode.
I updated it to remove “value” and just call them constants.
@Lesley - I have provided proof and would hereby like to request the title of “MST3K Nerd.” 
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Happy Birthday, oh peerless Potroast. 
We June babies are the best.
Best at being opinionated, at least!
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Excellent formula, but it really needs to look like it belongs on a B-movie scientist’s blackboard. To wit:
{ BadMovies ÷ Host × (Tom ∪ Crow) ¬ Mads² } » Riffs = MST3K ∴
Note that Riffs are a shiftwise operation because they are described as sequence of values over time.
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There should be a Nerd Badge for this sort of thing. 
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In the best possible way, as always 
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you must be constantly distracted when u watch the simpsons
I’m assuming that mads squared is because there are two… But there was a period of just clay, and pearl, brain guy, and bobo.
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