Cain and Elvira followed the gentleman in the red jumpsuit, who had introduced himself to them as Joel Robinson of Earth, down a narrow hallway within the Satellite of Love after leaving their helmets behind in the ant-chamber. As they walked they both looked around themselves in confusion and curiosity at the walls of the ship. It seemed that even though they were all painted the same boring matte gray color, the texture of them looked as if someone had glued a bunch of common objects like bowling pins, toilet seats, and lava lamps to them, which had then just been painted over.

"What exactly is this place?" asked Elvira.

"Oh, this is a hallway," said Joel in a slow, drowsy voice. "But um taken ya to the main control room up thisaway."

He pointed ahead of them to a hexagonal door at the end of the hall, as if there was anywhere else they could be going. The only other door was the one behind them that they had just come from.

Cain leaned over to Elvira and cupped his hand over his mouth to whisper to her.

"I think this guy is stoned," he said.

"You'd know all about stoneing," she whispered back. Then, raising her voice, she said to Joel, "Uh, heh heh, no, sweetie, I mean, what is this place? The Satellite of Love."

"This is where I live," said Joel. "Actually I'm sort of a prisoner here, but it's not so bad."

Cain and Elvira exchanged confused looks as the three of them approached the door.

"Come on in and meet my pals," said Joel, turning the door's large, vault-like handle and pulling it open with a woosh.

Cain and Elvira went with their host through the door and into a small, spherical room with a large desk in the middle of it and a hexagonal window in the wall. Standing behind the desk were two robots: One was small, red, and looked like a gumball machine. The other was lanky and gold and resembled some kind of metal bird/mantis hybrid.

"I'd like you to meet Crow," said Joel, gesturing to the gold one, "And Tom Servo," he gesturing to the red one.

Elvira shrugged and decided to just go with the flow. She walked over to the bots with her hand outstretched.

"I'm Elvira, Mistress of the Dark," she said.

Crow took her pale hand in his metal claw and pecked at it with his beak-like mouth.

"Au chante," he said in a nasally voice.

"And I am Cain," said Cain, folding his arms.

"So what brings you two to our humble little hideaway?" asked Tom. To spite his size, his voice was very deep.

"We were marooned." Cain said.

"Same here," said Joel. "My evil overlord wannabe bosses stuck me up here in order to conduct experiments on me."

"What, like, testing cosmetics and experimental drugs?" asked Elvira.

"No, they make me watch B-movies to see which one they can use to take over the world," said Joel.

"Oh, wow," said Elvira with excitement. "I love crummy movies! Have you ever seen It Conquered The World?"

"Yes," said Joel, Crow, and Tom in unison.

"What about Eegah?" asked Elvira.

"Yes," they all answered.

"But so far none has broken us," Crow said proudly.

"Yeah, ya see, that's why I built these guys," said Joel, indicating the bots. "To watch the movies with me and help me keep my sanity."

"I hate to interupt this meeting of the creature feature club," Cain interjected, "but did I hear you right when you said that you are unable to get off this ship?"

"So far, yeah," said Joel. "But we keep trying don't we guys?"

The robots made affirmative grumbly noises.

"Great! Just great," said Cain.

"Oh chill out, Cain," said Elvira. "I swear, if you were wound up any tighter you could be King Tut's grandma."

*Rimshot*

"What the hell was that?" asked Cain, looking around for the source of the sudden percussive sound.

"Oh, it's my new invention," said Joel. He went behind the desk and pulled out a large drum-like contraption with a bunch of bells and whistles all over it. "I call it the Portable Punchline. You see, you just set it anywhere in the vicinity of where you think something funny will be happening and it provides audio accompaniment. Give it a go."

"Uh, how much does a pirate pay for corn?" asked Tom.

Silence.

"A buccaneer," he said, followed by a guffaw.

No one laughed except Tom, and the machine stayed silent.

"Now see, that wasn't funny," said Joel. "And the machine knows it."

"Okay, okay, how about this," said Elvira. "What do you call two nuns and a blonde?"

"What?" asked Joel.

"Two tight ends and a wide receiver," said Elvira.

The machine made a slide whistle sound followed by a boing.

"Neato," said Elvira.

"Uh, hello? We're stranded here," said Cain, but before he could continue complaining a large button on the surface of the desk began to flash.

"The Mads are calling," said Crow.

Joel reached over and slapped the button and immediately two men appeared on a previously unnoticed screen.

"What is that?" asked Cain, referring to the device with the screen on it which sort of looked like a camera on a tripod with wheels.

"Oh, that's just Cambot," Joel said. "He let's us communicate with them." He pointed to the two men on the small screen.

One was skinny and had wild brown hair and a mustache, both of which had a white streak in them, and he wore a pair of bright green glasses as well as a bright green lab coat. The other man was short and fat and wore all black. He had white hair which was in a pompadour hairdo except one curly lock that hung down over his forehead.

"Hey, Joel, who's your friend?" asked the fat man, referring, presumably, to Elvira.

"Who cares, Frank," said the other man. "We didn't call to exchange pleasantries. In fact, Joel, we don't even have time to do an invention exchange this week."

Joel and the robots groaned sadly.

"Yes, yes, your disappointment gives me power," cackled the bespectacled madman. "Anyway, me and Frank have recently taken up square dancing and are just on our way out to the Pumpkin Pride Hoedown Hootenanny. But don't worry, we have just enough time to send you your movie."

"Clay, have you seen my big belt buckle?" asked Frank.

"Shut up, Frank, and send them the movie."

"These two seem very familiar," Cain said to himself.

With a frown on his face, Frank began to walk to the back of the dark, clearly underground, laboratory that the two of them were in while the man called Clay continued to address the camera.

"Your movie this week, Joel, is a particularly smelly piece of cinematic trash by the legendarily bad director, Jordan Mayer. It's called Mystery House and I hope you hate it."

At the movie's title Cain and Elvira both looked at each other.

"The hell?" they said at the same time.

Meanwhile, in the lab, Frank pulled a large lever and a loud alarm suddenly sounded in the control room of the Satellite of Love. Before Cain or Elvira could process what was happening, the room began to shake and a flashing light came on.

"WE'VE GOT MOVIE SIGN!" yelled Joel and the bots, as they flailed around the room. A large hexagonal door suddenly opened behind them.

"Now wait just a minute," yelled Cain. "We need some help here. You can't just go off and watch a movie and leave us." He looked back at the screen, which had gone black. "Get those nice gentlemen back on the screen. Let me talk to them."

"No time," shouted Joel over the sound of the siren. "Come join us if you want."

"Don't mind if I do," said Elvira, following Joel and his robot pals through the door and into a long hallway.

Cain tried to grab her, but she was too fast and before he knew it the door closed suddenly, separating him from her and the hallway leading to the ship's theater. He was left standing there in the control room all alone as the light stopped flashing and the siren stopped wailing.

"Oh, this is just great," he said to himself. "Now I'm stuck here for two hours waiting for those idiots to come back. What am I supposed to do now?"

"You could help me," said a loud, falsetto voice out of nowhere, and Cain turned to see what could only be described as a large, black, robotic snake with a cubicle shaped, purple head consisting mostly of mouth and one big luminous eye.

"I maintain the ship while the boys watch the movie," the robot said. "My name is Gypsy."