Doctor Laurence Erhardt
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Dr. Laurence "Larry" Erhardt is a fictional character on Mystery Science Theater 3000, played by Josh "J. Elvis" Weinstein.
[edit] Role
Dr. Erhardt was mad scientist Dr. Clayton Forrester's first assistant. He was a very different character from the more well-known TV's Frank. He was more high-spirited than Frank, spoke with a high, squeaky voice, had curly black hair, and thick glasses. Erhardt was himself a "mad scientist" like Forrester, whereas Frank was neither a scientist nor, for the most part, mad. Just like Frank, however, Erhardt went through many tortures by Dr. Forrester.
Little is known of Erhardt's past save that he became a "mad scientist" while working at a zoo; he went mad when, in his own words: "...they promised me students, but all I got were monkeys! Monkeys! Monkeys! So I took off my wetsuit, dropped that hedge clipper, and walked out of that zoo forever!" Any additional details are left for the viewers to fill in themselves.
Eventually finding employment at Gizmonic Institute, he became Dr. Forrester's assistant and worked with him to launch Joel Robinson into space, where the pair conducted their movie-watching experiments on him.
Dr. Erhardt was only on the show for the KTMA season and the nationally telecast Season 1, which is probably why he is not well-known to newer fans of the series. When Frank was first introduced on the show and Joel asked what happened to Dr. Erhardt, Frank simply held up a milk carton with Erhardt's picture on it saying, "He's missing." Joel Robinson suggests in one of his riffs in episode #313:Earth vs. the Spider that Dr. Erhardt had been eaten by a giant spider.
[edit] Behind the scenes
Dr. Forrester and Dr. Erhardt were first shown in episode #K06, during the show's original season on KTMA TV23. During this season, and Season 1, J. Elvis Weinstein held a dual role as both Dr. Erhardt and the voice of Tom Servo, and he also provided the voice of Gypsy during the KTMA years (replaced in season one by Jim Mallon). Weinstein, the youngest of the MST3K creators, left the show after its first nationally telecast season due to creative differences once the show began being scripted instead of being ad-libbed. His youth and relative inexperience was also said to have rubbed his older co-workers the wrong way. In an interview, he stated the show simply quit being fun for him when they moved from KTMA to The Comedy Channel because it became "a business"[1]. Though not as familiar to most viewers as Frank Conniff, his replacement on the show, diehard fans hold him as one of the best performers during the show's first two years, due to his quick wit and ability to ad-lib jokes during theater segments.
