Poll. 
Tho Mike was a (the?) major player as writer from early on, I preferred Joel as the on screen host.
Mike was okay, Joel’s delivery was just slightly more… MST3K-y somehow.
YMMV of course.
The Bots win in every other major category, OF COURSE! :mad:
Enjoy
Regards
What about the TORTURE!!!???
i think Joel was a better host, but I think the show got funnier after he left. Not because Mike was funnier, but because the writing got a little punchier and more acerbic, which I like. Joel is a one-of-a-kind performer and really doesn’t have to do much other than be himself. Mike Nelson being himself isn’t as funny, and his real strength is his characters — his Morrissey is one of my favorite MST moments.
Mike.
I came late to the show and he was “the guy” to me. When I went back and watched the older episodes Joel’s style didn’t click with me.
Yeah, I saw it from the first cable season, later was able to watch the KTMA eps. I liked Mike, watched til the bitter, bitter, horribly bitter end… but Joel had the weirdness comedy factor down tight. Or loose. Anyways…
Anyone want to do a fave Bots poll?
Cambot
Gypsy
Tom Servo
Crooooow
Tom “Check me out!” Servo all the way.
I’ll just copy and paste this answer.
I chose “other” because I really can’t choose between the two–I like them both equally and I really don’t notice which one of them is hosting it. They obviously have different styles, but I can’t say I prefer one over the other.
Same for me.
Who ARE you? 
Yeah, I could never get into the Joel vs Mike arguments, I guess. MST3K hosted by either of them is some of the funniest TV I’ve ever seen. Like I said, I’ll take either. This isn’t like choosing between David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar (or worse, Gary Cherone.) 
Yeah. DLR for VH was wowing me in HS at the same time I was also rocking out to Sammy.
I was meh to Van Hagar.
The correct answer is Joel.
I liked them both. My introduction to MST3K was a guy in college with a milk crate full of tapes so he’d give me what he thought was good and I’d see a mix of Mike & Joel episodes. So I never developed a strong opinion on one over the other.
I was introduced to MST3K via a free showing of “Mitchell” at the theatre in my university’s student union freshman year. One of my friends from Minnesota was a huge fan and convinced me to come along to see it and I was hooked. The second episode I saw was “Space Mutiny,” a Mike episode. I honestly didn’t even notice it was a different host until I got more into the series and saw a larger proportion of episodes, so I didn’t have any sort of bias one way or another and, although I figured out their approaches were a bit different, it never got to the point where I had a strong preference as the humor was similar in both (at least to me–perhaps I’m not very discerning.) That said, if I go down my favorite MST3K episodes, the majority of them are Joel episodes, probably in a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio.
Actually, my timeline can’t be right. I guess I didn’t really start watching MST3k with regularity until the mid-late 90s, because when I saw that Mitchell episode, it was 1993. Hmmm… My memory is screwing with me. ETA: Actually, now that I think of it, it may have been Red Zone Cuba as the first Mike episode I saw.
I watched from very early cable … I think one of the first episodes I saw was The Crawling Eye … and Joel was hilarious. When he left, I had serious reservations about whether or not the show would be any good, but … Mike was even hilariouser. So I’ve got good feelings about both, but Mike’s eps seem funnier to me.
Both
I lean a tad more towards Mike’s more cynical take, Joel was a tad too “stoner-ry” at times
I’m not going to choose. It’s the Satellite of Love, not the Satellite of War. SOW doesn’t mean anything. Well, it does, but that’s neither here nor there.
They both were ridiculously funny.
Absolutely ridiculous.
Ly Funny.
If there is a tie breaker it’s that Joel was more into the invention exchange and I always liked that segment.
This is also my thoughts. Mike all the way for me