Joshua Stuart Weinstein began his standup comedy career at age 15 in Mpls Minnesota At 17 he was one of the founding writerperformers of the cult scifi comedy TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000 MST3K as the original voicepuppeteer of robots Tom Servo and Gypsy and the role of Dr Lawrence Erhardt He adopted the name J Elvis Weinstein to avoid confusion with another writer named Josh Weinstein known for his work on The Simpsons Since moving to Los Angeles he has worked as a writerproducer on a wide range of network TV comedy including Freaks and Geeks Malcolm and Eddie Dead Last and My Guide to Becoming a Rock Star He was also the Head Writer on Americas Funniest Home Videos and Later with Greg Kinnear In 2008 he reunited with his MST3K costars to form Cinematic Titanic which toured US Theaters as a live show and produced 12 DVDs now available as a box set Weinstein has written and directed three films two feature documentaries I Need You to Kill and Michael Des Barres Who Do You Want Me to Be and a comedy short The Mediocre Samaritan As a performer he continues to perform standup cohosts the podcast Thought Spiral with comedian Andy Kindler and recently costarred in the feature film The Fiddling Horse