Professors now have the opportunity to strike back at students who litter their names with sad faces, smiley faces and chili peppers.

Popular website RateMyProfessor.com, which lets college students rate their teachers in helpfulness, style and physical appearance, is now turning the tables and giving professors a voice with a new television program, Professors Strike Back.

Last week, mtvU, which owns the RateMyProfessor site as well as the new TV program, gave Boston University professors the chance to dispel student accusations from RateMyProfessor and revel in their smokin’-hot chili pepper status.

“I thought the program sounded funny, and I had not known the extent to which people read all of the stuff on RateMyProfessor.com,” said Metropolitan College poetry and humanities professor Tom Yuill, who has a smiley face and pepper next to his name on the site.

On Thursday and Friday, Yuill, College of Arts and Sciences writing professor Sassan Tabatabai and CAS psychology professor Barak Caine filmed segments of Professors Strike Back, which airs on mtvU and mtvU.com.

The program is the most viewed content, said mtvU General Manager Stephen Friedman.

The original idea for the show, which includes short clips of professors talking about their ratings, came when some of Friedman’s professor friends said they thought the site was one-sided. Friedman said he thought his audience would also be interested in seeing the other side.

“At this point, we have had a couple hundred professors,” he said. “We even had a professor in Hawaii send us a response. It’s been really strong.”

Friedman said mtvU decided to visit BU professors because of a relationship that already existed with the school.

While Friedman and Yuill said RateMyProfessor is a useful tool, they said the site should be viewed with caution.

“From the time there has been college, people ask their friends, ‘Who should I take? Who sucks?'” Friedman said. “This just makes it easier. . . . I think that a professor that has been rated 100 times is more useful than one that has been rated twice.”

Friedman said the RateMyProfessor audience is smart enough to decide which students are trying to be helpful and who are blowing off steam.

While Yuill said the website should not replace dean- and chair-regulated student evaluations, he thinks it is a good forum for discussing ideas.

“It’s democratic, and it’s certainly a fun exchange of ideas and views,” Yuill said. “The downside of it is that I am not clear exactly on how it is regulated.”