Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax

[XYZpdq]

Rifftrax Raiders of the Lost Ark is on.
just starting, mostly nice enough so far
thinking about it I haven't actually watched Raiders in I don't know how long, maybe mid nineties at the latest

 

[Someone in a Tree]

They could be hit or miss, but if you don't get a chuckle out of these (after seeing the parts of the movie they're lampooning) then you are dead inside.

My favorite one is the Orville Redenbacher skit that was inexplicably featured in one of the Godzilla episodes. Surreal and uncharacteristically mean for the show, but, oh, how I love it.

 

[Commander X]

My favorite one is the Orville Redenbacher skit that was inexplicably featured in one of the Godzilla episodes. Surreal and uncharacteristically mean for the show, but, oh, how I love it.

To quote Nelson in the Amazing Colossal Episode Guide in regards to that skit:

Our show continues a tradition of tackling anemic opponents, e.g., barbecue sauces, Mentos candies, bed and breakfasts. Sleep better, America, knowing that we don't intend to stop.

 

[XYZpdq]

cytube went straight from Raiders to Crystal Skull
I still say the butthurt about the fridge is misdirected
the nuke was oversold and y'all don't get how fucking amazingly mighty those early fridges are
I got an aunt who has had one outside for thirty years in the middle of Florida, it literally cannot die. If I had to ride out a nuke an old fridge would be my first choice any day.

 

[Commander X]

Another skit where they took on a seemingly harmless target was the parody of the anthology comedy series "Love, American Style" which was just a bunch of lame sketches about love, romance and relationships starring big comedy stars of the time, and part of the joke is that they're making what was already a long dated pop-cultural reference the object of the joke as if it were fresh.

 

[The Nothingness]

One of the best skits that requires context is when the Mads start up a country B&B and send the SOL crew some things to play the role of the "local color."

 

[XYZpdq]

for me the balance of "Joel excelled at portraying a weird guy who was shot into space" and "Mike excelled at hosting a popular science fiction puppet comedy show" was most in contrast for the host segments
I recognize Joel-era ended things with "things fall apart and characters get pissy only to be stopped by Movie Sign" too much but that fit the idea of the show for me

also atm watching Rifftrax - Spiker
Volleyball-sploitation about the USA Volleyball team trying to become the best like no one ever was
has footage from Japan that really clearly is real Japanese people and not movie Japanese people, seriously some uggos on-screen
has a weird pseudo-gay porn vibe like The Journey: Absolution, which was more overtly trying to be "here's a bunch of muscle guys being mostly naked and stuff", this is more a lot of vigorous young men doing healthy exercise and training and male bonding and here's why we need to get their packages in plain view while they don't wear much than something as overt as TJ:A
it works well enough for RT riffing like a lot of 70s~90s shit
there's a weird spot where there's no riffs at all over some random scene, like KTMA Gamera 1 when it was solo Joel levels of silence for minutes straight
edit- "the dad from the 'we're not gonna take it' video" was a joke off of some heavy saying MISTER! Soandso!
urhm. AKSHUALLY that was the TEACHER in that video

 

[Flexo]

for me the balance of "Joel excelled at portraying a weird guy who was shot into space" and "Mike excelled at hosting a popular science fiction puppet comedy show" was most in contrast for the host segments
I recognize Joel-era ended things with "things fall apart and characters get pissy only to be stopped by Movie Sign" too much but that fit the idea of the show for me

also atm watching Rifftrax - Spiker
Volleyball-sploitation about the USA Volleyball team trying to become the best like no one ever was
has footage from Japan that really clearly is real Japanese people and not movie Japanese people, seriously some uggos on-screen
has a weird pseudo-gay porn vibe like The Journey: Absolution, which was more overtly trying to be "here's a bunch of muscle guys being mostly naked and stuff", this is more a lot of vigorous young men doing healthy exercise and training and male bonding and here's why we need to get their packages in plain view while they don't wear much than something as overt as TJ:A
it works well enough for RT riffing like a lot of 70s~90s shit
there's a weird spot where there's no riffs at all over some random scene, like KTMA Gamera 1 when it was solo Joel levels of silence for minutes straight
edit- "the dad from the 'we're not gonna take it' video" was a joke off of some heavy saying MISTER! Soandso!
urhm. AKSHUALLY that was the TEACHER in that video

Look up the director of Journey: Absolution and you'll understand...

 

[Someone in a Tree]

I think one of the strengths of the Sci-Fi years was that they seemed to more regularly feature more ambitious movies than they did on Comedy Central, where they got a ton of movies that were clearly meant to be filler on a double bill. Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, Time Chasers, and The Final Sacrifice are clearly aiming beyond the limitations of their budgets and their talents. They make for some truly earnest movies that work beautifully with the format of the show.

 

[XYZpdq]

I think one of the strengths of the Sci-Fi years was that they seemed to more regularly feature more ambitious movies than they did on Comedy Central, where they got a ton of movies that were clearly meant to be filler on a double bill. Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, Time Chasers, and The Final Sacrifice are clearly aiming beyond the limitations of their budgets and their talents. They make for some truly earnest movies that work beautifully with the format of the show.

there's some interesting stuff in the Joel years, like
Revenge of the Mysterons From Mars (compilation movie of Captain Scarlet)
Phase IV (Saul Bass does fairly arty scifi about ants gaining intelligence)
Humanoid Woman (about half of a couple of Eastern Bloc scifi movies, cloning, spaceship, robots)
Project Moonbase (Heinlein-written space show pilot)
The Black Scorpion (later Willis O'Brian stop motion monster)
Day The Earth Froze (Scandinavian mythological epic)
Magic Voyage Of Sinbad (Russian fantasy epic with a guy who isn't Sinbad)
Operation Double 007 (homage/parody/ripoff of Bond with a fuckload of Bond girls, M, Moneypenny, Largo, and Sean Connery's brother)

 

[Someone in a Tree]

Oh, certainly. But there seems to be a higher concentration of things like Last of the Wild Horses and Burt I. Gordon stuff. I’m going to guess that having four 24 episode seasons would force them to frequently go to that well.

 

[Jesus Goldstein]

I don’t know if this has been mentioned before, but I’ve read from a few sources and interviews (maybe the Colossal Episode Guide) that a small UHF station like KTMA was usually desperate for content to air - anything, preferably as cheap as possible. They usually got these movies in a licensed package from the rights distributor. That package may be 10 to 15 movies, with one “good” movie and the rest filler.

This was what the MST3K creators had to work with in the early seasons and since their concept took off they kept that formula even deep into the Comedy Central era with schlock like Monster A-Go-Go and Manos. I think I’ve read Comedy Central was pretty stingy too, so movie license rights still needed to be cheap. Also, Comedy Central’s movie library probably wasn’t suitable for the MST3K treatment. When they moved to Sci Fi I remember noticing at the time that their film library seemed to change - more direct-to-video and made for cable movies. Wasn’t Quest of the Delta Knights a Sci Fi original movie before MST3K got ahold of it?

 

[King Dead]

@Jesus Goldstein (seriously Null fix the quotes already): When the Sci-Fi Channel picked up MST3K, they didn't quite understand that the "science" aspect wasn't really the point, and the execs specifically demanded that they only riff sci-fi and fantasy movies from their collection. That NYT article is paywalled (real generous giving a whopping zero free articles per month, guys), but you can read it if you stop the "give us money" message from loading, so here's the text:

Spoiler: TV Notes; More Goofiness for Misties

Like a creature crawling out from the muck on its screen within a screen, "Mystery Science Theater 3000" has staggered back to life. The cable show, which features Mike Nelson and two robots making snide comments while watching drecky B movies, was canceled by Comedy Central in May. But the Sci-Fi Channel has picked it up for 13 new episodes, with one condition: the movies mocked on "MST3K" must all be sci-fi films in the new shows.

"We started with sci-fi movies, on a little TV station in Minneapolis," Jim Mallon, the show's producer, said. "The only reason we branched out is that Comedy Central ran out of them." But Sci-Fi has more than 200 in its film library, he said, "and about 98 look great for our purposes: the more pretentious visions of the future, the more silly monsters in rubber suits, the more goofy utopian ideas, the better."

The new shows will begin appearing in February. Misties, as the show's fans call themselves, can be comforted with reruns on Comedy Central until then.

That's in addition to other bizarre demands from the executives, like the ongoing storylines in the host segments. It really wasn't until the final season that they were able to get a couple different movies on the air, like Girl in Gold Boots or that German production of Hamlet (presumably because the network stopped caring so much once they'd already decided to cancel the show).

So yeah, it was a different crop of movies because the Sci-Fi Channel (through Universal Pictures) had different rights than Comedy Central did. However, Quest of the Delta Knights, from what I can tell, wasn't an original production by the channel; it looks like they didn't start making the oft-mocked original movies until 2001, after MST3K was cancelled.

 

[Hugbox Kommissar]

@XYZpdq

Day The Earth Froze (Scandinavian mythological epic)
Magic Voyage Of Sinbad (Russian fantasy epic with a guy who isn't Sinbad)

I love the big budget eastern euro epics like these (and Jack Frost/Sword and the Dragon). Something about big epic productions+goofy dubs makes for MST3K gold.

 

[Someone in a Tree]

I know that at the time, a lot of people complained about the movie restrictions that Sci-Fi put on them, but I ultimately don’t think it led to a drop in quality for the show. Eventually they loosened up those restrictions, allowing them to do things like Hamlet and Final Justice, but the sci-fi/fantasy/horror genres tend to excel in making MST3K fodder, and in a variety of approaches, so it never got repetitive.

 

[XYZpdq]

@XYZpdq

I love the big budget eastern euro epics like these (and Jack Frost/Sword and the Dragon). Something about big epic productions+goofy dubs makes for MST3K gold.

weirdest time I've had watching Jack Frost MST was when a guy from Ukraine and a Russian were in the chat, both of whom knew the original work quite well. Neither really dug MST. They got the idea of the joke but it just didn't do it for them. And they spent no small amount of time making "haha but no seriously fuck you" bitchy little jabs at each other because Russia/Ukraine, which was pretty funny to watch.

 

[XYZpdq]

doublepost because bite me

Earth Angel (1991) Rifftrax
I dimly recall seeing this on tv when it was new. I forgot Mark Hamill was in this. He was at a weird uncanny valley of young and old simultaneously in both eras
Most of the casting is in an odd spot where I can't guess if this is something where the casting is "lol it's that person!" or "this person works cheap!"
also some chick named "Rainbow Harvest" who seems to not be Wynona Rider, but it might be some elaborate kayfabe shit like Chris Jericho / Mongoose McQueen
riffing was Bridget and Mary Jo, nice enough but unremarkable. usual RT fare

Look up the director of Journey: Absolution and you'll understand...

I don't see an immediate connection between the two?
seems Journey guy is gay af but it looks like he did an early Puppetmaster and seems to be a pretty reliable solid hand at crap movies glancing at his IMDB so I'm not gonna hate

also from Eegah host segment, as the bots consider they idea that they don't have a mom per se
Crow (to Joel) - "We have you, Gypsy, Cambot, Magic Voice... but most importantly, we have lots and lots of love. And that's something you just don't get in a two-parent household!"

 

[Jimjamflimflam]

Hobgoblin, while no means a masterpiece, is a fun stupid adventure comedy. The MST3k treatment of it was fun but it wasn't one of the worst movies they've featured as every MST3k fandom piece of it seems to say.

 

[eternal dog mongler]

Hobgoblin, while no means a masterpiece, is a fun stupid adventure comedy. The MST3k treatment of it was fun but it wasn't one of the worst movies they've featured as every MST3k fandom piece of it seems to say.

It's honestly not even close to being the worst movie. It's a pretty fun insanely 80s thing. You can kinda respect directors who just set out to make a film with like zero dollars.

Worst is probably Red Zone Cuba.

 

[Tor Lugosi]

I'm sticking with The Skydivers as the worst they did. Nothing creative, interesting, or technically competent about that film, nor is it weird enough to be entertaining. It's pure misery in celluloid form.

On a less dour note, I rewatched Rifftrax's The Boy in the Plastic Bubble. It's definitely one of their best.