If there is one thing that probably best epitomizes my humor, it would be Mystery Science Theater 3000. I always wanted to see that humor applied to something other than bad B-movies, though. The closest they came was a summer blockbuster special where they made fun of short clips of the summer releases, but they probably couldn’t ever afford to get the rights to anything other than old, really bad horror and scifi.
Now, though, the makers of MST3K have RiffTrax. You supply the movie, and then sync up their running commentary to get the full MST3K effect (just use the mp3 they give you to manually do it, or use their player to sync it up automatically). SarahK had been watching Twilight over and over, and when I saw through Twitter manly micro-blogging site that limits you to 140 characters that they had a track for the movie, I finally gave it a try. I did my own impromptu riff when I was first forced to watch, but the professionals are even funnier. I think we’ll try out a Potter one next.
So, check it out if you want to get a little more use out of some DVDs you might have lying around; it’s some damn funny stuff. Plus, I have my own suspicion (with evidence!) that Michael J. Nelson is a right-winger.
What is this alleged evidence of which you speak?
Flag on the moon. How did it get there?
We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese!
Zap Actionsdower!
Mister Beardsley?
Mitchell! Heart pounding! Mitchell! Veins clogging!
I’m sorry, I don’t know where that all came from.
McCloud!
(If you haven’t seen MST3K Pod People, do yourself a favor).
The evidence I see is that he is pals and neighbors with James Lileks. And some of the humor. My ex and I hosted an MST3K party every month for close to 10 years, and at one we were blown away because mike tells the story of taking “a walking tour of Geneva and St Charles” as a kid, and he’s describing walking right past the apartment we lived in at the time. I was supposed to see him speak at a Mensa convention in Arizona one year, and missed it. The organizer mailed me a book by Mike Nelson called Death Rat which was signed, “Dear Kent. WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?? Mike Nelson”. I wanted to write back “I’m the hell here” (one of his lines from MST). I took the book with me to Mars Desert Research Station. We found a packrat had moved into the attic, and we had to clean it out before a reporter from The Times of London arrived. We didn’t manage to kill it (though we spotted it one night – having a toothy creature running around your simulated spacecraft reminds one of living in the movie Alien. I even filmed a parody to that effect). The reporter was supposed to sleep up there. He came down one morning and said “I am a rat, and there is a HUMAN sleeping up there!”. I said maybe reading would help him sleep, and handed him the book. He threw it back to me and shouted disdainfully”DEATH RAT!!!” in his London accent. After Rifftrax came out I e-mailed this story to Mike Nelson and apparently whoever handles e-mails there forwarded it to him.
If you get a chance to read Death Rat, it’s a riot. Actually, that’s further evidence he’s conservative – he relentlessly makes a parody character of lefty Garrison Keeler look like a raving a-hole. It’s brilliant. His parodies of Prince and Jesse Ventura are also classic.
In a somewhat similar vein, there is Wizard People Dear Reader which is an alternative, narrated soundtrack to the first Harry Potter movie.
There are some YouTubes of recent RiffTrax “best of” you can check out. Spider Man, Dark Knight etc. RiffTrax.com also has a great blog where I go for non-political clean humor with funny regulars commenting.
Hey, this reminds me of trying to sucker Harvey into plugging those guys by linking them to a song I think was named Candy Pants. Yeah I am like a really slow malicious worm in the IMAO internet empire.
Plus me and Marko get paid by the comment.
Still haven’t gotten my unicorn yet, Doh.
Mitchell! Heart pounding! Mitchell! Veins clogging!
Who’s the puffy guy that’s a big blurry sex machine to all the chicks?
Mitchell!
Rifftrax rocks! They kept so much of the spirit of MST3K alive, it’s wonderful. I’ve got lots of ’em on my movie server.
Push the button FRANK!!
In more right-wing and manly related news, Michael J. Nelson went almost a whole month eating nothing but bacon.
http://blog.rifftrax.com/category/bacon/
Also, guest riffers include Weird Al Yankovic and James Lileks.
From 300:
Spartans finishing rebuilding wall and Persian ambassador rides up on slave-borne palanquin while cracking whip in the air.
Ambassador: Move!! Move, you dogs!!
Riff: That is one angry cow!
Mike: Uh, I think he said “move”, not “moo”.
I was holding back on RT out of fear that it was going to be 1 good joke, 1 half-good joke, and 1 whine about Bush. I’ll definitely check out some now!
A lot of political sites have stuff like this. I downloaded one from the Huffington Post that claimed it had commentary that went perfectly with any Obama speech. After downloading it, I found out it was just a MP3 of the song “Jesus Christ Superstar” On repeat. I don’t care the download was free, I want my money back!!!!
In the same vein, I highly recommend Unskippable:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/unskippable
They’re all good. Just pick one.
New one every Monday.
Just let me add my RINGING endorsement of Rifftrax. It’s just like MST3K but with the added bonus of having movies you kind of actually want to see – like The Sixth Sense, Jaws, or…um, Twilight. I always wanted to see them do better movies too. Of course I miss the shadows on the screen and the in-between stuff, but you can’t have everything.
Also, Mike Nelson is a conservative and he’s hilarious. What’s NOT to love?
I already have a bazillion MST3K. Now I can have these! Yay! And Mike’s a conservative….DOUBLE YAY!!
Oh, and I have one of his books…Mike Nelson’s Mega Movie Cheese. Very funny stuff. Almost as funny as Frank J, funnier than basil. Of course, almost anything is funnier than Basil.
I’d be offended if that wasn’t true.
Rifftrax rocks. Mike may be a center righty kind of guy but most of the trax are politically neutral. Even when there’s the odd bush joke theres a rip on some lefty as well to balance it out(dennis kucinich is a big target). Just freakin funny as hell. The star wars movies and harry potter series all are great!!