…things that they missed. The one that comes to mind for me is from Warrior of the Lost World, where the repeatedly referred to Robert Ginty as the “Paper Chase guy,” without ever noting his role in Baa Baa Black Sheep (or doing it so subtly that I missed it). It stands out to me because the show is one of the formative programs of my youth.
Along the same lines, alert reader Glenn chimes in with a suggestion that he says…
…definitely falls into the category of “Monday morning quarterbacking” and in no way is meant as a slight to the quick comic minds that have brought us all such pleasure over the years. But, as Horace reminds us, even the worthy Homer nods (thanks, Wikiquotes!). You might call this “Missed riffs:” Where do you think there is an obvious place for a riff in a MSTed film or short that were left without one, and what riff would you suggest?
What made me think of this is the short “Are You Ready for Marriage?,” which I show every year to students in my first-year seminar. When Larry and his buddy Phil walk into the malt shop after Larry and Sue have decided to get married, Phil says, “Engaged? What are you going to use for money?” Every time I see that scene, I hear in my mind a squeaky adolescent male voice saying, “Bottle caps!” Does this happen to anyone else, or do I have a more deeply-rooted problem?
Well, Glenn, I think I speak for all of us here when I say that the answer to both questions is yes. :-)
So, everybody remembers that nobody mentioned “Battlestar Galactica” in “Space Mutiny” or “Beverly Hillbillies” in “Space Children,” but are there any other riffs or references you think they ought to have done? Let’s hear ’em.
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There should have been some Doctor Who riffs during Overdrawn at the Memory Bank. That one has the feel of one of the weaker classic Who stories.
Good Morning all.
In DEVIL FISH, when the dolphins are racing away from the skinny lady and she’s yelling at them to return; All I could think of was
“So long and thanks for all the fish!”
Well, off to see Cowboys and Aliens today.
Yes, another comic book movie but this story was probably inspired by “Night of the Cooters” by Howard Waldrop. The Texas Rangers fight against one of the giant cylinders shot from Mars during “The War Of The Worlds”.
“War of the Worlds: The Global Dispatches” a great anthology. where else can you read about Teddy Roosevelt bagging a Martian while hunting in Cuba.
I was actually rewatching Hamlet the other day, and the fact that Ricardo Montalban was the one who dubbed the voice of the King is very noticeable. And yet, I seem to recall only one joke referencing Montalban (rich Corinthian leather). Granted, given that he’s not actually appearing in the movie could make it more difficult, but with someone who’s voice is as distinctive as Montalban’s, they should have been able to do more.
On the other hand, Robert Reed in “Bloodlust”, IIRC, got zero riffs pertaining to his most notable character, Mr. Brady.
It always surprised me that there were never any references to John Phillip Law’s role as the angel in Barbarella, in either Space Mutiny or Diabolik. The line from Barbarella about, “Angels don’t make love, angels are love” seemed like it would have been perfect to include in Diabolik.
As for missed riffs, the only one that I can think of right now is in The Screaming Skull, after the narrator has offered to give away free coffins for those who die of terror. The picture cuts to the grounds of the house, and there’s the sound of frogs. Every time I see it, I think, “Someone already croaked!” (Not as funny as what they did, but there it is.)
#3, I read somewhere that the writers, in the spirit of challenging themselves, limited themselves to only one Brady Bunch riff.
In Hercules and the Moon Men there is a scene where the camera is panning around to different characters and Joel and the bots are naming who the obscure actors resemble and the spitting image of Lee Majors enters the scene and they don’t mention it. How did they miss him?!
I think MST did Godzilla vs the Sea Monster before Jurassic Park was released but there is a scene where the hereos are shaking a bush and everytime I see it I want to hear someone say “clever girl” in a Australian accent.
I think it’s Prince of Space, there’s a shot of a police car with a speaker on the roof. Every time, I think, “Tonight only, the fabulous Blues Brothers, rhythm and blues review.”
Shoot, there’s bunch of them, but that’s the only one I can think of right off.
Everytime I watch “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die,” I can’t help but thinking that the big monster in the end looks more like Sloth from “The Goonies” than Boo Radley in “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
In the movie RACKET GIRLS,Peaches was wearing a black top when she was changing before she went to the gym,but was wearing a white top while working out..I noticed in THE SPACE CHILDREN,not only did they not riff on the actor who played Mr.Drysdale,but didn’t even mention the actor who played Dash Riprock.
#6, Lee Majors was among the actors mentioned in that scene: Lee Meriwether, Mickey Moore, Harvey Korman, Roddy McDowall, Lee Majors, Robert Stack, Paul Sorvino, and Marlo Thomas.
#5 Thanks for that. I think it was mentioned in the ACEG, and I understand the logic behind it; why go for the easy joke, when you can go for the harder one?
RE: “Everytime I watch “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die,” I can’t help but thinking that the big monster in the end looks more like Sloth from “The Goonies” than Boo Radley in “To Kill a Mockingbird.””
Now, THAT is an understatement. LOL
The line from “The Girl In Gold Boots”, “We’re not going to do a hoedown!” BEGGED for a Whose Line reference.
This one is a bit geeky, but I felt cheated in Quest For Delta Knights, that they had David Warner, and there was not one Freakazoid! reference. (David Warner played The Lobe on Freakazoid). I always think “I always feel abused.” just before he blows up at the end of the movie. Especially after they had Pinky & The Brain (Hobgoblins) and Tiny Toons Adventures (The Unearthly) shout-outs before.
Admittedly, Joel, Trace and Josh were usually watching the episodes cold in the KTMA era. But in “The Last Chase,” they really seemed (to my ears) to be really on a roll throughout the movie – as if they had actually watched some of it in advance.
Unfortunately, they got so caught up in riffing on the NFL Films-like musical score during the airplane takeoff scene that they kept talking over Burgiss Meredith’s dialogue as he worked himself up to a, ummm, climax.
In “Werewolf,” when Leland Sklar, survivalist, says “I was just prayin’ for the police” my little voice always says “Try calling them instead.”
Also, thanks to “Pod People,” when Natalie, later in the scene, says “Noel and Yuri are coming to get you,” my voice says “My advice: don’t let them.” AUTOMATICALLY.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but was there even one riff in episode 306, Time of the Apes, inspired by the Planet of the Apes movies? You know, “A planet where apes evolved from men!?” or “We finally did it!”, etc…they riffed on the giant snake puppet in episode 301, Cavedwellers, with the line “A planet where snakes evolved from men!”, so why not in Time of the Apes, which was a blatant rip-off of the Planet of the Apes movies…perhaps not doing so was intentional??
I hesitate in posting, because in my head the riff exists, but when I watch the episode, I don’t think it’s there, but maybe it is…ah, well.
In Teenagers from Outer Space, when Thor surprises Derrick and Betty after being shot by the police, Derrick shouts “Thor!”, which BEGS the response “Yeth! Very thore!”
The first time I saw this movie, it was an unriffed version on a local tv channel, but I was aware that it existed as an MST3k episode as well. Maybe I just tried to guess what the riffs might be? I’m certain that Trace says it too.
I thought they missed an obscure-but-rewarding riff in The Horrors I Guess Of Spider Island: as Our Heroes I Guess tromp around the deserted south Pacific island I’d have loved for someone to cry out, “I found Jack Paar!”
Why this would be funny to somebody, somewhere: Jack Paar famously walked off The Tonight Show after a series of minor abuses with the network climaxed with the censors cutting a perfectly innocent joke about a water closet. For several weeks the big TV celebrity news question was, “Where is Jack Paar?”, and speculation ranged from he never left Manhattan to he’d gone to the south Pacific.
And in his later shows Paar did make a habit of going to interesting places, bringing a camera, and showing little documentaries of what he found there, so even past that Tonight Show walkoff it would be conceivable-for-a-joke that Jack Paar might pop up on Spider Island.
Like most obscure riffs it needs too much explanation to make sense, but if you didn’t need that explanation I think that would’ve been funny.
During “Parts: The Clonus Horror” or “Beginning of the End” they didn’t reference Peter Graves’ “Captain Clarence Oveur” from “Airplane” (or at least I don’t remember any Airplane references). I kept waiting for “do you like movies about gladiators” or “have you ever been in a Turkish prison” or “have you ever seen a grown man naked?” There were plenty of places for those references, but I don’t remember hearing any of them. I would have been happy with at least “What’s our vector, Victor” or “we have clearance, Clarence.”
:-(
16: They did include some PotA riffs in that experiment. Remember when Gebar discovers that Godo actually wasn’t responsible for the death of his child, but he himself was?
Crow (as Gebar) “I did it. I -finally- did it! Damn me to Hell!”
Whenever Peter Graves was on the screen they didn’t mention his role in Biography.
oh wait.
I was always stunned that they made no riff on Crash Corrigan “accidentally” feeling up Diane in The Undersea Kingdom Part 1, particularly since they made such a big deal about the same (but much less noticeable) incident in Agent for HARM. Maybe because the gorgeous Eva was sporting a skimpy bikini, while average-looking Diane was wearing a dowdy flapper-esque pantsuit?
Invasion of the Neptune Man says:
“I think MST did Godzilla vs the Sea Monster before Jurassic Park was released but there is a scene where the hereos are shaking a bush and everytime I see it I want to hear someone say “clever girl” in a Australian accent.”
I have the same sort of wish for Catalina Caper. When the ferry captain is shown as the ship docks, I keep hearing the Titanic riff (made several years later during the Summer Blockbuster special): “I’m gonna sink this bitch.”
Luke A. says:
July 30, 2011 at 9:53 am
Everytime I watch “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die,” I can’t help but thinking that the big monster in the end looks more like Sloth from “The Goonies” than Boo Radley in “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
I agree. I don’t know what book they read or what movie they watched, but I don’t know where Boo Radley riff came from regarding that monster. I guess it’s possible that the Brains didn’t know about The Goonies. But still, Boo Radley?
I wonder if Sloth’s appearance was inspired by that monster in The Brain That Wouldn’t Die? It certainly wouldn’t have been unusual for movies of that era, like the Spielberg produced Gremlins, to reference old horror/sci-fi movies.
I get so into MST3K, if I spot a missed riff, I’ll actually say it out loud. To wit:
Speaking of Planet of the Apes jokes, in the first “Undersea Kingdom” short from “Attack of the Giant Leeches”, Joel and the bots just make monkey noises when Crash Corrigan swings from the gymnastic rings. I always bust out my best Charlton Heston and growl “A gymnasium where apes evolved from MEN?!”
Everyone knows about the Battlestar Galactica stuff in “Space Mutiny”, but I have a missed riff of my own: at one point, Captain Santa Claus is musing to himself about the mutiny and he mutters “War…” To which I always reply “Huh. What is it good for?”
And probably my personal favorite missed riff opportunity comes from “The Touch of Satan”. In the shed, Jody says to Melissa “If I stay ’til tomorrow, will you go away with me?” Which sounds so much like the opening line of “Freebird”, I can’t help but sing “If I STAYYYY ’til tomorrowwww…will you go away with MEEEEE?”
In “Amazing Colossal Man”, one of the research scientists says to the other “Mind if I try something on my own?” And my response seems obvious, but the guys missed it. “On your own what?”
This happens all the time, especially with older episodes where the riffing isn’t quite what it could be. I can’t recall anything right off hand. But I pretty much go through life riffing everything in my head, anyway.
24: Some viewers (like my mother) dislike “The Goonies” because of Sloth. I think the (mostly) comedic use of a mentally disabled, cruelly abused, physically deformed character rubs them the wrong way.
It’s something that didn’t register to me as a kid, but really bothers me now as an adult. I wonder if someone at BBI had similar reservations?
@John R. Ellis
I never thought of Sloth as comic relief and found the character to be sympathetic.
In “Earth vs. the Spider”, the teen couple’s names are “Mike” and “Carol”. I, personally, was surprised that they didn’t make a single “Brady Bunch” reference.
In Master Ninja II I don’t think that make any mention of the fact that Crystal Bernard(Carrie in the movie) was in Wings which had been on for at least two years before the episode aired. I just re-watched Master Ninja II so it was fresh in my mind.
“Wings” wasn’t exactly a major contributer to pop culture. Other than them saying “Hey, it’s the actress from Wings” I’m not sure what sort of riff they could have made.
In Santa Claus, every time the devil appears and disappears, there’s a musical chord that reminds me of the opening to Bennie and the Jets. I always wanted them to comment on that.
@1 – “Overdrawn at the Memory Bank”: As one YouTuber put it, “This movie just turned into a bad Holodeck episode of Star Trek.”
(Oh, wait, that didn’t have a deep-fried/cholesterol/artery joke in it. 9_9 )
—
Most criminally missed riff, however: Bride of the Monster
Really German Guy: “In Paris I missed you by a month…In London by a week…”
“And then to Niagara Falls…NIAGARA FALLS!”
A post-MST missed riff– I can’t believe the Rifftones did a short called “Shy Guy” and did not make ONE Super Mario Bros. joke.
#1: Yeah, and the various images of disembodied faces recall some of the classic Who intros.
#28: Well, Sloth does get his own back in the end, getting his awful family arrested and finally breaking free of them.
Oh, and given the recent discussions of “Hamlet”–
When Ophelia is going nuts, I actually found myself saying out loud “Hey, how about that, she even LOOKS like Patty Duke.”
(Which she did, but ten points for anyone who gets that one.)
All through Hamlet, though, I kept flashing back on riffs from Richard Armour’s “Twisted Tales from Shakespeare”:
Such as when the Queen is describing Ophelia’s drowning, “So, why did whoever was there to give this detailed description not jump in and save her?”
I noticed they made no Three Stooges references when Kenneth McDonald appeared in ‘The She Creature’ He played a heavy in many Stooge shorts.
Also, got my Gamera vs MST set today. Will be spending the weekend watching them.
In the short “Days of Our Years,” the waitress is lying in bed daydreaming about “Little Joe”, and I expected the reply, “Michael Landon?” (It’s been pointed out to me that Landon had incontinence problems, making Crow’s reply,”Speaking of accidents” a double pun).
Also, in “Diabolik” when Diabolik’s moll comes back to the cave to see the gold-covered Diabolik, she wears a white fur Russian hat, which always brought to my mind the Russian woman on Hogan’s Heroes. “Hogan, dahrling.”
#38: I forgot about that. Yeah, that connection could have been mined for some hilarity, especially since I could not get his Stooge past out of my head as I watched his scene.
The short: “What to do on a Date.” Beware: This one’s a little obvious.
Near the beginning, the narrator asks, “If Nick were to ask Kay out on a date, where would they go? What would they do?”
I always answer, “Frankly, Mr. Narrator, I don’t give a damn.”
Another riff I made was in “Cheating”, when the narrator says that John goes over to Mary’s house to study. I always add, “and studied Mary instead.” Later, when she “had become of greater importance to you,” I respond, “She was carrying your child.” A bit naughty, but those are some of the most fun, if you can get away with it.
I can’t think of a specific riff they could have used, but in Village of the Giants they seem to not riff on the various absurd situations as much as they could. Like they don’t make any comment on the stupidity of the bad teens stealing the “million dollar secret” and then just eating it themselves instead of, you know, selling it or something. And while Mike quips “I’m sure there’s no side effects from eating the giant, mutated duck”, I think there were a lot more riff opportunities for that situation. I mean, they slaughtered and cooked several giant ducks! That’s an incredibly strange and rather creepy situation. In fact, I don’t think they commented enough on the characters’ rather easy-going reactions to the movies’ various horrible and often life-threatening events.
@Smirkboy: Wow, Cowboys and Aliens is based off one of the WoW: Global Dispatches stories? That’s so cool! I had no idea.
Here are three:
In “Are You Ready for Marriage?”, they don’t seem to notice that the pastor with the Bobby Orr Electric Marriage set looks kind of like actor Clancy Brown. Otherwise, I’m sure they’d have thrown in, “Oh, by the way, WHERE IS THE HIGHLANDER?!”
In episode 1 of “Undersea Kingdom”, when the clunky-looking robots appear, I’d have figured something along the lines of “The early Cybermen were deemed unsatisfactory.”
And, along the lines of the “Overdrawn…”/”Doctor Who” idea posted earlier, this riff when they show the budget-futuristic doppling control room: “You get the feeling Peter Davison used this same set an hour later?”
#30 – And both those actors appeared in Bloodlust! with Robert Reed. COINCIDENCE!? Read the book…
Does anyone remember if there were any Mentos riffs in ‘Parts: The Clonus Horror’? Well, if there weren’t, there definitely should have been. It’s a perfect set-up. Everyone is dumb, and looks like their from Sweden for some reason. I’m not sure why.
The mad scientist in Wild World of Batwoman was very reminiscent of Dr F, and yet they never said a word about it.
And Fingal at #21 wins an internet for his comment. I couldn’t get through the Clonus episode because they overdid the “Biography” jokes by a factor of 10. I think it’s the only episode I haven’t finished.
The only one I can remember off the top of my head is from MANOS, when Torgo shambles about accompanied by The Haunting Torgo Theme: “What IS that? Are his legs rubbing together?”
Should note, an older friend of mine is a bit miffed at MST3K because one of the films –’12 To The Moon’ I think– had an actor who, in his opinion, was a dead ringer for Rudolph Valentino and they never once mentioned it.
I certainly did not expect the Brains to pick up on this, but it drives me CRAZY how much one guy in “Space Mutiny” looks like Yes guitarist Steve Howe. Because I run with a crowd who vaguely knows progressive rock, every time I make the reference, people laugh and tend to agree.
Judge for yourself.
@47 – And Fingal at #21 wins an internet for his comment. I couldn’t get through the Clonus episode because they overdid the “Biography” jokes by a factor of 10. I think it’s the only episode I haven’t finished.
When they auto-default did the “Biography” jokes in Film Crew’s “Killers From Space”, I had to ask: “Is A&E even SHOWING Biography anymore? Thought they retired every single rern off to its own splinter channel, where nobody watches it now!”
(I mean, sheesh, that’s so ancient, that’s like….Jack Perkins-hosting-“Biography” jokes!) ;)
And no, I’m not THAT old that I actually remembered Auto-Default Peter Graves Joke #2, “Humming the Mission:Impossible ‘da dada-dada, daa daa…dada-dada-daa’ setting-up-equipment music”, just that I’d been watching the reruns on Netflix.
Oops, wait, sorry, that’s #3, #2 was “James Arness’s brother” jokes.