There’s a riff in “MST3K: The Movie” that must baffle young people watching it today: As a plane comes in for a crash landing, Mike yells “Look out President Clinton!” It’s a reference to this largely forgotten 1994 incident.
With that in mind, alert regular Steve suggests:
What’s your favorite outdated reference in an episode riff? Mine is from The Touch Of Satan when Servo comments, “Look at those high gas prices. Where are they, Port Au Prince?” on a sign showing what now looks like a comparatively low ppg.
Mine would be from episode 610- THE VIOLENT YEARS. Movie: “A nice little conspiracy, for a nice young man.” Mike: “Like Whitewater.”
What’s yours?
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I don’t want to be “that guy,” but the gas riff is actually from Werewolf. I would say the topical line from The Touch of Satan that gets me every time is when the, ah, “hero” walks out of Ellen’s Cafe and Crow quips “What was Anne Heche doing in there?” Gets me every time.
I suppose that, if one goes by popularity with the writers, “John Sununu goes for a haircut” should be pretty high on my list. It has appeared in a few movies.
If we extend the definition of then-current to include riffs for when the movie was made, then my favourite then-current riff is from Girl in Gold Boots. When icky elf guy and the rest show up in LA and we watch someone’s home movies, Tom bursts into a wonderful song which includes references to Charles Manson and The Zodiac Killer. I love it everytime I hear it, and it fits the movie perfectly.
If we go for the vanilla definition of then-current, then it has to be “Mikey broke the Hubble!” from MST3K:TM…
Actually a host segment rather than a riff, but my vote goes for Mike Nelson is Lord of the Dance from Jack Frost. Michael Flatfoot really can get on a fellow’s nerves and Riverdance was better off when he left it.
Again, it would probably be when Tom Servo had the Kid N’ Play haircut. Close second is when Mike was Jeff Smith, the Frugal Gormet in a sketch. For a fairly popular PBS cooking show, boy did that drop off the face of the earth. Great topic!!!
The one that always catches me is in Starfighters; it was certainly then-topical (referencing Desert Storm), but now seems oddly prescient. During a scene of jets blowing up stuff in the desert, Mike says something along the lines of “You know, we can laugh, but Saddam Hussein ain’t laughing now, am I right?” Every time I hear it, it jolts me a little.
#4, lancecorbain – That reminds me, I love the moment in the opening of “Monster A-Go GO” where Crow sees the name Jeff Smith and immediately thinks “the frugal screenwriter”.
Also, I don’t know if you could call it topical because it still “exists” but is just not nearly as significant:
Title: A Date with Your Family
Servo: The Woody Allen Story!
From “Marooned” (a.k.a. “Space Travelers”):
KEITH: On Wednesday, the President will address the nation…
SERVO: Then he’ll vomit on some Japanese people.
And, would this count as a then-topical riff?
From “Catalina Caper”:
SERVO: Hey, that guy looks like Steve Higgins.
JOEL: You mean from “The Higgins Boys and Gruber”, as seen on the Comedy Channel?
Another one which just struck me is from Red Zone Cuba. As Coleman and the gang show up at Lt. Justine’s house, his wife appears, and Tom gives her a line of dialogue stating “My husband’s Amanda Bearse.” The Married with Children star came out publicly as lesbian the previous year.
Mine’s actually a KTMA one — from “Fugitive Alien” when Joel asks Servo to do his ‘Suzuki Samurai Impression’ and Servo falls over.
I don’t know why that particular one hit me so hard but when I watched that I had one of those “Oh my God, I’d forgotten about that controversy!” moments.
I counter with a riff that I think was kind of obscure then, but more relevant now. In the manly beach dance scene in “Horror at Party Beach”, Mike opines that he agrees “with the Taliban militia – dancing should not be allowed.” This was pre-9/11 – I don’t think I was aware of the Taliban then, even though they had been fighting the Russian, then everybody else, for quite some time.
By the way, RIP Andy Rooney – I’ll never forget “Soups”.
Also from Starfighters: When Bob Dornan’s name appears on the screen one of them (Mike, I think) says, “Oh, they couldn’t get Rush Limbaugh.” At the time, Bob Dornan was a fairly frequent guest host for El Rushbo.
I suppose the flip-side to this would be riffs about stuff that was comparatively obscure at the time but later became much more famous. The one that always gets me is in Horror of Party Beach where Mike says that he’s “starting to agree with the Taliban militia, people shouldn’t dance”. Hard to imagine him making a joke like that post-9/11. I don’t remember the episodes, but in an Episode Guide update a little while back Sampo noted a reference to Joe Biden, and there was one that referenced Dick Cheney back when he was Secretary of Defense. Besides politics, there’s all those references to Lord of the Rings, back when that was much more of a niche fandom.
Wow, ninja’d on the Party Beach/Taliban thing. Guess that line really does stand out. There’s also Servo calling Mike “Michael Taliban Nelson” in Girl in Gold Boots, for his refusal to recognize Crow as a sexual being.
Anyway, for then-current stuff, the idea of Aaron Spelling as the quintessential super-rich guy (as depicted in Angel’s Revenge and some other episodes) seems somewhat dated. Probably if they were making the series today they’d use Bill Gates or someone like that. I know there are several Gates riffs in the series, but I don’t think they ever use him as shorthand for “super-rich”.
Topical today would be an Andy Rooney contest, given he
just passed away.
http://youtu.be/BMm4nSxPCOA
One from Gamera vs Gaos is when the reporter is filming and someone says “Bob Sagat (if that’s how you spell it) will love this.” I was surprised to find out AFHV was still on, minus Bob of course.
My favorite is from “The Giant Mantis” and it’s the one where, the artic outpost is torn to smithereens and (I can’t remember who says it) one of them says, “I don’t think it was a good idea for Keith Moon to join the Army.”
I just laughed for a week every time I thought of that one. But I remember, at the time, I had to explain that one to LOTS of people younger than me, that were born after Keith Moon’s infamous trashing of hotel rooms.
So, I guess you could call that outdated. (or more dated for my time)
As a matter of fact that ties into something, I got into hotwater for saying in the 90s (on the internet) that MST3K was really for my generation, and not the college kid of the time (that worshpped the show)
The younger kids got really mad at me, but when I listed a bunch of riffs like the ones above, they finally had to admit they had no idea what they were about. And I pointed out, they wouldn’t because they happened before many of them were born. The cast of MST3K were my age and their riffs (a lot of times) reflected it.
Another I just remember was from “Horror of Party Beach” when Mike says, “I’m beginning to agree with the Talibahn, dancing is evil.”
READ THE BOOK!
Actually, was that even topical at the time? I don’t remember.
Oh, you mean *political* topics? I’ll pass…
@18 – “Read the book”…Oh, good lord, those Time-Life commercials were everywhere on the birth of cable.
We had “What’s Vietnam?”, we had the guy who once shot a man for snoring too loud, and we had TL trying to convince us that UFO’s were “real”, just because they had a book series about Bigfoot and the Bermuda Triangle.
Not to mention the “Lance?” “Oh, Mata.” “You dumbkopf!” riffs, over the fact that Comedy Channel was still showing Lance Link as actual programming–Those first few years of Comedy Channel were just plain…weird. 0_o?
I don’t know the episode, but when a call was being made and the riff was, “let’s see, ten ten ten two oh one”, or something like that when we were all thinking it was a bargain to receive 10 cents a minute long distance calls (complete wit ubiquitous ads).
“Mine’s actually a KTMA one — from “Fugitive Alien” when Joel asks Servo to do his ‘Suzuki Samurai Impression’ and Servo falls over.”
There’s also a Suzuki Samurai joke in Pod People.
In 1991 there was an AT&T commercial about a man who accidentally calls Fiji, and they quoted it constantly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WySB7je2x54
They did a few references to those Dianetics commercials that were common in the early 1990s, where a voice-over would tell you on which page of the book the answers to various questions about life’s problems could be found. Except after quoting the questions from the commercial, they also said “How much money can we get from Tom Cruise?” It’s pretty interesting that they did that, since back then it was very uncommon for TV to ridicule Scientology. This was more than ten years before that South Park episode.
DIABOLIK: During a scene where people are laughing uproariously:
“Dan Quayle announces his candidacy.”
@22 – That AT&T commercial drove most of us screaming out of the room on 90’s birth-of-cable. (I one point called up AT&T, and said, “Phoenix area code, 623; Fiji islands, 011+679, plus local number…IT CAN’T BE DONE!!!!”
Although I preferred HBO’s “Not Necessarily the News”‘s take on it: “So I dial the number again, and then I get Fiji a second time! And then the operator says ‘You’re not dealing with AT&T’…And then I dropped my quarter, and I banged my head on the phone trying to pick it up. How stupid was that?…And then I locked myself in the phone booth!–Geez, what an idiot!” ;)
And then, of course, back before Mike Broke the Hubble, Joel made the first out-of-focus Hubble riffs while demonstrating camera scopes in the “Jungle Goddess” segment.
I think BBI used it in many episodes, but the riff is “We’ve secretly switched (whatever) with Folger’s coffee. Let’s watch.” which referred to Folger’s commercials at the time in which a restaurant patron was served Folger’s coffee instead of regular coffee, “Candid Camera” style.
I still use that tag line in my daily life. “We’ve secretly (coworker’s) regular coffee with cat urine. Let’s watch!”
Max Headroom’s dad, from “The Crawling Hand”. Oh, and Ed Begley Sr. from “Horror of Party Beach”.
lancecorbain #4 – I loved “The Frugal Gourmet” and Mike’s play on Jeff Smith was RIGHT ON! Sadly, Jeff Smith was accused of indecencies with some under-aged plaintiffs which was settled out of court. That would tend to remove one from the face of the earth.
Alas poor Alaska Senator Ted Stevens.
A few spring to mind:
In the 3rd season episode Cave Dwellers, Crow sees the name “Lisa Foster” and says, “I’d shoot Donald Regan to prove my love for Lisa Foster!” The episode premiered in 1991 so it was still likely that people might remember Donald Regan, the Secretary of the Treasury and then White House Chief of Staff under the presidency of Jane Wyman’s ex-husband. The same people might also remember that said ex-husband was almost killed in 1981 by a crazy guy with a fixation on Jodie Foster.
The Jimmy Carter riffs in the Warriors of the Lost World must count as dated and topical by now. There were a few riffs pertaining to Pres. Carter’s daughter Amy, long forgotten these days. And there was one very funny riff: “Feel some malaise, sucka!” That referred to a speech of Pres. Carter’s delivered in 1979 that, even though the word “malaise” never featured in it even once, somehow came to be known as the “malaise speech” because of its pessimistic attitude.
Also…I swear that in some MST3K episode–it might have been Invasion of the Neptune Men–there was a sarcastic reference to Pres. Clinton’s 1998 bombing of a pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum based on some very sketchy evidence that it was kind of maybe possibly making organophosphate precursors to “nerve gases”. The riff, as I sort of remember, referred to a derisive criticism that I remember from that time, that Pres. Clinton had ordered the bombing of a “baby food factory” or an “aspirin factory”. But I haven’t been able to find the exact source of the riff after a quick search–if, in fact, it exists outside of my faulty memory.
One word:
SURRRRRRRRRGE!
OK, I totally misremembered that last bit. The reference wasn’t from a late-season episode but from Mighty Jack which means it couldn’t possibly have referred to Pres. Clinton’s teensy display of militarism. Rather it must have referred to George Bush the Elder’s forcible-feeble war on Iraq. Among other targets of indiscriminate bombing was a factory that was claimed to be a germ-warfare installation weven thought it was probably just making dairy products. The MST3K reference referred to one of the news stories of the time that Bush had bombed a “baby formula plant”.
In Invasion of the Neptune Men – “they’re probably ogling the Diet Coke guy.” (Anyone remember the commercial?)
Also, several references to the sensuous couple in the series of Tasters’ Choice coffee ads.
The Starfighters. Where they make commentary about how difficult and complicated logging onto the internet for such little effort.
Don’t remember the film, I’m sorry, but a guy asks his date what song she’d like to listen to. She muses, “Mmmmm…” and the bots shout “Bop!”
In Manos, I believe right after Torgo’s pass at Maggie The Cat is when he says “Forgive me, madam.” Crow’s riff: “Oh, it’s Senator Packwood!”
@33 – And from Gamera vs. Barugon, Crow and Servo taking on the then philosophical differences between Macintosh and MS-DOS users…What is this strange “backslash” they speak of?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixQE496Pcn8
There were some Richard Jewell jokes in I Was a Teenage Werewolf that haven’t aged too well.
From “Riding With Death” (I think) – 70’s references to “Whip Inflation Now” buttons and Swine Flu results.
AlberquerqueTurkey writes:
“Also, several references to the sensuous couple in the series of Tasters’ Choice coffee ads.”
And a few years later the male half of the Taster’s Choice couple would be far better known as ‘Giles the bad@$$ librarian’ on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”.
And I suppose more dated riffs would be all the references to shows like “Mannix”, “Barnaby Jones”, “Quincy”, “Cannon”, etc. I mean, how many people have actually seen episodes of those shows today?
Although I have to confess that I caught “Mannix” in syndication when I was a kid and I’m (barely) old enough to have watched a few of the late episodes of “Quincy” and “Barnaby Jones” in first run before both series’ were cancelled.
#33: “Where they make commentary about how difficult and complicated logging onto the internet for such little effort.”
Is that the one where Crow actually talks about configuring his SLIP connection? I actually remember doing that, when my only IP connection was through a dial-up shell account.
@34: That was The Horror of Party Beach.
For a riff that became instantly dated, “Chris Farley broke wind!” from Invasion of the Neptune Men springs to mind. Funny enough on the first airing, but Farley died about 2 months later, making it seem kind of mean every time 819 was rerun.
Most people probably wouldn’t remember the then ubiquitous Mentos commercials if not for MST and the Foo Fighters video. Other dated references if not really topical were refs in Castle of Fu Manchu to Kool Moe Dee or Frank playing the original Super Mario Bros. (and taking it very hard).
@42: Are you kidding me? Those commercials are branded upon my brain for all time. When we’re at the store shopping, I’ve picked up packs of Mentos and hold them up in freeze-frame mode for my wife. She just shakes her head, but I think that means she thinks it’s pretty cool.
Crow’s, “I’d rather spend a weekend in Robert Bork’s underpants” than watch ANGELS REVENGE, is a riff, and horrifying image, that stays with me.
“The Kingdome!” in the MST3K movie, when a bunch of debris fell from the ceiling. I was at the Varsity Theater in Seattle and that riff got the biggest laugh.
I’m surprised no one’s mentioned Baby Jessica.
from the film PRINCE OF SPACE when the chicken men appear in a field Crow says “those heaven’s gate people were to meet us here!”the heaven’s gate cult believed a ufo was going to pick them up and take them to their own paradise on another planet.however their leader Marshal Applewhite instead opted for them all to commit suicide by eating poisoned applesauce.they showed the prince movie about 3 months after the incident .at the time it was a very appropriate rift
“20cc’s of the dry look, and some space food sticks- stat!”, from It Lives by Night.
#13-
Aaron Spelling wasn’t riffed on in “Angels Revenge” because he was some rich guy, but because he produced the show that was being ripped off by the movie, “Charlie’s Angels”, along with lots of other jiggle T&A shows. All the Spelling riffs sprang from that.
I don’t even remember what it’s from (one of the Japanese movies from season 3 I think), but I remember Crow saying “Damn Japanese buying up everything!” or something like that. Funny how only about 15 years ago now everyone was worried about Japan’s economic juggernaut–now no one’s talking about Japan in that context, they’re obsessed with the “threat” of India and China instead. It’s mildly Orwellian.