|
 |
Weekend Discussion Thread: Shorts That Should Be RiffedBetween the Prelinger Archives at archive.org and the “one-reel wonders” on Turner Classic Movies, I’ve seen a lot of shorts that I would loved to see get riffed. I’d love to see them do a “John Nesbitt’s Passing Parade” or one of those bizzaro “dogtown” shorts they show on TCM. But the one I saw most recently that I’d love to see them do is “The Trouble maker.” What’s your pick? 58 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: Shorts That Should Be Riffed”Commenting at Satellite News
We are determined to encourage thoughtful discussion, so please be respectful to others. We also provide an "Ignore" button ( Comments are closed. |
|
Satellite News is a fan site for the Mystery Science Theater 3000 television and Netflix series. It is an independent publication written and compiled by Chris Cornell (msampo@aol.com) and Brian Henry (erhardt4@aol.com). Satellite of Love, LLC does not maintain this web site, nor is it responsible for this site's content.
All content posted on Satellite News is copyright © 2025 by Chris Cornell and Brian Henry, except where otherwise noted. This Date in MSTory is written and compiled by Steve Finley, Chris Cornell and Brian Henry. Copyright © 2025 All rights reserved. Please do not reproduce This Date in MSTory items in any form without express written permission from the authors. Items of MST3K news may be duplicated or reposted, as long as Satellite News is cited as the source. The views and opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of Satellite of Love, LLC. No warranty is expressed or implied that the information given herein is completely accurate, and in fact this information can and will change at any time. So there. Mystery Science Theater 3000, its characters and situations are copyrights and trademarks of Satellite of Love, LLC. Banner image created by Larry Lee Moniz. |
|
) to help our users cope with "trolls" and other commenters whom they find annoying. Go to our
Back when I was in sixth grade, we watched the slide shows entitled “I know this kid”. In every film, the narrator knew some kid who did drugs or had sex or drank or stole, etc. In the final short, the narrator revealed HE was the kid in every one. And he became…MICHEAL BAY (he’s not worth checking the spelling on). But unfortunately, these were slide shorts, but they could have worked in the early seasons, during the “testing” phase. Other than that, being an employee of Nazi…I mean Wal-Mart, I personally think most of the propaganga films they show us are perfect for riffing (we tired, poor, huddled masses sure rip on them).
My vote would go to “The Joker”, an industrial safety film which starred Hans Conried as the eponymous Joker, who went around cackling at industrial accidents in which people get hurt (or killed). Funny stuff.
I would also submit a short which I saw in high school English class – a dramatziation of Melville’s “Batleby the Scrivener”, although the one funny thing about that was the presence of Barry “Greg Brady” Williams as an over-eager office boy.
Hmmm….
Has anyone seen that old 80’s Chuck E Cheese training video that just got released? I stumbled across it at some point and it’s hilarious on it’s own, I would love to see the rifftrax guys work on it!
Travis – oh….my….god!! I just watched the Chuck E. Cheese video. It’s bad enough for the first 7 minutes and then it just gets creepy – really creepy. Is this a predator training video? Funny how times have changed so much – this training would be an outrage to parents now.
On topic – the short I would like to see riffed is Midwest Holiday – the boys would have fun with this one (and it’s a two part short – a guaranteed extra 99 cents!)
I’m just glad RT keeps doing shorts — when we have a “MST3K” movie night nowadays we start off with two RT shorts followed by a CT entry. It’s the closest thing to having the show back on the air I can think of.
Given the current release pace we can do this with new material every month!
How about the “Econ” videos they used to show us in elementary school, featuring an imaginary guy named Econ teaching kids about opportunity cost and scarcity. To quote TVTropes, I Am Not Making This Up.
A few classic cartoon shorts like WB’s “Buddy Steps Out”, or Disney’s “Mickey and the Seal.”
I would like them to take on one of Centron’s Halloween safety films – either the one from the late 70s or (preferably) the remake from the mid-80s with the CREEPY AS HELL intro with the floating masks and the talking animated pumpkin.
:!: I came up with a list on my own couple years ago and some of them have come to pass. The ones that haven’t been done yet:
“Soapy The Germ Fighter” Incredibly strange hygiene film, the story about a boy and a talking bar of soap.
“Survival Under Nuclear Attack” Civil Defense film that desperately tries to convince us you can survival a nuclear attack.
“The Bright Young Newcomer” Similar to “The Trouble With Women”, featuring a sexist boss and infighting women.
“Destruction: Fun or Dumb” 1970’s cheese (straight from Philly, no less) about vandalism. Tries to use the latest TV techniques, and fails.
“Tomorrow Always Comes” Incredibly surreal tale of woman from the 1920s watching herself model nylon in a 1940s fashion show.
First off, I grew up in the town where those “dogtown” films were made – clearly 1970’s home movie-quality films with skinny, long haired, fair skinned boys riding their skateboards EVERYWHERE. I knew more than half of them growing up and when the movie “Dogtown” came out a few years ago, I couldn’t help but crack up seeing kids I grew up being “immortalized” in a Hollywood film.
But that original little short, with them all skating around – that one was really popular in my school. Mostly because the AV geeks who’d bring the projector in and show the films would then show them backwards. When you’re 10 years old, THAT is the height of comedy.
But does anyone else remember the bicycle saftey film with all the kids wearing the really, REALLY creepy monkey masks? Now, THAT would be a good one to riff off. Kids in creepy ape masks getting killed on their bikes. Ah, higher education.
WAIT – I found it!
“One Got Fat” – 1962.
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/05/one-got-fat-1962-bik.html
Oh my God. What horrible, god-awful memories this brings back. Not only did that film give me screaming nightmares, but to this day I still can’t ride a bicycle.
I don’t many shorts to begin with. I do remember watching a short about study habits when I was in school. I think it was the late ’80s. There was this teenager, listen to music on his stereo, using these huge headphones. A random person, I think, shuts off his stereo and the kid goes, “Hey. What happened to my music.” That’s all I remember from it.
Dr. Feelgood – they have already done One Got Fat – you can find it here: http://www.rifftrax.com/ondemand/one-got-fat
#9 the dogtown shorts are anthropomorphic dogs, dressed in full 40’s garb standing on two legs and with full mouthal motion given human voices. (think short versions of I Accuse my Parents but with dogs)I’ve run across them on tcm and all i have to say is, they are creepy as all get out.
now onto subject. I’d like to see ‘Drug Addiction’. a 50’s romp in the opium den from our friends at Easter Bunny films. Featuring “Larry” from ‘Are You Ready For Marriage’ as the heroine guy. Its like a short version of all the drug propaganda films rolled into one small easy to swollow caplet.
DrChad, may I direct you to here: http://www.rifftrax.com/ondemand/one-got-fat
This far down and no one has yet suggested “Duck and Cover”?
Well, I will then.
I’ve been pulling for “A Touch of Magic” because it’s kind of a sequel to “Design for Dreaming.” No futurism, though.
How about something from either Fantasia ?
I don’t really know any shorts to suggest, but after watching the Chuck E Cheese ones suggested above I have to 3rd or 4th (wherever I am).
If you need more weekend discussion questions, I think asking what movie you would like to see re-riffed, or perhaps riffed by Joel instead of Mike or the other way around.
Sorry if I’m just wasting space
Anyone remember a classroom film called “Hemo the Magnificent” It starred John Agar and that clown professor from “THE MOLE PEOPLE”? It was all about how blood works. It also had the always annoying Sterling Holloway in it. Perfect riffing fodder.
This may be stretching the point a bit, but TCM has run some MGM-produced shorts, apparently made for theater owners, drumming up support for upcoming movies. Those might be good for riffing, particularly when they promote movies that weren’t exactly hits.
A similar choice might be the TV fall preview reels that sometimes turn up on YouTube, like the 1969 ABC promo where the most interesting-looking preview is for the “ABC Evening News”.
I’ll have to check the aforementioned archives for other choices.
I’m sure this has been mentioned before in MST circles but since I only discover shorts after they’re riffed, I’ll mention it. I remember in an old Simpsons episode, Bart’s class had to watch an old educational short centered on how uh, “vital” zinc is to the world. “Imagine a world without zinc.” Out of despair for lack of zinc, the character in the short eventually tries to shoot himself in the head but the gun won’t fire simply because there’s no zinc in the firing pin. lol Then we see him chasing after the wind yelling “Come back, zinc! Come back!” And this was quite a few years before Squirm aired. Surely the Simpsons writer who came up with this had seen A Case of Spring Fever years ago as a lad (or lassie).
Well, thanks, y’all, for proving how old I am. I can’t remember a single slide show/filmstrip/movie I saw in school. Only a title from Driver’s Ed: The Last Prom. Everyone in school said it was the only interesting thing about the class, because it was so gory.
(Yeah, well, it was a long time ago, in a small midwestern town, what can I say?)
Oh, joy! I found it…enjoy!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1268515294728096358
“The Haunted Mouth”. I remember seeing this back in grade school. It’s like “The Dead Talk Back” meets “Body Care and Grooming”. . .and it’s narrated by Caesar Romero! All the ingredients necessary for effective riffing!
“Safety – In Danger Out of Doors”. The further adventures of Guardiana aka Safety Woman, protector of careless and accident-prone kids everywhere (or at least in LA). This one suffers a bit by replaying the origin of Safety Woman from the first short but makes it up by being even goofier than the first.
“You Can Beat the A-Bomb”. A mind-reeling short from 1950 that makes atomic annihilation look as bad as a severe thunderstorm. Want to know how to take care of “lingering radiation”? Scrub 3 times!
How about one of the sex ed films they show in the sixth(?) grade? I think the one I saw was called “Am I Normal?” The kid kept trying to get other guys to tell him what they were experiencing and figure out if thinking about girls all the time and having hair in adventurous places was normal. When he asked his dad about that time in life, the old man kept using baseball metaphors. Boys have bats and girls apparently have catcher’s mitts.
And I second any of those training films from the 50s on how to survive a nuclear war by hiding under your desk. Easy targets, but they have it coming. You can say all you want about how they kept people from going crazy with the threat of planetary doom dangling like a snicker-snag overhead, but I see them as nothing but lies that continued to downplay the actual cost of war.
*steps down off soapbox*
Hmmm, maybe my public schools had higher-than-average quality educational films (I said “maybe”), but the only one that stands out as possible fodder is one on paleontology I saw as a high school senior. After showing some field word, it cuts to a professor-type sitting behind a desk, and saying, in a half-asleep monotone that Ben Stein could learn from: “Why do fossils excite me?” I later impersonated that line during a presentation, and when I think back to it now, that sentence just had “stinger” written all over it. Wish I could remember the name of the film.
This reminds me of something: are we ever going to see the short on Mylar that, along with “Assignment: Venezuela”, was intended for the aborted CD-ROM project?
LUNCHROOM MANNERS would be an excellent riffable educational short. I saw it featured on The PeeWee Herman Show (1981) and it features “Mr. Bungle” who always does things the wrong way.
You don’t mean this, do you?
http://www.rifftrax.com/ondemand/lunchroom-manners
(Does anyone contributing to this thread actually *buy* from RT? Or do they just not understand the point of the thread?)
Now that I think about it, there’s this weird short on some of the Something Weird DVDs where this wormy-looking guy drops some acid and sees a dancing cartoon chicken and some girls wearing Halloween masks before jumping out of a high-rise window. That one is pretty hilarious on it’s own but I think it would be perfect for Rifftrax.
And here it is!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVReD9WNs_A
Wow, it takes a while to get going. I guess that presents a serious problem…
The 2nd half: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmbOssbzVfk&feature=related
Probably it’s a little too “empty” for Rifftrax.
Oh, by the way, I’m pretty sure that’s the same actor who plays the German guy in The Dead Talk Back.
The “for boys” film I watched featured the boy ultimately asking a janitor at the zoo for advice on his changing body. The custodian’s amazing response: “I’ve been working here for years, and in that time I’ve seen A LOT of penises.”
A little blue for rifftrax, perhaps, but still.
When I saw that everyone was recommending PSAs, I immediately thought of Apaches. Then I realized that no amount of riffing could make that film anything less than terrible.
I wish I could afford to buy from rifftrax
Skip lunch one day and you have enough for a Rifftrax.
I remember an educational film from school about the dangers of choking. The choking victims’ faces were PAINTED BLUE to show that they were choking. That deserves a riffing.
Matthew,
I doubt very much if you can’t afford paying $1 — more likely what you mean is “I have other things, like CDs and $$$ tennis shoes and tickets to concerts and gas to drive to school and junk food that I’d rather spend my money on.”
And that’s fine. But saying you can’t afford something that cost less than a Mickey D’s hamburger is pretty weak, even in today’s economy.
We all make choices in what we spend our money on. Rifftrax shorts are among the better values out there, though.
As in a previous post, I said a great short would be “The Red Nightmare” a cold-war propaganda film that suggested what would have happened to America if the Soviet’s took over, it was also narrated by Rod Serlin.
And I’ll give you one better:
“If Footmen Tire, What Will Horses Do?” Which is another cold war nightmare story, but exploitation film maker turned religious nut Ron Ormond. Apparently the biggest threat the free world had in being taken over by the Communist scourge was teaching sex ed in schools and letting girls wear make-up.
Mike,
Your blind assumptions are unfounded and frankly insulting. You don’t know me or my situation. You’re right though, it is very weak.
I didn’t have any suggestions before opening this thread; however, this has been a wonderful thread to read. Thank you everyone – these are delightful.
Great anti-Red scare short from Encyclopedia Brittanica films called “Despotism”.
It’s a really preachy movie, with a didactic narrator and peppered with a lot of amusing “what if?” scenarios. (Like the “Children of the Damned” classroom where teachers tell kids what to think and students aren’t allowed to ask questions.)
Here’s the short on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfrQalpmdqk
My favorite part is at 8:31. Feels like the kind of thing they’d have used as a stinger back in the day.
(Actually, a lot of the scenarios in this short come off as eerily familiar…)
“The Bully” is pretty hilarious, separating wiener kids from their new bikes and all
I had no idea they already did “One Got Fat.” I’ll have to get that. (Jesus, what am I saying?!?)
And I was totally thinking of another “dogtown.”
Don’t mind me – not enough oxygen.
Here’s my reason for not having purchased any rifftrax:
I have such a poor understanding of my computer programs that any time I’ve downloaded an MP3, I’ve found some sort of problem playing it back, or lost it altogether. So I refuse to pay even pocket-change for something that would likely be lost in the bowels of my PC. I need what I buy to be a tangible object.
Of course I haven’t bought that shorts DVD either. And I’d probably force myself to learn how my stupid computer works if I ever got an Ipod, but MY economic situation damn sure puts that on the back burner.
OK, by “economic situation” I technically mean “toy and comic collecting”…
*Ahem*, back to the suggestions. Everyone’s suggesting educational shorts, but I’m still stuck on last months Christmas movie thread. I have to mention “Candy Claus”, an incomplete 24 minute cartoon (I’m not sure how long it was supposed to be before the studio, apparently, went bankrupt) from 1987. It’s the “Monster-a-Go-Go” of Christmas specials, but with trippy music numbers instead of helpful narration. As long as the RT guys thought to point out that ‘Ohno’ appears to be the ghost of Mega Man’s nemesis Dr. Wily, we could trust them to hit a home run with it.
Even if it’s not PD, the rights holders can’t be making money off it since it’ll never turn up anywhere except YouTube, so I think it’s a possibility for a holiday RT short.
I keep a copy of my Rifftrax on a flash drive in a folder titled “Rifftrax”. Still, I eschew most popular movies so the only commentary I have is for Halloween. I bought one short but that ended up on the DVD, which I also bought. So now I figure on just waiting for the shorts DVDs rather than downloading the shorts.
I have this movie I got from eBay that would make an awesome short. It’s called The ABC of Sex Ed for Trainables. It’s from the 70’s and it’s about the need to teach mentally-retarded people sex-ed. Here are some memorable scenes: a boy who looks like a cross betwee Partridge Family-era Danny Bonnaducci and a mannequin is masturbating in his bedroom. His mom walks in and gives a 5 minute speech about how it’s ok to masturbate and that it feels good and they’ll talk about this later. He stares into a camera with his dead eyes. There’s also a craggy-faced narrator who seems to enjoy saying the word screwing.
:smile:
How about the 1946 short “By Jupiter,” starring our old friend Chick Chandler? Chick, who you may remember from “Lost Continent” and the short “Once Upon a Honeymoon,” is taught manners by the God Jupiter and wife Juno. The film was originally produced for Marshall Field and Company.