First the business:
By emailing Santa@rifftrax.com you get an email back with lots of little prizes and discounts, etc.
They announced that there will be two repeat showings: Starship Troopers on Thursday, Jan. 14 and The Room on Thursday, Jan. 28.
Visit rifftrax.com/bunny to get the digital goodies, including the new RiffTones song.
And visit riftrax.com/app for the new RiffTrax app. They seemed very excited about it, saying it will automatically synch any movie — including a movie in a theater…hmmm…
Theater about half full in Scranton. They seemed to be loving it.
They did three shorts: “Santa Claus’ Story” (and a weird one it was), “Custard the Dragon” (which made NO sense) and one they’ve done before “Santa’s Enchanted Village” (“kids love it when furries have labor disputes” and “I need you BOTH tonight” — a callback). Another callback: “Hey look! Grass…or is it corn?” Also: “Slrpnls.” There was even a Torgo reference.
As they explained at the previous show, this version of the main movie was different from the one they already riffed — the Thumblina story line is out and a deeply ’70s-clad “Jack in the Beanstalk” story took it’s place. One of many highlights–the appearance of the rare “male cameltoe.” I also particularly loved the way the movie used was clearly the amusement park’s refuse heap as a backdrop for some scenes. Amazing.
All in all, a great show. I laughed really hard. Both Kevin’s and Bill’s beards are lookin’ good. I’m done.
Thoughts?
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Watching it in Coral Springs, FL, about forty-five minutes away from Dania Beach where it was filmed, we had a blast with all of the Florida jokes. My personal favorite riff: “Wormtongue-in-Boots”.
Full house in Lansing’s Celebration Cinema, where my love and I were squeezed up against the screen, next to the loudest Rifftrax fan ever.
I genuinely liked the Custard short, and thought the adaptation of the characters to costumed kids a clever one.
My love and I were delighted to see footage of Santa’s Village theme parks in the third short. We’re amusement park fans and knew to look eagerly for the footage of Pirate’s World. To see another small amusement park, and in another rambling Santa story, was a delight.
One of the Santa’s Village parks, the one in Illinois, still exists, although it’s had to sell off all its old flat rides. Allegedly many of the old-style buildings are still in place. We haven’t got there.
So there’s a whole K Gordon Murray vision of Santa’s universe, the way there’s a Rankin/Bass Shared-Universe Santa? This changes everything!
Small, but enthusiastic crowd in Sterling Heights, MI. Shorts were as weird and wonderful as ever. The movie is just so bizarre. The Jack and the Beastalk interlude was a sticky slice of 70’s cheese. Eventhough I knew Bill’s Ice Cream Bunny laugh was coming it still doesn’t fail to make me laugh.
All three K. Gordon Murray shorts are available on VOD/DVD as Santa’s Village of Madness. It’s great!
Oh, yes, something I hadn’t noticed or had forgot from the old version of Santa And The Ice Cream Bunny: one of the older kids is wearing an R Crumb “Keep On Trucking” T-shirt. I pointed it out to my love, who was captivated by this the rest of the picture. I was surprised none of the Riffbrains mentioned.
That’s one of my favorite VODs and it was great seeing them revisit it. They wouldn’t make a great presentation on their own–the second is an elongated theme park tour and the third is an offscreen battle with an “ogre”–but the one they showed was wonderful.
About 2/3 full at Cedar Hills near Portland, OR. I’m guessing the makers of “Santa Claus Story” had leftover stock footage of monkeys they could plug in–much like Santa & Co. with either Thumbelina or Jack, as the case may be. Maybe there’s an alternate version of “Santa Claus Story” with wombats or something. The Jack footage may actually be worse than Thumbelina, which is saying something. Very enthusiastic crowd and we enjoyed the preshow slides as well; are those available anywhere post-show for Rifftrax or do they just disappear into the ether?
Fun show. There was a pretty small turn-out in my theater in Austin; I don’t know why that is. I loved the Jack and the Beanstalk insert. That was the most bored, John Candy-like giant I’ve ever seen, and the wardrobe for the villagers was a real hoot. Anyway, all of the show was fun.
I wish “Anaconda” had been chosen—I was sick last year so I missed it. Oh well!
I also particularly loved the way the movie used was clearly the amusement park’s refuse heap as a backdrop for some scenes.
As I told the friend who went with me, that was childhood in the ’70s, baby. None of this “safe space” nonsense for us!
Mom: Go out and play in traffic, you little monsters.
Kids: But MooOOOooom, we live way out in the country and there is no traffic!
Mom: Then go and play in the tetanus-riddled, snake-infested junkyard.
Kids: Yippee!
Mom: And if you stay out until supper, tomorrow you can ride on the careening firetruck with the creepy, dead-eyed Ice Cream Bunny.
Kids: Hurray!
The riff that particularly sticks to my mind is the one about how Jack’s mom looks like a Far Side character. Come to think of it, a cow was prominently featured.
The theater at the Regal Commerce in South Brunswick, NJ was maybe just over half-full, but that’s probably the best crowd they’ve had for RT. The show was enjoyed by all.
A few points:
– I was a little surprised that there was no callback to Ross and “Catching Trouble” during the monkeys footage. Bit of a needless slam on Peter Tork, though.
– I’m glad the riffing was great, because the movies were really, really bad. And the print quality for the Jack & the Beanstalk segment was very poor.
– I’d also like to know if the pre-show title cards are archived somewhere. And you just know there will, indeed, be an argument over some minor point in “Star Wars” at a few Holiday gatherings.
– It’s tough to tell which riff got the biggest laugh, but it may have been the “Santa tinkle” routine.
– From the pre-show, I liked the “Early Christmas Song”. They had a whole aisle of Christmas stuff at my local pharmacy two weeks before Thanksgiving. Even the story employees thought that was crazy.
I’d say last night’s show was wonderful. Yes, wonderful. Ha-ha-ha wonderful. Wonderful.
I really enjoyed the Fort Myers reference since I live there.
“The Santa tinkle sketch, everyone!”
“Cersei Lannister: Year One”
small crowd at the Huntsville Hollywood 18 theater. the picture dropped out for the first short, the sound was still on though. it lasted about 3/4 of the short and then everything was fine for the rest of the show. Damn you Comcast – they paid their bill already! Saw a Facebook buddy in the theater – so that was cool.
I got married at Fort Myers Beach in December 2012. Yay!
I was at the show in Scranton as well. Great time. I think I actually prefer Jack and the Beanstalk to Thumbelina in this movie. Both are a mess, but I found this version a tad more amusing (or maybe it was just new). I’m still scratching my head over that monkey short. It certainly set the tone for a night full of “why was this even made?” films. Looking forward to what they have in store next year.
I asked my nephew on the drive home about the cameltoe guy. We agreed that such a wardrobe choice would be really uncomfortable given the permanent gnad-splicing.
I then speculated. Maybe he wears those trousers on purpose to intimidate people. It was oddly mesmerising, and disturbing of course. He also appeared to be with a woman far more attractive than himself. Maybe she was too dazed to run away.
Also, Santa’s grunting and talk about backing it in, pulling it out, had the theater in tears.
This was definitely among their best live events. Starting off with three shorts was a nice treat, although “Custard the Dragon” seemed to fall flat. The “Enchanted Village” one stunned people in our theater who hadn’t seen it before, especially the puppet-show scenes.
The Union Square Theater was about two-thirds full, I’d say, and all were enthusiastic. I caught a glimpse of a particularly beautiful Tom Servo puppet in the crowd. It still warms my old heart to see fellow MSTies in person!
My favorite moment of the night came right before Bill started the Ice-Cream Bunny maniacal laugh. The camera operator did us all a favor by showing the three riffers before this began, and you could see Kevin looking at Bill with gleeful anticipation. It’s that kind of interaction that makes me love RiffTrax so much.
80% full theater in Chicago, audience was really enjoying the show. In fact, a ghost of Christmas past appeared when I heard this annoying woman laughing in the back and it turned out to be the same lady I was stuck next to for Rifftrax Live! Santa Claus. How I hate her… over-laughing at every bad joke, going completely silent for the good jokes, and occasionally interjecting with her own awful riffs (cow tries to leave the scene and she blurts out “He wants out of this bad movie!! HA HA HA!” *starts coughing*)
Thankfully, I think somebody told her to reign it in and the theater cranked up the movie’s volume, so she wasn’t really a distraction.
In terms of Christmas live shows, this was their best. A nice mix of the old Christmas Shorts show and their feature length over-the-top Santa Claus show. Three shorts and a movie with a short film crammed into the middle of it. I had forgotten how Ice Cream Bunny appears in the final moments, making the appearance all the move exciting.
Overall, great show! Now I want it on DVD…
“Oh, my ulcers!”
When they said they had a few shorts for us at the beginning, I was surprised. I’ve seen Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny before and knew this wasn’t a short movie. The only other time they’ve done this I believe is the Reefer Madness show, and that was only about an hour long anyway. Perhaps mercifully though, the Jack and the Beanstalk version is a lot shorter than the Thumbelina one.
A few comments on shorts…
Santa Claus’ Story: Why is Santa talking about chimps here? Was this made for a zoo or something? This one was more weird than anything else. Good riffing, although this short wasn’t the best of the night.
Custard the Dragon: The whole time through this I was wondering who it was made for. If I had seen this as a kid I would’ve been bored by it. So surreal that the riffing kind of isn’t enough for it.
Santa’s Enchanted Village: Okay, this was a bit strange. I’ve seen them do this before, but somehow in the translation from the one they recorded for the site to this live show it’s gotten a whole lot funnier. This was really the highlight of the night.
As for Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny, there’s not much to say really. Most of the riffs are recycled, except for the Jack and the Beanstalk stuff. Did anyone else think that the giant looked like a doughy slobbish loser and not an imposing figure? Felt like this guy really wasn’t trying and to him this was just a check. At least Honest Joe (was that his name?) was an interesting character. Also weird that at the end everyone just enters the house uninvited. It seems like with all of these segments, Jack, Thumbelina and Ice Cream Bunny combined, they thought they could write what might have been a quaint little stage show and simply put a camera in front of it. Needless to say it doesn’t work.
I noticed that the rate of riffs was a little lower than usual, but that ended up being a good thing. We had some good audience participation with people working off riffs from the trio as well as each other.
Favorite riff: “I’ve stopped trying to steal your Trix, so I’m gonna take you to our Soylent Trix factory. Trix are from kids!”
Favorite non-official riff: When Honest John made his first appearance.
“The discount Gene Wilder!” followed up by someone else shouting, “More like bargain bin!”
Bah, that would have annoyed me. I am not paying to hear other fans try to be funny.
It was bad enough someone nearby kept saying how pathetic the golden hen looked. Maybe Krampus should visit her house.
I’d say it would depend on the size of the crowd and they were pretty good about not talking over the actual riffs, so it really turned into a fun time with people having fun making fun of a really bad movie.
Though the only riff that I wanted to say, but couldn’t as the guys were talking, was noticing the golden hen having been put on the fireplace and asking, “Anyone know what that thing’s shelf life is?”
In actuality, the only potential nuisance came from a few guys in front that had to verbally repeat all of the riffs that made them laugh, but even they were easy to ignore.
I forgot to mention how much I loved the giant. Just sitting around yelling for food in a low gruff voice, occasionally yelling “I SMELL SOMETHING!!!” and then breaking into very out of character songs in a much higher voice. I really loved the part where he was singing about the places he would check (under the bed, etc) and he just lazily points in some direction.
I also loved his love of eating creepy crawleys and his death scene which amounted to a stuffed doll (oddly human sized) dropping past the window with no real follow-up sound or shaking of the earth.
The only riff I added was that one of Honest John’s customers looked like medieval Morrissey, but I whispered it to my girlfriend, I don’t shout ’em out. Biggest laugh in my theater was probably Imax Torgo. Interesting that they didn’t plug the MST3K reboot at all.
The giant was definitely the best character in the insert and, I do have to say, he had the best singing voice even if it wasn’t his own.
There was a pretty good turnout at Cinemark in Merriam, Kansas (though colder temperatures probably kept it lower than Miami Connection). Unlike Miami Connection, we got to see the preshow slides and hear several songs. The Christmas at Ground Zero song was my favorite (having grown up during the 1950s with air raid drills and such). I actually appreciate the Thumblina short more after seeing the new Jack and Beanstalk insert. At least the songs in Thumblina were less annoying. Camel toe man probably got the biggest response from the crowd. Is it just a coincidence that when he shows up at the end, he is standing in back behind other people?
New Berlin, WI theater. VERY strange experience the whole night for me. All restaurant employees seemed overly lazy about everything, and then they weren’t running the preshow stuff. Somehow I notice it was 7:05 and nothing had started yet, running out to tell someone. The picture came up right as Santa was starting the story of Monkey Christmas. I was not pleased. Then whoever was in the booth started hitting buttons and messing with the menu, you could hear people getting upset and confused. Then we all realized the person was backing up the feed to the beginning, so we got to see everything. I was pleased with that.
Anyways, I think I have developed a mental illness from those shorts and the movie. Monkey Christmas!? Custard the Dragon would have been fine if it were filmed like a stage play. As it was it felt like some really creepy person’s fantasy. Santa’s Enchanted Village was at least just silly. And the feature… yes I’ve seen it before, but it’s still amazing how much time goes by where nothing happens, and when it does nothing makes sense on any level. It can’t even be described as being like aliens pretending to act like humans. At least the Jack interstitial was silly, if also incompetently done.
It was approximately half full at the Virginia Center 20 in Glen Allen. Of the pre-show slides, my favorite was the one about the roast beast from The Grinch that Stole Christmas.
Waitaminnut, waitaminnut… you mean there’s two freakin’ versions of this god-awful movie? I want off this crazy planet.
Does anyone know where I can find the imdb page for Custard the Dragon? All I could find was this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0228171/
Regarding the RiffTrax app:
“Our beta launch is just a few days away. The app will be completely FREE, AND it will have all six Star Wars movies pre-loaded into it for FREE”
***YES, if you get the version direct from RT. The actress who played Thumbelina (Shay Garner) was a hottie and more surprisingly, actually had a legitimate (non x rated) acting career afterward.
I couldn’t make it to a showing. Was the “Custard the Dragon” thing related to the children’s poem by the great Ogden Nash?
And both inserts from the director of Rocket Attack USA, so you know they’re good! :)
Yes. There was a narrator reciting the poem, while children in costumes (sort of) acted it out. I’m making it sound more competent than it actually was.
I thought Jack was a much better short film than Thumbelina. I genuinely liked Honest John’s and the giant’s actors.
The highlight for me was the Ferocious Wolf and his accordion footsteps. I was laughing so hard I nearly cried.
Bill’s new beard is great. I never realized how utterly naked his face used to look.
Until chinderwear really catches on, try a beard, won’t you?
Since Popeye did get brought up during Jack and the Beanstalk, I was surprised that they didn’t mention the Giant’s very strong reference to Bluto. (Admittedly they did compare him to John Belushi, who played a Bluto, but still.)
Had a blast. As always, I wore my Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy jersey in case anyone from here or a few other forums recognized me, but no one said anything.
I remain unpopular!
(preening like a peacock)
Anyone who introduces themselves to me at a show gets, for free, one of my meticulously** constructed Nanite key-chains. I usually have four or five on me. I never sell them, but in order to get rid of them, I do sometimes end up having to give them to nice people who don’t have a clue what MST3K is. Such people are always a shock to me and they have no idea what to make of my key-chains.
(especially if I do a little Nanite puppet show for them.)
I’m sure more than a few waitresses or waiters thought me unfair when I left one of my titanium pieces instead of leaving a monetary tip. hahaha. If they only knew!
(**How meticulous? Well, I have access to a CNC end mill at work and scraps of anodized titanium, including blue, red, yellow and bright lime green. I am a perfectionist about design and replication!)
I am so psyched about the Kickstarter miracle I am about to bust. I will be completely blown away if it reaches 4.4M.
Attending a live Rifftrax was just more icing on this fan’s cake.
I was at the Nashville showing at the Belcourt. Actually got there early for a change and reserved a spot in line, and enjoyed talking to some other fans at the front of the line. I went dressed in my Dr Who scarf and brown fedora, which some people were kind enough to comment on. Then the camera crew came out to film us, and Mike and Kevin came out to shake hands and greet everyone. I shook Kevin’s hand and immediately thought, “Good grief, how WARM he is!” Partly because of how cold it was, but also because he was suddenly interacting with me and not on my screen at home or on stage. It was a very humanizing moment for me.
Mike complimented the scarf, and as they went back in, Kevin shouted, “Tom Baker Best Doctor Ever!” Truth is, I’m more of a Pertwee fan, but it was delightful nonetheless.
The show was wonderful. Sat with my aunt. She’s been having a hard time lately, so I invited her to the show to cheer her up. She was very grateful. She and my uncle have been MSTies for years, and their first date was actually to see The Movie in 1996, so she totally gets me. We had a great time, and I can’t wait to do it again.
Afterwards, I saw they’d added the walkby in the credits, and I saw myself on the screen, and a few minutes later, I got a text from an old girlfriend saying, “I saw you in the credits at Rifftrax!!!”
Yes. Now yer talkin!
I’ve always been more of a Troughton guy myself, primarily because he and Jamie had the best Doctor/Companion chemistry.
Going off on a tangent, I’ve come to wonder if Doctor Who encountered the sort of fan outrage that MST3K has had to put up with concerning cast changes. Did the BBC receive a banner proclaiming, “I HATE SUSAN’S REPLACEMENT!” after the airing of The Rescue? Was there a Hartnell Vs. Troughton war when The Tenth Planet concluded?
There probably was, but with no internet, trolls had to incite fandom riots by mail ;)
@ Sean: Funny thing. I have a brother-in-law who lives in Nashville and has cosplayed as the Fourth Doctor. You also appear to bear enough of a resemblance to him that, at first, I thought that was him who I saw in the end credits.
No, but we did have people who found Rose nails-on-chalkboard smug and narcissistic during the first two New Doctors, and wanted to kill Billie Piper in the most imaginatively concocted ways possible for literally thinking that the entire show now belonged to her, and sending the entire new series down a slippery slope from which it never recovered…Not to mention wanting to make us bash heads against walls every time we hear the new Millenial kids say “Wait, there was an old series? I didn’t know that! Eww, nobody wants to watch that BBC-soundstage stuff anymore that’s too outdated, the new show’s nice and modern, with all the cool CGI we can understand!”
So it’s not like there’s absolutely no parallel there.
Still, it’s nice to know Kevin has actually SEEN Classic Who, and wasn’t just nerd-bashing in Season 3.
Um, wouldn’t he have HAD to have seen Classic Who, as the revival series and even the 1996 TV movie simply DIDN’T EXIST during MST3K Season 3?!?
And merely referencing the fact that the show exists, the AV Clubs liked to screen it, and mentioning the Dalek catchphrase “Exterminate” counts as “just bashing it”?
Really?
@ #47: Don’t worry, the orderlies should be administering the sedatives any moment now. :P
It was WONDERFUL!
They did. (Just ask BBC’s Blue Peter show, the main outlet for all under-13 Who fandom in the 60’s and 70’s, which got more Who love/hate letters than BBC’s own main office.)
Does “I hate Adric!” ring a bell?
Uh, it does when you count in what context “AV Clubs” was used on the early show, and put it in close proximity with a lot of running 70’s-Starlog refs. (“Cool, it’s like that one season with that one Doctor who looked like Moe?”)