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What Did You Think?We were at the live show in Minneapolis. What was it like in your theater?
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All content posted on Satellite News is copyright © 2024 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 © 2024 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. |
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My normal theater was sold out so I drove an extra 20 miles to the theater in the ritzy upper-class suburbs. It was 3/4 full, very enthusiastic, a lot more children and teens than I’ve seen at my regular place in the past. Best part? The spontaneous sing-along to the theme song during the pre-show, complete with loud la-la-las.
Overall, I had a pretty good time. However, I felt the transgender bathroom joke during “More Dates for Kay” to be in poor taste.
The Richmond towne square theater on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio was packed with laughing, clapping, cheering Msties. What a great time!
Bone.
150 or more in Flint, MI at Rave Cinemas- largest crowd since Starship Troopers. Everyone had a great time.
Had a great time in Sun Prairie…until the screen went dark during the Grass short and never came back. :-(
Wow Jonah Ray is tall. It looked like The Hobbit, with Jonah as Gandalf towering over all the other performers.
I think they’re going to have to make bigger puppets for the new series.
Such a great show! So awesome to see everyone together on stage! Also, corn is grass, and men just can’t handle themselves in a kitchen.
Hey, does anybody have Kay’s number?
Was at Green Hills theater in Tennessee. Nice packed house. Thought this was incredible. It was like a multi-Doctor episode, complete with one no-show. Josh is MST3k’s Christopher Eccleston (guy who left after 1 season over creative differences and very politely turned down the reunion special while still loving the legacy).
Our Local Theater didn’t screen the event (they’ve been screening less RiffTrax live events) so I drove an hour away to catch the live show. Worth it.
Just A-Level Riffing all around, and anyone who had doubts that Jonah Ray might not have been a wise choice for the new MST3K, I hope this quells any doubts.
One guy from our group actually walked out after Frank’s transgender riff in the Kay short. But otherwise the evening was unblemished fun and absolutely what I wanted to see. A true pleasure to see all these old friends together in one place at last. And despite his one flubbed line I was pleased with Jonah’s riffing. Makes me all the more excited for the revival.
Best short for me was probably Shaking Hands With Danger, but they were all great.
Kingston, MA was at least 3/4 full. More than usual. Great show, but could’ve used more MST talk.
It was definitely worth the price of admission – even with the price hike. The theater here in South Portland, Maine filled up slowly, but it was quite full by the time the show started.
I think they gave a good show, with a fair share for each of the teams of riffers.
Mike, Bill, and Kevin are always good, but Mary Jo and Bridget are hilarious.
It was great to see Trace and Frank on stage – hopefully they’ll make it to the East coast sometime soon…
Also, young Jonah’s first flubbed riff. They grow up so fast, don’cha know…
Surprisingly full theater at the Regal Hamburg 16 in Lexington, KY (well, full except for the really-up-close seats nobody wants). One of their smaller theaters, but still more full than usual for a Rifftrax Live event.
It was a really interesting show. It seemed clear that, while each short was written for the specific riffers that handled it, there was quite a bit of cross-pollination between the writing efforts, and they were all the better for it. Or maybe it just seemed like the Cinematic Titanic alums were still in their own flavor of riffing. Either way, I liked it. Not quite sure what was up with Frank’s transgender bathroom riff, though. Guess he really DID want to veer towards working blue that night…
Of course, what I found the highlight of the night was Jonah’s turn at the plate for the barber/beautician short (the AFL-CIO handled barbers back then?). Finally, we’re getting a chance to see if the new kid’s got some promise! And all in all? I think he’s got something there. Of course, he was alongside Joel in full Cinematic Titanic Live Show mode (disclaimer: I’m definitely more a Joel guy), so we got a lot of good two-man riffs and some physical comedy out of him, not just him as “himself”, I guess. So maybe it’s a bit too early to judge, but if he can work that well with ‘bots by his side, we might have a winner with him.
Though I do wish the camera would’ve gone back to the theater for whatever they were doing with the “SWITCH PODIUMS!” gag. The crowd in Minneapolis seemed to love it, but we didn’t see any of it. They just stuck with the full-screen shot of the short. Drat.
Also, we didn’t have people singing along to the old MST3K standards during the pre-show roll, but it did feel great to walk into the theater right when Tubular Boobular was firing up.
Good show, I say. Good show.
@Dracula #11: I was in a stunned silence for several minutes after that riff. The laughs of the audiences to that riff didn’t help matters.
To the people who attended the live show: did we see you guys on camera during the audience sweeps? Not trying to call anyone out for how much they donated to the Kickstarter (and you probably won’t know until you see the Reunion Show taping later), but I’m curious to know who we saw on camera.
I’ll be honest, I let out an audible half-laugh, half-wow at the Transgender Bathroom joke. I didn’t think anything was wrong with it, and with the character’s features being VERY “neutral” on screen, I just assumed it was that. Good ol’ Frank!
Missed it. Disney Springs (use to be Downtown Disney at Disney World) was sold out. Could not get in.
Also, I’m surprised this was the first time we were hearing about the upcoming Mothra live show. At least, I hadn’t heard about it yet. And Toho’s letting them get away with it? I’d think they might not want to talk to MST3K/Rifftrax people, especially after the Godzilla vs. Megalon debacle way back when…
80% filled. I always think it’s weird when people in the theater with me applaud. Then I find myself joining them on some stunning riffs. Seeing the cast together goes beyond any adjective I could attach to that show./ Just “WOW!!!”
Great show! Theatre was 2/3 full glad got there early!! Lots of cheering and clapping, felt like we were at the live theatre!
I believe Sony or MGM has the North American rights to Mothra, so Toho was probably bypassed.
I was at the State Theater, but the sound wasn’t so great in the balcony. When I saw Cinematic Titanic there, I was on the ground floor, and I didn’t feel like I missed any riffs then. I still loved it, but I’m looking forward to the VOD to catch everything.
I was able to identify which pre-show song went with which MST3K/RiffTraxx episode about 90% of the time. The best RT show to date!
Two things kept it from perfection:
1. Heavy rain knocked out the feed in the theater for 10 minutes, so missed beginning of Shake Hands with Danger.
2. Guy next to me kept belching. Was like sitting with Robert Durst
Otherwise it was really cool to see the different combinations. You could see the different writing styles evident, with the Joel and Jonah style standing out as most distinct to me with a bit more absurdist tone. Had not seen Mary Jo and Bridget or Trace and Frank before and both were really good.
Cinemark Theater in Rochester, NY was over 3/4 full and we all had a great time. Found myself singing along to the MST3K opening songs. Only problem is when Geeks Who Drink started doing some of the slides before the show, the lines are not so funny.
It was a pretty good show, through Frank looked grumpy the whole time like he really didn’t want to be there. Jonah was just ok, kind of whiny and hipster like but he is still learning and likely to improve. Joel was great as was most of the old cast. Kind of getting tired of them doing repeats as they did repeat two shorts.
Lincoln, NE theater was about 75-80% full. Was a good show, overall… and was great fun to see all the old timers there (Trace, Frank, Joel, Billy Slater, etc.).
I do wish there’d been more reminiscing between the cast members about working on MST3K (in between the shorts).
Not a fan of Jonah Ray, myself — he seemed anxious/to be trying too hard. But I’ll certainly admit that he was in a high-pressure/no-win situation there, being surrounded by so many people’s favorite cast.
P.S.: Oh, and the transgender joke was fine (honestly, people these days really need to lighten the hell up). Frank and the others didn’t say a darn thing negative about the topic of being transgender; they just made a simple observational comment based on her appearance… much in the same way they called that beautician “Frankenstein” based on his appearance.
Things I learned from the RiffTraxLive MST3KReunionShow: 1) Do not lunge out in front of moving cars or you will be denied the pleasure of inserting a sharp metal hook into a live worm. Forever. 2) Kolchak isn’t phased by vampires, but baking soda drives him absolutely @#%^*&in nuts. More nuts that even the Bumpus’ dogs! 3) Be like Kay. The way to dating often is to throw yourself at anything even remotely sapient, without exception. 4) Do not shake hands with Danger. However, if you treat it nicely, Danger will allow you to kiss it, full on the lips. 5) Barbers and Beauticians enjoy toying with their customers. It gives them a sense of cruel joy. 6) Superman has learned to live with humanity’s imperfection, but their lack of faith in stamps and bonds TASKS HIM. 7) Is your child lonely and bored? Give them a big handful of dead weeds and watch the fun start!
What a great show tonight! It was a great presentation of each performer, and the final two riffs worked better than I imagined. I just want to go on record and say that Trace Beaulieu continues to be the MST MVP.
I was at the island 16 cinema deluxe in Holtsville, NY. About a less than a half hour away from my home. Absolutely had a great time. The riffing was second to none as it always was. It was great seeing all of them together again,and I can’t wait for them to start putting the new MST3K episodes into production.
Clifton, NJ AMC was probably 80% full. Several movie goers came in MST3K T-shirts. I wore my Crow T. Robot “You Know You Want Me, Baby!” shirt. I had a feeling the show would mainly have separate groups of riffers on stage (Rifftrax Trio, Mary Jo and Bridget, Trace & Frank, Joel and Jonah Ray) for each short rather than have all nine of them up at once the whole time. Kind of like that early 1990’s eight man Yes group! I was glad that the all time classic “Shake Hands with Danger” was riffed. I also liked the pairing of Joel and Jonah Ray. Kind of like the teacher & student! The only real downer was the theater losing the signal due to a thunderstorm. It happened just as the “Nine Man Yes” was starting to riff the Superman short. A few of us riffed the lost signal message on the screen. “Push the button, Frank!” was one. The signal briefly came back but when it cut out again I decided to leave as I thought the signal would be out for good ( I missed out on the “Corn” encore if the signal had returned) As I left I nearly started the classic Joel, Servo and Crow chant “ATTICA!! ATTICA!!”
Phenomenal show! Somehow exceeded expectations. I thought everyone did very well, but, to me the standout had to be Trace. He was on fire and his delivery was as strong as it’s ever been.
Jonah did a great job. Man, do I hope Joel does some riffing on the new MST. He is so pitch perfect at it and I liked his chemistry with Jonah.
No idea why anyone is offended by the bathroom joke, it was a comment on Kay’s androgynous appearance not some political statement. And Frank’s delivery never fails to crack me up.
I, as most of you know, detest the Pearl character…but, I thought Mary Jo did an excellent job tonight. My favorite performance I’ve ever seen from her.
As for MKB….they hit it out of the park. The Talking Car was hysterical and they were excellent hosts throughout.
All in all, an amazing night to be a MSTie!
Plus, I was a KS guest writer and Bill did a hilarious job delivering my riff…”we don’t care” during The Talking Car when the kid runs to tell his neighbors that his dad is taking him fishing. It was truly an honor (and very surreal) to hear my joke delivered by one of my heroes!
The local theater here in Fargo, ND was almost sold out. The feed did go out during the Grass short, and being the polite Midwesterners that we are, no one got up to inform management for a few minutes. So the attendees started riffing on the blank screen, which was funny.
Jonah did well, he will fit right in.
I was at the MN State Theater. My buddy and I switched seats with two gals because I am 6’4″ and I felt like they would never see the show. I will enjoy seeing this on VOD/DVD/Blu-ray since I had trouble hearing half the jokes over the riotous laughter. I thought it would have awesome if one of the shorts was riffed by Mike/Joel/Jonah, but all at once will work with me. My only issue wasn’t with the show itself, but with some of these theaters. They were built in the early 1900s and no one was ever over 5’6″ of 150lbs. They don’t remodel these things for us big people. It feels like these people think those my height only exist in the pages of fairy tales. I wish I could have gotten an aisle seat. Movie theater seats are much better. I got one of the posters (MST3K reunion). I hope they unlock the kickstarter page soon so I can put in my shirt size for the replacement t-shirt they put out.
Really? I’ve seen Frank live in the past year and he was a heck of a lot more animated at this show than he was in person.
Saw the show in Orlando tonight. Good size crowd and everyone was laughing so hard. I loved it.
Not a sell-out, but a mostly full theater tonight. The rainy/stormy weather threatened all week diminished by this evening, with only a shower after I was already inside the mall. And the show running later allowed minimal waiting for the bus. Everything worked out great.
I got in the theater early enough to see a “test” showing of a Gloria Estefon (sp?) concert, with Shadowrama of Joel and the bots, creepily “swaying” to the whole thing. Strange effect. At one point Gloria took off her jacket to give a fan, showing arm tattoos causing me to riff to myself, “Hey, she’s cheating on her math test!”
I predicted they’d use MST3K songs during the slides. The only problem with the slides was I didn’t get many off the references (I mean, I’m not that old….right?)
The show itself was excellent! I have no doubt in Jonah’s ability to riff after seeing his performance tonight. He’s a natural! Very funny the whole night. I had no problem with the bathroom joke — after all, if you can’t trust Frank Conniff with a reference like that…
One more riff I thought of, during the Superman short: “Hey… Clark Kent… he looks just like…. it IS…he’s… he’s Steve Allen, isn’t he?”
All in all, a GREAT show!
About 70% full in Boise, Idaho, good crowd and good riffs. Although maybe it’s just me, it seemed like a lot of the stage banter felt forced, as others said I wished they maybe would have had more reminiscences about the show or something.
I thought Frank and Trace were better than when I saw them for the opening night of their Mads tour, Frank’s self-deprecation gets me every time and the short was great. People really need to lighten up about the transgender joke, it was obviously referring to Kay’s androgynous appearance. Second place I award to Bridget and Mary Jo, I hadn’t heard them before but they were good.
Fun night, can’t believe it’s been six years since I went to a Rifftrax live theater event.
Our theater in San Mateo, CA (home of Rod & Natalie from Birdemic’s alma mater, San Mateo High School!) was actually as full as it usually is for a Rifftrax event which surprised me, I expected fuller. The show was freakin awesome and I plan to go back and take my mom to see the encore in a couple weeks (she is also a fan). I thought Jonah did a great job, super impressed. Great to see Trace and Frank riff again, they killed it. We loved singing along to the songs from the show at the beginning (“where oh werewolf” being a highlight). One of my favorite parts was the reel of the highlights from the last 10 years of Rifftrax, I laughed so hard I was crying. Nice also that they gave a shot out to Conor and Sean as well, they seem like really talented, nice guys and I am sure their contribution to Rifftrax is huge.
Pretty subdued; definitely less than half full, maybe 1/3 full? but then we’re on the west coast, so.
Also wasn’t keen on the transgender joke, or the Korean restaurant joke. But mostly good stuff.
Re: whether Frank seemed grumpy, I think he just… kinda looks like that these days? (jokes about looking 50 since he was in his 20s aside; he definitely looks older to me now than he did in the 90s.)
Jonah’s voice is growing on me. My husband remarked that they’re going to need taller bots or something because Jonah is a giant and would tower over them in silhouette, heh. Maybe they can use booster seats.
Just to let you know, man, the “We don’t care!” riff got a huge laugh at the theater I was at in Federal Way.
I don’t think the transgender joke really got any negative reactions, but what REALLY surprised me was there were a lot of groans over the Sylvia Plath joke. I literally thought to myself, “There’s people here who know about Sylvia Plath? Wow.”
I think the riff that got the biggest reaction/laughter/applause was the “Martha” joke, referring to Batman Vs. Superman during the Superman short.
The sound went out during the grass short for about 3 minutes, so several people in my audience started cracking their own jokes (“Now we know why the children of the corn killed their parents.”)
Speaking of the grass short, i thought that was an odd one to end the show with. It was rather dull, and didn’t really offer a lot of material for the differs. Personally, i would have made the Superman short be last, but that’s just me.
Bridget is just so darn cute. She has a very bubbly Janet Waldo-like personality which we never really saw in any of her roles on MST3K. Her marriage joke at Mike’s expense got a loud “Ohhhhhh….” from everybody.
This is also the first Rifftrax live event i’ve been to, and i gotta say, an event like this totally makes up for me missing out on MST3K: The Movie when it was out in theaters. Hell this event makes up for the travesty that was MST3K: TM all-together.
Great job you guys!
Full house at Lloyd Center in Portland, OR. (The Cedar Hills theater I used to go to doesn’t appear to do RiffTrax any more; boo, hiss!) The Portland yurt joke during “At Your Fingertips: Grasses” got a very big laugh. A nice selection of shorts and lots of fun; I enjoyed “The Talking Car” especially. I was eager to see how Jonah Ray would do and thought he did fine; yeah, he flubbed a line, but who wouldn’t their first time out? And who knew there was a union of barbers, beauticians, cosmetologists, and proprietors (they’re part of the UFCW now, apparently)?
The theater I saw it in had the show in one of those smaller screens for blockbusters that are at the end of their run. My fiance and I had to sit in the second to front row, but we had plenty of leg room.
Overall it was a terrific show. Ironically, the riffapalooza Superman short of was the low point of the show. It was more the fault of the short though than the riffers. The short on grass afterward was hilarious. First time riffer Jonah did a good job. The whole theater laughed at the jokes, even the transgender restroom joke. It a more a shot the unattractiveness of Kay rather than trans-people. It was also done by the most liberal of the MST3K cast, Frank.
Fantastic show! about 80% full theater at the Cinemark in Merriam, KS. Loved every minute of it, but I wish there had been a short with just Mike & Joel together.
And may I just say how unbelievably excited I am for MOTHRA!!!!!!!! I’m a Kaiju nut, so this is a huge deal for me. Also, I’m wondering if Shout Factory has possibly worked out a deal with Toho for the Godzilla episodes?! I’m constantly amazed at what they can do, but I never imagined they could work out a deal with Toho. Maybe Mothra is them testing the waters?
There were only about 10 people in the theater, but overall a very enjoyable night! I noticed, during The Talking Car, the screen looked like a computer window screen for a second, maybe a very short technical issue. I was happy to see “Shake Hands With Danger” again, it’s one of my all-time favorite RT shorts. I’ve never really had favorites but Trace’s delivery stood out in a way that I hadn’t seen before. Darren McGavin is good in just about anything! All-in-all a great show. :-)
Muvico, Thousand Oaks, CA…not much of a crowd…maybe 50 people…but the meager crowd responded strongly to a great show.
As has been mentioned, a short with Joel, Mike and Jonah or just Joel and Mike would have been great. Other possibilities would have been going chronologically, i.e., Joel, Trace, Frank and Kevin; then a ‘Mitchell’ grouping with Joel, Mike, Trace, Frank and Kevin; then Mike, Trace, Frank, Kevin, etc. But that would have taken much more preparation so not a realistic option I admit.
I enjoyed the Rifftrax retrospective very much but honestly would have liked to have seen that time given over to a third Riffapalooza short. It took this long to get everyone together and they should have taken a bit more of advantage of that. Who knows how long before they all get together again? On the other hand, Rifftrax was picking up the tab and the retrospective was not that long. They just should have a done a third Riffapalooza…we all know that no one attending or watching would have complained about the length of the show!!
We also lost sound during the ‘Grass’ short so it looks like that was a technical problem on the Minnesota end of things.
BTW, for those that missed tonight’s show and plans on going to the re-broadcast in July, if you want to know a good time to use the bathroom, when Mike, Kevin, and Bill bring out two of their writers, and one of them starts talking about his stint on Jeopardy, that’s when you can get up to relieve yourself. You won’t miss a thing.
Agreed.
In Clifton, NJ.,.pretty much agree with #31. The storm ended the show at 9:50pm,as we only saw about 2 minutes of “Stamp Day for Superman.” and the casts’ on stage regrouping for the final short,,of which we saw none. AMC gave everyone a free movie ticket afterward and apologized. It was just awesome to see them all together (except Josh Weinstein). That joke about Joel being bald did seem a little jarring, but still funny. Frank did seem reticent and glum, but since the guys joked about having to reign in some of his humor, perhaps he felt that his best stuff got trimmed? The jury is still out on Jonah Ray. I doubt that many of us will miss the new MST3K show when it comes on or miss it when it goes off either.
That’s because everyone else was at Riverpark in Oxnard. ;)
I swear one of the gals in the Kay short has appeared before in a short done on MST3K.
Now that they’ve done a Superman short, I hope they can get their hands on the Superpup pilot one of these days.