The Taxonomy of Riffs: Listing of Types of Riffs
• Title & Credit Riffs – mostly puns, name juxtapositions/combinations or pronunciation jokes
• References – literary, cultural, film, religious, historical, musical, political
• Ironic Humor – “it’s the music that makes this scene come to life” – in a scene that is starkly silent
• Observational Humor – non-joke factual references to things about the film, example, “this film has certain flaws”
• Advertising Related – product related jokes, sketches or jingles
• Music Riffs –
– song lyrics, “Hey Joe” – “Where ya goin’ with that gun in your hand”
– hummed or sung melodies – examlpe, humming batman Tv show theme, refueling music from skydivers
– Musician riffs – examlpe: singing REM songs when character onscreen resembles Michael Stipe
• Jokes
– Ironically lame or old jokes “take my wife, please”
– “inside” jokes relating to regional or cultural beliefs
• Puns
• Line Finishing – example; ‘I’m not a medium’ – – “I’m a petite”
• Drug, Hippie & 60’s – allusions, sight gags, puns & Jokes
• Alcohol & Drunk jokes
• Oblique Sexual References – including crossdressing, GLBT and gender jokes
• Crass Humor – jokes that are sorta cruel and mean
• Juvenile Humor – timeless fart, pee and poop jokes
• Playground Humor – really simple childrens jokes
• Micro-Specialized Humor – such as JFK riffs only meaningful to well read assasination conspiracy researchers
• Synonyms and Homonyms – Fun with language riffs.
• Ruthless put-downs
• Repeating Riffs
– Callback lines taken from riffed films,
– Callback jokes or lines taken from previous episodes
– Callback lines taken from non-riffed popular films or culture
• Non-Film Related Non-Riffs
– when they discuss stuff amongst themselves while in the theater,
– Also times where they ‘loose it’ and go crazy, try to escape or bawl during ruthlessly bad films
Would you make any changes? Did he leave any out?
Here’s my contribution, though I can’t claim credit for thinking it up. A good buddy of mine once described what he called the three levels of reference riffs.
• Level one is a straight reference that fully explains itself. Example: A latina is singing on screen and somebody riffs “It’s Gloria Estefan!” The lady looks like a popular culture figure, and you’ve observed that. Mildly funny (a.k.a. the “state park joke”).
• Level two makes a reference without explaining what the reference is to. Example, in the same scene: “Where’s the Miami Sound Machine?” The lady looks like a popular culture figure and you’ve observed that indirectly. Moderately funny.
• Level three, the level that makes MST3K great and separates it from what most other riffers do, takes the reference one level further by adding a witty twist: Example (from episode 204- Catalina Caper, in which the latina singer saves the mood of the party): “Hey, it’s Gloria Estefan and the Catalina Deus Ex Sound Machina!” That’s (at least) three jokes in 11 words, people.
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Let’s not forget the two types of sight gags; those with props and those without (although, I guess it can be argued that the entire shadowrama is one continuous sight gag.
Good jorb Miqel. I’ve thought a little about the catagories of jokes put into the show and wondering which type I enjoy the most/least.
Not much missing that I can think of, except I second the inclusion of sight gags as Jay mentioned.
Wow,this is a fabulous list..the only thing I can think of….I can;t,he covered it all
Yes, a very thorough job, Miqel! And I like the addition of the Three Levels.
Now we could use this as a starting point to discuss how the show evolved over the years, with various cast changes. For instance, were there more Micro-Specialized Humor riffs during the mid-Comedy Central era? Were puns more common with Mike or with Joel, or have they always been about the same? Did certain types of riffs in the above list disappear when Trace and Frank left? Which period showed the height of the Three Levels of Reference?
I enjoy all the MST eras, I have favorite eps from every season, but I’ve definitely noticed changes in the types of riffs. Don’t know that I have enough surplus geek exuberance to comment on this with any validity, but would be curious to see what others think!
Doesn’t do to talk too much about all this. Talk the whole thing away. No pleasure in anything if you mouth it up too much.
Would the in-theater “sketches,” such as the Scandawhovian Sketch, count as regional or something else entirely?
I would add the Horrified Muttering jokes to the list. These are barely audible comments, most often from Bill Corbet Crow or Mike, expressing utter dismay or confusion at what is on the screen. In DEVIL FISH for instance, when the electronics assistant is muttering her lines, Corbet sputters “What the hell?” and laughs. Perhaps the best example of this style of comment occurs in the Mr. B Natural short, where nearly half of the jokes ironically reference the sheer horror of what they are seeing.
What about straight up laughter? I think that should count.
Also, comments made directly at the movie itself, as in “Eat it, movie!” and “Movie, is there something you’d like to tell us?”
There’s the gruff voice riffs, when they use this particular kind of voice on things that can’t actually talk, animals, objects, etc.
Dolphin: “No, really. I am getting divorced, toots.”
Giant Mantis: “Remember, I mate, then I kill.”
I think additional dialog, as though spoken by the characters, should be its own riff type. Then you can break it down further using the above catagories.
Is this going to be one of those “scholarly papers” in the new MST book? If so, it should be a RIOT to read….
The only thing i can add is the “guy on the other end of the phone” riffs.
As a subcatagory of musical riffs, we can possibly ad original songs. The most famous of which is “He tried to kill me a forklift!” Then there’s “Sex for sundries,” “There’s a girl on the roof, and she thinks she’s a cat,” “Only love pads the film,(which I remember as originating in the theater before being fleshed out on the bridge), and many, many more.
@#12: And don’t forget the cousin of the guy on the other end of the phone: the guy hiding/trapped/stuffed inside something onscreen. Same principle, as we can’t see what’s going on “in there”, so the sky’s the limit, even if the movie doesn’t indicate there actually is anyone in there, like the car trunk in ‘Teenagers From Outer Space’. ‘I Accuse My Parents’ and ‘The Thing That Couldn’t Die’ have good examples them giving dialogue to guys (or their heads) hiding in closets, an option not always taken, as in ‘The Brain That Wouldn’t Die’.
So we have to have every joke labeled by midnight Sunday?? I better get started now. :lol: The only two I can think of is the riff on the font of the credits or text shown on the film and the one where they take a name from the credits and say it’s so and so brother.
I would like to submit jokes that involve “background humor”. Jokes that really don’t have anything to do with a scene or the characters in it, but do involve what is going on within the scene. Like the duck in “I Accuse My Parents”. Sometimes these jokes take more than one viewing to catch on. Which makes them that much better.
In the Amazing Collossal Episode guide, ‘The Moronis Phone Number’ in Stranded in Space would go under neighbor jokes. They made a riff based on a neighbor’s phone number … ?
Also, due to the fact that this dove-tails an idea I had for a MST3Kinfo question of the week for next week (although, we’d need a list to refference them) favorite &/or special ad lib from the show — a non-scripted, not-planned joke. The problem is, we’d need a list that tells us what jokes were ad libs because ad libs aren’t distinguishable from any thing else said in the theater, and they really don’t have room for them in Host Segments … does any one have a list on-line, by any chance?
Great list. I see no reference to obscure jokes. The ones aimed at the .01% of the audience who will actually get it. It wouldn’t necessarily be regional, just intellectual.
My favorite types of riffs, and the reason that I enjoy almost anything that gets riffed, are the ones that use the movies as inspiration to make fun of something else. For instance, this line from The Two Towers Rifftrax: Orc: “Let’s put a maggot hole in your belly!” Mike: “Taco Bell’s least successful slogan of all time!”
There’s another type that I can’t think of a concise name for, and not every movie gives them the opportunity to use:
Jump-cuts or other visual segues that allow the riffers to point out a possible connection/implication to the audience that the filmmakers didn’t intend.
The only example that comes to mind is in ‘The Pumaman’, as title-guy Tony has been rendered powerless and Valdenio decides to suicide-bomb Donald Pleasance, punching Tony out so his ineptitude can’t interfere. Because we’ve already gotten that Valdenio is the actual hero bearing Tony’s dead weight, the jump from Valdenio K.O.ing him to Valdenio sneaking around with a napsack on his back accidentally leads us to the idea, for the first 7 seconds or so until we see that it’s too small, that Valdenio might literally be hauling his useless Pumabutt around in said sack. So when Servo does a muffled immitation of Tony yelling “Hrrlp! Hellp! Let me out of here! You have no right to do this to me, I’m the PRRMRRMRRN!”, it’s debatably the funniest moment of the episode.
Other examples that didn’t culminate in one particular joke would be the idea that one of the characters in ‘Gunslinger’ was staying in the hotel’s hallway, and the jokes about the Krankor invaders actually being Chicken-men paving the way for the assertiont that their flagship was actually supposed to look like a flying roast turkey.
Sorry if this can’t really count as a category; it’s a good topic this weekend, but it’s tough.
Another type of music riff is where they sing along with a song in the movie, i.e. “Catalina Caper”: “Here’s a concept , its called harmony.”
Also, making up lyrics to the movie’s score, i.e. the”Pumaman” theme: “if you want the flavor of bacon in a dip,” “Puma man, when will he find love?” etc.
Miqel’s list is pretty thorough. I also enjoyed Sampo’s mention of the “deus ex sound machina” riff. That’s one of my all-time favorites. In a similar vein, there was the scene from “Hamlet,” when the player portraying the king came on stage and Servo (I believe it was) said, “It’s Run-DMC Everett Koop.”
Here’s another one: the flubbed riff. Trace has one in particular where he goes to say his line, immediately screws it up and proceeds to spews out a bunch of nonsense. Kevin laughs at it. I can’t remember what episode it’s from but it’s damn funny.
This may be dissecting it too much! It kind of takes the fun out of it. :neutral:
Ambiance/atmospheric riffs: those which add to the scene as it plays out on the screen, typically taking things in a direction the ineffectual director/writer/editor/producer/etc. didn’t intend, but WITHOUT reliance on simplistic crudities (farting, burping, etc.).
Examples: After one of “Monster A Go-Go”‘s five thousand jump cuts to nowhere, Crow interjects with a strong exhale followed by, “Hot dog burp.” Verbal references to burping do not qualify as crude. Uncouth perhaps, but not crude.
In the “Brain That Wouldn’t Die”, during a rather bland basement scene, the chunky faced scientist with the headless fiance turns to eyeball his crippled assistant, and Crow (I think) says simply, “Ways,” as a play on the bad doctor’s vague statement, “There are ways.”
And of course, Tom’s continuous blathering during the silent driving scene at the end of “Manos”…”Why, I haven’t sung that since Cindy’s (?) wedding!” and so on.
Am I on to something or just ON something?
Randy
Not sure if this counts but there are those riffs which in turn make one of the others smirk in the theater. Ex. Incredible strange etc. Crow remarks to the folk singer with “my anaconda don’t want none less you got buns hun” (one of those music riffs seen above) and you can hear mike quietly laugh.
I like the list, and especially the 3 levels.
I do agree that too much dissection isn’t good for comedy.
That said, I want to bring up my favorite third level riff – from Design for Dreaming, when the girl is doing the Twyla Tharp-type dance, there’s a cut to the crowd rhythmically clapping, and the riff is “Give us Cyd Charisse!”
4 words, and a great combination of the Barabbas riff coupled with the dancing. The most clever and concise thing they ever did, I think.
Awesome! I really like the 3 Levels Of References idea, the example is like the essence of why MST3K is brain-slappingly funny.
#4,adaptadog – I think the show definitely had more clusters of certain types of riffs depending on the lineup. I was watching ‘Racket Girls’ and ‘Angels Revenge’ when writing the riffs-list, it probably would have been a bit different if I had been watching stuff from season 1 & 2.
The call for scholarly / academic research papers on MST3K ( https://www.mst3kinfo.com/?p=2608 ) is what got me thinkng about this. Maybe the list could be helpful in illustrating the biodiversity of humor that makes the show appealing to such a wide range of people.
Good call, Sampo! I’ve often used “Gloria Estefan and the Catalina Deus Ex Sound Machina!” as an example of a multi-level riff.
A few years back, I was trying to categorize every kind of riff in order to help my fellow Wikipedians choose different kinds of examples to include in MST3K articles (the main one and samples for each MSTied film in those film articles where they exist). The list got so long, I gave up on it. But maybe someone here might want to combine my old list with Miqel’s and the other suggestions to form a master list. Anyway, here’s my never-quite-completed list:
=================
MST3K Quote Types
=================
Cultural riffs
* Entertainment
** Music, from “Pagliacci” & “Die Fledermaus” to Thelonius Monk to Eric Carmen to Paula Cole
** TV (“Elizabeth, I’m coming!”; “lungs aching for air”; “two hard-boiled eggs”)
** Movies (well-known: Wizard of Oz; obscure: “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!”; “Is it safe?”)
** Literature (excellent: Shakespeare; trite: “dark & stormy night”; pulp romance: Joyce Carol Oates)
** Commercials & PSAs (“thought you were Dale”, Folger’s Crystals; “start seeing motorcycles”, “duck & cover”)
* Social riffs (Grandpa setting his VCR; political correctness)
* Historical riffs (French-resistance cycle gang [0816]; “invade Manchuria”)
* Political riffs (John Sununu’s haircuts; Republican miserliness; Clinton’s sexcapades)
* Childhood riffs (“I know a wiener man”; “pants’d me & run me around the track”)
* Miscellaneous erudite
Film industry
* Fourth-wall actor violation
** famous-actor stereotypes (Palance’s menacing delivery; Karloff’s Dracula; GI’s Skipper, Professor)
** actors “objecting” to scenes & dialog (“Hey, look — you wrote this crap!”)
** actors try to escape their roles (Palance wanting to kill agent)
** actors overshadowed by relatives (“My nephew made ‘Mighty Ducks’!”)
* Production terms: foley, jump cuts, leaders, …
* Continuity errors
* Taking advantage of film skips
* Inconsistent lighting (day for night)
* Cardboard sets (muslin-covered cave walls, shaking walls during fights)
* Indecipherable dialog (“Idiot Control”)
* Critics: Leonard Maltin
* Movie scores
Scandalizing humor
* “Areas”, “batches”
* “A little something for the ladies!”
* Fart jokes
Puns & other wordplay
* Basic punning
* English language wordplay (“What’s the subject matter?” “You’re right; subject doesn’t matter.”)
* Foreign language wordplay (“Comment vous-appelez vous?” “Je m’appelle “Bite Me”!”)
* Visual puns (often not good for quotes)
Quoting earlier episodes
* “Hi-keeba!”
* “Ha ha ha ha! You’re stuck here!”
* “He tampered in God’s domain.”
Mid-West and Minneapolis-area riffs
* Locations (Circle Pines)
* Stations & personalities (KTMA, True Don Bleu)
* Local sights
* Local businesses (“a ___ of savings at Menard’s!”)
Miscellaneous cleverness
* Recursive: watching people watching a movie in the movie
* Adding alien item to list of examples (a la “Star Trek”)
Songs
* “Fugitive Alien Song” (schmaltzy medley mocking character silliness)
* “When I Held Your Brain in My Arms” (brain anatomy puns)
* Going off on a tangent (“Train Song”, “Canada Song”)
* Numerous exaggerations of character, plot points (“Tibby”, “Tubular Boobular Joy”, etc.)
* Seriously good but whimsical tunes (“United Servo Academy Men’s Chorus”, “Where, O Werewolf”)
* Mock bands based on movie (“Santa Klaws”)
Themes
* Middle-aged teenagers
* Railing kill
* Sleeeep!
* Jehhhhd!
* B-movie “helpless woman” syndrome
* Unbearable whiteness of ’50s cinema being
Mysterious riffs
* “She’s weird, which results in creativity.”
* “Take a look at these… HANDS!”
* “Football practice!”
By the way, if anyone wants to see the old Wikipedia discussion on this topic, it’s at [[Talk:Mystery Science Theater 3000/Archive 1#Quotes section is excessive]]. Nothing particularly fascinating there; just FYI.
I can shed a bit of light on your quote “Take a look at these hands!” It’s actually a musical quote from a song on The Talking Heads’ album Remain in Light. I don’t remember the particular song, perhaps “Born Under Punches.” It’s a great album.
Thanks, Stickboy! It is indeed from “Born Under Punches”. (As soon as you said “Talking Heads”, I was sure David Byrne’s unusual style of expression would explain the odd cadence, and I confirmed it with a sample from All-Music Guide.) To paraphrase Johnny Longbow from “Track of the Moon Beast”, one more MST3K mystery… solved.
When did this misuse of “loose” for “lose” really start to take hold? Because it’s driving me stark, raving mad.
Good list, though.
Although it’s not the main point of the topic, I must admit that the music riffs are my favorites. The fact that Tom makes the majority of the jokes at the underscore’s expense is probably why he’s my favorite character. I’m a musician myself and am always painfully aware of ALL the music around me. Tom seems to be a kindred spirit.
There are some jokes where they sort of riff or comment on each other’s jokes. For instance, there was one that went something like this:
Crow: Wow, this is getting downright Dickensesque.
Mike: Yes, it’s so “Dickensesque,” it’s almost DICKENSIAN.
And the one I mentioned last week:
Crow: Oh, is the great [whoever] going to [whatever]?
Servo: Oh, is the great CROW going to use that joke EVERY WEEK?!
You just know those started out as writing-room comments from one of the Brains to another.
This category might also include things like the extended punfests they’d have in Seasons Zero and One– they quickly become puns based on each other’s comments, and not on the movie.
There’s one from Undersea Kingdom, Episode One that starts out as a joke on the movie, but becomes a self-perpetuating string of stream of consciousness. Joel caps it off with the criticism, “That’s a Swiss Army joke.”
Or there’s the more “sketch-like” example from Blood Waters of Dr. Z, where Mike and Crow disallow Servo’s “Catfish Hunter” joke, and Servo gets all sulky.
That last one, especially, shades into what you could call “MST3K character-based humor”: the joke involves what we know about the MST3K characters. Like, a man makes a pass, the woman slaps him, and Servo says, “Look familiar, Mike?”
And the occasional self-reference joke:
“It looks like our logo.” “I don’t think you guys are supposed to know about that.”
“Dr. Erhardt, no!” “So THAT’S what happened to him!”
“Hey, it’s Brain Guy in high school.”
And the deep self-reference joke– one that involves the real-world existence of the show.
“No one can find it.” “Oh, it’s on the Comedy Channel.”
“A movie based on a TV show? It’ll never work.”
“How long you been saving up that sight gag, Mike?” “Oh, not long. You know… eight years.” (In that case, the timescale indicates it’s Mike Nelson the real-life person talking.)
I always enjoy the riffs where they talk as guys trying to pick up women in unusual situations. For example, in the beginning of Angels Revenge, when the blonde chick goes up to the tower and starts fighting with the guy, Crow says, “You wanna get coffee sometime?” :lol:
I don’t remember how frequent these kinds of riffs were, but I do remember that line in particular being said a few times before Angels Revenge.
Okay, I certainly don’t mind discussing particular topics in regards to MST3K, but this is carrying it to a ridiculous extreme. As #5 Robert Wilson mentioned, talking up the show too much takes away alot of the pure enjoyment it brings. I’d rather just sit back and let the entertainment do its thing, rather than treating it as a dead frog in an elementary school science classroom.
But that’s just me.
About “Level One” being the “state park joke”… As I recall, the thing about the original state park joke wasn’t just that it did look like it was filmed in a state park, but that they figured it may well have been filmed in an actual state park. So saying “It’s Gloria Estefan!” when it clearly isn’t, is already a step above a “state park joke.” That sort of joke, you could call Level Zero: simple observation. Like, say, when Burgess Meredith’s credit came up in SST: Death Flight, and one of them simply noted, “TV’s Penguin.”
Has anyone mentioned the “Intentionally Random and Weird Statement?” In one (I cannot remember what episode) someone says, “You know what’s strange?” and one of the guys says, “I tape grasshoppers to my back”.
So funny and strange. I guess that could be a bullet point.
Great List!!
I would change the category “Musician riffs” since they don’t just do this with musicians but they do it with people who look like anyone famous.
The “Are you ready for some football?” guy is an example.
Maybe call it “Celebrity riffs?”
I’m thoroughly enjoying reading all of the in-depth observations being offered here, and I humbly bow to all those with a level of analytical abilities that most assuredly dwarf my own. Very enlightening and thought provoking. However, I’m afraid I have to join ranks with the minority on this one.
To disect, categorize, and inventory each and every individual quip to within an inch of it’s life runs the serious risk of destroying…okay, I’ll say it…the “MAGIC” that makes up that intangable element which transforms the show into the unique entertainment experience it is. Sort of a “whole being greater than the sum of it’s parts” type of situation. Just my personal point of view, but…even though he’s fully dressed, if you squint and stare at the Emperor long and hard enough, you can eventually end up convincing even yourself that he’s not wearing any clothes. Hmmmm…not sure where I was going with that….would that last observation be classified as a “Level 2” or “Level 3”?
My head hurts….so, on that note, I think I’ll just shutup now…..
oops…misspelled “dissect” (for starters…)
guess my fingers were typing faster than my brain. what an idiot…
Monty Python riffs: Yes, they are in a category all by themselves. You would be hard-pressed to find an episode with not one single MP riff. Believe me, when it comes to the taxonomy of riffs, I’d know.
what about location jokes? like when theres a wide shot of where a charicter(s) is and its supposed to be one place but it looks like another. “vacation at beatiful ground zero”
or like in the brain that wouldnt die, every time the camera got a close up on that doctor guy it looked like he was surronded by nothing.
mike and the bots riff “ahh im in another dimention” “woooo wooo woo woooo wooo” “ahhh help me! ahhh!”
did we cover that yet?
“this is death vally days, the drivers either missing or hes dead”
Yeah, this isn’t something you’d want to think about while watching the show. :lol:
I’ts interesting though, to see the wide variety of ways they approach the task of saying funny things during a movie.
I don’t think there could be any ‘final’ list of riff-types. It gets as detailed as how deeply one wants to categorize it.
The field has been pretty well covered. But I have noticed (or overlooked) one category of Riff that pops up every now and then. I’d call it the False Start.
Example: In one of the Gamera features, the camera started panning up from a foot up what appeared to be a potentially sexy leg.
Joel:(in an almost leering tone)Say.
When the camera shot gets half way up the person, it’s revealed to be one of the obnoxious child actors… and a boy at that.
Joel: (now disappointed and a bit ashamed) Oh…
The Toblerone Effect #37 – A-men! The oceans are simply water to a diver. The planets are simply rocks to an astronomer. Cracker Jacks are simply annoying to a kid looking for the free tattoo inside the box. Let not man, by his foolishness, diminish from the blessings of the Lord.
Wait, what the hell am I talking about?
I have to agree that this all becomes so incredibly unfunny when you categorize it. I won’t finish reading the list, lest I conjure it when I’m watching: “Hey, that’s ‘ironic humor’– check.” :???:
Worst. Discussion thread. Ever.
I’m really not seeing why this thread is somehow destroying the magic of MST3K for some people but, if you don’t like the discussion thread, why don’t you suggest one? I, for one, still want a thread about what you’d put on a MST3K DVD box set if you had the choice.