The Chicago Cubs’ recent World Series win got me thinking. I recalled all the jokes made by the MST3K gang about the Cubs being perpetual losers.
Now those jokes are no longer as relevant. I began to think of other memorably-dated riffs.
There was that joke about the high gas prices on a shot of a gas station in episode 904 – Werewolf. That episode was seen in 1998, when gas prices were much lower than today. I cringe whenever I hear that joke now.
What are your favorite examples of dated riffs and jokes on MST3K?
There was one a few weeks ago in the episode guide: “Marilu Henner is replacing Vicki!” To be honest I couldn’t even remember who “Vicki” was (it was Vicki Lawrence, thank you internet.)
What’s your pick?
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Submitted for the reader’s approval: TV is weirder now than it ever was before.
Exhibit A – Reality shows, which is also exhibits B, C, D …
Exhibit AA – 24 Hour “News”. Do we really need to know about some Kardashian’s sofa cushions choices?
Exhibit AB – Shopping channels. They were just getting started when Our Show was on. Now they have multiplied like zebra mussels in a new lake. You can buy a pocket knife with Vanna White on it from a guy who sounds like he starred in Deliverance at two in the morning.
at one time, Donald Trump joke.
Great analogy. And I happen to be hungry. A comedic “Golden Corral”? Ok, not THAT hungry.
And yeah, certainly there are some that will always be meaningful to folks, because they refer to things that are part of the mainstream of collective consciousness and will remain culturally relevant: major historical & political figures, cultural cinematic & literary classics, etc. Other refs will I guess fade into obscurity over time, quickly or more slowly. Ultimately when old timers like me die off I guess you young’uns will have to use your “wikipedia” to try and decipher those dated riffs. (And by the way, GET OFF MY LAWN!)
But regardless, the right people will always get it. ;-)
What’s the episode where somebody makes a quick phone call, and Servo on the “other end” puts in “Moanakabisae? Fiji?”?
Oh, did we want to KILL that AT&T long-distance ad–Right next to all those MCI 10-10 collect-call ads.
Yeah, as others have intimated, I don’t find these jokes to date the show, necessarily. They made plenty of jokes about Jerry Lewis, and The Marx Brothers, and Joe Besser, and old-time TV shows, and and scores of other people/events/things that were ancient even when MST3K was filming. Those references didn’t date the show, they just made it more special to those of us who understood the references. People in the future will likewise get the same satisfaction for getting a joke about John Sununu as I did getting a joke about Manimal.
That’s exactly the “outdated riff” I first thought of :)
It’s in Pod People.
Also, years later, I have finally learned precisely what the Fijian is actually saying in that commercial: http://dangerousminds.net/comments/well_i_am_now_the_mystery_of_this_28-year-old_att_commercial_is_finally_sol
More specifically, it’s about 42:45 into the show, just as the campers are carrying their friend into Tommy’s house.
I’m surprised nobody mentioned this.
During the Comedy Central era, there was a running gag where one of the robots would accidentally reference a “dead” celebrity, only for Joel or Mike to point out, “He’s not dead!”
For example in “Santa Claus Conqures the Martians”, Joel presents a Rudolph tape and Crow exclaims, “Burl Ives lives!” Only for Joel to correct him, “He’s not dead!”
Another example from ‘Laserblast’…
Crow: “So, that’s how Roddy McDowall died?”
Mike: “He’s not dead!”
Crow: “Oh….”
During one of the racing scenes in “Wild Rebels,” Joel asks if anyone’s seen the new Tom Cruise movie — presumably “Days of Thunder.”
Not a riff, but the host segment about Faith Popcorn is a painful reminder of how much I hated that name.
I’m gonna commit a “party foul” here and reference a Rifftrax riff from “Planet of the Dinosaurs”, but Kevin had a beautiful riff that concerned “downtrodden men in blue uniforms” that “must seem all-to-familiar to anyone who’s been to a Kansas City Royals game”. Of course, back-to-back WS appearances and one WS victory make this a pleasantly outdated riff. :-)
“Let’s… go… Salv-y!”
Yeah, the blackout on K01 and K02’s release was strange. They do the same thing for the Rifftrax backer rewards, but kinda makes sense as it’s Rifftrax and not MST3K. Erhardt was the one who posted the majority of the stuff about the Revival and even that seemed like it was a bit of a token effort (granted, it’s not like everyone who reads mst3kinfo *didn’t* already know about the Kickstarter) of passing the news along rather than cheerleading from the sidelines.
I’m really thinking Sampo’s getting ready to retire, maybe Erhardt as well. They’ve been an active part of the fan community for over 25 years and if they’re wanting to pass the torch, that’s well within their right. Let’s be perfectly honest: our beloved Satellite News pretty much a Web 1.0 relic at this point with very little content and the guys have worked for over 2 decades in the fandom nonstop. If they’d like to sunset and move on/let someone else take over, there’s nothing wrong with that and we are super thankful for all their years of service.
Maybe they want to gracefully exit, maybe they just have other stuff going on. But yeah, there’s been times where I’ve got my MST3K Info from places other than…mst3kinfo.com and that’s been a little strange.
Yeah, but…there wasn’t even a discussion thread for the Turkey Day marathon (or the Top 100 MST3K episodes).
It’s kinda like “FUN AND EXCITING STUFF IS HAPPENING IN THE WORLD OF MST3K, AND BY GOLLY, WE’RE NOT GOING TO TALK ABOUT IT!!!”
The “Blowing in the Wind” reference isn’t outdated. That’s a well-known song that transcends generations. Likewise, the Urkel jokes, while the reference is old, are not really outdated. If you get it, it’s not outdated.
Ted Kennedy jokes? There was never a bad Ted Kennedy joke, just a bad Ted Kennedy. People know who he was and that he killed a woman. It’s not outdated.
Robert Downey, Jr? Again, people know who that is. Therefore, the jokes aren’t outdated.
To me, outdated would be something with a short shelf life in regards to people knowing what it is. These and many of the other things listed have a long shelf life.
“Cathy is trying on a bathing suit and saying ‘Ack’!! ”
Gare
An observation related to this topic –
Are Shakespeare’s plays outdated? People still quote him centuries later and the relevance of his work is still universal. Like Our Show, relating to Shakespeare sometimes requires effort and sometimes comes instantly.
“In truth, I am in the company of yonder fusty clay-brained puttock!” Ha! Who among us does not know exactly what The Bard was saying? When Joel refers to The Mads as “The Captain and Tennille” does even the youngest viewer not understand it is a soft spoken insult? So let us go forth, dear friends, “into the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns” (except on Star Trek).
I just remembered this one from “Prince of Space”
Leave the children alone
You hear that, Jerry Seinfeld?
His second wife was 18 when they wed.
It’s not really outdated, since the band is still popular [I still hear them on the radio almost every day], but every time I hear the “let’s listen to something from Pearl Jam!” joke in Manos always first strikes me as odd as I remember that Pearl Jam was a rather newly-popular band at that time in the 90s.
Is it actually weird at all? No; I just forget that they weren’t looking at it with contemporary eyes sometimes. It’s like if you heard your grandma make some off-handed mention of World War II, and after a minute you remember that she was actually there. Okay, not like that at all actually. But you get me.
I probably should be able to think of more completely outdated riffs; since I’m younger, I could just include about any riff I didn’t understand. They all seem to have dropped out of the back of my brain at the moment, though.
As the MST guys said in interviews, they tried not to use very topical references, so as to avoid dating the episodes. It’s arguable if all of them “date” the show. A reference to Morrissey might still be funny, but the Crash Test Dummies bit Would be dated. Gilligan’s Island is 50 yrs old, but you can still reference it, while “The Heights”, “Grace Under Fire” “Jesse Camp”, “Darva Conger” or “Charlene Tilton” would be head scratchers for anyone under 25.
She was just his girlfriend…
http://defamer.gawker.com/remember-when-38-year-old-jerry-seinfeld-dated-a-17-yea-1714153938
Sometime in the Sci-Fi years Mike and the bots were musing about celebrity relationships. Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love were mentioned. No longer current, except as a murder conspiracy theory.
“Oh, it’s Senator Packwood!”