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Update: RiffTrax Live Reviews ‘n’ StuffUpdate: John Scott Lewinski also offers a review.
John Sinnott of DVD Talk reviews the show last night. David McKendry of Fangoria interviews Mike about the show. And John Serba of MLive.com gives a brief review and posts the unriffed versions of three of last night’s shorts. The comments section in this post is being used to discuss the show. 120 Replies to “Update: RiffTrax Live Reviews ‘n’ Stuff”Commenting at Satellite News
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WHAT A BLAST! My brother and I had tears streaming down our faces the entire time… funniest damn thing I’ve ever seen. Our theater was just outside of Hartford, CT, an to our surprise it was almost entirely packed! We got there 2 minutes late and were forced to sit in the third row cause the rest of the theater was full. God knows why people are complaining about Weird Al’s contribution… he was a guest riffer – lighten up! So he didn’t sing a song… who cares?! He killed as a riffer.
Can’t wait till the next one :) A+++++++
My thoughts:
– Attendance was down considerably compared to the Plan 9 riff. Goes to show that even a b movie like Plan 9 will draw more of a crowd than “Here are a bunch of misc X-Mas shorts!”
– The sound was considerably worse than the Plan 9 riff. I could still hear 99% of the riffs but it was still hard on the ears.
– A agree that Weird Al should have done a song or two. After all, that’s kinda what he’s known for. Besides, it just felt plain awkward to see him run out, do one short, and leave immediately afterward. Kind of a waste of a guest appearance if you ask me.
– The toy commercials were okay but not great by any means. I would have much rather seen some parody commercials like the great ones that SomethingAwful.com made for the Plan 9 riff.
– I think that the riffing quality was much higher for Plan 9 than the shorts. It seems that the rest of the people in my theater would agree since there seemed to be much more laughter during the Plan 9 riff than this one.
– After the show that they put on for the Plan 9 riff (Host (Even though she was horrible), musical guest, parody commercials, etc) this one just seemed very bare bones. So, that was disappointing.
– Lastly, the final gift/Kevin in the horrifying Santa suit skit could have done without the 45 minutes of watching Mike and Bill hurl.
All that being said I did have a good time. It was funny and there were many worse ways that I could have spent my Wednesday night. But I really do hope that they improve the next live riff if they expect me to shell out $12.50 again.
Oh, and 2 of the old toy commercials blew my mind — I remember Gaylord and I remember Jimmy Jet being sold at our local Food Fair (only in food stores!). In fact, I would have killed for a Jimmy Jet when I was a tot.
What saved the end bit for me was that they pixelated the “vomiting.” Made it more humorous and less gross.
And yes, they played Rifftones and Weird Al songs for about 20 minutes to a half hour before the show, along with fake “movie trivia.” Easy to miss if you weren’t paying attention, but set the tone wonderfully for what was to come.
And I agree, there is a warmth and rapport between the Rifftrax guys that I just don’t sense among the CT gang, funny as they can be. I buy all the CT stuff as it comes out, but when it comes to repeated viewings of recent material, seems like I always reach for Rifftrax.
Went to the show in Flint, MI last night- there were probably about 30 of us total- agreed that the Rudolph remark got the most laughs of the night.
It was a great show- it is so nice to see something in 2009- I have been re-watching all the MST eps. since mid-summer so fresh riffs were welcome.
Does anyone know the site where I can go and get digital goods? Just wondering.
Show was great, pretty much constantly hilarious. I expected Weird Al would do a song, but I guess they were going more for the “celebrity guest riffer” approach.
The dingalings looked really familiar, either i’ve surpressed memories of those commercials from 40 years ago or one of my friends had them at the time. There’s a whole website about them at http://www.topperdingalings.com
Who’da thought a Rudolph cartoon could be so suggestive? Up till that point the best line from the actual movies was “Ann likes it more than dick”.
It’s all down to taste. We thought this Xmas Shorts show was much funnier than the Plan 9 From Outer Space show. Much funnier jokes overall and more consistently funny throughout. Inspired comedy with a good, spontaneous feel. Even though it is mostly scripted it didn’t feel that way, there was real synergy between the material and the jokes. Great show.
On a related topic, we own 10 Rifftrax DVDs and Plan 9, while amusing, is nowhere near the funniest there either. I love Plan 9 as a movie by itself and have owned it on VHS by itself and then again with the Mike alone riff and now with Rifftrax, but it’s not their best work either live or in studio. I liked the Shorts DVDs better and the funniest by far is House On Haunted Hill of those where you can buy the complete DVD with movie and Rifftrax together.
Saw the show at Golf Mill Mall in Niles, IL. Probably about 50-75 people there. Sound and video were great, and the crowd really got into it.
During the Pork short, when the three singing guys were suddenly in the kitchen, complete with chefs’ hats…did anyone else really expect a Three Stooges reference? It would have been perfect.
99% pure gold. Dang, there are some weird Christmas shorts out there….with betophatted spider dogs. And Santa sitting in a suburban living room easy chair.
Agree that Weird Al’s participation was a bit brief and perfunctory. And I certainly could have used less pixillated barfing in the end video. (Is Kevin coming out of the closet? Note also the “Gaylord reminded us of you.”)
Generally a great time, I went with some friends, my girlfriend, and my Dad. The Rudolph line was hilarious, but so was the ‘spy camera’ ding-a-ling (WHY did the camera have to pop out *there*?)
I felt, however, disappointed that Weird Al was severely under-utilized. (Then again, I appear to be in a minority among MSTies that loves Jonathan Coulton, and enjoyed his appearance last time). Since they were advertising him as a special guest, and since they had a musical guest last time, I naturally assumed this meant he’d be playing a song or two, and kept waiting for the break in which they would bring him out for this song. But there was nothing, not even him joining them for a rifftones song like last show.
I was glad they ditched the ‘host’ from last show, however. She felt awkwardly out of place and had zero stage presence and didn’t really capture the MSTie vibe at all.
Overall, I think I enjoyed the Plan 9 riffing more, but I still had a great time and look forward to the next Rifftrax live event.
Sampo,
At my theater they DID put on more music at the end. My group actually stuck around listening to about three songs, (one was about sparkly vampires, and they also played a Weird Al song).
The audience at my theater was a bit lukewarm, I would have preferred a crowd roaring with laughter, but a few groups of people did laugh quite a bit.
And I agree, I hated that Christmas skit when they first unleashed it on the internet last Christmas (or was it two years ago?) It felt very out of character for them, and relied too much on gross-out humor. I mean, I could live with Kevin in drag, that was amusing, but the vomit was just nauseating and overdone. Not funny, guys!
(The shorts were, of course, varying levels of hilarious.)
I’m very pleased that my reaction seems to be the minority but I very reluctantly have to agree with #39. I’m a huge rifftrax fan and have seen almost all their work. I thought this show was one of their weaker efforts. The Plan 9 show had much stronger riffing.
FLY! FLY! FLY!
The “Christmas Dream” short was worth the price of admission alone. Nightmarish stop action of a burlap doll straight out of “9”. Can’t beat it.
I have to echo what a lot of people said:
– The use (or lack of) Weird Al was strange
– The sound wasnt the greatest…although I guess I can blame the quality of the shorts for some of this
– Loved the “pre-show” with movie trivia, quotes etc. Big hot in my theater
– The sketch at the end was odd. It was one joke and not really their sytle in my opinion.
– I actually think the show was too long. At the very least it could have used something to break up the riffing. Now I know why the host segments work. They could have taken out a short or two (especially the unfunny swimming one) and I would have been fine.
Overall great show and my theater was full. My friends and I agree the last show was better and a movie (rather than shorts) just works better.
Also I cant get the freebies. I kinda forgot the code. was it santashop or toyland or something?? Help !
!LIVE DVD! !LIVE DVD! !LIVE DVD! did i mention i would like a !LIVE DVD! !LIVE DVD! !LIVE DVD! like they did with plan 9 they riffing is so much better when you can see their reactions never laughed so hard in my life.
toyshop sir http://www.rifftrax.com/toyshop the rhapsody short is in their (you can tell those werent the exact timing of the riffs for the live short reading) their timing is priceless live
I was underwhelmed by this show too and enjoyed the Plan 9 show much better, even though the host was bad and the musical interludes dragged the show to a halt. My complaints about last night’s show are: just not as funny as Plan 9, the show needed a movie or a longer piece of material like us MSTies are used to instead of all shorts, too much vomit at the end (I think the idea was OK but it went on too long). Also the show was not long enough for paying $12.50 and they need to have a tape delayed show for the Mountain time zone, 6pm is too early for a movie. I think I’ll pass on the next live event and listen to what people think about it before maybe getting it on DVD. For attendance wonderers, the only theater showing this in Boise, Idaho was about 60% full.
Hi-freaking-larious.
That was a blast. This time out, the show was at the Bridge in Marina Del Rey – and if you know the place I’m talking about, it’s like the Buckingham Palace of movie theatres. My first thought was, “Man, the guys are moving up in the world…”
The music playing before and after the event, I assume, was a mix of Weird Al’s stuff and songs Rifftrax has done for previous films – “Carnival of Souls”, “Twilight”, etc. Bill’s rendition of “Sparkling Vampires” had us all in stitches long before the actual live show started. (I MUST have that song!) But we didn’t have any Gloria Estefan – that must some regional/chain thing.
I’m sorry to hear about other theater’s having technical problems. That blows. Ours, however, had no such probs. The sound was excellent and we didn’t miss a thing – except for the same three riffs we ALL missed during the laugh riot in “Rudolph.” For the record, that moment may not have been caused by a “riff” per se – a joke about Santa saying “I need you tonight” while he passionately seizes the tiny reindeer by his slender shoulders while liying in bed – but I think what made it so poundingly funny was Kevin’s audible reaction – “WHAT?!?!” I think one guy laughed so hard he may have actually had a coronary. Oh well, Merry Christmas!
The “Christmas Rhapsody” short with that “no account” pine tree was perfect MST3K material. Mike, Bill and Kevin are doing a great job with Rifftrax, but all I could think of is what Tom Servo and Crow would have made of that no account little tree. I’ve never imagined a tree could be MINCING.
Good times….good times….
I saw it the same place as Plan 9 and the crowd was about the same, two-thirds full. The riffing was perfect and the shorts completely psychotic. I don’t know which was more of a drug trip, the Christmas Dream or Rudolph.
I agree with some of the others here, Sadly Weird Al was a disappointment. I love Weird Al, but he really didn’t do anything. My only other problem was the end credits to the live show. That entire ‘Gift Exchange’ sequence could have been left out. It soured what had been a wonderful experience.
On a brighter note, I nearly fell out of my seat during the ‘Dingalings’ commercial and the rest of the show was great. I really hope that they put this one out on DVD soon.
why all the complaints about the show being too short? by my watch it ended at 9:36 PM (EST, of course), meaning the performance was about 95 minutes long – roughly the length of an episode of MST3K (and longer than the MST3K Movie!), a standard hollywood comedy or a rock show (barring self-indulgent jam bands, of course). personally, i think another short would have been too much of a good thing.
I’ll echo what many other people have said.
Overall, the show was hilarious, with only the swimming short turning up as kind of a dud. Christmas Rhapsody and Christmas (fever) Dream were the shorts that stood out to me.
While it was great to have Weird Al riffing with the crew, I also expected to have him sing one of his X-mas songs (or at least do another short). I mean, it’s Weird Al. As a big fan of Al, I was disappointed that he didn’t do more.
A+! Rifftrax LIVE was great, great stuff. I missed the last LIVE event, but hell or high water wasn’t keeping me from this. The Lloyd 10 Cinema in Portland OR was almost a sell out; my group of four had to split up to find seats (we were a couple minutes late, first short already started). The crowd loved it, from start to finish. My girlfriend, who is not a big MST person, was almost hysterically laughing the entire time.
The “David Lynch Christmas” short was creepy great (“Santa, how much longer do we have to look at these trains?” “Look at it! LOOK AT IT!!”), as was the weird ass “Santa can control your dreams and make a creepy doll dance and destroy your room” short. The final animated Rudolph short was a real winner, the “I need you tonight” line by Santa, delivered to a in-bed Rudolph, was a crowd killer. Also, the “gifts” the fellas gave each other just kept getting better and better, progressing from “Gaylord, the dog you can walkity walk” to the new classic, “The Ding a-Lings”.
“Watch out, here comes Big Ding! And who’s that going up his elevator?”
Ding-a-Lings is such an awesome piece of WTF that it, in all its 30 second glory, is reason enough to buy this event if/when it comes out on DVD. Oh, yeah, and the “life of a tree” short was awesome too. “I am a tree, small and of no account.” Who knew trees could be emo??
The short that fell flatest for me was the swimming short. Never really took off and really was just mediocre. “Three Magic Words” (aka: the Pork short) was okay too, kinda hard to tell what the hell was going on though. The Weird Al appearance was almost unnoticeable, which is a good thing, but why bother having him for such a short appearance? At least he didn’t sing. . . .
Good times were had by all! My friends and I came home and watched “Santa Claus” to continue the holiday fun.
Thanks Rifftrax crew, you have manged to make Christmas a little creepier and a little more icky.
Awesome show. Best live show I’ve seen from either the RT or CT guys, hands-down. A Weird Al song would have been nice, but he did fine.
I’ve been able to find almost all of the shorts they riffed online, but does anyone know where one can find that “Three Magic Words” pork short, unriffed? YouTube, Google Video, etc. come up dry.
FLYFLYFLY…. you rockrockrock,
Thanks for posting the link to the freebies. I caught it only at the end of the movie when it flashed on the screen and promptly forgot it thanks to cold medicine.
BTW: for people commenting about the Kevin skit at the end of the movie: That’s an old YouTube one they posted last year. It’s been around for a while. I think they tacked it on just to have something else at then end.
BTW: my girlfriend shelled out for the DeLux seating for the event with the giant chairs and food vouchers. The total for our seats was about $30 apiece. We’d pay it again in second….
As a collector of old TV commercials, I was delighted to see the toy commercials utilized
by Rifftrax. The Gaylord battery-operated basset-hound was made by Ideal back in 1960 or 61 (“and all it needs is $20 worth of batteries!”)
Jimmy Jet was made by Delux (circa 1964), which only sold toys in FOOD Markets (Rifftrax made a good joke about that). I remember seeing those toys on top of the frozen food display cabinets. Never got anything from Delux, their toys just seemed very cheap.
Finally, the Ding-a-Lings (date unknown) were a group of very cheap-looking robots, but I really don’t recall ever seeing them advertised on TV. The spot that Rifftrax used was from a 10 minute Toy Convention presentation film. Again..I don’t recall ever seeing it advertised on TV..maybe I just missed it.
If I my, on the note of Al…
Al was also a guest at the official Transformers convention this year, due to his voice role in the last cartoon series (hilarious, by the way). There was no concert or songs from him, he did his panel, signed autographs, wandered a little at the parties.
Al… is not exactly the cheapest guest to obtain. And a performance costs more. Because I swear it seems like all the man DOES is perform. He’s got a touring schedule that would kill lesser performers. And the way he performs is very carefully scripted and timed. I don’t think he’s ever really been good at improv, off-the-cuff stuff. (Let’s face it, with what he does as well as he does, he doesn’t really have to be.) so… yeah, I wasn’t surprised by Al’s role in the performance. Was still really glad to see him, though, and if he DID get butts in seats, the GOOD.
As for the rest… what can I say. Hurt myself laughing, as did the rest of the group I went with. Those old shorts prove there’s a razor-thin line between “whimsical” and “fever-dream nightmare”.
Such a great show, non-stop laughs! Announce the next one ASAP!
I saw it at the Westgate AMC in Glendale, AZ and my buddy and I shared the theater with maybe 20 other people. We got there 5 minutes late and the show was already halfway through the first short, they must have really cut to the chase this time.
I enjoyed this format much more than “Plan 9”, although I think a Weird Al performance at the end would have been a fitting finale. (Dear Rifftrax: I’m not against music for the live events, just not in between the riffing where it disrupts the momentum of the show.)
There were so many great riffs:
“Keep Looking!”
“Your reward shall be a new mini-dress”
-Anytime Kevin did the “Evil Santa Laugh”
“He couldn’t withdraw money from the bank. Why? No account…I’m sorry”
I haven’t laughed that much in a movie theater since…ever(Hollywood, are you listening?) When “King Ding” raised the other robot into his “elevator” I lost it.
Can’t wait to get this on DVD so I can make it a holiday tradition. Good job, gang!
I hope they turn around a DVD release soon, even if it will be “out of season” by the time it hits the street. I don’t think I want to wait until next Christmas to get a copy!
Oh, god this was good…
The best thing any of the MST folks have done post-MST…yeah, that good. I was actually in physical pain after it was all over from laughing so hard. Really. Hard to pick a favorite short, but it might be the “tree of no account” though really they were all on equal level.
Oh, god, the Max Fleischer Rudolph…they didn’t even need to riff when Santa got in to bed with Rudolph and said…oh, I won’t spoil it for anyone.
This time the the Union Square theatre got the sound right at least.
The ending is really really over the top. I kind of thought of it as a tribute to The Meaning of Life, and actually really liked it. But I’m sick. That is well known.
When this comes out on DVD it will become a Xmas tradition for me alongside the MST Xmas eps.
And, guy in Wisconsin, the show will be fine for your children. There are absolutely NO NIPPLES exposed at all times. Just a few decapitations, a lung graphically ripped out of screaming girl, about 1,000 extras gunned down in cold blood, plus a few graphic lingering shots of dead mutilated bodies a la CSI with follow up autopsies in loving close-up. In other words absolutely clean and wholesome entertainment by AMERICAN standards. Enjoy!
haven’t been a huge rifftrax fan, but went to the show because it sounded like fun.
I had a great time. This definitely gave the RT crew some points in my book. The first thing of theirs that I’ve actually enjoyed and it blew me away.
Amazing show! Rifftrax is really firing on all cylinders lately. I hope they continue doing the live shows. Honestly…I’ve enjoyed them even more than the experience of seeing MST3K: The Movie in the theaters.
It’s a great time to be a MSTie.
Could not make it Wednesday night so I cancelled band practice for tonight (Thursday) so I could attend the encore.
and guess what….the theater informed me they were n o t having the encore! geez am I n o t happy :cry:
Boy, a short with Johnny Weismuller and not one Tarzan yell? What gives? I went with my dad and had a blast. I, too, was a bit perplexed by the minimal usage of the President of the Pork Council (“Weird Al”) since his participation was so heavily promoted. I would have liked to see a perfromance of him and the Rifftones, though not a set of his own. It would have worked better than that painfully unfunny vomit-a-thon (the only part of the show we didn’t enjoy). At one point near the end of the show a woman and her 6-8 year-old child came into the theater from next door to see what all the laughter was about. Good times.
I had such a good time last night I went back tonight. Unfortunately, I was also told that the show was cancelled because it was not being broadcast to the theater tonight for some reason. The manager at the theater didn’t know why. How disappointing.
I saw the Wednesday night show here in San Francisco at the West Portal theater with about 15 other people. Shocked at the low attendance, but glad that most everyone laughed heartily at the same stuff I did. No Gloria Estefan here – don’t know why. I don’t recall her being at the Plan 9 show either.
Anyways, it was a great show, no sound problems. When the drumming toy monkey showed up for a moment I expected to hear the riff: “Get your tickets here!” or “Rock and Roll Martian” (too obscure?). Plan 9 was more consistent, but this event was funnier. They had me at “Cthulhu”…
I got back from the encore about an hour ago. Thought I’d post my comment before reading the others. I was disappointed that Weird Al was only there for one short and didn’t perform one of his Christmas songs, but he did OK. On the whole, the show was a riot, from the songs over the pre-show graphics on. The shorts ranged from the merely inept (the frequently out-of-focus “Santa’s Toyshop”) to the utterly odd (the nightmare fuel of “Christmas Dream”).
I’ve decided not to download the shorts from the RT site. I’m going to wait and see if they release the whole live show on DVD, if only for that one line from “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”.
I did get the free download of “Sparkly Vampires”, though.
Attended encore tonight in CO Springs. About 25-30 people laughed heartily. Absolutely fantastic. I had such a good time. For me, it was too short–but then, it could have been 3 hours and still too short for me. :wink:
As a Weird Al fan, I was curious why he didn’t perform, but I enjoyed what he did do. Nothing to add to all the other comments on how funny everything–especially Ding-a-Lings and Rudolph–was, except to say so, so funny. Was coughing I was laughing so hard. The ending sketch was not my favorite, but I did find Kevin in drag, and his lack of inhibitions, hilarious (the vomiting, not so much, and it made my mom gag).
Only one teensy observation of a missed opportunity: during “Christmas Rhapsody,” when they started talking about the forester, I kept waiting for another MST3K call back. A tiny bit disappointed, but certainly not a deal-breaker.
I sure do hope they release this on DVD soon! I’ll be first in line!
The show was a lot of fun though I did feel that the swimming short was a very weak link. The only thing that really got a good laugh out of the audience was the odd clapping sound and the way the swimmers dove into the water. All in all, it felt like a fun night. A couple other bits…
– I saw it in the same theater that I went to for PLAN 9, namely Cinearts 9 @ Santana Row in San Jose, CA. The theater was just as full as the first time.
– The sound was really low in comparison to a normal movie or even the first RiffTrax show. The lines weren’t quite washed out by laughter like some of the other people said but it was still strangely quiet.
– The closing short just killed the vibe in the theater that I saw it in. There was small amount of laughter during the opening part but the laughter just stopped the moment Kevin walked in. The audience was dead silent throughout the whole end bit and even sat around for a couple minutes after the credits because we weren’t sure it was actually the end. I really do think that that sketch just took a lot of the good vibes out of the whole thing.
Went Wednesday night. Theater was a little over half full (less than the first Plan 9 showing, but more than the Plan 9 encore), most of whom laughed uproariously throughout. Not a lot of MSTies, though…the Prince of Space callback wasn’t a huge hit here (though I was nearly in the aisle laughing). Definitely a massive improvement over the last presentation (only bad thing was that by removing Coulton it was impossible for me to squeeze in a bathroom break :mrgreen:).
Christmas Dream, A Visit to Santa, and Rudolph were my top 3, with the swimming one far and away the weakest. Still, calling one of these the weakest is like trying to pick a favorite child: it just feels wrong.
As for the closing bit, I agree that it ran too long. To be honest, I really would have like it to end right after Mike detailed his original gift for Bill (Bill’s dismay at his already opened screener copy of Coyote Ugly made me chuckle).
where can I find a copy of the Rifftone’s Come to the Carnival song played with the screen trivia before the show??? Mike Nelson’s Tom Waits impression was so impressive it even had a couple people fooled at my theater. I need this one.
As for the show it was funny the whole way through for me. the sound was great and the audience laughed together for most of the jokes, and in sections for the more esoteric ones. as for weird al, he was a strong contribution despite what a lot of you say. I absolutely loved it and so did many patrons it seemed. a DVD of it would be cherished in my home.
The Swimming Short was the definitely the weakest, but I’m glad they included it here as it gave us all a break from the monotony of Bad Santas. It felt like they just found it and decided to include it here as it would never be suitable for release on its own as a RT short.
i think it’s quite funny some of you didn’t like the ending bit, i could care less what others in the audience think…
kevin has done revealing things in mst3k and there hasn’t been much complaining about that…
if it were a female, you all would eating it up..hehe just messing, but i guess i shouldn’t be so surprised…poking fun at sexuality is not as fashionable as violence sometimes…
I guess you’re right, Zombi Manos, because I kept laughing at the father who kept falling down with the Christmas tree in the early short.
Violence rules.
For that matter the swimming short had both Johnny Weismuller *and* Buster Crabbe — two Tarzans and a Flash Gordon — and didn’t make use of that? It was such an odd missing reference I was left a bit in suspense waiting for them to acknowledge the appearance.
My theater (Hamilton, NJ) seemed to be around half-full, although I was seated right up front so I didn’t actually check once the presentation started. The pre-show title cards were doing respectably well for amusing the audience, I noticed.
I loved the lineup, although the all-shorts presentation did leave the show a bit shapeless. I mean, there wasn’t any natural reason for the Max Fleischer Rudolph to be the finale other than they said it was the finale; with the Plan Nine showing, the feature movie made an obvious concluding point. While I’d love more all-shorts shows, maybe the finale needs to be a two-reeler or something else so substantial as to feel like the anchor.
The closing credits video, well, I liked the awkward gift-exchanging. The “tranny Claus” outfit wasn’t the automatically funny image that the bit requires, though, by my sense of humor, and extended vomiting sequences, again, not my preference.
My only real complaint, though, is the slightly selfish one that the `free stuff’ link was mentioned so briefly that I wasn’t sure I had it right, and it’s only by cross-checking here that I actually know where it was.
Still, I can’t wait for the next one, and I’m particularly glad for the nationwide-simultaneous nature of the event since I was able to have a sort of virtual hangout with various friends I know through the Internet. My west coast friends were only there on time delay, of course, but that’s the Pacific Time Zone for you.
#87 I totally agree. That ending skit was really awful, they should have had Wierd Al sing a goodbye song or something.
When the first short came on and they showed the family sitting around the radio, Bill says “I hope they never invent tv.”, I knew I was in for a good time.
Agree with 90% of the comments (VERY disappointed by Weird Al’s minimal involvement) and the vomit gag didn’t bother me, although it was a very Family Guy moment.
What did bother me was the audio at the source. The audio of the shorts couldn’t be helped much. Well, they could spend a few bucks on audio restoration, but that would take away from the charm – however, the first short REALLY needed cleaning up. Nevertheless, the audio of the riffers themselves sounded like they had a Telefunkin U47 microphone held up by a fan in the middle of the theater. WAY too much echo from the riffers and way too much volume from the audience. I guess they wanted a laughtrack for broadcast, but the echo on the riffs was really annoying and made it hard to understand some of them. Couldn’t they have just made the riff recordings via the source theater’s soundboard and mixed in a little audience for their liveness?
I hope the DVD audio is remixed, but I’ll buy it the very second it’s released, regardless. Well done, Mike/Kevin/Bill!!!
I got tickets to the encore for my birthday last night. When we got there(after driving 55 miles) we got to the box office only to be told that the show was cancelled. I was so pissed. It’s not Rifftrax’s fault, I guess, it just would’ve been nice to get a heads-up before we lost the whole evening. I hope they put this out on DVD.
I love the show thought was sad weird al didn’t do a song.
Love the dingalings commercail, does anyone know were find on youtube without getting wierd hits? I want show my fried who couldn’t make it.
One other kind commplant Plan 9 did have free code where could download things (wall paper, incons ect) but this one didn’t. What gives?
First, instead of listing my likes/dislikes, I’ll suggest my preference for the ideal live event: two shorts and a movie, then a song at the end so you can leave if you’re not interested. Sound good?
Went to a large theater in a small city of 100,000 in North Texas. Four people, including myself and my wife. Had far more people for Plan 9. One lone teen was selling tickets and concessions, so I actually got into the theater as the first short was starting. The funny thing is that four people tried to buy tickets to whatever movie was pre-empted from the Rifftrax auditorium.
I actually preferred the swimming short over the pork short, which started funny (“Mrs. Newlywed”), but began to claw at my senses. The swimming short was odd because it was filmed in color but without sound, had that Olympic star from 1898(?!), and featured the ever-popular professional swimming clowns–yes, clowns–that still entertain audiences at Michael Phelps meets even today.
Hm. I’m slightly confused by all the positivity here. As someone who owns every Rifftrax short to date, I have to say that I wasn’t super-impressed. There were definitely some gems in there – a number of lines that were pretty much awesome. But a lot of their material seemed uninspired and sometimes even predictable.
I also wish that they’d either done *entirely* new material for Christmas Toyshop and A Visit to Santa, or done different shorts altogether. Those two were better when they they were first released as shorts, with the exception of a few new (great) lines here and there.
And the swimming short? What the hell? I know they tried to wedge it in there, and maybe that would have been funny had they been more elaborate about it, but as it stands it was easily the weakest thing they had in there. At least with the pork thing there was sort of a holiday-get-together feel going for it, and they had Weird Al to give some extra zing. The swimming stuff felt totally out of place and the riffing was not adequate to save it.
I was hoping for Weird Al to do one song – wouldn’t expect more – but even allowing that to slide, he only got about half a dozen lines for a single short. His delivery is usually good for his material, and having him around for longer would have been much better. I mean, why advertise him as a (seemingly) major part of the show and then only to give him about 100 words of dialogue, other than trying to entice his fans to attend at minimal expense? It seems like a cheap move to me, although for all I know it was Al himself who forced it to be that way.
As for the last segment, it was not only Family-Guy-esque, it was almost a direct rip-off of a specific Family Guy scene. A scene I cite as one of the things I like *least* about Family Guy. They surely could have done more with the basic premise of that bit.
But, all told, I’d still buy the shorts if they get released as singles. The riffing (and sound) will be more even and measured that way, without any distracting audience reaction. After all, I was never bored during the performance, just disappointed by the end.
One more thing. I gotta stand up for “Family Guy”. I love the show, and frankly, it’s been far funnier than “The Simpsons” or “South Park” in recent years. The fact that they can have a joke about Benjamin Disraeli(“You don’t even know who I am!”) one minute, then a joke about auto-erotic asphysxiation(“Hello. If you’re watching this, it means they didn’t cut the rope when I climaxed. As a result, I’m now dead.”) the next makes for some pretty funny stuff. It satisfies the 8-year-old in me.
Oh, and I love that FG vomit scene. I can’t watch it without laughing my ass off(“Who wants chowder?”).