It’s probably a given that all of us have MST3K’ed a movie at some point in our lives, maybe frequently, maybe usually, but has there ever been a time when you wanted to be quiet but due to the movie and/or occasion just couldn’t contain yourself?
My example was showing “2012” to a group of friends in our big (9′) home theater. None of us had seen the movie before and, because these were not “MST3K” friends I would not in a million years think of riffing on the film. But it was so incredibly bad and over the top I couldn’t contain myself, and started a running commentary (at first very low and then, as folks started to laugh, probably much too loud) that probably spoiled (if that were possible) the movie for the rest of the folks (at one point one of my guests asked me if I found disasters funny and I said “Only disastrous films”).
My only saving grace was when the little dog made it onto the boat my wife said loudly “well, at least we now have something to eat” which cracked me up (okay, so maybe you had to be there).
I was in a packed theater for the opening night of “The Return of King,” and when the Army of the Dead zoomed off the battlefield and into Minas Tirith and began zipping around inside the city, I leaned over to my daughter and said, not as quietly as I should have: “Scrubbing bubbles! Scrubbing bubbles!” About eight people shushed me. I slunk down in my chair.
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For me, when I saw the name “Joe Don Baker” in the opening credits for the Dukes of Hazzard movie (don’t ask me why I saw it. I was really bored), I actually yelled out, “Oh hell no!” and almost walked out of the theatre.
There was also another time I did a “riff”. It wasn’t during an actual movie, though. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was doing a PSA for something (can’t remember what), and my friend and I who is not an MSTie by the way, started chanting “Rocky sucks!” “Rocky sucks!” We never liked The Rock.
I can not help myself riffing anything…music..movies…tv shows…
Recently my GF wanted me to see Twilight (god what a piece of s*** of a movie) and I had here laughing hard…
@103
At least you made that movie watchable. I’m probably the only person who’s ever seen any of the “Twilight” crap and have no intention to.
Well, there was this time at my grandfather’s funeral….. :oops:
In the theater watching castaway when Tom hanks knocks his tooth out, and the screen faded to black I leaned over to my friend Dave and wispered “and he was never seen again.” The thater was pitch black and silent, and then Dave busted out laughing so loud, I thought we were gonna get kicked out.
@#90 = well said & amen.
It might be a generational thing, those coming up (behind mine anyway), where they have been told their entire lives that their opinion matters and they are sooo special. Nonsense. If you had an opinion (i.e. foreigners suck…just as a hypothetical), I would say that their opinion is not only ignorant but wrong too.
I have the right to make a fist and swing it as hard as I want…BUT, this right stops at the tip of your nose! Think about it, won’t you?
Yea, all you Riffer CT RT copy-cat wannabe’s, start your own down-loads, if you’re any good, I’ll buy it. But in public don’t be a tool. Keep it to yourselves.
Riffing when I shouldn’t: Just like #43, I’ve riffed in church. Although my riffs were usually based on actual sermon material. I’ve stopped making it a regular habit, but occasionally a comment still comes out.
I also riffed in a narrative structures class I took for my theatre minor as an undergraduate. While watching “Time Bandits,” I shouted “Drop him!” when the dwarves were lowering one of their number on a rope towards some cages over a bottomless pit. Not my funniest riff ever, but I got a few laughs. (That is also the only movie I’ve ever walked out on, despite the fact that I later had to write a paper on it. There are no words to describe how much I hate that movie.) Also in the same class, we watched “Days of Heaven.” Towards the end, I shouted, “This film is almost as pretentious as the film students in this class!” The comment got lots of laughs from the theatre students.
I keep most of my riffing private, though. I’ll occasionally let a comment slip to a friend next to me, but if I were any good at riffing, I’d be paid to do it.
On a side note, I’m surprised at how many people have riffs for the “Lord of the Rings” movies. I think they’re the best movies ever made, and not worthy of riffing. (Yes, I know that there are RiffTrax for them and that some people think that the quality of the movie has little to do with its worthiness for riffing. Let’s not start another tangent.)
Another nod for “Return of the King”. Me and a few friends saw the film opening night, so the theater was packed. When the hobbits are being honored in Minas Tirith in one of the many endings, the four of us popped up singing “We are the Lollipop kids”. That got a good laugh out of the audience, which had been dead quiet for a bit.
Another was “Matrix Revolutions”. While Trinity is giving her little speech to Neo after they crashed, me and my friend just kept saying “Die already!”. When Neo goes to kiss Trin, after which she dies, I popped up with, “Whoops, that was the kiss of death. Sorry.”
Don’t get me started on the Freddy vs. Jason film we all saw. But about half way through the film everyone in the theater was riffing.
Outside of movies, me and my girlfriend have made riffs while watching people on our lunch break. I typically keep them to myself, but sometimes let them slip. Luckily, I haven’t been kicked out of any place due that….. yet.
We had a guest speaker at a professional development day. She was going on and on and on about retirement or something when she said, “So to make a long story short…” I leaned over to a co-worker and muttered, “Too late.” He cracked up and we got a lot of funny looks from the other tables.
This topic is perfect for me. I usually do riff a movie or tv show when others are around. Sometimes they laugh, other times they tell me to shut up. I went to see Paranormal Activity with my sister and mom and the theater was empty except for us. So we riffed the movie (as well as threw some popcorn at the screen)
#106, I only riff at home. I stopped going to theaters because of two factors: the movies AND the audiences sucked. Even at home, when a moment in a movie brings a riff up in my mind, I tend to think it more then say it. I just usually explain my smile later, to anyone that happened to notice. :smile:
Great thread with great stories and even a great debate. Perfect.
I do the same as others in riffing the previews and commercials, and nobody seems to care. During the movie itself, I tend to shut up (usually).
I did have one moment while at college in Virginia. There was a dollar theater right by campus. The movie was The Relic (a movie I really like by the way). During one scene, Tom Sizemore’s character calls a police officer a rent-a-cop. I blurted out “LUPD,” which was the name for our cheap-looking college security detail. It got a huge laugh out of the college-heavy crowd.
My friends and I did run a marathon of bad movies at a house once later on, and we riffed on the terrible Dungeons and Dragons movie (this movie I maintain is what killed Thora Birch’s career). It was great fun.
Mystics of Bali. An incredibly bad ’70s dubbed movie screened at the Silent Movie Theater in L.A. The hero of the film in his tight red slacks, Puerto Rican silk shirt and wide belt with matching platform shoes gives a speech to his love interest in the film about how he’s going to get out of Bali and go to school to make something of himself. I leaned over and whispered to my husband “He’s going to go to DeVry!” The guy behind us chuckled.
I honestly can’t believe this one didn’t have more riffing by other people.
Not my riff but it’s a great story.
My co-worker once told me about how he went to see 12 Monkeys when it first came out. At the end of the movie (which was incredibly confusing) this really big guy in the front stood up and yelled at the screen “What the F@$%?!” and waved his arms in an exasperated motion.
Everyone in the theater applauded him, sharing his frustration at the non-ending.
Back when we were dating, my husband and I were shushed in a movie theater for riffing on “The Thomas Crown Affair.” To be fair, she should have also yelled at the man who was snoring two rows in front of us.
My husband and I can’t watch movies with my family much either. We have (ahem) different tastes and find ourselves commenting too much for their liking.
#113 – I LOVE Mystics in Bali! Queen of Black Magic is another one along the same lines, but a little more fun to watch IMO. If you REALLY want to see a great Indonesian horror/action flick, may I recommend Lady Terminator. Quite possibly one of the dumbest, most entertaining films I’ve ever seen. Now that’s a film my friends don’t mind me riffing on.
I have read comments #90 and #107, and I am now going to crawl into a warm bath and slit my wrists. Have a nice life. :|
Anyone who posts a “funny” story about their riffing experience in public is indeed a dickhead and just doesnt know it. You are not as funny as you think and no one pays to hear your amateur comedy. Please dont be proud. Youre so unaware.
Even the Brains have went on record that people should not be ruining films in public for other people…its just so wrong.
I’ve been threatened with physical harm from my wife for riffing on Days of Our Lives. She doesn’t actually mind until I say one she thinks is funny, then she wants me out of the room.
I’d totally forgotten until I started reading this discussion, but I think I mouthed “and his eyes open” at the end of Avatar. I generally don’t say anything out loud at theaters, even if I don’t expect that particular movie to be good I still paid for the ticket and I want to hear the damn dialogue. I have to admit that when the Star Wars special editions came out I said lines of dialogue before the characters did. “but I was going to Tosche Station to pick up some power converters!”
This weekend I was watching “King Of Kings” with my family. There were two comments I made that got a good laugh out of people. Mary was standing smiling while her son made a speech. I said, “Imagine at a PTA meeting… Woman: My son’s on the honor roll, Mary: Well mine is the son of God.” My second joke was after Jesus answered the crowds questions. I said, “Does Jesus work for SHELL?”
In public, never, no matter how bad or illogical the movie was (“Avatar”, “Scorpion King”, “Dragnet”, “Twilight”) have I riffed. At home, it’s another story. While watching “The Ten Commandments”, I couldn’t take it anymore so near the end when Moses goes up the mountain and stays, I said “Party!” and got a chuckle (right before the golden calf scene- the rest of the riffs were quiet- under breath sort).
Though #90 and #107 was a little heavy-handed in their message- why pile on other people’s misery if you and they paid full admission price for a ticket to a bad movie?
I don’t condone ruining every body else’s experience at the theater, and I in fact rarely ever go myself with all of the back-talking and noise, but I have often satisfied my need to riff by restricting my comments to my immediate friends on either side of me in a low voice. I think that strikes a reasonable balance and doesn’t trespass on anyone else’s rights.
I’ve been riffing movies since the 1970s, but I never had a better partner in crime than my old friend J. We’d riff movies anywhere, anytime, though–again–only to ourselves and each other, thereby keeping ourselves off the movie theaters’ “do not admit” list.
Our problem was J’s fiancee, a sour, humorless robot of a woman who didn’t much care for me, didn’t get our jokes, and didn’t like talking in the movie theater. In spite of this, somehow the three of us ended up seeing “Titanic” together, and before the movie she reminded us to keep our mouths shut.
Early in the film when the aged Rose is taken aboard the salvage ship she is handed the nude drawing that Jack had made of her 80 years before. As she looked admiringly at her young self, I leaned over to J in my best old-woman voice and whispered “Oh, my, that’s when my breasts were still on my chest”.
For the next 10 minutes I could see J’s chest heaving in convulsive, strangled laughter as he struggled not to let his fiancee see him laughing. It didn’t work and she kept shooting daggers at the both of us, but it was well worth the retribution. They married a year later and divorced 5 years after that, after which J met a really cool woman with a sense of humor.
On another occasion I was watching “A History Of Violence” with another friend, a movie so preposterous that my friend couldn’t help blurting out a loud, annoyed response that, to our surprise, was met by approval in the audience. This opened the floodgates, and for the rest of the film the audience bellowed riffs at the screen to everyone’s amusement. I’ve never before or since seen an audience turn on a movie like that, and it was an amazing sight.
Still, I get the point of those people who think that riffing should be done at home, and while I’ve violated that rule on numerous occasions, I do my best to limit my remarks to my friends in a quiet voice. But from these posts and personal experience, I get a feeling that there are a great many people out there who, in their secret hearts, have a riff just dying to get out…
When at a theatre to watch one of the x-men movies there was a trailer for Sweet Home Alabama with Reese Witherspoon. If you remember that trailer there is a very old dog that can barely move and at the end it jumps into the water and just sinks and the trailer goes to black, well everyone in the audience laughed(for some reason) and when the laughter was over and the next trailer was about to start my friend said very loudly, “That wasn’t funny that dog just died” and the entire theatre laughed again.
I, too, have an opening night story of RotK. It was at a twenty screen theater in Tulsa, Oklahoma. As it was explained to me after the film finally let out: The theater only got two prints of the movie, so to show the midnight screening on all twenty screens, they daisy-chained each print through ten projectors a piece.
In the middle of all of the epilogues (we were at Sam’s wedding scene at the time) the film jammed on the first projector, which caused the film to melt on all ten projectors. We nearly had a riot on our hands.
Just to be a smartass, I stood up and faced everyone, and yelled out, “My countrymen, there will come a time when the projectors of men fail, but it is not this day! Today, we WAIT!”
It was incredible, I managed to reference a movie before it was even finished premiering! And I got pelted with popcorn and milk duds for my efforts.
It took them over an hour to splice the film back together and cue it back up to where we left off. We got out of the theater around 5am and went out for breakfast.
I was hanging out over at a friend’s house. They were watching Battlestar Gallactica, a show that I never really got into. Anyway, there was a scene where a husband and wife were having a fight in the hangar bay, and I just blurted out, “Marriage counseling… IN SPACE!”
You haven’t experienced true fear until you’ve had seven hardcore BSG geeks give you the evil eye.
I can’t help but add one that just occurred this weekend. My wife (remember, she LOVES MST3K and made the “now we have something to eat” riff about the little dog in 2012, so her sense of humor, and love for me is unquestioned) started watching a DVD in her computer room (down the hall from mine) and I could hear the sound pretty clearly.
It was some documentary made by a guy from Iowa (my wife’s home state, which is why she took the video home from the library where she works) but the narration was dead on to “Legend of Boggy Creek II” and I just couldn’t help myself. As he was talking about his trip up another creek I just started my “Boggy” references, they flowed out of me unintended and she got so mad she shut her door hard (I wouldn’t say slammed, but it was close).
So I guess it shows we all have our “riff tolerance” levels (and, I have to admit, hearing about some of your own riffs here on some movies I actually love made me wince a little as well).
Our HR department used to require us to watch a really dumb “sexual harassment” video. So one day a bunch of us are watching the thing at a part where a female harasses a guy. It was a hotel setting where a guy is doing something with towels, and the girl says “I’d sure like it if somebody rubbed ME down, wagging her butt.” And one of our IT guys blurts out “My towel’s not that big.”
Everybody…including the HR rep…cracked up.
My friend and I read the Twilight books and went to see the first film and hated it and knew it was gonnna suck about 2 minutes in so we just started riffing away the whole time. We went to see New Moon just to have fun doing it again-the movie is so ripe for riffing, of course the teen girls around us weren’t happy.
Even though riffing in the theater is not cool…I can see whispering something to the people you came with. I have no problem with that….as long as it’s not throughout and I’m sitting right next to you.
As far as at home….syfy movies are PRIME riffing material. Even my wife, who doesn’t really quite “get” MST, will riff mercilessly any syfy movie. In fact, it’s quickly becoming our favorite way to spend a Saturday. Ever notice how EVERY female lead in ANY syfy movie ends up in just a tank top (at the most) by the end of the movie???
The closest I’ve ever gotten was when I went to see Avatar and during the final fight scene the Nasty General’s mech-suit gets damaged so he pulls out a GIANT KNIFE! I just just started laughing uncontrollably in a packed theater of people who didn’t seem to recognize how ridiculous it was. A robot carrying a giant knife! Thanks, Mr. Cameron.
Funny you should mention 2012. I was hoping Rifftrax would have done that one.
For example, when the Russian guy hoists his sons and falls, I said aloud, ‘Remember I vhas RUSSIANNNN!!!’ (in that over-the-top deep accent).
One I loved doing was with Transformers: ROTF:
Optimus: You’ll never stop at one!
Me: Damn Lay’s Potato Chips!
I’d also have to say that my Dad actually did one that I was surprised at:
In ‘Star Trek XI’ when Spock Prime scares off the monster with the flames, my Dad whispered to me when they cut to Kirk looking at his protector:
“Obi-wan, is that you?”
I have two. One was in the theater seeing “the fog” and at the end when Maggie grace is making out with the ghost I said isn’t that illegal? And later I said something about Tom welling being a necrophiliac. The people in front of me and my friend both turned at laughed at me.
Second I was watching Jaws and somewhere in the begining you see the big display of a jaw and my cousin said wow that’s a big mouth and I replied that’s what she said. Both my cousin and brother started laughing and we all continued ridding the movie.
My brother did some riffs to 2012 but the movie was so boring I forgot the riffs
@119 Your a dickhead!
Gonna have to side with the haters on this one. Reading the posts above portrays MSTies as solipsistic jackasses, which I know is not true. Yes, the title of the thread suggests that these outbursts were knowingly inappropriate. But most here seem to take pride in their insightful wittiness. “Everyone’s a comedian” is a cliche for a good reason. Despite what you may think, 9 times out of 10, you are not funny. Whispering to friends in a darkened movie theater is just as distracting as opening a cell phone. Some people’s experiences of RT/CT live shows have been ruined by selfish, so-called MST3K fans who contribute their own “clever” riffs in the theater. I am glad not to know you people in real life.
A couple of years ago I went with my brother, sister, and grandmother to see this turd of an animated film called “Monster House” or something to that effect. Toward the end of the movie the protagonist (a pre-pubescant kid) is lamenting that he can’t do the heroic thing and so this girl who is accompanying him kisses him and I go “Well now I really can’t, could you try a little harder”. I know it’s not the funniest thing ever, but I was quite proud of it and my sister liked it, and I wasnt shushed either. So I guess I came out ahead there, because the movie was pure garbage and I was amazed that I would find something that could come close to the awfulness that is the Dukes of Hazard movie. (If you like either of these movies, my sincerest apologies)
Other than that, I usually keep the riffing to myself, or in my head. (I try my hardest not to make myself laugh (which I do quite a bit) so I can keep myself from looking like a schizophrenia sufferer)
I started riffing home alone (quite well I might add) and after getting a few laughs was politely told to knock it off. Thanksgiving is always a bad time to be funny for some reason.
#117 – Thanks for the tip! I think I have seen Lady Terminator already but I will definitely check out Queen of Black Magic.
I recall trying to watch the new Indiana Jones movie with my parents. After the nuclear bomb scene, they asked me to leave because I could not keep my mouth shut. That movie cannot be watched without riffing, IMO.
It’s sad that a lot of you won’t take anything away from this discussion…like to shut the hell up during a movie and let those who paid to watch it, enjoy it without your witless commentary. Maybe one or two will think twice in the future and this thread will have done some good.
Not in a theatre, but yeah I did annoy my fiance a few years back because I couldn’t help but riff on the ending of The Scorpion King when she got it on DVD.
The hero gets shot in the back with an arrow by the bad guy, and wants to return fire but he has none left for his own bow. I say he’ll pull the arrow out of his back, which he then does to kill the bad guy. She gets annoyed and says I spoiled it. I pointed out:
“He’s got an arrow in his back! What’s he gonna do? ‘I know, I’ll hit him with my bow!'” (starts frantically miming The Rock hitting someone repeatedly with a bow)
Thankfully, NOW she looks back on it and finds it all very funny.
It’s sad that a lot of you won’t take anything away from this discussion…like to shut the hell up during a movie and let those who paid to watch it, enjoy it without your witless commentary. Maybe one or two will think twice in the future and this thread will have done some good.
Buddy, if you actually think that overpriced crap like “2012” or “Avatar” is watchable without “witless” commentary, then you’ve got no business being an MST3k fan. Your standards are too low to judge a good film from a bad one.
This thread will do some good if it convinces people to stay home, away from stupid crap like this and the schmucks like you who love it, so they can actually enjoy themselves.
I just loved that he used the word solipsistic. I’ve always wondered both how that was spelled, and whether anyone would ever use that word again. Fantastic.
This thread has done some good; I’ve laughed heartily at many of the ROTK riffs in here. Bravo thread!
As a fan, this would honestly make me crazy if I had to listen to someone else’s amateur hour riffing at a friend’s house or the movie theater. I leave the movie riffing to the professionals.
The only time I’ve blurted out a comment in a cinema was during Kenneth Branaghs Frankenstein. This comment will probably only be recognised by UK readers but here goes. During the part where the blind hermit (played by Richard Briers) hears the monster walking behind him, he turns and says “Who’s there?” (or something along those lines, I haven’t seen the film since). At this point, I blurted out in my best Penelope Keith impression “Oh Tom, it’s me Margot!”. Instead of getting shushed, I actually got a laugh from the audience!
I do it ALL the time, usually while we’re at home watching something on dvd. At first it annoyed my better half but now we riff together.
I do occasionally riff in a theater if the movie is terrible. Years ago, when Rob Zombie’s awful “House Of 1000 Corpses” came out I leaned to my friend at the beginning of the movie and said, “There better be 1000 corpses in this house or I’m asking for my money back”. The movie dragged along until FINALLY the last remaining victim was running through the catacombs under the house where all the bodies were and I leaned over again to my friend and said, “1…2…3…4…” She lost it VERY loudly and we got some odd stares.
My, Finnias and sebulbajohnny, don’t you take yourselves awfully seriously. “Solipsistic”? Really? You’re getting a lot of mileage out of that dictionary you got for Christmas…
The comment “9 times out of 10 you aren’t funny” is demonstrably incorrect based on the results I and others on this thread have obtained in real life, and I agree with Matt D.–some of the riffs I’ve read here are downright hilarious.
By all means you should be able to enjoy a movie without clowning in a theater. Riffing should be a mutually consensual experience, and you can’t get that in a public place. But sometimes the movie is so awful or someone is really inspired, and things just slip. I think you can be a little forgiving, can’t you?
If you want to pretend that moviegoing was a great experience until all of the MST3K a**holes started showing up and ruining it that’s fine, but the truth is that a theater has always been a messy, unquiet place with all the cellphones, misbehaving children, private conversations, loud popcorn chewing and people asking their friends about a plot point they just missed. What do you do in those cases?
I suggest you stay home, buy a big screen TV and a great sound system, and watch movies in peace to your heart’s content. Otherwise, be a little more cheerful and realize that the world is what it is–a sloppy, cacophonous swarm of humanity just trying to get by.
And I think that I speak for most everyone else on this thread when I say that we, also, are glad not to know sourpusses like you in real life…
-Great topic & posts. I found many of the home-grown riffs to be genuinely funny (really LOL funny). In theaters I keep comments/riffs to myself (even though it’s sometimes REALLY difficult) and share them later with those who have seen the movie or during a home DVD (or On-Demand) showing. There are two movies where I really had to stifle comments.
-The DaVinci Code – an albino monk in a habit – what a superb clandestine assasin! Blends right in to crowds he does. Plus the lengthy dialogues on the codes from the main characters made even C-SPAN seem thrilling.
-Angels and Demons – the antimatter “bomb” made even Armageddon and 2012 seem realistic and factual.
-Thanks to all for the riffs – spoken and unspoken – as you endured all these movies.