First of all: how did this “three riffer” riff of HOHH stacks up against the previously released one? Simply put, it blasts it out of the water. I watched the previous “three riffer” version over the weekend, and what struck me most was that there was considerable room for new riffs and plenty of riffs that could be retooled or just abandoned and replaced. While nothing they do is ever not funny, the old riff was not among their best efforts, IMO.
To my delight, that’s exactly what they did. I would estimate there were roughly 25 percent MORE riffs than the previous version, and that about 50 percent of the total riffs were new. The result was easily as consistently funny as the tightly-packed “Plan 9” or “Reefer Madness” riffs they did in previous shows, maybe funnier.
The other thing I noticed when watching the old version over the weekend was, well, how LONG the movie seemed, perhaps because much of it consists of people standing around talking to each other and strolling down hallways.
(“Reefer Madness” is 10 minutes shorter and it seemed, when I saw that show, to be just about a perfect running length for a show like this. “Plan 9” is actually a few minutes longer than HOHH, but the zaniness of the movie and the finely tuned riffing makes it seem like a lot less. That 70-80 minute time range seems to be ideal for average viewers who are not hardcore riffing fans.)
Again I was delighted that the writing team had jammed the script with so many more riffs — and really funny ones, of course — that I didn’t look at my watch once. It seemed like every character got his or her own running gag, and the endless variations on them kept people laughing.
As for the shorts, well, what can I say? Between the fanciness-hating supermarket witch and Coily’s brown paper cousin (did the character have a name?) the guys had plenty to work with. Another pair of gems.
(Graphics courtesy of Sabrina, aka @introvertedwife)
I also want to commend Paul F. Tompkins, who did a great job in unfamiliar terrain. They let him do a few minutes of material and he picked a bit with just the right tone, that didn’t go on too long. The sign of a pro. It took him a little while to get into the rhythm of the riffing, but once he did, he blended right in with Mike, Kevin and Bill. And his cameo during the feature was a nice break in the movie, inserted at a strategic moment.
Riff from the previous version that didn’t make it to tonight’s version that I kind of liked: “Hey, I guess you CAN push a rope uphill!”
Updated riff: “Sen. Ted Stevens” became “Congressman Barney Frank.”
Oh, and my theater was, again, about two-thirds full (maybe it’s the same few hundred people?) and people seemed to enjoy it quite a bit.
Fave riff: “LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLadies?”
Your thoughts?
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I wish I’d been able to see this, but I wasn’t; I’ll have to wait for the DVD. Could someone please explain the “Llllllllladies” riff in context so I’ll understand why it was so funny? I just want to learn. Thanks.
Too bad there are no Rifftrax transcripts available on the internet. Or if there are, too bad I don’t know where…
The “Llllllllladies” riff happens at a time when the hotshot “hero” figure of the film: the dashing young fighter pilot who audiences are to expect can get the girls, is slowly walking up towards one of the women in a long hallway with a smug smirk on his face. Mike starts the “Lllllllll-” and doesn’t finish the “adies” part until the guy’s finally right up next to the woman.
Also Bill’s, “I’d use a stud finder, but I’m afraid it’d just detect me,” when the same guy was searching the wall got a great laugh from my theater.
And was I the only one who saw a Jerry Warren Batwoman in the Nashville crowd?
Hm. Guess you had to be there. Thanks, though. :-)
To 102: I believe 94 comment mentions seeing Batwoman. I forgot to mention seeing a couple dressed as Romans in the era of the gods APearlo and Brain Guy-o or whatever they called themselves. Thought that was pretty cool.
Thx Steve Horton, you just made my day. I’ll be buying the DVD when it comes out. lol
Brain-Guy-US. Like Hephaestus. Or Dionysus. Or, well, Jesus.
Just for the heck of it, as I’m sure some here know but some here don’t, William Castle was, in the field of “cult” horror b-movie directors, somewhere between Roger Corman and Ed Wood; in retrospect, it’s odd that MST3K never riffed one of his films.
One of his main M.O.s was to have in-theater gimmick tie-ins with his movies. With “The Tingler,” for example, theater seats were equipped with joy buzzers (“Percepto”) to, at the proper moment, give viewers a mild jolt to convey the impression that the Tingler was in the theater attacking them, thus motivating them to scream (which drives the Tingler away). With “Mr. Sardonicus,” moviegoers were given cards for a “Punishment Poll” with which, as Castle himself “explained” to the audience in a fourth-wall-breaking sequence near the movie’s end, to vote Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down on the villain’s fate (however, there was no alternate ending in the event that a crowd voted “Thumbs Up”; Castle presumed everyone would vote “Thumbs Down” for the villain to get his comeuppance). And so on.
The gimmick in “House on Haunted Hill” (filmed with “Emergo: The Thrills Fly Right Into The Audience”) was that at a key moment toward the end of the movie, an inflatable glow-in-the-dark skeleton would swoop/wire down from the theater’s ceiling into the audience to theoretically add to the fear experience. People who’ve been complaining about theaters mishandling things nowadays can probably GUESS how often that one worked out smoothly in *1959*. ;-)
In the movie “Matinee” (1993), John Goodman’s character Lawrence Woolsey is basically a homage to William Castle; the bit about having a nurse present in case someone had a heart attack from fright or whatever was the gimmick Castle used for “Macabre,” arguably Castle’s first horror film.
An anecdote I found memorable from Castle’s book “Step Right Up! I’m Gonna Scare the Pants Off America” is from when he was a stage director in 1930s Manhattan. German actress Ellen Schwanneke (had to use Yahoo to find her name) who had fled the Nazis joined his operation, but the Actors Equity Association (full name also from Yahoo) forbade foreign actors from taking roles that could go to US actors, unless the play was itself foreign. Called on the carpet about Schwanneke, Castle on the spot assured the AEA guys that he had such a German play for her to act in…then spent the weekend writing the play and getting someone to translate it into German so he could “prove” it.
What I considered a surreal detail is that he had to get it stamped with a swastika to show it was “approved” by the German government; strange to think that, back then, a swastika was just another national symbol as far as the USA was concerned.
Okay, I don’t know why the close-parentheses turned into smiley faces there. That’s kind of odd.
Not sure if this has been brought up or not, but one of the biggest plot holes of all: If Pritchard OWNS the house, how could Loren/Price rent it for the night against Pritchard’s wishes? Does Pritchard just not think to tell his employees “Don’t let anyone rent the haunted house”?
Hm, doesn’t look like anyone’s coming back in here. In case anyone does, however, here’s the back story to the “Mobile, Alabama / leprechaun community” riff:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crichton_Leprechaun