What about a thread discussing people’s favorite obscure jokes?
Ooh! Good one! This isn’t normally the way MST3K does things, but in this case I think it’s appropriate: Please explain the riff so everybody gets it. (As usual, if you use more than one link, it may take a bit for your post to appear.)
Also, maybe you could include a word or two about what this riff means to you (since I find that a MSTie’s favorite obscure riff usually speaks to who that person is).
It’s hard to pick an all-time favorite, but one I dearly love is from episode 508- Operation Double 007:
[In the voice of KITT from “Knight Rider”] “Michael, I want all the episodes of ‘Captain Nice’ burned.”
Captain Nice was an INCREDIBLY forgettable 1967 one-season loser starring William Daniels, the voice of KITT. Similar to the “Addams Family”/”The Munsters” competition, it had a competing show (another one-season loser) called “Mr. Terrific“…but I digress.
I think I love this riff because I was 10 years old when these shows came out and it seemed like TV was talking right to me, and I never forgot that feeling.
What’s your pick?
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#94, I had some Oscar Gamble cards too and I remember when he played for the Phillies. So there!
#94 They also reference Carlton the doorman from “Rhoda” in one episode, but I can’t for the life of me remember which one.
#95
Three words: Andy Williams Show ;-)
Here’s one that flew over my head the first time-opera singer Kathleen Battle is referenced in Beginning of the End (the equipment sounds like a high aria) and it was years after I heard this opera singer on Vangelis’ Mythodea when I watched the episode again and finally got the reference. There’s also the line “Goodbye Mister Driscoll” sung by Tom Servo in Riding with Death. Goodbye Sister Disco is a song from The Who’s album Who Are You, the band isn’t obscure but that song probably is to non-fans.
#36-I think they referenced Samuel Barber’s Adagio for strings, not anything by Bartok, though I’m not very familiar with Bartok’s works.
In Hercules: Unchained, Joel finishes a line (forget which one) with “and a hell of an engineer!”
If you were alive back in the 50’s you might get it, as Georgia Tech was a national power in football and the song was sung by folks as varied as John Wayne and Richard Nixon. These days, though, you have to be an alum like me. The full verse is this:
I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech and a hell of an engineer!
Always love the gags they just slip in there for no reason and don’t call too much attention to. In “It Conquered the World,” the bots are always making fun of Peter Graves for supposedly not knowing how to drive a stick shift. At one point, Tom starts going “Clutch! Clutch!” then very quietly goes “Cargo! Cargo!” — a snarky apropos-of-nothing riff on Clutch Cargo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clutch_cargo. Gotta love it.
Of course, I had to be told that Tom keeps breaking into “Jessica,” by the Allman Brothers Band, whenever her name is mentioned in “The Thing That Couldn’t Die”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll1_SmbUDSI.
So, the best obscure reference is the one someone else has to tell you about? Don’t care – I loved the gag once I found the song on youtube. :-)
Any references to “Green Ghost” in the Joel years. I know for sure it is in The Magic Sword when the knights are trapped in the cave, but it is referenced at least in one other ep.
Green Ghost is a game that glowed in the dark. In my family we lost the rule book early on and I made up my own rules when kids came over.
I have yet to have met another living soul who had the game as a kid. Except Joel (i’m guessing).
One riff not so obscure, but they got it wrong:
In “Beatniks”, when the one character who was shot goes into his protracted death scene, and Joel adds “It’s a version of Camille!”, Servo starts humming the Dick Cavett theme “Doo, doo, doo do-do-do…”
(Er, no, Kevin, that’s Candide…Leonard Bernstein never wrote a Camille Overture.)
#86 – I always thought Crow said “I heard a Poco song on the radio!” Referring to 70’s country rock band Poco.
@81 Mr Krasker- May have been mentioned but I think the Sarte refference also appears in THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH. Bill does a running monologue in ‘Sarte’ when the MC gang appears.
No Exit, Baby.
# 98/99
Suh-weetness.
This is a wonderful thread- this is something that should be done with EVERY EPISODE during the weekly episode guides. One of the many, many things I love about MST3K is the ‘delayed reaction’ jokes, where I come across something in a book or movie or while surfing the web and suddenly an old reference I heard but never got in an episode I first watched 15 years ago ‘clicks’. I love trying to decode the references, random riffs I mistook for references, references I mistook for random riffs, and stuff that I mis-heard or have been mis-quoting for years. It reminds me of when I was a kid and would obsessively re-listen to all my Dad’s Monty Python records trying to decipher every thing they said (for years up till middle school I thought “gobutit” was one word- as in ‘shut your festering gob, you tit!”)
I feel I should justify my meandering post with an obscure reference of my own, so: In “The Sinister Urge” there’s a shot of a smashed-up car and Tom Servo says ‘Harry, keep the change’ which I believe is a double reference to Harry Chapin’s song ‘Taxi’ and Harry Chapin’s grisly death in a car crash.
ALSO: In ‘Monster A Go-Go’ when Crow and Tom are talking about Rupert Holmes and ‘Timothy’, a song I had never heard, they say ‘I’m hungry as hell, gee that leg looks swell…’. I assumed this was from the song and would quote that to my friends named Timothy. Then You Tube came along and I got to hear the song and that line is nowhere to be found!
@ #107: Green Ghost the game
I had that game as a small child too. It was fantastic fun. I also hadn’t seen or thought about it in forever till the first time I heard a joke about it on MST3K, then something in the back of my head brought slight memories of it to the surface. It definitely was another “they are in my head” moment watching the show.
I’m not sure how “obscure” city folk would find these, but out here in the Wild West, I was very impressed with the references to “Bob”/”Church of the Sub-Genius” in “Ring of Terror”; and my favorite Venusian Jazz musician in “The Sword and the Dragon” (“Look! He’s got a Sun Ra poster back there on the wall!”).
#102- Joel does a Carlton impression during “Mitchell”.
In Leech Woman there is a reference to Miss Jane Pittman, well known in the 70’s thanks to a made for TV movie, but probably obscure today. #96 and #103, I also remember the giant random bear on the Andy Williams Show – FYI – did you know that computer tracking cookies are named in honor of the Andy Williams cookie bear?? Strange but true.
In reference to my previous post which was #94 and is now #95 for some odd reason –
There is another riff along the same lines in ‘Angels’ Revenge’ when the tall black girl is standing off in the distance, and Trace says “Jose Cardenal looks on”.
That’s a reference to another famously afro-haired baseball player in the 70’s. He was mainly with the Cubs & Cardinals so a Chicago or St. Louis fan would get probably easily get the riff.
I laugh when he says that every time I see it.
And you guys are so astute. Thanks for the additional on ‘Carlton Your Doorman’!
I remember it now from Mitchell.
I feel bad the real young’ns who love the show and miss half of those older references beyond their time, but I give them credit for being fans none-the-less.
I also love the Firesign Theater references. (And SCTV, & Python, etc)
FM radio used to have syndicated weekly comedy shows, normally sunday nights (King Biscuit was one of them) that had lots of Firesign Theater, Monty Python, and good stand up routines of the great ones (Mel Brooks, Bill Cosby, George Carlin, Bob Newhart, etc.).
Also, Dr. Demento showcased a lot of that.
Dr. Demento really introduced me to Python before ‘Flying Circus’ even made it to the States on Public Television orginally. It was about ’74-75 when public TV finally got ahold of it, and I was ready & anxious thanks to the Doctor.
Great thread, we need to do this more often.
I throw another one in, from Manos the Hands of Fate. Obscure mainly because it’s so dated.
When the girl is singing real high in the beginning credits, Joel says “Its Robin Stone, the Love Machine”.
That was a cheesy movie adaptation of a cheesy Novel “The Love Machine” from 1971. It starred (MST3K is a small World) John Phillip Law (Diabolik/Space Mutiny’s Kalgon we need more of you).
I love all the clever Monty Python riffs
I love in GODZILLA Vs. MEGALON: The scene where the car drives down a flight of stairs, Servo says “I wonder if Peter Bogdanovich could do a movie here.” In reference to the 1972 movie “What’s Up Doc?”
That infamous car chase scene where all the cars do down those big stairs! (Starring Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’neal)
#73, A fellow Red Green fan, EH?! Living in Detroit, I used to see it all the time on CBET 9.
“Quando omni flunkus moritati” (When all else fails, play dead).
What planet are you people from, where Thoreau, Sylvia Plath’s death, “Oklahoma!”, and “Doctor Strangelove” are obscure?
I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned the many references to Circle Pines, MN. Maybe it’s not obscure to us because we’re MSTies and know about Mary Jo’s hometown… But this is a city with < 5,000 people and I have NEVER heard of any references to it outside of an MST3K context.
I always thought that the "Jack Frost" riff where Mike says, "Hildegard von Bingen… unplugged," was pretty obscure. How many people out there know about medieval liturgical music composers?
I'm a little younger than most MSTies, (I was 15 when the last episode aired.) so many of the references to the 1960's and 1970's are lost on me. I've noticed that these are more common in the early seasons than later ones.
Maybe we should have a discussion thread where the topic is riffs that you don't understand. Apparently the collective cultural and factual knowledge of this discussion group may be enough to completely decode one episode!
@69 – So if multiple Trek uses of “Help me, Spock!” count as obscure, where does that place Joel (and later Mike) telling viewscreen aliens, “Wait, I thought we could drink Tranya or something!”
(That’s from “The Corbomite Maneuver”, for the Trek-illiterate.)
Also, darn, I can remember the riff, but not the movie or context:
Which movie had M&tB ref the ice-cream truck jingle from Bill Forsyth’s “Comfort & Joy” (“Hello, folks!”)?
Which you’d have to go way back to know from cable/theaters, seeing as it still hasn’t hit disk yet. :(
(And yes, CT, I’d rather have an “explanation” thread, so long as it doesn’t get bogged down by kids asking “What’s with the whole ‘Mrs. Webb’ thing when somebody’s driving?” or who don’t know the Mannix theme…
I mean, I GOT the Andy Williams joke earlier, just wanted to see who else did.)
@81 Welcome aboard, I recently discovered this site, too. The only difficult part about posting here is finding a name that isn’t already in use. I accidentally stole Bart Fargo’s name with my first post, but I think I’m safe with this one.
I love the MN/WI references, too. My dad lived in MN, so I used to travel to the midwest each summer. Few people outside the area would have seen the giant fiberglass musky in Hayward, WI – referenced when going through Mike’s photo album. Or, Gypsy seeing the Dead at Alpine Valley. Great stuff.
There isn’t much that can be classified as obscure with you guys, but I’ll take a shot.
I earned my degree in psychology, so I enjoyed the riff from episode 812 – TISCWSLABMUZ where an average housewife comes out on stage and Crow quips: “Noam Chomsky should start picking better opening acts”. This is a name that came up frequently in my studies. Noam Chomsky is a professor at MIT who is notable for, among other things, his research in linguistics. He was one of the people credited with helping to usher in the cognitive revolution in psychology. It was amusing to think of a racy warm-up act, followed by a presentation from a stuffy cognitive psychologist.
Also, from episode 812: Shortly after the terrifying devil monkey comment, a woman carries out a tray with coctails, sits down, then turns on the radio. Tom comments “This is an elaborate preparation for Car Talk.” Car Talk is a radio program that can be heard on NPR. I believe it is still on the air. The hosts, Tom and Ray Magliozzi, help people sort out their car troubles with straightforward advice and a great deal of humor. Again, probably not all that obscure ’round these parts.
Maybe someone can help me with this one. This was such a brief comment, so it is impossible for me to recall which episode it came from. But here you go. One of the guys adds “and Ray” when a man mentions the name “Bob.” That’s it! That is all I can remember, other than it was a black and white film. This was a reference to the famous radio personalities Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding. Their careers spanned three or four decades, beginning in the 1940’s. They are quite entertaining. But again, I cannot remember the context or setting for the riff.
I’ve always enjoyed “Basquiat is in danger!” from Werewolf. Especially if you google him–that guy actually does look like Basquiat.
Catalina Caper: They call the dopey agent guy “the Jacques Tati of beach movies”. I actually looked for a Tati movie and ended up becoming a fan of his work. Thanks MST3K!
Alien from L.A.: There’s a 3-panel TV screen and Servo (?) says “Abel Gance’s Napoleon”. That might be the most obscure reference. It’s a 1927 silent epic that’s 4-hours long and the last 20 minutes are in 3-panel widescreen.
I think they did this more than once in different episodes, but sometimes when a building is burning down they mention Edie Sedgwick. She was a famous heiress/buddy of Andy Warhol in the ’60s who fell asleep smoking and burned her apartment down.
#127
They mentioned Edie in Touch of Satan, amongst others.
Another one from Werewolf-Nurse at the hospital goes back into the
room to tend to the Native American werewolf-to-be and Mike says
“Time to pull a Jenny Garp.” A reference to The World According To Garp by John Irving.
Another ep I can’t remember has someone call a quiet girl an ‘Ellen Jamesian’, which were a group of women in Garp that cut out their tounges in support of a mutilated rape victim.
Also, I could be wrong. but in what I believe is the short ‘X Marks The Spot’, our guardian angel is describing a near accident, he
uses a mouse metaphor and Servo says “squeaking and calling himself Algernon.” A reference to Flowers for Algernon, a novel that features, among other things, a mouse being given intelligence tests.
Sorry, forgot to explain the Jenny Garp reference.
Jenny Garp was a nurse in the novel and conceived her
son by procreating with a wounded soldier with severe head
trauma that could only say the word ‘Garp’. Hence her future
son’s name. :)
When the band sings “There’s a new world opening for you” in Catalina Caper and Crow says “Lyrics by Aldous Huxley.” A reference to BRAVE NEW WORLD.
123,that’s from “Teenagers From Outer Space” ,when the nurse parks her car.
I have to agree with Creeping Terror. A lot of the references here are hardly obscure…Huxley, Garp, Tati, Gance…obscure?
Hey, Mr. Bob at 114: I’m glad there is at least one other.
HORROR OF PARTY BEACH: “Cities Service is Citgo now. Citgo zoom!” a 1966 jingle that announced that the gasoline company had changed it’s name.
@ #113
“Timothy” is about cannibalism, thus the “that leg looks swell”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_%28song%29
Love this post. But everything here I know I think is not obscure. But the stuff I don’t know sounds pretty awesome for the five or six writers to have such diversity.
I only know Firesign Theater through Dr. Demento, so I’m a sort of fan. Pretty neat to see all the old references. It would be fun to do for each episode.
One I really liked came from the Comedy Central era, although I don’t remember which episode. Crow says in a Bill Cosby voice: “Her face was split!” which is a paraphrase from Cosby’s “chocolate cake for breakfast” routine. He’s very famous, of course, but a lot fewer people know his stand-up relative to his TV work, so it seems a little obscure to me. It also really struck me in a good way because it remains the only time I think I’ve ever heard someone do a Bill Cosby impression without mentioning Jell-O or Kodak film.
There are a few times, notably in the United Servo Academy Men’s Chorus segment and the similar madrigal segment from Quest of the Delta Knights, when Mike does an impression of St. Paul radio host Bill McLaughlin, whose voice always annoyed me when I’d hear it in the car on the way to church. This isn’t one you could really look up, except with some serious google-fu. You’d pretty much either recognize it or you wouldn’t.
In the first host segment of The Beatniks, Joel’s invention is pocket pool. Tom interjects, in an appropriately growly voice: “Eight-Ball Deluxe, stop talkin’ and start chalkin’,” which Bally’s Eight-Ball Deluxe pinball machine would repeat over and over until you fed it. There was one in the laundromat when I was living off-campus and did my clothes at three AM years ago, and an hour and a half of listening to THAT every three minutes in an empty washateria would incite violence in Sister Sourire.
#125 –
I always liked the Blood Waters of Dr. Z reference –
“Joe Don Baker and Basquiat just hanging out together”.
———–
Another reference I always laugh at is from my beloved ‘Track of the Moonbeast’ when the Skitch Henderson guys (Old Skitch might be kind of obscure too) are on the airplane and Kevin Murphy, speaking as the stewardess, says
“Does Anyone need a food cart to crap on?”
It’s a reference to Gerald Finneran, a big-time bank president who got all tanked up on a flight and had to be restrained, but not before he dropped trow and took a dump right on a food cart. It was all over the news when it happened in 1994-95. Here is a link to a pretty good write-up about it:
http://everything2.com/user/uucp/writeups/Gerard+Finneran
Man I love ‘Track of the Moonbeast’. It’s one of my top 5 all-time episodes.
I wish they would put that out on dvd already, along with my all-time fave ‘Riding With Death’. They’d go nicely together in a set.
Ok, so why did more posts get added to the group I had already read through? I was up to 111 and did a Refresh and that post was then 113. Oh well, no big deal.
Anyway, one of my favorite obscure references is to… wait for it… The Beatles! One of the most obscure music groups of all time, right? I’ve heard they had a couple of minor hits in the 60’s. I know, I know, but Crow did make an obscure reference to the really well known band in Phantom Planet when the chunkheaded astronaut was wandering around the caves. He wondered if The Beatles were going to be playing there, or something like that. Well, that was a reference to The Cavern Club, where the boys played back in their really early days. Brian Epstein may have discovered them playing there. See! That’s obscure, right?
Oops, a quick Google search refers to The Cavern Club as the most famous club in the world. So, I guess Crow’s riff about the most famous band in the world playing at the most famous club in the world doesn’t quite fit this discussion. Well, I thought it was obscure and after all this typing, I’m still submitting this. ;-)
From Devil Doll: (paraphrase)- “if not for rock and roll, ventriloqui would have been huge”
As a Minnesotan who grew up in Anoka, I love in Zombie Nightmare when they show a POV shot of the zombie approaching the college:
“Meanwhile at Anoka Ramsey Technical College!”
I know quite a few people who went there.
#129, don’t forget that the man with severe head trauma had a permanent erection and was in a coma when she did the deed. I also think that Garp was his name. T.S. Garp, which Jenny named her son even though she didn’t know what the T.S. stood for. Then again, it’s been nearly two decades since I’ve read the book or seen the movie.
There’s one that’s referenced on the message board that I got and was surprised, at the time, that I got it. It’s the Catfish Hunter riff in Blood Waters of Doctor Z. When Mike and Crow told Tom that his perfect riff didn’t work because Catfish Hunter changed his name to Catfish Chapstick, they were referring to a Chapstick television ad from the late 70s/early 80s featuring Suzy Chapstick and Catfish Hunter. The commercial ended with Suzy asking Catfish if she could call him “Catfish Chapstick”. When Crow said that he changed his name, I *knew* that he would be say that his new name was Catfish Chapstick, despite that ad having gone out of circulation over fifteen years before the episode.
I’m not really sure how obscure this is,but it’s a riff that I’ve been giggling about a lot lately. Peter Lawford in Angel’s Revenge, drunk and ordering his guard dog: “BABY!” Crow:”I’m a want you!” Works every time!
I’m partial to the Jucy Lucy riff, especially since it’s in the episode guide and I recently found the Wikipedia entry for it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jucy_Lucy
I love the riff in Blood Waters of Dr. Z too.
Especially how they played it out with Tom getting all pouty and then moving on after Mike makes a later riff, Tom yells “Oh yeah?! Well where he hell do you get off?!”
The whole crazy movie is riffed excellently and it’s one of my top ten all-time favorites.
But the ‘Catfish Chapstick’ joke was made funnier and sillier because the ACTUAL name-change from the commercial was to “Chapstick Hunter”, NOT “Catfish Chapstick”.
And they were a running line of commercials – separate commercials, first being the Suzy Chaffee one all by herself (which was the most commonly seen one for years), then later the Catfish Hunter one, which didn’t get as much airplay.
#96:
I LOVED the Cookie Bear from the Andy Williams show!!!!
In the short “Catching Trouble” the narrator talks about the hunter Ross working in the everglades and Tom riff, “But at night he does Streisand in the Bubble Room on Captiva!” I live about 20 miles from Captiva Island and have driven past the Bubble Room bar a few times. So I guess someone at the Brains likes to winter in South West FLA. Not surprising since the Gulf Coast seems to be a haven for midwesterners.
I liked the reference “Leland Sklar, survivalist” in Arizona Werewolf. Sklar was the bass player for James Taylor and others in the 70s and 80s, and he had a ton of hair, mostly in his beard; however, he did look just like Sam the Keeper. So much, in fact, that when I heard the riff, I thought it wasn’t even funny (“OF COURSE that’s Leland Sklar!”)
Also, I;m pretty sure Roxy (in Eegah) says she heard a POCO song on the radio, which might leave anyone that frail shaken.
ALSO my other fave riff is CAVE DWELLERS When Ator is talking about “each man’s fate is predetermined” and Joel correctly points out he must be a Calvinist. I love the theology references, like this one; if you’re a good sunday school student, you’ll see that really sounds like a start of a good predestination/election discussion , esp. in a Presbyterian church.
#135
I think Cosby was a better comedian than he was TV actor, honestly. I’m a big fan of his stand-up and (Being a car guy) I LOVED Cosby’s album “200 MPH”. If you haven’t heard it, I greatly recommend it.
I just said this one today. In a season 1 when Joel and Tom are all sleepy, Crow is the chipper morning bot, singing “Birdie with a yellow bill, hopped upon my window sill, cocked his shinging eye and said, What’s for breakfast — Grandma?” The original poem is of course the R.L. Stevenson poem, but it has been changed by Clellan Covey Card to have a myriad different playful endings, such as the one Crow utters.
“What’s keeping you in jail, Goldie, — locks?”
#148, Jimmy, I love “200 MPH!” It’s a great laugh.
“Somebody’s at the door!”
“It went up to 200 MPH, and then there was some space below and the words ‘Oh Wow!'”