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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POD PEOPLE – “Trumpy’s beauty was disfigured by a big hillbilly…” This is a line from Albert Goldman’s book about Elvis referring to Elvis being uncircumcised.
EEGAH! – “Oh no, she’s chasing down Emmet Kelly!” Largely forgotten circus clown Emmet Kelly did a routine where he pretended to ‘sweep up’ a spotlight on the ground.
EEGAH! – “The Loretta Young Show!” Which would always start with Loretta Young emerging from a set of double doors.
I also remember at least one occasion where they did the “Rugga wugga” voice of White Fang, Soupy’s off-screen dog from THE SOUPY SALES SHOW.
I just want to extend my personal thank you to “Alert reader Jeffrey” for suggesting the discussion topic. This has been one of the better ones. I made a effort to read every single post. Top notch!
Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that
One of the references I wondered about for the longest time was a line where (usually Joel I think), says something like “gonna get me some baguettes, some rolls, and some reezle-rots” or something to that effect. No idea what that meant, until years later when I happened upon a Bill Cosby/Quincy Jones collaboration called “Hikky Burr.” Having listened to the original, I still don’t know what the hell he’s singing.
I remember the line being uttered in “Wild Rebels,” and a few other episodes.
I love any references to the Marx Brothers films. Often used are “make that three hard boiled eggs” or “captain spaulding!’…but the most obscure one for me was in Deathstalker when the evil queen comes into a very tiny room filled with lots of people and Trace says “is my aunt Minnie in here?” Cracks me up everytime :)
Semi obscure riff in “Manos”: There is the scene where the family gets lost while driving and Mike (the father NOT Mr. Nelson) says something about a cross-road. Tom Servo then begins to “sing” the bass line to Cream’s version of “Crossroads” from their 1970 live album.
I don’t know if anyone pointed this out yet, but in “Cave Dwellers,” (this wasn’t in a theater segment by the way)when they are doing a reenactment of the opening credits one of the cast credits appears saying “Winona Ryder as Roxy Carmichael.” This was a reference to the film “Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael” which is one of Ryder’s less well-known movies, so therefore it is rather obscure.
Not trying to be snarky here, but I find it amusing that about 80% of the riffs mentioned in this thread aren’t obscure at all.
#158:
I tend to agree with you that most of these aren’t particularly obscure to ME (aside from sports-related ones); but not everyone has the same abundance of pop culture knowledge as some of us.
P.S. I’d love to see that “riffs you don’t understand” topic someone mentioned earlier. That’d be a good idea to communally get some of our own questions answered and also show off that aforementioned knowledge, lol.
#108
The Camille riff (I think) references Camille, a movie based on a play based on a book and that’s been remade a few times but most famously starred Greta Garbo in the 1936 version. Its a melodrama about a prostitute with a heart of gold and features a protracted death scene -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQsPmMcQtAU
I THINK they also referenced it in the Lassie movie (Painted Hills) during her extended writhing around after getting poisoned, but I can’t remember.
Perhaps the obscure of the obscure… in “The Girl in Lover’s Lane,” as the train is coming down the track, Servo says something like “11 minutes late– raccoon on the track at EastBourne”. This is a reference to the little-watched show “The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin”, a British comedy from the mid-seventies. Every morning Reggie would be late to the office and then give an excuse to his secretary as to why; the reason he was late was ALWAYS something to do with the train he was arriving on– apparently a commentary on the British railway system at the time. I would be willing to bet that Kevin was responsible for this line, since he seems to be the crew-member that knows most about UK television.
908, The Touch of Satan: “But the trees can’t help their feelings if they like the way they’re made…” is a misquote from Rush’s “The Trees.” I also love how both Crow and Tom furiously stop Mike from singing the rest.
And would I be right in assuming that the frequently cited Million Dollar Movie (bada-dada-dumdum-BUMBUM!) is from 70’s WOR-TV New Jersey, or did the Chicago/Minnesota area have its own equivalent?
Being a UK fan I’ll just say that a hell of a lot of the US references go over my head though half the fun of the show is stumbling onto a meaning of a Riff I last heard 10 years ago. So I’m loving this thread.
I’d welcome an explanation thread as someone mentioned earlier.
From Time Chasers, there is a moment towards the end of the film, during the Revolutionary War, where crow says, “So Mike, they’re typically breathing the air around Tom Paine, right?” or something along those lines. That’s a reference to a Bob Dylan song, As I Went Out One Morning”, where the first line from the song is “As I went out one morning/to breath the air around Tom Paine.”
There are so many, and as others have already said, what’s obscure to one person is right in the mainstream to another. One that instantly comes to mind, however, was in “Santa Claus.” During the establishing shot outside Lupita’s hovel, Crow delivers a riff to the effect that it looks “like a Fellini Christmas.” That one always makes me crack up; it’s obscure and dead-on, with the slightly surreal cast of characters (the “strolling Gallagher,” the gamboling children, the little boy frenetically twirling his sparkler) closely resembling one of Fellini’s mise en scènes. It’s one of those ‘only on MST3K’ moments for me.
From #406–Attack of the Giant Leeches. While the townsfolk are searching the swamp for Cal and Liz (and the two other guys who got captured by the creatures searching the gator holes with long cypress poles) one guy with his bloodhounds is pictured and Tom Servo says, “Yeah, yeah, I know, you saw the best minds of your generation destroyed by madness”. A paraphrase of the opening line of Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl”. That one was a little obscure.
I thought about this forever, and the problem is, if YOU get the joke, it’s not obscure to YOU. So, I threw in a couple of random episodes and picked the references that I remember made me laugh-In Swamp Diamonds, when they dig up the loot, Tom belts out “Peace on earth was all it read….”. This is from the song One Tin Soldier, which I knew by heart as a kid as its the theme song from Billy Jack. If you hear the song, you’ll understand why he sings this. And in Agent Double 007, I love “Take that, John Entwhistle!!” Entwhistle was the mostly-ignored bass player from The Who, and the guy in that scene does kinda look like him. GREAT topic.
The stated topic: Your favorite obscure riff
The response(s): What planet are you from where [whatever] is “obscure”?
This thread highlights the best, and worst, of what MST3K has become in the afterlife. MST3K is about the most egalitarian TV show ever, but in perpetuity it has become an excuse for rampant snobbery and elitism (in terms of who “gets” the references, who doesn’t, and how and people are judged on their perception / erudition). Sometimes “obscurity” (neither the question nor the responses consider specifying the term, nor how the question is absurd in light of the tone of the responses) is clever; sometimes it’s just trivial. (In any case, trivial information is never a substitute for wisdom – – especially as a basis for judging another person).
When an “institution” (in this case MST3K fan community) becomes self-serving to the point that it diminishes / condescends to the people who were once a part of it or looked up to it, it’s time for the institution to go away.
I know that many of the responses don’t conform to this attitude. I apologize to those I might have offended. It was not my intention to be offensive.
Here’s a link to One Tin Soldier from Billy Jack.-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qswm7lHp7oY
#65: I encountered the “Turn it off!” riff just this past weekend, rewatching “EEGAH!” When Eegah is clumsily pawing at Roxy, the camera focuses on her father, and Crow uses the riff.
Only in this past week did I finally realize that Mike Nelson’s “Can’t you see what I’m trying to tell you? I love you,” which he uses in several episodes, is a Groucho Marx reference. I watched “Duck Soup” last week and had never noticed the connection till then.
Um, #169-the fact that every episode contained references that were all over the map, pop-culture-wise, was pretty much the appeal. The fact that this was not planned and thought out and test-marketed to death, but simply done by some funny people who threw out jokes that were funny to THEM, and they didn’t give a damn if no one else got it, was what made it special. We live in a culture today (see Family Guy, Adult Swim in general, etc.) with shows that seem to be struggling to be obscure (but not THAT obscure) so as to seem “hip”, and the folks that wrote MST just did it as pure reaction to whatever crappy movie they were watching, like a Rorshach test. Well-rounded people. Yikes, I don’t want to start a fight, either.
#172, I agree with everything you say. But, my problem is not with the show (which I love), but with the tone of some the responses here to other fans who are judged to be less atuned to some of the references. Maybe some people are from a “place” (in terms of life experience, exposure to literature, film, etc) where references that are obvious to some may be obscure to them. My point is that those people shouldn’t be condemned because they don’t know Thoreau, or star trek, or whatever. In fact (as you say), the show’s riffs are so wide spread that anyone can get something out of an episode. The show’s great. I oppose to the idea that some fans are more “hip” than others because they “get” more of the jokes.
#109 JCC: That’s what I had always thought she said too…although I’ll admit, the joke works pretty well the other way too.
Semi-obscure one from “Double 007″…
“Jesse Norman wants her caftan back!”
One riff which you could easily miss; in Prince of Space, soon after they refer to the professor’s wife as “the Japanese Suzanne Pleshette” the movie shows a cheap model of the exterior of their house as an establishing shot. Meanwhile M&TB sing the theme music to the “Bob Newhart” show as it would sound played on a koto. I smiled because in between almost every scene on that show they would show the same shot of his apartment bldg or office and play that same music.
For those asking for an “explanation thread” there already is one over at MST3K: The Discussion Board. It’s called “Esoteric References VI” and has been running for many years. Can be found under “MST3K General Chat”. Registration is simple and you can actually edit your posts there.
http://forrestcrow.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=mstchat&action=display&thread=5959
Not sure if anyone has mentioned this one yet, but in “Giant Spider Invasion” (and I believe in at least one other ep, although can’t remember which one) there is a quick shot of a motorcyclist crashing, to which the riff is “Albert Camus!” (in an anguished voice). Perhaps not very obscure, but this is an (incorrect) reference to the tragic end of the brilliant existentialist/absurdist author, Albert Camus, who died when he crashed his car.
#169:
Its just a show, you should really just relax.
Thanks for that thread, Finneas! Also, anyone who doesn’t already have Annotatedmst.com bookmarked should. B.T.W. I love your avatar. That’s one of my favorite films.
I finally remembered what I was going to post earlier. After I saw the film “Chinatown” I realized that *lots* of riffs used over the years are references to it.
In ‘Viking Women’ when the dark-haired one showed up, Crow exclaims, ‘It’s Kate Bush!!’, followed by Servo saying ‘Hounds of Love!’ (the name of her 1985 album). I had just gotten into her music at the time, so was really impressed with the reference.
Obscure, or not obscure, that is the question.
I’ve enjoyed this thread so far and so far I’ve had nothing to contribute. I mean, really, what is “obscure” you know? I’ve found that the beauty of the show is that upon re-watch, you find yourself laughing at jokes that you didn’t get before. I discovered the show when I was 15, about 16 yrs ago. I can remember watching episodes early on (specifics escape me) and years later upon re-watch laughing at jokes about Hunter S. Thompson, Talking Heads, Henry David Thoreau, and all the Zappa references, all those were things I didn’t “get” when I was a teenager; I had to go to college and “live a little.”
This is what makes the show endlessly re-watchable. As you, the viewer, mature and (gasp!) increase your knowledge base, you find yourself laughing at jokes you never got before. It’s a beautiful thing.
My memory is usually fuzzy, I have trouble remembering riffs and specifics sometimes, but I got a couple here from the recently watched KTMA era: In Fugitive Alien Joel says that the helmets look like “Phantom of the Paradise” which is my favorite Brian De Palma movie, and one that not everybody has seen or likes or has even heard of (although when I mentioned it in the episode guide thread, a couple people knew what I was talking about. So again, not truly obscure….) and also, from a couple different KTMA’s, they reference the 1989 Christian Slater skateboard movie “Gleaming the Cube” which both times I brought up in discussion threads nobody said anything, so either it is obscure (doubt it) or people are ignoring me (probable).
Also,another one I recall: in The Final Sacrifice, when Troy is digging in the attic, he sees a photo (of his dad?) and somebody riffs “Larry Csonka!” Sports references seem to get by some around here, so I will inform you and say that Csonka was a Miami Dolphin back in the 70’s, pretty good player, etc, etc. Also, his Wikipedia page mentions that he is “referenced quite frequently in Episode 910 (The Final Sacrifice) of the cult TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000 (since a character resembles him).”
Neat!
One of my favorite obscure riffs is in *Hobgoblins* when the 80s new wave band is playing. Tom Servo comments that this is the new Basque Separatist rock they’ve heard about, due to the lead singer’s costume.
Also, not a riff but a sketch, where Mike explains to the robots that his favorite Japanese theater is Noh theater, which then descends into a “who’s on first”-styled routine. Never fails to make me smile.
I don’t think this is obscure just misplaced but in Giant Spider Invasion Crow says “like a rock” a couple of times which was a slogan for Chevrolet but the thing that gets me is the truck they show is a Ford. Go figure.
#135: if no one else has said it, the Cosby line was used in The Dead Talk Back when Krasker starts lighting up his cigar as Cosby used to during his stand-up.
“Alert reader Jeffrey asks plaintively:
‘What about a thread discussing people’s favorite obscure jokes?'”
Plaintively???? I think not. ;)
Great thread, and really good responses, though. Had a few good laughs and learned a few things. Love that.
#144: Sorry, but it’s Catfish Chapstick. Look at about 0:55 into this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev7DHWG7wsY
I was watching Earth Versus the Spider recently, but I know it’s not the only time this reference was made in the show. The movie shows a phone ringing and Crow sings in a monotone “Wait for the beep! Wait for the beep!” That was a reference to a commercial in the 80s from a mail-order company that sold a tape that you’d use for outgoing messages for your answering machine. Essentially it was a bunch of songs in different styles where the lyrics were some permutation of “I’m not here right now so leave a message.” It was a gloriously awful commercial and presumably product. Crow’s line was referencing the “rap” song they included on the tape.
#186 Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wewsuLjJpEo
#186 and Damn, I meant it’s about 0:47 in that video. The video’s only fifty four seconds long, for god’s sake.
As a life long Nintendo gamer, definitely from episode 405 Being From Another Planet. It’s the scene later in the movie where the punk who stole the mummy’s crystals is finally cornered by our “hero” Ben Murphy prompting Crow to say in a nerdy voice: “Can I go back to my game, I was up to the third level of Metroid.” haha It’s easy enough to make a Mario or Zelda reference, but Metroid really seals the deal that you’re a hardcore NES fan. :)
The one that jumps to mind at the moment is from ‘Horror of Party Beach’. In an early scene where the monster is rising from the sea floor, the soundtrack is of a horrible, screechy guitar and Mike quips, “The monster gets up and immediately puts on his ‘Metal Machine’ record”.
That’s a reference to Lou Reed’s 1975 ‘Metal Machine Music’ double album, which consisted of nothing more than two records full of effected guitar feedback at various volume levels. There are various theories as to what Reed’s motivation behind the album was, from innovative genius to a joke to an early form of noise rock, but the popular belief is he was unhappy with his label(RCA) and it was little more than a big “F You!” contract fulfillment.
“It’s the Shining Path Fantasy Camp!” From Red Zone Cuba. I actually didn’t find out what/whom the Shining Path was for years after I saw the episode. Now it’s just a little extra funny.
WoW, I have never seen such a response to a question.
BTW – #7, the “Denebian Slime Devil” is what the Klingon officer called Captain Kirk to Scotty in the bar on the space station in “Trouble with Tribbles.” Chechov wants to hit the Klingon, but Scottie says, “We’re big enough to take a few insults.”
That is until the Klingon calls the Enterprise a “garbage scow.”
Then the fight starts.
106 – They made a number of “Clutch Cargo” refrences over the years. Another one was in Catalin Caper’s begining when Crow said, “Geesh, Cluch Cargo had better animation than this.” Clutch was static pictures with a mouth super-imposed on it. The mouth was the only thng that moved.
107 – Was “Green Ghost” the board game where even the board glowed and had open pits in it? About 1968 or 1969? If so, I had one also. I got it at a yard sale and my friend and I hade to go in the food pantry to play it.
One that is obscure today, but hysterical then, is from Manos.
“Its the next chapter in the Taster’s Choice saga.”
I miss those commercials and wanted to see the story unfold.
Scott B says:
January 18, 2011 at 5:29 pm
“I don’t think this is obscure just misplaced but in Giant Spider Invasion Crow says “like a rock” a couple of times which was a slogan for Chevrolet but the thing that gets me is the truck they show is a Ford. Go figure.”
That’s the joke.
As someone who grew up near the Quad Cities, I always appreciate when they would refer to them in a riff. They did a few times, mostly during the Joel years. The only one I can remember offhand was in one of the Undersea Kingdom shorts, when they noted that an exterior shot look like Davenport, IA (and the palace-like building in the shot does bear a resemblance to the old abbey, now a spa and hotel, that sits prominently on the bluffs above downtown Davenport).
Also, in Incredibly Strange Creatures…, they note a random shot looking like “morning in South Beloit.” I went to college in Beloit, WI, and I often had to walk through South Beloit to get to the bus to Chicago, and to their credit the shot really does look like the main drag of South Beloit. So clearly these kinds of riffs are testament to the boring sorts of places that they had to travel to in their stand up days.
Another semi-obscure riff that comes to mind is from Agent From HARM, in particular relating to the riffs about the henchman with the strong resemblance to Prince. The last one of those they make was when we see said henchman with his arm in a sling, and Crow notes that Mayte must have beat him up – Mayte Garcia being the former protege to whom Prince was married to at the time. Clearly at least one person on the staff was a Prince fan, because while most people would be familiar with the songs they mention, what non-fan would know who she was?
#186
Your are correct, sir.
But I knew that there was something about the joke that made Servo exonerated.
Obviously it wasn’t the name I now see.
But from that ad you can clearly see that Catfish Hunter never actually changed his name. Suzy merely asked him if we could call him Catfish Chapstick, and Hunter just gave a smirk.
So Servo was right all along.
I think they need to apologize to him for wrongly putting him through that pain, and make a whole new episode.
From Swamp Diamonds: during one of the many shots of the swamp Crow says with a deep voice, “Do not bring your padding here.” He’s paraphrasing a line from the opening of the Swamp Thing TV show were Swamping warns us not to bring our evil to the swamps.
There seems to be a lot of hate for Family Guy going around. I’m a huge fan and also a fan of many Adult Swim shows. I know that it’s crude in respects to MST3K but it’s funny as hell, while at least to me.
#169 I have to admit that in my responses here, I was initially reluctant to mention them because if I know of them, they can’t possibly be obscure.
One thing that I thought was funny was that there was a list of obscure references in the Amazing Colossal Episode Guide and one that was included was Belloch’s line to Indiana Jones: “There is nothing you can possess that I cannot take anyway.” I was kind of flabbergasted about that inclusion, in fact, because you know, Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark: you needed to be a real obscure movie buff to have seen that one.
#197:
Couldn’t agree more with your last paragraph!
Okay, here’s one that really is obscure, and which I haven’t seen referenced yet:
Just after the aforementioned “Captain Nice” riff in “Operation Double 007”, the soundtrack goes into a brass motif just as the car hits the plane. As it plays, Joel says, “A Screen Gems presentation!”
That’s a reference to the Screen Gems jingle (also done with brass) heard after “The Flintstones” and, I believe, “The Jetsons”. You won’t hear it today, though; it was replaced with a new H-B jingle & logo after Turner bought the company. It also shouldn’t be confused with a different Screen Gems logo used after “The Monkees” and “I Dream of Jeannie”.
So, how come I know this, but I’ll forget what I had for lunch yesterday?