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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200th post!!!! YES!
#200:
I assume you’re talking about THIS one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlDH8I266Zw&feature=related
and here is the version normally seen after “I Dream of Jeannie” and the like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ7zZRud1B0&NR=1
Have the riffers made any mentions of the Sleestaks from Land Of The Lost?
Sleestaks — yes, once or maybe twice. I remember someone saying, “Watch out for Sleestaks!” Maybe in “Women of the Prehistoric Planet?” It had to be a flick like that.
Finally remembered, the White Fang/Soupy Sales riff was from SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS.
Couple more…
GIANT SPIDER INVASION: “Oh, no! A spider the size of a Buick is attacking his Buick!” This is a takeoff of a line from ANNIE HALL, which explains the bad Woody Allen impression. Similarly, in HORRORS OF SPIDER ISLAND, someone does Woody at the end, “So, that was my experience from the island where I turned into a giant spider. Did I learn anything? Probably not…”
WILD WORLD OF BATWOMAN: A girl dancer is called ‘Geraldine’, after a character Flip Wilson played in drag on his 70’s variety show.
Of course, the most obscure riff EVER, “Stop her, she stole Mike’s keyboard!”, is actually from Mike Nelson’s private life: He broke up with a girl and she retaliated by stealing his electric keyboard, the only thing of any worth he owned at the time.
Then there’s ‘Willie The Waffle Elf’ from VIKING WOMEN VS. THE SEA SERPENT, which is a takeoff of Coily The Spring Sprite from ‘Spring Fever,’ several YEARS before they featured ‘Spring Fever’ on the show…
“Then there’s ‘Willie The Waffle Elf’….which is a takeoff of Coily The Spring Sprite from ‘Spring Fever,’ several YEARS before they featured ‘Spring Fever’ on the show…”
No sentence has ever better explained why I adore this show. :)
There have been many enlightening posts here. I’ll add just one more:
In The Thing That Couldn’t Die, Servo says, in reference to the painting on the wall, “Hey, a Kan-don’t-ski!” I loved this little throwaway play on abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky’s work.
#204 – I think that’s in “The Girl In Lovers Lane”. It’s a play on Eegah’s “Watch out for snakes” line so it was long after “Women of the Prehistoric Planet.
These were more my favorite obscure riffs when I was an angry young punk in the mid 90’s, but they still make me laugh, from Zombie Nightmare: “Stiv Bators is pissed!” and “Auditions for the band Fear.”
#207:
Slightly off-topic, but since you mentioned Kandinsky… My wife’s mother is an artist and art teacher and about 5 years ago she taught me how to do small stained glass artwork. So, I decided to start with something easy and fairly geometrical and chose a simplified Kandinsky-meets-Mondrian type of pattern. I’m pretty proud of the result: http://bit.ly/hymML4
# 203:
“They turned her into a Sleestak” That was from the scene in The Unearthly when John Carradine botches a gland graft operation on the hot young blonde turning her into a disfigured mess…
#905 The Deadly Bees
When Vicki first arrives On Seagull Island there is a shot of a tree and Crow says ” look they’re growing Bill the cat”. Bill the cat was a cartoon character in the daily paper called Bloom County. Anyone remember what a great comic strip this was? Ack!
I very nearly forgot my most favorite obscure joke in all of MST3K, and it was hiding in plain sight! Not really a riff, but the very name “Satellite of Love” is, itself, an obscure joke. For those who haven’t read the “Subtleties” section of the FAQ on this wonderful site (hey, gotta give props to Sampo!), it references a song written by Lou Reed during his Velvet Underground years and later released on his “Transformer” album. Here’s the link to the song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH2EgYq_NCY
A couple I can think of, may not be too obscure:
Riding with Death: There’s a mention of Whip Inflation Now buttons. Jimmy Carter used these during his campaign, the acronym is W.I.N
In Beast of Yucca Flats, there’s a shot of a chauffer driving Tor Johnson and an agent, and Crow blurts: “It’s the KGB Mr. Benny” imitating Eddie Anderson’s character Rochester from The Jack Benny Show. Love that line!! :D
@202 (Jimmy)
You are correct, sir. I prefer the “red SG” logo over the “dancing sticks” one.
In Terror from the Year 5000 there was a point where the time machine starts making crazy high pitched noises and Tom says “Don Cherry.”
Don Cherry was the “pocket trumpet” player for atonal jazz innovator Ornette Coleman. His style was less about playing notes and melodies and more about making as much screaming, dissonant noise as possible.
Don Cherry starts his solo at 3:02.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wPbg3J8pDQ&feature=related
‘Whip Inflation Now’ (WIN) buttons were an invention from Gerald Ford while he was president.
Jimmy Carter had nothing to do with that, other than his causing inflation to become worse.
Any reference they make to “The Outer Limits” or “SCTV” I love. (“Did ya droven or didcha flew?”) Come to think of it, references they’d make to rural places in Michigan were funny too. “Suddenly Santa corkscrews into Ypsilanti Michigan!” Yes, I am a Lower Penninsula inhabitant, thank you.
212>> Also, “SOL” happens to be a common Army acronym for the phrase “sh*t outta luck”…
Hey, Finnias Jones, ya still there? My favorite Blue Oyster Cult song is the live version of “Cities On Flame”, found on the double-live “On Your Feet, Or On Your Knees!”
Well, I am super late again, but I plowed my way through most of these posts, and wanted to add some of my favorites that I don’t think have been mentioned:
One that took me forever to get was in “The Final Sacrifice”, when the cultist plows over the garbage cans while chasing Troy, and I think Crow sings “Oh, I love trash..ow!”; took me forever to remember Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street”.
I can’t remember the episode, but in a movie we hear vibes in the music score, and someone comments how Ruth Underwood was in the other room or something (Ruth being another Frank Zappa alum).
In “Track of the Moon Beast”, when the woman is approaching the door outside of which the moon beast just killed her husband, the music plays a descending line of notes, and Servo goes “Fame, Fame, Fame, Fame etc.”, and when they finally hit the last note, he quietly goes “What’s your name, what’s your name?” The song “Fame” being co-written by David Bowie and John Lennon.
Soupy Sales and White Fang! In “The Brain that Wouldn’t Die”, when the mutant monster’s hand comes out of the little hatch in the door, we hear “A-loo, a-loo, a-loo!”, which White Fang used to do when we saw (only) his furry, clawed hand come onto the screen.
In “The Projected Man”, when they are preparing to project the rat, and Servo says “Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage” (Smashing Pumpkins song).
In “Prince of Space”, when we see a shot from the back of the giant monster walking, Servo exclaims “Cecil Fielder!”, Cecil Fielder being a huge baseball player who hit a lot of home runs for the Detroit Tigers in the 1990s.
Finally, in “Girl in Gold Boots”, in the opening credit sequence, we see an African American woman sitting at one of the tables, and I think Servo says “with Mary Wells on injured reserve”- Mary Wells being one of Motown’s Supremes back in the 1960s, who got tired of all the attention Diana Ross got and eventually went solo.
And I remember the game “Green Ghost”- that was one of my most coveted Christmas gifts ever! Although I didn’t really play the game, I just liked to look at the stuff glow in the dark. See ya!
That Smashing Pumpkins song was a gold-selling, Grammy Award-winning single that spent 20 weeks in the Billboard Hot 100 and was used in an episode of “The Simpsons.” Not an obscure reference, especially not when “The Projected Man” first aired (2½ years after the single was released).
Watching the Rifftrax of “Twilight” made me think back to how many times they’ve referenced the urban legend about Keith Richards having all his blood replaced (which I’d say is pretty obscure). It’s referenced in “Parts,” “The Amazing Colossal Episode Guide,” and I think one other “M.S.T.” episode I’ve seen, and then the Rifftrax of “Twilight.”
A few (relatively) obscure references from one of my faves, “The Leech Woman” (#802):
When Jerry Lando, the (English?) ‘great white hunter’ in the movie repeatedly calls out “Ladu!!!”, when summoning the (head) African tribesman, Bill answers with “Scott LeDoux ???“, better known (according to his Wikipedia entry) as “The Fighting Frenchman”, who was a pro boxer with ties to Minnesota that fought in the 70’s and 80’s.
Another Bill mention from this one, is a quick ‘shout out’ to Bachman’s Floral (a chain of floral shops based in Minneapolis) when spotting some jungle vegetation.
Finally, my favorite ‘obscure’ reference comes with the African tribal ritual when Kevin, upon seeing one of the women dancing, laughingly says, “She dances like a drunk girl at the BlainBrook Bowl“. After doing an internet search, I found (at, of all places, blainbrookbowl.com !!!) that this is a specific reference to a bowling center located on Central Ave. in Blaine, MN.
Oh, damn……..rummy quicksand……..looks like I have to be going……. ;-)
Easy, though it’s not really a riff, but a reference in one of the skits. It’s from Jack Frost, which has become one of my favorite episodes as well. When Crow is giving his presentation, he mentions “Earl Torgeson, a butcher in Sanford, Maine”. I grew up in Sanford, and when I watched this episode I was spending an incredibly depressing summer at home in Sanford before I moved to Boston to attend college. Hearing that little shout-out brightened my spirits immensely and didn’t make me feel so bad about the rest of my stay there, since at least my favorite TV show knew about it.
Stoneman @ # 220: Dude, I’m always here. “Cities On Flame” was the tune that finally got me to dig into BOC. Good call.
Just look at this thread: well over 200 posts. A treasure trove of obscure, trivial, pop culture information.
And echoing the sentiments of “unwashed” @ #169 above: 99% of the comments are fun and passionate reads, from folks sharing a transcendent personal moment when a voice from mass media spoke to directly to them. And less than 1% are from joyless know-it-all’s attempting to piss on our parade.
Jimmy, #209, really nice piece of stained glass! The Kandinsky-Mondrian combo works well!
“And less than 1% are from joyless know-it-all’s attempting to piss on our parade……”
THANK YOU, “Finnias”………I personally have absolutely no problem with HONEST dissent on any ‘board’, anywhere (as long as it’s civil), but it never fails to be so horribly disappointing to me to come across truly RUDE people making RUDE comments to/about/at others here (as rare as it is). The boorish behavior that, unfortunately, has become so commonplace on the rest of the ‘net, only helps to underscore the wonderful atmosphere that has been fostered on this little ‘oasis in the desert’…..
Kudos to you Sampo, and everyone else who make it possible for such a GREAT place to exist in this horribly angry world of ours…. :-)
(Steps down off of ‘soapbox’, and exits.)
For me, it was this chestnut from The Amazing Colossal Man:
EVERYONE: (singing) Scarecrow, Scarecrow.
CROW: Scare Me?
As for the song itself, I believe that’s from the old Disneyland 3-Parter (and later theatrical release) Dr. Syn aka The Scarecrow.
The “Scarecrow” reference surprised the heck out of my mom and me when we first heard it, too. I also loved it when Mike mentioned stopping by Pogo’s place in Devilfish, since I had grown up on Walt Kelly’s comic anthologies. The weird colloquialisms like. “What, did you fall in?” always crack me up since the ONLY person I had ever heard use those phrases was my grandma who was born and lived 94 years (and counting) in San Francisco. Maybe that doesn’t seem obscure to other Americans, but I grew up in a country where English is a foreign language so it qualifies for me.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading every post here! As stated multiple times, what may not be obscure to one may be obscure to many…so keep ’em comin!!
Okay, we will.
When Doctor Forrester is bandaged like a mummy in a hospital bed after being savagely beaten (I think the episode was RED ZONE CUBA), TV’s Frank brings him hard-boiled eggs and nuts, an allusion to an old Laurel and Hardy short.
Don’t remember the movie, but there’s a shot out a spaceship porthole and Joel comments, “Polka-dots and moonbeams, sir!” Reference is an obscure Lesley Gore (I think) song.
Of course, the riff most often cited to show the program’s intellect: During CAVE DWELLERS, a character proclaims “Your fate has already been decided!” and Joel responds, “Oh, he’s a Calvinist!”
The obscure ones that always got me laughing were the food jokes Mike would throw in. Back when the show was being aired, I would have a full house of MiSTies over to watch (20-30 ppl) and often times a riff would go off that would cause 1 person in the bunch to go into hysterics…which would then ripple trough the crowd.
The one that REALLY got me was “I’d like to confuse Bok Choi and Cabbage, Sir”.
I was working at a restaurant that used both items in various recipes, and the week “Spacy Mutiny” came out, I had actually made that very mistake. Too funny. Trying to explain the differnce to non-cooks while laughing your head off is veeerrry difficult.