The riffers are Cole Stratton and Janet Varney, co-founders and co-creative directors of SF Sketchfest, the San Francisco Comedy Festival (www.sfsketchfest.com).
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Now Available from RiffTrax Presents…
37 Replies to “Now Available from RiffTrax Presents…”Commenting at Satellite News
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Looking forward to this. Should be really fun. But I was hoping this would be Mike and Bridgett riffing on this. Oh well, I trust them to get funny people. All of the other guest riffers have been excellent.
I’m sorry, but I can’t see myself plopping down digital dough for people I don’t know.
I saw the previews for those two Matthew Elliott Rifftrax Presents films and said, “No way.”
The preview on this one will have to be pretty good for me to consider it.
I thought Mike was required by law to Riff on any film that stars Tom Cruise or Patrick Swayze?
Unless Janet Varney is the daughter of Jim Varney I don’t think I’ll be getting this.
Who and why?????????????
On the one hand, encouraging a new generations of riffers is a nice idea. On the other hand, I’ll be sticking to the Mike, Kevin and Bill riffs to spend my money on.
Yeah, maybe a riffer we’ve never heard of should put up a free riff. If that goes over well they can charge for the next one.
I agree with the Doctor Who fan above, give us a taste and see if we come back for more. Instead of Riff Trax Presents, I think the above duo should be classified under iRiffs.
I posted these on the RiffTrax Forum and thought I’d crosspost here:
What RiffTrax Presents is and why it’s different than iRiffs
RiffTrax Presents are performers that are hand picked by RiffTrax. They can feature Kevin, Bill, Mary Jo, Matthew Elliot, Josh Fruhlinger, Cole, Janet, improv groups, actors, comedians. The point of it is someone whose work we admire and choose to present to everybody, and you can hopefully feel comfortable knowing that it will be up to a certain standard, both funny and technical wise. We’re hopeful that we can get lots more people to contribute their talents under this banner as well, whether people have heard about them or not. If they’re not exactly what you are used to…well, that’s kind of the point.
You should give this away for free since we’ve never heard of them
The problem with posting an entire track for free would be putting it thusly to people “We’re big fans of your work. We think you’re really funny and would love to feature you as a RiffTrax Presents. Of course, we won’t be paying you for the first one, you’ll have to put in the hours and hours of work on a free one, then do another one before we can charge for it.”
Nobody is right or wrong to want or not want to buy something we’ve put out. But if you need reassurance, we’d hope we’d have some credibility in terms of picking funny people to work with.
Cole’s Bio:
Cole Stratton is currently “paying his dues” in Los Angeles, where he enjoys losing parts to minorly more successful actors such as Barry Levinson’s nephew. A noted improviser, he’s done crazy make-em ups with Greg Proops, Patton Oswalt, Jack McBrayer, Scott Adsit, Rick Overton, Matt Walsh and Jeff Garlin, to name a few.
Due to planet alignment, he has appeared on TV’s Nash Bridges, re-enacted on America’s Most Wanted, played with puppies and Betty White on the Animal Planet original The Retrievers, thrown-down like the sarcastic white boy he is on Wilmer Valderrama’s Yo Momma, and was a cast member on NBC’s competitive comedy show Comedy Colosseum. He’s a lead in the indie comedy Callback opposite Kevin Farley, and has also appeared in the films Around the Fire and Dead Man on Campus. He’s also hawked wares in national commercials for Verizon, Pizza Hut, Popeye’s Chicken and most recently in a Wilco-scored VW spot.
Along with Janet Varney, he is co-founder and co-creative director of SF Sketchfest, the San Francisco Comedy Festival (www.sfsketchfest.com). He also co-founded the Bay Area sketch collective Totally False People (who performed at the 2004 HBO U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado), and LA’s improvising Pretty, Pretty Pony and Mosey.
He performs weekly in Santa Monica with The Westside Eclectic’s house improv team, Ladies and Gentlemen. He auditioned for the role of Max Fischer in Rushmore. He didn’t get it.
Janet’s Bio:
Janet Varney works as both a producer and actor in Los Angeles. She has most recently appeared on such shows as How I Met Your Mother, Entourage, the Steven Spielberg-produced series On the Lot, USA’s Psych, and finished a sketch pilot for Fox with Will and Grace’s Sean Hayes in March 2008. She also just completed roles in the feature films Still Waiting and Nicand Tristan, and is enjoying her fourth year as host of TBS’s Dinner and a Movie.
She performs live with improv group Mosey, produces and hosts the variety show Theme Park with Cole Stratton, and is currently working on the 60 Frames broadband series Beneath Contempt she created and wrote with Stephen Brophy. Roles on other new broadband series include MSN’s Republicrats and the Michael Eisner-produced Back on Topps with Randy and Jason Sklar.
Janet is co-founder and co-director of SF Sketchfest, the San Francisco Comedy Festival.
Also, I forgot to mention that Janet & Cole both wrote on the RiffTrax of the first Harry Potter movie, The Sorcerers Stone, so you may have already laughed at their work without knowing it.
No offense Conor, Still not buying it.
To be fair, and I’m surprised Conor didn’t mention it…Rifftrax usually makes a sample of the show available, so I guess you can judge by that if you like their riffing or not.
I myself actually prefer Mike, Kevin and Bill because it is a level of comfort in their recognizable voices. Josh Wray is also very good at his work.
I appreciate your comments, Conor, but I’m still kind of a tightwad.
I would actually recommend a repackaging of sorts for the Kevin/Bill Rifftrax Presents. They should be considered straight-up Rifftrax, as far as I’m concerned.
MST3K is what brought me to Rifftrax, so Mike, Kevin and Bill are the stars, so to speak. If any one of those three are involved, then it’s Rifftrax to me and I’m automatically buying it, sight unseen.
I think Rifftrax without any of the Big Three should be considered Rifftrax Presents.
Just my 2¢.
I think it would be funny if Rifftrax could ever get any of the Kids in the Hall to guest Riff, or any of the regulars from “Whose Line is it Anyway?”.
I might try those out.
If it’s anything like the Matthew Elliot riffs (esp. Dark Water), I’m in. Janet and Cole certainly picked a movie ripe for riffing. :smile:
True MSTies only for me. If they are teaming up with one- fine – otherwise- no thank you keep your comments.
The theme song to this film was played incessently when I was in high school. Hearing it again and again made me want to kill myself even more than I usually did. I hope these riffers don’t just mock this movie but tear it to pieces and then take a crap on it.
Rifftrax need more Bridget.
I vote for John Cleese and Michael Palin as guest Riffers! or any of the Pythons!!
[‘dream on’, I suppose.]
I don’t care who’s riffing on it… I gave up on Rifftrax a long time ago. Instead of releasing a stream of poor-to-average movies, they should have taken the time to produce some real quality ones. And please, get rid of the fart jokes, Kevin.. they’re just not funny.
Id like to finally see the end of Rifftrax and have the guys join the cast of Cinematic Titanic.
Wow. That sample is… bad. It’s bad.
It’s just a minute and a half of state park jokes.
By the way, I’m really willing to spend money on new riffers – I mean, they wouldn’t just throw a whole movie to guys they didn’t think would work.
But the sample’s gotta be good. The Elliot Dark Water sample is funny, and once I find the movie in an actual Blockbuster I’ll go for it.
That one, however, sucked.
Bring back The Film Crew.
Re #21 Rowsdower42. Based on your ‘review’ I just watched the sample, and yeah, it’s kind of weak.
The folks at Rifftrax are free to do what ever they want, but with Rifftrax, and Rifftrax Presents, and Rifftrax Wannabees, Rifftrax-we’ll-do-anything-for-a-dollar and Rifftrax-it-doesn’t-matter-if-it’s-funny-as-long-as-we-call-it-riffing-that’s-the-important-thing, they risk alienating their fanbase & debasing whatever brand they may have had.
Bring back The Film Crew.
I must’ve been in a grumpy mood during my last post, sorry. As above, flashback of THAT SONG!!!, anyway, the product is presented and it’s up to the consumer to purchase. They may be good writers (HPSS and HPCOS are my favorites) but it’s in the delivery. The sample is so so.
OTOH, I still haven’t bought any CT due to the fact that their trailers aren’t funny.
One more thing, “Dark Water” is funny in spite of the fact that the plot (not the supernatural) hits a little too close to home.
The more the merrier!
I liked the sample. Nice to here a womens voice.
It’ll take new *riffers* years to master the movie cut-up(just like it took years for the cast of MST3k to find their groove). I don’t expect perfection with any first time riffers.
I’ll buy the riff if they show me potential.
I think it’s interesting that Janet Varney is working on Rifftracks. She was one of the hosts for TBS’ Dinner and a Movie, which was VAGUELY similar to MST3K, excpet it had food cooks preparing dinner, and only cracking a few jokes at whatever movie was being featured, so Janet does have some experience in riffing films.
If you don’t like my apples, don’t shake my tree.
MST vets don’t have time to do every movie made in the history of crappy cinema. If you don’t like the new talent, don’t pay for it. That’s capitalism.
But don’t come on here blasting people you don’t know.
#20 – That would be an awful lot of silhouettes! :wink:
not blasting anyone, but familiar people riffing bad movies is what its all about–I agree with INAMIAP–bring back the Film Crew!
God yes, medium, I concur: bring back the Film Crew.
I just watched the Rifftraxed “Missile to the Moon” and Mike surprised me with a barrage of fart jokes. Not that I could do what Mr. Nelson does “better” or as good as, but- it was a LOT of fart jokes.
That said, it was still quite funny, and I loved Fred Willard as guest riffer.
I’ll also be saving my cash-money for releases with Mike, Bill, and Kevin. I doubt I’ll be buying any tracks that don’t feature at least two-thirds of the Crew.
I just watched (and listened to) “Transformers” and I found it really funny. If you haven’t caught it yet, and if you thought that movie totally sucked blue whale, which it did, then I recommend the RiffTrax.
RiffTrax and Film Crew movies are pretty entertaining, so long as the riffs and jokes aren’t too scatological. The only thing easier than a fart joke is a dick joke. And Mike, Bill, and Kevin are better than those jokes.
I also like RiffTrax when they feature truly bad, bad movies. Not like “Lord of the Rings” movies. There’s a universe of crap out there. I’d like to see them give their treatment to “Garfield” or “Showgirls” or “Firebirds” or “Ishtar” or some other huge, steaming load.
Maybe I’m a little low-brow, but I love the fart jokes! Who doesn’t like a good fart joke? Kevin, Mike and Bill are “above” fart jokes? Every male over 2 years of age has a sacred duty to honor and express the humor found in farting.
sebulbajohnny: “Id like to finally see the end of Rifftrax and have the guys join the cast of Cinematic Titanic.”
Cinematic Titanic is doing well, but Legend Films/Rifftrax is more successful than ever. Why would the Rifftrax crew (especially Mike) abandon a growing web business where they have creative control, so they can work on Joel’s project? They’d just be three more shadows on an already crowded screen.
Concerning the whole “Bring Back The Film Crew” thing, I believe that it’s more likely to happen than an MST3K reunion. However, let’s think about this. Mike, Kevin, and Bill recorded those episodes before Rifftrax took off, three years ago. They sold very well for Shout Factory, but I doubt they made enough money to make the guys seriously consider abandoning Rifftrax in favor of continuing Film Crew.
That leaves us with the option of them working on Film Crew as a side project while they still keep tabs on Rifftrax. They actually seem to be making some headway in that by bringing in new talent. Giving customers more options helps the site grow.
Customer actions speak louder than words, so here’s my thoughts on what to do if you want more Film Crew:
#1: Buy all the Film Crew DVDs. Get your friends to buy em. Watch em on Hulu. You’ve probably already done this, so let’s move on.
#2: Buy all the Rifftrax Shorts. Remind the guys how much you love to see them riff on old public domain stuff. While you’re at it, get “Missile to the Moon”. It’s one of the most Film Crew-esqe movie choices they’ve offered, and yet it’s one of the lowest selling titles. That doesn’t send a good message to the bean counters.
#3: Buy the Rifftrax Presents titles. Particularly the ones that don’t have Kevin and Bill on them. Why, you ask? Because I don’t think you’ll be able to have it both ways. If Rifftrax can survive a couple months without Mike/Kevin/Bill’s direct involvement in the recording of new content, that leaves them more time to work on other projects…like Film Crew. However, as long as Rifftrax needs them to keep recording new stuff to keep sales going, they’ll probably be too busy. Give the new people a shot.
very well said, Mr. Prefect, and good, solid ideas. perhaps some kind of emailing campaign to ‘Bring Back the Film Crew’ is in order.
unfortunately I’m an artist and therefore terrible at organization [or I’m a disorganized artist], else I’d attempt to implement such a thing.
I have all of the Film Crew’s releases, and have already purchased all of the Rifftrax Shorts. of all the VOD movies, I watch ‘Missile to the Moon’ most often. can’t believe it’s not a top-seller.
Another series of banter between Ari and Eric and turle with a love interest at last!