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Now Available from RiffTrax…20 Replies to “Now Available from RiffTrax…”Commenting at Satellite News
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) to help our users cope with "trolls" and other commenters whom they find annoying. Go to our
“He’s not…”–Oh, let’s just all mutually agree the joke’s been made, and move on from there.
(One mention of Hughes gets two urine jokes in the description alone, and he’s neurotically distracted??)
Eric J.:
As opposed to you who’s just neurotic.
Try this before you rant here:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6bFz-0oj3FM
You’ll feel better.
So will the rest of us here.
Om Mani Padme Hum…
Who could not benefit from contemplating the jewel of the lotus growing unblemished from the mud?
“We don’t need no stinkin’ mud”.
(Oh, Sexy Sadie, look what you’ve done…)
Here’s a wild idea. How ‘bout we talk about the movie instead?
It’s a semi catchphrase here in MSTie land to say “Oh, he’s good in anything”. Well, here is outstanding proof that Vincent Price really is good in anything. Even this belly dancing/pole stripper fest is made better by his work. By the way, how many Sinbads have come and gone through these portals now?
You say that like it’s a bad thing ….
“Hey, look at the cool boom box I got here!”
Sampo, every time you link to a new Rifftrax, you should always include the disclaimer: The Original EricJ disapproves of this riff. It would save us all some time.
Yeah. I really don’t get it. Me? I am not a fan of sports. I really hate football, for example. So here’s what I don’t do: I don’t join forums which discuss football. I don’t incessantly flood football discussion forums with dispairaging remarks about football. I don’t tell football fans how stupid their game is, and I don’t obsessively watch football games in order to glean juicy tidbits which I can lord over football fans and which I believe prove the worthlesness of football.
Instead, I just don’t watch football, and I let those who like it watch.
But maybe that’s too simple?
Maybe–Think of it more in terms of going to your kids’ Pop Warner little-league football game, standing up in the stands and shouting “Heyyy, what kinda game IS this? He made a touchdown, but he didn’t do a showboat dance, hold up a bottle of Gatorade, and shout ‘In yo’ face!’…That’s what football is REALLY about, ’cause that’s the kind I grew up watching on ESPN! Guess a lot of old fogeys are gonna start wheezing about ‘Fun and fair play’, ’cause they don’t like the NFL being so popular and didn’t take their Metamucil today!”
More accurately, imagine yourself as one of the other parents who has to watch that.
(And yes, Vincent Price IS good in anything. :)
Even the Tim Burton movie and the Michael Jackson video, being good in either of which is no easy trick.)
Is there no one who finds EricJ amusing? I have to admit that part of me does, although it’s easy to see why he is exceedingly unpopular. After all, this is a show that the majority of us have some affection for in all it’s iterations or at least most of them, and it seems that Eric is only a fan of up until season 3 or 4-ish? I’m not entirely sure if that assessment is accurate, it may even be the entirety of the original Joel era that Eric deems worthwhile, and everything from show #513 he considers to pale in comparison to the previous material. And of course, Rifftrax he has deemed utter tripe and is the target of most of his criticism.
But his commitment to comprehensively bashing every aspect of RT on every RT-related thread that I’ve ever seen on here…I’ve never stuck to anything so diligently in my life. Every time I click on the comments, I know that 9 times out of 10 he will be the first to have spoken here. More amusing than his comments are the fact that the majority of the subsequent comments are berating him. Although I see why many find him to be a general irritant, I do think it’s funny that his loath of RT is a source of such deep, deep passion for him, and yet he does not ever insert the standard ingredients that are so common to the garden variety “internet troll”…the vulgarity, epithets, death threats, or generally violent forms of verbal rage that usually accompany deep hatred. Is there not something commendable about these ground rules he seems to abide by? His comments are never something that a moderator could find a good excuse to ban & censor, apart from the fact that he has only negative views to express about the subject of the post.
I have never in my life seen a comment that was positive towards EricJ, although that may have happened. And yet, I am curious what will happen if I do so. I do not expect his “grinch heart” to grow 3 sizes. I’m fairly convinced that if he wanted any sort of positive affirmation, he would seek it through traditional means…and whatever reward he feels that he gets from negative comments, I suppose he will not receive from this particular comment (a dissertation the length of which I apologize for, this is a distillation of thoughts I have had for a few years now.)
So, hats off to you, EricJ, for being a “troll” of a different breed…although I don’t generally support the notion of spending so much of one’s time saying how terrible a thing is to the people who like that thing. But the fact that you pull that off in a fairly innocuous way is kind of funny. Perhaps you view it as riffing on riffing itself? Are you “one of the good ones”? I don’t know, but I suppose…in a way…you made a few of us laugh…about love…again.
Well then, here’s your chance… sort of. While I don’t really like EricJ, there are some things I can defend him on.
He raises genuinely good points. RiffTrax is definitely the weakest of the MST3K offshoots. At times it can be too juvenile and they tend to go fo easy targets a lot of the time. I’m also not comfortable about the amount of times they’ve coasted on the success of MST3K, whether it be for the unnecessarily high amount of remakes they’ve done or the amount of films sharing an actor or director from an MST3K/RiffTrax classic just so they can advertise it to fans. I still like RiffTrax on the whole since Mike, Kevin and Bill are all still really talented and can still do some great things, but I agree that it’s the weakest MST3K offshoot.
I also agree that as much as I prefer Mike to Joel on the whole (Jonah beats them both, though), I dislike the meaner tone Sci-Fi Channel era MST3K took with the movies, particularly the ending “interview” segment from Hobgoblins. Considering that many of these movies turned out the way they did not through malicious intent, but through circumstance, it feels uncomfortable.
So yeah, for as many problems EricJ has, I can’t say him being wrong is one of them.
I won’t go into EricJ’s problems since they’ve been well documented already by people better at explaining them than I probably could, though I will say that it is rather hypocritical to say that he is annoying because he brings up his hatred at RiffTrax in every comment he makes, when there are just as many comments about EricJ himself.
So, none of the things that angry high-school Internet posters would do when angry, then? Noted.
As for the “Let’s tease him until he cries!” strategies of the majority of detractors expressing their anger that someone said the Cool Guy they discovered while watching cable back twenty years ago, or saw at the big concert event, Wasn’t Cool, however…
Without the usual adrenaline tropes of fantasy cusswords and violence, what we basically have are opinions being expressed. With annoying frequency?…Maybe, but complaining about RT is like Trump headlines: All I’m asking is one single day without worrying “Okay, what is it this time?”, or a Satellite News post that doesn’t tell us in what new ways RT is underestimating the intelligence of its cash-cult–or the old series’ own fans– and meriting said all-new opinion.
Apart from the frequency, the rage issues seem to be that someone seems to be expressing them, and that the love of the New Meich isn’t the great fantasy of unanimous love they thought it “should” be from how funny the Star Wars Holiday Special one was. When you see “Why do you even post on this site at all, if you don’t like RiffTrax?”, it starts bringing up some questions about just what discussions the more personally-invested fans think they’re in a position to “allow”.
Mmm, could-be: Good comics hate bad comics with a murderously personal passion, and use the one weapon they have–
In my case, I was one of a generation that was field-trained to be merciless high (and sometimes low)-brow audience hecklers, poking at hypocrisy, pompous egotism and lack of talent or wit wherever they saw it…I feel like Richard Crenna should be explaining me right now.
The Right People Who Got It, in an earlier series (or even in actual college-town movie theaters or Rocky Horror screenings), learned how to be deadpan-hip, pop-culture backgrounded beyond their years, and how to join together with fellow strangers in the same cause, by being vocally silly enough to disarm pomposity by “Going high when they go low”–
And when now faced with a group of Wrong People who thought anger management, vindictiveness, immature high-school lore and smug, clueless insults were “Comedy”, how were some of us supposed to react?
If we knew these good lines back in high school, we’d be making the bullies cry–So what do we do with the bullies now, now that they’re in their gray-haired 50’s and out of school, and so are some of us?…How about a rematch? :)
Joshua G.:
Don’t defend Eric J. He’s a troll and a bully.
Everything he posts here has the (self-importance) of a long winded doctoral dissertation.
He’s a legend in his own mind.
There would be fewer comments about Eric J. if he were banned by Sampo or just ignored.
Here’s a start.
I like Rifftrax much more than Cinematic Titanic. With that project, it felt like I was watching a pinball machine with all the balls in play at once.
Also, the folks behind the scenes at Rifftrax are really friendly. If you would like to make a suggestion, post it on the Rifftrax board or email them.
Nik is quite cool.
Let’s stop talking about trolls, especially ones that are so mind-numbingly dull and predictable.
Here’s a bit of interesting info on this movie: The film was shot in 1953 and planned to be released in 3D. Because of difficulties with the Motion Picture Production Code (I’m guessing because of all the womanizing and “sexy” ladies), Howard Hughes shelved the film until 1955, when it was released in 2D. It has never even been released on DVD.
Watched it over the weekend. Quite funny, and a great film for riffing (in that the movie itself is watchable and somewhat silly).
I’ve been on both sides of this. I once compared EJ to Lambert from Alien–
Kane
Quit griping.
Lambert
I like griping.
More recently I prefer the interpretation of EJ as a sort of performance artist. In some ways they don’t care if you agree with them, but at least if you have strong feelings it’s a success. I also appreciate the unwavering commitment to a (blinkard) point of view. Think of the little Amish boy’s opposition to buttons and automobiles. Can we not admire commitment to an idea even if we do not personally subscribe to it? At the least, can we not attribute malicious intent to rustics and sticks in mud? Remember the valuable service the idiot provides in society– Monty Python: The Idiot in Society https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=af9wXXU0QhQ
It’s good to be challenged by different ideas than your own. Sometimes you might find out about better ideas. Other times you have it reinforced why your ideas were better to begin with. Sometimes they are tedious. Other times may lead to smirk-musement.
Living in an echo chamber may be comfortable, but it might also be stultifying.
Oh, no question. Just… gotta give credit where it’s due, I suppose.
What’s Nik?
I dunno… I dislike EricJ as much as anyone, but he hasn’t really harassed anyone. His comments are also somewhat relevant to the discussion, so it can’t really be called spam. I’d like to see EricJ blocked too, but he hasn’t really broken any rules, so it might be difficult.
Honestly? This is well said. EricJ doesn’t really care about making people upset or getting attention, he just has VERY strong feelings… too strong, in fact, to the point of being off-putting.
Back on topic (sort of).
From Rifftrax.com:
Win LIMITED EDITION RiffTrax goodies. Now available in our eBay Store.
******* W.C. Fields based his stock character on a neighbor, upon whom his father once gave faint praise: “Whenever you see that guy, he’s just the same old s.o.b.” There’s a kind of majesty in being so consistently vinegary and misanthropic. We enjoy cheesy movies when we make fun of them, maybe it works with cheesy people?
So how ’bout that Rifftrax?