I’ve seen every episode from Season 1-10 at least once and there are many that I re-watch on a regular basis, so of course I hear the same riffs many times. Sometimes, there are just certain ones that I remember hearing that I suddenly begin laughing at much harder than I ever had before, even if it isn’t an obscure reference that I realized.
My example comes from The Starfighters during the first refueling scene where Servo quips, “I’m going over to this plane, they got chocolate gas! Um-num-num-num!”
That one never stuck out much until a recent viewing and it ended up getting my biggest laugh of the night.
Have at it!
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“Snap into a Slim Jim!” from Boggy Creek 2 gave me a big laugh a few weeks back, and seems to get a bigger one every time I rewatch it.
Two that come to mind are the Operatic “AHH”s in Werewolf and the Failure sequence in The Day The Earth Froze.
From The Atomic Brain: “The continental breakfast is at eight, and if you hear screaming, don’t listen.”
There’s Johnny Longbow’s stew recipe:
“What’s in it?”
“A lot of things [rattlesnake, velveeta] chicken, corn, green peppers, chili [sigh], onions… [hair]…
Yes it happens to me, and it gets me in trouble! Master Ninja 1 had me laughing for days, often at inappropriate times, after hearing “i heard at the truck stop that he’s a ninja” = joel “yeah, it’s a ninja truck stop”. Why do you cause such anguish mst3k? :)
“He tried to kill me with a forklift!” I just saw Fugative Alien for the first time in years and completely forgot about the song. Just the absurdity of that plot point…brilliant.
“Watch out for snakes.” Eegah
These days, I tend to leave the show on in the background as I work more often than I actually sit and watch it. So when I do pay close attention, I uncover a lot of gems that slipped right past me on previous screenings. Case in point: the last time I watched “12 to the Moon”, when they extract the guy from the quicksand by pointing that vaguely theremin-looking thing at him, the riff “This makes no sense and yet it’s working!” actually brought me to tears from laughing so hard. :D
“Did you have to bring your walker up here?” from Radar Secret Service.
The one joke that I didn’t catch upon first airing but did when I bought the DVD of Volume 5 when it came out came from “The Touch of Satan” when our “hero” walks out of Ellen’s Diner and Crow quips “What was Anne Heche doing in there?” I had tears in my eyes I was laughing so hard, but it was one of those quick jokes I missed and always felt foolish for having fly by me.
‘ the Girl from Lover’s Lane’ when the train is coming down the track and Crow says “..uh camera three get off the track. camera three..! and J&tB scream.
Last night’s viewing
From Agent for HARM- “oh you lucky trunks”
From Quest of the Delta Knights- “Her dough has risen”
Both made me nearly spit my beer.
From “The Amazing Colossal man”
One character asks of another, “Mind if I smoke?”
Riff: “I don’t care if you burst into flames.”
Cracks me up every time I think about it.
I’ve had a lot of those moments over the years. One I remember specifically is what I sometimes call “the dirtiest joke ever on MST3K”. It’s a line I barely noticed on first viewing or even maybe some early subsequent ones, then when I finally noticed it, really noticed it, I couldn’t stop laughing. It’s a line in Manhunt In Space if I recall. The commander calls Rocky Jones on the video communicator and says something like, “I didn’t expect to find you in, Rocky.” Crow retorts, “But I’m not in Rocky.” When I finally picked up on it I realized it was genius.
From Junior Rodeo Daredevils, once I understood the reference:
“Animals are to be bred and SLAUGHTERED!!”
Space Mutiny: “They rocked us like a hurricane, sir!”
Crow’s “Quick, give him Dutch Elm Disease!” riff in “Jack Frost”. Another one would be the “IT’S!” riff said in “Jack Frost” and several other episodes.
Related to the theme: for some reason after watching Touch of Satan
I always get a craving for some CARNATION ICE CREAM!
From This Island Earth:
Servo: “Should we be seeing this?”
I *never* understood that riff for the longest time….. mainly because I wasn’t really paying attention to what Cal Meechem was *doing* that one specific moment.
The second I got it, I cracked up.
From Monster a-go-go…
He was short, pair shaped, and stood the whole way.
I start laughing before Tom says it!
I’d watched the riffing of the original “Gamera” for years. Recently, though, I find that I laugh even harder during the scene where a character (can’t remember his name) suddenly sets a big fire to draw Gamera into a trap, setting up this…
SERVO: Hey, it’s Frank Burns!
JOEL: Margaret, I love you! I’m doing this for you!
Joel’s delivery of his line just really cracks me up nowadays.
From Deadly Mantis, when they’re making fun of the old guy: “Marie died, you know!” Don’t know how I missed the one for so long! XD
The first one that comes to mind is from “Tormented.”
The lead character is approaching the lighthouse from which he tossed Vi, and Joel says, “Hmm. Think I’ll return to the scene of the crime to cheer myself up.” Less than a second later, Joel says, “It worked!” I laughed really hard the last time I watched it–it’s the first time the absurdity of that moment really hit me.
Final Justice, close up of Joe Don Baker’s mouth: “The last thing a sausage sees.”
Kills me every time.
Time of the Apes.
From outside, we see Caroline open the drapes of her prison with an inexplicable loud whooshing sound.
Kid: There’s Caroline!
Crow: With her pneumatic drapery.
Just don’t know how I missed that the first time. It’s hilarious.
A very early one from ‘The Crawling Hand’. When some guy is turning random dials on a console and Tom says “Lets see. Mess with this switch. Twist that. Flip this. Oops! Someones coming. Good luck with that! *snicker*”
The best instance of this I can recall is last year we threw a MST party for a bunch of friends who were only faintly familiar that is was a show that used to be on and there were puppets or something. The movie of choice was Hobgoblins, and while I can talk along with both the movie and the riffs at this point, certain jokes got bigger laughs from the crowd than I had ever given them, and it was infectious. Now those lines stick out a lot more than they used to, and the movie now seems more “dense”. If that makes sense.
RED ZONE CUBA: Tom Servo (as Coleman Francis) – “If you see something, film it. We’ll put it in.”
Always makes me laugh. In fact, that whole “diner” sequence still works.
“My father was a wood duck, my mother was a can opener.” I may have mixed up the order and which was the can opener and wood duck, but it’s still a superbly funny line.
X Marks the Spot:
Angel: “But, all good things come to an end…”
Joel: “Including the Wildwood Weed.”
(Having never heard of the song in my life, I just liked Joel’s delivery, without getting the 70’s reference.)
That, and Mary Jo’s trademark for putting in “It’s you, you brought the birds, you’re evil!” whenever a flock of seagulls fly overhead (eg. Day the Earth Froze), since I’d never seen the Hitchcock movie all the way through.
One I just caught, because it goes by so fast and on previous viewings I was actually caught up in the scene:
The Beatniks:
Moon: “What’s the difference, ya kill one, two, or a hundred?!”
Tom: Uh… ninety-eight.
The poop jokes make me laugh harder now than they did in my younger days.
“Well, I’m gonna go make the lagoon a little blacker.”
I ALWAYS laugh at the part in FUTURE WAR, when the “dinosaur” bursts through the window of the halfway house for huge guys and the one fat guy in blue swings a golf club at the dinosaur and gets knocked down and crow says SAVE THE MEATLOAF ! ! !
That gets me every time.
First watched “Jack Frost” when I was ten, so it went way over my head…
Ugly step-sister is having some ghastly makeup applied:
“And this is what you get when you take beauty tips from Andrea Dworkin.”
brilliant
Every Minnesota joke that I didn’t get until I moved to Minneapolis.
Tits all over for you Ator
There’s a mantis in my pant-is
Never get tired of Joel’s exasperated “DO something!” in ‘Manos: The Hands of Fate’.
Also, Mike’s repeated “I’m Cherokee Jack” never fails to delight.
Crow’s riff during “Teenagers From Outer Space;” ‘turn Rush Limbaugh off!’
A Date with your Family:
Narrator: These boys greet their Dad as though they were genuinely glad to see him, as though they really missed him.
Mike: there not
Makes me laugh every time.
Really “as though” implies acting,not genuine. I am laughing now as I type this :laugh:
I like the riff about the blue Trypoline liquid being “Smurf urine” in Riding With Death even more now after meeting actor Alan Oppenheimer at a fan convention. He played Dr. Hale, the bald crook responsible for the Tyrpolidine formula, who fakes working on his patents papers. He’s mainly known for his voice work in animation, including The Smurfs, which is why I find that joke more hilarious now. I also got him to say the words “patent papers” on camera, which is why I like those patent paper jokes even more now. Look for my video on YouTube using the web link in my posting.
In “The Undead”, when the hag comes looking for Pendragon in the inn and the innkeeper asks if she wants him to call Pengragon,
the innkeeper yells “HO!! PENGRAGON!!!”
and Tom says “I could have done that! Jeez!!”
I laugh every time because I wonder if anyone on the set was saying the same thing to themselves!
I’ll have this effect on whole episodes. It’ll be an episode that never really struck me before, then POOM! I call it having a breakthrough moment on the episode, finally seeing what the fanatics of any given episode are seeing. This most recently happened with this week’s episode guide entry, “Quest Of The Delta Knights.” While the episode drags on, I came to appreciate the first half hour more and more.
In the “A Young Man’s Fancy” short, when they open the dishwasher, and Mike says “Found the smell”.
This does happen to me a lot, with various episodes and various lines. I’ve been watching MST3K since I was 16 or 17 and I’ve seen every episode at least 20 times, I would reckon. Like a lot of people, I assumed I was the biggest fan of the show there was (even the only one) until the internet came along.
The first line that comes to mind is from Jack Frost, kind of subtle, when Father Mushroom and Ivan first meet. The small wizard says something to the effect of, “But sometimes I get bored.” Ivan says, “You get bored?” Batting it right back, Father Mushroom says, “I get bored.” Mike replies, with equal lack of animation, “Do you get bored?” I’m not sure why this cracks me up so badly, but 15 years later I still laugh at it. Maybe any bigger delivery or a more complex line would have diluted the hilarity for me.
There was also a couple of lines that nearly killed me, way back in the day. First time Hercules Unchained aired, I was enjoying a drink during the scene when Hercules, Ulysses, and Iole cross paths with the burly Anteo. I literally almost choked and couldn’t get my breath back for several seconds because I took a drink as Ulysses made to attack Anteo and was tossed through the air. Ulysses: “I’ll show you what a boy can do!” (tossed) Servo: “I can flyyyyyyyy!” I made have been a lot safer if Tom hadn’t hit me again with another punch while I was down, when Iole calls for Hercules’ help and he says, “I’m so sleepy I can’t keep my eyes open.” Tom, at his wry best, comments: “Well, that would be the definition of sleepy.” I’m lucky to still be here.
I also especially agree with #28, #36, and #37, and I’ve seen a lot of good selections on here. Anything from any of the Coleman Francis movies, San Francisco International, Night of the Blood Beast, Time of the Apes, Daddy-O, Operation Double 007, and Prince of Space will keep me laughing for a long time.
Operation Double 007.
After the skit wherein Joel performs his hilarious Thair Beta impression, they return to the movie and Crow says in a funny voice, “Really fun sketch, Joel.”
And Joel says, “I knoooow.”
Jesus Christ. I know it by heart, yet it still manages to ambush me every time. I suppose it’s because I am already laughing from the skit and then they do the callback with subtlety and perfectly timed.
A Date With Your Family had some that always get me:
“Dad, I had a feeling today.” “Well, don’t, Son.”
“Remember, Emotions are for Ethnic People.”
The Begining of the End also has one that slays me:
“HEY FRAAAANK!”
First Spaceship On Venus: “There’s an angry black man on line two…”
The senate investigation scene from “racket girls”: (Mike) “This director has just out-wooded Ed Wood!”
Mr. B Natural: (Buzz) “No, I’d better just go upstairs and do my reading…” (Mother) “This time, try not to make so much noise when you ‘read’…”
I can’t think of any right now, but there are some lines- that I know are coming, and right before they say them, I start laughing…
what always gets me is the scene in Magic Sword where the troll is throwing big rocks at George, the camera jump cuts to a close up of the troll holding a rock shaped like a loaf of bread and Joel says in the troll voice “Have some pumpernickel bread with me friend”. That one used to get stuck in my head back when I was in school, I busted out laughing once in gym class because of that riff, everyone looked at me like I was insane.
The most recent one for me has to be from First Spaceship On Venus, when Tom sings “today’s the day the teddy bears go to Venus”
Another one that jumps out at me is that scene in Final Sacrifice where the camera for no apparent reason is looking up Troy’s nose and he is making this weird toothy smile face and I think it’s Tom who makes a messed up snorting noise.
Oh and the other one that always surprises me is from Devil Fish, that scientist guy is using his computer and it suddenly says “I-love-you-Davis” then that creepy Woman walks in and one of the guys (Mike I think) says “Hi-Honey-I’m-Here”
classic.
In Squirm, they comment as the weird looking sister: “Diane Arbus wanted to take my pictures again, mom.” Cracked me up the past couple times I’ve seen it once I knew who Diane Arbus was.
I enjoyed Earth VS the Spider segment when one of the exterminators was killed by the spider in the cave, Joel blurts out “Look, it’s Dr Erhardt! So that’s what happened to him.” As silly as this may sound something like this shows what a class, and funny, act J&TB are.