And that’s in advance of tonight’s premiere of “Total Riff Off” on NatGeo TONIGHT starting at 8 p.m. Eastern and Pacific. Don’t forget!
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Reminder: ‘Total RiffOff’ Tonight on NatGeo + A Kevin InterviewBrian Lambert has five more questions for Kevin at MinnPost.com.
47 Replies to “Reminder: ‘Total RiffOff’ Tonight on NatGeo + A Kevin Interview”Commenting at Satellite News
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My DvR is set & I can’t wait!
Now if I could just get that darn Retro TV out here in the middle of California.
Watching now. These guys are great.
This is pretty bad so far. Are most recent RiffTrax releases this irritating and corny? I’ve only sampled a little bit of ’em and I didn’t like most of what I saw. I mean, you can only take this kind of thing so far before it starts to get stale.
#3,
I’m not a huge RiffTrax fan, but I disagree strongly that it’s bad. Maybe slow to start but the thong-eating dog stuff just killed.
30 mins in, very hilarious! Good stuff.
Bad-Ass-Dino Birds = killer turducken !
An oh man do I ever want a kwalla bear now!!
Its getting better! Its pretty dang hysterical right now!
“Yeah, look up and open your mouth!”
I’m a Rifftrax fan, but this is pretty awful. Not so much the Riffing, but the shows they are riffing.
The first one was fun, but their massacring of this “demon bat” special is one of the funniest damn things I’ve seen in a long time. Someone should get them to riff the “It was aliens” guy from the History Channel.
Seconded, Black Doug! This “Demon Bat” special is killing me!!!! They are ripping this bat crazy-dude a new one! And some dubbing for the animals is always welcome! It reminds me of the jungle scenes from “The Leach Women”!
“HOW ARE YAAHH?!”
“It rhymes with “pevered senis”‘
Available as RiffTrax VOD on Friday, April 4th!
http://www.rifftrax.com/tv
Thanks Rifftrax for coming through with the VOD!
I’ll be first in line!
One thing I learned from Total RiffOff is this, Fingal was lucky that he wasn’t doppled into a koala bear. Yuck!
Host: “Cows are being attacked…”
Mike: “Hamburglar’s goin’ straight to the source…”
“Do something else with your life”
Best line!!!
A riff I saw coming a mile away, but was still hilarious, all the same…
Host: “I wanted to learn more about vampires….”
Kevin: “So, I read a book called ‘Twilight’.”
Shrimp & Friends was kind of hit-and-miss, but once the Demon Bat got going?! Damn, they could easily do a weekly riffing of those type of shows for even longer than MST was on the air. They’d never run out of fodder, right?
“Shhhh…I hear hissing…”
“Yes, and BOO-ing! It’s the audience!”
I hope that fellow really is as good a sport as the closing credits implied.
And I REALLY hope we get some numbers on just how big a spike this gave NatGeo’s ratings!
“Damn catering is late again…. erm, I mean… I’m really roughing it out here!”
“I notice he never says WHERE he got those human remains from.”
“Get me away from these freaks and their human remains! I just want a Milkbone!”
“I only have a SLIGHT accent. Can we turn the subtitles off?”
(a little later)
“ARGHH!!!! There’s no subtitles! I don’t know what he’s saying!”
That actually is a pet peeve of mine with most reality shows these days. If someone even has a HINT of an accent, they put up subtitles. Was nice to hear our boys take a dig at that.
Gotta say, I was VERY disappointed. I didn’t find the Riffs very funny; in fact, I had both shows DVR’d, I only watched about 15 – 20 min of the Shrimp one, ended up deleting both.
Most of the Riffs seemed hurried, trying to be placed in between the narration and the “scientists”.
Call me a Riff purist, but the funniest, stomach-clenching from laughing so hard Riffs work best when the movie is awful.
I think it would be AWESOME if a channel such as HBO or Showtime would pick MST3K back up; perhaps a 1- episode season, giving them plenty of time to fire off the best Riffs possible.
Sorry, fellas….you dish out practically GOLD….but this was a miss indeed.
“Winnie the Poo went the same way”
“Oh booother”
I wonder if they will be able to get “Paul” the gator man with bad shirts at their ComicCON booth this year! we need more PAUL!
I will echo others, some of those documentaries, themselves, were rough. British Bat guy is a major twit. If the locals do not want you filming them, why did you film them????
My only “complaint” was the segment about the baby seal. I was laughing until the “bittersweet” ending was revealed about the seal dying which took its toll upon the elderly vet. Once this was revealed, I felt guilty for laughing and a tad “irked” that the trio “egged” the old man and his pet so thoroughly. It’s one thing if the characters are fictional, as in the movies they skewer, but here, well…
But the rest, particularly the bat hunter and the “swampies”, I was literally laughing out loud! (Lately, MST3K has been making me softly chuckle at best.) I was reminded of the shorts “zinged” during the Comedy Central run. The swamp segment reminded me of the Everglades trapper with his Seminole guide.
Ohh, when I first saw the disclaimer, I rolled my eyes thinking it’s sad Hat Geo has to present something like that to avoid someone offended enough to possibly litigate. But by the end of the announcement, I realized they were having just as much fun with it as our comedy trio.
Sincerely,
Bill
I found the specials funny. The demon bat guy was so awful I wished they gave him a Joe Don baker level attack. Also, koalas are disgusting.
DVR it last night and will watch it sometime when i have a chance.
Just want to say that I have never been a huge Rifftrax fan. I find that they are far more miss than hit but with an occaisional gem in there somewhere. However last night was a surprise. I thought they started off strong and kept it going through Demon Bat. It was just a little too long. I stopped watching after demon bat saving the last hour for tonight. All in all a decent outing and hopefully there will be more in the future. But lets be honest, three straight hours of NatGeo programming would be cruel and unusual punishment even in prison
The Demon Bat was the best one because it was similar to the Sci-Fi/Horror type bad movies they did. The other two were poor choices to riff. Natgeo should have given them two more like Demon Bat that fits their type of humor. Still it was nice to to see them on national TV again!
I didn’t read all the other stuff yet,but I will.
I was wondering did anyone catch the Fred Flintstone remark when the guy was testing the dog
with the foot he was hiding?
I was blown away by the Riff,I’m going to watch it again tonight.
I hope they do more of these it’s great to hear them on my TV again with new cool stuff.
Demon Bat was the best one because it was similar to the bad Sci-Fi/Horror movies they used to riff. The other two were poor choices for their type of humor. Natgeo should have given them two other shows like Demon Bat to riff. Still it was nice to see them on national TV again!
My favorites were definitely the demon bat guy and the thong-eating dog. I wonder how come this family happened to be having their lives documented, right when the dog starting eating thongs? Was it just that they knew she would have to do something dumb eventually? It’s odd to me. But I guess that’s how it’s done, just hang out until something worth filming happens to Honey Boo Boo or whatever. (Note to Rifftrax: Please never riff “Honey Boo Boo”.)
The guy with the goose sort of made me sad, because that’s probably gonna be me one day. I’ll be taking a walk, and instead of being hit on by single gentleman, some stupid goose will get a crush on me.
I thought this was so much fun!
Depressing Aunt said, “The guy with the goose sort of made me sad, because that’s probably gonna be me one day. I’ll be taking a walk, and instead of being hit on by single gentleman, some stupid goose will get a crush on me.”
Ah, but just remember your Greek myths. It could be Zeus in disguise! ;-)
Sincerely,
Bill
@Bill Redfern: Zeus getting involved would be even worse, because then Hera would be constantly attacking her demi-god children. Hasn’t “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys” taught you anything?
(And speaking of Hercules, I really hope they do a riff for that stinker “Legend of Hercules” movie, which not only makes “TLS” look accurate to the myths, it’s less accurate than the Disney movie! Gladiators in ancient Greece, for the gods’ sake!)
I LOVED it!! Great riffing and I am VERY happy that they are doing a VOD. Nice job, guys! :)
The episodes are now available on the RT site. Guess it hit big.
The Guy and Goose segment was very wrong. It was creepy how he assigned a female persona to the goose and continued to do so after he knew that the goose is male. (shudder)
I think a new post/update is needed as Rifftrax has released all 3 episodes in VOD format for purchase
http://www.rifftrax.com/tv
:-)
Agreed.
Also, an interview with Mike at Splitsider I haven’t seen mentioned yet: http://splitsider.com/2014/04/talking-to-mike-nelson-about-rifftraxs-national-geographic-tv-special/
FYI – these episodes will be replayed on 4/8 @ 3PM Central.
One of the things I appreciate most about Rifftrax (and CT and all things MST3k, of course) is that every time you watch an episode/DVD/whatever, there’s always another joke that you didn’t catch the prior time you watched it. And I’m extremely happy to say that the NatGeo riffs, while dragging a little in spots, were brilliant overall. I’ve just finished watching the 2nd riff-off (“demon bat,” by far my and most posters’ favorite riff) for a 3rd time, and sure enough, there were a few jokes I didn’t catch during previous viewings. And I hope that, through the wider viewership of NatGeo (and being Aprils Fools Day), people who otherwise might not have ever heard of RT will check it out. Whatever happens, I hope RT is invited back next year, perhaps to do more riffs on more channels? One can hope (that “one” being me)!! Anyone else w/me on this? Happy (belated) Fools of April Day, and here’s hoping we see more of this – RT (and CT) deserve wider audiences and recognition! :-D
Wow……I REALLY thought the guys brought their A-game to Nat-Geo on Tuesday night !!!
Yes, I have to admit the pairing of Rifftrax and National Geographic at first seemed a bit awkward, but in the end, the GREAT material Mike, Kevin and Bill delivered (for the most part) was a solid home run !!!
The only bad thing about it, as others have mentioned, is how my constant laughing out loud made me realize how little of that I seem to be experiencing on many of the latest offerings from Rifftrax these days.
Which leads me to this question……………has the sheer volume of work being sold at their site become more about quantity, over quality ??? ?:-)
Great stuff. Have to respectfully disagree with Save Ferris on the quality of the core Rifftrax product. I just watched Super Mario Bros. and it was a home run.
Look — I love RT and buy nearly all the VOD stuff they release but I do have to say that nowadays the movies they do rarely make me laugh out loud. There is a certain sameness and actual boredom that seems to creep into Mike and company, as if they have just “seen it, done it” way too many times.
I don’t get that, still, from the shorts they do, and it apparently isn’t there as well with this NatGeo stuff. Perhaps they just needed a challenge to inspire them and should look into more projects like this and less “boilerplate” stuff like so many of the movies they’ve been doing (that said, the last poster mentioned “Super Mario” and it’s one of the few I haven’t seen yet).
I agree with Save Ferris about how the A-game material from the Nat Geo stuff makes one realize how they could maybe work a little harder on the VODs and shorts to give ’em that same kind of re-watch value that Demon Bat has. I’ve already watched it twice now and am certain to get a lot of laughs out of it yet.
I disagree with Droppo about Super Mario Brothers, but only because the movie itself is way too painful / discomforting on a personal level that even the really good riffs didn’t balance it out. I found Terror at Tenkiller much more enjoyable, being perfectly, innocently dumb, and is something I could see revisiting in the not-so-far-off future (I don’t know why, I just had to change it up).
So you see, Mike “ex-genius” Kelley, it’s pretty subjective, though I definitely know where you’re coming from about that creeping feeling in some of the Rifftrax product of late. It’s something I get with anything new, but I’ve noticed that some of it gets better with time and ends up holding up a lot better than originally thought. It’s possible it might be because we’re MST fans first so we know what’s truly exciting comedy, and with such a high standard for writing quality no wonder we can so easily hold the view that practically everything could stand to be a little funnier.
I haven’t seen “Tenkiller” yet, either, so I can’t make any judgment on it, but of the last, say, five or six VOD movies they’ve done I’ve yet to have even one belly laugh. Nothing terrible, either, but even the worst of the MST3K years weren’t as disappointing (my wife and I continue to rewatch these weekly).
This really came home when we were watching one of them (can’t even recall the name, but it started off with a robbery with a flamethrower robot and some hero who lifted a cardboard car) and it wasn’t until we got about 20 minutes in we realized we had seen it a few months previous. It was, literally, forgettable (not the movie itself so much, although that was part of it, but just the riffs were so generic and predictable as we had come to expect).
I really LOVE the fact we have Mike and company (and even, for a while, Joel and the others) producing comedy of a similar nature to what was so outstanding for so many years. And I support them with my hard earned money in many different ways so I hope they keep doing it. But I DO wish they could hit a few more out of the ballpark the way they used to do. Some of it (perhaps a great deal of it) has to do with the writing — I know there are many writers involved in RT that never even had a hand in MST3K, and that shows. Did Mike (who, above all else, was a writer first and foremost for our beloved show) spend more time actually writing the NatGeo stuff? Does he, perhaps, let Erik and others at RT shoulder more (all?) of the writing duties there? Maybe there are concrete reasons why it’s not all golden anymore. Or maybe I’m just an old fart who loved our puppet show perhaps not too wisely but very well.
This is insanity.
The recent VOD releases have been outrageously funny, clever, and all kinds of silly. WONDERFUL ENTERTAINMENT.
That being said, the Nick Nolte gag can be launched into space any day now.
Just rewatched Demon Bat. Home run and perfect material. That’s exactly the kind of programming Nat Geo should give them to riff. The shrimp ep was more difficult to follow because of the narration. I think Demon Bat worked so well b/c there are enough pauses and it’s following an on-camera self-important host/star. Perfect format.