|
 |
The Latest RiffTrax Short…… is another in the terrific Mary Jo/Bridget series:
21 Replies to “The Latest RiffTrax Short…”Commenting at Satellite News
We are determined to encourage thoughtful discussion, so please be respectful to others. We also provide an "Ignore" button ( Comments are closed. |
|
Satellite News is a fan site for the Mystery Science Theater 3000 television and Netflix series. It is an independent publication written and compiled by Chris Cornell (msampo@aol.com) and Brian Henry (erhardt4@aol.com). Satellite of Love, LLC does not maintain this web site, nor is it responsible for this site's content.
All content posted on Satellite News is copyright © 2024 by Chris Cornell and Brian Henry, except where otherwise noted. This Date in MSTory is written and compiled by Steve Finley, Chris Cornell and Brian Henry. Copyright © 2024 All rights reserved. Please do not reproduce This Date in MSTory items in any form without express written permission from the authors. Items of MST3K news may be duplicated or reposted, as long as Satellite News is cited as the source. The views and opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of Satellite of Love, LLC. No warranty is expressed or implied that the information given herein is completely accurate, and in fact this information can and will change at any time. So there. Mystery Science Theater 3000, its characters and situations are copyrights and trademarks of Satellite of Love, LLC. Banner image created by Larry Lee Moniz. Powered by WordPress & Atahualpa |
|
) to help our users cope with "trolls" and other commenters whom they find annoying. Go to our
Another goodie!
I love the casual feel of the MJ&B shorts. Though I’m sure they’re as carefully prepared as any, they project a two-friends-sitting-around-the-kitchen-table-bs’ing vibe that’s a heckuva lot of fun.
Now that there’s a pool of 5 ex-MST riffers at Rifftrax, I hope they’ll start mixing it up at some point. I’d like to hear the Nelsons do something together; also, MJ, Kevin & Bill (an unofficial reunion of MST’s Three Stooges, Pearl, Brain Guy & Bobo).
So many great possibilities!
Mike & Bridget did a Rifftrax commentary for the first two episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy”, and both commentaries are definitely worth buying. But I agree it’d be great if they did more.
I generally stick to the main three riffers at Rifftrax, but I make an exception for Mary Jo and Bridget since they were very much a part of the original crew. Their shorts do feel a bit less rehearsed and more casual and it’s interesting to hear them poke fun at the old norms from a woman’s perspective. “I like them very much.”
Bridget and Mary Jo have both been guest riffers before, but it was a long time between then and the current teamup they’re doing.
Re: 1 (Gummo)
I respectfully and passionately disagree about mixing up the Mike/Bill/Kevin team.
While I enjoy Bridget, I am not at all a fan of Mary Jo as a performer/riffer (goes back to my extreme dislike of the Pearl character/performance) and sincerely hope they don’t mix her in with Mike, Kevin and Bill. It would be a deal-breaker for me in terms of buying a riff and I wouldn’t want it to come at the expense of any MKB project b/c that team is so brilliant and only so much material can be produced. I must caveat that by saying that Mary Jo clearly is a very talented writer given that she was a part of the small writing team responsible for my favorite show of all time. And I imagine she must also be pretty awesome as a person given that all the Brains clearly enjoy working with her. But, while I never want to voice a negative opinion about anyone tied to my favorite show ever….if Rifftrax folks are reading this, I wanted to share this feedback.
That said, I will always buy any Mike/Kevin/Bill riff and would pay double if they ever were able to snag Joel, Trace or Frank for some guest riffing.
Thanks and truly sorry to anyone my opinion offends. I understand it’s Comic Book Guy-esque. But, what can I say? I’m passionate about MST3K and Rifftrax.
In Mary Jo’s defense, she IS funny with Joel, Trace, Josh and Frank on the CT live shows (maybe a little bit of the post-6 smug/mean-spiritedness, but not that it takes over)–
I had the same opinion or worse of Pearl Forrester, and after one of the shows, I humorously apologized in person for what I’d thought about her all these years. :)
Still, the fact that the “RiffGirls” are only doing easy un-PC 50’s social-role targets gets a bit….monotonous after a while, bringing up all those old debates about the range and versatility of male vs. female standup comics.
(Y’know, like “Guy comics tell jokes, girl comics complain with funny timing.”)
I always hated the character of Pearl (I dunno, maybe I used to have my cheeks pinched when I was a kid by similar-looking aunties) but I love Mary Jo. She and Bridget crack me up with their riffing, and I appreciate the XX perspective. That’s chromosomes, not nastiness rating.
I think the Bridget and Mary Jo shorts are funnier than all the others. Keep ’em coming!!!
There’s some odd cognitive dissonance going on here for me.
On the one hand, the MST3k crew, all of them, seemed like they would have been a very progressive sort. MST3k rarely showed their actual leanings but most of the time seemed uninvolved – appropriate for a simple comedy show. In hindsight, many of them seem to be “confirmed bachelors”. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Mary Jo in the years after MST3k seemed to have more than a passing interest in women’s issues.
Yet here we have Mary Jo and Bridget, working together, exclusively on what appear to be shorts about women’s issues. I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s because MJ&B are really that close and this is the subject matter they choose.
So, when they release this series of shorts on DVD (and I hope they will), would this volume be titled “Rifftrax: Chick Flix”? It seems appropriate.
By the way, this one made me want to track down a copy of “Phantom of the Open Hearth”, the PBS movie, written & narrated by Jean Shepherd, about Shep’s disastrous junior prom.
Mike and Bridget did Next http://www.rifftrax.com/next One of my all time favorite movie Riffs :-D
I’m really very unclear on what this is alluding to. Are we suggesting that some or most of the male cast were/are ‘lavender around the edges?’ Is the supposition that Mary Jo and Bridget’s riffing on women-centric shorts is evidence for lesbianism? I mean no disrespect, but I really have no idea what you’re getting at here.
\
Sorry, I was being a bit obtuse intentionally. My point was, I would have thought the brains were more than superficially concerned about minority rights – that feels like such a dramatic term for this low-key conversation, i’m not trying to stir up a mess. I wasn’t trying to imply anything about MJ&B though, get your mind out of the gutter ;). Imagine they had black riffers on staff though and all they got to riff were Tyler Perry films. That’s the kind of situation I was alluding to in my previous post.
Droppo, love ya but your Mary Jo/Pearl hatred is starting to get EricJ-style old. Nothing wrong with having that opinion, you’re entitled to it and I had it myself briefly years ago, but you bring it up(your Pearl hatred history story) way too often in your posts. Take a break!
Y’see EricJ, it’s really quite simple *clears throat* “Women be different than men…”
I found Pearl kind of repulsive during the Dr. Forrester era, but really enjoyed her “Moe Stooge” mad scientist persona during the SciFi years.
Word
Ah, that makes much more sense then. I gotcha. I’ve always seen riffing (at least as practiced by the Brains) as a pretty non-partisan and unpolitical comedy form so I try not to read too much into Mary Jo and Bridget’s riffing on shorts that reinforce traditional gender roles.
What’s ‘gutter’ about two ladies in love? Not that Mary Jo and Bridget aren’t happily married to others, as we know. :-)
Wow……..what’s with all the ‘hate’ for Mary Jo’s “Pearl Forrester” ???
See people, she was EVIL……..and the fact that Ms. Pehl played her so over-the-top made her, in my opinion, even BETTER !!!
Seriously though, as much as I love “the boys”, I think Rifftrax may have hit REAL gold here, by teaming the two ladies……. :-D
Well, she was “evil” in the sense of being Dr. Forrester’s mom, but MJ’s performance/humor in character was EVIL in the sense of Roseanne.
One is much, much worse than the other.
I loved Mary Jo as Pearl Forrester. And, I would love to see all different combos of MST3K alumni on RiffTrax. Perhaps this will be possible – because, a little bird told me that Joel isn’t involving the old cast in his new reboot of MST3K.
I am a huge fan of Pearl!
There. I said it, and I’d say it again. And if you don’t like it, she might just come along and give you a good old-fashioned knee in the groin — so BEWARE!