The Chicago Cubs’ recent World Series win got me thinking. I recalled all the jokes made by the MST3K gang about the Cubs being perpetual losers.
Now those jokes are no longer as relevant. I began to think of other memorably-dated riffs.
There was that joke about the high gas prices on a shot of a gas station in episode 904 – Werewolf. That episode was seen in 1998, when gas prices were much lower than today. I cringe whenever I hear that joke now.
What are your favorite examples of dated riffs and jokes on MST3K?
There was one a few weeks ago in the episode guide: “Marilu Henner is replacing Vicki!” To be honest I couldn’t even remember who “Vicki” was (it was Vicki Lawrence, thank you internet.)
What’s your pick?
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This is from “Eegah”: Why not stick around and watch “Dream On”? It’s the “breast” show on TV. Ha-ha! Kill me.”
It was a sitcom on HBO that beat MST out for Cable ACE Awards. It’s best known for showing breasts and mixing clips from old movies with the action for some reason
John Sununu goes for a hair cut.
I think these are from Hobgoblins, but there’s two jokes about people who later died, which makes the jokes stick out like sore thumbs. Something like “it’s so easy JFK Jr could do it” and a Hunter S. Thompson gun reference (which is especially troubling considering how he died). Sorry I didn’t do more research and get the actual quotes, but it’s early and I’m lazy.
Still, Hobgoblins is a Top 5, and I couldn’t believe in didn’t make the Turkey Day Countdown.
any USSR jokes.
Well, Bartcow, I’m lazy like you, because I don’t remember the specific episode. But I clearly remember a host segment where they talk about Hollywood marriages that had, and would continue, to test the bounds of time. Like Bruce and Demi, Brad and Jen, and I think the bots break down thinking about Burt and Lonnie breaking up!
And Trace was impersonating the puntastical Cryptkeeper from Tales From The Crypt, which I think was Dream On’s lead in. Double antiquity!
This makes me think of the Roger Whittaker obsession in Pumaman, and the many references to Gordon Lightfoot’s “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, which are still going on and will probably happen at least once in season 11. Can’t complain too much about dated riffs, though-I first came to Satellite News trying to Google one (I think Chief Zabu).
How about an updated reference? The controversial website Breitbart has called on viewers to boycott Kelloggs, the maker of Eggos, because they withdrew their advertising from them. Now the phrase “Leggo my Eggo” from Viking Women and the Sea Serpent (the Waffles! skit) has a fresh angle.
In Trace’s voice – “Buy Eggos where bank or work”.
In Master Ninja II, all the jokes about David McCallum being washed-up since the days of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. seem quite outdated, considering all the work he’s put in as Dr. Mallard on multiple seasons of CBS’s NCIS.
The one that springs to mind is from Werewolf: “Look at those high gas prices; what are they, in Port-au-Prince?” Because now those gas prices seem low, of course.
Another are the “3M” references peppered throughout and, of course, the repeated “OI!” in Space Mutiny referring to those Energizer battery commercials that were big at the time.
All of the “Japan is buying up America” riffs that were popular during Gamera and other Japanese movies.
Any riff that mentions “the information super-highway.” I think this was a phrase that went out of date about a month after it was coined.
Also, any references to ISO-9000 certification have probably lost their impact. Although, the riff about it being a license to kill still makes me chuckle.
Very interesting. I always thought they were referring to the character they thought looked like Sting and imitating an Australian expletive. “Oy!, Crikey!” etc.
Pretty much any ad campaign that is long past and forgotten. The one that irritates me the most is the “Keri, you’re so very…” skin lotion ad line from the 1980s, which was used to death in The Girl in Lovers’ Lane. It would have been funny once, but they kept saying it over and over and over, and who even remembers the ad any more?
Perhaps another WDT — riffs that were overused and riffs you’re surprised they didn’t use more. For example, in Bloodlust! I think they made a conscious effort to do one Brady Bunch riff about Robert Reed and then drop it.
During the end credits of Outlaw, the USA Network riffs about their reliance on terrible B-grade movies (and Servo’s jingle humming) hearken back to a noticeably different time for the channel.
Another vote for making cracks about John Sununu whenever a government jet is on the screen.
Referring to the Chicken of Tomorrow short as, “The Bill Clinton Story.”
I must speak on behalf of “Keri is so very.” My wife’s name is Keri, and I’ve been using that line about her for 30 years now! Believe me, even after all this time, Keri truly still is “so very”!
Regarding the WDT, several mentions of the Kingdome falling down (most notably in MST3K: The Movie) seem out of date. I barely remember the incidents myself. It’s too bad the guys couldn’t have used a riff about the time when the Metrodome roof fell in under all the accumulated snow.
San Francisco International has a few gems.
During the host segments, Mike does his Urkel imitation. At first everyone is laughing hysterically, many guest characters included. By the third host segment, ‘Urkel’ has become dated and everyone is now disinterested leaving Mike alone and confused.
Another example is during the confrontation between standard TV hippie and outraged business man. When security clears the hippie and releases him, the business man belows “Why are you releasing him?! and Mike riffs “The answer my friend is blow it out your a$$.”
Sometimes, the sight of a jet produced a “Kelly Flynn on another tryst” riff.
From The Touch of Satan, as our “hero” Jodie is leaving Ellen’s Cafe at the beginning of the movie, Crow asks, “What was Anne Heche doing in there?”
From Beginning of the End, when the giant grasshopper are running off the Illinois National Guard, Tom says: “America responds to the new Robert Urich/Faye Dunaway sitcom!” It was a blink-and-you’d-miss-it show called It Had to Be You that lasted for all of four episodes on CBS in 1993, and may already have been dated by the time Beginning of the End aired.
For me the easiest is The Urkel segments of San Francisco International. His reign of terror, as Sampo puts it, is dead and buried. To be fair, we still don’t know why he’s funny.
The other one is where Tom and Crow imitate Orville Redenbacher and his Grandson. Quite simply, one is dead, and the other has grown up.
We may take comfort in the fact that MST3K still has a multitude of fans and is getting a highly-anticipated revival, while “Dream On” has been all-but-totally forgotten.
As for outdated riffs, one I remember is from “Catalina Caper”. I think Servo remarks that the flunky resembles Steve Higgins, leading Joel to comment/plug, “You mean Steve Higgins from ‘The Higgins Boys and Gruber, as seen on the Comedy Channel?” Soon, the Comedy Channel would be replaced by TheFirstNetworkWhichShallRemainNameless.
Just about any outside reference (meaning, referring to something outside of the show/movie) is destined to become outdated.
Regarding This Island Earth in MST3K: The Movie, you could make the argument that Crow’s “Please say we can get the Sci-Fi Channel” is now outdated for a number of reasons:
1) the riff came out during a time when the Sci-Fi Channel wasn’t being carried by nearly every service provider, hence Crow’s hopefulness
2) the quality of the channel (and the amount of decent sci-fi programming it once had) has dropped off a lot since then
3) while the possibility of MST3K being picked up by the Sci-Fi Channel was exciting at that time, things would devolve when a change in management resulted in bad news for our favorite show
So, so many. All the celebrity comparison jokes like, “She makes Shelly Duvall look like Shirley Hemphill,” or “He makes Gavin McLeod look like Ted Danson,” seem ancient (still funny if you’re a 70s kid, though). The one that always jumps out for me, though, as being very specifically dated is from ‘Santa Claus Conquers the Martians,’ after Voldar says, “We can’t destroy Santa Claus but we can discredit him,” and Crow says, “You: go get a camera. You: call Donna Rice.”
For that matter, any references to the Cable ACE Awards qualify. You see, kids, back in the day the Emmys didn’t pay any attention to cable shows…
I did a spit-take on that joke. It was 20 years before the Jimmy Fallon show started, how did they know about Steve Higgins? …oh, right.
Of all the people riffed on during MST3K’s run, one of the people who turned things around the most since the show is Robert Downey Jr.
RDJ was on the receiving end of a number of addiction jokes, but look at what happened during the intervening years. He not only conquered his addiction, but he became a sought-after megastar and earned a second Oscar nomination.
He gave back a lot, too. Just off the top of my head, I know that RDJ visited ill fans at a children’s hospital and presented another young fan with an Iron Man-themed prosthetic limb.
Those RDJ jokes would have to be outdated, considering how hard he struck back at his demons and won.
The comment is accurate. However, the enjoyment that this WDT offers comes from recalling a reference in a way that generates unexpected humor, irony, or some other twist that creates a smile for the reader. In other words, the very essence of our show.
Here’s something that’s soon-to-be outdated: a week ago, Joel released the first two lost KTMA episodes and this site hasn’t covered it because of the false assumption that Joel didn’t want the information spread Beyond Kickstarter backers, which isn’t correct, as that post was made publicly.
Multiple entertainment sites have that aren’t even related to MST3K have now had a story on it, and this site twiddles it’s thumbs.
This is quite possibly the largest story about MST3K in the last 15 years outside of the Revival, which I might add, this site was also very slow and lukewarm to report on. And I’m not the first person to notice this site’s lack of update.
I’m not mad, I’m just deeply disappointed and worried about how this site will report on actual news in the future, if at all.
At the end of Angels’ Revenge, all the Angels are standing in a row, and one of them asks “which one is Bruce Jenner?” At that point, I assume it was just a jumpsuit joke, but it plays a lot different now.
The most cringeworthy joke I get is from “Horror at Party Beach” when Mike is tired of the dancing and says “I’m beginning to agree with the Taliban militia. Dancing should not be allowed.” Of course, at the time, the Taliban was a much more vague fundamentalist force, and not responsible for the deadliest terrorist attack in the US.
I love all the riffs, outdated or not. To me, it’s like political jokes in Monty Python; I don’t have to get the reference to find it funny. And I’m old enough to get the riffs, being outdated myself.
I concur with the people who say most of the show was/is/will be outdated. I am in my 40s and there are a few jokes that are too old for me. My kids still like the show and get some of the humor from the context.
Outdated is in the eye of the beholder. Sampo thinks SCTV jokes are obscure. I don’t. There are probably a few people who still watch “Dream On” and “Silk Stalkings.” It’s a big wide world.
Going back to the origin, the Cubs long losing streak might still be funny as an historical artifact; even if the streak is no longer current.
I was just watching Red Zone Cuba. And M&TB riff, “where Tom Arnold lives now”, when we are that tiny trailer.
I think Mr. Arnold is probably better off than Roseanne now.
The Ted Kennedy driving jokes are tacky and very dated now, and probably always were, given
that it involves a woman dying.
Yeah, this is one weekend thread I just don’t get.
While in general the riffing wasn’t as pointedly satire (which, as the famous quote goes, closes on Saturday night) as it was obscure, and actually makes things like the Clinton reference even funnier than they were then (because eventually no one will even remember the Clintons, so any joke made will need to be referenced).
It’s all about context, and while those of us who didn’t live in the Minnesota area would never “get” those inside jokes, they are still great gags. I also don’t find it tasteless for those celebs who have either died or otherwise changed their lives — again, it’s all about frame-of-reference and if they were funny at the time then they are still funny when appreciated in that context.
I actually think the thread should be more about what jokes were made “back in the day” that are even funnier today (again, I would argue any Clinton joke would be). Not in a “prediction” sort of sense (because the writers were never trying to do that, just be funny at the time) but more of an ironic sense.
Chief Zabu’s finally getting a release!
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/chief-zabu-940882
Not a riff per se, but an invention: The Cartuner. A brilliant idea..but Joel’s comments about the funnies not being funny any more in 1992? That was the era of Calvin and Hobbes, The Far Side, good For Better or For Worse, Fox Trot, Peanuts, and a few I’m forgetting.
These days the newspaper industry is a shadow of itself and the comic page is a morgue of undead strips that keep going on whether or not their creator is alive. Most of us would love to see something like Calvin and Hobbes or The Far Side these days.
@ #37: To be fair, the Nineties was arguably the start of the decline of the Funny Pages. While Bill Watterson’s remarks on the subject in the C&H 10th Anniversary Book make him sound like a grumpy old man, they weren’t entirely without merit.
Chief, McCloud.
Robot Holocaust
Looks like the sad future of the WWF.
Outdated since the company hasn’t been the WWF since 2002.
In Girl in Gold Boots, the bots call Mike “Mike ‘Taliban’ Nelson” for his opposition to dancing. That name took on a very different connotation shortly thereafter.
This discussion has gotten interesting beyond its specific intent. What’s funny and what isn’t? I would disagree that any reference outside of the show/movie is outdated eventually. What about classic references like Shakespeare, Hercules, Alexander the Great, famous battles, etc.? I’d agree, though, that pop culture references do go stale.
I think of MST3K as kind of a buffet of jokes (I think of this more when I’m hungry): There are some riffs that appeal to some of us and not others, and that’ll always be true. And like a buffet, you don’t have to get everything. For example, anything that echoes the Lutheran liturgy (“Peace be with you. And also with you.”) cracks me up no end. Some death-related jokes are funny to me and some aren’t. So…. peace be with you.
Slightly off topic but on theme…
When Craig Ferguson was leaving The Late Late Show, I drew a cartoon of an unemployment line of robots, with Craig’s robot skeleton sidekick Geoff Peterson in back. Just in front of him, Crow was whispering to Tom Servo, “PSSST! Who’s the new guy?”. Thankfully, the idea of the MST3K bots being “unemployed” is now dated.
Wish I could say the same for Geoff.
The Remarks about Y2K survivalists living in the woods in Boggy Creek 2
here is a good idea for a weekend topic:
classic references made in the show. would say, does anyone remember Gorgo and the riff Crow about the the British Empire, one of the lines was goodbye Rhodesia (which most kids today would have not heard or read about)
(Gamera, I think, flying through space)
“Superboy: The CRUMMIEST show ever to run in first-run syndication!”
(No, not Smallville, just an earlier version from the days when you could still get crummy first-run syndication shows like “She’s the Sherriff”.)
Oh, the pre-Larry Sanders days when MST3K was beaten out by an odd sitcom that lived up to HBO Original’s “Free boobs” emphasis.
It was more than just Ace Awards sour-grapes, it was “HBO, what’s with you, anyway??”
And that Silk Stalkings was their big channel-hit show, along with Swamp Thing. (“Do not bring your evil here…”)
Earlier Joel-era riffs seemed to be about those mean ACE Awards winners that beat them, later Mike-era riffs tended to be about shows just ON 90’s cable that bothered them.
What with Jack Perkins introducing television worth watching on A&E, like Ian McShane in Lovejoy, followed by Peter Graves on BIOGRAPHY!
“Oops, grandpa tried to set the VCR again.” usually after an explosion.
My 72 year old dad doesn’t even use one of those anymore.
I agree… a whole LOT of the riffs are dated, but that makes them no less funny. As someone mentioned, lots of the humor is just funny or makes sense because of the context. And when watching with my boys its fun to explain some of the more obscure/dated references. One might even say its educational!!
One that comes to mind is the numerous references to the NBC Mystery Movie, anytime a flashlight or something like it showed up (Joel even used shock therapy [TORCHA????] to try to cure the bots of this predilection). Since this was a 70’s show, DEFINITELY dated. But funny? Absolutely!!!
:laugh: :rotfl: :laugh: :rotfl: :laugh: :rotfl:
Man, first-run syndicated action shows and (gulp) sitcoms. That they could narrow it down to one show that was the worst was a miracle: I remember Munsters Today and Team Knight Rider being far far worse (although TKR was years later). While technically not a genre, it’s something that’s more or less dead today.
Also not technically dated just more obscure: The New Monkees. The show was DOA, the music was DOA, and the poor actors were picked out of 5000 people to star on a show that lasted all of 13 episodes that was primarily shown on obscure UHF channels at bad hours.
Man, TV was weird for a long time.
Those are starting to become relevant again.