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Weekend Discussion Thread: Riffs that Got Run Into the GroundAlert reader Todd writes:
My choice: “By this time my lungs were aching for air…” Funny once. Sigh-inducing after the 10th time. Even Joel eventually disapproved. What’s yours? 175 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: Riffs that Got Run Into the Ground”Commenting at Satellite News
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“By this time my lungs were aching for air” NEVER GOT OLD for me! For me it was one of the greatest running gags they ever did in an episode. Rocketship X-M is still my favorite episode of all time and that bit still makes me laugh (my spouse too).
In general, running gags and repeated catch phrases never bothered me on the show, I generally liked the execution on those. It was the LACK OF GAGS or LONG, TALKY GAGS THAT WENT NOWHERE that got old for me, a problem that became more common as the show aged without Joel H., especially during host segments.
If any repeated riffs got old for me it was the ones where they ran out of ideas and began to just repeatedly blast the physical appearance of the actors. For example, they do this in Final Justice with Joe Don Baker. It’s a pretty good episode, but too many repeated riffs about his appearance. Not that funny after a while, just potentially cruel and too easy to do.
“Richard Jewell!”
“Attica!”
And (somewhat less so), “I thought you were Dale!”
That said, there is somewhat of a fine line between something repeated so often that it becomed tedious, and something repeated so often that it becomes somewhat comfortable.
I would have to say,Probably,as much as I absolutely love it,in tormented,when they did the summer Hits,that got run into the ground,but im not complaining.
and of course,we can’t forget dixiland jazz.
but the fun of that was”Will you KNOCK IT OFF with dixieland jazz”
i generaly like the runnning gags in episodes,so maybe im biased
That “little squeaky voice on the other end of the phone” routine that Joel would always do during long phone conversations. I can’t think of a single time when it didn’t annoy me. Probably the worst offender is in “The Crawling Hand”, where he drags it out for an unbelievable 90 seconds straight. Whenever I watch it, I find myself saying “Will you just let the bots say something already? Jeez!”
from “MItchell”
Here at 3m’s mexican facility…etc.
Steve Prefontaine jokes get old fast. “So-and-So, the early years”, “the So-and-So of his time” jokes can be okay, but usually not.
I agree with Bob about fat-guy jokes. “Final Justice” and “Overdrawn at the Memory Bank” would be better if they’d gone easy on the fat jokes. I think this laziness became more pronounced after Bill took over as Crow.
Of course even the most ordinary or oft-repeated joke is still funnier than just about anything else.
…I got kinda tired of the “I regret nothing!!” gag when it is said everytime someone is about get killed. I heard it in a lot of episodes including MST3K-The Movie T.I.E
Anytime they said “that’s a number 3, 5, whatever” got old fast.
Joel voicing the Gila Monster
Chicken noises during “Prince of Space”
Not really a riff, but any host segment that ended with something like “My robots, always getting into trouble!” (usually accompanied by facial smirk and hands on hips)
Maybe I’m weird, but I kinda like when they would run jokes into the ground. The only example I can think of that I didn’t like hardly even qualifies as being run into the ground. That would be in Pod People (one of my favorite episodes) when Joel tries to keep the Smuckers joke going. It wasn’t that funny the first time, but then he tries to keep it going when there is really no reason.
I think he just liked doing the voice.
Even though I laughed the first time, the “Chief/McCloud” routine from “Pod People” is wearing on me.
On the other hand, “Whoo, Packers” from “Giant Spider Invasion” will never get old.
“Are you ready for some football?” in Laserblast. I got tired of it after the first time, unfortunately, thy repeated it every time the chubby bearded cop was onscreen.
It didn’t help that I had NO IDEA what this was referencing.
Never got tired of repeted catch phrases. What killed me was the dead silence when anything said would have been better than nothing. Luckyly those were too often.
I meant not too often
To me, the riff that gets more lame and stale with time is the “Switch/Jimmy Smits” line. Every time a character utters the word “Switch”, Joel or the ‘bots (usually Crow) blurts out “Jimmy Smits!”. It’s a reference to a movie that I don’t remember as being a huge blockbuster hit, nor a movie anyone remembers today. Maybe back in the early 90s it got a bigger laugh, but today it’s just plain annoying.
In Laserblast, the “Are you ready for some football” gets old very quickly. And I just can’t stand all of the Larry Csonka refs in Final Sacrifice.
The one that I thought was a little redundant was “They’re having an adventure…. just like the Goonies”. They must have said that in about 75 percent of the episodes! But I really didn;t mind all that much…….
“Gilligan?”
“Skipper!”
“Gilligan?”
“Skipper!”
(mostly in season 1)
And my least favorite running riff of all time:
“Jim Henson’s _______________ babies.”
Tom Servo singing “Shoot that poison arrow through my heeaaaaarrt”.
It doesn’t help that I absolutely *hate* that song.
The “Hey, it’s that guy! What was he in?” and “Lovejoy” gags from “Codename: Diamondhead” came this close to being really really annoying.
I feel the later episodes, from Season 6 on, usually had something in the movie that would get riffed on throughout the episode. Sometime it works for me, as in the string of “Steve” jokes in Night of the Blood Beast. Other times it doesn’t work for me. I’m one of the few who doesn’t like The Final Sacrifice just because i don’t think simply saying “Rowsdower” is funny. (I’m gonna catch hell but that episode is WAAAAYYYY overrated.)
And my least favorite running riff of all time:
“Jim Henson’s _______________ babies.”
Wasn’t there one episode where they used three different variations of that one during the movie? Now that was annoying.
Another riff run into the ground: “Hikeeba!”, particularly when Servo uses it as lyrics to a Master Ninja theme song (not the Master Ninja theme song from the sketch) for no reason.
Now, I loved the “Ready for some football” jokes. In fact that’s my favorite running joke of all. It helped that I did know what they were referencing and that I hated hearing Hank Williams Jr. shout that phrase out.
The ones I never did like were the “McCloud!” references because those I don’t get. And “Because Peperidge Farms remembers.” Can’t say that I’ve ever heard that catchphrase.
The fat and food jokes bother me, too. And I never thought that having a character “sing” some song was that funny, either. There’s a lot of it in Teenagers From Outerspace, and it gets old fast.
I liked all the Chief/MaCleod, Roswdower!, Are-You-Ready-For-Some_Football?, etc.
I wouldn’t change those movies. I do agree with the fat jokes. They were funny but sometimes it was over-the-top. I never even really thought Jo Don Baker was fat in those movies.
Have a good weekend y’all!
Aw, MattG. That’s my favorite use of HiKeeba! “Hi-hi-hikeeba! Hi-hi-hikeeba!”
Joel voicing Joey the Lemur in King Dinosaur. Even Crow points out how much material they get outta that lil’ kinkajou. I don’t particularly mind it, but Joel gets waaay too into it.
Any of the “Lembach is staying” jokes in “The Projected Man.”
It was one of the few times when the gang was obviously clutching at straws and had to resort to anything to make it through the film.
“[whatever the character is doing at the moment] is fun!” (such as “Slipping on filth is fun!” from Girl in Gold Boots).
Those just strike me as “joke-like” filler, rather than actual jokes.
(This does not include the song “Sex for Sundries is Fun” from Skydivers.)
Then there’s my favorite example of the show self-policing on things that are getting tired. I watched the bulk of Seasons 3 and 4 for the first time in order on DVD-Rs. I can’t remember which episode it is, but Crow drags out, yet again, “Oh, is the great [name] going to [crew position]?”
And then, JUST as I was thinking, “Boy, I’m getting tired of that,” Servo snaps, “Oh, is the great CROW going to use that gag EVERY WEEK?!”
So they turned something overused into my biggest laugh of the episode. (I also enjoyed what I think was its only subsequent appearance– when Crow was speed-riffing on the names in the credits, and Joel disallowed Crow’s desperate use of “Oh, is the great…” as a proper riff on a name.)
On the other side of the spectrum, even though they got a lot of mileage out of Servo yelling “SLEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!” in the Season 8 movies, I found it hilarious each time.
John Sununu goes for a haircut!
@ The Professor #20:
Have to agree, Final Sacrifice is way, way overrated.
And going back to the letter that started this topic, the “cram school” jokes were over used because they weren’t that funny in the first place.
For me, in general, a running gag was funny if the reference was funny the first time and it didn’t get old if it seemed calculated in the repeated use of it. In general, I loved the “call backs” and running gags on the show (e.g., “that was number 5!”, “chili peppers burn my gut”, “hi-keeba”, etc.) If, like the “cram school” references, it just seemed like vague filler in the first place, then it got old and annoying when used repeatedly.
When I saw this thread’s title, I said to myself, “Well, that’s easy.” My winner:
“Jim Henson’s ______________ babies.”
#18 and #21 hit this one dead-on. Not only was this joke NEVER funny, it seems like it was always there in seasons 3 and 4. Sometimes when I watch an episode from that era, I get a pit in my stomach when a child’s face is on the screen.
What a coincidence, I have been watching Prince of Space and the “cram school” riff did get fun into the ground. It may be due to the fact that it’s fresh in my memory, but I will choose “cram school” as my Riff That Got Run Into the Ground.
Now, stuff like “Richard Jewell” could be used for another discussion, “Riffs That Don’t Stand the Test of Time.”
I can’t stand the “Skipper!” routines from the early episodes. I try and tell myself that they were new at this, but it’s still very irritating.
“Lembach is staying.” They really didn’t need to go on and on with that one. It seemed forced from the very start.
I disagree with the Jim Henson’s _________ Babies, though. I think Last Picture Show Babies from Jr Rodeo Daredevils and “Baretta Babies” from Teenagers from Outer Space make up for some of the less funny times they used this gag.
The constant “Biography!” every time that Peter Graves is on screen in “Clonus” got real old, real quick.
Are you people deaf, inattentive? The most overused riff is Tom Servo saying NEAT every time Kevin has nothing to say!
Randy
Hey professor,
Ready?
R-O-W-S-D-O-W-E-R
I’m finished,
Sorry :mrgreen:
“We like it Very MUCH!”
“shut up, iris. i tell ya, shut up” repeated constantly got a little old. “i killed that fat barkeep” however, DID NOT get old. i agree with the ‘jim hensons (blank) babies” being annoying and unfunny with the exception of the Escape 2000’s “jim hensons chairman mao babies”, which i was thinking myself when i saw that kid.
The constant “Biography!” every time that Peter Graves is on screen in “Clonus” got real old, real quick.”
Dude, he was in the movie like 4 minutes. Except where they beat up his brother – okay.
Nothing bugs me. Not even McCloud!!!!!!
I avoided the Rifftrax for the Heroes pilot movie because I knew exactly what was coming; jokes involving Mike’s very limited pool of knowledge of Japanese stuff. Apparently they have cram school in which children wear very short pants, and Cheap Trick played there once. Oh, and Woody Allen dates them (Soon-Yi is a Japanese name, right?).
I think the riffs about shorts on Japanese children comes from MST3K itself. It goes all the way back to the Gamera movies.
Maybe I’m just easily amused (it’s been suggested before), but I can’t think of any running gags that really got old. They didn’t always strike gold, but none were used enough to get on my nerves.
I think this issue compounds itself by repeated viewings of the same episodes. If your favorite episodes get watched more often, it may seem like the jokes are run into the ground. For me, it’s the stuff that doesn’t date well that bothers me more.
Personally, one riff that I’m sorry they abandoned was “Oh, will the great Person With Pretentious Name be in this movie?” That one always amused me to hell.
Good Point #43. They used the phrase “this is good old-fashioned nightmare fuel” several times.
Yeah, I don’t think any running gags really get tired for me. It’s more that I have to be in the right mood to watch, say, Pod People, or any one of the hundreds* of episodes where they made fun of Peter Graves & Biography.
*There were hundreds of such episodes, right? It doesn’t just feel that way…?
The Muppet Babies references got old fast… although, as someone mentioned earlier “Last Picture Show Babies” was a nice touch.
“Help! I’m in another dimension!” from “Brain That Wouldn’t Die” gets a bit grating on repeat viewings.
Not a riff so much as a running gag, “There’s a ship coming in to range.” I never thought that was funny, and I never will.
Hmm…I tend to like the running gag jokes, and since me and my friends have made a few of them ourselves while watching MST, it would seem a bit hypocritical if we did such…
I agree with Magicvoice; the jokes that didn’t age well are what get to me. I kinda wince and go “ouch!” every time I hear one. But let’s be honest, listen/watch any comedy from five years ago and it’s destined to be quite topical. The Brains did well for themselves, especially not knowing we’d be thinking about said jokes ten, twenty years later.
I can’t disagree more with the folks picking on the Joe Don Baker fat jokes and the like; they were funny then and are funny now. The food song over Final Justice’s credit’s is especially funny. I don’t think there is “mean” or “cruel” comedy–something’s either funny or it’s not and Servo’s labored breathing for the Chairman in OMB is hilarious.