Original air date: Sept. 4, 1998.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npq9snMYq00
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZjw1iGubuc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLkbJc2P9yI
• This is the last special they did for Sci-Fi Channel, and there’s a real sense that the relationship is fraying at the edges. Still some of the riffing is hilarious.
• This arrived as Season 9 was coming to an end, a few days after 912- THE SCREAMING SKULL debuted and a couple of weeks before the season finale, 913- QUEST OF THE DELTA KNIGHTS.
• Crow notes that movies based on television shows “is a ridiculous notion.” Ahem.
• For some reason, the “X Files” clip is deleted from the YouTube version of the show.
• As much fun as last year’s “summer blockbuster review” song was, this year’s doesn’t quite measure up. It’s a little lame.
• “We’ll be right back after this Kahlua commercial” was a reference to the endless commercials for the tasty booze product that were running during the show about this time.
• Movies: “X-Files” (clip missing from YouTube), “Ever After,” “Halloween H20: 20 Years Later,” “The Truman Show (trailer segment and clip), “Pi,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “Small Soldiers,” “Deep Impact” and “Armageddon.”
• Fave riff: “I can’t have gluten in my underpants.”
To this day me and all my friends reference, “Halloween Water,” at least once a year.
“Uh, there was a door at the back of the box…”
“Commando Elite, commit suicide!”
“An affectionate cat. This IS Science-Fiction.”
I nominate Small Soldiers for the next Rifftrax, if it hasn’t been done already!
Too bad about the X-Files, that had my favorite riff.
“This grass has been laid recently” “Unlike me”
X-Files had my favorite riff, but a different one:
‘You boys live around here?’ ‘No, we’re from Madrid!’
If only they HAD managed to get Fraudzilla and skewered it with all the bile in their arsenal, it would have been cathartic.
Yeah, the X-Files was home to all of my favorite riffs, so of course that’s the one that gets attacked by the YouTube gods.
And I just came in to repeat the “grass has been laid” line. Beaten to the punch.
I like this one but it’s a shame they didn’t get Pearl and the gang in on this like last time.
I never really liked the first one, but this second one I’ve always found far funnier. All the mucking around with Pearl and everyone else I thought was a bit distracting, I just liked the film segments. This had less of the behind the scenes footage which I felt wasn’t terribly interesting the first time around either.
“Remember that meat loaf we had the other day?”
This is another great one! It has some of my favorites in it.
-Halloween Water. Need I say more?
-They really hate Pi, don’t they? “As an independent movie, I knew it would be bad, but…” “That’s why you’ve gotta stick with your big budget, board certified, huge studio movies”
-Saving Private Benjamin
-”Not only were people supposed to see it, they were supposed to like it!”
-”You boys live around here?” “No, we’re from Madrid!”
Come to think of it, this is a really good one!
Morgan Freeman: What do you know about E.L.E.?
Crow: I know Jeff Lynne is brilliant…oh wait, that’s not…
also, “Pi = P.U.”
But no, overall, this special is not that funny. I guess it says something about me that I saw none of these films in theaters that summer: I had better things to do.
BTW, eventually Bill Corbett & Mary Jo Pehl did riff the first X-Files movie, which I recommend to everyone. It’s a “RiffTrax Presents” title.
I was working in a movie theater when this aired. Thanks to it, we all nicknamed the biggest movie of the summer “Halloween Water”. It made the unending crowds tolerable.
“De Pimp Act” had me on the floor, and continues to amuse the everloving hell out of me. Crow is so EARNEST as he describes the movie he just made up.
Mike looks good in his yellow shirt.
I love MST3K, but I just didn’t really like the blockbuster reviews or the Oscar show. I don’t why, just didn’t do it for me.
Their brief attempt at riffing “Pi” shows why MST3K and Rifftrax have avoided art house flicks, despite the fact that many of them could be made quite funny if approached correctly. They’re just not cheesy and trashy in the same vein as “Halloween Water”, and that’s where the Brains seem most comfortable.
And by approaching them correctly I mean the way they riffed “Red Zone Cuba”, which is something like a really demented art house effort.
Too bad the X-Files movie isn’t here:
“Look at all the FBI’s bowling trophies.”
Skinner: “Blame has to be assigned somewhere.”
Mike: “And Richard Jewell is out of town.”
“It’s Three-Kids-On-Bikes Man!”
I never saw these … great stuff! Definitely like the seeds of what became Rifftrax!
If the X-File clip were left intact, Chris Carter would have been compelled to write another maudlin, confusing, overstuffed X-Files movie in response.
Thank heavens that catastrophe was avoided!
Randy
Oh #11 Finnias “Critter” Jones, if you still haven’t seen The Truman Show or Pi or even Armageddon by now, then I think you really should find time to see them.
As for the special, I echo the sentiments of most of you. Good stuff, but not as good as the first one. I do like the “Halloween H1″ comment and of course the Gluten line.