I’m going with this from What to Do on a Date:
“Kay’s worked the kill floor. She knows where to deliver the blow.”
So what’s your favorite?
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Weekend Discussion Thread: Your Favorite “Dark” RiffsWe discussed “Johnny at the Fair” this week, featuring plenty of what Joel calls “dark” riffs. You know what he means. So many to pick from.
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Johnny At The Fair –
Takes your choice on this one when it comes to dark riffs. The darkest, visually, might be the scene where Little Johnny is in the Lost Children yard grasping the wire fence with drying tears streaking his little face. “Attica! Attica!”.
How many bodies in a cord? Depends on how you stack ’em.
“Packers fans: the horrible truth.”
Because nothing is as sinister or terrifying as Packer fans.
any and all of the muffled screaming coming from the car trunks in ” teenagers from outer space.”
From Pod People, when they’re looking at Laura’s body in the bedroom: “Well, c’mon, your breakfast is getting cold, and she’s not getting any warmer.”
From “A Day at the Fair” – “Later, these moths will turn up in the mouths of Bob’s victims.”
From Circus and Ice.
Crow: Ah Mom. I don’t want to watch Circus on Ice anymore, I want to go home.
Tom: Shut up and watch the deer get slaughtered, It’s fun.
From Pod People.
The teens are camped out eating.
Tom: You know Steve tastes great. Anyone want a bit more pelvis.
When the English woman has her eye ripped out in Atomic Brain and they refer to her as Sandy Duncan (who lost the sight in one eye from a tumor).
Three words: Ku Klux Klowns. You know from which short. Same one where a couple of clowns do something disturbing, and Crow says “and Madonna thinks she’s innovative”
Joel on the Truck Farm short:
“Her beauty will soon fade.”
Circus on Ice is chuck full of dark riffs. Here are a couple;
Pink Candy Floss(?) skaters are accompanied by Tom’s original song that went something like this
“…they will haunt your soul forever
and now when you see pink you’re going to think ‘We’re doomed’.
They are agents of Satan..”
At this point Joel is laughing and tells Tom to stop it.
The gumby short where they hang the robot’s head. I bet the ‘bots never really got over that.
:shock: :shock: :shock:
Gotta be Invasion of the Neptune Men — “They took out the Hitler building! Where’s everybody gonna go to see Hitler memorabilia?”
Serious answer comes from Mitchell. These two words from Joel are the most disturbing uttered in the entire series: “Baby Oil…”
Nearly the whole scene where Doctor Carl visits astronaut Frank Douglas’s family in Monster a Go-Go is jammed with wonderfully dark riffs:
-“It’s about Frank, isn’t it?” (loud coffee spitting)
-Crow: “This coffee is warmer than Frank is.”
-“The capsule did come back.” Joel: “But Frank DIDN’T.”
-Tom: “I don’t want to spend more time with this than I already have.”
-Crow: “Of course, we’ll be cutting off the pension, you understand.”
-“Hi, Doctor Carl!” “Hi-ya, Space Cadet!” Joel: “FRANK’S DEAD!”
-Crow: “Hey, Timmy, my dad’s dead again! Can I come over for dinner?”
-Crow (as Doctor Carl’s talking on the phone): “What’s that? Face like spinach dip? Horribly mangled? No dental records? Hm. Too bad.”
But the best one is when Doctor Carl hangs up the phone and approaches the family. Tom says, “Well, (sigh), looks like he died in a state of sin.” Joel immediately covers Tom’s mouth as you hear Tom quietly whisper, “SORRY, SORRY.”
The MST3K cast members were masters of hilariously dark humor.
A rogue elephant snaps it’s tether and kills a coolie!
Tom Servo in The Final Sacrifice:
“Know him? He was delicious!”
I pretty much went with movies and shorts that prominently featured children, which really brings out the darkness in the Brains.
From Robot Monster:
Mother, keep digging graves. Better do two. This isn’t going too well.
From The Black Scorpion:
I’ll send the rope back down for you, I promise. By the way, can I have your bike?
From Gamera:
“Kenny’s not a bad student.”
He’s just twisted.
From Gamera Vs. Zigra:
For the afternoon show, we’ll drown two schoolchildren.
From Posture Pals:
“Just like a house about to fall”
Just like his dad on Friday night.
From Santa Claus Conquers the Martians:
You know, elf tastes just like chicken.
“Pills for dinner.”
What are we, Judy Garland?
From Tormented:
But you wouldn’t want to make an innocent person suffer, would you?”
Well sure. That’s the most fun.
From Gorgo:
“There are rumors that the animal has killed a number of persons already in the process of its capture.”
But they were all Irish, so it’s okay.
From the Final Sacrifice:
“Did you know him?”
Know him? He was delicious!
From Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders:
Merlin was a thieving crackhead who fenced VCRs to feed his habit.
My point is, Billy, man dies with a whimper, looking into the face of ultimate darkness.
So evil wins, Grandpa Borgnine?
That’s right. Even your tiny soul is doomed, Billy.
No, Grandpa Borgnine! Leave hope and light for me, please!
Get out from behind that cushion, Billy. It gets worse.
Have you ever seen ‘The Last Emperor’, sister?
“Is This Love?”
“…or it is just rough sex with Michael Douglas?”
A Date With Your Family:
The Woody Allen Story!
“You see? The dealer has the same idea. You listen to him, Buzz!”
‘Or I’ll kill you!’
From ‘San Francisco International’:
“Mom, I don’t want to go.”
“But they need you in Vietnam.”
And from ‘Tormented’:
“Put her down, Jerry Lee.”
From Gamera vs. Guiron… (sung by Joel & the bots to that inane lilting tune)
let’s watch the kids go to their fates
they’ll disappear into the woods
it will be days before they’re found
cornjob will be blamed
>…shudder…<
It’s their version of the “What’s in the box?!” scene from Se7en.
I mentioned this one on the list of naughty riffs, but it fits here too.
From THE PROJECTED MAN:
Brit Detective (standing over dead body): “May I get on?”
Tom: “Well, he’s dead, but knock yourself out.”
Necrophilia; always a laugh riot.
The Home Economics Story:
Woman is pushing a shopping cart through the produce section.
Tom: (very quietly) Oooo, cucumbers.
From Night of the Bloodbeast: We had to snap him in two like a frozen dog to fit him in the pickup :shock:
The Sword and the Dragon
Ilya is hugging and kissing his mother just a little too long.
Crow: Hey, you’re in the wrong myth!
From The Creeping Terror, “Bobby has often observed his parents at night.”
this is going to be a fun topic.
I Accuse My Parents
Jimmy is listening to Kitty sing.
Crow: (laughing maniacally) Yes, Satan, speak to me through this song
Why Study Industrial Arts?
Narrator: …the buzz of a table saw…
Mike: The piercing screams of a freshman…
One of my all-time favorite MST3K sequences. You forgot two of the best lines, though:
“He was supposed to take me fishing.” “Well, some trips are longer than we expected.” Joel: “Make other plans, Jimmy”
“They’ve located the capsule.” Joel: “Two words: closed casket”
Got to go with all the riffs on poor Davey from San Francisco International.
“See all those people down there, Davey. They’re all getting divorced because of you.”
From Incredible Melting Man:
(Singing) “It’s free and it’s fun, and it’ll be sad when we find the head”
Also from What to Do on a Date, as Jeff is looking through Nick’s notes: Kay? Kay’s been missing since last February!
This one is ironic as (if I remember correctly) it comes from Joel who was always trying to make them go LESS dark.
I always thought the hands-down darkest riff was from the short CHEATING. After a long build up of Johnny sitting alone in his dark room, with the clock ticking away, he finally rises and opens the door. As light streams into the room, the first riff is that there’s a party in the next room (“For he’s a jolly good fellow!”). . .funny, but then that riff subsides and Johnny slowly walks into the room, out of sight. The door closes, at which point Tom mimics the sound of a gunshot and the thump of a body dropping.
Kills me every time.
From The Final Sacrifice; when Rowsdower gets clubbed on the head. “They must have thought he was a baby harp seal or something”.
Not at all funny and pretty disturbing actually.
From Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. “Pills for breakfast? Who are we Judy Garland?”
Truck Farming
Tom: Well there’s something you don’t see every day: a farmer with all his limbs!
From Design for Dreaming: “Future may not be available as seen, personal fates may vary. Future not available in Africa, India, or Central/South America.”
Also after the series of dying-fawn riffs starts a chant of “VEN-ISON! VEN-ISON!” :)
(As for Here Comes the Circus and Johnny at the Fair starting the time-honored custom of “Childrens’ eyes are opened to horrors they cannot understand!”, that was a well Kevin Murphy not only went to but practically drowned himself in during the Mike and RT years.)
From WHY STUDY INDUSTRIAL ARTS: “Then I thrust the nail into the soft, yielding wood…”
Pod People
“Help me lift her body.”
“You know, I don’t mean to sound crass but we are getting really good at this!”
‘Last Clear Chance’
The whole thing.
The whole damned thing.
From Assignment: Venezuela there’s a wonderful run of dark when the engineer is first taken to his job site.
Narrator: The next day, I was taken out on the lake to see the field procedures.
Tom: Then shot in the head.
Narrator: Before that day was over, I felt as though I were back in the navy.
Mike: I was dragged behind the boat over beds of coral.
Tom: I didn’t see that panga knife coming at me.
Crow (from Apocalypse Now): Never get out of the boat. Absolutely g*dd*mn right.
Mike: I’d been shanghaied by some bad-ass drug cartel. I realized I was sitting on a kilo of coke.
Tom: They’d asked me to give up the pinkie from my left hand.
I’ve always enjoyed the way Joel, Mike and the Bots would joke about the darker aspects hiding behind over-sanitized takes on life in the 50’s and 60’s, especially when it came to instructional shorts from the era. Of course, if I have to pick one, I’d say it’s this:
Narrator: That’s right, Billy; give it a good scrubbing!
Servo: You keep scrubbing and scrubbing, but nothing can cleanse the stain on your soul!
“Can you identify this bucketful of your brother?“