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RiffTrax Launches Kickstarter to Fund Reunion Show, New Riff of ‘Time Chasers’106 Replies to “RiffTrax Launches Kickstarter to Fund Reunion Show, New Riff of ‘Time Chasers’”Commenting at Satellite News
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They certainly haven’t LET us forget.
In fact, if anyone is in any remote danger of forgetting any cult episode, line or reference from S8-10, RT promptly sees to that bit of neglect right away.
Joel, let’s remember, was using Kickstarter to finally complete something he was prevented from doing by ownership in-fighting, for….was it twenty years? I’m not up on the internal-troubles stories.
Mike is not. The RT were left out of the Reboot show because they had no reason to join in, and are now cashing in on the reunion that Trace and Frank claim they weren’t let in on.
Kickstarter is based on the idea that a good cause needs money, but how deserving, that’s up to the contributor to judge.
EricJ:
Yes. You should leave it up to contributors to judge.
You have a grudge against Rifftrax, for whatever reason or lack thereof.
Enjoy MST3K in its past and future forms. Watch Cinematic Titanic.
Stop being a pest to those of us who like Rifftrax.
Stop being a pest period.
Somehow I suspected that this would be scrutinized by some people with microscopic intensity in order to determine who in the MST3K cast currently hated each other. The Internet never disappoints. :) I’m looking forward to the reunion, I hope that Joel and the new group’s schedule allows them to participate, and I’m always glad to see my favorite comedians collaborate on fun projects. Good luck to everybody!
If you want to know what’s really going on with us MST3K folks, just read what this EricJ guy writes, figure out what the exact opposite of that is, and then you’ll be extremely close to the truth.
Periodic reminder:
We can all just ignore EricJ.
Thank you so much Frank!!! I’d pay big bucks for an Ericj filter. It’s really kind of disturbing after a while.
And looking forward to the show!!
Be well
You are indeed a sick puppy
Glad to see you check in here sometimes, and put rumors to rest!
I have a question about the “live” riffs. If they cover a movie they already featured on MST3K, do they use the same jokes as the episode? Or is it totally new material?
New material.
Oy vey; I’ve seen the EricJ character before in other contexts. He’s a, oh shall we say, real piece of work. Kind of a nasty, bad-hearted one at that. He doesn’t have a chip on his shoulder. He’s had his entire skeleton replaced with chips. All for the dumbest, pettiest or most baffling ’causes’.
Regardless; this is neat and I’ll probably chip in to it. I should have some funds to spare and I think that I’d enjoy it. If there’s any ill-regard among the cast, which those looking intensely at it from the outside without actual personal stakes in it might easily misjudge or misunderstand, I’m disinterested in it and pretending otherwise is crass. I love MST3k because it’s funny, it’s part of a common bond with some of my dearest friends and it came along at the right moment in my life to be exceptionally influential on my comic sensibilities. Paying a modest sum to support a celebration of it should yield a satisfying tribute to all of that along with some well-warranted nostalgia.
Thanks. I wonder how they’ll be able to improve on “Time Chasers”; it’s already one of the funniest episodes of the series.
Time Chasers isn’t in the public domain.
I could probably whip one up in about five minutes in jQuery, but it would require a browser extension like Greasemonkey (Firefox) or TamperMonkey (Chrome). But I don’t know if most people here are comfortable with running scripting agents like that; it seems like anyone who is would probably be knowledgeable enough to just write the code themselves.
If it’s something people would be interested in, I could take a crack at it. But speaking seriously, I don’t think the right approach is just to block posts by EricJ; it’s to exercise our own good judgement and better angels and not respond to the negative stuff. Don’t respond to him when he rants, but do engage him when he says something insightful or interesting — and yes, sometimes he does; he’s a passionate fan, like the rest of us, and we’ve all got some common ground with him even if we disagree on other stuff. When he’s not talking about how much he hates Mike, he makes some interesting contributions.
tl;dr Don’t encourage him when he’s obnoxious; do encourage him when he’s not.
Regarding the issue of “blocking” or filtering comments on the site of people you disagree with, I would just suggest a quote from the film “War Games”:
“The only winning move is not to play.”
Simple.
For those of you who are concerned about Rifftrax re-riffing films previously done on MST, keep in mind that they do all-new riffs. Also, in the case of Santa Claus, The Magic Sword, and the upcoming Time Chasers, they use widescreen and uncut prints as opposed to the 4×3 edited prints on MST. When I watched the Rifftrax versions of The Magic Sword and Santa Claus, I was stunned by the pristine quality of the prints. So, re-riffs are okay by me.
Time chasers! Yeah!… That is all.
My biggest problem with all this is not the cast — which are all wonderful people — but the fact (and it’s a fact as far as I’m concerned) that the RT writing has been TERRIBLE the last couple of years.
Okay, so many can (and will) disagree, but as someone who bought every RT short and most of their on-demand movies for the past (what? Five, ten? How long has RT been in existence? Well, I have done it since they have) the last couple of years just hasn’t been funny AT ALL.
I know part of this is most of the writing is done by kids like Connor (sp?) and I’m no longer the target audience, and I also understand the sensibilities are specifically NOT MST3K type, but it doesn’t bode well for any RT efforts along these lines.
So… pass (but I wish them all the best. I truly do — they all gave me great MST3K moments, and Mike, Bill and Kevin gave me a lot of great RT ones as well, but that ship has sailed).
Points well taken. The only problem is having to wade through the spittle splattering rants to find anything sane. I doubt he has anything to say to make it worth that. But of course ignoring him is the best policy,and I cringe whenever anyone engages him directly.
Last two years?
Megaforce
Lash LaRue
Death Promise
Julie and Jack
Miami Connection
I Believe in Santa Claus…
Yeah, if you didn’t like those then your anchor has been encrusted in coral.
Their ship keeps sailing, yours is back at Pitcairn Island
To be fair this has always happened. The internet just makes it easier for armchair analysts to find a voice.
Well said. Too many (and I’m guilty of this too at times) make the mistake of sticking a quarter into the guy. I think getting a rise out of us is truly his favorite form of recreation. People have tried in the past to politely ask him to cease and desist to no avail. So now it is time to deprive him of the attention trolls like that crave.
Reriffs: Basically, in large part, it is going to come down to if you like the original riff or not. If you did some will wish it was left alone and others will welcome a fresh take. To make the music analogy I love cover songs and I even enjoy when bands re-record the stuff themselves. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t but I still like the attempt. Now if the original riff did nothing for you, or you hated the movie itself so much no riff would help you probably have no interest in the re-riff/
Conclusion: Sampo’s Thereom applies equally well to a re-riff.
If you think in any way that ANY of those compare with ANYTHING done by MST3K… well, I wish you the best as well, my pirate friend.
Megaforce
Lash LaRue
Death Promise
Julie and Jack
Miami Connection
I Believe in Santa Claus…
Of this list I can say I laughed out loud and immoderately at Megaforce, Death Promise, Julie and Jack and Miami Connection. That’s a pretty good average.
Is the humor the exact same as MST? Of course not, it’s 15-20 years later. Do your favorite musicians make the same music 20 years after their heyday? Probably not. (If the answer is ‘yes,’ you’re most likely going to Mike Love Beach Boys concerts.)
Few artists come up with a whole new art form even once in their lives, but that’s what MST was. You can’t replicate the “shock of the new,” but that doesn’t mean that the artists should just stop working and retire. My life would be a whole lot emptier of laughter without Rifftrax, Cinematic Titanic and (hopefully!) the new MST.
Yes, and Patrick. I didn’t mention him because he wasn’t a writer and didn’t appear on the 20th anniversary panel. But you are certainly right that he deserves a spot in any MST3K reunion, as do Jef, Beez, and all the other Brains who were known primarily for their behind-the-scenes work.
I absolutely agree… I think if Mr. J would just recognize that pretty much no one here is interested in the anti-Mike/RT fodder, and instead focus on useful, insightful, and humorous contributions (yes, I’ve gleaned some of these from time to time buried in the rubbish heap), he’d be a welcome guest, and would get positive (versus negative) attention.
Not that the worser devils of my nature have not on occasion stooped to engage him on a baser level. I should just STOP IT. :pain:
Although here, the metaphor would be more a case of “Is Adam Sandler STILL as funny as when he was doing Opera Man on SNL twenty years ago?”
There are some problems with letting certain comics and their egos go solo, and dictate the entire humor of their legacy.
EricJ, if that’s the way you feel, then the rational thing to do is move on and find other pleasures.
Only a sad, obsessive nutjob would spend the rest of his life trolling the internet in rage because a comedian you never met and don’t like isn’t the person you want them to be.
Oh, wait….
I pledged my $50 yesterday. Looking forward to the show.
I’m about to do something I usually find irritating in others, that is, to criticize a kickstarter’s reward scheme. In the case of this Rifftrax kickstarter, my issue is that for $50 I’d think I could get a physical copy of the reunion show. I am well aware that my continuing passionate ardor for physical media makes me a dodo, a genetic dead-end, etc. Nevertheless, DVDs don’t cost much to buy, author, and press, and I just have this old-school skepticism about “owning” something that I cannot hold in my hands.
That is my beef. Transmission ending. Thank you for your time, won’t we?
schippers, I agree with you about “hard” media — we burn all our RT mp4s to disk. Is that not an option for you?
But to figure out what the opposite of what he’s saying is, I have to first figure out what he’s saying!
Awesome to see some more of the “two caps” mixing it up. I’m particularly excited to see the Trace and Bill working together, as they never crossed paths on the show.
I’m also excited to see Frank, as I thought he did a great job on CT.
Question is…will the world EVER see Joel and Mike working together again? I hope so.
that should say “two camps”. lol
Trace and Bill have done a couple of local things together in Minneapolis. Nothing high profile though. I guess the most memorable thing they collaborated on was the Crow vs Crow panel at DragonCon a handful of years ago.
I think it’s highly likely Joel will quit after 2 or 3 seasons of the new MST3K. Because that was THE WHOLE POINT of him launching this new series: He wants to pass it off to a new generation of actors/writers. To have it endure and carry on without him, something more akin to “Saturday Night Live” and “Doctor Who”, going forward.
But I guess it’s easier to just say “Joel’s a quitter!”
Disagreement has nothing to do with it, maclen. The problem with trolls isn’t that they hold unpopular opinions, it’s that they express those opinions in an obnoxious and disruptive ways.
You’ll note, for example, that Mike “ex-genius” Kelley has written some posts that most people in this conversation disagree with. I don’t see anybody asking for a script to block his posts. I see a couple of guys debating his points and expressing their own different opinions.
People can, and frequently do, politely disagree on matters of taste and opinion.
I feel like this category error comes up in every discussion about how to deal with trolls: “You’re just trying to silence him because he disagrees with you.” No. People just want him to stop disrupting conversations.
I hope this reunion is just a teaser for things to come. I’ve enjoyed Mary Jo and Bridget’s VODs and am looking forward to the day, hopefully very soon, when I can go to Rifftrax and buy some Trace and Frank VODs. Shorts, B-movies, whatever they want to do, I’m there. And Mike, Kevin and Bill have been cracking me up just as much with their recent material. I mean, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare”, come on!
Gummo,
I have done that with a few Rifftrax downloads. It’s fine, but it’s no substitute for having a professionally designed and packaged hard copy. I guess where I stand is that if I’m just dropping $5 or so bucks on a download, it feels disposable and I don’t mind if I have to burn my own copy. If I’m putting up 10 times that figure, however, it would feel like a better value proposition if they sent me a disc in a case.
Yeah, schippers, actually I do agree with you. We’re told we live in the era of virtual media but the internet is fragile in its way and it would all too easy to cut off or restrict access to stuff that’s already “ours.” So I burn.
Have you noticed this, though: I find that the mp4s are visually sharper and have better sound than the DVDs or the ISOs. The only advantage to the DVDs are the packaging and the presence of chapters (especially important with the live shows, when sometimes you want to skip right to the movie).
Although to some degree, the equally obsessive “silencing” by the other RT-loyal posters (the jokes started on this thread before I even posted) does come down to How Dare I Hate What Other Fans Like–One out of every three complaints is “You don’t even LIKE RiffTrax, why do you even post here?”
Well, goodness…Why would anyone? I wasn’t aware that all MST3K fan discussion was now declared to be a rubber-stamp discussion of RT, and that any dissent from the notion that RT was different, let alone “less funny” than the vintage series, was immediate grounds for expulsion, by popular vote and declaration of the masses. There are many versions of MST3K–the original, RT, CT, and now the Reboot–raising the probability that there will now be a differing grade of quality in the humor between differing eras and performers, and that some fans look closely enough to apply different, possibly more astringent, standards to the material and the sentiments than simply “Huhuh, they’re riffing again, that’s cool…It’s fun when it’s funny!” From what I am led to understand, the site welcomes them all, and leaves the fans to fight their own little Thunderdome battles. Or, more preferably, not.
Once we have the Reboot show, will that be grounds for Reboot fans to gang up on the playground, further de-historize any past or better work, and say “You don’t even LIKE Jonah, why do you even post here? Why don’t you go find some RiffTrax boards, where you and all your lil’ Bill Corbett fans can laugh over outdated Shia LaBeouf and Nick Nolte references from ten or twelve years ago that nobody remembers??”?
If I seem to push too hard, it may be my pushing too hard BACK. If I continue to post, it’s called “principle”–The old overused defense of the unpopular is “Whaddya want me to do, lie?”, but I tend to put not expressing personally held opinions into the same category. For similar reasons, I’m not “moving to Canada if Trump gets elected”, nor does that validate that Loyalty-Chanting Makes Right.
Does this mean Shout! may be able to put up Time Chasers on Amazon like they did for Merlin’s Shop and Space Mutiny? It’s a classic episode and needs to be back in circulation.
I consider those who rave incessantly about how one particular episode is so much better than any of the others to be a troll.
Man, every Rifftrax-related post on this site is The EricJ Show. He should take it on the road. I would really like to see him standing at a podium reading that last post in front of an adoring crowd. Maybe he can also wear a hat that says “Make Riffing Great Again”.
I’m also hoping for some Trace and Frank-riffed shorts/movies or other comedy bits maybe that you could buy through Rifftrax, since the Bridget and Mary Jo ones are so good and it seems like it would make sense. I might even prefer that to The EricJ Show.
Here in the Midwest the weather’s been pretty nice this March. Into the 60s a couple of times, and who doesn’t like that? They say it’ll start being rainy next few days, but hey, it’s March. Gotta expect some drizzle! Baseball will be starting soon, I guess we’re all looking forward to that. Sox probably not going anywhere much – oh well! Hey, you know what goes really good on pizza, now wait until you try it, is pepperoni and white anchovies. The white are processed differently from the usual type, lot less salty but mmm tasty. And maybe some Prairie Path to drink with it, darn good beer AND gluten free.
Well once again, I’ll simply fall back on my main point on this Thad. I have a ready made, naturally built in filter I call ignoring obnoxious and disruptive commenters. One may even call it self restraint. Clearly this commenter is at this point baiting you all and gets many takers and no doubt relishing that fact. It’s a shame that one person can easily high jack a thread. When I get to comments regarding this I simply skip over them.
You seem to be missing the point. If there is, say, a board dedicated to comic books and you only like Marvel, it is obnoxious to go to every single DC-related thread and talk about why DC is awful ad nauseum. Last I checked discussion of Rifftrax stuff is welcome here. This is not a site for MST3K only where no discussion of alumni projects is allowed at all. Maybe you want to find a site like that. But as long as this site is open to the discussion of Rifftrax, guess what? There’s going to be people who like Rifftrax. It should be a given that most people here do, and to poo-poo that is not respectful. If you don’t like Rifftrax, fine. You can mention it, like, once and not need to say it again. To do it over and over again tests people’s patience. Don’t give everyone else a reason to think you have Oppositional Defiant Disorder.
But Mike wanting to do a show where he reunites with his former cast mates though that’s evil!!! Yeah nice double standard.. but no go on trying to convince this board that everyone not named Joel is the Antichrist because it’s working out so well.
Hey, I know: Let’s make every post have the word EricJ in it!
Who cares about a cool MST3K reunion show? Bah, who wants to talk about that, everyone – let’s keep saying the word EricJ!
EricJ, EricJ, EricJ, EricJ, ERICJ, ericj, ERRRIIICCJJJJJJJ!!!