“Riffback,” or moments when you made a joke just before the guys did.
Mine was during Godzilla vs. Megalon, when the two guys driving the truck make a joke about getting paid 100,000 yen. I said to my buddy, “Oooh, four bucks,” followed almost immediately by Joel saying “Yeah, great, what is that, four bucks?”
Funny he should send this, because I had one last weekend while watching K13- SST-Death Flight. The simulation guys are calling out technical jargon like “B-7!” I said “You sank my battleship!” just before Servo did.
Did this ever happen to you? Tell us about it.
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Of course, if you’ve seen the episodes *ever* it’s hard then to quite get it right as to whether you think you made the riff first or are just remembering it that way.
But the ones I’m sure of just happened yesterday when my wife and I were watching Project Moonbase (which she had never seen before and I know this for a fact since I never had it before to show her and we’ve been together long before MST3K came around). She called “correctly” at least four or five of the riffs.
Now it may have been that this early episode was more “obvious” in its humor, but I was still pretty impressed that she was that in sync with the guys. Beautiful, smart and funny — I think I’ll keep her.
The first time watching TISCWSLABMUZ, upon the mention of Carmelita’s name, I self-riffed “Jump a little lighter”. I don’t think the riff came off the first mention, but it did come later in the show.
You’re right, Mike “e-g” Kelley…memory is a tricky thing. The only riffback I can remember for sure was during The Truck Farmer; I saw the one cowboy-hatted man out in the field and thought, “Lyndon Johnson!” just before Crow said the same thing. Not exactly brilliant on my part, but it’s the one I recall most definitely.
I was watching Wild World of Batwoman for the first time, and actually screamed “END!” at the movie right before Servo did. Though perhaps less histrionically.
There are soooooo many times that this occurred, usually the more juvenile & obvious the more likely it happened. It must be due to my limited edjamacation?
Specifically, I read out loud “ATTACK OF THE THE EYE CREATURES” partially before they did.
The only time that happens for me is the “star recognition” riffs. I don’t recall the episode, but I do remember shouting “Roddy McDowall!” just before M&tB’s one time.
Can’t really think on any times I riffbacked, but a few times I knew the stinger as soon as I saw it, like Atch-ka! from the Incredible Melting Man.
Horror of Party Beach, I noticed Eula Belle’s hair looked like Dilbert’s bosses hair before they riffed it. It made me laugh harder than I normally would have when they finally did.
I remember the first time I saw the Star Wars Holiday Special Rifftrax, I made Kevin’s disco song riff about two seconds before he did and laughed about it for a good minute.
The one time I can remember managing this wasn’t actually during an MST3K episode (or Rifftrax or CT) but when I was watching, of all things, “Top Gear” when they were doing a “cheap car challenge” with the British Leyland cars. Jeremy Clarkson says something about being able to do a fairly good drum solo using all the squeaks and rattles from the ill-fitting trim in his car, the others join in with their BL cars’ squeaks and rattles, and I exclaim “Money!” a few seconds before Pink Floyd’s “Money” kicks in on the sound track.
Mind you, I only got the idea from “Once Upon a Honeymoon”.
I know it happened at least once, but I can’t remember which one for the life of me. It was a really proud moment for me, too. I felt like I was thinking on the same wavelength they did.
From “Girl in Lover’s Lane”, in the scene where Danny is about to get rolled by Sadie the prostitute and Big Stupid catches her, I made the comment that Danny had avoided yet another heterosexual encounter. Joel basically echoed that thought just a moment later.
In “Santa Clause Concurs the Martians”, on of the martians resembles Jaime Farr to me, and eventually they point it out that he looks like Jaime Farr.
In “Quest of the Delta Knights”, when they showed a castle at night, I thought, “Castle Forrester”, before Servo said, “Later in Castle Forester”.
Dunno if it really counts, but my sis and I watched the uncut Eegah! on the DVD release before watching it riffed, and we foresaw the hand-being-chopped-off-by-whirling-helicopter-blades riff.
Was watching HORRORS OF SPIDER ISLAND where the ladies were coming in Gary’s office to audition and one of the ladies was dancing like Rose Marie(from the Dick Van Dyke Show)and I said she looks a lot like Rose Marie,then it was said by either Crow or Mike.
This only happens to me on a couple of episodes. Primarily Jack Frost and Santa Claus but I’ve also found that The Final Sacrifice, Bride of the Monster, The Unearthly and Pod People. With these movies I seem to have a knack for pre-emptive responses. :razz:
The first time I watched The Giant Spider Invasion I said “Charles Manson: Jeweler” a few minutes before Mike did. Weird, it being the same exact joke phrasing and everything. I felt pretty good about myself and glad my dad was in the room so I had a witness.
The one actors in Soultaker looked like John Stamos. I was on the phone with my girlfriend at the time watching it and told her so, right before the guys remarked that he was “John Stamos-ing”.
Can’t recall beating the guys to the punch line but I certainly put out my own riffs for some the riff sparse early episodes. ;-)
My wife wasn’t even trying: I was watching “Riding With Death”, and she happened to walk by when we first see, um, the boss guy(?) with his new bushy mustache. My wife said, “Huh, he looks just like Hal Holbrook” approximately two seconds before Tom Servo made the same observation.
During Quest of the Delta Knights, there’s this weird music cue.
I thought to myself, “That sounds just like the beginning of Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer.” Sure enough, they started humming Sledgehammer.
The first time I watched Time of the Apes, I made a “Godo, I’ve been waiting for you” crack well before it was said onscreen. Of course, I believe that was in the movie itself, not one of the riffs.
I broke into “I Will Follow Him” about a second before Tom & Crow did first time I saw “Santa Claus”.
Anticipated the Mary Tyler Moore comment in Manos. The Laura Petrie hairdo was just too riffilicious.
While watching Gamera vs Zigra, I said “Can I have a Coke?” just before Crow did, and then the little Coke-girl said it a second later, prompting Crow to shake his head over the movie actually taking that route – and me to ponder the double pre-reference that had just happened.
Mine happened in “Pod People”. When the character Laura was attacked by “Evil Trumpy” she was shown lying down motionless. I quiped “It’s Laura Palmer”-the dead girl from “Twin Peaks”. Right after that Joel said it was Laura Palmer.
Can’t think of any specific riffs, but I do remember waiting with gleeful anticipation first time I saw CAVE DWELLERS for them to do something with the bad guy’s swan-shaped helmet. When they finally did –“That hat has a slimming effect on you!”– it wasn’t particularly funny, but I collapsed laughing anyway just from the anticipation. (Actually, the riff I did in my head was “Why is he wearing my grandma’s candy dish on his head?”)
In Cave Dwellers when whats her name says there is a a secret entrance into John Saxon’s Fort I said “Not much of a Secret” seconds before servo said something similar.
My riffback case was a double-whammy. When I first watched the Human Duplicators, when the woman said ,”Well? Say something!”. I blurted out “something” right about when Crow did, so we BOTH got riffback when Hugh Beaumont’s character said “Something” in order to egg on the secretary lady.
And how could anyone humanly watch nightie-wrestling scenes in Manos and NOT do the “The Manos Townswomen Guild re-enacts the battle of Pearl Harbor” riff?–
I actually never realized they made the joke first time I saw it, since I’d ended up drowning it out.
(Of course, if we get into “Riffs that occurred to you that they SHOULD have done but didn’t”, that’s a whole other thread.) :)
I’ve had a few, but my all-time favorite is from Space Mutiny when I got, word-for-word with Mike, “I was just about to do the Monster Mash.”
In “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” I had a feeling that a Soupy Sales/White Fang riff was going to be done when that “Polar Bear” went after the kids. Sure enough, Crow did an “OOLA!! OOLA!! OOLA!” riff.
Episode – Space Children
There’s two officers talking and it sounds like the one says “I’ll go phone the devil.”
Me: “Phone the devil…?!”
Mike (a second later): “Phone the devil…?!”
I honestly can’t remember which episode it was, but it was someone in it said “I must, I must…” and of course, I thought of the song “I must increase my bust” by The Lords of Acid.
And much to my amazement, so did Joel. (On another episode, he mentions Nitzer Ebb, he must have gone to clubs in the early 90s)
And then in the Giant Mantis, which I actually had on DVD before I saw the MST3K version (before I had broadband), there is a scene where male air force er, men are dancing with each other.
Every time I see it I always think “So much for the ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy” or some sort of job about it.
And then when it’s shown on the MST3K version, Mike says “Don’t ask, don’t tell, but have a darn good time.” (or something close to it).
In Time Chasers, when the plane’s chasing Nick down the tree, I realized that they ripped that bit off from the novel version of Jurassic Park almost a minute before Servo says Spielberg ripped that bit off for his movie.
The only other one that springs to mind is an obvious one from Prince of Space: We all noticed his gun was just a grill-lighter in his first scene and then waited an hour for them to make the joke, right?
@34
I think they did that one more than once, but I believe the most memorably enthusiastic one was in Bride of the Monster.
The phrase: “We must, we must, we must increase our bust” predates the 90s by quite a bit. According to the internets it is from ‘Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret’ (1970) by Judy Blume
Space Children, the Ethel Mertz quip.
Hearing the sound of ship horns at the beginning of Danger: Diabolik for my first viewing of the episode, I couldn’t help but sing the strains of “BEEEEEEOOOOHHHH!”. Of course, immediately afterwards, Servo followed suit.
I do distinctly remember this happening the first time I saw “Code Name: Diamond Head”. Near the end of the movie, I took notice of that one Coast Guard guy with the beard and said “Jim Henson!” And literally two seconds later, Mike made the same observation.
A slightly weirder occurrence happened when I saw the KTMA “Gamera vs. Zigra” for the first time. I hadn’t seen the Comedy Central version yet, and when the scraggly old guy shows up on the beach, I riffed “It’s…”, a la the opening sequence to “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”. Now, in the KTMA version, the guys don’t make that riff. But sure enough, when I saw the Comedy Central version, they get to that scene and Servo says “It’s…” That’s probably my only instance of cross-generational riffback.
Only once to my memory. In FINAL SACRIFICE, when our heroes meet the old grizzled archeologist, the first thing I did was say “If women don’t find you hansome, they should at least find you handy”, something Mike later says at the very end of his scene. For those who didn’t get this, the guys sounds exactly like Red Green, the main character of The Red Green show (check your local public television listings, it’s hilarious), and that line is one of Red Green’s catchphrases. Also, why they never made a Jim Henson riff (he looked a lot like him!), I’ll never know.
Shout! Shout! Let it all out! when i was watching codename diamond before the guys said it.
The phrase: “We must, we must, we must increase our bust” predates the 90s by quite a bit. According to the internets it is from ‘Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret’ (1970) by Judy Blume
And then, from any number of pubescent teen girls who recited it at the time, not counting Bela Lugosi from “Bride of the Monster”.
In Time of the Apes, when one of the eponymous simians realizes he killed his own family, he says something to the effect of, “I really did it.” To which I said, “Damn me all to hell!” Crow chimed in seconds later with the same line.
I also have a really long riffback. As soon as they announced that the first episode of season 10 would be Soultaker, I said, “Oh, boy, someone, probably Tom, is going to yell ‘The Soooooooooooooooul Taker!’ as soon as the title screen comes up.”
The only one I can remember with any certainty was from Zombie Nightmare. After the stereotype Italian-accented grocer is called ‘Mr Peters’ my reaction was “Peters?” which Servo then quietly said also. A few minutes later when his first name is revealed to be ‘Hank’ my reaction was “Hank Peters: Italian grocer” which Mike then said word for word. I couldn’t contain my laughter, and it still cracks me up to this day.
I had the same Red Green riff as #41.
Also, when Frank wants to be Bavarian, I just felt the follow-up was going to be, “Is that so WRONG?…..”
But it’s not quite a riffback.
The only one I can remember is a recent one. During K12 Fugitive Alien, the dudes in the black helmets were running around and I thought to myself, “that sure does look like the dude in Phantom of the Paradise,” then a bit later, Joel makes the same observation.
The Skydivers. In the first scene where they’re preparing to jump, they put on their helmets. My friend watching with me for the first time says, “Why are they wearing helmets? In case they land on their heads?” About two seconds later, Crow makes the same point. We laughed pretty hard at that one.
Warrior of the Lost World:
When Donald Pleasance’s bad guy demands to know “Where is Nastasia?” I immediately thought “Kinski?” A second later, Tom asked the same thing.
Speaking of Warrior of the Lost World, did they make any make any Blofeld references about Donald Pleasence? I don’t remember any, and I was expecting at least one, considering he was basically playing Blofeld. Maybe the Brains thought it would be too easy.