Well, I will give you a brief report on the Colonial Theater event, and then open it up for reports from others.
In the days leading up to the event, Joel informed me that right before intermission they would be doing a “riff melee” in which he and all his students — and I (!) — would take turns riffing on a short. I was stunned. Riffing on the same stage as Joel?? What an honor! He sent me my script: he and I would riff for the first page or so, and then turn it over to the students, who would run in and out during the rest of the short. The jokes in my portion were pretty good (they’d been written by one of the students) but, well, I AM a member of a riffing group myself and I just couldn’t resist. I wrote back to Joel with some suggestions for what I thought were funnier lines — and he liked some of them! So, not only was I going to be riffing with Joel, but he’d be doing riffs *I* had written! Talk about a fanboy’s dream come true.
So I got there on Saturday for the run-through and I was very impressed with how Joel handled his students and kept the process moving. He really is a good teacher. The students (and I couldn’t help calling them “kids” because they’re pretty much the same age as my kid) were fun to be around, but, wow, so much energy. It was kind of exhausting, but I tried to feed off of it as much as possible.
By the way, a lot of people have asked if the show was taped. Yes it was, but I have no idea when and if it will ever be seen by the public.
The show itself went remarkably well, from my point of view. It was a bit bumpy technically, but Joel was always there to vamp while the techs worked frantically to fix things.
I have to say I didn’t really “get” the first student presentation — two guys took turns introducing very short video clips. It didn’t really make a lot of sense, but both of the guys were very funny, very relaxed and natural entertainers. I wish I could be that loose on stage.
The rest of the student acts were more traditional group riffs of shorts. Each group had invented elaborate personas and showed introductory films explaining their “backstory” about why they were riffing movies. But, I have to say, the sound was so muddy I couldn’t really follow those films.
Their riffing performances, however, were really quite good. Again, if there was a wrinkle, it was that some of the sound levels weren’t optimal and some of the riffs got drowned by the sound of the short. But overall I have to give the kids credit: they were very funny. The master taught them well.
Then we came to the Q&A portion, which, I am sorry to say, was a good deal shorter than I had hoped it would be. I DID get to ask one question I have always wanted to ask Joel: Were you ever actually stoned while performing on MST3K? After joking around a bit, he confirmed what I had always suspected: of course not.
He noted that while Trace and Kevin had their lines in front of them in the pupplet trench, he actually had to learn his. And in the theater scenes he had 250 lines to say right at the proper time code. “There’s no way I could do that stoned,” he said. So I did manage to break a little news.
But then the audience, which initially had not asked any questions, started to open up and ask questions, most of which had to do with the origin of the show, and which Joel has answered many times before. Then suddently time was up. I never got a chance to ask anything else, and Joel never got around to asking me any questions, which we had planned he would do.
Then we came to the “riff melee” and I think I acquitted myself well. I will say that one line I thought wasn’t that funny got a pitch-perfect delivery from Joel and got a HUGE laugh that really surprised me. The man can riff.
After intermission, Joel did a solo riff of the trailer for “The Blob,” (scenes from the 1950s movie were shot at the Colonial and some other spots around Phoenixville, and the town has an annual “Blobfest”) and then he and I did a brief introduction to the episode being shown that evening, “I Accuse My Parents.”
Then I had the always-delightful pleasure of watching an episode with a large group of appreciative fans — and the amazing experience of sitting next to Joel as he quietly pointed out things and laughed heartily.
It really was an amazing evening, and I want to thank everybody at the Colonial, all of whom were unbelievably patient and kind throughout the day, and especially Joel for his incredibly generous invitation and his pleasant company all day.
Were you there? What did ya think?
