The Taxonomy of Riffs: Listing of Types of Riffs
\n\u2022 Title & Credit Riffs – mostly puns, name juxtapositions\/combinations or pronunciation jokes
\n\u2022 References – literary, cultural, film, religious, historical, musical, political
\n\u2022 Ironic Humor – \u201cit\u2019s the music that makes this scene come to life\u201d – in a scene that is starkly silent
\n\u2022 Observational Humor – non-joke factual references to things about the film, example, \u201cthis film has certain flaws\u201d
\n\u2022 Advertising Related – product related jokes, sketches or jingles
\n\u2022 Music Riffs –
\n – song lyrics, \u201cHey Joe\u201d – \u201cWhere ya goin\u2019 with that gun in your hand\u201d
\n – hummed or sung melodies – examlpe, humming batman Tv show theme, refueling music from skydivers
\n – Musician riffs – examlpe: singing REM songs when character onscreen resembles Michael Stipe
\n\u2022 Jokes
\n – Ironically lame or old jokes \u201ctake my wife, please\u201d
\n – \u201cinside\u201d jokes relating to regional or cultural beliefs
\n\u2022 Puns
\n\u2022 Line Finishing – example; \u2018I\u2019m not a medium\u2019 – – \u201cI\u2019m a petite\u201d
\n\u2022 Drug, Hippie & 60\u2019s – allusions, sight gags, puns & Jokes
\n\u2022 Alcohol & Drunk jokes
\n\u2022 Oblique Sexual References – including crossdressing, GLBT and gender jokes
\n\u2022 Crass Humor – jokes that are sorta cruel and mean
\n\u2022 Juvenile Humor – timeless fart, pee and poop jokes
\n\u2022 Playground Humor – really simple childrens jokes
\n\u2022 Micro-Specialized Humor – such as JFK riffs only meaningful to well read assasination conspiracy researchers
\n\u2022 Synonyms and Homonyms – Fun with language riffs.
\n\u2022 Ruthless put-downs
\n\u2022 Repeating Riffs
\n – Callback lines taken from riffed films,
\n – Callback jokes or lines taken from previous episodes
\n – Callback lines taken from non-riffed popular films or culture
\n\u2022 Non-Film Related Non-Riffs
\n – when they discuss stuff amongst themselves while in the theater,
\n – Also times where they \u2018loose it\u2019 and go crazy, try to escape or bawl during ruthlessly bad films<\/p><\/blockquote>\nWould you make any changes? Did he leave any out?<\/p>\n
Here’s my contribution, though I can’t claim credit for thinking it up. A good buddy of mine once described what he called the three levels of reference riffs.
In last week’s episode guide discussion thread, “Miqel” had some thought-provoking obervations: <\/p>\n
\n\u2022 Level one is a straight reference that fully explains itself. Example: A latina is singing on screen and somebody riffs “It’s Gloria Estefan!” The lady looks like a popular culture figure, and you’ve observed that. Mildly funny (a.k.a. the “state park joke”).
\n\u2022 Level two makes a reference without explaining what the reference is to. Example, in the same scene: “Where’s the Miami Sound Machine?” The lady looks like a popular culture figure and you’ve observed that indirectly. Moderately funny.
\n\u2022 Level three, the level that makes MST3K great and separates it from what most other riffers do, takes the reference one level further by adding a witty twist: Example (from episode 204- Catalina Caper, in which the latina singer saves the mood of the party): “Hey, it’s Gloria Estefan and the Catalina Deus Ex Sound Machina!” That’s (at least) three jokes in 11 words, people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Taxonomy of Riffs: Listing of Types of Riffs \u2022 Title & Credit Riffs – mostly puns, name juxtapositions\/combinations or pronunciation jokes \u2022 References – literary, cultural, film, religious, historical, musical, political \u2022 Ironic Humor – \u201cit\u2019s the music that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-msties","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mst3kinfo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mst3kinfo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mst3kinfo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mst3kinfo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mst3kinfo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mst3kinfo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mst3kinfo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mst3kinfo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mst3kinfo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}