Back in the 90s, a show called Mystery Science Theater 3000 (or MST3K) aired for about 10 seasons. The format consisted of a man and his robots stranded in space, forced to watch a bad movie by an evil scientist. To maintain their sanity, they took to making funny comments while watching the movie. So each week on the show, we the viewer not only get to watch a bad movie (usually a sci-fi or horror film from the 1950s), but we get to hear it trashed by these three silhouettes in the front row of the movie theater.
MST3K reached the end of its run in 1999, but it lives on at RiffTrax (http://www.rifftrax.com/). RiffTrax features three of the original riffers, including Mike Nelson, MST3K's head writer and host from 1993 to 1999. The silhouettes are gone, but you still get to download and watch a bad movie, while getting the funny comments.
Samples are available of their extensive catalog, so you can get an idea of how funny these guys are. All movies and other items are available for purchase and download in DRM-free format (yours to keep forever, with no digital rights limitations.
One of the funniest series of subjects that they riff are short instructional films from the 1940s. These shorts deal with broad subjects like buying food, teaching children, and selling insurance. They are often funny and dated in their own right, and they benefit from topical commentary from the RiffTrax gang. The cost is only 99 cents to download one of the shorts.
There's lot of other things to do on the RiffTrax site; you can even make and upload your own RiffTrax!
No comments:
Post a Comment