|
Post by vgaddict on Feb 19, 2015 10:12:00 GMT -5
There are many, many topics about your favorite MST3K episode. But what about the shorts? They're just as important as the main movies. They're like the appetizers that get you ready for the main course, or the opening act that gets the audience warmed up for the star.
So, what are your favorite shorts?
|
|
|
Post by TurkeyVolGuessnMan on Feb 19, 2015 17:36:06 GMT -5
A Case of Spring Fever from Ep. 1012 Squirm
The skit Mike did with the Bots mocking it made it even better.
Also enjoyed Century 21 Calling. Not only for the comments, but the nostalgia of the film itself.
|
|
|
Post by CrowTrobotfan92 on Feb 20, 2015 13:02:39 GMT -5
One of my favorites is Alphabet Antics from Daddy-O. I also really liked Body Care and Grooming and Design for Dreaming.
|
|
|
Post by Afgncaap5 on Feb 21, 2015 14:54:24 GMT -5
Also a fan of Spring Fever. And, I know I've said it before, but I'm a fan of Commando Cody. I even tracked down the entire serial on VHS once so I could watch the whole thing.
|
|
|
Post by crowschmo on Feb 21, 2015 20:57:15 GMT -5
Gotta love Mr. B Natural, and the Hired shorts. Also, Progress Island: a CENTURY ago! A Date With Your Family is always good for a laugh. Circus on Ice, Here Comes the Circus, Last Clear Chance, Design for Dreaming, Why Study Industrial Arts, Are You Ready for Marriage?
All funny stuff.
|
|
|
Post by kansas on Feb 21, 2015 21:35:18 GMT -5
After having my mind warped as a kid by Roger Corman and Burt I. Gordon horror films, I like the gruesome twosome Last Clear Chance and Days of Our Years. On a much lighter note, seeing the co-pilot from Lost Continent try to save a honeymoon while selling telephones is a hoot.
|
|
|
Post by Truck Farmer on Feb 22, 2015 0:32:41 GMT -5
I'll mention some that haven't been brought up yet. Out of This World, Young Man's Fancy, and, of course, Truck Farmer.
|
|
|
Post by Mike Flugennock on Feb 24, 2015 20:20:14 GMT -5
I think we may have done a "best shorts" thread, but it was long enough ago that... d'ahh, what the hell. Here's my personal Top Ten:
10. Snow Thrills: The riffs in the ski-jumping and bobsledding scenes never fail to crack me up, especially the way Joel deadpans, "It's the Sled Of The Sub-Genius!" and Servo's closer "...Blood! Entrails! The contents of a human spilled!"
9. Junior Rodeo Daredevils: This one took a while to grow on me until one night when I must've been in a really good mood; when they got to the scene where that one steer charges out of the gate and Servo blurts out "Here comes the last surviving castrati!" and I damn' near fell out of my chair, I decided "OK, I really dig this one..."
8. X Marks The Spot: I just love the jokes about New Jersey in this one, but not necessarily because I don't like New Jersey, or Jerseyoids; after all, my wife is from South Jersey, near Cherry Hill, right outside Philly. This one's got a couple of my favorite bust-out-howling riffs in it: that one where the judge says something in a really contemptuous-sounding tone and Joel interjects in that gravelly, growly old-man voice of his, "You make me sick!"; and that one of Servo's, in the voice of the Guardian Angel, "...I once stopped a truck with my face! My forehead's all bondo!"
7. Circus On Ice: Here's another one that took a while to grow on me, until one night I had it on, and Servo starts singing These two girls, they make quite a pair... They both come from your worst nightmares... and out of nowhere I just started cracking up. The icing on the cake for that one was at the end, where they hit that really trashed-up spot in the print, and Servo starts imitating the sound of a damaged print with busted sprocket holes where the soundtrack gets all warbly.
6. The Phantom Creeps series: I don't mind tellin' ya', I really loves me some Bela Lugosi, and he's awesome in these three chapters of a much longer serial. Sure, Lugosi was a ham and sure, he really chewed the scenery, but he did it in a good way. Say what you want about Lugosi, he was always into his role; he never phoned it in. I only wish that they'd riffed the full-length theatrical release version; download a copy at archive.org and check it out. It's frickin' insane, a big, fat, steamy slab of riff fodder from start to finish. Listening to Joel'n'the Bots taking turns showing off their Lugosi imitations never fails to get me cackling, and the absurdly over-the-top plot is one of those that J&TB can rip into like raw meat. I have these three chapters cut together in a single hour-long mpeg4, and I love 'em like a nicely broken-in old pair of sneakers.
5. Last Clear Chance: From the instant Servo pipes up "your last clear chance for fantastic savings!" I knew this one was really going to rock. It's one of those shorts where the riffs hardly give me a chance to regain my composure before the next one comes hot on its heels and has me busting a gut all over again... NARRATOR: Anyone who's survived a collision with a train has always said... SERVO: WWWUUUAAAAAUUUGGGHHHHHH! Why don't they look?
4. General Hospital series: I have these three cut together as well, so I can watch them as originally broadcast as three segments of a single GH episode, and they're one of my go-to's for those moments when I really need to laugh right away. The "riff stream" in these is wonderfully dense, with brutally edgy and merciless riffage ripping out one after the other. In fact, the riffage in the General Hospital segments seems to me uncharacteristically vicious and sarcastic for a Joel-era short, with even Joel joining in on the brutal reaming of this old early '60s soap opera episode. While Nelson was head writer almost from the beginning, the riffing style of the Joel-era shows has kind of a gentle feel to it, but the style of the riffing on General Hospital almost sounds as if it could be a Nelson-era episode.
3. Out Of This World: One of those shorts where every other riff is one of those kind of riffs that has me laughing so hard that I sometimes have to hit "pause" to give myself a moment to calm down. Mike'n'the Bots' mockery of the foppish devil in the opening and closing scenes cracks me up so bad I damn' near wet myself, and I always bust up at that scene with the neon sign in a shop window reading "sausage" where Nelson, seemingly out of nowhere, blurts out "SAUSAGE!"
2. Chicken Of Tomorrow: Packed to the gills with wet, hot, sloppy goodness. "These chickens were smoking in bed!" is one of those riffs that had me convulsed with hysterics the first time I heard it, and it still cracks me up every time I hear it. "If yer nice, we'll hook ya' up to the milking machine!" --Mike Nelson.
...and, finally, my Numero Uno all-time favorite MST3K short:
1. Assignment Venezuela: Far and away my personal top all-timer, the most consistently laugh-until-I-hurt funny short I ever saw them take on. The running gag about judging the width and narrowness of roads, lakes, rivers, buildings, etc. busts me up every time: "Hey, it's Lake Man! Think you can wedge into our narrow office, Mr. Big Lake?" I know this is supposed to be "lost", but obviously it's not. Still, I've always wondered just what this one was intended for. Judging from the extremely raw homoerotic entendres and Nelson's riff "Christ, what a mess..." I'm guessing this was intended as an "extra" for a home video release rather than for broadcast. Ahh, Venezuela, proud jewel of the Adriatic.
|
|
|
Post by Mike Flugennock on Feb 24, 2015 20:27:15 GMT -5
I'll mention some that haven't been brought up yet. Out of This World, Young Man's Fancy, and, of course, Truck Farmer. Oh, sweet friggin' jeeeeeeeezus, The Truck Farmer. Only the General Hospital segments had more savage riffing. Truck Farmer would be in my Top Ten if I could just make up my mind which one to bump out for it. Being a solidly pro-union guy with a bent sense of humor, I've always thought that The Truck Farmer would be ideal for labor history classes, or for use in training labor organizers, etc. "Here a young pre-teen is put to work. Her beauty will soon fade..."
|
|
|
Post by cahvaydweller on Feb 26, 2015 13:39:31 GMT -5
Am I really the first to say Uncle Jim's Dairy Farm?
|
|
|
Post by mrmeadows on Feb 26, 2015 20:42:13 GMT -5
...and am I really the first one to bring up "Cheating"?
"Cheating" is probably my #1 favorite short. Just love how dark it is.
My quick Top 10--off the top of my head--would be:
1. Cheating 2. Hired! (Parts 1 & 2) 3. Body Care and Grooming 4. Mr. B. Natural 5. Home Economics Story 6. Here Comes the Circus 7. Progress Island USA 8. Last Clear Chance 9. The Truck Farmer 10. A Case of Spring Fever
|
|
|
Post by crispyglennmanning on Feb 27, 2015 0:24:38 GMT -5
I love Circus on Ice & Here Comes the Circus. They contain such hilariously dark riffs! "They're doing it clown-style!!!" "
|
|
|
Post by Monophylos on Mar 20, 2015 12:09:47 GMT -5
MST3K started off kind of badly with their choice of shorts to riff on, but they learned at some point that the educational shorts were a comedy goldmine. "X Marks the Spot" was the first real triumph in this regard and after that there was nowhere to go but up, although the show backslid inexplicably in the 4th season with the dull "General Hospital" and "Undersea Kingdom" stuff.
I tend to side with the Joel-era shorts. If I want a quick dose of MST3K fun it's hard to go wrong with the circus shorts or "Hired!" or "Appreciating Our Parents". But then I look at the list of 6th season shorts and think, there's hardly a one of these that wasn't funny. (Maybe "The Selling Wizard".)
|
|
|
Post by geminiman112 on Mar 25, 2015 15:18:03 GMT -5
Some of my favorites:
Snow Thrills: "Ski Joring" Speech: Using Your Voice: "Yeah, that's it, it attacked us." Mr. B Natural: "You were the snake." Posture Pals: "That's when the kids came up with a plan to blackmail Mrs. Reedy." Last Clear Chance: ". . . is a target." A Date With Your Family: "Sister obsesses with the flowers." Progress Island USA: "Look, just come here." Gumby: Robot Rumpus: "My tail is lifting."
|
|
|
Post by SoCalChevy on Apr 16, 2015 1:27:15 GMT -5
Johnny at the Fair, Mr. B Natural, Days of our Years, A Date With Your Family, and Once Upon a Honeymoon are my top 5. I actually recognized a clip from "Once Upon a Honeymoon" in a documentary on feminism! It was to show us young people how sexist the 50s were.
|
|