marcherwitch: online home of writer Holly March

Rifftrax!

Many american millennials know about MST3K and some brits who heard about it from them or found the less than legal uploads back in the day. Less than legal except that like RedvsBlue, mst3k depended on people sharing vhs recordings and have always been very understanding of fan uploads.

Heck, Rifftrax would likely not exist as more than Mike and Bridget occasiobally uploading reels if peopke hadn’t been swelling the audience solely off the quality of comedy.

I used to skip past the bots in mst3k until i got lazy and realised they are amazing, funny, and hold their own against Miss Piggy and Rizzo as the best puppets ever. I am not exaggerating!

Rifftrax is made up of the latter day cast of the original mst3k, but have done reunions with the original cast members and certainly seem to be on good term of not as close as they are with each other!

To get you started, check out the link above for whole movies (50 as of this listicle) they’ve uploaded to youtube. My favourites if these are: Stitches, a janky horror about a devil makkng people suits that has no idea what era its in and plays like am dram filned in someone’s house; Rifftrax’ Xmas Circus With Whizzo The Clown which… it’s… it’s… I mean… it’s festive?; Replica, a James “Birdemic” Nyugen movie that is slow, ambling, and meandering; Miami Connection a camptastic college band vs ninjas movie that is memeyastic in its own right.

These guys – Mike Nelson is the only constant writer and performer on the guys’ side – can make anything funny.

As for the ones available for purchase, my recommendation would actually be to purchase the $5.99 Friends Subscription for a month which has tonnes of older ones (cw for older attitudes to lgbtqia+ people and people with brain damage in some of the Shorts, most of them have been taken down and rightly so as fans corrected and educated them, if you find something you object to, email them and let them know! they’re good people!)… and then cancel the Subscription once you’ve watched the backlog (I always buy it in december so I can watch all of the xmas shorts from previous years).

My 5 favourites to limit myself, in order that I bought them: Batman (1940s serial) aka the third best batman after lego batman and Holy Musical B@man!; House on Haunted Hill (for real, how hot was vincent price! that milky voice and knowing eyes! bet he was kinky AF!); Setting Up A Room just… trust me!; The Amazing Mister X which is an old B&W where the conman isn’t aaaaall bad!; and latest but not… leatest? Attack of the Super Monsters But I would recommend nearly all of the dozens I’ve bought.

These people make me laugh. Be it the Mike, Bill, and Kevin trio, Bridget and Mary Jo, or Mathew and Ian repping for the brits (there are other peeps too including comedienne extraordinaire Janet Varney), I know I’m in for snark, puns, frustration at the filmmakers, and the feeling that they’re there with me on a call, watching these awful, awful films.

As the person who has to bite her hand to shut up in the cinema, who got hissed at for shipping caspian and peter in prince caspian (back then we didn’t know that’s just how ben barnes acts. by eyefucking his costars), who snorts at poor shaky sets and notices continuity fuck ups… these are perfect.

Every american holiday they do sales, so keep an eye out for memorial day, veterans day, war day and any other murican bank holidays!

Enjoy! I hope they bring you as much joy as they bring me!

remember to check out Ashwolf a Cinderella retelling with bite 🐺🦣🔪