It may seem seasonally inappropriate to be watching a Christmas DVD at this time of year, but RiffTrax has just released RiffTrax Live: Christmas Shorts-Stravaganza!, the follow-up to their first live DVD, RiffTrax Live: Plan 9 from Outer Space.
The RiffTrax Live: Christmas Shorts-Stravaganza! show was recorded in San Diego, California, on December 16, 2009, and included “Weird Al” Yankovic as its guest riffer. On the DVD case, “Weird Al” and Rifftrax regulars Michael J. Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy invite you to join them “for a festive night of hilarious holiday comedy that is destined to become traditional Christmas viewing”.
What do ice-skating reindeer, pipe-smoking santas and a parade of aquatic champions have in common? You’ll see them all in the RiffTrax Live: Christmas Shorts-Stravaganza! The stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 have a sackfull of delightful and demented shorts to riff live onstage. Some of the forgotten gems of Christmases past prove to be the perfect targets for the rapid-fire riffs of Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett. And if that wasn’t enough, they’re even joined by comedy legend “Weird Al” Yankovic for a musical short about the wonders of pork! It’s funnier than Ernest Saves Christmas and far less creepy than The Polar Express!
Skipping the host segments, non-RiffTrax-created videos, and musical performances that supplemented RiffTrax Live: Plan 9 from Outer Space‘s movie and pre-feature short film, Christmas Shorts-Stravaganza! opens with a brief introduction by Mike, Bill, and Kevin, then jumps directly into its line-up of riffable short films and commercials:
- Christmas Toyshop (B&W) — On Christmas Eve, a boy and girl are visited by Santa, who tells them a bizarre story about a toyshop where the merchandise comes to life after the store closes for the night. The toys mindlessly sing and dance until a giant, villainously-dressed “spider-dog” kidnaps one of the dolls, in stereotypical Snidely Whiplash fashion, forcing her friends to take up arms (in the true spirit of holiday peace) to save her. The short begins as live action, switches to animation to tell Santa’s story, then reverts back to live action when the story is revealed to be a dream (or eggnog-fueled nightmare, depending on how you view it).
- A Visit to Santa (Colour) — Two children express a desire, in badly dubbed, unintelligible dialogue, to visit Santa on Christmas Eve. The equally garbled Santa has one of his elves whisk the children to his castle, the interior of which looks more like a washed-out, 1970s basement rec room. A narrator then abruptly takes over Santa’s storytelling duties, describing Santa’s travels and activities around the world. After the tedious story, Santa unceremoniously dismisses the children and wishes the viewers a “Merry Christmas”.
- Christmas Rhapsody (B&W) — Shot in the style of a nature documentary, this live action short follows the life cycle of a little tree that, after reciting a depressing litany of reasons why it’s so “small and of no account” in comparison to the surrounding trees, is predictably chosen by an undiscerning family as its Charlie Brown-esque Christmas tree. Despite waxing rhapsodic about the honour, the melancholy-voiced tree fails to ever achieve the “rhapsody” of the short’s title.
- Three Magic Words (B&W) — Weird Al, a vegetarian, teams up with the RiffTrax guys to riff on an ode to the quality, freshness and flavour of pork. The short stars a trio of musical butchers who praise the virtues of pork in endless song as they attempt to help Mrs. Newlywed, possibly the dumbest housewife who ever lived, prepare a special meal. It’s not clear how this short qualifies as a holiday selection, unless Mrs. Newlywed’s dinner party is supposed to be a Christmas season get-together, but it’s still one of the funniest entries on the DVD.
- Gaylord (B&W) — An old TV commercial for a walking toy dog is presented to Kevin as a Christmas gift from Mike and Bill, supposedly because it made them think of Kevin, much to Kevin’s indignation.
- The Night Before Christmas (B&W) — The classic poem is retold, in a combination of live action and animation, by Santa, who foists his lame toys and cheesy acting on a pair of children whose father evidently inherited some DNA from the Three Stooges, minus the comedic talent.
- Jimmy Jet! (B&W) — Bill receives his gift from Mike and Kevin, an overenthusiastic TV ad for a toy flight simulator.
- A Christmas Dream (B&W) — A girl opens her gifts on Christmas morning, then, inexplicably, goes straight back to bed. Santa appears in spirit form to give her a moral-laden dream in which the old ragdoll she discarded comes to creepy life, via stop motion animation, to battle the girl’s new toys for her affection.
- Sports (Colour) — It’s a “Parade of Aquatic Champions”, though the swim stars don’t seem to be very champion calibre, and many don’t actually swim on-screen. There’s no Christmas theme, either, other than Bill saying that the short is a holiday viewing tradition in his family. (Bill begins to sing a modified Christmas carol, another family tradition, but is quickly cut off by his co-riffers.)
- Ding-A-Lings (Colour) — Mike’s gift from Bill and Kevin, an ad for a line of toy robots, is targeted to children but rife with unintentional innuendo.
- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Colour) — Rudolph’s screen debut, a poorly animated precursor to the beloved Christmas special that airs on TV every year, gets the biggest laughs of the DVD, particularly a scene between Santa and Rudolph that’s undermined by a naughty double meaning in what Santa says to the young male reindeer.
The performers are presented in small, individual boxes on the right side of the screen while they’re riffing, the same set-up used in the first RiffTrax Live DVD, except that on that DVD they appeared to the left of the screen. As noted in a review of RiffTrax Live: Plan 9 from Outer Space, the boxes only show up intermittently, and it would be preferable if the riffers were always in view. The primary attraction of a live performance is getting to see the entertainers do their thing, and the riffers’ physical reactions to what’s happening in the films really enhance their lines. (As a side note, fans of Doctor Who‘s Fourth Doctor may be distracted by the long, multicoloured striped scarf that Bill wears throughout the show.) A contest winner is announced during Christmas Shorts-Stravaganza!, but less intrusively than in the previous DVD. The winner’s two appearances are fairly brief and, rather than simply dropping the contest announcement into the middle of proceedings, it’s fully integrated into the show’s flow, with Kevin teasing the contest winner and making him a part of the act.
Red and green theatre curtains add festive flair to the menus, with Christmas music playing pleasantly on the main screen and part of the Scene Selections sub-menu. The single bonus on this DVD is a behind-the-scenes slideshow of photos set to an instrumental version of the Christmas carol “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear”. The images aren’t captioned, like in the other RiffTrax Live slideshow, but text isn’t really necessary for such self-explanatory pictures.
For anyone who enjoys MST3K and Cinematic Titanic‘s riffings of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, RiffTrax Live: Christmas Shorts-Stravaganza! is a merry addition to your holiday DVD collection.
Order directly through the RiffTrax website.
RiffTrax Live: Christmas Shorts-Stravaganza! and RiffTrax Live: Plan 9 from Outer Space are distributed by RiffTrax and Legend Films.