Rifftrax Shorts: May the Shorts Be With You

There's weird and then there's upsettingly weird. Here's a suite of nine short subjects, most meant for children and all sent up specifically by the RiffTrax team.(1) Eggs to Market: How eggs are washed, sorted, candled, put in cartons, put on trucks, etc. Hey, I learned stuff and I grew up in an agricultural area. The Riffers are good with this unexceptional material, which isn't really all that dated.(2) We Discover the Dictionary. A very tolerant third- or fourth-grade teacher shows mid-Sixties kids how to use the unabridged dictionary to spell, pronounce, and establish correct usage. She also makes them aware of their own grade-specific dictionary, and points out the existence of specialized dictionaries. Good Boomer-era fun, and our Riffers are up to snuff.(3) What Is Nothing? Maybe it wasn't enough to teach kids to read, spell and write. This Seventies weirdity follows two boys on their weekend downtime as they ponder the meaning of Nothing. Since this age group isn't really prone to Zen thinking, or Existentialism, it's a fun send-up by Mike, Kevin, and Bill, but I for one wonder why the schools would want to show this unsettling dreck. This one bothers me, maybe too much. However, I think I understand now why modern kids are so overscheduled, since it keeps their little minds from trying to know the unknowable.(4) Feelings -- I’m Feeling Alone. Sets to music the plights of several elementary-school children who are depressed because they can’t fit into their new environment, or are facing family issues, or no longer get along with their prior best friends. I do wish this had been put into context. Are there other shorts in this series, and are they all downers? Another Seventies attempt at therapy; but now something of a pre-Prozac period piece. Anyone want to use the dictionary instead?(5) Jobs in Cosmetology. At last, a well-meaning vocational short from the turn of the Seventies that shows the great careers in dealing with other people’s hair and listening to patrons kvetching under the driers. Our Riffers have great fun with the overall sense of fatuousness and the outlandish clothing and hairstyles of the era.(6) The Creeps Machine. Again, I’m not sure why anyone would want to go out of their way to scare little children. This appears to be the filmic equivalent of a Halloween fun house, but at least fun houses have the advantage of being a real-life experience. Good Riffing to Bad Rubbish.(7) Boy of India. Ah, Mike and the former bots are in their element here, as a young boy apparently forced to work on an Indian tea plantation with his father uses his elephant to solve problems and help with a day’s work. Excellent riffing. We don’t hear whether the little boy is getting any formal education, but if it keeps him away from films about Nothing, I think he’s better off staying on the farm.(8) What are Letters for? A well-meaning film that ties consonantal sounds to specific images, usually animals (“P is for Pig”). Frankly, “Sesame Street” did it better, though I suppose it teaches phonics-in-a-nutshell as well as anything can. Our gang has fun here, and it shows.(9) Making Sense with Sentences. Remember Ed Wynn from MARY POPPINS? Well, he’s a regular Alistair Cooke compared to this pompous dingbat who tries to teach a young boy the elements of grammar through Socratic questioning. Give me “Grammar Rock” any day, but our Riffers do have fun with it.I think this is only the second time I felt I had to award a mere three stars to anything out of the MST3K / RiffTrax continuum, and I’m sorry for that. But I didn’t have nearly the good time I thought I would. It does make me grateful to have escaped the public school system before the mid-Seventies.

Pretty funny stuff overall. You have to wonder just where in the hell the RiffTrax guys find these bizarre films. Is there some secretive "Raiders of The Lost Ark"-type warehouse facility where these demented "educational" films are preserved for the ages? If you've watched & enjoyed any of their other shorts DVDs then you'll probably enjoy this one as well since the films found in this volume are more or less on par with the ones in their other DVD releases, maybe even a little stranger - if that's possible. (And for the price, you really can't complain too much.) It's a cheap investment for some pretty good laughs. 4 STARS

This was a great DVD. All of the pits and groove in it translated to digital information by using my player's laser to read and its CPU to process them. Colors appeared to be reasonably true to life and no attempt to introduce any new color such as might be seen by a jumping spider or a mantis shrimp was made. Audio information was likewise translated from digital bits to a semblance of human speech before reaching my tympanic membrane. I couldn't have asked for better. Just one problem; who were those guys who kept talking through the whole thing?

I love everything these guys do. This collection is just maybe a little weak. The riffs and jokes are there- it's the shorts themselves that fail us. Still fairly good, a must purchase for fans, but not the best collection to start on if you're new to mst3k or rifftrax.

Yes, this DOES have to be the strangest one yet. After watching What is Nothing, Feelings: I'm Feeling Alone and The Creeps Machine, it's a miracle any of us got out of the 70s sane or alive. And if you didn't know how to use a dictionary - pay attention - to say nothing of finding out what letters are for and making sense of sentences. As well as others.You have been warned!

I love MST but I just didn't find these that funny. They certainly were not 'hilarious'. The two young writers they have just don't seem to have the worldly wit in order to be really funny. I was glad I didn't pay a lot for this because I didn't laugh out loud even once.

I know it's no MST, but some of these are still laugh-out-loud funny. I was feeling a bit down recently, and put in a few of the Rifftrax shorts collections and my mood was immediately corrected. Perfect medicine.

I have all their shorts released on dvd and this one is just as funny as the others. My favorite is The Creeps Machine which is a funny short without the riffing so i hope the boys will keep releasing more of them.

Another collection of rifted shorts, excellent stuff keep it up, although I must admit as sometimes with the titles of these dvd I was expecting some more science theme related shorts