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In all the excitement surrounding Comic-Con last week, nobody here even realized that Wednesday, July 21st marked RiffTrax’s fourth anniversary. That’s right, four years ago we released Road House. I still remember the first emails coming in from e-junkie indicating that someone had actually purchased it.  Who’d have thought that four years later I’d be able to hold my own in conversations about plot points in the Twilight movies?

A lot has changed in the past four years:  We got a shuffleboard table.  That’s pretty much it, actually.

But no, of course there have been all sorts of great things that have happened along the way that we couldn’t have predicted. We have 17 RiffTrax DVDs. Two live theater shows down and two more coming up soon. Webcasts. A state quarter tournament that many consider the defining occasional currency based blog post series of our generation.

And oh, the characters we’ve met along the way: Tommy. Gregory. Crazy old lemon drink lady. The Schnapster. Moosebaby. Norman Spear Jr.

I’ve been lucky to be at RiffTrax since day one. The job has allowed me to work with incredibly talented, funny people every single day. So thanks for your support that has allowed  it to happen.  Here’s hoping we can continue to make you laugh for many more years to come.

*** KEVIN MURPHY CHIMES IN ***

While we’re getting maudlin, I’d like to make a tip of the whisky glass to everybody who’s helped to keep the riffing engines humming. That would be David D, Casey, Josh, Sarah, Erik, Chris, Jason, Cam, Rick at Lethal Sounds, David G and Barry – is this sounding like an Oscar speech yet? – and of course our crack(ed) young writers Sean and Conor; all our guest Riffers; Joco and Veronica Belmont; Paul, Storm, Adam, Wil and all our new play-pals from W00tstock; madman Lowtax; Cole and Janet; and the fine people at O’Brien’s Pub.  I’m sure I’m missing people because I’m a thoughtless inconsiderate wad, so forgive me if I didn’t give you a proper shout-out, and I’ll try to make amends.

Most of all, Thanks go to you, the readers, downloaders, the people who laugh at our jokes, who keep the conversation lively, who come see us at our live events and at cons.  That we are four years old is entirely thanks to you.

-kwm

http://www.ncm.com/Fathom/Comedy/RiffTrax_Xmas_Live.aspx

Well, OK, let’s have some official information about out new RiffTrax Live show!!!!!

Q: When?

A: Wednesday, 12/16 and an encore (rebroadcast) on Thursday 12/17 at 8:00pmET / 7:00pmCT / 6:00pmMT and 8:00pmPT (tape delay)

Q: Where?

A: Close to 500 movie theaters across the country. Find out your nearest theater and buy tickets by entering your zip code here

Q: Where is it being broadcast from?

A: The California Center for the Arts in Escondido.  Escondido is a few miles up the highway from RiffTrax HQ in San Diego, and is among other things, the home of the Stone Brewery where we show movies during the summer. It’s a great theater

Q: When do tickets go on sale for that show?

A: Sometime next week. Follow us on twitter for the up to date announcements about it: http://twitter.com/rifftrax

Q: We don’t want to use twitter because ________

A: It’s the best way to get this info. We’ll try to post here, but no guarantees.

Q: Weird Al!?!?!

A: We know! It’s going to be awesome. He’s guest riffing with us for the first time since Jurassic Park!!!

Q: What’s the program consist of ?

A: Shorts! Lots of them. And the vast majority of them are brand new! Most of them are completely bizarre things you’ve never seen before.

Q: Why is The Onion’s logo on the email?

A: Because they are sponsoring our show. Awesome, right?

Q: Why isn’t the show at my theater?

A: This is not our decision nor is it something we have control over. Please contact your local theater and ask them if they’re capable of showing Fathom Events. A few people were able to get theaters to add our last show just by reaching out to their theater managers.

Q: Why is this not available outside the US?

A: Again, not our decision, that’s just how the Fathom system works as of now.

Q: Why isn’t this LIVE on the west coast?

A: Because that would be at five PM and not many people would be able to make it.

Q: Do we need to buy tickets in advance?

A: Why not? Plenty of theaters sold out last time, why risk it?

Any other questions? Let us know!

Both have new songs on the menu, and I made a video for the Planet of Dinosaurs one.  Check it out, and pick up Planet of Dinosaurs and Voodoo Man on DVD!

Yes, the existence of these quarters was long considered to be a mere rumor, the Loch Ness Monster of the currency world (I covered the Bigfoot here.)  But then on a trip through Oregon, I received the District of Columbia quarter and realized that I would eventually have to cover these guys to bring the Most Awesome State Quarter tournament to an official close.

Would any of the quarters have stood a chance in the original tournament?  Short answer: absolutely not.  Let’s face it.  These quarters are going to be the first time most American’s have heard of any of these places, and as far as first impressions go, many of them don’t measure up.  Could they have eliminated Ohio?  Of course. Minnesota? Obviously. But Alaska? Please.

But just because they couldn’t snag a spot in the finals, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t review the Territory Quarters, (actual official name: the “2009 District of Columbia and U.S. Territories Quarter Program”. Because they wanted something catchy. )

American Samoa

Known for: inventing the best variety of Girl Scout Cookie
What they put on the Quarter instead: The Roman Colosseum and a pencil topped with Treasure Troll hair
Thoughts: Do they still make those Trolls? Who owns the rights to those things?
State Quarter it most resembles: The round thing, undoubtedly some structure of great historical import that was probably built before America was independent, reminds me of the wheel of cheese on Wisconsin’s

Guam

Known for: The legendary Led Zeppelin “Live From Guam” bootleg, where Robert Plant is showered with boos after he mistakenly says “It’s great to be here in Detroit!”
What they put on the quarter instead: A birdbath
Thoughts: Doesn’t Guam look a lot like Lake Michigan? Don’t they both look vaguely-wangish? Can you use the phrase “Vaguely-wangish” in a sentence today?
State Quarter it most resembles: Michigan crossed with Rhode Island (Note: first time this combination has ever been used to describe anything)

Puerto Rico

Known for: Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente
What they put on the quarter instead: A building which, though it remains unidentified, I am positive must be connected to Roberto Clemente in some way. Dude’s like Bob Marley in Jamaica down there.
Thoughts:  I wonder what the top of that tower looks like on Google Earth
State Quarter it most resembles: New Mexico’s motto “Land of Enchantment” is pretty exotic sounding, but by adding on “Is” to the front of it, Puerto Rico’s not only gets to be more exotic, but gets them more points in Scrabble

District of Columbia

Known for: Mayor once said “Bitch set me up”. Also, capitol of entire nation.
What they put on the quarter instead: Duke Ellington, emphasizing the proud musical heritage of DC, a heritage that came to a screeching halt with the advent of Go-Go
Thoughts: The nickname “Duke” really ought to make a comeback. Also, in the spirit of DC vendors, perhaps they should have gone with a bootleg shirt of Calvin with “Taxation without representation” printed underneath it.
State Quarter it most resembles:  Alabama. Putting famous people who lived well into the 20th century is a bold maneuver employed only by DC, Alabama and California (John Muir died in 1914, but his beard lived on into the early 1950s)

Northern Mariana Islands

Known for: Surprising people that it is a US Territory
What they put on the quarter instead: Paradise
Thoughts: Where is this place and how do I get there.
State Quarter it most resembles: Bears an eerie resemblance to Maine, though I doubt the Mariana’s have bone-chilling winters or horror authors who once wrote a short story from the perspective of a castaway who keeps a journal as he slowly eats himself. On second thought, maybe I’ll avoid any island journeys.

US Virgin Islands

Known for: Kicking the British Virgin Islands ass in softball
What they put on the quarter instead: Some crap about pride and hope
Thoughts: Obviously a ploy to downplay the island’s attractiveness to deter Spring Breakers. May as well have printed “Nothing to see here, Arizona State students!  Keep moving! The cops at Lake Havasu totally look the other way with drinking!”
State Quarter it most resembles: Bird, tree and flower are all traits shared by Oklahoma and South Carolina.  This is where the similarities end, however.

Neo apparently can’t piece it together either, and we came up with this deleted scene of their extended conversation:

The person who took the above video would have us believe that the creatures frollicking in this lawn sprinkler are baby moose. This is puzzling to me because they bear little resemblance to the creature seen below.

Most of you will hopefully recognize Moose Baby, the star of our latest short “The Tale of Moose Baby.” If you haven’t, I invite you to go check it out right now, as it is possibly my favorite short we’ve come across so far.

Still not convinced?  Perhaps this video will push you over the edge:

What’s that?  It didn’t work and now you’re just confused and frightened?  Dammit!

If you’re a winner, please email support@rifftrax.com with your Name, mailing address and if you won tickets, the theater you’d like to see the show at.  (Remember, a list of theaters carrying RiffTrax Live on Thursday, 8/20 can be found here.)

Three Winners get a pair of tickets to RiffTrax Live!

This entry from “Kevin” references my favorite line from the ultra-grim short (my favorite kind) about misfit kids, Each Child is Different.

This entry, from Danny Gallagher, references a line said by Kevin in the surprisingly mega-popular RiffTrax for Twilight. The line, to reiterate, is said by Kevin.

This entry is from Creighton S. and references a line from our Pirates of the Caribbean RiffTrax

That’s it for the tickets.  But we have here two special entries that we’d also like to reward with a signed lobby poster for the Plan 9 show.  Call them the Judges Private Selection if you will.  See if you can identify the common thread:

Pjwaldron came up with this The Room referencing caption

And Landon Cowan came up with this Room related one, that no matter how dark and evil it is, still made me laugh.

Thanks to everyone who entered, and be sure to come out and see us on Thursday, 8/20 for RiffTrax Live!!!

Since this is an amazing show featuring our funniest riffs of Plan 9 yet, an unreleased short, and the talented contributions of Veronica Belmont, Jonathan Coulton and Rich “Lowtax” Kyanka, I figured what better way to promote it than by recaptioning some old Family Circus cartoons!

All you have to do is take any of these Family Circus cartoons and recaption them with an (in)appropriate RiffTrax riff or quote from a RiffTrax’d movie.  Paraphrasing is OK, but I have to understand what you’re getting at.  Make me laugh, and win a pair of tickets.  We’ll pick winners at the end of the day tomorrow and you’ll get your tickets in the mail.  Be sure you specify which cartoon your caption is for!

A.

B.

C.

D.

E.

F.

G.

H.

I.

For all the info about our RiffTrax Live event, check out the page here.  Also included is a box for you to enter your zip code to see the nearest theater.

And here is a pic of their biggest fan:

In short, The Room fever here at RiffTrax shows no sign of abating, so as I listened to the back to back combo of Revolver/Rubber Soul last night, I was inspired to make this video, that I acknowledge is very dumb, but it still makes me laugh:

“What Goes On” Wiseau Remix

If you still haven’t checked out of RiffTrax of The Room, WHAT ON EARTH IS TAKING YOU SO LONG!?!?

And now look like this:

Let’s take a closer look at the Katzenjammer Kids comic (the Born Loser strip is best left ignored, lest you descend into madness wondering how someone has convinced a business that is going bankrupt to pay him for this type of thing everyday for several decades.  Also, a true story, probably over a decade ago, I wrote one of the only Letters to the Editor I’ve ever written, to the Washington Post, imploring them to cancel The Born Loser.)

This was the first Katzenjammer Kids cartoon I came across in a Google Image search, so I have no idea whether the insanity depicted in it is more over the top than your typical Katzenjammer Kids comic.  I will assume that it is a middle of the road strip, just because if that turns out to be true, it means that the crazy ones must have been really crazy.

Panel 1: The Katzenjammer Kids come across The Captain, who is laid up in a wheelchair with a broken leg. He is passed out and snoring.

Panel 2:  Their immediate reaction: go and get a caged pig from somewhere on the boat.  Note that there is no discussion about where to obtain a caged pig.  They simply wander off to the area where presumably, pigs in cages are stacked to the ceiling, and borrow one for the afternoon.

Panel 3:  The blonde Katzenjammer Kid proposes the course of action to his brother: shoving the pig down some sort of pipe.  The other Kid is shocked. Evidently, he was fine with going along with the plan to drag a pig in a cage out of the pig in a cage storage room, but did not bother to question what they might be doing with the pig.

Panel 4:  They flip a coin to decide who has to do the deed.  The Captain’s snoring continues to be amplified to industrial road grader volume.  The pig looks worried. Also, take note of the pigs cage.  Somehow it has been able to turn around a few times already, when in reality, the extreme confined quarters would have rendered his muscle mass a useless, gelatinous goo, unable to support his delicious, bacony frame.

Panel 5:  We await the results of the coin flip as the swine, no doubt infested with an impossible number of sea-faring vermin, scratches itself.

Panel 6: Evidently the blonde Kid has either won or lost the coin toss and must deposit the pig down the pipe, which he does without a second thought. Now, there is run of the mill school boy mischief, and then there is the kind of mischief where barnyard animals are inserted into duct work.  The latter usually only is perpetrated by children in the comics or by fraternities in college movies as a means to interrupt a speech by the “Crusty Old Dean” archetype.

Panel 7:  The pig lands head first, directly on the Captain’s shattered leg, no doubt rebreaking it and causing immense pain in the hobbled old man.  The purpose of the pipe, which would be inaccessible from the ground, remains unclear.

Panel 8:  The blonde Kid observes the Captain’s agony with amusement while the other one, without knowing whether or not the pig even survived the fall, prepares to catapult his brother towards the same fate.

Panel 9:  Which he does, with a look of demented joy on his face.

Panel 10:  The blonde Kid crashes at a high velocity onto the Captain’s still throbbing leg, prompting the exponentially more agonized cry of “Owitch!”  The pig, sensing glorious freedom for the first time in its wretched life, makes its getaway.

Panel 11:  Despite the anguish of a twice rebroken leg, the Captain keeps his wits about him long enough to seize his cane and beat the hell out of the Kid. You have to admire the mans singular focus.  After being awoken by a pig re-breaking his leg, he must have been pretty confused and groggy. But then a few seconds later, when someone elses child falls from the sky and re-re-breaks his leg, his immediate reaction is to reach for his cane and rain down blows upon the boys backside. The pig continues to  flee, which is a nice touch, as is the delighted giggling of the beaten boys brother eminating from the pipe whose purpose other than pig/boy conveyance continues to baffle.

Panel 12:  The blonde Kid, his ass still smarting from the caning, threatens his terrified brother with a sword as a great white shark looks on, eagerly awaiting a full meal after the appetizer of the confused and panicked pig that no doubt blundered into the water.

Now that is a comic!!!

I’ll let the comment of Youtube user “elasticxplastic” speak for myself: WTF DID I JUST WATCH

Honestly, this is one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen.  The stunning surprise of that pan over is a moment I will remember right up there with the “Snakes and Rats” speech that truck driving woman gave on the last episode of the first season of Survivor.

Someone who was there

Fortunately, actor Greg Ellery, who played “Steven” in The Room, was happy to talk to Mike and me and answer some of our questions. When he kicked off the conversation with a riff on his iconic The Room quote “I feel like I’m sitting on an atomic bomb waiting for it to go off!”, (currently #28 on the AFI’s Top 100 Movie Quotes list, just ahead of “You can’t handle the truth!”) we were relieved that he shared our sense of humor about the project. But how could you not?

“There was nothing at all normal about it’s development”, he said. Evidently, director Wiseau showed up on the Birns and Sawyer lot, found out they had a studio available and bought the complete Beginning Director package.  That included the purchase, not rental, of a brand new film camera, as well as a new $30,000 digital camera to shoot the “making of.” Skeptical of course, Birns and Sawyer looked at Wiseau’s bank account, saw an appropriate amount of numbers in front of the decimal point and figured, What the hell?

Most of the shooting took place in an on-site studio, and when the action needed to move to the apartment roof, a green screen was set up in the parking lot. Ellery was on the set for three or four weeks. What was Tommy Wiseau like? “I tried to avoid him.” What was his directing style? “He didn’t really have any roundabout directors tricks, where he’d try to bring a performance out of an actor.  He just said, do this this way.”  Does Greg have any idea about Wiseasu’s notoriously vague past?  His favorite theory is that he earned his fortune as a Bosnian Guerilla, but his guess is as good as yours.

A story which Greg wasn’t there for, but which remained legendary on the set throughout the shoot, occurred on the first day. Wiseau had a reputation for being “Sweaty and Smelly” on the set, and the cast watched in horror as he jumped on the actress who plays “Lisa” when they started filming their “love scene.” Lisa, who had pretty much “just gotten off the bus from Texas.”  Oh, and she was 18. I believe our wincing was audible over the phone.

“Steven” at the party with the beautiful “Lisa”

The major question we had for Greg was related to his character, “Steven”.   Namely, “What the hell was the story with your character, Steven?”  Steven first appears at Johnny’s Birthday party, which occurs 76 minutes into the 97 minute movie.  He is never addressed by name, yet when he appears onscreen and starts interacting with the characters, it’s treated as if the audience is supposed to recognize him as if he’s been there all along.

Greg was able to shed some light on the issue.  It turns out that Steven was a “bastardization of the character of Peter”, who has a somewhat more prominent role in the second act of the movie (he is a psychologist, gets dangled over the roof by Mark and plays football in a tuxedo.)

Oh, did that not occur to you, that Peter and Steven might actually be the same character?  Maybe it was because this is Peter:

“Peter”, who is the same, but different, as “Steven”

And there was no attempt made to to have the characters look alike, dress alike or even both wear glasses.  Yes, in the kind of thing that previously could only happen in an Ed Wood movie, the actor who played Peter got fed up and quit the movie halfway through, and Wiseau decided to recast the part. After Ellery got the role, (following a normal casting call), Wiseau told him “Peter left.  Now you are like Peter, but you are Steven.”

Welcome aboard Greg!

To the productions credit, Greg says “For an independent film, the checks were good and the checks were weekly.” We asked him if any footage he shot got left on the cutting room floor, thinking this might explain things such as the Breast Cancer diagnosis that is never mentioned again, or Denny’s run-in with a violent drug dealer that is never mentioned again.  But not according to Greg. In his words, the loose ends were there just because “The scenes were not connected and had nothing to do with each other.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

Ellery attended the first ever screening of the movie, a grand event at a Laemmle Theatre for which Wiseau rented limos and rolled out the red carpet.  “From the very beginning,” he says, “it was apparent that it was a comedy.”  People were already laughing during the first ten minutes and by the end they were “Rolling around and peeing in their pants.” He first learned that the movie had gained a cult following not too long ago, when a friend alerted him that the movie he had worked on, “You know, the one you described as the worst movie ever?” had evidently amassed a bigger audience than he had ever imagined.

Unfortunately, should The Room 2 ever see the light of day, the part of Steven/Peter will probably have to be reassigned yet again.  Ellery has moved into directing, and is currently working on a feature on the East coast.

Pressed for any specific theories on the meaning of the film, or any of Wiseau’s specific choices (e.g., the “don’t worry about it” meme) Greg is at a loss. Though he did speculate that the film as a whole was autobiographical, that Wiseau was hurt by a woman once and the film was his response. “I think it was just one big ego trip.”

The last detail he shared with us was one that truly must sum up the experience of what it would have been like to work on The Room.  On his first day on the set, Ellery approached Greg Sestero, who played Mark, assuming that he was the director.  Noting the wild looking dude (Wiseau) standing nearby, he remarked “Real funny, you brought a crackhead in to mess with the actors.”

Personally, we would have just stuck with, “Oh hi, Mark”

The Room has consumed our lives here at RiffTrax since we discovered it two and a half months ago.  We’ve rewatched the movie, poured over the discs bonus features, started talking like Johnny around the office and even spoken on the phone with two people involved in the movie.  But we acknowledge that it’s probably still a big question mark for most people out there.  Since we’ve uncovered so much great The Room-related content, we thought we’d share.  Hopefully this will whet your appetite if you haven’t seen the movie, or will supplement your curiosity once you’ve seen it a first, second or third time.

Let’s start at the start:

• This Onion AV Club article is the first thing we read about The Room
• It references this comprehensive Entertainment Weekly article, which goes more in depth
• This IFC article delves more thoroughly into the “plot”. Contains spoilers, but is very spot on and funny.

Sold yet?  Go buy The Room at amazon, (we’re not sure where else you can get it.)  It’s less than ten bucks. And you’ll need it when our RiffTrax comes out on Thursday!

Now for some videos.  As fun as these are, I strongly recommend you watch the movie once without having seen anything. It will be a much more fun experience.  Check back here in an hour and a half.  Go on, watch it already!

Let’s start with the iconic scenes:

You are tearing me apart Lisa!

Oh hi Mark!

The Flower Shop (aka Hi Doggy!)

Montages!

Tommy laughing

Oh hi, (insert name here)

 Fan tributes!

The Room Rap Song by The Brooklyn Doctors

The Room Mash-up Tribute

Tommy Wiseau and David After Dentist

xtranorml!

Tearing me apart!

Flower shop

Interviews!

Veronica Belmont interviews Tommy Wiseau

Cookin’ Good – Tea With Tommy Wiseau – Part 1

Tommy Wiseau guest directs on Tim & Eric

I probably don’t need to say any more than this:

But just in case you wanted more, this is the Stone 13th Anniversary beer, which is the hoppiest beer they’ve ever brewed: 4.5 pounds of hops per barrel. The good taste of Stone was clearly evident when they brought back a RiffTrax series for their summer movie events this year (last wednesday of every month), but this confirms it even further.  The only bit of devastating news: when they show Iron Man on 6/24, this beer is still 5 days away from hitting store shelves.  Hopefully in celebration of Iron Man’s rougish lead, they will tap a keg a few days earlier.

Some of you may have heard that Casablanca will be our next RiffTrax (it comes out on Tuesday.)   What some of you might not know is that back in 8th grade, my friend Andrew wrote a song about the exotic destination that the movie is set in: Morocco. I would like to share with you a live MP3 of this love letter to everyone’s favorite fez-wearing country. Performed live at Columbia University in 2006, this is Re-Ree’s “Morocco”

Recognize this guy?  He’s Leon Unczur and yesterday he celebrated his first year anniversary serving as the Sheriff of Nottingham.

The modern day Sheriff’s role is a bit different than this guy:

Unlike old Bushel-Britches here, Sheriff Unczur’s roles focus less on extorting taxes from widow rabbits and dogs wearing full leg casts and more on tourism, cutting ribbons on new retail outlets and presumably posing for pictures with people who will then go post them ironically on the internet.

A complete list of Sheriff’s of Nottingham dating back to the 15th century reign of Henry the VIth can be found here.

First place goes to Askbotboy for his Mighty Boosh mashup:

Second place to Ejiehi for the most insanity inducing clip of them all.  Minus points for the weird video artifacting though

And third to blablover5.  I had never seen Cop Rock again, but it is beyond the realm of comprehension that this ever actually aired on TV:

Great job to everyone else. Send conor AT rifftrax DOT com an email to claim your prize!

But there’s got to be other things out there that would warrant that kind of a response from him.  We’ve uploaded the raw footage from the scene to sendspace.  Download it here. The challenge is to replace the old movie that Vincent is watching with anything you like.  Upload the video to youtube as a response to ours when you’re done and put the link in the comments.  We’ll pick a winner when the weekend is over.  Until then, we will be busy laughing uproariously, before gradually shifting into sobs.