The Hunting of the Snark: Best of RiffTrax Shorts, Vol. 2

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ONE OF THE GREAT schisms of nerddom is the split that occurred since "Mystery Science Theater 3000" went off the air. While Joel Hodgson and the original cast now riff on bad movies as Cinematic Titanic, the later cast of Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy are busy with RiffTrax — downloadable, synched audio commentaries of mainstream films such as "Twilight."

But Mike and friends have gone back to bashing those gloriously awful "social guidance" shorts that warped so many Cold War schoolkids and amused so many "MST3K" viewers. And it's hard to get more warped than the first short on the new "Best of RiffTrax Shorts, Vol. 2" DVD. In 1963's "One Got Fat," kids wearing tails and hideous monkey masks ("It has no eyes, but it still sees me!" yells Corbett) are killed off one by one for not following proper bike safety.

Faced with this nightmare fuel, the commenters give us 15 solid minutes of black humor and a lot of "Planet of the Apes" jokes, along with random references to Tom Waits, "Heaven Can Wait" and Eminem.

In the 1978 head-scratcher "Harm Hides at Home," a school crossing guard is transformed into Guardiana the Safety Woman by Chipmunk-voiced UFO aliens. "I guess the Lollipop Guild is a member of the Federation," Nelson drily notes. Murphy sums up the dull 1969 youth documentary "Coffee House Rendezvous" by declaring, "If this is what coffee does to people, I'm glad this generation discovered acid."

The whole DVD feels semi-improvised, given the periodic cast laughter. The only annoying part of the DVD is "Are You Popular?" which has a jerky, streaming-video look. Fortunately, its narration contains a couple of jaw-dropping double entendres apparently didn't occur to 1947's innocent minds.

Written by Express contributor Paul Stelter
Photo courtesy Rifftrax