Still riffing: MST3K’s Bill Corbett takes on zombies, Casablanca
Bill Corbett
After spending a few years portraying the wisecracking robot Crow on “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” Bill Corbett wasn’t ready give up movie-mocking. He was, however, ready to stop being a puppet.
“We don’t play characters and we don’t have puppets,” Corbett said of his current project, Rifftrax. “I think we’re just getting a little too old for that, frankly. We’ll leave that to the younger crowd.”
Rifftrax consists of “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ alums Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Corbett, and has included “guest riffers” like Weird Al Yankovic and Neil Patrick Harris. Those who saw “MST3K” will know the basic idea of “Rifftrax” – watch movies, and provide humorous commentary. Until recently, Rifftrax – found at www.rifftrax.com – had primarily been created as MP3s, which users then downloaded and played in sync with their own copy of the DVD. But starting this week, 10 Rifftrax DVDs hit stores, providing commentary on films including “Night of the Living Dead,” “House on Haunted Hill,” and “Plan 9 from Outer Space.”
“I enjoyed doing ‘Night of the Living Dead,’ which I had never seen before,” Corbett said. The 1968 film by George Romero was one of the first to explore a post-apocalyptic zombie infestation.
“Now that we’re a couple of decades later, and we know the zombie movie traditions and the culture of zombie-ism, it was fun to see how it all started and how kind of slow it was rolling out,” Corbett said. “Zombies are fun to make fun of if you get right down to it,” he said.
In addition to low-budget movies like “Plan 9,” Rifftrax offers up commentary on recent hits – and even classics, including “Jaws” and “Casablanca,” via the Rifftrax.com Web site.
“It’s certainly easier to make fun of a movie that’s substandard or just silly on the face of it,” Corbett said. “The other thing’s a trickier business.”
In the case of the better movies, riffing becomes a slightly different art form.
“You’re not really taking pot shots at the movie itself, as trying to impose a funny situation on what’s going on,” Corbett said.
Rifftrax even performs live from time to time, including last year in San Diego during the week of Comic-Con: International. Corbett said the live shows are heavily scripted.
“I can’t imagine a human being witty enough to do that for an hour and a half to two hours, but the trick is to make it seem kind of spontaneous,” he said. Still, the comedians aren’t above occasionally slipping in a new joke.
“We do feel free to mix it up a little bit and blurt something out, and that’s always fun,” Corbett said. “It’s a risk, because sometimes you’re not as funny as you think you are.”
By Matthew Price
From Monday’s The Oklahoman
Twinprov is back with Terminator rap
With Terminator Salvation in theaters, comedy duo Twinprov — aka Clint and Buck Vrazel — returned to the NewsOK studios to share their take on Terminator. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Christian Bale and more face the satirical wit of Twinprov in this video, introduced by BAM.
Archie Andrews getting married
Will the love triangle between Archie, Betty and Veronica be resolved? Surely not, but Archie Comics seems to indicate so in today’s press release, titled “Archie Andrews is getting married.”
“Archie Gets Married Part 1: The Proposal” is called the “Archie Story of the Century” in the release. The issue will be written by superhero movie producer Michael Uslan and drawn by Stan Goldberg. The story will go on sale in August in comic shops and after that on newsstands.
The story will look at Archie and his friends as they graduate college and seek careers. Can Archie finally choose between Betty and Veronica? Years of comics-reading lead me to say, not really, but perhaps skipping ahead to the future like this is OK for Archie, as they can always go back and tell more tales of high school hi-jinks. What do you think? Would knowing Archie chose Betty or Veronica (or someone else) in his future make Archie Comics any less appealing?
– Matt Price
Star Trek rap, with Twinprov and BAM
Twinprov came by the studio for an interview with BAM and to do a new version of the “Star Trek Rap.” Check it out!
Obama-Conan humor from The Onion
The Onion has a piece of satire in which the Cabinet fails to understand President Obama’s metaphors based on “Savage Sword of Conan.” The second best line is this:
Later, the defense secretary attempted to find common ground with Obama by making casual references to the comic book Spawn. But the 44th president reportedly brushed him off with an abrupt laugh, saying, “no one in [his] administration likes Spawn.”
Click through to read the whole thing — the best line is the closer.
– Matt Price
“You’ll All Be Sorry” to be published in book form
Nat Gertler of About Comics lets us know that his company will be publishing the humor columns of Gail Simone in a collection. “You’ll All Be Sorry!” was a popular satire column at Comicbookresources.com that was Simone’s entry into the comics industry. From the release:
Featuring a mixture of classic entries culled from her popular online column and brand new pieces, this About Comics paperback will delight Simone’s growing legion of fans.
Behind a Scott Shaw! cover, readers will find dozens of articles as Simone turns her sharp wit on Wizard, Watchmen, Whiteout, bad Batman fan fiction, and even the Internet itself. This was the work that launched her comics writing career, leading to her writing first for Bongo, then for Marvel and now DC, where she has gained acclaim for her runs on such books as Birds of Prey, Wonder Woman, and her original series Welcome to Tranquility.
In addition to the original pieces that Simone built her career on, the book features original articles, including the revelatory “How to Write Comics (with food and boobs) the Gail Simone Way!” Readers will also be invited to “Choose Your Own Crossover,” and Gail has also blackmailed a bunch of her pro friends into crafting an all new set of “Condensed Comics Classics”. Each piece is being freshly laid out to reflect the material being parodied, and many come with illustrations.
“People have been asking for this book for years,” explains Simone, “and I am grateful and delighted that it’s finally being published and put together with such care by the amazing Nat Gertler. All my favorite You’ll All Be Sorry columns are in there, along with some new material not available anywhere else. It’s definitely the publishing event of the century, if not of all time. This is the book that finally validates English as an actual language and humans as a species. Also, it makes fun of Batman; I suggest you purchase multiple copies immediately!”
You’ll All Be Sorry! (ISBN 978-0-9790750-5-6) is a 160-page comics-sized trade paperback, priced at $11.99 US, published by About Comics. The book will be solicited to the comics market in the June issue of Diamond Comic Distributors’s Previews catalog, and will also be available to the bookstore market through Diamond Book Distributors.
