Product Details

• Actors: Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett
• Directors: Various
• Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Legend Films
• DVD Release Date: June 16, 2009
• Run Time: 110 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0026KJP7G
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #40,053 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Studio: Legend Films Inc. Release Date: 06/16/2009

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Are you a Mr. Bungle?", June 22, 2009

By 

Andrew McCaffrey "The Grumpy Young Man" (Satellite of Love, Maryland) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: RiffTrax Shorts Volume 2 - from the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000! (DVD)

Rifftrax is a spin-off or sequel to "Mystery Science Theater 3000" where three of the writers/performers from that show sell both mp3 files of movie mocking commentaries (which you sync up manually with the big studio's DVD release) and straight-to-DVD features where the commentary has already been synchronised up with a movie (usually a low-budget, public domain film) . I have found the feature length Rifftraxs to be hit-or-miss; some of them are great, but others leave me a little cold.

However, this is the second release they have made of commentaries over old industrial training shorts. These short films are a hold-over from the old MST3k days, and the shorts they tackled oftentimes resulted in producing some of their funniest material. Where would MST3k history be without Mr. B. Natural, Coily the Spring Sprite or a Date With Your Family?

And like Rifftrax's first volume of short films, the riffers do a great job of selecting nutty, bizarre material and interspersing quips, puns and observations into the already full sea of non sequiturs and nonsense.

Due to a variety of circumstances, I had actually previously viewed some of these short features in their original unmolested form before Rifftrax had added their commentary. So not only was I looking forward to watching their take on these, I also knew exactly how goofy, confusing and strange some of their starting material was.

This single DVD collection puts together nine short films which had previously been for sale via the Rifftrax website.

1) ONE GOT FAT. A bicycle safety film in which the protagonists are small children wearing disturbing, distorted ape masks. Charmingly, all but one of the kids are horribly killed or maimed by ignoring simple safety precautions while bicycling to a picnic. The precocious child then eats the lunches of his fallen peers in lieu of mourning.

2) LUNCHROOM MANNERS. School children watch a rude and clumsy puppet (Mr. Bungle). This short and lightweight demonstration causes all the children to radically alter their entire behavior for the rest of their lives.

3) EACH CHILD IS DIFFERENT. An instructional film intended for elementary school teachers. If not for the merciless mocking, this would be an incredibly depressing experience. Adults are taught that individual children may have horrifically dark, bleak and disturbing home lives.

4) WHY DOESN'T CATHY EAT BREAKFAST? A film which asks a question and then refuses to answer it. An absolutely pointless film as far as I could tell. This short is paired with PETALUMA CHICKEN which is equally confusing, featuring a chef attempting to make the world's largest omelette with help from an oversized spoon and women who do aerobics in a giant bowl. Two utterly incomprehensible movies.

5) ACT YOUR AGE. A high schooler caught defacing a desk decides to chart his way towards maturity with the help of statistics and focused polling of his family and peers.

6) HARM HIDES AT HOME. A normal suburban crossing guard is tracked by a U.F.O and given strange alien powers. She becomes Safety Woman, whose abilities are limited to providing her neighborhood children with lessons about fire safety coupled with instant teleportation. Given the description, you'd think the producers were trying to use humor to provide kids with a valuable lesson. But for some reason, the film takes its alien-enhanced heroine very seriously.

7) COFFEE HOUSE RENDEZVOUS. I'm not exactly clear on who this film is aimed at, but its message is that coffee houses of the '60s are a great place for young people to hang out. Features frequent close-ups of coffee and also a lot of sounds coming out of some kind of musical instruments.

8) ARE YOU POPULAR? I've watched this short two times now, and I still don't see how it answers the title question. Instead, it solemnly informs teenage boys that if they wish to date teenage girls, they must schedule their encounter some time before the evening in question. I wouldn't have thought it would take ten minutes to make that basic point.

9) GOOD HEALTH PRACTICES. The distillation of every food health film you've ever seen. Disturbingly, this must contain the most references to urination and defecation than any other film of its era.


Usually, the more outrageous or ridiculous the short, the more fun was to be had from MST3k/Rifftrax. The films here are certainly absurd and Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett get in a lot of excellent jokes. They aren't merely rehashing the jokes from their MST3k days, but it certainly has a very familiar flavor.

(One thing to note is that unlike some of the other straight-to-DVD Rifftrax, here there is no option to view the material without the riffing commentary. Given that most of these films are available freely on-line that probably won't be a problem for anyone dying to hear every available line of dialog in its original unscathed condition.)

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Better Rifftrax DVDs Out There, September 27, 2010

By 

theboombody (Texas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: RiffTrax Shorts Volume 2 - from the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000! (DVD)

Like other reviewers before me, I had an issue with the sound on this particular DVD. This is the first ever MST3K or Rifftrax product where I had such an issue. The Best of Rifftrax Shorts Volume 1 is great. So is Shorts-tacular Shorts-stravaganza. No problems with quality, and tons of laughs. But in addition to the poor quality of the sound on this DVD, many of the featured shorts were just too weird to be funny. Better than Swing Parade, but still pretty bad. Definitely shop around and pay attention to other reviewers when looking at Rifftrax stuff. It appears to be hit and miss with their products.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More MST please..., January 17, 2010

By 

C. Pipher III (Wheeling, Il) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: RiffTrax Shorts Volume 2 - from the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000! (DVD)

I have been a fan of MST 3000 since the very start, I miss the show so I continue to look for new material. The only bothersome thing is that the audio track of the movie goes way down (you can't really hear it) while the talk. I like to hear the movie at the same time while they have their input. This did not happen during MST movies so I don't know what the deal is.
Still fun to watch though...