BASEMENT BLU-RAY REVIEW: RiffTrax Live! Christmas Shorts-Stravaganza
If you don’t know who RiffTrax is, then you are truly missing out. I would call RiffTrax a spin-off of Mystery Science Theater 3000, featuring three of the original stars of the show. Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett make up the trio and their riffing is just so much fun. In San Diego in 2009, they did a live show called RiffTrax Live! Christmas Shorts-Stravaganza. Not only did they riff in front of a live audience, it was also broadcast live to over 450 theatres nationwide!
I was in the audience at a local theatre that night and found myself laughing so hard. What do ice-skating reindeer, pipe-smoking Santas and a parade of aquatic champions have in common? You’ll see them all in the RiffTrax Live: Christmas Shorts-Stravaganza! The stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 have a sack-full of delightful and demented shorts to riff live onstage. Some of the forgotten gems of Christmases past prove to be the perfect targets for the rapid-fire riffs of Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett. And if that wasn’t enough, they’re even joined by comedy legend ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic for a musical short about the wonders of pork!
The common theme to me with all of these shorts is “what were they thinking?” Why they were made we will never know but it is great fodder for Mike, Kevin and Bill. Watching this has become an annual tradition for me and it shares the Christmas movie pile alongside ELF, IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE and FRED CLAUS. Even after all these year, it is still laugh-out-loud funny and highly recommended.
RiffTrax Live! Christmas Shorts-Stravaganza is available on blu-ray, DVD and streaming on Amazon. If you have a weird sense of humor you will really enjoy this and perhaps make it your own Christmas tradition with friends and family.
I hope you enjoyed this review. Don’t forget to read the other blogs in my BASEMENT BLU-RAY REVIEW series.
~David Albaugh
