Enjoy Trace and Frank’s take on Life in a Medieval Town AKA the Seneschal short. If you don’t learn something about culture in the Middle Ages, hopefully you at least pick up some fashion tips regarding head scarves!

It's called The Five C's of Cinematography: Motion Picture Filming Techniques and it's by Joseph V. Mascelli. Now YOU TOO can compose professional film shots like the ones seen in TISCWSLABMUZ! (I'm kidding, it appears to be a well-respected book on the subject.)

Sunday will apparently be the 20th anniversary of the book's release -- and today is Joseph's birthday! Ha! This was a secret birthday post all along! Happy birthday, Mr. Mascelli!

Eww, wizard whiz!

David Warner was born on this day in 1941 in the UK and he's been in everything. A classically trained actor (he graduated from RADA and all), he began his professional career performing small roles in Shakespeare plays in London before moving on to the Royal Shakespeare Company and taking on the juicy (and wishy-washy) lead role of Hamlet.

While all this was happening, he also appeared on the BBC via the airing of a number of televised plays. (Remember when TV used to show plays?) AND he began appearing in horror movies, notably The Omen.

He was in a lot of stuff, basically! He had a reputation for playing villains as his career went on (Sark from TRON being a personal favorite of mine), but of course he was more versatile than that, as we saw in his dual role of the evil Lord Vultare and the kind, moppet-tolerant, Baydool from experiment #913, Quest of the Delta ~~Burkes~~ Knights.

Given all that preamble, there's not much to say. Warner's Lord Vultare is as silly as his Baydool is earnest, so he certainly put in some effort, but the whole movie comes across as a professional, workmanlike, "let's get this knocked out and move on," kind of production, so I'm not going to judge too harshly. Like Raul Julia, Warner's immense talents are sidelined by production elements beyond his control, here.

David Warner died on 24 July 2022, aged 80, in London.

You are the prisoner of a madman

There are a few certainties in life: death, taxes, and that we will never stop finding shorts from the multi-decade Beginning Responsibility series made by Coronet.

A Lunchroom Goes Bananas is from their 70s era, which usually means lots of confused kids with shaggy haircuts and some kind of disturbing puppetry. And this one doesn’t disappoint!

It’s got claymation food that goes on strike, student investigative reporters, and a boy with an unexplained rat on his shoulder. What it doesn’t have is a clear point or reason for existing, another classic hallmark of any good Beginning Responsibility short.

Learn some lessons from a talking eggplant, get yourself a steaming bowl of banana soup, and join Mike, Kevin and Bill in the cafeteria for Beginning Responsibility: A Lunchroom Goes Bananas!

Timmy had Lassie. Calvin had Hobbes. Jackie, the little boy in this short, has… an actual school bus.

That’s right, The Big Yellow Fellow is all about the love between a boy and his bus. And you thought YOUR childhood was lonely! The bus, which is a sentient being that can smile but cannot speak, creepily follows Jackie home from school. But instead of offering him candy to go for a ride like in so many other educational shorts of the past, the bus just wants to be his friend. This is disturbing to Jackie’s parents, who inexplicably act like characters in a failed 60s sitcom.

Then they get inside the bus to teach Jackie about bus safety. They also drive the bus, which had previously driven itself, opening deep philosophical questions about whether the bus has free will. It’s plenty weird, but none of that will prepare you for the third act twist. We’ll just tease it with this phrase “Professor Popper’s Pedigreed Pekingese Puppies.”

To find out more, join Mike, Kevin and Bill for a ride on The Big Yellow Fellow!

Chapters:

0:00 DVD Menu
0:51 Gamera Obscura, A Brief History by August Ragone
30:54 Gamera vs. Gaos

Operation "Sand Dust!" HUSH-HUSH!

Hoo-boy, how much time ya' got? Born July 27, 1916, in New York City, and destined for greatness. His father was vaudeville great Ed Wynn, whose own credits are too numerous to count, but might be best remembered as Uncle Albert in Mary Poppins. And also as a frequent inspiration for voice actors needing a silly voice (lookin' at you, King Candy).

Let's quickly blaze through his highly acclaimed and respectable roles on Broadway, on radio, his hundreds of film and television credits, and the fact that he shared the stage with such famous performers as Clark Gable, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly and Lana Turner, and talk about what's really important: his appearances in terrible MST3K movies!

First up is experiment #706, Laserblast, where he lit up the screen as the addled, Kathy-guarding Colonel Farley.

Wynn would move on to the much meatier role of a retired journalist, pulled back into the game by a twist of fate (the arrival of a frowny clone-baby at his house), Jake Noble, in #811, Parts: The Clonus Horror. Vital to the plot by blowing the whole Clonus affair wide open, and then summarily blown up himself just before the heartbreaking denouement of... Parts: The Clonus Horror.

Keenan Wynn died October 14, 1986 (aged 70) in Brentwood, California from pancreatic cancer. A legend really, but nevertheless part of the extended MST3K family. (It's also Adolfo Celi's birthday, but I'm not doing two of these.)

Go suck someone else's garbage!

I got shrew doo on my shoe!

Born Jewel Franklin Guy in 1926, he did a stint in the U.S. Army as MP, and then as a bona fide member of the military's acting division during the latter part of WWII. He returned to the States in 1949, left the service, and proceeded to appear in a whooole bunch of Westerns. (But hey, who didn't back then?)

His biggest role in a riffed movie was experiment #407, The Killer Shrews -- but he also appeared in a bit part in #809, I Was a Teenage Werewolf as "the kid at the party who gets slapped" according to Satellite News. He's officially a two-fer!

(Apparently he was also in the 2012 sequel to The Killer Shrews, but you're on your own there as I didn't know it existed until just now and am in no hurry to investigate further in any case.)

Best's most notable role beyond MST was as Rosco P. Coltrane on the hit 70's program, The Dukes of Hazzard -- a show largely about ripping off Hal Needham on a TV budget, starring a problematic Dodge Charger. Rosco was fun, though!

Best died in 2015 at the age of 88.

Can you play Dixieland jazz?

From the description:

Get more webinars like this only on our Patreon: https://rifftrax.com/patreon

Hey Nineteen. It wasour 19th anniversary on July 20th, and we're hopping on the mics to talk about it! The guys reflect on 19 years of riffin' those trax.

Bronze is the traditional 19th anniversary gift, by the way, so feel free to bring baby shoes, a Rodin sculpture, or truck nutz.

That's right, we celebrated our 19th anniversary on Sunday, and to celebrate, we chatted with fans about it! This first aired exclusively to RiffTrax Patreon supporters on July 23rd, but we're making it public for all to celebrate almost two decades of riffs!

00:00 Intro
00:36 We turned 19!
03:54 The Early Days of RiffTrax
12:15 Tales of Shippin' DVDs and data-sharin'
14:38 The Old Screenin' Room
15:54 Favorites From Year 19
23:50 "Middle Aged"
24:42 What movie is most synonymous with RiffTrax?
27:26 Halifax Questions
28:30 Balloonland, The Ice Cream Bunny, Moose Baby
32:25 Outro

Another week: another goodie on The Mads YouTube Channel!

This week we’ve got the full short Helping Johnny Remeber from A Night of Shorts 7 for you! Enjoy Trace Beaulieu & Frank Conniff’s riff on this tale of a group of children who all play together in a dark void and ostracize a particular child named Johnny for being only slightly worse than the rest of them!

Chapters:

0:00 WotLW Photos Documentary
2:41 David Worth Interview
13:06 Warrior of the Lost World

Want some?

Famous amongst MSTies for her starring turn in experiment #307 - Daddy-O, and to non-fans for her stunning debut role in the film Daddy-O. Er, there's not a ton of info about her out there, folks.

Well, there's this practically day-by-day journal of her comings and goings, which is kinda going too far in the other direction.

She worked regularly until the 70s, after which her credits taper off and become further away from the top of the bill. But she was close friends with other blonde bombshells of her era like Pat Sheehan, and she even dated tennis player Bobby Riggs. Yes, that Bobby Riggs. All in all, I'd guess she had a lot of fun in Hollywood. At least I hope she did!

She passed away on Christmas day of 2016 at the age of 84, at her home in Los Angeles.

I'm just a girl, and I'll race him any time, any place!

From the description:

Own the short: https://www.rifftrax.com/masks-of-grass

Is corn masks? The freaks at ACI Films return yet again with a twisted spin-off of the classic At Your Fingertips short.

The parents have signed the waivers and headed to a bar, leaving their unfortunate kids to assemble “masks” out of various types of refuse. They’re potentially problematic, and definitely swarming with pests. One thing is for certain: nobody learned a damn thing the day this was shown in class. But it may have inspired a cult or two! Join Mike, Kevin, and Bill for Masks of Grass.

I saw a monster in a cave killing a girl!

Okay, now we can talk about Paul Blaisdell.

Although accomplished in the fine arts of painting and sculpture, he won the hearts of b-movie fans everywhere by designing some of the iconic monsters of the 50s black and white scif-fi boom. For MST specifically: #311, It Conquered the World; #315, Teenage Caveman; and #808, The She-Creature.

In addition, he built props for these eps: #309, The Amazing Colossal Man; #313, Earth Vs. the Spider; #404 Teenagers from Outer Space.

Of course, he worked on plenty of non-MST'ed movies too, as well creating art for sci-fi magazines, legit painting and sculpture. He knew luminaries ranging from Forest J. Ackerman, Roger Corman, and Fred Olen Ray.

To learn more, ask your librarian for the following book: Paul Blaisdell, Monster Maker: A Biography of the B Movie Makeup and Special Effects Artist.

He died in 1983 at the age of 55, in California. But he will be remembered by fans of weird film everywhere.

It's prettier in Spanish!

"Has anyone seen my record?"

宇宙快速船 (Uchū Kaisokusen), (featured in experiment #819) produced by Toei and starring Sonny Chiba. Very notable names! Very dull movie!

And the dullness ramps up in the last quarter of the film, what with all the padding made up of repeated dog-fighting shots and re-used footage from other films (World War III Breaks Out according to some sources), it's enough to give a guy Roji Panty Complex, I tell 'ya.

As intimated in the MST3K episode, Space Chief really isn't as interesting as Prince of Space, and the Classic Sci-Fi Movie blog might have an explanation for that:

Toei Studios' 1961 super hero "Iron Sharp" (Space Chief in the English version), was a copy of Prince of Space, which Toei marketed in 1959. Prince of Space was himself a copy of Toho Studios' serial hero, "Supa Jaiantsu" (Super Giant), who was himself a copy of Superman.

Well, that about wraps it up for Invasion of the Neptune Men.

MY RECORD!!!

From the description:

Own the short: https://www.rifftrax.com/chimp-the-fi...

In a world increasingly devoid of inspiration, firefighters are true heroes. Selflessly entering burning buildings, putting themselves in harms way to the ravages of wildfire, getting the occasional cartoon cat out of a tree. They are such heroes they make Captain America look like a mere Hawkeye.

So what this short puts forth is: A chimp can do their job. A chimp named Shorty. Just put him in a funny hat and let him rescue the old lady who’s screaming from a second floor window, the rest of us human firefighter have a poker game that needs our attention. Oh, and see if the chimp will pick up some Thai while he’s out!

They say to never work with children or animals, but to always riff monkeys. So we did. Please join Mike, Kevin, and Bill for Chimp the Fireman.

Chapters:

0:00 Intro by Frank
3:04 Barnum of Baltimore Documentary
10:26 Hercules

What is there to be said about "The Hoff" that hasn't already been said? He joined the galaxy of MST3K stars via experiment #1106 Starcrash.

Starcrash itself is kinda famous in offbeat movie circles, being a striking piece of 70s Italian shoestring sci-fi... so I am embarrassed to admit that I've never been able to make it through the un-riffed version. And as for the MST3K edition? Um... what the hell, I don't have Netflix.

"He learned too late that man is a feeling creature..."

What's so special about It Conquered the World (featured in episode #311)? The wiki intro explains it pretty well: "produced and directed by Roger Corman, and starring Peter Graves, Lee Van Cleef, Beverly Garland, and Sally Fraser... released theatrically by American International Pictures (AIP) as a double feature with The She-Creature."

Quite the pedigree!

Bizarrely, ITtW was remade for television as Zontar, the Thing from Venus in 1967 by Larry Buchanan, and starring MST3K semi-regular, John Agar (aka Mr. Shirley Temple).

And we don't even have time to get into original monster-maker Paul Blaisdell!

"It's true... I am your only friend."

After all, it is his birthday!

Frank is actually an accomplished, lifelong fixture in television syndication. In fact, "In 2000, NATPE, the professional organization of television program executives, featured Frank in the video The Legends of Syndication, an overview of the history of syndicated media selling."

He even did a deal with the Asylum (a well known name to any bad movie fan) back in 2011, which might mean that there's an even deeper connection between Rifftrax and Sandy Frank than any of us realized!