RiffTrax Shorts
Season 2018
The stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988) riff on weird and oddball educational shorts.
Where to Watch Season 2018
21 Episodes
- A Day with Fireman BillE1
A Day with Fireman BillThere are no fires in this short! And if there were, Fireman Bill would not be allowed near them, as he is technically only a trainee fireman. Instead, we get to see him eat meals in the firehouse kitchen, stand by as other firemen out an imaginary fire, and clean several hundred feet of dirty hose. We don’t want to promise too much excitement, but there may just be a completely separate segment devoted to drying the now clean hose! Join Fireman Bill to see if he can one day achieve his dream of being promoted to Fire Marshall, and severely injure himself for our amusement on In Living Color. - Drawing for Beginners: The SquareE2
Drawing for Beginners: The SquareIt would be easy to confuse this short with another release of ours, Drawing for Beginners: The Rectangle. Because, and only truly advanced high-level mathematics scholars know this, squares are rectangles. And yet, somehow, each film is mesmerizing in its own special “close-up of a hand drawing on paper” way. And the 3-D models of the “finished” drawings are unbelievably goofy, like a trash-craft project from an At Your Fingertips short but with an even weaker grip on reality. Yes, it’s a film where someone tells you how to draw four straight lines of equal length, but it’s still more interesting than any unboxing video on YouTube. Join total beginners Mike, Kevin, and Bill. and get your online art degree with Drawing for Beginners: The Square! - Harry the Dirty DogE3
Harry the Dirty Dog Bridget and Mary Jo have stumbled across the rare hygiene film aimed at canines! Harry The Dirty Dog is the saga of a beautiful but conflicted border collie who runs away from the only life he’s ever known when it’s bathtime. He finds his way back home filthier than ever. But don’t waste your tears - Harry is a survivor! - Six Murderous BeliefsE4
Six Murderous Beliefs Be warned: if you haven’t watched this serious and important 1950s safety short yet, YOU MAY ALREADY BE DEAD! ...So, please take a second to check. No? Still alive? Good! But if you want to stay that way, you’d better take a close look at your life and make sure you don’t hold any of the SIX MURDEROUS BELIEFS! These beliefs are bad, and not just “the Tim Burton Planet of the Apes is the best version” bad. They’re seriously bad. Like one of the beliefs is “Safety is for Sissies” and then there’s a cartoon of the Grim Reaper sitting on a football player. See? You get it now??? This is serious, hardcore stuff, and you need to stop messing around or the dang Grim Reaper will SIT ON YOU. But football isn’t the only thing that can murder you. You know what else can get you all Grim Reapered? Basic carpentry! Doing science! Going outside! You’re doomed!!! There’s only one hope: learn to avoid the Six Murderous Beliefs with your Three Un-murderous Buds, Mike, Kevin, and Bill! - People SoupE5
People Soup People Soup is the first short we’ve done that has been nominated for an Oscar. (Yes, Henry Slinkman’s moving performance in Buying Food was rudely snubbed.) Evidently, when Alan Arkin points the camera at his kids while they waste a bunch of food, it’s "art," but when one of us does it it’s "the last time you ever babysit." Seemingly shot without a script or purpose, People Soup gives hope to the maker of every pointless educational short that your efforts will one day be rewarded with critical acclaim. Best Cinematography for What is Nothing? Best Special Effects for Drawing for Beginners: The Rectangle? Best Supporting Actor for Norman Spear Jr. in Parade of Aquatic Champions? OK, maybe not every pointless short… Join Mike, Kevin, Bill, and the Arkin boys, Matthew and Adam, for People Soup! - The Water We DrinkE6
The Water We Drink The Water We Drink is The Short We Riff, full of The Jokes We Tell to inspire The Laughs You’ll Laugh! This is one of those vintage educational shorts that breaks down the complex details of something most people never encounter in their lives: water. What is it? Where does it come from? What can you do with it? Is the puddle under the horse water? No, no it isn’t, and you shouldn’t drink it. And there’s a lot more to learn about water, but fear not, this Coronet short is ready to bring all that moist knowledge right to our dried-up dusty brains! Not to be confused with The Shape of Water We Drink, that’s a much naughtier film. Get thirsty for The Water We Drink with Mike, Bill, and Kevin! - Farm Family in SpringE7
Farm Family in Spring Farm Family in Spring: Your number one resource for farm information in the tri-county area! There's cows, corn, trips to town, 4-H clubs, a birthday party and most importantly incriminating evidence about Grandpa! If you enjoy spring and like farms you’ll LOVE Farm Family in Spring! - The Spring CollectionE8
The Spring CollectionThe Spring Collection offers you three stylish shorts at one sensible price! Includes Fashion for Go Getters featuring hunky Dartmouth jocks critiquing the latest trends. In Accent on Spring, a kooky gal takes a psychological look at mens sportswear. And closing the show is a far out trip from Westinghouse about coordinating your clothing to your refrigerator! - Glasses for Susan: A New DayE9
Glasses for Susan: A New DaySusan needs glasses. We don’t mean like, “Oh, it’s hard for her to read a small font in a dark room.” No, Susan appears to be legally blind. Somehow she has made it to eight years old without wandering in front of a cement truck or mistaking a wolverine for her teddy bear. There’s a decent chance Susan is actually a large naked mole rat. But fortunately she realizes she needs glasses, not when a concerned adult intervenes, but when she reads (somehow) a children’s book about magical glasses. Thrill as Susan tries to mend all the social bridges she burned by finding a pair of glasses that don’t make her look like naked mole rat Elton John. - How to Be a FriendE10
How to Be a Friend This DIY video shows you how to build your very own friendship, step-by-step! Start with traits like courtesy, kindness, and honesty, then add buddies Bridget and Mary Jo to laugh along with! Brought to you by Alfred Higgins, the brilliant filmmaker who also brought you VD: Prevent It, this short film explores the qualities that help you forge rewarding relationships with people you otherwise wouldn’t want anything to do with! - Beginning Responsibility: Learning to Follow InstructionsE11
Beginning Responsibility: Learning to Follow InstructionsThe “Beginning Responsibility” series from Coronet Films has already given us legendary characters like Mr. Bungle and Reggie the Dork’s Big-Lipped Talking Pillow. This next installment ups the ante by featuring a teacher who we’re pretty sure is 90% mummy. Based on the way these Coronet shorts usually work, we believe she was supposed to be only thirty-two years old. David has trouble following instructions. Namely, the instruction “For the love of god, do not appear in a Coronet educational short.” Fortunately, some animated creatures are here to help him learn, not only to follow instructions, but also how to push the definition of the term “animated” right up to its legal limit. There’s a friendly owl, three depressed elephants, and a turtle. There’s always a turtle. Please join Mike, Kevin, and Bill for what we believe is the 3,204th Coronet short they’ve riffed, Beginning Responsibility: Learning to Follow Instructions! - What Mary Jo WantedE12
What Mary Jo Wanted Mary Jo wants a puppy. Mary Jo gets a puppy. Mary Jo's family can’t sleep because the puppy is confined to the kitchen and cries all night. Everyone is pretty fed up with Mary Jo and her puppy until... Mary Jo comes up with a plan so “Out There” that it just might work! Bridget and the real Mary Jo riff on this adorable story, based on the book by Janice May Udry. It’s super cute! But not to be used as a dog training guide. - Building an OutlineE13
Building an OutlineJim and Bill are two of the classic “middle-aged teenagers” type we’re used to in Coronet shorts. They agree on most things: they wear the same white button-down shirt, sport the same haircut, rock the same sweater vest. One has brown hair and one is blonde, yes, but they’ve managed to be friends in spite of that. However they do disagree on something, something so big it could tear their whole world apart: THE IMPORTANCE OF OUTLINING AN ESSAY. Reckless Bill thinks you can just march into an essay on a topic like “Benjamin Franklin” without planning a meticulous outline. Cautious, wise Jim, on the other hand, knows that you must not only plan out your outline, you must first build an outline for an essay on the subject of how important it is to build outlines (he actually does this). Who will be proven right, in the end? Will their friendship survive the outline battle? Will either of their essays get deeper than “Ben Franklin flew a kite in a storm”? - At Your Fingertips: Floats (Live Edition)E14
At Your Fingertips: Floats (Live Edition)All good things must come to an end, and the At Your Fingertips series is no exception. We’ve covered grasses, cylinders, boxes… Um… Those little plastic discs that keep the top of the pizza box from touching the cheese, probably? The point is, if it is identifiable by 99% of the population as “garbage”, the folks at ACI Films tried to get kids to make revolting crafts out of it. This final installment is an outlier in that it instructs how to build a general TYPE of garbage-craft, rather than focusing on utilizing a specific type of garbage to build a craft. Something this radical needed a bigger stage, and so we’re proud to present this live version of At Your Fingertips: Floats performed at our legendary RiffTrax Live: The Room show! - Ladybug, Ladybug, Winter is ComingE15
Ladybug, Ladybug, Winter is Coming Ladybug, Ladybug, Winter is Coming is the sobering tale of a lady bug who does not know that winter is coming. The bug who happens to be a lady crawls around asking everyone she sees why it is so cold. She is told repeatedly it's because WINTER IS COMING and yet she persists in her willful ignorance. I'm giving away all the best plot points but I hope you will enjoy it anyway! - Drawing for Beginners: The TriangleE16
Drawing for Beginners: The Triangle “Drawing for Beginners” may be the stupidest series of shorts we’ve riffed here at RiffTrax. The fact that we have riffed an entire series where kids make crap out of garbage should really drive home how insane these shorts are. Having already riffed rectangles and squares, it’s time to complete the trilogy in appropriate fashion with triangles. You see, because triangles have THREE sides…? Trust us, it will make sense after you watch the short. Pull up an oddly motionless, disembodied hand and lower your expectations and intelligence level, because it’s time to draw some damn triangles baby!!! - A Christmas FantasyE17
A Christmas FantasyDoes any holiday have more memorable iconography than Christmas? Decorated fir trees. Stockings hung on the mantel. Santa’s famous mask. What’s that? Oh, did Santa not wear a mask apparently made out of dried skin where you were from? It must be a Soda vs Pop thing! Because where we are from, Santa definitely wore a mask made out of dried human skin and in December we would watch A Christmas Fantasy every night until the social workers came and moved us into a safer situation. Enjoy A Christmas Fantasy, even if you were one of those weirdos whose Santa didn’t wear an awful, awful mask. - A Song for SantaE18
A Song for Santa Because apparently “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells” wasn’t enough for him, here’s A Song For Santa! It’s a classic Christmas situation ripped right out of your childhood! A small Texan boy, who’s exploring Germany alone for unexplained reasons, wanders into an old Bavarian church and admires the traditional music and architecture. Y’know, just like all small boys love to do! The boy proceeds to fall asleep, probably exhausted from his hours of walking around Europe without supervision. Once he’s asleep things get EXTREMELY WEIRD, as he ascends to some kind of heaven, where angelic children live under the rule of some kind of dictator Santa. Maybe it’s a dream? Maybe it’s… a tragedy? No matter what, it’s perfect for a RiffTrax Christmas short, so get out your sheet music and sing A Song For Santa with Mike, Kevin, and Bill! - The Shoemaker and the ElvesE19
The Shoemaker and the Elves The Shoemaker and the Elves, a cute little fairy tale about the rewards of doing a good deed, delighted small children for generations - then Coronet got their hands on it. Now, see it as it’s meant to be seen, in full demented puppet form! The elderly shoemaker and his wife are puppets in a little puppet village, where everything looks like it was made of damp papier-mâché that was already used for something else. They’re barely scraping by, and can’t keep up with their business, because honestly they’re pretty lazy. Fortunately, some sort of fairy king senses their plight and dispatches some little weirdos to break into their hovel and pitch in. Because that’s how morality works, kids! No further questions! Leave out some leather strips and tools and maybe Mike, Kevin and Bill will riff The Shoemaker and the Elves for you overnight. But they probably won’t, so you should get it right here! - A Christmas Carol (Coronet)E20
A Christmas Carol (Coronet) Since every entertainment franchise that has ever existed has put out their own version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, it’s only fitting that the maniacs at Coronet Films decided to make their own. Apparently filmed during the Rutherford B. Hayes administration, Coronet opted not to use their stable of regulars in favor of a bunch of guys who probably were born before man had mastered flight. Which is a real shame: Mr. Bungle would have made a great Scrooge, that big-lipped pillow that harrasses Reggie could have been Marley, and Skipper the Racist Dog could have been Tiny Tim. Ah well, just be thankful that the folks at ACI never made one! - Charlie's Christmas SecretE21
Charlie's Christmas Secret What is fifth-grader Charlie hiding from his family, his classmates, the customers on his newspaper route? What is it that keeps Charlie one step ahead of the law and living in constant fear, never using his own name and unable to set down roots no matter where he goes? Find out in Bridget and Mary Jo’s holiday special, Charlie’s Christmas Secret!