Oh Great Another Spiteful 50s Narrator

June 13, 2010 12:15 PM

Of all the many heirs to Mystery Science Theatre 3000 crown (previously) , Josh Way's FUN WITH SHORTS is maybe the best at capturing the show's unique voice via short social hygiene films.. Learn all about Coffee! Being Popular! Food! Congress! And of course the complex, harrowing world of personal grooming.
posted by The Whelk (30 comments total)

So, um, I hesitate to point this out because, you know, I may end up being wrong because I don't read the MST3K episode credits past "beez" McKeever's name, but: CT and RT include Best Brains/MST3K staff. Josh Way doesn't. So how is it an heir in the same league as RT and CT?
posted by subbes at 12:19 PM on June 13, 2010

Didn't MST3K do a bunch of these shorts, too? I'll have to look and see if they cover the same ones or not.
posted by hippybear at 12:22 PM on June 13, 2010

They did! They put out whole collections of them. Way hasn't covered any of the same ones MST3K did as far as I know.
posted by The Whelk at 12:25 PM on June 13, 2010

And this is the best Mst3k Short because it makes being white and middle class in the 50s seem like a horrifying ordeal
posted by The Whelk at 12:26 PM on June 13, 2010 [2 favorites]

Nuuuuuu! THIS is the best MST3K short. Period.
posted by hippybear at 12:29 PM on June 13, 2010 [1 favorite]

Yes hippybear, cause that has my favorite line in the entire 11-year run of the show. "And go back to your DRINKING AND PILL POPPING!"
posted by The Whelk at 12:30 PM on June 13, 2010

Sorry guys, this is the absolute best MST3K short.

"For depressing phone sex, dial 1-900-ALFALFA."

"Mother Teresa called, she hates you."

"Geez, this kid could freak out Jamie Gumb."
posted by Rangeboy at 12:53 PM on June 13, 2010 [2 favorites]

My favorite MST3k short is one of the stranger ones.
posted by Donnie VandenBos at 1:07 PM on June 13, 2010 [1 favorite]

The best part about that short, Donni VandenBos, is the sketch they do later.
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 1:13 PM on June 13, 2010 [1 favorite]

Back in ninth grade, presented to us as an educational film: The new General Super Squeegee! (An otherwise decent school; how this happened, I don't know....) Has MST3K done a take-off on this?
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 1:24 PM on June 13, 2010

Speaking Date With Your Family, have you seen the silent, full-color outtakes from the shoot?
posted by Ian A.T. at 1:25 PM on June 13, 2010

Are you all on crack? This is clearly the best MST3k short of all time. Of all time!
posted by cereselle at 1:32 PM on June 13, 2010 [5 favorites]

I am a writer for RiffTrax and Josh Way has contributed to our riffs of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Dark Knight, Spiderman 2 and The X-Files movie. He's a very funny guy.

My favorite of all the shorts we've done at RiffTrax? Probably the totally bizarre double feature of Why Doesn't Cathy Eat Breakfast & Petaluma Chicken.
posted by JoeGoblin at 1:38 PM on June 13, 2010 [18 favorites]

Can you identify this bucketful of your brother?

And a special place in my heart for the short Rangeboy posted. "If you want I can turn him into furniture..."

I watched the "Coffee!" short from Josh Way, but couldn't get into it. The silhouettes and various voices of Joel, Mike, Servo, and Crow are so ingrained in my sense of humor that it feels wrong to hear an MST3K-style movie commentary otherwise.
posted by greenland at 1:40 PM on June 13, 2010

The silhouettes and various voices of Joel, Mike, Servo, and Crow are so ingrained in my sense of humor that it feels wrong to hear an MST3K-style movie commentary otherwise.

Reminds me more of the drive-in manager interrupting Joe Don Baker in mid-swing to tell you the snack bar will be closing in five minutes.
posted by hal9k at 1:49 PM on June 13, 2010

Mr B. Natural is a classic, and one of the best ways to introduce the show to people.

Another excellent short is Circus On Ice, or as Joel and the bots called it, "Circus?! on ICE?!?!" Also, "Here Comes the Circus!" with Beelzebub the Clown. Anything having to do with circuses, really.
posted by JHarris at 2:03 PM on June 13, 2010

The coffee link is narrated by The Shat! That is the kind of thing I need to know about in advance so that I don't choke on my, er, coffee.
posted by zjacreman at 2:34 PM on June 13, 2010

I may have to give these Josh Way things a try, but I much prefer the Rifftrax/MST3K where there are multiple commentators. Makes me feel a bit less lonely watching them, I guess.

"A Date with Your Family" is perhaps the single greatest MST3K moment for me.

My favorite Rifftrax short is "Drugs Are Like That" (Mike, Kevin, and Bill's rising frustration with the kids' aimless conversation is fantastic), followed closely by the hilariously macabre "Shake Hands with Danger."

The Rifftrax Christmas Shorts collection also has some gems.

I would like to see Cinematic Titanic do some shorts one of these days.
posted by dhens at 2:38 PM on June 13, 2010

I am a writer for RiffTrax

I am a huge consumer of RiffTrax, and would like to say I love you.
posted by lumpenprole at 3:08 PM on June 13, 2010 [5 favorites]

RiffTrax is better because Mike is better.
posted by Evilspork at 3:18 PM on June 13, 2010 [2 favorites]

My favorite Rifftrax short is "Drugs Are Like That"

The ELO "Livin' Thing" singalong at the end of this short (which is narrated by Anita Bryant) is my favorite Rifftrax moment ever.
posted by porn in the woods at 3:35 PM on June 13, 2010

Mr. B Natural is still my favorite. Oh, and this one, because I remember my friends being really into wood shop, and me... not.

And NO SPRINGS! WHOOP WHOO!
posted by mccarty.tim at 3:39 PM on June 13, 2010

Oh, apologies to cereselle. But I did have three favorites, so it's only 33% plagiarism.
posted by mccarty.tim at 3:50 PM on June 13, 2010

RiffTrax is better because Mike is better.

*pulls out a shiv*
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:51 PM on June 13, 2010 [9 favorites]

My favorite "fun with shorts" is the one on table manners, containing the immortal line "Can't talk now. Older self talking in my head."
posted by wittgenstein at 4:14 PM on June 13, 2010

And here I was enjoying 'This is COFFEE' all ironically on my own. I still make fun of our lack of CBI-approved measuring spoons (since they stopped existing in 1964.)
posted by cobaltnine at 4:21 PM on June 13, 2010

I must note that Josh Way is also a Webcomicker, currently doing a thrice-weekly demonstration of randomness. For a year and a half he did an excellent character-driven comic about a small town newspaper, that inevitably alienated both newspaper people and people who hate newspapers, making it sadly unmarketable.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:19 PM on June 13, 2010

I am a huge consumer of RiffTrax, and would like to say I love you.

Thanks! We just recorded a pretty epic one this past week that turned out really well. I think it gets announced this week.
posted by JoeGoblin at 8:01 PM on June 13, 2010 [1 favorite]

An entire day spent GROOMING!
posted by dr_dank at 8:10 PM on June 13, 2010 [1 favorite]

It's okay, mccarty.tim, we agree. :) Mr. Cereselle's favorite is NO SPRINGS as well.

I can't pick a favorite Rifftrax short, because I've fallen behind, and just downloaded the last 8. Shorts marathon ahoy!
posted by cereselle at 8:42 PM on June 13, 2010