Reefer Madness (1936)
Directed by Louis J. Gasnier
“You know, ironically, the only ones who could sit through this are the stoners.”
Moving from intentional comedy, we find ourselves wiping our mud-stained souls onto the doormat of unintentional comedy, and the most famous propaganda film since Triumph Of The Will, Tell Your Children. Better known as Reefer Madness, this cult classic is yet another movie from this wave of RiffTrax goodies that has since been turned into a musical. A playing-it-so-serious-it-hurts Joseph Forte (later to be one of the doomed professors in Republic’s fab-a-roo serial The Crimson Ghost) introduces this anti-pot film with a very long lecture on the dangers of “marihuana” (“This was ten years before the invention of the letter J,” quips Mike during the movie’s three-minute long prologue) and proceeds to tell us the story of several middle-aged youths whose lives are ruined from just a few puffs of the reefer.
Thrill! To the sight of a very hammy Dave O’Brien as a wide-eyed would-be rapist/drug dealer/murderer! See! A dope-smoking ragtime piano player (“the film that gave jazz musicians the idea to do drugs”)! Witness! Party people that sound like “somebody’s torturing a schnauzer!” But wait, there’s more. Watch! Carleton Young eat meal after meal! Listen! To a shitload of stock swing music and ragtime piano! Laugh! Your ass off as Mike, Kevin, and Bill give Reefer Madness an even-more deserving riffing than Plan 9 From Outer Space! Rating: A-
The Best Of RiffTrax Shorts, Volume One (2008)
“Zapruder films presents…”
One of the things I always loved to see on Mystery Science Theater 3000 was the justified thrashing of the unjustly amounts of misinformation contained in the terrible and often traumatizing educational shorts of yesteryear. The shorts were designed for “social engineering” of sorts, teaching us all how to be the best white American folk possible, but instead they pretty much caused an entire generation to drop out and drop acid instead.
The Best Of RiffTrax Shorts, Volume One features nine different ditties to drool over. First off is "Down And Out!" (1971), the story of one very hapless clumsy fellow who ceaselessly manages to trip, stumble and fall off of just about every item there is in a bizarre dream-like set surrounded by huge tools and empty containers. Next up are "Patriotism" (1972), a short that teaches us to take some good ole American pride in everything from planting trees to taking out the trash — with your host, Bob Crane (?); "Home Management: Buying Food" (1950), a fascinating look at a pre-Safeway/Wal-Mart world that actually discouraged Americans from buying more than they needed to; and "Skipper Learns A Lesson" (1952), wherein a lesson in “racial tolerance” is taught to… er, um a dog.
Article comments
1 - Phillip Winn
Snorticle! I too miss MST3K, and I hadn't realized RiffTrax had covered so many films. Nice work.
I downloaded their audio-only RiffTrax for The Matrix, and I've been sold ever since. Funny, funny stuff.
2 - Luigi Bastardo
Thanks, Phillip. I haven't heard the RiffTrax for The Matrix yet...I can't bring myself to watch that movie again. I did manage to check out their commentary for Twilight a few weeks ago and that movie most assuredly had it coming.
3 - Zack
They recently riffed the sparkly vampire movie Twilight... it's the best they've done thus far, I think.
4 - Luigi Bastardo
My significant other was rather obsessed with Twilight a while back (poor thing) so I jumped at that RiffTrax just to break the monotony if nothing else. The "Benny Hill" moment was wonderful.
5 - Corn Job
I also think that their treatment of the dreadful movie The Happening is extremely funny, and very well deserved. That movie is so incredibly awful that I was already laughing constantly when I originally watched it on it's own, and I knew right away that it would make for an excellent Rifftrax.