Know For Sure (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2008
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

Ah yes, sexually transmitted diseases and stillborn children!  Comedy gold!

Know For Sure is a health short about the dangers of syphilis starting out with the blunt point of the DEATH OF NEWBORNS!  Now that we have your attention, let's talk about your penis!  Do you have a sore that hasn't healed properly?  Well see your doctor immediately, because you and everyone you know has syphilis.  It's best not to touch anything.

The short has an admirable goal of disease awareness and prompt treatment, so I'll forgive how incredibly blunt and serious it is.  Still this is a short from the 1940's about a subject that's fairly taboo in the film medium, so watching them beat around the bush on certain subjects is pretty amusing.  Talk about "down there" and implying but never outright stating anything about premarital sex is not uncommon in this short, though if one is naive enough they might come off with the wrong impression that you can contract syphilis by being within five feet of the opposite gender.

Interestingly enough, Know For Sure was directed by Lewis Milestone, the director of All Quiet on the Western Front and the Marlon Brando led remake of Mutiny on the Bounty.  I have no real comment on that, but I thought that was a fun fact.

This is a tricky short to riff, because the subject matter is a very real disease and the short tries scare tactics of very real consequences.  Mike, Kevin, and Bill however seem more interested in how the short presents itself and take aim at that.  They feel like they're trapped in a world where syphilis is everywhere and are more in general mocking the fact that one of every two people who exist in the world of this short has it.  They also seem to be very amused by the Italian stereotype shopkeep at the beginning of the short, adding fuel to the fire.

Sometimes the disease is poked at but it's done in such a goofy way that I think the jabs are harmless ("Geez, you have sex with ONE MONKEY and...").  Like a lot of shorts like this I feel your enjoyment of the riff may have to do with how seriously you take the material.  As someone who is (at this point in time) not all that sensitive to it, I think the humor here is first rate.

Thumbs Up

👍