Self-Conscious Guy (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2009
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

In this companion piece to Shy Guy, Marty is a self-conscious teen who struggles when he is forced to give a speech in front of his classmates.  He begins to become aware of how self-conscious he is and looks at ways of improving it.

The advice in this short ranges from under-developed to mediocre, though I suspect half the intention of the short was to push students into seeking more thorough advice from teachers or guidance counselors.  There's not a lot to really say about this short as a result because it's pretty self explanatory and not really that noteworthy.  It does however come up with an adequate portrayal of self-consciousness, which is maintained throughout the short.  Sometimes one can even feel it in the points where our main character isn't supposed to be self-conscious, but that might be attributed to stiff acting by performers who just might be, ironically, self-conscious.

The riffing is par for the course on Coronet instructional shorts like this.  There is not a lot of lines that go above and beyond, but the laughter is there to make it worthwhile.  There are jokes at the expense of Marty's self-consciousness (as expected), as well as embellishing the rewards of working past it ("The result:  Two chicks at once!").  Self-Conscious Guy is worth watching, though don't expect it to be anything extraordinary.

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