The Fish That Nearly Drowned (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2012
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

Pretty much right off the bat The Fish That Nearly Drowned treats us to a closeup of a fish face with an overdub in an attempt to match fish lip movements and Kevin laments that he hates bad dubs of foreign films.  This fish tells us the story of an amphibious, air-breathing fish that lives in his tank that gets trapped under a glass wall that tips over and is trapped in the water.  The gripping climax to this short has the owner setting the glass back up.

This short seems like it was made to teach children that not all fish merely need water to survive, while trying to entertain them with a simple little tale about how important air is to these fish.  I guess it works, though it's not that entertaining.  All the aquarium shots just blend together and there isn't a lot of diversity.  Some of the tidbits about these fish are interesting, though fish creep me out so I'm not going to dwell on this short too much.

Because I have a bit of a dislike of fish I wasn't too thrilled about viewing this short at first, though I'd say the riffing is pretty steady and quality.  There are some funny fish overdubs as well as mocking the fish life (with one or two references to "poop strings" for good measure).  Also the main fish's name is "Cockerel," and you know they get some good jabs at that.  This is a solid short worth the pennies you spend on it.

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