Rifftrax Year: 2013
Riffers: Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett
A twelve-year-old who wears superhero underoos goes on a field trip where he learns a little bit about firefighters. He becomes interested safety and starts bugging his bus driver about fire exits until he agrees to teach him about bus fire safety on his day off (thanks, kid). That night the boy has a dream where he's his favorite superhero, Rescueman, and leads everyone off the bus safely.
Holy shit this was a goofy one. I understand the logic behind trying to teach children safety through superheroes, but give them a little bit of credit, will ya? Children might not realize that they're being pandered to, but they do have a keen sense in what is lame. And Rescueman is fucking lame. It's earnest attempt at enthusiastic discussion about bus safety is undercut by how disinterested the actors look, and discussion is all that the short is for about ten minutes. It goes on so long you forget that someone called "Rescueman" is supposed to have something to do with all of this. Finally the kid dresses up as Rescueman, looks fucking ridiculous, and slowly explains safety to other children on a bus that's about to explode. It's hilarious!
Mike, Kevin, and Bill have a lot of fun with this one, and it's easy to see why. Dubbing Rescueman the lamest Marvel superhero (yes, even lamer than Hawkeye), the climactic scene with Rescueman and the bus is a scream! They note the oddness of the entire premise, pointing out how he's actually preventing people from evacuating and not helping ("Can we go now? Cindy's head is on fire!") and ridiculing how he saves the bus driver like he was a damsel in distress ("I shouldn't have taken all that Vicodin..."
The first ten minutes of the short isn't as funny, but they're still given plenty to work with, such as Rescueman underoos and the bus driver's off duty lessons in bus safety, both of which bring solid laughs. Rescueman saved my sense of humor!
Thumbs Up
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