Home of the Future (1999 A.D.) (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2016

Riffers:  Bridget Nelson, Mary Jo Pehl

"Sitting on your ass is a snap in 1999!"

This is one of those WONDERS OF THE FUTURE shorts that was all the rage way back when, which incorrectly guessed and/or overestimated how advanced humanity would be by the turn of the century.  1999 didn't have half the things this short promised, though the promise of computers running everything comes the closest.  But even then, not everything was fully automated in 1999, and logging on to AOL took at least five minutes in of itself.  In 1999 we thought the computer world of The Matrix was amazing, and that's mostly because it didn't have a loading screen.

A lot of the gizmos on display are obvious props that clearly don't do what the short advertises them to do.  All they do is look pretty as our family pretends that they're useful.  Computers are represented with blank screens that have images projected onto them in post, as our family glares at them with dead stares but glowing smiles, not quite aware of what they're looking what they're looking at but certain that it's AMAZING!

"They could only be futuristic up to a point!"

"Mom not making lunch...completely unimaginable!"

Bridget and Mary Jo take a tour of the Home of the Future!  There are probably quite a few ways one can compare the made up FUTURE of the past with the future that resulted, though it doesn't seemed adequately mined this time around.though the really hard truth about shorts like these are that they're monotonous and tedious.  Even worse, this short is twenty-five minutes long, and it makes us feel every minute.  It weighs down the effort of my personal favorite Trax team as they just aren't offered much diversity on the screen.  The ending gets a bit revved up, though, as they're presented an out of place Puerto Rician song and dance number that gets some solid laughs, but that's about as diverse as the short gets.

What holds this one back for me is that it drags.  It's too much short, and the comedy feels a tad bit sparse.  There are some big laughs, but not enough for me to recommend sitting through the near half hour runtime.

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