Rifftrax Year: 2014
Riffers: Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett
I just...don't even...with this short.
This short is a "moral" centered short for children that uses live animal footage as characters with a narrator talking over it. It's about a toad named Warty who is incredibly vain over how ugly he is. He dismisses all the other animals for not being nearly as ugly as he until they warn him about a hungry snake that plans to eat him.
Bill's deduction that the moral of the story is that "Confidence in your appearance will lead to your death, keep that self esteem in check kids!" which is about as good a guess as any. There seems to be a lot of morals that are on the tip of this short's tongue, including ideas of individuality, self-awareness, openness and kindness to others, and beauty being only skin deep. The short never commits to one, meaning those who watch it will take away what they will. I think the last one in particular is pretty bizarre, as the short tries to be cutely ironic by switching the definitions of "beautiful" and "ugly" based on Warty's perspective. I think it comes off as twisting it's lesson a bit too much.
The short gave me a headache, but luckily the laughs are there. The riff is fairly strong as they have some fun targets in the animal footage, a dull narrator, and a bizarre premise. The quips lean heavily into all three and there really isn't a dry moment in the Trax. If I were to list a detraction in it I'd say that the audio on the short itself was fairly low and I spent probably longer than I should have trying to follow and figure out the short itself than pay attention to the riffing. But I imagine most wouldn't try to study these things like I am, so I'm going to give Warty, the Toad an easy recommend.
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