High School Musical (Rifftrax)

Film Year:  2006

Genre:  Musical

Director:  Kenny Ortega

Starring:  Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Lucas Grabeel, Corbin Bleu, Monique Coleman

Rifftrax Year:  2010

Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

The Movie

I've never looked that deeply into the late-2000's fad of High School Musical.  It was way after my time as a Disney Channel watcher.  Researching for this blog post is probably the most I've deep dived into it.  One thing that I was moderately surprised to learn is that the director of the films, Kenny Ortega, has some cult film cred.  This guy directed the box office disaster turned well liked musical Newsies and the beloved mainstream witchcraft comedy Hocus Pocus.  Neither of these movies set the theater chains on fire initially, so it should come as no surprise that it would set his career back a while.  What a place for him to pop up again than making a TV sitcom stylized musical for the Disney Channel!

This film tells the story of two teenagers named Troy and Gabriella who are in that phase of totally into each other but look away and giggle whenever they look each other in the eye and each recently discover they have a passion and talent for singing.  They struggle with the idea of trying out for the school's musical production, but Troy is the school's star basketball player and can't take time away from his team while Gabriella fears the musical might distract from her studies.  Eventually both find the courage to jump right in and impress the drama teacher with their lungs.  But they find rivals for their position in the twin siblings Sharpay and Ryan, who once ruled the school's stage productions with an iron fist and aren't about to be topped.

I'd be lying if I said High School Musical is an impressive feat in filmmaking, that being said I didn't hate it as much as I thought I probably would.  The movie has more effort put into it than it probably gets credit for and there is some solid choreography, if not groundbreaking on any level (I'm watching this the same year as the film version of In the Heights was released, which completely spanks this movie in choreography).  The big issue is that High School Musical walks and talks like a sitcom, and not a real sitcom, one of those youth-aimed ones on Nickelodeon.  The presentation is very sterile and nobody feels like a real character outside of their devised personality tropes/traits.  They're serviceable for the movie's simplistic needs, but there is no desire to break free from just being cute and pleasant.

The music itself is probably the big issue, as most numbers sound exactly the same with different words.  And even when those words are switched up, they're usually something mundane like "Together, together, together, together everyone!  Together, together, together, c'mon let's have some fun!"  Other numbers drive home trite plot devices of other simplistic high school movies, such as not separating from the status quo and striving to be popular.  The tunes are catchy for the youth, but they're forgettable and bland.  The performers are at least talented enough, so much so that even fifteen years later we still see some of them around.  Zac Efron certainly broke free into some mainstream appeal.  Vanessa Hudgens...well she gave it her best shot, but despite looking like a starlet-in-training she never quite delivered a career that it probably seems like she could have had.  She still pops up from time to time though.

My big takeaway from High School Musical is "I get it."  I understand why kids liked this.  Do they still?  I don't know.  Is High School Musical still a thing?  Probably.  It's not entirely undeserved and the movie has just enough charisma for me to not vomit in my mouth.  I won't be jumping on that bandwagon though and it's not something I'd watch of my own accord.

The Trax

High School Musical is a bit of an experiment for the Rifftrax crew.  The movie is targeted at tween girls and let's just say that the average Rifftrax fan is not a tween girl.  But Twilight wound up being a huge seller for them so this popular-with-its-demographic-but-widely-mocked-outside-of-it film is given a crack to see if it can be just as big.  I think the Twilight riff hit in the heat of Twilight backlash and it was what a lot of people needed at the exact moment that it came out.  By the time High School Musical's riff came out, the High School Musical fad had already came and went (and even if it hadn't, I don't think High School Musical resulted in a quarter of the bored boyfriends that Twilight did), and I don't think a large portion of Rifftrax's fanbase was going to be caught dead buying/renting a Disney Channel DVD, so I suspect it didn't pay off.  At any rate, they never riffed any of the sequels.

It's too bad too, because this is fucking hilarious.

Cards fully on the table, this is not as good a riff as Twilight.  If High School Musical has one thing going against it then it would be that the movie is very one-note.  Every scene feels and plays exactly like the scene before it and what little plot it has is recycled from a generic plotline grab bag that a lot of TV movies aimed at children mine.  Because of this, the samey nature of the movie bogs the experience down and when the laughs aren't hitting the high notes, it feels longer than it is.

That is practically the only bad thing I can say about this riff (other than a few off-color uses of the word "retard" that haven't aged well), because if you take this movie head-on you will find that Mike, Kevin, and Bill have solid material to throw at it.  High School Musical looks and tastes like bubblegum and they're ready to chew it up and spit it out.  There is a certain jovial nature to the film that is hard to fight against so they don't even try.  They keep the jovial nature to their riff, but they bring it down to their level.  They take the lyrics and beat of the music and make it dirtier, not exactly in a raunchy, blue comedy way, but more in a manner that is less squeaky clean than what the film wants to present.  There is a musical number early on about students repressing their passion and individuality to fit in with the status quo, while Mike, Kevin, and Bill enhance it as each individual student who comes clean is rejected by the rest of the student body in extremist ways.  A lot of the musical sequences like this really shine, as it calls back to numbers like Kisskicker 99 from MST's Hobgoblins, where the boys can just layer their own lyrics on top of the beat and it turns something mundane into something fresh and funny.  And then there are commentaries on the nature of the songs themselves, such as a duet by brother and sister duo Sharpay and Ryan perform for the drama teacher so they will be cast in the school musical, of which they refer to each other as if they're lovers.  This bit of an incestuous slip does not go by unnoticed.

The movie's rather trite sense of humor is layered on top of as well, as sometimes a broad sitcom punchline is given something zingier to top it off by the trio.  There is a very weird static line about pink jelly as a scene transitions, causing Kevin to stop and observe "The fake dialogue is far more interesting than the actual film."  They also comment on the non-reality that this school takes place in, noting that very little actual schoolwork seems to be taking place.  "So school is evidentially a place where you go to practice your extracurricular activities?"  They also go a bit blue with the drama teacher, who they have a few saucy riffs for this obnoxious and obviously non-sexual character.  A lot of this stuff hits a bullseye.

Probably the big question anybody reading this will be asking themselves is "Yeah, but why would I want to sit through High School Musical?"  I mean, I get that and I don't know what to tell ya'.  Sometimes a flat out rejection of the film featured can make one just not wish to subject themselves to the riffing experience.  This is the inherent flaw to Rifftrax's downloadable commentary model and it's really no wonder why they tend to target movies their demographic might actually own instead of taking chances on movies that would set up far superior material for them, and instead we get ho-hum riffs to movies that actually might be more enjoyable than the Rifftrax.  Is it any wonder they started buying crappy movies and putting out VODs?  I mean, if you're getting the movie with the commentary, that's more enticing.  High School Musical though is a glimpse at the promise of Rifftrax's original business model being fulfilled, as it's a goofy movie that they can't afford for their premise that still sets up great comedy.  It's too bad nobody seems to want to go out of their way to actually put the movie on to get that experience.  But hopefully my recommendation gets a few more eyes on this one, because it deserves a look.

Good

At Your Fingertips: Sugar and Spice (Rifftrax Live Shorts)

Riff Year:  2016 (from a 2014 Live show)

Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

This short was originally filmed in front of an audience for the Santa Claus Live show, and has been sliced off and presented here without the rest of the show bogging it down.  Why?  Dunno.  The Santa Claus show is readily available on Rifftrax's website and since that particular film is in public domain it's not like it's in danger of disappearing.  Unless someone pulled some sort of trademark win on Santa Claus as a character.  DAMN YOU, DISNEY!

This is another short in the line of At Your Fingertips arts-and-crafts series, which teaches children to create whatever-the-fuck out of every day objects in the house.  Who needs Legos and Play-Doh when you have a lot of sugar in your pantry that you can waste?  I'm sure you mother would be thrilled and will absolutely love cleaning up your mess.

In this particular entry shows off the easy ways you can compact sugar into easy molds and create shapes.  This is great if you want to pretend it's Easter and you're making a fake egg.  After all, who wants to eat that hard boiled crap when you can have a lump of sugar that you can lick without it being weird and rubbery?  As always, the things being made are pretty cute, all things considered.  This one seems a little more restricted because you're a slave to the product your using and sugar can only do so much.  But it looks pretty sweet.  PUN!

We already know that At Your Fingertips provides plenty of opportunity for the boys by now, and Sugar and Spice is no different.  There is plenty of obscure crafting going on, leaving Mike, Kevin, and Bill a little lost on what's going on.  Final products aren't very immaculate either, opening them up to deduce just certain artistic intents, including the final appendage on a snowman ("Let's just hope that's his arm.").  They also point out that the short shows off that sugar can be used to create a glue-like paste to help craft but doesn't exactly show how it's made, which probably would be useful.  And of course, when the narrator points out that these crafts may make a tasty snack, they tell the kids to enjoy their "instant diabetes."  At Your Fingertips is usually a winner for Rifftrax despite base similarities between the shorts.  This one is par for that course.

Thumbs Up

👍 

614-San Francisco International

Film Year:  1970

Genre:  Drama

Director:  John Lewellyn Moxey

Starring:  Purnell Roberts who totally won't be replaced by Lloyd Bridges once this pilot goes to series

MST Season:  6

The Movie

A pilot film for a dramatic series on NBC, San Francisco International centers on...San Francisco International.  This airport based drama centers on all the episodic...action and...drama...that you'd see at an airport setting.  Which is to say not very much.

It's difficult for me to say who exactly would have thought making a series at an airport was a good idea.  Maybe the box office success of the movie Airport made people believe people would watch it weekly, but despite how many people from different backgrounds come and go through San Francisco International, there seems to be a limited amount of premises that a series can play with.  Even this pilot movie really strains itself to make itself interesting.  There are a half dozen stories at play, and they're all pretty boring and don't entice me to watch another episode.  I would have changed the channel after about twenty minutes.

San Francisco International did go to series, amazingly enough, as the only cast member to return from this pilot being Clu Gulager.  Most involved with the pilot didn't seem to think positively about it, and those involved with the eventual series didn't seem to care for it either, including the eventual main star Lloyd Bridges.  San Francisco International Airport (the series filled out its title when it went weekly) only lasted another six episodes, which is all that was ordered.  The series was meant to be a part of a rotation TV series where a show would play for six weeks then switch out for another series the network was trying out.  The other shows debuting in this "Four in One" block of programming were MST fan favorite McCloud, Rod Serling's Night Gallery, and another drama series called The Psychiatrist.  McCloud and Night Gallery proved to be popular enough to be renewed, while San Francisco International Airport and The Psychiatrist fizzled and were cancelled.

As far as I can tell, there are no further episodes of the series seem to be widely available, though prints likely are rotting in a Universal Studios vault somewhere.  It seems like the only reason this show is known at all today is because this pilot was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000.  While this seems like enough of a notoriety to get box sets of shows like The Master released on DVD and blu-ray, I don't think we're missing much if we just let this show die.

The Episode

Well, it seems like the people involved in MST3K took The Skydivers and The Starfighters as a personal challenge to find the most boring airplane related movie ever made.  This week we have this TV pilot, which is already a strike against it, but it has more event in it than The Starfighters.  That being said, somehow it has less personality.

As far as the riffing goes, the primary virtue of this particular movie is that the drama is so stoic that there is a lot of staring and looking serious, which means quips can fit in quite easily.  The bad news is that it's really hard to make this movie interesting.  The attitude in the theater seems to be dismissively sarcastic.  They're goofing on it pretty hard and some of it is funny enough, but the dullness of the movie just sinks the entire experience.  It's not a fun watch and there really isn't enough here to make it fun.  I have trouble maintaining attention to this particular episode and I zone out pretty quickly.  Eventually I snap back to attention, but there there isn't much to keep me from zoning out again.

The host segments are essentially a long road to a single joke.  The idea is that Mike is dressed up as the character of Urkel from the then-hit sitcom Family Matters, who was inexplicably the hottest TV personality of the time.  The once side-character exploded in popularity and that particular show began getting overwhelmed by storylines devoted to him instead of the actual main characters.  The host segments seen here are kind of a cute little commentary on how Urkel's existence amused a lot of people through seemingly little effort, only to have everyone get sick of him after a while.  One does wonder if they needed three whole host segments to make that point though.  Also featured here is the Bots in a political debate about nonsense and the Mads doing some renovation work.

Some people seem to click with this episode, but I just can't connect with it.  I find the whole affair too dull to keep up with and the episode just makes me drift off.  It makes the episode tough to review, because then I can't get into any true specifics about it except that I'm threatening to fall asleep.  If an episode is doing that to me then something went really wrong with it, and that's the bottom line.

Not Recommended

The DVD

This episode was featured on Shout Factory's Volume XXXII collection.  Video was spotty though the audio was pretty good.  The sole special feature was Sampo Speaks!  A Brief History of Satellite News.  This is an interview with Chris "Sampo" Cornell, who runs Satellite News and talks about how they became the largest fansite in the franchise's history.

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XIX DVD Retrospective

Release Date:  November 9, 2010

Buy it here!

Episodes Featured:

Robot Monster

Bride of the Monster

Devil Doll

Devil Fish

We have a pair of Comedy Central episodes that have a little Monster in them and a couple of Sci-Fi episodes that dance with the Devil.  It's the Monster/Devil set of Mystery Science Theater with this volume, which is a cute little detail that it plays with even if it is subtle and most people who buy it won't care.  Bride of the Monster is easily the standout episode of the set, while Devil Doll is a exceptional episode in its own right as well.  Of the remaining two, Devil Fish has a charm of its own even if I wouldn't call it a laugh riot, while Robot Monster is just an "eh" example of a first season episode.

Average Rating:  2.75

Audio and video are quality throughout the set.  Bonus features were highlighted by a delightful con appearance by Joel Hodgson, Frank Conniff, and Mary Jo Pehl.  Also featured is Inventing the Invention Exchange, in which Joel discusses the long running tradition from the series.  On the movie admiration side, we get retrospective/documentary interviews for Robot Monster (Larry Blamire Geeks Out), Bride of the Monster (Citizen Wood:  Making the Bride, Unmasking the Legend), and Devil Doll (The Puppet Master).  J. Elvis Weinstein also provides an intro for Robot Monster and trailers for all four films are included.

This box set also was originally sold with a Gypsy figurine, completing a trio of bot figures that Shout had been including with these sets since the 20th Anniversary Edition.  Gypsy is likely my pick for the worst of the lot, as she's so abnormally large that it's hard to display her with the Crow and Tom Servo figurines.  She is also cheap looking and hollow, like a plastic Happy Meal toy, and I imagine it's very easy to snap her in half (thank god I haven't tried).  These probably were never going to be articulate items, though I'd have liked something that didn't look so fragile and bulky.

The box art is the traditional Shout Factory design, featuring the MST logo in the upper left hand corner and the theater seats at the bottom, with the roman numerals "XIX" painted in purple in the center.  The Steve Vance interior art is where interest lies though, as he has once again created original pieces for the four episodes.  Robot Monster features Tom Servo and Crow looking up in terror at Ro-Man, who is towing over the movie logo.  Bride of the Monster has Crow as Lobo kidnapping helpless damsel/bride Tom Servo.  Devil Doll features Crow as a ventriloquist performing with his dummy Tom Servo, who is holding a knife.  Devil Fish features Servo and Crow underwater tangled in the Devil Fish's tentacles.

Disc art is also Shout's basic work, which is just movie titles against a starry backdrop.  The menus continue the previous set's usage of episode audio to create new host segments, which is a welcome treat.  Robot Monster has Tom Servo playing with his bubble machine to contact his master, Crow.  Servo and Crow play mad scientists in Bride of the Monster, as they feed Tor Johnson to their octopus and chase off Bela Lugosi.  Devil Doll has Tom Servo as a ventriloquist with a mini-Crow puppet (screaming "DEBBIIIIIIIIEEEEE!") entertaining the real Crow and Gypsy.  Devil Fish has Servo and Crow sharing a beer with a Devil Fish Electrician.

Volume XIX was probably a must-own initially so one could complete the bot figures that Shout was offering.  By itself, we have two really good episodes and two okay ones.  Devil Fish might be the deciding factor on how one views this set, as while I don't have a particularly high opinion of it, it's probably one of the most rewatchable lower end MST episodes out there.  Because of that I have to give this set a little bit more credit that it probably should get.  I'd say check it out.

818-Devil Doll

Film Year:  1964

Genre:  Horror

Director:  Lindsay Shonteff

Starring:  Bryant Haliday, William Sylvester, Yvonne Romain

MST Season:  8

The Movie

A hypnotist named the Great Vorelli tours London and becomes infatuated with socialite Marianne Horn.  He uses his hypnosis to get closer to her and influence her to eventually become his lover.  But Marianne's fiancé Mark English becomes interested in the mystery behind Vorelli's ventriloquist dummy Hugo, which Vorelli can seemingly make walk all by himself.  The deeper Mark digs into Vorelli's past, the more it becomes clear that Hugo may very well be possessed by a human soul.

Storytelling has a history of being interested in dolls that are alive in some manner.  Two long running horror franchises are both Child's Play and Puppet Master, which continue to this day.  Episodes of The Twilight Zone are devoted to it, even to the point of being parodied directly by episodes of The Simpsons.  The Conjuring franchise used the "true story" (is it though?) of a demon-possessed Raggedy Anne doll as the basis for a group of Annabelle films that had no basis on actual events at all (even if you do accept that the real life doll is actually possessed).  Hell, one of the most popular Goosebumps stories is a living dummy named Slappy.  Outside of horror, Toy Story certainly has young ones captivated by the concept of living toys.  Devil Doll certainly isn't a unique tale and it doesn't match the talent of the best of them, but if there is one thing it has it's that it has mood to spare.  It's a very moody movie, so dark and depressing.

It's also a bit slow and it takes forever to get where its going.  The movie spends so much time letting Bryant Haliday drone himself on with a monotone.  It gets tiresome.  It's not all that uninteresting a story, though it plays out like a blur of greyness, as characters get more sickly and tired as it goes on, leaving the audience as sickly and tired as its characters.  It's a draining movie, and not in a good "That movie moved me" sort of way.  The only way this movie will hit you emotions is by making you wishing it was over so you can see some color in your life.  

However, credit where credit is due, it's a competently made movie, and it's not exactly "bad" even though I have a hard time seeing someone just casually put it on by choice.  There are movies that do this story better than this film does and are more entertaining and engaging.  Devil Doll may have had a hint of novelty back in the 60's, but it has been trumped many times since then.

The Episode

Devil Doll is a precursor to the British Invasion trilogy of the ninth season, which doesn't bode well for it.  Those episodes are fairly dry and dull, and Mike and the Bots had trouble making them lively.  With Devil Doll being a fairly labored film itself, this episode could really be a drag.  However the one thing that this movie has going for it that Mike and the Bots just feast upon is that it's a very stoic presentation of a very silly story.  Our crew notices the tone of it and just ravage it.  One thing that they do here that I find brilliant is that they add touches of sunshine and roses to the movie but present the idea with the same tone the movie presents itself with, whether it be a pair of craggy, grumpy men walking into a room of the sickly Marianne saying "We're here to comfort you!" or the Great Vorelli himself with his stone cold face saying "I skipped and sang all the way over here."

And then there is Hugo the Dummy, which they smartly use as a narrative commentator.  Usually he sits stationary during many scenes watching events unfold, and if a riff needs to be said, they'll give that line to Hugo, because he is a character that is so easy to project themselves through.  And oddly enough there is a lot of personality traits for them to latch onto for Hugo, including a love for ham and a generally grumpy demeanor.  Hugo is a memorable character and he doesn't even do that much.

"Did I just watch somebody walk in and paw my puppet?"

The host segments are led off with a personal favorite of mine in which the Bots host a dorm party, but instead of speakers and beer they buy a window.  It's very simple and dumb, but I love hearing Servo's explanation for buying a window and all the reasons he wants to keep it even though he has no use for it.  I even love how it's just sitting in the middle of the control console desk for no reason.  The segment just makes me giggle just thinking about it.  It's followed up by a great segment in which Crow pretends he's drunk, gets upset about a woman named "DEBBIE!," and breaks it for no reason.  It's hard to explain why I enjoy these segments as much as I do, I just delight in them.  We also get the return of Pitch the Devil, played by Paul Chaplin, who is a very bad influence on Crow.  He gets the Bot into the hobby of buying satanic dolls and teaches him how to transfer Servo's soul, which winds up in something hilariously random as a toaster strudel and he spends the last quarter of the episode as a breakfast pastry.  Rounding everything out is the pub segment, which is cute but not that funny, while Pearl and Observer have a "Pants Party!" down in Roman Times, which is delightful.

The latter eighth season winning streak is still in full force.  In some ways Devil Doll is a "weak link" in it, but that's only by microscopic details.  It's a worthy episode that gets funnier the more I watch it.  As much as this movie shouldn't work, they really found a groove for it, and the episode is a gem that's worth a look.

Good

DEBBIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

The DVD

Devil Doll came to life and ate some ham as a part of Shout Factory's Volume XIX collection.  The episode featured solid audio and video, while the special features were led off with an interview with producer Richard Gordon, who accounts the making of the film.  It's fairly basic stuff, but there are some neat tidbits, including finding the story the film was based upon and how the director was a replacement choice by the film's original director.  Also featured is a trailer for the film.