IRiffs Takes MST3k Open Source

An anonymous reader writes "Michael J. Nelson started up Rifftrax as a 2nd act to his stint as host of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and now they're making their website open to anyone and everyone who thinks they're funny with iRiffs — allowing people to upload their own comedy commentary tracks and charge whatever they want. They've already got a few would-be groups online, including one who takes the open source a step further — soliciting jokes from listeners and combining submissions into a final product."

Comments

MST3K will not be appreciated by future geeks

[jollyreaper]

I was born in '77 and started watching the show in the early 90's. While I got a lot of the jokes, some of them were simply before my time. When I got a hold of the MST3K episode guides where every reference was explained, I was amazed at how much slipped by me. Most of my friends enjoyed the show but I had one who was intelligent but just didn't "get" it, mainly because he had no familiarity with the pop ephemera being referenced. Some of the jokes will remain timeless: "I got a man who knows all the angles -- yeah, the name's Euclid." Other jokes will become incomprehensible: "What, a V-2 rocket? He could have had a V-8!"

It's sort of the same problem with watching certain anime with a lot of in-jokes, Excel Saga for example. So many of the jokes rely on having a familiarity with animes that came before or silly puns that only work in Japanese, easily half the humor is lost in translation. Even when the subbers explain the jokes, jokes just aren't as funny when they're explained.

But this new riffing stuff is good. By open-sourcing it, we should get even better yucks.

Gamera is really neat! Gamera is turtle meat! We love Gamera!

Re:MST3K will not be appreciated by future geeks

[Serenissima]

I see your point and I agree with most of it, but...

It's sort of the same problem with watching certain anime with a lot of in-jokes, Excel Saga for example. So many of the jokes rely on having a familiarity with animes that came before or silly puns that only work in Japanese, easily half the humor is lost in translation. Even when the subbers explain the jokes, jokes just aren't as funny when they're explained.

I don't think you can apply not getting a joke with translating jokes. I think it's only partially right, there are some jokes based on cultural norms or pop culture that don't make sense unless you're part of that culture. But when you start translating jokes, you start to realize how many jokes we have that are based on word games, like puns for instance. A turn of a phrase is pretty much impossible to translate. If you don't understand the language, you'll never get the joke. Words in Spanish, French, Japanese, etc.. don't rhyme in English. Idioms that give situational double-meanings don't mean the same thing. I don't think it's really a problem of explaining a joke that kills it, it's the fact that translating it doesn't make any sense and the joke has to be explained so you realize that there was, in fact, a joke there.

Serious business, too.

[Rob T Firefly]

One thing that people aren't really talking about with this story but which I find really interesting, is they are going to accept all sorts of commentary tracks, not just riff-style comedy. This opens up lots of possibilities; self-styled film aficionados and fansite crews can do "standard" commentary tracks for their favorites, people can record alternative scripts to existing films in the vein of "What's Up Tiger Lily" or "Kung Pow: Enter the Fist," and more. Pretty much any new content based on putting new sound onto an existing video can be put out there.