The WORST episodes of RiffTrax

#1 - That Guy With the Glasses: The Bully

Season 4 - Episode 821 - Aired 9/19/2010

#2 - RiffTrax Live: Starship Troopers

Season 6 - Episode 8 - Aired 8/15/2013

#3 - RiffTrax Live: Birdemic: Shock and Terror

Season 6 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/25/2012

If you loved the live show the first time you saw it, or missed it because you were too busy hangin' out, hangin' out with your family, now’s your chance to own it! There will be solrpnls, bark beetles and animals such as seals! Plus, the show kicks off with everyone’s favorite lovable loser, Norman, in the short Norman Checks In. Birdemic is one of our favorite bad movies of all time, and there’s no better way to watch it than RiffTrax Live. So grab a coat hanger, fire up your solar powered TV and for the love of god fully vest your stock options! Birdemic!

#4 - RiffTrax Live: Manos the Hands of Fate

Season 6 - Episode 6 - Aired 8/16/2012

For those who missed it in theaters, this is a completely new riff of “Manos” The Hands of Fate, the Texas-fertilizer-salesman-directed classic made famous by Mystery Science Theater 3000. All new jokes, same old Torgo. See Mike, Kevin and Bill riff it all on stage in front of a live audience at the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville! PLUS! Two extra-demented shorts. At Your Fingertips: Cylinders and Welcome Back, Norman which introduced us all to revolting folk hero Norman, along with his now famous (and also revolting) catchphrase.

#5 - RiffTrax Live: Jack the Giant Killer

Season 6 - Episode 5 - Aired 5/1/2012

If you’re into cheesy stop-motion dragons, leprechauns in bottles, drunk Vikings, and Giants-Who-Need-Killing, then Jack the Giant Killer is for you! Actually that’s an odd set of things to be into, hypothetical person reading this, and frankly it’s about time you let us get to the point. Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett riffed this vintage 1962 epic live in Nashville, and now you can enjoy the show in the comfort of your own home, castle, or bottle you share with a leprechaun! Also! The guys riff the supremely weird short What Is Nothing? (spoiler: we still don’t know what nothing is). Plus two hilarious cartoons from Rich “Lowtax” Kyanka of somethingawful.com, a Behind-the-Scenes slideshow, and movie trivia slides done RiffTrax style! Make sure all these giants didn’t die in vain - join Mike, Kevin, and Bill for a full evening of great live comedy.

#6 - RiffTrax Live: House on Haunted Hill

Season 6 - Episode 4 - Aired 5/17/2011

Yes, horror classic House on Haunted Hill provides a mesmerizing walk down “people actually used to find this SCARY?!?” lane. Join the RiffTrax guys as they bring their special brand of rapid-fire comedic commentary to every skeleton-hanging-from-visible-wires, clumsy sexual overtone, and a stunningly inept test pilot whose “heroics” typically lead him to bloody his own nose after locking himself in a broom closet! The guys are joined by guest riffer Paul F. Tompkins, comedy person extraordinaire and quite a snappy dresser to boot! They also riff two vintage, never-before-seen shorts live on-stage: Paper and I, in which a small boy is haunted by a talking paper bag, and Magical Disappearing Money, about a supermarket witch whose main concern is that you don’t spend too much on rice. No, seriously, that’s what they’re really about! Join Mike, Kevin, Bill, and Paul for an unforgetttable All Hallow’s Eve of mind-melting comedy!

#7 - RiffTrax Live: Reefer Madness

Season 6 - Episode 3 - Aired 5/17/2011

In RiffTrax Live: Reefer Madness, Mike, Kevin and Bill deliver their trademark form of rapid fire comedy in front of a live audience! Lines could be flubbed! Tomatoes could be thrown! Mountain lion attacks are entirely possible! The performance not only includes the classic anti-marijuana propaganda film Reefer Madness, but also three shorts which quickly became instant classics: More Dangerous Than Dynamite, Frozen Frolics, and At Your Fingertips: Grasses. Among the most insane things the guys have ever riffed, they’ll clear up any questions you might have about washing your clothes in gasoline and whether corn is grass.

#8 - RiffTrax Live: Christmas Shorts-stravaganza!

Season 6 - Episode 2 - Aired 3/17/2010

The stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000® have a sackfull of delightful and demented shorts to riff live onstage. Some of the forgotten gems of Christmases past prove to be the perfect targets for the rapid-fire riffs of Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett. And if that wasn’t enough, they’re even joined by comedy legend “Weird Al" Yankovic for a musical short about the wonders of pork! It’s funnier than Ernest Saves Christmas and far less creepy than The Polar Express!

#9 - RiffTrax Live: Plan 9 From Outer Space

Season 6 - Episode 1 - Aired 12/10/2009

The stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 meet the worst movie of all time to bring you RiffTrax Live. Join Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett live and onstage at the historic Belcourt Theater in Nashville as they riff along hilariously to Ed Wood’s classic B-movie blunder Plan 9 from Outer Space. Hosted by internet superstar Veronica Belmont, and featuring geek troubadour Jonathan Coulton, RiffTrax Live offers non-stop music and laughs. Also included is Flying Stewardess, a 40’s travel short that gets subjected to the guys’ signature brand of rapid-fire riffing.

#10 - The Hideous Sun Demon

Season 1 - Episode 198 - Aired 3/20/2015

This is the tale of a man who transforms into a violent lizard creature whenever he’s in the sun too long. No, he’s not the third wheel love interest in an upcoming Twilight reboot, he’s The Hideous Sun Demon! It’s the late 50s, a time when exposure to radiation still caused fun stuff, like superpowers and shape-changing, as opposed to less fun stuff, like, y’know, death. After some radioactive material falls off the toy train the scientists use to transport it through the lab (actual plot point, not a joke) mild-mannered genius drunk Dr. Gilbert McKenna is changed forever. Sunlight turns him into a reptile man-monster, presumably because that’s the rubber suit that was cheapest to rent when they made this movie. But not cheap enough for them to rent the bottom part of the suit, apparently, because he runs around in totally soaked khaki pants for roughly half the movie. Why are his pants so wet? That’s just part of the mystery! It’s a superhuman dose of old-fashioned nuclear mutation fun, stay out of direct sunlight and join Mike, Kevin and Bill for The Hideous Sun Demon!

#11 - Anaconda

Season 1 - Episode 197 - Aired 3/14/2015

There’s riffs out there this big?? One of our favorites, now available as a studio riff, the movie that’s been called “Probably one of the top four films in the Anaconda series,” Anaconda! Anaconda stars a pre-fame Jennifer Lopez, a post-fame Eric Stoltz, and an Owen Wilson who even then was somehow ashamed of his role in The Internship despite it not happening for another sixteen years. With the help of Ice Cube (Straight Outta Compton, F@%& Da Police, Are We Done Yet?) they set off into the Amazon in search of those drones they claimed were going to revolutionize package delivery. Then Eric Stoltz gets stung and paralyzed by a venomous wasp, so things are really looking up for our crew when they encounter Jon Voight. Voight has been obsessed with hunting down a deadly anaconda ever since the snake tricked him into selling his beloved Chrysler LeBaron to George Costanza. From then on, things spiral into a deadly game of cat and mouse, one where the cat is played by a snake, and the mouse is played by Danny Trejo. And, as if that wasn't enough, at one point the anaconda spits a monkey right at a man’s face! How many movies can say that? Don’t miss out! Original film made in 1997.

#12 - Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare

Season 1 - Episode 202 - Aired 6/5/2015

Rock n Roll Nightmare is what you’d get if Mötley Crüe guest hosted The Muppet Show. But it turns out it wasn’t Mötley Crüe, it was a Mötley Crüe tribute band. And it wasn’t The Muppets, it was some scrap foam from the Muppet factory that fused together when the dumpster behind the studio got too hot and a bum stuck googly eyes on it. And it wasn’t a Mötley Crüe tribute band, it was a sizeable pile of industrial ooze that was struck by lightning and achieved basic sentience and learned rudimentary musicianship. Wait, that actually may be Mötley Crüe... Yes, Rock n Roll Nightmare combines the exciting worlds of hair metal and hideous puppets! The Tritonz have rented a house in rural Canada. Their ambitious goal? To record ten new minutes of music. For this they have set aside an entire month. Little do they know that years earlier, or perhaps the previous day, an Oven Skeleton killed the family that lived in the house (just stay with us.) Needless to say, this causes any number of unspeakable horrors to happen, namely the full length performances of several Tritonz songs and the sight of singer Jon Mikl Thor’s butt in the shower. Also, a literal portal to hell opens up and the devil and several of his minions come through. Be warned, these scenes are not for the faint of heart, as a few of these puppets are slightly scarier and more grotesque than Baby Sinclair on Dinosaurs. Like Spinal Tap recording The Basement Tapes on the set of Labyrinth if it was written by Otto from The Simpsons, Rock n Roll Nightmare is some serious 80s cheese. Join Mike, Kevin, and Bill to talk about rock, around the clock, because their energy has got them where they wanna be.

#13 - That Guy With the Glasses: Mr. Bungle's Lunch-Room Manners

Season 4 - Episode 824 - Aired 10/8/2010

Today, The Other Guy joins That Guy again, as we take a look at a film about lunchroom manners, because…there was really nothing else to talk about back then. Sit back and enjoy…mmm, yes.

#14 - That Guy With the Glasses: The Good Loser

Season 4 - Episode 823 - Aired 3/3/2011

#15 - That Guy With the Glasses: The Snob

Season 4 - Episode 822 - Aired 11/7/2010

Today, Brad Jones joins the riffing, as they take a look at a short film that’s about, appropriately enough, snobs. Sit back and enjoy.

#16 - RiffTrax Live: Night of the Living Dead

Season 6 - Episode 9 - Aired 10/24/2013

A true cult classic -- and one of the scariest movies of all time. The dead are walking, and they hunger for human flesh. A group of panicked survivors are barricaded in a deserted farmhouse while the army of flesh-eating zombies hovers outside their door. Now experience the bone-chilling terror in color for the first time on DVD! With a 5.1 surround sound remix, and a hilarious commentary track by Michael J. Nelson, this is the most fun you'll ever have with the living dead!

#17 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

Season 1 - Episode 196 - Aired 2/27/2015

It is a tale as old as time: four turtles are exposed to a mutagen and grow up to annoy the living crap out of every adult within earshot. They form distinct, marketable personalities and headband colors: nerd, joker, leader who seems to not grasp that a long sharp sword can actually cut things, and cool but rude.* Then, when a major entertainment conglomerate deems it long enough since the last movie to be financially prudent, they emerge from the sewers and onto the silver screen. Occasionally Splinter makes a funny. This iteration was not without controversy, however! Turtles fans were outraged when Witwicky love interest Megan Fox was cast as April O’Neil. Many complained that she was completely wrong for the role, and that the only true April O’Neil was Judith Hoag, Paige Turco, Renae Jacobs, Veronica Taylor, or perhaps Sarah Michelle Gellar. Fortunately, Ms. Fox delivers a subtly nuanced performance, and is often the most realistic looking thing on screen. Mike, Kevin, and Bill take on the winner of our “Worst Movie of 2014” poll, TMNT! *It has come to our attention that there is a faction who interpret the theme song lyrics as “Raphael is cool but crude.” These people are literally worse than everyone who was tried at Nuremberg combined.

#18 - Alien Outlaw

Season 1 - Episode 195 - Aired 2/6/2015

When you see a title like Alien Outlaw, you know to expect one thing: a heavy focus on rural gunfighting shows and the agencies that book them to regional fairs. What’s that? You expect some quantity of alien outlaw activity? Well, there is some of that, sure, a small amount. But surely the next thing you expect is a healthy dose of elderly whipmaster Lash LaRue, sort of wandering around the set and shouting things at other characters? And that he’ll be shirtless at some point? Okay, good, glad we’re on the same page there at least. When last we saw Lash LaRue he was fighting ancient Native American zombies over a sacred rental property in The Dark Power. This time he and his protégé, the young pantsless gunfighting phenom Jesse Jamison, are defending a tiny mountain community from alien outlaws - no, that’s not a typo, despite the title Alien Outlaw there are actually multiple alien outlaws in this movie. It’s also not entirely clear that they’re outlaws, and it’s even less clear why they came to Earth or what their plans are at any point in the story. But one thing’s for sure: they love old-timey Wild West gunfights! Because okay, why not! Homemade Predator costumes, Lash LaRue AND his fat hillbilly sidekick buddy from The Dark Power, an alien killed with a fishing hook, what more could anyone ask for? For Lash to use the whipping talent that made him famous at some point in the movie, maybe? Good luck with that! It’s time for befuddlement and laughter, join Mike, Kevin and Bill for Alien Outlaw!

#19 - Kiss of the Tarantula

Season 1 - Episode 194 - Aired 1/30/2015

Did you ever watch the movie Carrie and think, “hm, pretty good, but her creepy home life wasn’t nearly creepy enough”? Then boy, have we got something for you! Meet Susan. She’s just like any other troubled teen, except her dad is an undertaker, their house is a mortuary full of corpses, she’s got a sleazy uncle who’s around a little too often, and a room full of pet tarantulas who do her bidding. And what’s her bidding, exactly? Revenge murder against those who’ve wronged her, of course! And how exactly do the tarantulas kill her enemies, given that tarantulas are really not that dangerous to humans? Well, they… um... you’ll just have to watch the movie and see if you can figure it out, because we really can’t. Some of the slowest murders in film history, a final sequence so drawn out that the first time we screened it we were in tears (the laughing kind of tears, mostly), and middle-aged teenagers galore! Time to pucker up for your Kiss of the Tarantula!

#20 - The Dark Power

Season 1 - Episode 193 - Aired 1/23/2015

Hollywood legend Lash LaRue returns to the silver screen in this thrilling tale of zombies, the occult, and stretching the definition of “Hollywood legend” as far as our lawyers will allow us! Lash LaRue, as you’ll undoubtedly recall, was famous for being playing a cowboy that used a whip. In every movie he was in, he found a way to pick up a whip and crack it a few times. Cattle rustlers? Whip! Pistols at dawn? Whip! Bankrupt from loss of cattle because trying to stop cattle rustlers with just a whip is incredibly stupid? Whip! Dead from ignoring the pistols part of pistols at dawn and instead bringing a—Well, you get the idea. Yes, Lash and his whip were inseparable. It’s even claimed that he taught Harrison Ford how to use the bullwhip! Sadly for Lash, he was providing his “whip lessons” on the set of Regarding Henry, and was escorted off the lot by security after startling Harrison in the bathroom. But that didn’t stop Lash, and he’s still flinging his whip around in The Dark Power. And it’s a good thing too, because four ancient Toltec Indian chiefs have risen from the dead and are terrorizing a house full of college students who don’t look a day over 32. Turns out that defiling their burial ground was a bad idea! Who knew? Can Lash drive his Chrysler there with his blinker on the entire way before the students are picked off one by one? Join Mike, Kevin, and Bill for this RiffTrax to find out!

#21 - Wonder Women

Season 1 - Episode 192 - Aired 1/2/2015

A fiendish super-villain is kidnapping star jai alai players in order to harvest their organs! Even more shocking, someone pitched that plot to a Hollywood executive and they said “Yes, we’ll make that movie!” And when you want an obscure paddle sport champion kidnapped, there’s only one group to turn to: The Wonder Women! No job is too big, no outfit too skimpy, no catfight with fellow Wonder Women worth passing up! (Warning: Please note that we said Women, not Woman. This movie does not contain any invisible airplanes or golden lassos. If you or a loved one dons an American flag style leotard at any point during the viewing, please consult a doctor, especially if it’s grandpa doing the donning.) The only thing that stands in their way is Ross Hagen. Well, Ross Hagen and several thousand Filipino citizens who were apparently unaware that a movie was being filmed and literally stand in the way during the movie’s several chase scenes. Fortunately, their lives were endangered, quite possibly lost, for a quality production, one that uses something called “Brain Sex” as a central plot point. Mike, Kevin, and Bill don Linda Carter’s Bracelets of Submission to riff Wonder Women, the rare sort of movie that manages to rip off Charlie’s Angels despite coming out three years before Charlie’s Angels.

#22 - Total Riff Off: Guy and a Goose

Season 5 - Episode 3 - Aired 4/5/2014

Meet Dominic. He’s in love with a goose. What’s that? You’ll be right back after you alert the authorities? We completely understand. So like we were saying, this guy is in love with a goose named Maria. He slowly walks around a park and she follows him. It’s riveting. The goose even flies next to him as he rides around on a Vespa. Eventually, Dominic has a severe Vespa accident, possibly because there was an enormous goose flapping around right next to his head while he was trying to drive. Oh, and at some point in time Maria appears in an OK Go music video. You can’t make this sort of stuff up, nor can you flesh it out to an entire hour long show, so we also riffed some alligator wrangling rednecks and a corpse sniffing dog named Bullwinkle. It’s a whole gaggle of laughs! Watch it with your loved ones, (who are hopefully not geese.)

#23 - Total Riff Off: Demon Bat

Season 5 - Episode 2 - Aired 4/5/2014

A giant demon bat is terrorizing a Mexican village! Well, it’s actual fairly normal sized, as far as bats go. It’s really no more a demon than any other bat, now that you mention it. And “terrorizing” is being a bit sensational. It bit a cow. Maybe. But it’s good that there’s not a giant demon bat, because the guy National Geographic sends in after it is woefully under qualified to handle such a thing. We’re frankly uncomfortable letting him near the cow. Richard Terry is a certified Poor Man’s Colin Farrell, with luxurious hair and a talent for pretending completely normal everyday scenarios are fraught with peril. He thrusts his camera in the face of irritated Mexicans and demands information about the demon bat that these people have never heard of, since they presumably are spending all their time dealing with real threats, such as the Chupacabra. This episode was so goofy we ended up riffing the entire thing. Enjoy Total Riff Off: Demon Bat.

#24 - Total Riff Off: Killer Shrimp N' Friends

Season 5 - Episode 1 - Aired 4/5/2014

Killer Shrimp ‘N Friends - no, it’s not a new appetizer platter at your favorite casual dining restaurant, but it IS a smorgasbord of strange creatures, people, and underwear! From a ball-breaking mantis shrimp, to the seemingly-named-by-Wes-Anderson Geographer’s Cone Snail, to a dog with a penchant for unmentionables, to the UTTERLY HORRIBLE thing baby koalas put into their mouths, there’s plenty of weird stuff in the natural world for us to sink our, er, teeth into. All that, plus an old man and his seal (strange reboot of the classic Hemingway novel), terrifying dino-birds, and tasmanian devils - not quite as tornado-y as cartoons have led us to believe, much more into “killing things and living inside them.” There’s a lot to love in this episode, almost too much really, so get to it and join Mike, Kevin, and Bill (and, seriously, some utterly disgusting koalas) for National Geographic's TOTAL RIFF OFF: Killer Shrimp ‘N Friends!

#25 - Total Riff Off: Animals Behaving Badly

Season 5 - Episode 5 - Aired 12/16/2014

Oh, those weird wacky animals, will they ever learn? The answer is no, no they won’t, because they are weird wacky animals and weird wackiness is all they know. As the ancient ape prophet Chimpicles once said, “Let he who is without wackiness fling the first poo.” And further, well-behaved animals rarely make history, or even amusing headlines, and they CERTAINLY don’t make it into our Animals Behaving Badly special which, ultimately, is what this paragraph is all about! You like cheetahs? We’ve got one pooping in a sunroof. You like raccoons? We’ve got one gettin’ tossed like a frisbee. You like orangutans and/or cigarettes? We’ve got a segment that brings them together at last. You like rats with a penchant for devouring their young? We’ve got… wait, let’s go back to why you like that. Are you doing okay? No matter where you stand on weird wacky animals and the moral quality of their behavior, you’ll be happy you joined Mike, Kevin and Bill for this hilarious riff of Animals Behaving Badly!