What makes a riff? A rant about "riffing"

[JetJaguar73]

Agree that YMS is unwatchable but really enjoy the ladies and Mattew/Ian.

I LOVE the B/MJ riffs as well, they're probably at the top of my list of riffers these days. Matthew/Ian I usually save for a drought.

And while it probably looked like I was shitting on all "other" riffers, I really wasnt. Just look at the recent ST: VOY thread to find a plethora of great riffing teams! There are a lot out there, mostly defunct groups, alas.

My problem with YMS and their flavor of "commentary" is that what they are shooting for is riffing, but it utterly fails at that, so they label it "commentary." These folks dont know how to riff WITH a movie.  It should flow like [edit] improv in that one should always be ready to add a "yes, and..."

As for my comments about specific content:

Are you curious to know whether or not the riffer from YMS likes going to strip clubs? Care to know if he's straight or gay? (I'm fine with either!) Find out here! Chomping at the bit to know who he name-drops and went to the club with? This is the "riff" for you! Looking for non-sequitur references to Key and Peele while the other commenters talk over each other? Do you laugh like a jackass when you hear the word "boobies"!? Have you picked up on more of the plot to the shitty movie than these guys because they haven't even bothered to watch the aforementioned shitty movie before commenting on it!? Brothers and sisters, do I have the commentary for you!

This was actual, if paraphrased and rearranged, commentary from the YMS track. 

Again, really came by to say, I love riffing and I love movie commentary.  LOVE. IT. We are really living in in the golden age of riffing, as we finally have access to all of the old, the (extremely) obscure and the new riffs being produced today.  Thanks everyone for sharing all of the stuff!

[robthom]

Apparently its harder to do then it seems.

I've tried a lot of iRiffs, and they get a few good zingers here and there, but they just don't sustain for a whole movie the way Bill, Kevin and Mike do.

And I know that that may be the difference between amatuers and someone who's been doing it all these years.

But even the Kevin McHale one, and Kevin McHale is hillarious, sucked.

Something about the timing, the chemistry, that Minneapolis culture perspective?


edit: I'm watching the Last Shark right now and another thing they do is their Riff is sophisticated. All of a sudden they'll do a call and response skit and playing a character and describing a long form scenario about the Italians funding a Jaws knock off and Bill is working for them.

And you would have to say that that comes from MST3K.
They were actors and puppeteers doing skits and songs.
It was more then just cracking one liners.

[CountMeowt]

Well, they're not really a riffing group, they're more like hecklers . I enjoyed their Catwoman 'heckling' the best.

On Adam's game channel, adumplaze, they inadvertently riff while playing, but not as a full on quality riffing. Just watch them play those Suda51, David Cage and Life is Strange games, there are some good riffs here and there.

[Rifferee]

Yeah I gave up on these guys too. I appreciate them being on here because hey, different strokes. But they are definitely a commentary track over a riff because they are winging it. Joe Bob is my favorite commentary tracker here because of his insane research tied with his humor. RLM also does a bit of research, plus they are filmmakers themselves. I also like WHM because they work in the industry too and know a thing or two besides being funny guys.

[airenman]

Sounds a lot like the "new" MST3K.

[motti66086]

A really good riff is a huge achievement. 800-1000 jokes covering the running time of an otherwise un-entertaining movie, keeping audiences laughing the whole time without losing momentum, keeping your jokes varied and subject matter wide, all in between the dialogue, without repeating yourself. To think you and your friends can improvise something like that the first time you ever watch the movie is pretty damn arrogant.

It's hard work, and it's very much it's own form of comedy that needs to be practiced. If you think it's just throwing insults at the screen, you don't get it.

[SuspiriaTrumpsItFollowsCrap]

What makes a great riff starts with a good riffer.  You can’t get a gourmet blackened-swordfish meal out of mashed-up fish-nuggets plus a no-name brand sriracha sauce.  If you have someone whom - like Gen X’rs and “older” - bother to learn about and appreciate aspects of history such as Agincourt or James Whale’s place (and “place”, in Old Hollywood, so-to-speak), or anything else “before their time”, and apply that in context to a movie made before 1985, you have a good riffer, leading to good riffs.  But if you don't, you don't.

Example: some dimwit has been raised on Spongebob, whom suffered helicopter parenting and never felt the impulse to learn about any pop-culture aside from what was infront of their face at any given time. Someone whom placidly absorbs media, but never investigates media. They are very unlikely to ever generate a great riff-joke such as “It’s because he’s a Calvinist, honey” from The Amazing Colossal Man ep of MST3K.  There is no half-witted Nintendo or TikkyTokkyTardia reference which is gonna be honestly-funny in a film like that, or even for Attack of the Giant Leeches.  The Spongebobian or Cal-Arts Tweetiot is lacking-in-vision due to their lack of cultural and historical “peripheral vision & hindsight”, only seeing what was in front of their face, at any given time, without “exploring other things” that came before them; they are merely the deformed ventriloquist dummies of the classic Solipsist. Just as much as ~

The Blathering Brit-Twit “Sargon” and the Goddess of UnTalent, Samantha Bee, are equally as unfunny as the other, because Sargon is basically Samantha Bee in drag, and vice-versa.  To avoid rhetorical-polemics masquerading as jokes (as verbally-farted by both Sargie Wargie and Bantha Bee-hemoth), a potential riffer requires a non-partisan cultural viewpoint.  There has never been a funny partisan.  The most laughs that the woeful homunculus known as Pete Davidson ever got came from his “best scene” in the recent Gunn Suicide Squad film, and that was his “final scene”.  With good reason.  Because partisans, like Polyphemus, have culturally-monocular vision, not 3-dimensional sight. 

Avoiding such “issues” will make for a good riffer, thus a good riff.  The person whom seeks out historical information and films/tv/comics/novels/radioplays etc. and can analyze them objectively will be able to glean things from them which will lead to hilarious bon-mots, such as provided by MJ & B.  Joel and Trace bothered to learn of the comedy-culture of the Catskills, stuff wayyyy before their time, hence their riffs being sublime.  They don't limit their comedic observations to "Hey it's like Johnny Quest" or "What would Josie and the Pussycats say about this?"  Although they can (and do) sprinkle in such jokes on occasion, unlike hipsterwanks, they don't rely upon those gags.

Thank you for a salient question/topic, JJ.