With 300 shorts in their library, RiffTrax has seen its share of the bizarre.
Here’s a look at the 30 most out-there installments.
Boy howdy thats a lot.
Yet there are a lot of videos that are just plain weird.
Some are simply misguided, but others just leave you scratching your head and asking questions.
Why were these made?
What was the point?
Here are the 30 most bizarre RiffTrax shorts.
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30.
The Output:Scratch that part about it being whimsical.
Its more unsavory than anything else.
Theres this real underlying feeling that theres something dark and horrifying going on underneath the awkward exterior.
Im almost certain it isnt English.
You know, outside of this being a film about STDs in the early 40s.
Thats when we discover he has syphilis and he even attempts suicide in his grief.
That would have worked great for intentional comedic effect, but not when youre trying to be serious.
A lot of fun is had with this casting choice.
The Output:This period piece is a head-scratcher at times.
Despite being a drifter, the protagonist is still enrolled in the local school like its no big thing.
No closure or anything and its kind of a downer.
The Output:This educational short has something of a cult following and I can see why.
Its almost sort of good in its own way.
No wonder Tracy picked Kevin.
Hes probably the only one smart enough to be literate.
The Output:The hoity-toity witch in question looks like Lion-O from the Thundercats.
Did you know that you could save money on pudding by making it yourself?
Thats why people go to restaurants and stuff!
Theres a monster hand that appears to move things around.
The narrator is trying to sound creepy, but the whole thing comes off as more dull and confusing.
The moral at the end is that the Creeps Machine is really a metaphor for your imagination.
THE CASE OF TOMMY TUCKER
The Idea:Chrysler funds a film about how important traffic safety is.
Nobody knows this better than beloved child Tommy Tucker.
The Output:This one gradually goes from a little weird to outright screwed up.
Shortly after the play, tragedy strikes and Tommy is horribly maimed in a car accident.
The entire town is horrified, as hes a beloved icon of safety.
Safety Islands Saint Peter counterpart recognizes Tommy but says that he isnt due there for many years.
Then he realizes that since Tommy is so awesome at safety, maybe he should stick around.
COURTESY: A GOOD EGGSAMPLE
The Idea:A Goofus and Gallant story told about how to be polite.
Everything is depicted via a world where everyone is a stop-motion egg.
The Output:I think stop-motion eggs showing that you should use your manners says it all.
Adding to it, the Casio keyboard soundtrack is an irritating and repetitive.
Its admittedly cute, but not worth the unenviable amount of time it took for them to make it.
The obligatory egg puns go downhill immediately after the title.
Eggsquisite, and all that.
This is actually harder than I thought.
Three kids are confronted with this and react.
This is like a parade of the worst child actors.
To prove a point about how different the kids are, they spend the film painted up as clowns.
Eventually, they meet a talking mirror that shows them how theyre perceived by the world.
Theyre perceived as clowns.
A girl is a complete brat and is constantly stealing from others.
She sees the error in her ways.
Then theres this other boy who looks very Drew Carrey-like.
Hes a gigantic ass and has no problems continuing to be a gigantic ass despite the mirrors intervention.
Its the other ten minutes thats just silly and reeking of the 80s.
Also, I doubt the smiling had THAT much to do with the lady success in the end.
They do this part in rhyme, except when they dont.
This was actually a thing that people did.
For instance, theres a newspaper headline that a woman died in a gasoline fire.
Underneath it is a smaller headline about how hundreds are dead due to an earthquake in China.
Then she runs out of the house with the absolute worst special effects to show that shes on fire.
They literally overlaid cartoon fire on her while portraying it as real and tragic.
I seem to rememberAdult Swimgetting a lot of use out of this bit back in the day.
LETS PRETEND: MAGIC SNEAKERS
The Idea:You got me.
Then things get extra wacky once a villain shows up because why not?
The villain is eventually defeated when he hides out in a giant jack-in-the-box and gets kicked down a hill.
The Output:TheAt Your Fingertipsseries also includesBoxesandCylindersand someone even suggested I include all three on this list.
In the end, I dont see much wrong withBoxesandCylinders.
The stuff these kids make out of grass is so boring that its kind of depressing.
Then they start making headdresses and tribal masks and I dont even know anymore.
Also, the short begins with an attempt to explain what grass is.
It drives Bill to madness.
Kids love superheroes, dont they?
The Output:Im having trouble coming up with a more boring superhero and Ive read Dan DidiosOutsiders.
Even the scene of Guardiana meeting the aliens is so dull, yet entirely strange.
Measuring Man to the rescue!
And yet Tommy doesnt pick up that his milkman is Measuring Man.
Then again, Tommy literally doesnt understand such concepts as bigger and smaller.
There was definitely some Measuring Man/Safety Woman shipping going on in there and for some reason Im into it.
JOIN HANDS, LET GO
The Idea:I honestly dont know.
The Output:This one trades back and forth between two kinds of scenes.
Then it would cut to this comedic actor performing some kind of wordless sight gag.
Is the childrens game somehow altering reality and screwing these many versions of the same man over?
Why did Encyclopedia Britannica make this?
The Output:This really shouldnt have to take nearly fifteen minutes, but it does.
The ladys pants would get at least a TV-13 rating these days the way they hug the crotch.
This information proceeds to make Mike Nelsons head literally explode.
Damn you, calendars!
Damn you for being so clever!
The Output:Were given a series of oddball situations that lead to people using various polite phrases.
Mix that with some questionable animation and you have some crazy stuff going on.
He thanks the giraffe and the giraffe says, Youre welcome!
Then a jingle plays about how courtesy counts a lot.
Its up to us to decide.
That about sums this film up because its filled with ambiguity.
Theres a feeling that its in some level self-aware, but to what point?
His parents look at him in fearful silence and its great.
That said, its still a wacked-out fifteen minutes.
It has a similar plot about a random object that can not only talk, but has cosmic powers.
When it isnt being all educational, the object proceeds to remove all forms of itself from the world.
Two kindergarten teachers meet up and discuss how theyre going to make their room work for the school year.
Why does this exist?
Why is this so long?
Couldnt they have edited it out or done another take when the cameraman is heard sneezing in the background?
The spokesman of forest fire safety, Smokey the Bear, shows up.
The Output:This one happens to be the oddest with the least amount of effort.
Its fairly short and if given at least three more minutes, it could have been something coherent.
Instead, Im not sure what this is.
The kid then runs off, mainly so he/she can tell everyone that Smokey really is real.
Theres so much happening, yet at the same time, nothing is happening.
Its a trip to watch.
This is like that, only with clothes involved too.
Thats when his toys and clothes spring to life and convince his bed to throw him to the floor.
The bed is depicted via a pillow with creepy lips and me doing my really bad Ringo Starr impression.
Everything else just has an annoying, badly-acted voice.
Reggie looks dumbfounded by everything.
Not in the sense that hes shocked that everything can talk, but more thatexistence itselfconfuses him.
You have to see it for yourself.
THE CLEAN CLUB
The Idea:Kids need to know the importance of cleanliness.
To its credit, the video about hygene is incredibly well-made.
you’re able to even call itBeginning Responsibility: Taking Care of Your Thingswith a budget.
Everything looks a lot better and the voice actors are less irritable.
Even the children are marginally better actors than Reggie and his parents.
Though the voice acting does give us some awkwardness when soap and brushes are given sexualized female voices.
The reason this ranks higher thanTaking Care of Your Thingsis because of the germs.
followed by, The carpet.
Drugs are like that.
A fat guy in a suit skipping down the sidewalk?
Drugs are like that.
Swimming across a river?
Drugs are like that.
A kid walking down an alley as a metaphor for growing up?
Drugs are like that.
ONE GOT FAT
The Idea:Youd think that its about obesity, but youd be wrong.
Why didnt the others make it?
Because most of them DIED!
The Idea:Explaining the absence of things and all of its forms to children.
The movie is just two boys talking about what nothing is.
They do it in the most depressed, muted, smoked-themselves-into-oblivion stupor.
Their philosophical meandering leads to them playing with a caterpillar, which doesnt have anything to do with nothing.
Later they explain that any number minus itself is nothing.
The Output:Man, I…
I almost get what theyre going for, but its just inane and confusing.
They especially dont resemble what the narrator insists, which include and I quote toaster movements.
The Output:The Cathy short is a bit longer and its strange on its own.
Then he comes up with possibilities involving her family life, but she shoots down those rumors too.
Then she just…leaves.
Why doesnt Cathy eat breakfast?
We never find out and the movie just abruptly ends.
Thats only the herald to the Eater of Worlds that isPetaluma Chicken.
Petaluma Chickenis like a snuff film where instead of someone dying, they just make a giant omelet.
