I used to watch Mystery Science Theater 3000 all the time, as much as I can in fact. It was my continual source of laughter, whether with friends or by myself. It was funny, witty and would pull out the most obscure reference where, at times, I felt like I was the only one who understood the joke! So being an MST fan, seeing former MST'er Mike Nelson carry the torch into a new line of films with the same format, I was concerned that this was going to be an uninspired attempt at doing something that needed to rest.

To my surprise, I actually found that Mike Nelson still has it! It is fresh and original and still F***in' funny! Part of the success is that Mike brought two of the former members from MST with him on this project: Kevin Murphy (voice of Tom Servo) and Bill Corbett (voice of Crow T. Robot in later episodes). So my first foree into Rifftrax is this collection of THE BEST OF RIFFTRAX SHORTS VOLUME ONE, like its predecessor MST, they watched various short films, usually of the educational type from the 50's and 60's that are poor in execution and makes things like, being a good boy, the worst possible choice you can make in your life. 

For Rifftrax, there is no story to follow here, no evil plot and no reason other than for the laughs and appreiation of bad cinema. There are no sillouetts that watch the screen and no inbetween invention exchange or musical number. This is just the films with Nelson and crew riffing throughout ("riffing", by the way, is interjecting comments to the action of the movie, simultaneously making fun of it). The Rifftrax website seems more geared doing popular films, such as Batman Begins or Paranormal Activity. For obvious reasons of rights issues, you are not getting the movie, but just the audio content, much like a commentary, where you have to synch the taudio with the visual to make it happen.

The list of shorts on this disc are as follows: DOWN AND OUT (a ridiculous short with big props and a klutz), PATRIOTISM (with sex deviant Bob Crane teaching kids about Patriotism! neat!), BUYING FOOD, RIGHT OR WRONG, DRUGS ARE LIKE THAT, SKIPPER LEARNS A LESSON (not to be confused with the SS Minnow version), THE TROUBLE WITH WOMEN, IT MUST BE THE NEIGHBORS (a message on keeping the neighborhood clean from litter by blaming your neighbor for the mess), with bonus feature SHAKE HANDS WITH DANGER. 

One of the funniest of the bunch is DRUGS ARE LIKE THAT. Two kids playing a type of Lego toy, building some odd structure, meanwhile a woman voiceover discusses how certain things in the world are like drugs. There is so much fodder for riffing in this one and the Rifftrax crew do not miss an opportunity. By the end of the film, you have no idea what drugs are like, and even less of an idea what drugs are! Listening to Nelson, Murphy and Corbett, I felt at home again.Classic!

If were to have any real complaint about this set, it is the "bonus" feature which advertises "3D Animation of Mile, Kevin and Bill!" With todays 3-D technology, this is not really 3-D with the glasses type, but just a cartoonish animated sequence that is pretty corny. Kevin and Bill turn into popcorn and an inflated parrot (not sure why), while Mike remains himself (due to some computer malfunction transporting them from reality to computer). And there they sit in front of the final short film SHAKE HANDS WITH DANGER. What is unfortunate is not only the animated bit and them as cartoons in front of the screen, but the image is brought down in size, also it seemed the sound was somewhat muted. If not for these slight issues, I might have said this was the funniest sequence on the disc (which, it definitely is one of the funniest ones, regardless), but the presentation was not as good as the previous set. SHAKE HANDS WITH DANGER is a no-nonsense educational film that tries to warm people not to be careless around heavy machinery. Yet, the common sense provided in this short film seem to be relegated to people who have never been around bulldozers and other type of earth movers in the first place. But don't worry, the Rifftrax sets them straight.

In all, its a great collection and if you miss MST and want more, this is definitely the next step. Legend Films brings this collection to DVD for Rifftrax and does a great job in their presentation. There are no extras even though the menu has a bonus track. If you clicked play all, then you have seen everything. Going to the list of films, my DVD seemed to link the first track, DOWN AND OUT with SHAKE HANDS WITH DANGER. So the only way I was able to view it was to Play All. Still, its a great collection and glad to see Nelson is on track with this project. For more information, you can visit the Rifftrax website and Legend Films.