Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" and RiffTrax returned to the Bay Area this holiday weekend for two live shows. We went to the Sunday show at the Rafael Film Theater in San Rafael, (a much more comfortable place to see the guys than Cobb's, even if it is booze-free). Like their previous San Francisco engagement, the shows were sponsored by the San Francisco Sketchfest, and we hope they continue to have a good relationship and bring more live shows to San Francisco, because this one was almost as fun as the last one.
We say almost only because the movie they did, which they kept secret until the night of the show, was the Sylvester Stallone arm-wrestling epic Over the Top, and all the comedic riffing in the world can't stop that movie from being at least a tad painful to sit through. Die hard RiffTrax fans might have also been a little disappointed by the fact that it's a movie that has already been given a RiffTrax, albeit one with only Mike Nelson commenting. (January's Daredevil presentation wasn't released as a RiffTrax until after the show.) We haven't listened to the original track so we aren't sure how much was changed with the addition of Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy, but we'd imagine there had to be at least a few new jokes. And even if there weren't, a well-told joke can be listened to more than once--anyone who owns at least one "MST3K" DVD can tell you that. (We know we'll never get tired of hearing Robert Loggia talk about his frog terrarium in Over the Top.)
After the show, the guys sat down for a short Q&A with someone from Sketchfest, and while the questions he asked sounded awfully familiar, it was a nice addition to the show. The "riffers" even stuck around for a little while after that and braved the nerdy throngs to sign a few autographs and pose for some photos. They're such nice, mid-western boys!
If anyone went to Monday's show at Cobb's we'd love to hear about it. Let us know in the comments!
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My partner went to the Cobb show and said that though it was mega crowded (and no one warned us about the two-drink minimum until *after* entry [and what's the deal with you not being able to order from the bar yourself? Is this some kind of SF comedy club hazing we wot not of?]), the crowd was appreciative and the show was funny. When I picked my partner up, the crowd was hanging out around the club door, happily chatting and laughing.