If you miss the days of Mystery Science Theater 3000 in its original form, namely seeing a guy and two robots mock bad cinema while dealing with some intergalactic problem or other, those days are back.
Rikk Wolf and his movie-riffing epic, Incognito Cinema Warriors XP, has returned for a second season with a new DVD that was released this week. While Rifftrax and Cinematic Titanic are both content with MST3K alumni mocking movies, good and bad, young and old, without a B-plot in between the movie segments, ICWXP revives the old MST3K version with its own mix of comedy and lousy movies.
For the uninitiated, the jist: Rikk is a soldier named Commander Rick Wolf who's trapped in a zombie apocalypse that has nothing to do with The Walking Dead. He finds refuge in an abandoned movie house where he finds two robots, Johnny Cylon (Zach Legler) and TopsyBot 5000 (Nick Evans, 3rd guy to do this). Anywho, they were forced to watch bad movies sent to them by a mad scientist, but he got replaced by Kincaid, an evil agent from the Ludivoco Corporation who had his own evil iPhone. Now HE'S gone (maybe), and the theater sends its unholy films automatically. A comic book based on the show will be produced to explain what happened. The Satellite of Love never did that.
Apparently there was a five year gap between the fourth DVD and the new one, and Rick doesn't remember what happened, although it did involve battling zombies finally. He was also put in an evil chair where he was forced to riff on Bride of the Gorilla, the first movie of the series.
Once he gets cleaned up, Rick and the bots are back riffing. They first see an Alka-Seltzer commercial that features a pie-eating contest and is described as "the Morbidly Obese Olympics". Then, they see a short about Victory Gardens, which is duller than the dirt the garden grows on. Rikk says in the audio commentary they had to add music to make it easier to watch. Some of the choice riffs:
The short is about the Holder Family and their Victory Garden from 1942. The son is named Dick.
Cylon: So his name is Dick Holder. Ouch!
After some more tips on how to grow a garden...
Rick: Yes, soon you'll be wishing you were old enough to be drafted
A couple more from Rick:
Why, just look at this nutritious crop of crabgrass
Farming's a breeze with your Hitler Youth Pocket Knife.
They get pretty bored after a while (Cylon: How about instead of this we just go bomb Hiroshima?), and instead come up with the names of Professional Eating Teams. The Chicago Oprah Thighs and the Buffalo Wild Wings were very popular.
Afterwards, the gang is greeted by a strange image who calls itself Bottomless Epiglottis. Whoever it is hates Ludivuco ("the enemy of my enemy is my...frenemy"), and wants them to help it bring them down. It helps the guys find a back-up back-up back-up back-up generator to keep the theater going. They also meet a new robot called Flux Namtani (Dave Thompson), who has the ego of Buzz Lightyear.
We also get a preview of the next DVD, which apparently features an intruder being attacked by a super-snowblower. It's called "Where's Your Big Bad Apocalypse Now?"
The extras are also pretty good. You see the whole show with commentary by Rikk and newcomer Nick Evans. They talk about how much work goes into the show, and they also thank the fans for keeping this show together. They even mention a few fans who want the show on Adult Swim. However, with the recent success of online shows, The Guild and Dr. Horrible especially, who needs networks? There's also behind-the-scenes stuff about the new set and Cylon getting legs. We also see Rick re-riff the first five minutes of Bride of the Gorilla, apparently while he was in that chair.
While the show will only riff on educational shorts for now, they do plan to go back to full-length features. They even plan a season finale, and let's hope Kincaid will be around for that. In the show's forum, it was mentioned the original actor, Gregory Wyatt Tinnen, couldn't make it for the new season.
You can learn more about the show, and buy DVDs and event direct downloads at www.icwxp.com. For those who are a little impatient for new Cinematic Titanic DVDs, the return of Rikk and the gang is more than enough to satisfy your movie riffing needs. Welcome back, guys!
