Rifftrax Has Fun in Balloonland With Its Sharp Needling

In the words of Tom Servo, "the Hell?"

That's all you can say about Fun in Balloonland, Rifftrax's new holiday offering whose cheesiness exceeds Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny and Magic Christmas Tree combined. For those who have attended holiday parades and didn't enjoy them, this is your chance at revenge.
It takes the daring move of combining a holiday pageant that takes place in a warehouse instead of PS 134 outside of Philadelphia with footage of the 1964 Gimbels Christmas Parade. (Note: for those who only know Wal-Mart, Gimbels was a department store that was a rival of Macy's in retail and parades),

Here are some clips:




It starts with a song with lyrics that almost make you appreciate One Direction. It's followed by a mom reading a story to a kid. She falls asleep, and he walks over and stands in front of a "Fairy Tales Book". That somehow gets him to Balloonland, where he "interacts" with the balloons, a guy who claims he's Neptune, and some mermaids. Also, a ballet spontaneously appears while kids lie on the ground, and there's a square dance where the kids sort of forget the song. What's really disturbing is at one point the kid wears gold lame shorts, something he shouldn't wear until he grows up to be Channing Tatum.

Someone thought adding balloon people to a third-grade Christmas play would produce something that would rival A Christmas Carol or Miracle on 34th Street,
Just in case, they decided to add footage from the Gimbels Parade, with a narrator who's had too much of a liquid version of turkey.
It's basically a home movie, but an interesting look at holiday parades before they went all show biz (Macy's being a big example, thanks to NBC). It also features the strangest looking balloon floats around, as the Rifftrax crew point out quite often.

The movie seems to end with the kid finally falling asleep, while Mom is also sleeping, but then they use outtakes to create  a "guessing game". Afterwards, you will, like Bill Corbett, wonder what the heck that was.

Now, time for the riffs:

A ballet breaks out with three kids, followed by a Good Fairy

Bill Corbett:  All right, Cindy Williams, let's start wrapping this thing up

The kid is in a square dance

Mike Nelson:  This is a little dance they call "See whose kneecap breaks first"

A balloon float featuring Scrooge and Tiny Tim appears

Kevin Murphy:  It's John D. Rockefeller and his son Dax Shepard, wearing Dad's hat

One of the bands appearing for the parade gets identified as:

Mike:  Please welcome the Didn't-Get-Invited-To-The-Macy's-Parade-In-Fact-Macy's-Called-Just-to-Laugh-At-Us Marching Band

Narrator:  I salute you, Grenadier Guard

Bill:  Just a brand of cheap gin she's drinking

There's also riffs on Game of Thrones, They Shoot Horses, Don't They, North Korea, 1984 (the book), Stratego, The Twilight Zone, and the owner of the NFL team in Washington DC, Daniel Snyder. There's also a callback to a riff Kevin made in the Christmas Shorts Extravaganza in 2009.

You've never seen anything like Fun in Balloonland, and it's unlikely you'd find anything like that today...except the opening would be a rap by Pitbull with much better lyrics.

The short is available now at Rifftrax's website, and there is a special section for the other holiday offerings it's created over the years.
The next big offering will be the re-riffing of Santa Claus in theaters nationwide on December 4th. 

Rifftrax Celebrates the Holidays

Let's be honest. The holidays do not start on the week of Thanksgiving. They start next Friday with Halloween. I've believed this ever since I saw the Grove Shopping Center in L-A finish building Santa's House the day before Halloween. Imagine trick or treaters trying to visit that house.

Now there's a new reason:  Rifftrax will be very busy with some new events, including revisiting another holiday movie.
It also starts next Thursday with its presentation of Anaconda with Jon Voight, Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube and Owen Wilson. That event was made possible by its Kickstarter campaign a few months ago after getting funding for riffing the Jurassic Park-Sleepless in Seattle mashup that was the 1998 version of Godzilla. The riff for that, by the way, should be coming next month.
Anyway, the attack, I mean showing, of Anaconda will be presented in several theaters nationwide thanks to Fathom Events. Since the movie is 90 minutes, the show will include a preview of the return of Total Riff-Off, where the gang take on a typical show from the National Geographic channel. It was very popular when it was done on April Fool's Day, and it'll be interesting to see what they'll do when they have two more specials in December. Expect the host of Man vs. Monster being a likely target.

Then in November, it'll observe Thanksgiving with its take on Fun in Balloonland. As I said elsewhere online, it makes "A Visit to Santa" look like The Empire Strikes Back. It starts with a mom reading a bedtime story, which puts her to sleep. Then the kid dreams he's in a world filled with balloon people. Here's a look:



It's basically the worst movie about the Macy's parade, or any other holiday parade.  A guy called the Cinema Snob has his take on this, If Mike can top that review, he is truly the God of Riffing

The big news from its Facebook Q and A event is that the Christmas show on December 4th will feature the 1959 Mexican holiday classic, Santa Claus. That's right, little Lupita, Pitch, and the kid who's left alone on Christmas Eve while his parents go out and drink will all be there. Of course, MST3K fans know the movie when it first aired in 1993. It was later part of the Volume XVI DVD set. What's different is that the gang will likely riff on the whole movie, as they did with Manos, Hands of Fate. When Santa Claus was first riffed, they cut some scenes out, including this one where Lupita dreams about having a doll. Since Pitch set off the dream, it includes evil dancing that wasn't part of the MST version. See if you can riff on this:



Actually, if you use the Canadian Thanksgiving rule, you'd be justified to start seeing holiday specials after November first, including what Rifftrax has to offer.

You can learn more about next week's showing of Anaconda, Total Riff-Off, Santa Claus and more at Rifftrax's updated website. Enjoy!

The Texas Robocop Knockoff Massacre: Rifftrax vs. R.O.T.O.R (Plus Holiday Offerings)

It's the usual thing:  someone makes a successful movie, and a hundred guys try to make their own version. Sadly, this includes some guy named Cullen Blaine.

Shortly after Robocop reached theaters, Blaine made his own Texas BBQ-ed version called ROTOR. It's like Robocop made with a budget of 24 bucks. Rifftrax recently had its take on the movie, and described it as The Room meets Cybercop 2. It's about a computer expert named Coldyron (which is Texas for Rowsdower) who invented a cop of the future called Robotic Officer of the Tactical Operations Research...or Reserve.
Naturally, the robot goes nuts and kills people. He also clobbers guys who are completely delusional about how macho they are.
The movie also includes a janitor named Shoeboogie who claims he's Native American but looks more like Bruno Mars, and a sarcastic robot who's more interesting than most of the human cast. Here's a short trailer, thanks to Rifftrax:



What's really strange is how the story is told. A couple heads for a weekend trip to the lake, and see an explosion, followed by a dead woman on the road (Kevin Murphy:  "My poor brave wife. She died trying to save our meth lab."). Then we see Coldyron about to be arrested, then "officially unofficially" interrogated by a couple of cops. (Bill Corbett:  "His acting coach was Al Gore"). Then we get a long flashback that begins with him sharing a massive cup of coffee with his horse. As soon as he gets to the Dallas PD, seeing Shoboogie dancing with Willard the Robot, he gets a call from the police chief telling him to get ROTOR ready or else in 60 days. Coldyron decides to quit, because he thinks it'll take years to get ROTOR on duty. The project is given to some guy named Houndling, who thinks he can get ROTOR going. As he tells Willard, "what do you think this is, some low-budget sci-fi flick?" Of course, that's too much of a trick question to get a response.

It takes a really stupid accident involving Shoeboogie's headphones to awaken ROTOR, who wastes no time following his prime directive, "to judge and execute." It's also considered the state motto of Texas. It wastes no time pulling over a bickering couple who broke the speed limit. It shoots the driver while his girlfriend...who may look familiar to those who paid attention...tries to get away. She has two things against her:  the Dallas police doesn't care, and ROTOR can see 30 seconds into the past to find the girl. He's also described by Kevin as "John Hodgman with a leather fetish". Its only weakness is a loud car horn, but that only slows him down a little.

Coldyron decides to ask for help from a fellow computer scientist in Houston...who's he never met...and looks like Luna Vachon but slightly more attractive. Her hair color is less to be desired, though. They talk about how they made a robot that was made for the lawless future, not 1987, and that they have to stop him.

What's really absurd about this movie is how it tries to set up a sequel. To say that it's done very clumsily would be an understatement. Not only that, the credits reveal that Coldyron's voice was dubbed, and that one of the songs from the soundtrack was done by "Larry's Dad". It's no wonder why this has become a Rifftrax essential in lousy film making.
Prepare for riffs on Alan Jackson, Madonna, Dinosaurus, Texas in general, the iPhone 7, Larry the Cable Guy, Coronet films, Denny Terrio, and Small Wonder.

You can click here to get ROTOR, and here to see a "summary" of the movie on YouTube provided by a Rifftrax fan.

Also, Rifftrax decided to riff on part of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Here's what they did:



There's a tweet on the Rifftrax page that suggests they may do more Peanuts specials, but we'll see about that. It would be something if they did the early ones, like A Charlie Borwn Christmas or He's Your Dog, Charlie Brown.

Finally, Rifftrax announced it will do a Thanksgiving film that makes "A Visit To Santa" look like "The Empire Strikes Back". It's called Fun in Balloonland, and it's the worst Macy's Parade film ever.



It's so awful it would make a great feature for the Rifftrax Christmas show. However, it will be available on the website in a few weeks.