History Podcast / RiffTrax

** ''Film/{{Birdemic}}'' has them mention that people flailing their arms around trying to hit some birds with coat hangers look like they're playing [[UsefulNotes/{{Xbox360}} Kinect]], except more dignified.

** "Golden Corral's new slogan" has become a long-running joke, in relation to any lines involving garbage or fleeing from something.

* TheBurlesqueOfVenus: The cover art for their riff of ''[[Anime/TheLittleMermaid Toei's 1975 adaptation of The Little Mermaid]]'' is directly based on the The Birth of Venus painting, with characters from the film and drawn in the film's art style.

* TruncatedThemeTune: Many [=VODs=] begin the theme song at "Who're you going to get to riff those tracks?" instead of the beginning of the song.

** In ''Film/SantaAndTheIceCreamBunny'', Bill does a "Hurr hurr hurr" laugh every time the titular Ice Cream Bunny is on screen. Also, pretty much any time someone in a bunny costume appears in any movie.

* ADegreeInUseless: Mocked during their time with "Fatal Combat". The film's hero is a college professor who teaches a graduate course in the study of "warriorism", which has an extremely heavy workload and doesn't sound like it actually teaches the students anything besides passivity in the face of violence. It's supposed to explain why he'll eventually win a televised deathsport, but the riffers have a lot of fun with the movie's idea that grad students paying a lot of tuition would choose something so useless for their master's degree.

* HollywoodPudgy: [[invoked]] Parodied during ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanTheCurseOfTheBlackPearl'', where there's a RunningGag about how fat the slim Creator/KeiraKnightley is. On the other hand, they also make cracks about her flat chest, but the guys are ''never'' above contradicting themselves to make a joke.
** At one point during ''{{Film/Transformers}}'', Kevin calls Creator/MeganFox a "porker".

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Joked about several times in various riffs. Perhaps the best example is when Bill flat-out sprints to get away from having to do ''Film/TransformersDarkOfTheMoon''. He moves faster than a 50 year comedian has any right to.

* NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer: During the ''[[Recap/DoctorWho20thASTheFiveDoctors The Five Doctors]]'' live, Bill, as TheBrigadier, laments that no one calls him by name, saying that it's [[OverlyLongName Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart]]. He immediately tells the audience to Google it if they don't believe him.

[[caption-width-right:350:''[-"We don't make movies, we make them funny!"-]'']]

Seven years after ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' went off the air, head writer/star/novelist [[Creator/MikeNelson Michael J. Nelson]] decided to try profiting off the franchise that made him famous via bringing back the whole concept of [[AlternateDVDCommentary riffing on bad movies]] -- but with a twist. Using the format of a podcast, Nelson now riffs on big budget blockbusters that studios would never, ''ever'' let people like Mike make fun of. Hence [=RiffTrax=] was born.

[=RiffTrax=] is a website where you can buy (for $3-5 a file) audio [=MP3s=] of Mike and fellow ''[=MST3K=]'' alumni Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett (aka the second voices of Tom Servo and Crow) making fun of big-budget blockbusters, such as ''Film/BatmanAndRobin'' and the ''Franchise/StarWars'' Prequel Trilogy. Of course, you need to actually own or rent copies of the movies too, since the audio file only contains the snarky commentary. [=RiffTrax=] also releases riffs of educational shorts from the public domain, and lately have been featuring more B-movies (public domain and licensed) with pre-synced audio.

** ''Film/{{Daredevil}}'': When Elektra Natchios introduces herself.

* AcceptableTargets:
** [[Creator/NickNolte Nick. Nolte.]] [[NeverLiveItDown They do NOT let him]] and his rather colored past off for a moment, and any given riff has about a 60% chance of including at least one Nolte gag.
** [[UsefulNotes/FurryFandom Furries]] (and [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Bronies]]).
** Creator/RipTorn's alcoholism.
** Creator/RosieODonnell is another, such as this gem from ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', after Commissioner Loeb [[spoiler:drinks acid]].
--->'''Mike (as Loeb):''' I just thought of Rosie O'Donnell. ''[vomits blood]''
** They are also prone to mocking Arby's, Denny's, ''Series/TheView'', Baconators, the 2006 film ''Film/{{Firewall}}'' (riffs involving Creator/HarrisonFord are especially subject to this), the sitcom ''Series/AccordingToJim'' (at least during its run), [[UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague Daniel Snyder]], Creator/{{Shia LaBeouf}}, Creator/RandyQuaid, and the driving skills of Creator/KelseyGrammer.
** Expect there to be at least one ''Film/{{The Room|2003}}'' reference per riff.
*** There are plenty of references to ''Film/{{Birdemic}}'', too.
** It's tapered off as of late, but older riffs would invariably [[AccidentalPun fire off a shot]] at Music/PhilSpector.
** Comic-Con and its attendees. For the example, from ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheKingdomOfTheCrystalSkull'':
--->''[Dozens of small monkeys crawl over Spalko in a speeding jeep]''\\
'''Bill:''' This is what Creator/NeilGaiman feels like at Comic-Con.
** On a (very slightly) more serious note, the trio has an evident contempt for bigotry either on-screen (i.e. the various examples of UncleTomfoolery they see on a semi-regular basis, or the jawdropping misogyny on display in ''Film/{{The Wicker Man|2006}}'') or off-screen (they lash out a few times at [[HeteronormativeCrusader Anita Bryant]] for her homophobia during a short she narrated) which usually results in them making jokes or comments noticeably more insulting towards the offending party.
** Their contempt for Creator/WoodyAllen has carried over from ''[=MST3K=]'', and if anything has become even more venomous. Epitomized by this quip from ''[[Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheReturnOfTheKing Return of the King]]''.
--->'''Bill:''' ''[Just after Shelob introduces herself]'' Think if Woody Allen was here, he'd say "there's a spider the size of a Buick in this cave" ... aaand then he would take nude pictures of his daughter, applaud Creator/RomanPolanski's child rape, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking call for an Obama dictatorship]].\\
'''Kevin:''' ''[chuckling sarcastically]'' Ah, that Woody.
** A few months after the child-rape accusations against Allen himself returned to the public eye, they obliquely referenced this as well in ''Film/{{Godzilla|1998}}'' by suggesting a destroyed church was what happened when Allen went to confession.
** For whatever reason, Delta Airlines gets regularly savaged, along with their stewardesses.
** Conspiracy theorists who believe in the existence of Lizard People also get mocked.
** In another ''[=MST3K=]'' holdover, the crew aren't big fans of Clamato. They also show disdain for Zima and Bud American Ale.
** In some early episodes, whenever a machine malfunctioned or something was poorly made, Mike would suggest that the Korean car company Kia made it.
** Bill regularly takes digs at the Golden Corral chain of buffet restaurants. These jokes often include references to being a regular customer. Arby's is also the butt of many a joke.
** In the early years, jokes at the expense of transpeople, mainly transwomen. These died off due to negative fan feedback and in particular after an incident where Bill had made a trans joke on Website/{{Twitter}}, later making a sincere and heartfelt apology and a promise to do better. The jokes stopped after this.
** A lot of earlier riffs mocked obesity, which hit a peak in the ''[[Film/BirdemicShockAndTerror Birdemic]]'' studio riff, where the team went nonstop on Nathalie's mom for her entire single scene. Fan feedback was rather negative of this instance in particular, leading to the live replacing these with a different set of jokes (all mocking the riffers themselves for telling a fat joke).
*** However, it didn't stop with Nathalie's mom. A later scene has them refer to an average-sized teenage boy as a "fat white kid".

-->'''Cobb: At least we know he'll be looking for a cab in this.\\

* TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou: During ''Film/BatmanAndRobin'', when Mr. Freeze quips that he hates it when people talk during the movie, Bill starts wondering if Freeze can hear them cracking jokes.
** In ''Mutant'', Wings Hauser's character at one point looks off screen, and yells at his brother Mike to shut up. Mike briefly thinks that Wings is yelling at ''him''.

* TheTapeKnewYouWouldSayThat: During ''{{Film/Saw}}'', one of the two characters trapped in a room turns on a tape recorder left by Jigsaw. Bill, as the recording of Jigsaw, says "Give this to the other guy, this is private." Probably meant to parody how Jigsaw seems to have planned for absolutely everything.

** Expect there to be at least one ''Film/TheRoom'' reference per riff.

* AddedAlliterativeAppeal: Bill has pulled off a few of these, usually involving the letter W. An example from ''Film/TheRoom'':

** ''Film/TheRoom'': Every sex scene is greeted with horror, and Kevin's reaction to Creator/TommyWiseau's pasty white rear end is priceless.

** Kevin wonders if Mark from ''Film/TheRoom'' is God based on the fact that he seems to be able to hear the soundtrack.

* HotterAndSexier: Unlike ''MST'', many VOD movies will keep the nudity intact. Sex/rape scenes are still edited, though (see ''Film/FinalJustice''), unless, of course, you're ''Film/TheRoom''.

* LetUsNeverSpeakOfThisAgain: Mike after the attempted sing-along during one of the sex scenes in ''Film/TheRoom''.

The site can be found [[http://www.rifftrax.com/ here]]. [=RiffTrax=] also started Website/{{Kickstarter}} drives, to legally license films for their live shows, first for ''Literature/{{Twilight|2005}}''; while they didn't succeed in getting the rights to ''Twilight''[[note]]The rights holders basically said "Too soon, but maybe in the future"[[/note]], they snagged the 1997 sci-fi cult classic ''Film/StarshipTroopers''. Another Kickstarter was successful enough to not only pick up the notorious American adaptation of ''{{Film/Godzilla|1998}}'', but also reached the crew's stretch goal of obtaining ''Film/{{Anaconda}}''. A third garnered enough funds to create "The Crappening", netting four terrible movies to riff, including a redo of the infamous ''Film/TheRoom''.

On February 21, 2017, a second Kickstarter was launched for three [=RiffTrax=] Live shows, featuring ''Film/SamuraiCop'', Summer Shorts Beach Party, which will reunite many of the old ''[=MST3K=]'' cast once again and a mystery film, which was revealed on March 27, 2017, to be ''[[Recap/DoctorWho20thASTheFiveDoctors The Five Doctors]]''.