Two preview clips from my feature-length Video On Demand iRiff, available Nov. 5 at Rifftrax.com.

Three classic Fun With Shorts videos are now available for sale on iRiffs, a new feature of Rifftrax.com. “Dating Dos and Don’ts,” “Cindy Goes To a Party,” and “The Fun of Being Thoughtful” are available as video-on-demand for a negligible $.75/each!

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[BUMP AND UPDATE] - The track is now available for purchase and download. It’s only $3!

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RiffTrax has released another pithy commentary - this time for the Joel Schumacher atrocity “Batman & Robin.” This riff is unique, however, as it was written and edited by fans and then recorded by Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett in their inimitable style.

Somehow, amidst the never ending schedule of writing and drawing the strip, I made the time to watch this turkey through a couple of times and write some jokes. About three hundred jokes. It hurt. It hurt real good. But last night it paid off as I listened to the finished product. In addition to the hundreds of very funny jokes by other avid MST3K/Rifftrax fans, I was delighted to hear that about twenty of my own jokes were used - including a long rant at the very end of the movie. All in all, a great thrill and an oddly rewarding experience.

That said, I must warn you that watching “Batman & Robin,” even with the aid of hilarious commentary, can cause irreversible damage to the human brain. Proceed with caution.

Nah, not really. But my main dudes over at RiffTrax (Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett) have “riffed” the inane 1961 short “A Visit to Santa,” which I featured on Fun With Shorts last year. I haven’t seen the whole thing, but in the brief YouTube sample clip they make the exact same joke I did about the children’s shrill, muffled voices. Below is the RiffTrax clip, followed by my full version. Happy Christmas.

Here’s the sample clip of Mike Nelson’s RiffTrax for the Star Wars Holiday Special. If you’ve never seen this atrocity before, this is only the tip of the iceberg. This isn’t one of the MUSICAL NUMBERS.

Sorry for no mushy Thanksgiving post this year. I’ve been otherwise occupied. The holiday weekend, which really began Wednesday night, was so crazy that I got majorly behind on Chronicle. Last night and today have been all about catching up (I’m doing fine now).

I haven’t complained about a movie on this site in a while. My general philosophy of late has been to ignore lame things and forgo the outrage. Then came “Transformers.”

First, the disclaimer: I would never have watching a single frame of “Transformers” if RiffTrax hadn’t released a commentary for it. I’m clearly not the target audience. But even my rock-bottom expectations didn’t prepare me for how soul-crushingly loud, vapid, and irritating this three-hour commercial is.

But that’s the shocker: the fact that “Transformers” is a Hasbro-produced, product-placement-laden marketing atrocity is the least of its offenses. It’s hard for me to be snobby about an advertisement disguised as entertainment as I pop Lego Star Wars into my PS3. What makes this movie so painful is the way director Michael Bay takes what could maybe be a fun, dumb summer movie (that I still wouldn’t want to see) and turns it into an assault on the senses that rivals the noise and chaos of the D-Day sequence in “Saving Private Ryan” with none of the pathos or meaning.

As with all Michael Bay films, the humor of “Transformers” is forced, obtuse, and sometimes offensive. I don’t know what it is, but Bay has a penchant for racial humor that isn’t very… humorous. The movie’s breakout star Shia LeBouf may be talented, but he’s given nothing to do here but mumble and mug. It’s an atrocious performance, though it’s clearly not his fault.

Not quite sure why I’m telling you all of this. It’s not like you even brought it up. Anyway, I just didn’t like it is all.

Happy holidays!

Frivolous busywork? Don’t mind if I do! I’m designing slim DVD inserts for every episode of MST, starting at the beginning. Some of the fans on the boards have expressed interest, so I’ll be setting up a download site. Score one for obsessive hobbies!

My covers can be downloaded at mst3k.joshway.com.

When the guys at RiffTrax announced that “internet sensation” Chad Vader would be joining Mike and Kevin for a commentary on Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, fans weren’t sure what to think or expect. We’re kinda protective of our MST alumni, and suspicious of any outsiders (for proof just search the RiffTrax Forum for threads about SomethingAwful.com’s Lowtax and his appearance on the Troll 2 commentary). Turns out there was nothing to worry about, as the commentary itself and the short video above are very very funny.

It’s getting very hard to defend the growing pile of crap films on top of my filing cabinet. I’m in this RiffTrax thing for the long haul, but I’ve found myself thinking how embarrassed I’d be if someone broke into my house and saw these.

Rifftrax’s has updated there site. Now you can rank the Rfftrax. Find Rifftrax by Release Date, Movie Title, User Rating, and Genre. Plus a Gift Shop with Dvd and T-shirts and Now you have to setup an account to buy anything. But what i really found intresting was in the fun area. Under Fun Stuff they have a section for Videos, Games, Fan Art, and Fan Riffs. So it just made me wonder are they going to let people submit there own Fan Riff to put on there website. Anyways i like the new look and i was just wondering what you guys think.

P.s. i saw the trialer to Troll 2 and it looks like a cross between Hobgoblins and Ernest Scared Stupid. Should be good.

Next week (1/26 to be precise) Mike, Kevin and Bill will be “riffing” Battlefield Earth, the Holy Grail of crappy movies. Should be a good one. Also, available now: Ben Affleck in Daredevil.

Don’t know if you’ve noticed but “Cracked” Magazine has revamped their image and gone from a Mad clone to a sort of Entertainment Weekly about comedy. It’s a bit too “now” and “edgy” for its own good, but it’s not bad. And they have good taste in columnists, hiring Maddox, Michael Ian Black, and my buddy* Mike Nelson.

Mike’s latest column, which has been posted online, lists five movies that he calls “Snob Classics,” movie comedies that he considers pretentious and decidedly unfunny. The article has sparked some backlash from fans of the movies listed. I like a few of them very much myself, but I do understand his point.

Read the article for Mike’s explanations, but here are the movies he lists:

• Diner (Kevin Bacon, Steve Guttenberg)
• Being John Malkovich (John Cusack, Cameron Diaz)
• Dr. Strangelove (Peter Sellers, George C. Scott)
• Annie Hall (Woody Allen, Diane Keaton)
• Rushmore (Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray)

I’ve never seen Diner and I didn’t much care for Malkovich or Annie Hall. I love Strangelove and Rushmore, though of the two I’d only really defend Strangelove as a classic. I think it really lives up to its reputation as one of the all-time great satires.

In the end it’s just a matter of personal preference, but if you love one of these movies I’m sure you’ll appreciate this opportunity to write an outraged manifesto on the subject. Have at it.

*I do not know Mike Nelson.  At least that’s what he’ll tell you.

Mike Nelson’s RiffTrax has just released a commentary for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. I haven’t listened to it yet, but I’m very excited. Thanks to modernish technology, we get to see a Star Wars prequel given the MST3K treatment. They also “riffed” The Matrix last week. Both mp3s are available from their site for $2.99 each.

You guys know the drill. I love Mystery Science Theater 3000, I rue the day it was canceled, I spend far too much time feverishly seeking DVD upgrades of every episode, etc. It has often been said that MST3K will never return, even in a compromised incarnation, due to how much more difficult and expensive it became to obtain the rights to the movies once the show became popular.

This harsh reality makes Mike Nelson’s new web site RiffTrax even more of a triumph and a revelation. Through the miracle of remotely hosted compressed audio and the space-age wonder of the iPod, Nelson is distributing pithy audio commentaries for films he would never have been able to tackle on MST3K. For just $1.99, dorks like me and you can download an unprotected MP3 file containing Mike’s running commentary on his personal favorite bad movie, Road House. Put the file on your iPod, pop in the DVD, and voila - you’re watching a terrible movie with a very funny dude. A commentary for The Fifth Element also became available this past weekend.

While this truly is THE greatest idea since man first forged tools from the rocks around him, I wouldn’t call it perfect. Mike is hilarious, and in the case of Road House he really is something of an authority, but I do think he would do better to involve some of the other MST cast members should they be available. There’s already a rumor of a Mike/Bill/Kevin RiffTrax commentary for Titanic. That would be so awesome as to hospitalize me.

It’s not ideal syncing an iPod up with a DVD, so many industrious fans have authored their own DVDs, mixing the RiffTrax commentary with the film’s soundtrack. For example, I have done this. It’s a relatively simple process and makes it a little easier to enjoy.

http://www.rifftrax.com