Bill Corbett

A brand new riff for MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE

RiffTrax: MANOS is one week from TONIGHT.

Something I’m not sure we at RiffTrax have made clear to fans of the classic MST3K version of MANOS: next week’s show will be a completely rewritten riff. Yep. We did the whole thing over from scratch. WHAT IS WRONG WITH US? I do not know. But I can guarantee that this is a fresh, artisanally-crafted bunch of jokes about Torgo and the whole creepy gang.

This is not to say that the original is not great! It is indeed, and you may have been enjoying it for many years. So we felt like we owed you a fresh take. IN FACT: we felt so strongly about it that we asked our two younger writers, Conor Lastowka and Sean Thomason — who were not familiar with the original before this project — to go over the first draft of our script for next week, run it while watching the original MST3K MANOS, and flag any jokes that seemed copycat-ish so we could change ‘em.

Not surprisingly, there were a few places where the riffs were close to the original. And there were 2 or 3 places where the riffs were amazingly close. (Maybe there are only so many ways to comment on the Master staring morosely into the camera.) In any case, we specifically changed those riffs.

This may mean we have a lot of integrity. Or it may mean we are very, very stupid to pass up on so many classic funny lines. Maybe both, maybe neither. But here we are, charging ahead like a dumb 1960s family on an aimless Texas vacation. Wheeee!

I hope you can join us next week. It should be fun. MANOS plus two suitably weird opening short films, including one from the makers of the very popular AT YOUR FINGERTIPS: GRASSES. (Before you ask: YES.)

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One week from tonight!

FOR INFORMATION AND TICKETS (OF FATE) —> RIGHT HERE