Alternate Names For RiffTrax (by Conor Lastowka)

NOTE: This post was first published on December 12th, 2018 on Drip

What’s up everybody? Conor Lastowka, RiffTrax Writer/Producer here. Thank you for joining us here on Drip. I found the scrap of napkin that had the Kickstarter login and password scribbled on it, and since I’m avoiding doing real work (YES, watching a garbage Canadian Christopher Lee movie from the 70s counts as ‘real’ work, thank you)  I thought I would share something from the earliest days of the RiffTrax archives with you.

The day was June 27th, 2006. Turmoil was engulfing the Central African Republic, Axl Rose had just been arrested in Sweden for biting a security guard on the leg, and a fledgling internet comedy site was looking for a name.

I was working as a Production Assistant for a company called Legend Films. I spent my days mailing out Shirley Temple DVDs, sorting hard drives, and answering emails from angry octogenarians wondering where the hell their Shirley Temple DVDs were. Every now and then I would get to do basic editing for a DVD special feature like “Ed Wood wearing a woman’s sweater” (for some reason this seemed notable?).

All of that changed when Mike Nelson moved to town with the idea of trying to launch a comedy site. This was my chance: all I had to do was convince a guy who had been the head writer and host of a TV show that frequently shows up in “Best comedies of all time” lists that I was funny. I did this the recommended way: extreme overcompensation. Tossing off observations I’d rehearsed in the shower as if they were spontaneous, constantly making sure it was noticed that I was listening to comedy podcasts, and doing way more work than was necessary on extremely minor tasks. It also didn’t help that I was the only one at the office willing to go out with Mike and have several beers at lunch. 

One of these minor tasks was coming up with a name for this comedy site. Mike mentioned that the way fans used to refer to the jokes on MST3K was “riffing”, and the individual jokes were called Riffs. It is my recollection that the meeting went very much like the one on The Simpsons where they decided on a name for Poochie (https://youtu.be/Xlf2G0O_VY0?t=74). Mike said, “So we could call it, I dunno... RiffTrax... But something better than that!” Then he left to go have several beers at lunch.

But this time I did not join him! There would be more opportunities in the future if I played my cards right! Instead, I retreated to my computer, dashed off a list of fifty-one potential names, several of them not 100% terrible, and after reading through them all, Mike said “Yeah, we’ll just go with RiffTrax.”

He did, however, appreciate the effort. I remember him taking note of “Riffs on a Plane” since that must have been during the three day stretch that people were not completely sick of that movie.

So, here they are, folks - fifty-one names that RiffTrax could have been called. Would we still be around eleven years later if we’d been called The Hawley-Smoot TarRiff? We would not. But it would have been funny for the three weeks it lasted.

A Mighty Riff
All Your Riffs Are Belong To Us (allyourriffs.com)
Beware of the Riff
Brutus The Barber Riffcake
Continental Rifft
Count Riffula
eRiffing
iRiffing
Joel Riffkin
Lord of the Riff
Mike Nelson's Mid-Riff
Mike Nelson's Priffileged Information
Mike-U-Mentary
Old Man Riffer
Red Riff Inn
Revenge of the Riff
Riff Clavin
Riff County
Riff Master Mike
Riff Notes
Riff U
Riff Ville
Riff, Jr.
Riffalodeon
Rifferdance
Rifference Desk
Riffersnappers
Riffin'
Riffin' 2: Electric Boogaloo
Riffle Ball
Riff-on (as in "Get yer riff-on with Mike Nelson")
Riff-O-Rama
RIFFr
Riffs on a Plane
Riffster
Rifftasia
Riffy & Scratchy
Son of a Riff
Super TerRiffic Happy Hour
Sync Issues
The Hawley Smoot TarRiff
The Riff, The Riff, The Riff is on Fire
The Riffening
The Riffing
The RiffPod
University of Riffology
Vitamin Riff
Ye Olde Riffe Shoppe
Riffador 64
Riffstation
Rifftris

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You can follow Conor on Twitter at @clastowka.