Alternate DVD Commentary

5 Following

Apparently, Mystery Science Theater 3000 is really popular. With the advent of the DVD Commentary, many, many groups have sprung up to offer their insight onto some of the movies they love, or hate, or love to hate, or hate to love. Some do it much like the original... snarky commentary on bad movies. Some take their favorite movies and add snarky commentary. And some even do snarky commentary on television shows. Whatever the reason, they provide commentaries for your download and enjoyment.

Compare with Let's Play, for Alternate Video Game Commentary.

Examples:

• RiffTrax (created by Mystery Science Theater 3000's Michael J. Nelson and co-starring fellow MST3K alumni Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett, with guest riffers including Mary Jo Pehl [before and after Cinematic Titanic], Bridget Nelson and occasional celebrities) sells audio files to be synched with the viewer's own copy of the movie (obviating the need for rights to resell the video) as well as fully-riffed videos when rights have been obtained.
  • Mike, Kevin, and Bill also collaborated on the short-lived The Film Crew in 2007, which cast the three as lovable working-class schlubs hired by a Pointy-Haired Boss to literally record commentary tracks for the Film Of The Week.
• Cinematic Titanic (created by MST3K's Joel Hodgson and alumni Trace Beaulieu, J. Elvis Weinstein, Frank Conniff and Mary Jo Pehl) did this in live shows until they disbanded in 2013. However, DVDs are available.
• Film Pigs👁 Image
  
• The Spoilers👁 Image
  
• Sharecrow, a program that synched up alternate commentaries to your DVD, was popular during the first few years of the alternate-commentary fad, but after a while it stopped being updated, then the domain registration expired.
• Zarban.com👁 Image
  , a database of Alternate DVD Commentaries. Most of the individual commentating groups on this page are linked to by Zarban, including many fan-submitted Rifftrax (you still have to pay for them).
• "Wizard People, Dear Reader!👁 Image
  " for Harry Potter.
• Hey, Want To Watch A Movie?👁 Image
  By a rotating group of podcasters and Podiobook authors.
• Down in Front👁 Image
  , a podcast which has less to do with snark and more to do with intelligent conversation about whatever film is the subject of that particular week, along with plenty of laughs and tidbits along the way. The creators and hosts are big fans of TV Tropes, and reference various tropes on nearly every episode.
• The Worst Idea of All Time does a commentary for Grown Ups 2, in the guise of the filmmakers.
• Back Row Chatter!👁 Image
  commentary tracks go from snarky to analytical to tangential, depending on the film. During Soul Plane, the commentators resort to talking about health foods in an attempt to avoid actually having to talk about the movie. The commentators repeatedly state that the podcast is meant to work just as well whether or not you're actually watching it.
• A regular event at the Transformers convention Botcon is MSTF👁 Image
  , where a trio of Promoted Fanboys riff on old Transformers episodes.
• Most anime conventions have the "Bad Anime, Bad!" Panel where a few guests (and the entire audience) team up to rip the worst animation Japan has to offer to hilarious, bloody shreds. These panels are notoriously hard to get in to as they tend to fill up quickly.
• Incognito Cinema Warriors XP is a series of these, with season one being full-length riffs on movies released to DVD and season two being riffs on short films being released online (with a feature-length season finale.)
• DVD Podblast.
• Cinematic for the People👁 Image
  is a former local TV show, they post several episodes - complete movies with riffing and host segments - each year to their YouTube channel. They also apparently do live riffing at conventions, both sci-fi and anime.
• You Got HaruhiRolled! has a short story where Fujiwara does this to a recruitment video made by Haruhi Suzumiya's SOS Brigade, where every character acts the opposite of how they do in the rest of the fic, let alone canon. It's a parody of Character Derailment.
• A fan-made commentary track👁 Image
  for The Castle of Cagliostro, and a second one is packaged with the Discotek Media DVD.
• Patreon contributors to the '80s All Over podcast get access to bonus episodes of the show in the weeks between regular episodes. These include full-length commentaries from hosts Scott Weinberg and Drew McWeeney for particular favorite '80s films of theirs. So far, The Fog (1980), Flash Gordon, Used Cars, Popeye, Time Bandits, Strange Brew and The Dead Zone have been covered, allowing them to go into much more detail on the histories of the films and why they enjoy them than they can afford to give in regular episodes.
• Schaffrillas Productions' Shinycast does this from time to time. So far they've done Maximum Overdrive👁 Image
  , Lego Star Wars Holiday Special👁 Image
  , The Muppet Movie👁 Image
  , Christine👁 Image
  , Diary of a Wimpy Kid👁 Image
  , and How the Grinch Stole Christmas👁 Image
  .
• The Shinycast example in turn inspired Watch This, which covers a more broad spectrum of movies than most examples.

And creator-made examples:

• Broken Saints Chapter 19 Act 1 features a hidden audio track that basically consists of the creators goofing around making jokes about the episode and saying the lines in funny voices.
• Commentary! The Musical to Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, naturally.
• During the Russell T Davies era of Doctor Who, episodes were accompanied by two different commentaries. One was a podcast available after original airing and the other being a regular DVD commentary. Sadly, the podcast commentaries halted and even the DVD commentaries are no longer on every episode.
  • The DVD issues of the pre-1989 stories have a couple of examples. "The Five Doctors" had an Promoted Fanboy (and Fangirl) commentary by David Tennant, producer Phil Collinson, and writer Helen Raynor, and "Survival" had an alternate commentary on the final episode only by fans who won a Doctor Who Magazine contest.
• One edition of The Evil Dead had a serious commentary from Sam Raimi and a more tongue-in-cheek/snarky commentary (with some legitimate sections mainly detailing injuries he received on set) from Bruce Campbell.
• The Deluxe Edition of Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter includes a fan commentary by horror filmmakers Adam Green (Hatchet) and Joe Lynch (Wrong Turn 2: Dead End).
• The Ghostbusters commentary track with Harold Ramis, Ivan Reitman and Joe Medjuk use an MST3K-style Shadowrama as well.
• The DVD of The Incredibles includes Mr. Incredible and Pals, a spoof cheapo Clutch Cargo-esque cartoon with an optional commentary track by the "real" Mr. Incredible and Frozone, who are aghast at how bad it is.
• The Matrix DVDs have commentaries from philosophers and movie critics instead of the cast and crew.
• The Pixar short "Mike's New Car" has a commentary track by a couple of kindergarteners on the Pixar Shorts collection and a Monsters, Inc. DVD release.
• The commentaries for My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks and My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Friendship Games are full of RiffTrax-style comments intended for the show's Periphery Demographic. Rainbow Rocks in particular has a Toilet Humor comment about some mystical green smoke (representing the "negative energy" the Sirens feed on) in the cafeteria, some Gag Dubs, Epileptic Trees, and suggestions for fan-made spinoffs.
• The Powerpuff Girls did this twice.
  • The DVD release of the movie have sections where the girls provide commentary.
  • The 10th Anniversary Box Set had two episodes where a character did a commentary - the Mayor did one on "Something's a Ms." and Mojo Jojo on "Slumbering with the Enemy".
  "The City Of Townsville. I am so sick of that line."
• The Rules of Attraction features a commentary track by comedian Carrot Top, who has never seen the film and cracks jokes throughout. This was intended as a meta-joke by director Roger Avary.
• The first season of South Park was released without the already recorded commentary tracks due to issues that Warner Bros., the distributor, had with comments Trey Parker and Matt Stone made about WB properties. Comedy Central had CDs made as part of a mail-in offer as well as for those who ordered the set directly from them. The Blu-ray release by Paramount^note the Season 1 DVD came out when Comedy Central was a joint venture between Time Warner and Viacom, with WB handling home video for all CC programming. The former sold their stake to the latter in 2003, with Paramount taking the home video rights includes them.
• The home release of Step Brothers features the cast and crew providing a musical commentary.
• Cult director John Waters has provided commentary on DVD releases of films that aren't his, such as Christmas Evil and Mommie Dearest.
• Several films have commentaries from the actors... as their characters.
  • One episode of The Boondocks has commentary by Uncle Ruckus, the series' self-hating racist antagonist.
  • One of the commentaries on the Brother Bear DVD is by moose brothers Rutt & Tuke, voiced by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas. You even get MST-like silhouettes when they get up to answer the door for their pizza. Said pizza man then joins the commentary.
  • The DVD release of Bubba Ho-Tep includes a commentary track from Bruce Campbell... as Elvis Presley.
  • The commentary for Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God is MST3K-style by three of the production team acting as three iconic D&D characters Jozan (Cleric), Lidda (Rogue) and Krusk (Barbarian).
  • A bonus feature on the DVD of Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers has Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Pete doing commentary over a scene.
  • Muppets From Space has commentary from the director, Gonzo and Rizzo (with brief appearances by Kermit) complete with MST3K silhouettes. Comments run from the mundane to dream sequences being shot entirely inside someone's head.
  • Some releases of Space Jam have character commentary by Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck.
  • The MGM releases of This Is Spın̈al Tap have commentary from Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer and Michael McKean as the band members they play, attacking director Marty DiBergi for the "hatchet job" he made of them.
  • The commentary track for Tropic Thunder had Robert Downey Jr..... AS Kirk Lazarus AS Lincoln Osiris (his character from the In-Universe film)... doubly hilarious, since Osiris!Lazarus himself claims in the movie proper that he doesn't drop character until after he's recorded the DVD commentary. Apparently he wasn't kidding.
  • Many episodes of VeggieTales have an option called Veggie Commentary. Characters from the show will commentate on various scenes, most notably in "Lord of the Beans" and "The Wonderful Wizard of Ha's". This was taken ever further in Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie when Larry the Cucumber and Mr. Lunt commentate the entire movie.