History Podcast / Rifftrax

* LieBackAndThinkOfEngland: Kevin seems to be fond of saying this as a joke; he used it in ''The Matrix'' and ''The Room'', and possibly others.

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 ''Film/{{Twilight}}''; 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''.

** Despite their utter contempt and loathing for the ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' franchise, they find Creator/MichaelSheen genuinely amusing in his gloriously hammed up role, repeatedly collapsing into giggles when he gets particularly "enthusiastic". They also find Creator/ChristopherHeyerdahl's Marcus near equally hilarious.

** This is taken to its logical extreme in one scene of ''[[Literature/{{Twilight}} Breaking Dawn, Part 1]]'', where they spend an ENTIRE scene discussing a painting of a dog face in Bella's room (it's even revisited about 20 minutes later).

** Kevin takes the time to acknowledge that the flashback of Rosalie being raped in ''[[Literature/{{Twilight}} Eclipse]]'' is genuinely disturbing.

** ''[[Film/{{Twilight}} Breaking Dawn Part 1]]'': Bill interprets one of Edward's many bizarre facial contortions as him trying and failing to fart. This starts up a running gag that culminates with Kevin enumerating Edward's flaws, ending with "you can't fart." Bill's response?

** It doesn't stop there, though. From ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'':

** ''Film/{{Twilight}}'':

** Subverted during ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' when Mike starts to praise the plausibility of the love story only for Kevin to hit him with a phonebook.

** ''[[Literature/{{Twilight}} Breaking Dawn Part 2]]'' after the big final battle is [[spoiler:revealed to be a vision of Alice's]].

** And in ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'', "THIS! IS! [-Forks High School: Home of the-] SPARTANS!"

-->'''Mike:''' The silver screen cannot contain the heated passion of ''Literature/{{Twilight}}''!

** During ''Film/{{ROTOR}}'', Kevin says that the baby in ''Literature/{{Twilight}}: Breaking Dawn'' was technically a special ''de''fect.

** The ENTIRETY of ''Literature/{{Twilight}}''.

* ThisIsForEmphasisBitch: In their riff on ''The Literature/{{Twilight}} Saga: Eclipse''.

*** There are plenty of references to ''Film/Birdemic'', too.

* FlatCharacter: They love pointing out and mocking these kinds of characters. Rod from ''{{Film/Birdemic}}'' and Bella of ''{{Literature/Twilight}}'' are of special note.

'''Bill:''' And he looks at his bowl of Trix and he says, "[[PunctuatedForEmphasis THIS! IS!]] [[IncrediblyLamePun 'SPART OF A BALANCED BREAKFAST]]!!!"\\

** Early in ''Film/BatmanAndRobin'', when one of the cops gets hit on the head, for some reason the movie produces a very cartoony "bonk" sound. The guys comment on the poor man's "coconut head". Later on, Kevin makes an IncrediblyLamePun, and Mike smacks him on the head, producing the very same sound effect. Mike then apologizes to Kevin, saying that he forgot about his "coconut head".

* AluminumChristmasTrees: Joked about. In their intro to ''[=RiffTrax=] Special: 90s Cyber Thrillers'', they said the internet was this thing that once existed in TheNineties.
** In the site description for one of the ''Batman'' serials, they state that these shorts are all the information we have about these now-unknown characters.
** A real example: in ''Film/IronMan1'', they joke about the zany investment show Pepper is watching, saying that the real threat to suspension of disbelief is the idea of such an obnoxious show really existing. ''[[https://www.cnbc.com/mad-money/ Mad Money]]'' is in fact a real investment show, and the host was playing a caricature of his TV persona. Though the way the joke is phrased seems to suggest the riffers ''know'' it's a real show, and they were just mocking Jim Kramer.

** "Actually pretty cool" variation: Kevin notes that the flamethrower-shotguns of ''Film/SuperMarioBros'' are actually a lot cooler than the fire flowers in the game.

** The ''Film/SuperMarioBros'' VOD edits out a brief shot of [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror the World Trade Center disintegrating]].

** ''Film/SuperMarioBros'': They give a LongList of the ways the big vehicle chase scene is inferior to ''VideoGame/MarioKart''...before concluding that at least there's no "f*cking Blue Shells".

* PlayingGertrude: During ''Film/TheBourneIdentity'', they keep joking that Creator/JuliaStiles' character looks far too young to be a CIA operative.

** "[[Film/IronMan Obadiah Stane]]? Did they consider naming him Menacing T. Badperson?"

** Bill, in the ''Film/Sharknado 2TheSecondOne'' live:

* TakeThatMe: Combined with HypocriticalHumor. During ''Film/BattlefieldEarth'', Mike comments that it's demeaning for a grown man to wear a jumpsuit, [[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 even for an acting role]].
** The ''Film/Sharknado2TheSecondOne'' live featured a gag mocking ''Film/MeetDave'', which was co-written by Bill.[[note]]For those saying "Bill Corbett wrote ''that?''" Bill has gone on record stating that while he did the first draft of the script, and worked on later drafts, many other writers "romped through the script as well," and the whole suffered from a "too-many-cooks" thing.[[/note]]

* {{Bowdlerize}}: The website edited the track for ''''Film/TheLittleShopOfHorrors'''' to remove a riff in which Mike uses a homophobic slur (a joke that was actually recycled from Mike's solo commentary for the film's DVD release). However, the joke can still be heard in the copy used for streaming services such as Twitch and Pluto TV.

* {{Bowdlerize}}: The website edited the track for ''''Film/TheLittleShopOfHorrors'' to remove a riff in which Mike uses a homophobic slur (a joke that was actually recycled from Mike's solo commentary for the film's DVD release). However, the joke can still be heard in the copy used for streaming services such as Twitch and Pluto TV.

** Notably averted in ''Film/OneGotFat''. Bill is basically traumatized throughout the entire piece. Granted, those ''papier-mâché‎'' chimp masks did plunge pretty far down the UncannyValley.

** Mike points out in ''Film/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix'' that it's utterly rich for Moody to claim that Sirius following them in dog form might "blow the entire operation" when they're surrounded by Muggles.
--->'''Mike:''' Yes, the ''dog'' might attract attention, you ''staff-toting one-eyed goon''.

* OlderThanTheyThink: [[Invoked]] in ''Film/{{Clash of the Titans|2010}}'', when the riffers comment that Myth/GreekMythology is such a rip-off of ''Franchise/StarWars''.

** Mike is practically obsessed with ''Film/RoadHouse'' (once writing an entire book using it as the rubric for SoBadItsGood) and film-related riffs often appear.

** Mike does one at the end of ''Film/RoadHouse'', except it's about all the characters dying in various ways -- he even includes such characters as "the man who wanted to try Dalton" and "the man who encouraged fellow patrons to grope his wife." Afterwards he claims he was joking and in fact everybody lived HappilyEverAfter ... except Tinker.

** The jury's still out on what they DO like but ''Film/RoadHouse'' and ''Film/{{Casablanca}}'' (the riff of which was marketed as a "[=RiffTrax=] Challenge") certainly qualify.

* {{Corpsing}}: More often than not, the guys are laughing along with their own riffs, especially if the material is bizarre. Bill utterly breaks when Mike drops into a Scooby-Doo impression during the live ''Film/{{Night of the Living Dead|1968}}''.

* ArbitrarySkepticism: From ''Nightmare at Noon'', as horses are riding out to weird music.

-->'''Kevin:''' ''[as [[Film/TheMatrix Neo]] discards his empty weapon during [[KillEmAll the climactic lobby shootout]]]'' Ugh, you know what message that sends to the young people out there? That it's okay to just go ahead and throw their semi-automatic rifles on the floor like he just did. Well, shame on you, sir!

* HilariousInHindsight: In the riff for ''Film/TheKarateKidPartIII'' they joke about Terry Silver bribing the judges at the All-Valley Karate Championships. Years later, Silver would return as a character in ''Series/CobraKai'' and do exactly that.

** On the other hand, Kevin was greeted with praise for his minutes-long "Amway Sketch" during ''Film/{{Avatar}}''. Granted, it ''was'' ActuallyPrettyFunny.

** In ''Film/{{Casino Royale|2006}}'', Bill says that M "should use a better password than 'password'" when she is alarmed that Film/JamesBond uses her password.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: InUniverse. Many jokes in ''Film/{{Casino Royale|2006}}'' revolve around the new direction the ''Film/JamesBond'' series took here, and how it wasn't what they'd expected.
* ThisIsReality: They will sometimes joke after watching a character suffer blunt force trauma about how they should be crippled or dead after that. A notable example is in the beginning ''Film/IronMan1'' when Stark gets blown up and falls hundreds of feet.

** They completely ignored what was happening onscreen during the Windu v. Palpatine fight in ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' in favor of listening to one of the gang explain his old family pate recipe.

* ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish:
** In ''Film/{{Casino Royale|2006}}'', Bill says that M "should use a better password than 'password'" when she is alarmed that Film/JamesBond uses her password.
** Kevin invokes this trope by name when Barbara is trying to guess Alfred's password in ''Film/BatmanAndRobin''.