Blackmoor Vituperative

RiffTrax recently announced a soon-to-be-released riff of the Gumby movie. (Is it “a” Gumby movie? Did Gumby do more than one?) I asked if it was the actual movie, or if 10-20 minutes had been cut from it for the RiffTrax riff. No one seemed to know, but a number of “fans” complained that I would ask such a thing. “Good luck with that.” “Maybe RiffTrax isn’t for you.” “Maybe it’s time to move on.” etc.

I think these must be newer RiffTrax fans. That makes me happy (yay, new fans!), but also a little sad. Because you know, for about a decade, “is this the movie you say it is?” wasn’t even something you needed to ask. You could buy a riff knowing nothing else than it was from RiffTrax, and be happy you did. If they said they had riffed the movie, you could trust that it was true. “We don’t make movies: we make them funny.” Those were some good times.

Is it time to move on?

Someone in the above discussion said something like “they’ll survive without your ten dollars”, which got me thinking: how much have I been spending on this? I’ve been buying RiffTrax since the beginning (14 or 15 years, I think), but my current records only go back about six years. In the past six years, I have been supporting RiffTrax at the cost of $400 per year ($398.33, to be exact). I was happy to pay that, for all of those years… until this recent trend of selling incomplete riffs became the norm. And it is the norm, I am sad to admit: they have said point-blank that this is what they do now. It’s their livelihood, and they have to do what they think is best for the business. So I guess the question is if what they do now is still worth that much to me. And I think I have known this for a while, but I just didn’t want to admit it: it’s not.

Thank you, RiffTrax crew (and Film Crew, before that), for over a decade of good times. I wish you and your new fans nothing but the best.

P.S. They cut about 15 minutes from that Gumby movie.