A week ago today the San Francisco SkechFest wrapped up another year’s schedule. Luckily for us, SketchFest Seattle friends and local stand-ups Doug and Rosalie Gale (who, incidentally, happened to be featured in a PI article this past Monday) were in the city by the bay for the festival. Though they only caught one act, the currently-ill Rosalie sent us this cough-syrup-fueled review:
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When Doug told me that he wanted to go to San Francisco for his birthday to see the Mystery Science Theater 3000 guys take part in the San Fran SketchFest, I was skeptical at best. You see, my first experience with MST3K was the 20 boxes of video tapes that Doug moved into our 2 square foot large apartment. Hmmmm, I wondered, “Is it possible that I married a nerd?” Yes it is, and I did.
Last Christmas (yes, I called it Christmas) we started a tradition of watching a Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie on Christmas day. The first one was horribly non-pc and had children from different parts of the world dressed up and acting very stereotypically. Then I think Santa Claus had to fight the devil? In any case, I didn’t know what to expect.
We got a hotel room right down the street from Cobbs Comedy Club and decided we would go as soon as the doors opened – an hour and a half before the show started – so we could get good seats. There was already a line when we got there, which is always a pretty good indicator that whatever you’re going to see is gonna be fucking spectacular.
Cobbs made me want to quit doing stand up. It was huge, clean, well run and obviously made lots of money. I love Seattle, and I know I’ve always been told that we have kind of an underdog comedy scene, but it really didn’t hit home until we walked into Cobbs. Amazing. Quite honestly though, I think I prefer the quaint, kinda stinky charm of a basement club, as opposed to the monstrosity of Cobbs. But that’s just my personal opinion.
The SketchFest programs were all glossy and everything seemed to be spelled correctly. That is disappointing to me because I like to point out other people’s errors. Oh well. We had a round of drinks before the show started and checked out the lineup for the rest of San Fran SketchFest. Granted, I know nothing about Sketch Comedy or who’s who in that realm, but they were going to have Kasper Hauser and I recognize them because I bought Doug their very hilarious Sky Maul book for Christmas (yes, I said it again). It seems like the San Fran folks mix in a bunch of stand up comedy with their Fest and I was sad that we didn’t get to see more of that. Will Franken was going to be there and I would have loved to have seen him. He seems crazy.
So the show starts and the guys (from L to R: Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett and Michael J. Nelson) start doing kind of a clumsy bit about what movie they’re going to be commenting on. One of them says, “Anything, as long as it’s not Daredevil.” Well, it was Daredevil. Huzzah! One of the guys at our table was pissed because he had sworn never to watch that movie. And now he had just flown to San Francisco to see it.
The actual movie/performance etc, was absolutely hilarious. We all loved it. I wish I could think of more specifics, but it’s just kind of a blurry wash of Redhook, funny one-liners and a movie so awful it made me think I should write a screen play. I think my favorite line of the evening was when the Daredevil dude, played by Ben Affleck, was sorting out his money (he’s supposedly blind in the movie) and one of the MST3K guys says, “Look, Ben Folds Fives.” The place exploded. When it was over, we walked back to the hotel, yelling out our favorite lines which, again, I wish I could remember.
Now I want to download and watch all of their new “RiffTrax.” It’s their “legalish” approach to the MST3K experience and involves renting the movie on your own and just playing their soundtrack in synch. They said they did the trailer to Titanic, and had the captain of the ship standing on the deck before they launch saying, “I’m gonna sink this bitch.”
HA! Can’t wait.
