Best visual riffs

What are the best riffs you’ve seen where it’s the visual effects of the hosts and the bots that really sell it?

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Crow looking in a car mirror and saying “Hey, me!” in It Lives By Night. Bill’s delivery is killer.

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Always liked it when Joel would get up do things like pretend to turn a knob, lean over a table or peak over a railing.

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There was a point where they would stop doing it, but there were instances in Season 3 and 4 where a shocking moment or revelation would make Crow’s jaw drop in silent shock. I missed that.

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In Project Moonbase, when General Greene is reciting some space flight physics exposition and Joel holds up cue cards for him. Also like Servo miming the uprighting of the rocket in The Time Travelers.

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Another favorite is Joel holding up Batman-esque sound effects during a fight scene in a Commando Cody short in the Project Moonbase episode.

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I think the best has to be Joel just happening to decide he should open his umbrella in the theater to block out the naked couple getting friendly in the water tower at the start of City Limits.

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It felt like the drones gag in Avalanche was something of a spiritual successor to the City Limits umbrella gag.

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Joel & co. also did several gags like that in Cinematic Titanic.

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That’s one of my favorites too. I also in that vein like Tom flying up and trying to see through the towels in the newest Hercules episode.

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I immediately thought of the Batman fight scene. I think there was another point in season 1 where Joel brought in some giant props. So fun.

I do love the silhouette interactions in general. Like when they duck away from a car driving over the camera, or where someone kicks a ball at the lower right corner of the screen and Jonah “gets hit” by it.

But there are some great “blink and you miss it” moments. Not my favorite, but it stands out in my memory: Half an hour into The Unearthly where a woman in a skirt walks past the center of the screen, and Tom very quickly ducks at just the right angle to try to look up. Looking upskirt is creepy and wrong, but he can’t actually see anything, any more than Joel can put his hand in the movie guy’s pocket or pull himself up and look over the desk or fiddle with the knobs on the blinky science machine. It sticks in my memory more because I missed it entirely my first few times watching the episode. I just happened to be looking in the right place at the right time to catch him tilting oddly and it took a sec to realize why. I love subtle little touches like that.

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Yeah, Joel was having a lot of fun with those visual gags. I think two episodes earlier, Robot Monster, Joel was going to throw a giant dart at an onscreen dartboard, but Servo talks him down. And as @Sitting_Duck pointed out, Project Moonbase had those cue cards, too.

Along those lines, I love the gang panicking as they fear they’re about to hit the gate near the beginning of Ring of Terror.

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That reminds me of the bit in First Spaceship on Venus where there’s some huge rotating thing that keeps coming toward the screen and they keep thinking it’s going to hit them. Also, that episode is the one where they try to catch the credits before they recede.

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One thing I enjoy is revisiting episodes I haven’t seen in a long time. So it was with First Spaceship on Venus. And while it’s a drier movie, sure, it’s a better episode than I remembered.

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Always hilarious whenever Trace’s Crow attempts to eat anything that’s close enough to him (people, cars, hamburgers, etc).

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I love when Tom kisses people on the screen. He did that in Fugitive Alien. In Skydivers he blew out the candle.

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That, in turn, reminds me of another great moment: Joel and Servo spitting into the guy’s hat in The Giant Gila Monster.

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Caught a subtle one last night while watching The Slime People. As the film’s characters are catching up on overlit newsreels that reveal just what has happened to Los Angeles–as if this wouldn’t be major, widely reported, earth-shattering news–the shadow of a woman briefly intrudes on the shot from the right. Crow immediately cranes his head as if trying to see who caused this, acknowledging the interruption at the same time I was saying to myself, “Who the heck was that?!” Blink and you’ll miss it.

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The use of drones on the provocative orange juice scene in: “Avalanche”

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