The Spoony Experiment was an online program hosted by Noah Antwiler, aka The Spoony One. While his program is pretty much defunct and he has become reclusive, his work was some of the best online comedy you could find out in the Intertubes. He made it clear his love and fandom for MST3K (his blue-robot mascot was an attempt to do his own MST3K-like program), and while most of his content was him making humorous reviews over games and movies a la the Angry Video Game Nerd, he has actually performed a few actual MST3K/RiffTrax like full length commentaries, mostly on obscure Work Training Videos and multimedia games. I’d like to showcase some of his work here, as I watch these as frequently as I do MST3K and feel they are on par with some of their own best efforts (he also snags a few classic riffs from MST3K, but who hasn’t?).
The first, and my personal favorite, is his riffing of Dragon Strike, a VHS instructional manual that introduces players to the mechanics of a Dungeons & Dragons like board game with some hilarious LARP-ing. One of the LARPers is Deron McBee, most famous to sports entertainment enthusiasts as Malibu from American Gladiators. Despite the incredibly dated graphics and hammy acting, it’s an entertaining video, and Spoony makes it all the more so. The fact that he riffs solo and nails the humor is all the better.
As a warning, there might be some off-color humor and some language that shouldn’t be too much worse than what you’d hear on the show, plus a series of tree puns. You’ve been warned.
His film reviews are also fun. He was the one who introduced me to Yor: The Hunter From The Future. He followed it up with an annual tribute to Reb Brown movies - Rebruary!
Well worth checking out if you’re a fan of Blast Hardcheese.
He had so much genuine talent, and it’s a shame his inner demons eventually took over as much as they did. I actually still have the Dragon Strike game, complete with that VHS tape, so that was especially fun to see.
For real! I enjoyed Space Mutiny well enough, but I didn’t really get how prolific Reb Brown was in B-movie knock offs, like Robowar, Strike Commando, and Mercenary Fighters (We can’t! The press!). Spoony’s Reb Brown showcase really made me appreciate the guy, and I would be perfectly fine with MST3K picking up his films for their own “Rebruary” showcase.
As someone with chronic fatigue caused by multiple medical conditions, this whole thread was very confusing to me at first. That is not at all what I’m used to “spoonie” meaning.
Never heard of “spoonie” until now. Spoony gets his name from the English translation of the 1991 Super Nintendo RPG “Final Fantasy IV” (FF2 when released in the states) when one character derisively refers to another as “You Spoony Bard!”. Being a D&D enthusiast, he incorporated it into campaign and later his online personality.
Sorry to hear of your conditions and fatigue. I hope you’re able to accomplish as much as possible with your spoons. Stay strong and take life one day at a time! And hopefully you’ll find humor in this thread!
I worked at Wal-Mart for 2 years, and I remember the training video was of Garth Brooks telling us that if he weren’t a famous musician earning millions and millions year after year, he’d love to work at Wal-Mart because of all the benefits. The grossest disingenuous bull-crap I’d ever seen that practically set the tone of my 2 years at that crap market. Always wanted to find a copy uploaded that I could now laugh at being 16 years removed from that garbage.
Yeah. At one point I was desperate enough to apply for a job at Home Depot. I still walked after being sat down to watch a propaganda video talking about how great it was to work for a company that didn’t require union membership.
I had been following him on Twitter… he hasn’t posted in a long time now. He’s had it rough with depression and stuff. Hope he’s ok. But yes, his stuff was amazing.
Definitely hoping the lack of tweeting is him finally leaving Twitter and fixing things for himself. Kinda like the ending of Good Will Hunting, where Chuckie’s wish to one day knock on his door only for Will to have left to better things.
His Phantasmagoria 2: A Puzzle of the Flesh playthrough is still one of my absolute favorites. I re-watched it a couple years ago and it held up surprisingly well.
Agreed. I’m not big into Let’s Plays, usually because it’s hard for the gamers to stay on point both in game and as an entertainer, but Spoony’s LP’s for that and Ripper are classic. I’ll be honest, I’d totally be for some kind of MST3K/RiffTrax program where people riff on bad cinematic video games.
