Merry Riffmas from Mystery Science Theater 3000

Like a good action sequence don’t belong at Christmas?

Mystery Science Theater 3000 is, of course, associated with Thanksgiving more than any other holiday. The show itself debuted in its KTMA version on Thanksgiving Day 1988 as part of a science fiction marathon. The first official Comedy Central Turkey Day marathon was held in 1991, and it’s been an erratic tradition ever since—considerably helped by the streaming era, when The Gauntlet in fact was the debut of a Netflix season on Thanksgiving Day. There’s even a Shout! Factory box set labeled “A Thanksgiving Marathon in a Box.” The fan base has been trained, and we respond.

That said, Christmas is not itself unknown on the Satellite of Love. Experiment #321, also known as “season 3 episode 21,” featured Joel and the Bots being forced to watch Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, interrupted among other things with the beloved “(Let’s Have a) Patrick Swayze Christmas,” which I personally listened to when he died. Experiment #521 has Mike and the Bots watching the bizarre Mexican import Santa Claus, featuring a heated battle for a child’s soul, and the song “Merry Christmas . . . If That’s Okay.” Even later seasons and hosts got in on the fun, with Experiment #1113 being Il Natale Che Quasi Non Fu, or The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t, and a trio of hosts in Experiment #1313, the final episode so far, being The Christmas Dragon.

Why? Well, for one thing, as we’ve seen, the field of Christmas movies is rife with terrible examples. I would rather sit through an unriffed Santa Claus than ever watch Elf Bowling again, I can tell you that, and tomorrow’s movie is at least as bad, I’m sure. There are also lots of bad movies of the exact level of bad that works best for the show. There are probably more movies related to Christmas than any other holiday, and that means easy pickings for the show.

It’s also true that, if people’s Christmas experiences are not universal, they do hold a certain level of commonality. It’s easy to make jokes about the family arguments, the presents that aren’t quite what you want, and the presents that are nothing like what you want. Even people who have never seen a fruitcake in their lives get the outline of fruitcake jokes. The good Christmas media is pervasive enough that my entire generation grew up referring to Charlie Brown Christmas trees with no further explanation of what we were talking about. When Bert decides to give Ernie a soapdish to put Rubber Ducky in for Christmas, the rest of the story is immediately obvious to us.

If your family does something truly bonkers for the holidays, that’s even better. There are even more jokes about that. . Both sides of my own family were gifts-first, and my partner’s family is meal-first—but the meal is a couple of hours after you’re expected to get there, so it’s “sit around and not talk to one another because they don’t really do small talk” first. His brother or sister-in-law started putting out a puzzle because at least that was something to do.

I suppose the main reason that Riffmas is so pervasive through the years is that Christmas is a time to be expected to be happy even if you’re not. To pretend to like the thing you’re given whether it’s literally what you’ve always wanted or something that will sit in the bottom of a drawer until it’s yard sale time. At least if you’re riffing over the movie, you’re allowed to vent those feelings of annoyance and frustration. The gloves are off, and while we all want to see Lupita get her dolly, we don’t have to care if the rich parents find the true spirit of Christmas or not.

I’m not a total Scrooge, let’s be clear. There are definite aspects of my own childhood Christmas that I miss, even though my family celebrates a different winter holiday and Christmas is spent quietly not really doing much. We don’t even visit my mom—her birthday was yesterday and we generally see her some time between Christmas and her birthday, when there’s less stress. But I like picking out presents for my loved ones. I like my mom’s gingerbread recipe, even if I don’t have a bowl big enough to make it myself—it’s an industrial recipe, literally, from Santa’s Village in the San Bernardino Mountains. I like good Christmas movies; we just haven’t done many this year.

But, yes, there will always be a room for a good action sequence at Christmas. Or you could worship a guy whose name is Greg. I don’t know the quotes from the newer Christmas episodes, because they haven’t had decades to work their ways into my brain, but I’m here for a riffed mediocre-to-bad Christmas movie any time they want to present me with one. The RiffTrax guys have done solid work in the same way; “Rudolph, I need you tonight” isn’t even there line and will live rent free in my head until the day I die. And my Candy Lion ornament is hanging across the room from me as I write this. Merry Riffmas one and all.