BillCorbett

The Mystery Science Theater 3000 alums at Rifftrax are taking Christmas down a notch in a nationwide event next month, and you can win a trip to sunny San Diego to watch in person.

Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett will team up again with partner and live event specialist Fathom to bring a collection of old-school Christmas shorts to theaters across the country in a live big screen broadcast.

Somehow, those little bite-sized Snickers and Milky Ways you got as Halloween Trick or Treat candy always seemed to taste better than the bigger ones you can snag in any store.

That's kind of the effect you get from watching a new pair of laugh-out-loud Shorts DVDs from Rifftrax -- Wide World of Shorts and Shorts-Tacular Shorts-Stravaganza.

The commentary of Mystery Science Theater 3000 alums Michael J. Nelson, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy can usually make any movie funny. But, the riffs you buy off their website for major feature films can sometimes come with a cost.

For example, the problem with buying the riffs for Twilight or Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is you then have to sit there and watch Twilight or Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. That's a razor's edge trade-off for a few laughs.

Rifftrax, the Mystery Science Theater 3000 descendant written and performed by Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett, is taking its show live to the nation's movie theaters on August 20.

In a move sure to draw desperate MST3K fans from out of their parents' basements (this reporter among them -- though my folks' old house only has a washer/dryer downstairs), Fathom Events will present the Rifftrax trio live in theaters via vid-cast up on the big screen.

They'll take on Ed Wood's classically inept Plan 9 from Outer Space, a movie they've wrestled with on DVD and in past live shows.