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* The Comics Curmudgeon, at joshreads.com, is a critique of the latest installments of various popular newspaper comic strips. The author dissects stories and at work with tongue firmly in cheek, and often with quite funny results. (It's also a good example of why not to register your URL until you're sure what you want to call your web site.)
* McSweeney's, at mcsweeneys.net, is a humor-oriented web site affiliated with a literary journal. So you can imagine that it tends towards the intellectual. But that doesn't mean it's not accessible, or that it's not often pop-culture oriented. The graphic design is stark and simple, and there's one new featured article on the front page each weekday. McSweeney's is responsible for one of my favorite online humor pieces, part of a series called "John Moe's Pop Song Correspondences." The piece in question, at mcsweeneys.net/2005/12/9moe.html, is a scolding letter from the NASA administrator to "rocket man" Elton John complaining about his poor performance as an astronaut, inspired of course by the lyrics to the song "Rocket Man."
* GraphJam, at graphjam.com, is a wonderful user-driven site featuring humor in the form of various pie charts, graphs, Venn diagrams and what have you. It's a lot funnier than it sounds, and it's unexpectedly hard to describe in words. You really have to see it.
* My last link is RiffTrax, at www.rifftrax.com. I actually haven't taken advantage of this site yet, but I want to, and it's fresh in my mind because of an event my brother and sister-in-law attended, which I'll tell you about in a moment.
One of my favorite TV shows was the late and lamented "Mystery Science Theater 3000" (MST3K to its fans), which spent seven years on Comedy Central and then three years on SciFi (now SyFy). This show centered around the screening of a really bad movie; three characters, silhouetted in the bottom right corner of the screen, would deliver a constant stream of wisecracks about the movie as it played.
Although MST3K no longer exists as a TV show, two separate groups of MST3K alumni are still making fun of bad movies. MST3K's creator and original host Joel Hodgson and four other of the show's alumni who moved to the west coast release MST3K-like DVDs under the banner "Cinematic Titanic" (cinematictitanic.com). The show's second host, Mike Nelson, and two other alumni operate out of MST3K's home town, Minneapolis, under the "RiffTrax" name. The RiffTrax program works like this; you rent or buy the original movie on your own and then download the RiffTrax commentary from the web site. You play the RiffTrax on your computer or MP3 player in synch with the movie as it plays on your TV.
Because RiffTrax isn't in the business of selling the original movies, they don't have to negotiate with studios over rights fees and are free to mock a wider range of movies -- including some big-budget or recent disasters that MST3K could never have afforded to show. They even make fun of some good, but over-familiar, movies that can stand up to affectionate ribbing.
Last week, Mike and his RiffTrax crew did an event in Nashville, providing live commentary during a screening of what is often called the worst movie of all time, Ed Wood's "Plan 9 From Outer Space." The event was simulcast at various theaters around the country, and my brother and sister-in-law, believe it or not, celebrated their anniversary at the Raleigh, N.C., location. They had a terrific time, and my brother called me the next day to gloat.
The "Cinematic Titanic" crew also puts on live shows.
So, what are some of your favorite humor sites? E-mail me at jcarney@t-g.com.
--John I. Carney is city editor of the Times-Gazette and covers county government. He is also the author of the self-published novel "Soapstone." His personal web site is lakeneuron.com.
