Music was always a big part of Mystery Science Theater 3000. A lot of the intermission sketches featured comedy songs that would somehow relate to whatever movie was playing that week. Sometimes while riffing the movie itself they would also make up a little ditty.
So forming a band wasn't too much of a stretch. According to Wikipedia the Rifftones were formed to enter a contest by the Rifftrax crew of Michael J Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy. On Amazon (and probably iTunes) you can find their 10-track album Music for Riffing. They have more songs that you can probably find on the Rifftrax website. The songs on the album mostly relate to some of the early movies featured on Rifftrax.
1. Plans One Through Nine: This song is inspired by the infamous Plan 9 From Outer Space and answers that question: what were plans 1-8? It goes through some discarded ideas like a giant death ray or mutant spider and a couple that relied on Gary Busey who was too drunk--as you might expect. Bill Corbett does the main vocals with the others on backup. This song was played during the live show of Plan 9 with humorous singer Jonathan Coulton joining in.
2. Reefer Boy: This song is inspired by that classic anti-marijuana propaganda film Reefer Madness. It's done in a reggae style with Kevin Murphy as the titular "reefer boy" and the Jamaican Judge Dread (like dreadlocks) who says the boy blaming reefer for his troubles hasn't the sense God gave cottage cheese. I suppose nowadays someone would complain about "cultural appropriation" but it's still pretty funny.
3. Eat Me: Before the musical version there was the really crappy Roger Corman movie of Little Shop of Horrors. This song is inspired by that movie. Michael J Nelson sings about a guy who wants to be eaten by the giant plant. For whatever reason this song was played during the credits for the live show of Time Chasers, which really had nothing to do with killer plants eating people.
4. (Party at the) House on Haunted Hill: This is inspired by, wait for it, House on Haunted Hill. It's a quick, upbeat diddy where Kevin Murphy basically condenses the plot of the movie where a guy and his wife hold a party in a "haunted" house and try to kill each other. This was played during the credits for the live show of Night of the Living Dead, which is sort of appropriate. Zombies, ghosts, whatevs.
5. Sparkly Vampires: This is the first one not inspired by a Rifftrax video on demand movie. As you'd guess this is about Twilight. Bill Corbett sings the tender ballad of vampires who are sparkly and nice and sweet instead of trying to suck your blood or kill you.
6. Missile to Your Heart: This is inspired by the old movie Missile to the Moon. It's done in the style of Peter Schilling's song "Major Tom (Coming Home)" that was inspired by David Bowie's "Space Oddity." It's got the 80s synth track and Kevin Murphy singing in a German accent about a guy taking a missile to his blue chick on the moon. It's actually my favorite on the album because it's really the best parody song, something like "Weird Al" Yankovic would do.
7. Come to the Carnival: This was inspired by the "classic" horror movie Carnival of Souls. Michael J Nelson sings a creepy ballad about the carnival where dead people chase you around and...yeah, that's about it. It was played during the credits of, wait for it, Carnival of Souls. Whoa, mind blown.
8. Fine: This isn't inspired by a specific movie but the Three Stooges. Kevin Murphy sings the tender ballad dedicated to Larry, the one with the wild hair. It basically describes a gay, sadomasochistic relationship that I never really wanted to contemplate.
9. Zombie Mambo: Inspired by Night of the Living Dead this is a brief track where Kevin Murphy in a reverb voice plays a zombie trying to woo normal people out of their house. Eating you won't be so bad. It'll be totally cool! In the end he says "Screw it, we're coming in." This was played (twice, I think) during the credits for the live show of, wait for it, Night of the Living Dead.
10. Love Theme From "Jaws" (When a Man Loves a Shark): So yeah this is inspired by Jaws. Kevin Murphy sings this ballad about a man who's so in love with the great white shark that he'll let the shark eat him. He'll even tenderize himself to make it easier. It's a funny song but the theme is pretty similar to "Eat Me" in that it's about someone wanting to be eaten by a creature. I guess they ran out of ideas? Appropriately the song was played during the credits for the live show of Sharknado.
There you have it. The whole album is only about 29 minutes so you can listen to it on your lunch break if you want. At least on Amazon there aren't any other albums, which is too bad.
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