TVSquad

The first nationally-broadcast live Rifftrax event successfully piped a horrible movie and plenty of witty banter into more than 400 movie theaters coast to coast Thursday night.

Originating from Nashville, Tenn., Michael J. Nelson, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy went all Mystery Science Theater 3000 on Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space before a live audience.

With only a couple technical glitches that delayed the hilarity for a few seconds here or there, Fathom Events broadcast the event to movie theaters nationwide, allowing thousands of fans to experience a successful riff live and more or less in-person.

This isn't the first time the team took on Plan 9 as the trio performed over the movie live and on DVD. But, the guys were smart enough to introduce some new one-liners here and there to give veteran Rifftrax viewers something new to laugh about.

With a crowd warmed up by songs from Jonathan Coulton and comedy shorts from Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka, the Rifftrax boys gave the crowd what they wanted -- a painful movie made pleasurable by professional mockery (with hot dogs for the kids and balloons for mom).

The only clunky part of the evening proved to be host Veronica Belmont of Tekzilla on Revision3 and Qore on the PlayStation Network. Normally smart, polished and quick-witted when it comes to everything nerdy (like Rifftrax or MST3K), Belmont read off of scripted notes all night and stumbled through a few cricket-inducing one-liners. You just wanted to tell her to relax and have a good time. And, if she hosts the group's next live event, hopefully she will.

But that's quibbling. Give Rifftrax credit for pulling off their first nationwide event and setting up the template for more live riffs in the future