The concept of fan-made audio commentary tracks is not all that new, and groups like Renegade Commentaries, MMM Commentaries and Mockworthy have been recording them and releasing them online as MP3s for some time now. But it looks like the trend is about to get a major boost in popularity as Michael J. Nelson, the head writer and star of Mystery Science Theater 3000, has just launched his own series of running MP3 commentaries called RiffTrax. This time, however, Nelson is poking fun at recent mainstream movies instead of old b-movies, and his first subject is none other than Pat Swayze’s modern classic Road House (next in line: The Fifth Element). The only thing I can see preventing this from taking off like crazy is the fact that each RiffTrax costs $1.99 to download. Not overly expensive, but still, if I were Nelson I would at least offer the first few for free, and then jack up the price afterwards (there is a short sample from Road House provided on the site, for those who are curious).

The other interesting thing I found in reading up on all this is that there is now a free Windows program out there called Sharecrow, which takes care of the audio synching issue inherent to MP3 commentary tracks. Pop in a DVD to your computer’s DVD-Rom, load up an mp3 commentary, and then hit play. What a great idea. I bet we’ll be hearing about more interesting applications for this in the coming months.