American Raspberry

No, this isn't "Kentucky Fried Movie" or "Tunnelvision" (which I haven't seen in YEARS) but it's funny. A few misses and yeah, lots of dated material that, had I not grown up with some of these ads, I just would have found them amusing, not FUNNY. As I watched yesterday and finished up this morning, I could hear people saying, "That's just not funny. That's sick. It's disgusting that someone would find THAT funny after all that's happened." etc. The hunting sequence in Austin really hit me that way. You know what? This movie isn't MEANT to be nice, polite and bland, it's meant to stab you in the funny bone and twist until you can't help but laugh. Making fun of the extreme is great humor. No, not everyone will appreciate it, but not everyone is supposed to. It's like REAL TV, if you don't like it, change the channel.

Now, if I could only find "Tunnelvision" "Grove Tube" somewhere, my collection could be complete.

Closer to Tunnelvision than Groove Tube or Kentucky Fried Movie, in that it has a connecting plot this movie is pretty much 75 minutes of good TV show and commercial spoofs. The central plot has the President of the United States attempting to find out who is behind the decidedly un-family friendly shows that are playing on TVs across America.

For the most part the movie is full of very funny low brow and topical humor. Some of the topical stuff, the Biafra TV dinner for example, will mean nothing to those who weren't around in 1977 when this was made. If you were around then you'll probably find this very funny. Of course some of the jokes are topical once more with a tobacco ad spoof taking aim at organizations like Save the Children. Much of the humor is very pointed and it would probably be a good guess that it helped keep this from ever being widely released (of course the glut of movies like this didn't help either) If you can find this movie its worth taking 75 minutes to give it a shot (though look for it under the name Prime Time). Odds are you won't remember it in the morning but you will get some laughs out of it.

(Probably of interest to no one: The DVD I saw appears to have been made from an unmasked print which frequently allows lights, microphones and other goodies to be seen on the edges of the screen.)

Some unknown source has interrupted all television transmissions around the world. In place of the regular broadcasts, a lineup of extremely tasteless programs and commercials have been substituted.

Oddly, despite a cast of dozens, few known names appear in the film: a young Harry Shearer and Kinky Friedman are probably the best known (though maybe in the 1970s some of these people were better known and I am just too young).

I loved some of the skits: the retroactive abortion, frontier gynecologist, Bad Lucas, and the midget sheriff. Many others got a smile or chuckle out of me. And the very idea of just having short little sketches was perhaps before its time -- today's ADHD folks love "Robot Chicken", which is not unlike this movie.

Not every sketch is funny, and maybe some will appeal more to some people than others... but overall, not bad. Worth a look.

Series of parody skits skewer social topics and television commercials under the pretense of illegal television broadcasts by some unknown group. Some are quite funny while others don't survive the test of time. A few were licensed from National Lampoon. Some of the funniest are the parodies of the U.S. President and his chief arguing about the conspirators and actions to take. The ending is rather sardonic and poignant in light of Gorgeous Georgie and Doofus Dickie. Well produced and directed in spite of limited budget. Available as part of the Drive In 50-movie pack released by Mill Creek Entertainment. Unfortunately, the source print while complete was apparently turning or had lost color and the transfer has many extremely dark areas. But, the comedy doesn't suffer from such. These are similar to skits from the early years of Saturday Night Live.

This one feels like an even-lower-budget and less funny cousin to Kentucky Fried Movie. This has a loose storyline of the government and military officials gathering to deal with the problem of some mysterious forces tampering with the airwaves and airing all sorts of parody commercials, skits and telethons. I probably would've loved this if I saw it when I was 12, but it's clearly intended for adults, and juvenile ones at that.

There's some good tasteless laughs, but mostly pretty poorly paced sketches sometimes leave you guessing the punchline well before you see it. The shorter bits were the funnier ones. The LONG Charlie's Angel parody seems to go on forever since it's really a one-joke premise.

Watch for brief appearances by folks like Harry Shearer and author/musician/politician Kinky Friedman.