Duelin' Firemen!

Duelin Firemen brings together music, and a love of sort of campy low-budget humor. It's highly stylized, the whole premise is ridiculously absurdist. The pioneering 3DO Game has a beautiful primary hue, and its stocked to the gills with a lot of folks who can inform your cultural leanings. 3DO creatorTrip Hawkins was at the studio one day. I should have talked to him but I didn't know who he was. Trip Hawkins was the Director of Strategy and Marketing at Apple Computer in 1982 when he left to found Electronic Arts (EA) video game publisher. One of Hawkins first big wins was to sign the late John Madden as a spokesperson and a consultant to his company's football game which would eventually lead to the popular Madden NFL series of video games.

Hawkins transitioned from EA in 1991 to form 3DO video game console company. 3DO was formed in partnership with several other companies including EA. Upon its release in 1993, the 3DO was the most powerful video game console at the time. It was also expensive. Sales were poor due to its exorbitant price. Hopes for the system were further damaged in 1994 with the arrival of the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn, both of which were more expensive than the 3DO but had more modern hardware and stronger first party support. While acknowledging the 3DO's failure in the marketplace, Next Generation listed Hawkins in their "75 Most Important People in the Games Industry of 1995", calling him "one of the game market's visionaries."

I saw this "film" out of sheer moronic interest in some of it's stars, King Buzzo, Mark from DEVO, Dr. Timothy Leary, The Boredoms, what's not to like? The answer? Most of this excruciatingly stupid excuse for a short film.

The cut of it I saw ran a mere seven minutes, the first time I watched it, I thought it was slightly funny, upon a second, more sober viewing, this became a torment to watch.

Poor sound and picture, choppy editing, mediocre cinematography and directing, not to mention okay-ish acting, a horrid plot and terrible dialog.

There are only two types of people I'd recommend this to, sadomasochists and LSD addicts.

Fans of any cast members will be miserably disappointed, if you wish to see the cast in better form, rent Hoch Zeit, watch a VH1 rockumentary, track down the "Elevator" episode of Space Ghost: Coast To Coast, go to a screening of The Theory Of De-evolution, or just buy a Boredoms/Melvins/Fantomas/DEVO record, you'll be glad you did.