The Kentucky Fried Movie

Some 30 years ago, when I was around 12 or 13 years old, "The Kentucky Fried Movie" was the first slapstick/absurd spoof type of film I ever watched. I didn't understand half of the jokes and none of the references towards other movies, but it sparked my interest in crazed-out comedy, and particularly the work of the infamous Z. A. Z. Team. "Top Secret", "Airplane!", "Hot Shots!", "The Naked Gun", ... They're all hilarious and great, but their first feature remains unique.

Quite simply, "The Kentucky Fried Movie" is a collection of short and slightly longer sketches that are all spoofing our beloved visual media. Mostly television (like the daily news, commercials & infomercials, reality-TV, ...) but also cinema (with delightful fake trailers, 4D-experience, and - the central sketch - an authentic film parody). The eccentric trailers are my favorite! What I wouldn't give, being the exploitation and trash fanatic that I am, to see the actual full-length versions of "That's Armageddon", "Cleopatra Schwartz", and "Catholic High-School Girls in Trouble". Without properly realizing, the Z. A. Z. Guys invented the concept of fake trailers for this film.

Some gags are weak and unnecessary overlong, but these are widely compensated by many imaginative situations, (pleasantly) provocative satire, juvenile stuff, and so-stupid-it's-hilarious humor. From a mildly offensive boardgame about a Presidential murder to a downright insane sketch called "United appeal for the Dead". The central sketch isn't my favorite, but it's an energetic and joyous spoof of "Enter the Dragon" and James Bond.

Some of this is still jaw droopingly funny even if some isn't, but overall it's always trying something wacky so even if a sketch doesn't work it's not on screen for too long. Loads of nudity and tastelessness, this is a chance to see the Zucker's early work and still worth seeing.

Having laughed out loud and throughly enjoyed both Airplane! movies, I decided to see if the comedy genius trio of Jim Abrahams, Jerry, and David Zucker had any more masterpieces. When I discovered Kentucky Fried Movie, I rented it immediately. Well, I'm gonna say that this is my all-time favorite movie and there will never be a funnier movie made. The laughs in this film are non-stop.The whole entertainment and media industry takes a huge satiric beating, including public service commercials, educational films, and everything else imaginable. The best part is the very last scene when a young couple is getting quite intimate on the couch with the news on the tv in the background. The scene actually makes you stop and think that maybe tv isn't so "mindless" after all. Oh yes, and the theme song is a classic also.....I have it ringing in my head this very minute. If you want a comedy movie with an intriguing, serious storyline to go along with it, rent one of the Airplane! movies but if you don't give crap one about a plot and just want to laugh and not think, rent Kentucky Fried Movie.

"Kentucky Fried Movie" is tasteless, unsophisticated, and decidedly sophomoric... and one of the most hilarious films ever made! A string of politically incorrect segments made by the creators of "Airplane!" and "The Naked Gun", "KFM" is an "R"-rated romp that today, nearly 30 years after its release, would be too shocking to even warrant the dreaded "NC-17" rating. Forget those unfunny amateurs Broken Lizard or the overrated Farrelly Brothers. We're talking naked breasts, oral sex, racial slurs, violence... and yet each segment leaves you delirious from not only laughter but disbelief at the fact that the Zuckers actually go away with all this. I've discovered that it really takes a certain kind of innocence to make a movie like "KFM", a naive belief that people will simply laugh at the crude spectacle of it all. Segments include a wholesome couple listening to a 1950s style "how-to" record on foreplay (wait till you see what the record comes equipped with), a thrill seeker whose trademark stunt is going to a crowd of black men and yelling out the N-word (how bold is this scene? No one has dared imitate it since), and a political debate between two analysts that ends with one of them cheerfully telling the other to "blow it out your a**" and giving them the finger. The highlight is the mini-movie within the movie, "A Fistful of Yen". A parody of all the Bruce Lee films, its hero, Loo, fights the evil Klahn, a one-armed criminal mastermind with a fondness for the phrase "extraordinary magnitude". It also pokes fun at the endless fights from the Lee films, as well as the characters' fractured English (little trivia, the actors really were Asian and spoke poor English in real life, so it wasn't intentional on their parts) The twist ending of "Yen" is one of the goofiest things you ever saw in your life. Despite the often offensive humor of "KFM", it's not a mean film by any means. No one is really safe from the wacky chaos it inflicts, and it's just hilarious. In our time of hand-wringing political correctness, "KFM" offers a cathartic experience of laughing out loud at our fears, prejudices, and, yes, stupidity. This is indeed a finger-lickin' good comedy.

In our millenial DVD culture, we demand plenty of extras and insights. "Kentucky Fried Movie," the little movie that could, delivers it. Regrettably, its successor "Airplane!" didn't. Both movies were made by the famous comedy moviemakers David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker, best known as ZAZ. "Kentucky Fried Movie," or KFM as it is known, was directed by John Landis, who went to big projects as "Animal House" and "The Blues Brothers." As a small movie, KFM would pave the way for the filmmakers successes. But in DVD terms, KFM did a much better job than "Airplane!" with extras aplenty. "Airplane!" only had a trailer and ZAZ's mediocre commentary track, which ZAZ did much better in KFM. As for KFM's extras, they included a hilarious 8-minute home movie which ZAZ proved to their relatives they were making a real movie in Hollywood, a clear-cut photo gallery, bios of ZAZ and John Landis, and the best commentary track they have done so far.

As for KFM, what makes this small movie so special? Although much of the movie is done tastelessly, it is fun tastelessness that everyone in it is enjoying it. There is a lot of nudity and foul language, but it had it's heart in the right place. And as for the cast, there are mostly unknown actors, and many of them are quite attractive and talented, with cameos by more famous actors such as the late Bill Bixby in a headache sketch, Donald Sutherland as a clumsy waiter in a sketch spoofing disaster movies, and "Leave it to Beaver" stars Jerry Mathers and Tony Dow kidding themselves as bickering brother jurors in the courtroom sketch.

This movie, I think, is the best spoof of pop culture I've ever seen, outdoing its predecessor "The Groove Tube," made 3years earlier than KFM and featuring bits by a then-unknown and pre-Saturday Night Live Chevy Chase. One of my favorite skits are "A.M. Today" with a gorilla rampaging the studio, scaring off everyone, while a calm anchorwoman (played by the lovely little-known actress Janice Kent)continues her duties of reporting the news. Another favorite is"Sex Records," with a black couple being instructed on lovemaking by a record until the woman is whisked away by a black muscleman, Yet another favorite is "Feel-A-Round," where a theatre usher listens to the dialogue of a movie, gets out his props to feel a movie goer, even scaring him with a knife when the actress announces she'll cut up her lover with a knife. Then there is the final skit where a newsman from TV has the power to peer into the living room of a young couple having sex, and his crew (well-played by ZAZ themselves) leer on. But the best sketch of all is "A Fistful of Yen," a 17-minute takeoff of Bruce Lee Movies featuring a lisping Karate champ fighting against the master despot Dr. Klahn, who wants to take over the world, and ends with the Hero in Dorothy drag spoofing "The Wizard of Oz."

If you like your DVDs, and of a low-budget movie, KFM delivers the goods. Hopefully, there will be a special edition of "Airplane!" in the future for fans of that movie who were disappointed in the DVD treatment of that great classic , but let's not hold our breaths. But for ZAZ fans, KFM was the best DVD work they have done so far, and it's a special edition in its own right, outshining and outselling "Airplane!" by a substantial margin.