The Kentucky Fried Movie

There's something to be said for any movie that actually has a character named "Enormous Genitals". This is the first movie by the Zucker Brothers, the same geniuses that brought us Airplane, Top Secret and the Naked Gun movies. Haven't seen this yet? Pull up a nice comfy chair and get ready for 90 of the most hilarious minutes of film you can find. Cleopatra Schwartz is a riot, A Fistful Of Yen is the best spoof of Enter The Dragon or any Kung Fu film ever. The mock commercials are funny too. Anybody with Attention Deficit Disorder like me, this is the movie for you. It never stops moving, not for a minute. Henry Gibson's bit roll in this will have you laughing for days. But it's Samuel L. Bronkowitz's presentation of Catholic High School Girls In Trouble that will sit in you the longest. Best line: "Show me your/you're nuts! They certainly have.

"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.

Kentucky Fried Movie is one of those movies that throws so much at you that it doesn't matter if every joke sticks or not due to the sheer number of them. Personal favourites within the movie are the extended sequence that mimics Japanese chop socky films titled A Fistful Of Yen. It is so dead on that I couldn't stop laughing. The previews for the blaxploitation flick Cleopatra Schwartz and Catholic High School Girls in Trouble are also very high up on my list of funny moments from the film. As I said, not every joke works but there are so many of them that you can forgive the ones that don't. Not all the humour is for everyone. You have to keep in mind that this film was made in a time when political correctness just didn't exist. And good on it. Its meant to be funny at all costs and it is. We need more movies like this and less like Scary Movie. What happened to the days when a spoof was funny and not wink wink aren't we clever about it?

Unlike many similar movies in this genre from the 70s, Kentucky Fried Movie is generally comprised of vignettes that do not simply resort to mean-spirited and base jokes, such as those about bodily emanations and racial or ethnic stereotyping. Rather, the skits tend to have an almost "sweet" tone about them. They employ humor and gags not intended to offend, though they might, if handled by other writers, as the content can be pretty darned provocative.

Coming from me, this should mean a lot. My very own mother is depicted in the most-memorable "Catholic High School Girls in Trouble" segment: "Mrs. Burke" -- from the 1968 POST Grape-Nuts commercial -- played here by Gwen Van Dam. (You can see the real "Mrs. Burke" at the Burke Family Grape-Nuts Archives)

As the son of a most virtuous Catholic mother, herself quite unlike the character in this film, I might easily be offended. Yet, in this case, I feel honored to see my mom's name roll in the credits of this clever flick.

Many of the skits are excellent. The much praised piece, "A Fistful of Yen" (the spoof on Bruce Lee's classic "Enter the Dragon"), is so well done, it truly merits the distinction, "a must see."

I would certainly recommend this film to any adult who is not likely to be offended by nudity and sexual themes. It's a lot of fun!

Adam Burke

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.