Piacere, Wally Sparks

Wally Sparks (Rodney Dangerfield) is the loud-mouthed host of a trashy daytime talk show. His boss Lenny Spencer (Burt Reynolds) threatens to cancel the show due to sponsor pressure. He is given a week to change the tenure of the show. He attends a party of conservative critic Georgia Governor Floyd Preston (David Ogden Stiers) which turns into publicity bonanza.

This is pure Dangerfield in his character and the quality of the movies that he leads. It's low brow comedy. He's crass and he's good at it. He remains the loveable everyman. It doesn't really make sense for him to stay in the mansion but making sense is not the highest priority. It has its fun but it doesn't really hold together. It's a bad good bad comedy.

I first saw MEET WALLY SPARKS on the usa network late one night and I have to say that MEET WALLY SPARKS is Rodney Dangerfield's best movie. Unlike most of his other movies where there are only a few funny bits, MEET WALLY SPARKS is funny throughout the whole movie. Pretty much every single one of the jokes are about sex-related material which isn't a complaint, just a statement. I really think that Rodney Dangerfield and Peter Basil did wrte a great script and a very funny movie. Director Peter Baldwin did a good job too for his first movie [he's directed several television shows]. If you like Rodney Dangerfield, you'll love MEET WALLY SPARKS.

"Meet Wally Sparks" is a screwball comedy in the vein of an Adam Sandler vehicle or latter-day "National Lampoon" movie. Sure, it's dumb. Sure, it's cheap. Sure, there's no Palm D'Or award sitting on the director's shelf. But some movies are not destined for accolades or AFI lists or anything above the $8.99-and-under used video rack at Blockbuster.

This movie has a drunken horse, three Southern ladies (one of them Cindy Williams) dancing in their skivvies to "Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On", a fight between Sumo wrestlers and WWF stars, and Tony Danza reprising his role as Tony from "Taxi" doing a Rodney Dangerfield impression. Oh, and lest it be overlooked, RODNEY FRIGGIN' DANGERFIELD.

Come on. It's goofy, it's fun, it doesn't cost more than the price of a pack of cigarettes to own. Rodney and Oscar may not mix, but live-action cartoons and Rodney go pretty well together.

A lot of energy was put into this movie. Dangerfield has some funny one-liners, but a lot of them are not funny, or you'll guess before he utters them. The plot is alternately meandering or frozen for long periods of time. (And the plot should have stayed at the talk show subject, not some dumb plot about Dangerfield crashing a govenor's pad.) Replay the climatic interview scene after watching it once - you'll see that some of Dangerfield's actions don't make that much sense. Also, see how many times the director shoots Dangerfield from the neck down - obviously, it's a stunt double.

A memo to Burt Reynolds: don't wear that particular toupee again.

Comedian Rodney Dangerfield took on the topic of shock TV in Meet Wally Sparks. A few sparks a generated, but it helps if you have an appreciation for the Police Academy films to enjoy this film. Which I do somewhat.

Meet Wally Sparks also borrows liberally from the plot of The Man Who Came To Dinner. In this case Dangerfield in the title role becomes the man who stayed at the governor's mansion.

Georgia Governor David Ogden Stiers who slips as neatly into a southern accent as he did a Boston one as Charles Emerson Winchester in MASH is advised that he can score a few cheap political points as a 'family values' candidate by attacking the outrageous talk show host Wally Sparks. Which gets a response from Sparks for Stiers to guest on his show and explain his objections.

Then Stiers's son Glenn Walker Harris, Jr. steals an invite to a campaign fundraiser and sends it to Dangerfield who then comes down to Atlanta and promptly injures himself, necessitating he not be moved from there.

After The Man Who Came To Dinner, the film then digresses into a pale imitation of The Fortune Cookie as it turns out Dangerfield isn't half as hurt as he makes out. All that was missing was Walter Matthau threatening to sue to the state of Georgia. Talk about deep pockets.

The humor is pretty crude, not unlike what you see on these shows. But it's actually done with a gentle hand. There were some lost opportunities in this film to make some valid points. As did those two other far better satirical films which Meet Wally Sparks liberally borrowed from.

Still fans of the late Rodney Dangerfeld will respect the film and will some others, just not enough.