Americathon

I will give the film points for being extremely prescient. The year is 1998. The world is completely out of oil and America is deep in debt thanks to dimwit President Chet Roosevelt (Ritter) who was elected by a TV worshiping public merely because of the family name. Sound familiar? Scary! Anyway, Chet and media specialist Riegert decide to hold a 30 day telethon to save America (home to the first gay state North Dakota!). To host it they choose washed up actor Monty Rushmore (Korman), who is now the pill popping star of a cross dressing sitcom called "Both Mother and Father." But sneaky Presidential aide Vincent Vanderhoff (Willard) wants this to fail so the Hebarabs (the Jews and Arabs have joined forces) can take over America. His plan? Booking only ventriloquist acts. Whew!

Wow, how can a film starring Peter Riegert, Harvey Korman, Fred Willard and John Ritter be so painfully unfunny? I only laughed once during this futuristic comedy (at a joke involving Peter Marshall!). Director Neal Israel really blows it here. He has no idea how to set up a proper sight gag and everyone seems so subdued. The whole time I kept thinking how much better it would be if Mel Brooks had directed it. The only lively performance is by Zane Busby as Vietnamese "puke rock" sensation Mouling Jackson. Bizarre cameos include Meat Loaf, Elvis Costello and Jay Leno.

"Americathon" is about the future (1998) where the state of the USA is so bad that it's incompetent president holds a telethon to raise 400 billion dollars. The movie has surprisingly high production values, and the idea sounds good on paper. It's the script and acting that mess things up a bit.

The movie takes a while to start, mostly to squeeze in some future predictions and hit or miss jokes, but once the telethon does start, it is, yet again, mainly hit or miss jokes (mostly miss, but it did get some laughter out of me). The soundtrack was pretty good though.

Now for the acting: In my opinion, it was one of Harvey Norman's weaker performances, and Zane buzby had a really annoying fake accent (that won her "worst fake female accent" in the Stinkers Awards), but other than those and a few other smaller parts, the acting was pretty average.

Overall, it had average to weak acting, and not that good of a script. Although a neat thing about it is that some of the movie's predictions did come true later on (the collapse of the USSR and cellphones for example). 4/10.

Time capsule of 1970's California life-style...or where it seemed to be headed in the next decade. In the opening we see the residents of California living in permanently parked cars and commuting to work via various bicycles, skateboards, and people-powered scooters. John Ritter plays President Chet Roosevelt, a thinly veiled spoof of then California governor and presidential hopeful Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown (he dated roller skating rock star Linda Ronstadt and slept on a futon). This movie asks the question, what if Jerry became president and Linda the "First Girlfriend?" John Ritter's real life wife Nancy Morgan plays Lucy Beth, President Chet's roller-skating girlfriend. In the eighties the United States is broke and the President decides to throw a telethon on television to raise money. At the time this film was made, most television markets had no more than a few stations and watching Jerry Lewis struggle to keep awake during the MDA telethon was an interesting phenomena. Here Harvey Korman hosts an endless list of bad acts that foreshadows the humor of SCTV. Most of the humor here would be lost on anyone too young to remember the 70's or for those who don't really want to remember. Though the film takes place in the "future" eighties, for campy fun Americathon is an interesting time-capsule of the issues ripe for spoofing at the time.

This is a move that has never got the respect it deserves. I loved it the first time I saw it — its creators were previously involved in the Firesign Theatre comedy troupe and they brought the same envelope-pushing irreverent spirit to it that they had to their great records — and ever since I've never forgiven the critics for savaging it on its initial release. It's the late John Ritter's finest big-screen performance, it contains the last truly great song recorded by the original Beach Boys, Elvis Costello's music video is an added bonus, and though some of the satire is a bit dated, much of it — particularly the idea of how drastically life in this country will change when we inevitably run out of oil — holds up beautifully. I haven't seen this in years but I wanted to post this to defend this marvelous film and demand a DVD release pronto. (Put me down as mgconlan from Tijuana Heights.)

From WIKI: Since the storyline was set 20 years into the future, several satirical forecasts were made, nearly all of which, amazingly, have since come true:

The People's Republic of China embracing capitalism and becoming a global economic superpower.

Cliques of Native Americans becoming wealthy (although in reality much of their wealth would come from the gaming industry, mostly from tribal casinos).

Nike becoming a huge multinational conglomerate (In 1979, their "Tailwind" running shoe was just starting to gain popularity).

Vietnam becoming a major tourist attraction among Asia's wealthy and powerful (this was also predicted in Back To The Future Part II, as seen on billboards and on TV commercials, with the airline that takes most Americans there being US Air).

The continued existence and popularity of The Beach Boys in 1998.

The collapse of the USSR.

The depletion of US crude oil production, which, according to Hubbert's Peak theory, was already underway for several years at the time the film was made (Hubbert estimated in 1956 that the year of peak oil extraction in the United States would be 1970.).

Jogging suits becoming fashionable as "casual wear".

Reality television reaching absurd limits. (The telethon includes a boxing match between a mother and son. The son is played by Jay Leno.).

An America with a devalued dollar and heavily in debt to foreign lenders.

Network television dealing with previously taboo subjects accepted as normal. (Monty Rushmore stars in the sit-com, "Both Father and Mother", and plays a cross-dressing single father in the titular role. The film's narrative also mentions "The Schlong Show", a game show where contestants are judged by their reproductive organs.)

Smoking being banned.

A great increase in homelessness (Homelessness began to greatly increase in major U.S. cities during the recession of 1982 and the simultaneous cutting of the Section 8 program by the Reagan Administration).