Americathon

It's the "future" year of 1998. There is a worldwide oil shortage, and the U.S. of A. has bankrupted itself. The nation is DEEPLY in debt to an Indian billionaire, Sam Birdwater (Chief Dan George), and now he'd like to have his money back. The youthful President, Chet Roosevelt (ever likable John Ritter) hires a media specialist, Eric McMerkin (Peter Riegert), who comes up with a genius idea. The idea is a 30 day telethon devised to get the people of the nation to cough up the dough. But there's a plot by one of the characters to undermine the whole thing, in part by coming up with the lamest acts imaginable.

"Americathon" was an okay movie for this viewer, nothing more. It takes an "Airplane!" / "Naked Gun" approach to its comedy, with lots of detail filling the frame. As co-written (based on the play by Firesign Theatre veterans Phillip Proctor and Peter Bergman) and directed by Neal Israel ("Bachelor Party"), it does have its moments. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes not so much. It has a LOT of energy, but it's a lot of energy spent on a script that isn't that great. Still, as other reviewers have pointed out, it does earn some points for being prophetic with some of its political / social / pop culture gags. It's like Paddy Chayefsky's / Sidney Lumet's "Network" in that way (or, for that matter, "Class of 1984"): while some of the material might have seemed far out at the time, it was predicted with some accuracy.

The actors easily give it 100%, in particular Harvey Korman as the drug addicted emcee of the event, and Zane Buzby as a highly theatrical Vietnamese "puke rocker". Fred Willard, Richard Schaal, and Nancy Morgan (Ritters' wife at the time) co-star, with cameo roles for the likes of Meat Loaf, Elvis Costello, Tommy Lasorda, Jay Leno, Peter Marshall, Allan Arbus, and David Opatoshu. The narration is hilariously spoken by George Carlin.

"Americathon" does offer some fun, and at the least is over fairly quickly.

Six out of 10.

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.

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.)

"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.

Although the politics of this film is firmly rooted in the seventies, the sexuality is firmly rooted in the nineties. Bill Clinton was supposedly a knock off of Jack Kennedy, but he seems to have taken more lessons for John Ritter in this movie.

The mistress, the sleazy show business connections and scandals. This movie is almost scary.