Amazon Women On The Moon
Sketch comedy films are something that is not only extremely rare, but also many times the exclusive domain of the low budget realm of filmmaking, a realm where such a scattershot style is pretty hit or miss (usually miss) which proves that sketch comedy in and of itself (defined as a genre where a segment lasts anywhere between 5 and 7 minutes in length including character development and execution of the primary joke) is better left to the TV shows that specialize in the format such as Saturday Night Live (at least in their classic Golden Years). The exception for many of course is Kentucky Fried Movie, a surprising box office smash upon its release in 1977 directed with a sure hand by John Landis (en route to directing a number of undisputed classics) and written by the notorious ZAZ trio (Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker) who would go on to Airplane and The Naked Gun films. Featuring a combination of no names and B list stars (including the greatest cameo in history by one Donald Sutherland), the film used its sketch format to ruthlessly parody both 70s movies and pop culture in general, usually with an R rated edge that at times placed it squarely in the realm of political incorrectness with much of it based upon ZAZ’s insane onstage sketches at their own nationally famous Kentucky Fried Theatre. Fast forward 10 years later: Landis’ phenomenal winning streak had been dulled quite a bit by the tragedy involving the death of Vic Morrow on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie. Feeling the time was right, he launched into what he considered to be the sequel to Kentucky Fried and with ZAZ off and busy with their own projects, he decided to try an almost experimental technique by employing two of the top writers from Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show to write all of the sketches for the film (not an unreasonable assignment since Carson himself was known to be fond of running some pretty funny sketches of his own on the show) and then besides himself, Landis would recruit 4 other directors to work on the film (Carl Gottlieb, Robert K. Weiss, Peter Horton and most importantly Joe Dante) with the various sketches being assigned to the different directors to work on simultaneously while Landis himself would have final say as to the order in which they appeared in the film. The actual premise of the film itself (as opposed to a plot) was that everything was playing out in front of the viewer as if they were staying up all night watching late night TV in the 80s with all of the bad movies, bizarre TV shows and crazy commercials that go with it as the framing device would be a botched late night airing of a really bad (and old) science fiction movie that shared the same name of the overall movie itself. Botched because the version of that fictional movie being shown was so badly presented and edited that the film would either stall or jump forward 10 to 20 minutes later in the story(!), usually resulting in commercial interruptions that we would experience (sketches) or the unseen viewer (us) flipping the channel in order to see what else was on (more sketches). What elevates this movie above others of its kind (including Kentucky Fried) was the absolutely extraordinary lineup of big name, 80s actors that they managed to get to appear here, most of them being one shot, one day deals that were mostly set by the casting agents over the phone depending on availability. The film hits the ground running with its first segment featuring Arsenio Hall as an unnamed character coming home to his apartment and (in what was said to be a completely improvised sequence) having his own apartment literally turn on him until he falls out of the window to his death (a lot funnier than it sounds). At this point we’re off and running at a rapid pace jumping next to a “Pethouse Pet” (Monique Gabrielle) being profiled for being a nude model while shown walking around in public naked, Lou Jacobi as an obnoxious new TV owner who gets zapped into his own TV (and sporadically reappears throughout the film), a bizarrely hilarious Hospital bit featuring the then real life married couple Michelle Pfeiffer and Peter Horton as new parents being given the runaround on the whereabouts of their newborn child by a shady doctor (Griffin Dunne) in a segment that features probably the film’s single best line (“That’s not a baby! That’s a Mr. Potato Head!”), an amusing spoof commercial of The Hair Club For Men featuring Joe Pantoliano, a public service announcement by B.B. King on how to help “Blacks Without Soul” (i.e. black people who act white) which features the first appearance in the film of David Alan Grier as Don “No Soul” Simmons (maybe his most famous character) happily singing away while B.B. King talks about him as if he’s disabled (haha), a near showstopping segment (despite having only two characters) featuring Rosanna Arquette and Steve Guttenberg going on a blind date, Henry Silva expertly deadpanning his way through Bullshit Or Not which spoofs shows such as Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! and In Search Of…, the dark, twisted yet still riotously funny two part segment about Harvey Pitnik (Archie Hahn) who suddenly finds two critics on TV trashing his life which enrages him into a fatal heart attack and then at the funeral home during his wake, an all star comedy roast with legends like Steve Allen, Rip Taylor and Henny Youngman trashing him even more, The Video Pirates segment which sees said pirates invading a ship (owned by MCA / Universal) and raiding their valuable supply of original copies of their home video releases, and then in the film’s most brilliantly sustained comedy premise, Son Of The Invisible Man which features that very character (Ed Begley Jr.) trying to copy his father’s invisibility formula and winding up so batshit crazy in the process that he only THINKS he’s invisible when really he’s not (including when he’s naked). You would think that the film would be running out of steam at this point, but no, it actually seems like they saved the best for the final stretch, including having Kelly Preston, Ralph Bellamy and Howard Hesseman come on for the Titan Man segment where a virgin teen goes to buy his first condoms and meets his worst nightmare, the darkly twisted Video Date featuring Russ Meyer as a video store owner who hooks up Marc McClure (sporting a Jimmy Olsen comic book on his coffee table which is funny since he WAS Jimmy Olsen opposite Reeve’s Superman) with a customized porno tape that seems to be going quite well until the angry boyfriend (Andrew Dice Clay) suddenly bursts in with murder on his mind and finally the amazingly surreal Reckless Youth (directed by Dante but considered by Landis to be the single best segment of the whole film which is why he saved it for last) featuring Carrie Fisher as a good girl gone astray who visits a doctor (Paul Bartel) because she has contracted a “social disease” at the hands of a mafia goon (Mike Mazurki) and has now passed it on to her unlucky husband as well. What’s even more amazing than that is that the film actually had deleted segments (available on most DVD and Blu Ray releases) featuring even more big names such as Jenny Agutter, Bernie Casey, Ronny Cox, Bryan Cranston, Wallace Langham, Lyle Talbott, Dick Miller and even Robert Loggia! As for the main wraparound / title segment itself (Amazon Women On The Moon), it expertly parodies those almost insultingly bad science fiction films of the 1950s including having characters carry their “space beams” (flashlights) and featuring Steve Forrest (a perfect choice for a strong, masculine leading man who still wasn’t all that great an actor), John Travolta’s older brother Joey annoying up a storm as his sidekick (complete with a pet monkey mascot who would have no business being on a real space mission), Forrest J. Ackerman as The President (“The Governors of all 48 states are supporting you as the first men on the moon in the year 1980.”), legendary sex goddess Sybil Danning as the Queen Of The Moon and Phil Spector murder victim Lana Clarkson as her even sexier second in command. All in all, the film accurately portrays late night television as being the brain melting, soul numbing mess that it was then and now, but does so with panache and an incredible overall cast (billed in the opening credits as “Lots of actors”) that has to be seen to be believed in terms of just how crazy all of it is…
9/10