Life is Like a Mop

 Words of Wisdom:

"Sometimes, you just hafta take what life gives ya, 'cause life is like a mop! And sometimes life gets full of dirt and crud and bugs and hairballs and stuff. You... you... you gotta clean it out. You... you... you gotta put it in here and rinse it off and start all over again and, and sometimes... sometimes life sticks to the floor so bad you know a mop, a mop... it's not good enough. It's not good enough. You... you gotta get down there, like, with a toothbrush, you know, and you gotta... you gotta really scrub 'cause you gotta get it off. You gotta really try to get it off. But if that doesn't work... that doesn't work, you can't give up. You gotta... you gotta stand right up. You... you gotta run to a window and say, "Hey! These floors are dirty as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!"

-Stanley Spadowski- 

 

And you know folks, that's really what it's all about. If life hands you a bucket of oranges, you have to say well, I didn't want lemonade anyway, and just go with it.  

Weird Al Yankovic has been a presence in the comedy/music world for going on 40+ years.  He got a start by recording a demo for Dr. Demento, a DJ who had a specialty program that played odd and funny songs.  What Weird Al gave him was a parody song he wrote based on the hit song at the time by The Knack, "My Sharona", called "My Bologna". 

The concept of parodying popular songs did not originate with Yankovic. I think that honor probably belongs to Spike Jones, a 40's era band leader who made a career out of doing goofy versions of big band songs complete with odd "musical instruments".  Wikipedia describes his output as "ballads...punctuated with gunshots, whistles, cowbells, hiccups, burps and weird and comedic vocals."

But Weird Al took it a step further.  Jones didn't often alter the main gist of the song, although he did add some extraneous stuff. (In particular, on a cover of "My Old Flame", he added a bit of dialogue from a Peter Lorre impersonator). Weird Al, on the other hand, wrote an entirely different set of lyrics, playing on a kind of "misheard lyrics" theme. Ex. He wrote "Like a Sturgeon", a parody of Madonna's hit "Like A Surgeon".

 And he parlayed that parody career into the film industry. Of course, his first recognition came as a result of videos of his songs. My favorite is "I Lost on Jeopardy", a parody of a Greg Kihn song called "Jeopardy", in which Al proves to be one of the worst contestants ever on the game show. If you haven't seen it, you really should. It featured Art Fleming and Don Pardo from the original "Jeopardy" game show, as well as Kihn, who apparently loved Al's parody. 

He became such a recognizable face that he often appeared in cameos in films.  (He was in every one of the Leslie Nielsen Naked Gun movies). Recently he even had a role in the biopic film of his life, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. But as near as I can tell, he only had one film in which he was the star, UHF.

UHF (1989):

George is a ne'er-do-well who just can't seem to get the hang of the working life.  This is primarily due to the fact that he constantly daydreams while on the job.  The opening itself is one of those daydreams where he imagines himself as an Indiana Jones type on a quest in the jungle, this while trying to do a job as a fry cook at the burger shop Big Edna's. Big Edna fires both him and his clueless friend, Bob (David Bowe).

But the ever optimistic George thinks that success is just around the corner.  Fortunately for him, Al's Uncle Harvey (Stanley Brock) has just won the deed to a local UHF station, U62.

(A note here for those of you younger than about 50. Back in the days before cable there were only three major TV networks, ABC, CBS and ABC. Outside of that most major cities had a few non-standard TV networks, referred to as UHF stations, which aired syndicated programs (reruns), old movies and various other local programs.)

Harvey doesn't know what he is going to do with this UHF station, but his wife, and George's favorite aunt, Esther (Sue Ann Langdon) convinces Harvey to put George in charge.  George's first order of business is to try to get the station on the radar with the public, which is going to be a challenge.  The station itself is the equivalent of George's own personal life; inconsistent, unfocused and generally on the loser side of the spectrum.

But George is a dreamer.  And he comes up with a program of shows (involving many of his friends) to get the station out of the doldrums. And only in the fantasy world of offbeat cinema are ANY of thses shows hits. Not at first, of course. But they do catch on.

One of the hit shows is Raul's Wild Kingdom, which involves a buddy, Raul , who likes to keep wild animals in his apartment. Leading to one of the many bits that make this incoherent movie such a funny movie. Raul gets a delivery of animals. 

Delivery Guy: "Let's see, I got  one aardvark, one flamingo, four porcupines, two armadillos, three badgers..."

Raul: "Badgers? Badgers??!! We don't need no steenkin' badgers!"

In the midst of all of the struggle to get the station running in the black we have a rival station, a real bona fide "normal" one, run by a ruthless and tactless character named R. J. Fletcher (Kevin McCarthy) who just has to be number one in the ratings. 

He is not threatened by this upstart rival, that is not until the upstart rival starts getting its shows rated higher than the ones at Fletcher's station... Now, this means war!

As a subplot (what the hell, they are really ALL subplots), the shows continue through transformations.  For instance, originally George was the host of a children's show called Uncle Nutzy's Playhouse, but George "Uncle Nutzy" could not connect with the kids. Enter Stanley Spadowski (Michael Richards), a guy who is the station's janitor (and a bit of a mental "giant") who takes over. One of his lines in the show (quoted at the start of this piece, and also the source of the title of the blog entry) is a huge hit. (Only in the Weird Al film world...)

As a side to all the drama involved in the main story, George is trying to keep his own romantic relationship on track. George's girlfriend, Teri (Victoria Jackson), is becoming frustrated with George's lack of initiative. She tries her best to get him to straighten up and buckle down and become a productive member of society, but it is an uphill battle.

To just encapsulate this movie is quite frankly impossible.  I would have to resort to quotes, and some of them hinge on being able to visually see the scene in question to really get the full impact. For instance, just watch this clip:

See? If I had just said three Japanese guys jump out of a supplies closet and shouted "Supplies!" it would have not had the same impact. 

The ultimate battle between George and Fletcher comes down to the need to raise some money to save the UHF station from the clutches of Fletcher, who, of course, does not want the station for it's potential profits. He wants it so he can shut it down.

So in the grand old tradition of the likes of an Andy Hardy movie, what is George's solution?  Why, a telethon (much like PBS and their annual telethons to raise money to keep PBS afloat. Only with more comic turns in it in 5 minutes than a full night's programming has on that other highbrow network...)

A list of the cast of characters involved in the U62 lineup is indicative of the type of stuff that Weird Al infused into this film:

We have the rising star Stanley Spadowski (Michael Richards) of Stanley Spadowski's Playhouse:

Raul (Trinidad Silva) of Raul's Wild Kingdom:

Kuni (Gedde Watanabe) on Wheel of Fish:

Philo (Anthony Geary) on Secrets of the Universe: 

And let's not forget the outstanding news team of reporter Pamela Finklestein (Fran Drescher) and her cameraman Noodles MacIntosh (Billy Barty):

 

The essence of UHF is basically one convoluted daydream of George. Think of it as an ADHD fantasy. It's not exactly Amazon Women on the Moon in terms of no stream of plot, since the background of George's battle with Fletcher et.al. delivers something to hold the parodies and skits together, but if you are not paying attention to the story, it still has it's own merit as a comedy.

And one of the things that I think when watching George's attempts to try to find entertaining programming is: Is anything that's on the current real world TV of NBC, ABC and CBS any better. My opinion is a resounding "NO!". I don't even watch network TV because it's mostly pretty useless and repetitive... Hell, I'd take Wheel of Fish over anything I've recently watched. But then, I loved The Gong Show, a game show which basically had a host making fun of his show's contestants in much the same way.

UHF, needless to say, was not a huge hit, which explains why Yankovic never made another solo movie. It didn't even clear enough money to break even ($6 million budget, but only $5 million in tickets).  And of course, the classic "no fun" team of Siskel and Ebert pretty much trashed the film.  But it does have it's own niche of fans. It is currently rated at 6.9 out of 10 on IMDb and has a 63% on the Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes. The "cult movie" status is enough to give me hope that one day Weird Al will be ranked up there with some of the greats, if not with the likes of Brando or Fonda, at least with the likes of  Bruce Campbell and Tim Curry.

UHF is currently available online. You can watch the entire extravaganza for free if you want.

That wraps up this time. Hope you have a good day.  Me, I'm going to go check out how to make plutonium from common household items.  (Thanks, Philo.)

Quiggy

Gold Gems

This is my first entry in the Vincent Price Blogathon hosted by Realweegiemidget Reviews and Cinematic Catharsis

From the TV cartoon series Pinky and the Brain:

Pinky:  "What are we going to do tonight, Brain?"
The Brain: "Same thing we do every night, Pinky...try to take over the world!"
























Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965)
Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966):


The essence of American International's Dr. Goldfoot movies is parody.  The hit movie series of the 60's was Sean Connery and his James Bond films.  The most recent one of these had been Goldfinger (1964).  Dr. Goldfoot was an evil scientist, who like many of Bond's nemeses, had a goal to try to take over the world.

In the first outlet for the series, Dr. Goldfoot's nefarious plan is creating girl robots who entice rich men, marry them and then drain them dry financially, to the benefit, of course, of Dr. Goldfoot.

In the second entry, Dr. Goldfoot, in cahoots with the Chinese, endeavors to start World War II between the Russians and the Americans, the ultimate goal being to destroy the two superpowers and divide the spoils between the Chinese and our "hero", Dr. Goldfoot.  To enable this, first Dr. Goldfoot sends his newly developed girl robots, accompanied with bombs, to blow up the NATO generals.  Then he hijacks an American plane with a hydrogen bomb, to blow up Moscow.

The agent, if you can call him that, is from Security Intelligence Command (S.I.C., which is pronounced "sick", leading to a couple of snickering moments when the agent says he is a "S.I.C. agent").  In the first film, the agent is played by Frankie Avalon and in the second the agent is played by Fabian, both heralding back to American International's popular "beach movies".  (In fact, in one scene in Bikini Machine, Annette Funicello makes a guest cameo.)

Both movies are highlighted by an elaborate slapstick chase.  In the first movie it is Dr. Goldfoot chasing the agents and in the second it is the agents chasing Dr. Goldfoot and his cohorts.  In both the chase is just a ploy to extend the length of the movie with numerous sight gags, regardless of the plausibility.  (i.e. a streetcar that leaves its rails and rolls down the highway or a hot air balloon that manages to keep pace with a jet airliner.)

In between you get Vincent Price at his campy best.  Sure, Price made a great evil villain, but he could pull off comedy pretty damn decently, too.  Neither of the Goldfoot entries are anywhere close to classics in the comedy realm.  And there are some flaws in the second entry.  For one thing the Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs film serves not only as a sequel to the first movie, but it was also made as a sequel to a favorite Italian series.  Hence the appearance of Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrrassia as a pair of Italian dolts who help our secret agent in his quest to stop Goldfoot.

For those Mario Bava fans in the crowd, it may disconcert you to know that Bava was the director of the second feature.  Definitely not up to the standards of Black Sabbath or Kill, Baby, Kill, and maybe Bava fans have a right to be disappointed.  It would be the only time that classic horror actor Price teamed up with classic horror director Bava and that's a shame.

These movies are fun, but I highly doubt they are re-watchable, even for Price fans.  But since you are probably qurantined at least for part of the day right now, it can make for a somewhat enjoyable break from all that housekeeping or whatever it is you are doing to keep active.

Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy

 

Attention Deficit Disorder on Steroids

John Landis, Joe Dante and several other directors teamed up in 1987 to deliver a paean to late night TV watching that ranks in the top 20 of my favorite comedies.  The format of the movie features a low budget sci-fi movie called "Amazon Women on the Moon" which a Tv station keeps trying unsuccessfully to broadcast "without commercial interruptions" but is consistently having to deal with the film breaking and thus having to put the viewing audience on standby.

Amazon Women on the Moon (1987):

An unseen TV watcher is thus channel surfing trying to find something to watch, occasionally going back to the station broadcasting the film.  Thus we are treated to a couple dozen vignettes that represent the programming on other TV stations.  The highlight for me is a segment in which a man and his wife (Lou Jacobi and Erica Yohn) are checking out his new TV which supposedly has excellent reception, but a glitch in the electronics zaps the guy and he wanders through some of the TV segments begging his wife to get him out of the situation.

In the meantime our unseen TV viewer who keeps changing the channels stops on several stations, and watches a few commercials and TV shows.  This is the glue, such as it is, that holds the film together.

Among the segments is a pretty cool parody of the 70's Leonard Nimoy hosted TV show "In Search Of..." and of "Ripley's Believe it or Not".  The show, hosted by Henry Silva, is titled "Bull**** or Not?" and this particular episode discusses whether Jack the Ripper may have actually been The Loch Ness Monster.

In another segment an infomercial tells how balding men can live a life of glamor with "real" hair by having segments of floor carpeting stapled to their bald pate.

"Critic's Corner" involves two smarmy movie critics, kinda like Siskel & Ebert, (played by radio show team of Barkley and Lohman.  I never heard of them either, but apparently they were a huge hit on LA radio for a number of years.).  The two introduce a new segment of their show in which they critique the life of an average Joe, Harvey Pitnik (Archie Hahn), who coincidentally happens to be watching the critics on TV and is exasperated by their comments on his less than spectacular life.

David Alan Grier appears in two segments as singer Don Simmons, one of which is a segment touting his greatest hits and another in which B. B. King enlists support for a charity for "Blacks Without Soul".  (Don "No Soul" Simmons is basically an African-American version of Pat Boone...)

In one scene a young man (Matt Adler) tries to surreptitiously buy a package of condoms only to find himself as the center of attention for being the 1,000,000 customer to buy that particular brand.

Throughout the film our unseen viewer keeps going back to the station showing the classic low budget sci fi movie of the title,  which feature Steve Forrest as the commander of a spaceship trying to engage in a battle of wits with the leader (Sybil Danning) of an all-women race of inhabitants on the Moon.    If you've seen enough of these low budget types of sci-fi movies from the 50's you will appreciate the zingers the film gets off at this genre.

This is only a handful of the segments within the film.  There are a whole host of cameos in this film, some familiar and some maybe not so familiar to you.  The cast reads like a who's who of late 80's character actors, including Rosanna Arquette, Paul Bartel, Ed Begley, Jr., Ralph Bellamy, Andrew Dice Clay, Griffin Dunne, Carrie Fisher, Steve Guttenberg, Arsenio Hall, Phil Hartman, Peter Horton, Mike Mazurki, Marc McClure and Michelle Pfeiffer.  It also includes in one rather gauche but still funny segment, involving a roast at a funeral, appearances by well-known comedians Steve Allen, Charlie Callas, Rip Taylor, Slappy White and Henny Youngman.

Be warned.  There are a couple of scenes of nudity in the film.  After all, two of the cameos are by Playboy and Penthouse models.  And there is a reason that the top of the movie poster above includes the word "Shameless".   It is not a movie for the prude, in other words.

Well folks, time to fire up the retro-rockets and go back to the planet I came from (wherever that is).  Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy

 

In the Name of Science

This is my first entry in the Movie Scientist Blogathon hosted by Christina Wehner and Silver Screenings

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra  is an homage to, and a parody of the science fiction movies of the 50's.  If you haven't seen a lot of the sci-fi and horror movies from the 50's and 60's that were made on the cheap, such as The Brain that Wouldn't Die and Teenage Zombies (both reviewed on here at an earlier date), much of the humor may escape you.  Suffice to say, the stilted dialogue and over-exposition done in this movie is a direct parody of what happened often in such movies of the earlier era.

Larry Blamire and the rest of the cast may or may not be recognizable to the average viewer.  With the exception of Blamire, however, most of the actors have been active in the film industry, and if you are like me and have a good memory for faces, you might even remember some of them.   Fay Masterson, for instance, who here plays the scientist's wife, appears in Cops and Robbersons (a Chevy Chase comedy),  The Quick and the Dead, Eyes Wide Shut  and Fifty Shades Darker (the sequel to Fifty Shades of Grey).  Brian Howe, you might remember as one of Clint Eastwood's sons in Gran Torino.  He can also be seen in Catch Me if  You Can, The Pursuit of Happyness, and The Majestic.

Blamire himself is not a prolific director.  He only has a handful of credits to his name, mostly in the area of the same genre as this, witty parodies of 50's style movies.  (One being a sequel to this one, The Lost Skeleton Returns Again).

The Lost Skeleton  of Cadavra (2001)

Filmed in the exciting new innovation of "skeletorama" (the jokes start early here...), the film pans down on Dr. Paul Armstrong (Larry Blamire) and his wife Betty (Fay Masterson).  They are looking for a recently landed meteor which Paul theorizes may contain significant  amounts of that rarest of all elements, "atmosprerium".  In the exposition leading up to them driving to a cabin in the woods we find that Paul is a scientist and wants to experiment on the atmospherium, because it means a lot to "the  field of science".  They stop to ask a farmer who is just standing by the side of the road and ask directions to the cabin.

Meanwhile, another scientist, Dr. Roger Fleming (Brian Howe)  is hiking through the woods seeking Cadavra Cave.  He encounters a ranger standing by the side of the road just hoping for someone to come along who needs help, and gets directions to the cave. (People seem to just stand by the side of the road waiting to be of help in this movie...)  When he arrives at the cave, Roger finds the "lost skeleton of Cadavra" and begins laughing maniacally at his fortune.  Eventually the skeleton begins talking to him and says it needs atmospherium to be able to come to life and take over the world, and induces Roger to help him.

At the same time, a space ship lands (it's only a model...), and two of the most naive and dim-witted aliens ever emerge, Kro-Bar (Andrew Parks) and Lattis (Susan McConnell).  They reveal two of the additional plot devices that drive this movie; 1) that their pet mutant has escaped and is a danger to the people of Earth, and 2) that they need a special ingredient to be able to repeair their ship. what's the element?  Can't you guess...?

The aliens overhear Paul and Betty discussing the meteor and it's contents of atmospherium.  They use their "transmutatron" to change themselves into normal humans  and show up at the cabin, where they pose as two Earthmen, choosing the names Bammin and Tergasso.  Of course, even despite the obvious, Paul and Betty are clueless that something is amiss with their visitors, and invite them in.



A short while later, Roger shows up with a girl that he has made using the transmutatron to change four forest animals, one he has named "Animala" but introduces as his wife, Pammy (Jennifer Blaire).  There are some rather funny scenes here as all of the visitors try to convince the Armstrongs that they are legitimately who they claim to be while each group tries to figure out how to steal the meteor.  To that effect, Roger engenders a deal with the aliens to share the atmospherium if they are successful.  (He knows the truth about the aliens, of course, having seen them use the transmutatron.

Of course, Roger has no intention of actually sharing, and when the plan works he reneges on the deal and takes all the atmospherium for is own purposes.  He brings the skeleton to life, and the skeleton turns out to have some rather strong abilities such as controlling people psychically. The last part of the movie is a rather funny attempt to foil the plans of the skeleton, which includes marrying Lattis in a ceremony.  The mutant plays a role in this, which is enhanced by the fact that the mutant has fallen in love with Betty.

Once again, if you are a devotee of these old grade Z movies which Blamire and crew are skewering, you will see a lot of the tropes that appear in them.  But you don't have to recognize the tropes to be able to enjoy the movie.  The best way to do so if this is your first time is to suspend your expectations of quality Oscar-worthy performances and just watch it as if it were a cheapjack film, which it most certainly is.

Well folks, time to climb back in my spaceship and head home.  Drive safely.

Quiggy