Gabrielle Carteris | Through the Shattered Lens

Wally Sparks (Rodney Dangerfield) is a talk show host with a program that is so raunchy that even Jerry Springer says, “At least this isn’t The Wally Sparks Show!”

Despite being a huge hit amongst teens and college students, the show is on the verge of being canceled by the head of the network, Mr. Spencer (Burt Reynolds, wearing a fearsome toupee). He is tired of Wally’s antics and he tells Wally and his producer, Sandy Gallo (Debi Mazar), that they have a week to make the show respectable.

Wally doesn’t know what to do. Wally Sparks act respectable? Wally’s a guy who don’t get no respect, no respect at all. Then Sandy finds a letter inviting Wally to attend a party at the home of Georgia Governor Floyd Patterson (David Ogden Stiers), a noted critic of the show. Hoping to get the interview that will save the show, Wally and Sandy head down south.

At the party, Wally acts like Wally and scandalizes all of the politicians and socialites. He also shares a bottle of whiskey with a horse and then rides the horse through the mansion. The party is a disaster but, after Wally claims that he can’t walk because of a spinal injury he suffered when he fell off the horse, the Governor allows him to recuperate in the mansion. Wally causes more chaos while also teaching the Governor’s wife (Cindy Williams) how to play strip poker and eventually exposing a scheme to blackmail the Governor into building a Confederate-themed amusement park.

Rodney Dangerfield playing a talk show host sounds like a great idea and there are a lot of talented people to be found in Meet Wally Sparks. Debi Mazar is an actress who should have appeared in a lot more movies and she and Rodney Dangerfield make a good team. The movie actually gets off to a funny start, with a montage of actual talk show hosts talking about how much they hate Wally Sparks and his show. Gilbert Gottfried has a cameo as a manic guest and Wally repeats some of Rodney Dangerfield’s classic jokes.

Unfortunately, the movie starts to fall apart as soon as Burt Reynolds threatens to cancel the show for being too lowbrow. No network executive has ever threatened to cancel a show that’s bringing in the ratings, regardless of how lowbrow it might be. Things get even worse after Wally goes to Atlanta and ends up staying there. The movie tries to recreate the Snobs vs. the Slobs dynamic of previous Dangerfield films but the Governor comes across as being such a decent man that there’s no joy to be found in watching his life get turned upside down. The movie has a surprisingly large number of subplots, including one about Wally’s son (Michael Weatherly) falling for the Governor’s daughter (Lisa Thornhill), but most of them go nowhere and just distract from the man who should have been the film’s main attraction, Rodney Dangerfield. By the end of the movie, even the usually irrepressible Dangerfield seems to have been neutered.

Rodney Dangerfield was a national treasure but Meet Wally Sparks was not the best showcase for his persona or his style of humor. Fortunately, Caddyshack and Back To The School are available to watch anytime that we need a good laugh and we want to show Rodney Dangerfield a little respect.

(While this review is meant to be a rather breezy look at a minor Lifetime movie, it’s totally possible that you may have come across this review because you’re feeling suicidal yourself. Maybe you googled, “suicide note.” Please, if that is the case, consider calling the following numbers: Call 24/7: 800-SUICIDE (784-2433) 800-273-TALK (8255) Text Telephone 800-799-4TTY (4889) Trans Lifeline 877-565-8860.)

On Saturday night, I watched and live tweeted the latest Lifetime original film. Unfortunately, I ran into a small problem. The title of the movie was The Suicide Note and, as a result, I ended up posting a few hundred tweets with the hashtag #SuicideNote. Apparently, some people were not aware that I was watching a Lifetime film and they actually thought I was spending two hours tweeting out an actual suicide note. One tweet in particular seemed to worry people:

Adam isn't that hot. #SuicideNote

— Lisa Marie Bowman (@LisaMarieBowman) February 28, 2016

Well, allow me to assure everyone: I was just talking about the movie. Adam is a character in the movie and he’s played by Stephen Colletti. Adam is a pre-med student with a temper. When his girlfriend, Emma (Kristen Ray), plunges to her death from the rooftop of her dorm, Adam is an immediate suspect. And why not? Before Emma died, she was seen having a drunken argument with Adam. A later search of Emma’s phone reveals threatening text messages from Adam. Adam is the logical suspect, except for the fact that Emma left behind a suicide note.

What does the note read?

The note reads, “I was not murdered so please don’t suspect my boyfriend.”

No, actually, it doesn’t. Instead it says, “I’m sorry, please forgive me,” or words to that effect. Nobody is sure whether or not the handwriting on the note is Emma’s but, since it’s the only evidence that the police have, they decided that Emma must have committed suicide.

However, Emma’s roommate, Molly (Kirby Bliss Blanton), doesn’t believe that Emma committed suicide. That’s because Molly once tried to kill herself and didn’t see any signs that Emma was suicidal. With the help of her painter boyfriend, Brady (Brant Daugherty), and her sarcastic best friend, Irene (Lexi Giovagnoli), Molly sets out to solve the crime. At first, she suspects that Adam is the murderer but this is Lifetime and that solution is way too easy. As Molly investigates, she discovers that there are all sorts of secrets waiting to be uncovered.

Suicide Note is pretty much a standard Lifetime mystery. It takes place on one of those Lifetime movie college campuses where there’s only ten students and they all keep running into each other. Molly also has a mentor, a professor played by Gabrielle Carteris (who, my friend Holly tells me, was on the original 90210.) My favorite scene was when Molly and Brady were walking across campus, just to be confronted by a jogging and shirtless Adam. Adam yells that he didn’t kill Emma and then Prof. 90210 shows up and snaps, “GO TO CLASS!” I wanted Adam to ask whether or not he could at least go get a shirt before going to class but instead, he just jogged off.

One of the things that I did like about The Suicide Note is that it featured some genuinely creepy dream sequences. Molly has several dreams where she sees Emma’s ghost and several other unsettling things. The dreams are all very well-shot and brings a jolt of life to the film.

As I said before, Suicide Note is pretty much your typical Lifetime affair. If you’re not into Lifetime, the film will probably seem pretty silly to you. But, if you are into Lifetime, you’ll appreciate Suicide Note for what it is. Just be careful about hashtagging the title.