Flat Broke In The ’70s: Americathon (1979, directed by Neal Israel)


The year is 1998 and America is flat broke.  Paper currency is now worthless and, to the joy of Ron Paul supporters everywhere, all transactions are done in gold.  After the country ran out of oil, people started using skateboards and bicycles for transportation and many turned their cars into homes.  While the citizenry spends their time consuming a steady diet of sitcoms and reality television, the government tries to figure out how to pay back the loan that it took from Sam Birdwater (Chief Dan George), a Native American who made billions after buying Nike.  Birdwater wants his money back and he is prepared to foreclose on the entire country.

Newly elected President Chet Roosevelt (John Ritter) is not helping.  A combination of Jack Tripper and Jerry Brown (who was gearing up to challenge Jimmy Carter in the Democratic primaries when Americathon was first released), Chet Roosevelt is a spaced-out former governor of California who speaks in 70s self-help slogans and who is more interested in getting laid than leading the country.  Roosevelt governs out of The Western White House, a condo in California.  When an ad exec named Eric McMerkin (Peter Reigert) suggests a month-long telethon to raise the money to pay off the loan, Roosevelt leaps at the chance.

Hosted by Harvey Korman, the telethon (which is called, naturally, the Americathon) features a wide variety of acts.  There’s a ventriloquist.  Jay Leno boxes his grandmother.  Meat Loaf destroys a car.  Even Elvis Costello and Eddie Money make brief appearances.  While Chet falls in love with one of the performers, his chief-of-staff (Fred Willard) plots, with the leaders of a new Middle Eastern superstate, to sabotage the telethon.

Based on a play by the Firesign Theater, Americathon has a big, talented cast that is let down by Neal Israel’s uncertain direction and a script that is only rarely funny.  The idea of America hosting a tacky telethon to pay its debts sounds like a good SNL skit (especially if Bill Murray played the host) but the premise is too thin for a feature film.  Like Airplane! or The Naked Gun films, Americathon is a movie that tosses every joke it can against the wall to see what will stick.  If the jokes are good, like in Airplane!, that formula can lead to a comedy classic.  If the jokes are bad, not even John Ritter, Harvey Korman, and Fred Willard can make them funny.

Today, if Americathon is remembered, it’s because it supposedly predicted several future events.  Americathon does take place in a future where China is an economic superpower, Nike is a huge conglomerate, and reality game shows are very popular.  But, even with those correct predictions, Americathon is a such a film of its time that it was probably dated from the minute that it was released.  Just the sight of John Ritter in a condo permanently marks Americathon as a film of and about the ’70s.

George Carlin does score a few laughs as the narrator and Elvis Costello performs both Crawlin’ To The USA and (I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea.  Eagle-eyed viewers might want to keep an eye out for the tragic Playboy playmate, Dorothy Stratten, who has a brief non-speaking role.  Otherwise, Americathon is as hopeless as the country it’s trying to save.

Film Review: Kidz in the Wood (1996, dir. Neal Israel)


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I don’t know how I come across these things. This was a Disney Channel movie that was filmed in 1994, but aired in 1996 starring Dave Thomas. It also has Candace Cameron before the Bure. The quality is low because somebody filmed this off their TV. Luckily they did a great job. It looks decent and sounded just fine.

Dave Thomas plays a teacher who works at every troubled school from every 90s movie ever. You know this immediately because of the gang stereotypes that walk over.

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That’s the big problem with this movie: stereotypes. They are all over this thing. That, and Dave Thomas whipping a Native American. The drug trip is a little weird too.

We meet some of our other main characters such as one played by David Lascher who you might recognize from Hey Dude and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. He’s busy sexually harassing a blonde.

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Here’s Candace!

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Ah, 90s! She is a bit of a nymphomaniac in this. I am quite sure that at one point she asks if an egg frying on her tongue will turn on a guy. She’ll turn on a dime too once she gets a talking to by a female teacher who gives her horrible advice.

Next we get a guy who is a hypochondriac played by Alfonso Ribeiro.

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Bill Clinton then rears his head.

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Dave Thomas makes an attempt to connect with his students about history. This includes trying to get the students to remember Robert E. Lee because they have seen The Crow (1994) with Brandon Lee.

Next we meet the 90s strong female stereotype named Ms. Duffy.

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Two actors from Stargate SG-1 are in here too, but what it comes down to is that Dave Thomas wants to take his kids on an Oregon Trail type trip. When I was a kid we just had a computer game that did it for us. The principal tells Ms. Duffy (Julia Duffy) to go with them and record Dave Thomas screwing up so they can fire him despite his tenure. There we have our movie.

At the end of the day, these three are the best part of the movie other than the Native American they travel with during part of the film.

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They will say every single 90s saying you can imagine. I’m shocked they missed “that’s the way I like it” or “homie don’t play that.”

It’s off to the woods for these kidz. But first we get the mandatory hanging the kid out of the bus window bit.

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In my day, we just held up signs for truckers driving past that said “honk if you’re horny.”

They arrive and we meet the hippest Native American I have ever seen in a movie.

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This guy is awesome. He is played by Byron Chief-Moon.

Then we are off on the trail where Dave Thomas promptly gets himself flung off the wagon.

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During this whole thing we are getting a voiceover narration from Thomas because he has ancestors that are tied to this whole thing. It will barely have anything to do with anything. Then Dave Thomas whips the Indian.

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Now Dave Thomas decides it is time to eat a berry. That berry is a hallucinogen, which immediately sends him on a drug trip.

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He even starts seeing everyone as if they were in old times. This includes the Indian.

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This is immediately followed by morons on the wagon.

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This was made for television.

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Throughout the remainder of the film, the three gang guys think they are going to escape and go to Vegas.

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Around the campfire, Ms. Duffy wants to sing something by Snoop Snoopy Dog.

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She seems to think all rap is about guns and violence when she attempts to rap herself. I’d love to say that kind of thinking is only from the 80s and 90s, but I heard this same nonsense in a “documentary” called The Mask You Live In from 2015 that is currently on Netflix. But enough about propaganda.

Oh, and Candace Cameron is thinking about sex.

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She even gets into Hey Dude’s sleeping bag before he gets there.

vlcsnap-2016-09-04-16h33m41s359The next day Dave Thomas whips the Indian again.

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Then one more time for good measure before he realizes he doesn’t need the whip.

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After one of the wagons goes over in the water, the Indian goes on ahead where they are going to meet up eventually. This is done so that the teachers and the kids have their time to resolve their issues together.

Then Ms. Duffy gives Candace Cameron a sex talk. It amounts to stop being slutty and play hard to get instead. I’m pretty sure she actually uses the word “slutty”. Not exactly the right speech to give this girl. Maybe a simple, he’s obviously not interested, so you might want to move on would have done it. She can explore her sexuality as she pleases. She isn’t putting her or anyone else’s lives in danger.

Since all these people are idiots, they soon get themselves attacked by bees. That means it is time to put horse poop on Ms. Duffy.

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Even a skunk doesn’t want anything to do with her.

As all this goes on you get the typical stuff you would expect as the kids start coming around, the teachers start to like each other, and the three gang guys get scared by a bear.

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This leads right where you expect it to go.

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That’s right. The teachers fly off a cliff leaving the kids to think they are dead. I mean dead dead. They have no reason to believe they are alive. Here’s the cliff to drive home the point.

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Of course they caught a tree. I have to give Kidz in the Wood this.

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I actually believe that Dave Thomas and Julia Duffy are out in nature rather than Robert Redford and Nick Nolte in A Walk In The Woods (2015).

In the midst of all of this, the gang members found a map to hidden treasure, which they promptly light on fire with a magnifying glass.

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I mean a real fire.

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Eventually they all get back together and it all works out for the best. The kids return to class, pass, and graduate.

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Despite some of the inappropriate material and stereotypes, this was actually a reasonably enjoyable one of these kinds of movies. I’d recommend it.

Thank you to whomever this is that filmed their TV.

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Shattered Politics #70: The Brady Bunch In The White House (dir by Neal Israel)


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What happens when architect and suburban dad Mike Brady (Gary Cole) is elected Vice President of the United States?  Well, President Randolph (Dave Nichols) ends up having to resign when it turns out that he’s thoroughly corrupt.  Mike Brady is sworn in as the new President and then appoints his wife Carol (Shelley Long) as his new Vice President.  He and his wife run an ethical and determinedly old-fashioned administration.  When Senators argue, Carol suggests that they need a time out.  When Mike is handed a report that indicates trouble for the economy, Mike looks at it, signs it, and says, “We can do better.”  When a racist Senator is seated next to a black nationalist at a White House reception, the two opponents are both served peanut butter on crackers by the Alice, the Brady Family housekeeper and soon, they are bonding over their shared love of peanut butter.

Of course, not everything’s perfect.  For instance, middle daughter Jan (Ashley Drane) is haunted by voices in her head that tell her that she’ll never be better than older sister Marcia (Autumn Reeser).  However, fortunately, Jan discovers a talking portrait of Abraham Lincoln who talks some sense to her.

And then, middle son Peter (Blake Foster) accidentally breaks a priceless Ming vase.  All of the other Brady kids take responsibility for breaking it.  President and Vice President Brady quickly figure out that Peter was responsible and, in order to make him confess, they punish every Brady kid but Peter.  And then…

Okay, are you getting the feeling that Brady Bunch In The White House is a stupid movie?  Well, it is.  This 2002 film was made for television and serves as a sequel to the earlier Brady Bunch Movie and A Very Brady Sequel.  It features the same basic idea as the first two films: the rest of the world is cynical and angry while the Bradys are still trapped in the wholesome world of their old television show.  Mike is still offering up life lessons.  Carol is still smiling and saying, “Your father’s right.”  Marcia is self-centered.  Jan is obsessive.  Cindy has issues with tattling.  Greg thinks every girl that he meets is really happening in a far out way.  Peter is always feeling guilty.  Bobby … well, Bobby doesn’t do much of anything.

The big difference is that the Bradys are in the White House now.  They’re still reliving incidents from their TV show but now they’re doing it in the White House.  And, some of it is kinda cute.  Well, I take that back.  Most of it is really stupid but the part about the vase made me smile despite myself.

So there’s that.

But, honestly — no, I really can’t think of any clever way to prove that the Brady Bunch In The White House is actually a subversive satire or anything that’s really worth recommending.

Sorry.

However, I did see A Very Brady Sequel on Cinemax last night.  It’s kind of funny and features a lot of pretty Hawaiian scenery.  Go watch that.  Forget about the Brady Bunch In The White House