There was so much I wanted to put into this strip about Kentucky Fried Movie, but couldn’t. I wanted to touch on how Saturday Night Live started in 1975 and how that show must’ve influenced the creators of this film. I wanted to say how I thought Kentucky Fried Movie obviously led to other successful movies like Airport and the whole Naked Gun franchise. And how those movies in turn led to an ongoing outlet of parody movies, even parody movies of parody movies.
And as I was mulling all of that over, I just couldn’t help but remember my own experience in the theater watching this film. I had no idea what the film was about. I’d snuck into R movies before with my friend and was confused as to why he made sure to bring his mom along as a chaperone this time. My friend’s family didn’t own a television, and to my knowledge they never went to movies. But maybe my friend thought a nice little comedy would be just the thing to loosen his mother up.
It wasn’t until the first blatant sex scene (one of many) that I realized he’d planned the whole scenario so that we would definitely get into the show, and that I would be a body buffer between him and his mom. As I once again thought over the evening (for I’d thought about that mortifying night many times over the years), and the lengths my friend went to accomplish his scheme, I had to admit the whole story was just as funny as the movie itself. So it made sense to work my personal story into the strip.
2 comments:
Ah, memories! "Kentucky Fried Movie" was a good one. John Landis also did one of my other favorite parody movies, "Amazon Women on the Moon". It, too, is a series of skits. Two of the more brilliant ones are "Son of the Invisible Man" and "Two IDs, Please." Once the credits are rolling and people are filing out of the theatre, they sneak in another one, a parody of the VD films of the '30s called "Reckless Youth." I love "Amazon Women on the Moon."
Ever seen "The Groove Tube"? That's a TV-parody movie as well. I saw it at the Aquarius theatre in Palo Alto when I was 13-14 or so (my mom must have given the theatre management the OK). I thought it was fall-out-of-the chair funny, and a brilliant bit of satire. Plus beaucoup de bare boobs, which never hurts.
Fast-forward several years, and I'm 33 and cruising the video store for something to watch. I find "The Groove Tube" and rent it in a rapture of nostalgia. I go home, sit down, and stick the tape in. The juvenilia and the potty humor wash over me in tsunami-like waves. I sat there, disillusioned, and thought to myself: "Wow ... this was totally freakin' hilarious when I was in the seventh grade." "The Groove Tube" has its moments, to be sure, but the sheer vulgarity eventually takes over. Look for a skit in it starring a very young Chevy Chase.
No, haven't seen The Groove Tube. I've seen bits and pieces of it over the years. And I think you're right, it would be absolutely hilarious to a kid in junior high school.
I wonder if there is a term for the disillusion you rewatch a favorite childhood movie as an adult and find it not quite up to snuff. I have to confess my second viewing of Bedknobs and Broomsticks did not induce the some magical wonderment as the first.
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