Movies that are still awesome: Stay Tuned

I dread watching beloved movies from childhood because they generally never live up to their former glory (I'm looking at you Drop Dead Fred). But I can gladly confirm that Peter Hyam's 1992 unnecessarily satiric Stay Tuned is still as ludicrous as a I remember it being from countless cable viewings. Although, I probably didn't get the irony of a movie about the evils of television when I was, like, seven.

Stay Tuned features John Ritter and Pam Dawber (A TV satire featuring Jack Tripper from Three's Company and the one who wasn't Robin Williams from Mork and Mindy? In a movie for children who were mostly likely born after those shows ended their run? Of course!) as a marrieds Roy and Helen Knable who hit a cold spot in their relationship and are sucked into their TV by an ominously large satellite, sold to Roy by a ginger villain named Spike (Jeffrey Jones, aka Principal Rooney from Ferris Bueller's Day Off). It's Spike's job to gather souls by killing people off while they are trapped in various TV-parody scenarios. Why? Because making a movie about real world moral lapses leading to damnation just isn't as family friendly. Plus, Eugene Levy makes an appearance as comic relief, which is exactly what Eugene Levy is supposed to do in the movies (just ask all those accountants who have to sift through his American Pie franchise money). Jones, with his pallid skin tone and nasally voice, is one of those character actors that will never ever have a Paul Giamatti-in-American Splendor, or even Joe Pantoliano-in-Memento, moment because he can only play creepy (Ravenous), wrongfully patronizing (Ferris Bueller, Beetlejuice) or both (Deadwood), which makes sense because he's probably a pedophile. Sans his alleged affinity for 14-year-old boys, Jones is this perfect villain: He's physically imposing without being scary. He wants you to fear him but you just can't. Because, well, look at him...

pics24h.com

Jones as Principal Rooney in Ferris Bueller's Day Off

The plot is secondary to the parodies of then-current TV fare, like The Fresh Prince of Darkness, thirtysomething-to-life and Different Strokes, featuring two old men experiencing their own aneurysms. The crown jewel it Stay Tuned's crown is the animated interlude by the legendary Chuck Jones in which Dawber and Ritter are transformed into cartoon mice. It's one of those breaks in a movie that you would otherwise forget but brings you back so viscerally to childhood it's almost as if you were sucked into some ominously large satellite. Watching that part, I'm sitting in the crook of my parents old L-shaped couch, eating popcorn and watching Ritter and Dawber try to evade the evil Robo-Kitty.

There are other parts like this — namely the random break for a Salt 'n' Pepa music vide0 — that hurtle you backward in time, but that's the reason that movies live on, whether the retention of their awesomosity needs to be debated or not. Because some part of you wants to be sitting on your parents' L-shaped couch, eating popcorn and watching John Ritter as a cartoon mouse.

SeannyBoy

Posted 2010-07-28 12:13:45

Not to be disagreeable, but I'm going to have to disagree on this one. The word "awesome" should not be spoken within 10 minutes of any mention of this movie.

It's terrible, from start to finish. Anti-funny. If there are a couple laughs in this, you're so beaten down by the suckage that they don't even register.

Admittedly, some of my hatred for "Stay Tuned" is undoubtedly derived from the guilt of having suggested some family and friends watch this when it was in theaters, and we were looking to kill some time on a rainy day at the Jersey shore. It wasn't long into the movie before I was sinking into my seat in shame and wishing I never opened my mouth. 

But my deep-seated shame should only serve as a warning for CP readers who never saw "Stay Tuned." Avoid at all cost.

In related business, when we went to see "Stay Tuned" at that shore theater, Bobby Clarke was in the lobby buying tickets to the only other movie being shown — "Unforgiven." He wasn't the greatest GM, but he made the right call that day.

Posted by Molly Eichel @ 4:35 PM Permalink | File Under: Movies | Post a comment

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