The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977, John Landis)

The Kentucky Fried Movie is a collection of silly, often tasteless skits. The humor is sophomoric, but the vignettes are consistently clever and very funny. The movie resembles the TV show “Saturday Night Live.” I liked all the gags but like any movie of this vintage, some skits are better than others. The best of the bunch is a spoof of the classic martial arts movie Enter the Dragon, which is titled “A Fistful of Yen” (of course, it is funnier if you’ve seen the real thing). In fact, it is so good that I thought the idea could be made into a feature-length film.

Also, I loved the raunchy preview of “Catholic High School Girls in Trouble” and the trailer for “Cleopatra Schwartz,” an obvious parody of blaxploitation films. Bill Bixby, George Lanzeby, and Donald Sutherland appear in funny cameos. It is nothing but juvenile humor, but the film’s zany antics are a delight to watch. The movie seems to be a warm up for the Jim Abraham-David Zucker team, who later made the mega hits Airplane and the Naked Gun films. It is very short (barely over one hour), so it is perfect if all you want is to have a few laughs.

~ by gelpi2008 on Sunday, October 19, 2008.