Very much in the spirit of
The Groove Tube (1974), this lowbrow
comedy anthology uses a thin premise to connect a huge number of sketches, all
of which are parodies of TV programming. The noteworthy cast includes John
Candy; Chevy Chase; the team of Tom Davis and Al Franken; Joe Flaherty; Howard
Hesseman; David L. Lander; Laraine Newman; William Schallert; Ron Silver; and
Betty Thomas. (Most perform in just one sketch each, so some appear and
disappear within a minute of screen time.) The premise is that in the year
1985, a Senate committee investigates TunnelVision, the country’s most popular
TV channel and the beneficiary of a Supreme Court decision that outlawed censorship
of TV broadcasts. The reason for the hearing is that the government blames
TunnelVision’s debauched shows for a number of social ills, including the
economy-depleting apathy of those who spend hours on end watching the channel
instead of working. After a senator (Hesseman) grills a TunnelVision executive
(Phil Proctor), those in attendance at the hearing are shown a condensed
sampling of one day’s content from the controversial channel.
At their worst,
the sketches comprising this content are offensive—such as ad for the “National
Faggot Shoot.” Others are merely crude, like the ad for proctology education.
Some of the sketches fall flat simply because the jokes aren’t funny, including
the ad for a product that allows people to consume great books in the form of
pills. Most of the sketches suffer as much for brevity as they do for lack of
real wit; the ideas are too lightweight to make an impact in 30 or 60 seconds.
As for the extended scenes, about the best that writers Neal Israel (who also
codirected) and Michael Mislove can conjure is “Ramon and Sonja,” a riff on All in the Family and/or The Honeymooners featuring the world’s
most disgusting family. Two words: incest jokes.
Tunnel Vision isn’t outright awful, inasmuch as the piece has a
brisk pace, skilled actors, and some technical polish, but it’s never
laugh-out-loud funny, and the satire is hardly pointed. (This
just in! Excessive TV watching is bad for you!) Furthermore, Tunnel Vision lacks a standout sketch—everything
is equally underwhelming, resulting in monotony. An 80-minute cavalcade of bargain-basement
jokes is hard to take, especially since so many similar films exist: The Groove Tube gets points for being
the first flick made in this style, The
Kentucky Fried Movie (1977) is much funnier, and Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video (1979) is much weirder.
Tunnel Vision: FUNKY
On the day this film opened, I saw it in downtown Cincinnati and I was the only one in the theater...at least until about halfway through the picture. I saw the light from where the door opened behind me. A guy came in and slowly walked through the empty theater to sit RIGHT NEXT TO ME! I tried to ignore him and watch the movie but he leaned over and whispered, "You're pretty." I got up to go get the manager and when we came back the guy was gone. I stayed for the rest of the picture but I wasn't able to pay much attention to it.
ReplyDeleteI was telling Phil Proctor that story online a few years back and he suggested I revisit the picture. I found a copy and thought it was fairly clever at times...but I didn't really laugh.