TheRetroCritic

I review the 1992 dark comedy Stay Tuned .

Released in 1992, Stay Tuned  was a dark comedy about a couple who gets sucked into a demonic satellite dish before being forced to survive living inside various TV shows from Hell as their kids try to help them back on the other side. John Ritter is Roy Knable, a couch potato loser husband who is too addicted to television to notice his marriage is falling apart and Pam Dawber plays his much more successful wife Helen. One day, Roy meets the mysterious Mr. Spike (Jeffrey Jones) who offers him a free trial for a new TV with a brand new satellite dish. Roy accepts and, soon enough, he and Helen find themselves stuck in all kinds of twisted shows from westerns to gameshows, even cartoons. The concept for Stay Tuned is very silly but also very clever as it provides a lot of opportunities for social satire and creative scenarios, not to mention hilarious puns (Fresh Prince Of Darkness, Wayne's Underworld etc.). It's easy to see why Tim Burton was once attached to this project

Maybe the least well known Chris Farley movie out there, Almost Heroes was the late, great comedian's final film. Christopher Guest's comedy co-starred Matthew Perry as an aristocrat competing with Lewis & Clark to be the first to cross the USA and reach the Pacific. Released in 1998, almost 6 months following Farley's death, Almost Heroes was not a box-office success and critics didn't much care for it either. Indeed, this is a flawed comedy with a historical setting and plot that's tough to get people excited about. The pairing of the ever-ebullient Farley and the more restrained Perry was a good idea, however, and they are easily the most fun part of the entire movie. There is a feeling when you watch this film that a lot was cut out of it as the editing can be, at times, awkward so it's not too shocking to note that a lot was actually cut out of the film to give the leads more screen time. Originally, this was meant to be more of an ensemble comedy

Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah star in this 80's comedy re-imagining of the Little Mermaid fairy-tale which did what Disney is currently trying to do with its live-action adaptations of every animated film they've ever done but without any big special effects. And all before Disney's The   Little Mermaid was even released. Really, on paper Splash should have been awful but in the safe hands of director Ron Howard and with a first class cast which also included John Candy and Eugene Levy, it was a big hit and was even nominated for an Academy Award back in 1984. By handling the movie like a grown-up (and literal) fish-out-of-water story with some romance and jokes thrown in, Howard manages to make Splash more of a modern fairy-tale adults can enjoy rather than corny, kids-only fare. The very good, very funny script keeps a perfect balance between comedy and fantasy and the cast is simply flawless from Hanks' lonely romantic to Daryl Hannah's wide-eyed, innocent

Here's one of my earliest Top 10's where I list Gooby 's scariest moments. Be warned: this video needs a bit of a makeover at this point.