Anyone Remember When Tom Cruise Was Normal?

I remember first hearing about our subject for today back in the mythical year of 1983 - probably around the same time everyone else heard about him.

Starring in movies like Risky Business, All the Right Moves and The Outsiders probably didn't hurt his exposure to the general public, either; they were good (maybe even great) films and showcased Tom at his best.

From there, things went about as expected for a mega-star on the rise: big hits (Top Gun, Days of Thunder), big misses (Legend, Far and Away), prestige pictures to keep him in the eye of the Academy voters (The Color of Money, Jerry Maguire) and lots of bankability: in fact, for awhile Tom Cruise was the "go-to" guy to insure your movie would make at least $100 million (don't ask Ridley Scott to back those figures up, though - that didn't work out so well), and to debut at #1 its first week of release - you know, like Steven Seagal movies used to do...but that's another story.

And of course, Cruise was always charming and self-effacing on talk shows and in interviews: that ever-present smile, his easy-going manner. There were even a few times he helped out some of his fans (remember when he saved one who was drowning, or another who was being crushed against a barricade during a movie premiere?), and was the nicest and most congenial guy on the whole planet.

What, then, turned him into the biggest joke on the same planet, in the matter of a few years' time?

Now, I am never one to equate people to their religions, or vice-versa, but the biggest damage to Tom Cruise seemed to come out around the same time it was made full public knowledge that he was, along with John Travolta, a card-carrying Scientologist.

Surprised? Then you've never wtched "South Park".

It was soon after the fateful "South Park" episode 'Trapped in the Closet' that it seemed Cruise went on the defensive: everywhere he went and every time he spoke it was in response to his beliefs, his thoughts and his personal choices. Like it or not, he was now THE foster child for Scientology.

This led to some very awkward moments both in Tom's public and personal life; several well-publicized lawsuits against those who would slander his good name (lawsuits brought to England, since England lacks a formal equivalent of the First Amendment), a legendary tirade against "Today" show host Matt Lauer who brought up the subject of psychiatry in Tom's presence (Scientologists don't believe in psychiatry, you see) and, even more legendarily, Tom's couch-jumping episode on "Oprah", where in he tried to show he was still capable of being a nice guy (in love, no less) but instead came across as someone having a sugar fit. Of course, the world's press, paparazzi and comedians leapt on that bandwagon like starving puppies chasing after the proverbial miniature chuck wagon.

And at this point, his movies don't even do the box office they once did. When Tom Cruise stars in a movie directed by Robert Redford and it goes straight to video, something's wrong.

What are we, the public at large, supposed to make of what amounts to a seeming meltdown unrivaled by Three Mile Island, whose devastation promises to stretch far and wide, laying to waste a once-respected actor and everything (including the good will) he had built up for years?

To Joe Blow sitting at home watching "Entertainment Tonight" or "Inside Edition", Tom will be written off as another Hollywood Nut Job who let his success and his ego get the better of him. Another Victor Mature or other such Adonis of a bygone age who faded into outright obscurity before the world's eyes.

But is this fair? After all, 98% of all actors in Hollywood suffer from a raging case of insecurity which leads to (A) their becoming actors, (B) surrounding themselves with such intense hype and hyperbole that they have built a cocoon against the cruel outside world, (C) their joining of groups - let's just call them that - that portend to support them and build up their confidence...usually at a price, and (D) an absolute detachment from anything that would make them think or feel they were any less than perfect. With all of this happening, it's no surprise this kind of thing takes place on a regular basis.

I'm the absolute last person in the world to to chastise anyone for their insecurities, but is celebrity any better a crutch for the human soul than drugs, alcohol or any other addiction? And celebrity is an addiction: the constant need for exposure, the want for approval, the applause of a grateful audience, wanting to have your face on every poster, magazine, newspaper and web page in existence...to quote a James Bond pic, the world is not enough. The celebrity must have more. It's an obsession.

Tom Cruise is no different than any other actor in the world who wants to be respected for what he does. But he's in grave danger of slipping from "actor" to "celebrity", and becoming more famous for who he is than what he does - what good that he does, I should say. The bad seems to outweigh the good in the court of public opinion nowadays for Mr. Cruise.

So what are we to make of Tom Cruise? Is he a good guy caught in a bad circumstance? Is he a jerk just now being unmasked for what he is? Is he a brainwashed drone for a group trying to gain broader appeal? Or is all the gilding finally wearing off this lily?

Look at any picture of Cruise nowadays and he just looks tired. Tired of what he's doing, tired of everything going on around him, tired of all the hype.

Maybe he's just waiting to fade into a long stretch of obscurity.

Maybe he finally realizes that he can do wrong.

Or maybe Tom Cruise is just as tired of Tom Cruise as everybody else.

Time will tell. But I still wouldn't expect any heartfelt apologies to Matt Lauer just yet. Give him another 10 years, maybe.

Dope out.

-TGWD

Geez, I Leave For A Few Weeks, And Everyone DIES!

What in the hell is going on??!

I wasn't even gone for that long (comparatively), I was working on several other things, had a review I was working on for the site and everything and what happens before I can even finish it?

Mortality.

Mortality all over the freakin' place.

In the little time I was gone, it was like Death Works Overtime From A Holiday, what with this impressive roster of newly-deads:

Danny Gans...











Dom DeLuise...











David Carradine...











Ed McMahon...











Farrah Fawcett...











Michael Jackson...









Billy Mays...










...and that was just the ones I knew off the top of my search engine (Oops, I meant "head").

I guess it's kind of a rarity that so many famous people have died in such a short amount of time, but as far as that goes, it also calls to the fore that many people we grew up knowing and being entertained by are passing on, and not all by natural causes, either.

That's what irritates me more than anything. One celebrity has an ongoing investigation into his death, another's may be drug-caused, another was kind of at a young age for heart problems. Of all of them, Ed McMahon was the oldest, but his wasn't necessarily brought by natural causes, so to speak. It's all like Final Destination, only with a more-famous cast.

So, to reiterate the beginning of this post, what in the hell is going on? All the pop icons are passing at a quick rate here; soon all we'll be left with are the also-rans, the second-place winners, the "oh-yeah-I-remember-that-guy-is-he-still-alive" individuals.

In short, I guess I'm just feeling my own mortality with this post. Man, I'm too young to feel so old.

Dope out.

-TGWD

EDIT - And yes; I checked, and Henry Kissinger is still alive. I'm always surprised to see him still alive. Just a thing I notice.

Is "Machete" Too Much To Hope For?

Okay, kids; by now everyone and their mother has heard not only of the movie Grindhouse, which not only should have done 100 times better than it did, but also produced some of the best fake trailers ever created for public consumption.

I've rallied on their behalf before, but that's another post.

Anyway, it also seems that because of the popularity and creativity of the very first fake trailer in the movie, Machete, that its creator, director Robert Rodriguez and star Danny Trejo are going to be making this into a full-length in-theaters honest-to-goodness movie.

Really. Check it out.

And check here, too, while you're at it.

But as this news makes grungy action fans like me rejoice and dance naked in the streets with joy (well, maybe not naked, but you know what I mean...), there is also a good bit of trepidation to go along with this news, also.

Why? Well, think about it: no doubt Rodriguez would be the man to pull this off and make the whole deal work - but is the world ready for what would amount to be a smaller version of Grindhouse at their local theater? Again? So soon after the last one's ill box-office effects?

It doesn't really matter to Hollywood - the suits engorge, binge, purge and repeat as many ideas as any two other sharks in a feeding frenzy. And yet, what about the art and artifice of what the film-makers set out to do? It's not like we're talking Gone With The Wind here, but the song remains the same.

Do they expect Machete to make any money?

Will it get the same bum distribution deal that Grindhouse got?

Did the studios agree to this only as a stipulation in Rodriguez' contract just so he'd direct Sin City 2, a confirmed hit in itself?

How can any film, even one by Robert Rodriguez expect to live up to a trailer like this:

CLICK HERE - remember; the YouTube clips are bigger than my blog now....

It looks awesome as heck, yes, and no one could fault Rodriguez for pulling out all the stops - but is it enough to promise a bonanza that a movie like Machete would so rightly deserve?

Let's try this: make you plans now to mark THIS PAGE in your "bookmarks"; visit it often. Write Robert Rodriguez and send him encouraging words - let him know that you're behind him 100% and are looking forward to the great work you know he'll pull off in putting Machete on the big screen. Talk about it. Promote it. Use the word "machete" at least once a day in crowded groups during conversation.

And while you're at it, left-click on this poster below and print it off, put it up on your wall, in your locker or wherever:






































Spread the word now, people - if we pull together, Machete will be the success story that Grindhouse never was.

Now get out there and shill, people!

Dope out.

-TGWD

Jekyll & Hyde...Together Again (1982)

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that there are more than enough examples of stupid parody movies out in the world as it is?

As painful as it is for me to say this, it nevertheless comes to the fore of this review not only because of the subject for today, but also due to the fact that this epidemic of parodies can all be traced back as early and as simply as the late '50s/early '60s and the movies of Vincent Price.

Follow me on this; many rightfully believe that Price played more than his share of sinister characters in many a film, but he also lampooned those types of characters in several more movies (The Comedy of Terrors, Beach Party, The Raven, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine), a practice which served him long and well later on, to be sure. Which then got others on the bandwagon, making fun of respected actors and their personae in a manner which came across as self-important and utterly ridiculous.

Somewhere along the way, however, it didn't seem to matter whether or not the lead actors in such enterprises were dramatically-respected, highly-regarded or even that well-known.

And a larger spectrum of films came into the fold as well - not just horror movies but... well... everything. Spy movies are a good example, since just about every one of these spy films released in the mid-to-late '60s was an outright spoof of the better-known James Bond series, and some even featured members of that series' cast in major parts (but never Sean Connery..his brother, maybe, but not Sean).

So it then came to be that other film-makers, stars and the like created films that had fun with the traditions of movies in general. Which led to films like The Big Bus (a '76 parody of disaster movies), The Kentucky Fried Movie (which parodied many movies and TV shows/ads in its 90 minutes or so) and a slew of other also-rans like The Boob Tube, Tunnelvision, American Tickler and many more that I know I'll kick myself for not remembering, but there was a whole glut of them, trust me.

By this time, Vincent Price was long forgotten.

Come the end of the '70s these films were still going strong, and it seemed that a new example of such cinema came out once every other weekend at the local theater, multiplex or drive in - just the thing for a struggling studio to cobble together, film and release to make a quick buck (like, pornos, for example). And in 1980 this genre had something of a renaissance thanks to the wild success of Airplane!, which stayed firmly in the realm of parodying disaster films like the earlier Big Bus, but also went off on unexpected side trips into the realms of From Here to Eternity, Jaws, Knute Rockne: All-American, vaudeville jokes and immolation.

This movie being funnier than it had a right to be, proved the success of irreverent, inconsequential humor and spawned not only a sequel but several other films from the same team of directors and writers (Top Secret!, The Naked Gun - itself spawned from a TV series, "Police Squad!", Hot Shots!), which all had their own degrees of success, sequels and so forth.

As with all other successes, however, also came ripoffs and copies of the same ideas, which is also Hollywood's bread and butter, it seems. Which is also why we were treated in the years after Airplane! to movies like Student Bodies, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, The Creature Wasn't Nice (aka, Naked Space) and many more lower-budgeted direct-to-video deals that littered many a video rental places shelves for years after; you know, those VCR tape cases in the "COMEDY" section that were all light blue and washed-out from being out in the sunlight too long. Those ones.

This brings us to Jekyll & Hyde...Together Again, and also to the minuscule legacy of an almost-forgotten ABC TV show called "Fridays". You see, "Fridays" came out in the early '80s and was supposed to topple long-standing late-night comedy king "Saturday Night Live" from its golden throne. It didn't but it did introduce some intriguing b-level comedians to the viewing public such as Melanie Chartoff, Bruce Mahler and John Roarke, and even some who went on to the proverbial "bigger-and-better" things like Rich Hall, Larry David and Michael Richards.

But then there was Mark Blankfield. In spite of vigorous comedic acting in various roles in "Fridays" and his manic reminder of a more spastic, geekier (and shorter) Jim Carrey, this poor guy has never gotten a break; he doesn't even have a Wikipedia listing.

He must have had something about him, however, because the same year that "Fridays" was canceled, Blankfield got the top-billed role in a comedy that promised to be his launching pad to those same "bigger-and-better" things that all his betters seemed to attain with their debut film. You know, like Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman...and yes, those would be perfect examples in this case.

How does this all tie in with what I started out my review with? It all fits, you see, since Blankfield starred in a comedy based on the Robert Louis Stevenson horror classic The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Hey, it's no stranger an idea than any of Price's cornier appearances in a Roger Corman-directed Edgar Allen Poe adaptation.

What is strange, however, is the idea to make a horror parody filtered through the Airplane! ideology with a heavy dollop of Cheech and Chong thrown in for good measure.

The story goes: at the hospital known as Our Lady of Pain and Suffering, Doctor Daniel Jekyll (Blankfield) is intent on creating a super drug that will make surgery obsolete and the human body self-repairing. During his experimentation, the good doctor, through events more contrived than in an average Porky's movie, snorts some of the latest powdered drug he has been testing with and turns into a sex-and-drug-crazed wild man who sprouts chest hair, jewelry, an extremely long pinkie nail and something else extremely long that he...oh, I can't say it; you can probably guess anyway, so just go with that.

As expected, this plays havoc not just with his professional life (he's slated to perform an important "total body transplant" on the world's richest man) but with his personal life since he is engaged to the pretty-yet-vacuous daughter (Bess Armstrong) of the hospital's chief doctor and his alter-ego is seeing a very cute/hot/empty-headed young lady named Ivy (Krista Errickson).

There are a boggling amount of jokes involving pain (hospital-incompetence pain, crotch-shot pain, head-stuck-in-a-car-sunroof pain, etc.) or sex (as should be expected, but with animals?), sometimes even pain AND sex, but even more that come straight from the ol' high-school locker room involving body parts, minorities, the height-challenged, the elderly, homosexuals, Asians, the Briitsh, nuns, black people, and even more that involve combining more than one of these topics at once. Guess I gotta give writers Monica Johnson, Harvey Miller, Michael Lesson and director Jerry Belson credit for multi-tasking, at least.

And speaking of the director, Belson is better-suited for his starting point as a TV-sitcom director, seeing as how every scene is set as if it were best-suited for comercial interruptions and editing-down for its timeslot. Small wonder that for every scene that is funny there are ten or twelve that are just badly photographed, set up or framed. Just goes to show that every movie can't be another episode of "Mary Tyler Moore".

I mentioned Blankfield earlier, who at least tries every physical trick in the book to make people from the fall-down slapstick school laugh. As for me, I was more concerned that he was going to hurt himself while going for the guffaws. He puts one less in the mind of Buster Keaton and more of Gerald Ford.

But like I said, at least he tried. Bess Armstrong stands there and looks pretty but is more-or-less the window-dressing of this piece, and I know for a fact that she can be funny (just watch The Four Seasons and Nothing in Common for good examples of Bess in full comedic flower). Krista Errickson plays the air-headed bimbo quite well and makes an understandable object of desire, but never rises above what she does and comes across as nothing more than "The Sex Object" - she might as well have been a RealDoll for all this movie cared.

No one else's performance is worth mentioning herein, save for one. Tim Thomserson, the Grand Old Man of B-Movies, plays the suave doctor Knute Lanyon. All teeth, hair and resonant voice, Thomerson's performance makes him the textbook example of stereotypical swaggering confidence - albeit with a startling secret. And perhaps if you've seen his performance in the short-lived NBC-TV sci-fi series "Quark", you may already know what that is, but why should I spoil one of this movie's very few funny moments?

Overall, there are maybe one or two good things in J&H...TA (the above-mentioned Thomerson performance, the train trip to London, the very last scene) but everything else is a classic example of trying too hard, relying on childish humor and half-baked ideas and depending on one person to carry a whole movie from beginning to end - when it was all they could do to carry on a 7-minute TV sketch.

My apologies to Mark Blankfield; like I said, he gave his all but he was like the poor guy who tries to hang wallpaper while the room is crumbling down around him. There's not much use in it when nothing else is going to support him.

One would have to stop and think, though: what IF this was a vehicle for Vincent Price?

Well, for one thing, I'm sure he would have asked for a few rewrites.

These Remakes Just Need To Stop...

Just popping in long enough to make an observation:

I heard the news a few days ago that they're remaking the 1981 classic Clash of the Titans, a re-imagining of the classic tales and figures of Greek mythology.

Not that I'm surprised - Hollywood has made a living out of remaking anything and everything they've ever made at one point or another. Geez, come on; if they have the unmitigated guts to remake Psycho, they have the unmitigated guts to remake anything.

But seriously, this is it.

I have had it with Hollywood's carnivorous desire to feast within itself for more product. I know there is no more creativity in La La Land without depending on indie films or comic books (oops, I mean graphic novels. Sorry...), but this time they've gone too far.

Clash of the Titans is one of my favorite movies for a reason - it was part of my childhood, it had Laurence Olivier as Zeus, it had the stop-motion goodness of the legendary Ray Harryhausen, it was the big-screen debut of Harry Hamlin (who played Perseus and was dating this movie's Aphrodite, Ursula Andress), had the reassuring presence of Burgess Meredith and even a cutesy mechanical owl for no more of a fact than it wanted to parallel the mythos of Star Wars along with all the Greek mythos. Plus, the original poster work for it was cool, as it was also done by the Hildebrandt Brothers, who designed the original Star Wars poster.

See? Cool, ain't it? And you see the parallels in the artwork? Awesome.

The bottom line, though, is that COTT does not need to be made. It really doesn't.

And neither did My Bloody Valentine, Night of the Living Dead (twice, no less!), Dune (not that it needed made to begin with, but anyway...) and a whole slew of others I'd rather not get into, but you get the idea. Right?

So stop it, Hollywood.

Stop it.

Right.

@$#&ing.

Now.

There. That should get them to listen.

Dope out.

-TGWD

The Underground Comedy Movie (1999)

Never one to shirk off promises made, I present to you an older review that I once had on the B-Movie Message Board many years ago, and has since been, shall we say...deactivated? It is now updated Dope-style, with extra commentary here and there – but the tone remains the same: seething hatred.

The last thing I ever wanted to see was a movie in which the main purpose (and probably modus operandi) is to offend, disgust, revolt and induce vomiting.

Why, then, was I compelled to see such a travesty as The Underground Comedy Movie? To tell you the truth, I have no idea – even the infomercial for this thing tried to warn me away with scenes so vile and disgusting I was shocked they had the nerve to show the commercial for it at 3 AM.

But let's take a moment before delving into the many reasons I despise this so-called “film” (and there are many) to allow some elaboration time on the following:

What is comedy?

It's an effort to reflect the human experience in humorous terms that we can relate to, or situations that "normal" people are caught in that we could conceivably recognize ourselves in and appreciate as humorous, silly and/or ridiculous. See most any film by Woody Allen or Billy Wilder to understand that aspect.

There's another definition that simply plays with the conventions of movies, expectations we ourselves hold for particular scenes or how we expect the actors to behave in certain situations. The Airplane!, Hot Shots! and Naked Gun movies are prime examples of this. Even some Troma films delve into examples of these on occasion. Those Scary Movie films and their many offshoots (Date Movie, Disaster Movie, Superhero Movie) try to do the same thing but...well, those are other reviews for another time.

Then there are people without an ounce of talent, not one funny idea in their empty head and a fair amount of cash and cameras who are allowed to make a "comedy" film, and instead make a glaring example of stupidity; a slap in the face of true entertainment that drags the hallowed name of COMEDY in the mud, over a field of broken glass and down into an acid bath.

Which brings us to this...this...thing. And a glaring look at the man who created it – and whom I hold fully responsible for the end result.

From what I understand, The Underground Comedy Movie is based on a cable access show ("The Underground Comedy Show"), both helmed by auteur Vince Offer (in his only stint as director, writer and actor). I can only hope his TV show was funnier...and by funnier, I mean less horrific.

What this aspires to be is a monument to bad taste and vapid brainlessness. To paraphrase the great Mel Brooks, it wants to rise BELOW vulgarity. And even though Mel's been in a movie slump lately, this makes Mel's Life Stinks look like The Producers. Hell, TUCM makes the Mel Brooks-produced film Solarbabies look like Citizen Kane.

Here's the low-down (and I mean WAY low-down): The Underground Comedy Movie is a collection of skits (a la Kentucky Fried Movie, but please - the comparison ends right there) that make up for their lack of humor and laughs in what they supply in gross-out, blood and gore. This is without a doubt one of the most mindlessly violent movies that ever masqueraded as a comedy I have seen in my life.

Meaning? If you think it's funny for a Godfather-themed restaurant to serve meat from baby fetuses, a "Batman" superhero (some guy in a baseball uniform beating people with a bat) to knock off a wheelchair-bound woman's head with his bat and watch the same head land in a yard with vicious, hungry dobermans or some chunky Arnold Schwarzenegger lookalike (with a stage name I wouldn't dream of reprinting here) to fornicate with an emaciated old woman's corpse (a cockroach crawls out of her mouth at one point), and watch people get shot, eaten by sharks, get their hands blown off (graphically) by grenades and observe various bodily orifices in action, then you either:

a) have a low opinion of yourself

b) have never seen a comedy before

c) are new to this planet

d) are reading this from your padded cell under heavy sedation

or

e) are Vince Offer.

So what does any of this say about the creator/writer/director/actor of this mess: our above-mentioned ex-Scientologist Vince Offer? You may know him best as the hawker of those Sham-Wow towel things that everyone's seen on TV at least two, three times a day. What kind of a horrible, soul-scarring experience mush he have had in California to lash out at the entertainment industry with such an angry product as this?

And yes, the main current running through this whole enterprise isn't humor – it's anger. Anger against celebrities, anger against the good life, anger against women, anger towards anyone who happens to come across his field of vision. Offer is the equivalent of a pre-teen with Tourette's Syndrome who's been raised by bigoted parents and only has imaginary friends - and a camera. Oh sure, Offer tries to gloss everything over (especially the violence) with the excuse of, “hey relax: it's a comedy! It's supposed to be a joke!” - the only thing is, his frustrations get the better of him and make even the easiest targets (The Godfather, Dirty Harry, Batman, music videos) either over-baked, under-done or untouched.

And there are actual actors involved in this mess! Michael Clarke Duncan - I had extreme respect for him after seeing him in The Green Mile and even appreciated him in The Whole Nine Yards and Armageddon. After his humiliating turn herein as a gay virgin (ha-ha), he'll have to become a born-again Christian, build 180 Habitats for Humanity and save a busload of orphans about to plunge off a bridge by using his teeth to redeem himself.

Karen Black - yes, THAT Karen Black. She's made some bad career moves lately, yes, but still - Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The Day of the Locusts...that's a pretty impressive resume to be led up to this: a mother in a skit where she's pretty much debased to the nth degree. Maybe Karen's got personal issues....

And then there's appearances by Joey Buttafuoco, Gena Lee Nolin and Slash. Not that they necessarily add anything important, but there they are. To their credit, however, Joey Buttafuoco did have a bit part in Sean Connery's Finding Forrester. Gena Lee did look good in a swimsuit on "Baywatch". And Slash...nice hat, Slash. Nice guitar-playing, too.

In the end, after extensive ads late at night on Comedy Central, a whirlwind theatrical showing where it ended up on all of ONE screen (grossing just under $860 on a $170,000 budget!!) and reviews the world over wondering if anyone involved with this project had secure day jobs, TUCM never made anyone forget what comedy used to be like, before grossing out the viewer became more important than being entertaining - or in this case, being funny.

I'm sure you'll be endlessly debating what is and isn't comedy after reading this. By all means do, but NOT after watching The Underground Comedy Movie.

You'll be sorry.

One final note: Offer had the unmitigated gall to sue the Farrelly Brothers for stealing no more than fourteen (!) of his own scatalogical jokes from TUCM for their use in their own classic paean to low humor, There's Something About Mary. Needless to say, it never made it to a courtroom. And he also railed and rallied against the Church of Scientology for allegedly ruining his standing in Hollywood after he left them by making other Scientologists publicly denounce his character.

Vince, you did that your own self the minute filming wrapped on this beauty. And as far as the Farrelly Brothers go, don't even go there.

All I can say for Vince Offer is - I hope he sticks with the Sham-Wows.

I Went Out Sham-Wow Shopping Today....

Okay, this post has nothing to do with movies or entertainment, but I had to share it with you.

Well...that last sentence may not be entirely true, but it's true enough for what follows. Just go with me on this and let's continue.

Anyway, went to the local community flea market today and some guy had a booth set up selling what looked to the casual passer-by to be Sham-Wows. You know, those miracle cloth/sponge/shamois kinda things that guy with the big teeth and Jersey accent advertises on TV all hours of the day. Those things, yeah. Anyway, the ones I found were selling for $3.

Yep, three bucks.

The guy selling them was all too proud to point out that these particular Sham-Wows were actually from GERMANY, and they worked every bit as good as the ones I saw advertised. Yeah, they weren't the same but, darn it - they were German, so they had better engineering behind them.

So there.

Needless to say, I passed on the purchase.

This isn't the whole story, though. There was always something nagging me about this guy on TV that advertised the actual Sham-Wows (the ones not from Germany). His face was kinda familiar, as was that voice (not the same kind of irritating Billy Mays thing, but annoying all the same). I eventually checked on him and found his name:

Vince Offer.

That name was vaguely familiar, so I researched some more and found - to my own real horror - that this is the same Vince Offer that unleashed one of the truest horrors onto the unsuspecting public-at-large.

The Underground Comedy Movie (1999)

I knew it; Vince Offer IS The Devil. Satan. Evil incarnate, and he appears in the guise of an infomercial to deceive.

And since the link to the review I myself did of this travesty on the B-Movie Message Board is long gone, my next post will display my full-length review of what amounts, no more or less, than a paean to perverse idiocy and disgusting "komedy" ideas that produce not one laugh.

I still want to get a Sham-Wow, mind you, but as for the rest of his output, Vince can keep TUCM to himself.

Shame on you, Satan.

Till next post, Dope out.

-TGWD