Ernest Goes to Jail

John R. Cherry, III, 1990
Rotten Tomatoes score: 13%

Thirteen percent? I take that as a personal insult. This is without a doubt the best of the Ernest movies, and that is saying something.

Ernest is now working as the night janitor in a bank, where he works alongside trigger-happy security guards Chuck and Bobby (the off-kilter airline guys from Ernest Saves Christmas). Ernest spends his time pining after bank clerk Charlotte (Barbara Bush—apparently there are at least two Barbara Bushes in the world) and dreaming of trading his floor-scrubber for a teller's desk. Unfortunately, the uptight bank manager doesn't take kindly to Ernest's habit of accidentally transforming into a human electromagnet and making a horrible mess of the bank.

After the outrageous cartoon hijinks of Ernest electrifying himself and being chased around the bank by metal filing cabinets, we cut to a prison in the aftermath of an inmate's murder. We don't see the body or anything, but I'm pretty sure this is the only time an actual death takes place in an Ernest movie. The killer, Ruben, seeks protection from a shadowy figure called Mr. Nash.

Ernest is delighted to learn that he's been selected for jury duty in Ruben's trial. During the trial, Ernest accidentally breaks open a ballpoint pen in his mouth. There is no purpose for this, but it's hilarious. At the same time, Ruben notices that Ernest bears an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Nash. During a highly unorthodox jury field trip to the crime scene, Mr. Nash manages to switch places with Ernest. While Nash commits jury tampering to acquit Ruben, Ernest spends a day in prison before figuring out what's happened.

Ernest reluctantly agrees to imitate Mr. Nash, lest the real Nash should hurt his friends, while Nash takes advantage of Ernest's job to plan a bank heist. Unfortunately for the real Ernest, Nash's last appeal has been turned down, and he has a date with the chair.

In most movies, a scene of the main character being mistakenly sent to the death chamber would be terrifying, but in this movie . . . it's still pretty disturbing. They do their best to distract you with gags like a sign switching from "vacant" to "occupied" when Ernest enters, and Ernest refusing a last smoke because "cigarettes'll kill ya." But this is still pretty heavy. At least, it is until Ernest is actually in the chair, at which point he of course does not die, but rather becomes electrified again. This time, he's not just magnetic; he has also acquired the power to shoot lightning from his fingertips, which is a convenient way to get him out of the prison.

Ernest returns to the bank just in time to find that Nash has tied his pals to a time bomb set to blow the vault. Finally the twain meet, and Ernest goes mano a mano with Mr. Nash. He manages to collide with one of the security guards' booby traps, which electrifies him yet again, giving him the gift of flight. Ernest sacrifices himself by taking the bomb and flying through the bank's glass ceiling just before it explodes.

Ernest's friends express their heartbreak at Ernest's heroic death, but you'd think they would have learned by now. Second later, Ernest falls back through the ceiling and flattens Nash, having suffered only minor comical injuries.

(The TV version of this movie includes a number of deleted scenes, including one at the end where Ernest has achieved his dream of being a bank clerk, but he still suffers from accidental magnetism.)

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This is a great movie. I saw it on video when I was six (my first Ernest encounter), and I find it every bit as entertaining now. As a six-year-old, I was thrilled by Ernest's electrically-powered jailbreak, and that scene alone is still enough reason to watch the movie.

As in Ernest Saves Christmas, Jim Varney seems to have been eager to maximize his screen time playing characters other than Ernest. That movie put Ernest in three disguises (all playing characters he had created elsewhere), and here they went the extra mile by having him play a separate character, in addition to the scene where Ernest rattles off a series of impressions while trying to impersonate Nash. I like all of these characters, and it's a shame Jim Varney was so underused in his lifetime.

(Incidentally, isn't it strange that someone as ostensibly idiotic as Ernest is such a consummate actor? He is fully capable of portraying a character more intelligent than himself, most notably Astor Clement in Ernest Saves Christmas, who uses words the real Ernest wouldn't recognize. This is a great cartoon tradition, so of course it requires no further justification.)

I also can't help laughing when security guard Chuck finally realizes, after days of interaction with Nash, that he isn't the real Ernest: "I sensed it immediately."

Finally, I have to mention the theme music in this movie, both the opening song "Doin' Time," and the inexplicable end credits theme, which features the refrain: "Don't make me climb / These aren't my tree-climbin' shoes." I have no comment.

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Good Burger

Brian Robbins, 1997
Rotten Tomatoes score: 31%

It's time to put hard times behind! Get all the bad things off your mind.

When I was in the 4th grade, Nickelodeon rolled out All That, a sketch-comedy show featuring a teenage cast. It included such brilliant and subtly-executed characters as Walter the Earboy, a high school student with oversize ears; Randy and Mandy, two cooking show hosts who put chocolate in all their food; Pierre S. Cargot, who lived in a bathtub and taught such valuable French phrases as "Why is your butt talking?" in an accent no Frenchman could understand; and of course, H. Ross Perot, as portrayed by a twelve-year-old girl.

But the most popular sketch by far was "Good Burger," featuring Kel Mitchell as a parody of the stupid teenagers who are so widely reputed to work at fast food restaurants. Ed was so dumb that when a customer complained that his burger was well-done instead of rare, Ed took it as a compliment. (That particular sketch aired after the Jack in the Box E. coli scandal, so I doubt any fast food restaurants were still offering rare burgers, but that's neither here nor there.)

In the grand tradition of Saturdary Night Live, Nickelodeon decided to spin off this sketch into a critically panned movie. By 1997, Kel Mitchell had already been paired with his All That co-star Kenan Thompson in a sitcom called Kenan & Kel. Although this movie has no connection to that show, they clearly wanted to recapture its cast dynamics, with Kenan playing the flappable straight man to Kel's dangerously incompetent idiot. Dan Schneider returns from the sketch as the high-strung manager, and he's joined by Shar Jackson as Good Burger's only competent employee (and Kenan's eventual love interest in a pointless sublot) and, unbelievably, Abe Vigoda as a Good Burger lifer named Otis. Also appearing are Carmen Electra as a sinister vamp who tries to seduce Ed and Sinbad as a disco dude so out of touch that he's flattered to be compared to Shaft.

Dexter (Kenan) is looking forward to a summer vacation with no responsibilities, but when he drives his mother's car without permission and gets into an accident with his teacher Mr. Wheat (Sinbad), he has to take a summer job to pay for the damages. He finds work at Mondo Burger, the world's most ridiculously high-class burger joint, but the psycho owner Kurt (Jan Sweiterman) fires him on his first day.

Thus Dexter has to fall back on Good Burger, the mom-and-pop fast food restaurant across the street. Good Burger is struggling financially, largely because they have yet to fire Ed, even after he bathes in the milkshake machine. Now that Mondo Burger is in town, they may finally go out of business.

Luckily, Dexter discovers that Ed has a special sauce recipe that could bring patrons back to Good Burger. Kurt, however, is so hell-bent on monopolizing the local burger market that he hires Carmen Electra to use her wiles to acquire Ed's secret recipe. It doesn't work, so Kurt immediately stoops to attempted murder, which I guess is what anybody would do, right? He poisons Ed's sauce and calls in a favor with a mental hospital so corruptly managed that it is willing to confine two teenagers and Abe Vigoda for no reason. Fortunately they escape just in time to stop Good Burger's customers from eating the contaminated food.

It turns out that Kurt has been using illegal food additives to increase the mass of his burgers, in violation of the laws of the United States and thermodynamics. Dexter and Ed break into Mondo Burger and sabotage its operations, putting Kurt out of business for good.

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This movie was pretty ludicrous. It had to be, given its source material. It pains me to admit that All That doesn't quite hold up for me anymore, but really, I think that was the point. Nickelodeon has always had its finger on the pulse of what kids think is funny, and yes, kids think it's funny when a dumb teenager gives a fast food patron a cocker spaniel puppy instead of a burger.

Really, apart from the character of Ed, this movie has very little to do with the sketch. They were careful to throw in a couple of scenes where Ed screws up some customer's order, which was the entire concept of the TV version, but most of the running time is dedicated to a plot that would have had no place in a sketch comedy show. This can be done well, as in Wayne's World, and it can be done horrendously, as in MacGruber. Good Burger is somewhere in between.

I think the most genuinely funny line in the movie occurs during a shoehorned-in, unconvincing character-building moment where Dexter is bearing his soul to Ed. Dexter explains that he doesn't even remember what his deadbeat dad looks like, to which Ed replies: "I don't remember what my dad looks like either, but at least I get to see him every day." Actually, maybe the funniest line is Abe Vigoda's "I think I broke my ass." That made me laugh because he said "ass" in a kids' movie.

But really, just listen to this theme song. How can you listen to that and not feel good about your life?

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Fun Fact: The customer who received the cocker spaniel was played by Sherman Hemsley. Someone find that episode.

Going Berserk

David Steinberg, 1983
Rotten Tomatoes audience rating: 30%

I had never heard of this movie until Netflix suggested it to me. It doesn't seem like many other people have, either. Usually I only resort to the audience ratings on Rotten Tomatoes when I'm dealing with a made-for-TV movie, but as far as I can tell, this was released in theaters. Yet Rotten Tomatoes didn't have a single review for it.

The movie is hard to describe. Its plot, if you can call it that, is that a trio of cult leaders wants to assassinate a crusading Congressman (Pat Hingle, the commissioner from Batman) by hypnotizing his son-in-law (John Candy). This might be an homage to The Manchurian Candidate, or it might not. I would estimate that this plot occupies less than a third of the movie. The rest is taken up by a string of unrelated scenes. The only connection between one event and the next is John Candy's character.

John gets arrested and escapes custody, hand-cuffed to a killer (Ernie Hudson). The killer then dies, and John has to drag his body around in a strange prefiguring of Weekend at Bernie's. After John's friend Chick (Joe Flaherty) helps him remove the cuffs, they just abandon Ernie Hudson's body in a bar, where a talkative old friend is conversing with the corpse. The police never come looking for John or Ernie Hudson; the whole story is just dropped.

In another scene, John goes into a restaurant called Mom's, which has apparently transformed into a biker-punk bar. The punks pick a fight with John, he fails to talk sense into them, they spray-paint his clothes, and he leaves peacefully. Then he knocks their bikes over with his car. This gag actually made me laugh, but it had zero connection to anything else that happened in the movie.

John's fiancée Nancy is Alley Mills, the mother from The Wonder Years. She is effectively a non-entity, so I can't much comment on her performance. Early on, we're told that her father the Congressman is out to shut down the aforementioned sinister cult, but once this fact is established, it is never discussed again. Obviously we had to be told about this animosity between the Congressman and the cult, because the movie's climax is an assassination attempt against him. But you would think that this would warrant some kind of development or at least a few lines of dialogue.

Eugene Levy is also present as DiPasquale, a sleazy hack of a filmmaker who (for no apparent reason) wants to make a movie of John and Nancy's wedding. DiPasquale has previously produced a movie starring John and Chick called "Kung Fu U." It's a combination of a campus comedy and a martial arts flick, and we are of course treated to an extended selection.

I'm aware that I'm just describing isolated scene after isolated scene, but believe me, that's the name of the game. Clearly they had a lot of ideas for individual scenes, and the story was just an afterthought. Most of the participants in this movie came from the comedy troupe The Second City, and it reminded me of a later Second City production, Strange Brew, which was equally nonsensical but with funnier characters.

Even I once wrote a screenplay that was nothing but a bunch of disconnected "funny" scenes. It was even more incomprehensible than this movie. My excuse is that I was 15.

John Candy was one of the greats, and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is one of my favorites. But for a guy as funny as he was, he really had a talent for appearing in stupid movies. I guess it's a testament to how great John Candy was that I don't really mind watching this stuff as long as he's in it. I guess that's also a testament to my taste in movies.

Ghost Dad

Sidney Poitier, 1990
Rotten Tomatoes score: 7%

There is no excuse for this movie. It was directed by Sir Sidney Poitier, Oscar-winning actor, Bahamian ambassador, and Medal of Freedom recipient. It featured Bill Cosby, who in 1990 was probably the biggest sitcom star in America. You would think they couldn't go wrong even if they had tried. But they rose to the challenge.

Dr. Cosby plays Elliot Hopper, a successful, living businessman who is just days away from securing his family's future by landing a big account. He is the widowed father of several children, only one of whom (daughter Diane) plays a substantial role in the story. Elliot seems to have it all, until one day, he dies.

Of course, with a title like Ghost Dad, it's a foregone conclusion that Elliot is going to be dead by the end of act one. The movie toys with the audience by making us think he'll expire in an elevator accident, but no, that would be much too commonplace for what this picture has in mind. Instead, Elliot makes the fatal mistake of accepting a cab ride from a deranged, violent, psychopathic Satanist. (I'm not making a joke; the character is explicitly said to be a devil-worshiper.) In a fit of lunacy and a painfully drawn-out, unfunny stunt-driving sequence, the cabby drives off a bridge, and Elliot drowns in the river below.

I have no idea why they chose this as the means by which Elliot becomes a ghost. It is a truly surreal viewing experience. Moments after he dies, Ghost Dad climbs out of the river and recoils in terror as a bus barrels down on him. Of course, being a Ghost Dad, he is unharmed; but the real point is that a bus accident would have been a much more reasonable way to kill this character. So would the elevator crash we were teased with minutes earlier. So would anything.

Elliot is relieved to learn that, in spite of being a Ghost Dad, he can still be seen, albeit only in the dark. He can also communicate by mental telepathy, but conveniently for the filmmakers, he has to move his mouth as if he were really talking. He can even touch solid objects if he really makes an effort. So don't be confused by the utter lack of any visual or auditory clue; he is still a ghost.

A man named Sir Edith summons Ghost Dad to London, where he tells him that he will be permanently passing into the great beyond in a few days' time. Why Sir Edith has the power to summon ghosts is not satisfactorily explained. Back at his home, Ghost Dad explains to his kids that he will be returning to work so that he can make sure he secures their financial well-being before vanishing forever. The kids all seem awfully unfazed by the revelation that their father is now a disembodied spirit, and everyone takes it for granted that once he lands this business deal, they will be just fine without him.

In the movie's climax, Sir Edith travels to the Hopper household to tell everyone some big news. It turns out that Elliot isn't dead—he's only in a coma, but since his body was found with no ID, the authorities haven't contacted the family. Apparently there is a trait that runs in families that causes the souls of comatose people to exit their bodies, and the Hopper family carries the gene. This explains, says Elliot, why his father was also a Ghost Dad years ago. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention, but I'm 100% sure this seemingly relevant fact was never mentioned up to this point.

Just as the Hoppers are on their way to the hospital to reunite Ghost Dad with his body, Diane takes a nasty fall down the stairs and goes into a coma. At the hospital, she reveals that she has become a Ghost Daughter and has no desire to re-enter her body. After about 90 seconds of dialogue, Elliot persuades her of the folly of this decision, so Ghost Dad and Ghost Daughter rejoin with their bodies and come back to life.

In the final scene, Ghost Dad (now Normal Dad again) encounters the Satanist from earlier in the movie. He orders the Satanist to go directly to hell and sit on a hot coal until it snows. I'm not sure if we're supposed to assume the Satanist is going to kill himself or what, but it's an extremely disturbing way to end the movie. Couldn't Elliot at least have called the police? Why is the Satanist still alive anyway? He fell into the river too.

Before I conclude this review, I should mention that there were a couple of plot threads I didn't mention, including a scene where Ghost Dad helps his son perform a magic act, a subplot about Ghost Dad falling in love, and an adventure involving a conniving neighbor who learns Elliot's secret. (I omitted this last one out of a desire not to demean the titan of a young actor who played the neighbor by mentioning his connection to this movie.) If you really want to know about those scenes, you'll just have to watch the movie. But be forewarned that it is