The Singer Midgets return to Hollywood and face the many legends which have filled movie books for years. Of course, they don't mention Nazi agents on the set and a fancy royal couple with a pooch named Strudel. Chevy Chase is a government agent guarding the Duke and Duchess and Carrie Fisher guarding the residents of Munchkinland and the winged monkeys. This leads to chases all over the Rainbow Hotel and MGM studios, visiting the "Gone With the Wind" set, pretty remarkable considering it was filmed at Selznick. The actual surviving "Wizard of Oz" munchkins appear as themselves, many ageless considering that Oz was made 40 years before.
Sounds promising, yes? NO! This is one of the great comic disasters over the past 40 years, a film so unfunny that I wanted the witch to swoop down and cover them with the poison from her hourglass. Eve Arden tries very hard with a Eastern European accent to be amusing but is defeated by tasteless material concerning her beloved pup whom she fails to recognize with changing looks. Joseph Maher also tries as the Duke with similar results. Billy Barty gets a few good pratfalls as the German spy who starts his mission by hailing Hitler right in the no-nads. With its Mel Brooks style humor, you think there would be some humor but all it ends up being is a Bugs Bunny cartoon where all the gags land with a thud. And oh, those songs, which sound like the original munchkin songs sped up to make the voices even higher.
Sounds promising, yes? NO! This is one of the great comic disasters over the past 40 years, a film so unfunny that I wanted the witch to swoop down and cover them with the poison from her hourglass. Eve Arden tries very hard with a Eastern European accent to be amusing but is defeated by tasteless material concerning her beloved pup whom she fails to recognize with changing looks. Joseph Maher also tries as the Duke with similar results. Billy Barty gets a few good pratfalls as the German spy who starts his mission by hailing Hitler right in the no-nads. With its Mel Brooks style humor, you think there would be some humor but all it ends up being is a Bugs Bunny cartoon where all the gags land with a thud. And oh, those songs, which sound like the original munchkin songs sped up to make the voices even higher.