There is only one reason why this film is probably not on the list of the worst comedies of all time, because people are embarrassed to admit that they've seen it, or worse, sat all the way through it. There is also another reason why comedy in the 1970's seemed to be on an upswing: there were only two Jerry Lewis movies, and we got talents like Madeline Kahn. It's too bad though that her reign was only brief, greatly damaged by her decision to appear in a film with the overrated Lewis.
This nonsensical piece of slapjunk is loosely based on a story by Kurt Vonnegut, and it took guts for him to allow this to end up in the hands of the people who wrote it, directed it, produced it, and swept up at the end of the day, forgetting to throw the prints away. Lewis and Kahn suffer great indignity in dual roles, playing the parents of themselves, and looking like Raggedy Ann and Andy after a bad acid trip.
Marty Feldman went from being Igor to Marvin the Martian doing a bad Peter Lorre impression, and Jim Backus goes from being lost on that island to becoming president of the United States, and he should have paraphrased a Reagan quote by saying, "Mr. Director, throw out this film!"
But the worst bit of abuse goes to Pat Morita as a Japanese general dissolved to doll size and barking orders in a squeaky voice. He should have waxed off of this film, and focused on his Oscar nominated role in "The Karate Kid" which just released in the very same year in the United States, although this burst like a pimple out two years before in other countries.
There have been many bad comedies made each year, and some of them at least give you a few laughs. In striving to be goofy and filled with slapstick (accentuated in its title) that it fails as if divine intervention made it turn out so bad. Veteran character actor John Abbott is probably the one good thing here, playing a doctor who gets to say a few funny lines in complete monotone, and Orson Welles simply just provides the opening narration.
This also has some of the worst special effects, pretty sad coming off an era that gave us "Star Wars" and "Ghostbusters", although the mentality of this movie seems to be in the mind of the stay puff marshmallow man. You couldn't roast this marshmallow any worse than the critics did, and when you can't find one favorable review on this site, you know you've got a film that will be despised for eternity and one that should probably just be mercifully forgotten so nobody else ever suffers through it.
This nonsensical piece of slapjunk is loosely based on a story by Kurt Vonnegut, and it took guts for him to allow this to end up in the hands of the people who wrote it, directed it, produced it, and swept up at the end of the day, forgetting to throw the prints away. Lewis and Kahn suffer great indignity in dual roles, playing the parents of themselves, and looking like Raggedy Ann and Andy after a bad acid trip.
Marty Feldman went from being Igor to Marvin the Martian doing a bad Peter Lorre impression, and Jim Backus goes from being lost on that island to becoming president of the United States, and he should have paraphrased a Reagan quote by saying, "Mr. Director, throw out this film!"
But the worst bit of abuse goes to Pat Morita as a Japanese general dissolved to doll size and barking orders in a squeaky voice. He should have waxed off of this film, and focused on his Oscar nominated role in "The Karate Kid" which just released in the very same year in the United States, although this burst like a pimple out two years before in other countries.
There have been many bad comedies made each year, and some of them at least give you a few laughs. In striving to be goofy and filled with slapstick (accentuated in its title) that it fails as if divine intervention made it turn out so bad. Veteran character actor John Abbott is probably the one good thing here, playing a doctor who gets to say a few funny lines in complete monotone, and Orson Welles simply just provides the opening narration.
This also has some of the worst special effects, pretty sad coming off an era that gave us "Star Wars" and "Ghostbusters", although the mentality of this movie seems to be in the mind of the stay puff marshmallow man. You couldn't roast this marshmallow any worse than the critics did, and when you can't find one favorable review on this site, you know you've got a film that will be despised for eternity and one that should probably just be mercifully forgotten so nobody else ever suffers through it.