Mr. Mike's Mondo Video (1979)

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

I looked forward to seeing this movie when it came out, since I was a huge SNL fan. When my boyfriend and I went to see it, the people coming out of the early show were yelling, "Don't waste your money!" But of course we had to find out for ourselves.While there were a few funny bits (Laser Bra 2000, Root Boy Slim), most of it felt like it could have been severely edited down to an amusing 1 hour show. It was pretty bad.When the opera singer came on, many people got up and walked out. This made me laugh, because I realized that O'Donoghue was just pressing people's buttons on purpose with this movie. Or else he was just insane. Whatever - you don't need to waste your time watching it, it's that bad.

I rented this last night, after having been impressed by the credentials and the fact that NBC refused to air it. Very rarely has a video failed to live up to such lofty expectations; then again, I may have expected too much.Even though I knew from the first two sketches that this was going to be a very annoying and unfunny video, I stayed with it, expecting that, at some point or another, the show would connect--say something funny, make some sort of original statement, anything. Nothing. It aims to be shocking, but ends up extremely boring. (Throwing a cat into the pool is funny. Turning that one single act into a long, slo-mo montage of cats being throwin into the pool--well, it seemed like five minutes instead of two. And two minutes is about 100 seconds longer than this sketch had to be.)Much of this is stream-of-consciousness in the vein of Monty Python, only without any of the wit. Most of the jokes seem to have been written by O'Donoghue at three a.m. while coked out in a room with only a typewriter. (Am I far from the truth? I'm not up on my SNL trivia.)Watch this video as a lesson on how to take what is potentially hilarous and cut it off at the knees. It also stands out as a document that testifies to a very empty and decadent niche in our cultural history.In short, it stinks on so many levels.

Well, I didn't laugh even once at this muddled, unfunny heap of film, which begins with a very boring, very unsmiling skit that centers around Cat Swimming instruction. It moves into other tedious skits like `The Church of the Jack Lord" (a Church of the Sub-Genius styled farce that looks great on paper) and a moment with Dan Aykroyd's deformed feet, not to mention the highly dim-witted "Laser Bra 2000" and a montage of male commentary called "Beautiful Women Love Disgusting Men," where the film unloads all of its cameos at once: Jane Curtin, Carrie Fisher, Teri Garr, Joan Hackett, Deborah "Blondie" Harry, Margot Kidder, Wendie Malick, Laraine Newman, Gilda Radner, and Loretta Tupper. That said, you can probably guess how misleading the box is that professes appearances from this bevy of stars! Dan Aykroyd is in some of the skits, and there's further cameos from people like Paul Shaffer and Bill Murray (who's even less funny here than in his cameo as Lefty Schwartz in `Loose Shoes'). Alas, not even the footage of Klaus Nomi, Sid Vicious, or Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band (which is way too long and utterly stupid – the Tubes they weren't!) helps this disorder. The one redeeming skit is called "Christmas on Other Planets.' "Tunnel Vision," `Amazon Women on the Moon,' `The Kentucky Fried Movie,' and even `The Boob Tube' and "Jokes My Folks Never Told Me" (groan) are much, much better than this!

The title of my summary pretty much says it all. The movie is hilarious, but there are less "belly" laughs than there are "Where the hell did that come from?" laughs. As National Lampoon fans know, Michael O'Donoghue was an "evil genius" of comedy. His philosophy was that there's no such thing as "too far", and that rings clearly in this film. The movie was banned from TV by the FCC, for obvious reasons. I highly recommend this movie to lovers of dark, surreal comedy, or the underground movement. Chances are that if you have a short attention span, or stay with the mainstream, it's not for you. Praise Jack Lord!