Ah... there's nothing quite like sitting back and spending an afternoon watching a series of sophomoric jokes, uproarious site gags, and ample naked breasts to make just make the time fly by. The team of Zucker/Abrahms(sp?), that wacky team that done brung (poor grammar is intentional here) you great films like "Airplane" first cut their teeth on a sketch comedy forum they called "The Kentucky Fried Theater". By having the audacity to go places that Saturday Night Live and their censors could only dream about, the Brothers Zucker and Jim Abrahms were able to create raunchy, racy, and hilarious sketchy comedy. In the late 1970's they finally made the big leap and took their `talents' the big screen with the cult hit "The Kentucky Fried Movie"."...Movie" is a somewhat uneven compilation of sketch comedy that is crafted in the Monty Python mold. Don't let the uneven aspect deter you, though. When "Kentucky Fried Movie" hits its targets, it makes for some of the funniest and most titillating comedy on film. One of the raunchiest skits is a `promo' for an upcoming movie called "Catholic High School Girls in Trouble". The shameless display of naked females, graphic (but, humorous) sex, and crude humor make this sketch one of the all-time classics. Even people who have never seen "The Kentucky Fried Movie" know about this famous sketch. There are some other fairly inspired bits in this film, including another extremely raunchy skit called "Eyewitness News (Nudes?)" where a young couple gets quite amorous while watching the evening news. "Cleopatra Schwartz" which pairs a Hassidic rabbi with a Pam Grier-type as a crime fighting couple seems just plain wrong, but is just plain funny. Other skits like the `Feel-O-Rama' movie theater and `Big Jim Slade's love record' are quite funny.
However, the true crown jewel of this movie is an inspired spoof of the old Bruce Lee movies called "Fistful of Yen". By far the longest sketch, it also packs the most comedic punch per square inch. The Bruce Lee type character must break into an evil criminal mastermind's palace and rescue a damsel in distress. This mastermind has a secret weapon, a prosthetic arm that looks like it was made by Snap-On Tools. Nothing is spared in this set. Shots are taken ridiculously sexual names that are given to Asian characters in these movies; the easy duping of an `expert' bodyguard is spoofed; and, even Detroit is spared no punches. For me, the most hilarious aspect is the criminal mastermind's palace `alarm system'. When you see it, you will know what I mean. This one sketch, alone, makes the movie worthwhile. The shameless amount of raunchiness doesn't hurt, either. If you're curious about how the deranged minds that created "Airplane" got their start, or just enjoy a good film that seems to have been the inspiration for every sex comedy to come along since, then "The Kentucky Fried Movie" will be time well spent.
Some of the humor is not for everybody, as it is very sexually explicit. There is a great deal of nudity, so it is definitely not appropriate for the kiddies. But if you find early Saturday Night Live or Monty Python funny, you will definitely get a kick out of this picture. You will certainly never see the Evening News the same again. There are parts of this movie that do not hold up to time and some of the humor falls flat, but most of the skits are timeless and the slow parts are few and far between. Plus, the 70's wardrobe and music are funny, in and of itself.
People from Big Jim Slade the former tight end of the Kansas City Chiefs to all the Catholic High School Girls in Trouble recommend this movie, and so do I. It is very funny.
Buy The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977) Now
Wildly unevenly funny spoof of movies and TV from the team of John Landis and Zucker-Abrams-Zucker, who went on to do Airplane and the Naked Gun franchises.KFM is notable for its crass humor, celebrity cameos and several unrelated bits. Most of the bits are short and some aren't very funny anymore (Bill Bixby's Headache Clinic and Henry Gibson's United Appeal for the Dead are notable in the aspect, although it is great to see the former "alive again"). Working better are the movie spoofs from "Samuel L. Bronkowitz". The classic is "Catholic High School Girls in Trouble", with its gratuitous nudity and inane jokes. "That's Armageddon" (with Donald Suterhland as the clumsy waiter" )is a great parody of and would probably be better than the future movie of a similar title. ZAZ also use the Bronkowitz name in their later movies.
The centerpiece of the movie is Evan Kim in "A Fistful of Yen", which is part Kung Fu Movie, part adventure movie and part Wizard of Oz (this begins with Dr. Klon melting a la the Wicked Witch of the West and ends with Kim as Dorothy, complete with Auntie Em, Toto, and a very familiar figure from Klon's Mountain.) This sketch comes complete with the evil villain ( Klon, who has a number of attachments such as a hair dryer to an artifical hand), a damsel in distress (Anna) and Kim as the hero. Of course, Kim gets to use his kung fu skills to kill about 50 or 60 men. Pay attention to the end, when Kim returns to Kansas. Some of his dialgoue finds its way into the credits of a future ZAZ movie. Also used in in the future Airplane is the basketball bit, only this time it is martial arts fighters playing basketball instead of aborigines.)
Another longer form sketch is "Courtroom" a black and white parody of the 1950's court shows (and better than the ones on TV today). This is replete with Tony Dow and Jerry Zucker as Wally and Beaver Cleaver, a morph into "What's My Line", and Steven Stucker as a gay court reporter, a role he would revise twice in the Airplane films. Colin Male, who was the reporter on the old Divorce Court, appears as the reporter in this spoof. Incidentally, Male's character is named "Steven McCrosky", a name that ZAZ would later use in Airplane. Also used again in Airplane is the character named "Rex Kramer".
Paying their usual homage to sports, the two opposing attorneys in Courtroom are named "Hornug" and "Taylor". No doubt inspired by Green Bay Packers greats Paul Hornug and Jim Taylor.
Some of the other bits include "Eyewitness News" where a news team watches a couple having sex, a spoof of the Today show (with Academy Award winning makeup artist Rick Baker as a gorilla) and a science film showing that zinc oxide is in everything.
ZAZ and Landis were just warming up for their future endeavors and while KFM is very uneven, it gives us a glimpse of the genius that was yet to come.
Read Best Reviews of The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977) Here
From the guys who brought you the hilarious "Airplane" and the unintentionally funny "Ghost" and "First Knight" and John Landis, director of "Animal House" and "Blues Brothers," this is one hilarious movie. It's crude, it's sloppy, it's rude and wildly inconsistent, but when it's rolling it will actually injure you with laughter."KFM" is the evil mutant lovechild of Mad Magazine and the underground video movement that also spawned the original "Saturday Night Live." It features parodies of everything from commercials to those incredibly boring films your teachers made you watch in class when they felt too downtrodden by their crappy pay to actually make a lesson plan. The film's centerpiece is a pitch-perfect Bruce Lee/"Enter the Dragon" parody called "A Fistful of Yen" that devolves into a "Wizard of Oz" parody.
Features no budget, no stars (although Donald Sutherland makes a non sequitor cameo) and about 5 million laughs. Buy it, rent it, own it, dream it. Dare to live it.
Want The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977) Discount?
THE KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE is a series of sketches that lampoon various venues of its day: industrial training films, television commercials, news shows, martial arts flicks, and talk shows--in fact, it is very much like the original SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. But while being on the big screen means the film can go a lot further than SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE ever could on television, KFM doesn't have the same level of talent behind it. When you add in the dated quality of the humor, the result is very hit or miss indeed.The film originated when two brothers and their best friend--David and Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams--created a live show called "Kentucky Fried Theatre," and it proved such a hit that the three took the show to Los Angeles, where they managed to interest director John Landis and producer Robert Weiss in turning the whole thing into a low-budget film. Filmed with a no-name cast interspersed with cameos by Bill Bixby, Donald Sutherland, and Henry Gibson, KFM became the surprise hit of 1977.
Some of it holds up extremely well, most notably the "movie trailers" for such imaginary no-class explotation films as CATHOLIC HIGHSCHOOL GIRLS IN TROUBLE and CLEOPATRA SCHWARTZ, both of which will probably have film buffs screaming with laughter. And then there is a sketch which has a couple making love according to directions issued by a phonograph record, an instructional film on the uses of zinc oxide, a wicked take-off on "Point/Counterpoint," and a still darker take-off on television public service announcement--all of them a hoot and half.
But when the film falters, it falls with a thud. Fans of Bruce Lee will probably appreciate the film's centerpiece more than I did, a twenty-minute take-off on martial arts films called "A Fistful of Yen;" I myself thought it would be more amusing if it were half as long. The "Feel-Around" selection was a clever idea that never actually took off, and really much the same can be said for most of the sketches. Some of it is a matter of datedness: what was topical in 1977 doesn't necessarily have a great deal of relevance for a contemporary viewer. Some of it is shock-humor that doesn't shock any more because it has been done so often and so much better. But even so, and while the film as a whole is perhaps best approached as a cultural artifact, it's still worth a look--particularly if you like such films as AIRPLANE, THE NAKED GUN, ANIMAL HOUSE, and THE BLUES BROTHERS, all of which were created by various members of the crew that originally created KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE.
As for the DVD, the film quality is as good as it gets (and you should remember it wasn't great to begin with), and it offers the option of viewing the film in either widescreen or pan-and-scan--but the bonuses that seem so intriguing are actually less interesting than you might expect. The "behind the scenes" home movies and stills are actually rather dull, and as for the commentary... well, it sounds like the DVD package producers got the Zuckers, Abrahams, Landis, and Weiss together, gave them a couple of beers, and turned on the movie. They clearly haven't seen the film in quite a long time, spend a great deal of time trying to remember the names of the actors, and generally yuk it up. Now and then it is amusing and even informative, but on the whole it isn't greatly memorable one way or another. On the whole, I do recommend the DVD as a curiosity--and it would be a great party film--but this isn't one that you're likely to replay a great deal.
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