by Flack » Thu Jun 24, 2021 6:33 pm
In Americathon's alternate timeline, Jimmy Carter was lynched in office for not preventing the oil crisis, which led to America running out of gasoline. Carter's successor, President Chet Roosevelt (played by John Ritter) is no relation to the previous President Roosevelt and won the election with his campaign motto, "I'm not a schmuck." President Roosevelt has kept America running by borrowing mass amounts of money from Native Americans, but when they demand their money back, Roosevelt and his staff (lead by Fred Willard) decide to put on a month-long telethon, hosted by Monty Rushmore (Harvey Corman).
While the film's subplots deal with an affair by President Roosevelt and a group of terrorists working with the Native Americans to foreclose on America, the bulk of the film focuses on the telethon and the increasingly ridiculous acts that make their way to the stage. Traditional song-and-dance and ventriloquist acts are quickly replaced by boxing matches (mom vs. son), a man (played by Meat Loaf) who fights a Camaro, and even more outlandish acts. Americathon felt like one part Network and one part Idiocracy.
The movie is ostensibly told from the point of view of a young network executive, who is voiced in voiceovers (but not played by) George Carlin. The voiceover angle is dropped something along the way, and none of the subplots are as interesting or funny as the main film. I realize you can't make a 90 minute film and only show bad stage performances (then it's just a clip show), but if you're going to spend so much time on subplots, you have to make them interesting.
Harvey Corman does a good job as the telethon's MC and I wish he were in more of the film. As part of his payment in the film, Corman's character demanded "a briefcase full of pills," which he continually pops to stay awake for an entire month. Near the end of the film, a hostile takeover goes awry, Corman is shot on stage, and the money starts rolling in, revealing what audiences were hoping to see all along. Every time I review a movie with John Ritter in it I say "he played John Ritter," and this movie is no exception.
In high school I wrote a paper about the best way to get the country out of debt, which I believed was letting convicted murders fight to the death on pay per view. I don't think America (or my teacher) was ready for that idea (fast forward and the owner of the UFC is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, go figure). Maybe a telethon where people randomly get shot live on television isn't so far fetched.
In [i]Americathon's[/i] alternate timeline, Jimmy Carter was lynched in office for not preventing the oil crisis, which led to America running out of gasoline. Carter's successor, President Chet Roosevelt (played by John Ritter) is no relation to the previous President Roosevelt and won the election with his campaign motto, "I'm not a schmuck." President Roosevelt has kept America running by borrowing mass amounts of money from Native Americans, but when they demand their money back, Roosevelt and his staff (lead by Fred Willard) decide to put on a month-long telethon, hosted by Monty Rushmore (Harvey Corman).
While the film's subplots deal with an affair by President Roosevelt and a group of terrorists working with the Native Americans to foreclose on America, the bulk of the film focuses on the telethon and the increasingly ridiculous acts that make their way to the stage. Traditional song-and-dance and ventriloquist acts are quickly replaced by boxing matches (mom vs. son), a man (played by Meat Loaf) who fights a Camaro, and even more outlandish acts. [i]Americathon[/i] felt like one part [i]Network[/i] and one part [i]Idiocracy[/i].
The movie is ostensibly told from the point of view of a young network executive, who is voiced in voiceovers (but not played by) George Carlin. The voiceover angle is dropped something along the way, and none of the subplots are as interesting or funny as the main film. I realize you can't make a 90 minute film and only show bad stage performances (then it's just a clip show), but if you're going to spend so much time on subplots, you have to make them interesting.
Harvey Corman does a good job as the telethon's MC and I wish he were in more of the film. As part of his payment in the film, Corman's character demanded "a briefcase full of pills," which he continually pops to stay awake for an entire month. Near the end of the film, a hostile takeover goes awry, Corman is shot on stage, and the money starts rolling in, revealing what audiences were hoping to see all along. Every time I review a movie with John Ritter in it I say "he played John Ritter," and this movie is no exception.
In high school I wrote a paper about the best way to get the country out of debt, which I believed was letting convicted murders fight to the death on pay per view. I don't think America (or my teacher) was ready for that idea (fast forward and the owner of the UFC is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, go figure). Maybe a telethon where people randomly get shot live on television isn't so far fetched.