Watch Cracking Up For Free

Simply A Masterpiece

As Good As It Gets

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Continuing to review movies or TV specials featuring early appearances of "SNL"ers in chronological order, I'm once again in 1977 with the release of something called Cracking Up. There are two future cast members here: Harry Shearer, who joined for two non-consecutive seasons-1979-80 and 1984-85 (though he left mid-season), and Michael McKean, who joined near the end of the 1993-94 season and remained for the next one. At the time, they were both members of The Credibility Gap along with David L. Lander, who was also Michael's co-star on the popular TV series "Laverne & Shirley" at this time. Anyway, the sketches they perform are pretty funny with the highlight being a hilarious take on Abbott & Costello's "Who's on First" with Shearer as a rock promoter and Lander as a newspaper head of classified ads and involving the names of musical acts The Who, The Guess Who, and Yes. Their last sketch, however, is unevenly mixed with another one from another group that makes no sense. It has Shearer as Tom Snyder with Lander and McKean as guests and their material has some laughs but the "Impotent Lovers" sketch that's mixed there is for the birds. Another comedy troupe, The Ace Trucking Company, provides the only other funny material in this movie. Fred Willard was one of this group's members and he's very funny here as are the rest of his fellow players in sketches about getting a job with bosses who have involuntary movements, a diner that pretends to be a fine restaurant with a floor show, and a mattress store with the seller and a buyer mixing double entendres. Otherwise, you're stuck with a lame wraparound of an earthquake TV coverage and mostly unfunny TV ad spoofs. So on that note, this Cracking Up movie is recommend for the material I just cited. P.S. I was surprised by the number of people who appeared in this picture that also appeared in Tunnel Vision which I rewatched a few days ago.

Dreadfully unfunny excrement featuring a handful of (later) truly funny folks (Edie McClurg, Fred Willard, Harry Shearer) who somehow survived this unpromising early-career mess. Hard to figure out what is going on here; looks like one of those SNL-inspired zip-budget sketch comedies (Groove Tube,Kentucky Fried Movie) of Seventies goosed up for mini-major studio distribution (American International) with gratuitous added footage (nudity, moronic storyline about post-earthquake LA) that has virtually nothing to do with scatter shot "comedic" skits. (Too bad they didn't edit in some laughs.) Film stock doesn't match and opening credits don't even list performers. Clearly aimed at undiscriminating drive-in crowd but there's not enough beer or weed the in world to make this steaming pile amusing.

This is a really bad movie. This is what happens when Americans get influenced by Monty Python's Flying Circus and someone has a rich parent that can sponsor this disaster of a movie. The obvious rip-ofs starting with the animated intro are just annoying for me as a MPFC fan. To add to the disaster they try to add some naked people to make the whole thing funnier and the only thing I can say is "Benny Hill does this better!".

This film opened in Seattle in 1978 as a bottom third of the triple bill in one drive-in (with a mini-ad), so I guess Arkoff at A.I.P knew he had a bomb in his hand. Part of the film is shot on video and transfered into film, so it's grainy looking. The rest of the film is on film, and you know you're in trouble when only 10% of the joke works. The title theme is annoying that it'll never leave your mind after seeing this film. The film is not on video, but it's on video in Japan. Maybe Japanese comedy fans might get 90% of the unfunny jokes. Big disappointment for any TUNNELVISION fans.