My first question was “how have I not seen this?” I pondered and settled on that 80sDeacHead just didn’t like Michael Keaton during a certain period and Johnny Dangerously came out during that time. I did a full 180 on him after Beetlejuice and Clean and Sober but before then, he was no draw. Joe Piscopo being the 2nd name on the marquee really cemented that this was not a movie for me. I have done a 0 degree shift on Piscopo over the years. He was awful then, he got awfuller (I saw a standup special where the last 1/3 was him awaiting the results of a steroid test) and became fully irrelevant. Googling what he’s been up to lately tells me he’s a conservative radio talk show host and color me unsurprised. Young folks, I want you to know that Piscopo was SNL’s #2 for several seasons. The show is around today because of Eddie Murphy making it watchable during this period.
Anyway, on to the movie. Going in, I know nothing about it except it’s a comedy. A Weird Al song over opening credits and seeing Amy Heckerling as director gave me an initial sense of optimism. Heckerling has far from a 1.000 batting average but she’s made some movies I really like (Fast Times, Clueless) and some that I don’t (various Look Who’s Talkings, Night at the Roxbury) but I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt to start.
Right away when the movie started with a car running over a name in the opening credits I knew what we were in for - a wacky 80s romp. Now we’re in the realm of high upside, low floor movies. This happened to be the peak for Zucker/Abrams/Zucker who made amazing parodies (together and individually) but when this genre doesn’t hit, it really doesn’t hit. Recent examples would be something like “Meet the Spartans”, just terrible.
As the movie proceeds, it strikes me to be like a live action Tom & Jerry. You know, hitting over the head as comedy. I never cared for Tom & Jerry. I begin to not care for Johnny Dangerously as it floods the viewer with LCD humor.
And that’s how the movie continued to trend. It didn’t work for me. This is my first outright, no mulling it over required, “boo” for OGBFC.
Random thoughts - what accent was Moroni trying to do? It wasn’t anything close to Italian. In fact the only actor I’m going to give props to is Maureen Stapleton, who at least seemed to know her character was Irish. She was the highlight for me in general. The couple of chuckles I had were due to her.
Marilu Henner - smokeshow.
Another note for younguns - when Danny DeVito ordered a malt liquor and a bull crashed through the window, that was a parody of on an ad that ran during the 70s/80s.
On the plus side I did learn the origin of the “My X did Y once… once” catch phrase. I could not have placed it before.