Stay Tuned (1992)

I really sorta enjoyed "Stay tuned". It had a premise that was not sickly overused like so many other modern movies. John Ritter is glued to TV. His wife is tired of it etc etc. John gets visit from Jeffrey Jones as (posed) cable salesman. He succeeds in selling John a brand new cable network with a big satellite dish in the back yard. His wife sees it and is through, but before she has chance to leave him, she and John both get sucked into satellite dish and into TV channels.This is where the enjoyable and interesting parts of the film really start. Jeffrey Jones is really an evil underlord who sets up every channel his clients/ victims are in as a trap to where it's hard to get to the gray static gateway to the next channel without getting killed in some way or another. The most entertaining things are the channels themselves. They're elaborate, they each have variable interesting details to the challenges that John and Helen have to go through. And they're humorous. The most humorous thing about each channel are the spoof names and spoof likeness to real shows, movies, and commercials. Like Northern Overexposure (Northern Exposure) where John and Helen are walking through the snow in Alaska and are getting chased by hungry wolves. They dig through the snow to find the escape static, but not without first being trapped in a burning barn and centimetres close to being savaged by the wolves. Then they're in a crooked game show where the host punishes ignorance instead of rewarding knowledge (they did this exact same thing on the Simpsons in the episode where the Simpsons went to Japan). The same idea is used in every channel visited. Different spoof names included "Three men and Rosemary's baby", "Thirty something to life", " Different strokes" except the "strokes" part referred to two very old men having a stroke. My favorites: "Dwayne's underworld" (Wayne's world) was a Wayne and Garth lookalike in vampire form, and the extreme closeup joke here was the red hot poke in the eye. The Warner brothers cartoon spoof had many spoofed details in it from the real cartoons right down to the "Acme company mail send out and the delivery response happening five seconds later". Then the WWF wrestling spoof with John and Helen in the ring. There were also funny commercials: "Yogie beer", the beer for kids. And " Silencers of the lambs", face nosels to shut kids up, and dogs too (Silencers of the lambs for pets sold separately). I liked when they go to medieval France where they eventually look at being beheaded. John says "you've always said you wanted to go to France". Helen: " yeh, in the 20th century!" I also liked the 30s/40s private eye film spoof. This was where the ten year old son finally convinced his stubborn sister that Mom and Dad were trapped in TV when a newspaper photo of Mom/Helen (the dame in the private eye film) was seen by the sister. Until now, the boy had been unsuccessful in trying to convince his sister that Mom and Dad were trapped in television. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Jones is trying his hardest in his underworld control room not to let his clients/victims succeed, and he is growing increasingly frustrated every time John and Helen make it to the next channel. There were a couple of scenes a little weak, but mostly a very good, interesting movie.

The Knables are a very dysfunctional family. Roy Knable (John Ritter) is a very unhappy person, who cares more about his T.V shows, than his wife Helen (Pam Dawber) his wife is fed up of it. They have two children who bicker constantly. Things are in complete and utter disarray. Roy gets an offer from a mysterious salesman named Spike. He offers up a satellite dish with over 600 channels for Roy's choosing. Being the T.V addict Roy is, he is very much enticed. He turns Spike down, so Spike gives Roy a free trial. His wife flips and is about to move out, but they get sucked into a hellish world, filled with sadistic T.V shows. Roy and Helen are forced to try and survive the gauntlet, and get back homeNot only is this movie clever, but I enjoyed it very much. This movie is made for film buffs. It's filled with spoofs of T.V titles, which cracked me up. This is definitely one of those misunderstood films, and it's almost cultish in a way. It's not going to be for everyone. Casual movie goers may not get into all the inside jokes, and stuff like that. But for people that watch a lot of movies and T.V shows on a yearly basis, will howl. There is even a bizarre cartoon sequence, where Roy and Helen play mouses, and try to evade a mechanical cat of sorts. Strangely enough, it was very funny. My favorite one is near the end of the movie, where Roy gets transported onto the Three's Company set. I won't spoil it all, but it's absolutely hilarious. Those that don't know, John Ritter was propelled into stardom due to Three's Company. I do have a minor carp. It did seem to me that Roy & Helen accepted their predicament a bit too easy. Maybe it was just me, which could be the case. The film also leaves their kids to be the heroes, and I especially found the sister annoying. John Ritter & Pam Dawber ace their parts with charisma and likability. Jeffrey Jones hams it up like no tomorrow, and is clearly having a blast. Eugene Levy is amusing as wellStay Tuned for extra title jokes at the end credits!Final Thoughts: This is a highly underrated film. I think many people didn't grasp what this movie was going for. I watch a ton of movies on a yearly basis. I managed to get most of the jokes. This is highly recommended for big movie fans, not so much for people that watch movies on a casual basis. I personally dug it7.5/10

Funny movie. Especially the scene where they are mice.Look for the message 'Remember Tuesday is Saddam Hussein Appreciation Day' on the scoreboardI always liked Jack Ritter, and thought he was the star of Three's Company. He has a good comic timing.Pam Dawber does a good job as his annoyed wife - yes, she plays a stereotyped one dimensional frustrated housewife role, but she does it well.Jeffrey Jones, who played the principle in Ferris Bueler's day off is pretty entertaining as well. He seems to have a knack of playing people you want to dislike :)I could give this a B for comedy movies, and an A for TV parody movies!

the movie is supposed to be set in the US, BUT in the scene where John Ritter is on the highway and he drops a suitcase, in the background you can see HarborPlace in Vancouver BC. PLUS the fencing studio at the end of the movie is GasTown in Vancouver. The part where the train is going to hit Pam Dawber (Helen Knable) was filmed at Old Tucson Movie Studios (before it burned down) Some US movies say that they are in Portland, Seattle, NYC but it is really Vancouver. Check out Rumble in the Bronx with Jackie Chan. The mountains in the background are Whistler,BC and the 3 Lions (site for the 2010 Winter Olympics) The first couple of years of XFiles were filmed in Vancouver, as was 21 JumpStreet.