The Big Bus (1976)

Four years before the successful take off of Zucker and Abraham's smash hit spoof Airplane! (1980), director James Frawley's The Big Bus explored remarkably similar territory, lampooning the popular disaster genre in a crazy scatter-shot style. The film's titular vehicle is the world's first nuclear powered bus, a giant, luxury, 32-wheeled metallic titan called Cyclops embarking on its maiden journey travelling non-stop from New York to Denver; unfortunately for the passengers and crew, a crazed oil magnate is out to discredit the bus by putting it permanently out of service by any means necessary.Like Airplane, the absurd goof-ball gags come thick and fast, but The Big Bus's batting average isn't quite as high, a lot of the humour falling rather flat. The film's best bits are its more subtle, throw-away humorous moments, although I imagine that a lot of these might easily be missed on the first viewing. As the film thunders towards its conclusion, the bus loses its brakes and picks up speed, careening round perilous mountain roads; when the bus eventually grinds to a halt (over the edge of a precipice) so do the film's laughs, the remainder of the action being dull and predictable.

I have seen this film over and over since I was a kid. I love this movie. i can watch it start to finish any time. The acting is great and the lines never get old. I grew up on this movie and it is by far one of my all time top 5 movies. I encourage anyone who has never seen it to watch. Maybe I love it because I liked it as a kid and therefor I loved it as an adult. But, I have watched it very recently and still find it a great movie. Will always be one of my favorite movies of all time. I think anyone who watches this movie with an open mind will enjoy it and it will become one of their favorite as well. My sis and I grew up on this movie and we still, 17 years after the first time we watched it we still quote lines to each other. We never give cheers to each other without the all time "up yours" comment from the bicentennial dinner.

Saw this movie when it was new, couldn't stop laughing at the parodies on the other current disaster movies, as well as at the visual and audible puns contained. I gave it a "7" score, because the laughs turn into groans, and you can't take anything seen or heard seriously. The whole flick is sort of one giant bad (and that's good) pun!!! Either"Car and Driver", or "Road and Track", at the time, did a test drive feature on the bus - biggest problem was that it couldn't get under the access bridge over the track, so couldn't do full laps. Yes, this was in an April issue. I suppose a little more web-searching will turn up the identity of the magazine and probably a source for a copy of it!

There's a funny story about this movie. My dad said he remembered liking it and showed it to me. I was eager to see it, since he raved on it. During the movie, I laughed a little bit, maybe once or twice, but that's it. I didn't want to make him sad, so I pretended to laugh. When it was done, my dad and I didn't talk. For a while, we turned the movie off in silence. After about two minutes, my dad says "Wow, I..uhh...don't remember it being that bad. Sorry.". I was glad that he hated it too. We hated it together. It was not a funny movie at all. Actually, towards the end, he asked me if I wanted to turn it off, since it was so bad, but I said no. I didn't know that was what he meant, though. Look, don't see this. PLEASE! Just don't. Save an hour and a half of your life. Please.