In the futuristic year of 1998, America is out of cash, gas and most of it's marbles. Roll camera!
Early November here at the Blender. The Halloween season festivities are over. After having our collective wits scared out of us by endless horror films in theaters and television, your trusty old friend The Sleaze-A-Saurus© is betting you are ready for viewing tasty video treats that don't involve the crusty undead or hill billy hatchet-killers...
Enter: outrageous comedy, Americathon (1979) directed by Police Academy movie franchise creator Neal Israel - director of Surf Ninjas (1993).
Featuring Elvis Costello, Meatloaf, Fred Willard, Harvey Korman and John Ritter, as The President Of The United States Americathon is filled with great writing and songs by The Beach Boys, the much under-appreciated Eddie Money as well as Elvis Costello.
In 1998 America, the country is broke and is in danger of being repossessed - by wealthy Native Americans. The USSR is defunct, Nike is unavoidable, Viet Nam is a tourist attraction and "puke rock" rules the billboard charts. Kinda prophetic if you stop and think about it.
In the movie, Ritter stars are President "Chet" Roosevelt, a role that is only a thinly veiled spoof of then (and future) California governor Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown who dated the roller skating rock star Linda Ronstadt and slept on a futon. This role asks the question: "What if Jerry became president and Linda the 'First Girlfriend'?" John Ritter's real life wife Nancy Morgan plays Lucy Beth, President Chet's roller-skating girlfriend, as the President decides that the only way to save the country is to put on a international telethon to raise the money to save the country with the biggest stars on television.
Among these hot stars? Monty Rushmore (Harvey Korman) who lends his star power to the telethon from his role as the transvestite host of the hottest soap opera on TV "Both Mother and Father". An endless list of bad acts show up during the course of the film including game show "The Schlong Show" which is just as uncomfortable to watch as the "Gong Show".
The DVD was finally released in 2011, but truth be told, it's worth a digital download for the pure laugh value of this one-of-kind film.
References:
IMDb, Americathon (1979)
Wikipedia, Americathon
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