Cracking Up (1978)

California is devastated by a big earthquake and, in a series of hilarious vignettes, a television station conducts interviews with the citizenry.

"Cracking Up" had me cracking up...

I was fortunate enough to have worked as a theater projectionist when this movie came out. You know, all the fresh-popped popcorn and soda I could consume for free and the opportunity to see this film about 14 times in the two weeks that it ran. This is one of those movies much like "Airplane" that you need to see a few times to catch all the gags. True, the budget for the movie was pretty low, but that was idea. Basically, a lot of comedians and comedy troupes got together and performed skits that were loosely woven around a central theme, that Los Angeles had suffered a 9.7 earthquake. If you like shows like Monty Python, Saturday Night Live, and Mad TV, you may enjoy a lot of these wacky skits. One of my favorites is one with Fred Willard as the boss in a bed store who gets into a conversation with a potential customer about mattresses, but somehow the poor customer misunderstands the subject and thinks Willard is speaking of something much more personal! At this price, you could always record over the movie if you didn't like it. Somehow, I think you'll want to save it.

One thing that puzzled me and ticked me off a little was that they changed the original theme song on this tape. I don't know if there was an issue with rights or something, but the original theme was very different.

[UPDATE]

This movie was only about $6 when I wrote this. I guess my review has increased its value! Not sure why but it says $20 at the main Amazon screen, but only $7.99 here. January 24, 2004

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