Joysticks (1983) Jensen Farley/Comedy RT: 86 minutes Rated R (language, crude humor, nudity, sexual content) Director: Greydon Clark Screenplay: Al Gomez, Mickey Epps and Curtis Burch Music: Ray Knehnetsky Cinematography: Nicholas von Sternberg Release date: March 11, 1983 (US) Cast: Joe Don Baker, Leif Green, Jim Greenleaf, Scott McGinnis, Jonathan Gries, Corinne Bohrer, John Diehl, John Voldstad, Reid Cruickshanks, Morgan Lofting, Kym Malin, Kim G. Michel, Jacqulin Cole, Logan Ramsey, Justine Lenore. Box Office: $4M (US)
Rating: *** ½
I went to see Joysticks with my buddy Bill on a Saturday afternoon (March 12, 1983). We planned it out as though it were a clandestine military mission. We had to convince our parents that we were seeing the PG-rated comedy Lovesick then had to wait outside the theater until we found a couple of adults willing to get our tickets for us. Mission accomplished! It was totally worth it! We both enjoyed this low-budget T&A comedy that combined the horny teenager subgenre with the current popular fad of video games.
The local teen hangout is a video arcade run by Jefferson Bailey (McGinnis, Making the Grade), Local fuddy-duddy businessman Joseph Rutter (Baker, Walking Tall) would love to see the place shut down for good. He’s your typical humorless adult authority figure who can’t stand to see teens having any fun, especially when his own daughter Patsy (Bohrer, Police Academy 4) is involved in the shenanigans. And there’s shenanigans aplenty going on in this arcade.
As the movie opens, nerdy Eugene Groebe (Green, Grease 2) is reporting for his first day of work when he’s stopped and propositioned by two young girls. They lure him into their car by flashing their boobs at him. Once they get his pants down, they take a picture and drive off with his pants. Ah yes, to be a teenager in the 80s!
At the arcade, Eugene meets Jonathan Andrew McDorfus (Greenleaf, Gorp), the resident video game champion/addict. He’s a lot like Bluto from Animal House with his slovenly appearance and gross manners (he’s extremely flatulent!). One of the arcade’s other regulars is wanna-be hoodlum King Vidiot (Gries, Napoleon Dynamite), another top-notch video game player. Dressed like an extra from an MTV music video, he causes trouble whenever he’s around.
Rutter tries and fails to convince the mayor to shut down the arcade, so he hires King Vidiot to take on McDorfus in a game of Super Pac-Man to determine the future of the place. Along the way, Rutter’s two idiot nephews Arnie (Diehl, D.C. Cab) and Max (Voldstad, Newhart) try to help their uncle achieve his goal by stealing all of the video games. Naturally, their attempt fails and Jefferson throws a pajama party at the arcade to celebrate foiling the nephews’ plan.
Joysticks contains plenty of funny R-rated moments like Jefferson’s “Strip Video” game. He creates a special game and invites a couple of girls into his private office for a game. However, he never plays any of the games. He had a traumatic experience involving an old girlfriend and as a result, the games make him physically ill.
There’s a fair amount of naked boobs as well as plenty of crude and sexual humor. It’s custom made for hormonal 15YO boys. So what if it’s a cheap production? It’s funny as hell! I really enjoy the horny teenager movies from the 80s. I have fond memories of seeing most of them in a theater. Joysticks was one of the first teen sex movies that I actively snuck out to see knowing full well that my parents would never allow to watch it. For that reason, it has nostalgic value.
Director Greydon Clark (Without Warning) does an awesome job with Joysticks. It has everything one of these movies need. Greenleaf is perfect as the fat, sweaty, chili-dog scarfing gross-out whose “Dorfus Maneuver” could clear an entire continent. Yes, it’s an enormous fart. Green makes a convincing nerd. At one point, somebody comments that the virginal dork really needs to get laid. What are the chances this happens by movie’s end? I’d say roughly 100%. Gries is a riot as addled-brained King Vidiot who makes Rutter’s case for him by proudly proclaiming, “The video arcade has made me what I am today.” Bohrer’s squealing Valley Girl is annoying, but she’s hot so she gets a pass.
Joysticks is a fun movie with loads of dirty humor and dumb jokes. I still chuckle about the town meeting scene where the school nurse talks about how unsanitary it is for kids to be playing with their joysticks. Tee hee, snicker snicker. I’m fortunate to have the out-of-print DVD. It was released in December 2006 but got pulled off the market almost instantaneously, something to do with rights issues, of course. I wish they still made movies like Joysticks. There’s nothing like a good low-budget T&A flick from the 70s and 80s to make your day or night.
