{"id":9985,"date":"2024-12-11T17:48:03","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T22:48:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=9985"},"modified":"2024-12-11T17:48:03","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T22:48:03","slug":"stay-tuned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/12\/11\/stay-tuned\/","title":{"rendered":"Stay Tuned"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Stay Tuned <\/strong>(1992)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 88 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, some off-color humor, comic violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Peter Hyams\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jim Jennewain and Tom S. Parker\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Bruce Broughton\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Peter Hyams\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 14, 1992 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: John Ritter, Pam Dawber, Jeffrey Jones, Eugene Levy, David Tom, Heather McComb, Erik King, Bob Dishy, Joyce Gordon, Don Calfa, John Blackwell Destrey, Susan Blommaert.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $10.7M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0What an interesting change of pace for Peter Hyams, director of Outland, The Star Chamber, 2010, Running Scared, The Presidio and Narrow Margin. Going from six action-oriented flicks to a straight-up comedy like Stay Tuned<\/strong> was completely unexpected. It stars John Ritter (Three\u2019s Company) and Pam Dawber (Mork & Mindy) as a suburban couple sucked into an alternate TV universe. When I say alternate, I mean it in the literal sense. Instead of the usual shows you might find on your cable system, this TV universe features such winning shows as Three Men and Rosemary\u2019s Baby, Duane\u2019s Underworld and Driving Over Miss Daisy. How bizarre, right? It\u2019s the kind of thing couch potatoes dream of after smoking a bit of the old wacky weed. That\u2019s the audience Stay Tuned<\/strong> is clearly going for.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Roy Knable (Ritter) is a TV addict. He\u2019ll watch anything. It beats the hell out of real life. He hates his job as a plumbing supply salesman. He has no interest outside of sitting on the couch night after night watching TV leaving his wife Helen (Dawber) feeling neglected and unloved. Fed up with being ignored, she smashes in the TV screen. Luckily, a man named Spike (Jones, Ferris Bueller\u2019s Day Off) shows up that night with a tempting offer. He\u2019s willing to give Roy a free 30-trial of a new high-tech satellite dish system (with 666 channels to choose from) in exchange for his soul. Yep, Spike is a representative of Old Scratch himself. When Helen sees Roy\u2019s new entertainment set-up, she prepares to leave him. Instead, they\u2019re both sucked into a nightmarish place called \u201cHellevision\u201d from which they have 24 hours to escape or be damned for eternity. Nobody has ever escaped.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Roy and Helen continue to bicker while working together to survive various levels of Hell(evision) such as a sadistic game show (\u201cYou Can\u2019t Win\u201d), a brutal wrestling match and on old black-and-white detective movie. At one point, they\u2019re animated mice trying to evade a vicious robotic cat. All the while, they\u2019re pursued by Spike who becomes concerned they might actually win their way out of the contract. Meanwhile, the Knables\u2019 two children, Diane (McComb, New York Stories) and Darryl (Tom, Stepfather III), upon discovering their parents are trapped in TV land, try to help them from the real world.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As is the case with most comedies, not all of Stay Tuned<\/strong> works. Some of the gags simply don\u2019t land. It\u2019s one of the pitfalls of the genre. However, it does have moments of supreme silliness, including a direct reference to the 70s sitcom that made Ritter a star, that make Stay Tuned<\/strong> worth watching. But it could have been more. Buried under the endless send-ups of movies and TV shows lies a sharp black satire of our obsession with TV. The notion of experiencing life vicariously through the boob tube is ripe for satire. Roy used to have a life. For example, he was into competitive fencing (a skill that ultimately proves useful). Now he can\u2019t even be bothered to take his eyes off the TV screen long enough to have a conversation with his wife about saving their troubled marriage. Stay Tuned<\/strong> could have made a bold statement about how technology is making human interaction obsolete. The idea of Satan using the medium as a means of taking over the world one soul at a time is actually rather brilliant. At times, the movie seems headed in that direction. If you look at the Control Center, you\u2019ll see that it\u2019s molded after the War Room in Dr. Strangelove. Just imagine how differently Stay Tuned<\/strong> would have turned out had original director Tim Burton not left to make Batman Returns.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Stay Tuned<\/strong> benefits nicely from a talented cast. Ritter and Dawber are pretty good as the suburban couple for whom the hellish experience turns out to be a godsend as it gives them ample opportunity to mend their broken marriage. Jones, as always, makes a convincing antagonist. Eugene Levy (SCTV) has some good moments as a Hellevision employee banished to the system. He shows up periodically to help Roy and Helen despite losing a couple of limbs in Northern Overexposure.<\/p>\n

\u00a0While I think Stay Tuned<\/strong> could have done more with its premise, I still liked it. It makes for agreeable viewing. It has a few genuine chuckles and an infectiously silly spirit. It bombed at theaters in summer \u201992 but gained cult status once it hit video and cable. Now that I think about it, Stay Tuned<\/strong> is the perfect movie to watch at home on TV. It doesn\u2019t require a lot of brain power. All you need is a bowl of popcorn and a comfy couch.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stay Tuned (1992)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 88 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, some off-color humor, comic violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Peter Hyams\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jim Jennewain and Tom S. Parker\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Bruce Broughton\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Peter Hyams\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 14, 1992 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: John Ritter, Pam Dawber, Jeffrey Jones, Eugene Levy, David Tom, Heather McComb, Erik King, Bob Dishy, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10353,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies","category-cool-cult-flicks"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Spacehunter-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9985"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10354,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9985\/revisions\/10354"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}