The Kentucky Fried Movie was director John Landis’ second movie and the first film for David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker, the writer / director team who made Airplane! and The Naked Gun.
Made in 1977 the film was made on a low budget ($650,000) and it followed the 1974 sketch comedy film The Groove Tube. The Kentucky Fried Movie is just a series of sketches from news reports to fake trailers to an actual movie spoof. The longest skit A Fistful of Yen is a fairly straightforward spoof of Enter the Dragon. The film was a huge hit at the time making $15 million in the U.S. and it helped John Landis get his next job Animal House.
The film is considered one of groundbreaking films in the spoof and mocumentary genres. After watching it might have groundbreaking at the time but today, well. The film is mostly hit and miss with the jokes. There’s more groaners than actually laughs. Yes the low budget is evident but that really doesn’t affect the effectiveness of the jokes. A bad joke is still a bad joke. Perhaps one just has to be in the right frame of mind to find the movie funny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyMZHNBVcio
