Stay Tuned (1992)

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Funny movie. Especially the scene where they are mice.Look for the message 'Remember Tuesday is Saddam Hussein Appreciation Day' on the scoreboardI always liked Jack Ritter, and thought he was the star of Three's Company. He has a good comic timing.Pam Dawber does a good job as his annoyed wife - yes, she plays a stereotyped one dimensional frustrated housewife role, but she does it well.Jeffrey Jones, who played the principle in Ferris Bueler's day off is pretty entertaining as well. He seems to have a knack of playing people you want to dislike :)I could give this a B for comedy movies, and an A for TV parody movies!

the movie is supposed to be set in the US, BUT in the scene where John Ritter is on the highway and he drops a suitcase, in the background you can see HarborPlace in Vancouver BC. PLUS the fencing studio at the end of the movie is GasTown in Vancouver. The part where the train is going to hit Pam Dawber (Helen Knable) was filmed at Old Tucson Movie Studios (before it burned down) Some US movies say that they are in Portland, Seattle, NYC but it is really Vancouver. Check out Rumble in the Bronx with Jackie Chan. The mountains in the background are Whistler,BC and the 3 Lions (site for the 2010 Winter Olympics) The first couple of years of XFiles were filmed in Vancouver, as was 21 JumpStreet.

In my opinion, STAY TUNED is an excellent comedy that's reminiscent of classic TV shows and movies. The first time I ever saw this movie was when I was at home in 1993. When Roy (John Ritter) and Helen (Pam Dawber) got sucked into the hellish TV world, I thought to myself, "Whoa!" I said that because I was really shocked. If you ask me, this movie had terrific performances, beautiful scenery, perfect casting, and flawless direction. Crowley (Eugene Levy) was a pretty funny guy, though. Despite the fact that Spike (Jeffrey Jones) was the head villain, I thought he gave a good performance. Now in conclusion, if you like John Ritter or Pam Dawber movies, this is definitely one to see. When you see it, prepare for laughs and a smashing good time. I also guarantee you that you'll want to see this movie over and over again.

Roy Knable (John Ritter) loves watching television so much that his marriage is falling apart because of it. When a door-to-door salesman shows him a high-tech remote control, Ritter listens to his pitch, and buys into it when he discovers that it's for a new television and satellite system that offers 666 channels of programming--much of which is not available anywhere else. However, the salesman may not have been what he seemed to be, and Knable soon discovers that he may have agreed to a contract that obligated him to give up more than money.Oh, how I loved this film! Director Peter Hyams and the writing crew of Tom S. Parker, Jim Jennewein and Richard Siegel definitely had my number on this one. Stay Tuned is a very clever horror comedy that is extremely underrated and perhaps was a bit mismarketed. Although I'm a huge horror fan, and love horror comedies, I'd never heard of this one before (however, later I did find references to it in a couple horror sources, so it seems it wasn't completely overlooked by the industry and fans). But the horror aspect of the film doesn't appear to be advertised anywhere. I watched this on HBO's Family Channel. Even though Knable's son is important to the plot and there are strong fantasy aspects, this is not really a family film. Not that kids might not like the film, but they'd have to be kids who like horror (comedies) and whose parents let them watch horror (comedies). Enjoyment of the film is also helped by having a familiarity with the material that is being spoofed, and the references are broad enough that it would take years of experience to acquire that familiarity.Why spoofed? Well, on one level, Stay Tuned is just a long series of crafty takes on film and television programs and genres, giving many well-known classics a more immediate horror twist--immediate because they all put our heroes, Knable and his wife Helen (Pam Dawber), in peril in some way. There are many more subtle jokes, as well, and the film even pokes fun at film students/film geeks. The spoofs range from silly to poignant, and can be as quick as a title or as long as ten minutes or so. One of the best is a classic Warner Brothers-styled animated segment. The style and the quality should not be surprising, as Chuck Jones designed and supervised the animation.Under different hands, maybe this material wouldn't be quite as good as it is. Hyams' direction is spot-on throughout the film, the script (including the dialogue) is very intelligent, and in addition to Ritter and Dawber being as good as I've seen them, Stay Tuned also features Jeffrey Jones (one of my favorite character actors) and Eugene Levy. Both are fantastic.Stay Tuned deserves much wider recognition. It is funny, suspenseful and seems to draw from a well of endless inventiveness. It's as good as any other horror comedy I've seen. There is also a surface message of turning off the television and living your life, which is a worthwhile sentiment, but perhaps a harder sell when it is packaged in a film as excellent as this.A 10 out of 10 from me.