Most people only know this obscure comedy for its VHS box art, depicting an arm jutting from a toilet bowl to flush itself. Befitting of that porcelain throne, Good-Bye Cruel World is an unqualified stinker.
Comedian Dick Shawn (1967’s The Producers) plays Rodney Pointsetter, an evening news anchor who melts down on air after his divorce. He resolves to blow his brains out — ho-ho-HO! — but goes to visit some family members first. One of those is his obese brother-in-law, essayed by Chuck “Porky” Mitchell; that’s how the credits list him, which may be the saddest thing imaginable.
In between these reunion scenes, brief sketches and parodies play, as if broadcast from Pointsetter’s employer’s channel. Most were outdated by the time Cruel World hit video store shelves, like a hemorrhoid ad featuring “Jimmy Carter,” a spoof of Brooke Shields’ Calvin Klein jeans spot (but with a naked woman and a brand called Joy Crotch) and a commercial for Psycho Soap, with co-writer Alan Spencer (creator of TV’s Sledge Hammer!) doing a better-than-decent Norman Bates impersonation.
The only amusing portion is a faux trailer for An Officer and an Elephant Man, which is just like it sounds. Novelty value seeps from this bad-taste bit as future Daily Show correspondent Larry Wilmore makes his screen debut making light of Louis Gossett Jr.’s drill sergeant role.
Although not truly interactive, Good-Bye Cruel World comes presented in “Choice-A-Rama,” allowing for a recurring gag of a host asking the audience to vote on what they’d like to see next. The results are never funny, but at least you get Angelique Pettyjohn (The Lost Empire) as a stripping nun.
Ultimately, Rodney decides life’s worth living because sexy journalist Cynthia Sikes (Arthur 2: On the Rocks) wants to get in his pants. Too bad she and Rodney perish in a tragic accident of slapstick proportions in a finale so “wacky,” it includes a marching band. From a cloud in heaven, Rodney sings a song about life being “a mammy-jammer.” These are the jokes, folks. —Rod Lott