What do you get when you take most of the cast of Jackass franchise, but remove Johnny Knoxville, Spike Jonze, Jeff Tremaine and the backing of MTV and Paramount Pictures from the equation? Absolutely zero laughs, judging by National Lampoon’s TV: The Movie.

Partly written and produced by Preston Lacy, who’s like Chris Farley minus comedic timing, TV: The Movie also stars his fellow Jackass asses Steve-O, Jason “Wee Man” Acuna, Chris Pontius and Ehren McGhehey, plus real actors Clifton Collins Jr., Lee Majors, Judd Nelson, Tony Cox, Danny Trejo and Ian Somerhalder, all of whom I’m going to just assume were bribed.

The Kentucky Fried Movie wannabe presents one unfunny sketch after another, with a mix of show and commercial parodies. Among the “targets” are Cops, Fear Factor, Miami Vice, Desperate Housewives and Girls Gone Wild. Among the elements used often to spoof such things: purported jokes built upon drugs, masturbation, homophobia and the word “motherfucker.”

I’m on record admitting to laughing a few times at another recent Lampoon loser, National Lampoon’s Dirty Movie, which plays like Billy Wilder by comparison. At one point, my DVD player kicked out this disc because of a damaged section, which I should’ve taken as a sign. Even technology hates worthless shit. If you find it funny, you’re likely high or living off Jackass royalties, in which case you’re likely high. —Rod Lott

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Recently I watched the Australian superhero satire The Return of Captain Invincible. I mention this because it happened to be an unfunny comedy that suddenly and inexplicably turned into a terrible musical 20 minutes into its running time, so when I was 15 minutes into Saturday the 14th Strikes Back and the peroxide blonde vampiress who looked just like an ’80s New Wave porn star started singing about how much she misses vegetables, I was hit by a profound case of the what-the-fucks.

Luckily, this scene turned out to be an aberration, and none of the other characters felt compelled to burst out into song over the hour that remained until the movie limped along to its merciful conclusion, but the constant threat that they might at least managed to inspire the kind of tension the rest of Strikes Back sorely lacked.

Written and directed by Howard R. Cohen, the auteur also responsible for the original Saturday the 14th, Strikes Back was clearly made for a young audience, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that it is neither funny nor scary. The cast is game and there are some potentially amusing surreal touches (such as the mother’s strange aversion to serving healthy foods), but they are all so poorly timed and executed that none of them stick.

It doesn’t help that the film includes several shots from Allan Arkush’s Rock ‘n’ Roll High School during its inexplicable climax, painfully reminding you of a much better way you could have spent the previous 80 minutes of your life. —Allan Mott

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No movie ever should start with Eddie Deezen driving a pink jalopy, Tom Bosley wearing a cowboy hat, and/or three blondes with a burning need to urinate. (It’s in Cahiers du Cinéma. Look it up.) That’s Million Dollar Mystery in a nutshell — emphasis on the “nut,” waka waka waka! When people say, “You couldn’t pay me a million dollars to see that,” they mean this legendarily lethal Dino De Laurentiis/Glad Bag sinkhole, which offered viewers a chance to win just that with admission. It grossed $989,033. Oh, well!

At a roadside diner, Bosley keels over after eating chili, but not before telling fellow eaters that he’s hidden $4 million among four places, and it’s theirs if they can find it. Joining in this madcap rush for cash are Deezen, comedian Rick Overton, Playboy Playmate Penny Baker and no one else famous. At least they got Bill Murray to appear the mentally unstable Vietnam vet, Slaughter Buzzárd. Oh, my bad — they couldn’t afford him. That’s Rich Hall, he of “Sniglets” fame.

Like It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World; Scavenger Hunt; or Rat Race, it’s a cast-crowded, cross-country, comedic chase, wherein greed gets the best of everyone involved. Unlike It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World; Scavenger Hunt; or Rat Race, it has not one genuine laugh. In fact — spoiler alert! — it’s fucking stupid. It gave my DVD player an extra chromosome.

Sadly, this was the last film of director Richard Fleischer (Fantastic Voyage) and stuntman Dar Robinson; the latter actually died for this junk. To add insult to injury, the filmmakers dedicate the work to him — but in quotes, as if insincere — while “comedy” duo Mack & Jamie, two of the least funny people on the planet, improv. The only thing more embarrassing is Kevin Pollak’s constant, cringe-worthy celebrity impressions. Scratch that: Worse is that this represents proof I watched the damn thing. —Rod Lott

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Based on its title and its inclusion of Revenge of the Nerds’ Donald “Ogre” Gibb in its cast of protagonists, you might think that Jocks represents an attempt to subvert the ’80s teen-comedy genre by making heroes out of the characters who were typically portrayed as villains in these films.

It doesn’t. Yes, its main characters just happen to be a group of asshole athletes, but they’re a group of poor misfit asshole athletes who like to party and have a good time, and their program faces cancellation if they can’t beat the group of rich douchebag asshole athletes who only care about winning at any cost.

Our nominal hero here is “The Kid” (Scott Strader), who’s supposed to be a wildly charismatic party animal, but more closely resembles a crude, lazy, narcissistic prick with severe emotional problems. We’re led to believe he’s the glue required to keep his ragtag tennis team on their improbable winning streak, but all we actually see him do is take them out to a series of increasingly sleazier bars. At some point, future Emmy/Golden Globe-winner Mariska Hargitay shows up in order to be his love interest, but you’ll be too pre-occupied trying to figure out if she’s had any plastic surgery between then and now to notice how superfluous her character actually is.

That said, if you’re on the lookout for a desperately unfunny comedy that features a lot of poorly shot tennis; really bad acting; slumming guest stars on the level of Christopher Lee, Richard Roundtree and R.G. Armstrong; and some very dated and offensive gay jokes, you probably could still do better than Jocks. I’ll let you know if I find anything. —Allan Mott

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Isn’t statutory rape hilarious? No? Agreed. Tell that to Lola, an odd collaboration between director Richard Donner and star Charles Bronson, but this ain’t no action movie.

Instead, the comedy depicts a May-December romance between cusp-of-40 porno-novel writer Scott (Bronson) and 16-year-old Lola (Susan George). They meet in swingin’ London, where she lives with her parents, then get hitched to avoid him getting thrown in the pokey for poking an underage girl, and move back to his stomping grounds in New York City. There, he gets tossed in jail, anyway, but for a throwing punches at a protest.

Although they both proclaim to love one another deeply, their time apart is the beginning of the end. And good for him, because no sex would be worth being hitched to someone as brick-stupid as Lola. As Jim Dale’s theme song goes, she’s “pretty crazy, dizzy as a daisy,” with a squeaky voice that makes Teresa Ganzel seem like a Rhodes Scholar by comparison. “Darling, what’s a Puerto Rican?” asks Lola, who literally can’t remember how to look before crossing the street.

Helmed with that awfully dated, hippy-dippy, “now generation” feel, where skipped frames and slow-motion scenes equate to punchlines, Lola falls flat. Its original title was Twinky, changed for American distribution to avoid confusion with the tasty sponge cakes, I’m guessing, or to remind moviegoers of Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita. It should be so lucky. —Rod Lott

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