Even though I might lose credibility, I liked the 1990s comedy team of the Jerky Boys. Crafting a whole mythology that seduced young men with their Howard Stern-era humor, the duo (Johnny B. and Kamal, to the educated) and their prank calls were actually pretty funny when my younger brother played their tapes for me on the way to school.

Complete with their “Hey, jerky!” salutation, we amateurishly taped our own calls from friends’ bedrooms, dialing in to a momentary glimpse of cult stardom we thought we could have, too.

I recall our enthusiasm at the promo screening for The Jerky Boys movie at Oklahoma City’s Penn Square 8 in 1995, where copies of the soundtrack CD (featuring Collective Soul’s minor alt-radio hit “Gel”) were handed out.

But the movie was, in a word, terrible. I realized the Boys’ careers were done, and so was my fandom. These jerks had no more yuks to give. I gave my brother the soundtrack.

Yet 30 years later, my Amazon Prime menu has practically begged me to stream The Jerky Boys, pleading on its scabby knees. After a month, I could no longer resist.

Now, while it’s not the worst cinema of the ’90s as many claim, The Jerky Boys is definitely one of the laziest comedies I’ve ever seen. It even makes hemorrhoids jokes in the first few frames. Johnny B. and Kamal play two unemployed good-for-nothings in Queens. As you might have guessed, they make prank phone calls that are truly scatological in tone and volume.

While trying to look for a job, they create the character of Frank Rizzo, a mob enforcer who fucks with half of the cast of The Sopranos, to great comedic effect. Of course, this gets them in trouble with real mafioso Alan Arkin — let that settle a bit — who orders a hit on them.

In the 81-minute running time, the boys mimic anal sex in a public bathroom, Tom Jones performs “Are You Gonna Go My Way,” Paul Bartel discusses “piss clams” with Kamal’s “Egyptian Magician,” and Ozzy Osbourne manages alt-rockers Helmet. As you probably expected, the climax finds the boys pranking President Bill Clinton.

Oh, to be alive again!

In the hands of The Stoned Age (another of my brother’s favorite films) director James Melkonian, The Jerky Boys was too much, too soon, and he never directed again. Did he kill himself?

While I’ll always snort when I hear the phrases “silly ass,” “milky licker” and “lamby nipple chops,” the movie is so episodic that, if it were made today, it’d be a prestige-format limited series on Netflix and get canceled halfway though, prompting a re-evaluation on TikTok, leading a renaissance of prank calls.

Or maybe The Jerky Boys will be lost to time. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

With Revenge of the Nerds IV: Nerds in Love, the question is less “Who would marry Booger?” and more “Why was this made for the Fox network?” After all, this is a sequel to an ’80s teen comedy that’s so notoriously raunchy, it’s now seen as problematic.

But no worries, Nielsen families: The Lambda Lambda Lambda frat brothers are adults now; their days of panty raids, video voyeurism and cosplay rape long behind them! Lead nerd Lewis (Robert Carradine) and victim wife Betty (Julia Montgomery) are expecting a baby. Booger (Curtis Armstrong) even has replaced his “WHO FARTED?” T-shirt with the more mature, ready-for-prime-time “WHO POOTED?”

Plus, as spoiled two paragraphs above, he’s engaged! The lucky (?) lady is the appropriately geeky Jeanie (Corinne Bohrer, Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol). Booger botches meeting the parents by immediately molesting Jeanie upon arrival, then slapping her mom (Christina Pickles, Masters of the Universe) on the face with a slab o’ meat. (No, a raw steak. What on earth did you think I meant?)

Jeanie’s sickeningly wealthy father, Mr. Humphrey (Joseph Bologna, Blame It on Rio), harbors political aspirations that Booger surely would tank, so he charges his sycophantic son-in-law, Chip (Stephen Davies, 1988’s The Nest), with preventing the union. To do so, Chip enacts several ceremony-killing schemes, one of which involves hiring strippers with calculators and pencil protectors covering their breasts. Another, at a buffet restaurant whose logo is a fork stuck in a cow’s ass, ends unintentionally with a pie atop Mr. Humphrey’s head.

Elsewhere, former mean jock Stan (Ted McGinley) spends the entire movie in bed stricken with chickenpox. Ogre (Donald Gibb) swills beer from Pyrex. Lewis’ “unborn fetal son” already speaks from within Betty’s womb: “Pickles and ice cream! Pickles and ice cream!” And returning screenwriters Jeff Buhai and Steve Zacharias prove their comedy fingers are anything but tight on the pulse of what’s hot by serving up parodies of The Waltons and 2001.

With Bernie Casey, Jessica Tuck, James Karen, Robert Picardo and James Cromwell amid the supporting players, Nerds in Love bursts with talent, but not things for them to do. Worse, Bohrer’s role requires her to do several things I’m sure she wishes she hadn’t, like imitating a cow with a full-volume, head-extended moo so loud and proud, it’d merit a fine for disturbing the peace. Rarely have I felt more embarrassed for an actress. And I’m including her fully nude scene with Randy Quaid in Dead Solid Perfect.

Although Revenge of the IV: Nerds in Love culminates with a Valentine’s Day wedding (oh, shit, spoiler), it premiered in summer sweeps week. A brand-new sequel watered down from the hit original wasn’t enough of a draw, so Fox broadcast it in 3-D with select scenes in scratch-and-sniff, as if you couldn’t already tell it stinks. Hey, at least I laughed once (“What will he lie about next? You saw The Crying Game!”), which is more than I can say for Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

While you await the next Scream sequel, you could try to sate your Ghostface jones with The Premiere, a mockumentary about the making of a Scream musical. But I doubt it’ll do the trick.

Made in the Hamptons (with every bit of insularity as that sounds), this improvised comedy follows the cart-before-the-horse theatrical ambitions of Sam (Sam Pezzullo) as he attempts to stage the show — and fails spectacularly. As you’ve already guessed, he’s incompetent, oblivious, passive-aggressive, narcissistic and as questionably talented as he is underfunded.

Any comparisons to Christopher Guest’s Corky St. Clair of Waiting for Guffman are entirely merited and, one assumes, invited with ornate calligraphy and burgundy wax seals. The glaring difference is here, I found nothing funny. Sam yammers incessantly, as if doing so increases the chances something will hit a target. It comes off not as a matter of calculation, but desperation, overestimating his audience appeal by a magnificent mile. Other characters you want to see more of get short-shrifted.

The Premiere is spotted with germs of good ideas, like one of the leads having no knowledge of the Scream franchise, or the only rejected actor from auditions protesting the production, yet none are properly mined to yield laughs. (To that end, you could add its premise to the list.) I did smile at one bit, when Sam gasps at breaking news of Queen Elizabeth’s passing, not out of empathy, but the threat he believes the event poses to his press release.

In addition to starring, Pezzullo shares writing, directing and producing duties with Christopher Bouckoms. But only Pezzullo is credited as editor, which may be the root cause of an avoidable problem: He’s too close to the material, with Exhibit A being the pic nearly running an oxygen-sucking two hours. (Ironically, in his everyday career, Pezzullo excels in the short form, being behind some of your YouTube feed’s favorite viral marketing stunts in recent years.)

Look, I’m not saying The Premiere is an ego project; I’ll let the closing credits’ red-carpet photos of him and him and him and his friends and him do all the talking there. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.