Meet Wally Sparks

Bomb Rating: 

If you get an itch to see this movie, scratch it with a power sander.

Research project: Take a pen and paper and tour every seedy, sleazy bar you can find. Once you're in the bar, go into the men's bathroom and enter one of the stalls. Now, write down every euphemism for "penis" you can find scribed on the walls. That's right. Write down the ones for "sex" too. You'll have a list that looks something like this: "hard one," "leg spreader," "trouser snake," "rutting," "10-pounder," "stuff the Thanksgiving turkey;" etc. Guess what: You just wrote the script for "Meet Wally Sparks."

This is a film so bad and so utterly devoid of funny moments that I swear -- honestly -- I heard theater chairs squeaking in agony. This subtle, but pervasive squeaking was complemented by a consistent "thwack" from my chair as I passed the two excruciatingly long hours by investigating whether skull bone and theater seat plastic could be fused through excessive force.

Rodney Dangerfield plays trash-television talk show host Wally Sparks. His ratings are down. His time is up. So he visits the home of the governor (David Ogden Stiers) of Georgia because that's the best idea Dangerfield the writer could come up with. Cindy Williams from "Laverne and Shirley" plays the Governor's wife. Sometimes the three of them stand next to each other and you get the distinct impression that there's a Twinkie factory somewhere that's out of inventory.

If this doesn't sound awful enough for you, here are some more tidbits: Cindy Williams running around in her panties and underwear; Michael Bolton doing a Dangerfield impersonation followed by a song; a penis-euphemism-per-minute ratio that would rival the odds on a Kate Moss/Evander Holyfield heavyweight title fight. Trust me: If you get an itch to see this movie, scratch it with a power sander.

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