It's hard to articulate what a wild idea it is that this movie exists. In the days before everybody was addicted to the internet, people were addicted to television, and those people were called "couch potatoes."
This is a movie about that, framed as a husband and wife trying to mend a failing marriage after they get kidnapped and forced to perform on Satan's personal television network. They hop from show to show, channel to channel, working out their differences and reconnecting with each other.
In short, we're talking 90 minutes of satanic-themed parodies that riff on late 80's and early 90's television pop culture, as performed by John Ritter and Pam Dawber.
John and Pam generally get the big hits: game shows, pro wrestling, music videos, even straight up cartoon animation overseen by Chuck Jones. But there's plenty of other glimpses of shows around the network, clowning on everything from medical documentaries to exercise shows and TV commercials.
And nowadays, it makes for a really wild time capsule of an era over 30 years ago. I wonder how the younger generation sees all of this, being so disconnected from every single piece of pop culture featured here?
I still think this is fun as hell. Rarely does a segment ever overstay its welcome and seeing the darker, hellish twists on nostalgic TV is always fantastic. John Ritter as always plays an incredible dope.
I also can't stop thinking about what special bonus features they could dig up for some of these shows. There's more than a few times where we see some channel surfing across the Hell TV Network, mere glimpses of things like Frankenstein's creature doing stand-up comedy -- is there more of that? Surely they actually had him do a few lines as a bit, right?? Can I see it??? And how much more of everything else did they shoot?
What a chaotically weird movie and they obviously had so much fun with the concept. I still love it.