The Kentucky Fried Movie

Viewed: DVD

This film is the 1977 work of David and Jerry Zucker — the geniuses who later gave us Airplane and The Naked Gun.

The Kentucky Fried Movie is silly funny, and I enjoyed it. But it is definitely dated. Anyone who doesn’t remember anything about the 70s probably won’t get some of the gags or references. Unlike Airplane and The Naked Gun, there is no overall story or plot to this movie. It’s just a series of gags and spoofs, one after the othe

Most of the gags and spoofs are around 10 seconds to maybe 5 minutes long. Funny, cool, entertaining. A spoof of morning talk shows, a gag with car alert dings (not car alarms — they won’t be in common use for another 20 years), several “Film at 11” jokes scattered throughout the film; generally just a collection of fun stuff thrown together with no real order. Surprisingly, there are several well known actors in some of the skits — Bill Bixby, Donald Sutherland, . . .um. . . and some others whose faces I recognize, but whose names I don’t know or remember.

The longest bit is a spoof on Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon, which came out in 1973. The spoof is about 30 minutes long, and though it might not require familiarity with that movie (or it’s like), I think it needs familiarity to get a full laugh. As synchronicity would have it, I borrowed Enter the Dragon from a friend just two weeks ago. I had never seen it, but always wanted to. So the movie was still fresh in my mind when I watched KFM. The jokes in this part are more like what you see in Airplane and The Naked Gun — a story with gags sprinkled liberally in every minute.

And then there’s the trailer for “Catholic High School Girls in Trouble.” Boobs. Lots of bare boobs. That’s pretty much the whole reason for this skit, and the narrator says as much

Other skits in the movie show some boobs, too. And a rubber penis. Something for everyone.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com