Writing
Marcus Burnett is a henpecked family man. Mike Lowrey is a footloose and fancy free ladies' man. Both Miami policemen, they have 72 hours to reclaim a consignment of drugs stolen from under their station's nose. To complicate matters, in order to get the assistance of the sole witness to a murder, they have to pretend to be each other.
A two-bit promoter tries to take a women's wrestling team to the top.
Angelo "Snaps" Provolone made his dying father a promise on his deathbed: he would leave the world of crime and become an honest businessman. Despite having no experience in making money in a legal fashion, Snaps sets about to keep his promise.
Centered on a television station which features a 1950s-style sci-fi movie interspersed with a series of wild commercials, wacky shorts and weird specials, this lampoon of contemporary life and pop culture skewers some of the silliest spectacles ever created in the name of entertainment.
A New Jersey trucker creates a hit TV show with help from his girlfriend in the ratings business.
Second City Television alumnus Dave Thomas stars in this hilarious spoof of "America's Most Wanted." Thomas portrays Wynn Dalton, a talentless acting hopeful who bears an uncanny resemblance to Dwayne Gary Steckler (also played by Thomas), a psycho killer currently terrorizing the nation. When Dalton's mug lands him a role playing Steckler on a "true life" crime show, "All Points Bullitain," the real Steckler decides to take his place. Naturally, the ratings go through the roof. Mike Connors and Mary Gross costar.
"Likely Stories" was one Pay-TV's first original comedy programs. The one-hour shows were a mixed-bag of short films, videos, and animation that helped define the cutting-edge of today's no-holds- barred cable comedy programming. Each episode was chock-full of notable comedy stars eager to dabble in pay-cable's new found freedoms.
America's three top leisure-time activities come roaring to life in National Lampoon's Favorite Deadly Sins. This film consists of three short stories: Greed (Joe Mantegna), Anger (Andrew Clay) and Lust (Denis Leary).
In this satire of the I.R.S., George Segal plays an Average Joe targeted for the Audit from Hell. His bank accounts are frozen, his home and business are attached by the government, and his wife leaves him. Segal is forced to move into the house of his obnoxious brother-in-law where lot of Odd Couple-type comedy ensues. Segal then plots to turn the tables on the I.R.S., and win back his wife and life.
This short film satirizes French auteur theory. An earnest critic rediscovers washed-up director Seymour Z. Fishko ("Revenge of the 80-Foot Stripper," "They Froze Hitler's Head," "Dragstrip Mummy") and makes a documentary about his life and work.
Newswoman Fay Sommerfield takes a morally outraged look at excessive violence, bad language and sacrilege that pass for entertainment in the early 90s. She illustrates this with clips from (fake) current hit films and music videos.
Danny DeVito stars in and directs this critically acclaimed short film which was part of the ground breaking HBO/Cinemax anthology series, "Likely Stories." Danny plays corrupt Congressman Vince D'Angelo who is making a sleazy run to become Senator of New Jersey. In the process he spreads vicious rumors about his running mates and uses incendiary campaign commercials to get himself elected. His campaign is derailed when he is caught-on-tape giving a bribe to a G-man posing as a mobster. His response to the "Mobscam" debacle is to claim he was "conducting his own investigation" and then fakes an 11th hour assassination on himself to engender voter sympathy.
