An '80s Comedy Flop No One Remembers Has An Accidentally Hilarious Poster

Blake Edwards was one of the most prolific and consistently successful comedy filmmakers of the 1960s, 1970s, and some of the 1980s. He was a skilled director of dramas and thrillers as well, but most of the Edwards' movies we celebrate 15 years after his death run the gamut from zany ("The Pink Panther" movies") to classy ("Victor/Victoria") to unabashedly erotic ("10," "S.O.B." and "Skin Deep"). He was a difficult director to pin down because his films often exuded visual sophistication, but then you'd suddenly be treated to a tawdry gag like the glow-in-the-dark condom bedroom fight in "Skin Deep."

For the most part, Edwards' played it as broadly as possible, and, given that he made eight "Pink Panther" movies, three of which were made after the too-early death of Peter Sellers at the age of 54, I think it's fair to say that he felt most comfortable with his wacky side. So when he decided to make a feature-length version of the Laurel & Hardy classic "The Music Box," which finds the duo ineptly trying to lug a piano up the steep steps of a house, he seemed to be in his wheelhouse. Obviously, he'd have to find a way to have one member of his comedy duo engage in some bedroom shenanigans with the woman who's purchased the piano as a gift for her husband, but such complications were second nature for Edwards.

The finished film, "A Fine Mess," was dumped into theaters on August 8, 1986 like so much horse puckey. At the outset, the studio, Columbia Pictures, thought they'd discovered the next great big-screen comedy duo in Ted Danson (then a television superstar via "Cheers") and Howie Mandel (a red-hot stand-up comedian who was familiar to TV viewers via his work on "St. Elsewhere"). This was not in the cards, but that didn't stop the studio from insisting on the game-changing potential of Danson & Mandel. And this is how we got one of the most embarrassingly hilarious movie posters in the history of the medium.

I grew up in the college town of Bowling Green, Ohio, and, nearing the age of 13, was comfortable with riding my BMX bike up to our local movie house (the Cla-Zel) to see the latest releases — by myself, if need be. And it was often "need be," because it was impossible to convince my friends to fork over admission for 1986 summer misfires like "Legal Eagles," "Club Paradise," and, yes, "A Fine Mess."

Columbia Pictures

"A Fine Mess" became a fascination to me because of its poster, which had its stars standing in front of a script that reads, "In the tradition of Laurel & Hardy, Abbot & Costello, Peanut Butter & Jelly, Cat & Mouse..." and so on. Many of the notable duos are intentionally silly (e.g. "read 'em and weep"), but by leading off their list with two of the greatest comedy teams of all time, the studio was calling its shot. Danson & Mandel were going to take the nation's movie theaters by storm.

That entire summer, whenever I hit up the Cla-Zel to see genuine blockbusters like "Top Gun" and "Aliens," I'd encounter that "Danson & Mandel" poster and ... dream of the possibilities? No, not really. I didn't know what to think. I was the right age for Mandel's goofball stand-up routine (which typically climaxed with him putting a plastic glove over his head and inflating it until it flew off) and I never missed an episode of "Cheers," but Edwards was on one helluva losing streak with mirthless garbage like "The Man Who Loved Women," the Ted Wass-led "Curse of the Pink Panther," "Micki & Maude," and the grimly unfunny Clint Eastwood-Burt Reynolds buddy cop flick "City Heat." Something was wrong.

That "something" was Edwards' then recent diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which had mired him in a deep depression that left him barely functional as a human being, let alone a director. A few months ago, when Ted Danson dropped by Howie Mandel's podcast to reminisce about the befuddling making of this deeply unfunny comedy, the "Cheers" star thought Edwards' illness played a significant role in his indifference to directing the film. According to both actors, a typical day on the set would begin with Edwards bringing the pair together, asking them to show him how they wanted to play the scene, returning to his trailer as the crew prepared the master shot, walking out hours later to shoot the scene, then hopping on a helicopter back to his home in Malibu.

I haven't watched "A Fine Mess" since I biked over to check it out at the Cla-Zel. All I remember is that there's a scene where Richard Mulligan gets a horse stimulant jammed up his rear end, which makes him run really fast (in the undercranked style of "The Benny Hill Show"). In any event, the film grossed a meager $6 million against a $15 million budget, which put an end to further Danson & Mandel hilarity while forcing Edwards to dig deep to make movies that were mere echoes of his classics. He almost returned to form with "Skin Deep," and closed out his career with the honorably antic "Son of the Pink Panther" (with a very game Roberto Benigni playing the spawn of Sellers' Inspector Clouseau). As for Danson & Mandel, both men appear to be in good health. That dream is not dead.