John Ritter And Eugene Levy's '90s Fantasy Movie Is A Hidden Gem Streaming For Free
Peter Hyams' 1992 comedy film "Stay Tuned" is well-liked by people of a very, very certain age. You essentially needed to be between the ages of 11 and 14 in 1992 to even really be aware of its presence, as it was hardly a hit (it only made $12 million on a $20 million budget), and it wasn't very well-liked by critics. The premise is also dated. John Ritter plays a plumber named Roy Knable whose life has been reduced to sitting on the couch and surfing through TV channels in his spare time. He barely speaks with his wife, Helen (Pam Dawber), who, during an argument, smashes their TV. Roy replaces the TV with a brand-new satellite system offered to him by the mysterious, demonic Mr. Spike (Jeffrey Jones). The new TV will offer him 666 channels. Hmm...
Naturally, the new TV is from hell, and Mr. Spike is the Devil. The TV magically sucks Roy and Helen into "Hellvision," making them parts of a series of TV shows. The TV shows, though, are torturous versions of familiar hit shows of the time. They become part of things like "Northern Overexposure" and "Duane's Underworld," which is a segment on "Saturday Nite Dead." If Roy and Helen can survive in the Hellvision dimension for 24 hours, they will be set free. If they die, they go to hell.
The premise was meant to approximate the bizarre, swirling onslaught of media that comes with incessant use of a remote control. "Channel surfing" was seen as a mind-wiping hobby in the '80s and '90s, as it only provided your eyeballs with random, disconnected images, robbed of context. In the modern era, where many people are addicted to constant, random phone scrolling, "channel surfing" now seems quaint.
Stay Tuned is a little dated but energetic and kooky
Throughout all the Hellvision scenes, Roy and Helen have to have a crash course in saving their marriage. Helen was annoyed by Roy's channel surfing, and was planning a divorce. It's astonishing how often channel surfing was seen as the ultimate activity of the deadbeat husband in the '80s and '90s. Think also of Al Bundy or Homer Simpson from "Married... with Children" and "The Simpsons," respectively. "Stay Tuned" was just tapping into those trends, but adding a horror/comedy element.
"Stay Tuned" was also part of a broader trend about the dangers of television, as exemplified in horror movies like "TerrorVision," "The Video Dead," and even Tobe Hooper's "Poltergeist." Too much TV was bad for your brain, the wisdom went. And, as "Stay Tuned" declared, Satan was behind it all.
Most of "Stay Tuned" is devoted to kooky, bleak spoofs of the day's popular media. Instead of being in "Driving Miss Daisy," for instance, Roy finds himself in the middle of "Driving Over Miss Daisy." In a cute in-joke, Roy finds himself in the middle of an episode of "Three's Company," the hit sitcom that made actor John Ritter famous. Beloved Canadian actor Eugene Levy plays Crowley, a recurring character in Hellworld who used to work for Spike. Salt-N-Pepa have cameos as themselves.
According to an article in Den of Geek, Tim Burton was offered a chance to direct "Stay Tuned," but only wanted to work with Warner Bros. again if he got to make "Batman Returns," specifically in his own idiom. Peter Hyams was the eventual replacement for Tim Burton, and he was an experienced director at the time, having already made films like "Capricorn One," "Outland," "2010: The Year We Make Contact," and "Narrow Margin."
Stay Tuned was hugely ambitious
It should be noted that "Stay Tuned" is no rinky-dink production. Because of all the bizarro TV show hellscapes in the Hellvision dimension, a lot of sets and vignettes had to be constructed, and there's an impressive amount of visual variety. Some of the gags fall flat, but luckily they come so fast and furious, you'll be smiling again in no time. "Three Men and Rosemary's Baby" was cute, as was the game show "You Can't Win."
The most notable sequence is the one where Roy and Helen find themselves in a cartoon universe, fully animated as talking mice. The sequence takes a full seven minutes of screen time (!) and, according to an old issue of Cinefantastique Magazine, took six months to animate. If one were so inclined, one could watch the animated sequence all by itself online.
"Stay Tuned" was no throw-away movie, but critics were unimpressed. Like I said, this was very appealing to a certain kind of kooky child who was really into dark comedies in the early 1990s. The film only has a 44% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 16 reviews. Joseph McBride's review in Variety pointed out that the film's PG rating robbed "Stay Tuned" of some much-needed edge.
And yes, the film stars Jeffrey Jones, who was merely known as a beloved kook at the time. Jones, part of the original "Beetlejuice" cast, would go on to be arrested on child pornography charges, so your enjoyment of "Stay Tuned" might also depend on how comfortable you might be knowing about the actor's crimes.
That aside, it's an energetic, creative, kooky early-'90s curio for intrepid souls. I was the right age when it came out, so I have fond memories of it. The TV show adaptation, sadly, never got off the ground.