Lucky you.

The Maytag man came on Saturday to fix my dryer. I had been without it for an entire week. To be without a dryer for a week is like being without a pint of Ben & Jerry's for a week. It's positively shocking and scary to say the least.

Picture this. You know the barrel inside the dryer and how there are these three sub-divider like things that help toss your clothes around? Well, two weeks ago when I was washing one of my new comforters, it came off. Clank clank clank.

I guess I could have pushed the dryer out, found the bolts that made their way to the bottom of the dryer, and then figured out how to re-attach them. But why do so when the Maytag repairmen have nothing else better to do.

You've seen the commercials. Am I right?

Anyway, because I had so much laundry to do on Sunday, that meant twice the fun with cable television. Twice the fun with second-rate movies. Twice the commitment I've made to you...THE CONSUMER.

And now, another movie from the Fluff & Fold series.

Today's movie is the comedy phenomena, Big Bully. This rambunctious comedy was released in 1996 and I assume it was meant to breath something into the lives of these second rate actors (well, mostly second rate).

It's 1971 and Little Davie Leary (Justin Jon Ross) lives with his folks in po-dunk Minnesota. As a fifth grader, his biggest issue seems to be with the school bully - Fang (Michael Zwiener). You see, Fang is about three times his size and does every thing in his power to torture Davey. He pees in his thermos, takes his lunch money, dumps him off the teeter-totter - but WORST OF ALL...he tears the head off of Davey's Evil Kenivel doll. Gasp!

The entire school is abuzz with the best thing that has ever come to their town...Yes folks, a moon rock, accompanied by an Air Force person, makes its way to Davey's school.

When no one is looking, the moon rock gets stolen. Gasp! The school has offered a large reward. The whole town is demanding the return of that moon rock!!!

Accidentally, Davey spies Fang in the woods and to his surprise, it was Fang who stole the moon rock. Taking a stand for the first time in his entire life, Davey turns Fang into the principal. Fang is thrown into juvi hall and conveniently, Davey's father is transferred to California.

The end. Well, not really.

Stay with me folks. I don't want to lose you.

Grown up Dave (Rick Moranis) is now a writer of fiction and lives in California with his young son Kirby (Cody McMains). One day, he receives a letter from his elementary school, asking him to come back and be a guest teacher on creative writing for a semester. After all, he is a hero in that town. Flattered, and worried that the influences around Kirby aren't helpful to his development, they pack up and move back to Minnesota.

Now, you'll notice that there is no mother in the picture. Towards the end of the movie, we find out that the nameless, faceless mother has abandoned them and no one knows where she is.

Upon arriving in little town Minnesota, Kirby is disgusted at its small town-ness. The busy-body neighbors (Jeffrey Tambor, Faith Prince) are chatty. All of the kids seem stupid and the worst possible thing - THERE'S NO CABLE!!!

During his first day of school, he becomes irritated by a little pip-squeak of a kid - Ben (Blake Bashoff). He starts pounding on Ben and the next thing you know, he's in the principal's office with his father, Ben, and Ben's father.

Ben's father (Tom Arnold) happens to be the shop teacher. He's a very reserved individual and also happens to be FANG. Gasp! When David catches on to who he is, he avoids him like the plague. Eventually, Fang finds out who Mr. Leary is. This seems to set off an internal bomb inside Fang and he starts pulling pranks on David.

David runs to the principal (Don Knotts) but gets no support from him.

Backed into a corner, Fang taunts Davey because Davey never stood up to him. It is then that Davey reveals that HE turned in Fang for the moon rock. Gasp! Fang becomes furious. Because of Davey, he had to go to juvi hall and then, his parents abandoned him to an orphanage. If it wasn't for Davey, Fang's life would be perfect.

Yes, Fang wouldn't live in a mo-bile home with his bossy-boots wife (Carol Kane), and he wouldn't have a bazillion brats running around. Grrrrrrr!!!

For the next 30 or so minutes, Fang sets about trying to kill Davey.

Finally, it's the kids - Kirby and Ben, who get Fang and Davey to make up.

The end. For real this time.

The best thing about this movie was Carol Kane. She was the type of funny that she was in Scrooged. Too bad she had less than 5 minutes of air time.

Writer Mark Steven Johnson (side note: always beware of people who have three names...think serial killers...), based upon his past record, really wasn't equipped to follow through on the concept of bully and bullied meet up again as adults. With the exception of Carol Kane's character, every other character was dull and lifeless.

I like the director, Steve Minor. He did a bang up job on some of my favorite's - Felicity, The Wonder Years, Chicago Hope. I don't think that his forte is slapstick comedy. And it showed here.

Now here's the thing. I kind of liked Tom Arnold on the Roseanne show. Maybe he was playing a character, maybe he was playing himself. I don't know. I just liked him on that show. Here, I think that the writer and director were trying to make him too dark. That's why all of the physical comedy they put him and Rick Moranis through just didn't work.

I have never liked Rick Moranis. He was irritating in Parenthood and I've tried to avoid all of the other movies he was in. At times - Rick was almost bearable but only a few times. Otherwise, I wanted to make him wear one of the shirts I pulled out of my dryer that was full of static cling (forgot the dryer sheet that time).

I'm sure that Don Knotts was added for some deadpan type of ha-ha's. Too bad he couldn't pull it off.

So, there you have it. Another movie I have spared you from. Please send all donations for dryer sheets to:

Fluff & Fold Charitable Foundation Center
Brisbane, CA

Great Movie To Watch While: Wondering whatever happened to that wench Rhonda Swanigan who called my sister a name (and who later ended up fighting with me on Scott's court).


Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: VHS