Comments on: Oogiebombs

Oogiebombs

WinnipegDragon — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 21:35:50 -0800

So what happens when a variety of B -list actors and some extremely strange looking full-body puppets make a movie with a children's marketing expert? You get the worst opening weekend for any movie, ever.

By: mazola

mazola — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 21:38:47 -0800

I was watching the trailer, got lost in it, then thought to myself "Why am I watching this?" And I didn't know. :(

By: jeffamaphone

jeffamaphone — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 21:40:02 -0800

It's no Zyzzyx Rd, but you know, that one was only one theatre, not 2000.

By: Sidhedevil

Sidhedevil — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 21:40:23 -0800

Oh, I am brimful of schadenfreude because I have been hating those creepy-looking things so hard. If I were a toddler, I would be terrified of them!

By: item

item — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 21:41:03 -0800

I wish I still smoked pot. This movie would've made for a fun matinee with a few friends after a morning of gravity bong hits.

By: mazola

mazola — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 21:41:32 -0800

On the other hand, Cloris Leachman is no B-list actor. YOU TAKE THAT BACK!

By: dobbs

dobbs — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 21:44:55 -0800

It did horrible, but there's films that have done worse, just not on 2000 screens. What was that Canadian film with the moose in from a few years ago. That made less than this one for sure.

By: Sidhedevil

Sidhedevil — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 21:45:22 -0800

Hilarious astroturfing going on in the Rotten Tomatoes comments. The identical comments from "different users" that go, "I may be black, but I'm thankful my toddlers got a break from the cussing..." are amazing.

By: item

item — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 21:45:26 -0800

The theater would have been empty, so we could've brought along the Whip-it cracker and a 50 pack of EZ-Whip cartridges too. I miss being 18.

By: AElfwine Evenstar

AElfwine Evenstar — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 21:47:47 -0800

On the other hand, Cloris Leachman is no B-list actor. YOU TAKE THAT BACK! Also Christopher Lloyd is in this. Is he considered a B-lister? If so that's some BS.

By: Sidhedevil

Sidhedevil — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 21:55:36 -0800

Nihta Cunari and King Longboards sure as hell hate cussing.

By: Bwithh

Bwithh — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 21:55:59 -0800

The film, which stars a series of creepy costumed characters with names like Toofie, Zoozie, and Goobie, as well as a vacuum cleaner named J. Edgar Hahaha! That one's for the high-brow adults in the audience! Hahaha! It's even pretty dirty, if you think about it hard enough! Hahaha!

By: Bwithh

Bwithh — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 21:58:22 -0800

What was that Canadian film with the moose in from a few years ago. posted by dobbs at 9:44 PM on September 4 [+] [!] This could be any number of Canadian movies in truth, but I demand to know the answer to this!

By: oneswellfoop

oneswellfoop — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 21:58:37 -0800

Oogieloves lacks something that this guy's previous credits (Teletubbies and Thomas the Tank Engine) had... PBS.

By: WinnipegDragon

WinnipegDragon — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 21:59:36 -0800

I am sorry I referred to the stellar actors responsible for such roles as 'Great Gam Gam' in Beerfest and 'Mr. Goodman' in Piranha 3DD as B-List.

By: benzenedream

benzenedream — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:01:46 -0800

Skynet fails to pass the Turing test yet again.

By: Ghostride The Whip

Ghostride The Whip — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:02:40 -0800

Every time I saw a trailer for this, I felt like I was hallucinating. I'd ask the wife "Am I high right now? You're seeing this too?" and she would confirm it was all-too-real. And somehow it is even worse, apparently, than the trailers lead me to expect.

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:04:17 -0800

I read about this the other day, and was stuck by how some of the film's advertising actually highlights the fact that it's from the same "marketing visionary" as Teletubies, etc. Here's a poster that uses that language and I saw a trailer that does the same. Here I was thinking that "From the studio that brought you..." was as silly as it got.

By: benito.strauss

benito.strauss — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:06:25 -0800

This movie is beneath Jamie Pressly.

By: barnacles

barnacles — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:06:45 -0800

Watching the trailer, I just kept having flashbacks to Howard the Duck. Is he any relation to the Oogieloves (or is it sorta like Dr. Who and Rufus from Bill&Ted, and we just don't discuss them at the same time ...)?

By: mannequito

mannequito — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:07:54 -0800

It's no Zyzzyx Rd, but you know, that one was only one theatre, not 2000. oh my! Trivia The film opened at one theater, Highland Village Park Theater in Dallas, Texas. It ran for six days, and made $30 at the box office. A crew member who took a friend got a refund, so the final domestic box-office gross was $20 or the equivalent of three tickets sold. I must see this movie.

By: Bwithh

Bwithh — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:09:29 -0800

"Ironically, the movie initally came about after Anne Wood, the Teletubbies' creator, refused offers to turn the series into a motion picture. "For years, I thought about how can I win an argument with her to say, see this is why we should make a movie," Viselman told The Hollywood Reporter. "And that turned into to me kind of deconstructing the entire movie-going experience. Why would a child not be happy in a movie theater? Eventually, what it really breaks down to in really simple terms is that young kids are asked to be adults when they go into the movie theater. They're asked to go there and be quiet, don't talk, eat your popcorn and drink your soda and just be quiet. That's not the way children interact." As he was meditating on that question, Viselman found himself in a theater showing Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail, marveling at the way the audience shouted out advice to the characters and generally made the screening a community event instead of a solitary two hours. Mix that with a friend's account of The Rocky Horror Picture Show screening, with all its pagentry and participation, and the idea was born."

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:09:54 -0800

From the Wiki link: After seeing Madea Goes to Jail in a theater, Viselman was partially inspired to create a children's film in the vein of Teletubbies with the interactive aspect, allowing the children to sing, dance, and respond to the characters on screen. So, yeah. As bad as it gets.

By: Artw

Artw — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:12:33 -0800

Well, I guess that settles that argument.

By: Sticherbeast

Sticherbeast — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:12:44 -0800

Foodfight! is such an enormous bomb that it hasn't even been released. Trailer here. It looks like the worst thing on the planet.

By: dobbs

dobbs — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:14:12 -0800

Bwitth, Salt Water Moose, starring Timothy Dalton and Lolita Davidovich.

By: maryr

maryr — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:21:22 -0800

The trailer looks like something coming to your local hockey rink.

By: Bwithh

Bwithh — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:21:28 -0800

So apparently Toni Braxton ( a currently hugely successful multi-Grammy winning R&B superstar , I understand?!?!?) has a singer character in this who is based on Mariah Carey. She does an alluring song and dance number .

By: gronkpan

gronkpan — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:23:15 -0800

Its production budget was $20 million, in addition to another $40 million in marketing costs. Well there's your problem right there. Perhaps rather than spending double what they spent to make the movie on marketing they should have made sure they had a decent product to market.

By: Bwithh

Bwithh — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:30:33 -0800

eh, now I'm just piling on: Inc. magazine profile of Viselman from 2003: "In the suite, after his guests listened to Gershwin tunes, sipped champagne, and dined on chÂteaubriand and lobster, Viselman unveiled what is known in the trade as a "plush" -- that is, a stuffed animal. But not just any stuffed animal. For what he called Li'l Pet Hospital, Viselman had created warm, cuddly, and luxuriant stuffed animals with eyes that actually look upward when you hug them. And what's more, he'd injured them, giving them wounds and broken bones. Inspired by the events of September 11 -- and, in many ways, by Viselman's own sadness and soul-searching after he lost his company -- Li'l Pet Hospital gives children the chance to nurture and heal."

By: mazola

mazola — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:31:03 -0800

And that is why you're not a "marketing visionary".

By: azpenguin

azpenguin — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:31:36 -0800

Wesley - aka The Dread Pirate Roberts aka Robin Hood aka fake spy car salesman - was associated with this? That's truly sad.

By: dirigibleman

dirigibleman — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:40:20 -0800

Oh, snap!

By: Ideal Impulse

Ideal Impulse — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:42:19 -0800

About a week ago, I remember seeing ads for this movie constantly. A website I visit regularly (I can't remember which one now, but I remember thinking "Huh, this seems not well targeted.") had enourmous video ads taking over the screen; there were big posters for it in the Northgate area of Seattle; I remember an ad in a bus shelter. I'm currently eight months pregnant, so I viewed these ads with some trepitation. "Is this a thing? I haven't heard about this at all. This looks terrible." Luckily for me, it's not A Thing.

By: MartinWisse

MartinWisse — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:46:22 -0800

Oogieloves lacks something that this guy's previous credits (Teletubbies and Thomas the Tank Engine) had... PBS. PBS spelled BBC, that is.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:47:53 -0800

1. Foodfight! looks horrible. The computer animation looks like something that would have been used in videogame cutscenes about ten years ago. At 27 seconds into the trailer you can clearly see a computer rendered Charlie the Tuna, from the Starfish Tuna commercials, walking by in the background. Also it stars Charlie Sheen. And it also has Christopher Lloyd in it. That man needs better representation. However, The Room and Birdemic are clearly worse.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:48:12 -0800

(Note: there is no #2.)

By: obscurator

obscurator — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:50:41 -0800

I appreciated the NYT review, guest-written by a young friend of A.O. Scott.

By: dirigibleman

dirigibleman — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:51:28 -0800

The #2 is all over the movie screen.

By: incessant

incessant — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:52:22 -0800

Cloris Leachman's interview at moviefone is absolutely fantastic. "How did you get involved with the project? I never know the answer to that. I just get a call. Did you want to do it for a specific reason? Well, I get to sing and dance a little bit. ... What draws you to these movies? Money. Anything else? I'm free." There's more -- she talks about miscarrying, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, and Mel Brooks.

By: Bwithh

Bwithh — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:55:40 -0800

Foodfight! looks horrible. The computer animation looks like something that would have been used in videogame cutscenes about ten years ago The IMDB page says that the hard drives with the animation graphics were stolen in 2002 so the filmmakers has to start over ! ( film is dated 2009 and looks absolutely bafflingly terrible)

By: JHarris

JHarris — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:57:01 -0800

I watched the whole Foodfight trailer. It turns out Charlie the Tuna was there because it's a movie about advertising mascots fighting evil with food. It's basically an excuse for epic levels of product placement. Wow.

By: Bwithh

Bwithh — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 23:04:52 -0800

According to the IMDB user reviews, the evil baddies in Food Fight are Nazi-themed brands led by a female Hitler character who appears in sexy schoolgirl stripper/Nazi fetish costume. I wonder if this project was inspired by the Springtime for Hitler scam in The Producers?

By: scrowdid

scrowdid — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 23:05:36 -0800

Oh no, I'm sad Foodfight is terrible. I grew up a big fan of animated advertising mascots and would have loved to see them get their Who Framed Roger Rabbit or Wreck-It Ralph if it had been done right.

By: Tell Me No Lies

Tell Me No Lies — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 23:06:07 -0800

fake spy car salesman ??

By: Kevin Street

Kevin Street — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 23:13:13 -0800

"I appreciated the NYT review, guest-written by a young friend of A.O. Scott." From Stella's excellent review:

Hallie's dad texted Shoot Me Now and that was silly because why would you text someone to shoot you. There is no shooting in this movie.

By: ArkhanJG

ArkhanJG — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 23:30:59 -0800

Inspired by the events of September 11 -- and, in many ways, by Viselman's own sadness and soul-searching after he lost his company Ugh. Uggggggh. Unnnnngggggggggggggggggh. And 'marketering geniuses' wonder why the rest of us generally consider them cankers on the soul of humanity. "When his mother pulled out the T-shirt," says Viselman, "the child looked up and said 'Choo-choo.' Those were the first words the kid had ever spoken. And that moment my life changed. I really got it that I could do stuff that could make a difference in children's lives. And there was a huge responsibility that came with that. It was like, 'Oh, my God! Why can't we make great stuff for kids and make a lot of money at the same time? We can do both!"

By: JHarris

JHarris — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 23:31:45 -0800

Cartoon Brew reports on Foodfight. Foodfight "coming soon" on DVD.

By: oneswellfoop

oneswellfoop — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 23:35:11 -0800

I was going to mention BBC, but Thomas the Tank Engine debuted in the UK on ITV; so yes, there's a British connection but even more so, PBS. Just glad this guy never got hold of Clifford the Big Red Dog.

By: Afroblanco

Afroblanco — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 23:39:55 -0800

However, The Room and Birdemic are clearly worse. Birdemic is not a movie. It's a postmodern treatise on what it means to be an audience. Also, it involves people attacking clipart birds with coathangers.

By: Homeboy Trouble

Homeboy Trouble — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 23:44:20 -0800

Let us spare a thought for Delgo, the previous champion of opening week shit box office ($237 per theatre, versus Oogieloves' $206). Compared to Oogieloves and especially Foodfight, it looks like Citizen fucking Kane.

By: ckape

ckape — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 23:49:14 -0800

So if I understand correctly, Foodfight is pretty much supposed to get kids to equate cheaper generic brands with nazis. And it would have worked too, if it weren't for you screaming kids, running away screaming at the sight of some seriously uncanny valley computer animation. It seems to me that the key difference between Oogieloves and Teletubbies is that with Teletubbies you just sit the kids in the room with the TV and go do other things, but with Oogieloves you're pretty much forced to sit in the theatre while all of this is going on and the best it offers the parents is a terrible 80-year old pun.

By: muckster

muckster — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 00:06:02 -0800

Came in here to link the A.O. Scott review -- it's pure gold.

By: Joe in Australia

Joe in Australia — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 00:51:10 -0800

I saw a trailer for this a couple of months ago. I can't recall the exact words, but it was something like "I'm a boy and I like adventures!" "I'm another boy and I like science!" "I'm a girl and I like being nurturing and doing my hair!" So, I am also glad this is Not A Thing.

By: lumpenprole

lumpenprole — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 00:54:02 -0800

However, The Room and Birdemic are clearly worse. Birdemic is not a movie. It's a postmodern treatise on what it means to be an audience. And they both pale in comparison to 'After Last Season.' That's just art made from a dimension where they hate human beings.

By: Grangousier

Grangousier — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 01:07:42 -0800

Teletubbies was produced by Ann Wood, but I think the more important person in its creation was Andrew Davenport - the team were also responsible for the wonderful In the Night Garden, which I think is one of my favourite television series of all time (I do not have children. Nor, curiously, do I do drugs). Particularly in the latter case, Davenport has come as close as anyone can in television to being an auteur with a lot of control over the design, direction and editing, writing all the episodes and creating the music (which ties the stories together). It's fair to say that if neither Wood nor Davenport are involved (and they wouldn't be, really), then this is nothing to do with Teletubbies. They could, however, claim to be channel the spirits of the Krofft brothers.

By: davejay

davejay — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 01:22:20 -0800

no one wants to mention The Apple among worst movies ever?

By: Segundus

Segundus — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 01:23:09 -0800

As the marketing strategist who helped popularize the "Thomas the Tank Engine" and "Teletubbies" franchises in the United States. Claimed to have helped popularise. Was thought to have helped popularise. Deluded himself he had helped popularise...

By: davejay

davejay — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 01:25:45 -0800

Just watched the trailer. I can't unwatch it.

By: Joakim Ziegler

Joakim Ziegler — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 01:27:00 -0800

barnacles: " I just kept having flashbacks to Howard the Duck" LEAVE HOWARD ALONE! Seriously, I like that movie. One of the best Lovecraft film adaptations.

By: Joakim Ziegler

Joakim Ziegler — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 01:29:07 -0800

incessant: "There's more -- she talks about miscarrying" So, she keeps talking about this movie?

By: Joakim Ziegler

Joakim Ziegler — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 01:42:35 -0800

A. O. Scott's review in the NYT is worth reading.

By: Segundus

Segundus — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 01:42:40 -0800

How many promising low-budget film projects are there out there languishing for lack of backing? But this is what capitalism allocates resources to. This is the kind of thing that could cause a man to have occasional shivers of doubt about the perfect efficiency of the market mechanism.

By: egypturnash

egypturnash — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 01:46:25 -0800

Partway through the trailer, I caught myself thinking that this could be kinda fun, if someone edited it down into something largely lacking in the title characters. Then the guy whose pants fall down has them fall down again. And the fish made a fart noise. Again. And I realized that this trailer has probably shown about 75% of the screen time that the title characters aren't dominating the screen. Then the girl said "Isn't this the BEST MOVIE EVER?!?!?". And I stopped the player. Wow. This is precisely as bad as I thought it would be when I saw a poster for it.

By: Apocryphon

Apocryphon — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 01:49:17 -0800

We need to go back to the Renaissance and Baroque model of patronage for the arts because at least then you only need to convince one wigbrained aristocrat of the aesthetic worthiness of your project instead of a conference room's worth of cold calculating number crunchers and oblivious marketing people.

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 01:57:36 -0800

It's a cliché to say something inside me died... but when they did the trousers dropping gag for the second time something inside me really did die. And there's a special place in hell for 'children's marketing experts'

By: maxwelton

maxwelton — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 03:00:56 -0800

I have never felt so happy to be childless.

By: mephron

mephron — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 03:01:02 -0800

SO my sister-in-law calls me and says, "Mephron(1). We're thinking about taking the kids to a movie, and want something that's not violent or mean. What do you know about Oogieloves?" The kids are an 8 year old girl and twin 5 year old boys. "...you are better off staying home and giving them the Electric Company DVDs(2) I bought for them a few years ago." "That bad?" "The reviews compare Manos The Hands Of Fate to it... with Manos being better." And thus I saved my niece and nephews from it. ---- (1) she used my real name, but I'm not going to use it here. (2) my sister-in-law was concerned about the violence on the Electric Company. Like what Letterman did. I sometimes despair for the woman.

By: loosemouth

loosemouth — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 03:16:28 -0800

Needs more Pee Wee and Cowboy Curtis.

By: phaedon

phaedon — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 03:50:35 -0800

It's no Zyzzyx Rd, but you know, that one was only one theatre, not 2000. Not sure if anyone already mentioned this, but the reason they do shit like releasing a movie in one theater for one week is to qualify the movie for certain festivals and awards.

By: sonascope

sonascope — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 04:07:29 -0800

I saw the trailer for this wretched mess on the TV in my kitchen a few times when I was busy washing dishes and cooking and didn't want to wash up just to use the remote, and it's definitely one of those vile things, akin to the Christian horror franchise, Veggie Tales, in which the utter disconnect between soulless adults and their poor hapless children is demonstrated. Every single detail here shows off the lazy writing, the lazy understanding, and the condescending, insulting, idiotic pap that adults who have no business communicating with children dump on kids because they're just too into their own insane vision of what they think childhood is about to actually pay attention. When I was a kid, if you gave me that magical 64 crayon box, I didn't go straight for (a) primary colors or (b) whatever the hell those garish colors that they use in every single visual image intended for children. Actual children like burnt sienna, periwinkle, and yellow-green, not just dumb day-glo colors that are the current signifiers for childhood in the market department's style book. Give my nieces a box of crayons, and they'd come up with a smashing little drawing of me and my dog rendered in a palette of blues and greys and black that Picasso would have envied. The language is a horror, too. Dumb adults think that kids are drawn to rhyme-y, alliterative, simplistic babytalk names, because we've been blaring stupidity at them at length with red idiot puppets with speech impediments for the last few decades, but let a kid name their own doll or imaginary friend and they'll pick names like "Robert Monroe" and "Mrs. Louise" and "Elizabeth Small" over "Ookie Googington" and "Bartley Baby Boom Boom" by a long shot. We think kids like this crap, but it's dumb adults buying this ruinous garbage for kids in a hectoring bid to be their kids' best buddy best pal with a patronizing attempt to think they way they think kids think. Of course, children are a highly suggestible little army of the damned. Drill stupidity into them long enough by jamming them in front of a TV because you're just ever so tired and need a little me time and they'll come to respond like little Pavlovian dogs. However unnatural it is for them to play along with the C-student writing of aspiring entertainers who can't even make it into the dinner theater scene, you can indoctrinate them until they're as dumb, lifeless, and repetitive as you are. Hur hur, the pants fell down! Ho ho—farted! I take the failure of this film as a little sign that maybe things are changing for the better, if only because there's finally some day-glo fatigue kicking in. My brother mentioned to me yesterday that, while he and my sister-in-law and my five year-old nephew were out hiking in the woods, they found an animal skull and stopped to examine it. As my nephew held it in the light, turning it over and over as he looked over the arches and corners and curves of the thing, my brother suggested that maybe it was a possum skull, which drew a furrowed brow from the kid, who spoke about the form of the jaw in what my brother recognized to be a direct quote from The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Kid pays attention, it seems. No oogie boogie purple dinosaur dancing wiggledy schniggledy shit for my nephew. I felt incredibly proud and looked forward to giving him a copy of my childhood favorite, The Great Glass Elevator, which is both joyously kid-paced and shockingly free of the glurgey saccharine cutesy poo sentiment that people just keep foisting on kids.

By: strangely stunted trees

strangely stunted trees — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 04:07:47 -0800

Hilarious astroturfing going on in the Rotten Tomatoes comments. I... wow. Yeah. I don't know whether it's more depressing that somebody's job was to AstroTurf Rotten Tomatoes for the Oogieloves, or that that could be somebody's job and they would botch it that badly.

By: DU

DU — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 04:31:35 -0800

By: Slap*Happy

Slap*Happy — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 04:51:05 -0800

Yo Gabba Gabba has the surreal kiddie market sewn up at the moment - because the adults behind it take their audience and their art seriously. They demand and get top indie and underground talent, or class acts being classy - The Root's "Love my Family" is one of the best songs in their catalog. The point is to put on a show, and then maybe make some money from the toys based on the strength of the content. On the other hand, almost all toddler shows are about interpersonal communication - only Sesame Street is really doing any kind of job teaching fundamentals like numbers, shapes, letters and vocabulary. I'd like to see shows like Yo Gabba Gabba or Mickey Mouse Clubhouse take a more active role in that. no one wants to mention The Apple among worst movies ever? You just don't have what it takes to be a... Master.

By: exparrot

exparrot — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 05:01:37 -0800

From the A.O. Scott review :"They have a pillow named Schluufy..." Oy my yiddishe mama..."Schluffy"? That's what my Bubbe used to say when it was time to sleep. 'Go schluffy'.

By: zarq

zarq — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 05:17:00 -0800

exparrot: " That's what my Bubbe used to say when it was time to sleep. 'Go schluffy'." Heh. My wife and I use 'schluffy' with our kids. :D

By: Rat Spatula

Rat Spatula — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 05:21:04 -0800

What is it with the vacuum cleaners?

By: tommasz

tommasz — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 05:47:10 -0800

What is it with the vacuum cleaners? My theory is they're included simply to enable "X sucks!" jokes for that ever-important 12-14 year-old demographic. After all, somebody has to sit in the theater with their little sibling.

By: urbanwhaleshark

urbanwhaleshark — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 05:51:56 -0800

What is it with the vacuum cleaners? It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again?

By: troika

troika — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 05:57:31 -0800

no one wants to mention The Apple among worst movies ever? posted by davejay at 1:22 AM on 9/5 [1 favorite −] Favorite added! [!] That movie redefines deus ex machina.

By: FAMOUS MONSTER

FAMOUS MONSTER — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 06:23:01 -0800

That movie redefines deus ex machina. Deus ex Buick.

By: computech_apolloniajames

computech_apolloniajames — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 06:23:50 -0800

True story: Over the weekend, My boyfriend was upstate, staying at a house with a friend of his, among others. While they were in town (the only time they had Internet access), she looked at her phone, and said, "Gee, my friend Matt's movie just opened and it's getting terrible reviews." Another friend tried to make her feel better, saying, "Oh, it's just reviews." My BF was so tempted to say, "No, this is what they call 'being shit-hammered,'" but he didn't want to make her feel any worse.

By: leotrotsky

leotrotsky — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 06:31:15 -0800

DU: Sid the Science Kid is a horrid uncanny valley abomination. I thought I was all alone in that.

By: easily confused

easily confused — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 06:34:25 -0800

I saw the posters for this thing, and just from the title ("Oogieloves'? WTF? how precious & cutsey can you get?!?) and artwork (my gawd, that's just scary!) I knew it was gonna be bad.... then I started seeing the trailers, and realized these people had managed to find entirely new depths to the phrase, "bad movies". oh, and barnacles? I'm another one who enjoys 'Howard the Duck'.... of course, I'll also admit to a fondness to 'Santa Claus vs. the Martians' (Pia Zadora's first role!) and the world's only all-midget musical western, 'The Terror of Tiny Town', so yeah: my taste might be suspect. (But hell no to 'Oogieloves' --- I gotta have some standards!)

By: cjorgensen

cjorgensen — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 06:35:49 -0800

So someone can spend $40 million dollars to promote something and I can still not hear about it? Good to know.

By: Uther Bentrazor

Uther Bentrazor — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 06:37:49 -0800

I look at shit like this, and I chuckle, but then I think of the 5 minute credit scroll that follows the end of even the crappiest of these productions. It's one thing to have a dumb idea, but quite another to wrangle the resources, time, effort, talent, etc to make it into an actual product. Whenever I see shit like this, I don't see dopey costumes or CGI dogs, or even the idea of actors who should have better things to do tooling around on a set: I think of all the people who signed onto this, thinking it'd be a good idea. I think of grips and cameramen and caterers and builders, putting in 8 hour days. These aren't stupid people either, at least a good amount of them know that their energies and talents are being wasted. I've struggled with anxiety and confidence issues all my life; When I have an idea, i'm haunted with embarrassment. When my eBay store tells me that one of the items in my shop hasn't had any sales in over a year and I should "consider revising it", it's a dark mark on my soul, until I pull the item out of shame. I can't imagine having that level of confidence that would permit me to not only HAVE such a terrible idea without recoiling in embarrassment, but even begin to FATHOM tanking $60 MILLION DOLLARS on making it into reality.

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 06:46:51 -0800

It's been my experience that camera men and grips really like having jobs and being paid more then caring about if this particular job tanks. It's not like they created this disaster, they just shot it.

By: srboisvert

srboisvert — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 06:47:32 -0800

You can take away fart humour over my dead body. I suggest you use tupperware.

By: Kevin Street

Kevin Street — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 06:50:04 -0800

If nothing else, at least Mr. Viselman has given this generation of children a strange, forgotten "classic" to marvel at when they get older. A "Plan 9 From Outer Space" for the adults of 2025, perhaps.

By: Uther Bentrazor

Uther Bentrazor — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 06:56:38 -0800

Whelk: Maybe so, but I can't imagine that at least with this film, somewhere deep down, they feel it.

By: Uther Bentrazor

Uther Bentrazor — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 06:57:33 -0800

*imagine, not 'can't imagine' ... see how bad this shit is messing with me?!

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 07:08:07 -0800

EH, maybe. The only story I can think of from someone working on a doomed, awful production was a guy doing the post on dallies for a TV show that was so badly managed and organized that the clips came without metadata or claps and in the wrong order and labeled like 4 different things so suddenly his job became salvaging completely context-less clips and then getting yelled at for failing to do something that wasn;t his job.

By: Artw

Artw — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 07:29:27 -0800

Wait, the same guy is responsible for Thomas the Tank Engine, Teletubbies and Oogieloves? This explains so, so much. If he also had a hand in that inhuman creature that calls itself "Sid the Science Kid" then my Grand Unified Theory of Seriously Disturbing Television is almost complete. Straying dangerously into "hating on kids TV because it is FOR KIDS" territory there... Also he only localized those things - something that's largely superfluous or just makes them worse, IMHO. Yo Gabba Gabba has the surreal kiddie market sewn up at the moment - because the adults behind it take their audience and their art seriously. That seems to be the vital ingredient missing here.

By: EmpressCallipygos

EmpressCallipygos — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 08:10:18 -0800

I think of grips and cameramen and caterers and builders, putting in 8 hour days. These aren't stupid people either, at least a good amount of them know that their energies and talents are being wasted. Everyone in the entertainment industry at every level has worked on stuff like this. (If you ever really want to hear me rant, ask me about the time I worked on something called Medea in Jerusalem.) Particularly so among the techies, though, there is a sort of gallows humor that people engage in to cope - they know what they're working on sucks, but it's a paycheck, so fuck it, and we'll just bust on it while we're working on it. A guy I used to hang out with somehow ended up as one of the translators on the film The Amazing Panda Adventure, and said that one of the things he enjoyed most was that he was one of the few Caucasian guys who knew that the crew were all taking advantage of the fact that the cast and producers didn't speak Mandarin to get away with singing obscene songs and bust on the lead kid all the time. I also once had a delightful encounter with an electrics guy who was packing things up for the night after he was working on a location shoot on my block. I asked him what they were shooting - it was Glitter. But he had the most deliciously sarcastic gleam in his eye as he told me "Because after all, it is time that Mariah told her story to the world!" I ended up hanging out on my stoop talking to the guy a full five minutes just because he was having so much fun busting on the film. We do that.

By: maryr

maryr — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 08:22:38 -0800

I was going to defend Thomas The Tank Engine as not as terrible as everyone was making it out to be when I realized why I don't hate it - Ringo Starr. More specifically, I don't hate it because in the US, Thomas et al were presented as segments of Shining Time Station, which was really pretty cute. The train animations were always the worst part of it. And, until reading the Wikipedia article on it, I'd forgotten that Ringo's replacement as Mr. Conductor was George Carlin.

By: jsturgill

jsturgill — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 08:24:20 -0800

If this had had a budget of $20,000 intead of $20 million, it just might have been the best thing ever.

By: Sidhedevil

Sidhedevil — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 09:11:01 -0800

The ads for this were all over Wonkette. Weirdest mismatch there since TruckNutz.

By: Isingthebodyelectric

Isingthebodyelectric — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 09:16:12 -0800

This kind of thing works on TV - toddlers will space out to it, and you can make dinner (or whatever). Although, personally, if I had kids I'd rather they watch something moderately educational. But to buy a whole movie ticket per kid, then have to sit through this? No one really thought this through, did they? I will say that scene with Cary Elwes was not as depressing for me as realizing he was the guy with the bad American accent in SAW.

By: Artw

Artw — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 09:22:25 -0800

I was lucky - Kid #1 Lost interest in Rhinas just before charming old school model-based Thomas got replaced by horid plastic CG Thomas.

By: thanotopsis

thanotopsis — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 09:36:20 -0800

This movie is beneath Jamie Pressly. Ironically, that's a pretty desirable position in which to find one's self.

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 09:49:47 -0800

When my girlfriend saw ads for this on the subway, her first thought was that she was having a stroke, what with the gooblety bloobity being almost real words.

By: davejay

davejay — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 09:52:05 -0800

I think of grips and cameramen and caterers and builders, putting in 8 hour days. These aren't stupid people either, at least a good amount of them know that their energies and talents are being wasted. How many of us feel like we're wasting our energies and talents at whatever our day job is? Creative jobs are no different, at times. I used to work in television with a guy that asked to be credited as the pseudonym "Michael Bennett" whenever he worked on a project that sucked, so he wouldn't have to be associated with it. Lots of people know how to collect a dime on wasted time, and some days it beats only having a nickel.

By: Atreides

Atreides — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 10:01:02 -0800

I saw the trailer when I went to see Brave. I had previously, and regretfully, landed on the show on morning tv. I have long mourned the death of good Saturday morning tv, or kids programming in general (not counting those rare gems that occasional pop up), and the trailer was simply something like the casket slamming shut and then falling into the open grave, causing the captured gas within the bloated body to be released in a foul smelling, sounding event that firmly encapsulated everything that went through my mind at the moment. Obviously, I've been in good spirits since I learned of the movie's complete and utter failure.

By: Artw

Artw — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 10:02:41 -0800

There is no lack of kis centric TV: For that age group - PBS. For a little older - Nick Jr.

By: mule98J

mule98J — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 10:13:59 -0800

Oh Peewee. I miss you. Nothing in that trailer showed car chases, burning guys, guys falling off high places*, or machine duels. Letsee...what else?.... Oh, yeah, no sex. I still won't watch it. (* or burning guys falling off high places...)

By: Sidhedevil

Sidhedevil — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 10:17:06 -0800

Atreides, I don't think there's an Oogieloves TV show; in this New York Times piece, Viselman talks about doing a movie because it's "impossible to break in on TV."

By: Bwithh

Bwithh — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 10:28:20 -0800

Viselman has stoically meditated on the meaning of the opening box office results for the first Oogieloves movie and is going ahead with creating 2 movie sequels and a TV series: "He starts scouting locations for the sequels this month in Michigan, and production is planned to begin next month, with both movies filmed back-to-back." Maybe this will be A Thing after all.

By: monkeymadness

monkeymadness — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 10:33:18 -0800

azpenguin:fake spy car salesman? Aren't you thinking of Bill Paxton from True Lies?

By: roll truck roll

roll truck roll — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 10:47:15 -0800

I find Teletubbies' gentle otherworldliness to be endearing and even enjoyable in small doses.* This just looks horrible. I remember seeing commercials for it and thinking it was some kind of tax write-off. * Small doses is really a key point. The whole point of Teletubbies is to make kids go to sleep. Even with a great kids show like Yo Gabba Gabba -- you put it on when the kids are done playing and they fall asleep after 15 minutes and you read a book. ** ** I have no actual experience with kids, except for being a kooky uncle. Maybe this isn't now it works all the time.

By: Sidhedevil

Sidhedevil — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 11:42:19 -0800

I find Teletubbies' gentle otherworldliness to be endearing and even enjoyable in small doses. My theory is that "Teletubbies" and "The Prisoner" are set in the same village.

By: mrgrimm

mrgrimm — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 11:51:50 -0800

On the other hand, Cloris Leachman (Lake Placid 2) is no B-list actor. YOU TAKE THAT BACK! Also Christopher Lloyd (Last Call) is in this. Is he considered a B-lister? If so that's some BS. Whatever personal fetishes you may have for them, those are pretty much quintessential B-movie actors, even at the height of their careers.

By: EmpressCallipygos

EmpressCallipygos — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 12:26:01 -0800

My theory is that "Teletubbies" and "The Prisoner" are set in the same village. "Numbah 6! Numbah 6!" "I am not a number, I am a person." "Numbah 6! Numbah 6! BIIIIIIIG HUUUUUUUG!"

By: Artw

Artw — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 12:33:44 -0800

By: Atreides

Atreides — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 12:50:33 -0800

Atreides, I don't think there's an Oogieloves TV show; in this New York Times piece, Viselman talks about doing a movie because it's "impossible to break in on TV." Ah, you're right. On a painful reflection, I was thinking of this very strange show, Doodlebops, where actors are dressed up to look like some kind of weird chimera-like creatures, supposedly, real life...cartoons. The show apparently features scenes where the actors perform in front of little kids who dance and do things while the show is going on...which is how the show above was advertised for the theater. Why did you have to draw me back in? Yarg.

By: inigo2

inigo2 — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 13:11:15 -0800

Cary Elwes is no B-Lister. He was the most official Robin Hood, because only he did it with a british accent.

By: clvrmnky

clvrmnky — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 13:45:04 -0800

*shrug* Jamie Pressly has good comic timing. Sometimes, as an actor, you have no idea how bad something is when you are doing it. A movie is sort of a machine that grinds along under its own inevitable inertia.

By: mrgrimm

mrgrimm — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 14:12:30 -0800

Cary Elwes is no B-Lister. He was the most official Robin Hood, because only he did it with a british accent. You guys are under the impression that "B-list" is a permanent label. But I agree with you--he's probably the only former A-lister (Saw, Princess Bride, etc.), but I'm not sure he is now.... Wonder Woman?

By: maryr

maryr — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 14:23:19 -0800

I'm pretty sure being featured in 'Saw' does not make you A-list.

By: Justinian

Justinian — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 14:27:32 -0800

Yeah, Cary Elwes was never an A-list actor. He used to be B-list. Now he's clinging to C-list. I like him, but a box office draw he was not.

By: catlet

catlet — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 14:35:55 -0800

From the moviefone interview linked above by incessant: "...the movie features bulbous-headed creatures, an interactive component that encourages children to sing and dance, and Chazz Palminteri. So, really, there's nothing to save this movie from itself, except maaaaaybe Cary Elwes.

By: mephron

mephron — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 14:43:20 -0800

Jaime Pressley has excellent comic timing. I suggest watching her in the so-bad-it's-great "DOA: Dead Or Alive", based on the videogame. She plays Tina, and her entire attitude is "this is ridiculous, I'm just going along for the ride and the money". (I do want to know who owns the lien on Natassia Malthe's soul and gets her into so many bad movies, though.)

By: lupus_yonderboy

lupus_yonderboy — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 14:51:42 -0800

I got a legal pre-release copy of Zyzzyx Rd from the internet (I'd written in somewhere out of curiosity). I watched it, before I knew it was a famously bad movie, and you know, I rather liked it. It was too mainstream for me but it seemed fairly well put together, had some decent violence and some scary parts. I was quite surprised later to discover that it was a record holder.

By: mannequito

mannequito — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 14:59:49 -0800

yeah, after I posted that comment last night I read a bit more about Zyzzyx Rd - this is from the wikipedia page for the movie: Zyzzyx Road was shown once a day at noon for seven days (2/25-3/2, 2006) at Highland Park Village Theater in Dallas, Texas,[4] a movie theater rented by the producers for $1,000.[1] The limited release was deliberate: Grillo was uninterested in releasing the film domestically until it underwent foreign distribution, but needed to fulfill the U.S. release obligation required by the Screen Actors Guild for low-budget films[1] (films with budgets less than $2.5 million that are not for the direct-to-video market). And the making of the movie sounds a little crazy as well: The film was shot entirely on location in the Mojave Desert, in and around local mines.[3] Sizemore and long-time friend Peter Walton, who worked as Sizemore's assistant, were arrested during the film's production for repeatedly failing drug tests while on probation. Police discovered that Walton had a warrant out for his arrest for child pornography distribution and was subsequently jailed. Sizemore was not jailed, making it possible for him to film his scenes. Still curious to see it though.

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 15:45:33 -0800

lumpenprole: "And they both pale in comparison to 'After Last Season.' That's just art made from a dimension where they hate human beings." See also: The Empiricist

By: hippybear

hippybear — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 19:47:32 -0800

If he also had a hand in that inhuman creature that calls itself "Sid the Science Kid" then my Grand Unified Theory of Seriously Disturbing Television is almost complete. Sid The Science Kid is actually a Jim Henson Company motion-capture thing. It's does skirt the uncanny valley. Here's a making-of video so you can see exactly how they make it so creepy.

By: jmcgready

jmcgready — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 19:57:47 -0800

So who else is waiting for the Rifftrax for this?

By: jenfullmoon

jenfullmoon — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 22:17:38 -0800

HATE "Oogieloves." Makes me wanna hurl. I want to gloat that something so coldly done in marketing failed so horribly. Except that there will be sequels ANYWAY. Gaaaaaaaaaaah.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 22:31:09 -0800

RiffTrax oh yes. There's been three or four solid RiffTrax candidates mentioned here. GUYS, I KNOW YOU'RE READING THIS. HOW ABOUT IT? AFTER LAST SEASON? FOODFIGHT? DELGO? OOGIELOVES?

By: littlesq

littlesq — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 01:49:39 -0800

Ok, so, I've never heard of the Oogieloves prior to reading this, but I TOTALLY have seen those creepy looking characters before. Then I remembered I had recently seen this video (Bob Odenkirk in Tim and Eric) and a screencap of this children's show called "My Bedbugs" was shown with those same creepy looking characters. My Bedbugs Characters vs Oogielove Characters. Also, according to IMDB, there was a vacuum cleaner in "My Bedbugs" called J Edgar. So apparently the Oogieloves movie is a rehash of a crummy six years old children's TV show. I guess the name "My Bedbugs" wouldn't really be popular movie title choice considering the bedbug infestations going on right now...although Oogieloves doesn't sound much better. When I have kids I am going to avoid crap like this like the plague, and instead have them watch Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street DVDs with the parental warnings on the covers.

By: balistic

balistic — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 15:02:39 -0800

I spent four years of my life working on Delgo. If any of the below-the-line people on Oogieloves need to talk ....

By: jenfullmoon

jenfullmoon — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 19:44:10 -0800

Another really entertaining review of Oogieloves, in which she was one of 3 people in the theater. Features priceless lines like these: "Warning: There are spoilers a— oh, honestly, does anyone care about spoilers in a movie about throwing a birthday party for a pillow? The Oogieloves explain that every time we see butterflies on the screen, we have permission to get up and dance. But when turtles walk across the bottom of the screen, that means we have to sit down. Hollywood should really apply this visual aid to other movies. It would help critics so much when they aren't sure whether to give a film a standing ovation at Cannes. A Celebritology commenter noted in yesterday's post that a mirror flirts with a vacuum cleaner in this movie. That must have been a joke, right? Oh my God. It was not a joke. We are told that every time that Toofie's pants fall down, we all have to shout: "Goofy Toofie! Pick up your pants!" His pants fall down. The dad, the 4-year-old and I remain silent in a form of political protest. Chazz Palminteri shows up and reveals himself to be a man named Milkshake Marvin, then says words like "Daddy-O" a lot and sings a song about milkshakes. So, basically, the exact same role he played in "The Usual Suspects." Now the Oogieloves are at an airport with Toni Braxton, who slips into a slinky evening gown so she can sing a number called "Scratchy Sniffy Cough Cough," which, as far as I know, is the first ever slow jam about allergies. The "Princess Bride" fan who lives inside my heart screams out: "This is not as I wish, Farm Boy! This is not as I wish!"