The Kentucky Fried Movie

Sketch comedy movies are a lot like short stories compilations; by it’s very design, the sheer volume of stuff will create an uneven product. The hope is that there’s more hits than misses. Kentucky Fried Movie is funny, but it’s also supremely scattered. Several of the bits (the last sketch with the TV broadcast watching a couple have sex, Willer Beer, That’s Armageddon) don’t really have a punchline. More sketches wear out their punchline with repetition (the courtroom sketch, the couple having sex). Some are there just for the nudity (the Catholic school girl sketch). And the karate sketch doesn’t have nearly enough comedy in it to sustain it running a half an hour. But the sketches that do land are funny. The morning show sketch, the sex ed record and the couple following the instructions, the boom mic, Scot Free (the JFK assassination conspiracy board game), the United Appeal For The Dead … they’re either laugh out loud funny, or just absurd enough to keep your attention. Does the good outweigh the bad? That’s up to individual taste. It’s definitely a movie of a different time and different sensibilities. Other than the karate sketch, I was never bored. But it also didn’t keep me in stitches either. This is the very definition of a YMMV kind of comedy.