Stay Tuned (film)
Stay Tuned | |
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Directed by | Peter Hyams |
Screenplay by |
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Story by |
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Produced by | James G. Robinson |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Peter Hyams |
Edited by | Morgan Creek Productions |
Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 88 minutes[1] |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $15-20 million[2] |
Box office | $12 million[3] |
Stay Tuned is a 1992 American fantasy comedy film directed by Peter Hyams and written by Jim Jennewein and Tom S. Parker, with an animated sequence supervised by Chuck Jones. The film stars John Ritter, Pam Dawber, Jeffrey Jones, and Eugene Levy. Its plot follows a suburban couple who are sucked into a television world by an emissary of hell, and must survive for 24 hours in order to be released from it.
Stay Tuned was released in the United States on August 14, 1992, by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $12 million.
Plot
Struggling Seattle plumbing salesman, former fencing athlete, and couch potato Roy Knable lives with his neglected wife Helen, a vitamin product senior manager. After a fight (which involved Helen smashing the family television screen with one of Roy's fencing trophies as a wake-up call to reality), Mr. Spike, a mysterious salesman, appears at the couple's door, offering them a new high-tech satellite dish system filled with 666 channels of programs one cannot view on regular television (with titles including "Three Men and Rosemary's Baby" and "Sadistic Hidden Videos"). But Helen showed up when she discovered a TV set and later plans to divorce. Unbeknownst to Roy, Spike is an emissary from hell who wants to boost the influx of souls by arranging for TV junkies to be killed in the most gruesome and ironic situations imaginable. The 'candidates' are sucked into a hellish television world, called Hellevision, and put through a gauntlet where they must survive a number of demonic satirical versions of sitcoms and movies. If they can survive for 24 hours, they are free to go, but if they get killed, then their souls will become the property of Satan.
The dish sucks Roy and Helen into this warped world, where they are put through a hellish game show, wrestling match, and a parody of
Roy's 24 hours are up at this point, but since he was the only one who signed Spike's contract, this activates a loophole wherein he can make Helen remain in the TV world and use her to lure Roy back in. Spike enters the TV world and kidnaps Helen, changing channels again. She finds herself tied to a cart sitting across the railway track in a town straight out of a Western movie, with Spike gleefully informing her that the 3:10 to Yuma is due soon, and then sadistically adding that it isn’t scheduled to stop. Helen subsequently sees that the cart is stacked with barrels labelled dynamite, meaning she risks being hit by a speeding train and blown up. Spike, in the guise of a newsreader, informs Roy and his kids - watching from their home - that Helen has been kidnapped and is being held captive on Channel One, in an attempt to lure Roy back in.
Roy goes back in and has a gunfight with Spike wherein he is shot. However, the bullet is stopped by Roy's remote control. He and Spike then fight over the other remote and this causes the two to be zapped through demonic and twisted parodies of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Driving Miss Daisy (titled "Driving Over Miss Daisy"), a violent ice hockey game, a crash test dummy demonstration in which Spike cheerfully informs the audience that Roy has neither a seatbelt or an airbag, and finally an episode of Three's Company, the latter of which completely horrifies Roy. Every so often the action switches back to Helen in the Wild West, as she struggles to free herself from her ropes, as the speeding steam train approaches.
Roy finally confronts his enemy in a medieval
Roy and Helen arrive back in their garden. Their neighbour’s ill behaved and vicious Rottweiler appears about to attack, but ends up getting sucked into the dish just before it destroys itself. In the end, Spike gets eliminated by the Rottweiler on the command of Crowley, and is then succeeded in his executive position by Pierce, a younger upstart intern. Having learned a valuable lesson after his adventure, Roy dramatically cuts back on his TV viewing, quits his job as a plumbing salesman, and opens his own fencing school, in which he advises one of his students that watching too much TV can get you into trouble.
Cast
- John Ritter as Roy Knable
- Pam Dawber as Helen Knable
- Jeffrey Jones as Johnny Spike
- David Tom as Darryl Knable
- Heather McComb as Diane Knable
- Bob Dishy as Murray Seidenbaum
- Eugene Levy as Crowley
- Erik King as Pierce
- Don Calfa as Wetzel
- Susan Blommaert as Ducker
- George Gray as Mr. Gorgon
- Faith Minton as Mrs. Gorgon
- Don Pardo as Game Show Announcer
- Lou Albano as Ring Announcer
- Salt-N-Pepa as Themselves
The group's manager and primary producer Hurby "Luv Bug" Azor (credited under his birth name "Herby Azor") and his brother Steve Azor appear as dancers during the "Start Me Up" segment.
Production
In 1990, Jim Jennewein and Tom S. Parker wrote the entire story for the film, under the working title Terrorvision (not to be confused with TerrorVision), inspired by the idea of "The Evil Dead meets Monty Python".
Tim Burton was originally chosen to be the director on account of his art and style, but left to direct Batman Returns.[4]
The script was purchased by Warner Bros. for $750,000.[5]
Reception
The film was not screened for
Box office
Stay Tuned opened at #6 in the US, which the Los Angeles Times called a "fuzzy reception".[12] The film grossed $10.7 million in the US and Canada and grossed only $1 million internationally for a worldwide total of $12 million.[13][3]
Television adaptation
In August 2020, it was reported that
Soundtrack
Stay Tuned | |
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Ced Gee |
The soundtrack to the film is made up entirely of hip hop songs with the exception of the last two tracks, which were themes composed by Bruce Broughton. Tracks in bold are used in the movie.
Track listing
No. | Title | Artist | Length |
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1. | " Doctor Ice | 2:57 | |
8. | "Bad, Bad, Bad" | Kool Moe Dee | 4:48 |
9. | "Darryl's Dad" | Bruce Broughton | 1:17 |
10. | "Stay Tuned (Main Theme)" | Bruce Broughton | 2:07 |
Score album
Broughton's score was released in 2011 by Intrada Records.
No. | Title | Length |
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1. | "Main Title" | 2:57 |
2. | "Meet Darryl" | 1:03 |
3. | "The Dish" | 2:56 |
4. | "A Bumpy Ride" | 2:12 |
5. | "Sayonara, Mrs. Seidenbaum" | 0:33 |
6. | "Field Work" | 0:55 |
7. | "Gordon Bashing" | 2:04 |
8. | "It Ate My BMX" | 2:01 |
9. | "Wolf Attack" | 0:45 |
10. | "That's My Bike!" | 2:53 |
11. | "Offering to Help" | 1:47 |
12. | "You Have Tits" | 1:35 |
13. | "Aim The Dish" | 0:30 |
14. | "Off With Your Wig" | 3:34 |
15. | "Darryl Breaks Through" | 0:52 |
16. | "Redemption" | 1:31 |
17. | "Roy Goes Back" | 1:10 |
18. | "The 3:10 to Yuma" | 1:55 |
19. | "Roy Gets Shot" | 0:53 |
20. | "Crashing In" | 0:32 |
21. | "The Big Sword Fight" | 1:19 |
22. | "Turn It Off!" | 1:50 |
23. | "So What Can I Tell You..." | 0:53 |
24. | "The Game Show" | 1:29 |
25. | "TV Theme Medley" | 3:32 |
26. | "Roy Knable, Private Dick" | 3:26 |
27. | "We're Cartoons" | 6:42 |
References
- ^ "Stay Tuned (PG)". British Board of Film Classification. October 1, 1992. Retrieved October 8, 2016.
- ^ "Stay Tuned (1992)". AFI Catalog of Feature Films.
- ^ a b "Morgan Creek Prods. Box Office". Variety. February 15, 1993. p. 46.
- ^ Childs, Paul (February 22, 2018). "Looking back at Stay Tuned". Den of Geek. Archived from the original on October 17, 2021. Retrieved September 12, 2022.
- ^ Ayscough, Suzan (January 12, 1993). "MGM 'Geting Even' for 500G". Variety. Archived from the original on October 9, 2021. Retrieved June 30, 2021.
- ^ a b McBride, Joseph (August 17, 1992). "Stay Tuned". Variety. Archived from the original on August 26, 2022. Retrieved September 12, 2022.
- ^ "Stay Tuned". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Archived from the original on January 1, 2022. Retrieved November 21, 2020.
- CBS Interactive. Archivedfrom the original on September 12, 2022. Retrieved September 12, 2022.
- ^ Holden, Stephen (August 15, 1992). "Review/Film; Bedeviled Suburbanites With a 24-Hour Deadline". The New York Times. Retrieved August 4, 2023.
- ^ Kempley, Rita (August 18, 1992). "'Stay Tuned' (PG)". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on October 6, 2020. Retrieved January 24, 2009.
- ^ "Stay Tuned". Time Out. Archived from the original on June 7, 2011.
- ^ Fox, David J. (August 18, 1992). "Weekend Box Office : Eastwood Still Tall in the Saddle". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on December 3, 2020. Retrieved June 5, 2012.
- ^ "Stay Tuned". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved January 7, 2019.
- ^ Andreeva, Nellie (August 6, 2020). "'Stay Tuned' TV Series Based On 1992 Film In The Works At AMC Studios From Ian Goldberg & Richard Naing". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on August 18, 2021. Retrieved August 6, 2020.