Someone's Favorite Movie: Stay Tuned (1992)

Stay Tuned is that sort of edgy PG “family” movie that was made in the early 90s. There isn’t much in the way of vulgarity or sexual situations. But there is the whole idea that Satan is sending his demon henchmen to Earth to suck people into his twisted TV channels to horribly murder them and steal their souls for all of eternity. You didn’t really see that on Scooby Doo.

John Ritter plays Roy Knable, a family man in midlife crisis mode. His unfulfilling job selling plumbing parts has turned him into a perpetual couch potato. Parking himself in front of the idiot box for countless hours becomes his vice at the expense of his marriage (Pam Dawber - Mindy from Mark and Mindy- play his wife Helen) and quality times with his two kids.

Whatever soul is left from Roy’s soul-sucking job is eagerly sold away to an agent of the devil (the gross Jeffery Jones as Spike) in exchange for a brand new satellite and TV setup with 666 channels available because Satan likes to stay on brand.

After Helen sees the monstrosity that Roy brought into their house, she threatens to leave this loveless marriage and attacks the giant satellite dish in the back yard. The dish promptly sucks them in and they have to survive the next 24 hours, getting thrown from channel to channel, allowing for a number of different situations and the opportunity for a number of TV and movie parodies, each with a slight demonic slant to them.

If the Knables die while in the TV realm, their souls will burn in HELL forever. Wholesome Family Fun!

It’s a bold movie premise that mixes well with Ritter’s experience in the “hilarity ensues” genre of sitcom.

Duane’s Underworld. Get it? The producers tried to get the real Wayne and Garth to play these characters, which would have been an interesting footnote to Stay Tuned.

You’d have to be a child of the 90s to appreciate all of the Mad magazine-style parodies of popular shows and movies of the time and it would be an exciting new idea if Weird Al’s UHF didn’t already do a similar trick a few years earlier.

Jokes like “Northern Overexposure” might be lost on most people, but the Silencer of the Lambs parody commercial made me laugh out loud.

The cartoon bit in the movie was overseen by Chuck Jones, the legendary animation genius behind most of your favorite Loony Tunes, and it’s this animated sequence that I saw in trailer as a kid that really hooked me into NEEDING to see this.

Allegedly, the producers of Stay Tuned tried to get Mike Myers and Dana Carvey to play the zombified version of their Wayne’s World counterparts - in this reality, it’s “Duane’s Underworld” - which would’ve been an interesting footnote to the movie and might have garnered it more notoriety. As it is, seeing John Ritter tied up and labelled as “Sphincter Boy” is one of the highlights of the movie.

I’m not saying that Stay Tuned is a great movie, but it certainly has its charms. John Ritter plays Roy Knable as a listless family man, who is also a bumbling idiot and who eventually becomes a determined action hero and he makes all of these things work. His chemistry with Pam Dawber is authentic and their journey to rekindle their relationship is believable. I guess getting suplexed around by demon wrestlers together will do that for a couple.

Stay Tuned dropped at the end of the ‘80s slasher craze, which is a shame. I would’ve loved to have seen John Ritter bumble around a Jason Voorhees-type slasher. Missed opportunities!

Maybe I should start writing my Stay Tuned fan fiction.

The obligatory John Ritter - Three’s Company gag in Stay Tuned.

This is still a timeless reference, right? Or would younger viewers today not get it if they watched Stay Tuned? I want to know. Tell me how old I am!

BUT I DIGRESS….

If you’re anything like me, you tend to remember the movies and TV shows from your youth with a sort of dim nearsightedness. You look at them with the blissfully nostalgic blur that comes with things from the faraway past. Also, if you’re anything like me, once in awhile you randomly encounter or decide to revisit one of these amazing, infallible pop culture monuments that you’ve built in your mind to celebrate your childhood and discover this inescapable truth: “Why have I been so stupid for so very long?”

Exhibit A: John Ritter was my favorite actor as a kid. I absolutely loved Three’s Company. And it was all because I liked the way that Jack Tripper fell over ottomans and tumbled down stairs. Hilarious.

It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I realized the plot of every episode of Three’s Company was somehow soaked in sexual innuendo and wacky misunderstandings (usually related to sex or someone’s sexual orientation).

This doesn’t make me stupid. I just lacked the life experience and maturity to know any better.

I think Stay Tuned would’ve been better with Don Knotts. In fact, I propose the DON KNOTTS THEORY OF FILM, which states that every filmed piece of entertainment would be BETTER with Don Knotts in it.

Exhibit B: I thought for years now that one the very important plot point in Stay Tuned was that Don Knotts played a sort of electronic guardian angel in the television world while John Ritter flitted from channel to channel. I always thought that this was so cool because Ritter and Knotts starred together in Three’s Company for a time and it was one of those meta winks that really appealed to me.

It doesn’t happen in this movie. At all. Not even close. Don Knotts is nowhere in this movie. Where art thou, Don Knotts? Why have you been exorcized from this movie?

After finishing Stay Tuned, I realized that Don Knotts played some sort of mystical television repair guy in the movie Pleasantville. I mashed two completely unrelated movies together and believed it was real for 20 years. Why have I been so stupid for so very long? Have you ever encountered this sort of epic misremembering?

Before I conclude this article, I leave you with my FAVORITE gag from Stay Tuned. It made me laugh out loud like an idiot. THE SILENCER OF THE LAMBS.

In the meantime, if you’re looking for more entertainment, check out our improv comedy podcast: Miserable Retail Slave

I can think of a few parents that would in the market for some Silencers of the Lambs. That’s not a joke. Just the truth.