Consider, for example, Bob Balaban in an understated role as the long-suffering local teacher who knows how outrageous Corky St. Clair is, but never quite acts on his knowledge. In that brazen 1984 spoof, Guest, Michael McKean and Rob Reiner amusingly satirized bad pop music. Here, Guest makes fun of bad community theater. It has its moments, though. He even arranges, he says, for the presence of big-time talent agent Mort Guffman on opening night.
Few things can be funnier than an amusingly messed up amateur play.
The movie has an unhinged, campy quality that's also enhanced by the fact that, except for the revue itself, there's no set script. Instead, the actors improvise their lines from a Guest-Levy outline. But most of the movie is overbroad and silly. No small town, including the Wisconsin village of 1,500 where I grew up, would have been enraptured by a show this bad. Only neighborly politeness would have kept the actors and director from being laughingstocks the next morning.