Stay Tuned

Plot synopsis:
Roy Knable (John Ritter), a couch potato, is a struggling Seattle plumbing salesman and former fencing athlete who spends most of his spare time watching hours of television. Roy's neglected wife Helen (Pam Dawber), a senior vitamin product manager, resents the fact that they never do anything special or romantic together anymore.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), a shady man named Mr. Spike (Jeffrey Jones) appears at the couples' door, offering him a new high tech satellite dish system filled with 666 channels of programs one cannot view on the four big networks (CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox). What Roy doesn't know is that Spike (later referred to as "Mephistopheles of the Cathode Ray") 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 Hell Vision, and put through a gauntlet where they must survive a number of 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 latter usually happens).The dish eventually sucks Roy and Helen into this warped world. Roy and Helen first appear on a bizzare game show called 'You Can't Win' where they are forced by the game show host to answer personal questions about their failing marriage or be "eliminated". They succeed and as their prize are pushed through a porthole into another world called 'Underworld Wrestling Foundation' and are forced to wrestle a stout couple called The Gorgons. When Roy is bested, Helen defeats Mr. and Mrs. Gorgon by bashing them with a microphone stand and for their reward, are pushed into another porthole to another channel.Watching the Knables from the confines of HTV's control room is Spike, who is soon joined by Crowley (Eugene Levy), a nerdish employee who brings along Pierce (Erik King), a younger upstart employee to the TV center. Crowley explains the events happening to Pierce. They watch another couple, the Seidenbaums, on another channel where the shrewdish wife is crushed to death by a Godzilla monster while her henpecked husband escapes. After Crowley makes a sly comment to Spike about a previous individual who survived the 24 hours in HTV's dimension. Spike bannishes Crowley to the Hell TV world by zapping him with a special remote control device he always keeps on him.Back in the real world, Roy and Helen's 11-year-old son Darryl (David Tom), and his older sister Diane (Heather McComb) arrive home from school and are puzzled to their parents absence. They find the large HTV set in the living room as well as the large sattelite dish in their back yard. While Diane invites some of her school friends over, Darryl watches the new TV set and is behildered by the various HTV programming which includes hellish spoof shows like "Cruel Practical Jokes", "Three Men and Rosemary's Baby", "thirtysomething-to-life", etc. When Darryl goes into the backyard, the motion sensitive dish activates and tries to suck him into the Hell TV world, but zapps his bicycle instead. When Darryl sees his bicycle on the TV later in a show called "Meet the Mansons" he tries to convince Diane that something sinister is going on, but she dimisses his theories.Meanwhile, Roy and Helen are trapped in a sub-freezing snowy forrest area on the HTV show "Northern Overexposure" where they venture to a frozen lake and meet Crowley who is digging holes in the ice to find a conduit to the next channel. Just when Crowley finds a dimentional opening, they are attacked by savage wolves and forced to take shelter in a nearby shack where Crowley explains to them about their situation and that they have 15 hours left to survive HTV's world. In attempting to escape from the shack, Crowley is overwhelmed by the wolves and the shack is set on fire from a dropped oil lamp.Roy and Helen are forced to leave Crowley behind and jump through the dimentional porthole and find themselves as animated mouse characters in a cartoon and are forced to battle a mechanical robot cat that chases them. Darryl sees his parents as animated characters and watches their actions on the screen. Helen travels through a mousehole into another channel, but Roy is left behind to deal with the robot cat, which he defeats by sending for a mechanical robot dog. Roy then runs through the conduit to find Helen and ends up on a Saturday Night Live theme show called 'Saturday Night Dead' on a segment called "Duane's Underworld" as a captive guest. Roy manages to escape and finds himself in a black-and-white channel as a private detective in his search for Helen.In the meantime, Darryl finally convinces Diane where their missing parents are by showing them on the TV set and they try to help them survive any way possible. Roy finds Helen being held by Mr. Seidenbaum, their former next door neighbor, who has set himself up in this cloak-and-dagger show as a nightclub owner. When a gangster arrives and begins shooting up the place, Seidenbaum is fataly hit and as his final act, gives Roy and Helen his remote control device that he has somehow smuggled into the HTV world. Roy and Helen use it to escape but they loose the remote control after they find themselves in the next channel on a period piece show called "Off With His Head" set in 18th Century France where Roy and Helen are aristrocrats being chased by Parisian citizens during the French Revolution. They are reunited with Crowley, who has survived he wolf attacks despite the loss of his right leg and arm, who tries to help them escape, but they are soon captured by French soldiers and taken to a town square to be executed.Darryl and Diane try to help by hacking into the TV set's cable database to access the system just as the countdown to Roy and Helen's time is to expire. They manage to prevent Roy from being beheaded long enough for the clock to expire and Roy and Helen are saved by the clock to announce the end of their 24 hour trial period in HTV.This infuriates Spike to the point that he makes good on Roy's contract, releasing him but not Helen as she was not in the system under contract. Spike then transports himself into the HTV world and spirits Helen away to a Western site where he ties her to a cart sitting across a railroad track for her to be run over by an oncoming train in order to lure Roy back into HTV to kill him once and for all. Roy re-enters the HTV system to save Helen, bringing his own remote control with him, allowing him to control their journey. Roy battles Spike in a climatic chase across the HTV system shows from "Star Deathtreck: The Next Generation", to "Driving Over Miss Daisy" to "Underworld Professional Hockey" to a medivial show were Roy's remote control gets destroyed. With assistance from Darryl who throws a fencing sword at the sattalite dish to fight with Spike, they battle across a medivial mansion where Roy tries to get at Spike's remote control device.Roy confronts Spike in a Salt-N-Pepa music video where after both men chase Spike's remote control around, Roy finally gets a hold of it and bannishes Spike back to the medival world and uses it to save Helen from being run over by a train in the western movie. By pressing the "off" button on the remote, they are evicted from the TV set moments before it sucks their neighbor's abusive Rottweiler into the TV and it destroys itself.Spike gets eliminated by the Rottweiler in the medivial world while Crowley shows up to watch, and Pierce takes over Spike's place in the HTV control room.In the final scene, Roy, who has learned a valuable lesson after his adventure, has dramatically cut back on his TV viewing and taken a new job as a fencing teacher.

Tags: horror, satire

Review:
Some humor at actor Ritter's expense gives the impression that movie is making fun of itself.
The takeoff involved having the devil take charge of some of these programs.John Ritter and Pam Dawber play husband-and-wife "Roy and Helen Knable" who get sucked into buying a TV dish package straight from The Devil.
Jeffrey Jones and Eugene Levy, two guys who are usually pretty funny, supply some good humor here, too.
As a bonus, we even got a Chuck Jones cartoon in the middle of the story.This is one wacky movie and I'd like to see it on widescreen DVD.
John Ritter, Pam Dawber, and Eugene Levy was good.
Anyway, there is a whole bunch in the movie and is all I can say is that if you like Ritter, Dawber, Levy, and Jones and want a wild ride of a movie then I suggest you see Stay Tuned!.
Roy Knable (John Ritter) loves watching television so much that his marriage is falling apart because of it.
When a door-to-door salesman shows him a high-tech remote control, Ritter listens to his pitch, and buys into it when he discovers that it's for a new television and satellite system that offers 666 channels of programming--much of which is not available anywhere else.
Well, on one level, Stay Tuned is just a long series of crafty takes on film and television programs and genres, giving many well-known classics a more immediate horror twist--immediate because they all put our heroes, Knable and his wife Helen (Pam Dawber), in peril in some way.
Hyams' direction is spot-on throughout the film, the script (including the dialogue) is very intelligent, and in addition to Ritter and Dawber being as good as I've seen them, Stay Tuned also features Jeffrey Jones (one of my favorite character actors) and Eugene Levy.
Yeah, it's filled with TV rejects like Ritter, Dawber, and Levy, but they're still kinda funny.
A very long time ago i saw a trailer of this movie when i was on vacation in the US and i said that one day i´d get to see this movie, some years went by and on my first trip to California i went into a Suncoast store bought some movie souveniers and asked for this film, I found it with a regular price and bought it,at this time i had just seen the trailer, not read any reviews or nothing, i just knew i had to have it cause it looked cool on the trailer, I was so right in buying it, this movie is great, being myself a couch potato i can relate to George Knable (Played wonderfully by the recently deceased John Ritter) and the stuff that happens to him when hes sucked inside his new satellite dish with his wife into a programming of 666 channels into alternative horror versions of classic shows and movies,Theres even an MTV kind of video with Salt N Pepa that is so cool i had to buy the soundtrack of this movie, i love that sequence when theyre all dancing, To me this film rocks and its a must see, John has passed away just 2 days ago and i feel this movie as being his best movie of all because he is the main character and he does a great job at being funny, I will always remember John Ritter..
The late great John Ritter is always good value and likeable as is Pam Dawber, the ultimate fanciable former sitcom star.
She is differently attractive and I have always fancied her like many others, particularly from the Mork And Mindy days, you know that sitcom with Robin Williams that you used to find funny but when you look back now it kinda sucks!This is good family entertainment.
Spike seems to be simply a pushy cable tv salesman, until we see that Spike works for the Devil himself!Soon Roy and Helen find themselves sucked into the world of bad cable tv, filled with bizarre spoofs of Wayne's World, Driving Miss Daisy, MTV, 1940's black and white mystery movies, stereotypical westerns, and so on.
As Roy and Helen, John Ritter and Paw Dawber are the perfect real-life sitcom graduates to play the suffering couple.
Along the way, they deal with Spike (played by Jeffrey Jones - best known as Principal Rooney in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off") dogging their every move, and they make friends with Eugene Levy, as a demon executive cast off into the TV dimension by a threatened Spike.
"Stay Tuned" is a funny film that although somewhat dated now, still manages to provide a wild ride.Oh yeah, there IS a quick scene involving the sitcom that John Ritter is best known for, and it's one of the funniest moments in the film.
My friend Kenn Harris recommended this movie to me and I was against it from the start weeks ago because it always looked stupid to me and I hate John Ritter with a passion.
The funniest bit is probably Roy Knable being plopped into a certain Santa Monica three story house, tripping over a sofa, and being questioned by a certain blonde and brunette, "Where have you been?!" Is "Three's Company" John Ritter's personal Hell?
John Ritter is a couch potato extraordinaire who gets what he may have long wished for when he is literally sucked into the 500-channel universe.
Trouble is, this cable package is straight from h-e-double-hockey-sticks, with shows like "Duane's Underworld" and "Meet the Mansons." Along with wife Pam Dawber, he must survive 24 hours or be, to borrow a TV term, canceled.The problem is, STAY TUNED never really capitalizes on this joke-rich notion.
And because it's basically a family film, things stay too tame to really please grown-ups.Die-hard Ritter fans, 12-year-olds and staunch couch potatoes will get the most out of STAY TUNED.
His wife sees it and is through, but before she has chance to leave him, she and John both get sucked into satellite dish and into TV channels.This is where the enjoyable and interesting parts of the film really start.
The most humorous thing about each channel are the spoof names and spoof likeness to real shows, movies, and commercials.
Meanwhile, Jeffrey Jones is trying his hardest in his underworld control room not to let his clients/victims succeed, and he is growing increasingly frustrated every time John and Helen make it to the next channel.
Tuning In. We all watch TV, whether that's really a good or bad thing only time will tell.
It would be awesome to see a parody (a good one) on a comic book or anime franchise where a single hero or a group of heroes go into one segment out of the norm into another.This film is pretty much a live action Mad Magazine, as each of the show/situations both characters jump into are practically a Mad Magazine cartoon you would flip to, pretty much taking things were familiar with and turning them upside down.
I even like that there is a bit of a horror fantasy element which makes it both bizarre and funny, but it makes sense since most humans watch TV so why wouldn't Satan think of using this opportunity to take souls.
But in a way it sort of also makes the film kinda a Christian movie, since there is this element let alone a theme of redemption and family values throughout the film.The characters are solid, from the late great John Ritter as Roy Knable and Pam Daber as Helen Knable which is ironically funny since both of them are of course TV sitcom vets.
The only high point to him is TV, even though really it should be his family and his fencing talent; but like in any morality tale he's about to learn that the hard way.Helen is also funny and she's sympathetic because their marriage is crumbling and part of that is obviously from Roy's chronic TV viewing.
It's obvious their marriage needs a jump start and well fate or should I say the Devil is about to give them that.I really like the back and forth between both Roy and Helen, you could say in a way this film is a bit of a romance comedy but done right, because the couple are not teen or young adults which I personally feel have been done to death.
But I really like the little brother, he's not a stereotypical nerd this kid I think is actually cool, smart, really knows his way around communication technology which becomes useful in the film, but most importantly takes a active approach in things.I really love the pacing and the adventure aspect of it, you could say in a way it's like a video game, as the couple are constantly going from one new situation after another much like levels and have to survive each of them.I don't want to give too much away, one segment if the noir show which is just fantastic for me since I'm a fan of the genre.
But also a visual joke seeing Helen open her wallet to see a photo of her kids and we see the cartoon mouse versions of them.And the film surprisingly has a good message which is simply to not watch too much TV and most importantly to simply tune into life, it can be better if you decide to tune in.This is a parody worth tuning into.Rating: 4 stars.
John Ritter and Pam Dawber play a couple who get sucked into a satellite dish and sent through a world of twisted shows whose titles reminded me of some of the scenes in "UHF".
One scene even lets John Ritter spoof his most famous role.As it turns out, the movie may have been intended as something silly, but it now looks more serious.
Viewers end up desensitized to things previously considered appalling, sometimes thinking that a real-life tragedy is part of the show (like what happens at the end of "Phantom of the Paradise").But like I said, the movie was almost certainly intended as totally silly, and it comes out really funny.
Especially the scene where they are mice.Look for the message 'Remember Tuesday is Saddam Hussein Appreciation Day' on the scoreboardI always liked Jack Ritter, and thought he was the star of Three's Company.
He has a good comic timing.Pam Dawber does a good job as his annoyed wife - yes, she plays a stereotyped one dimensional frustrated housewife role, but she does it well.Jeffrey Jones, who played the principle in Ferris Bueler's day off is pretty entertaining as well.
Terrible flick about two adults (John Ritter and Pam Dawber) who literally get sucked into their new satellite system.
Eugene Levy tries to be the saving grace as one of Jones' henchmen who ends up being banished to TV land just as Ritter and Dawber, but ultimately he fails just as the movie does.
Big fan of John and Pam, love 80's Culture and and this movie hits the mark on several different levels of comedy.
PopCultureThoughts.Com. Somewhere between a live-action version of an animated romp and a Tim Burton-esque quasi-nightmare of a children's movie, "Stay Tuned" is a whole lot of fun even though it's noticeably dated.
John Ritter and Pam Dawber are fun in the lead roles, although Jeffrey Jones as Spike registers more as off-putting than malevolent.
Spike with his minion Crowley (Eugene Levy) have 24 hours to send Roy and Helen down to the devil.I'm a couch potato and this takes a good jab at people like me.
The first time I saw this movie, I'd tuned in after it had been playing for a half hour.
John Ritter and Pam Dawber(both sitcom veterans) play Roy and Helen Knable, a suburban couple who unwittingly become sucked into their new television, and find themselves bouncing through different TV series & movies, which are being aired on a demonic TV station run by Spike(Jeffrey Jones, well cast) who puts them through(among other unfortunate TV watchers) an ordeal to see if he can capture their souls for Satan, and earn himself a promotion!
Plot of course is ludicrous, but this is supposed to be a comedy, and while some of it is funny(amusing joke titles of TV series and films, and a clever in-joke with John Ritter and two old cast mates...) not enough of it is, as the film seems like a nutty cross between "Network" and "Beetle Juice"!
In my opinion, STAY TUNED is an excellent comedy that's reminiscent of classic TV shows and movies.
When Roy (John Ritter) and Helen (Pam Dawber) got sucked into the hellish TV world, I thought to myself, "Whoa!" I said that because I was really shocked.
Now in conclusion, if you like John Ritter or Pam Dawber movies, this is definitely one to see.
John Ritter is brilliant as a television addict who gets satellite television installed by Satan's minion spike (Jeffrey Jones).
Ah, this low-budget comedy titled "Stay Tuned" was one of my favorite movies back in junior high in 1992.
Everyone was way too harsh on this movie, but hey, it's just good, campy fun!
The movie was well cast and the story was pretty darn clever (gotta love those early 90s TV parodies!) and is downright fun!
John Ritter is always hit and miss, but it's nice to see Pam Dawber working.
The plot of this movie is kinda campy:  a guy gets sucked into his satellite dish, with his family following him to the (hopeful) rescue, and when he gets to this TV-world, he finds that a certain bad guy doesn't want him to leave.
The movie parodies are funny enough, and playing with a lot of the concepts of films and subsequent genres is what eventually won me over.
Not That Bad. Stay Tuned is basically a movie that spoofed other movies and T.V shows such as Wayne's World, Driving Ms. Daisy and many more.
If you like funny movies this is a good movie to watch it also has a great line of actors like John Ritter,Pam Dawber,Jeffrey Jones an Eugene Levy so you know this movie is going to be funny.
This movie isn't a must see but sooner or later if you never saw it maybe you should go out and rent it.I give Stay tuned a 6/10.
This came out my senior year in high school, and watching it really took me back.I remember watching all those shows they parodied when they were new, and I remember all the movies that they spoofed when they first came out.
Performances by John Ritter, his wife in the movie (I loved her and Robin Williams in M&M), Eugene Levy and the remote control salesman (I love that guy!) were good, the plot was intriguing, and the characters were believable!
It stars John Ritter as Roy Knable, a man who is what we like to refer to as a huge couch potato.
One night, a devilish TV executive named Mr. Spike (Jeffrey Jones) sells him a satellite dish and a TV with 666 channels which airs such shows as "Thirtysomething to life", "I Love Lucifer" and also parodies the crash test dummy commercials and other famous TV sitcoms.
Watching this movie is a bit like sitting with a friend who tells not-so-funny jokes, and then laughs really hard at them.
I got the feeling the people making this movie thought they were being rather witty, but the end result didn't turn out nearly as clever as they thought it would.Not horrible, and if you're in the right mood for utter fluff, it may be worth a look, but don't go out of your way to watch it..
The channel sequences are well done and imaginative and the cartoon is top notch work from the immortal Chuck Jones and crew.A good relaxing chuckle movie with twisted humor.Sadly, The ideas are not too far off from today's reality shows anyway.
Both Ritter,Dawber and Jones are perfectly cast in this comedy.
A married couple,one of which is totally obsessed with TV like many of us all..kidding...anyway both husband and wife are sucked into the TV through the Satel light dish and thus the real fun begins.I won't spoil the movie for anyone but there's a very amusing sequence where both are animated mice.
Roy Knable (John Ritter) is a very unhappy person, who cares more about his T.V shows, than his wife Helen (Pam Dawber) his wife is fed up of it.
a little Gem. This movie starred Pam Dawber and the late John Ritter, people best known for their stints in situation comedies.The plot is that a couch potato husband and his over-achieving spouse are sucked into a Hellish universe made up of various television motifs, satirizing everything from Cartoons, to Star Trek, to Westerns and Professional Wrestling.Jeffery Jones and Eugene Levy shine as the executives of Satan's Network, plotting various demises for the victims of their charade.The Critics hated this movie, and much like the "film student" character, they don't get the fun.
i stopped watching the movie after that scene because i didn't want to waste my time on such a film.
The movie does not surprise me all that much, for I have always known that if someone was going to take down Satan it would obviously be John Ritter.
It's not "how someone else me thought about it?", No, it's "How they made it, while my TV show isn't made till NOW ?!!!!!!"Away from my personal sorrows, I think that the movie's vision can't be more obvious : Today's TV is devilish, by watching – rather surrendering to – it we sell our souls to hell, setting in front of it for more than it deserves means turning into a viewer more than doer, losing reality, dreams, and most of all : love.Its fun is close to impeccable.
And for a final problem : while (John Ritter), (Pam Dawber), (Jeffrey Jones) did their absolute best, I thought they all missed the glamour of stardom.