Film 006 - Prime Time

(1977, colour, 75 mins)

Director – Bradley R Swirnoff

Starring – George Furth

Now here’s one I’m sure that nobody else will be featuring in their blog! Prime Time (also known under the alternative titles American Raspberry and Funny America) is basically a collection of spoof commercials and TV shows all tied together under a pretty simple plot: someone somewhere has taken over the TV airwaves and is broadcasting dodgy programmes and commercials, leading the public to go a bit mental and the president to decide to take action.

In reality, it’s a bit of a rubbish plot, especially when you consider that in all it must take up around 5 minutes of the film’s total run time. The rest is taken up with the sketches. There’s no YouTube video under this review, and there’s a reason for that: not a single clip was suitable for all audiences.

I know some films try to offend, but considering this was filmed in the ‘70s, a time when the words “political” and “correctness” had yet to be used together, they could get away with a lot more. A HELL of a lot more. Simply put, if you’re anything other than a white male atheist, you’re going to get offended here. Blacks, the handicapped, women, homosexuals, Christians, Muslims, paedophiles, pro-choicers, fat people and South Africans all get mocked here (among others, believe it or not), and while some of it does still sort of work comedy-wise, a hell of a lot of it is just so out-of-date now that it’s only offensive and nothing else.

There are a few moments that, despite being shocking, did make me chuckle because they were so silly: a key sketch for me was the news report about the couple who spend thousands of dollars on legal fees to get the abortion law changed from a limit of 24 weeks to 5 years, so they could get rid of their badly-behaved four-year old son. When the abortionist arrives and leaves with the boy in a cage, with the news reporter happily saying “the ironic twist is that tomorrow was Johnny’s fifth birthday”, I couldn’t help but smile in disbelief at how they managed to get away with it.

The fact is, this really isn’t worth hunting down unless you’re desperate to see something pretty offensive. It’s a very rare movie and is only readily available on DVD as part of the Drive-In Movie Classics 50-movie box set (which, incidentally, I do recommend since it’s region-free and has 50 really crappy (and therefore fun) movies for less than a tenner on Amazon New & Used). There are a few laughs to be had, but it’s really only interesting on a “there was more free speech back then” level.

2 out of 5