Stay Tuned

While many of my interests often edge towards the obscure or lesser-known, it’s not too often I seek something out solely because of a small portion of it. This is the case with Stay Tuned, a lesser-known film from 1992 that I somehow stumbled upon, in which the premise sounded interesting, but it was one small part of it caught my interest enough to want to watch it. After watching it through Amazon Prime Video, in which it was free for Prime members, I did find it worth the watch, though it did not really exceed my already-low expectations going in.

Outside of work, Roy Knable (John Ritter) spends most of his time in front of the TV, which has led to a strained relationship with his wife Helen (Pam Dawber). After Helen destroys their main TV in a desperate attempt to get her husband’s attention, Roy is visited by Mr. Spike (Jeffrey Jones), a salesman who promises a TV experience like no other. After Roy ends up taking the offer with the promise of a free trial, Helen is about to leave him for good when the two are sucked into the TV’s enormous satellite dish in the backyard, landing them in a deadly game show. As it turns out, Roy had signed away his soul as part of his TV contract, with the condition that he and Helen must survive for 24 hours in order to escape, or else the Devil claims their souls.

Helen (Pam Dawber) and Roy Knable (John Ritter) must survive 24 hours
across various TV programming or else they lose their souls.

To give credit where it’s due, Stay Tuned has a unique take on the “zapped into a TV” premise, with a rather interesting setup for Heaven and Hell where the fates of souls are run like a TV station for the Prince of Darkness’ entertainment. There’s even a contingency in place to make it fair for the higher powers if Hell Vision’s victims survive the allotted time. While this is certainly one of the more creative takes on these concepts, the movie itself doesn’t do enough to take full advantage of the premise.

As part of its TV premise, many of Hell Vision’s programming involves parodies of known TV series and films from the ‘70s and ‘80s, in addition to original programming. While there are some genuinely funny moments outside of the parodies, among them a very clever gag referencing the late John Ritter’s leading role in Three’s Company for those who are more familiar with it, most, if not all, of the parodies are pretty surface level and rely on wordplay, warranting an exhale at best. While I was able to get the extended Wayne’s World gag, even if it wasn’t as funny as the real deal, a younger viewer today may have to look up this and some of the other jokes they are not familiar with, as they were very much of the time in which this movie was released. There are some moments of suspense as well, though they are few and far between.

By far the best part of the movie, however, and my main reason for watching it, is a segment where Roy and Helen travel to an animated program where they are transformed into anthropomorphic mice. Though only about six minutes long, this segment, directed by animation legend Chuck Jones, has every bit the atmosphere and timing of a classic Looney Tunes cartoon and delivers spectacularly. Though neither John Ritter nor Pam Dawber had done much in the realm of voice acting prior to this film, their experience in front of the camera translates very well to this segment, sounding very natural and in-character. Following this film, the two would go on to land bigger and better roles in voice acting, in addition to their on-screen careers, with Dawber notably voicing Perdita in Disney’s 101 Dalmatians: The Series and Ritter going on to voice the title character in the 2000 Clifford the Big Red Dog series on PBS Kids.

The animated sequence by Chuck Jones is easily the highlight of the movie.

For what it’s worth, the movie has some pretty decent production values, enough to sell the programming that Roy and Helen find themselves trapped in. The genre parodies have some good costume and set design, even if the size of the sets themselves are limited by budget, showing that at least some care was put into making sure they look right. The special effects also hold up decently, though more so the practical than the digital.

The acting is also good, featuring quite an ensemble of actors. The strained relationship between John Ritter (Three’s Company) and Pam Dawber’s (Mork & Mindy) characters is very believable, thanks to their collective acting experience prior to this film. Jeffrey Jones (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Beetlejuice, Fallout 2) effectively plays the main villain Mr. Spike, while Eugene Levy, perhaps best known by some for his role in the American Pie film series, is good in his role as a turncoat underling. Erik King, who some may know for his role in the TV series Dexter, is also good in his role as Pierce, an intern at Hell Vision who eyes Spike’s position.

On its own merits, Stay Tuned is a harmless movie that has some interesting ideas, but doesn’t do enough to execute them as well as they could have. That said, it is worth a watch just for the Chuck Jones segment alone. Otherwise, there are other, better TV parody films such as UHF that I would recommend over this.