Life is like a mop.

1989: I was twelve, Ben Mulroney's dad was in office, official multiculturalism was a novel idea and it was a good summer for movies: Batman, Born On The Fourth Of July, Driving Miss Daisy, Dead Poets Society, Field Of Dreams, Glory, My Left Foot, Steel Magnolias, UHF... wait, UHF?

"Not many people know this, but the turtle is nature's suction cup."

Alfred Yankovic insists to this day that the only reason his oeuvre flopped was because it had to go up against such stiff competion that summer, including some of the above movies as well as Lethal Weapon 2, Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, etc. After seeing it for the first time last week (thereby repairing one more glaring pothole on my personal info-cultural superhighway), I think he's right.

"You get to drink from... the FIRE HOOOOOSE!"

Besides basically launching Michael Richards' career, UHF boasts a higher joke-per-minute ratio than anything else released that year. Yankovic draws heavily from the Mel Brooks school of comedy, adopting a "see what sticks" approach and pitching everything he could at the audience--if a few gags fall flat, there's plenty more to come! It's a successful formula, with occasional lulls in the pacing obscured by the flurry of sight gags, slapstick and surreally ironic juxtapositions that just keep comin' atcha...

"Badgers? Badgers? We don't need no stinking badgers."

Where else can you hear The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre filtered through Blazing Saddles? Props to my baby for finally making me watch this.