I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Why Blake, you look incredibly handsome and buff today, as if your face and abs were blessed by the Gods themselves.” Thank you, my good readers. I appreciate all of your compliments relating to my perfect Chris Hemsworthian form, and I expect to hear more on the morrow. But I believe there is another thought weighing on your mind, and it likely relates to the above picture. That thought is “What the hell am I looking at?” The same thought crossed my mind when I was watching it. It’s from todays film Rat Pfink a Boo Boo. Yes, that is actually the title of the movie. Legend has it that the title of the movie was going to be the more sensible Rat Pfink and Boo Boo, but the title artist accidentally put an “a” in the title, and the director couldn’t stretch the budget to fit the necessary $50 to fix it. So they just kept it in. Another legend says that they did it on purpose because they thought it was funny. I don’t know which is true, but they both give a pretty decent idea of what level of intelligence we’re working with. And why does the title contain the corrupted word “pfink” as opposed to “fink?” Search me. Like the “a,” I expect that it’s another level of humor that us mere mortals simply can’t comprehend.
Rat Pfink a Boo Boo starts off with a group of hoodlums called the “Chain Gang” who spend their days stalking, murdering and robbing women that they randomly pick out of a phone book. Their newest victim that they decide to torment is the pretty, yet blander than a loaf of tofu, Cee Cee Beaumont (Carolyn Brandt). She has a rock-and-roll singer boyfriend named Lonnie Lord (Ron Haydock). You can tell that he’s a popular artist because he signs autographs for four middle aged women who are totally in his audience range, and consistently sings to…….well, nobody in particular. God forbid we show the rock-and-roll singer performing at an actual concert. We’d be going over budget at that point! He just gets into terrible 60’s music montages with his girlfriend. I presume Cee Cee pays him for each montage. Truly he is the second coming of Buddy Holly. After over 30 minutes of sending her creepy phone calls and leering at her, the “Chain Gang” decides to finally progress the plot and they kidnap her in broad daylight. They then ransom her to Lonnie for a large amount of money. And then the madness begins.
At this point, the movie’s genre has been akin to a crime drama. A poorly filmed, poorly acted, badly directed and boring crime drama, but a crime drama nonetheless. We are relatively grounded in reality at this point. It’s at about the 40 minute mark where the movie forgets to take its medication, puts its underwear on its head and starts yelling about the Cockroach People that live in its basement. Instead of calling the police, Lonnie and Cee Cee’s gardener Titus (Titus Moede) decide to save her themselves by becoming their superhero alter egos. Lonnie becomes Rat Pfink, a parody of Batman, and Titus becomes Boo Boo, a parody of Robin. And BAM! We’re in a superhero parody now. You get no warning. It just happens. The director just got bored with making a crime drama and decided to change it to a parody of the then popular Batman TV show halfway through making it. As you’re watching this tonal shift, you will probably think you’re going insane. That’s a natural symptom of watching this movie. Don’t worry about it.
From there, we get a cheap facsimile of the above mentioned Batman TV show, with cartoony sound effects accompanied by an upbeat musical track, incredibly long and poorly choreographed fight scenes, terrible costumes and really corny jokes. “Remember Boo Boo. We only have one weakness.” “What’s that, Rat Pfink?” “Bullets.” Ugh. This movie started out with a helpless woman getting murdered, and now we’re watching two costumed doofuses riding a motorcycle whose engine makes the sound of a toilet flushing.
Some of these jokes don’t even make any sense, and come across as poorly conceived first drafts of Looney Tunes sketches. For example, Rat Pfink’s voice is a Yogi Bear impression, and his sidekick is named Boo Boo. Why are they making that connection? What does Batman and Robin have to do with Yogi Bear? What’s the joke? Batman may have had cringey jokes, but at least there were punchlines. There’s another joke where Boo Boo is fighting one of the gang members, and his watch breaks. He starts fiddling with it to try and make it work again, and the gang member kindly takes the watch and stomps it into the ground. And the watch works again. Boo Boo thanks him, and the fight continues. What just happened? Oh, and a gorilla that escaped from the zoo eventually joins the fight and kidnaps Cee Cee. Again, no warning. It just happens. I feel like a doctor studying a mentally insane inmate with paranoid schizophrenia. I don’t understand it, but I am fascinated with its logic.Rat Pfink a Boo Boo feels like you’re observing some kind of inside joke being played out before your eyes. But the more you observe, the less clear the joke becomes. It’s like being told a joke that was just made up by a toddler who thinks its hilarious, and you’re just standing there nodding your head and validating their joke, because its pointless to question an individual whose brain is equal parts insane and immature. It’s a So Bad, It’s Good movie that needs to be seen to be believed. So in that sense, I suppose in a weird way I’m…..recommending it? It’s weird, terribly made, and has a baffling sense of humor, but its sudden lapse into insanity is one of the most entertaining and fascinating experiences you’ll ever have as a filmgoer. I expect nothing less from the director who made one of the worst films ever made, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies. Yes, that’s a thing that exists too. Maybe I’ll talk about that one another time.
