#65 Chairman of the Board (1998) (Colin)

Our next movie is a ‘comedy’ and it is fair to say, we have not had a lot of luck with comedy movies in our list.

Whether it’s the racial stereotypical nonsense of Soul Plane, the hit and miss sketches, (mainly miss), in Underground ‘Comedy’ Movie or the Tom Green ego wankfest, Freddy Got Fingered; all of these films have one thing in common: There is absolutely no comedy in them.

The fact that the ‘star’of our next movie, Scott 'Carrot Top' Thompson, has been described as zany and wacky, also got me worried.  In my experience, the words zany and wacky can be defined as: someone or something which is trying desperately hard to be funny, but does not succeed and fails miserably.

So safe in the knowledge that I won’t crack a rib or funny bone, we started our next movie, ‘Chairman of the Board’ (1998).

The movie centres on surfing dude Eddison, (Carrot Top), who has been trying all his life to invent the next big thing.  On his way back from yet another rejection meeting of his ideas, Eddison bumps into an older gent, Armand McMillan, (Jack Warden), whose car has broken down.  Eddison and McMillan form an unlikely friendship when it turns out that McMillan is the owner of an inventions company and that he admires Eddison’s determined attitude and imagination.

McMillan dies soon after and leaves his majority shareholding to Eddison, much to the annoyance of McMillan’s nephew, Bradford, (Larry Miller), who has worked all his life for McMillan and expected to inherit the company.

Eddison with his large ginger hair and bright coloured dress sense, does not fit in immediately with the board of directors, who are all grey suits, grey hair and grey personalities.  However, when Eddison invents the TV dinner, (a ready meal in a tray with a TV in its lid), it is a massive success and the huge rise in the share price, gains him acceptance from the board.  Bradford, who had been hoping that Eddison, with his quirky ways and bad ideas, would fail, is rather miffed, to say the least.

He hatches a plan in which someone would claim, on a live TV news show, that the TV dinner had led to radiation poisoning.  Bradford gives the ‘radiated’ man some glow in the dark paint invented by Eddison, (erm no, this had already been invented surely?),  so that when the lights are dimmed, radiated man glows brightly from head to toe.

The game is up when Eddison, (who is not the brightest spark throughout the whole movie, but then suddenly remembers he did a 4 year degree in Chemistry), realises that radiation poisoning would have caused sickness and probably death, rather than glowing like a novelty condom.  Bradford is confronted and unwittingly wearing a shirt invented by Eddison that emits lights and alarms when it detects bullshit, is found out when he tries to lie his way out of it.

The company is saved and Eddison hands over control of the board to a rather sensible lady, (and potential love interest), Natalie Stockwell, (Courtney Thorne-Smith), who probably won't balls it up like Eddison eventually would.

If you think you’ve heard this story a million times before, that is probably because you have.  There is not a single original character, idea or plotline throughout the entire movie.

Carrot Top’s Eddison is a character we’ve seen countless times.  He’s the outcast of society, with a big heart, who, against all the odds, succeeds in the modern world and becomes accepted by the masses.  Bradford is the baddie we have seen time after time, he feels threatened by Eddison and will try everything in his power to stop him.  He becomes more outlandish and desperate as the movie goes on, but, just when it appears he has finally won, he gets his come uppance.

For this reason the movie feels very familiar and familiarity breeds contempt.  You know what happens way in advance and you feel so confident in your new found abilities that you end up putting all of your savings on 6 numbers, (Which reminds me, totally unrelated, but, can someone lend me a fiver till payday?  I think I’ve managed to delete the ‘screw you’ message from my bosses voice mail but I'm not great with technology))?

The script itself is not very good and the gags are slapstick and juvenile.  The use of primary colours and puerile jokes throughout the movie, makes it feel like this was written by a child with a large crayon, (although in truth, a child would be funnier and more original than Carrot Top).  Whilst I like a good gag about trouser trumpets and botty bugles, by the 500^th time the joke is used, it becomes predictable and, more importantly, unfunny.

The use of stupid sound effects throughout, also becomes annoying very early on and feels like those lazy radio shows who rely on slide whistles, fart noises and clown horns for their comedy.  Carrot Top really is an unfunny *fart noise* who I would gladly kick in the *clown horn* and frankly, he can shove this unfunny movie right up his *slide whistle*.

Whilst Carrot Top is firmly to blame for the script, the person responsible for the look and feel of the movie is director, Alex Zamm.  Zamm has directed box office gold such as Inspector Gadget 2, (there was a sequel?), Dr Dolittle: Million Dollar Mutts and Beverley Hills Chihuahua 2.  All of these films were straight to DVD and this may explain why this movie has the feel of a badly made, cheap, and bland comedy.  It feels rushed out to try to make some easy money for the studios Christmas do.  Chairman of the Board is a straight to DVD movie and then straight into the bin.

It was as feared then, for this ‘comedy’ movie.  The movie was not funny in any way and I can not remember a single incident that left me half smiling, let alone bursting out into laughter.  Carrot Top seems to suffer from the same problem which Tom Green had in Freddy Got Fingered, in that the movie has to completely revolve around him and his ‘funny’ antics.  If you want to know what Green + Ginger equals, then this movie is the result, (or as Wes offered, the movie could be retitled, Freddy Got Gingered).

I guess the most obvious pun to finish this blog on would be something along the lines of ‘Chairman of the Board?  Chairman of the BORED more like’.  But that would be unimaginative, obvious and not funny.  This is exactly why I will finish with this gag, after all, if the makers of this movie couldn’t be arsed to come up with something witty, original and funny, then why should I?