#67 Leonard Part 6 (Wes)

Leonard Part 6

Bill Cosby is an excellent comedian. His stand-up show Himself is brilliant, and shows such an assured comedian that he spends much of it sitting down, a move that many stand-up comedians would never do. After years of being a guest star on other peoples shows, he became one of the most loved TV stars playing Cliff Huxtable in The Cosby Show which ran for 8 years between 1984 and 1992. In fact he’s still performing stand-up shows now at the age of 76. So how did it come to pass that in 1987, as he was so successful elsewhere, that he was the lead in Leonard Part 6? A film that he was so ashamed of, that he publically told audiences not to waste their money watching it. Was he over-reacting? Let’s find out…

Leonard part 6 (you haven’t missed parts 1-5, that’s supposed to be a joke which is explained at the beginning of the movie), centres around a spy (Leonard – played by Bill Cosby) who is forced out of retirement when an evil vegetarian, Medusa Johnson (Gloria Foster) tries to take over the world with animals that have been trained to attack humans. That’s it. That’s the whole plot. Even Kids Say the Darndest Things had more of a coherent narrative. In fact I think that this film may have been written in crayon on a kindergarten wall by some of the future stars of that show.

 But it wasn’t just the script that seems to have been written by a bunch of six year olds, no it seems they designed the opening credits too. When a movie starts with a bunch of poorly drawn animals plastered over the credits then you can pretty much guess what level the film is going to be at. It actually looks like it’s going to be a movie that was a junior school project. Hardly the image that any professional movie maker wants to project I’m sure. Maybe it was a prototype for Cosby’s next project: Kids Design the Crappiest Things.

Then the movie starts. For some reason it starts with an amalgamation of scenes that are quite near the end of the film. Bill Cosby, jumping a tank off the top of a road, Bill Cosby ballet dancing and Bill Cosby jumping off of a roof riding an ostrich (unfortunately it was a “real” ostrich, and not a Bernie Clifton style ostrich costume). Now I can see why they did this: The movie is so dull that starting it with something wacky may hold the audience in place just to see how Cosby got into such a crazy situations, but maybe if somebody just pointed out that holding an audience’s attention is much more easily done by making a movie that doesn’t make The Only Way is Essex look like it was written by Shakespeare.

  

As I’ve already mentioned, the plot is spread so thinly it could be mistaken for the sandwich filling in a motorway service station café. It’s only a few minutes before you’re introduced to Medusa Johnson’s plan, when a rainbow trout is shown a picture of a CIA agent he wants assassinated, and like the last vindictive fish we saw, the shark in Jaws: The Revenge, this trout barks (it also pauses to look at a discarded copy of Playboy, which raises all sorts of questions that I’m not sure I want answered…). I know this is a family film, so I can understand the bloodless death, and the use of something silly like a rainbow trout over something that may be scary like a piranha, but I can’t overlook the fact that even the child that sits in class eating glue would realise the size difference between a man and a single trout. Maybe a shoal of trout attacking him could have worked, but nobody involved in this movie seemed to credit children with any intelligence.

The movie continues in its stupidity from there. A man is killed by a bunch of frogs gathering under his car and hopping it into the river, Leonard spends four minutes choosing a tie (I’m not kidding), Leonard gets some ballet shoes and a queen bee from Nurse Carvalho (Anna Levine), a fortune teller he doesn’t understand, which are soon used in a fight/dance-off seemingly against the cast of The Lion King Musical, and then to empty a room of bees that were guarding something or other (yeah I really wasn’t paying attention at this point). Eventually the stupidity culminates in a battle between Leonard and Medusa’s vegetarians which includes Medusa’s head henchman, Man Ray’s (David Maier) head exploding as he meat for the first time (now I’ve had a dodgy hot dog or two in my lifetime, but it was never my head that eventually exploded…).

  

I think there’s maybe one thing we can all take from this movie, and that’s not to trust Morrissey. This movie really is like an anti-vegetarian propaganda film. It’s actually worse than the short movie “The Meat Council Presents Meat and You: Partners in Patriotism” from the classic Simpsons episode Lisa the Vegetarian. The message in this film seems to be that veggies are both evil, and that they can’t handle the taste explosion that is a hot dog (for the record, I do actually eat meat and my blood type is probably gravy. But I still think this is a crappy message to be sending out to the audience).

The acting, whilst not brilliant, is standard for most low budget family films of the time and whilst the costumes and sets look crappy, again this is pretty much what you’d expect from any similar film from the time. The fact that this movie is so dumb and yet so boring at the same time really is the only major problem with this film. Bill Cosby not only starred, but co-wrote it too, so most of the blame should rest with him. He obviously didn’t have the ability to write outside of what he knew. His comedy was always based around family life and trying to write a spy comedy just didn’t suit him.

  

As a movie it’s just a confused mess that wastes the talent and charisma of Cosby, but then again that could pretty much describe any film that he starred in. Cosby was better off on TV, or sitting on a stage telling jokes, but he seemed to be determined to try and conquer the movie world too. When Leonard Part 6, and later Ghost Dad were the results, you wonder why he bothered. I really can’t recommend this movie on any level, it really is an absolute joke. Which is funny really as jokes are exactly what Cosby forgot to include.

#67 Leonard Part 6 (1987) (Colin)

The next movie on our list is another comedy movie, Leonard Part 6.  I must admit, I think I have laughed twice during our ‘comedy’ movies so far.  This is pitiful and if I’d wanted to write about unfunny comedies, I would have written a Birds of a Feather blog.  Hell, the comedies have been so bad, that I would almost rather watch Michael McIntyre or hammer a rusty croquet hoop through my testicles, (both as painful as each other).

Anyway, the writer, producer and star of Leonard Part 6, was Bill Cosby who, in the 80’s, was a global superstar.   He could do no wrong and was one of the highest paid and most respected comedians / actors of the time.  ‘Therefore we’re in safe hands aren’t we Colin?’, I hear you cry, alas dear reader, I am afraid no, no we’re not.

You see I’ve already fallen into that trap.  ‘A movie directed by Guy Ritchie? Why’s this on our list?’ I thought before watching the awful ‘Swept Away’ and quickly realising why it’s on the list and questioning why it wasn’t higher.  Or ‘Bruce Willis? Wow, we are really in for a treat’, I thought before embarking on the long boring journey of ‘North’, (actually, I should have realised after ‘Last Boy Scout’ that the name Willis does not guarantee a quality movie, but I thought he deserved a second chance).

So the fact that Bill Cosby was behind our next movie, did not fill me with confidence.  Even when I considered the fact that it was made at the height of Cosby’s epic career, I still had a sense of dread.  But being the little troopers Wes and I are, we watched the movie, (so you don’t have to).

Leonard Parker, (Bill Cosby), is a retired secret agent and we begin the story with his butler, Frayn, (Tom Courtenay), explaining why there are no Leonards parts 1 thru 5.  Apparently, the first 1-5 stories had to be destroyed for the sake of national security.  Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, *pisses self* hilarious!

After I changed my trousers, I carried on with this piece of comedy gold.

The start of the movie, begins with the end in which we see Bill Cosby riding an Osterich, (not like that), whilst all hell is breaking lose around him with big explosions and stuff.  Frayn tells us this is the end and he’ll now explain how Leonard got to this point.  I guess this is to whet our appetite and interest in the movie, but frankly I couldn’t give a flying ostrich what happens next.

The plot, (thinner than an Asda Dustbin liner, but a plot nevertheless), revolves around evil vegetarian Medusa Johnson, (Gloria Foster), who is reprogramming animals to kill humans.  She begins her evil plot by assinating 2 secret service agents, 1 by rainbow trout, the other death by frogs.  The CIA are obviously a bit angry at their agents being killed in stupid ways, (whatever happened to the good old days of death by poisoned tipped umbrella), and convince Leonard to come out of retirement to bring Medusa and her evil, (stupid), plans down.

Leonard sets about the task by firstly dressing up as an idiot as he puts on his costume of an astrounaut suit and a cycling helmet, (?).  He then arms himself with the most advanced gadgets of the time: mini missiles, a car with a tank turret and the world’s smallest camera, (which is about the size of house brick).  James Bond?  More like James Corden.

Crap outfit and gadgets in hand, he goes to evil Veggies HQ where a rather long and unfunny scene of Leonard trying to break into the HQ, bring down Medusa and ultimately failing ensues.  1 particular part of this unfunny scene involves a swarm of bees being held in a lab and Leonard pulling his own bee, (behave yourselves), out of his spacesuit and somehow Leonard’s bee breaks them out of the lab and all the bees flee!  Tee-hee?  No wee,(way, alright that last bit didn’t work!)!

After this failure, Leonard then takes us on his back story, (yippee!), which is basically a long drawn out episode of The Cosby Show.

Leonard’s daughter, Joan Parker, (Victoria Rowell), has just started to date a man who is older than Leonard and he is not best pleased, (original), and Leonard’s wife, Allison Parker, (Pat Colbert), has left him after she caught him sharing a sauna with a 19 year old, (man, woman or horse, I’m not sure).  Leonard desperately wants his estranged wife back and invites her to dinner.  In doing so, he also invites us to a very long boring and unfunny scene in which Allison, ends up pouring soup all over Leonard.

Leonard obviously loves them both and when Joan appears starkers in a play she is starring in, he goes bonkers dolally.  When Leonard’s wife then gets kidnapped by Medusa, he moves up a notch to pretty darn miffed and sets about to rescue her and to defeat Medusa once and for all.

And so the end battle ensues which sees Leonard fight his way through veggie HQ, armed only with various meat products, (eh?).  He defeats the hench men with beef patties and the main baddies with hot dogs.  The hot dogs, for some reason, when shoved into the big veggie gobs of the baddies, causes their heads to explode!

With all hell breaking lose and explosions caused by mechanically recovered meat, (yum!), Leonard makes his escape on an Ostrich which he has liberated, (Ah, that explains it!) and so we come full circle.

The film ends with Leonard and Allison together again at last and sharing a tasty meal.  Then, and I’m struggling to type this as it is soooo hilarious, Allison serves soup but even though they are back together again, she pours it over his head.  Ha ha ha ha ha it’s funny because she did it earlier!

And so ends another truly unfunny movie in our list.  So what went wrong?  How on earth did Bill Cosby, at the height of his super stardom, manage to produce such a stench?

Well, firstly there’s the character of Leonard himself.  As the hero of the story, I assume that we are meant to like him, will him to succeed and cheer him on as he defeats the bad guys and gets his wife back; but not once did I feel the need to do so.  This is mainly due to the fact that Leonard comes across as arrogant, cold and obnoxious.  This, off course, is completely Cosby’s fault.

This project is Cosby’s baby and Cosby’s alone.  He created Leonard and then played him, so he had ‘carte blanche’ over his portrayal.  If his notes for this character were, ‘appear sweaty, tired and bored throughout’, then I apologise as he got it spot on.  If his aim was to produce a lovable character whose down on his luck and with whom the audience will empathise with, then he got it hopelessly wrong.

The plot is thin, confusing and muddled.  The main story is just ludicrous and I still don’t really get what Medusa’s beef with the world really is, (see what I did there?).  The back story is just sugar coated boredom and does nothing for Leonard’s character.  It does not provide an interesting backdrop to the main plot and quite frankly I could not care less what happens to his family.  I’ve been more interested into the future and wellbeing of potato peelings.

The part which should be Cosby’s strong point, but is the movie’s weak point is the comedy.  Yet again this is another comedy movie on our list which is just not funny.  The main problem, I think, is that Cosby has tried to change his style.  Gone is the family based situation comedy humour and in its place is surrealism and randomness.  Unfortunatley for Cosby it does not work.

Surrealism is difficult because the audience will either get it, or miss the point, find it funny or just find it plain weird.  I’ve spoken before about how unfunny Monty Python’s last season was and they were the kings of surrealism, (or at least on an equal footing to The Goons).  That last season’s only difference was that John Cleese had left the team, but otherwise the formula was still there, the bizarre was still there, the cartoons, the rest of the cast, but for some reason it just did not work. 

For Leonard also, it doesn't work.  Beef pattie fights?  Escaping on an ostrich? A ballet fight scene?  They are not funny and give the movie a weird, disjointed feeling and all too often you end up staring at the screen thinking, ‘what’s all that about?’.

In fact you spend the whole movie thinking, ‘what’s all that about’, and this is because the movie does not really know itself.  Is it a children’s movie?  No.  Is it an espionage thriller?  No.  Is it a comedy?  Most definitely no.  And this really is a problem and I believe if Cosby had worked out what on earth he was trying to produce, then this could have been so much better.

For me, this should have been a children’s comedy movie.  As Lenoard’s costume and gadgets are made up from bits and pieces you’ll find around the house and as the ‘comedy’ is childish, I think Leonard should have been re-cast as a kid or a bunch of kids.  It could have been a sort of espionage ‘Bugsy Malone’ and there could even have been a ‘is this real or just their imagination’ element to it.

Unfortuantely nothing as clever or as funny as this was produced.  Cosby could do no wrong in the 80’s but that seems to be largely because he surrounded himself with yes men, who, dared not criticize him or his ideas.  Someone should have said ‘No!’ and made Cosby listen.  As it turned out, the penny did drop for Cosby that this movie was no good, but unfortunately only after it had been made.

Cosby did disown the movie and did urge people not to waste their money going to the cinema to watch it.  For this, I respect Cosby and fortunately for him his legacy goes way beyond this stinker of a movie and he will rightly be remembered as one of the most successful comedians and writers of a generation.

So whilst Cosby's warning and honesty is refreshing and welcomed, I only wish Cosby had gone one step further and did the same thing with Leonard Part 6 as had happened with parts 1 thru 5!