tavm Review of Tunnel Vision

Tunnel Vision (1976)

Tunnel Vision is very uneven as a revue of television satire, but it has its moments

[5/10 · 20 July 2013]

In reviewing various movies or TV specials featuring "SNL"ers in chronological order, I'm now at 1976 with the release of something called Tunnel Vision. Some years before this, The Groove Tube came out which featured many segments that were originally presented in a revue in New York called Channel One of which one of the players was Chevy Chase. Here Chase plays himself in a mental health PSA. The symptoms listed were pretty amusing though I was disappointed Chase wasn't the one who mentioned them with the announcer of many of the other skits being the one who did. Like that sketch, many of the other ones were shot in the Los Angeles area which was where many of the original "SNL" auditions took place around the time this film was made. So besides Chevy, we also see Laraine Newman (who plays Sonja in an unfunny Norman Lear-type sitcom called "Romon and Sonja"),and Al Franken & Tom Davis in an amusing bit about personality changes in a can. Also, future "SCTV" stars John Candy and Joe Flaherty (credited as Joseph O'Flaherty here) are around with Candy carrying a dismembered head in a "Get Head!" spot which is funny by the title alone and Flaherty in a hilarious sketch with future "Hill Street Blues" star Betty Thomas called "Remember When" which has the host recounting each degrading memory of both contestants including Joe's rape events and Ms. Thomas' beating of her children! Oh, and they're both in degrading costumes! I also found funny a PSA spot about a young woman's attempt to become butch. And I also liked a running gag about a blindfolded French chef constantly bumping into people. Most of the other segments weren't as good, but I give the filmmakers points for trying to shock its target audience into laughter with the excuse of having this take place 10 years into the future with the congressional hearings of the investigation into the title network and its effects on its audience with Howard Hesseman playing the head of the committee, a couple of years before his best known role as Dr. Johnny Fever on "WKRP in Cinncinati". So on that note, Tunnel Vision is worth a look.