Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure

The story of Raymond and Peter, mean drunks and awful roommates whose constant shouting matches - committed to tape by frustrated neighbors - made them an unwitting, unsuspecting pair of underground celebrities. Like the thematically-similar Winnebago Man, the quest to learn more about these clueless cult legends is much more rewarding than what we actually find at the end of the trail. While the focus hovers on revisiting the tapes, hearing the men who recorded them reminisce about the glory days and watching dozens of talking heads don a headset and burst into belly laughs, it's a light, cheery smile a minute. Later, when the inherent humor of the material fades away, the whole picture begins to look downright pathetic. Hearing about the legal struggles that surrounded this story's film rights, witnessing the self-important ruminations of the guys who held their mics to the wall, seeing how confused and flabbergasted Peter was about the phenomenon... these segments actually take away from what made the tapes so enjoyable in the first place. As a momentary distraction, an escape from the mundane to laugh at the worst state of the human condition, these voyeuristic tapes are in their element and at their best. So much over-inspection only serves to rub away the veneer and spoil many of the laughs.