SummaryA husband (John Ritter) and wife (Pam Dawber) are sucked into a hellish television set and have to survive a gauntlet of twisted versions of shows they find themselves in.
Directed By:Peter Hyams
Written By:Tom S. Parker, Jim Jennewein, Richard Siegel
Stay Tuned
Metascore
Mixed or Average
41
User score
Mixed or Average
5.8
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Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
41
31% Positive
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
38% Mixed
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
31% Negative
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
70
Likely to be popular among kids, as well as the aforementioned slugs, Stay Tuned is an amiable, end-of-summer, lite refreshment making good fun of suboobia. [17 Aug 1992]
63
The irony of it all is that "Stay Tuned" is itself a TV show, filled with razzle-dazzle, but unfolding with the wispy depth of a sit-com. That makes the casting of TV veterans Ritter and Dawber totally appropriate (and lends the physically hilarious Ritter a good-natured dig at "Three's Company"), but Parker and Jennewein don't capitalize on the potential of their ideas. The nuggets are there ("don't watch so much television" is the basic extent of the message), but if taken more seriously, "Stay Tuned" might've been a funny and deeply affecting film. Instead it's just funny . . . which is OK. [15 Aug 1992, p.C3]
60
A cleverly plotted movie that offers ample opportunity for spoofing anything and everything that can be found on television. Unfortunately, most of its takeoffs -- of a black-and-white gangster film, a spaghetti western and a period swashbuckler -- show no feel for genre and no genuine wit.
40
As a take on contemporary television culture, Stay Tuned has a lot to say, but much of it is presented in such a broad comedic format that it passes by unnoticed. This is a comedy, after all; politics aside, though, it never really rises above the level of mediocrity, and never actually descends to the level of television itself.
40
Former US sitcom staple Ritter breezes through his undemanding role with gormless bewilderment, reacting rather than acting, while Dawber screams and hollers as the special effects - the film's real stars - bounce them from one side of the screen to the other.
20
Not only does the new film generally fail to skewer TV's follies, it isn't even as entertaining as television. And I'm not talking about really good television, like Seinfeld and Murphy Brown. I'm talking about the usual stuff, like Three's Company and Mork & Mindy. [17 Aug 1992, p.D2]
12
Wretchedly unfunny. [14 Aug 1992, p.18]
User score
Mixed or Average
5.8
50% Positive
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
25% Mixed
1 Rating
1 Rating
25% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
Sep 27, 2024
2
Satan goes door to door, recruiting couch potatoes to risk life and limb on a naughty network of low-rent satellite TV stations, in this tame example of an early '90s PG comedy. It's UHF with a dash of The Running Man, minus Weird Al's musical talents, cultural understanding and strange personal magnetism. John Ritter is in the lead, playing a self-centered loser who's on the verge of trading his marriage for a life of late-night television binges, but his acting is fully phoned-in and the character isn't really worth rooting for. Jeffrey Jones is appropriately hammy as his antithesis, a sleazy salesman-tinted devil who cranks the cackling personality up to eleven, while Eugene Levy gets some characteristic sidekick work as a subservient lesser demon. The whole ruse is presented like a sketch show, a lengthy line of gimmicks and concepts that rotate as Ritter and his long-suffering wife navigate a grid of themed channels, but none of the puns are worth our time. Wayne's World is parodied as Duane's Underworld and hosted by a pair of burnout zombies. Beverly Hills 90210 is transplanted to the 90666 zip code. The Golden Girls become The Golden Ghouls. All the punchlines are like that; witless, lazy, softball-level humor that's neutered by the obvious mandate to snag a wide-audience MPAA rating. This concept doesn't really work as an all-ages schtick, and the jokes don't have any sting without a darker, harder edge. No wonder it flopped at the box office.
