History Film / ForbiddenZone

The film is groundbreaking for being the first Music/DannyElfman–composed soundtrack for (no surprise considering his brother is the director[=/=]screenwriter, his brother's wife is the protagonist, and their father and grandfather both play characters in the film). Danny himself plays the devil while the rest of the original Oingo Boingo band (when it was known as ''The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo'') are here as his minions. The ensemble cast also include a post-''Series/FantasyIsland'' Creator/HerveVillechaize and pre-''Film/CryBaby'' Susan Tyrell.

It had a ''huge'' influence on both Creator/TimBurton and Creator/PaulReubens, who first met while working on ''Film/PeeWeesBigAdventure''. The decision was quickly made to base much of their film's visuals on ''Forbidden Zone'', and to hire Music/DannyElfman to write the score. The rest is history.

A {{sequel}} is [[DevelopmentHell on its way]]: ''Forbidden Zone 2: Forbidden Galaxy''. Here's a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi8lcJDlaVg trailer]]: the Princess (now Princess Polly) has apparently taken the helm and is taking the offensive to conquer Earth. Richard and Danny Elfman are both involved, as are Ego Plum and the ''Monster Man'' crew.

* AlphabetSong: One of the film's musical numbers is "Alphabet Song," a politically incorrect parody of the Three Stooges song "Swingin' the Alphabet."
* AmbiguousGender: Characters argue in universe whether René is a girl or a boy in drag, and René never gives a definite answer. Complicating matters is the moment where René has menstrual cramps [[ArtisticLicenseBiology despite that being biologically impossible]].
* AndYouWereThere: Queen Doris is played by the same actress as René and Squeezit's mother.

* AssShove: Queen Doris straps Frenchy to a table and attempts to give her "40,000 volts in her caboose" with an ''electrified dildo''! Yowtch!

* BlackComedyRape: A RunningGag is made from the characters randomly humping extras while having casual dialogue with them.
* {{Blackface}}: A character seen briefly at the start (and in a throwaway gag near the middle) is a slumlord and crack dealer played by a man in blackface; there are several others in bit parts throughout, done for [[RuleOfFunny comedic shock value]].

* CatFight: Between the Queen Doris and the Ex-Queen complete with meowing noises.

** And later, Danny Elfman would create a somewhat re-arranged version of the title song to use as ''WesternAnimation/{{Dilbert}}'''s opening theme.

** The second is later in the film when Hercules employs Squeezit's help. When he sets foot in the Sixth Dimension, Squeezit is captured almost immediately by [[Music/DannyElfman Satan]], who proceeds to sing a key-changed and lyrically modified version of "Minnie the Moocher" called "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WACN2cdr4wc Squeezit the Moocher]]".

* DisneyVillainDeath: [[spoiler:Queen Doris.]]

* DivineDate: Queen Doris claims to have slept with God and The Devil and laughs at God being shyer than a flower.
* [[DownTheRabbitHole Down the Butt Hole]]: The only way to reach to the Sixth Dimension

** The "Alphabet Song" is a reference to the classic Film/TheThreeStooges short ''[[https://youtu.be/-JCKy9-d4vc Violent Is the Word for Curly]]'' and its memorable song "Swingin' the Alphabet".

%%* TitleDrop

* UnexplainedRecovery: Johnny shoots Billy to death in the classroom for cheating at cards, and gets into a protracted gunfight with the teacher, who presumably kills him with the machine gun she keeps under her desk. Both of them still somehow come to class the next day.
* VillainSong: "Witch's Egg" and "Queen's Revenge" by Queen Doris, and "Squeezit the Moocher" by Satan.
** Amplified by the fact that the late Susan Tyrrell (who played Queen Doris) actually co-wrote "Witch's Egg".
* VomitIndiscretionShot: Gramps, at the lunch at the beginning of the film.
%%* WackyHomeroom

* AwesomeMcCoolName: Flash Hercules.

* Gramps knocks The Princess out mid-sentence during "Finale".

* WackyHomeroom

* KarmaHoudini: Ruth Henderson and her sailor boyfriend had got away with mistreating Squeezit.

The plot revolves around a [[SarcasmMode normal family]], the Hercules, who move into a suburban home, of which the basement has a door to the [[BizarroUniverse strange]] [[ForbiddenZone Sixth Dimension]]. They avoid it but when the eldest daughter returns from her studies in France, curiosity attracts her to investigate. HilarityEnsues. Heavily inspired by Music/CabCalloway, ''WesternAnimation/BettyBoop'' cartoons and UndergroundComics.

** Turned UpToEleven by having one of Satan's minions be a ''[[CrossesTheLineTwice black actor]]'' [[CrossesTheLineTwice wearing blackface]].

** And later, Danny Elfman would create a [[SuspiciouslySimilarSong somewhat re-arranged version]] of the title song to use as ''WesternAnimation/{{Dilbert}}'''s opening theme.

* IHaveYouNowMyPretty: Satan calls the Princess his "[[CrossesTheLineTwice whore-stage]]", grabs one of her breasts and begins licking her ear. Naturally, she screams.

* StealthParody: WordOfGod says that the copious amounts of shameless racism was meant as a TakeThat towards supposedly-progressive Hollywood films made after the Civil Rights movement which still casted minorities in stereotypical roles. Richard Elfman felt that, if ''his'' film was going to be offensive, he may as well not apologize.

* KarmaHoudini: Ruth Henderson and her sailor boyfriend never had got away with mistreating Squeezit.

* KarmaHoudini: Ruth Henderson and her sailor boyfriend never got thrown to jail for mistreating her son Squeezit.
** The devil and the Mystic Knights of The Oingo Boingo never got punished for cutting of Squeezit's head, as well as the eating to kill the princess.

* TheGenieKnowsJackNicholson: The first person Gramps and Flash meet in the Sixth Dimension has read about Gramps' boxing career in the paper.

''Forbidden Zone'' is a 1980 musical fantasy comedy film directed and written by Richard Elfman and Matthew Bright (who would later direct ''Film/{{Freeway}}''), created to be a last hurrah for his performance art troupe The Mystic Knights Of The Music/OingoBoingo before Elfman's brother [[Music/DannyElfman Danny]] reformed them as a successful [[NewWaveMusic New Wave]] and {{Ska}} band.

The movie's story focuses on a family that moves in a house that has in the basement a door to the sixth dimension that they pretty much try to ignore, but when the eldest daughter returns from her studies in France, curiosity attracts her to investigate. Heavily inspired by Music/CabCalloway, ''WesternAnimation/BettyBoop'' cartoons and UndergroundComics.

This movie is groundbreaking for being the first film that Music/DannyElfman ever composed a soundtrack for (no surprise considering his brother is the director and screenwriter, his brother's wife is the protagonist, and their father and grandfather both play characters in the film). Danny himself plays the devil while the rest of the original Oingo Boingo band (when it was known as ''The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo'') are here as his minions. The film also includes a post-''Series/FantasyIsland'' Creator/HerveVillechaize and pre-''Film/CryBaby'' Susan Tyrell.

The film had a ''huge'' influence on both Creator/TimBurton and Creator/PaulReubens, who first met while working on ''Film/PeeWeesBigAdventure''. The decision was quickly made to base much of their film's visuals on ''Forbidden Zone'', and to hire Music/DannyElfman to write the score. The rest is history.

A sequel is on its way: "Forbidden Zone 2: Forbidden Galaxy." Here's a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi8lcJDlaVg trailer]]: the Princess (now Princess Polly) has apparently taken the helm and is taking the offensive to conquer Earth. Richard and Danny Elfman are both involved, as are Ego Plum and the crew from "Monster Man".

* AbusiveParents: Squeezit and Renee's mother is a drunken serial girlfriend who treats Squeezit like a punching bag.

* AdultsDressedAsChildren: All the children in the movie are played by adults.
* AmbiguousGender: Characters argue in universe whether René Henderson is a girl or a boy in drag, and René doesn't give a definite answer. Complicating matters is the moment where René has menstrual cramps [[ArtisticLicenseBiology despite that being biologically impossible.]]

* AssShove: Queen Doris straps Frenchie to a table and attempts to give her "40,000 volts in her caboose" with an ''electrified dildo''! Yowtch!
* AstralProjection: Squeezit's mother beats him that badly, that he's able to leave his body and see his sister trapped in the sixth dimension.

* BadGirlSong: ''Witch's Egg'' is Doris singing about various people she slept with.

* CloudCuckooLand: The sixth dimension. Reality isn't very normal in this film, though.
* CoolGate: The entrance to the sixth dimension looks like a mouth painted on the wall. The other end looks like a giant, black anus.

* CoverVersion: About a third of the songs are covers of 1930's songs, especially Music/CabCalloway ones.
** And later, Danny Elfman would create a [[SuspiciouslySimilarSong somewhat re-arranged version]] of the movie's title song to use as the opening theme for the TV show ''WesternAnimation/{{Dilbert}}''.

** The first is ''Behind Them Doors (Some of these Days)'', which is when Papa is warning Frenchy and Flash about the Sixth Dimension in their basement (for bonus points, he lip-syncs to Cab Calloway's ''Some of These Days'' midway through). A stop-motion transition also establishes how bonkers the Sixth Dimension is.
** The second is later in the film when Hercules employs Squeezit's help. When he sets foot in the Sixth Dimension, Squeezit is captured almost immediately by [[Music/DannyElfman Satan]], who proceeds to sing a key-changed and lyrically modified version of Minnie the Moocher called ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WACN2cdr4wc Squeezit the Moocher]]''.
* CrowdSong: Pico & Sepulveda, Queen's Revenge, The Alphabet Song and Finale.
* DealWithTheDevil: Squeezit [[spoiler:has to do one in order to save his sister and Frenchy]]
* DeliberatelyMonochrome: Well, maybe not deliberately. The director intended the black-and-white footage to be colorized by hand, but found it would be too costly to pull off; it's since been digitally colorized.

* DerangedAnimation: The intro and the sequences to the sixth dimension.
* DimensionLord: King Fausto rules the sixth dimension.
* DisneyVillainDeath: [[spoiler:Queen Doris]]
* DistantDuet: Queen's Revenge.
* DivineDate: The Queen claims to have slept with God and The Devil and laughs at God being shyer than a flower.
* [[DownTheRabbitHole Down The Butt Hole]]: The only way to reach to the sixth dimension

* DysfunctionJunction: The most normal character of the film is the wife-beating Norwegian-accented tarpit-working father.
* EarAche: The Rene's ear is cut and eaten by the frog.

* EroticEating: Lampshaded and averted with a polish sausage.

* ForbiddenZone: In the title. It's another name for the sixth dimension and Frenchie's parents forbid her from going there.
* GalacticConqueror: [[spoiler:At the end of the movie, Fausto declares that he's going to take over the galaxy.]]
* TheGenieKnowsJackNicholson: The first person Gramps and Flash meet in the sixth dimension has read about Gramps' boxing career in the paper.

* LargeHam: Queen Doris of the sixth dimension.

* TheMovie: Sort of. Richard Elfman conceived the film as a sort of "greatest hits" for the original Mystic Knights performance troupe once he decided to move on from it and become a filmmaker, at which point Danny would reform them as [[Music/OingoBoingo the now-famous rock band]]. Many scenes in the film were extracted from the troupe's live act.
* MsFanservice: The Princess runs around the entire movie topless. Can't get much more fanservice-y than that.
** FanserviceExtra: Peppered throughout the film are some other women, who are also topless.

** Ma Hercules starts singing Stephen Foster's ''Beautiful Dreamer'' but Pa knocks her unconscious.
** Doris shoots her servant dead halfway through singing ''Yiddishe Charleston''.
* Gramps knocks The Princess out mid-sentence during ''The Finale''.

* OffWithHisHead: [[spoiler:Squeezit's fate at the end of the movie. Given that he's associated with chickens, he survives.]]

* ShoutOut: The whole Satan sequence is one on WesternAnimation/BettyBoop's ''WesternAnimation/MinnieTheMoocher'' cartoon, as well as "WesternAnimation/BimbosInitiation" (when Squeezit opens a door and gets punched in the face by a waiting boxer).
** The "Alphabet Song" is a reference to the classic Film/TheThreeStooges short "Violent is the Word for Curly" and its memorable song "Swingin' the Alphabet".
** Frenchy "sings" a Creator/JosephineBaker song, and Pa "sings" a Music/CabCalloway song.

* SmallRoleBigImpact: Despite being prominently featured, Satan is only in the movie for one musical number, and doesn't have any speaking lines (all his lines are sung). [[spoiler:In said scene, he orders Squeezit to kidnap the Princess, which is what kicks off Fausto's HeelRealization.]]
* SoundtrackDissonance: Pa Hercules singing a joyful cover of ''Pico & Sepulveda'' with a chorus of men while going to their crappy job at La Brea Tar Pit Factory. With a little bit of LyricalDissonance thrown in: "Where nobody's dreams... come... true!"
* TheSpeechless: Gramps Hercules and Bust Rod.
* SpitefulSpit: In ''Witch's Egg'', the Queen mentioned she spat in her father's eye when she was 13.

* StealthParody: WordOfGod says that the copious amounts of shameless racism was meant as a TakeThat towards supposedly-progressive Hollywood films made after the Civil Rights movement which still casted minorities in stereotypical roles. Richard Elfman felt that, if ''his'' movie was going to be offensive, he may as well not apologize.

* TableSpace: The king and the queen, and a human chandelier over them.

* TalkingInYourSleep: The Queen wakes up to find Fausto saying "Harder. Frenchy! Harder!".

* VillainSong: "Witch's Egg" and "Queen's Revenge" by Queen Doris and "Squeezit The Moocher" by the devil

* VomitIndiscretionShot: Gramps Hercules, at the lunch at the beginning of the movie.

* WholesomeCrossdresser / DepravedHomosexual: Squeezit's "sister".
--> "The ''queen'' said she was going to ''ream'' us with ten-inch cattle prods... and ''I'm still waiting!''"

* AllMenAreRapists / AllMenArePerverts / AllWomenAreLustful: ''So much''. The only truly chaste member of the cast is [[ButtMonkey Squeezit]], and even he's a little tempted by the Princess's come-ons.

''Forbidden Zone'' is a [[MindScrew completely bonkers]] 1980 musical fantasy comedy film directed and written by Richard Elfman and Matthew Bright (who would later direct ''Film/{{Freeway}}''), created to be a last hurrah for his performance art troupe The Mystic Knights Of The Music/OingoBoingo before Elfman's brother [[Music/DannyElfman Danny]] reformed them as a successful [[NewWaveMusic New Wave]] and {{Ska}} band.

''Forbidden Zone'' is a [[MindScrew completely bonkers]] 1980 musical directed and written by Richard Elfman and Matthew Bright (who would later direct ''Film/{{Freeway}}''), created to be a last hurrah for his performance art troupe The Mystic Knights Of The Music/OingoBoingo before Elfman's brother [[Music/DannyElfman Danny]] reformed them as a successful [[NewWaveMusic New Wave]] and {{Ska}} band.

* StockUnderwear: Aside from the mooks mentioned below (who wear jockstraps), everyone whose underwear is part of their costume wears tighty-whitey briefs.

* RomanceOntheSet: Herve Villechaize and Susan Tyrell. No, really.

* BadassGrandpa: More like "mentally disturbed, violent grandpa".
** HandicappedBadass: Screaming his head off at the opposition for so many years has made Gramps deaf and dumb (and, as a result, much harder to control when angry).

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/_images_ForbiddenZoneArt_home5.jpg]]

* StockUnderwear: Aside from the mooks mentioned below (who wear jockstraps), everyone whose underwear is part of their costume wears tighty-whiteys.

* StockUnderwear: Aside from the mooks mentioned below (who wear jockstraps), everyone whose underwear is part of their costume wears tighty whiteys.

This movie is groundbreaking for being the first film that Music/DannyElfman ever composed a soundtrack for (no surprise considering his brother is the director and screenwriter, his brother's wife is the protagonist, and their father and grandfather both play characters in the film). Danny himself plays the devil while the rest of the original Oingo Boingo band (when it was known as ''The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo'') are here as his minions. The film also includes a post-''Series/FantasyIsland'' Hervé Villechaize and pre-''Film/CryBaby'' Susan Tyrell.

* WardrobeMalfunction: The Queen's breasts are frequently popping out of he already too-small dress, albeit unintentionally.

* IHaveYouNowMyPretty: Satan calls the Princess his "[[RefugeInAudacity whore-stage]]", grabs one of her breasts and begins licking her ear. Naturally, she screams.

* EarAche: The singer's ear is cut and eaten by the frog.