Film / Amazon Women on the Moon

Spiritual Successor to The Kentucky Fried Movie, directed in 1987 by John Landis, Joe Dante, Carl Gottlieb, Peter Horton, and Robert K Weiss.

Basically a bigger budget version of KFM. This time, the sketches are centered around a cheesy 1950s sci-fi movie called, of course, Amazon Women on the Moon, which appears to largely be inspired by Queen of Outer Space. However, the local TV station screening the film keeps suffering technical faults, forcing the unseen viewer to channel surf; occasionally, more glimpses of the film are seen, before another snafu occurs forcing the viewer to move on.

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Tropes:

• Actually Pretty Funny: Bernice eventually finds herself laughing at the jokes told during the roast at her husband's funeral.
• Amazon Brigade: The eponymous Amazons are a One-Gender Race of warrior women.
• Artistic License – Physics: Done deliberately as part of the parody of 50's sci-fi.
• As Himself: A bunch of comedians (such as Henny Youngman) playing themselves at the funeral roast. Henry Silva hosts Bullshit or Not?
  • Plus B.B. King as the spokesman for Blacks without Soul.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: Apparently the moon has brown rocks and an Earth-like atmosphere, to the point that the spacesuits are discarded very quickly.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Was Jack the Ripper really the Loch Ness Monster? Bullshit or Not?
• B-Movie: Intentionally invoked with the titular segment.
• Bowdlerise: Self-enforced. The producers shot two versions of the Monique Gabrielle segment: one where she's naked, and one for TV airings where she wears skimpy lingerie.
• Brick Joke: Don "No Soul" Simmons singing "Blame It On the Bossa Nova" during the end credits.
• The Cameo: Forrest J. Ackerman as the President of the (forty-eight!) United States.
  • Cult director Russ Meyer as the clerk in "Video Date".
• Cheesy Moon: Discussed in the opening segment of "Amazon Women on the Moon", when Butch says he wants some of that moon cheese, and the captain says they're going to the moon to dispel all those old myths.
• Combat Stilettos: The Amazons all dress in a Minidress of Power and high heels. The movie shows how awkward this is when they try to run across uneven ground.
• Cutaway Gag: Several scenes in the Film Within a Film are skipped due to the technical difficulties.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Lampooned along with everything else in the B movie with its stereotypical 50's astronauts and the Amazon Women.
• Digital Piracy Is Evil: Video Pirates, as shown as seafaring buccaneers raiding an MCA Home Video ship for all its videos and laser discs. They sit down to watch a movie and see the standard anti-piracy FBI warning, and the head pirate sneers, "Oh, I'm so scared!"
• Disaster Dominoes: Arsenio Hall's unfortunate character in the opening segment.
• Excuse Plot: The plot is very thin, and the only other recurring element is Murray and his journey through the TV shows.
• Fanservice: Three separate segments feature female nudity, and the titular Amazon Women are easy on the eyes as well.
• For Science!: The attitude of the clinic director in the "Reefer Madness" parody.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: In both the "Murray Gets Trapped In TV Land" and the "Video Date" segments. "Critics Corner" plays with this trope as well.
• Fresh Clue: The Amazon Women's throne is still warm when the heroes arrive.
• The "Fun" in "Funeral" / Last Disrespects: Harvey Pitnik's funeral is a roast hosted by Steve Allen.
• The Ghost: The viewer who flips the channels through the film.
• Googling the New Acquaintance: Used as a gag (predating the World Wide Web!) when a woman runs a background check on a blind date. Things don't go well.
• Hand-or-Object Underwear: "Son of the Invisible Man" uses this once the character strips down.
• Human Aliens: The Amazon women.
• Invisible Streaker: Spoofed in the "Son of the Invisible Man" sketch, where the title character only thinks he's invisible.
• Jack the Ripper: The truth is finally revealed: it was The Loch Ness Monster!
• Killer Outfit: As part of the Trauma Conga Line in the "Mondo Condo" segment, Arsenio Hall is almost strangled when his tie gets caught in the garbage disposal.
• Kirk's Rock: In the final sketch, the distinctive rock formation is plainly visible in the distance during a chase scene.
• Lady Land: The eponymous Amazons.
• Large Ham: All over the place, but especially the cast of the bad B-Movie and the pirate captain played by William Marshall.
• Lunarians: The Amazons.
• Metafictional Title: The film takes its name from the cheesy 1950s B-Movie being shown on late night TV within the film.
• Minidress of Power: The standard uniform for the eponymous Amazon Brigade.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • The "video date" segment goes from watching a hot woman (played by Corrine Wahl) strip for the video camera to her jealous boyfriend (Andrew "Dice" Clay!) showing up with a gun and performing a horrifying murder-suicide.
  • Several of the film skips cause this to happen, with one having the astronauts go from a completely empty throne room to one filled with the titular amazons.
• Mythology Gag:
  • One of the golden tapes the Video Pirates plunder is marked Cleopatra Schwartz. Another is marked See You Next Wednesday, which kept popping up in Landis' films. You can also see a VHS copy of Animal House at one point.
  • One to Universal's B-Movies: The titular movie opens with the 50s Universal-International globe, and the music heard is from This Island Earth.
  • The producer of Amazon Women on the Moon is Samuel L. Bronkowitz, who had been previously referenced in The Kentucky Fried Movie as a producer of fictional movies in that film.
  • After the credits, just like in Animal House, it encourages the viewers to visit Universal Studios and "Ask for Babs".
• Naked People Are Funny: Two wildly different interpretations of this trope are presented in "Pethouse Video" and "Son of the Invisible Man"
• Noodle Incident: Due to the constant cutaways, several parts of the title feature are only alluded to.
• Oblivious Janitor Cut: A street sweeper barely notices a body hitting the sidewalk behind him in a shower of broken glass.
• Production Foreshadowing: Another one of the golden tapes is marked Police Squad: The Movie.
• Running Gag:
  • Murray in his underwear popping up in random fashion on the various shows (he's still trapped inside his new TV due to hitting the wrong button on the remote).
    "Selmaaaaaa!"
  • Every time the viewer changes back to "Amazon Women on the Moon", its year of production is different.
• Scenery Censor: In the "Son of the Invisible Man" segment, Griffin (who thinks that he is invisible) plays Invisible Streaker while the pub patrons pretend not to notice him. Strategically placed furniture protects his modesty (from the audience, at least). Noticeably, the same does not happen when Monique Gabrielle is walking around naked in the "Pethouse Video" segment.
• Self-Demonstrating Article: Towards the start, we see a commercial from an older man on how today's youth have short attention spans. He tells the viewer how teenagers have been "weaned on television" and how they can't concentrate on something for more than a few momen—(static as channel switches)
• Self-Deprecation: Monique Gabrielle plays a parody of herself as a "Pethouse Plaything."
• Shoot Out the Lock: The Captain of the Video Pirates does this to open a treasure chest of videotapes.
• Show Within a Show: A number of them, most notably the title feature they keep trying to show.
• Slapstick: Arsenio Hall's sketch in which he's repeatedly harmed by objects in his apartment. It's exaggerated to such a degree that it's almost a parody of the genre.
• Slurpasaur: The astronauts are attacked a dinosaur that is some kind of lizard with horns attached.
• Soul Brotha: Parodied with the singer Don "No Soul" Simmons.
• Space Clothes: The typical Amazon wears what can best be described as a Minidress of Power and high heels.
• The Stinger: A parody of Reefer Madness warning about "Social Diseases", with Carrie Fisher.
• Too Dumb to Live: A guy doses himself with every chemical known to man. He doesn't turn invisible, he goes completely bonkers.
  • Harvey Pitnik comes across two film critics reviewing his entire life which naturally freaks him out more as it goes on. They eventually say that he will die of a heart attack and rather than attempt to calm himself down as quickly as possible, he starts freaking out even more, leading to the above occuring.
• Trapped in TV Land: Murray gets sucked into the TV and wanders in and out of scenes trying to find his way out.
• Trojan Gauntlet: The sequence in which a youth tries to buy a package of condoms. After hitting some of the usual aspects of this trope (embarrassment because the pharmacist is a family friend, etc.), the trope is spoofed when the youth is surprised by the president of the condom company coming out of hiding and informing him that he is the condom company's one millionth customer. This "wins" him the privilege of being the condom company's public mascot for a year, at the cost of entirely spoiling his planned evening of passion.
• Umpteenth Customer: A boy who goes to a drug store to buy condoms (discreetly) for his date not only wins a prize...but becomes their spokesman, much to his horror.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Monique Gabrielle walks around completely naked everywhere, in public, museums and even church. Nobody bats an eye.
• We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties: All over the main feature, with the announcer constantly saying "There will be no further interruptions"
• What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: Something the human male astronauts are eager to teach to the Amazon women.
• The Whitest Black Guy: A PSA for "Blacks Without Soul," who sing dorky songs like "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" and are David Hartman fans (he was the original anchor on Good Morning America) and Republicans.

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