Directed by Ed Hansen Starring Candie Evans, Kitten Natividad, Buck Flower Unrated USA
"Oh, great, here comes the resident douchebag. Fuck off, banana sucker."
Takin' It All Off is strange for a lot of reasons, but perhaps the most prominent is that it's actually two (terrible) films at the same time. On the one hand, it's a direct sequel to 1985's Takin' It Off. In fact, it begins with TIO star Betty Big Ones (Kitten Natividad), now "the world's most famous stripper", zooming around in a limo while she tweaks her nipples. But then it abruptly cuts to a stripper school taught by a mincing John F Goff and attended by porn star Candie Evans and Brit Page 3 girl Gail Harris. And that, of course, is exactly the scenario and cast of Hansen's other '87 production, Party Favors. So what, exactly, was Ed Hansen trying to do here? Did he think no one would notice?
I bet that's exactly what he thought.
Becky LeBeau (Joysticks, Hollywood Hot Tubs) stars as Becky (easier to remember that way), who has started this free-to-attend erotic aerobics school. While admission is gratis, the girls must agree to give Becky 20% of their earnings after graduation in perpetuity, which seems a little extreme to me. However, since no one has a job yet, the school is in debt, and if they don't come up with $4,000 in 30 days, they'll get shut down. Obviously, they need stripper jobs to save the school.
But first, the girls all take a shower. And then, somewhere else entirely, Kitten takes a shower. So there's that.
Allison (Candie Evans) has come to LA from god knows where to be a professional actor/dancer. Her dad (Buck Flowers) sold the hog farm to pay for her lessons, and they have come to naught, so as a last ditch effort, she shows up at Becky's school, with Buck in tow. A topless Becky waltzes in and asks Allison to audition, so she slips into a pink leotard and dances around. Everybody loves it, and she joins the gang. Then Elliot (Goff) announces that he's got them all an audition with his friend Bobby, who owns a strip club. They all trundle over to Bobby's patio (the same patio that served as a fat farm in Takin' It Off), and all the girls perform strip routines - in real time, mind you - except for Allison, who can't bring herself to bare any flesh.
Bobby is disappointed, but tells Eliot he'll hire the whole crew if Allison whips 'em out. Elliot spends the month trying to train Allison in the art of top-doffing, but it's an uphill battle. In the meantime, she falls in love with the towel boy, Adam (Geno Hart; his twin brother Dash co-stars as a moron). Becky remembers that Betty Big Ones had the same healthy aversion to public nudity once, and that she got hypnotized to get over it. Elliot tells Becky he'll call her and ask her about it. This gives Hansen the golden opportunity to insert several minutes of Kitten's strip routine in the first movie. In an editing choice worthy of Ed Wood, Betty walks off the stage naked and then enters her dressing room clothed and with a different haircut.
Elliot asks Betty about the hypnotism, which gives Hansen yet another chance to recycle footage, this time of that crazy fuckin' doctor Lucifer Chaser. He makes a rare housecall to see Allison, and hypnotizes her while "Boing!" noises are heard on the soundtrack. The trick works, and Allison does her first striptease on the patio. This is followed by another dance from Kitten, this time to a cheeseball metal song.
Here's the problem, though: now every time Allison hears the Takin' It Off theme song, she strips. Even at a restaurant, or the laundromat, or in the middle of a park, in front of nuns (and a black guy dressed up like a robot)! Clearly, this cannot go on, so Eliot flits off to find Lucifer so he can reverse the curse. Betty Big Ones suggests that Alison take a long, hot shower while they're waiting. And so she does.
Lucifer gets arrested for inciting pagan orgies at the old folk's home, so he cannot reverse the hypnosis spell on Allison. He gives the cops the slip, and yells something about "desire reversal' to Betty on the way out. And then they all go to Bobby's club for their big debut show. Will Allison ever be free of her curse? Will she find true love with the retarded towel boy? Will we find out 'desire reversal' means? Will it turn out to be fucking stupid? Will the cops finally catch up with the elusive Dr Chaser? And is this whole shoddy mess worth the gargantuan effort it takes to sit through it?
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, no.
Seriously, even Ed and Buck had to be a little embarrassed with this one. Total junk. I'll give 'em one thing, though: they did not cheat on the title. There's a lot of fuzzy 80's bush on display. Oh, and LeBeau's tits are amazing, even if her acting is not.
Availability: Takin' It All Off is available on VHS.
As Viva opens, we meet Mark (Biller regular Jared Sanford), the quintessential 70's man. He's boastful, horny, and unattractive. With his lop-sided helmet of hair and yellow slacks, he looks like everyone's pervy uncle. Mark lounges around his pool, chain smoking and fiddling with his new camera. His bosomy blonde wife Sheila (Bridget Brno,Caffeine) comes out to greet him. "Good morning, lover," she purrs. "You call this morning?" He says, nonsensically. And then they both laugh like mental patients. Sheila tosses a few cubes of ice into her glass and Mark splashes in some Dewars. Then she picks up his copy of Playboy. "Coffee and the paper," she says. "The perfect breakfast!" And then they both laugh again.
Viva is the sort of film that you will know instantly whether you like or not. The acting is purposefully wooden, a clear homage to Doris Wishman's ineptitude and John Waters' aggro-camp. There is not one naturalistic performance in the entire film, and if Mark's droll laughter puts you off, things will only get worse from there. I can see why Viva is such a polarizing film, but I was riveted by this scene. As a small child growing up in the 70's, this is the kinda crazy bullshit I suspected was going on, but could not prove and would not understand even if I saw it. You can watch Viva and think Biller is putting you on, but she's really not that far off the mark. This is pretty much exactly the way I remember the 1970's.
Sheila settles down by the pool and leafs through the faded magazine (all the vintage books and magazine in Viva really are vintage, which is a distracting detail. They really should look brand new, shouldn't they?), pointing out that her "bustline" is better than any of the girls in the magazine. Mark agrees. "That's right, honey," he says. "If I can say one thing about you, you've got great tits." They start discussing the possibility of an impromptu nude shoot right there in their backyard, when their friend and neighbor Barbie (Biller) shows up. They ask her why she's visiting. "Sheer boredom," she tells them, in a zombie monotone.
Anna Biller's sultry look in Viva appears to be influenced in equal measure by Tura Satana and Divine, but her performance is very much her own creation. She appears to be constantly posing, as if invisible paparazzi are snapping candids of her. At the same time, her flat affect suggests an over-medicated depressive with very little attachment to her own body. Barbie goes through the motions as required by the situation at hand - posing in her bikini with Sheila as Mark snaps pictures, or running around the grabby boss's desk as he chases her - but she always seems faraway, lost in some modestly-dressed Neverland where she's not constantly being pawed and pursued by men because of her soft, feminine figure.
Of course, her choice of clothing might have something to do with the powerful attraction men have for her. Barbie seriously enjoys sheer nighties. She is dressed in a particularly fetching peach-colored number when her leisure-suit n' toupee sporting hubby Rick (the awesomely named Chad England) comes home from a hard day at the office. She explains to him that she's been fired from her secretary job (she didn't let the boss catch her), and would like to become a model. He laughs and makes sweet 70's love to her on the floor. And then they throw a barbeque complete with deviled eggs and a Jello mold.
Rick leaves town on business, and Barbie decides to pursue this modeling lark. Her first stop is the Gladstone modeling agency, where she meets Miss Marker (Veronica Alicino), who looks her over and decides that, with a new hairdo and a makeover, she might be able to get her some work in "Catalogs and...art movies." Miss Marker sends her to the hairdressers and then suggests the two meet later for a private photo shoot at her house. "It'll probably go late," Miss Marker purrs, "But you can sleep over my house if you want."
Barbie visits Sherman (Barry Morse), a mincing, glam-rock hairdresser with a makeshift salon in his apartment and a belligerent next-door neighbor, Reeves (Cole Chipman), who comes over to watch him "work". The dandified barber doses their milkshakes, and Reeves attempts to seduce the drugged Barbie, but she passes out. So he just fucks the hairdresser instead. Barbie wakes up the next morning and takes off. Rick's had it with her new adventures in self-empowerment and splits, maybe for good.
Mark has also left Sheila, so she calls up Barbie and tells her to put on something sexy. She has a plan to capitalize on their newfound freedom, although she hasn't worked out the kinks yet. They dress up in see-through outfits and head into the city. "Isn't this exciting?" Sheila asks. "Two girls in the big city without husbands!" "Yes," Barbie agrees, but what should we do?" "I don't know," Sheila shrugs. "Let's go stand over there and think about it." And that's exactly what they do. While the two women in their racy outfits stand in a doorway and ponder their next move, Mrs James (Carole Balkan), a madam from the local brothel, spies them from her binoculars She trots over to them and compliments them on their sexy outfits. "We want to have adventure," Sheila explains.
Mrs. James convinces them to try the exotic world of escort services, promising them they don't have to have sex with the men if they don't want to. Their first client is middle-aged doctor with a spanking fetish. They gently swat him and giggle. Afterward, he hands them a pile of cash. Things are going well.
Sheila changes her name to Candy. Then she dreams about purple horses and sings in the bathtub while chugging scotch. Barbie, now calling herself Viva, takes a gig at a nudist colony. Annie McAuley, from classic 80's Canuck teensploitation flicks Recruits and Loose Screws, is lounging in a hot tub when she gets there, and informs her that she'll have to get naked if she plans on sticking around. She refuses, but there's so many naked people already in the frame that it hardly matters. It is also remarkable how 70's people look when they're naked and either sitting in hot tubs or playing acoustic guitars.
By the way, there's an all-nude acoustic folk-rock interlude at this point. How could there not be, really?
Barbie bones the folk singer, Elmer (Paolo Davanzo), but the next morning, she finds herself unsatisfied. "I thought I would hate myself for this," Barbie tells her hippy lover. "But I don't. I hate you."
Mrs James sends her out again, this time to see an edgy pop-art mogul with a British accent named Clyde (Marcus DeAnda). Despite finding him unattractive and off-putting, Viva moves into his space-age bachelor pad. Clyde introduces her to his way-out friends, including a Mr. Furley-esque grandpa named Arthur (John Klemantaski), who asks her to audition for his all-nude musical, and a foxy black chick named Agnes (Robbin Ryan), who she has a romantic fling with. Barbie's new life is going pretty well, until Arthur barges in one day and rapes her. Imagine being raped by Don Knotts?
Meanwhile, Mark has moved into a new, shag-lined luxury condo complete with nude women who show up to borrow liquor. Staring straight at the camera with a bubbly naked redhead (Andrea Lain) on his lap, Mark sums up the 70's: "There has never been a better time to be a man," he says. "The willing women, the dandy clothes, the frills, the big rings and jewelry, the open shirts, the sense of entitlement. Take it from me: savor this time, for it will soon be gone, never to return."
I very nearly wept.
Despite the fact that she's been enjoying his hospitality and wealth, Barbie/Viva has yet to consummate her relationship with Clyde. Frustrated, he visits Mrs. James who, after all, set Barbie up with him the first place. "She wants to be my friend," he scoffs. "Honestly, who wants to be friends with a girl?" Mrs. James gives him a pill that will put Barbie into a "trance state". I'm not sure how that helps, but Ok.
Clyde throws a sex party straight out of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Barbie wears an Egyptian goddess outfit. "Wow, you turn me on," random mustache dude tells her. "Turn you on?" Viva mocks, puffing on her cigarette. "I turn all men on." Viva performs an ear-battering musical number while people fuck on the floor all around her but nearly passes out from Clyde's weird pill. Mark recognizes his old neighbor and rushes to help (the only moment in the entire film, by the way, where a character shows any compassion whatsoever), but Clyde shoos him away, whisking Viva away to his bedroom. She starts hallucinating in cartoons while Clyde ravishes her supple body.
Things are sorta getting out of hand for our drowsy heroine. Will she continue down this dark path of cheap sex and designer drugs, or will she remember who she really is and rush back home to Rick? And where the fuck is Rick, anyway?
These questions and a fistful of others you haven't even thought of yet all get answered in the thrilling and sugar-sweet climax of Viva.
At two-plus hours (in the unrated Cult Epics DVD, at any rate), Viva is a commitment, on many levels. It definitely rides the thin line between eye-rolling performance art and dead-on kitsch, and is probably a tough watch for anyone not accustomed to soul-draining 60's and 70's sexploiters from the bottom of Doris Wishman and Harry Novak's trash barrels. But for freaks like you and I, it's pure z-movie delirium, a dizzy Nyquil cocktail of loony fashions, wall-to-wall nudity, and painful musical interludes. I could watch it everyday. Especially if I had a white shag rug to lounge on, and an endless supply of Dewars and Kents to keep me company.
Boners will most definitely be popped. And they'll be 1972 boners, which are the best kind.
Directed by Will Gluck Starring Nicholas D'Agosto, Eric Olsen, John Michael Higgins, Sara Roemer Rated PG-13 USA
"Well, you know what John Lennon once said..." "No, I don't. I'm not 50. I could ask my dad."
The latter half of the 00's has seen a resurgence in the classic teen sex comedy. Spawned largely by the success of Superbad (2007) and bolstered by the depression and malaise of a failing US economy - escapism is always big in trying times - the modern T.S.C. has two standards modes of operation: the balls-out raunch-fest (College, Sex Drive, 18 Year Old Virgin) and the PG-13 rated, tits-free teasers (The House Bunny, The Hottie and the Nottie). Fired Up attempts to straddle both worlds. On the one hand, there's no nudity, and nobody says "Fuck". On the other hand, the film is specifically about banging cheerleaders, and there's one flagship scene that involves an entire squad rehearsing in their bras and panties. And as we all know, cheerleaders in their underwear equals regular girls naked. So you almost don't notice the tween-baiting emasculation of the PG rating.
Shawn (Nicholas D'Agosto) and Nick (Eric Olsen) are football stars at Gerald Ford High School. By default, this also makes them cocksmen and cads. Indeed, when we first meet them, they've already slept with most of the girls at Gerald Ford, and are looking for fresh meat. It's the end of their junior year, and they're expected to spend the next two weeks at football camp. This year, they're supposed to travel to Texas, and practice their runs and tackles under a merciless summer sun. They are really not into it.
Nick comes up with the capital idea to join their school's failing cheer-squad, the Tigers, so that they can attend a three-week cheer camp, where they are very likely to be the only hetero males among 300 young and agile girls. Clearly, the sexual possibilities are limitless in this scenario. Luckily for our lads, their school's cheer squad, the Tigers are currently last place in the Nationals, largely because they have no strapping young men in their ranks to toss them around effectively. A couple penises in the mix would surely help out their cause. First, however, they have to find a way out of football camp. No easy feat, when your growling, foul-mouthed coach is Phillip Baker Hall (AKA Mr. Bookman, the library cop from Sienfield). They make up the usual cockamamie stories about dying grandmothers and beg off the Texas trip. Next, they have to talk their way onto the squad. Head cheerleader Carly (Sara Roemer) is, not surprisingly, wary of the two scheming virgin killers, but after consulting Shawn's crafty younger sister Poppy (Juliette Goglia), a JV member of the squad, they come up with a showy demonstration of their powers to throw people around, and so, find themselves on the way to Cheer Camp.
After an exhausting bus trip (Nick and Shawn quickly find out that cheerleaders cheer about everything, even riding on busses and eating hamburgers), they make it the vaginal wonderland that is cheerleader camp. When they first arrive, the scene is like something out of a Bollywood musical, with dozens of synchronized cheerleader squads bouncing, jumping and stretching as far as the eyes can see. It is a majestic and impressive sight.
There are a lot of characters involved in this story. There are, of course, the Tigers. There's the virginal head cheerleader Carly, Angela (Haylay Marie Norman,Trailer Park of Terror), the foxy black one, Sylvia (Margo Harshman,), the psychotic neo-goth, and Marcy (Nicole Tubiola), the lesbian. There's the expected rival team, The Panthers, a group of gaunt man-eaters who dress in black, walk in tight formation, and would clearly kill to keep their standing as the number one cheer-squad.
You've got gay kids, including Shawn and Nick's happy go lucky bunkmate Jack (Adhir Kalyan, who, unfortunately, provides the film's only nude scene), a bunch of slapstick-y mascots, a douchebag boyfriend (more on him later) and two camp counselors, husband and wife team Keith (John Michael Higgins) and Diora (Molly Sims).
Nick immediately decides he must have sex with Diora, and launches into as many weird pick-up lines as he can ("So, are you into canopy beds?"). Interestingly, Nick's relentless cougar-hunt is flecked with ageist jokes, i.e. "It shouldn't be too hard to bag her, she's ancient! She's gotta be 30!" The irony of those lines is that the rubber-faced Olsen was already in his 30's himself when they shot Fired Up. It is, of course, a grand tradition in teen sex comedies to insert older actors into teenage roles - 1991's Virgin High starred Linnea Quigley as a Catholic high school girl, and she was 33 at the time - but Fired Up is especially shameless about Olsen. There are scenes where he's shot in sun-drenched close-ups, and you can clearly see his proto-crow's feet.
Coach Keith, not surprisingly, is a highlight of the film. John Michael Higgins has, at this point, developed his clueless/enthusiastic/possibly gay routine into a character that's as seamlessly all-consuming as Robert Englund in his Freddy Krueger days. If he did have a script, he clearly didn't need it. Coach amps up his gang of cheer-girls with a confusing and rambling opening monologue that ends with an inappropriate story about how the doctor told his mother that he burst out of her vagina already waving his "Spirit hands". When he's met with blank stares from the girls, he tries to laugh it off. "Um, That was a joke," he says. "Except it really happened."
Because you always have to have a love story in these films, Shawn starts to fall for the head cheerleader, Carly, but she's dating a college guy, Rick (David Walton, another 30 year old). Rick is the classic teen sex com ass-head. A pre-med student, he refers to himself as 'Dr. Rick' ("Why prolong the inevitable?), drives a flashy convertible, and listens exclusively to tacky 90's hits. Just when you think you've gotten Chumbawamba and Deep Blue Something's 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' out of your skull, there's Dr fucking Dickface to shove it back in. Of course, Rick is also cheating on Carly. Fired Up piles so many ugly attributes on Rick that he's more of a caricature then a real character, but still, you'll definitely want to punch him in the mouth.
Meanwhile, life goes on at cheer camp. Routines are developed and rivalries sharpen.
After scoring with an abundance of cheerleaders (all they do is make-out in this PG-rated world, but close enough for rock n' roll) Shawn starts to develop a conscience. Nick, on the other hand, cons an entire squad to strip to their scivvies and frolic in a lake (Jack tags along and goes for the full monty). So far, Fired Up has been relatively conflict-free, so when the third-act drama shows up, it seems especially contrived, but whatever. Dr Rick discovers that the boys had plans to leave the camp after two weeks, bailing on the Tigers before the climactic cheerleading competition. Why? Because a guy can only deal with so much pussy, apparently, before he wants to go home and pound beers with his idiot friends. "It's like the all you can eat breadsticks at Olive Garden," Nick explains to Shawn. "After awhile, you're full, and suddenly you're wondering what you're doing in this restaurant surrounded by fat people." After presenting the evidence to Carly and Coach Keith, Shawn and Nick are sent packing. Dejected, they attempt to go back to their moronic jock lives, but Shawn is too smitten, and Nick still hasn't scored with Molly Sims, so they make the heroic trek back to Cheer Camp. Will they make it in time for the competition? Will they pull off the nearly impossible 'Fountain of Troy' maneuver? And will Shawn finally bone Coach Diora?
Probably. Things usually work out for cheerleaders.
In summation: Funny and as raunchy as you can get with a PG rating, which, given its central theme, was a strange choice to make. Clearly, the premise had the potential for full-on raunch on an almost nuclear scale. Still, the script (By first-time screenwriter Freedom Jones, whose name annoys me) is surprisingly witty and flecked with lots of Apatow-esque improvisation, especially from the awesomely snarky 13 year old Goglia, and even if they're fully clothed, there's a veritable feast of eye-candy on display, including Reomer, who is beyond adorable.
Gimme an F notwithstanding, you rarely go wrong with a cheerleader movie, and Fired Up is no exception. Laughs, witty lines, and PG-rated boners...what more could you ask for?
Well, you could ask for tits. But besides that, I mean.
Availability: as of this writing, Fired Up is still in theaters.
Directed by Ron Casden Starring Jim Dye, Kim Delaney, Morgan Fairchild PG USA
"If I see 30 dwarves coming out of a Volkswagon, you're dead meat."
In Campus Man, an opportunistic huckster named Todd (John Dye) finds himself in a proverbial pickle when his scholarship at Arizona State falls through, and he's left with a $10,000 tuition bill. He's given a 30-day grace period to scrape up the dough, or he'll be expelled. His previous get-rich-quick scheme, a Girls of ASU calendar, didn't quite pay the bills, so he decides to go the other way completely, and produce a beefcake calendar based on the hunky good looks of his best friend/roommate, swim-team star Brett (Steve Lyon, Valet Girls).
I know what you're thinking: sounds sorta gay porn-y. Well, just wait until the shower scene.
First, however, we meet Cactus Jack. Mr. Jack (Miles O'Keefe, the vine-swinger himself from 1981 howler Tarzan, the Ape Man) is some sort of mysterious loan-shark who advertises on bright yellow flyers. Todd finds one after being tossed out of every bank in Phoenix and meets the glowering man-in-black in the desert. Jack (Or 'CJ', as Todd likes to call him) wears tight jeans and hair-gel and carries around a briefcase full of cash and a gun.
Todd explains his idea for an all-male pin-up calendar to CJ, and at first, he is not so into it. "You got the wrong guy for that kinda shit," he growls. But Todd eventually wears him down and he hands him $12,000 in cash, which our bright-eyed entrepreneur must pay back in 30 days with 30% interest. If not, "We'll meet back here," hisses CJ. "Only we won't have as much fun." I'm not sure what that means. Sorta felt like sodomy would be involved.
Money secured, Todd needs to find a willing crew to produce his calendar, so he begs his frienemy Molly (the Molly Ringwald-esqueKathleen Wilhoite, instantly recognizable from her role as the screwy punk rock medium Zarabeth in Witchboard (1986), editor of the school paper, to help him. She agrees, and from there, it's a man-hunt. Todd finds a bunch of willing calendar boys from the school's various sports teams, but has yet to convince Brett. So he barges in on the dude while he's taking a shower with the rest of the swim team.
This is not the first time a teen comedy has had a men's shower scene - there's one in genre classic The Cheerleaders(1970). But in that, the dudes were lathering up Stephanie Fondue. And she's nowhere to be found in this one.
Brett agrees (there's an uncomfortable on-his-knees moment there, when Todd feigns an injury) and they get to work. The next several minutes are taken up with the calendar shoot, shot 80's montage style, while Timbuk 3's "My Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades" plays on the soundtrack. It was at that moment when I remembered that, besides the Replacements and a decent hairline, I really kinda hated the 80's. The calendar-release party Todd throws afterward, where people drink Perrier and dance to Corey Hart and chubby girls with seriously bad hair primp in the bathroom mirror, certainly does not help.
At this point, you may be wondering if there are girls in this at all. Well, there's one. Future primetime TV star Kim Delaney (NYPD Blue, CSI, Law and Order, etc) is Dayna, Brett's love interest. But we only get a couple glimpses of her, and even then...where'd that bathing suit come from, 1956?
Meanwhile, over in New York City, Katherine Van Buren (Morgan Fairchild!) is holding court at Image Magazine. "We need a new image at Image," she says. She explains her new concept to her staff: she wants to find a "Man of the 80s" to splatter all over their January 1988 issue and then exploit on shows like 'Letterman and Donahue.' I don't know what she's talking about, but somehow, she got a copy of Todd's Calendar and decides to use Brett as her Man of the 80's. This comes at a good time, because after he paid his tuition, Todd had no money left to pay Cactus Jack, and now has to give him double the dough or it's sodomy-in-the-desert time. Van Buren takes them out drinking and does her best to talk Brett into it.
Despite the profit potential, Brett doesn't want to do it, because it would upset his precious diving team, but when he finds a threatening letter from Cactus Jack, he decides to help his insistent friend out. He signs the contract and then competes in a diving competition. The way they shot it, it seemed like there was at least a 10% chance that he'd smack his head on the diving board and die, bringing a merciful end to Campus Man, but alas, he scored "9 Bingo".
So, Brett finds out that because he signed the Image contract, he's off the team. Some bullshit about his amateur status. He gets so mad at Todd that he moves out. "Our friendship was really special," he sniffs. "It didn't need anything from the outside." With a tear in his eye, he picks up his bag, says, "I think we should just avoid each other for now. I just need some time to think." This is a conversation between two dudes, mind you.
Luckily, he runs into Dayna and makes out with her, and then Todd goes to a biker bar and gets his stupid face mashed, which alleviated a bit of the homoeroticism gently wafting through this film. But then Cactus Jack saves him, and we're back to man-on-man awkwardness. "You know, Todd," Molly says, as she slaps a cold steak on his swollen eye, "Everything about you is undesirable." Yeah, exactly.
A bunch of stuff happens, and there's a surprise ending. Cactus Jack takes the gel out his hair to reveal some kind of Eastern European mullet. That's not the surprise, but it was sorta surprising.
Oh, and there's one of those giant 80's mobile phones. Those are always interesting.
Devoid of nudity, laughs, or fun of any kind, Campus Man has nonetheless maintained a cult following over the years. I can only assume that this cult is comprised of gay adolescent males and Morgan Fairchild fetishists. And there's probably a lot of overlap between those two groups.
Director Ron Casden did not make another film, but he did direct The Eyes Have It, a make-up application how-to video by Donna Mills. Which explains everything, really.
Takin' It All Off is strange for a lot of reasons, but perhaps the most prominent is that it's actually two (terrible) films at the same time. On the one hand, it's a direct sequel to 1985's Takin' It Off. In fact, it begins with TIO star Betty Big Ones (Kitten Natividad), now "the world's most famous stripper", zooming around in a limo while she tweaks her nipples. But then it abruptly cuts to a stripper school taught by a mincing John F Goff and attended by porn star Candie Evans and Brit Page 3 girl Gail Harris. And that, of course, is exactly the scenario and cast of Hansen's other '87 production, Party Favors. So what, exactly, was Ed Hansen trying to do here? Did he think no one would notice?
But first, the girls all take a shower. And then, somewhere else entirely, Kitten takes a shower. So there's that.
Allison (Candie Evans) has come to LA from god knows where to be a professional actor/dancer. Her dad (Buck Flowers) sold the hog farm to pay for her lessons, and they have come to naught, so as a last ditch effort, she shows up at Becky's school, with Buck in tow. A topless Becky waltzes in and asks Allison to audition, so she slips into a pink leotard and dances around. Everybody loves it, and she joins the gang. Then Elliot (Goff) announces that he's got them all an audition with his friend Bobby, who owns a strip club. They all trundle over to Bobby's patio (the same patio that served as a fat farm in Takin' It Off), and all the girls perform strip routines - in real time, mind you - except for Allison, who can't bring herself to bare any flesh.
Bobby is disappointed, but tells Eliot he'll hire the whole crew if Allison whips 'em out. Elliot spends the month trying to train Allison in the art of top-doffing, but it's an uphill battle. In the meantime, she falls in love with the towel boy, Adam (Geno Hart; his twin brother Dash co-stars as a moron). Becky remembers that Betty Big Ones had the same healthy aversion to public nudity once, and that she got hypnotized to get over it. Elliot tells Becky he'll call her and ask her about it. This gives Hansen the golden opportunity to insert several minutes of Kitten's strip routine in the first movie. In an editing choice worthy of Ed Wood, Betty walks off the stage naked and then enters her dressing room clothed and with a different haircut.
Elliot asks Betty about the hypnotism, which gives Hansen yet another chance to recycle footage, this time of that crazy fuckin' doctor Lucifer Chaser. He makes a rare housecall to see Allison, and hypnotizes her while "Boing!" noises are heard on the soundtrack. The trick works, and Allison does her first striptease on the patio. This is followed by another dance from Kitten, this time to a cheeseball metal song.
Here's the problem, though: now every time Allison hears the Takin' It Off theme song, she strips. Even at a restaurant, or the laundromat, or in the middle of a park, in front of nuns (and a black guy dressed up like a robot)! Clearly, this cannot go on, so Eliot flits off to find Lucifer so he can reverse the curse. Betty Big Ones suggests that Alison take a long, hot shower while they're waiting. And so she does.
Seriously, even Ed and Buck had to be a little embarrassed with this one. Total junk. I'll give 'em one thing, though: they did not cheat on the title. There's a lot of fuzzy 80's bush on display. Oh, and LeBeau's tits are amazing, even if her acting is not.
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, a make-up application how-to video by 
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