Canned Film Festival
Encyclopedia
The Canned Film Festival was a nationally syndicated late night television
comedy
series that aired in the United States
for a single season in the summer of 1986. With only a one-letter difference in the spelling, the name is an intentional play on the name for the Cannes Film Festival
, the annual world-renowned film-screening celebration in Cannes
, France
. Not to be confused with the latter, the Canned Film Festival featured B movies as the centerpiece for each television episode, and was composed of short vignettes
interwoven throughout the films. Boasting the tagline
"late night with the best of the worst," the series was promoted and sponsored by the Dr Pepper Company
, whose then-tagline "out-of-the-ordinary" echoed the show's collection of odd and strange movies. The series was created by Young & Rubicam
and developed for television by Chelsea Communications, LLC (a company later acquired by the now bankrupt Adelphia Communications Corporation).
Although similar in style to the successful Mystery Science Theater 3000
series that aired a few years later, the Canned Film Festival differed in that its comedy scenes occurred strictly during the commercial intermissions instead of adding peanut gallery
type satire during the actual run of the movies. In addition, the script, although comedic in nature, often reflected upon the serious contextual and cultural subjects contained in the featured movies, sometimes providing historical insight into their production. An example is seen during the episode featuring Project Moonbase
, where female spaceship commanders were discussed as an accurate future prediction by the 1950s era movie, as were cordless telephone
s and big screen televisions
. The featured B movies of the series were not full-length, and edited to fit the show's approximately two hour timeframe per episode.
. With the exception of popcorn and Dr Pepper
, these confections were completely fictional, with names like "Butter Lumps", "Chocolate Covered Lug Nuts", and "Diet-Free Nutra-Cal Bars", and were occasionally the source for minor script material.
As the story maintains during the opening sequence of each episode, the most successful of Laraine's business ventures to rejuvenate the Ritz was, by far, the screening of strange and unusual films that resulted in the series' namesake. Laraine, together with her mother who ran the projector booth, succeeded in attracting several new customers who became regular characters throughout the rest of the series run.
of Saturday Night Live
fame, whose main character, Laraine the usherette, wore an old-fashioned maroon ushers uniform and ran the Ritz with such strict organization as to assign every patron a seat despite the theater's constant near-empty attendance. Laraine ensured that each movie started exactly on time as scheduled, cuing her mother in the production booth via a microphone. Laraine's mother was never actually named nor completely seen
during any of the episodes, but sometimes communicated by pounding on the walls or playing musical tunes (presumably with an instrument or a sound device in the booth and transmitted through the theater's sound system).
The supporting characters, five in all, were split roughly along gender lines, with three men and two women. The women included Doris (Kathryn Rossetter), a middle-aged aficionado of romantic drama stories, and Becky (Laura Galusha) a girl in her early twenties who offered a young feminist perspective to the movies. The men included Jack (F. Richards Ford), Fitzy (Patrick Garner), and Chan (Philip Nee). Jack, as well as the being the love interest of Becky, was also Limekirk's newspaper reporter who was required to review the movies. Together with the middle-aged Fitzy, the two manifested the stereotypical male-oriented fascinations for lowbrow action, crude sexual innuendos, and took morbid pleasure in making fun of some of the movies' more macabre themes (such as nuclear warfare in the feature Rocket Attack USA).
Chan, in addition to being of Asian descent (as opposed to the rest of the cast being Caucasian), was a mute
who never spoke except during the episode featuring the movie The Slime People where Laraine dreamt that Chan was possessed. What role Chan's character brought to the series is less clear, although he sometimes provided a child-like response to the episode plots, such as taking a spin in one of the lobby's clothes driers after being inspired by the outer-space setting of the featured movie Project Moonbase
. Chan's muteness in the show was only implied, leaving it up to the audience to decide whether or not he could physically speak (although he did laugh on occasion), or if his condition was simply a language barrier written into the script.
-based Dr Pepper Company to break into the late night television market in 1986. It never gained the cult status that Mystery Science Theater 3000 did, nor did it match the Max Headroom
advertising campaign that the rival Coca-Cola Company
ran in the 1980s (although coincidentally, Max Headroom itself was also a television series
that lasted only a short time in the 1980s).
Those that remember the Canned Film Festival might recall the numerous Dr Pepper television commercials
that aired concurrently with the show. These included the post-apocalyptic
and cyberpunk
-toned "Planet Dullzon" and "Cola Wars" ads that alluded to (but never directly addressed) the Coke/Pepsi rivalry
, mentioning only an Orwellian
syndicate that manufactured a soft drink named "Clone Cola". At least two of the "Planet Dullzon" commercials contained alien bar scenes reminiscent of the famous "cantina scene" from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
, and most of them contained a Han Solo
-like main character (Ernie Townsend) wearing a cowboy hat and who was accompanied by a short alien sidekick. Also aired were the Japanese-inspired Godzilla
commercials, where the famous B movie creature and his female counterpart craved giant, billboard
-sized cans of Dr Pepper as a libation
against destroying the city they were attacking. Perhaps motivated by the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey
(or its more recent 1985 sequel, 2010), a Diet Dr Pepper commercial was aired during the series that included a monolithic
-type alien spacecraft visiting a rural trailer-home couple in search of intelligent life. Insulted by the country-folks' offer of a simple diet cola, a flash of light from the alien converted them to English-accented intellectuals wielding Diet Dr Pepper bottles, and transformed their tasteless lawn ornaments to modern abstract art
sculptures. Aside from providing advertisement for the show's main sponsor, the subtle movie references contained in these commercials may be another reason why they were aired alongside the Canned Film Festival.
The series may also be remembered as one of the many little-known works of Laraine Newman's acting career. While she performed in countless supporting roles throughout Hollywood following her tenure on NBC
's Saturday Night Live, her work with the Canned Film Festival is rarely ever credited. The careers of other noteworthy stars also include this show, such as Kathryn Rossetter who played support roles in movies, electronic media (video games), and television shows such as Law & Order
, Cosby
, Touched by an Angel
, L.A. Law
, and Kate & Allie
. Patrick Garner, in addition to appearing in a myriad of TV commercial ads, also made cameos in television shows such as Monsters
, Chappelle's Show
, and Law & Order
, and more recently in theatre, starred as Mr. Cunningham in the Broadway
version of Happy Days The Musical
. Rick Ford (identified as F. Richards Ford in the series credits) made appearances in episodes of Married With Children and Mama's Family
as well as movies like The Tattoo Chase and 12:01 PM
, and is also very active in regional and professional theatre. Laura Galusha's acting career seemed to be brief, as she is recorded to have appeared on screen only once in an episode of CBS Schoolbreak Special
in 1985, whereas Phil Nee (identified as Philip Nee in the series credits), in addition to working behind the camera as a writer and technical crew, has performed several cameos over the years following the series in both movies and television.
The Canned Film Festival's genre-based similarity to Mystery Science Theater 3000
(MST3K) did not stop with the show format. Following its 1988 debut, MST3K featured many of the same films as the Canned Film Festival did two years earlier in 1986. While this coincidence might suggest that the Canned Film Festival was a source of inspiration for MST3Ks creator, Joel Hodgson
, such assertions would be false. In fact, Hodgson states that his vision for MST3K actually came from the 1978 CBS Children's Film Festival
instead. Either way, due its 11-season run (as opposed to the single season Canned Film Festival) it is clear that MST3K was much more successful in the B movie satire genre despite the lack of a large sponsor like the Dr Pepper Company. However, it is also possible that its success over the Canned Film Festival was due to it reaching a wider audience through the then-nascent cable TV
market, and aired at more suitable hours.
s from June through September 1986. The list below is in order of the original air date listed on the Internet Movie Database
using the name of the featured B movie as the episode title, as no other naming format was suggested during the program run.
Late night television
Late night television in the United States is the block of television programming airing after 11:00 pm and usually through 2:00 am. Traditionally, this type of programming airs after the late local news and is most notable for being the daypart used for a particular genre of programming that falls...
comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
series that aired in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
for a single season in the summer of 1986. With only a one-letter difference in the spelling, the name is an intentional play on the name for the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
, the annual world-renowned film-screening celebration in Cannes
Cannes
Cannes is one of the best-known cities of the French Riviera, a busy tourist destination and host of the annual Cannes Film Festival. It is a Commune of France in the Alpes-Maritimes department....
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. Not to be confused with the latter, the Canned Film Festival featured B movies as the centerpiece for each television episode, and was composed of short vignettes
Sketch comedy
A sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting...
interwoven throughout the films. Boasting the tagline
Tagline
A tagline is a variant of a branding slogan typically used in marketing materials and advertising. The idea behind the concept is to create a memorable phrase that will sum up the tone and premise of a brand or product , or to reinforce the audience's memory of a product...
"late night with the best of the worst," the series was promoted and sponsored by the Dr Pepper Company
Dr Pepper/Seven Up
Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc. was a Plano, Texas-based soft-drink manufacturing company created by the merger of Dr Pepper, Inc. and The Seven Up Company on May 19, 1986. The merger was a result of the independent bailouts of both companies and the subsequent FTC blockage of a Dr Pepper merger with...
, whose then-tagline "out-of-the-ordinary" echoed the show's collection of odd and strange movies. The series was created by Young & Rubicam
Young & Rubicam
Y&R is a marketing and communications company specializing in advertising, digital and social media, sales promotion, direct marketing and brand identity consulting.-History:...
and developed for television by Chelsea Communications, LLC (a company later acquired by the now bankrupt Adelphia Communications Corporation).
Although similar in style to the successful Mystery Science Theater 3000
Mystery Science Theater 3000
Mystery Science Theater 3000 is an American cult television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Best Brains, Inc., that ran from 1988 to 1999....
series that aired a few years later, the Canned Film Festival differed in that its comedy scenes occurred strictly during the commercial intermissions instead of adding peanut gallery
Peanut gallery
A peanut gallery is an audience that heckles the performer. The term originated in the days of vaudeville as a nickname for the cheapest seats in the theater; the least expensive snack served at the theater would often be peanuts, which the patrons would sometimes throw at the performers on stage...
type satire during the actual run of the movies. In addition, the script, although comedic in nature, often reflected upon the serious contextual and cultural subjects contained in the featured movies, sometimes providing historical insight into their production. An example is seen during the episode featuring Project Moonbase
Project Moonbase
Project Moonbase is a black-and-white 1953 science fiction film directed by Richard Talmadge. The film is also known as Project Moon Base and is based on a story by Robert A. Heinlein, who shares screenwriting credit...
, where female spaceship commanders were discussed as an accurate future prediction by the 1950s era movie, as were cordless telephone
Cordless telephone
A cordless telephone or portable telephone is a telephone with a wireless handset that communicates via radio waves with a base station connected to a fixed telephone line, usually within a limited range of its base station...
s and big screen televisions
Large-screen television technology
Large-screen television technology developed rapidly in the late 1990s and 2000s. Various thin screen technologies are being developed, but only the liquid crystal display , plasma display and Digital Light Processing were released on the public market...
. The featured B movies of the series were not full-length, and edited to fit the show's approximately two hour timeframe per episode.
Plot summary
The series plot was built around the fictional town of Limekirk, Texas, where the local Ritz theater was undergoing economic and cultural decline due to lack of a customer base. The owner and sole usherette, Laraine (Laraine Newman), took extreme measures to attract moviegoers by adding laundry facilities to the lobby and stocking a large collection of unusual confectionsConfectionery
Confectionery is the set of food items that are rich in sugar, any one or type of which is called a confection. Modern usage may include substances rich in artificial sweeteners as well...
. With the exception of popcorn and Dr Pepper
Dr Pepper
Dr Pepper is a soft drink, marketed as having a unique flavor. The drink was created in the 1880s by Charles Alderton of Waco, Texas and first served around 1885. Dr Pepper was first nationally marketed in the United States in 1904 and is now also sold in Europe, Asia, Canada, Mexico, Australia ...
, these confections were completely fictional, with names like "Butter Lumps", "Chocolate Covered Lug Nuts", and "Diet-Free Nutra-Cal Bars", and were occasionally the source for minor script material.
As the story maintains during the opening sequence of each episode, the most successful of Laraine's business ventures to rejuvenate the Ritz was, by far, the screening of strange and unusual films that resulted in the series' namesake. Laraine, together with her mother who ran the projector booth, succeeded in attracting several new customers who became regular characters throughout the rest of the series run.
Cast and characters
The series starred Laraine NewmanLaraine Newman
Laraine Newman is an American comedienne, actress, and writer, and was part of the original Saturday Night Live cast.-Personal life:...
of Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
fame, whose main character, Laraine the usherette, wore an old-fashioned maroon ushers uniform and ran the Ritz with such strict organization as to assign every patron a seat despite the theater's constant near-empty attendance. Laraine ensured that each movie started exactly on time as scheduled, cuing her mother in the production booth via a microphone. Laraine's mother was never actually named nor completely seen
Unseen character
In fiction, an unseen character is a character that is never directly observed by the audience but is only described by other characters. They are a common device in drama and have been called "triumphs of theatrical invention". They are continuing characters — characters who are currently in...
during any of the episodes, but sometimes communicated by pounding on the walls or playing musical tunes (presumably with an instrument or a sound device in the booth and transmitted through the theater's sound system).
The supporting characters, five in all, were split roughly along gender lines, with three men and two women. The women included Doris (Kathryn Rossetter), a middle-aged aficionado of romantic drama stories, and Becky (Laura Galusha) a girl in her early twenties who offered a young feminist perspective to the movies. The men included Jack (F. Richards Ford), Fitzy (Patrick Garner), and Chan (Philip Nee). Jack, as well as the being the love interest of Becky, was also Limekirk's newspaper reporter who was required to review the movies. Together with the middle-aged Fitzy, the two manifested the stereotypical male-oriented fascinations for lowbrow action, crude sexual innuendos, and took morbid pleasure in making fun of some of the movies' more macabre themes (such as nuclear warfare in the feature Rocket Attack USA).
Chan, in addition to being of Asian descent (as opposed to the rest of the cast being Caucasian), was a mute
Muteness
Muteness or mutism is an inability to speak caused by a speech disorder. The term originates from the Latin word mutus, meaning "silent".-Causes:...
who never spoke except during the episode featuring the movie The Slime People where Laraine dreamt that Chan was possessed. What role Chan's character brought to the series is less clear, although he sometimes provided a child-like response to the episode plots, such as taking a spin in one of the lobby's clothes driers after being inspired by the outer-space setting of the featured movie Project Moonbase
Project Moonbase
Project Moonbase is a black-and-white 1953 science fiction film directed by Richard Talmadge. The film is also known as Project Moon Base and is based on a story by Robert A. Heinlein, who shares screenwriting credit...
. Chan's muteness in the show was only implied, leaving it up to the audience to decide whether or not he could physically speak (although he did laugh on occasion), or if his condition was simply a language barrier written into the script.
Production
Prior to merging with the Seven Up Company in May 1986, Dr Pepper brand development conceived The Canned Film Festival as means to reach a target audience of consumers between ages 12 and 24 by promoting the soft drink as a novel and unconventional refreshment that stood out against the larger cola rivals of the time. David Millheiser, manager of brand development for Dr Pepper at the time, hoped to attract a young audience who would view the featured films as "wonderfully bad". However, the effort was short-lived, as the series lasted for only one season in the summer of 1986. Although plans were made for a second season as evidenced by the first season end credits that solicited viewers to submit their favorite "best of the worst" movies via mail correspondence, it was not known how far these plans had progressed when the series was cancelled.Popular culture influences
Overall, the Canned Film Festival can best be described as a failed advertising attempt by the DallasDallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
-based Dr Pepper Company to break into the late night television market in 1986. It never gained the cult status that Mystery Science Theater 3000 did, nor did it match the Max Headroom
Max Headroom (character)
Max Headroom is a fictional British artificial intelligence, known for his wit and stuttering, distorted, electronically sampled voice. The character was created by George Stone, Annabel Jankel, and Rocky Morton in the mid nineteen eighties, and portrayed by Matt Frewer as "The World's first...
advertising campaign that the rival Coca-Cola Company
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
ran in the 1980s (although coincidentally, Max Headroom itself was also a television series
Max Headroom (TV series)
Max Headroom is a British-produced American science fiction television series by Chrysalis/Lakeside Productions that aired in the United States on ABC from March 1987 to May 1988. The series was based on the Channel 4 British TV pilot Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future...
that lasted only a short time in the 1980s).
Those that remember the Canned Film Festival might recall the numerous Dr Pepper television commercials
Television advertisement
A television advertisement or television commercial, often just commercial, advert, ad, or ad-film – is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization that conveys a message, typically one intended to market a product...
that aired concurrently with the show. These included the post-apocalyptic
Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction
Apocalyptic fiction is a sub-genre of science fiction that is concerned with the end of civilization due to a potentially existential catastrophe such as nuclear warfare, pandemic, extraterrestrial attack, impact event, cybernetic revolt, technological singularity, dysgenics, supernatural...
and cyberpunk
Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk is a postmodern and science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk, and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983...
-toned "Planet Dullzon" and "Cola Wars" ads that alluded to (but never directly addressed) the Coke/Pepsi rivalry
Cola wars
The Cola Wars are a campaign of mutually-targeted television advertisements and marketing campaigns since the 1980s between soft drink manufacturers Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo Incorporated.- Competition :...
, mentioning only an Orwellian
Orwellian
"Orwellian" describes the situation, idea, or societal condition that George Orwell identified as being destructive to the welfare of a free society...
syndicate that manufactured a soft drink named "Clone Cola". At least two of the "Planet Dullzon" commercials contained alien bar scenes reminiscent of the famous "cantina scene" from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, originally released as Star Wars, is a 1977 American epic space opera film, written and directed by George Lucas. It is the first of six films released in the Star Wars saga: two subsequent films complete the original trilogy, while a prequel trilogy completes the...
, and most of them contained a Han Solo
Han Solo
Han Solo is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise played by Harrison Ford. Introduced in the film Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope , Solo and his Wookiee co-pilot, Chewbacca , become involved in the Rebel Alliance against the Galactic Empire...
-like main character (Ernie Townsend) wearing a cowboy hat and who was accompanied by a short alien sidekick. Also aired were the Japanese-inspired Godzilla
Godzilla
is a daikaijū, a Japanese movie monster, first appearing in Ishirō Honda's 1954 film Godzilla. Since then, Godzilla has gone on to become a worldwide pop culture icon starring in 28 films produced by Toho Co., Ltd. The monster has appeared in numerous other media incarnations including video games,...
commercials, where the famous B movie creature and his female counterpart craved giant, billboard
Billboard (advertising)
A billboard is a large outdoor advertising structure , typically found in high traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertisements to passing pedestrians and drivers...
-sized cans of Dr Pepper as a libation
Libation
A libation is a ritual pouring of a liquid as an offering to a god or spirit or in memory of those who have died. It was common in many religions of antiquity and continues to be offered in various cultures today....
against destroying the city they were attacking. Perhaps motivated by the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
(or its more recent 1985 sequel, 2010), a Diet Dr Pepper commercial was aired during the series that included a monolithic
The Monolith
Monoliths are fictional advanced machines built by an unseen extraterrestrial species that appear in Arthur C. Clarke's Space Odyssey series of novels and films....
-type alien spacecraft visiting a rural trailer-home couple in search of intelligent life. Insulted by the country-folks' offer of a simple diet cola, a flash of light from the alien converted them to English-accented intellectuals wielding Diet Dr Pepper bottles, and transformed their tasteless lawn ornaments to modern abstract art
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
sculptures. Aside from providing advertisement for the show's main sponsor, the subtle movie references contained in these commercials may be another reason why they were aired alongside the Canned Film Festival.
The series may also be remembered as one of the many little-known works of Laraine Newman's acting career. While she performed in countless supporting roles throughout Hollywood following her tenure on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
's Saturday Night Live, her work with the Canned Film Festival is rarely ever credited. The careers of other noteworthy stars also include this show, such as Kathryn Rossetter who played support roles in movies, electronic media (video games), and television shows such as Law & Order
Law & Order
Law & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series, created by Dick Wolf and part of the Law & Order franchise. It aired on NBC, and in syndication on various cable networks. Law & Order premiered on September 13, 1990, and completed its 20th and final season on May 24,...
, Cosby
Cosby
Cosby is a situation comedy television series broadcast on CBS from September 16, 1996 to April 28, 2000, loosely based on the British sitcom One Foot in the Grave. The program starred Bill Cosby, Phylicia Rashād...
, Touched by an Angel
Touched by an Angel
Touched by an Angel is an American drama series that premiered on CBS on September 21, 1994 and ran for 211 episodes and nine seasons until its conclusion on April 27, 2003. Created by John Masius and produced by Martha Williamson, the series stars Roma Downey, as an angel named Monica, and Della...
, L.A. Law
L.A. Law
L.A. Law is a US television legal drama that ran on NBC from September 15, 1986 to May 19, 1994. L.A. Law reflected the social and cultural ideologies of the 1980s and early 1990s and many of the cases featured on the show dealt with hot topic issues such as abortion, racism, gay rights,...
, and Kate & Allie
Kate & Allie
Kate & Allie is an American television situation comedy which ran from March 19, 1984 to May 22, 1989. Kate & Allie first aired on CBS as a midseason replacement series and only six episodes were initially commissioned, but the favorable response from critics and viewers alike easily convinced CBS...
. Patrick Garner, in addition to appearing in a myriad of TV commercial ads, also made cameos in television shows such as Monsters
Monsters (TV series)
Monsters is a syndicated horror anthology series which originally ran from 1988 to 1991 and reran on the Sci-Fi Channel during the 1990s. As of 2011, Monsters airs on NBC Universal's horror/suspense-themed cable channel Chiller in sporadic weekday marathons.In a similar vein to Tales from the...
, Chappelle's Show
Chappelle's Show
Chappelle's Show is an American sketch comedy television series created by comedian Dave Chappelle and Neal Brennan, with Chappelle hosting the show as well as starring in various skits. Chappelle, Brennan and Michele Armour were the show's executive producers. The series premiered on January 22,...
, and Law & Order
Law & Order
Law & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series, created by Dick Wolf and part of the Law & Order franchise. It aired on NBC, and in syndication on various cable networks. Law & Order premiered on September 13, 1990, and completed its 20th and final season on May 24,...
, and more recently in theatre, starred as Mr. Cunningham in the Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
version of Happy Days The Musical
Happy Days (Musical)
Happy Days is a musical with a book by Garry Marshall and music and lyrics by Paul Williams, based on the ABC TV series of the same name. Given the show's 1959 setting, it would have taken place around Season 4 of the TV show...
. Rick Ford (identified as F. Richards Ford in the series credits) made appearances in episodes of Married With Children and Mama's Family
Mama's Family
Mama's Family is an American television sitcom that premiered on NBC on January 22, 1983. It was cancelled in May 1984, but NBC would continue to air reruns until September 1985. In September 1986, Mama's Family returned in first-run syndication, where it aired for an additional four seasons,...
as well as movies like The Tattoo Chase and 12:01 PM
12:01 PM (1990 film)
12:01 PM is a 1990 short film starring Kurtwood Smith. Directed by Jonathan Heap, it originally aired on cable television in 1990 as part of the Showtime 30-Minute Movie anthology series. It was nominated for an Academy Award....
, and is also very active in regional and professional theatre. Laura Galusha's acting career seemed to be brief, as she is recorded to have appeared on screen only once in an episode of CBS Schoolbreak Special
After school special
The American Broadcasting Company coined the term after school special in 1972 with a series of made for television movies, usually dealing with controversial or socially relevant issues, that were generally broadcast in the late afternoon and meant to be viewed by school age children, particularly...
in 1985, whereas Phil Nee (identified as Philip Nee in the series credits), in addition to working behind the camera as a writer and technical crew, has performed several cameos over the years following the series in both movies and television.
The Canned Film Festival's genre-based similarity to Mystery Science Theater 3000
Mystery Science Theater 3000
Mystery Science Theater 3000 is an American cult television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Best Brains, Inc., that ran from 1988 to 1999....
(MST3K) did not stop with the show format. Following its 1988 debut, MST3K featured many of the same films as the Canned Film Festival did two years earlier in 1986. While this coincidence might suggest that the Canned Film Festival was a source of inspiration for MST3Ks creator, Joel Hodgson
Joel Hodgson
Joel Gordon Hodgson is an American writer, comedian and television actor. He is best known for creating Mystery Science Theater 3000 and starring in it as the character Joel Robinson. In 2007 MST3K was listed as "one of the top 100 television shows of all time" by Time.com...
, such assertions would be false. In fact, Hodgson states that his vision for MST3K actually came from the 1978 CBS Children's Film Festival
CBS Children's Film Festival
CBS Children's Film Festival is a television series of live action films from several countries that were made for children...
instead. Either way, due its 11-season run (as opposed to the single season Canned Film Festival) it is clear that MST3K was much more successful in the B movie satire genre despite the lack of a large sponsor like the Dr Pepper Company. However, it is also possible that its success over the Canned Film Festival was due to it reaching a wider audience through the then-nascent cable TV
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
market, and aired at more suitable hours.
Episode list
The following is an episode list for The Canned Film Festival. 13 episodes were produced, and due to the nationally syndicated nature of the program, exact air dates for local television broadcasts are not precisely known. Generally, the program aired on the weekends during the late night time slot on both independent stations and network affiliateNetwork affiliate
In the broadcasting industry , a network affiliate is a local broadcaster which carries some or all of the television program or radio program line-up of a television or radio network, but is owned by a company other than the owner of the network...
s from June through September 1986. The list below is in order of the original air date listed on the Internet Movie Database
Internet Movie Database
Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
using the name of the featured B movie as the episode title, as no other naming format was suggested during the program run.
| # | Title | "The Canned Film Festival" at Bad Movie Planet's "3B Theater"
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