Closet Cases of the Nerd Kind (1980) is an award-winning short film spoof

Parody

A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

 of the classic science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a 1977 science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg. The film stars Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, and Cary Guffey...

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Plot

In the film, sewage worker Roy Dreary and an assortment of odd characters meet up with some cute and cuddly extraterrestrials traveling to earth in a giant pie in the sky. Dreary develops an obsession with mashed potatoes, whipped cream and maraschino cherries. He encounters singing mailboxes, truck radios that spout bubbles and bubble music, and one pie in the face after another, before finally finding himself at the Sara Loo pie factory-and his close encounter of the nerd kind. At one point, he even encounters Darth Vader

Darth Vader

Darth Vader is a central character in the Star Wars saga, appearing as one of the main antagonists in the original trilogy and as the main protagonist in the prequel trilogy....

 on a motorcycle complaining that he is blocking the road.

Other characters include a wide-eyed cherubic child, a famous French scientist, a bewildered wife, a mysterious code which turns out to be the notation for the Greek letter Pi

Pi

' is a mathematical constant that is the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter. is approximately equal to 3.14. Many formulae in mathematics, science, and engineering involve , which makes it one of the most important mathematical constants...

, and an oversized xylophone on which Dreary signals to the aliens. All of the character voices are over-dubbed by voice artists Corey Burton

Corey Burton

Corey Burton is an American voice actor, perhaps best known as Count Dooku, Ziro the Hutt and Cad Bane in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Brainiac in the DC animated universe and Spike Witwicky and Shockwave in the Transformers universe...

 and Sandy Stotzer.

Awards

The film won the Silver Award at the Houston International Film Festival

WorldFest

WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival is an annual film festival, dedicated to various types of independent films, held in Houston, Texas.-History:...

, and the Golden Eagle from CINE

CINE

CINE is a consortium formulated to depict American life and thought realistically for a global audience. CINE recognizes and fosters the highest quality of non-theatrical film and video production through its semi-annual film competitions....

. While the film is not currently available on home video, it has been issued in the past on the compilation VHS

VHS

The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

 release Hardware Wars

Hardware Wars

Hardware Wars is a short film parody of the classic science fiction film Star Wars. The thirteen-minute film, which premiered in theatres only seven months after Star Wars, consisted of little more than inside jokes and visual puns that heavily depended upon audience familiarity with the...

, and Other Film Farces from Warner Home Video

Warner Home Video

Warner Home Video is the home video unit of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., itself part of Time Warner. It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Video . The company launched in the United States with twenty films on VHS and Betamax videocassettes in late 1979...

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