Tag Archives: What’s Up Tiger Lily?

KUNG FAUX (2003) – FORGOTTEN TELEVISION

kung fauxKUNG FAUX (2003) – Created and crafted by Mic Neumann, this half-hour comedy series was basically a hip hop version of old movies and television shows that overdubbed non-comedies with comedic dialogue, music and sound effects. In Kung Faux‘s case it featured re-edited and highly stylized martial arts films from the 1970s overdubbed with contemporary music and a hip hop comedic sensibility.  

kung faux 2Though Kung Faux brands this treatment as “dubtitling” as a nod to dubbed and subtitled dialogue, the approach debuted on vintage television shows like Fractured Flickers (1963), in which celebrities would dub improvised comedic dialogue over old silent movies.

The theatrical release What’s Up, Tiger Lily? (1966), Woody Allen’s overdubbing of a Japanese spy movie to make it a battle over an egg salad recipe, is still the best known of these ventures. Not even serials were exempt from such treatment, with my favorite example being Firesign Theater’s production Hot Shorts (1984) featuring items like Sperm Bank Bandits in which the comedy team inserted comical dialogue over old serials like Canadian Mounties vs Atomic Invaders. Continue reading

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LOVIN’ SPOONFUL: POW!

Give Them A Shoutout Before They’re Dead strikes again here at Balladeer’s Blog. It’s Pow, that silly but catchy song that served as the theme song for Woody Allen’s movie What’s Up, Tiger Lily? (Not to be confused with What’s New, Pussycat? but it often is for some reason.)

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ISLAM ATTACKS! (2016)

Mars Attacks 2What’s Up, Muhammad could have worked as an alternate title of this film, which revives the grand old tradition of overdubbing a movie’s existing dialogue with comical new dialogue. What’s Up, Tiger Lily? (1966), Woody Allen’s overdubbing of a Japanese spy movie to make it a battle over an egg salad recipe, is still the best known of these ventures.

It was far from the first, however, and was preceded by Fractured Flickers (1963), a weekly television show in which celebrities would dub improvised comedic dialogue into old silent movies. Much later Mad Movies (1985) would feature its comedy talent from the L.A. Connection overdubbing movies from the 30s, 40s and 50s.

Mars Attacks 4

Or, as the film makes it, “Nothing to do with Islam, Nothing to do with Islam, Nothing to do with Islam …”

Not even serials were exempt from such treatment, with my favorite example being Firesign Theater’s production Hot Shorts (1984) featuring items like Sperm Bank Bandits in which the comedy team inserted comical dialogue into old serials like Canadian Mounties vs Atomic Invaders.

Other prime instances of overdubbing include What’s Up, Hideous Sun Demon (1983) with Jay Leno and other celebrities editing comical dialogue into the classically bad monster movie The Hideous Sun Demon and A Man Called … Rainbo (1990) in which the early Sylvester Stallone movie No Place to Hide was overdubbed to make it a comedic sendup of Sly’s Rambo movies. Even the original Night of the Living Dead has been given this treatment.    

Mars Attacks 3Enough background information! Islam Attacks features the Tim Burton movie Mars Attacks being overdubbed with hilariously dark comedy material which makes the story a look at the Western World’s weak and inept response to Muslim fanatics. The large heads of the Martian invaders are altered by CGI making them look like turbans in just one example of this film’s audacious attitude.    

Mars Attacks Loston Wallace

Art by Loston Wallace

If you recall, Burton’s Mars Attacks featured the government hilariously refusing to think the Martians had hostile intentions no matter how many acts of violence they committed. The Martians would even be shooting people to death while robotically saying “We come in peace.” Islam Attacks does just what you’d hope for and plays up how contemporary governments keep trying to downplay any hostile intentions from Islamist groups and shows them blasting people to death while saying “We are a religion of peace” over and over. Continue reading

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Filed under Fantastic Movie Reviews, LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES