705 – Escape 2000 (aka Fuga
dal Bronx)
ééé
Things I liked in the movie:
The use of flamethrowers to evict people.
The hero’s name – Trash.
The little kid munitions expert.
Impressions
Pretty lame. The riffs felt a little formulaic and flat. This is an Italian movie that presumably demonstrates what Italians think America is like. Corporations are so powerful and evil that they would exterminate people to make money. The people in The Bronx are so wild that they are like animals running the streets in packs. The movie is about 75% silver-suited guys being shot or jumping out of trucks and 25% running around in sewers. The plot stumbles around quite a bit, and eventually just passes out. The riffing is below-average and there isn’t even a funny host segment to bail it out. This is the second-to-last episode before the show was dropped by The Comedy Channel and maybe they were just fulfilling their contract at this point. That theory doesn’t explain why Laserblast (706) was so good, though.
Synopsis
The Bronx is being evacuated forcefully by silver-suited men who jump out of trucks. The last few residents are being killed with FLAMETHROWERS for unknown reasons. There is a resistance made up of eighties rock stars that occasionally shoot a silver-suited guy or two, but mostly hangs around in the sewers reveling in their safe, if smelly, haven. Our hero is a weenie with rock and roll shaggy hair, a low IQ, and a leather jacket. He can explode helicopters with a Saturday night special and is aptly named “Trash.” He decides not to hide underground and instead organizes some fighters. It’s not clear, but I think he found his family dead and that’s what motivates him, but it might have just been some strangers.
We learn that all this violence is being done in the name of progress. A powerful company is replacing The Bronx with a new city. They’re corrupt and killing the Bronx residents while publicly asserting that they are fairly compensating the evacuees who are leaving voluntarily. The press is suspicious, though. A feisty reporter who looks “like if Gilda Radner and Satan had a baby” gets some pictures of the carnage, but her photographer gets torched and she ends up joining the underground. She suggests to the loud-laughing leader of the underground that they kidnap the corporation’s president. They recruit a guy named Strike and his little boy who is a munitions expert.
They kidnap the company’s president, but the reporter gets shot. Strike, Trash and the kid drag the president all over the sewers and the kid blows up a couple million or so cops. The president escapes and runs outside. Ironically, his security chief kills him because he’s in cahoots with the vice-president of the company. But then the security chief makes the mistake of shooting at Trash. Trash shoots his van with a bullet so powerful it explodes like a hundred tons of dynamite. That’s somehow the end.
Host Segments
Prologue: Crow is holding an auction for “a really good cause.” He tries to sell coins for much more than face value. In the end, he loses money.
First segment: Post-auction. Crow is trying to burn trash. The mads – Dr. F puts mom in a “home” which is a dollhouse. Back on SOL the fire blazes. The experiment is Escape 2000. The fire threatens to kill all aboard SOL, but the go to the movie anyway.
Segment 2: Mike has set up a biofeedback machine and hooked it up to Crow. Tom says it’s a bunch of hooha. Crow relaxes but the “feedback” causes explosions on the SOL. Servo’s head explodes.
Segment 3: Mike is smoking a cigar and drinking a beer. He’s acting manly with the ‘Bots. It looks like a superbowl party. Mike says “I love men’s night.”
Segment 4: Tom is sick. He has a hot pack on his head and some cold medicine. Dr. F is complaining about Mike’s bad ratings. He suggests some kids. Dr. F offers a horrible 50-year-old kid named Timmy Bobby Rusty. The ratings don’t go up, so he throws the kid out.
Final: Mike reads a letter. Tom rappels in from a helicopter. Down in Deep 13, a laughing guy bothers Dr. F and Pearl. Laughing guy comes in and laughs loudly. It’s Mike mocking the goofy underground leader (Lablonde?) in the movie.
Stinger: Lablonde spitting and laughing.
Funny Riffs
Movie: Leave the Bronx! Leave the Bronx!
Tom: Even though this is Italy, leave the Bronx.
The costumes look like aluminum foil.
Mike: We thank the Reynolds wrap corporation for the costumes.
The evacuation authority is forcing evacuation.
Tom: When Habitat for Humanity cracks down!
It sounds like the loudspeaker says “The parrots are to be eliminated.”
Crow: “The PARROTS are to be eliminated?!”
A resistant resident attacks the enforcers as they knock the door in and invade the apartment.
Mike: Sir, would you
at least take a watchtower?
The father is burned to death.
Mike: It was a horrible fondue accident.
A truck says “Deinfestation annihilation squad.”
Tom: I think they blew their cover!
A calm-seeming guy suddenly starts screaming orders with a strong accent.
Crow: Geez! He’s got Ricky Ricardo turrets syndrome!
The hero is running around inside a building that’s being demolished.
Mike: Doh, the Bronx is something I shoulda left.
A man with a huge mustache shows up.
Crow: He’s got a toupee under his nose!
Trash gets a close-up.
Tom: Howard Stern in Westside Story.
Trash gives the heroine a “follow me” nod.
Mike: Come on. Follow my hair.
Strike’s 8-year-old son sets booby traps.
Mike: Now the hero’s subcontractor has to subcontract to his kid.
Tom: Weird Courtship of Eddy’s Father episode.
An announcer is talking, then stops to look at some helicopters as they fly by.
Tom: I’ll finish my report later, but I just love helicopters!
Trash and Strike are abducting the president of the corporation.
Tom: He’s being kidnapped by KISS.
An explosion throws a cop into the air.
Tom: This trampoline accident could have been avoided.
The number two man walks around the scale model of the future NYC. He looks at the model like he’s interviewing it.
Mike: Why do you want to be a scale model at Conglomcorp?
Security chief is driving his van through the battle. Each time a person jumps out, he shoots him.
Crow: Sorry, my horn is out, so I’m just shooting.
Trash looks goofy for a few seconds.
Tom: He looks like a cross between a silverback gorilla and Eddy Van Halen.