Howard Hesseman
A feature that not only celebrates the 1986 classic "Flight of the Navigator", but also looks at the life of its child star, Joey Cramer, and his roller-coaster life since that breakthrough role.
A group of eccentric retirees' lives are turned upside down when their beloved apartment complex is suddenly sold out from under them.
Riley Thomas is sent by her profit-obsessed boss to shut down one of the company’s holdings, a small outerwear company in Vermont, for missing profit targets. Riley finds that the company is the lifeblood of a town and, instead of closing down the iconic firm, she unexpectedly falls in love and learns valuable lessons beyond the bottom line.
Del Close was never a household name, but any comedy enthusiast is aware of his impact. From Bill Murray to Chris Farley to Amy Poehler, many of the most famous comedians consider him their mentor. Fifteen years after Del Close’s death, thousands of Improv students, comedy fans, actors, and successful comedians gather to celebrate the most important person in modern comedy that no one knows.
Set in the world of mega-churches in which a former Deadhead-turned-born again-Christian finds himself on the run from fundamentalist members of his mega-church who will do anything to protect their larger-than-life pastor.
After one short date, a brilliant crossword constructor decides that a CNN cameraman is her true love. Because the cameraman's job takes him hither and yon, she crisscrosses the country, turning up at media events as she tries to convince him they are perfect for each other.
Laurie Strode struggles to come to terms with her brother Michael's deadly return to Haddonfield, Illinois. Meanwhile, Michael prepares for another reunion with his sister.
Rob "Fish" Fishman is the drummer in '80s hair metal band Vesuvius. He's unceremoniously booted as the group signs a big record deal, is out of the music world for 20 years - and then receives a second chance with his nephew's band.
A top Hollywood talent agent finds his cushy existence threatened when he discovers that his wife is cheating on him and that his journal has been swiped by a reporter out to bring him down.
This documentary pays tribute to the contributions and importance of the title watering hole in the creation of the psychedelic dancehalls that littered the West during the late '60s and helped launch such super groups as The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and The Quicksilver Messenger Service. The Red Dog Saloon had its genesis in 1964 when a group of free-thinking, LSD-enhanced Northern California students and young folks had a party and began thinking about starting up a saloon that would evoke the old West. They decided to build their saloon in Virginia City, Nevada, a once prosperous town that was by then nearly empty. The ambience of the saloon blended Old West sensibilities with modern psychedelia, go-go girls and plenty of illegal drugs. The film is comprised of interviews with surviving founders, actual archival footage, and even a performance of some of the musicians who appeared there.
A girl loses her parents and husband and is left driving a limo trying to get by raising her young son. An interesting but strange rich man hires her limo on Christmas eve and has her drive him to various ice rinks where he gives out $100 bills to the people there. The news media catches on and starts following him. Some interesting twists follow, but the movie is somewhat predictable.
In Harry Shearer's tongue-in-cheek comedy, a waiter at Zanbesu Glen (a chi-chi Northern California resort) uses his movie camera to spy on the annual communal vacation of a group of rich, white U.S. government and business leaders who drink and carouse to excess while plotting their next move on the global stage. His goal? To sell the embarrassing and incriminating footage to the media and expose the "leaders" for what they really are.
66-year-old Warren Schmidt is a retired insurance salesman and has no particular plans other than to drive around in the motor home his wife insisted they buy. He's not altogether bitter, but not happy either, as everything his wife does annoys him, and he disapproves of the man his daughter is about to marry. When his wife suddenly dies, he sets out to postpone the imminent marriage of his daughter to a man he doesn't like, while coping with discoveries about his late wife and himself in the process.
Based on an Edgar Allan Poe story, this film tells the grimly comic tale of a bad-tempered old man (Howard Hesseman) who cheats death, only to go on tormenting the living. When a medical experiment leaves the grouch hovering between life and death (and able to describe the world beyond), things get tricky for his daughter (Jessica Capshaw) and her beau (Neil Patrick Harris, of "Doogie Howser, M.D." fame), who can't get their hands on his estate.
A young woman, struggling to become a novelist, has her life go into a tailspin. Her first novel is rejected, her non-committal boy friend decides to take a powder, her best friend moves to Mexico for an acting job, and her mother announces that her long presumed dead father is actually a hippie photographer who has come to town to meet her. Sinking into a depression at being a total failure at 28, she starts fantasizing about suicide. In her depths of despair she meets various eccentric characters including a chain-smoking Santa Claus and an obnoxious literary agent. But her belief in herself is only restored when she meets a patient in a hospital where she does volunteer work.
A former news reporter marries and tries to adjust to the life of a house wife and mother. However, her need for an adrenaline high is overpowering and she becomes a gambling addict.
After a friend overdoses, Spoon and Stretch decide to kick their drug habits and attempt to enroll in a government detox program. Their efforts are hampered by seemingly endless red tape, as they are shuffled from one office to another while being chased by drug dealers and the police.
Trish (Mary Stuart Masterson) and her six-year-old niece, Patsy, make their living by picking pockets. But when they try to take advantage of holiday shoppers with fat wallets, they run into a little snag—a department store security guard named Bert (Mark Ruffalo) catches them in the act. The store owner wants them arrested, but decides to wait until Christmas is over. To ensure they don't make a run for it, he entrusts their care to Bert. With jail on the horizon, Trish and Patsy are scared for their future. But as the holiday nears its end, it looks as though a budding romance might just save them after all.
The magical Munchie is back, and if he gets in any more trouble it's off to the dullest constellation in the galaxy. Staying out of trouble has never been easy for Munchie, but this time he gives it his best shot. He is sent to earth and finds himself in the company of the McClelland family. As he proves himself, he becomes mixed up in the family's many problems. Munchie does his best to fulfill his duty on Earth, but not without getting involved in a little mischief. Written by Concorde - New Horizons.
Ambitious photojournalist Chris Cassidy, on assignment in Paris, becomes involved with an unconventional French detective after having witnessed the airport slaying of a man handcuffed to him and decides she needs a good story to go with her picture.
Private detective Nick is hired to bring back Heather, who ran away from her stepmother to find her real mother.
B.J. Cassidy, a rich businesswoman, has to invest several billion dollars for fiscal reasons. She undertakes to buy back a small French factory, specialized in chocolate truffles...
On her way home in a plane to New York, the teenage Sarah gets very ill. She realizes too late that it's more than a cold and with her parents still on vacation, she breaks down in the middle of the street and dies shortly after in a hospital -- by the plague, as the terrified coroners find out. While trying to keep this from the public to avoid a panic, epidemic commissioner Dr. Nora Hart has to investigate Sarah's identity and find everyone who had contact with her. If she misses a single person, the plague could kill half the city in a few days!
Pamela Smart knows exactly what she wants and is willing to do anything to get it. She is fed up with teaching, and her marriage offers little excitement. Looking for a way out she applies for a job at a local TV station. When her dreams of fame are dashed by rejection, she seduces 15-year-old Billy, one of her students. Pam challenges Billy to prove his love for her by getting rid of her husband. The stakes heat up with a huge insurance policy on her husband's life.
Reclusive Rubin Farr teams up with vocal but unsuccessful multi-level salesman Ed Tuttle on a quest to bury Rubin's dead cat in the "perfect spot." Their trip takes them across Utah's desert where they have run-ins with Ed's ex-wife Rula and an elusive Andy Warhol critic.
Patty Duke portrays herself in this made-for-tv biopic about her struggles as a child star growing into adulthood.
When streetwise Manhattan police detectives Rawlings (Howard Hesseman) and Brendan Thomas (Ed Marinaro) discover a major diamond heist is about to go down at a renowned gallery, they enlist one of their suspects, gallery employee Tara Holden (Brooke Shields). But an attempt to foil the robbery explodes with deadly consequences for Tara. Committed to break the case, Rawlings relentlessly pursues the clues through a twisted maze of deceit and danger that takes him to England, where he and Scotland Yard detecive Charlie Lawson expose the ultimate con and solve the crime.
Acclaimed director John Landis (Animal House, The Blues Brothers) presents this madcap send-up of late night TV, low-budget sci-fi films and canned-laughter-filled sitcoms packed with off-the-wall sketches that will have you in stitches. Centered around a television station which features a 1950s-style sci-fi movie interspersed with a series of wild commercials, wacky shorts and weird specials, this lampoon of contemporary life and pop culture skewers some of the silliest spectacles ever created in the name of entertainment. A truly outrageous look at the best of the worst that television has to offer.
In May of 1946, Alcatraz inmate Bernie Coy initiates a carefully thought out plan to escape the island prison. His plan, carried out with five accomplices, falls apart when they can't obtain a key to unlock a door leading to the yard.
A feisty young woman accepts a mysterious offer to become a chauffeur for a Beverly Hills limousine business, much to the chagrin of her older male coworkers and the disbelief of her customers.
There was once a very serious kingdom. So serious, that the King demanded to be addressed as Your Seriousness...
Head of the Class is an American sitcom that ran from 1986 to 1991 on the ABC television network. The series follows a group of gifted students in the Individualized Honors Program at the fictional Monroe High School in Manhattan, and their history teacher Charlie Moore. The program was ostensibly a vehicle for Hesseman, best known for his role as radio DJ Dr. Johnny Fever in the sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati. Hesseman left Head of the Class in 1990 and was replaced by Billy Connolly as teacher Billy MacGregor for the final season. After the series ended, Connolly appeared in a short-lived spin-off titled Billy. The series was created and executive produced by Rich Eustis and Michael Elias. Rich Eustis had previously worked as a New York City substitute teacher while hoping to become an actor.
An agoraphobic must give up his sheltered life and venture outside after a series of personal and financial problems.
12-year-old David is accidentally knocked out in the forest near his home, but when he awakens eight years have passed. His family is overjoyed to have him back, but is just as perplexed as he is that he hasn't aged. When a NASA scientist discovers a UFO nearby, David gets the chance to unravel the mystery and recover the life he lost.
Officer Carey Mahoney and his cohorts have finally graduated from the Police Academy and are about to hit the streets on their first assignment. Question is, are they ready to do battle with a band of graffiti-tagging terrorists? Time will tell, but don't sell short this cheerful band of doltish boys in blue.
Clue finds six colorful dinner guests gathered at the mansion of their host, Mr. Boddy -- who turns up dead after his secret is exposed: He was blackmailing all of them. With the killer among them, the guests and Boddy's chatty butler must suss out the culprit before the body count rises.
A mother going through a painful, protracted divorce realizes too late the effect it's having on her troubled son.
Blaise Dietz (Patty Duke Astin) plays the wife of police officer Blaise Dietz (Frederic Forrest), who wants to join a special investigative unit. Forrest is denied this position on the basis of information concerning his wife. The information, which reveals a dicey extramarital affair, was culled from a department surveillance file that was supposed to have been destroyed by court order. Blaise battles through legal channels to expose the police force's illegal actions, even as she and her husband suffer the innuendoes and cold shoulders from his fellow officers.
"This Is Spinal Tap" shines a light on the self-contained universe of a metal band struggling to get back on the charts, including everything from its complicated history of ups and downs, gold albums, name changes and undersold concert dates, along with the full host of requisite groupies, promoters, hangers-on and historians, sessions, release events and those special behind-the-scenes moments that keep it all real.
Set aboard a navy cargo ship during World War II, this comedic drama follows Lt. Doug Roberts (Robert Hays, Airplane!), who battles boredom and a tyrannical captain to the admiration of Ensign Pulver, Doc, and the crew.
A shy but gentle man named Clifford Skridlow is a professor of comparative literature at the financially-strapped fictional Monroe College in Chicago. A chance encounter with four beautiful women at a restaurant changes his life forever.
Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever is a 1983 television special produced by Suzanne de Passe for Motown Records, The show was also co-written by de Passe along with Ruth Adkins Robinson who would go on to write shows with de Passe for the next 25 years, including the follow up label tributes—through "Motown 40," Buz Kohan was the head writer of the threesome. The program was taped before a live studio audience at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in Pasadena, California on March 25, 1983,[1] and broadcast on NBC on May 16. Among its highlights were Michael Jackson's performance of "Billie Jean", a Temptations/Four Tops "battle of the bands", Marvin Gaye's inspired speech about black music history and his memorable performance of "What's Going On", a Jackson 5 reunion.
Robert Mitchum stars as a down-and-out ex-cop whose entanglement with a shady casino owner leaves him one step behind a killer in the mystery One Shoe Makes It Murder. Soon after the Nevada Gaming Commission suspends his casino license, gambling czar Carl Charnock (Mel Ferrer) hires private investigator Harold Schillman (Mitchum) to find his missing wife. With the help of Fay Reid (Angie Dickinson), Schillman locates the unfaithful spouse--right before she falls from a balcony! Now Schillman must determine whether she jumped or ... whether One Shoe Makes It Murder.
Ticlaw, a small town in Florida, has only one attraction: a safari park. The government constructs a freeway that passes near Ticlaw, but decides not to put an exit into the town. The people of Ticlaw, leaded by it's Mayor, will do anything in order to convince the governor to alter the project.
Phillip Filmore is a naive, 15-year-old, preoccupied with sex, who develops a crush on Nicole Mallow, the new 30-something, French housekeeper and sitter to look after him when Phillip's father is out of town for the summer on a "business" trip. But Mr. Filmore's unscrupulous chauffeur, Lester Lewis, takes advantage of Phillip's crush on Nicole to hire her to seduce the youth, then draws her into a plot to fake her own death in a blackmail scheme aimed to drain Phillip's trust fund.
Broad satire and buffoonery presented as a series of movie trailers. Among the titles and subjects are: "The Howard Huge Story", "Skate-boarders from Hell", "The Invasion of the Penis Snatchers", Woody Allen (pre-Mia), movie trailer come-ons, Charlie Chaplin, war movies, Billy Jack. The source of the title is presented about an hour into the film.
An aging Bette Davis is a flight instructor at an old Texas airport. When a young girl in a wheelchair finds the airport by watching gliders fly, she decides she wants to learn how to fly. Davis teaches her to fly with some special controls compensating for her handicap. Howard Hessman is a aircraft repair service trying desperately to get an old airplane back in the air. The three, together, put the young girl and the old plane up in the air.
John Ritter shows off his comedic talent with a collection of comedy sketches.
In a story told in narrative flashbacks, a young TV consultant is hired by the President of a bankrupt USA to organize a telethon in order to prevent the country from being repossessed by wealthy Native Americans.
Emmy winner Jean Stapleton and Academy Award winner Art Carney star in the Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart about a slightly daft family who do exactly as they please.
After discovering he's not really black like the rest of his family, likable dimwit Navin Johnson runs off on a hilarious misadventure in this comedy classic that takes him from rags to riches and back to rags again. The slaphappy jerk strikes it rich, but life in the fast lane isn't all it's cracked up to be and, in the end, all that really matters to Johnson is his true love.
An aircraft crashes in the Florida Everglades, killing 103 passengers. After the wreckage is removed, salvageable parts from the plane are used to repair other aircraft. Soon passengers and crew on those aircraft report seeing what they believe to be the ghost of the wrecked airplane's flight engineer.
When a Cincinnati radio station switches from sedate music to top-40 rock 'n' roll, its staff of oddball characters is forced to switch gears quickly. New programming director Andy Travis brings in a new DJ named Venus Flytrap to work with the station's burned-out veteran, Dr. Johnny Fever. Neurotic newsman Les Nessman, eager beaver Bailey Quarters, sleazy salesman Herb Tarlek, blonde bombshell Jennifer Marlowe, who serves as the station's ultra-capable receptionist, and station manager Arthur Carlson, whose domineering mother owns WKRP, round out the eccentric bunch.
Matty Perlman and Alan Corkus are old friends. He wants them to be more than friends. Sometimes she does too.
A young woman accused of murdering the jailer who raped her, escapes from jail and becomes a fugitive.
An ex-comedian fights to keep a failing nightclub alive as a showcase for aspiring young comics.
When French beauty Noelle Page falls in love with American pilot Larry Douglas, she believes he'll marry her. Instead, he returns to the U.S and marries the sweet but naive Catherine. Even though Noelle has found a new lover, an affluent Greek named Constantin, and has started a great career as an actress, she vows revenge on her onetime lover. But once her plan is in motion, she and Larry fall in love and plot Catherine's death.
An airplane carring coffee beans from South America has some unpleasant stowaways: a hoard of tarantulas which overcome the pilots as the airplane is flying over an orange-producing town in California. The airplane crashes, and the unlucky inhabitants of the town release the poisonous spiders into their midst. Once the town's officials discover that the tarantulas are responsible for several deaths, the tarantulas have already descended upon the town's only orange-processing factory. The town's citizens risk their lives to remove the tarantulas from the factory while the poisonous pests are rendered motionless by the transmitted sound of buzzing bees
A committee investigating TV's first uncensored network examines a typical day's programming, which includes shows, commercials, news programs, you name it. What they discover will surely crack you up! This outrageous and irreverent spoof of television launched the careers of some of the greatest comedians of all time.
A young woman stumbles into a nightmare land of hijacking and humiliation while driving cross-country from California to New York.
The ultimate disaster film parody. A nuclear-powered bus is making its maiden non-stop trip from New York to Denver. The journey is plagued by disasters due to the machinations of a mysterious group allied with the oil lobby. Will the down-on-his-luck driver, with a reputation for eating his passengers, be able to complete the journey?
The misadventures of a divorced mother, two teenage daughters, and new building superintendent in Indianapolis.
In this pilot film that preceded the short-lived series, a street cop in his last week on the force before his retirement investigates the murder of his partner.
George Roundy is a Beverly Hills hairstylist whose uncontrolled libido stands between him and his ambitions. He wants the security of a relationship. He wants to be a hairdressing "star" and open his own salon. But the fact that he beds down with the wife, daughter and mistress of a potential backer doesn't help. It also does little for his relationship with his current girlfriend.
Lewis and Clark, aka The Sunshine Boys, were famous comedians during the vaudeville era, but off-stage they couldn't stand each other and haven't spoken in over 20 years of retirement. Willy Clark's nephew is the producer of a TV variety show that wants to feature a reunion of this classic duo. It is up to him to try to get the Sunshine Boys back together again.
Melodrama set in South Vietnam in the 1960s. Krueger (Bramhall), a former infantry lieutenant, is imprisoned at Quai Dong, on the South China Sea, for refusing to fight. After a year at hard labor, he is told to use his Vietnamese language skills to question a Viet Cong suspect. The prisoner is drugged and tortured during the interrogation. Krueger eventually stops the torture by pretending that the prisoner has disclosed the location of a supply dump.
Based on Gail Sheehy's book, this film chronicles how a reporter for a New York City magazine decided to investigate the city's prostitution industry to find out just who was making all the money. What she found out caused a firestorm of controversy--that many of the city's richest and most powerful families and corporations benefited directly and indirectly from the illegal sex business.
Bumper Morgan is a veteran Los Angeles Police Department street cop. He is due to retire after 20 years on the job, but is not letting up on the criminal element on his beat.
A group of misfits decide to leave for a place that they can all be free. There mode of transportation is a PBY flying boat. The only problem is that the PBY needs a lot of work and they will need jobs to pay for the parts. When they find that they have only 10 days before the PBY is sold for scrap, they decide on borrowing the parts for their trip
Ex-Green Beret hapkido expert saves wild horses from being slaughtered for dog food and helps protect a desert "freedom school" for runaways.
A New York City bank teller becomes a media celebrity when he refuses to comply with his employer's demands that he shave his beard. Directed by Garson Kanin, this 1969 comedy stars Dick Van Dyke, Angie Dickinson, Rosemary Forsyth, Zohra Lampert, Carole Shelley, David Doyle, Elliott Reid, Pippa Scott, Connie Gilchrist, Roy Roberts and Peter Turgeon.
