Crwthod A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Bumpy Chip It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

tavm Continuing to review movies or TV specials featuring early appearances of "SNL"ers in chronological order, I'm once again in 1977 with the release of something called Cracking Up. There are two future cast members here: Harry Shearer, who joined for two non-consecutive seasons-1979-80 and 1984-85 (though he left mid-season), and Michael McKean, who joined near the end of the 1993-94 season and remained for the next one. At the time, they were both members of The Credibility Gap along with David L. Lander, who was also Michael's co-star on the popular TV series "Laverne & Shirley" at this time. Anyway, the sketches they perform are pretty funny with the highlight being a hilarious take on Abbott & Costello's "Who's on First" with Shearer as a rock promoter and Lander as a newspaper head of classified ads and involving the names of musical acts The Who, The Guess Who, and Yes. Their last sketch, however, is unevenly mixed with another one from another group that makes no sense. It has Shearer as Tom Snyder with Lander and McKean as guests and their material has some laughs but the "Impotent Lovers" sketch that's mixed there is for the birds. Another comedy troupe, The Ace Trucking Company, provides the only other funny material in this movie. Fred Willard was one of this group's members and he's very funny here as are the rest of his fellow players in sketches about getting a job with bosses who have involuntary movements, a diner that pretends to be a fine restaurant with a floor show, and a mattress store with the seller and a buyer mixing double entendres. Otherwise, you're stuck with a lame wraparound of an earthquake TV coverage and mostly unfunny TV ad spoofs. So on that note, this Cracking Up movie is recommend for the material I just cited. P.S. I was surprised by the number of people who appeared in this picture that also appeared in Tunnel Vision which I rewatched a few days ago.

miriamwebster Dreadfully unfunny excrement featuring a handful of (later) truly funny folks (Edie McClurg, Fred Willard, Harry Shearer) who somehow survived this unpromising early-career mess. Hard to figure out what is going on here; looks like one of those SNL-inspired zip-budget sketch comedies (Groove Tube,Kentucky Fried Movie) of Seventies goosed up for mini-major studio distribution (American International) with gratuitous added footage (nudity, moronic storyline about post-earthquake LA) that has virtually nothing to do with scatter shot "comedic" skits. (Too bad they didn't edit in some laughs.) Film stock doesn't match and opening credits don't even list performers. Clearly aimed at undiscriminating drive-in crowd but there's not enough beer or weed the in world to make this steaming pile amusing.

konajinx I love The Firesign Theater, so the other night when I was browsing through the On Demand sections on TV and saw this movie listed and featuring two of the troupe, plus other guys I generally like like Harry Shearer and Fred Willard, I thought I'd check it out. After all, it was free, so nothing would be lost monetary-wise.I could only stand about 15 minutes of it, and then hurried up to fast-forward to the part with Shearer, which was bad as well. Definitely one of those lame late '70s curios that could have stood a lot better writing and laughs all around. It was just too weak to even be so bad it was still funny. Ah well.

djeld13 The plot of this film really only stands to showcase the acts of comedy groups that deserved better (The Credibility Gap, The Ace Trucking Co., etc. -- in their own acts, which have nothing at all to do with the "story"), and doesn't enhance anything, but makes it more annoying and grinding to watch. It would have been nice to see these comedians in something tolerable, but, unfortunately, we get this. A movie by a group of people who could have made a much better movie, but didn't. Still, on the note of the Credibility Gap, I own and sometimes watch this movie (fast forwarding, of course, to those key parts), and I can only really recommend this movie to fans of the actors in it; otherwise, save an hour and skip it.