Movie Time Capsule Volume 1: "Hamburger: The Motion Picture"

Welcome to the first in me series of blogs looking at movies that no one thinks of anymore. Not so much films that time forgot (although, I will admit that some of my choices for this column will overlap the Onion A.V. Club’s list of Films That Time Forgot), but movies that have lost their audiences in the years since pay cable channels decided to show marathons of “Entourage” and “Dexter.” These are the movies you would see either early in the morning, in the middle of the night, or just out of sheer luck.

A vast majority of the movies highlighted here will have been released between 1980 and 1995; not too old and not too new, but from time to time, if I can think of a good one or someone suggests it, I will take from any time period. I am going to try and do one per week, but sometimes more than one. On the left side of the blog you can see a poll where you can decide what the first “reader’s choice” film I will look at will be.

If you have any suggestions, send your ideas to becauseyouwantto@gmail.com

The movies will be rated either as a hidden gem, middle of the road, or best left forgotten.

Other than nostalgia and looking for a writing exercise, today’s inaugural entry is really what inspired this column. I can’t even really explain why, but it was probably the first movie I ever watched in the middle of the night (possibly on USA “Up All Night”) that was so god awful I just couldn’t help but laugh at how bad it was.

“Hamburger: The Motion Picture” was released in 1986 to an uninterested masses and still has not seen the light of day on video. It is so relatively obscure that I don’t know a single other person who has seen it. It isn’t available on DVD, but there are VHS copies of it available on Amazon going for upwards of $60 (and a few for less on eBay).

Right from the film’s almost Mellencampian opening credits, you should know you are in for a rough ride. I warn you before watching the video that you will not get the theme stuck out of your head for days.

Leigh McColoskey (Kelsey Grammer’s former roommate at Julliard) plays Russell, a strapping young lad who has been expelled from every college and university he has attempted attending for, I shit you not, “lewd, crude, and nude behaviour.” It’s not his fault, however. Apparently this kind of trouble just seems to find him since every single woman in this movie is horny and the very sight of him reduces them to seductive temptresses. Or at least, that is what he tells his therapist before she tries to make love to him in the Dean’s office.

Russell has a bigger problem than that, though. Russell’s beloved grandfather has just passed away and left him a large trust fund, but in order to collect the money Russell must first graduate from any college or university.

So Russell packs up and starts going to Busterburger University, the training grounds for the Busterburger franchise. It is also the jumping off point for jokes about, fat people, people who don’t speak English, and women, often combining all three into some sort of hellish super joke that is possibly more offensive than anything you have heard before.

Russell’s “boss” cum drill instructor is played by football legend Dick Butkus. Russell fights for the affections of the business owner’s daughter against Butkus, and if you care about this, you already care far too much.

“Jokes” are scattered throughout the movie. Some involving flatulence, overeating, a female on male attempted rape involving a submachine gun, and a fellow classmate who is so fat, he electrically shocks himself every time he has a craving in an effort to keep food costs down.

There is one funny moment in the movie, and here it is:

Verdict: Best Left Forgotten