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aaltra94 via youtube1 of 10
"The Kentucky Fried Movie," in case you're unfamiliar, is a 1977 cult oddity that launched the careers of writers David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, and Jim Abrahams (who would later go on to become kings of the spoof movie with "Airplane!") and director John Landis ("An American Werewolf in London," "The Blues Brothers"). A series of short, bizarre sketches built around an extended spoof of Bruce Lee's "Enter the Dragon" called "A Fistful of Yen," "The Kentucky Fried Movie" is loaded with the kind of outrageous shock humor you can't believe actually made it to movie screens - and would go over like a fart in the elevator in the more socially conscious 2000s. Here are the top ten examples of the outrageousness they got away with.
10. ARGON OIL
Not a minute into the movie, and already the Zuckers and Abrahams are on the offensive. In a skit about an oil company mining natural resources from bizarre places (the faces of teenagers, burping fast food customers), they mention that a large amount of their crude oil comes from combs collected from Italians. Not cool, capiche?
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aaltra94 via youtube2 of 10
9. CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS IN TROUBLE
The movie's fake trailer for an adult film has some groaners ("Linda Chambers recreating her classic role" as she rolls down a hill), some greats (the "show me your nuts" gag is still funny), and some, well, jaw-dropping inappropriateness. It opens with the line "More offensive than Mandingo" over a shot of a little girl in pigtails in bed with a large black man, then goes on to show a group of topless girls chained in a dungeon being whipped by a dwarf in a clown suit (a whole lot of wrong there) and finally accompanies the voice over call-out "Savage!" with a quick shot of African tribesmen. Borderline misogynist and more than a little racially insensitive? You could say that...
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Klaus leuters via youtube3 of 10
8. SCOT FREE
This fake commercial for a family-friendly board game about the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the ensuing conspiracy theories and scandals is, on the surface, not THAT bad. But you have to imagine the idea of small kids moving assault rifle pieces around a board and discussing shooting the president would have wildly different connotations today.
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markgreyeyes via youtube4 of 10
7. UNITED APPEAL FOR THE DEAD
Again, we're extremely sensitive these days to how kids are portrayed and treated on screen, even in adult comedies - so this faux medical infomercial about living with the "handicap" known as "death" and its imagery of the rotting corpse of a small child being dragged to football games and left floating face down in the pool would raise some ire.
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aaltra94 via youtube5 of 10
6. A FISTFUL OF YEN
Overall, the "Enter the Dragon" spoof is harmless, and hilarious, and definitely feels more in line with "Airplane!" and "The Naked Gun" than anything else in this movie. Still, even though star Evan Kim is Asian, you'd have to assume that making fun of Bruce Lee's lispy, accent-heavy speech would have a lot of people clutching their pearls and crying racism at the white director for forcing the Asian actor to perform the cultural equivalent of Step 'n Fetchit.
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huggy1959 via youtube6 of 10
5. COURTROOM
"Stenographer Gordon Simley had a sex change operation, and is now a switch hitter for the Atlanta Braves" is a joke in the film accompanied by a man in a frilly dress and hat holding a dildo. We can't see the transgender community taking that one well at all.
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huggy1959 via youtube7 of 10
4. NESSON OIL
Just imagine the protests from PETA over the assertion that Nesson Oil is perfect for frying cats.
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mromcocume via youtube8 of 10
3. CLEOPATRA SCHWARTZ
Another faux movie trailer, and one that is just a minefield from the word go. Promoting a blaxploitation flick about a kickass African-American woman and her Hassidic husband? There's no coming out of this one unscathed.
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laden weird via youtube9 of 10
2. ZINC OXIDE AND YOU
The gag in this educational film is fairly simple - an omniscient narrator makes a woman's everyday household items disappear to prove the ubiquity of zinc oxide, with increasingly disastrous results. The problem comes from the condescending portrayal of "the housewife" (kerchief and apron on, natch) and the fact that one of the gags involves her adolescent son shooting himself with his own rifle and dying on the kitchen floor. Yeesh.
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skrimps33310 of 10Next: Classic Movie Endings Changed By Text Messaging
1. DANGER SEEKERS
Whooo, boy. This one is just a jaw-dropper. We meet "Danger Seeker" and amateur daredevil Rex Kramer as he's about to perform his latest death-defying feat. He steps into a circle of black men rolling dice and proceeds to shout the N-word. With a hard "R" sound at the end, no less. This would be a career-ending gag today.