One of the most underrated comedies ever (at least the most underrated Zucker brothers film). The film deals with rock star Nick Rivers (Val Kilmer, yep, Val Kilmer) heading off to East Germany and getting involved in international intrigue. It's a parody of Elvis musicals and WWII films. The movie is a little less polished than "Airplane!" (and more reliant on parodying visual cliches), but it's amazingly funny.

Anybody else seen it?

Yes. It wasn't bad, but it definitely paled in comparison to some other ZAZ stuff, in particular, Airplane!, as you already mentioned.

One of my few pop culture-related behavioral tics is a near-inability to say "gasoline" without saying "gasoline. . .ha-ha-ha!"

Gotta love Chocolate Mousse.

One of mine...

"This is NOT Mel Torme!"

One of my favorite lines:

General Streck: "The murder of a police officer is a capital offense. Let us hope, for your sake, that Officer Kreuger survives."
Von Horst [answering telephone]: "Yah...It is the hospital, mine General."
General Streck: "What is the condition of Officer Kreuger? I see. Well, let me know if there is any change in his condition. [Hangs up] He's dead."

I like when the good guys are planning their raid by using a stick to draw X's and lines in the dirt, followed by someone using a toy cow to show where the disguised guys will go, in turn followed by an increasingly elaborate diorama complete with a model castle and working model train.
Whenever I eat pizza with gooey cheese, I can't help but think of this film.
A reference from this film made its way into a science fiction spacecraft poster. The artist hid the reference so that it's almost unnoticeable. Sorry, but I don't want to give the secret away; suffice to say that bits of Top Secret turn up to this day in the most unexpected places.

Hail Hail East Germany
Land of Grape and Vine
Land where you'll regret
Any attempt to escape
Even if you try to tunnel under
Or take a running jump at the wall
Forget it, the guards will kill you
If the Electrified Fence doesn't first.

A minor nit for an otherwise funny movie (but that's what we are here for, right?): When the "East German Anthem" is sung, the people put their hands over their hearts as is custom in America. However, this is not done in germany. People will only stand up, remove their hats, and look solemn and respectful.

They taught me the works of Karl Marx, Lenin, L. Ron Hubbard, Freddie Laker!

constanze, are you in the former DDR? Or from the former FDR? Question is in response to your 29 October.

1. It's obviously a sight gag.
2. Did they do things differently in the former DDR?


Disclaimer: DDR refers to East Germany, not "Digital Dance Revolution".

Sorry, Scott, it's "Dance Dance Revolution".

Double Data Rate RAM!

Did they do things differently in the former DDR?

Afaik the anthem singing was roughly the same in DDR and FRG - no hand on the heart. The difference was that in East Germany there was no text to be sung. It had been unofficially banned because there were some references to "united Germany" leftover from the fifties. In the old West and now the present most people at most only move their lips because they don't remember the text at all or only the first verse which is banned. Only #3 is allowed.

It's a bit complicated. To make the case even funnier the East German text was at first supposed to be sung too to the Haydn melody of the anthem used by West Germany. Later it was decided otherwise but so both anthems became a bit interchangeable. In the late nineties the Bundes-Prez was greeted once in Brazil (or some African country?) with the wrong one.

I'm from west-germany, but AFAIK, this custom is unknown in many european countries. If you want to know better, you could look at old broadcasts of Olympics and other sports events, where the national anthem is played for each team, and watch what the sportsmen do.

I don't think its a sight gag, but an oversight (pardon the pun), since the obvious gag is the text of the anthem. (On the imdb.com page for this movie, they mention that the translated german version rectifies many factual errors due to poor research, and includes many refernces to real east german problems + politics.)

And electron is right, of course, with people generally mumbling/ humming along, since few know the full text; however, I think this is an almost universal behaviour.

I'm not sure what my favorite gag is. The Pinto joke put me on the floor for a good five minutes the first time I saw it, while I also admire the Pac-Man visual joke, the Skeet Surfing sequence (a masterful send up of about three or four beach songs), the Tutti-Frutti sequence at the restaurant, and the sheer ballsiness of the bookstore scene.

Great Lines:

"You dropped your phony dog poop!" "What phony dog poop?"

"Driver, this isn't the Howard Johnson's!"

"Klaus is a moron who knows only what he reads in the New York Post."