Carrot Top is one of those actors who is the epitome of Andy Warhol's assertion that "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." Clearly, Mr. Top's claim to fame was very, very short-lived and the world's fascination of him expired long ago--probably long before this movie debuted! I think that this film's appearance on the infamous "IMDB Bottom 100" is due to this disaffection with the red-headed 'comic'. In other words, while the film IS bad, it's not as bad as its rating would suggest--and is more a reflection of the world being tired of Mr. Top than anything else. After all, a little bit of his shtick sure goes a long way!
The film is very formulaic and the plot is basically the same as Weird Al's film "UHF"--except that "UHF" is very funny and "Chairman of the Board" is tired and occasionally tedious film. Now that I think about it, the plot is a lot like Steve Martin's "The Jerk"--which was also very, very funny and "Chairman of the Board" is a dull pile of bat droppings.
Mr. Top is an out of work guy who makes crazy and generally useless inventions (wow--that's a radical departure from his stage routine). Despite this, he IS able to make it big because he meets up with a nice old guy (Jack Warden--who deserved better than this) who unknown to Herr Top is the CEO of a multi-million dollar company. When Warden dies, he leaves the company to the Top-Meister. Warden's nephew, Larry Miller (who does not deserve better than this) wants the company himself and decides to work behind Topper's back to ruin the company's stock so he can take over the company. Sadly for Miller, La Zanahoria's crazy inventions work out great--making the company more successful than ever before...but Miller has an evil plan....
As I said above, the basic plot idea, while recycled, is workable. The problem is all the fart jokes, crotch jokes and the fact you see so much of the Carrot that the film is ponderous and rarely charming. The bottom line is that if the leading man had been a bit actor instead of THE film it might have worked...providing the film also had writers who were not chimps. All in all, pretty dopey but watchable...and not nearly as horrible as the really, really bad films of William Grefe, Al Adamson, Ed Wood, Larry Buchanan, Arch Hall, Sr. or Ray Dennis Steckler!! Now these guys really, really, really made bad films--apocalytically bad films!!
By the way, there was one very good thing about the film--seriously. The surfer-inspired music (including a great song from the Ramones) made this a terrific soundtrack--one of the best in recent memory. Really.
The film is very formulaic and the plot is basically the same as Weird Al's film "UHF"--except that "UHF" is very funny and "Chairman of the Board" is tired and occasionally tedious film. Now that I think about it, the plot is a lot like Steve Martin's "The Jerk"--which was also very, very funny and "Chairman of the Board" is a dull pile of bat droppings.
Mr. Top is an out of work guy who makes crazy and generally useless inventions (wow--that's a radical departure from his stage routine). Despite this, he IS able to make it big because he meets up with a nice old guy (Jack Warden--who deserved better than this) who unknown to Herr Top is the CEO of a multi-million dollar company. When Warden dies, he leaves the company to the Top-Meister. Warden's nephew, Larry Miller (who does not deserve better than this) wants the company himself and decides to work behind Topper's back to ruin the company's stock so he can take over the company. Sadly for Miller, La Zanahoria's crazy inventions work out great--making the company more successful than ever before...but Miller has an evil plan....
As I said above, the basic plot idea, while recycled, is workable. The problem is all the fart jokes, crotch jokes and the fact you see so much of the Carrot that the film is ponderous and rarely charming. The bottom line is that if the leading man had been a bit actor instead of THE film it might have worked...providing the film also had writers who were not chimps. All in all, pretty dopey but watchable...and not nearly as horrible as the really, really bad films of William Grefe, Al Adamson, Ed Wood, Larry Buchanan, Arch Hall, Sr. or Ray Dennis Steckler!! Now these guys really, really, really made bad films--apocalytically bad films!!
By the way, there was one very good thing about the film--seriously. The surfer-inspired music (including a great song from the Ramones) made this a terrific soundtrack--one of the best in recent memory. Really.