... and God Spoke (1993) from Tuna and Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

Tuna's comments in white:

... and God Spoke (1993) is a mockumentary about two indie filmmakers, a producer and director, who have managed to secure studio money to make an epic film of the bible. Given the book sales, the producer figures the potential market is enormous. The hurdles are equally high. The first problem occurs during casting when they find out that, even with a substantial budget, they can't get their first choices for God or Moses or the Virgin Mary. On the first day of shooting, they discovered that their Eve had a tattoo from her breasts to her crotch, and then that their snake was poisonous and not defanged. Their initial script, which covered the entire old and new testaments, started to seem a little over-ambitious even to them, so they cut out the boring parts. To top it off, their DP added a bunch of filters to symbolize what he saw as the dark days of mankind, resulting in a nearly black reel of film. And so it went, from day one through the cuts made by the studio, and eventually to the point where the frustrated studio dropped the project, forcing the filmmakers to complete it with their own money.

I don't want to give too much away because most of the fun is in getting there, but here's a taste of the film's flavor:

Moses was played by Soupy Sales as Soupy Sales. Just before Soupy takes his position to bring the Ten Commandments back from the mountain, the producer whispers something in his ear. Cameras roll, and he walks down with the stone tablets and a six pack of Coke. Seems the producer had made a deal for product placement.

That gives you the idea.

I enjoyed every minute of this film, so you may as well, if it is your cup of java.

Scoop's notes in yellow:

I didn't love the film from beginning to end the way Tuna did, but I thought they had some really funny ideas. For me it was sixty minutes of solid material spread out over eighty minutes. It would have been great as a one hour comedy special on HBO or Comedy Central. Even as it is, it is not so bad at all!

Some examples of their funny concepts:

• The first draft came in at 2000 pages - "which was more of a mini-series length." The writer didn't want to cut it, because he didn't write it - "God wrote it through me", and he kinda figured God would have made it shorter if that's what He had wanted.

• At one point the director thought there might be a realism problem with eight disciples, but he didn't know how many disciples Jesus actually had, and nobody on the set knew. Worse yet, nobody on the set had a copy of The Bible. Somebody in the crew was pretty sure it was ten disciples, so the director insisted on having two more. The producer said there was no money for two more disciples, but the director was a stickler for historical accuracy and would not continue without the full ten! At that point the only remaining problem was the "walk on water" scene, because the boat wouldn't hold ten disciples plus Jesus.

• They cut all the depressing stuff out of the Bible, but their script was still far too long, so they had the ultimate practical solution to shorten it  - cut Jesus!

• Ya gotta love a film in which Incredible Hulk (Lou Ferrigno) plays Cain and Andy Dick is Abel.

• Their film ended up as the worst film ever made, and they were broke. A year later, however, college kids discovered it and turned it into a cult item like Rocky Horror Picture Show. Kids would go to the midnight showings dressed as their favorite cheesy characters and recite all the dialogue. You'd see the kids in line, and several would be dressed as Moses, complete with stone tablets and six packs of Coke!

And, of course, you have to love the film clips from their earlier films, Nude Ninjas and Dial S for Sex. ("Dial S did remarkably well in Third World Countries, especially Bangladesh, because they were just getting their first phones when the film played there.")