R.I.P. Larry King: Legendary Broadcaster/King of Cameos

While largely known as an iconic radio and television host, the late Larry King, who just passed away earlier today at the age of 87, has been in nearly 70 movies and TV shows in small but crucial roles where he portrayed himself for the most part. So I thought that while others are celebrating his lengthy career of interviewing every imaginable celebrity from Presidents to criminals, and every kind of newsmaker there is on talk radio and CNN, we would take a look at his second career as the King of the Cameos.

King’s first foray into show business was in 1961, when at 27-years old he played a DJ (of course) named Sleepy Sam on Miami Undercover. Check out a clip featuring King from the mostly forgotten black and white crime drama that only lasted a season:

It was almost a quarter of a century later that he got his big break, one that led to him being the go-to in many comedies. In 1984, King appeared in GHOSTBUSTERS in the magazine cover montage that was a trope of many movies at the time. You know, when our heroes gain instant stardom, and we see them in a montage that shows them on the cover of every magazine? That’s right, you got it (see also: TOOTSIE).

While GHOST BUSTERS credited his name, his next motion picture gig just identified him as “TV Talk Show Host.” But since that move was the little seen, and little liked EDDIE AND THE CRUISERS II: EDDIE LIVES!, it so doesn’t matter.

King got his name credit back in his next several movie appearances: CRAZY PEOPLE, THE EXORCIST III, and DAVE. Ivan Reitman’s DAVE featured King in one of his juiciest cameos, though at the time it was most likely seen as an Oliver Stone cameo. The film involved Kevin Kline as an earnest everyman who, because of his strong resemblance, is brought in to take the place of the President, who is in a coma. Stone, at a time when the controversy over his 1991 film JFK was still in the air, the Director goes on King’s show to point out that there are distinct differences in how the President looks now compared to before his stroke. “Do you think that you’re a little paranoid, Oliver?”

King spent a good deal of the ‘90s making guest appearances on seemingly every show that aired including The Larry Sanders Show, Coach, Murder One, Murphy Brown, Spin City, Frasier, and, of course, The Simpsons.

King’s connection to the Muppets was cemented in his turns on Muppets Tonight, Sesame Street, and his allowing Kermit to guest host Larry King Live on April Fool’s Day in 1994.

During this same period, King showed up in THE LONG KISS GOODBYE, CONTACT, OPEN SEASON (not to be confused with the 2006 animated family film or its sequels), MAD CITY, PRIMARY COLORS, BULWORTH, ENEMY OF THE STATE, THE JACKYL, and the horrid oddity that is AN ALAN SMITHEE FILM: BURN HOLLYWOOD BURN.

King didn’t slow down in the next few decades, in fact, as if the Simpsons wasn’t enough, he doubled down on voicing cartoon versions of himself. In the animated 2007 Jerry Seinfeld comedy, BEE MOVIE, he appeared as Bee Larry King:

In the 2012-2016 seres, Gravity Falls, he played Wax Larry King:

But in the SHREK franchise, King played a character not based his persona: Doris, the Ugly Stepsister. King first played the part in SHREK 2 (2004), then reprised the role in SHREK THE THIRD (2007), and SHREK FOREVER AFTER (2010):

King’s cameos continued in such films as THE CONTENDER, JOHN Q, THE STEPFORD WIVES remake, a movie actually called THE REMAKE, SWING VOTE, CHLOE & THEO, THE POWER OF FEW, and something called DUDE BRO PARTY MASSACRE III, in which he played a character named Coach Handsey.

TV work during the same era was just as busy as he did more than one Law & Order series, poked fun at himself on the shows 30 Rock, Boston Legal, and 1600 Penn; got serious on multiple episodes of American Crime Story, and put in many hilarious appearances on Conan O’Brien’s TBS program, Conan, over the years.

King’s connection to the Muppets was cemented in his turns on Muppets Tonight, Sesame Street, and his allowing Kermit to guest host Larry King Live on April Fool’s Day in 1994.

King will be certainly be missed, but he left a lot behind in his stamps on so many movies and TV shows so we’ll keep seeing him pop up in unexpected (and expected) for ages. One interesting tidbit that I’m sure will delight fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is that comic book mastermind Stan Lee (1922-2018) portrayed King in a brief moment in IRON MAN 2:

Pretty neat to see one icon portray another, huh? I had actually forgotten about this as I’ve pretty much forgotten all of IRON MAN 2.

But back to the King:

R.I.P. Larry King (1933-1921)

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PIXELS Is Lame, But Doesn’t Suck As Much As You’ve Heard

Opening today at a multiplex near all of us:

PIXELS (Dir. Chris Columbus, 2015)

So, PIXELS, the latest in a long line of crass comedies from Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions, is a typically lame offering, but it really doesn't suck as much as the majority of critics are saying.

I mean, it currently holds an awful 12% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. C’mon! It deserves at least 30-something percent. *

PIXELS scores a few points by trying a little harder than Sandler’s largely crappy output of late (the GROWN UP series, THAT’S MY BOY, BLENDED, etc.) and it has a pretty promising premise – aliens attack earth in the form of ‘80s video games – which does at times add up into some genuinely enjoyable dumb fun.

There may be dragging stretches between those instances of amusement, and tons of lame jokes litter the landscape along with the pixilated carnage, but as a throwaway summer popcorn picture it’s actually almost passable.

Sandler, Josh Gad, and Peter Dinklage play former ‘80s arcade champions, who we meet as kids played by the well cast Anthony Ippolito, Jacob Shinder and Andrew Bambridge, in an opening flashback set in 1982. We also meet Jared Riley as the kid version of Kevin James’ character, who’s not a great gamer but is able to score a Chewbacca mask from the Claw Game.

In the intervening years, Sandler’s Sam Brenner grows up to be a schlubby Geek Squad-style media center installation guy, while his best friend, James’ Will Cooper (or “Chewie” to his friends) has gone on to be elected President of the United States.

When Austrialia gets invaded by an alien force resembling the game Galaga™, James recruits Sandler to use his gaming skills, which involve recognizing patterns, to help the army defeat the 8-bit menace. Gad, now a conspiracy theory buff, and a mulleted Dinklage, in prison for criminal hacking, are also called upon and before long they’re all wearing uniforms identified as “Arcaders.”

Michelle Monaghan as Lt. Colonel Violet van Patten, Sandler’s obvious love interest from the get go, is skeptical of the crew until they take down Centipede® in a battle in London’s Hyde Park.

The big showpiece is the showdown with Pac-Man™ in New York City. The Arcaders take on the role of the ghosts via brightly colored cars with their names (Blinky, Inky, Pinky, and Clyde) on their license plates. Pac-Man is his old yellow, recognizable self, albeit ginormous, who shocks Sandler and his creator, Denis Akiyama as Toru Iwatani (the real Iwatani has a cameo as a repairman), by being “a bad guy.”

PIXELS takes the aliens recreating our old pop culture premise from GALAXY QUEST mixes it with the satirical yet nostalgic take on arcade classics from the Reagan era of WRECK-IT RALPH, and then wraps it all up in GHOST BUSTERS packing of having lovable, schlubby underdogs overcoming supernatural odds to save the world from a dangerously silly threat. Oh, and there’s an added splash of THE KING OF KONG in there too – the posturing of Dinklage’s Donkey Kong champion more than a little resembles the arrogant Billy Mitchell in that compelling gaming doc.

It should also be mentioned that there’s an episode of Futurama, “Raiders of the Lost Arcade,” that shares the same premise, but the real inspiration, which is credited, is the French animated short “Pixels.” Nearly every visual gag in the short is redone in the movie – watch it here.

Scripted by longtime Sandler screenwriting pal Tim Herlihy, PIXELS has a decently dopey tone to it. It doesn’t care whether its jokes land, or its plot mechanics are transparent, it just wants to fuck around on its huge playset with all the props and memories of the overgrown man-children in its audience.

Unfortunately there are so many missed opportunities with this material that it’s a shame that like somebody like the retro-meta-mastermind team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (the 21 JUMP STREET movies, THE LEGO MOVIE) wasn’t hired to touch up the screenplay.

Like I said before, it’s pretty close to crappy (which could be said also of its cluttered cinematography), but not as interminable, soul crushing, or as painful as many critics are saying. It’s a mediocre attempt at a crowd pleaser that actually has some amusing moments. It just fits better into the “Sandler is so over” narrative that so many pop culture pundits have been selling lately to paint it as a big, stinky dud.

I can’t say I’d recommend it to anyone who’s not a big Sandler fan, or somebody who doesn’t say upfront that they like big, stupid movies, but if I were using a star rating system I’d give it two stars out of five for “doesn’t completely suck” (the other stars for the record: 1 star = “sucks,” 3 stars = “good,” 4 stars = “almost awesome,” and 5 stars = of course, “awesome”).

Oh, and I enjoyed the Q-Bert, and Max Headroom cameos too.

* The Rotten Tomatoes rating of 12% was what it was at when I originally wrote this review. It's now at 20%, so it's slowly inching it's way up as more reviews are posted. Maybe it'll make 30-something % yet.

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