Unfrosted: Sixties Silliness

Netflix’s new Unfrosted, the directorial debut of Jerry Seinfeld, is rated PG-13.  But you’d have to be a lot older than thirteen to catch all the comic references (and would-be comic references) to the era in which this TV movie is set. In fact co-writer (as well as director and star) Seinfeld was himself merely a kid in 1963 when JFK was president, NASA was prepping a moon mission, Walter Cronkite ruled the airwaves, and Kellogg’s was introducing its new breakfast idea, Pop Tarts.

 I’m not quite sure why Seinfeld and his cronies decided the world needed a fictionalized version of the rivalry between Kellogg’s and Post, both of then Battle Creek, Michigan companies striving to be numero uno in the American breakfast market. But they must have felt that the rampant consumerism of the era made for a lively target. And so it does, at least for a while. In their version (which has nothing to do with actual fact), Post—led by Amy Schumer as Marjorie Merriweather Post—has stolen Kellogg’s plans for a heat-and-serve breakfast pastry, and is preparing for a huge roll-out of the new product. To head off this effort, Kellogg’s team has cornered the market in Cuban sugar, and borrowed the shape of a Univac punch card to create their own pastry. They’ve then brought in Jon Hamm and John Slattery of Mad Men fame to give their invention the proper P.R. push, making Pop Tarts fly off store shelves, unlike Post’s almost identical Country Squares.

 The film also finds room for Melissa McCarthy, Bob Gaffigan (as Edsel Kellogg III, the Seinfeld character’s boss), Dan Levy (in a brief appearance as Andy Warhol),  and Peter Dinklage (leading the milk industry’s charge against the new product). James Marsden, hamming it up as TV exercise king Jack Lalanne, heads a lively parade of the era’s commercial icons, which include Chef Boyardee and the maker of  Schwinn bikes.  And speaking of icons, none other than Hugh Grant plays Thurl Ravenscroft, an actor whose claim to fame is being the sonorous voice of Kellogg’s Tony the Tiger. Ravenscroft was an actual voice performer, much beloved by Disney animators, but in Seinfeld’s version he’s a frustrated Shakespearean actor who ends up leading a gaggle of cereal mascots--think Snap, Crackle, and Pop—in a work action against their unappreciative bosses.

 In an effort to leave no Sixties celebrities unspoofed, Unfrosted also makes room for Johnny Carson, John F. Kennedy (furnished with a Boston accent and a pair of attractive blonde twins), and Nikita Khrushchev, who’s brought into the conflict by the Post folks. (Trying to woo him, they posit the introduction of some Russian-friendly cereals like Borscht Loops and Count Vodkula.)  There’s also much would-be jocularity surrounding NASA’s early stabs at space exploration. One joke involving the death in a 1967 launchpad fire of early astronaut Gus Grissom did not go over well in my household. 

 With Jerry Seinfeld’s humor getting more political these days, it wasn’t surprising to notice a more current allusion too. At a point near the end of the film, when striking mascots are demanding that governmental officials “stop the certification” of the new product, the rhetoric is an obvious spoof of the events of January 6, 2021 (and Hugh Grant’s character appears in a Tiger-striped version of the so-called "QAnon Shaman" who wore an outlandish headdress to storm the U.S. Capitol.) Clever parody? I’m not so sure. More like a cluster of buddies at a late-night bull session, thinking up everything and anything that could make them laugh.

 

 

 

“Jury Duty”: A TV Star is Born

The prank show is as old as television. How well I remember Candid Camera, various versions of which were around from 1948 to 2014. This hidden-camera reality show delighted in putting the unsuspecting in awkward situations (like encountering a mailbox from which a human hand reaches out to take your mail). There was lots of innocent merriment to be had in seeing others fooled by wacky oddities.

 Then there’s the so-called mockumentary. It’s realistically filmed, as though a camera crew just happens to be looking in on some everyday but slightly eccentric folk. Among movies, I’d cite 1984’s This is Spinal Tap, in which actor Rob Reiner—making his directorial debut—appears on-screen as Martin Di Bergi, earnestly interviewing four members of what is called “one of England’s loudest bands.” Among the droll rockers in Spinal Tap is one played by Christopher Guest, who went on to produce and direct his own series of mockumentaries. These have included my favorite, Waiting for Guffman, as well as the deathless Best in Show, an hilarious send-up of the snooty kennel-club world. The mockumentary format has been used on TV on such sitcoms as The Office, the U.S. version of which pretends to be filming a workplace documentary about the employees punching their time-cards at Dunder Mifflin Paper Company.

 All of this, I suppose, paves the way for an 8-part TV series produced by Amazon Studios and now nominated for three Emmy awards, including Outstanding Comedy Series. It too is a mockumentary, with jurors and other courtroom personnel being interviewed by off-camera journalist-types, supposedly for a film about what it’s like to serve on an American jury. Here’s the key difference from most mockumentaries: though the judge, the bailiff, and eleven jurors are all actors playing roles, the jury foreman has no idea that he’s at the center of an elaborate prank. Ronald Gladden, of San Diego, is a good-natured young man excited about serving on a jury for the very first time.  

 What he experiences is a trial that at first seems straight-forward: the well-heeled owner of a T-shirt manufacturing business is suing a derelict employee who—drunk and disorderly—befouled a huge stack of her product. But nothing goes as planned. The plaintiff is obnoxious; the defendant’s attorney is hopelessly inept; one juror suffers a near-fatal fall; a second is having a major romantic crisis; a third keeps falling asleep in the courtroom; a fourth is a total space-cadet who enters the jury room wearing his own bizarre invention--“chair-pants.” To add to the chaos, the jury’s alternate member is a semi-well-known actor, James Marsden, who can’t help reminding everyone of his celebrity at every turn. (“James Marsden” is played by James Marsden, best known for films like X-Men and Hairspray. His obnoxious but somehow endearing lampoon of his own public image earned him an Emmy nomination.)  Because of Marsden’s outrageous shenanigans to get out of serving, the jury ends up sequestered in a local motel, where many adventures await them, involving both sex and plumbing.

 None of this would work if it were not for Ronald Gladden. As the one person who’s not in on the joke, he’s trying hard to be both a good juror and a friend to all. Yes, he deals with some pretty unspeakable things, but it’s made clear at the end that everyone on the cast and crew loves him. By the end of Episode 8, you will too. I suspect this will not be his last time on the tube. And I know law students will be in stitches over this very funny show.