Stay Tuned (film)
Stay Tuned is a 1992 American fantasy comedy film directed by Peter Hyams and written by Jim Jennewein and Tom S. Parker, with an animated sequence supervised by Chuck Jones. The film stars John Ritter, Pam Dawber, Jeffrey Jones, and Eugene Levy. Its plot follows a suburban couple who are sucked into a television world by an emissary of hell, and must survive for 24 hours in order to be released from it. Stay Tuned was released in the United States on August 14, 1992, by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $12 million. Plot
Struggling Seattle plumbing salesman, former fencing athlete, and couch potato Roy Knable lives with his neglected wife Helen, a vitamin product senior manager. After a fight (which involved Helen smashing the family television screen with one of Roy's fencing trophies as a wake-up call to reality), Mr. Spike, a mysterious salesman, appears at the couples' door, offering them a new high-tech satellite dish system filled with 666 channels of programs one cannot view on regular television (with titles including "Three Men and Rosemary's Baby" and "Sadistic Hidden Videos"). But Helen showed up when she discovered a TV set and later plans to divorce. Unbeknownst to Roy, Spike is an emissary from hell who wants to boost the influx of souls by arranging for TV junkies to be killed in the most gruesome and ironic situations imaginable. The 'candidates' are sucked into a hellish television world, called Hellevision, and put through a gauntlet where they must survive a number of demonic satirical versions of sitcoms and movies. If they can survive for 24 hours, they are free to go, but if they get killed, then their souls will become the property of Satan. The dish sucks Roy and Helen into this warped world, where they are put through a hellish game show, wrestling match, and a parody of Northern Exposure (titled "Northern Overexposure"), in which they meet Crowley, an exiled former co-worker of Spike's, who explains to them how this world works. Through tenacity, improvisation, and sheer luck, the Knables stay alive and escape into different channels through portals hidden within the shows and movies. While watching the TV, their young son Darryl recognizes his parents fighting for their lives as animated mice in a Tom and Jerry-style cartoon in which they are pursued by a robotic cat, after which they become separated. Roy appears in a parody of Wayne's World ("Dwayne's Underworld") featuring the titular characters as zombies, in which he is nearly burned to death with hot pokers, but manages to escape. Roy eventually finds Helen in a black-and-white gangster movie, and the two escape into a miniseries about the French Revolution ("Off With His Head") in which Roy is captured and nearly beheaded. Darryl, a tech geek, is able to use radio equipment to patch into the miniseries and convince the characters he is God, demanding they let his parents go, which infuriates Spike. Roy's 24 hours are up at this point, but since he was the only one who signed Spike's contract, this activates a loophole wherein he can make Helen remain in the TV world and use her to lure Roy back in. Spike enters the TV world, kidnaps Helen, and ties her to train tracks in a Western movie. Roy goes back in and has a gunfight with Spike wherein he is shot. However, the bullet is stopped by Roy's remote control. He and Spike then fight over the other remote and this causes the two to be zapped through demonic and twisted parodies of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Driving Miss Daisy (titled "Driving Over Miss Daisy"), a violent ice hockey game, a crash test dummy demonstration in which Spike cheerfully informs the audience that Roy has neither a seatbelt or an airbag, and finally an episode of Three's Company, the latter of which completely horrifies Roy. Roy finally confronts his enemy in a medieval swashbuckling movie and they proceed to have a fencing match. They then get zapped into a Salt-N-Pepa music video, where Roy gets hold of Spike's remote, sends him back into the swashbuckling movie, and uses it to save Helen from being run over by the train. By pressing the "off" button on the remote, they are evicted from the dish moments before it sucks their neighbor's abusive Rottweiler into the TV and destroys itself. In the end, Spike gets eliminated by the Rottweiler on the command of Crowley, and is then succeeded in his executive position by Pierce, a younger upstart intern. Having learned a valuable lesson after his adventure, Roy dramatically cuts back on his TV viewing, quits his job as a plumbing salesman, and opens his own fencing school, in which he advises one of his students that watching too much TV can get you into trouble. Cast

The group's manager and primary producer Hurby "Luv Bug" Azor (credited under his birth name "Herby Azor") and his brother Steve Azor appear as dancers during the "Start Me Up" segment. Production
In 1990, Jim Jennewein and Tom S. Parker wrote the entire story for the film, under the working title Terrorvision (not to be confused with TerrorVision), inspired by the idea of "The Evil Dead meets Monty Python". Tim Burton was originally chosen to be the director on account of his art and style, but left to direct Batman Returns. The script was purchased by Warner Bros. for $750,000. Reception
The film was not screened for film critics. The film holds a 47% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 17 reviews, with an average score of 4.6/10. On Metacritic, the film has a score of 41 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Stephen Holden of The New York Times called the film a "cleverly plotted movie" based on a "nifty satiric concept" but said that "most of its takeoffs ... show no feel for genre and no genuine wit." Rita Kempley of The Washington Post called the film "wonderfully silly" and a "zippy action spoof." Variety reported the film was "not diabolical enough for true black comedy, too scary and violent for kids lured by its PG rating and witless in its sendup of obsessive TV viewing...a picture with nothing for everybody"; it noted that the "six-minute cartoon interlude by the masterful Chuck Jones, with Ritter and Dawber portrayed as mice menaced by a robot cat...has a grace and depth sorely lacking in the rest of the movie." Time Out called it "pointless 'satire'" with the "emotional depth of a 30-second soap commercial." Box office
Stay Tuned opened at #6 in the US, which the Los Angeles Times called a "fuzzy reception". The film grossed $10.7 million in the US and Canada and grossed only $1 million internationally for a worldwide total of $12 million. Television adaptation 
In August 2020, it was reported that AMC Studios was developing a television series adaptation of the film with Ian B. Goldberg and Richard Naing as writers, a part of Goldberg's overall deal at AMC Studios. Soundtrack

The soundtrack to the film is made up entirely of hip hop songs with the exception of the last two tracks, which were themes composed by Bruce Broughton. Tracks in bold are used in the movie. Track listing

Score album
Broughton's score was released in 2011 by Intrada Records. References

External links

 
 
 
 'Stay Tuned' on a Spoofy Wavelength from Los Angeles Times

1992 films
1992 comedy films
1992 black comedy films
1990s adventure films
1990s American films
1990s English-language films
1990s fantasy comedy films
1990s satirical films
American adventure comedy films
American black comedy films
American dark fantasy films
American fantasy comedy films
American films about revenge
American films with live action and animation
American parody films
American satirical films
Films about divorce
Films about death
Films about television
Films directed by Peter Hyams
Films scored by Bruce Broughton
Films set in Seattle
Films with screenplays by Jim Jennewein
Morgan Creek Productions films
Warner Bros. films