Amazon Women on the Moon is a 1987 American satirical science fiction film that parodies the experience of watching low-budget films on late-night television. The film, featuring a large ensemble cast including cameo appearances from film and TV stars and even non-actors, was written by Michael Barrie and Jim Mulholland, and takes the form of a compilation of 21 comedy skits directed by five different directors: Joe Dante, Carl Gottlieb, Peter Horton, John Landis, and Robert K. Weiss.
The title Amazon Women on the Moon refers to the central film-within-a-film, a spoof of science-fiction films from the 1950s that borrows heavily from Queen of Outer Space (1958) starring Zsa Zsa Gabor, itself a film that recycles elements of earlier science-fiction works such as Cat-Women of the Moon (1953), Fire Maidens from Outer Space (1955), and Forbidden Planet (1956).
John Landis had previously directed The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), which employed a similar sketch anthology format.
Plot
Fictional television station WIDB-TV (channel 8) experiences problems with its late-night airing of science-fiction classic Amazon Women on the Moon, a 1950s B movie in which Queen Lara (Sybil Danning) and Captain Nelson (Steve Forrest) battle exploding volcanoes and man-eating spiders on the Moon. Waiting for the film to resume, an unseen viewer begins channel surfing—simulated by bursts of white noise—through late night cable, with the various segments and sketches of the film representing the programming found on different channels. The viewer intermittently returns to channel 8, where Amazon Women continues airing before faltering once more.
These segments feature: Arsenio Hall as a man who experiences a series of mishaps around his apartment; Monique Gabrielle as a model who goes about her daily routine in Laguna, California, completely naked; Lou Jacobi as a man named Murray, zapped into the television, wandering throughout sketches looking for his wife; Michelle Pfeiffer and Peter Horton as a young couple having trouble with eccentric doctor Griffin Dunne delivering and then concealing their newborn baby; Joe Pantoliano as the presenter of a commercial recommending stapling carpet to a bald head as a hair loss prevention measure; David Alan Grier and B.B. King in a public-service appeal for "blacks without soul" featuring "Don 'No Soul' Simmons"; Rosanna Arquette as a young woman on a blind date, employing unusual methods of investigation to reveal the qualifications of Steve Guttenberg; Henry Silva as the host of a show entitled Bullshit or Not?, clearly intended as a spoof of Ripley's Believe It or Not! with Jack Palance and In Search of...; Archie Hahn as a man who dies after being mauled (by Roger Barkley and Al Lohman, mimicking Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert), then is roasted at his funeral by a variety of people, including Steve Allen, Henny Youngman, and even his own wife; William Marshall as the leader of the Video Pirates, who hijack an MCA Home Video ship, uncover a vast amount of videotapes and laserdiscs, and promptly begin illegally bootlegging the media; Ed Begley Jr., as the son of the Invisible Man, having trouble with his formula; Angel Tompkins as a president's First Lady who is also a former hooker; Matt Adler as a sexually frustrated teenager trying to purchase a pack of condoms, with unexpected results; Marc McClure renting a personalized date video that spills over into real life; "Reckless Youth" – an epilogue at the end of the credits, with Carrie Fisher and Paul Bartel in a black-and-white ephemeral film warning about the spread of "social diseases" in the style of Reefer Madness.
Alternative versions
An alternate version of the "Pethouse Video" sketch was filmed for the television broadcast of the film, with Monique Gabrielle in lingerie instead of appearing naked throughout the segment. However, most European television broadcasts of the film retained the original theatrical version. Bullshit or Not? was retitled Baloney or Not? for the television version.
The American television edit, in addition to the alternative "Pethouse Video" sketch, features an additional bridging sequence between the death of Harvey Pitnik and his subsequent celebrity roast. In it, the mortician successfully cons Pitnik's widow into having the celebrity roast as part of the funeral, and her performance gets such strong positive feedback, it becomes a continuing performance series lasting for weeks.