Going Overboard

"Laugh! I'm wacky! I'm the Wacky Jewish Boxing Man! Sciddly Doo!"There's another abrupt fantasy sequence, with Shecky and Dickie Diamond in a boxing ring with a midget ref. The twist is that they trade verbal jabs instead of actual punches, so when they insult each other, they react as if they've been hit by a punch, complete with wacky sound effects. Now this scene might have been slightly creative and maybe even amusing if the insults were not so terribly lame (Dickie: "Look at your mouth! You've got more teeth than a fucking saw!"). Shecky ends up winning the fight in the second round by taunting "What's that around your neck, your mother's leash?" and then screaming "You buffoon!" Keep in mind that Shecky is supposed to be the "good" comedian.

This is followed up with the beauty pageant contestants talking about world peace. Keep in mind these are merely contestants. There are certainly no winners in the bunch. None of them are particularly attractive and everybody involved with this movie - especially the audience - loses by default. Now this is where the movie tries to get some semblance of a plot: remember how General Noriega was watching this movie on tape? Well, one of the contestants, Miss Australia, goes on and on about how General Noriega smells bad. Noriega gets mad, calls her "worthless leftover kangaroo vomit," and sends his two hapless assassins to kill Miss Australia. This scene also goes on and on and on as the two morons go through their "I a stupid foreign man like Balki on 'Perfect Strangers'" routine. After the assassins depart, Noriega sings a song entitled "It's a sad sad world when your head looks like a pizza." Seriously. [Watch General Noriega croak out his pathetic song yourself, if you don't believe me (432K, Windows Media)]

Back to the ship! Dickie Diamond is stumbling around with stomach pains, saying things like "bullhorn out of nowhere, fucking bullshit bullhorn." It's revealed that Dickie's girlfriend is Miss Australia and she only said those things about Noriega on tape because Dickie told her to. Okay, that makes sense? She goes away and Dickie's hat flies overboard while he's running to the bathroom. Once he's there he pukes and somehow manages to lock himself in. He screams, "Where's a fucking maid when you need one!" and then swears some more. Meanwhile, Miss Australia discovers Dickie's hat in the water and assumes Dickie went overboard and died. Hence the title! They hold a memorial service on deck where the priest (Steven Brill, the creative force behind "Little Nicky" and the "Mighty Ducks" sequels, ugh) picks his nose, eats it, and recites baseball scores instead of psalms. A little joke at the Clergy's expense! Good thing there were no young boys around to molest!

Look! King Neptune, God of the Sea! He gives long boring speeches about comedy!

The passengers' start crying, "who's going to entertain us now?" so Shecky looks at the camera and whines that he can't do it because he's not funny. Well… yeah! Unfortunately, King Neptune, God of the Sea (Billy Zane with a bad Sean Connery accent) climbs on board, sneaks up behind Shecky, and gives him some crappy motivational speech about the power of laughter. And humans crapping in the ocean. [King Neptune's introduction and Shecky whining about girls again (472K, Windows Media)]

Cut to the middle of the ocean and a crappy boat, where the two assassins from Panama are working on their comedy routine:

Assassin #1: Knock Knock
Assassin #2: Who is there?
Assassin #1: The big stinky man
Assassin #2: The big stinky man who?
Assassin #1: The big stinky man… IS YOU!

After Shecky whines some more about not being funny and sings a bad impromptu song entitled "Comedy" with Bob, he finally gets the nerve to get on stage and try to replace Dickie, who everyone thinks is dead. His brilliant strategy is to not tell jokes and just talk to people. So he engages in some retarded conversation with Dave (Billy Bob Thornton, Tomb Raider's husband), a hick-ass construction worker, and bombs miserably. The crowd starts chanting for Dickie, but the rock star guy and "Yellow Teeth" save the day by pushing Shecky off the stage, fondling themselves (ewww), and singing their #1 hit "I Wanna Slap Your Cat," which I think is supposed to be funny in a "Spinal Tap"-ish way. They sing the entire rather generic song while Shecky cries in the audience. Along with the viewers.

All-singing, all-dancing, all-devoid of talent.

Afterwards, Bob tries to cheer Shecky up by saying stand-up comedy is pathetic. "The most degrading thing a human being can put himself through" and "an empty lie." Shecky tells Bob to shut up because, "you're too stupid to tell me anything." Wow, what great pals! In a sad attempt to bail themselves out of this scene, Shecky says that we should check out a montage of beautiful girls. So it cuts to a filler montage of women on the ship doing exciting things like standing, sitting, and leaning against things. This is followed up by a couple of random scenes involving the assassins fighting over a big piece of salami on their boat, General Noriega and some Joan Rivers wannabe watching the assassins bicker on their television while laughing about how her father is in prison for voting against Noriega and won't be out for a couple of years (it doesn't make much sense), and Dickie Diamond still trapped in the bathroom, cursing his "fag socks."

This leads to one of the more bizarre scenes in the movie: the rock star and his manager are arguing about something in the hallway when they hear Dickie yelling for help and how he's going to flush himself down the toilet to escape. They come to the brilliant conclusion that this must be Dickie's ghost, which causes Mister Rock Star to start freaking out, screaming and convulsing about how he wants to get off this haunted ship. So his manager obviously starts beating him up, to help calm him down. Note the expression on the manager's face. He looks like some sort of strange rabid dog. [The great "Haunted Ship" Scene (247K, Windows Media)]