RED ENVELOPES: Gumball!

While it is true that Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful for our good fortune, it must be noted that the actual being thankful is usually limited to that moment when you look at the vast spread laid out on the dining room table, lick your lips, and realize that your only regret is that you cannot eat it all. (And you will attempt it anyway.) In most cases, Thanksgiving is usually devoted to the glories of television. Save for an instance around a decade ago when I attempted to help my nephew fly a kite, I have probably spent most of my recent Thanksgivings staring at the flickering box. And while I enjoy a Law & Order marathon as much as the next guy, the beauty of Netflix is that you can personally select the gloriously stupid programming that you allow into your home. Which is why, whilst I assembled the ingredients for a green bean casserole, I reveled in the wonders of that cinematic masterpiece, The Gumball Rally.

I go way back with The Gumball Rally. From what I recall, it's one of the first motion pictures I ever had the privilege to see in a theater. I would have been 5, I think. And that's appropriate, because this is one of the first, best examples of the live-action cartoon. Somebody got the bright idea that you could have an entire movie that consisted of one long car chase. Someone else thought that was brilliant, put up the money, and history was made.

Like the Cannonball Run movies that followed, The Gumball Rally is based on an actual illegal cross-country race. However, where the Cannonball movies felt the need to spice things up with big stars, gratuitous cameos, and blatant attempts at slapstick humor (ladies and gentlemen, I give you Jack Elam), Gumball is based on the premise that the race itself is hilarious. All that's required is to assemble the barely-sketched-out stereotyped participants -- socialite wives, dumb hicks, snooty old guys, lunatic Hungarian motorcyclist -- and start their engines. In fact, it's interesting to see how blatantly Cannonball Run rips off its predecessor. Funny foreigners? Check. Obsessed cop? Check. Racers masquerading as public servants? Check. Hey, it's a race! What's to be creative about?

Michael Bay owes a lot to movies like The Gumball Rally. Consider the merits of the explosive punchline. Van leaking gas? Cute. Van leaking gas careening through traffic? Funny. Van leaking gas, careening through traffic, and crashing into a fireworks factory? Hilarious. It's as though the movie wasn't actually written, but was assembled from flash cards.

Mind you, the race has to do all the work. This is a movie whose idea of star casting is Michael Sarrazin and Tim McIntire. And seriously, a good chunk of the film's "plot" hangs on their good-natured rivalry. A rivalry we care about not one whit, by the way. Which clears the way for such future stars as Gary Busey (in an early appearance as a dim-bulb Southerner) and the magnificent Raul Julia. Ah, Raul. Such a great actor, and such a checkered film career. As an vain, sex-obsessed Italian professional driver, he's clearly understood that it's over the top or bust. When we first meet him, he's making race-car noises while making love. One assumes that the character profile ended right there. It's a magnificent, ridiculous performance, and Julia is undoubtedly setting the pace for everyone else in the film.

Not everything works, of course. The most disastrous side trip is a thoroughly obnoxious central-casting Brooklyn couple, Lázaro Pérez and Tricia O'Neil in a Rolls-Royce. It's important to note: THEY'RE NOT EVEN OFFICIALLY IN THE RACE. Why the hell are we stuck with them, other than to spend a few seconds checking out O'Neil's rack? (Pathetic trivia I know: O'Neil later goes on to play the captain of the Enterprise-C on Star Trek: The Next Generation. So, way to upgrade there, Tricia.) The joke seems to be that the Rolls neatly avoids all manner of disaster, until a very unpleasant run-in with a biker gang that plays like something out of Death Wish. It's extremely unfunny, and like the entire Rolls-Royce subplot, has no place in this movie.

Mentally edit that out, and you're in for a delightful, brainless time. Look, all you need to know about The Gumball Rally is in the trailer. They don't tell you who is in the movie. They tell you the kinds of cars they drive. "Charger! Porsche! Ferrari!" cries the announcer. And then they show you some crashes. That, my friends, is knowing your audience. Make it fast, make it loud, and they'll beat a path to your door.