The Hollywood Reporter, Wednesday, March 3, 1999


FAST FOOD FILMS (FX) 11 p.m. Saturday
by Michael Farkash

Judging by the first episode, this tasty tidbit is a winner. This 30-minute late-night series dishes up three vintage movies boiled down to six-minute vignettes with comic dialogue added. It's not socially redeeming in the slightest, but it's a funny pleasure.

The show's format, reminiscent of "Mystery Science Theater 3000," is more accessible and, to tell the truth, generally funnier. With "MST," one must sit through an entire movie and take in lots of jokes that are hit-and-miss; in "Fast Food Films," the pace is akin to the old "Laugh-In." Don't like a joke? A millisecond later, here comes another gag.

The first of three films in the premiere is "The Best Little Girl in the World," featuring Jennifer Jason Leigh as an anorexic. Given that Jason Miller, who played the priest in "The Exorcist," is her therapist, "FFF" decided to retitle this "The Anorexorcist."

"A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell," is revamped as a 1950s sex-filled film with naughty, '90s attitude thrown in. Lastly, there's "Creepozoids" redone as an "American Gladiators"-style contest.

The running commentary and play-by-play is inspired madness. Gold Coast Television, FX, exec producers Jay Renfroe, David Garfinkle and Matthew Papish, and the rest of their team deserve much credit for this oddball fun.

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