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. After a fight (which involves Helen smashing the family's television with one of Roy's fencing trophies as a wake-up call to reality), salesman Mr. Spike appears at the couple's door, offering them a high-tech satellite dish system filled with 666 channels of programs one cannot view on regular television. After discovering a TV set, Helen starts planning 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 gruesome and ironic situations. The 'candidates' are sucked into Hellevision, a hellish world where they must survive 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 Hellevision and are put through a hellish game show, wrestling match, and the comedy-drama "Northern Overexposure", in which they meet Crowley, an exiled former co-worker of Spike's. Through tenacity, improvisation, and 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 cartoon in which a robotic cat pursues them, after which they become separated. Roy appears in the movie "Duane's Underworld", featuring the titular characters as zombies, in which he is nearly burned to death with hot pokers. Roy eventually finds Helen in a black-and-white gangster movie, and the two escape into "Off With His Head", a miniseries about the French Revolution in which Roy is captured and nearly beheaded. Darryl, a tech geek, uses 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 the contract, this activates a loophole wherein Spike can make Helen remain in Hellevision. Spike enters Hellevision and kidnaps Helen, changing channels again. She finds herself tied to a cart sitting across the railway track in the town from a Western movie, with Spike announcing that the 3:10 to Yuma is due soon. The cart is stacked with dynamite. Spike informs Roy and his kids - watching from their home - that Helen is being held captive on Channel One, in an attempt to lure Roy.

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 latter's remote and this causes the two to be zapped through more demonic and twisted parodies, a violent ice hockey game, a crash test dummy demonstration in which Roy has neither a seatbelt or an airbag, and an episode of Three's Company. Meanwhile, Helen struggles to free herself from her ropes, as the train approaches.

Roy eventually confronts Spike in a medieval swashbuckling movie, and they proceed to have a fencing match. They then get zapped into a music video, where Roy gets hold of Spike's remote and sends him back to the swashbuckling movie. Returning to Channel One, Roy tries to save Helen by changing channels, only to find that the demonic production team at Hellevision have locked out any escape options. Roy and Helen eventually realise they can escape once and for all by turning the remote off.

Roy and Helen arrive back in their garden. Their neighbour's Rottweiler appears about to attack, but ends up getting sucked into the dish just before it destroys itself. 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. Roy cuts back on his TV viewing, quits his job as a plumbing salesman, and opens his own fencing school, in which he advises a student 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.

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