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MEATBALLS PART II
Rating: 
USA. 1984.
Director – Ken Wiederhorn, Screenplay – Bruce Singer, Story – Martin Kitroesser & Carol Watson, Producers – Tony Bishop & Stephen Poe, Photography – Donald M. Morgan, Music – Ken Harrison, Visual Effects – Barry Nolan, Special Effects – Reel City Inc, Meathead Design – Alfred Der Haropian, Production Design – James William Newport. Production Company – Space Productions.
Cast:
John Mengatti (Armand ‘Flash’ Carducci), Kim Richards (Cheryl), Richard Mulligan (Giddy), Hamilton Camp (Colonel Jack ‘Bat’ Hershey), Tammy Taylor (Nancy Morgan), Archie Hahn (Jamie/Voice of Meathead), Vivi Lorre (Tula Washington), Joanne Guidizi (Sally), Misty Rowe (Fanny), John Laroquette (Felix Foxglove), John Nipote (Boomer), Donald Gibb (Mad Dog), Paul Reubens (Albert), Felix Silla (Meathead)
Plot: Teenage delinquent Armand ‘Flash’ Carducci is released on parole under the supervision of the Camp Sasquatch summer camp. At the same time an alien teenager is left at the camp by its parents so that it can complete its Earth merit badge. It becomes an object of fascination amongst the kids who nickname it ‘Meathead’. Flash soon has his hands full with the attentions of the virginally innocent Cheryl, and when, as camp boxing champion, he must stand up in a fight against the despotic neighbouring Camp Patton that will determine which camp has rights to the lake.
Meatballs (1979) was one of the big independent successes of the early 1980s and was the first summer camp comedy. Along with Lemon Popsicle (1978) and National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978) that came out at the same time, Meatballs popularized the teen makeout genre – films like Porky’s (1982), Revenge of the Nerds (1984), Police Academy (1986) and American Pie (1999) all owe themselves to these films. Meatballs inspired a host of copycat summer camp comedies – H.O.T.S. (1979), Gorp (1980), Little Darlings (1980), Party Camp (1986) – as well as gave inspiration to Friday the 13th (1980), which cannily threw the summer camp concept together with the slasher success of Halloween (1978). Not to mention the fact that Meatballs launched the careers of director Ivan (Ghostbusters) Reitman and Bill Murray in his first screen performance. Meatballs is amiably no-brained and unashamedly vulgar in its comedy and certainly a good deal better than the dozens of copycat summer films and the three inane sequels that followed.
Nobody is pretending that Meatballs was a masterpiece, but Meatballs Part II makes it look like a high art. Some films are dumb, some really scrape the bottom of the barrel, but Meatballs Part II not only scrapes through, but also starts tunnelling down into the ground on the other side. The film fails to generate a single smile of amusement or laugh on even the slightest level. Some of the dialogue, especially the scenes with Kim Richards talking about ‘pinkies’, leaves one squirming in embarrassment. To the summer camp setting and hijinks of Meatballs, Meatballs Part II adds a cute alien, clearly inspired by the then recent success of E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial (1982). But it is hard to imagine how worse a film could get than naming an E.T. clone ‘Meathead’. And Meathead just sits just like the papier-mâché model it probably is – the film could possibly quite well win some award for the least significant use ever of an E.T. in a film. This film is so torpid one can’t even reach for the anger reserved for genuinely mind-insulting films.
Meatballs Part II was directed by Ken Wiederhorn, a minor director who once made the decent Nazi zombie effort Shock Waves (1975) (which in can be seen screening as the camp’s film). Ken Wiederhorn has also made the slasher film Eyes of a Stranger (1981), a really unfunny zombie comedy Return of the Living Dead Part II (1988) and the non-genre hostage drama A House in the Hills (1993).
The subsequent Meatballs sequels were:– Meatballs III: Summer Job (1987), which is a fantasy film that concerns an angel come down to Earth to help a teen lose his virginity, and Meatballs 4 (1992), which returns to the summer camp hijinks formula but contains no fantastic elements.
Copyright Richard Scheib 1990
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