The fire department in a small town is having a big party when the ex-boss of the department celebrates his 86th birthday. The whole town is invited but things don't go as planned. Someone is stealing the prizes to the lottery and the candidates for the Miss Fire-Department beauty contest are neither willing nor particularly beautiful.
The film has widely been interpreted as a satire on the East European Communist system, and it was "banned forever" in Czechoslovakia following the Soviet invasion of 1968. Forman reflected that the film was not intended to be a satire of any particular government, saying, "I didn't want to give any special message or allegory. I wanted just to make a comedy knowing that if I'll be real, if I'll be true, the film will automatically reveal an allegorical sense. That's a problem of all governments, of all committees, including firemen's committees. That they try and they pretend and they announce that they are preparing a happy, gay, amusing evening or life for the people. And everybody has the best intentions... But suddenly things turn out in such a catastrophic way that, for me, this is a vision of what's going on today in the world." And he is right. This is not anti-Soviet or anti-Czech. It plays just as well in the United States as a satire on bureaucracy, or could be seen without any satire at all... why not just a group of bumbling men? When Abbott and Costello pretend to be something, is it an insult to that profession? Of course not.
The film has widely been interpreted as a satire on the East European Communist system, and it was "banned forever" in Czechoslovakia following the Soviet invasion of 1968. Forman reflected that the film was not intended to be a satire of any particular government, saying, "I didn't want to give any special message or allegory. I wanted just to make a comedy knowing that if I'll be real, if I'll be true, the film will automatically reveal an allegorical sense. That's a problem of all governments, of all committees, including firemen's committees. That they try and they pretend and they announce that they are preparing a happy, gay, amusing evening or life for the people. And everybody has the best intentions... But suddenly things turn out in such a catastrophic way that, for me, this is a vision of what's going on today in the world." And he is right. This is not anti-Soviet or anti-Czech. It plays just as well in the United States as a satire on bureaucracy, or could be seen without any satire at all... why not just a group of bumbling men? When Abbott and Costello pretend to be something, is it an insult to that profession? Of course not.