How can a movie starring Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman and Madeline Kahn not be funny? I'm still not sure how this one managed it, but it did. The plot was difficult to follow and seemed to constantly meander... this wasn't helped by the numerous inexplicable bursts into song which broke up the narrative and destroyed any momentum the plot might have managed to gather. The desperately un-amusing "Kangaroo Hop" is repeated several times and is more tedious with each repetition. I think during Dom DeLuise's lengthy career he was funny once for about five minutes... unfortunately, those five minutes are in some other film. Wilder, as writer and director, seems to be trying to channel Mel Brooks, who was pretty much a hit-or-miss kind of a guy himself, so the failure of this movie to impress isn't so surprising. Still, I do wish it had been better. It should have been, with this pedigree.
