IMDB Link
Plot:
The Knables are having marriage problems: Roy is a lousy plumbing supplies salesman by day and couch potato by night, and his wife, Helen, is a successful senior product manager for a vitamin company. Roy watches too much TV every night and Helen just cannot stand it. Then one night, Helen offers Roy a night to save their relationship: a romantic getaway without phones, their children, and especially no TV. Unfortunately, when Roy's hooked on the big screen, there's no going back. This frustrates and angers her and Helen decides to smash the family console with one of Roy's trophies as a wake-up call to reality. A heartbroken-to-disoriented Roy then hears the doorbell and finds out that it's a mysterious salesman named Spike who offers him the "ultimate getaway" from all the hate, frustration, and failures: a new remote controller and a new state-of-the-art satellite TV. Roy accepts the new TV by signing a free trial contract not knowing that he just sold his soul to the devil himself...
A User Review:
STAY TUNED offers a great comedic premise. John Ritter is a couch potato extraordinaire who gets what he may have long wished for when he is literally sucked into the 500-channel universe. Trouble is, this cable package is straight from h-e-double-hockey-sticks, with shows like "Duane's Underworld" and "Meet the Mansons." Along with wife Pam Dawber, he must survive 24 hours or be, to borrow a TV term, canceled.
The problem is, STAY TUNED never really capitalizes on this joke-rich notion. It starts out strong, but the continual TV parodies are often lame and gradually grow tiresome. The likable Ritter tries hard, he really does, but this material is far beneath him. Some of it is lightly funny, in a "Cracked" magazine kind of way, but most of it is not. And because it's basically a family film, things stay too tame to really please grown-ups.
Die-hard Ritter fans, 12-year-olds and staunch couch potatoes will get the most out of STAY TUNED. And although there's been much worse emitted from Hollywood, the rest of us are generally disappointed.
Trivia:
When sending away for something from ACME as a cartoon mouse, the envelope Roy is mailing has a stamp featuring a likeness of cartoon legend Chuck Jones, who supervised the animation sequence in the film.
Poster:
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