“Dan’s a good man, and he’s never eaten a whole person in his entire life.”

Justin’s rating: Maybe if this had a major athlete at the wheel it would’ve been better known

Justin’s review: Listen, my tenure in the ’70s was mostly limited to pooping in diapers and being entranced by whatever number and letter was sponsoring Sesame Street that day. So I wasn’t that aware of the trend of disaster movies, other than a vague later awareness that Airplane! was spoofing an airborne segment of those.

But a few years prior to that, another flick took a stab at parodying the genre by giving us a form of public transportation so ludicrous, so garish, and so very ’70s that the world at large would agree to ignore it henceforth. And that movie was, of course, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.

But there’s also this thing.

A $12 million mega-bus called Cyclops rolls out to an unsuspecting public who no doubt only wanted some better ride share options but then the government got involved. So now they have the option to ride on a sizable bus, a chonky bus, a — dare I say? — big bus that can take people nonstop from New York to Denver.

The public has great confidence in this, despite a blast at the factory, the need for last-minute drivers (one of whom is an admitted cannibal), a mad bomber on board, and the fact that this sucker is nuclear. Cyclops* itself is a truly ugly and ungainly beast that looks as though it was created by Homer Simpson. It does have a ton of kooky gadgets and features, such as a self-car wash, a bowling alley, and a small swimming pool.

Some big names like Stockard Channing (The West Wing) and Rene Auberjonois (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) gamely take on these ridiculous situations, all while a lumbering beast of a vehicle (which was actually two trucks sewn together) goes on a cursed road trip. Over the course of this journey, the viewer gets to know many zany characters on this triple-decker, including the worst priest ever, a divorcing couple, and a musician from the Blues Brothers band who sings very inappropriate tunes.

While not nearly as well-known as the Zucker/Abrams/Zucker projects, The Big Bus channels that same kind of sight gag-filled absurdist comedy. It’s weird, it’s silly, and it’s got the biggest, dorkiest bus right at the center of it all.

This may not be as tight as a ZAZ flick, but it is 90 minutes with plenty of genuine laughs revolving around a patently ridiculous premise. I had way more fun with it than I anticipated — being a ’70s flick and all — and you might too.

*Let us not forget that the ’70s was really into naming vans and busses.

Intermission!

• Stockard Channing? Rene Auberjonois? Ned Beatty?
• Nuclear rods can be handled by hand if need be
• Grab all the hot dogs! Save the hot dogs!
• “He can’t hear you.” “I can too!”
• The guy having a really hard time snapping his fingers
• “Eat one lousy foot and they call you a cannibal.”
• “Watch out, he’s got a broken milk carton!”
• “Watch it, he’s got a broken candle!”
• Whole lotta people talking to gravestones today
• When you can’t be moved from a parking lot because of medical issues, it becomes a chore after a day or so
• “Would you believe that I’m running away from home? Lloyd still thinks I’m on the roof fixing the TV antenna!”
• So many colors on those seats
• Don’t worry if one of the drivers gets blackout spells and drives on the shoulder a lot, it’s normal
• The radiation suit dropping down is pretty funny, as are the over-complicated instructions to wear it
• The lounge singer: “So forget about Christmas!!!”
• “I shake hands with bitterness every morning.”
• Car wash on the go
• The swimming pool looks fun
• “We did it! We’re breaking wind at 90!”
• Don’t ask this priest to bless the food: “Well, I guess you’ll want something about God…”
• The Bicentennial Pig
• “He ate my father!” “Did you eat her father?”
• “What’d you shoot him for? He wasn’t even in line!”
• “I think his paw is broken.”