“Let’s face it gentlemen, you’re losers!”

Justin’s rating: Still cheaper than anything you could buy at fast food places these days

Justin’s review: I won’t say that there was a rash of ’80s teen sex comedies centered around the fast food industry, but if I had a nickel for every one of that specific genre I’ve encountered, I’d have 10 cents, and that’s 10 cents more than I would’ve predicted.

So along with Hamburger: The Motion Picture, I stumbled across Fast Food, a 1989 flick that just so happens to star everyone’s favorite Ernest, Jim Varney. It even got a theatrical release, believe it or not.

Super-mullet head Auggie (Clark Brandon) and 30-year-old-looking Drew (Randal Patrick) are two high-spirited college kids who check every box on the trope list: They run scams, throw parties, hit on girls, and get into trouble with the dean.*

When Auggie and Drew are graduated against their will (after eight years!), they decide to go into business for themselves — the fast food business. They help their friend Samantha turn her failing gas station into a surprise hit burger joint, with a “secret sauce” designed by a geek friend that basically roofies everyone who eats the food. You’d think that this would be a major party foul, but no, here it’s just p-a-r-t-y.**

The success of their restaurant is a thorn in the side of Wrangler Bob (Varney), an oh-so-slightly evil chain burger CEO who wants the property for another franchise. Varney’s not in this a whole lot, merely showing up from time to time to mug for the camera and say some goofy gibberish.

Will Auggie, Drew, and all their college buds overcome such low, low obstacles? Probably. And probably with a montage or two. Auggie also has a budding romance with Samantha, who’s wisely hard to win over after watching this jerk’s moves for years, and the two have to deal with Traci Lords as a fast food spy.

The framework for a decent — if stereotypical — ’80s comedy is here, but it has a difficult time pumping out true laughs. Don’t get me wrong, it’s cheerful and likable enough, but comedies need real comedy, not the pretense of it.

It also is the tamest sex comedy to come out of that decade, with virtually no nudity or overt crudeness. There’s even a wet t-shirt contest where — and I am not joking — nobody’s shirt gets wet. This restraint is not a knock against Fast Food, mind you, but it raises the question of why they tried to position this film this way in the first place.

I thought it was funny that their fast food joint, Pops, kind of looks like the hangout for Saved by the Bell. And it was fun to play “spot the actor you vaguely know,” including Michael J Pollard (Scrooged), Blake Clark (50 First Dates), Traci Lords (Cry-Baby), Kevin McCarthy (UHF), and Pamela Springsteen (Sleepaway Camp II).

The LA Times in 1989 called this a “musty soybean burger” of a movie, which I thought was pretty funny. Maybe “soybean” was a dirty word back then? I can tell you that I didn’t hate it as much as that newspaper did. Fast Food is drenched in late ’80s party vibes and a good-natured slobs vs. snobs struggle. Just don’t expect a fine meal.

*Amusingly, Clark Brandon later became a dean of students at a prep school.

*The ’80s doesn’t have to explain itself to you.

Intermission!

• Fast Food was directed by Michael A. Simpson, who did Sleepaway Camp 2 and 3, and he dragged Pamela Springsteen and Tracy Griffith from those films into this as well.
• Call me weird, but I dig the pop synth theme song
• Shark at the pool party gets a time out
• Who needs to hear dialogue when the SOUNDTRACK IS DROWNING EVERYONE OUT
• “So are you into marine biology?” “I know how to swim.”
• Don’t put pictures of your past conquest on the ceiling
• College kids can be used as battering rams
• The chef’s hat on the cowboy hat
• The skeleton covering his eyes (sockets?) made me chuckle
• Where did they get a straightjacket at a college research lab?
• “Who’s helping? This is a party!”
• CONSTRUCTION MONTAGE
• “I don’t want to floss, Donald, I want to walk on the wild side!”
• The MC doing a really bad Rodney Dangerfield impression
• Auggie has the weirdest chest hair
• God sending lightning to keep a nun and a priest from kissing got another chuckle from me
• The burger phone makes me think of Bob’s Burgers’ burger phone
• I think shutting someone in a freezer is a good way to suffocate them
• The FDA loves to slap its labels on everything… and lick tables
• Auggie is the worst. Seriously, the WORST.
• I want to know about the case that involved toys
• Courtrooms are the best place for impromptu slow-mo football matches
• Wrangler Bob’s commercials over the end credits