After children's TV host Randolph "Rainbow Randolph" Smiley (Robin Williams) is publicly disgraced following a bust in an FBI sting operation, Children's TV network Kidnet swiftly cancels the show with a plan to replace it with someone who's lacking in the baggage of negative publicity. Hardened producer Nora Wells (Catherine Keener) and corporate yes man, Marion Frank Stokes (Jon Stewart) scramble to find someone "squeaky clean" eventually settling for Sheldon Mopes(Edward Norton) and his character Smoochy the Rhino, who sings songs at the Coney Island Methodone Clinic and is sincere and ethical almost to a fault. Sheldon soon finds himself fighting for integrity of both his show and his character as network executives, marketing departments, corrupt charities, even the Irish Mafia all develop an interest in Mopes and his Rhino persona. Meanwhile Randolph continually seeks and orchestrates elaborate revenge schemes against mopes becoming more and more unhinged.
A joint British-American co production between Warner Bros. And Film Four, the movie was written by Adam Resnick best known for his work on The Larry Sanders Show as well as his work on Chirs Elliot's TV series Get a Life and the Chris Elliot film Cabin Boy. The movie is a satire of the vapidness and cynicism of the children's entertainment, particularly inspired by Barney the Dinosaur, and takes great pleasure in tearing away the veneer of wholesomeness to reveal the cynical money hungry monster beneath the cuddly foam suit. The film is notable for being a box office disaster making back a mere $8 million of its $50 million budget and in combination with the failure of the following year's Duplex destroyed Danny Devito's directing career in feature films. Roger Ebert even declared the movie the worst of 2002 (it's not). The movie is certainly flawed, but I'd be lying if I said the movie's pitch black gleefully insane takedown of marketing icons masquerading as wholesome children's entertainment didn't raise a few laughs.
The movie from the get go is definitely and unapologetically a Adam Resnick project. From it's seemingly innocent framework that is loaded with uncomfortable and taboo subject matter, it's a similar approach to how Resnick took the Dennis the Menace format with Get a Life and got comedy from it by way replacing an 8 year old kid with a 35 year old man. Unlike Get a Life the movie does try to have a "good" character who we're supposed to root for with Sheldon Mopes. It's pretty clear that Resnick is in unfamiliar territory trying to write characters who are supposed to be principled and ethical and Sheldon at points feels more like a parody of someone principled and ethical rather than someone who's supposed to be principled and ethical. I'm not sure what exactly the issue is if it falls more on Resnick who doesn't usually write characters like this or if it falls more on Edward Norton who's not typically a comic actor (at least as it pertains to this very broad exaggerated style of comedy). There are moments where Norton's delivery in the character do work such as a scene where he's tricked by Rainbow Randolph into performing as Smoochy for an event that isn't what he was told it was, but the scenes of him playing for sincerity straight just come off as odd for reasons I can't put my finger on.
The movie's best asset is definitely in its unapologetically cruel take on its subject matter, showing the majority of children's TV hosts as being drug addicts, pedophiles, perverts, alcoholics, or subject to some other vice that rules their lives and the studio and network are happy to ignore so long as it doesn't spill over into the public eye. It's a stomach churning take that also manages to be darkly humorous thanks in no small part to a committed assortment of actors such as Danny Devito, Harvey Firestein, Danny Woodburn, Jon Stewart and Catherine Keener who all play their roles very well and create an intriguingly repellent world of foam covered hypocrisy. But easily the best performance belongs to Robin Williams, who plays a disgraced Captain Kangaroo style children's TV host who becomes more insane in his attempted takedowns of Sheldon and his Rhino persona Smoochy with his schemes and meltdowns being comedic highlights of the film.
The movie unfortunately loses its edge a bit in a third act that starts off well enough involving a smoochy centric ice show that starts off quite well with a retelling of many of the events of the movie as done by figure skaters that's very entertaining, but it loses its teeth in the final 10 minutes by offering redemption for Rainbow Randolph and not even having the guts to show the ultimate fate of our main antagonists. If I had to guess I'd say this was most likely a studio note to soften the edges of what I can only guess may have been a darker script.
Death to Smoochy is a flawed film, but it's also very entertaining with a decent skewering of Children's entertainment and a twisted sense of humor. While certain elements work better than others I think the film is a very well done dark comedy that doesn't pull its punches (mostly).
