Heat Vision and Jack

Ben Stiller came to television with the Ben Stiller show, and despite great reception, it was canceled quickly. He went out and got famous in film, only to come back to television and get canceled again. Heat Vision and Jack takes humor out of it's ridiculous premise, bad dialogue and melodramatic acting, parodying bad television shows, mainly Knight Rider. Where Knight Rider took itself too seriously, Heat Vision and Jack takes nothing seriously at all. It's a stupid, but hilarious joke.

Jack (Jack Black) was formerly an astronaut sent into space on a special mission. When in space, his mind was expanded and now he knows everything. NASA wanted to take his brain, so he called his roommate Doug, who was vaporized into the motorcycle he was driving. At that moment, he ceased to be Doug and he became Heat Vision, the talking motorcycle. In this thrilling adventure, Jack and Heat Vision (voiced by Owen Wilson) are on the tail of a possessed gas station owner (Vincent Schiavelli) that can melt people with his eyes. Along the way, Jack and Heat Vision must avoid Ron Silver who's trying to kill them, and they meet a sheriff (Christine Taylor) who helps them on their journey. Can they survive the chaos? Well, unfortunately the pilot didn't last to become a show.

There really isn't anything wrong with this pilot. The performances are so purposefully bad. Jack Black gives his best serious performance, which ends up seeming like a bad Shatner imitation. Christine Taylor's delivery is late 80s/early 90s stuff, like one of the girls off of Baywatch. Owen Wilson has a good voice, and Ron Silver plays Ron Silver to perfection. Even Ben Stiller has a small role as a DJ. The direction and writing is terrible, but in the context of this spoofy material, it's great.

As long as you know this is a spoof, it's funny. If you somehow missed this....well, it's hard to imagine someone missing that.

My rating: Great show. 31 mins. Not rated, contains some mild sexual content.

I have no idea why Ben Stiller and the cast made this fake TV show...but I would sure love to see more parodies like it. It's a single episode of a pretend series (episode 14!) that is much like a mash-up between "The Six Million Dollar Man", "Knight Rider" and a lot of LSD!!

The show starts with a wonderful introduction by director/executive producer Ben Stiller. What follows is a ridiculous TV program that is so funny AND terrible at the same time. Here's the set-up. Jack (Jack Black) is an ex-astronaut who apparently flew too close to the sun. It resulted in his becoming, during the day, three times smarter than the smartest person in the world! But NASA wants Jack's brain...so they sent evil secret agent/tv actor Ron Silver to murder Jack and steal his mega-brain!! To top this off, an alien (Vincent Schiavelli) has just arrived on Earth and uses its evil green glowy eyes to disintegrate the foolish humans!! While the combination of Schiavelli and Silver seem insurmountable, Jack has the help of his beloved friend, Heat Vision--a sentient motorcycle who used to be Jack's roommate (the voice of Owen Wilson)!

Does all this sound insane and ultra-bizarre?! Of course...but also very funny and a great parody of some of the most ridiculous TV shows in history. It's simply the sort of thing you need to SEE to believe. Very funny and worth seeing...and it's currently on YouTube. It works so well because it really captures the awfulness and stupidity of some old TV shows. And, if you like this parody, you might also want to find "Kung Fury" (on Netflix, YouTube and many other places)...a hilarious recent sendoff to bad 80s movies and video games.

made entirely of brilliant TV pilots (called "The Network") that were never picked up and this was by far the best. I couldn't stop laughing. It's a real tragedy the show didn't get any air time -- I bet if Jack Black and Owen Wilson switched places it would have been huge.

When I watched this, I figured it had to be a spoof by Ben Stiller. Stiller, who I don't normally like, had made something so outlandish that it couldn't possibly be real. But it was. And it was incredibly funny. So, Ben Stiller, I might have faith in you after all.

Jack Black, Owen Wilson, Ron Silver and Christine Taylor.... all on TV? Who turned up this idea? Fools, I say. Christine Taylor, for Jiminy's Crickets! And Jack Black... on a talking motorcycle... and he is fighting against "grave danger"! "Apparently the human mind is not unlike cookie dough..." "NASA is evil! They have a man tracking me down. His name is Ron Silver... a gifted actor and a cold-blooded killer." How can you turn down programming like this? I remember 1999 and the only thing even remotely like this was "Son of the Beach"...

This review is horrible and poorly written... lucky for you, this show isn't. Watch it. Or else. NASA is watching you.

...well, not really.

As far as I know, only one episode was made of this show, Episode 14. It's a fantastic bit of parody... of what, I do not know.

Some elements of the Fugitive, Knight Rider, and the Six Million Dollar Man all thrown into one wacky package.

Check it out if you can, but I had to download a crappy copy of it. Maybe it'll be a hidden DVD feature on some other Jack Black, Ben Stiller, and Owen Wilson project.