Ricky 1

Ricky 1 If Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer wrote movies in the late 80s, this would be the result of one of them. Genre: Comedy Sports Directed By: William T. Naud Produced By: William T. Naud Written By: William T. Naud Starring: Michael Michaud Maggie Hughes Hawthorne James Cinematography: David Golia Distributed By: Tapeworm Release Date: 1988 Runtime: 90 minutes Country: United States Language: English

"Oh my god, Ricky 1! Oh, thank GOD there's no Ricky 2!"

— The Angry Video Game Nerd

Ricky 1 is a 1988 American sports comedy film that parodies the Rocky film series. It was written, edited, produced and directed by William T. Naud (credited as "Bill Naud"). Many gags parody events in Rocky, but also make references to other films such as The Godfather.

Plot

A down-on-his-luck male stripper named Ricky Wanero (Michael Michaud) trains to become a boxing champion and take on the Silver Shadow (Hawthorne James, who would later appear in Speed).

Why It's Negative

1. Despite being a parody of Rocky, this movie has a very poor grasp on the original movie it is trying to parody, with most of the screen time of the film relying too much on parodying other movies that have nothing to do with Rocky.
2. Instead of being a clever, well-written and funny tribute to the Rocky movie, it ends up being a stupid, ridiculous and extremely cheesy insult to the Rocky movies.
3. It relies way too much on being an adult parody of Rocky, with the movie including an excessive amount of sexual references and inappropriate scenes, like when it is shown that Ricky is a male stripper and he wears a horse head.
4. The sets and costumes look awful, even by 1980s standards.
5. Many of the actors do terrible jobs at portraying their characters, with Ricky in particular being very annoying.
6. The plot is illogical and makes absolutely no sense at all, it also has a few ridiculous concepts too, like the aforementioned scene where Ricky is a male stripper.
7. The humour in this movie is absolutely abysmal, as it just mainly consists of really bad adult jokes and toilet humour.
   • Even some of the non-adult and non-toilet humour jokes are completely unfunny too, some of the parts where they try to be funny almost fail instantly because they either fall flat or are really hard to give a laugh out to, such as the part where Ricky reads a letter that is supposed to say "I love you", but it was misspelt and says "I lob you".
8. Ricky's recurring catchphrase is "Don't be negative!", which is extremely repetitive and gets old fast, not helping by the fact it is repeated countless times throughout the entire film. It also seems to be a poor take on Rocky's catchphrase, "Absolutely!".
9. There are lots of unlikable and unbearable characters here, with some of them either being flat and badly written, or are there just for filler.
   • The main antagonist is just called "the champ", which is a very unoriginal name, his real name isn't even told until the boxing match scene, in which he is called the "silver shadow". He's pretty much just a generic antagonist who is supposed to be the best at everything, but he loses to the protagonist at the end.
   • Even the titular character himself, Ricky, is unlikable and annoying, as his voice comes across as irritating to listen to and his "Don't be negative!" catchphrase is very annoying and repetitive.
   • He's also hypocritical at times too, as he often complains that he won't ever beat the "champ", yet he tells people to not be negative through his catchphrase at the same time.
10. It has tons of pointless side-plots that go nowhere and are just there for filler, including one about a guy calling about a pornographic business and another about an exploding doormat to keep burglars out.
11. The boxing match scene is probably the worst scene in the entire movie, as it is filled with tons of unfunny gags, including the characters farting, one guy talking with his hand while wearing a gas mask and Ricky getting hit by random weapons by the "silver shadow", including milk.

The Only Redeeming Quality

1. The scene involving The Godfather is one of the few jokes in this film that comes across as somewhat funny.
   • In addition, some scenes in this movie can be considered "they're so bad, they're hilarious".

Reception

The film remained mostly obscure, until internet personality and filmmaker James Rolfe (best known for The Angry Video Game Nerd web series) reviewed it as part of his mock feud with Doug Walker (The Nostalgia Critic) after the latter challenged him to review the worst nostalgic movie he could find in 2008. He panned the film for its lame jokes/visual gags, poor plot, and nonsensical references that had nothing to do with the Rocky films. The film has a 9% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and holds a 1.4 out of 10 on IMDb.

Trivia

• The soundtrack was done by Jerry Goldsmith's son, Joel.

External links

• Ricky 1 at the Internet Movie Database
• Ricky 1 on Rotten Tomatoes
• Ricky 1 on Letterboxd

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