Grade school confidential

Carrot Top offers up vulgar humor about bodily functions and castration

By Skylaire Alfvegren - Dallas Observer: Published: March 12, 1998

On the surface, Chairman of the Board, the film debut of comedian Carrot Top, seems perfectly aimed at young, creative, slacker types. It's about a bumbler who accidentally makes it big in business, and its plot can be summed up as "Technicolor Gen-X freak conquers the business world without really trying, wins love, and beats the stuffy suits at their own game." But the movie exhibits all the image schizophrenia Gen X'ers are known for; it never quite figures out who its audience is. And it grosses out the rest of us.

The movie doesn't just drift aimlessly. Chairman is extremely juvenile, extremely unpleasant; it's as if the writers dredged up all they thought was funny in third grade, aimed it at college kids, and added sex. (Creepily enough, the adult sketches feel as though they were written by third-graders.) There must have been a contractual obligation to include at least one joke or comic scenario involving each of the following: "turds," castration, erections, flatulence, incontinence, vomit, "French ticklers," diarrhea, tracheotomies, mammaries, corpse theft, "dingleberries," and male-pattern baldness.

Unlike other young people's comics of recent memory--Pauly Shore, Denis Leary, etc.--the prop-heavy slapstick of Carrot Top's stage show is whimsical and childlike; it would've been well suited to this tale of a zany inventor. Well suited, that is, if only the film hadn't been marred by so much vulgar humor. Sure, some kids may find bodily functions hilarious, but the addition of tasteless sex jokes casts a film that would've worked well for the pre-teen crowd adrift in a sea of gag-to-gag confusion.

Here's the story: When an inventor named Edison (Carrot Top) fixes the car of an aged surfer named Armand McMillan, little does he realize he's conversing with an unconventional exec responsible for such modern miracles as "odorless manure," "Note Stickies," and the "Thigh Dominator." When Armand catches that big wave in the sky, he leaves his empire to Edison, who bonds with the board members over a friendly game of Twister and vows to keep Armand's wacky inventiveness alive.

Armand's conniving nephew Bradford (Larry Miller) is steamed at this turn of events: He intended to sell McMillan Industries lock, stock, and barrel to an oversexed corporate raider (Raquel Welch) specializing in hostile takeovers. He plots, he pouts, he schemes, but somehow Edison succeeds, landing his orange corkscrews on the cover of all the business magazines and winning the heart of business-minded employee Natalie (Courtney Thorne-Smith).

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