Remember the Unknown Comic? This wacky character, the
invention of writer and performer Murray Langston, was briefly popular in the
eighties, largely because of his novel gimmick - he never appeared on stage
without a brown paper bag on his head. Thanks to this defiantly lowbrow
bad-taste comedy, Langston’s antics have been guaranteed a measure of
immortality. He plays Melvin, a bungling policeman who moonlights as – you’ve
guessed it – the Unknown Comic, alongside a diverse cast that includes midget
actor Billy Barty, gobby comedian Andrew Dice Clay, [i]the Exorcist[/i]’s Linda
Blair, [i]the Karate Kid[/i]’s Pat Morita and Sydney Lassick of [i]One Flew
Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Fame[/i]. It’s rubbish, of course – the kind of film
where no joke is too broad, obvious or corny, no stereotype is too offensive
and no pun is too awful to be included – in short, it’s the kind of humour that
makes [i]Police Academy[/i] look like sophisticated drawing room comedy.