Friends Come in All Sizes

In college I had the opportunity to watch a few films that were, let’s be honest, failures. Sometimes it was a cinema studies class that I didn’t take but the teachers would let random students sit in and watch (so long as they joined the conversation after). Other times it was movies that had just bombed their runs in theaters and were cheap to acquire for viewing, so the student center could have it going for a movie night. Whatever the reasoning was, these were movies most people weren’t clamoring to see, but I lined up because, hey, I’m always down to watch a disaster.

That’s how I got to see Francis Ford Copolla’s One from the Heart (a movie so disastrous it took out the studio that made it and put Copolla deeply in debt for a decade). I got to watch Road to Perdition for free (and while I can understand why that film wouldn’t strike a proper chord with audiences at the time, it remains one of my favorites). And, for the last free movie I got to watch in college, I saw Death to Smoochy, a film so dark and unabashedly unrepentant that I don’t see how Warner Bros. ever thought this would be a hit (but, damn, am I glad they made it).

Death to Smoochy was directed by Danny DeVito and was his first film as a director after Matilda, the deeply strange by oddly watchable Roald Dahl adaptation. In Death to Smoochy, DeVito continues to put his focus on the dark underside of children’s entertainment, featuring a story (written by Adam Resnick) that feels surreal and strange even as it plays in the seedy underbelly of the real world. It’s a film with very few heroes, where the “good guys” include violent enforcers for the Irish Mob, where violence and greed and corruption is always just around from bright and shining sets for daytime kids’ television. It is dark, through and through.

It’s also uproariously funny. The thing about the movie is that it really is too dark and vile and mean for most people to want to watch it. It was made on a budget of $50 Mil and most members of the viewing audience were so turned off by the concept – let’s kill Barney the Dinosaur, in effect – that the film only managed to make $8.3 Mil during its run. It came and went so fast that most of the people that would have liked to see it (myself included) didn’t get a chance before it vanished from theaters. It was a sudden flash of revolting fire then burned out and left only ashes in its wake. But it’s so damn funny that, if you get to watch it you just can’t turn away.

The movie stars Edward Norton as Sheldon “Smoochy the Rhino” Mopes, a costumed performer who mostly works methadone clinics, singing songs and helping people try to get off the smack. He’s a genuinely good guy who tries to be kind to everyone. When Rainbow Randolph (Robin Williams) gets caught up in a “pay for play” fraud scheme, taking money under the table before getting arrested by the FBI, a new children’s performer is required, one so squeaky clean (as per the Kids TV studio board) that there isn’t even a whiff of foul play anywhere on their record. Producers Nora Wells (Catherine Keener) and Marion Frank Stokes (Jon Stewart) turn to Smoochy.

And Smoochy is an immediate hit. The kids respond well to him, the ratings go through the roof, and everyone loves him. Well, almost everyone. Randolph goes off the handle, blaming Sheldon for losing his prime kids’ timeslot. He wants Smoochy to go down, one way or another, so that the Rainbow Randolph show can return. And then there’s the Parade of Hope charity, run by Merv Green (Harvey Fierstein). The charity had a good thing with Randolph, raking in big bucks off the little tykes, and they want a piece of the pie again. Sheldon, though, cares too much about the kids to do anything greedy, so he refuses their offer time and again. It might just be that if he refused too much, they might find a more permanent solution for the Smoochy problem.

When it came out Death to Smoochy sold itself as, “let’s kill Barney,” which was a real vibe at the time. If you were a tiny tot then you loved Barney. If you were any older than that you hated him. Fact is that, for a time, Barney was everywhere. He was kids’ TV and he dominated the airwaves and kids’ toy aisles. Anyone wanting to see Barney go down, even just a little, would seem like the right audience for a film like this. The film basically could have been called Let’s Kill Barney! and it would have had the same vibe.

But the story in the movie is much deeper, and far darker, than just killing a stuffed mascot character. The film tackles topics like green and how television rots the brains of children, and it tackles it all through the lens of the only truly nice person in entertainment: Sheldon. Legitimately, Sheldon is the only person not looking to profit or gain power through the industry. Yes, he sees some benefits for his show, getting a cushy office at work along with a penthouse to live in. At the same time, though, he seems to spend all of his money on outreach, drumming up cash and donations to save methadone clinics while getting the good word out about eating vegetarian and being nice to people. Sheldon is such a nice guy you can’t help but like him.

That’s what makes the film more than just a Barney snuff film because you don’t want Sheldon to die. You want to see the people going after him meet their own dark fates, and they do. The film revels in that, in point of fact, but you have to go through quite the dark journey to get there. If you thought/ a film about killing a mascot character would, at some point, involve a Nazi rally, well you’re on the same track as the vile depths of this film. It’s amazing, honestly, and that serves as one of the best moments of the movie.

Beyond Norton, the best actor in this film is Robin Williams. The comedian was always known for playing nice guys, good guys, heroes. He was Peter Pan, the Absentminded Professor, Patch Adams, the Bicentennial Man. You knew to cheer for him and love him and seeing him go to such a dark place is quite the turn… but it works. Death to Smoochy came out in 2002 and that year marked a trio of films where Williams was the villain of the piece, alongside Insomnia and One Hour Photo. He’s brilliant here and the movie wouldn’t be anywhere near as good without him in it. His manic energy drives the whole reality of the film forward.

Of course, it’s so dark and unrelenting that the movie isn’t for everyone. I love this film, and I’ve watched it multiple times since that first viewing in college. Every few years I pop it on and get shocked all over again at the depraved levels this film will go to. It’s a dark movie, but Sheldon adds just enough sweetness to make it bearable. Death to Smoochy isn’t for everyone, but if you like dark humor and darker laughs, it’s the right film tickle your black little heart.