The Kentucky Fried Movie

The Kentucky Fried Movie is a sketch comedy built around a day of television programming, presented as a loose collection of segments rather than a single narrative. Its targets include news broadcasts, commercials, documentaries, astrology reports and a range of film genres such as kung fu, disaster, spy and mafia movies, along with a blaxploitation parody. A central segment, "A Fistful of Yen," follows the martial arts format, while other sketches move through advertisements and previews toward a strange evening newscast. The connecting idea is the television set itself and the sense that someone may be watching from the other side.

John Landis directed the film, the first of 18 features in his directing career, ahead of Animal House the following year. The screenplay comes from Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams and David Zucker, with Robert K. Weiss producing. The cast of 47 credited performers includes Evan C. Kim, Bong Soo Han and Agneta Eckemyr in the kung fu segment, Marilyn Joi as Cleopatra Schwartz, Marcy Goldman and Bill Bixby as himself.

Released in 1977, the film runs 83 minutes and took about 15 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds 6.4/10 from around 22,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.2/10 from 373 votes. A critics' rating of 6.8/10 from 35 reviews is slightly higher than both audience scores.