The Stupids

The Stupid family — Stanley, Joan and their children Buster and Petunia — live a contented suburban life, disturbed only by a mystery: every night, somebody takes away their garbage. Stanley sets out to catch the culprit, follows the garbage truck on roller skates and ends up at a dump, where a group of U.S. military officers is selling weapons to buyers from around the world. The officers mistake him for an FBI agent and give chase. Meanwhile, the children go to the police when their father disappears, leaving a note for their mother, who draws her own conclusions about what has happened to them.

John Landis directed the film, the sixteenth of the eighteen features listed in his career, arriving between Beverly Hills Cop III and Blues Brothers 2000. Brent Forrester wrote the screenplay, Leslie Belzberg produced, and Tom Arnold and Jessica Lundy play Stanley and Joan, with Bug Hall and Alex McKenna as the children and Mark Metcalf and Matt Keeslar in supporting roles. Fifty-seven cast members are credited.

The comedy was released in August 1996 and runs 94 minutes. Made for about 25 million dollars, it returned roughly two million at the worldwide box office. On IMDb it holds a 4.3 rating from around 7,600 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 4.8 from 91 votes; a critics' rating of 3.9 from 14 reviews places it in much the same range.