"Playing with my joystick." "Wiggle left, jerk it right." Both of these phrases can be found in the opening title song to Greydon Clark's early 80's T&A comedy, Joysticks, and they both instantly let you know what kind of movie you're in for. Meant to cash in on the arcade craze going on at the time and bringing a generally embarrassed looking Joe Don Baker (Walking Tall) to star, this isn't exactly rocket science. It's not particularly funny either and the most impressive thing the makers do is attempt to make us believe certain games are played with a monstrous controller bigger than the size of a human head.

When we first meet the overly nerdy Eugene (Leif Green) he's being tricked out of his pants by some boobie flashing girls driving in a car beside him - one of them being the Shannon Tweed-looking Kym Malin who would, unsurprisingly, go on to flash her goods in the Andy Sidaris movies Picasso Trigger and Guns. He's on his way to work at the local arcade, which is run by the ultra-cool Jeff (Scott McGinnis) and is the host to a wide range of colourful characters like the sweaty overweight slob "Dorfus" (Jim Greenleaf) and King Vidiot (Jonathan Gries) who leads the local gang of punk rockers.

It's the kind of place where it's not uncommon for hot dogs to accidentally slip down a girl's top, for numerous bodily functions to be on full display, and where girls are constantly jiggling around their breasts. In other words, it's teenage Heaven. That is until local businessman Joseph Rutter (Baker) takes a disliking to the place and decides it's better off shut down.

In between various moments of lowbrow humour, lots of Pac-Man inspired screen wipes, and generally mayhem; Rutter has hired his two inept nephews Arnie and Max (John Diehl, John Voldstad) to help him set the arcade up for a fall. Of course, Jeff and his cronies aren't going to stand for it which leads to a giant video game competition in the finale where it's obnoxious (Dorfus) versus hired help (Vidiot).

Joysticks is the kind of T&A comedy you don't see a heck of a lot of these days save for the latest direct-to-video American Pie movie. The problem is it falls into the group of this type of movie you don't really want to bother with. With the success of Porky's, there was a huge amount of lewd comedies hitting the market and while some of them managed to be lots of fun (Wimps, Screwballs, Revenge of the Nerds), a good majority of them were in the same league as this - just not that good.

Director Greydon Clark and his screenwriters seemingly have no idea about the burgeoning arcade culture of the time and they certainly don't know much about comedy as they resort to such things as a game of "strip video", Dorfus sneaking into Rutter's house only to end up in bed with his wife, and endless fart jokes (in fact, Dorfus' signal that he needs help is cutting a giant one). Sure, this kind of humour if sophomoric and I do admit to having guilty pleasures within the sub-genre but those films had something this one is missing: spirit.

However, there's no denying the b-movie pedigree on hand here. Clark previously made the (now) cult flicks Satan's Cheerleaders and Without Warning (he also did the slasher movie spoof Wacko the same year as this). Gries will be familiar to many and has appeared in almost one hundred films including playing a wolf man twice in The Monster Squad and Fright Night Part 2. Diehl has also made a name for himself as a character actor in such efforts as the delightfully sleazy Angel, Ken Russell's once controversial Whore, and various Hollywood/b-level productions.

If you're a T&A completest then by all means pick up Joysticks. It's cashing in on a pop culture fad at the time of its release has made it much more well-remembered than it deserves to be and it has to say something when the funniest thing about it is the fact that the artist of the film's original artwork managed to slyly slip in the word "sucks" underneath the title on the poster. (Chris Hartley, 1/18/09)

Directed By: Greydon Clark.
Written By: Al Gomez, Mickey Epps, Curtis Burch.

Starring: Joe Don Baker, Leif Green, Jim Greenleaf, Scott McGinnis.