Mother Goose Rock 'N' Rhyme [1990]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

A fairly reliable way to find bad movies is to go back to your childhood. Sarah brought us "Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." Kay brought us "Teen Witch." Now Adam has brought us a movie he watched over and over as a kid: "Mother Goose Rock 'N' Rhyme." A colorful movie full of fisheye lenses and various musicians who mostly don't sing, this film ended up explaining a lot about Adam including why he has multiple copies of the same outfit everyday, why he drives in reverse a lot, why he makes a lot of puns, and why he likes surreal art films.

The film takes place in Rhymeland, a land created entirely from the imagination of Mother Goose that's populated with her creations. Her son, Gordon Goose, just wants to be normal and this manifests with him being a jerk to everyone around for no reason. One day Mother Goose goes missing and Gordon teams up with Little Bo Peep to try to find her and they have a lot of belligerent sexual tension. They encounter many other nursery rhyme figures, most of them represented in really unconventional ways that speak directly to the aesthetics of the late 80s, early 90s:

• The Little Old Lady Who Lived In A Shoe is Debbie Harry sunbathing.
• The Itsy Bitsy Spider is an annoying man in a bodysuit.
• Mary Mary Quite Contrary wears black and I guess this is how she's contrary.
• Old Mother Hubbard is a fast food restaurant without any food.
• The Three Men In A Tub are ZZ Top. Their tub can drive through space.
• Mary is Cyndi Lauper and her Lamb is Woody Harrelson.  They live in a trailer park and bicker a lot.
• The Crooked Man leads to a series of high jinks with opening various doors.
• Peter Piper is just annoyingly alliterative.
• Jack And Jill are a couple who fight constantly.
• Little Miss Muffet is actually tiny and looks like she's going to an 8th grade semi-formal.
• Humpty Dumpty is a nightmare.
• Old King Cole is Little Richard and he has one of the three songs in the show. He also hates to hear anything about bad news and has blackbird-in-a-pie dancers.
• And there's also a random rock band that does a number in the king's dungeon.
• Simple Simon is Paul Simon and his outfit is covered in symbols for some reason.

The whole plot is just Gordon and Peep going around and talking to people. They eventually ride the cow who jumped over the moon to where Mother Goose is and realize that she was removed from her book by a child. The kid puts them all back and Gordon accepts his weirdness.

We got a few laughs from this but we wouldn't necessarily recommend it. The scene with Cyndi Lauper and Woody Harrelson was definitely the best, so watch that if you can, but otherwise it's probably more fun if you know someone who seems to have been shaped by it.

Spoon Rating: 4.5