Awfully Good: Chairman of the Board

August 29th 2012, 1:08am

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

With summer ending, I had fun and sun on my mind. That made me think of surfing. Which, for some reason, made me think of Carrot Top.

Chairman of the Board (1998)

Director: Alex Zamm
Stars: Carrot Top, Courtney Thorne-Smith, Larry Miller

A wealthy business tycoon bequeaths his Fortune 500 company to a loser who spends all his time surfing and inventing failed gadgets. He’s also a ginger.

The only thing scarier than Carrot Top being made the CEO of a major corporation is Carrot Top starring in his own movie. I’m not sure the exact circumstances that led to the infamous prop comic being allowed to headline a feature film (surely, satanic pacts and/or reacharounds were involved), but it is indeed one of the stupidest movies ever made and exactly as terrible as you imagine.

This explains the recession.

If there’s one thing you can say about CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD is that it’s definitely not predictable, which is the main reason why it’s scarier than most modern horror movies. For example, the film opens deep inside Carrot Top’s mother’s cavernous vagina, where Baby Carrot Top is hard at work in his fetal laboratory. He mixes the contents of two test tubes together and the resulting explosion propels him out of her birth canal and through a wall. If this sounds like it possibly suggests a work of genius-level absurdity or cartoon-style humor, stop right there. There’s nothing smart or subversive about the “comedy” in CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD. It’s just unending painful, cheap gags in attempt to elicit the basest of laughs from the viewer. So it’s pretty much just like Carrot Top’s stand-up.

Another entry in our series entitled, “Movie extras who look like Patrick Duffy.”

Sadly, things don’t get much better after the in-utero opening. Under the ruse of the main character Einstein being a failed inventor, you’re subjected to the cinematic translation of the comic’s prop comedy, with such hilarious sight gags as an ass-shaped “anatomically correct” fanny pack and a baseball bat/ball scratcher hybrid. His house is also filled to the brim with his horrible props, making it the living nightmare version of Pee Wee’s Playhouse. The next hour or so follows Einstein on delightful, completely 100% non-torturous hijinx that include desecrating multiple corpses, donning drag and trying out for a production of ANNIE and working as a hands-on condom inspector. There’s also a dead cat in his freezer for some (serial killer) reason.

While not as realistic as other portrayals, at least this Hulk got the chest hair right.

It’s only further downhill once Carrot Top is put in charge of the company, mainly because now he’s not just embarrassing himself, but also a group of real actors who desperately needed new management. People like Larry Miller, Raquel Welch, Jack Warden (last seen in Matt LeBlanc’s ED), M. Emmet Walsh, and “Melrose Place” star Courtney Thorne-Smith. The poor actress gets it the worst, though, as she’s forced in to the least believable romantic subplot of all time. Yes, they expect you to buy that a normal, attractive woman without any communicable diseases or serious drug problems would fall in love with Scott “Carrot Top” Thompson after one date where he makes her belch the alphabet. It’s the biggest leap in logic in a movie that features a guy getting rich off a farting shirt.

The remake of John Ford’s THE SEARCHERS was historically inaccurate, to say the least.

The only good thing to come out of this cinematic debacle is the famous bit on Late Night with Conan O’Brien where Norm MacDonald mercilessly mocks Carrot Top and CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD in front of star Courtney Thorne-Smith. In fact, you’re better off watching the video below than the actual movie itself.

Not sure what’s more embarrassing: Courtney Thorne-Smith’s epic belch or the fact that she’s on a date with Carrot Top.

Lowlights include Baby Carrot Top in his mom’s uterus, Carrot Top destroying a funeral, Carrot Top farting in an elevator, and Carrot Top proving he’s too dumb to walk through a factory.

Raquel Welch does this.

From the director of INSPECTOR GADGET 2, BEVERLY HILLS CHIHUAHUA 2 and THE TOOTH FAIRY 2! Buy this movie here!

Take a shot or drink every time: