Rhinestone, Oscar & Stop or My Mom Will Shoot: Stallone Comedies Revisited

In 1988, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career got a big boost with the release of his first comedy, Twins. An unexpected smash hit, it opened up his career to a whole new audience, and for a while, he was able to alternate comedies with action movies, resulting in a large cross-over audience that made a lot of his films megahits. Sylvester Stallone likely wanted to try the same thing himself, with him signing on to do two back-to-back comedies in 1991 and 1992, John Landis’ Oscar and Stop or My Mom Will Shoot. Both films were flops (although Oscar is quite good), and Sly would often dismiss his foray into comedy in the years following.

In this episode of Sylvester Stallone Revisited, we dive into this perhaps ill-advised but understandable foray and examine a previous brush with comedy, 1984’s Rhinestone. That movie cast Sly as a New York taxi driver who’s turned into a country singer by none other than Dolly Parton. Like Sly’s other comedies, it was a flop, and it’s arguably the hardest Stallone movie to find in his filmography. In this episode, we examine why he made each movie, but we also dig into whether any of the movies have a saving grace, with two of them (Rhinestone and Oscar) not quite as bad as their reputations suggest.

This episode of Sylvester Stallone Revisited is written and narrated by Chris Bumbray, and edited by Bill Mazzola. Let us know in the comments what you think of Sly’s comedies.