This is a slight evolution, I suppose, of “Actually, I Like It” - not so much things that I like that are critically panned but more the things that I like that not many people have actually watched/read/heard. In an age of digital overload, there’s plenty of content out there to consume your time. It’s understandable then that many things will slip through the gaps. Allow me to take a (purely fictional and conceptual) torch out in order to shine a (purely metaphorical again) light on some of those things what I reckon should be more popular.
Alferd Packer*: The Musical (original title) / Cannibal!: The Musical (current title)
I love a good musical; we’ve established this before. I particularly love a comedy musical as it combines my love of comedy songs along with the aforementioned love of musicals. I was introduced to this one by a flatmate at university upon his return from a tour of Japan (he was in a band at the time) and I love dot from the off. It’s a comedy musical about the real life story of 19th century prospector who confessed to resorting to cannibalism after becoming trapped in the Rocky Mountains one winter. Exactly the sort of stuff that is ripe for comedy, naturally. This was a student film produced by two men that we’d never heard of at the time - Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The year after we’d watched it, a new animated sitcom produced by the pair launched - it was called South Park; I’m not really sure what became of that.
Is It Any Good? This might well be a redundant sub-heading. Given that I’m titling this thread Hidden Treasures, I’m clearly going to say “yes”. It’s an extremely low budget affair, given that it was a film they made when they were students, but you can see the beginnings of the humour that would influence South Park. The soundtrack features songs such as “Schapoinkle”, “When I Was On Top of You”, “Hang The Bastard” and probably the favourite of our little group who watched it obsessively “Let’s Build A Snowman” (about twenty years before Frozen) and you can see the sort of sensibility that would later inform their work on something like Team America. It has some nicely odd touches too - the group encounter a group of Native Americans who are clearly Japanese for no readily apparent reason and a ballet-style dance off involving love rivalry for a horse**. It’s scrappy, sure, as it is a student project after all but there’s enough of the Parker/Stone humour to carry you through. Difficult for me to be objective about it, though, as I watched South Park because of this rather than the other way round.
Where Do I Find It? Following the success of South Park, Troma bought the film and retitled it Cannibal!: The Musical to make it more commercial (and also did some minor editing including, for some reason, removing part of a song) which you can still find on DVD from some sellers. Fortunately, though, you don’t have to as Troma have very kindly put the whole thing on YouTube. Schpadoinkle!
* Yes, it is spelt Alferd, not Alfred (see above image).
** Side note - the treacherous horse Liane is named after Trey Parker’s ex-fiancee. Clearly didn’t end amicably...
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