Harry Shearer Movies
California native Harry Shearer was one of the busier child actors of the 1950s. He appeared in such films as The Robe (1953) (as the boy David) and Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953); he could be heard on such radio programs as Suspense, Lux Radio Theatre, and the Jack Benny Show; and among his many TV guest roles was the character who would evolve into Eddie Haskell in the 1955 Leave It to Beaver pilot. After attending U.C.L.A., Shearer flourished as a standup comedian and comedy writer. He was frequently employed on the writing staff for such TV laughspinners as Laverne and Shirley and America 2Night; he also worked both sides of the camera in the 1984 rockumentary parody This Is Spinal Tap, co-starring as rock idol Derek Smalls and co-writing the script with director Rob Reiner and fellow cast members Christopher Guest and Michael McKean. In league with another top satirist, Albert Brooks, Shearer concocted the screenplay for another faux documentary, 1979's Real Lampoon. During the 1984-1985 TV season, Shearer joined the Not Ready for Prime Time Players on NBC's Saturday Night Live. The soft-spoken, saturnine Harry Shearer has recently supplied his voice to the Fox Network cartoon series The Simpsons, and since 1992 he has hosted and co-written a weekly syndicated radio comedy potpourri, Le Show. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1990
It's Halloween in Springfield, and Bart Simpson (voice of Nancy Cartwright) and his sister Lisa (voice of Yeardley Smith) are swapping scary stories in their backyard treehouse. In Bad Dream House, the Simpsons move into a big old house, but soon learn why the place was a bargain -- it's haunted. Before long the entire family is chasing each other with sharp objects. Marge (voice of Julie Kavner) tries as usual to be the voice of reason with the spirits, who quickly give up rather than co-exist with Springfield's most dysfunctional family. Hungry Are the Damned finds the Simpsons kidnapped en masse by a trio of one-eyed, tentacled space aliens -- Kang (voice of Harry Shearer), Kodos (voice of Dan Castellaneta), and Serak (voice of James Earl Jones). Eager-eater Homer (voice of Castellaneta) is pleased when the aliens provide a groaning dinner table for their earthling captives, but Lisa is shocked when she discovers a cookbook on board entitled How to Cook Humans. Finally, Lisa turns to Edgar Allan Poe's classic poem The Raven, with James Earl Jones reading the eerie verse, and the menacing bird bearing a strange resemblance to Bart. Treehouse of Horror, the first of a series of annual Halloween episodes on The Simpsons, first aired on October 24, 1990. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 1990
Timing is the watchword for the Simpson family when Homer (voice of Dan Castellaneta) and Bart (voice of Nancy Cartwright) learn that the Springfield Speedway will be staging a special thrill-show the same night as Lisa (voice of Yeardley Smith) will be performing a solo in the school band concert. The moment the concert is over, Homer and Bart rush Lisa and Marge (voice of Julie Kavner) into the car, just in time for their car to nearly be swallowed up by Truckasaurus, a robot made from several monster trucks. As part of the show, Bart watches famous daredevil Capt. Lance Murdock (voice of Castellaneta) jump his motorcycle over a tank filled with hungry sharks and man-eating lions. Impressed, Bart begins jumping his skateboard over an increasingly large number of objects, even after an injury earns him a stern warning from Dr. Hibbert (voice of Harry Shearer). Bart decides he needs to stage a truly impressive stunt, and he makes plans to leap over Springfield Gorge; when Homer finds out, he has to find a way to stop his son before he hurts himself. "Bart the Daredevil" first aired on December 6, 1990. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 1990
One day, Bart Simpson (voice of Nancy Cartwright) is fishing along the river downstream from the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, and catches a strange three-eyed fish. A reporter happens to be passing by, and writes a story about the mutant fish; inspectors from the Nuclear Regulatory Committee soon arrive in town, and are outraged at the shoddy state of the plant. Mr. Burns (voice of Harry Shearer) attempts to bribe them, which only makes matters worse. Homer (voice of Dan Castellaneta) mentions in passing to Mr. Burns that if he were governor, he could change the state's laws regulating power plants and stay in business; Burns seizes upon the idea and runs for office. For the sake of his job, Homer finds himself helping Mr. Burns, while Marge (voice of Julie Kavner) and Lisa (voice of Yeardley Smith) both support the state's longtime governor, Mary Bailey. Near the end of his campaign swing, Mr. Burns persuades Homer to allow him to have dinner with his family the night before the election as a publicity stunt. Marge and Lisa are not at all happy to be helping Burns in his bid for the governorship, but Marge has a secret plan to derail the Burns campaign. "Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish" first aired on November 1, 1990. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 1989
The Simpsons Christmas Special is actually the first full-length episode of the popular animated television sitcom. In this episode, Bart gets a tattoo, and all of the family's Christmas money has to be used to surgically remove the tattoo from his arm. Not only was the family's savings drained, but Homer's Christmas bonus never materialized, so he's forced to take a job as a mall Santa to earn money for the holiday season. But Homer decides to spend the money at the racetrack, where he bets all of his salary on a greyhound called "Santa's Little Helper". ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- 1988
Portrait of a White Marriage is an outgrowth of Martin Mull's wickedly satirical The History of White People in America, with a bit of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman tossed in. Mull plays a self-involved TV talk host who journeys to Hawkins Falls, Ohio, to reactivate his flagging career. While glad-handing the locals, he enters into an affair with bouffanted housewife Mary Kay Place. Also appearing are such frequent Mull colleagues as Fred Willard, Michael McKean and Jack Riley. Made for cable, Portrait of a White Marriage was directed by humorist Harry Shearer, who'd also helmed the History of White People installments. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
An astrophysicist falls in love with a beautiful woman who is actually a disguised extraterrestrial in this high-concept comedy. Dan Aykroyd plays Steven Mills, a dedicated and harmlessly odd scientist researching ways to send radio signals to deep space. Unbeknownst to him, one of his experiments works better than expected, attracting the attention of an alien in need of help. She travels to Earth and poses as a human, assuming the name Celeste and the body of Kim Basinger. Celeste's lack of knowledge about humanity causes her to act bizarrely at times, but her odd behavior unexpectedly causes Mills to fall in love with her. The confused Celeste decides to play along for her planet's sake, but she finds her plan threatened by Mills' teenage daughter Jessie (Alyson Hannigan), who has become suspicious of Celeste after witnessing some odd behavior. The culture clash between Celeste's planet and Earth serves as an excuse for broad slapstick and sitcom-style humor, such as Celeste's fumbling efforts to enact the human ritual of "kissing." ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dan Aykroyd, Kim Basinger, (more)
- 1988
- PG
Arliss Howard plays a baby-faced undercover cop, posing as a high school student. Howard is investigating the murder of a teacher, a task made difficult when his own brother (Loren Dean) becomes the primary suspect. Meanwhile, the ersatz student falls in love with Alexandre Powers, the daughter of the school's gym instructor. Before long, Howard is having trouble separating his "real" self from his fictional persona: he event develops a crush on home-room teacher Suzy Amis! Director Martha Coolidge and scriptwriter A. Scott Frank seem to be having a lot of fun pushing the credibility envelope in the amusing but unnecessarily convoluted Plain Clothes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Arliss Howard, Suzy Amis, (more)
- 1987
- R
Never released in the theaters, this film consists of a series of short skits and parodies of television and the movies, and stars Richard Belzer, Martin Mull, and Harry Shearer. The film's 1981 production date explains the presence of Joan Hackett, who died in 1983. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pamela Sue Martin, Joan Hackett, (more)
Robin Williams' comic shtick sabotages any attempt at comic development in Harold Ramis' patchy comedy farce Club Paradise. Williams plays Jack Moniker, a Chicago fireman injured in the line of duty, who uses his disability money to open up a run-down Caribbean resort. Jack eagerly awaits the planeload of tourists who will be his first patrons. This group of low-rent jackanapes include Barry Nye (Rick Moranis) and Barry Steinberg (Eugene Levy), a couple of horny geek bachelors; Phillipa Lloyd (Twiggy) and Terry Hamlin (Joanna Cassidy) as a couple of gals on the make; and Linda White (Andrea Martin), as a bossy American tourist. While the tourists shindig around Jack's ramshackle resort, a revolution is brewing on the island headed by revolutionary Ernest Reed (Jimmy Cliff). Trying to prevent the revolutionary upheaval is the dissipated British governor-general of the island, Governor Anthony Cloyden Hayes (Peter O'Toole), and the pompous Prime Minister Solomon Gundy (Adolph Caesar). ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robin Williams, Peter O'Toole, (more)
- 1985
A sequel to Martin Mull's spoof about the hardships of white life in middle America. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1985
Comedian Martin Mull's seminal mockumentary concerns the mundane trials and banal tribulations of a gaggle of Ohio suburbanites. All the hallmarks of middle-American culture are skewered: religion, excessive use of dairy products, crime, and family bickering. The cast includes Mull, Mary Kay Place, and Fred Willard. Harry Shearer of This Is Spinal Tap directs. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
Largely improvised by director Rob Reiner and his cast, This Is Spinal Tap looks and sounds like a "real" documentary, with Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, and Christopher Guest as David St. Hubbins, Derek Smalls, and Nigel Tufnel, the key members of a going-nowhere British heavy metal band called Spinal Tap. The "group" started as an informal skiffle band, eventually maturing into an R&B act called the Thamesmen (their hit was "Gimme Some Money"). After going through a psychedelic period with "Listen to the Flower People," the band mutated into Spinal Tap, a hard rock outfit responsible for such albums as "Intravenous DeMilo," "The Sun Never Sweats," and "Bent for the Rent." This Is Spinal Tap finds them in the midst of their first American tour in years as they support their new LP Smell the Glove, with filmmaker Marty DiBergi (Rob Reiner), who specializes in TV commercials, on hand to document the occasion. Just about anything that can go wrong does: shows get canceled, stage props go wrong, wireless guitar pickups start broadcasting air-traffic reports, no one shows up for in-store appearances, David's girlfriend tries to take over the band, they wind up billed second to a puppet show at an amusement park, and the group teeters on the verge of breakup. After the film's initial release, McKean, Guest, and Shearer did a short club tour as Spinal Tap; the "band" reunited in 1992 for a new album, Break Like the Wind, followed by a full-fledged tour and TV special, The Return of Spinal Tap. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rob Reiner, Michael McKean, (more)
Covering some 15 years, The Right Stuff recounts the formation of America's space program, concentrating on the original Mercury astronauts. Scott Glenn plays Alan Shepard, the first American in space; Fred Ward is Gus Grissom, the benighted astronaut for whom nothing works out as planned; and Ed Harris is John Glenn, the straight-arrow "boy scout" of the bunch who was the first American to orbit the earth. The remaining four Mercury boys are Deke Slayton (Scott Paulin), Scott Carpenter (Charles Frank), Wally Schirra (Lance Henriksen) and Gordon Cooper (Dennis Quaid). Wolfe's original book related in straightforward fashion the dangers and frustrations facing the astronauts (including Glenn's oft-repeated complaint that it's hard to be confident when you know that the missile you're sitting on has been built by the lowest bidder), the various personal crises involving their families (Glenn's wife Annie, a stutterer, dreads being interviewed on television, while Grissom's wife Betty, angered that her husband is not regarded as a hero because his mission was a failure, bitterly declares "I want my parade!"), and the schism between the squeaky-clean public image of the Mercury pilots and their sometimes raunchy earthbound shenanigans. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sam Shepard, Scott Glenn, (more)
- 1982
Harry Dean Stanton stars as a famous pop singer who also happens to be a class-A jerk. After enduring the singer's rudeness during his visit to Bardwell's, Laverne (Penny Marshall) and Shirley (Cindy Williams) vow to get even. The plan involves taking compromising photographs of the egotistical performer, and then selling them to a tabloid -- but which one of the girls will act as "bait" for their intended victim? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1980
- R
Preview trailers for movies not coming to a theater near you are collected in this satiric comedy. Loose Shoes is a sketch comedy which takes the form of a series of "coming attractions" for movies that don't happen to exist. The oddball trailers include the Billy Jack parody Billy Jerk Goes to Oz, the family comedy The Shaggy Studio Executive, a ribald Ma and Pa Kettle take-off, a biker film satire called Skateboarders From Hell, a vintage musical short entitled Darktown After Dark, a politically incorrect Charlie Chaplin two-reeler, a Play It Again, Sam goof in which "Duddy Allen" seeks romantic advice from a guy he thinks is the ghost of Clark Gable, and much more. Loose Shoes includes pre-fame performances from Bill Murray, Howard Hesseman, Ed Lauter, and Harry Shearer, while cult favorites Susan Tyrrell, Sid Haig, Jaye P. Morgan, Kinky Friedman, and Van Dyke Parks also appear in the cast. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lewis Arquette, Danny Dayton, (more)
- 1980
- R
The struggle of a has-been singer to work his way back up the charts is the focus of this drama by Robert M. Young with screenplay and music by Paul Simon. Simon plays Jonah, a once-popular singer who now opens for punk rock bands. In the ten years since he had a hit song, Jonah's wife has divorced him, but he still sees his young son as often as he can. With his record company on his back to come up with something that sells, Jonah begins to compromise his own talent when he listens to the advice of a trendy producer. Whether or not he can straighten out his personal life and steer his own ship may depend on his ability to trust his own judgment and adjust to the changing times. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Simon, Blair Brown, (more)
- 1980
One of the better-known of the many half-hour TV cartoon specials of the 1980s, Animalympics: Winter Games is distinguished as much by its stellar voice cast as by the wit of the script. The story is built around the occasion of the first Animalia Olympic Winter Games, with a wide assortment of humanized animals (who look and sound a lot like current celebrities) participating. Among the contestants is a figure-skating ostrich, a slalom-racing daschhund, and a hockey-playing bull. Every one of the athletic events depicted herein is based on a popular song, TV show, commercial or some other pop-culture reference--a fact that, happily, hardly dates the special at all. Animalympics: Winter Games first aired February 1, 1980, on NBC. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Billy Crystal, Harry Shearer, (more)
Albert Brooks made his feature-length debut as a writer and director with this wickedly funny satire, in which Albert Brooks plays "Albert Brooks," an arrogant and self-centered comedian who has decided to make a documentary film. Following the lead of the infamous pre-Real World PBS series An American Family (in which a "typical" family was filmed during most of their waking hours and eventually self-destructed on camera), Brooks moves in with the Yeager family of Phoenix, Arizona and chronicles their lives, with the support of a battery of psychiatrists and sociologists. He arrives at the Yeagers' doorstep with a two-man crew, wearing high-tech cameras that look like space helmets from a grade-B sci-fi movie, and it quickly becomes obvious that he is incapable of being unobtrusive. The Yeagers are driven to distraction by Brooks, who repeatedly ignores the advice of his team of experts and wishes there were some way to make the family's life more interesting (leading to perhaps the least expected homage to Gone With the Wind in film history). Of all Brooks' features, Real Life most resembles his cutting but deadpan short subjects for Saturday Night Live; Brooks never fails to cast himself in an unflattering light, and the supporting cast does admirable work in reacting to him, especially Charles Grodin and Lee McCain as Mr. and Mrs. Yeager. Harry Shearer contributed to the screenplay and plays a small role. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Grodin, Frances Lee McCain, (more)
- 1979
Goofy animated animals compete for Olympic gold in this entertaining family-oriented feature that includes the vocal talents of comedians Gilda Radner, Harry Shearer and Billy Crystal. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1978
This year, the Shotz Brewery Talent Show is being supervised by Laverne (Penny Marshall) and Shirley (Cindy Williams). Alas, it looks like the festivities are on the fast track to disaster when the never-seen Mr. Shotz insists that his no-talent son Max Jr. (Ed Greenberg) be given a solo star turn. The episode's highlight is a rendition (or is it rendering) of "Night After Night", supposedly written by Lenny and Squiggy (but actually penned by the "genuine" Lenny, Michael McKean). Marjorie Marshall and Francine Williams, the real-life mothers of series stars Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams, respectively appear as Mrs. Ward and Mrs. Bellini. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1978
Enchanted by a pair of medical students, Laverne and Shirley agree to rendezvous with the new men in their life in a faraway city. Upon arrival, however, the girls are jilted--and stranded in a lonely bus depot. Featured in the supporting cast are future This is Spinal Tap collaborators Harry Shearer and Christopher Guest, as well as Jaws scriptwriter Carl Gottleib. Song: "Milwaukee Moon", written by series regular Michael McKean (Lenny). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
