Film
Amazon Women on the Moon
- Parody
- Light-hearted
- Strange
- Relentless
A wild sketch-comedy film disguised as late-night TV: a cheesy 1950s sci-fi movie interrupted by fake commercials, shorts, and specials. It's a glorified SNL episode from the pre-cable era, cynical about media and entertainment, anarchic in structure. For anyone who loves rapid-fire satire and doesn't mind when a joke completely misses.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you love sketch-style comedy that jumps from one absurd bit to the next, where a fake commercial or a gag about TV clichés can be as funny as the main joke.
Skip it if you want a story that builds steadily, since this one is a loose run of uneven skits, and many of them land with a thud rather than a laugh.
What it asks of you: It runs about 84 minutes and moves in quick, restless bursts, so you need to be willing to shrug off the misses and keep switching channels in your head.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
The Kentucky Fried Movie1977
The spiritual predecessor: sketch comedy pretending to be a movie, same anarchic energy, same "whatever sticks" approach to jokes. If you loved Amazon Women's chaos, this is where it came from.
But Deeply uneven. Some sketches are brilliant; others feel like they're testing your patience to see if you'll leave.

Eating Raoul1982
Dark comedy that skewers media, consumerism, and sexual panic with the same gleeful offensiveness. Weird, specific, genuinely funny without being mean-spirited about it.
But The humour is extremely dry and the plot is deliberately thin. If you want narrative drive, you're watching the wrong film.

UHF1989
A feature-length sketch show about a pirate TV station, same DNA as Amazon Women but with a heart. Weird Al's best film, full of inspired lunacy that swings for the fences on every joke.
But It's silly in a very specific way. If you don't find Weird Al funny, nothing here will convert you.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Amazon Women on the Moon
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
SCTV1976
Both are structured as fake television broadcasts satirizing entertainment itself. SCTV just commits more fully to the bit, letting absurdity breathe.
A sketch show that plays as real television. No host, no acknowledgement it's comedy—just weird shows, fake commercials, terrible talk shows. The full expression of what Amazon Women was trying to do, with 30 years of Canadian comedy brilliance behind it.
But TV sketch shows have pacing issues. Some bits die onstage. You have to be willing to sit with dead air, and modern viewers hate that.

More like this (8)
The Groove Tube1974
The granddaddy of media satire. Fake TV broadcasts and commercials skewering 70s culture with genuine invention. Raw, weird, prophetic about what television would become.
But Feels genuinely dated now, and the satire is sometimes too specific to the moment. Harder to laugh at if you weren't there.

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid1982
Carl Reiner's love letter to noir, made entirely as a parody. Densely packed with jokes, technically audacious, endlessly quotable. Smarter about its targets than most satire.
But It's in black and white by design, and the humour is often dry. Requires you to actually know noir to get half the gags.

Airplane!1980
Joke-per-second density with genuine wit underneath. Parody that loves what it's parodying, never feels mean. Structured chaos that actually lands most of the time.
But It's been imitated to death. If you've seen the knockoffs, Airplane! might feel less fresh than it deserves.

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!1988
Same DNA as Airplane!, slightly tighter structure. Leslie Nielsen being absolutely committed to ridiculous material is a masterclass in comic performance.
But The parody target (cop movies) isn't as rich as airplane movies, and the formula gets thinner as it goes.

Pee-wee's Big Adventure1985
Tim Burton's fever dream of a road movie. Surreal, visually inventive, genuinely weird without trying too hard. Comedy that understands abstraction.
But Pee-wee Herman's persona is extremely specific and divisive. If he annoys you, nothing about this film will fix that.

Coming Soon1999
A late-90s satire of media, celebrity, and absurdity that's surprisingly sharp. Features the same sketch-show energy but with a plot tying it together. Often overlooked.
But The 90s references are dated, and the satire sometimes feels more exhausted than inventive. Distinctly of its moment in ways that don't age well.

The Liquidator1965
Both films skewer entertainment and media through rapid-fire parody, but Liquidator does it in color through spy-movie tropes instead of sci-fi and TV format. A different era, same comedic impulse.
A British spy-comedy spoof made during peak 60s mod culture. The same DNA of parody-through-pastiche, but from an era when satire was still figuring out how to exist. Wildly inventive visually, genuinely hilarious.
But British 60s comedy is a very acquired taste. The humour is oblique, the pacing is weird by modern standards, and the cultural references are extremely specific.

Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart1985
Both are films about regular life filtered through entertainment language. Amazon Women uses chaos and fake-TV to skewer media; Dim Sum uses intimacy to celebrate the mundane. Inverse approaches to finding humor in the everyday.
A genuinely warm family comedy about a San Francisco Chinese-American family. No sketch structure, no satire—just character, observation, specificity. A palate cleanser that proves comedy doesn't need to be chaotic to work.
But Quiet, grounded, deeply unglamorous. If you're craving the anarchic energy, this is the opposite direction entirely.

People
Cast
Arsenio HallApartment Victim (segment "Mondo Condo")- Donald F. MuhichEasterbrook (segment "Pethouse Video")
Monique GabrielleTaryn Steele (segment "Pethouse Video")
Lou JacobiMurray (segment "Murray in Videoland")
Erica YohnSelma (segment "Murray in Videoland")- Debbi A. DavisonWeather Person (segment "Murray in Videoland")
- Rob KrauszFloor Manager (segment "Murray in Videoland")
Phil HartmanBaseball Announcer (segment "Murray in Videoland")
Corey BurtonAnchorman (segment "Murray in Videoland") / TV Announcer (segment "Amazon Women on the Moon")
Corey BurtonAnnouncer (segment "Silly Paté")
Michelle PfeifferBrenda (segment "Hospital")
Peter HortonHarry (segment "Hospital")
Directing
- Carl GottliebDirector
- Joe DanteDirector
- John LandisDirector
- Peter HortonDirector
- Robert K. WeissDirector
- Dan SchneiderFirst Assistant Director
- David SosnaFirst Assistant Director
- Deborah LoveFirst Assistant Director
- Jackie SaundersScript Supervisor
- Robin HoldingSecond Assistant Director
- Robin R. OliverSecond Assistant Director
Writing
- Jim MulhollandWriter
- Michael BarrieWriter
Production
- Robb IdelsAssociate Producer
- Julie SelzerCasting
- Sally DennisonCasting
- George Folsey Jr.Executive Producer
- John LandisExecutive Producer
- Janet CunninghamExtras Casting
- Pamela MorrowLocation Manager
- Rick RothenLocation Manager
- Robert K. WeissProducer
- Patricia WhitcherProduction Coordinator
- Roger La PageUnit Production Manager
Recommended by
The Kentucky Fried Movie, It Came from Hollywood, Hardware Wars