its patTouchstone
1994
PG-13

“I played with a Ween!”

My first Saturday Night Live-based movie I watched was Wayne’s World back in 1992. It was fantastic. I was 18, a young rocker / not quite a full-blown metalhead, and this movie spoke to me like none other had up to then. This was made at one of the high points of Saturday Night Live’s broadcast history. I figured, naively, that anything the legendary comedy sketch show made into a movie would be instant gold.

Ah, to be young and idealistically stupid again.

Unfortunately, this review is not about Wayne’s World. Instead, this is a review of another SNL property that was given the movie treatment: It’s Pat!

I should point out that the exclamation point is part of the movie title, and in no way suggesting that I’m excited to review this cinematic disaster. Let’s proceed, shall we?

I have to give credit where credit is due: it was my brother-from-another-mother Scott that initially subjected me to It’s Pat! The Movie. I was aware of this movie’s existence, having seen it on the shelves of the two video rental stores in Fremont, with no interest in ever watching it by my own volition. Of course, Mr. Cheesy Movies himself owned his own VHS copy of It’s Pat!, and one late afternoon hanging out at his place, he popped it in, and thus I watched It’s Pat! The Movie. Thanks, Scott. My bestest buddy.

So, I would normally put the blurb from the back of the DVD here for the rundown of the actual movie. But, as it turns out, the description blurb on the back of It’s Pat! just uses their words to go on about how hilarious this movie is, and how it’s yet another in a long line of brilliant Saturday Night Live movies…actually, it almost sounds like the blurb itself is trying to convince itself that this movie is worth watching. So, let me relive the pain and give a bit of an idea of what this movie is about: Pat is an annoying, androgynous human being that’s wandering about life trying to find purpose. Pat meets Chris, an equally androgynous individual, who’s not as annoying as Pat, so obviously the two hit it off and eventually get engaged. One can only hope that someone is sterile in this relationship. Pat’s neighbor Kyle develops an obsession with discovering Pat’s gender, but is thwarted in his attempts by Pat’s sheer ineptitude. Pat stumbles upon a radio talk show host position, appears in a Ween video, and has a fallout with Chris, while Kyle steals Pat’s laptop but can’t hack into it. Kyle tries physical violence, Pat inadvertently reveals the gender to the crowd at a Ween show (but not us, obviously), Kyle is arrested and is now a transvestite, while Pat and Chris wed and Pat continues as a successful radio show host career. The end, and pass the bleach.

Gads, this movie was a slog to get through. Even as a sketch short on SNL, the character was as funny as nails dragged on a chalkboard. Watching a (mercifully) 78 minute film version of that? Who demanded that? Certainly not Julia Sweeney, at first. But made it was.

It’s Pat! The Movie is not only unfunny, it’s insultingly unfunny. This is the kind of movie I would make someone watch if I really hated them. And I don’t hate anybody this much. Hard pass.