Here comes the second round of the 2022 Turkey Day Tournament! Today, first round winner THE SKYDIVERS tries to maintain its dominance over beloved beach romp CATALINA CAPER. Will it be parachutes or scuba gear this Turkey Day? The choice is in your hands.
As a reminder, your votes will be deciding four of the episodes we show in this year’s Turkey Day Marathon, in a single-elimination bracket battle to the death! Or at least to the next round of voting!
New votes will go up on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays by noon ET, and close out 36 hours later. And even when we get to your top four choices, we’ll keep voting anyway to declare a tournament winner.
Hm - tough call. Catalina Caper is one of those classic episodes that is evergreen. Skydivers is a more depressing movie with typical Coleman Francis unwarranted gravitas but has some crazy personality in it. They both have cornball musical numbers and involve criminal plots by incompetent numbskulls. Could go either way.
I’ve never liked Catalina Caper all that much. I don’t really enjoy riffing on comedies even if they’re not funny comedies, because a lot of it ends up being “look how not funny this is!”
There are good moments in Catalina Caper to be sure, but it’s a weaker entry to me, Little Richard notwithstanding.
Another tough one. Skydivers is the best of the Coleman Francis trilogy, but it’s still pretty bleak. Catalina Caper is a fun little romp and might be better for the digestion. In an ideal world, you’d pair the two, with Catalina as a recovery episode.
I’ve lost every one of these so far, so maybe I should go with the one I least want to see. Or is that playing right into their hands?!
Wow, this is tough. I have an unnatural affection for the Coleman Francis movies, and love watching the guys spin bleak into gold, but I think I’m kinda bleaked out right now. I could use a little of the manic energy of a certain someone hopped up on goofballs.
Agreed - I love me some Joel, but they’ve thrown in 2 of the weaker (IMO) season 2 episodes for me to vote on. Give me some crunchy, munchie Wild Rebels to chew on and I’d have taken that in a heartbeat, but Caper… sorry Joel.
I’d rather have bleak… at least I’ll be laughing more.
OOoooo, Shydivers has some really on-point riffing. But Catalina Caper is goofy enough to help with digestion. Even tough it is weird to riff on a comedy, they pull it off.
On the one hand, The Skydivers is kinda bleak, and the holidays can be bleak without that kind of help.
On the other, as others have pointed out in the past, riffing on comedies often can end up feeling like a repetitive, “That isn’t funny!” kinda thing? I don’t remember getting that feel from this episode though? And, it’s defiantly less bleak. Hmmmm.
Neither have been in multiple Turkey Day Marathons so far? (Unless the site I’m searching is missing some?) Big plus to both episodes there. A bigger plus, perhaps, for Caper having been in the First Turkey Day Marathon, and with this year being special in many ways, Caper feels like a good fit for that nostalgic coincidence?
