With his latest film Goldthwait turns his eyes on his mentor Barry Crimmins. Call Me Lucky (MPI Home Video, 10/13) documents the comedy club scene in the 1970s where Crimmins hosted the open mic night where a teenage Goldthwait got his start. There are comic bits where Crimmins gets loud and abrasive to people that talk too loud when he is cracking wise. There are remembrances from the participants of the scene including David Cross, Patton Oswalt and Margaret Cho.

The commentary track provides additional laughs with Goldthwait and Crimmins yucking things up, including sound effects like a circus clown horn.

But that is not what Call Me Lucky is really about. Goldthwait throws a curve ball after you’ve sunk into the comfortable nostalgia of the comic arena from another generation and reveals the real subject on display.

Crimmins was sexually abused as a child and plays an important part in getting laws passed to crack down on child pornography. AOL chat rooms in the early days of the internet were rife with predators and until Crimmins testified before Congress in 1995 the problem was all but ignored.

Call Me Lucky gets you hooked with its comic angle and then convinces you of its importance with its social consciousness.

ALSO ON

White Shadow (IndiePix Films, 9/29) tells a harrowing tale of albino slavery in Africa. At the forefront is a young albino male trying to avoid ridiculous persecution from a society operating under a limited belief system. Witch doctors want him dead to sell his body parts as charms and medicine. After a couple of years on the festival circuit White Shadow hits DVD status. Ryan Gosling is one of the executive producers.

The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour Christmas Specials (Shout! Factory, 10/13) offers two eps of Campbell’s popular CBS series with the Christmas episodes from December 21, 1969 and December 20, 1970.

Some of the skits and songs seem awfully dated but then there are moments of pure transcendental entertainment. Like when Campbell plays “Classical Gas” and just shreds the lead solo while you can only watch in amazement. Campbell was as good a guitarist as anybody in that era and when he wanted to blow you away, consider yourself scattered. In the background a group of men and women in costume do an interpretive dance and even that cannot diminish to power of this part of the show. Other guest includes Cher (the original beautiful Cher before any surgical makeover), Andy Griffith, Paul Lynde, Anne Murray, Mel Tillis and others.

The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour and White Shadow were reviewed on DVD.

— Michael Bergeron

Bobcat tells Free Press Houston about his current schedule in a phone interview. “I do this almost every week,” he says about his touring schedule that brings him to Houston this Sunday, December 14 at Fitzgerald’s. Bobcat will fly into a town or towns for weekend gigs and then fly back to finish work on his latest film. “It’s a crazier year than usual, I’m doing the final work on a documentary that got into Sundance.” Call Me Lucky plays at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival on January 27.

Some of Bobcat’s comedy revolves around his experience in the entertainment business, like the time he was let go from Hollywood Squares. “People would not call on me when I was on Hollywood Squares, and I don’t know why; even if they needed my square to win. Another thing is that they would write the ad-libs ahead of time and I wasn’t really big on that. I would come up with my own.”

In addition to feature films, Bobcat has also directed episodic television as well as episodes of The Jimmy Kimmel Show. “I did the Kimmel show for about three years, and now I work on Mark Maron’s show on IFC. There’s also a sketch show called Friends of the People that’s on TruTV, I directed some of those,” says Goldthwait. The Kimmel show is shot live using multiple cameras. “It’s a different skill, you’re in the booth calling the shots to the cameras.”

Bobcat expressed his desire to work with friends so showing up on the set is not like punching a clock. The World’s Greatest Dad starred Robin Williams, whom Bobcat had shared billing on gigs in his early stand-up days. “I met Robin when I was 19. We were friends for 33 years,” says Goldthwait. World’s Greatest Dad sharply observes to politics of suicide and while that may seem close to home in relation to Williams’ recent passing Bobcat counters. “It is and it isn’t. It was just a movie. Robin was sick and that’s why he passed away.

“I don’t set out to make definitive statements in my movies and I try to make completely different movies,” adds Goldthwait.

Call Me Lucky is a kind of tribute to an early mentor of Bobcat – Barry Crimmins who ran comedy clubs where Goldthwait got his start. “I first met Barry in my hometown of Syracuse where he hosted an open mike night. Barry, his story, is an amazing guy. The film follows his comedy career but also his personal transformation as an adult who was a survivor of child abuse,” says Goldthwait.

“Crimmins took on AOL because they were allowing child pornography to be exchanged in their chat rooms. Barry took the matter all the way to the Senate floor. He’s a fascinating man and a bit of a hero. On a larger scale Call Me Lucky is a universal story. In some ways it reminds me of World’s Greatest Dad because it’s about an adult taking charge of his life. You can make a movie that has a message but if it’s not entertaining at the end of the day no one is going to see it.”

— Michael Bergeron