The Ratings Game - 3Oth Anniversary - Special Edition Collected Online Reviews

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE PRESS CONTACT Bradley Powell PR/Marketing Director Publicity@olivefilms.com / 630.444.1757 Chicago, IL – Olive Films, a boutique theatrical and home entertainment distribution label dedicated to bringing independent, foreign, and classic films to DVD and Blu-ray, is excited to announce that July 19th will be the DVD and Blu-ray debut of The Ratings Game, Danny Devito’s critically acclaimed directorial debut that has been lost for over thirty years; The Ratings Game (1984) To commemorate the 30th anniversary of their first feature length film, The Ratings Game, star and director Danny DeVito and producer David Jablin sought to finally bring their passion project to the home video market. "Being collectors of Special Edition discs of our favorite films, we decided that if we were going to do it at all, we’d want to give our ‘baby’ the same kind of loving treatment and do it in a way that would appeal to comedy fans and video collectors like ourselves,” said DeVito.

“In looking for a distributor, we specifically wanted a filmmaker-friendly company that would recognize and respect that this was a passion project for Danny and I — and still is,” said Jablin. “It’s been great dealing with everyone at Olive who have truly cared about getting all the details right as much as we have. Danny had the one print ever made of the film for its 1984 big screen premier party in storage all this time and Olive Films has done an absolutely beautiful job restoring it in full HD.” In 1984, Showtime Networks made their first foray into original movies with The Ratings Game starring Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman, which also marked DeVito’s feature directing debut.

The hilarious and biting take-down of the ratings-obsessed network television industry was greeted with love-letter reviews from critics and fans alike. The feature also boasts an eclectic comedy ensemble with performances from Gerrit Graham, George Wendt, Vincent Schiavelli, Ronny Graham, Steve Allen, Huntz Hall, Michael Richards, and Jerry Seinfeld.

Unfortunately, after its premiere on Showtime and its sister The Movie Channel, the film slipped through the cracks as a result of the network’s slowly evolving decisions on where and how to sell their original programming in other markets. “Our film basically fell into obscurity as a result, except with its many fans who continue to hound us for copies to this day,” said Jablin.

In addition to the film itself, the DVD and Blu-ray will come with a liner notes booklet with photos and art from the film as well as a rare collection of four early short films directed by DeVito. Producer David Jablin said, “The bonus materials we included have also never been distributed on disc and were fan favorites from our early work. Altogether they tell the story of the beginning of Danny’s journey as a film director of distinction.

REDISCOVERING DANNY DEVITO’S LOST DIRECTING DEBUT

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f I had a dollar for every article I’ve tried to write about a piece of comedy that is lost forever due to time, or the constraints of live television, or just plain and simple negligence, I’d be a rich man. For just a few examples off the top of my head, The Marx Brothers, Ernie Kovacs, Monty Python, Jackie Gleason, Johnny Carson all have gaps in their comedy history that will probably never be filled, and those are just the big names. That’s why when something comes out of the woodwork like the Graham Chapman pilot from a few weeks ago, or the script for the never produced Johnny Carson comeback special in some ways it feels like a piece of our comedy history gets to live on.

Today we look at an original Pay-TV comedy film that premiered back in 1984 called The Ratings Game, that was produced and written by the same team that brought you that Carson comeback script as well as a number of innovative pay-cable comedy projects that I covered here several months back. The Ratings Game, which starred Danny DeVito & Rhea Perlman, represented a number of show-biz firsts. It was Danny DeVito’s first time directing a feature length project. It was Showtime Networks first original made-for-pay film as well as their first bona fide publicity bonanza. Upon its premiere the film received rave reviews from critics, some who compared it not just to their chief competitor HBO’s fare but to classic comedy features such as Tootsie and Network. It was also the first film to ever deal with the concept of rigging the sacred TV ratings system.

The film was shown exclusively on Showtime and its sister network The Movie Channel but after its initial run (and a minor release on Beta and VHS) the hoopla was over and that was it.

Showtime was not yet in the business of selling its original programming elsewhere so after several administration changes at the network the film was basically forgotten about. That is until now. But let’s back up a little bit.

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n 1981-83, producer David Jablin had been working on his breakthrough HBO/Cimemax comedy anthology series, Likely Stories, which served as an early playground for names that would become comedy luminaries like Chris Guest, Rob Reiner, Billy Crystal, Harry Shearer, and Danny DeVito. Peter Chernin, then the head of Showtime, met with David and suggested expanding the premise of one of those Likely Stories shorts (whose star and director was Danny DeVito) into an original movie for them. But Jablin did him one better: he pitched a brand new idea he concocted with writers Jim Mulholland and Michal Barrie that Chernin couldn’t refuse.

Jablin proposed the question “what would happen if someone was able to fix the almighty Nielsen ratings?” And what if that someone was Vic DeSalvo, an uber-rich New Jersey trucking magnate whose lifelong obsession has been to make it big in show business despite the fact he has no real talent? Devito would star and direct and his wife Rhea Perlman (Cheers) would play his love interest, Francine Kester, a “Jersey girl” who works as a disgruntled and overlooked statistician for the TV ratings company. The idea was a perfect fit. Chernin was looking for “something that the broadcast networks would never touch,” and a satire about corruption in the world of broadcast ratings was exactly that.

As part of a Producers-style scheme, DeSalvo utilizes his vast network of tough guy truckers to “take care of” 100 key households in the ratings system, and then put on his insipid TV pilot “Sittin’ Pretty,” a pitch perfect parody of garbage sitcoms of the 80s. This involves sending those families (including one husband, George Wendt) on a “free cruise” and then sending “his boys” (including a young Michael Richards) into their houses to turn on Vic’s tacky show. His teamsters quickly redecorate a cargo ship and Vic hires the retired beloved kiddie show host, Captain Andy (Ronny Graham) to reprise his role onboard. The scheme works and Vic’s show trounces the opening game of the World Series making him the hottest thing in Hollywood in spite of what the network executives (like the one played by Jerry Seinfeld) told him when he started his journey.

Some of the stand-out sequences of the film are a series of sadly accurate parodies of television in the early eighties which include “Wacked Out,” a M*A*S*H/Bosom Buddies mashup, The Dawn Patrol a Hills Street Blues style show about rag-tag sanitation workers “who toil while we sleep,” and a Saturday morning cartoon about some crazy mobbed-up calamari, The Goombas. It was these precise parodies of bad network programming that contributed to the screenwriters winning the Writer’s Guild Award for their script later that year. They were also one of the key elements that Carson cited when he developed The Johnny Carson (I’m Not Even Sure I Want To) Return To TV Special with Jablin and his favorite writers Barrie and Mulholland.

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or the last 30 years, there was no way to see this movie unless you knew the filmmakers or hunted down an old Beta or VHS copy on eBay. Luckily, for comedy and satire fans this has changed. This week, Olive Films, a distributor of independent and classic films will release the movie for the first time ever on DVD and Blu-Ray. It has been lovingly restored by the filmmakers in full HD from the only print in existence (that Danny kept in storage all these years).

The discs will also include some rare extras. In addition to the requisite deleted scenes and a making of featurette that was made back then, the discs will also include a complete collection of the four short films that Danny DeVito directed prior to The Ratings Game (inclusive of the Likely Stories segment that got Chernin’s attention).

When I spoke with producer David Jablin he said, “It’s been fun and nostalgic for Danny and I to revisit this project after all this time. The film was truly a labor of love for us and actually still is.”

Olive Films is giving this release a real Criterion Collection-like treatment. The premium package will also include a 28 page collector’s booklet that gives an in-depth look at the film’s background, with liner notes, photos, and art from the film.

I’m very glad to say that we can now move one more piece of comedy history out of the “lost” column and into the “found,” with the added benefit that the film looks better now than it did when it was originally aired on cable TV. The Ratings Game provides a scary what-if scenario in which one man dominates the airwaves and fills it with garbage. Thankfully, we live in a world where this hasn’t happened, as long as you don’t count the election coverage.

In 1984, Danny DeVito made one of the most assured and entertaining directorial debuts in comedy history when he helmed The Ratings Game, a hilarious satire that premiered on Showtime only to disappear from circulation in the decades that followed. The movie tells the story of a New Jersey trucking mogul (DeVito) who moves to Los Angeles with dreams of making it in the TV business. When he falls in love with a woman (Rhea Perlman) who works for a ratings service, he figures out a way to rig the system in his favor, rising to the top with a collection of truly inane series that he has created. These TV shows within the movie are brilliantly executed by DeVito, as are the numerous other components of the film, including a touching love story, a razor-sharp dissection of the absurdities of the TV business, and an Italian-American family comedy that’s broad and authentic in equal measures. DeVito balances a multitude of comic tones and levels of reality with total mastery, exhibiting the same visual intelligence and conceptual audacity he would bring to his later masterpieces The War of the Roses and Hoffa. Sweet, biting, intelligent, and exquisitely crafted, The Ratings Game stands alongside Tootsie and Lost in America as one of the great American comedies of its era.

The Ratings Game has been difficult to find for many years, but now the good folks at Olive Films have released an indispensable Blu-ray/DVD that includes a collection of DeVito’s early shorts and some deleted scenes. It’s a busy time for the actor-producer-director, who stars on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and recently gave one of his finest performances as a weary film school professor in Todd Solondz’s Wiener-Dog. Behind the camera, DeVito recently completed work on a new short film, Curmudgeons, and is the executive producer of Daniel Raim’s Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story, a documentary that tells the story of Hollywood storyboard legend Harold Michelson and his wife, famed research librarian Lillian Michelson. That film will screen in Los Angeles at the American Cinematheque with Raim and Lillian Michelson in attendance on July 31 – more information on the screening can be found here.

I spoke with DeVito about all of these projects and more the week that The Ratings Game disc was released.

Filmmaker: Watching The Ratings Game again this week, I was struck by what an accomplished debut it was.

How long had you been thinking about directing before that – was it something you always wanted to do?

Danny DeVito: Definitely. I started out as an actor, but somewhere around 1966 I saw Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers and it got me very curious about directing. I looked at that movie and went, “What the hell? I’ve been watching movies since I was a little kid, but how did they do this?” I made some Super-8 films and 16millimeter shorts in the late 60s and early 70s before I did One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and then when I got the job on Taxi my acting career took off. Eventually I directed a couple of Taxi episodes and wound up working with producer David Jablin on some short films he was producing for this HBO series called Likely Stories. One of those, The Selling of Vince D’Angelo…have you ever seen that?

Filmmaker: Yeah, they put it on the Blu-ray along with some of your other shorts.

DeVito: Okay, great. David was a terrific producer, and after we collaborated on A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening and Vince D’Angelo he put The Ratings Game together. I put just about anybody that I was remotely connected to in it – not just Rhea, but a nephew of mine, cousins, and all my actor friends. We did it for Peter Chernin, who was running Showtime at the time and gave us a lot of freedom.

Filmmaker: It’s a meticulously crafted movie in terms of the compositions and camera moves and transitions.

Is all that planned out pretty far in advance of shooting?

DeVito: Yes, that’s the way I’ve always done it. I started working that way because I like to act in the movies that I direct, so I planned out my shots ahead of time as a sort of security blanket. And as I watched a lot of movies and studied other directors over the years, I just got the feeling that that was the way to work for me – to know what I was going to see and have it be the result of careful planning and design. I storyboard everything, and I was really fortunate after The Ratings Game to work with Harold Michelson, who was an amazing storyboard artist. He’s passed away, and now there’s a movie about him that I’m involved with called

Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story. It’s directed by a guy named Daniel Raim, and it gets into all the iconic images that Harold created – one that comes to mind right away is the shot in The Graduate of Anne Bancroft’s leg with Dustin Hoffman in the background. That was one of Harold’s incredible contributions to that film. His wife Lillian had an incredible research library that you could use in the days before the Internet if you needed to look up a certain kind of building or what people were wearing in a specific period; I met her many years ago when she was working with Coppola, and then Katzenberg wound up taking the library to Disney. It was in the days where you got hard copies of everything – literally, she’d bring a book over with everything from the period you were looking for. She and Harold were a perfect couple. I met them both at the same time, along with a guy named Maurice Zuberano who worked on Citizen Kane as a sketch artist and was partners with Harold.I started working with Harold on Throw Momma From the Train, where I wanted everything to be close and wide, so that the camera would distort the faces. We used mostly 21-millimeter lenses, sometimes 17. As a storyboard artist, Harold could show you exactly what you were going to see with each particular lens; before I got to set I knew where to put the camera and what lenses to use to give the characters that distorted feeling. I can’t emphasize enough how invaluable that was – Harold opened an incredible amount of doors in my head when it came to visual perception. He would draw things on napkins or whatever pieces of paper we had laying around, and then he’d go off and come back with choices that were off-the-charts great. He was very instrumental in inspiring the approach I used on War of the Roses, Hoffa, Matilda…everything that I’ve ever done.

Filmmaker: Well, my impression from The Ratings Game is that you were already leaning that way. The technique is very purposeful.

DeVito: It was similar, but in a much cruder way. I had conversations with my cinematographer about what I wanted and gave him some drawings, but my drawings are not like Harold’s – they’re indications of what you want things to look like, but not anything you would want anybody other than your D.P. to see. I actually haven’t seen The Ratings Game in a while now. I did keep the only print in my house – thank goodness, because the master for the DVD was made from it.

Filmmaker: It’s such a great snapshot of its era, partly because of the TV parodies within the movie. They’re hilarious, and they actually look like real shows of the period.

DeVito: They were so much fun to do. A lot of the credit for those has to go to David; he and I were both TV nerds at the time, and the shows came out of our conversations.

Filmmaker: The 1.33:1 frame works perfectly for those, but unlike some directors you’re not beholden to one particular aspect ratio. You’ve done great work in 1.33, 1.85, and 2.35 anamorphic.

DeVito: We discussed that a great deal on The Ratings Game and came to the conclusion that we wanted it to look like TV – that shape just jumped out right away as the correct choice. The War of the Roses was 1.85; I actually thought about doing it anamorphic, but I felt like I would feel less locked down with 1.85 doing all the

fights and scenes where they were chasing each other. I had a masterful cinematographer on that movie, Stephen Burum, and when he and I did Hoffa we felt like we could have a little bit more majesty, so we went with anamorphic.

Filmmaker: Something The Ratings Game and The War of the Roses have in common is a really nice tonal balance, where you have different levels of comedy and drama in the same movie. Everybody remembers War of the Roses as this kind of heightened black comedy, but there are scenes in it that are like something out of Bergman’s Scenes From a Marriage! And in The Ratings Game, you have broad satire coexisting with a genuinely sweet, realistic love story between you and Rhea. How do you juggle those tones?

DeVito: I guess it’s mostly instinct. I just approach everything in a real way and don’t put any boundaries on it – when I shift from one type of comedy to another, or from comedy to drama, I don’t think of it as another direction. I just follow the characters and commit to where I think they would go. Although I always start out thinking of a movie in visual terms, ultimately I prioritize the actor; I love beautiful shots and making the D.P. happy, but I never want to compromise the actor or actress in any way. You have to protect the performers and not leave them with the proverbial egg on their face, even if that means sacrificing a take where the light was perfect or something like that. As you noticed, I do plan my shots very precisely, but I also have lots of conversations with the actors about what I’m envisioning so that they can contribute to it. I usually give them an area to work in, which is what Milos Forman did for me on Cuckoo’s Nest – he would say, “Martini, this is your place, this is your spot. You can operate naturally and be free in that space.” I do the same thing for my actors, I give them a space and let them be as realistic in that space as they can be. Then they don’t have any shackles on them and they can feel free to explore. On the show I do now, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, there are three cameras; you set them up and do it a million times. Sometimes we stay with the script, sometimes we improv, then in the editing room there a lot of ways to go.

Filmmaker: Speaking of editing, I would think that after you look at the same material over and over again in the editing room it might be difficult to maintain perspective on what’s funny. Do you do a lot of test screenings on your movies to see how audiences respond?

DeVito: Oh yeah, I think it’s really important. I always get a kick out of people saying they have final cut, because even when you do you really don’t. It’s up to the audience – you listen to where they laugh, you get a sense of their relationship to the material and the characters…if you’re lucky, you have to add frames where people are laughing so much that they can’t hear the last line. If you’re not lucky, you’re taking stuff out because it isn’t funny. War of the Roses was interesting because a lot of people related a little too closely to the movie – they were seeing their own marriage in it, and that kept giving us mixed messages on the tests. I could never get the score where the studio wanted it. We just had to be happy with it ourselves and release the movie, and luckily it worked out really well. Throw Momma From the Train was more straightforward, whereas you wouldn’t believe some of the stuff I was hearing from people who gave War of the Roses bad scores because they were relating it to their own lives. Matilda was fun because I really got to see the kids; I put a camera in the front of the auditorium and watched the faces of the children, which was very revealing.

Filmmaker: You seem like you take so much joy in this process, and I find it interesting that now you’ve gone back to where you started, making short films again.

DeVito: I just did a movie called Curmudgeons that we shot last October. My daughter Lucy, who’s an actress, and my son Jake, who’s a producer, went to this one-act play at the Ensemble Studio Theater with me a few years ago and Lucy said, “This would make a great little movie, and you could play the other part.” The main part was played by a friend of mine, David Margulies. We got the writer, Joshua Conkel, to adapt it, and we shot it in three days – it’s such a great feeling when everybody gets together and helps out and you just do it.

It was at the Tribeca Film Festival, and we’re going to the London Film Festival, and in a month or so we’re going to release it theatrically in L.A., probably at a Laemmle theatre. Then we’ll probably put it out on Vimeo.

I love doing short films, because it keeps you going – you’re working, you’re shooting, you’re editing – it’s tactile, and it’s so much fun! Working with your friends and family…what a wonderful experience.

Jim Hemphill is the writer and director of the award-winning film The Trouble with the Truth, which is currently available on DVD and iTunes. His website is www.jimhemphillfilms.com

The Ratings Game: Lost Comic Masterpiece By Danny DeVito Olive Films continues establishing itself as a spectacular source of the best cult and indie films out there with the July 19, 2016 Blu-ray (BD) release of the 1984 comedy "The Ratings Game. " It's been over 30 years since this directorial debut of Danny DeVito has seen the light of day. This film is notable as well as the first made-for-pay-TV movie produced

by Showtime.

The awesome booklet on "Game" that the BD includes explains that Showtime's primary criteria for its first original film was that it be one that the broadcast networks would not air.

The subversive premise of "Game" is that a New Jersey trucking magnate turned aspiring Hollywood television producer, Vic DeSalvo meets Francine Kester (played by long-time DeVito spouse and "Cheers" star) Rhea Perlman as an always overlooked ratings company employee. Tired of rejection these two "outsiders" concoct a scheme to "fix" the national TV ratings thereby disrupting the entire TV industry to great comic effect.

The audience additionally gets the treat of seeing a plethora of current and future television stars in cameo roles. The earliest notable one is Jerry Seinfeld as a network executive who hilariously tells DeSalvo which concepts are selling that season.

We also get "Seinfeld" costar Michael Richards as DeSalvo's henchman and "Cheers" costar George Wendt as the father of a ratings family.

Danny DeVito & Rhea Perlman star in The Ratings Game Danny DeVito & Rhea Perlman

The award for most special cameo goes to "Bowery Boys" veteran Huntz Hall as an elderly legendary comedy film star.

Olive further shines regarding the plethora of special features on the "Ratings" BD. The highlight of these are the four early comedy shorts that DeVito directs.

“Bowry Boy” Huntz Hall “ B o w e r y B o y ” H u n t z H a ll

The standout of these is "The Selling of Vince D'Angelo." D'Angelo," is a mockumentary on a sleazy New Jersey Senate candidate who'll do anything to get elected. Although the piece is 35 years old its fear-based cantankerous campaign has a great deal in common with the 2016 presidential race.

At a press conference candidate D’Angelo rejects rumors of his starting a vigliante group.

“We are merely good, law abiding citizens who happen to go out at night carrying large sticks to keep our neighbors safe.”

DeVito as Trump-like candidate, Vince D’ Angelo

D e V it o a s T r u m p lik e c a n d id a t e V in c e D ’A n g e lo

The Ratings Game

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ack in 1987 I remember going to see Throw Momma From the Train, which was touted as the directing debut of one of its stars, Danny DeVito. Well, it was and it wasn’t. It was the first film DeVito directed to receive a theatrical release.

However, a few years earlier DeVito directed another film which was the first original movie produced by the Showtime cable network…1984’s The Ratings Game.

DeVito stars as Vic DeSalvo, a guy from New Jersey who lives off the money from his brother’s trucking company while trying to sell ideas for TV shows to the networks in LA. He can hardly get past the front door, let alone sell any ideas. However, one day he walks into a network office right after an exec has been given the boot.

To exact revenge on the network, this exec (who still has a few days of work left) buys one of Vic’s ideas and makes a commitment for a pilot.

Vic even ends up starring in the pilot himself, which is about a guy sharing a dorm room with two sexy college coeds. To celebrate his success, Vic throws a party for himself, but the only person that shows up is an employee of the ratings company, Francine (Rhea Perlman). She also grew up in Jersey and the two quickly become romantic.

Vic is very excited about the premiere of his pilot episode, but the execs at the network set him up for failure by scheduling it to air against the World Series. However, Francine informs him that as long as the right households in a few target areas watch the show it will seem like a huge ratings success.

But how to get them to watch?

Vic ends up concocting an elaborate scheme, and uses a few mob buddies to pull it off.

They send the key families on a cruise (on a ramshackle boat Vic’s pals fix up) while a bunch of Jersey boys (including Michael Richards) break in and watch the show. It turns out so successful that now Vic is allowed to fill the schedule with his shows‌which means the families need to stay out at sea and the mobsters become permanent residents and full-time couch potatoes.

Though DeVito had appeared in a few films, he was most known as a television star at the time this film was released. He knew a thing or two about how the “numbers” can have an effect on a show.

He had spent several years on a critically applauded series, Taxi, that was not a huge ratings champ. I think it’s fair to say that some of his frustrations may have come out in the form of this film. The script is actually quite clever and takes some sharp jabs at the type of programming that was filling the airwaves in the mid 80’s. The film’s funniest moments are the promos for TV series’ such as H.O.T.B.O.D.S and LeVar (a Charlie’s Angels riff), W.A.C.Ked Out (a Bosom Buddies style military comedy), and Dawn Patrol (Hill Street Blues, but about garbage men).

I also enjoyed the romantic side of the plot. Everyone knows that DeVito and Perlman have been a couple for over 40 years and the blossoming romance between their two characters in this film is believable and downright sweet.

The film has a great cast. Among the familiar faces that show up are Kevin McCarthy, Vincent Schiavelli, Jerry Seinfeld, George Wendt, and, in his last role, former Bowery Boy Huntz Hall.

The Ratings Game was a pleasant surprise. DeVito shows great wit both as the star and the director. Plus, anybody who was fed a steady diet of 80’s TV will get a kick out of the way this film pokes at the industry. NOTE: The Ratings Game was just released on DVD and Blu-Ray for the first time by the good folks at Olive Films. Thanks to them for letting us check out the film!

Blast From the Past! Blu-Ray Review: THE RATINGS GAME (1984)

Showtime’s first original TV movie productions was The Ratings Game, starring and directed by Danny DeVito. At the time, he was perhaps best known for his work on Taxi (1978 – 83) and supporting roles in cinematic hits like Romancing the Stone (1984). Showtime’s hope was to entice viewers with edgier content that the major networks would never air and this effort delivered. It was also a critical hit, and earned strong ratings during its run in late December of 1984. Unfortunately, after its first airings and a minor release on VHS, it went out-of-print and disappeared from view.

Thankfully, Olive Films have released a new Blu-ray of the TV movie along with some substantial extras, including a behind-the-scenes featurette, a promo trailer, four impressive shorts from the director and even an informative booklet that details the creation of the movie. It’s a fantastic package and a must own for fans and curious parties. This is one of the best and most comprehensive discs that Olive Films have put out.

The plot follows New Jersey trucking magnate Vic Di Salvo (DeVito) who moves his whole family to Los Angeles to pursue his life-long dream to be a Hollywood TV producer.

Much of the early film involves a romance between the star and a TV ratings company employee (played by Rhea Perlman). The pair share great chemistry onscreen.

This is still a very funny little flick. The fake TV series that viewers see clips of are authentic and bitingly hilarious. They perfectly capture the types of shows that viewers would regularly witness back in the day. Additionally, the new projects created by Di Salvo are bizarrely hysterical. This includes animated Saturday morning cartoon called “The Goombas.” And "Hamilton Rouge" that Di Salvo casts his own goofy teenage nephew as a sexy Remington Steele type character.

Perhaps the most amusing aspect is when, to fake high ratings for the programs, Di Salvo awards all-expenses paid vacations to families who are members of the “ratings households” (each of their TV watching habits representing hundreds of thousands of viewers). While they’re whisked off on a shipping vessel, thugs break into houses to watch Di Salvo's terrible shows resulting in huge ratings. Hilariously, it also means that the ship can’t be allowed into port, circling the globe with angry “ratings families” on board for months on end. It’s a great idea and one that becomes more enjoyably absurd as the movie progresses.

The movie is also chock full of great bit parts featuring famous players – the cast also includes Michael Richards, Jerry Seinfeld, Kevin McCarthy, Vincent Schiavelli, Barry Corbin, Daniel Stern, George Wendt and Steve Allen, among many others.

As mentioned, there are some enjoyable extras as well. The collection of Danny DeVito’s shorts total nearly one hour of material and show real development (you should start from the bottom and work your way to the top). One can literally see the filmmaker develop his style over the years, culminating in the excellent The Selling of Vince D’Angelo (1976). This short film is the one that helped land him The Ratings Game directing gig. Of course, DeVito would go on to direct Throw Momma From the Train (1987), The War of the Roses (1989), Hoffa (1992) and Matilda (1996).

The Ratings Game: Digitally Remastered Special Edition Blu-ray Review Movie & Blu-ray Disc Details

In between his five-season run on the decorated sitcom "Taxi" and the movie stardom he enjoyed in the 1980s, Danny DeVito made his feature directing debut on The Ratings Game, a 1984 Showtime television movie.

DeVito also stars as Vic DeSalvo, a schlub from New Jersey whose family's trucking business made him rich. Now living large out in sunny California, Vic wants to break into show business, but his awful unsolicited TV scripts are rejected by nearly every network, as he is tossed out of their buildings by security. The last network Vic turns to, the fictitious MBC, has just fired its head of comedy following a disappointing season. As a parting gift in his final days of employment, though, that executive gives an on-air commitment to a terrible pilot Vic wrote called "Sittin' Pretty." When the lead actor walks out, Vic has to assume the starring role of this series, improbably playing a Princeton student who is assigned to share a dorm room with two gorgeous co-eds. It's a rubbish show, one that the studio audience (largely comprised of Vic's family and friends) loves and MBC executives hate. They plan to bury the program by scheduling its premiere against the World Series, saying they'll only pick up the series if the pilot pulls off a far-fetched ratings win that night.

Fortunately, Vic has a valuable ally in Francine Kestler (DeVito's then and still wife Rhea Perlman), a Jersey girl who is a thankless employee of Computron, the leading supplier of television viewership ratings. Francine explains to Vic how it's not about having the right number of viewers but the right viewers, those randomly-selected families whose viewership is logged as a representation of the public at large. So, Vic stages a sweepstakes cruise for all of the Computron households and hires a bunch of his cronies to break into their houses while they're gone and watch his stupid sitcom instead of the World Series.

After that brilliant, diabolical plan pays off, MBC's highest honchos orders more episodes of "Sittin' Pretty" to fill the air for the next twenty-two weeks and also greenlights other programs from Vic's mind, including an animated series called "The Goombas." To avoid cancellation, Vic has to have his teamsters keep occupying those ratings households while the owners' cruise is extended considerably.

The Ratings Game is a funny movie full of on-target satire of 1980s television and the industry making it. Between "Taxi" and "Cheers", this world of upfronts and ratings was one that DeVito and Perlman were plenty familiar with and they know how to skewer the business. The creative plot is grounded in reality, too, and anyone who has questioned the methods and accuracy of the Nielsens should appreciate the way in which they are sent up and manipulated here.

The Ratings Game includes is also notable for containing one of the few non-"Seinfeld" roles of Jerry Seinfeld as an unreceptive CBS executive. His "Seinfeld" neighbor Michael Richards has a slightly bigger role as one of the ratings house occupiers. Despite airing on Showtime, this movie features very little profanity and remains quite tame as far as off-color content goes. The Ratings Game simultaneously made its long overdue DVD debut and pleasantly surprising Blu-ray debut this week from Olive Films, who have branded both releases "Digitally Remastered Special Edition."

VIDEO and AUDIO The Ratings Game has a tiny bit of wear and tear, but considering the state of other 1980s television, this is quite great. Retaining its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio, the movie is sharp and save for some minor imperfections, quite clean. The 2.0 DTS-HD master audio track keeps dialogue exceptionally crisp and clear as well. English SDH subtitles are kindly supplied on the feature (but not the extras).

BONUS FEATURES, MENUS, PACKAGING and DESIGN The Blu-ray's extras, all encoded in HD though obviously not produced for it, begin with a collection of four short films directed by Danny DeVito prior to The Ratings Game.

The Selling of Vince D'Angelo (20:37, 1983) stars DeVito as a clearly unqualified working class cement man who declares his campaign to run for senator of New Jersey. Unfolding with press conferences and campaign ads, this short has numerous cast members in common with Ratings.

In A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening (13:48, year unknown), a New Jersey poolhall fight that spills into plain sight is not what it appears to be, but it nonetheless does not end well for the pranksters. George Wendt, John Ratzenberger, and Tony Danza all feature among the community members, while To Kill a Mockingbird's John Megna is a catalyst among the crew.

The next two shorts are less polished and more experimental than those first two, which were both produced for HBO/Cinemax's "Likely Stories" anthology. The Fellini-esque 35mm Minestrone (11:51, 1976) sees a tiny photographer showing up in the soup of an Italian man with filmmaking aspirations.

The oldest and strangest of the lot, black and white 16mm The Sound Sleeper (11:52, 1973), attributed to both De Vito and Perlman, finds a woman getting fixed up and picking up a man whom she kills while sleeping with before flying home to her husband and cat.

The remaining three bonus features are more directly related to The Ratings Game.

First up comes a reel of three deleted scenes (6:03). The most significant of these has MBC executive Braithwaite (Gerrit Graham) visiting a psychic played by Lainie Kazan.

It's followed by a couple of takes of Vic and Francine's interview on the red carpet of the TV Digest Awards and outtakes from "Sittin' Pretty."

A behind-the-scenes featurette (6:50) gives us some insight into the production, with interviews of DeVito and Perlman complementing clips and a tiny bit of location B-roll.

Finally, we get Showtime's basic extended promo (1:41) for the movie.

One additional item is found inside the case: a booklet to rival one of The Criterion Collection's better companions. This 28-page booklet is full of pictures and words. It offers a one-page write-up about the movie's creation and disappearance, critics' quotes, a complete credits list, quotes with corresponding frame grabs, storyboards and effects information, and even a page on each of the bonus shorts included.

Though the scored, static menu appears to be a basic affair, it displays creativity in the images with which it expands when sections are selected.

CLOSING THOUGHTS Though the business has changed dramatically in the past 32 years, The Ratings Game endures as a witty send-up of network television practices. Olive Films' Blu-ray release delights with its nice-looking feature presentation and abundance of bonus features for which we seem to have the unusually home video-savvy DeVito to thank. It's a recommended platter for a movie that deserves to escape the obscurity it has experienced these past decades.

Director: Danny DeVito / Writers: Jim Mullholland, Michael Barrie / Producer: David Jablin Cast: Danny DeVito (Vic DeSalvo), Rhea Perlman (Francine Kestler), Gerrit Graham (Parker Braithwaite), Bernadette Birkett (Mrs. Sweeney), Barry Corbin (The Colonel), Louis Giambalvo

(Goody DeSalvo), Ronny Graham (Cap'n Andy), Huntz Hall (Benny Bentson), Basil Hoffman (Frank Friedlander), Kevin McCarthy (Wes Vandergelder), John Megna (Al), Michael Richards (Sal), Ron Rifkin (T.V. Director), Joe Santos (Tony), Vincent Schiavelli (Skip), Fred Scialla (Richie DeSalvo), Frank Sivero (Bruno), Mark L. Taylor (Ken), George Wendt (Mr. Sweeney), Steve Allen (Himself), Jayne Meadows (Herself), Candi Brough (Bambi), Randi Brough (Stacy), Robert Costanzo (Nunzio), Michael Ensign (Le Boeuf Maitre d'), Jason Hervey (Todd Sweeney), Damon Hines (Woodrow T. Brown), Jerry Seinfeld (Network Rep), Tracey Walter (Computron Investigator - uncredited), Alan Alda (Himself - uncredited), Roy Firestone (Himself uncredited) Original Air Date: December 15, 1984 / Running Time: 102 Minutes / Rating: Not Rated 1.33:1 Original Aspect Ratio / 2.0 DTS-HD MA (English) Subtitles: English for Hearing Impaired / Not Closed Captioned Blu-ray Release Date: July 19, 2016 / Suggested Retail Price: $29.95 Also available on DVD ($24.95 SRP) Single-sided, dual-layered disc (BD-50) / Blue Keepcase

The Ratings Game (Blu-Ray) Olive Films// Unrated// July 19, 2016 // Region A Review by Jesse Skeen | posted August 9, 2016

In 1984, Danny DeVito directed and starred in the first feature-length movie made for Showtime. Peter Chernin, the head programming for the channel at the time, wanted something that "the broadcast networks would never touch," so what would be better than an all-out assault on network TV itself? Devito plays Vic DeSalvo, who made his fortune running a trucking company with mob ties in New Jersey, but having a life-long dream of breaking into show business moves to Hollywood to pursue that. He has a few ideas for TV series that he hopes to sell to the networks, but none of them will bite except for the upstart fourth network (two years before Fox made that a reality), MBC- whose shows often end up with a zero share in the national ratings. A scene at their affiliates' meeting showing off the upcoming shows for the season include a drama about garbage collectors and a sitcom about a guy who cross-dresses to get into the military amongst other high concepts. They pick up Vic's show titled "Sittin' Pretty," a sitcom set at a college where a male student is accidentally assigned to be the third roommate of two sexy blonde female twins (played by the ubiquitous Candi and Randi Brough) - and after the initial lead drops out, Vic himself ends up taking it over, ensuring that all the ogling and rude comments will come through the way he envisions it!

The only problem is that the Network has scheduled the pilot opposite a World Series game in order to bury it. Vic’s solution? Figure out how the ratings system actually works. The fictional Computron replaces the real-life Nielsen here, headed by Wes Vandergeider (Kevin McCarthy.)

Vic becomes fast friends with a statistician for the company, Francine Kester (Devito's real-life wife and collaborator Rhea Perlman) who does most of the heavy lifting at the office but always gets passed over for promotions in favor of Wes' bimbo-of-the-month and is kind of bitter about it. Through her, Vic learns the top-secret names and addresses of everyone who participates in the ratings and hatches a scheme to make sure his show comes out on top even against the World Series, and it's a little silly but it fits in with the general tone here.

I've always enjoyed satires and parodies of the medium - my favorite being 1974's The Groove Tube which was a straight-out night of programming on a fictional TV network with fake shows, news and commercials. "The Ratings Game" keeps the humor more high-brow in comparison and focuses more on the behind-the-scenes goings-on, though the satirical show promos we see early on are hilarious.

Lots of familiar faces have supporting roles here, including an early appearance by Jerry Seinfeld as a network boss who reject's Vic's show ideas and Michael Richards as one of Vic's goons who helps pull off the scheme to have "Sittin' Pretty" sitting at number one in the ratings.

Picture: After playing on Showtime, Paramount released "The Ratings Game" on VHS which is where I first saw it. Olive Films has now put out a "Digitally Remastered Special Edition" Blu-Ray disc, with a new hi-def transfer of the movie. Presented in the proper 4x3 ratio transferred from very clean-looking film elements, it looks top-notch here and better than how it was likely ever intended to be seen.

Extras: Danny DeVito has been a fan of "special editions" and released The War of the Roses and Hoffa on laserdisc in the early 90s with a wealth of extras that were uncommon at the time (most of which were ported to their DVD releases.) While he doesn't go for a commentary this time around, he's still managed to dig up a few extras for this discabout six minutes of deleted scenes (including a hilarious bit where the MBC network head visits a psychic for advice) and a Showtime "Behind the Scenes" piece that originally showed on the channel in between movies- unfortunately the quality of this is quite poor. A Showtime promo of similar quality is also included.

More interesting are some "short films" directed

by Danny DeVito prior to "The Ratings Game"two of these are actually segments from an HBO comedy series called "Likely Stories" and one of these ("The Selling of Vince D'Angelo") was the catalyst for "The Ratings Game.” “The Sound Sleeper” is a 1973 black and white film with no dialogue and DeVito only behind the camera, and "Minestrone" is an odd one about a filmmaker made a few years later, where DeVito is credited as "Lodovico Muchello" A substantial printed insert is included with the disc too which was a nice surprise especially these days, it includes some liner notes, pictures and quotes from the movie, a complete list of credits and some notes on the extra features as well.

Final Thoughts: Critics at the time seemed to love "The Ratings Game" when it premiered and many say it still holds up today. It’s definitely worth a look for fans of DeVito or the supporting cast, or television in general. Issuing a good DVD edition of this would have sufficed (and one is available separately), but it's simply incredible that this hi-def Blu-Ray was released as well.

"THE RATINGS GAME"

These days, original movies made for cable TV channels are not only commonplace, they're also often viewed as equal to – and in some cases better than – their theatrical counterparts. During the 1980's, they were much less common. Premium channels were only just beginning to experiment with producing their own features. In 1984, Showtime dipped their toe into the water for the first time with The Ratings Game, a Danny DeVito-directed comedy. (It was his first full-length feature, pre-dating Throw Momma From the Train by three years.) For years, fans who fondly remembered The Ratings Game have clamored for a home video release. Olive Films obliges with a DVD and Blu-ray, available on July 19.

DeVito stars as Vic De Salvo, a New Jersey trucking magnate who dreams of making it as a Hollywood television producer. He takes his terrible scripts to all the networks and is repeatedly turned down. Then he approaches the fictional MBC, where the just-fired head of comedy development greenlights Vic's certain-to-bomb show as revenge against his boss.

Desperate to make his show a hit despite obvious network apathy, Vic conspires with Francine Kester (Rhea Perlman), a frustrated employee of the company that measures TV ratings, to make it appear that viewership is through the roof.

The Ratings Game’s spoofing of '80s TV shows is spot-on. Anyone who remembers the worst television fare of that time will get some laughs of recognition. A montage of MBC's new shows, which the network president (Gerrit Graham) presents to a room full of local affiliates, is especially funny. One is a very serious-looking drama about the hidden lives of sanitation workers. Another is a situation comedy about a guy who cross-dresses in the military. Vic's show, meanwhile, is a dopey sitcom revolving around a male college student accidentally

placed into a dorm room with two hot female twins. These concepts are not far removed from things that were actually programmed back then.

The look at the insanity of ratings is kind of clever, too. There is truth to the movie's assertion that a handful of randomly selected individuals determine the fate of shows. Even though it's a statistically significant sample, a degree of luck certainly has to be involved. If different people with different tastes were randomly selected, the ratings could look much different than they do.

The Ratings Game also boasts pre-fame cameos from Jerry Seinfeld and Michael Richards. The Blu-ray – which looks really good, by the way – is sweetened with a small handful of deleted scenes, four short films directed by DeVito, a vintage behindthe-scenes featurette, and an impressive booklet of liner notes and photographs.

Olive Films has put together a very good package for this “lost” film. For more information on this and other titles, please visit the Olive Films website.

Plot: A New Jersey trucker creates a hit TV show with help from his girlfriend in the ratings business.

Review: Italian American hustler Vic De Salvo (a very energetic Danny DeVito, who also directed) comes to Los Angeles with a dream and a smile: He sees himself as the next movie mogul, intent on pitching a TV series to all the networks in Hollywood, but he almost literally gets thrown out the door each and every time he tries. By a miracle he ends up in the office of an executive at MBC who has just been canned, but as his last stab at his bosses, the executive green lights Vic’s lame series proposal, ordered to pilot immediately. Vic is over the moon about it, obviously, and he throws a lavish “Vic De Salvo has arrived in Hollywood party” that doesn’t go as planned: He invites every celebrity and executive in town, but the only person who shows up is a nebbish office worker named Francine (played by DeVito’s wife Rhea Perlman) who intercepted her boss’s invitation. Turns out Francine works at Computron, the place where TV’s ratings system is calculated.

After Vic films his terrible pilot episode of his sitcom “Sittin’ Pretty,” he’s told that the network is going to bury his episode by programming it opposite the World Series.

He needs help ASAP, and his new girlfriend Francine helps him come up with a plan to rig the ratings system so that the right households watch his show during the big game.

The plot to rig the system is preposterous, but it works: Vic calls on his old pals in the trucker’s union to break into the chosen 100 homes to tune in to his show across the USA, but first he has to stage an elaborate ruse to get those 100 families out of their homes for the night … so he fakes a “free cruise” sweepstakes just for these families! After the deception works, “Sittin’ Pretty” sweeps the ratings and all of a sudden Vic’s show is ordered to series for 22 episodes! The only way to keep his show going is to keep the cruise from hell sailing so that his associates can keep watching his show from week to week! When finally Vic’s hilariously ill-conceived plan is discovered by the media, Vic has to either face the music or run for his life!

The Ratings Game has been completely off my radar for 30 years, but I’m so glad that Olive Films has resurrected it for its digital debut. It was produced for the premium cable station Showtime in the early 1980’s, and after a perfunctory VHS release it was relegated to obscurity. The movie is quite infectious and hilarious with cameos or small roles by tons of comedians and character actors such as Jerry Seinfeld, Michael Richards (who’s absolutely riotous in this), Kevin McCarthy, George Wendt, Tracey Walter, Vincent Schiavelli, and many more.

After dabbling in short films as a director, DeVito tried his hand here with his first directorial feature, and you can see that he was a natural at it. He’s fantastic in the lead, and he nails the satire home. Big props to Olive Films for releasing a nice Special Edition package for The Ratings Game, complete with a thick insert booklet and special features, including all of DeVito’s short films and deleted scenes. This release is a standout amongst Olive’s releases and should be considered one of the best home video rescues of the year.

Our Review The Ratings Game finds Jersey trucking magnate Vic De Salvo (Danny DeVito) struggling to make it in Hollywood. He has no shortage of money or ideas, but he seems to be lacking some element of class and mainstream appeal. At best, his projects would attract a niche audience of working class Italian-American men from Jersey. No wonder Vic's license plate reads "PAISAN".

Given Vic's rather specific sensibility, it's no surprise that doors keep closing in his face. Even when he gets greenlit to film a pilot centered around college girls whose third roommate is (surprise!) male, he knows he's being patronized. Oh, they'll air his show, but it'll be up against the World Series. No one will watch, and it can be scrapped on the basis of low ratings...unless Vic can find a way to beat the system.

As it happens, Vic has just met a lovely woman named Francine (Rhea Perlman) who works for the firm that calculates television ratings. Using his inside access, Vic hatches an outlandish plan to rig the Nielsen Ratings and take over television. After the wild success of his first show, which is clearly terrible, other De Salvo projects take over the airwaves. Imagine every show on TV having the cast of Jersey Shore and/or the characters from The Sopranos as its target audience, and you'll have a pretty good idea of De Salvo's television takeover.

By the time Vic and his various projects have made it to the equivalent of the Emmy awards, the jig is up, but his scam has exposed the herd mentality of the entertainment business, "hey, if everybody's watching it, this crap must be good!" Though it's fairly safe to say Vic's days in Hollywood are over, his sweet romance with Francine has blossomed into something promising and the future still looks bright.

The Ratings Game is a wonky, over-the-top comedy in the vein of UHF that succeeds in spite of its absurdity. You know it could never work, but somehow the movie remains believable. It's a fun slice of the times and features an impressive list of guest actors including UHF stars Kevin McCarthy and Michael Richards, George Wendt, Steve Allen, Gerrit Graham, and Vincent Schiavelli.

This odd gem has been out of print since it aired as a Showtime original movie, but can now be enjoyed by old fans and viewers alike (not just Italian truckers from Jersey).

SPECIAL FEATURES Special features include a collector's booklet, deleted scenes, a behind-thescenes featurette, and a collection of Danny DeVito's short films including "The Selling of Vince D'Angelo", "A Lovely Way To Spend An Evening", "The Sound Sleeper", and "Minestrone".

The Ratings Game (1984) FRIDAY, JULY 22, 2016 AT 11:47PM

One of the hardest parts of being a film critic, for me, is realizing that a movie I’d praised for its originality was really the outgrowth of something I hadn’t yet seen. I know, I know. Everything’s based on something, right?

Earlier this year, I rediscovered Hollywood Shuffle, Robert Townsend’s biting 1987 entertainment-industry satire. In it, Townsend plays Robert Taylor, a struggling actor whose journey up and down the success ladder is depicted by his own fantastical takes on popular movies and TV shows. In that review, I remarked on how “Weird” Al Yankovich’s 1989 film, UHF, was a wackier version of an identical concept, wherein a perpetually unemployed goofball lucks his way into creating offbeat programming for his own TV channel. As it turns out, there’s an antecedent to both movies, Danny DeVito’s 1984 comedy, The Ratings Game.

DeVito stars as Vic De Salvo, the wealthy co-owner of a national trucking company who lives with his brother, Goody (Louis Giambalvo), in Hollywood. Eager to shake off his humble New Jersey upbringing and make it big in entertainment, Vic spends his days knocking on doors at TV networks. Sadly, no one is interested in his Princeton-set, Three’s Company-style sitcom, Sittin’ Pretty—until one day, when the Head of Comedy Programming at MBC gets canned, and decides to greenlight Vic's pilot as a final “FU” to the executives.

The episode (which Vic not only writes and directs but also stars in) is terrible, but the higher-ups are contractually obligated to put it on the air. Smarmy head honcho Parker Braithwaite (Gerrit Graham) tells Vic that his creation will die a swift death when it airs opposite the World Series. Distraught, Vic turns to his new girlfriend, Francine (Rhea Perlman), who happens to work at the Computron Ratings Service. They hatch a plan to get the top 100 most influential families of the 1,500 nationwide ratings households to make Sittin’ Pretty’s debut a smash hit.

That plan comprises the bulk of The Ratings Game’s second and third acts, and I don’t want to spoil its silly and ingenious details. Suffice it to say Vic’s wildest dreams come true--but at a cost. DeVito and writers Jim Mulholland and Michael Barrie create some wonderfully deranged commercials for Vic’s newly minted production company, Paisan Pictures, such as the pimp drama Nunzio’s Girls, and the cuddly calamari

of Saturday morning cartoon sensation, The Goombas. The joke is, of course, that the bits we see of these shows are not dissimilar from MBC’s regular lineup, which includes the Charlie’s Angels rip-off H.O.T.B.O.D.S. and a Bosom Buddies-type army comedy called W.A.C.ked Out.

The parody elements are spot-on, but DeVito and Perlman make The Ratings Game work. I don’t want to play armchair relationships expert here, but the couple’s on-screen affection feels like an extension of their real-life romance. Vic and Francine bicker, make goo-goo eyes at one another, and casually talk about things that bother them with a relaxed intimacy that can’t simply be written into a script. The earnestness with which the actors deliver it is undeniably smooth.

Earnestness. That’s a word you don’t hear associated with a lot of modern comedies, which often play like cobbledtogether improv sessions built on performers trying to out-gross or outrandom on another.

DeVito gets the most from his cast, which, for fans of 80s American cinema, is a character-actor cornucopia that includes Vincent Schiavelli, Robert Costanzo, Kenneth Kimmins, among others.

Even Michael Richards and Kevin McCarthy pop up, in very similar roles to the ones they would play five years later in UHF. Though the parts are often painfully archetypal, I never once felt that the performers had run roughshod over Mulholland and Barrie’s tight screenplay.

The Ratings Game debuted as a Showtime movie in 1984. Two years later, Rodney Dangerfield starred in Back to School, playing a street-wise businessman who tries to rig an institution--in this case, college--that considers him below its notice.* Hollywood Shuffle came out a year later, and UHF two years after that.

The Dangerfield character from Back to School filed down some of that edge; Hollywood Shuffle turns the tables on us by presenting Robert Taylor as a relatively noble protagonist whose greatest enemy is the

temptation of a cruel and flashy town. By the time we get to UHF, our hero is a big-hearted clown, content to cobble together a mini-Hollywood with friends and a shoestring

Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind sort of brings things full circle with his tale of two video store clerks who reclaim the art in "Art and Commerce" by creating lo-fi versions of Hollywood blockbusters.

We'll never know if all roads really lead back to The Ratings Game, but these movies comprise a fascinating quintuple-feature of outsiders whose self-worth is wrapped up in the acclaim and respect of others, and whose big break reveals itself as a crossroads of integrity (Be Kind Rewind is the weakest example of this, but it's also, arguably, the weakest film). Watching DeVito's film, I wondered how Vic De Salvo would work in a contemporary setting.

Would he hustle the increasingly irrelevant TV networks, or try to find a niche in the billion-channel cable landscape? Would he be savvy enough to go for a Netflix deal? Or would he be the ultimate DIY King of YouTube, using all his unsavory connections to blast the Internet, day after day, with hours of outrageous clickbait? The Ratings Game is a time capsule of outdated media metrics, sure, but it's also a mirror to an ancient and insatiable appetite for affection, expressed through that perennial commodity called "art".

CELEBRITY CHATTER, DVDS, MOVIES, TV

DANNY DEVITO’S LOST FILM AND FAN FAVORITE, “THE RATINGS GAME,” GETS MUCH-NEEDED NEW LIFE AUGUST 21, 2016 Olive Films continues playing the game, and they remain the winner in the victorious game known as Rare, Forgotten and Lost Movies That Must Be Seen and Owned.

Witness: Commemorating the 30th anniversary of Showtime’s first original movie, The Ratings Game, actor-director Danny DeVito and producer David Jablin sought to finally bring their passion project to the home video market. “Being collectors of special edition discs of our favorite films, we decided that if we were going to do it at all, we’d want to give our ‘baby’ the same kind of loving treatment and do it in a way that would appeal to comedy fans and video collectors like ourselves,” says DeVito.BIo" target="_blank">Try watching this video on www.youtube.com</a>, or enable JavaScript if it “In looking for a distributor, we specifically wanted a filmmaker-friendly company that would recognize and respect that this was a passion project for Danny and I and still is” explains Jablin. “It’s been great dealing with everyone at Olive who have truly cared about getting all the details right as much as we have. Danny had the one print ever made of the film for its 1984 big-screen premier party in storage all this time and Olive Films has done an absolutely beautiful job restoring it in full HD.” See what we mean? Olive played, they won, Danny and David won. And we won.

In 1984, Showtime Networks made their first foray into original movies with The Ratings Game starring Danny DeVito and his wife Rhea Perlman. The hilarious and biting takedown of the ratings-obsessed network television industry, which also marked DeVito’s feature directing debut, was greeted with love-letter reviews from critics and fans alike.

The feature also boasts an eclectic comedy ensemble with performances from Gerrit Graham, George Wendt, Vincent Schiavelli, Ronny Graham, Steve Allen, Huntz Hall, Michael Richards and Jerry Seinfeld. Unfortunately, after its premiere, the film slipped through the cracks of the network’s slowly evolving distribution channels and fell into obscurity as a result, “except with its many fans who continue to hound us for copies to this day” adds Jablin.

With some notoriously bad, foreign-made bootleg versions floating around under the name The Mogul, the film has remained essentially lost for more than 30 years. “The mere existence of those totally crap bootleg copies really stuck in our craw and definitely motivated us to set the record straight and put out our film in all of its original glory,” adds DeVito.

In addition to the film itself, the DVD and Blu-ray includes a liner notes booklet with photos and art from the film, as well as a rare collection of four early short films directed

by DeVito.

“The bonus materials we included have also never been distributed on disc and were fan favorites from our early work,” says Jablin. Altogether they tell the story of Danny’s journey as a film director of distinction.”

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MOVIESREVIEWS

THE RATINGS GAME – BLU-RAY REVIEW written by Dusty Stokes August 9, 2016

A satirical look at the Nielson Ratings system and at the entertainment industry as a whole, The Ratings Game (starring Danny DeVito) has come to blu-ray thanks to Olive Films. This is actually a film of many firsts — it was Showtime’s first original film, DeVito’s first foray into directing, and this is my first time hearing about the film. Let’s dive in and see what all the commotion is about.

The Movie (4/5) Have you seen It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia? If you have, then you will know a little about what to expect here.

Not only is DeVito in that series as well, he basically plays the same role in the two projects. He’s a wealthy (or at least seeming to be), somewhat insane man who has hilariously ridiculous ideas that spawn a series of hijinks that barrel himself and his comrades into a world of troubles.

In The Ratings Game, DeVito takes on the guise of Vic De Salvo. Vic’s main goal in life is to make it big in the TV production world. He’s been having a lot of troubles making it in the biz, which is likely to be attributed to his desire to spawn a bunch of (let’s face it) bad TV shows with himself as the star. It is not until he meets Francine (Rhea Perlman) that his luck begins to turn around.

Francine works for the Nielsen’s Ratings company, and, as it would turn out, her job satisfaction has suddenly plummeted, so when her new love interest wants to make a play on the ratings, she is willing to help. Armed with the names and addresses of the “Nielsen families” (the households that the ratings company use to track watching habits and develop their scores), Vic concocts a plan to create a winning scenario for his shows.

The plan? Well, it includes a prolonged cruise for select families (strategically selected, to be precise) that will keep them away so he can get his truckers into each of these houses to tune into his shows. Needless to say, the success of his hilariously bad shows doesn’t go unnoticed, and the next thing you know, it all may come down on top of himself.

The Ratings Game is an absolute joy to watch. The satirical look at television shows and the ratings system holds up well after the years, and DeVito’s sarcastic humor is top notch. The on screen chemistry with Rhea Perlman is believable and heartfelt, and goes well with the comedic tones to make for a great mix. This one may not be as riotous or memorable as others from it’s time, but there is no doubt as to why it has drawn itself a cult following. I had missed this one growing up, and am incredibly glad it crossed my path again now.

The Picture 4/5 Presented in the 1.33:1 aspect ratio, there are black bars on either side of the picture, which is slightly annoying to some, but is a limitation of the time in which it was filmed. There is a noticeable film grain, but it’s never in the way and you can really tell that there was great care put into making this as clean a transfer as possible.

The Features & Packaging 4.5/5 Olive Films has released this blu-ray in a single disc amaray packaging with a very nice booklet that has interesting information about the film and a multitude of photos. The sleeve is single sided, and there is art on the disc.

As far as special features are concerned, included are: •Promotional Trailer •Behind the Scenes Featurette •A Collection of Danny’s Short Films: •Deleted Scenes These special features are no doubt going to excite long time fans of the film, especially the short films by DeVito. Each is unique and interesting, and you can see his influence in each. They range from hilarious to bizarre, and are definitely worth the ticket price alone, in my opinion. Once again, I was having flashbacks of It’s Always Sunny episodes, as some of the situations in these shorts are completely off the rockers.

The Verdict 4/5 When it comes to The Ratings Game, you are likely in one of two camps: those who have seen this film and loved it, or those who have never heard of it. Either way, I think this film is well worth watching.

This one looks great on blu-ray, and collector’s will be happy with the nice booklet and included short films.

The Ratings Game (1984) Blu-ray Review The Ratings Game (1984) Director: Danny DeVito Producer: David Jablin Starring: Danny DeVito, Rhea Perlman, Gerrit Graham, Kevin McCarthy, Louis Giambalvo, Frank Sivero & Vincent Schiavelli Released by: Olive Films Reviewed by Mike Kenny Marking his directorial debut, Danny DeVito also stars in The Ratings Game as successful Jersey trucking tycoon Vic De Salvo whose aspirations of fame lead him to Hollywood. Teaming up with his girlfriend (Rhea Perlman, Matilda) who works for the TV ratings service, the tenacious new show runner hatches a scheme to rig the sacred system in his favor.

Shortly after the cancelation of his successful sitcom Taxi, Asbury Park native Danny DeVito would find himself carrying the torch both behind and in front of the camera for the Showtime network’s debut into original TV movie programming. Impressing top brass with his comedic

creative chops on HBO’s funny anthology series Likely Stories, DeVito’s Jersey rides shotgun in this satirical sendup of showbiz and scandal.

Relocating with his family to Tinseltown and living lavishly off of his trucking business, Vic De Salvo yearns to become a respected TV producer much to the overwhelming disapproval of established players. After a spiteful decision earns De Salvo a green-lit pilot at the struggling MBC network, the short statured wannabe professional must overcome a suicidal time slot setup by his hilariously unsupportive studio head (Graham).

Teaming up with his girlfriend and fellow Jerseyite Francine (Perlman) who works for the trusted television ratings service, De Salvo’s plan to rig the system to ensure his show’s popularity shoots his credibility up the charts before a hysterical downward spiral culminates at the annual TV Digest Awards ceremony.

Hosting a multitude of appearances from ascending stars including, Michael Richards (Problem Child), George Wendt (Cheers), Daniel Stern (Home Alone) and Jerry Seinfeld (Seinfeld) as a dismissive network exec, The Ratings Game is a bonafide knee slapper that makes light of TV programs of the era while, DeVito and Perlman’s lovely onscreen chemistry assures viewers what they see is not just movie magic but, the foundation of a personal and professional relationship that has endured four decades.

Well praised during its original release and sending DeVito off on a successful run of theatrical hits, The Ratings Game would ultimately fall into unwarranted near extinction. Delectably silly and containing an impressively funny ensemble cast, The Ratings Game has aged considerably well, highly earning itself a rerun.

Olive Films presents The Ratings Games with a 1080p transfer, sporting a 1.33:1 aspect ratio. Bearing the marks of its TV movie roots with black bars displayed vertically on either sides of frame, bolder colors found in costume choices are eye-catching while. A vast improvement over its bygone VHS release, The Ratings Game has never looked better.

In a welcome change of pace, Olive Films welcomes the release with a generous helping of supplements including, The Short Films of Danny DeVito: The Selling of Vince D’Angelo (20:37), A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening (13:48), Minestrone (11:51) and The Sound Sleeper (11:52). In addition, Deleted Scenes (6:03), a Behind the Scenes Featurette (6:50), Promo Spot (1:41) and a 26-page booklet featuring stills, screenplay excerpts and writings on The Ratings Game and Likely Stories are also included.

Incorporating his own Garden State up bringing Star/Director Danny DeVito’s The Ratings Game makes a splash keeping viewers entertained by its many funny performances and charmed by his and real life wife Perlman’s lovable onscreen romance. Appreciatively saving and reintroducing audiences to Showtime’s first-ever television movie, Olive Films deserves praise for the feature’s remastered high-def presentation and its welcome inclusion of bonus features that will hopefully continue with future releases.

RATING: 3.5/5 Available now from Olive Films, The Ratings Game can be purchased via OliveFilms.com, Amazon.com and other fine retailers.

The Ratings Game

by Mark Tolch

Published on 09-07-2016

Released By: Olive Films Released On: July 19, 2016.

Director: Danny DeVito Cast: Danny DeVito, Rhea Perlman, Gerrit Graham, Lee Ving Year: 1984 Purchase From Amazon The Movie: 1983. Ronald Reagan was in the White House, I was catching Batman and The Green Hornet re-runs on my lunch hour, and the Showtime Network decided to take a chance on television star/new Director Danny DeVito and Writers Jim Mulholland and Michael Barrie due to the appeal of their "Likely Stories" comedy anthology entries. The mission: to create a made-forpay-TV movie that will propel the network to new heights with a comedy that could never be shown on network television.

Fresh from the cancellation of the hit show Taxi, DeVito stars as Vic DeSalvo, one half of a family-owned, multi-million dollar trucking enterprise out of New Jersey. Bored with life and needing a change of pace, Vic and his brother move out to Los Angeles where Vic tries his hand at writing scripts for television, shopping them around to various

networks. But despite a wealth of written works, his own chauffeur, Bruno (Frank Sivero), and his boisterous presence at some of the most chic restaurants in Hollywood, Vic finds this an uphill battle, being thrown out of offices all over town when he tries to peddle some of the worst scripts ever written for network TV. Fed up with his wasting of the company's money, Vic's brother gives him an ultimatum; sell a script in the next month, or move back to Jersey.

Things don't look good for Vic, but when the top brass at MBC, the crappiest of the networks, with a roster full of horrible television shows, decides to fire one of their employees responsible for comedy development. Drunk off his ass and in the mood for revenge, he signs Vic up to direct an original DeSalvo script... a bad, Italian-flavored Three's Company ripoff called, "Sitttin' Pretty"...a terrible creative idea that MBC head Parker Braithwaite (Gerrit Graham) is legally obligated to produce. Sitttin' Pretty certainly doesn't seem destined for greatness, however, as DeVito fires the good-looking lead and inserts himself into the cast, with decidedly un-comic results.

Vic throws a gala celebration to announce his arrival into the world of television, but nobody shows up. Nobody, that is, except for Francine (Rhea Perlman), a head statistician for the television ratings corporation that decides through the use of electronic analysis which television shows are the most popular, and which get the axe.

Vic and Francine spend the night talking and bonding about their New Jersey roots, falling quickly for each other, and when Vic realizes that his show will probably tank, Francine's feelings for Vic compound with her job dissatisfaction and hatred of her boss (Kevin McCarthy), and she agrees to help juggle the numbers to make Sittin' Pretty a hit.

"Devastatingly Funny" is how the Chicago Sun Times described The Ratings Game and

It IS! From DeVito's delivery to the show Sittin' Pretty itself, not to mention the host of guest appearances; Michael Richards, Jerry Seinfeld, and Lee Ving; The Ratings Game has a lot to laugh at. DeVito's direction is perfect for the picture as well, keeping things moving along at a fairly rapid pace, but letting the writer's jokes breathe when they need to, lingering when it's appropriate.

Video/Audio/Extras: Olive brings The Ratings Game to Blu-ray in an AVC-encoded 1.33:1 transfer (the OAR for Showtime's Television presentation) that looks pretty decent. Blacks are generally solid, detail is crisp, and the picture is largely clean of dirt and debris. The English DTSHD Master Audio 2.0 (the back of the box says mono) is equally as acceptable. While it certainly won't dazzle, there's enough dynamic range and lack of issue in the track that it competently carries dialogue, sound effects, and score throughout.

English Subs are provided.

First up in the supplements are The Short Films, four films that DeVito did before The Ratings Game. Political campaigning, gangsters, soup, and a variety of other topics are tackled in A Lovely Way To Spend An Evening (13:49), The Selling of Vince D'Angelo (20:57), Minestrone (11:51), and The Sound Sleeper (11:52). The video quality on these varies wildly from film to film, but they're all worth a watch.

3 Deleted Scenes (6:03) are also included, as is a Making Of Featurette (6:50) which is a behind-the-scenes look at The Ratings Game with DeVito talking about his work on Taxi, and Rhea Perlman discussing working with DeVito.

Promo (1:41) is essentially the Showtime Trailer for the film, and a short introductory essay and other stills from the film can be found in the insert booklet.

The Final Word: The Ratings Game is an entertaining, humorous and worthwhile comedy. Olive has done a pretty swell job in grabbing extras for this one as well, with the DeVito short films standing out.

Blu-ray Review: Olive Films Rolls Danny DeVito’s ‘The Ratings Game’ Out of The Vault Posted on16 July 2016.

This week, our resident movie reviewer, Jeremy Morrison, is back with a fresh review of one of Olive Films most exciting new releases, “The Ratings Game,” directed by the legendary Danny Devito and starring Devito, Rhea Perlman, Gerrit Graham, Louis Giambalvo and Vincent Schiavelli.

‘The Ratings Game’ SPECIAL FEATURES: • Collection of rare short films directed by Danny DeVito • Collector’s booklet • Behind the scenes featurette • Deleted scenes REVIEW: A TV Movie from 1984, “The Ratings Game” first debuted on The Showtime network. A fun glimpse inside how show ratings work, even today, when the practice is dated and out of touch with the advent of the DVR and various streaming devices. The film was directed by and stars Danny Devito, and stars all of his friends in the industry like Vincent Schiavelli, Frank Sivero, and Rhea Perlman, his wife of many years, just to name a few.

“The Ratings Game” is a fabulous effort by Devito who plays Vic DeSalvo, a would-be television producer that has recently come into some money and is desperate to fit in on the Hollywood Scene. After several failed attempts at various networks around town, DeSalvo manages to weasel his way in to the office of a recently fired network

programmer for the struggling MBC Network. As a fuck you of sorts, the disgruntled former employee green lights de Salvo’s project and rushes the series to pilot.

Gerrit Graham plays the sleazy Network President with the right amount of ooze. After the taping of DeSalvo’s uninspired pilot, Graham’s Parker Braithwaite announces to de Salvo his plan to bury the pilot premiere in October against game 7 of the World Series. Luckily for DeSalvo and his gang of teamster pals turned celebrity entourage, DeSalvo has been falling in love with Rhea Perlman’s Francine Kester, and wouldn’t you know it, Francine happens to work at the very firm that collates all of the ratings data across America.

Once DeSalvo’s property is an overnight success, MBC finds itself in a tight spot and look to de Salvo to help turn the fledgling network around.

THE VERDICT: “The Ratings Game” has a lot going for it. I found myself loving it more than originally anticipated and would highly recommend the blu-ray to any fan of industry satire. The disc also comes packed with bonus content in the form of a featurette, deleted scenes, and a handful of Danny Devito’s short films.

Jeremy L. Morrison, Staff Writer About The Writer: Jeremy L. Morrison is the co-creator/host of the Acid Pop Cult Podcast, film reviewer and screenwriter.

The Ratings Game â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Blu-ray Review JULY 29, 2016

The Ratings Game stars Danny DeVito as Vic DeSalvo, a producer who has a relentless passion to make it big in Hollywood.

The Ratings Game was actually the first original movie to be financed by Showtime. This feature also marks Danny DeVitoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s debut as a film director, bringing in a few awards including an International TV Movie Festival Award for Best Comedy and a Writers Guild Award for Best Original TV Comedy Movie, was awarded to the writers Michael Barrie and Jim Mulholland.

Picture Quality (5/5): Just like my previous experiences with Olive Films releases, the overall video quality was exactly what you would expect with a Blu-ray release of a film. The clarity and overall imagery of The

Ratings Game was spectacular. The colors of this film really stood out considering its age and the fact that it originated as a made-for-TV movie. It really is nice to see that films like this are getting the visual tender, love and care that they deserve as they are being produced to be released in this format.

The Packaging (3.5/5): This release of The Ratings Game comes packaged in your standard Blu-ray amaray casing. There is no slipcover for this release, however included within the packaging is a booklet that features various aspects of the film.

Special Features (5/5): Unlike my previous experiences with Olive Films releases, this release of The Ratings Game comes with some bonus content. And to my surprise it is exactly what I was looking for with this release. The additional content included is: • • • • • • • •

A Collection Of Rare Short Films Directed By Danny DeVito The Selling Of Vince D’Angelo A Lovely Way To Spend An Evening The Sound Sleeper Minestrone Collectors Booklet With Liner Notes & Art From Film Behind The Scenes Featurette Funny Deleted Scenes Final Thoughts: I found myself really enjoying The Ratings Game. It was a nicely done romantic comedy film featuring two of my favorite stars, Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman.

I knew I was going to get some great laughs. The overall video quality of this film was beautiful and crisp.

The Ratings Game (1984, Olive, unrated, $25) After finishing up his run on “Taxi” and before helming “Throw Momma From The Train,” Asbury Park native Danny DeVito made his directorial debut with this hilarious movie, which is, among other things, a love letter to New Jersey. The director stars as a Jersey trucking magnate who moves to Hollywood to try to break into showbiz.

Soon, he has the whole town eating out of his hands thanks to the illegal maneuverings of his Jersey Girl gal pal (Rhea Perlman), who happens to work for a TV rating service. Part stinging satire of the TV industry and part heartfelt rom-com, “The Ratings Game” is ripe for rediscovery.

Extras: short films and deleted scenes

“The Ratings Game” An Unseen Very Funny Movie Amos Lassen Danny DeVito plays a more-energetic-than-talented TV producer and Rhea Perlman is a ratings service employee.

Of late they came together to make some really terrible television shows that become big hits. The film is a satire on television and there are some really funny situations and one-liners.

Vincent Schiavelli almost puts the movie in his pocket as a Jersey dimwit with delusions of being a Hollywood insider.

Kevin McCarthy is a really hard TV executive who seems to be having a lot of fun with this movie. As a struggling producer Vic DeSalvo (DeVito) hatches a scheme to become a big TV star by creating and staring in his own shows and selling them to a struggling network. He meets and falls in love with Francine, (Rhea Perlman) a woman who works for the Neilsen Ratings Bureau and uses her knowledge to kidnap the Neilsen families and send his crew to “house-sit” for them and tune into his shows.

The mock shows are hilarious and the humor keeps us laughing almost non-stop. Some of the faux shows are “Hot Bods and Levar”, “Whacked Out”, and “The Dawn Patrol”, “a pretentious drama about inner city garbage men and their hopes, dreams and fears.”

What a cast we have with Steve Allen, Ronny Graham, Huntz Hall, John Megna, Gerrit Graham, Kevin McCarthy, Michael Richards, Jerry Seinfeld and the Voice of Selma Diamond.

The movie was made for a premium pay cable TV network in the mid-1980’s, and never released in theaters. De Vito also directed the film. By pulling an elaborate scheme to manipulate the TV ratings system, he is able make all of his wretched TV series into ratings bonanzas.