Not the snowmobile

Skidoo

I stumbled across this on YouTube over the weekend. Otto Preminger's famed LSD comedy, Skidoo (1968). The once in a life time cast features Jackie Gleason, Frankie Avalon, Frank Gorshin, Cesar Romero, Peter Lawford, Mickey Rooney, George Raft, Burgess Meredith, Carol Channing, right-wing talk show blowhard pioneer Joe Pyne; and a personal favorite, Arnold Stang. Last but not least, in his final screen appearance, Groucho Marx playing God, an LSD kingpin. There's hippies, gangsters, politicians, Slim Pickens on acid, dancing garbage cans, and the Green Bay Packers naked. The Harry Nilsson soundtrack even has him singing all of the film credits. Otto Preminger and Groucho Marx both experimented with LSD to prepare for this film. Groucho's trip is the subject of the article "My Acid Trip with Groucho" by Paul Krassner, Yippie founder and editor/publisher of famed satirical magazine The Realist. A counterculture favorite Skidoo missed the mark with critics and box-office. Skidoo surfaced briefly on cable in the 1980s, but no official home DVD or video release was ever made. I've posted a link to the opening sequence and you can watch the entire movie in ten parts (just search for "Skidoo part 2", "Skidoo part 3", etc.). Now if I could only find The Big Bus on YouTube.

Skidoo part 1

My Acid Trip with Groucho