Buy it... only if you are in the mood to hear Jerry Goldsmith at his most playful in the comedy genre, with tumultuous, largely orchestral, prancing mayhem from start to finish.

Avoid it... if Goldsmith's predictable slapstick styles of Dennis the Menace and Looney Tunes: Back in Action annoy you too much in any context to appreciate on album.

Goldsmith

Mom and Dad Save the World: (Jerry Goldsmith) In Hollywood during the early 1990's, the straight-to-video market was being diverted in many cases to big screen releases, often allowing ridiculously awful films to suffer a week in theatres before disappearing. One such entry was the following Warner Brothers disaster that nearly got the ax several times in pre-production and obviously should have. The 1992 flop Mom and Dad Save the World is a sci-fi spoof from Chris Matheson (the son of 1950's science-fiction icon and Ray Bradbury collaborator, Richard Matheson) and Ed Solomon, the pair of deviants who wrote Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. Directed by Greg Beeman with cardboard sets and comedy methodology that makes a bad attempt to mimic the style of Mel Brooks (Spaceballs is infinitely better than this), Mom and Dad Save the World involves the Emperor of the planet Spengo, Tod the Destroyer (Jon Lovitz), and his plot to destroy the Earth because of its cocky populace. First, however, he spots an unhappy housewife (Terri Garr) and beams her and her husband in their wood-paneled station wagon to Spengo so that he can make her his wife. The husband and wife combine forces with all sorts of perverted creatures (not to mention a barely clothed Kathy Ireland and her tribal cohorts) to overthrow the emperor. Along the way, they encounter death rays, renegade bird men, a mind-melt machine, and, among others, a puppet character shaped like a penis. Or a mushroom. Take your pick. Such abominations didn't bother composer Jerry Goldsmith, who dove from the emotional trauma of battling with the filmmakers over the scoring of Basic Instinct into this unbelievable mess and seems to have had a very enjoyable time doing so. Both Goldsmith and contemporary A-list composer James Horner went through a phase in the early 1990's during which they were attracted to brainless comedy assignments despite little involvement in the genre during the prior decade. Most of these comedies had some basic redeeming quality; in Horner's case, the call was towards the children's genre more than straight comedy. For Goldsmith, with the aid of director Joe Dante, the comedies tended to be aimed more at adults, sometimes with disastrous results. Undoubtedly, Mom and Dad Save the World was one such clear miss.

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If you can imagine a combination of Goldsmith's own Dennis the Menace and Jamshied Sharifi's Muppets from Space, then you begin to get an idea about both the scope and energy level of the score for Mom and Dad Save the World. The battle between a piano-performed love theme and another "Baby Elephant Walk"-influenced identity (a song which also seemingly inspired the wretched electric organ theme in Goldsmith's Mr. Baseball the same year and the quirky alien theme in Explorers earlier) greets the listener in the opening track, and that conflict continues to the very last note of the score. It would be interesting to know what exactly was going through Goldsmith's head when wrote this utterly silly bombast. Was he trying to conjure a slapstick comedy score for children? Something slightly darker, like Gremlins 2: The New Batch? Or did he immediately recognize the terrible quality of the picture and unleash waves of random pseudo-science fiction and contemporary romance cues? Despite a few healthy themes that repeat sporadically throughout Mom and Dad Save the World, there really isn't much cohesiveness to the work. Narrative flow is nonexistent. You have to attempt to enjoy the score cue-by-cue, whether it's a loungey piano solo, a choral chant, or a brooding action piece. None of these aspects is particularly memorable, often reminiscent of better Goldsmith ideas elsewhere. No spectacularly singular bursts of energy punctuate the score in Explorers fashion. Aside from a faux choral anthem in "Tod, The Destroyer" and a percussively outlandish and wincingly obnoxious "Rebel Dance" cue, the majority of the score is tolerable in a typically slapstick manner. One advantage this score enjoys is the crisp performance of the National Philharmonic Orchestra, a group that seemed to do the best justice to Goldsmith's wilder, more imaginative scores. Be forewarned, however, that if material such as Dennis the Menace or Goldsmith's final score, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, tests your patience, then the cute marches, cliched jazz rolls, and stock orchestral fanfares here will serve no purpose for you. As a whole, Mom and Dad Save the World requires a very specific, adventuresome mood from the listener, and even a great majority of Goldsmith collectors will likely find too few unique angles in it to warrant full listens. As a composition, however, the score offers Goldsmith at his most playful, not necessary his most creative (this is no I.Q.), but its prancing mayhem could very well drive you nuts if you aren't ready for it. **   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.26 (in 113 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.32 (in 133,462 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.