Is a society that laughs so hard at its own fads humble, narcissistic, or both? This forgotten spoof, four years before "Airplane!," appeared after years of "Airport" and Irwin Allen films, just as disaster movies were being replaced by the Spielberg shockers that started with "Jaws" and led to "Jurassic Park" (X-treme Discovery Channel, but that's another story). Cylops, a nuclear-powered, double-decker, articulated luxury bus (an impressive set of props & sets) finishes development despite sabotage attacks that cripple the specially trained drivers. Venerable driver Dan Torrance (Bologna) is hired as a replacement even though he's in disgrace after a disastrous run in which he was accused of eating his passengers while stranded! The bus's designer, Kitty (Channing) is his former love whom he dumped after cheating on her repeatedly. The film is a mostly unsubtle jab at all-star disaster movies in which subplots are resolved by the characters being forced to find common ground to survive the burning building, burning airship, overturned liner, earthquake, et. al. Scruffy engineer Scotty (Beatty) and a fugitive housewife (Gordon) are openly based on George Kennedy's & Helen Hayes' characters in "Airport," respectively. There are also a failed priest (Auberjonois, spoofing his "MASH" role), an oversexed, vengeful fashion maven (Redgrave), a spoiled, bickering couple celebrating their divorce (Mulligan & Kellerman) and a vet disgraced for experimenting with lapine birth control (Dishy). Shull, as a terminally ill man, parodies Lionel Barrymore in "Grand Hotel," reminding us of how uncomfortably similar that old classic is to "The Towering Inferno." The bus's nemesis is a powerful family (Ferrer & Margolin) who create disasters to destroy technical innovation & are apparently responsible for most disasters, real or fictional, filmed since the 1950s, including the "Titanic." The script is wildly erratic, ranging from comic genius to contrived stupidity. The latter include the opening press conference & the encounter with the pickup truck. But the former include most of the scenes involving the bus, including the one in which Dan deals with a bomb, which was redone dramatically in "Speed" nearly 20 years later. Cyclops has a bowling alley, swimming pool & dining room, all hilariously reduced to dollhouse-size, as well as self-changing tires, an Automatic Washing Mechanism (AWM) and soda-pumping & luggage-ejection features. Despite its contrivances, the story holds together amazingly & even provides real suspense up to the very end. Bologna is a bit hammy as the troubled Bus Captain, but Channing is brilliant, both believable & funny, as the nuclear scientist/love interest. The scene in which she drives while sitting on the lap of unconscious co-driver Shoulders (Beck) is almost enough in itself to make the whole film worthwhile. But Murphy Dunne nearly steals the show as the most offensive lounge piano player ever ("Thank yooou!"). Despite the in-your-face satire, look for some very subtle comic touches like the jab at TV news & the pictures in Iron Man's hall.

"The Big Bus" is beyond absurd, rekindling the same sense of humor in "Airplane!" and flooring it into complete childishness. Both movies are so close, you'd call this a template; and while it doesn't achieve the same classic status, it kept that silly smile on my face for damn near the entire movie.

But it's not fair to make this a strict comparison between the two. Suffice it to say, it feels appropriate that it shares the same director with "The Muppet Movie". It's got a cast that's willing to sell the material - hard - and standouts include Rene Auberjonois as an unruly priest and Joseph Bologna (seriously, with a name like that) as the tormented captain at the wheel. And then there's the actual bus, comically oversized and always a visual gag.

It's a fun ride.

7/10

The sight gags are all there, there's silliness to spare and there's not a ZAZ (Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker - the creators of "Airplane!") member in sight.

Yep, "The Big Bus" was the predecessor to the long and luxuriant line of disaster spoofs you see lining the video shelves today. And to tell the truth, as a groundbreaker in this field, this movie is pretty funny.

Bologna is a down-and-out bus driver who is given one shot at redemption by being picked to man the Cyclops, the biggest single bus ever created, driving it coast to coast.

His old girlfriend (Channing) is a kind of bus stewardess on board and an old driving buddy (Beck) is also by his side. But so are a load of passengers as diverse as your average "Airport" or "Poseidon Adventure" movie, not to mention an inept terrorist (Margolin) trying to sabotage the bus at every turn while whining to his brother, "Why did YOU get the iron lung?".

It's that kind of movie.

You'll have a lot of fun picking out every star you can imagine from the '70s here, as well as discovering the jibes at every major convention of disaster movies, even the digs at the huge Cyclops bus itself ("The coyote is on backwards." Never mind, you'll see.)

Definitely a funny and fun movie. Get on this "Bus".

Ten stars for being one of the first on this bandwagon, as well as for some big laughs. And if you have a co-pilot for a huge bus, make sure he stays conscious.