“Shake it up, Shake it up, baby.”
— Ric Ocasek of the Cars

“Heaven Really Is That Hot, Huh?”
— Courtesy of the Saban Entertainment copywriting department

“Starring Zach Gallifan and Corey Feldman of Gremlins!”
— Prism Entertainment’s copywriting hornswoggle

Time to break out the B&S About Movies cocktail shaker! Let’s see what libations are on the shelf . . . let’s pour some Corey Feldman and vermouth-some Zach Galligan, and then toothpick-some Ray Sharkey . . . serve it on a Julie McCullough (ex-Playboy model to TV’s Growing Pains) coaster.

Ack! Pffffff! Pttts. Ffttt.

Who’s the bartender on this . . . well, it’s none other than Alan Roberts, he of the Ron Marchini-starring Karate Cop! But wait a minute . . . Alan Roberts also directed the late ’70s soft-porn, aka adult-drama/adult-comedy, aka my younger-self settling in for a Showtime late-night Friday of viewing, that are Young Lady Chatterley and The Happy Hooker Goes to Hollywood.

Hey, don’t judge, the Happy Hooker starred Adam West! I was curious to see what Batman was up to! Honest! (Yeah, right!)

Now what I want to know is this: Adam West worked with Ron Marchini on Omega Cop. But when Ron hired Alan Roberts to direct Karate Cop, Adam West was replaced in the sequel by David Carradine. Is there a tale of Roberts-West bad blood with Happy Hooker we don’t know about in this backstory? Especially after West later worked with Marchini — his long-time friend — on Return Fire?

And in this case: we need the backstory because the backstory is better than the movie in most cases — especially in the case of Round Trip to Heaven. Well, here’s this backstory tidbit: the writer on this is Shuki Levy, who wrote three-years’ worth of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers episodes. And that’s important to note because, like the Power Rangers, this was made by Saban Entertainment. Their co-producer: Prism Entertainment, who’s responsible for 50 percent of the ’80s video swag on the B&S About Movies servers. And here’s more backstory: this is a bad ’80s teen comedy that, thanks to the DVD-based home video market, kept being made into the ’90s — just one, non-titillating and gratuitous T&A bore fest after another. (We pay tribute to those very comedies with our “Drive-In Friday: ’80s Teen Sex Comedy Night” and “Drive-In Friday: Slobs vs. Snobs Comedy Night” featurettes.)

Feldman is a long ways away from Stand By Me and The Lost Boys, and he’s barely squeaking by with License to Drive. After that, the toilet flushin’ began, with Rock ‘n’ Roll High School Forever (I threw that 4-for-a-buck-used-tape into the trash after not even finishing it) and the Hell’s VCR library entry, Meatballs 4.

And Galligan? He gets a squeaker-by with Waxwork — only because it starred David Warner and featured superfluous John Rhys-Davies, because we always watch movies with superfluous John Rhys-Davies. Then the toilet flushin’ began, with the utterly awful, post-apoc’er Rising Storm because, well, anything with Wayne Crawford is usually (the presence of June Chadwick of Forbidden World not withstanding), utterly awful. (Ugh, Crawford was in Francis Schaeffer’s Headhunter; you know ol’ Frank from the apoc-turd that is Wired to Kill.)

Oh, you’re thinking of Dream a Little Dream with the two Coreys of Feldman and Haim. Oops, not this movie. But oh, man, that friggin’ movie. Not even the presence of Piper Laurie, Jason Robards, Alex Rocco, and Harry Dean Stanton — and Susan Blakely (fantastically game in My Mom’s a Werewolf) in her role as Cherry Diamond — can save that ’80s mess. I still don’t know how and why John Ford Coley (of ’70s popsters England Dan and John Ford Coley) and Mickey Thomas from Jefferson Starship ended up in their “dream” of a film role.

Oh so, the plot to Round Trip to Heaven! Yes. Surprise! There is one.

Larry (Corey Feldman) works at a garage and moonlights as Boingo the Clown to make the rent. Along with his best buddy, his cousin Steve (Zach Galligan), they decide to borrow a Rolls Royce from the garage to check out the babes at a Palm Springs beauty pageant. Little do they know that the car’s owner (Ray Sharkey, duBeat-e-o) has a suitcase of counterfeit drug money stashed in the trunk: the chase is on. Along for the ride is Lucille, their unnoticed, mousey goody-girl next door friend (McCullough).

Reach for the Charmin (copy of Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas) yourself over on Tubi. But seriously, isn’t this trailer enough?

And seriously: What a “double douche,” right, Wade Garrett?

“Yep, Cameron, because of his Christianity obsession, got Julie McCullough fired from a starring role on a network series, tainted her reputation and tanked her budding career.”

That’s right, Wade. And the Kirkster deserves to be dissed in this review — and stuck in shitty bible-bangin’ movies. So much for Kirk’s little ol’ hypocritically, backstabbing round trip to heaven. Judge not lest ye be judge, Mr. Cameron.

Ironically, if Kirk didn’t turn to the bright side, he’d probably have ended up in Ray Sharkey’s Rolls — or a movie just like it — thespin’ it up.

About the Author: R.D Francis posts his writings on Facebook. He also writes for B&S Movies.