I don't recall having a firm grasp of the term "black comedy" until I saw Danny DeVito's The War of the Roses in 1989.  I knew it didn't refer to a movie with both laughs and an Eddie Murphy or a Richard Pryor, but I didn't really understand what it encompassed (though Eating Raoul certainly pointed me in the right direction).  I'm not sure if DeVito's film got it right, or did it better than any other picture had up to that point in time, but for whatever reason, Roses is what pops into my head when I hear the words "black comedy."

DeVito's latest directorial effort – Death To Smoochy – makes Roses look as tame as a declawed kitten.  It's a hysterical, over-the-top comedy that, like the new network series Greg the Bunny, does to children's television programming what The Larry Sanders Show did to late-night television.  Like Bunny, the film is set around a popular children's show, though this one offers no farting felt.  It instead features a jaded human host named Rainbow Randolph (Robin Williams, Bicentennial Man), who, in the film's first scene, is busted by the feds for taking bribes.

The show's producers, M. Frank Stokes (Jon Stewart, The Daily Show) and Nora Wells (Catherine Keener, Being John Malkovich), desperately scramble for a replacement but learn that all the top children's entertainers are either whacked out on dope or better suited for a career in the Catholic church. The best Stokes and Wells can come up with is Sheldon Mopes (Edward Norton, The Score), whose alter-ego, Smoochy the Rhino, is a lowly "fur stuffer" who performs at children's wards, kids' parties and methadone clinics.

Sheldon is thrilled to bring his Smoochy character to television, but neither of the producers could have predicted he'd be so concerned with pushing squeaky-clean morals and healthy eating habits on the show.  Stokes and Wells are even more surprised when Smoochy becomes the biggest thing since Ray Romano.  He initially butts heads with management over the show's content, but thanks to his new, shady agent (DeVito, Heist), Sheldon becomes the executive producer, taking over both the biggest office and the company's corporate penthouse.

And then Sheldon finds out how difficult it is at the top, too.  For starters, Rainbow has gone off the deep end and keeps trying to kill him. Sheldon has trouble with corrupt children's charities and a management team that cares more about spinoff merchandising than the content of the show (imagine Ned Flanders taking control of Krusty the Klown's show and you're pretty close – remember Krusty's Home Pregnancy Test that warned it might cause birth defects?).  He's also developing an attraction to the hardened, cynical Wells and is physically coerced into hiring a brain-damaged former boxer (Michael Rispoli, Two Family House) for his hit show.

Smoochy is the most fun I've had at a mainstream movie since Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, mostly because it's the closest any film has come to matching Kevin Smith's continuous level of vulgarity.  The laughs all revolve around violence, sex or cursing, so don't go into this thinking it will be something you can take the little ones to see because Smoochy is purple like Barney.  The hilariously vile script comes courtesy of Adam Resnick, the Emmy-winning writer of television shows like Late Night With David Letterman (back when it was good), Larry Sanders, and Chris Elliott's short-lived Get a Life.  It succeeds because of Resnick's script and in spite of DeVito's weird and sporadic fun-house use of Dutch tilts at odd intervals.  It also seems like there are some editing problems, as the film hints at Sheldon's dark past but never ferrets it out.

Since they're handing out Oscars to A-list actors who are cast against type as bad guys, they may as well give Williams the award for this (and the upcoming films One-Hour Photo and Insomnia, as well).  Whether or not you like Williams' performance here, you have to admit that it's much more fun seeing him play evil than sappy (i.e., Patch Adams, Jakob the Liar).  Norton, as usual, logs another solid performance and has yet to appear in a bad film.  Keener, an immensely talented actress, gets little to do here besides roll her eyes and look disgusted (her character is also – and unfortunately – both shallow and slutty).  But she does that really well, too.

1:45 –

for language and sexual references