RV the Movie

RV (Widescreen Edition) ~ Jeff Daniels, Rob La Belle, Brian Markinson, and Stephen E. Miller.

This was an instant classic. And while somewhat predictable, a good time escape for the whole family. Required viewing and part of your RV library. Best RV Accessories admits we LOVE it! Here’s what one review said:

“Okay, I actually loved this movie…I thought it was funny and entertaining and just what I needed to see, something pointless and yet does the trick perfectly. You can always rely of Robin Williams for that. No, it’s not the smartest comedy but it’s not like we thought we were walking into ‘Fargo’ people, we were walking into a family vacation comedy that’s full of slapstick laughs and gross humor, and that should be what you expected. Robin Williams plays Bob, a man whose a slave to his job, a job he’s afraid he may lose. He’s so afraid that he actually cancels his family’s vacation to Hawaii and takes them on an RV trip to Colorado with hopes to sneak off to a meeting with his germaphobe boss in order to keep his job. Along the way (of course keeping his true intentions secret) he tries to recreate the bond he once had with his family. This of course starts of shakey since neither his wife (Cheryl Hines) nor his children, teenage daughter Cassie (JoJo) whose going through her rebelous “I hate mommy and daddy” stage and his young son Carl (Josh Hutcherson) whose insecure about his small size, are supportive. But after all the problems with sewage, weird hillbilly RV neighbors the Gornicke family (led by Jeff Daniels and Kristin Chenoweth) and some pesky racoons their is a family bonding moment that is shattered by a bowel problem (sort-of) a sinking RV and the exposure of Bob’s secret meeting. In the end, RV may be predictable family fun, but the point still remains that it’s family fun, and that’s gotta amount to something.”

The Long, Long Trailer (1954)

The Long, Long Trailer is “the classic” RV movie. If you don’t own this one, you better hang up your keys and call it a day. Put it up there with the flag, puppies, apple pie and hot dogs. You can’t have Best RV Accessories copy, so order your own library copy immediately. Here’s what one person had to say:

“Watching the Lucille Ball/Desi Arnaz film “The Long, Long Trailer” some 50+ years after it was made, is a rather surreal experience. By 1953, The “Baby Boom” was indeed booming, tract housing was all over the place like crab grass, trailer parks multiplied like jackrabbits, and Americans were inundated with the wonders of “space age” technology. Big, flashy-looking cars, refrigerators, TV sets, “streamlined” furniture, and snazzy clothes were the things that everyone wanted to have. It was as if America wanted to wipe away its gritty, unglamourous past and face the space age all polished and waxed and Simonized. To see Eisenhower’s America as depicted by MGM in better-than-real-life Technicolor and filmed largely on MGM’s backlot (interspersed with location photography of Yosemite Park,etc) I feel like I’m watching home movies that were shot in a suburb of a distant planet! “The Long, Long Trailer” was made to capitalize on the overwhelming popularity of TV’s “I Love Lucy”, which finally made a star of 40ish Lucille Ball, who had never really achieved “big stardom” in the 20 years she had been in showbiz. So, if you REALLY loved Lucy, you could go and spend money to sit in a theater and watch Lucy and Desi on a big screen in an “Air-Cooled” theater in COLOR, and with no commericials! This film has always been a favorite of mine, ever since I first watched it with my sister on our parents’ blonde wood console black-and-white TV back in the mid 1960s. See Lucy fall in the mud (I have to admit I get a rather sadistic pleasure out of watching this bit over and over again). See Lucy try to prepare a gourmet dinner while in a moving trailer, with disastrous results (God, the things they did to this lady!) See Desi perform a medley of songs while driving a huge convertible, pulling an even MORE huge trailer, all in stunning Technicolor. How could you NOT like this film? I must have seen this film at least 50 times when I was growing up! Detractors call this film one long “I Love Lucy” episode which, of course it is, but it certainly isn’t dull, and Lucy and Desi were very talented, hardworking people. Who cares about their less-than-happy personal life? The supporting cast is great, filled with many characters actors who had long, long careers, such as Marjorie Main, Keenan Wynn, Moroni Olson, Madge Blake, and Bert Freed. The picture quality on the DVD is beautiful, with crisp imagery and breathtaking color. One can really understand why Lucille Ball was dubbed “Technicolor Tessie”. She looks great. The location photography is picture-postcard lovely, and all of the pathologcally “Fifties” trappings, such as the Helen Rose clothes and humongous cars, remind us of a VERY different time. This film is a real time piece, it brings back very fond memories of a time that really seems “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….” Where’s my TV dinner? “