Dialing for Dingbats
1989 film
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dialing for Dingbats is a 1989 romantic comedy directed by Peter Slodczyk and distributed by Troma Entertainment. The distribution company describes the film as "light hearted".[1]
Lloyd Kaufman
Marta Dargham
Michael Jeffries
Johnny Mask
Lyn Segerblom
Roger Rodd
| Dialing for Dingbats | |
|---|---|
| |
| Directed by | Peter Slodczyk |
| Produced by | Michael Solton Lloyd Kaufman |
| Starring | John Caponera Marta Dargham Michael Jeffries Johnny Mask Lyn Segerblom Roger Rodd |
| Distributed by | Troma Entertainment |
Release date |
|
Running time | 81 minutes |
| Language | English |
Plot
Randy, a lonely and shy man, meets a woman through a party line but communication problems complicate their date.
Reception
The film was considered "the first serious examination of the world of dingbats on the phone" by the Orlando Sentinel.[2] A retrospective very negative review states that "This film couldn’t have been made in any other time than the late 80s, and not just for the snapshot of the bygone pre-internet dating scene mechanisms. It has a colorful VHS-era kitsch and an ungodly amount of earnest but bad jokes to the point it becomes surrealistic. The film takes too many detours to fill up the slight seventy-eight minute running time, with both commercial parodies and actual footage from other Troma films shoehorned in."[3]
All I Need to Know about Filmmaking I Learned from the Toxic Avenger (co-written by Kaufman and James Gunn) stated that "Troma tackles yet another socially important issue with the addiction of 1-900 party lines. This is the first film about phone sex."[4]
