Annoyance Theatre movie out on video

By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
November 16, 1999

“Fatty Drives the Bus” sure sounds odd enough to be the followup to the Annoyance Theatre’s best known production, “Co-Ed Prison Sluts.” But the feature – which hits video stores today – actually marks the Chicago-based improv troupe’s first foray into film.

Annoyance announced two months ago the formation of a film and video production company. But the 3,500-square-foot studio beneath its Clark Street theater actually has been five years in the making.

“What happened is that in 1994, (Annoyance founder) Mick Napier decided that he wanted to direct a feature film,” said Jennifer Estlin, director of production and development for Annoyance Productions. “So he approached everyone in the theater and said, `Let’s do a movie!’

“That was the easy part. Editing was another story.”

When the film was ready to edit in 1996, Napier relinquished it to an editing company. But the artistic director found it difficult to sit back and watch as others worked on his film.

“He was experiencing the job of sitting behind an editor, telling him what to do and driving himself nuts,” Estlin says. “So he decided to get an editing system and do it himself. We’re pretty happy with the results. It was definitely a labor of love, but it was a lot of fun to go out and make this happen.”

Shot on a budget of $40,000, “Fatty Drives the Bus” tells the tale of when Satan, short on souls for hell, decides to pick and choose from a busload of tourists.

Troma Entertainment, the company behind such unabashedly exploitative fare as “The Toxic Avenger” and “Tromeo and Juliet,” picked up the film for video release.

“As far as its sense of humor is concerned, `Fatty’ is the type of film that we call Tromatic,” said Tony Nigro, operations manager at Troma. “Most of our films have beheadings, breasts and blood. This does, but it’s still wacked, warped, wild, funny.”

It’s Tromatic.

Asked whether she wasn’t disappointed that Annoyance Productions’ first film isn’t going to hit movie theaters for at least a couple weeks, Estlin says, “Sure, if we were offered a big Hollywood production, that would’ve been great. But by the time we finally got done with it, we were just ready to move on to new things and get this out.”

Annoyance has five film projects in the works, including a half-hour comedy called “Documentary,” which centers on a team of documentarians who ponder such subjects and disappearing clowns.