“I Put Your Cake In My Tummy!” | Patrick Price-Allingham stars in Clark William Stebbins’ 2007 masterpiece Capitalism-Religion Oilfield Smackdown, part of the Parallel Universe Film Guide.
Very Short List | “Remember the hit 1997 horror film I Know What You Ate for Breakfast, about ‘big-breasted teens being chased in the rain by a madman who seems to know each of their dietary restrictions’? Or that 1948 biopic Babe Ruth Cures Cancer, in which the Bambino also implements the Marshall Plan? No? That’s because these movies exist only on the Parallel Universe Film Guide [www.parallelfilmguide.com], an amazingly large, laugh-out-loud-funny database of films that will never be available on Netflix, along with entries for their nonexistent directors and ersatz stars. Created and maintained by Spencer Green, the PUFG reads like a satirical Wikipedia of cinema (with even less accuracy), full of hilarious film titles—Vigilante Justice? Don’t Mind If I Do!; Arbor Day 2: Seeds of Terror—that instantly evoke their intended targets. Dig deeper and you’ll find insanely detailed plot descriptions, making-of trivia, and phony quotes, too. In a summer that’s given us Step Brothers and The Love Guru, these may be the funniest films around.”
Neatorama | “Spend some time plumbing the depths of the Parallel Universe Film Guide and I doubt you will leave unamused. From the bizarro film titles (Fudgie the Whale: The Musical, How the Jeekelstaf Swiped Daylight Saving Time, A Connecticut Mailman in Josef Stalin’s Pants, I Know What You Did That Day Last Week You Took Off For So-Called Religious Reasons) to the uproarious ‘About Our Staff’ page, Spencer Green has truly demonstrated an incomparable passion for fake films.”
Screengrab | “Sometimes it’s a very obvious parody. This may also be part of the joke. For example, there’s this entry for 1975’s Ow, That Shark Bites, directed by Thomas Teitelbaum. (You all know Teitelbaum from his blockbuster hits A Boy and His Butt-Ugly Alien and Norris Hellcat and the Watery Tomb.) It’s mildly amusing that the original shark was fired over creative differences. But if you dig a little deeper into the site, you’ll find the not-so-obvious entries and then perhaps you’ll find yourself addicted. Click on the letter H and scroll down a list that includes 1939’s Happy Youths Full of Beans and 1944’s The Harlot of Happy Hollow (“Zany comedy about a young girl in a small town who contracts so many social diseases that she inadvertently creates the cure for all of them, which greedy industrialists want to buy for top dollar”). You can also ponder the filmographies of Victor Maresca (Mobsters Are Endlessly Fascinating, Urban Squalor Tonight!) and Preston Victor (Even Death Needs to Get Laid, The Nutty Hostage Family). I’m a little miffed I can’t go out and rent 1965’s Dr. Feynman’s Electrodynamic Party right now.”
