The best scenes in “Amazon Women on the Moon” are the absurdist sketches that break away from the film’s narrative frame entirely, particularly “The Invisible Man” sequence where a blind woman becomes the only person who can detect the presence of a predatory invisible man on public transportation. This scene works because it inverts the typical film grammar—the audience spends the time trying to figure out what’s happening while the other passengers remain oblivious, creating genuine comedic tension from spatial confusion rather than dialogue. The film’s strength lies in these self-contained comedy bits that use cinema’s visual language as the primary tool for humor rather than relying on one-liners or slapstick telegraphing.
“Amazon Women on the Moon” assembles its best material around moments where the filmmaking technique itself becomes the joke. The “B-Movie Creature Feature” opening sequence successfully parodies the earnest sci-fi aesthetic of 1950s B-movies by committing fully to the visual tropes—poor miniature effects, obvious rubber suits, and melodramatic line readings—without ever winking at the audience. What makes this work better than straightforward parody is that director Joe Dante films it with the exact same technical competence he’d use for a genuine creature feature, lending weight to material that should feel cheap.
Table of Contents
- What Makes the Sketch Comedy Moments Superior to the Framing Story?
- The Technical Comedy of Visual Effects and Cinematography Misuse
- How Character-Based Absurdism Outperforms Plot-Based Comedy
- Distinguishing Between Parody Sketches and Original Absurdist Comedy
- The Risk of Self-Aware Comedy Becoming Self-Conscious
- The “Amazon Women” Title Sequence and Visual Storytelling
- Recurring Character Appearances and Comedic Rhythm
- Frequently Asked Questions
What Makes the Sketch Comedy Moments Superior to the Framing Story?
The film contains a primary narrative about a late-night television broadcast, but this framing device mostly serves as a structural container rather than a source of genuine comedy. The sketches contained within that broadcast—”The Invisible Man,” “The Amazon Women,” “Son of the Invisible Man”—work because they have complete internal logic and escalation, whereas the framing story relies on characters reacting to content rather than participating in the creation of humor. When Arsenio Hall appears as a character commenting on the broadcast, the moment works only insofar as the underlying sketch is strong; his presence adds nothing structural to the comedy itself.
Compare this to how sketch comedy shows like Saturday Night Live function: the strength of the show depends entirely on the sketches themselves, not on the host’s ability to observe them. “Amazon Women on the Moon” accidentally stumbles into this realization by making the host segments nearly invisible and the sketch content unmissable. The exception proves the rule—the “Lovers’ Lane” segment involving a young couple in a car actually uses the framing device effectively by having them become an audience to their own potential murder, creating a layer of meta-awareness that enriches rather than distances the comedy.
The Technical Comedy of Visual Effects and Cinematography Misuse
Many of the film’s best moments succeed through deliberate technical incompetence. The “B-Movie” sequences feature transparently fake miniatures and rear-projection effects that would have been considered substandard even in 1987 when modern effects technology was readily available. This requires a specific kind of discipline from the filmmaking team—they must resist the urge to make these elements look good, which is paradoxically harder than making them look bad on purpose. A filmmaker genuinely trying to create a poor effect might accidentally make something that looks intentionally clever; a filmmaker trying to look accidentally bad often reveals too much self-awareness.
The limitation of this approach is that it demands a particular knowledge base from the audience. A viewer unfamiliar with genuine 1950s B-movie effects might not recognize what’s being parodied and simply see the sequence as poorly made. The “Reckless Youth” parody of after-school specials suffers from this same problem—younger audiences who have no memory of when these PSA-style segments were ubiquitous may miss the specific tone being mocked and just perceive the sketch as generic and unfunny. This is why the film plays differently depending on whether you bring period-appropriate reference points to the viewing experience.
How Character-Based Absurdism Outperforms Plot-Based Comedy
The “Invisible Man” sequence succeeds by following a single character (the blind woman) through an escalating series of recognitions that the audience understands before she does. Her blindness, which would normally be treated as a limitation in conventional filmmaking, becomes her superpower through the logic of this particular sketch. The comedy doesn’t come from making fun of her disability but from the structural inversion where her perceived limitation becomes the only tool that grants her awareness the other characters lack.
Similarly, the “Son of the Invisible Man” segment works because it commits to exploring what would actually happen if an invisible man tried to live a normal life—he can’t be seen, so normal social interactions become impossible in specific, concrete ways rather than abstract ones. The sketch doesn’t punch down at the concept but instead follows its own internal logic to unexpected places. When the invisible man’s son wants to become a doctor and can’t because he can’t be seen, the problem isn’t that invisibility is funny—it’s that institutional structures fail when one variable fundamentally changes.
Distinguishing Between Parody Sketches and Original Absurdist Comedy
The film contains two distinct types of material: sketches that parody specific genres or media formats (the B-movie opening, the after-school special parody) and sketches that simply explore absurdist premises without a particular target (the “Invisible Man,” the “Amazon Women”). The original absurdist material often performs better because it doesn’t require the audience to recognize what’s being referenced in order to find the sketch’s internal logic funny. A joke about bad special effects requires that the audience know what good special effects look like; a joke about an invisible man on a bus requires only that the audience follow spatial logic.
The tradeoff is that parody material can reach deeper resonance if the reference lands—a viewer who lived through the era of genuine B-movie creature features will find the opening sequence more satisfying than someone encountering it purely as a style exercise. However, the original sketches have longer shelf lives and broader appeal because they don’t depend on period-specific knowledge. When the film was released in 1987, the B-movie parody felt fresher because those films were still within living memory; watching it now, that sequence reads more as a historical recreation than as pointed satire, while the “Invisible Man” sketch remains genuinely funny through its structural integrity alone.
The Risk of Self-Aware Comedy Becoming Self-Conscious
Several sketches in “Amazon Women on the Moon” stumble when they become too aware of their own cleverness. The “Son of the Invisible Man” sometimes tips into self-commentary about the sketch itself rather than staying committed to its premise—when characters note the absurdity of their situation, they’re effectively explaining the joke rather than living inside it. This breaks the cardinal rule of absurdist comedy, which is that the premise must be treated with absolute seriousness regardless of how ridiculous the actual situation becomes. A warning for comedians and filmmakers: the moment you signal to the audience that you’re aware of how funny something is, you’ve surrendered control of the laughter.
The audience stops laughing at the situation and starts laughing at you for pointing out the situation. This is why the “Invisible Man” sequence works better than some of the other material—it never acknowledges its own absurdity. The blind woman never winks at the camera. The other passengers never joke about how strange it is that she’s the only one who can see an invisible man. The sketch simply follows its logic and trusts the audience to find it funny.
The “Amazon Women” Title Sequence and Visual Storytelling
The “Amazon Women on the Moon” sequence that gives the film its title operates almost entirely without dialogue, relying instead on visual gags and the absurdist premise of astronauts encountering an all-female civilization on the moon. The sequence works through its committed silliness—the costumes are deliberately cheap-looking, the sets are obviously miniatures, and the logic of the scenario is never explained or justified. A spaceship doesn’t travel to the moon and encounter aliens in any version of actual space exploration, so the sketch doesn’t waste time trying to make the scenario plausible.
What saves this from being merely stupid is the specificity of the visual choices. The Amazon women aren’t generic aliens; they’re recognizable as a deliberate parody of 1950s pulp science fiction magazine covers, complete with the specific way women were drawn and dressed in that era. The astronauts aren’t heroic explorers but befuddled men encountering a situation completely outside their comprehension. The physical comedy comes from their reactions rather than from anything the Amazon women do to them.
Recurring Character Appearances and Comedic Rhythm
Several characters appear across multiple sketches within the broadcast, creating a weird connective tissue that shouldn’t work but somehow does. These recurring appearances rely on the film’s anthology structure—each sketch is theoretically separate, but the presence of familiar faces creates an odd sense of continuity where viewers expect sketches to connect logically even when they don’t. This is an unusual choice because most sketch comedy packages try to give the audience complete separation between segments, treating each one as if it exists in its own universe.
The reappearance of certain actors in different sketch scenarios works when the audience doesn’t expect logical connection between sketches. A character who appeared as an invisible man in one segment might appear as something completely different in another segment, and the comedy comes partly from the cognitive dissonance of recognizing the same actor in a completely different scenario with no bridging explanation. This mimics the experience of watching a television broadcast where totally unrelated content follows one another in rapid succession, creating a particular rhythm that’s difficult to describe but easy to feel when it’s working correctly.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is “Amazon Women on the Moon” considered a successful comedy by critics?
The film has mixed critical reception. Critics generally praised the sketch concept and visual approach while finding some segments more successful than others. The film has developed a cult following among viewers who appreciate its refusal to rely on conventional comedy structure.
What was the budget and box office performance?
The film had a modest budget and underperformed at the box office, which may be partly due to its avant-garde structure—audiences accustomed to narrative films sometimes find anthology sketches frustrating rather than entertaining.
Are all the sketches equally funny?
No. The film’s comedy is inconsistent by design. Some sketches land because their internal logic is airtight; others fall flat because the premise hasn’t been developed far enough or because they’re trying to parody something too specific or obscure.
Why does Joe Dante use so much visual parody rather than dialogue-based jokes?
Dante’s background in directing cartoons and creature features meant he thought primarily in visual terms. The film leverages his strength in creating specific visual worlds rather than in crafting witty dialogue.
