*originally posted march 15, 2019*
Last week the family of late funnyman John Candy put together a YouTube video to mark the 25th anniversary of his still-devastating passing. They had clips from all of the usual suspects: Uncle Buck...Planes Trains....Stripes....shit, even Summer Rental made the cut. My first thought after watching this little memorial video was that I couldn’t believe they would fail to feature any clips from the movie where John Candy played a talking horse. My second thought was HOLY SHIT...did John Candy really play a talking horse in a movie!?? Indeed he did. Despite the fact that I probably watched Hot to Trot every other day in 1988 this flick somehow fell through my mind cracks. Of course I had a VHS copy in a box down in the basement so I decided to check it out again to see what was what. If you asked me to grade this film when I was 10 years-old I would’ve given it an A+. My 2019 grade: probably still an A+. The fact that someone conceived of this movie...actually went through with filming it...watched the finished product and thought “yes, people will probably want to pay cash money to watch this film” deserves some sort of award for chutzpah. Hot to Trot is 81 minutes long yet includes two ridiculously long credits sequences....meaning that it barely even qualifies as a feature-length film. See, I figured the filmmakers just did a shit ton of drugs and threw Bobcat Goldthwait in a room with a horse and told him act extra Bobcat Goldthwait-y. It looks like they maybe just shot it over a long weekend and pieced it together in the editing room. Well, I did a little research (meaning I googled “Hot to Trot” and just saw what I saw) and found out it took YEARS to bring this horsefaced masterpiece to the screen....I shit you not. When filming began the lead role was to be played Joan Rivers...and the horse was supposed to be voiced by original M.A.S.H. star and man who impregnated Barbara Streisand Elliott Gould. How they got from Joan Rivers to Bobcat Goldthwait we do not know. I mean...I guess they both talk funny? And they both have the letter “O” in their first names? I really can’t think of much else, dudes. Elliott Gould actually recorded all of his horse dialogue and the producers wanted John Candy to re-record it but he told them he thought it was balls unfunny and he was just gonna go in and make a bunch of shit up and they told him they were cool with that. So what happens is this; Idiot Bobcat inherits a 50% share of a fancypants 1980’s stock market moneymaking money place from his dead mother....much to the chagrin of his evil step-father Walter, played by man who I was surprised to learn not yet deceased Dabney Coleman. He also inherits a horse named Don, who talks like John Candy. The VHS box proudly sells this film as “The Greatest Talking Horse Movie Ever.” It’s also the ONLY talking horse movie ever (unless you count 1968’s The Horse in the Grey Flannel Suit...which I do not). Seriously....google “talking horse movies” 31 years later and Hot to Trot is still the first thing that comes up. So the horse can talk and Bobcat is weirded out...but not really. He tells Don he could go to Hollywood and become the next Mr Ed. Don explains that they made Mr Ed’s mouth move by shoving a carrot up his ass. This makes me start to really worry about how they got the horses mouthes to move in THIS movie!? I mean...this is way before CGI and all that shit. Bobcat brings Don back to live with his family (who are also talking horses, natch). Don somehow gets wind that Bobcat is having a tough time at the investment firm because he talks funny and therefore must be stupid. So he walks himself back to Los Angeles...where he overhears some secretary-schtupping executive talking about a stock that is about to make a killing in the stock market. Don calls Bobcat at work and tells him to buy the stock (yes...the horse can dial a phone). He does and is now a millionaire. He celebrates by rocking out to “Shooting Dirty Pool”, the 11th best song from The Replacements 11-song 1987 album Pleased to Meet Me. But hey...putting a ‘Mats song in your movie automatically kicks your grade up a notch in my book. So that’ll be A++ then. Bobcat takes his newfound fortune and moves into a super yuppified mega apartment...where his tight ass neighbor is Tim Kazurinsky, the actor who played Bobcat’s partner Sweetchuck in Police Academy’s 2 through 4. Don moves in with him because of course he does. Meanwhile Dabney Coleman is bullshit and wants to sabotage Bobcat and force him to sell him his half of the firm. He enlists future Academy Award nominee Virginia Madsen to go on a date with Bobcat so she can figure out where he gets his hot stock tips from. When she goes to his apartment she sees he’s living with a horse. Her: There’s a horse in your apartment! Him: Really!? If it ain’t cockroaches it’s palominos!” I laugh my friggin’ ass off. Bobcat totally carries this flick. There’s a dude who has had an interesting career. He wrote and directed the pitch black comedy World’s Greatest Dad starring Robin Williams...which most of you have probably seen. He also wrote and directed Sleeping Dogs Lie...a film about a woman who has to tell her fiancee that she got drunk one night in college and blew her dog...which I’m guessing most of you have not seen. ANYWAY! Don tells Bobcat to buy stock in a company called Indio Oats. The oats turn out to be poisonous and now Bobcat is ruined and loses his half of the company. And so now what!? I can just imagine the filmmakers sitting around trying to figure out how to pad out the rest of the movie. Wait a minute! They’ve got horses! HORSE RACE! Dabney Coleman has a bunch of horses running in a fictional horse race. Bobcat decides to enter Don in said race. If he wins Bobcat gets the company back. Don is a long-shot because he’s supposed to be shitty horse or something...but honestly they all look the same to me. If that’s some sort of equestrian racism then I apologize. Don knows he can’t win so his plan is to roll up next to the other horses....talk a bunch of shit to them...and get them to freak out and run in the opposite direction. It’s just about the dumbest shit ever. Also: amazing. The plan is a success and Don wins and Bobcat is stoked and Virginia Madsen falls in love with him because of course she does. As a reward for winning the race Bobcat agrees to bring Don to a dentist to get a gold tooth. The dentist...who is totally Gilbert Gottfried...freaks out when he hears Don speak and runs out of the room. Don looks into the camera, says “what’s up, doc?”, the Looney Tunes theme plays...freeze frame...the friggin’ movie ends. Here I’d like to point out that I didn’t use the F-word once in this review...so at least my mom will enjoy it. The end.