Long before Pleasantville, this 1992 comedy featured a familytaking its problems out of the real world and into the loopy fictions of televisionentertainment. John Ritter and Pam Dawber star as Roy and Helen Knable, asuburban couple with a host of marital problems, most of which have to dowith Roy's couch-potato attachment to his TV's remote control. Things take ahellish turn when the devilish Spike (Jeffrey Jones) turns up at the Knable house offering Roy a great deal on the ultimate satellite-TV system.

Surprise, surprise: The contract signed by the less-than-cautious Royactually requires a one-time payment of his soul. He and Helen findthemselves sucked into their own television set, where they are kept on the run through such monstrous fare as "I Love Lucifer" and "Northern Overexposure."Eventually, their disenchanted kids (David Tom, Heather McComb) discover momand dad are on TV, in a whole new sense of the term, and they set aboutrescuing them.

A genuine novelty, Stay Tuned is powered along by a chain ofimaginative sequences, most memorably an original cartoon by Warner legendChuck Jones that cleverly integrates Ritter and Dawber's characters. Thescript's implicit social satire about the overbearing nature of television onunderachieving lives isn't lost on the lively cast or director Peter Hyams(Timecop), easily one of the most imaginative action filmmakersaround. The old rivalry between television and movies carries on in thisclever parody, and the feud has rarely been so much fun. With tons ofsupporting players, including SCTV legend Eugene Levy, Saturday NightLive announcer Don Pardo, and hip-hop performers Salt-n-Pepa. --TomKeogh