It's remarkable that the favorite subject for the rising trend of parody movies in the 1970s end, and the 1980s start, was the disaster movies. Just remember (The Big Bus - 1976), (Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! - 1978), (Airplane! - 1980), and (Airplane II: The Sequel - 1982). Though, I deem it natural because of what the disaster movies caused of satiety during the whole 70s decade. Plus, some real disastrous experiences that came in the late 70s such as (The Swarm - 1978), (The Concorde ... Airport '79 - 1979), and (When Time Ran Out - 1980), which were parodies of themselves already ! As you see, The Big Bus took the initiative to mock at that genre, which inaugurated yet another genre. And while it isn't Airplane, it has the seed of its fresh craziness. For instance : the matter of the lead being accused of "eating" people, the cemetery scene, and the bar fight; which's the movie's best moment.Originally, it seems as if Airplane took a lot from this movie, like : the character of a pilot with a troubling past, who's needed suddenly to save the day. How his ex-girlfriend is on the same ride. Or how they come back to each other in the end. Let alone a scene where the stewardesses demonstrate to the riders what to do while the trip is in danger ! The bus was huge with fabulous design. The running gag of the bus's singer was super. And since the first time I watched him years ago, till now, I believe that Joseph Bologna is one the most underrated comedians ever. That guy was great. He could do cracking comedy with the littlest efforts. It's a shame that he wasn't a star in many movies or TV shows as he should have been.Director James Frawley has many funny bones, and bad luck as well; because he didn't direct more movies. However, his comic energy can be felt in countless TV episodes of shows like Columbo, Magnum P.I., Tales of the Gold Monkey, and Vengeance Unlimited. Or a movie like The Muppet Movie (1979). Now, to the negative points. And the first one comes to my mind is Stockard Channing. MY GOD, who thought of hiring her in a leading role in a comedy ??? She looks like an awful version of Elizabeth Taylor, and I don't like Elizabeth Taylor in the first place ! Channing has no beauty, no talent for comedy, so why she's here anyway ??!!The characters on the bus were few, and even fewer of them were interesting. David Shire's music is all the time excited, maybe for parodying the music of other disaster movies, but eventually it didn't work for me. Some of the jokes didn't hit the "funny" mark, like when all the riders had to wear bizarre costumes in the end. And some of them weren't utilized smartly, like the idea of how the evil guy lives in a metal cocoon. Or attaching the scientist father into the ground against his well, which while being creative, it was used laconically. Speaking of laconic things, the end is, with fabricated defeat for the evil guys, and such an incomprehensible surviving for the good guys (I still don't know how the lead saved the bus over the cliffhanger !). Add to that, extremely dull ending shot, and you'll get why this good movie feels not so good for many viewers. It is short, and runs out of clever ideas nearly halfway through it. But for the most part, it's a wonderful comedy, little ahead of its time, and the true disaster is that it isn't any famous.

Often compared to AIRPLANE!, that celebrated ultra-zany spoof that had people doubling (and even tripling) over in the aisles with laughter, the 1976 film THE BIG BUS, though it shares similarities with that film of four years later, is not so much a spoof of the disaster film genre that was so much the rage of the Seventies as it is a satire of both the genre's conventions and several real-life catastrophes of the past. As such, because it relies on sardonic one-liners and a few non-gross-out sight gags, THE BIG BUS is, admittedly, not the non-stop barrel of laughs that AIRPLANE! would be. In the end, however, it still has a lot to recommend.The film's humor derives from the sheer absurdity of its plot: a nuclear-powered bus the length of half a football field making a non-stop run from New York to Denver, all the while being the target of a pair of saboteurs from Big Oil (Jose Ferrer; Stuart Margolin), and at the mercy of a pair of drivers with past issues, one (Joseph Bologna) a foot-eater, the other (John Beck) a narcoleptic. Then, of course, you have that cast of passengers: Richard B. Shull as a man who's got "Six Months To Live" (and maybe less, if that nutty cocktail pianist uproariously played by Murphy Dunne has his way); Rene Auberjonois as a priest who's lost his faith; Sally Kellerman and Richard Mulligan as the ultimate bickering couple; and Stockard Channing as the daughter of the bus's inventor (Harold Gould) who gets her old flame Bologna to drive the bus after Gould and the two original drivers are killed. Add to that a number of underhanded sight gags ("Flags Of All Nations"; "breaking wind at 90"; the climactic "soda pop" caper), and you have a rather crazy and successful film on your hands, under the guiding hands of journeyman director James Frawley (KID BLUE; THE MUPPET MOVIE).The performances of all concerned, including Bologna, Beck, and Channing, do a lot in making THE BIG BUS the kind of sardonic comedy that it is. Lynn Redgrave's performance as an overbearing movie star is also quite hilarious in its own way. There is, though, one point where the film is more reverential than anything else: as the bus is being pulled out of its hangar (barely clearing the door, by the way), there is on the soundtrack the unmistakable opening movement of Richard Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (this, and the slow passage of the bus in front of the camera)--a clear homage to director Stanley Kubrick's 1968 sci-fi masterpiece 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY.It's a bit of a disappointment to think that a film like this that earns its laughs in so underhanded a fashion should only have been a moderate success when it was originally released in June 1976. And Paramount Pictures sure didn't do the film any favors in the way it handled its release. But now, THE BIG BUS can be seen for the unique kind of cinematic satire that it is, and it can be appreciated just a bit more than before for its different way of eliciting laughs.

I made the "mistake" of discussing this movie with my dent's's assistant under the influence of nitrous..she's never seen it..I suspect on my next visit she'll have a copy for my viewing enjoyment while I'm having my teeth pulled for dentures. She loves these movies (as do I)..I was "turned on" to the Big Bus by a radio talk show host many years ago and have loved it ever since. One of my 10 favorite movies. A former colleague and I (one of the few people i know who saw the film) and I used to love sharing quotes from the movie.Jim

A disaster movie spoof that covers all the bases and goes off on inspired tangents of its own, with some immortal dialogue and gloriously silly sight gags. I can only echo what other reviewers have said: should be better known, should have a much higher rating here, released four years before 'Airplane' and is equally hilarious. As for quoting lines, other people have already bagged 'Where is your God now, old woman?' (which I keep wanting to use in real life conversation) and 'You eat one foot and they call you a cannibal' and the milk carton line, so I won't do that either.I note with interest the suggestion from another reviewer that the Zuckers may actually have had an uncredited involvement. It's unlikely, and a bit insulting to the actual writers. But really, it's so good it wouldn't surprise me to find the Pythons, Woody Allen and the Marx Brothers had helped out too. Tremendously funny.