Skidoo

Skidoo is a 1968 American comedy film directed by Otto Preminger, starring Jackie Gleason, Carol Channing, Frankie Avalon, Fred Clark (who died on December 5, two weeks before the film's release), Michael Constantine, Frank Gorshin, John Phillip Law, Peter Lawford, Burgess Meredith, George Raft, Cesar Romero, Mickey Rooney and Groucho Marx playing a top mobster named "God". It was written by Doran William Cannon and released by Paramount Pictures on December 19, 1968. The screenplay satirizes late-1960s counterculture lifestyle and its creature comforts, technology, anti-technology, hippies, free love and then-topical use of the drug LSD. Singer-songwriter Nilsson, who wrote the score and receives credit as a member of the cast, appears in a few brief scenes with Fred Clark, as both portray prison tower guards swaying to Nilsson's music while under the influence of LSD. Synopsis Prologue As a cartoon character dressed in prison stripes (and holding a peace-logo flower which turns into a tiny parasol and then a helicopter blade) executes a few dance steps to the music of Nilsson's Skidoo theme, the words "Otto Preminger" appear below him. Additional words "presents SKIDOO starring" can also be seen as the camera pulls back to reveal that this image is on a TV screen, while Carol Channing's voice is heard exclaiming to Arnold Stang: "No, Harry, not that. No, I don't wanna see that," with the sound of a Zenith Space Command mechanical ultrasonic TV remote accompanying the channel suddenly switching to show a US Senate hearing conducted by (fictional) Senator Hummel, portrayed by Peter Lawford, who asks a series of organized crime figures various questions to which they invariably reply: "I refuse to answer on the grounds it may tend to incriminate me."