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For anyone who's wallowed in the inanities of 1970s disaster movies,
The Big Bus is not only witty but downright endearing. Instead of an endangered airliner or a capsized cruise ship, this dippily deadpan parody features a block-long, atomic-powered, luxury super-Greyhound setting off on its first transcontinental run with a garish cross section of humankind programmed for redemption, retribution, or just sublime ridiculousness as they roll toward Doom--or Denver, whichever comes first. Writers Fred Freeman and Lawrence J. Cohen, who penned the daffy historical spoof
Start the Revolution Without Me (1970), twist the sententious ironies of disaster-movie dialogue into pretzels (priceless scene: Richard B. Shull, as a "terminal traveler" with six months to live, and Bob Dishy, a discredited veterinarian who fitted a rabbit for an IUD, debating who knows more about bitterness). James Frawley's direction is drolly cliché-savvy, but his touch proved too delicate for 1976 audiences; it remained for
Airplane! to grab the disaster-spoof brass ring four years later. Still, it's not too late to climb aboard.
--Richard T. Jameson
From the Back Cover
A wonderful spoof of disaster films,
The Big Bus is about the world's first nuclear-powered bus--a 75-ton monster on 32 enormous wheels--and its maiden journey from New York to Denver. Jockeying the world's greatest bus, of course, is the world's greatest bus driver. His co-pilot is given to sudden blackouts and has a penchant for driving on the shoulders of the road. A pair of evil-doers vow to destroy the bus at the outset, thus providing hilarious suspense.
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