Good concept, poorly executed.

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

A double-decker, nuclear-powered super-bus called the Cyclops One makes its maiden voyage from New York City to Denver, but immediately there are problems: the scientist behind Cyclops One was almost killed before the bus even left the terminal, while the lead driver is under duress from a recent bus crash in which he was accused of eating the passengers...oh and, yes, there's a bomb on-board. In 1976, disaster movies hadn't yet outlived their usefulness as "dramatic entertainment", so "The Big Bus" came off as cynical (it was really just two or three years ahead of its time). There are some big laughs, mostly early on: René Auberjonois is dryly funny as a frustrated priest, Lynn Redgrave as a fashionista has a great bit dressing the passengers in her new Fall line, Ruth Gordon is a hoot as always playing a mouthy old lady (what else?) and Murphy Dunne is terrific as lounge pianist Tommy Joyce. The screenplay by Lawrence J. Cohen and Fred Freeman flirts with outrageousness without ever getting us there. The movie, filled with familiar goof-offs from television, is too middle-of-the-road to provide the kind of lunatic highs David and Jerry Zucker and Jim Abraham would eventually deliver with 1980's "Airplane!" This plays more like a Mel Brooks clone, something along the lines of "Silent Movie". ** from ****

Not well known, "The Big Bus" is one of the earliest film parodies, sending up the "disaster" genre that was popular at the time. The amiable Bologna stars as the driver selected to steer a super bus, conceived on nuclear turbines, John Beck his nervous co-driver (nicknamed "Shoulders" because that's where he tends to drive), and a galaxy of TV stars who soon discover that terrorists have plans to turn the bus into a missile.Maybe considered a pre-cursor of sorts to "Speed", there's a few minor giggles, some corny one-liners ("there's drinks for those who want them, and nothing for those who don't") and an amusing on-board piano entertainer (Murphy Dunne) who improvises his songs based on the circumstances of the guests ("welcome to the Oriental lounge", "six months to live, I've got six months to live"). Among the distinguished cast is Larry Hagman as a clueless doctor, Ruth Gordon playing an unsympathetic, bitter old duck, and Richard Mulligan and Sally Kellerman as a dysfunctional couple drinking to excess and bickering throughout the maiden journey much to the bemusement of their fellow guests.Unlikely to leave you in stitches, it's a reasonable warm up to more animated parodies like "Flying High" and "The Naked Gun" which have subsequently raised the bar in the sub-genre.

Preceding the far more popular AIRPLANE! (1980) in its spoof of blockbuster disaster movies by four years, this is a patchy but reasonably amusing ride in its own right The titular nuclear-powered vehicle was designed by Stockard Channing, constructed by her father Harold Gould (who, in his turn, is cared for by reluctant doctor Larry Hagman), driven by disgraced 'cannibal' Joseph Bologna, steered from the controls center by Ned Beatty and sought for destruction by "Ironman" Jose' Ferrer! As befits its pedigree, the passengers are an equally colorful, starry lot: an on-again/off-again couple (Richard Mulligan and Sally Kellerman), a dotty old lady (Ruth Gordon), a bitchy nymphomaniac of a celebrity (Lynn Redgrave), a doubting priest (Rene Auberjonois), etc. The film loses steam in the latter half because its biggest laughs occur before the actual journey starts, in particular during a bar-room brawl at a drivers' hang-out where Bologna is picked on by everybody except for one called Shoulders (John Beck) who, after earning a co-driver's seat on The Big Bus, soon reveals the meaning behind his nickname – he's narcoleptic!

Saw this movie when it was new, couldn't stop laughing at the parodies on the other current disaster movies, as well as at the visual and audible puns contained. I gave it a "7" score, because the laughs turn into groans, and you can't take anything seen or heard seriously. The whole flick is sort of one giant bad (and that's good) pun!!! Either"Car and Driver", or "Road and Track", at the time, did a test drive feature on the bus - biggest problem was that it couldn't get under the access bridge over the track, so couldn't do full laps. Yes, this was in an April issue. I suppose a little more web-searching will turn up the identity of the magazine and probably a source for a copy of it!