Was Tickle Me Elvis's Own Satire?

[rjm]

I just looked at Tickle Me first timein quite awhile. Watch it. Elvis is SENDING UP his own movie plots. I swear.

Tha early scene where he asks how he'll eat until Rodeo Season. Guy hands over guitar.
Elvis: "I know. Don't tell me."

Beats up Red. Says "Happens" now and again . . .

Anyway tell me what you think. His whole tone is him snidely rolling his eyes at the thing.

Good music cause they used Elvis is Back and other better stuff than a typical film.

You gotta see it. He's really going at it. I mean we know now how uh ticked off he was ...

[The Welz]

TICKLE ME looks cheap as hell, the early 1960s recordings do not fit the mid 1960s Elvis at all, but the movie is very entertaining.

Somewhere I have read that Elvis himselvis regarded TICKLE ME as one of the very few entertaining movies he made.

Stricktly business...

[thefunkyangel]

I ABSOLUTELY LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOVE TICKLE ME! My all time fave Elvis film!

[Roddy]

Me too... just love this movie!!!

[thefunkyangel]

It''s the only life I've known Miss Radford!

[kevinstevenage]

I always thought a lot of Elvis' films were send ups. But people just didnt get it. He was working, earning money and having a great time. Maybe I have it wrong but Elvis' alleged conversation with the Beatles about the plot to his latest film was him acknowledging the send up?

[EPA4368]

I just looked at Tickle Me first timein quite awhile. Watch it. Elvis is SENDING UP his own movie plots. I swear.

Tha early scene where he asks how he'll eat until Rodeo Season. Guy hands over guitar.
Elvis: "I know. Don't tell me."

Beats up Red. Says "Happens" now and again . . .

Anyway tell me what you think. His whole tone is him snidely rolling his eyes at the thing.

Good music cause they used Elvis is Back and other better stuff than a typical film.

You gotta see it. He's really going at it. I mean we know now how uh ticked off he was ...

You're probably right. I didn't even think about it until you mentioned it. One of my favorite Elvis movies.

[rjm]

Do you have any kind of cite that he told the Beatles he was gonna do a send up? I think this one was before the stunt, uh visit . . .

It would have been nice if they had a REAL visit. Not witheir managers hovering and kids jammed up outside yelling . . .

Maybe he said he already did a satire.

Cause I read in several places that they offered to sort of tumble through the last frames of the next one.
Don't think it would worked at the time.
But would have been timeless.

Anyway I'm interested in how others saw it.
Any other strong satire moments like the ones in this pic?
Or was it a gambit on his part?

[tupelo_boy]

Not so much a satire as a sign of the times and worse to come.

Will this be the latest excuse for Elvis's sixties slump?

Geoff

[George Smith]

This is quite an interesting topic: the thought of Elvis doing his own "post-modern" Elvis movie?

As an Elvis film it's an okay bit of nonsense: I posted a couple of years ago that I was convinced that this movie was the prototype for "Scooby Doo" and I stand by that (seriously).

This was the second film after Hal Wallis let the cat out of the bag and publicly confessed that the money he made from Elvis movies was channelled into more worthy projects like "Becket". Doubtless Elvis had become seriously disillusioned with Hollywood.

It's considerably better than anything Elvis did the following year and (working from memory) it's the sort of movie where he can play more to the cinema audience with glances and raised eyebrows. The script may even say: Lonnie looks at camera.

Was he doing it in an intentionally "ironic" fashion - maybe not.

Is Elvis playing the the role of a comic leading man very well - very much so.

[drjohncarpenter]

This is quite an interesting topic: the thought of Elvis doing his own "post-modern" Elvis movie?

As an Elvis film it's an okay bit of nonsense: I posted a couple of years ago that I was convinced that this movie was the prototype for "Scooby Doo" and I stand by that (seriously).

This was the second film after Hal Wallis let the cat out of the bag and publicly confessed that the money he made from Elvis movies was channelled into more worthy projects like "Becket". Doubtless Elvis had become seriously disillusioned with Hollywood.

It's considerably better than anything Elvis did the following year and (working from memory) it's the sort of movie where he can play more to the cinema audience with glances and raised eyebrows. The script may even say: Lonnie looks at camera.

Was he doing it in an intentionally "ironic" fashion - maybe not.

Is Elvis playing the the role of a comic leading man very well - very much so.

Great post, and your thoughts echo mine. Someone should ask original "Scooby Doo" writers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears if "Tickle Me' was indeed on their radar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scooby-Doo

It should be noted that "Tickle Me" was one of the few, post-1960 Hollywood films that Elvis recalled with fondness when he was interviewed by Bob Abel at MGM Studios in July 1972.

Yes, "Tickle Me" is a cheapie, but it's fun, has a great soundtrack, and features his hottest-ever co-star, this side of Ann-Margret, Jocelyn Lane.

[Mike Eder]

Being a 3 Stooges fan I liked how the writers used some of their gags. Watch Out West or Hot Scots to see some of the western and horror spoofs they reused in the script. Elvis did mention Tickle Me as working well on TV and it does. It is much more self aware then most of Elvis' movies of the time.

[rjm]

Thanks Goerge and Doc! And others, of course.
Post-modern AND Scooby Doo. Or was Scooby Doo post-modern! Heck, I liked Scooby Doo as a kid.
Fave on Sat. morn did turn out to be the J-5 though. Weird kid with a rat on his shoulder. Sang great and had NO parents! It was a cartoon.
Eddie Murphy claimed THe Banana Splits caused homocidal madness in the geneational co-hort of kids.

I think Harum Scarum could cause that!

But Elvis's attitude in the mysteriously titled tickler Tickle Me is kind of the sneaky way he tried to do stuff.

By Clambake all bets were off. It was either make a jailbreak or just collapse . . . In that film he pantomines shooting himself. In the "Confidence" song with the kiddies. This is cold fact before your eyes.

This is a fun exploration nevertheless. Anger expressed in the guise of humor. The refuge of the oppressed and enslaved. I ain't kiddin about that. This was the son of a man sent to a chain gang for what one Parchman historian called a "hunger crime." So he grew up struggling to just survive. THAT was the only life he ever knew.
Any more thoughts much appreciated! And thanks.

[drjohncarpenter]

By Clambake all bets were off. It was either make a jailbreak or just collapse . . . In that film he pantomines shooting himself. In the "Confidence" song with the kiddies. This is cold fact before your eyes.

I have made note of this more than once in discussions here. It's not a "joke."

[rjm]

You better believe it. No joke at all.
If I was grown up and saw it at the time and had been a fan I would have been terrified for him.

Did ANYBODY pay any attention?
If not for Steve Binder, 1977 would have no social significance. Maybe Bert Lance . . .
Seriously, he was at the edge.

At least he left us one helluva "note." Took him from 68 to 77 to write it.

[Jove]

And for the fans of TV's The Adventures of Kit Carson, the star Bill Williams also appeared in Tickle Me.!!

[JerryNodak]

Holy Sh^t. You guys are way over the top with your analysis. These are Elvis movies. They were what they were. There weren't any hidden messages. You had/have two choices. Sit back, go with the flow and enjoy or skip them.

[BigredG]

Oh, is that what it was??

[jbnva58]

This is quite an interesting topic: the thought of Elvis doing his own "post-modern" Elvis movie?

As an Elvis film it's an okay bit of nonsense: I posted a couple of years ago that I was convinced that this movie was the prototype for "Scooby Doo" and I stand by that (seriously).

This was the second film after Hal Wallis let the cat out of the bag and publicly confessed that the money he made from Elvis movies was channelled into more worthy projects like "Becket". Doubtless Elvis had become seriously disillusioned with Hollywood.

It's considerably better than anything Elvis did the following year and (working from memory) it's the sort of movie where he can play more to the cinema audience with glances and raised eyebrows. The script may even say: Lonnie looks at camera.

Was he doing it in an intentionally "ironic" fashion - maybe not.

Is Elvis playing the the role of a comic leading man very well - very much so.

Great post, and your thoughts echo mine. Someone should ask original "Scooby Doo" writers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears if "Tickle Me' was indeed on their radar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scooby-Doo

It should be noted that "Tickle Me" was one of the few, post-1960 Hollywood films that Elvis recalled with fondness when he was interviewed by Bob Abel at MGM Studios in July 1972.

Yes, "Tickle Me" is a cheapie, but it's fun, has a great soundtrack, and features his hottest-ever co-star, this side of Ann-Margret, Jocelyn Lane.

Thanks for that perspective.
The movie was what it was,but as the Doc pointed out,it was great fun.
Somehow,seeing it on a drive in movie screen,it was greatly enhanced( as opposed to watching it on TV).
I was 6 at the time LOL

[Marco Aurelio]

I do enjoy this movie.

One of the guys that work here also enjoyed the movie...

[jetblack]

Definitely a satire - even down to the note Pam sends to Lonnie that he states 'look - she sent it back 'Return To Sender'.

Andy

[sherrlon12]

My name is Lon so I always liked the film in part because Elvis' name was Lonnie in the movie. I am very late to this thread -- about 10 years late. But I agree this is a complete spoof of a film and that's why it always works for me.

The Scooby Doo writers had to have been influenced by Tickle Me.

[murph1031]

This is one of my favorite Elvis movies, I love it. Can't say why, I guess cause it's so corny. Tickle me along with Easy Come, get regular play in my house.

[poormadpeter]

Any send up was probably not in the script. In 1959, Hal Wallis cited Tickle Me (then called Rodeo) as the first film Elvis would do after his stint in the army. It couldn't have sent up the 60s films if that had happened, because they hadn't been made. It's intriguing how a 1960 version of the same story would have been made and how it would have fitted into the Elvis legacy. It seems impossible to think that this film - or, rather, a version of it - could have replaced G I Blues as the first post-army film.

[skatterbrane]

Tickle Me was not bad, elevated by Jocelyn Lane and almost RUINED by Jack Mullaney, who also screwed up Spinout. I hate silly characters, they are NOT funny, just irritating.