Free Passes To The MacGruber Preview, And How Will It Stack Up Against All The SNL Movie Bombs?

We know we're not supposed to admit this -- "

sucks!!!" and all that -- but we kinda like the MacGruber sketches. They're short, unlike too many

skits dragged out beyond all point, and -- what can we say? -- they're usually funny.

Now, however, we are dealing with MacGruber the movie. And that brings up the extremely ominous history of SNL movies, which have included some of the biggest bombs of recent years.

To recap:

Coneheads (1993)

the movie was released in 1993, a full 15 years after Coneheads the phenomenon had peaked, and 10 years after everyone had started saying "Yeah, I guess you had to be there" about the skit.

The trailer above -- featuring wacky comedy music to inform you that you should be laughing at some of this stuff -- tells you all you need to know about the movie. Dan Aykroyd, hot off the utter bomb Nothing But Trouble, used Coneheads as a springboard to future bombs Exit to Eden, North (which at least sparked a classic Roger Ebert review: "I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie") and Sgt. Bilko.

The Ladies Man (2000)

Leon Phelps wasn't very funny as a skit, and as a full-length feature film, well....here is the opening paragraph of the

of

:

"The Ladies Man," another cheesy, overdrawn and witless "Saturday Night Live" takeoff, attempts the impossible: to turn lisping love machine Leon Phelps (Tim Meadows) into a Waynesque film franchise. "SNL's" Lorne Michaels appears to be pathologically addicted to producing these cheap showcases and -- sometimes -- career-killers. Can't somebody make him stop?

The trailer features a joke about an elderly nun "taking it all in" while in "a missionary position," if that's your thing.

Stuart Saves His Family (1995)

Unlike the two movies already mentioned,

got some respect from actual important film critics, like the

and

. But the vast majority of critics hated it -- a 29 percent rating on

-- and it took in less than a million at the box office, which is difficult to do.

Al Franken (whatever became of him?) is actually deeply into all the self-help stuff, and the movie tries, somewhat ham-fistedly, to get the positive thinking mantra across. Franken's self-help book told how he got pretty damn depressed at the movie's reception. ("Franken gives a two dimensional portrayal of a one-note character, which gets exceedingly tedious by pic's midway point," said Variety.)

We hope things worked out for him, is all we can say.

Superstar (1999)

Sure, we could have gone with

, but we didn't want to stick that Haddaway song in your head forever. (

)

Molly Shannon's Mary Katherine sketches should have hit the sweet spot for us -- Catholic girls, panty flashes, etc. But we -- and apparently most of the American movie-going public -- found them insipid and pointless. And where the whole armpit-smelling thing came from, we have no idea.

By the time Superstar came out, SNL movies were all expected to crash and burn. It did little to change their reputation.

It's Pat (1994)

There's very little to say about

, whose title is shorthand for all the awfulness SNL movie have provided.

Fun fact: According to Box Office Mojo, the movie took in less than $61,000 in total domestic box office. The film got a zero rating from Rotten Tomatoes.

Mind-boggling. A movie entitled Scenes of a Newt Gingrich Enema could do better.

But it does set a bar even MacGruber can get over.

Do you have what it takes to see MacGruber? We're giving away 15 passes, good for two people each, to the May 20 preview screening. Just e-mail your contact info to hairballscontest@houstonpress.com by Monday, May 17, and we'll enter you in a drawing.