National Lampoon’s Dirty Movie

Charlie LaRue, a cut-rate producer, declares his lifelong dream is to make a movie built entirely on offensive jokes. He quips about a nun as the punchline to a joke he hopes will anchor the project, setting a tone of sensational humor. He notes that the CEO wants racist jokes told by minorities so they won’t seem racist, revealing the compromises and controversy ahead.

Charlie rounds up his filmmaking team—Director, CEO, writer, and Agent Morty—and they struggle to hammer out a script that can contain the nonstop jokes. The mood is chaotic as they chase ideas and fight over what should or shouldn't be included. The cast becomes the central dream as they push toward production.

Charlie wins an unusual perk: an office in the elevator and formal permission from the board to pursue the project. He and the team begin pitching the concept to executives, betting on box-office gold from a film built on shock value. Yet the board's expectations clash with the team’s appetite for edgier humor.

Auditions open and the team tests a barrage of outrageous one-liners on a rotating cast. A crowd of oddball performers, described as half-witted zombies, deliver the crude material and push the jokes to the limit. The aim is to assemble a cast capable of delivering the film’s relentless punchlines.

The Director balks at the chaos, insisting the film still needs structure, characters, and a real story. He pushes for a beginning, a middle, and an end rather than a string of unconnected gags. This creates friction with Charlie, who wants to maximize the joke quota at every turn.

Rehearsals become a battle of punchlines as the writers and cast trade jokes ranging from risqué to controversial. Some material lands better than others, while certain gags threaten to cross lines. The team negotiates boundaries while chasing the laughter that could save the project.

The project stalls when an investor is arrested, throwing the finances into turmoil. With funding drying up, they scramble to assemble enough money to finish the movie. The figure they cling to finally becomes 217, a beat-the-clock sum needed to complete filming.

Facing a shortfall, they turn to sponsored jokes to keep shooting, including crude bits about Vienna sausages and other gross gags. The funding strategy relies on pushing content rather than art, blurring lines between entertainment and exploitation. Tensions rise as sponsors push for more outrageous material.

The director, who is Hebrew and openly gay, opposes certain jokes and refuses some material. The crew even tests a ventriloquist bit featuring a KKK persona, provoking tension and forcing the team to confront the boundaries of satire. The conflict exposes the chasm between Charlie’s appetite for shock and the director’s ethics.

As disagreements sharpen, the producer accuses the director of killing the best jokes and stifling the project. The director defends his stance, arguing a film with no limits isn’t the same as a film with meaningful content. The controversy culminates in a crisis over what the final cut should be.

The project finally faces legal consequences when the film’s jokes insult ethnic minorities and other groups. The judge sentences both the producer and the director to 25 years in prison for putting those insults on screen. The film’s dream ends with a criminal verdict rather than a box-office triumph.

The verdict marks the end of the project, with the creative team facing prison time for the content they produced. In the wake of the trial, the movie remains infamous as a cautionary tale about crossing lines in pursuit of a dirty joke empire. The future of the team is left uncertain behind bars.