2011 | Canada | Directed by Jay Cheel
Logline: A documentary that looks at the uneven career of Cap’n Video, who produced and presented his own zany stunt show on American cable television in the early 90s.
Canadian Ralph Zavadil a.k.a Cap’n Video had something to prove and the nonsense to do it. He created a showreel of wacky stunts and silly practical jokes. This eventually landed him his own spot on a local cable TV station, Cable 10 in the Niagara region of Ontario. This was before the Internet had exploded, and many years before the advent of youtube. In fact The Capt’n Video Show was the precursor to Jackass. I’m sure Johnny Knoxville must have taken a few pages from the blood, sweat, mucus, and tears of laughter of Cap’n Video’s books.
The Cap’n Video Show was put together on the smell of an oily rag. Literally. Ralph was a one-man show; videoed in his backyard, edited in his garage, he was the show’s host and (falling) star, armed with a couple of VHS cameras and a small off-line editing machine. The crazy Cap’n was a metalhead (and in his signature goggles, wild hair, and nutty attire he didn’t look too dissimilar to David Lee Roth), and his show featured music clips with his own bugged out, utterly stupid segments in between. It was the Cap’n’s crazy antics that people tuned in to watch; eating cat food, snorting raw eggs, blow-torching his lawn, smashing televisions, sledding off his rooftop, attempting to ski his neighbours’ clothes-line, and most (in)famously, attempting to dive into his covered swimming pool from the top of a high ladder balanced precariously against his backyard fence. The ladder shimmied unpredictably causing Ralph to plummet headfirst onto the concrete surrounding the pool and bounce. He broke his neck. But he lived to tell the story, and the video footage ended up on prime time free-to-air television.
Apparently, according to the Cap’n himself in a posted blog reply from 08; “America’s Funniest offered me a T-Shirt and a “chance” at winning 10k cash, but with so many cute babies and pets … why take the chance? NO GO with them. Real TV saw my footage at a cop convention in NYC … called Cogeco TV and got my # & Since then … I’ve sold it to 8 different shows to make 40k off a broken neck … and today I’m Beauty, Beauty Beauty!! I appreciate people digging my shyte and now your pal Jay Cheel has formed some kind of relationship with me to find out the actual history of how Cap’n Video came to be and may be documenting it for no-one to see. I’m glad that my nuttiness made you type all the words you did but I type with my nose and must take a nap now.”
Jay Cheel has indeed made a thoroughly fascinating documentary that is as compelling as a train wreck in slow motion. But there is a delicate poignancy infused in this tale of a man who escaped a mundane life, battled with booze, and strived to live a life full of goofy adventure despite the inherent problem of his own undoing. The dangerous stunts nearly cost him his life, the gross-out gags helped cement his cult following, and Ralph always stayed in character, keeping his loyal viewers pissing themselves with laughter or gagging with disgust … or preferably a combination of both.
Following an Easter Special that featured the Cap’n throwing eggs at a bunny rabbit and licking chocolate off the back of a puppy dog, complaints poured in from the Humane Society. The Cap’n Video Show was cancelled. Soon after Ralph was arrested for possession of marijuana with intent to supply. The Cap’n was forced to go even further underground. He didn’t surface again for another twenty years … in this wonderful documentary named after his kooky catchphrase.
Featuring interviews with his first serious girlfriend Nancy, his long-suffering mother Barbara, his adult daughter Jordyn, and his best buddy, Robert Buick, a glass sculptor. Beauty Day includes Ralph’s attempt – with Robert assisting in every which way possible without injuring himself – at convincing Cable 10 to broadcast a Cap’n Video 20th anniversary show that he produces in classic style (Ralph even dusts off his old editing gear, since he hasn’t quite embraced the digital age on that level). And therein lies much of the doco’s raw charm and spirit; Ralph’s unpretentious perspective on fame and joie d’vive, and the analogue fabric encasing the freedom of his pioneering misadventures. Beauty Day shines like a battered cassette with its magnetic tape exposed. You love it for everything it represents; warts, cuts, bruises, addictions, and its date-stamp trappings.
“There’s a fine line between living dangerously and putting your life in jeopardy, or living in a hermetically-sealed ball and living forever, but not really living … You gotta get out there, meet people, fart in the wind, sniff it, whatever …”