Growing up in the early 1970s, I was about 10 years past the peak of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth's influence. But I did have older brothers who had tons of Roth stuff laying around, gathering dust because they had moved on to other interests (lots of rock albums and psychedelic posters). Of particular interest to me were Big Daddy Roth comic books (scattered among piles of other "monster car" comics and magazines), as well as various Roth/Revell models of the Beatnik Bandit and The Outsider, and a huge, torn Rat Fink poster hanging on the inside of a bedroom closet door (my mother thought it was "inappropriate" to be hung on the outside). Roth's images of slathering, bug-eyed freaks crammed into insanely souped-up muscle cars, were forbidden fruit to me; I knew they were already items from a recent, discarded past (hence the dust, and the fact that my brothers didn't pound me when I touched them), and so they held a special kind of glamor to me, a feeling that I had discovered something lost and taboo.

So I was really looking forward to seeing Tales of the Rat Fink, a documentary on the legend of the world's greatest Kustom car builder, Ed "Big Daddy" Roth. I suppose the temptation to make a "groovy" (Ed's word) documentary about Roth's life was too great; a mere recounting of his exploits and influence would be too "square" (Ed's word), and a disservice to the subject. But too much of a good thing isn't good, and the endless animation filler that takes up much of Tales of the Rat Fink essentially obscures the subject. Like the big, stupid boats that Detroit built in the 50s that Ed hated so much, Tales of the Rat Fink has a lot of bells and whistles (including a dumb gimmick of having "talking cars" to move along the exposition), a lot of tail fins and oversized grilles, adding nothing to the car underneath.

A case can be made for Ed Roth being a visionary (who may or may not have known it) who anticipated the entire counterculture of "I am different, therefore I am" that would simmer and evolve during the 1950s and early 1960s, and explode in the late 1960s and 1970s. As one person in the documentary says, Roth made it cool to be weird. Moving along in the path of the post-WWII G.I.s who wanted their cars to be as dangerous and wired as they themselves were (post-combat), Ed Roth was a typical southern California kid who wanted nothing more than to work on his car, souping it up, and making it distinctive, making it his own. After teaming up with Von Dutch and Bud "The Baron" Crozier, Roth became the most sought-after car kustomizer in California. In addition to the flames and pinstripping that he regularly applied to the hot rodder's cars, Ed would occasionally draw monsters in hot rods, putting them on t-shirts before anyone had ever thought of doing such a thing. Suddenly, the silk screened T-shirts and sweatshirts become a national sensation, and Ed Roth climbed up from car kustomizer, to national trend-setter. With the invention of Rat Fink, Roth's gross, disgusting anti-Mickey Mouse, Roth rose even higher in the commercial world, providing a iconic anchor to hang his ever-burgeoning empire on. With a lucrative deal with model maker Revell (to recreate his stunning, futuristic concept cars, as well as his "monster" hot rods), Roth proved to be almost as potent a moneymaker as his most hated rival, Walt Disney.

Of course, the relative innocence of Roth's empire couldn't last against the onslaught of the coming drug/rock 'n' roll counterculture that was coming, and the bottom dropped out surfin', skateboardin', hot roddin' and cruisin'. Roth's innovations suddenly acquired that most dreaded of labels in American pop culture: has-been.

There's a lot of mythology out there about Ed Roth; after listening to a few snippets of Roth himself in the documentary, it's easy to see why he became (and continues to be) so popular with the anti-authority, anti-commerce crowd. I'm sure it sounded cool when Roth was lamenting the fact that world masters had their works hanging in museums, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, signifying nothing, while he, and other guys like himself, in garages all over the country, were making "cool" art out of junk. I don't have a problem with calling Roth's work art - it clearly is. What I do have a problem with is Tales of the Rat Fink not asking any hard questions of this mythology or methodology. Surely Roth had to have realized that it's impossible to stand apart from commercial considerations, to stand as anti-status quo, while your designs are being mass-marketed to the rest of the country for millions of dollars in profit. The notion that Roth somehow mystically represented the weird, the outcasts, the losers, fails to address the fact that all those millions of monster sweat shirts, all those Revell models, all those Rat Fink records and toys, were bought in large majority by average, well-adjusted American kids, who didn't have a problem wearing not only a Rat Fink t-shirt, but also a pair of Mickey Mouse ears (Roth's most hated symbol of status-quo America). It shouldn't be forgotten, when critics and thinkers blather on about Roth's influence in bringing about the end of conventional America - because he was inherently a rebel - that when Revell wanted Roth to become more of a "character" to sell more models, he complied. At the very beginning of the film, one gets a feeling that maybe, just maybe, the film is going to be more than just a one-sided celebration of Ed Roth. We see archival footage of Ed, just six months prior to his death, dressed in his familiar get-up, while John Goodman, narrating as Roth now dead, saying he just doesn't get these weird fans who weren't even alive when he was customizing cars. He laments having to sign this crap (although there's no mention of whether or not he has to do it for monetary reasons). And then...the movie drops this angle, never to pick it up again. What starts out as a possible examination of a myth, merely becomes a celebration of it.

It doesn't help that Roth is portrayed in the film (vocally) by John Goodman, with an annoying, uninflected, bored-to-tears narration. I guess he and the director think it's cool to be so laid-back as to sound asleep, but frankly, I could have used some energy there to make Roth come alive. After all, look at the photos of Roth throughout the film; he looks pretty crazy and wild. You'd never know it, though, listening to Goodman. The other celebrity voices lent to the film's talking cars, including Ann-Margret, Jay Leno, Brian Wilson, Matt Groening, Tom Wolfe (who also appears in person - to absolute zero effect), Steve Austin, Robert Williams, Paul LeMat, Billy F. Gibbons, and (god help us) The Smothers Brothers, don't do much either to elevate the frankly corny sections of the documentary.

The DVD:

The Video:
Tales of the Rat Fink looks phenomenal in this DVD presentation. The 16:9 widescreen image is sharp and clear, with the animation scenes particularly strong-looking in bold, primary colors.

The Audio:
The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack blasts you with nice directional sound, especially from the occasional drag race sound effects, and the effective, fun score by The Sadies. There's also a 2.0 soundtrack, as well.

The Extras:
There's several extras on Tales of the Rat Fink, but unfortunately, they're a mixed bag. First up is Big Daddy Lives!: A rare interview with Ed "Big Daddy" Roth. With no context on which to locate the interview's purpose (or date for that matter), this amateur video interview with Roth (in what I must assume is his dark, scary home garage), conducted by Domenic Priore, fails to deliver much understanding of Roth or his ideas (which, frankly, seem unformed here). Next comes Rat Fink Reunion -- Painting jam with Ed Roth and Von Dutch What promises to be a cool painting session in 1983 quickly becomes monotonous, because the amateur video is largely out of focus most of the time. The audio is even worse, making it difficult to hear what the principles are saying. But the worst sacrilege is...they never show the final product of the painting jam! We see them working on the car for a few minutes, and then....nothing! That's criminal, and it shows the producers of the DVD don't know much about satisfying an audience. Next up is Big Daddy's Garage, which are photo galleries of 2006 Detroit Autorama, featuring Roth's cars; original sketches of Roth's monster T-shirts; panels of his comic strips, and a promo for a project called Rat Fink's Revenge which gathered other artists to give their take on the character Rat Fink. Next is a short interview with the director, Ron Mann, who, quite frighteningly, admits to getting his inspiration for the film's most insipid gimmick -- the talking cars -- from reruns of My Mother the Car! Enough said there. There's a deleted montage scene of some of Ed's products, along with a theatrical trailer. Finally, an animated music video of The Sadies rounds out the extras.

Final Thoughts:
I'm still a fan of Ed Roth; Tales of the Rat Fink doesn't hurt his reputation -- it celebrates it. If you're new to his work, it's probably a great way to come to know his stuff. However, if you're already familiar with him, this documentary doesn't do a lot to peek underneath the hood of Roth's mythology. Rent it.