Things I Slept Through on Cable

It's time to start a new feature that I like to call Things I Slept Through on Cable. It sounds crazy, I know. But I'm sure that I can't be the only one that has this happen to them. A bizarre combination of falling asleep on the couch, an abnormal sleep cycle, and a television always being on in the background results in a half-asleep, half-awake stupor wherein you aren't entirely sure if you saw what you saw or if you made it all up.

My most notable instance of this phenomenon occurred when I was just a child and fell asleep one early Saturday morning. You know that dream where you're in school, but you're naked? Try having that dream, only instead of being naked, you're Underdog. Yeah, that was a weird one.

And speaking of weird ones, let's move on to the subject of this serotonin induced stupor, a feature by the name of Dead Heat. One of the Encore channels coughed this one up two nights ago, and I can't even remember how I ended up on the channel. Actually, I do. Sick, sick, curiosity.

This film features Treat Williams and Joe Piscopo (I **** you not; he starred in a movie) as a cop duo on the trail of a mad scientist. Said scientist has found a way to reanimate corpses, leaving the police dealing with half-zombie, bullet resistant thugs committing crimes around the city. And if it ended there, it would be a straight up story.

But no! Things get even more odd around midway through the film when Trreat Williams' character, one Roger Mortis (I **** you not; that was actually his name) dies. And while in most buddy cop films, this would be when Piscopo would go on a Rambo/Bronson style rampage of revenge, that's not what happens here. Remember that A-plot I was telling you about before? See, the good guys have stumbled across the tech that's being used to reanimate goons, so what better way to turn the tables than to reanimate Mortis and have an undead cop to even up the odds?

I was only awake for 10 minutes of this film, give or take, so I can't say I really got the full impact of the plot. But if you can imagine my brain trying to fill in the blanks between the handful of images and sounds I did take in:

• Piscopo and Williams fighting what looked like a reject from a Toxic Avenger movie.
• Williams' Roger Mortis biting the proverbial big one during one such encounter (which at the time seemed out of place).
• The entire dialogue concerning reanimation (which I think I heard and reconstructed images of in my head).
• Piscopo noting, "You were under in that hot tub for over five minutes."

Only two things irk me about this film. First, I'm bothered by the fact that from what I've heard, it's not that bad of a film. I had to dig through IMDB just to verify that the film existed at all (and also to find the title so I could see if it would be on again). Sure, it appears corny as heck, but the film is so tongue-in-cheek with its subject matter that you can almost relish in it. Which in a way sucks since, secondly...

I fell completely asleep before it ended! So now I don't know how it ended, and on top of that it turns out it's one of those films that Encore only cycles through sporadically. So it may be on again in a few weeks, and it might never be on again. And it's not like I can just run down to the Blockbuster and pick it up. Nor should I since I think paying would decrease the enjoyment somehow.

But if you get a chance to catch it, give it a shot. It proves that Joe Piscopo sort of had a career, that Treat Williams did some weird stuff before he got around to Everwood, and it supposedly also features the late Vincent Price. So clearly, there has to be some merit to it, and I have to endeavor to see it, if only to see if the parts my subconscious filled in were in any way close to the real thing.