A laugh-out-loud satire, Never Been Thawed (2005) is the wisest-ass mocumentary since This is Spinal Tap (1984). The group of slackers who are interviewed & whose lives are followed are all members of Mesa Frozen Entrees Enthusiasts Club, all sufferers of collectoritis who preserve, buy, sell, & trade TV-dinners in mint-in-box condition.

A leading member of the club has filled his apartment with freezers to store his collection, & the prize of his collection is the Deuchamp frozen entry, which must be seen to be believed. TV-dinners are just the "cementing" commonality for the club members, who do have other interests. One chap has invented an ergonomic door knob, & has learned to save lots of time in his life by strapping a bag to his leg into which he can pee without interupting whatever he's doing to go to the bathroom.

There's also some shared involvement in an official league for people who play Alphabet on the highways. And the Golden Hose Award winning "ex" gay fireman is making an instructional video "How to Be a Hero." The virgin among the frozen entree collectors works on the Intercourse Prevention Hotline. They all hang out at the No Choice Cafe which caters to abortion protestors.

There's a corporate prison camp team trainer. A couple of the Enthusiasts are also "smilists" (clowns) who work in clown make-up at a barber shop. The most "normal" member of the group is the brother of an Enthusiast & not afflicted with anything except deafness, booziness, & a devil-may-care obnoxiousness that makes him the only fellow in the film who isn't a complete spaz.

Some of the club members were formerly of a punk rock band but have converted to being "the bad boys of Christian rock" with their band renamed The Christers. They adapted their previous songs like "I love to fuck" to their new career altered lyrics "I have to pray." The music is suprisingly good for comedy stuff, & I greatly liked the most dufus tune of all "Hey Shelly Come On" written by a smitten clown for the club's virgin.

Despite the absurdist characterizations, the humor is heightened by the fact that they're played absolutely legit. I can easily imagine somebody thinking the Frozen Entrees Enthusiast Club is real. The members' subsidiary bizarro interests are just as real. They do all seem like only the slightest exaggerations of the wackiest goofballs we encounter in real life, or which some of us nearly are (like those of us who are over-the-top & down-the-road film fans).

Among the extras are two excellent commentary tracks.

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