Walt Disney Productions, 1980

starring: David Naughton, Stephen Furst, Alan Solomon and Debra Clinger
written and directed by: Michael Nankin and David Wechter

the plot: Throughout a college campus in sunny Los Angeles, five people receive mysterious invitations to participate in an equally mysterious game. The five include Harold (Furst), a greedy, schlubby loser, and Adam (Naughton), a regular, decent guy who just happens to be Harold’s longtime nemesis. During a meeting, Leon (Solomon), the game’s eccentric creator, lays out the rules: Five teams must race across Los Angeles, finding and decoding clues that will lead them to the finish line of the “Great All Nighter.” The players balk at first, but soon, through Leon’s machinations, Adam, Harold and the others pull together their teams, pile into their cars and begin zipping across the city. While Adam, his would-be girlfriend (Clinger) and the rest of the team struggle with the clues, Harold and his gang of miscreants use Harold’s deluxe party van—equipped with a clue-solving computer—to speed through the game. As the players jet from the Griffith Park Observatory to the Pabst Brewery to a fast food joint, the clues get increasingly complicated and the teams actively try to sabotage one another. Meanwhile, Leon has problems of his own, as he fends off his crotchety landlord’s attempts to evict him while making sure the game runs smoothly.

why it’s good: Yes, “Midnight Madness” is a Disney movie, but don’t let that deter you from enjoying this finely aged slice of ’80s cheese. A high-spirited, goofy caper comedy in the spirit of “It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” “Midnight Madness” is a pretty fun flick, even if it doesn’t have as many bare breasts or obnoxious behavior as other ’80s college comedies. There are some good slapstick moments, such as the players’ destruction of most of the plates and glasses at a fast food joint and a large-scale brawl at an arcade, and the game that makes up the movie is well-constructed and cool. Sure, the acting is uniformly mediocre (if the cast isn’t befuddled or frustrated, they’re usually shouting “Aha!” or “I’ve got it!”) and the characters thin (the nerd team is extra nerdy, the jock team is extra belligerent and there are a couple of fat girls who eat everything), but you’ll be too caught up in the game to notice. “Midnight Madness” is also a font of obscure ’80s movie trivia: the film marked Michael J. Fox’s first cinematic appearance; Paul “Pee-Wee” Rubens has a cameo as an arcade owner; and voice actor John Fiedler, who provided the voice of Piglett in all those Winnie the Pooh cartoons, has a small cameo as one of Leon’s neighbors. “Midnight Madness” also went on to inspire a number of real-life games, including one created by Joe Belfiore, who, according to lore, brought his massive scavenger hunt/puzzle game to Stanford and, later, to Microsoft—which in turn inspired the 1997 David Fincher film “The Game.”

why you should own it: For fans of ’80s cheese, “Midnight Madness” is a must-watch. If you can find a cheap copy, pick it up. Otherwise, it’s a rental, since neither Anchor Bay nor Disney bothered to put any extras on the DVD release of the film.