"Take This Job and Shove It", was written by David Allan Coe and sung by Johnny Paycheck, the only number one song Paycheck would ever have. Beyond Coe doing his own version, it was also covered by the Dead Kennedys, Canibus with Biz Markie and Chuck Barris and the Hollywood Cowboys during the last episode of The Gong Show.

Shot in Dubuque, Iowa at the Dubuque Star Brewery and in Minneapolis, Minnesota, this is the very first movie to feature monster trucks. Bob Chandler's Bigfoot #1 is Ray's (Tim Thomerson) pick-up truck and Everett Jasmer's USA-1, called "Thunderin' Lightning," is also in the film.

Take This Job and Shove It is all about The Ellison Group, run by Sam Ellison (Eddie Albert),who buys up local businesses and makes them profitable by making them just like every other business. His two hatchetmen are Dick Ebersol* (Martin Mull) and Frank Macklin (Robert Hayes). Macklin usually goes well at assignments like this, but now he has to go back to his hometown and just might have to fire his childhood best friends.

This film has an amazing cast, with Art Carney as brewery owner Charlie Pickett and Barbara Hershey as Macklin's old girlfriend J. M. Halsted, plus David Keith, Royal Dano, James Karen, George Lindsey, Len Lasser, Penelope Milford and cameos for Charlie Rich, Coe and Paycheck.

Take This Job and Shove It was directed by Gus Trikonis, who knows all about making great drive-in and redneck movies like Supercock, Nashville Girl, The Sidehackers, Moonshine County Express and The Evil. It was written by Barry Schneider, who wrote another song-based film, Harper Valley P. T. A. (plus Ruby, Roller Boogie, Class of 1984, Cocaine: One Man's Seduction and Deadly Force, so great work Barry) and Jeffrey Bernini.

*This has to be no accident and a joke at the expense of the former chairman of NBC Sports and Saturday Night Live producer.

Johnny Paycheck's super fed-up with being exploited by the Man proletarian honky-tonk rant, written by ex-convict David Allan Coe, was turned into one of the true unsung classic films of the early 80s. It's a rowdy, boisterous, high-spirited seriocomic slice-of-blue-collar-life redneck romp about refusing to kowtow to any big company nonsense and taking charge of your own destiny. Eager beaver hotshot corporate executive Robert Hays returns to his podunk burg home town to get the sagging local brewery back on its feet again. He changes the operation with mixed results: the company suits are happy, but the workers are discontent. Will Hays do the right thing and tell the top brass to shove it? Man, does baby cover all the necessary bases: a top-notch country-and-western soundtrack, a monster truck race, romance, cussin', authentically funky locations (e.g., smoky taverns and low-rent bowling alleys),a wild barroom football game, working class angst and frustration, and, best of all, a rousing stick it to the head honchos workers revolt conclusion. The uniformly excellent cast includes Barbara Hershey as Hays' feisty ex-girlfriend, David Keith and Tim Thomerson as scruffy good ol' boys, Art Carney as the plant manager, Martin Mull as an obsequious company man boot-licker, Eddie Albert as an a**hole CEO, Len Lesser as a jerk foreman, country singer Charlie Rich as a rival corporate head, Royal Dano as an elderly factory worker, and James Karen as Carney's right-hand man. Directed with tremendous flair by Gus Trikonis (his previous hick flicks include "Nashville Girl" and "Moonshine County Express") and affectionately written by Barry Schneider, this unjustly overlooked darling is just ripe for rediscovery.

Good ol' boy comedy-drama about the corporate buyout of an Iowa brewery and its effects on the employees and townspeople certainly had the opportunity to comedically explore greed and position in big business. Unfortunately, this movie-version of the hit song by Johnny PayCheck isn't at all the trenchant satire the opening moments hint it might be; instead, director Gus Trikonis (of all people) settles for redneck clichés and easy stabs at pathos (such as the veteran bottler who is transferred--one might say promoted--to distribution, but asks to return because he can't read). Robert Hays is the small-town boy who made good, returning to his roots to overhaul the brewery and act as hatchet-man; Tim Thomerson (way over-the-top) and David Keith are his boyhood pals who earn their living at the plant, while Barbara Hershey floats in and out of the movie as a former squeeze (she ends up making love with Hays after a mud fight, still caked in dirt). Some of the dialogue in Barry Schneider's exceedingly-thin screenplay has a little kick, but Trikonis in general is not good with actors: he keeps everybody shouting, even when the machines are turned off. *1/2 from ****