NEW ON TUBI! Director Dallas Ryan’s Chicken Dinner Restaurant is a low-budget sketch comedy where the mundane and the absurd share the same parking space. Nobody seems particularly surprised by either…because this is LA.
Dallas (Dallas Ryan), Chloe (Chloe Gay Brewer), and Ryan (Ryan Vania) are three best friends who spend their days working at the Chicken Dinner Restaurant — a strip mall fast food joint in Los Angeles. One day, Dallas stumbles across a treasure map pointing to the legendary buried gold of one Fester Hopperfoot. It’s hidden somewhere in the LA basin. Dallas recruits Chloe and Ryan, and the three set off into the concrete-and-asphalt landscape to track down the treasure.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles mayoral race is heating up. Candidate Dallas has built his platform on one simple truth: cocaine. His opponent, Chloe, disagrees, not with the drug itself. She believes snorting is the civilized choice — injecting it, as Dallas recommends, is not. On the other hand, Ryan’s stance is simpler: give the kids meth. Following more important news: reporter Karen Overmeyer has learned that the city’s Tupperware has gone missing, and the reality is you can’t run a cocaine operation without proper storage.
Back on the hunt, Dallas and Chloe put on an impromptu musical number about finding Fester Hopperfoot’s gold. Ryan watches from the sidelines. He was never allowed to watch musicals growing up and has been running from them ever since. Something about the performance breaks through, and he realizes musicals aren’t something to fear after all. Fester’s gold is still out there somewhere under the Los Angeles blacktop, the Tupperware is still missing, and the race for mayor is still very much undecided.
“Dallas stumbles across a treasure map pointing to the legendary buried gold of one Fester Hopperfoot.”
Chicken Dinner Restaurant was born from the 2018 sketch comedy show The Chloe, Dallas, and Ryan Show, which starred our intrepid heroes Chloe Gay Brewer, Dallas Ryan, and Ryan Vania, and ran for 41 episodes over three seasons. As best I can tell, it’s a sketch show born out of an improvised scene the trio performed to inspire themselves. Once you start watching, you’ll know right off the bat that the show and this movie are about as DIY as it gets in terms of production. 90% of the show takes place on a strip mall parking island, pretty much all in the same spot. It’s all a series of medium shots, with quick edits of reaction shots from other characters or the elderly gentleman who serves as the show’s audience.
I recommend (barely) Chicken Dinner Restaurant for the sheer audacity of making a show like this in the first place. I mean, I thought of doing a comedy show like this. It’s simple with almost no budget. The feature film plays out like an episode of Monty Python or Kids in the Hall, with a main throughline plot that jumps to other sketches as if simply changing the channel. It’s crazy and silly, and my favorite part was the mayoral debate over what is the best narcotic for Los Angeles and how one should take it.
If I might make one note. Write and rewrite. There are good ideas here, and I feel like they have not been given a chance to mature into a real sketch with something to say. Only great comics can say something hilarious off the top of their heads, and even then, they still work it over and over again.
Chicken Dinner Restaurant earns a reluctant recommendation on the sheer nerve it took to make it — three people, a strip mall parking island, and a plethora of strange ideas to fill 68 minutes. The material is raw and sure to please fans of long-form amateur improv comedy.
For more information, visit the Chicken Dinner Restaurant Rotten Tomatoes page.
"…Ryan's stance is simpler: give the kids meth."
