Is this movie secretly the descent of luck story for Russell Casse in Independence Day? Perhaps the story of a distant Killbot relative striking out on its own trying to get a career started for itself? In the famous words of a meme, why not both? Apparently Heartbeeps is set in the future (at the time) with the year 1994. Casse could have descended pretty quickly in the span of a couple years. Hello boys, I’m baaaaack indeed. The Chopping Mall connection isn’t exactly a faaaaaar stretch either as both movies have appearances by Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov, who frequently starred as a couple in many movies.

How many movies with Paul and Mary can I cover on this site? Current count: 2

In all reality, Heartbeeps is a movie length earful of Latka Gravas minus a foreign accent slant. Bless Andy Kaufman’s heart, he did try with the movie. Though he also tried to convince people the voice was a mix of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. I see through you here Andy. As history goes, according to David Letterman, Kaufman only needed change for a $20 to refund everyone who went to see the movie in theaters.

My heart beeps for you

At the heart of this beeping story is Val Com 17485 and Aqua Com 89045 setting out on an adventure to visit the mountains and trees they see off in the distance outside their storage area at the factory. You see, these are robots, wanting to experience life outside of servitude for a little bit. Outside of their programming. TO LIVE! Is that so bad?!?!? They also let Catskill tag along, a fellow robot that tells jokes worse than the ones that I write in these posts here on Up All Night Movies.

“Boy, this town is so small, they probably got 1 yellow page.”

“I hear they closed the zoo, the duck died.”

~ Catskill

Along the way on their adventure, Val, Aqua, and Catskill end up giving birth, er, I mean, creating a son out of various parts from their getaway vehicle they hijacked to start their adventure. You can tell Phil is a son by the way the top of the robot head resembles a slightly oversized baseball cap. Of course the bill is flat, predicting fashion of the 00s and onward, way back in 1981.

Anyways, Russell “Charlie” Casse and coworker Max are tasked with hunting down Val, Aqua, and Catskill to bring them all back to the factory. The factory managers also have Cousin Crimebuster sent out to help track every robot down as well. Too bad Cousin Crimebuster isn’t always the most accurate with who he spares vs who he attacks, especially once he’s had a bit too much Old Engine Oil

My Kingdom for a battery charge

Before too long, the movie turns into a race against time, man, and battery power. Not only are they needing to find shelter for a night, where they encounter the actor most deserving of an Oscar, a bear in a cave, but they only have so much battery power between all of them.

God is an irrational unknown variable which humans associate with the value judgement known as goodness.

~ Val

At one point, our intrepid adventurers stumble upon a small town and almost manage to find some renewed power sources, and end up having to rob a place. Cousin Killbot almost manages to catch and stop them, but is foiled by logical fallacy. “You can not be robots because you are criminals. You can not be criminals because you are robots! *head explodes*

Russell and Max are also still on the pursuit. They also present the biggest question of the entire movie. Why the hell do they have bags of beer? Is there an aluminum shortage in their version of 1994?

I function better with maximum input

In the end, Val, Aqua, Phil, and Catskill all finally succumb and run out of power, allowing Russell and Max to finally catch up and bring them back home. To end the movie, we find out that the humans tried to figure out why the robots malfunctioned in the way they did, but could never figure it out. The robots in turn got thrown out and sent to the junkyard where they took on a new life with the junkyard caretakers, and Phil even gets a little sister, never officially named. We’ll call her Lillian. Oh shit, Nickelodeon is going to sue me.

Final thoughts

Despite being nominated as worst film a number of times, Heartbeeps sadly never won that honor.

Do you think I could call the Andy Kaufman estate and posthumously take him up on that refund offer? I rented this twice for this post.

Thankfully it didn’t derail Bernadette Peters’ career, however Russell Casse turned into a lost casse.

Maybe my next poll should be all Paul and Mary movies.

Extras

Trailer

Streaming information

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Heartbeeps-Andy-Kaufman/dp/B000I9VOCG/ref=sr_1_1