The deservedly obscure broad ’n’ bawdy comedy Toga Party begins not at a toga party, but on a farm, where Purvis, an easygoing guy with a ‘fro, spends his days strumming the guitar, boning Betty Jo in the barn and dreaming of becoming a singer. One day, he up and decides to go to New York in search of stardom, so he does.
Upon arrival, he roams the streets, not in search of a toga party, but a club that’ll let him play. No one will. On a chance meeting, he is discovered by a sleazy, two-bit agent named Suzy Starmonger. She books him not at a toga party, but at an obnoxious bar where a pie fight is liable to break out at the drop of someone’s pants.
Now redubbed “Pelvis” because of his vocal likening to the King and because of his large penis, Purvis becomes a minor star singing hits like “Nazi Girl,” “I Know a Man Who Screwed a Chicken,” “Suck My Way to the Top” and “Maria, My Little Wetback.” He also gets mixed up in hard drugs and loose woman, but nary a toga party.
Other than a spoof of the infamous crying-Native American litter PSA, there’s nothing really funny about Toga Party, but it’s fairly painless. In case you hadn’t figured it out by now, at no time does anyone go to (or even talk about) a toga party. —Rod Lott