Remember the detergent commercials on TV where the hidden camera captures a horrified mother of three whose alpaca sweater has just been turned into a huge chocolate sundae? Now imagine the mother herself looking like a dripping, human taco and that’s pretty much what’s visually in store for you in this series of slapstick, pie-in-the-kisser “Wet Look” videos.

Shot in England, these tapes definitely lend new definition to the word “mess”. Not from a technical standpoint, mind you, just content. Or as the distributors of this series like to put it, “this is what Mack Sennett might have produced were he around today.” Maybe. Maybe not.

Picture such intriguing scenarios with pretty girls being dunked, spritzed and plastered with colorful food products and gloppy condiments. Sounds appetizing, don’t it? There are Animal House-style food fights, outdoor mud wrestling bouts, fully clothed shower and bathing sequences and other devilish acts of physical defilement where makeup and hair styling become about as useful to its female victims as humility is to John Sununu.

Volume 1, subtitled The Hopeful Starlet, sets the tone for the series with a variety of schtick: a wannabe starlet who doesn’t mind taking a pie or two in the face so she can star in a slapstick movie; would-be car thieves who get chased down by a lady cop all of which culminates in a sloppy, semi-nude mud fight (the British call it “mudlarking”); a “Miss Drenched” contest, and a Leonard Maltin lookalike who keeps popping in and out of the series as host for these quirky episodes.

The other volumes follow-up with pretty much the same order of business: lots of fully-clothed bathing; clinging, soppy garments and human smorgasbords of slop featuring chocolate syrup, mustard, jam and baked beans. So, if you like watching the contents of ketchup and mustard bottles being squooshed down a pair of lady’s nylons with her legs still in them, these are your tapes.

Overall, an entertaining and ribald series played with the typical, dry British sense of humor. It features topless nudity, with an occasional fanny flash thrown in there and there to keep things interesting. Innocent fun and worth a look for something completely different.

(Source: Another Fine Mess, P.O. Box 49, Hancock, MD. 21750)