The Monitors is a sci-fi satire made by the Bell & Howell motion picture equipment company in conjunction with Chicago’s famed comic improv group, The Second City (which has given the world top comic talent like Joan Rivers, Steve Carell, John Belushi, Dan Akroyd, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Mike Myers, Chris Farley, Stephen Colbert, Amy Sedaris, much of the SCTV cast and many others). It is the only feature film that The Second City has ever made.

Not surprisingly, The Monitors comes off like longform sketch comedy, but with a (slightly) dark edge. A race of aliens wearing bowler hats, black turtlenecks and black suits—probably for reasons of budget—has taken over the White House and keeps the population in line with an Orwellian government where sex, violence, politics and display of emotions are forbidden. A group of humans decide to “take their country back,” with predicable power struggles.
 

 
The main roles are filled by Guy Stockwell (the knife-throwing father in Santa Sangre) and Susan Oliver (Peyton Place). Larry Storch (F Troop), Ed Begley Sr., and actual Second City alum Avery Schrieber (where were the others??? Stuck in the bit parts!) also have major roles.

Weirdly, Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen (the one-time Republican Senate Minority leader who helped write key civil rights legislation) makes a cameo appearance, basically playing himself. Odetta sings the closing them song! It was shot by future Oscar-winner Vilmos Zsigmond (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, McCabe and Mrs. Miller).

This used to be on late night TV all the time. I haven’t thought about this film in years, but now it’s on the Netflix VOD.

Below, the opening to The Monitors:
 

 
Thank you, Rich Lindsay!