Woody called What’s Up, Tiger Lily? “sophomoric, stupid and juvenile.” And to be fair, it is. Entertainingly so. This is a film by a young, funny comedian not a seasoned auteur. Sexual innuendos ricochet off wild non-sequiturs, Japanese gangsters spout Yiddish, a mob flunky with a penchant for snakes speaks in an overbaked Peter Lorre voice, and “lovable rogue,” Phil Moscowitz, spontaneously belts an operatic song. Tiger Lily is crazy fun.

Compared to Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Bad Lip Reading (et al), What’s Up, Tiger Lily? might seem like a ho-hum relic. And, again, it is — possibly the original of this genre. What I loved about this movie when I first watched it (and still do upon revisiting it) is its sheer silliness.

Woody’s process for the movie was: I’ll gather some funny people together and watch a Japanese James Bond-esque B-movie a couple times, riff on the plot and dialogue, and redub it into a zany farce (i.e. a secret agent searching to uncover a recipe for the world’s greatest egg salad).

Technically, this is Woody’s directorial debut, which he’d deny due to the extensive editorial input from the money people. But this is the movie where he decided enough is enough and had written into his contract exclusive artistic control of all future projects.