Rock'n'Roll Mom

(Michael Schultz, USA, 1988)

This sprightly telemovie was, at least in its Australian broadcast, split over two weeks of the free-to-air schedule slot The Magical World of Disney in 1990 – and, in those years, TV stations were helpful enough to post out preview tapes to people like me. Today on IMDb, Rock’n’Roll Mom is buried in a nondescript manner inside a general listing for that 36-year-long Disney program.

Michael Schultz, a black director (still active in the industry at age 86) whose fascinating and prolific career in cinema and TV spans immortal highlights from Cooley High (1975) and Car Wash (1976) to a Crazy Ex-Girlfriend episode in 2016 via The Last Dragon (1985), needs a decent spotlight. He has a tremendous flair for handling pop culture idioms, as well as a lively and sophisticated sense of camp humour.

Here, Mom (an energetic Dyan Cannon) is catapulted from miming “Devil with a Blue Dress On” in her kitchen (an excellent opening scene), to becoming the rock star Mystere … but at the price of losing, family, friends, and her sense of self. (Note the enduring association of that particular song with black American popular culture, from the original 1964 soul record by Shorty Long to Carl Franklin’s 1995 film Devil in a Blue Dress.)

The fantasy resolution to Mom’s ethical dilemma – involving the formation of a Partridge Family-type band named Suburbarama – must be witnessed. No words can do it justice!

In 2026, it seems that this film is only viewable on YouTube (not on any official Disney stream) – lacking even a modest Wikipedia entry (but rating a blah mention on a site devoted to ‘Not in the Hall of Fame’ rock’n’roll-wise), it has fallen into the newly baptised genre of ‘Lost Media’! Memories: they may be beautiful, and yet …

MORE Schultz: Day-O

© Adrian Martin 13 July 1990 / 6 November 2025