Sundance 2011 Review: Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure

Two old, mean alcoholics are turned into underground celebrities via audio mix tapes in "Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure".

Exploring the lines between entertainment, art, privacy, and exploitation, Shut Up Little Man!: An Audio Adventure is an energetically, emotional investigation into the cult phenomenon born of two old alcoholics’ drunken tirades against one another, which enjoyed its world premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Directed by filmmaker Matthew Bate, Shut Up Little Man dwells upon the audio recordings made of one Raymond Huffman and Peter Haskett back in 1987 by their then-neighbors “Eddie Lee Sausage” and “Mitch D”. Eddie and Mitch were a pair of young Wisconsin high school graduates who picked up stakes and moved as far away as possible from cheeseheads: California.

They ended up in San Francisco, renting a cheap apartment in a rundown building dubbed “the Pepto Bismol Palace” due to its bright pink exterior. Next door though were their less-than-pleasant neighbors Peter and Ray; Peter, a bitchy, gay man, and Ray, a short, homophobic redneck were the perfect odd couple. At any given time, Ray could call Peter a “queer cocksucker” only to be hit back with “shut up little man!” followed by hours of delicious, profanity-laced insults encompassing life, sex, and of course murder threats.

Eventually, Eddie and Mitch began recording these tirades between them, first for evidence in case they were ever killed by Ray, but then more due to the ironic hilariousness of their mutual meanness. Soon they began making mix tapes, which friends shared with others and eventually spread across the country. Audio verite fans across America became entranced by Peter and Ray, leading to comic books, plays, and eventually film projects centered on them. However, once fame and potential money came into the mix, so did copyright, life rights, and who has the right to exploit them.

On one level, Bate investigates the history of these recordings in terms of their cultural and economic value; Eddie and Mitch at first distributed the tapes for free for artists to work with them as they pleased, however as their popularity grew, so did the potential for income thus leading the recorders to copyright them for cash. But did they have the right to do so since they taped Peter and Ray on the sly? Mix tape culture and prank calls themselves are viewed as an early form of reality TV if you will, preying on people’s voyeurism by revealing personal moments in lives unaware of being recorded. Yet despite the legal troubles, the intellectual debates, and money the film always circles back to Peter and Ray themselves.

Two old, embittered alcoholics sharing a tiny apartment in San Fran, their lives move from comedy to tragedy as we learn more about their lives. Seemingly devoid of passion and direction, their mutual bile transforms from hilarity to sadness as one imagines the state of their daily lives with little money and less reason to live. Trying to keep essentially audio fresh and cinematically exciting can be tough but through clever cutting and a variety of animation, live action reenactments, and scenes from other multimedia, Ray and Peter are given corporeal form to despise one another with gusto. While the bickering over film rights and legalities can become tiresome and irritating, what remains is the humanity of these two men who became stars without ever realizing it.

To learn more, go to www.shutuplittlemanfilm.com