Skweezy Jibbs Makes a Movie: A modern-day folk hero does the impossible

Skweezy Jibbs is a one-of-a-kind character. A man who has entered the modern pop culture lexicon simply by being a part of the lexicon, he’s a comic entity whose stage is the world itself, thanks to the proliferation of internet culture and social media. He spent 5 hours driving across the Pacific Northwest to stock up on a week’s worth of nuggets during a giveaway from Wendy’s. His trip to Indiana accidentally turned into a trip to India. He hitchhiked almost 400 miles to help out BLM only to accidentally end up at the Bureau of Land Management. He’s a classic goofball for the modern age, a good-hearted, empty-headed fellow who types in all caps and uses his platform to roast bigots any chance he gets. Behind the baseball caps and empty gaze, there’s a lot going on here. In a weird way, he’s the hero we need.

To spoil the illusion right away, Jibbs is the alter ego of a pretty enigmatic man named Tim Savage. Much like pre-internet heroes such as Pee-Wee Herman or Ernest P. Worrell, he became famous all on his own by simply being irresistibly funny, and much like those forefathers of comedy, eventually it was time for him to cross over to the big screen.

It’s been a good year for internet-based creatives on the big screen. Iron Lung, Obsession, and Backrooms have been tearing up the box office for their directors, all of whom began as Youtube creators, and while horror is as popular as it has ever been, sometimes the world needs a laugh too. This year also saw an early comedic release based on an old Youtube series in Matt Johnson’s Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, a crowd-pleaser that immediately found its audience in a sea of huge releases. Skweezy Jibbs Makes a Movie deserves a seat right at the table with all of these, but like its title character, it’s a bit of an underdog in the fight for recognition.

Back in 2023, Skweezy launched a Kickstarter campaign to help fund his as-yet-untitled film. With almost $83,000 donated against a goal of $75,000, he launched into production, and in the artistic tradition of “write what you know,” the final product is a movie about making a low-budget movie. The movie begins by delivering as much necessary info as possible to let even the most offline audiences know who the protagonist is, and a mockumentary unfolds as we follow his quest to get it made. Eager, but clueless, his meeting with a Hollywood producer goes sideways when he learns that apparently you have to have a script in order to actually get into production. After a Smurf ‘n Turf-fueled bender (his favorite snack, a blue raspberry energy drink and a beef stick) he produces a script (typed in all caps in a 72-point font) and shares with his friend Adam (comedian Adam Pasi, a fantastic straight man to Skweezy’s shenanigans) his vision that will change the world: a movie that is “half John Wick, half Transformers, half Fast & Furious, and half Magic Mike,” which, for those keeping score at home, is a great deal, already promising 200% of movie when most filmmakers only deliver 100%.

He assembles a ragtag crew of hopefuls, sanity levels varying across the board. The standout worker of the crew is easily Production Designer Abigail (Abigail Fierce), a young woman who has only been a Production Assistant before, which automatically makes her the most qualified person on set in most situations, while the scene-stealer is Leland (Kevin Michael Moore), an absolutely insane man with very particular ideas on how to direct. As his action-stripper-romance epic takes flight, reality sets in quickly. Skweezy’s mother is apparently funding the project, and he’s clearly not comfortable with her or the fact that she will absolutely withhold pay for a chance to strongarm her way into an onscreen role, much to her son’s disdain. Every time she’s mentioned, this comedy gets unexpectedly human for a moment as it is increasingly clear that this woman has never been particularly kind to our favorite french fry chef to the stars (no, really, ask him about his garlic fries), and he knows that putting her in a position to ridicule him in front of his crew is a tough tradeoff to seeing his magnum opus, The Ballet of Ricky Santangelo, to completion.

To say anything else would be doing a disservice to such an independent production. Right now Skweezy is touring the movie across the country, a 62-city tour all with personal appearances and meet-and-greets. With any luck, a distributor will hit up one of those screenings, make a proposal to pick up and properly release this already-finished film, and the work of Savage and the film’s director, Michael Ward, will pay off in full. However, the man himself said that if that never happens, he’ll find a way to get it streaming independently and make physical copies in his garage if he has to. This little movie that could deserves better than that, and those of us with a platform to help lift up an underdog are the ones who can make that happen.

Skweezy Jibbs Makes a Movie is, first and foremost, legitimately, consistently funny, which is all you can ask in an age where comedy movies seem almost completely gone from the cinema screens. What really makes it work though is the unexpected amount of heart on display, as the meta lines between Skweezy’s movie and the Skweezy movie within the movie blur, the tale of a passionate guy who may not be the best filmmaker of all time, but his heart is in the right place and you want to see him succeed. The closest comparison to make is Tim Burton’s Ed Wood, the true tale of a bright-eyed optimist with more vision and heart than talent, and while Skweezy has a lot of vision and heart, Tim Savage and his crew are incredibly talented and deliver one of the funniest, most heartfelt pieces of outsider art in years. Skweezy Jibbs Makes a Movie is a testament to the fact that regardless of a movie’s quality, the world is better for having more real art in it, straight from the soul. And maybe a little from the butt, if Skweezy’s well-documented battle with IBS is to be believed. If this movie comes anywhere near your town, don’t miss it.

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