Underneath the tasteless gags, boobs galore and signature Troma chaos is an old-fashioned comedy about life at the bottom rung of the career ladder for three young women. One’s an actress who can’t get a break. One’s a wannabe writer—some total rube from Indiana, but with Playboy bunny looks—who attempts to chronicle the New York City dating scene for her first big magazine article. One’s a poor little rich girl kicked out of college for bad behavior and gone to work for her father. These three don’t interact much with each other, but they all wait tables at the same restaurant. It looks upscale, but the waitresses all wear short shorts and tops that you can guess the temperature of the room by. The customers are demanding and the kitchen is a regular Grand Guignol of insanity and food-related gross-outs. Meanwhile, Lloyd Kaufman is sneakily a more visionary director than the ragged production values let on. The introductions of the main characters crackle with witty editing and a snappy pace. There’s a new joke (and often an old joke) roughly every 3.7 seconds and many of them bomb, but the good ones are funny in a way reminiscent of vintage movie comedies. Bob Hope, Laurel and Hardy, and Wheeler and Woolsey are touchstones (along with the single-panel joke comics in Playboy magazine). Films that kept the gags coming and didn’t give a thought as to whether it all made logical sense. The biggest weakness of Waitress! is that Kaufman doesn’t have a comedy “star” to help keep the boat afloat. There’s no one here who owns the screen. Carol Drake, as the budding actress, displays the most comic chops (and her character has the most coherent arc), but never gets the chance to carry the movie. That’s probably the low-budget filmmaker’s wariness at work. At the rate Troma’s paying and the hours they’re asking, they’re never sure who’s not going to show up to the set the next day. Three lead actresses isn’t a storytelling device; it’s insurance. When Kaufman finally found his star three years later, it was a toxic mutation in a rubber mask that anyone could wear. What a coup!