You Can Finally Know Jack

Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab may have become viral video superstars thanks to their Channel 101 website (home to the sublimely smooth satire Yacht Rock) but they earned their cult cred thanks to their long-revered, little-seen 1999 Fox TV pilot Heat Vision and Jack. Directed with absurdist glee by Ben Stiller, it stars Jack Black as an on-the-run solar-powered astronaut (he’s three times smarter than the world’s smartest person but only when the sun is shining), Owen Wilson’s voice as his sidekick, a chatty motorcycle, Stiller’s wife Christine Taylor as a love-struck sheriff and Ron Silver as NASA henchman, and sometime actor, Ron Silver. Finally working its way onto YouTube (www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lWgXDOAJ5s), this 30-minute pilot episode satire combines every ‘80s-era action show cliche and treats them with equal parts mockery and reverence. More proof that nobody squanders potential classics quite like Fox.