A review summed up Ed well: if your idea of entertainment is monkeys farting – this is your film.  Ed is about a monkey that plays third base and its absolute garbage.  The you’ll-never-get-this-time-back kind of garbage.  There’s really nothing good about it – the dialog is terrible, filled with lines like “holy torpedo batman” and plenty of references to “spank the monkey”, the set looks like a little league field, and the story made me want to scratch my eyes out.  Ed had a whopping $24M budget ($46M in today’s dollars), but only grossed an estimated $6.2M.

I can’t figure out what would possess people to make this film and LeBlanc to star in it.  Think back – this was 1996, Friends was in its prime and I have to think that LeBlanc was in pretty high demand.

The movie starts with Matt LeBlanc as a farm-boy who’s trying out for a AAA baseball team, the Santa Rosa Rockets.  He lives with his parents on the farm and we see him talking to the animals as he prepares for his first game. When the season starts, our boy LeBlanc can’t throw his signature fast ball with the pressure of the game – this is a HUGE problem. If he can’t get it under control, he’ll be banished back to a life of menial hard labor with mom and dad on the farm.

Meanwhile, to increase attendance since their team is a shit show, the Rockets “management” buy a new mascot — a live chimpanzee named Ed.  When Ed arrives, it turns out that he’s not only just a chimpanzee, but one that’s amazing at playing baseball.

Side note: the chimp is super creepy.  Apparently, he’s a midget in a costume but the face is entirely mechanical, and looks like the kind of thing that would give kids nightmares.  I’m sure the majority of the $24M budget was spent on getting that monkey face to move like that.

Anyways, the team nominates LeBlanc to room with Ed, where they eventually become friends.  Ed helps LeBlanc win the heart of the neighbor (Jayne Brook),

Ed becomes so popular as a mascot that the team management sells him to another team.  After first acting like a huge wuss, LeBlanc gets a set of balls and go after Ed to “save” him.  After a few punches and crotch kicks later, we have Ed back at the Rockets field just in time for the big game.

Somehow they finally sub in Ed to play third base (I’m not sure why they didn’t do that earlier) and he starts to dominate.  Oh, and LeBlanc finally starts to be able to throw his damn fast ball.  And he gets scouted to the majors.  Big surprise, everything is happily every after.

DONE. I don’t ever have to think about this movie ever again.