Synopsis

It’s 1987 and a typical day at a Waukegan, IL ad agency. Creative director Wally Brunner’s conventional life turns into utter chaos in less than 60 seconds. He learns his dad died, he’s inherited his family’s failing funeral home in Elgin, Illinois, and he’s been fired.

His sudden unemployment and dangerous optimism lead Wally, 42, to use his considerable and over-the-top marketing talent to help his mother save the funeral home.

Conniving mortician Winston Sapp schemes to get the business for a song and thwarts Wally’s efforts every chance he gets. Unable to tolerate Wally’s outlandish marketing schemes, such as the “Frequent Diers Program,” Winston quits in a huff, leaving Wally without a licensed mortician and “customers” piling up.

Winston “poisons the well” so no other embalmer will take the job. Wally makes some desperate choices, including employing the services of a taxidermist.

Feeling doomed, Wally confides in his extraordinary hearse driver, Dirk (USMC, PhD, M.I.T.). Over a cup of freeze-dried coffee, a concept emerges that revolutionizes the funeral business by replacing embalming with freeze-drying the dearly departed in memorable configurations, like taking out the trash or bowling.

After a successful media extravaganza promoting the new concept, which Wally labels “Brunnerizing”, Winston throws a wrench (literally) into the new process, but Dirk repairs the damage and saves the day.

Within months Wally franchises Brunnerizing and is named Funeral Director of the Year. However, minutes before he is to be honored at Chicago’s McCormick Place he really has to go and mistakes the entrance of the main stage for the entrance of the men’s room. As the spotlight hits the stage it reveals Wally preparing to be seated on what he assumes is a commode. As the audience goes silent Wally’s fourteen-year-old son excitedly exclaims, “Oh man, this is great! Dad dropped trou!”