Stir Crazy is a 1980 American comedy film directed by Sidney Poitier and starring Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor as down-on-their-luck friends who are given 125-year prison sentences after being framed for a bank robbery. While in prison they befriend other inmates and ultimately escape.
Writer Skip Donahue and actor Harry Monroe are fired from their jobs in New York, and leave for Hollywood. Along the way, they take odd jobs to make ends meet. During one such job in Arizona, Skip and Harry perform a song and dance routine dressed as woodpeckers as part of a promotion for a bank. While the duo is taking a break, two men steal the costumes and rob the bank. Harry and Skip are arrested, whisked through a speedy trial and handed 125-year jail sentences. Their court-appointed lawyer, Len Garber, advises them to wait until he can appeal their case.
Life in a maximum-security prison proves difficult for Skip and Harry. After a failed attempt at faking insanity, they make friends with Jesus Ramirez, a bank robber, and Rory Schultebrand, a gay man who killed his stepfather, and meet inmates such as contrabandist Jack Graham, ax murderer Blade and feared mass murderer Grossberger.
Stir crazy may refer to:
Stir crazy is a phrase that dates to 1908 according to the Oxford English Dictionary and the online Etymology Dictionary. Used among inmates in prison, it referred to a prisoner who became mentally unbalanced because of prolonged incarceration. The term "stir crazy" is based upon the slang stir (1851) to mean prison. It is now used to refer to anyone who becomes restless or anxious from feeling trapped and even somewhat claustrophobic in an environment, perceived to be more static and unengaging than can any longer continue to hold interest, meaning, and value to and for them.
"Stir crazy" could be classified as a more specific form of boredom, but combined with elevated and often increasing levels of anxiety, frustration, agitation, fidgeting, manic depressive type mood swings, and accessory episodes of acting out violently or otherwise antisocially on those feelings, the longer the unengaging non-stimulating environment is persisted in.
Stir Crazy is a restaurant chain based in Chicago, Illinois that specializes in Asian-style stir fry food and other Asian-themed dishes.
Stir Crazy features a Market Bar or "build your own stir fry" menu, where the customer creates a custom stir fry dish from about 30 different vegetables, spices, and sauces. After placing the selections in a small wok, the customer hands it to a chef who prepares it along with a choice of meats, fish, rice, and/or noodles. The stir fry is cooked in front of the customer.
The menu features many traditional Asian appetizers and entrees which are prepared to order and a Crazy Buddha Bar, which serves both traditional drinks and unique Stir Crazy creations. Stir Crazy has locations in Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Florida, Missouri, Ohio, Texas, Indiana and Minnesota. In August 2009, Stir Crazy Restaurants LLC merged with Flat Top Grill, also based in the Chicago Metropolitan Area, to form Flat Out Crazy, LLC.