God I hate Buckaroo Banzai, such an incredibly unfunny movie.
I've watched the first 10 minutes or so a hundred times as it was my older brother's favorite movie. Can't say I ever made past the 20 minute mark. My brother's other favorite movie from that era was Remo Williams - The Adventure Begins
I never cared for Remo Williams, although it has the same sort of cult following that Buckaroo Banzai does.
I had no freakin' clue what was going on the first time I watched Buckaroo Banzai. It made no sense. Then I tried watching it again with friends who explained that it wasn't exactly supposed to make any sense, just be fun. Then I liked it.
It also helps to know the backstory as told to me by a friend who said he heard it from the film-makers at a sci fi convention. Some eccentric millionaire guy funded the movie and was all interfering in the making of it; the more he asked annoying questions about what the point of this or that was, the more things they stuck in there for no reason--thus the President in the STryker frame, the watermelon with electrical probes, etc. The funding people and the moviemakers were in more or less open warfare by the time the movie was finished. It's amazing it was ever released at all. I think DVD was held up for quite a while because of lingering arguments around the rights.
This is also the reason that despite the "next adventure" tag at the end of the movie, there never has been a sequel and probably never will. Last I heard (and this was in the early 90s) the millionaires family still held the rights to make another movie and wouldn't relinquish them.
That's what was told to me anyway.