The 1980s classic “Back to the Friterie” follows Martin “Marty” McFrite, a student from Arlon, Belgium who dreams of becoming a DJ. Always nearby is his friend “Doc” Emond de Bruyn, an eccentric scientist who is leaving science to open a chip shop.
When Doc de Bruyn asks Marty to join him at midnight to test an experimental new chip fryer in an empty parking lot, the young man agrees without stopping to consider just how bizarre the request is.
Soon after Doc turns the fryer on, it malfunctions and explodes. After Marty wakes up from a mild concussion, he finds that he and the fryer are in a weird land where people speak strangely and wear old-timey clothes. Marty figures the explosion created a tear in the space-time continuum and sent him into the past, but it turns out he’s just landed in deep Flanders.
With Doc nowhere to be found and the locals refusing to speak to Martin in his native French, he decides he must fix the fryer himself and get it back to Doc de Bruyn in time for the grand opening of his friterie in one week’s time.
However, the mission proves difficult when a local drunkard named Lotty, who turns out to be Martin’s estranged mother, falls in love with him, and he’s forced to pawn her off on a nerdy accountant named Joost. During all this, Marty is relentlessly harassed by a redneck named Bas who enjoys knocking on Marty’s head while saying “Hallo, is er iemand thuis?” (“Hello, is anyone home?”) and refuses to sell him replacement parts for the fryer unless he asks for them in Flemish.
Will Marty make it back to Arlon in time for the grand opening of Doc’s friterie? Can he recover from having his mother try to French kiss him? Will he remember any of the Flemish that he spent nine years learning in school?
