Chief Zabu is a long-unreleased film that was written, produced and directed by Neil Cohen and Zack Norman (under his birth name, Howard Zuker).

[10] On August 16, 2017, Zabu's co-writer/directors were pictured on the front page of the New York Times Arts Section with a history of the film's unique and unusual journey.

At his TeePublic website, American entrepreneur Josh Abramson offers a T-shirt bearing an image of the Variety advertisement that ran consistently between 1985 and 1988.

"[15] Michael Rechtshaffen of the Los Angeles Times called it a "tiresomely talky would-be satire" that "plays like bargain basement Barry Levinson".

[17] Following a series of festival and awards-qualifying screening runs, blogger Chad Sternberger of the popular website The Studio Exec implored Hollywood distributors: "For heaven's sake could someone please release Chief Zabu.