The Parent Trap

Ah, innocence. Once upon a time, even our most troubled of starlets were just wee littles children struggling to break into the business under the crow-like watch of their obsessive stage parents. Yes, those were the days. When 11-year olds could be goaded and herded to open modeling calls and Jell-O commercial auditions, their parents seeking their vicarious big break. And we wonder why child actors grow up to have all manners of complexes.

Regardless of her current lot in life, back in 1998 Lindsay Lohan was a cute little befreckled redhead with a hell of a British dialogue coach. She starred in the ultimate suspend-your-disbelief-or-exit-the-theater-now movie, playing a set of intercontinental twins separated at birth. A remake of the 1961 original of the same title, The Parent Trap pushed the limits of reason with its endless array of uncanny coincidences. Though the film wasn't winning any medals for sense-making, it had a certain charm in its ludicrousness.



Lohan plays dual roles as Hallie Parker and Annie James, two ordinary 11-year old girls living on either side of the Atlantic ocean. Hallie lives with her single dad (Dennis Quaid as a totally believable DILF), a vineyard owner in Napa Valley. Annie lives with her single mother, Elizabeth (the late talented Natasha Richardson), a glamorous British wedding gown designer. Naturally, neither of the girls knows much about their mysteriously absent second parent, but conveniently has one half of a torn picture of the parent they've never met. I think we can all see where this is going.

Here's where things get a little dicey on straight-up believability. Miraculously, despite the incredibly vast physical proximity, both Hallie and Annie are sent by their respective caretakers to Camp Walden for Girls. In a series of none-so-friendly encounters, the two quickly become rivals, challenging one another to fencing matches and high-stakes poker games. You know, like all 11-year old girls do. The usual.


No one seems to say much about the fact that the two are absolutely, undeniably identical. Sure, the British one's got a stuffy long haircut and the considerably more with-it Northern Californian sports pierced ears, but other than that they're two identical girls separated by an accent. Not one of their friends or counselors remarks to their respective twin pal, "Hey, have you noticed that girl is your twin sister? Maybe instead of feuding, you two should make some effort to sort this whole thing out."

That would be too easy. Then again, the counselors seem notably absent from the film. I can only imagine the liability issues the camp's insurance company faced for lack of proper supervision. For such a reputable camp, the girls seem to
be pretty much on their own.

Continuing on this poorly-supervised theme, the camp staff becomes so unspeakably fed up with their feuding twin charges that they send them to (gasp!) the isolation cabin. Yes, that's right. The punishment at this camp is going to some podunk cabin with the person you hate to duke it out completely unsupervised. Oh, and you get to bring scissors and needles! Makes perfect sense, right? Good, I'm glad you're coming with me on that one.

After a freakishly long period of time without questioning their obvious physical same-ness, the two warm to one another and begin discussing their lives. They find not only that their birthdays are on the same day, but that their half-pictures of their respective mystery parent fit together to form a full picture. Who would've thought? I know I was shocked. A mischevious plan to switch places is quickly hatched and since no adults have stopped in to check on the two, they're able to get away with crazy shenanigans like cutting each other's hair and piercing ears in a horribly painful needle-and-apple manner.

Oh, and I can't leave out my favorite part in which Hallie has to master the handshake that Annie does with her butler. Did I not mention she had a butler? Because she's English, you see. In American movies they all have butlers. Anyway, the spectacular handshake goes a little something like this (performed by Hallie in disguise, who passes the butler test with flying colors):



Both girls do some careful stepping to try to fit in with their newly acquired parents, and generally do pretty well minus a minor misstep here or there. Okay, so Annie's fam is tad flabbergasted to hear her professional-grade assessment of the dinner wine, and Hallie's brood is marginally suspicious of her suddenly proper manners, but all in all things seem to be going pretty okay. That is until we meet the obviously gold-digging Meredith, the pretty young thing dad Nick is planning on marrying. Because in Disney movies we can't just let people make their own major life decisions, the girls decide this would be a great time for an intervention via the good ol' twin switcheroo.

The twins scheme that their parents will have to see each other during the exchange process and will obviously fall madly and deeply back in love. Children with separating parents, take note: just make your estranged parental units switch you with your twin from across the globe in a grand elaborate plan. It's a pretty airtight method.

The twins along with their house-help cohorts plan a recreation of their parents' meeting on a cruise ship. Everything goes swimmingly (boatingly?), with both remarking that they remain hazy on the details of their split in the first place. Unfortunately for Hallie and Annie, their parents don't immediately reconcile their disparate lives in a wave of passionate impulse but rather more mundanely decide the kids can go visit each other from time to time. Obviously a second-tier backup scheme was necessary to clinch this reunion, so the twins refused to tell their parents who was who until they took them on a family camping trip.

The vile Meredith tags along and mom Liz backs out at the last minute, making for an interesting crew. The girls of course do everything in their power to completely and totally piss her off:




Meredith gets so angry over their antics that she demands Nick choose between herself and his daughters, an ultimatum that obviously expels her from the family. Naturally, Elizabeth and Nick get back together, and everyone lives happily ever after. Even the butler and housekeeper, who despite their mildly ambiguous respective sexualities also end up engaged by the end credits. Altogether now: awwww.

Sure, the movie's not necessarily the most realistic story in the world, but it delivers the fantastical goods in pure Disney fashion. The all's-well-that-ends-well predictability makes the movie satisfyingly unbelievable. Overall, it's a fun film, but more importantly it provides us with a handy time capsule of little Linds so we can remember her as she was: cute, freckly, and according to the following interview, loving the attention. Yikes. That certainly sounds like some dark foreshadowing:

Nickelodeon GUTS

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I've said it before and I'll say it again: the 90s were a simpler time. An age before text messaging, tweeting, and facebooking. A time when nations put aside their difference to battle in vaguely athletic harness-dependent events. A time when the greatest feat a kid could aspire to was to climb a giant heap of neon-lit scrap metal. A time when Mike O'Malley was still young and good-looking and not forever irritating me with his incessant plugs for Time Warner digital cable.

Yes, those were simpler times. Oh, how my friends and I yearned to be contestants on Nickelodeon GUTS. We were even willing to overlook that gross foamy yellow mouthguard we'd be required to wear. How's that for compromise? All we wanted was for British referee Mo to describe us by our chosen nicknames (I was partial to The Raging Tornado myself) and to describe our position on the coveted leaderboard.

Was that really so much to ask?

Unsurprisingly, this ambition never became a reality. Unless you count my boyfriend and I dressing up as a GUTS contestant and Mo respectively for Halloween. But I suppose you probably wouldn't, would you now.

There was nothing more I wanted in the world than to become one of these famed child athletes, immortalized for posterity in VHS form:



Unfortunately for me, the correct answer to "Do-do-do-do you have it?" was a resounding no. For three lucky kids per episode, though, this was their chance to shine. Literally. That snow that pelted them from the Aggro Crag was super sparkly.

Nickelodeon's GUTS ran from 1992-1995, with endless rerunning throughout the decade. The show was a sort of kid-based takeoff of the then immensely popular American Gladiators. Three kids competed against one another, clad respectively in their representative color of blue, red, or purple. Before each event got under way, individual contestants were interviewed (later, they aired pre-taped segments) in a little feature they liked to call "Spill Your Guts!"

The athletic events themselves took place in the Extreme(!) Arena, and were sometimes loosely related to actual sports. More often, they were elaborate tests of athleticism made possible through the use of harnesses, mouthguards, and well-placed safety nets. There were obstacle courses, wave pool events, and all sorts of extreme(!)-named events for the players to compete in. Mike O' Malley narrated, saying ridiculous things like, "He took to the water like a porpoise!" Then, for the official stuff, we cut to Mo.

Mo was a British referee/officiant who explained the leaderboards, points, and made official rulings on if a kid's toe was over the line. She also got to say official-sounding phrases like "Players will start at the sound of my whistle". First placers earned 300 points, second earned 200, and third earned a measly 100. Luckily for those kids, there were only 3 competitors, meaning everyone gets a medal.

Our good pals Mo and the then immensely handsome Mike O'Malley. Am I alone in this childhood crush or what?

Of course, these events were fun on their own but nothing in comparison to the awesomeness of the ultimate culminating event. The Aggro Crag (succeeded by the Mega Crag and later the Super Aggro Crag) was a mountain-type structure constructed of what we can only assume were dangerous sharp-edged deconstructed Nickelodeon sets.



Contestants were to activate the "actuators", which really just meant they were supposed to turn on some crappy touch light as they bounded up the almighty Crag. You have to admit, "actuators" sounds way cooler. Each third of the Crag was swathed in colored light corresponding to each player's representative color. This sounds like a pretty easy if completely unnecessary task, but the show threw in some special effects-type obstacles to sweeten things up. Avalanches, glittery snowstorms, flashes of lightning, and even nuclear flying crystals. Yep, that's right: nuclear flying crystals. Just like climbing a real mountain.

The first kid to the top of the Aggro Crag received 725 point, most often nullifying all of those other pointless preceding events. There was an eviable awards ceremony in which the competitors received their inevitable medals and the gold medal-winner was given a piece of the Aggro Crag. Admittedly, this plutonium-esque hunk of plastic looked pretty dissimilar to the Crag itself, but it was still arguably the most coveted piece of neon green plastic around.

To illustrate the desirability of taking home a piece of the crag, do a little Google search for something along the lines of "buy a piece of the aggro crag". On eBay, the site even comes up with alternative search suggestions for you, implying that numerous people search for "piece of the crag" and then follow that up with "GUTS aggro crag." These now-grown ups are still dying to get their hands on a piece of the crag. You know what they say: if you can't beat 'em, buy 'em.


In 1994, Nickelodeon produced an Olympic-style spinoff of the show entitled Global Guts, pitting kids from different countries against one another in a battle to prove superiority at Extreme Dodgeball and Wave Pool Kayaking. It's a competitive field, I know, so these segments were pretty tense. Kids came from places like Israel and Kazakhstan to prove their worth and earn a piece of the almighty Crag (by now, in Super form). Not only did this did the international competition add a new element to the show (particularly when we battled the forces of former communism on the rock climbing wall), the winner got to do a sweet flag-flying victory lap as well. Talk about doing your country proud.

Sure, Nickelodeon brought back a version of it as My Family's Got GUTS in 2008, but the era had passed. For the children of the 90s, that is. Those of us with as-of-yet-unrealized dreams of bringing home a piece of the Crag will suffer forever from unrequited semi-athletic accomplishments. Unless one of you happens to find a piece of it on eBay, that is.

Toy Story

It's tough to imagine a time when computers didn't reign over every and any thing. Though the computer animation-less past seems distant, there was once a time before we bowed down to our benevolent microchipped masters. While now computer images are pretty ubiquitous in animation, just fifteen years ago it was a new and innovative technology seeking to revolutionize animation as we know it. Oh, and to tell us stories about cowboys and astronauts. Mainly the cowboys and astronauts thing.

While now Pixar is a booming enterprise churning out hit after adorable, heartwarming computer animated hit, back in the early 90s they were still in the startup category. Sure, it had been around 10-odd years or so, but it had yet to give us a full length feature film. In a decade that gave us Disney gold like Aladdin and The Lion King, expectations for animated movies were riding particularly high.

Luckily, the good people at Pixar delivered the goods. Pixar garnered some attention through their Oscar-winning short Tin Toy, a computer-animated film featuring a poor little abused tin soldier named Tinny. Tinny hides from his frighteningly abusive baby master and finds a slew of other quivering, humorously traumatized toys. Thus began the initial spark of the idea for Toy Story, which was at first set to star our pal Tinny. In the likely case that you've never seen the 1988 Pixar short film, here's your chance:



Pretty impressive for 1988, no? Sure, everything's a little wobbly and the action's a little choppy, but overall a valiant triumph for our friends at Pixar. Once the deal was signed to develop a feature-length film, producers updated their initial conceptions of the characters and Tinny morphed into the flashier astronaut Buzz Lightyear. All seemed to be going swimmingly for the Pixar folks.

Until, of course, big bad Disney came in and crushed their adorably lifelike computer-animated dreams. The script was going through a too-many-cooks scenario, suffering through innumerable rewrites and changes. In 1993, Pixar presented to Disney series of storyboards backed by a rough soundtrack. The work-in-progress featured seriously hostile and bitterly sarcastic incarnations of Buzz and Woody. Not exactly the kind of characters you'd go home and beg your parents for expensive video games of their further exploits.

Needless to say, Disney hated it. In fact, they really, really hated it. So much so that they put the kibosh on production. After some begging and pleading, the Pixar team was given an ultimatum: turn this film into something that will put butts in the seats or you're out of the game.

Original storyboard panel from Toy Story. We can only assume this frame depicts the original a-hole Woody.

Disney was also clear about its aims as financial guardian angel: the movie better be a serious cash cow. Disney was seeing falling ticket sales and saw computer animation as a potential vehicle to rev up their sales. One of Disney's major requests (and criticisms of the first draft) was that the movie appeal to both children and adults. Back at the drawing board, Pixar developed quirky little personalities for a slew of toys baby boomers (read: the people buying the tickets) would relate to: GI Joes, Slinkys, Mr. Potato Heads, and so on. With a renewed sense of purpose, Pixar set out to get back on track with the project.

Scrapping much of the initial work, Pixar's animators and writers worked diligently to make the movie stop sucking so horribly. Enlisting the virgin voice talents of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, the movie began shaping up. By the time of its 1995 release, the film had been sufficiently desuckified and far surpassed Disney's expectations by becoming a runaway success.

After so many reformulations, rewrites, and re-animations, Pixar somehow managed to pull it off. The movie told the story of Woody, a walking, talking cowboy toy who reigned supreme as favorite toy in Andy's bedroom.



Unfortunately, someone a bit more heroic was lurking in the wrapped birthday gifts. Woody is displaced by Buzz Lightyear, a newer, flashier astronaut toy. Really, much flashier. I mean, the guy had lights. How do you even compete with that when your main claim to fame is a pull-string with a few crappy recorded phrases? As you can imagine Woody becomes incredibly jealous, aiming to eliminate Buzz and once again reclaim his throne as top toy.




Meanwhile, horrifyingly terrifying toy torturer kid next door Sid is blowing up army men and reconstructing doll/robot hybrids. Buzz vows they will give him his comeuppance, but the other toys are justifiably skeptical. I mean, did you see Sid? That kid is scary, man.



Woody and Buzz get lost on the way to a family outing to Pizza Planet, but manage to stow away in a delivery truck. Buzz mistakes the claw machine for his spaceship and the two are stuck inside. They are unluckily captured by the sadistic Sid, and forced to bear their fate with plastered-on painted grins.



As you can imagine, hilarious antics ensue and the pair are forced to buddy up to battle Sid Vicious and his evil dog Scud. Buzz finds out he's just a toy, not the real Buzz Lightyear as he'd originally imagined. Yadda Yadda Yadda, heartwarming bonding and a daring rescue mission later, the toys are again safe and sound in Andy's house. A happy ending, minus a new puppy with untapped toy torturing potential.

The film was an enormous critical and financial success and spawned an extremely popular sequel. So popular, in fact, that its financial input outstripped the original's by over $100 million. Now that's popular. And lucrative! Color me impressed, then computer animate me so I can get in on some of this cash.

Though Pixar has since moved on to new things, our Toy Story pals are far from forgotten. In fact, they will be returning to a theater near you sometime around summer 2010. Here's the trailer to hold you over until then. They're hyping it up a lot, which is hopeful. This extremely long-awaited sequel comes so late in the game that Andy is headed to college. My, how the computer animated years fly by.

Beavis and Butthead

As I sit here watching a can't-take-my-eyes-off-this-trainwreck marathon of MTV's 16 and Pregnant, I have to wonder what exactly is going on at MTV. First Date my Mom, and now this? What happened to the far-superior, significantly less lazy programming of my day? Back when I was a kid, MTV had a little intelligence, didn't it? And before you say something, yes, I'm old enough now to get all crotchety about this. Before you know it I'll be hiking my pants up to my eyelids and complaining about that damned newfangled rock music.

While I reminisce about my MTV glory days, I accidentally contradict my inital proclamation of the golden age of intellectually stimulating programming by entertaining the notion of the show Beavis and Butthead. I know, I know, I should be mentally conjuring something more promising for my things-were-better-in-my-day argument, but I can't help it. After all, I already wrote about Daria, who more than cornered the market on intelligent, sharp-witted MTV original programming. And since Daria spun off from Beavis and Butthead, I can only hope this reflects on the quality of Beavis and Butthead themselves. After all, that little delusion is certainly easier than admitting a teensy bit of hypocrisy.

Anyhow, the series featured its eponymous cartoon stars, deadbeat high schoolers with a shared penchant for extreme obnoxiousness.


Despite their young age, for some reason we never really encounter any sort of parental figures. Beavis and Butthead were pretty single-minded, er triple-minded. Their lives revolve around the pursuit of chicks, nachos, and hardcore heavy metal. After all, what good would heavy metal be without a side of chicks and nachos?

That was pretty much it. Oh wait, did I mention that Beavis had a ridiculous alter-ago named The Great Cornholio? Because that part is sort of important. Whenever Beavis got all hopped up on caffeine and sugar, he morphed into El Cornholio and began seizing up and speaking in tongues. That's normal, right? He raises his arms Evita-style, puts his shirt over his head, and in a vaguely Spanish accent declares boldly, "I am Cornolio!" Sometimes just for kicks he'd also discuss the need for TP for his bung-hole. Oh, and he comes from Lake Titicaca. Heh.

Observe, a montage:



If you sat through that full two minutes and 17 seconds, bravo. You have an extremely high threshold for pain and under-the-skin irritants. Kudos.

Butthead (first name Butt, last name Head) was more of a charmer with his signature, "Hey baby". Who could resist that alluring cad? Between the braces and that adorable "heh heh, heh heh" laugh, I can't settle on a best feature.

And...that's about it. They have a neighbor and a teacher or two who sporadically show up as supporting characters, but generally it's just the two of them wreaking widespread havoc. They occasionally are employed at fast food joint Burger World, though their general incompetence in a long-running theme. Behold, their general slackerish incompetence:



As you can probably gather, the appeal of these characters was baffling. For some reason, the show ran an astounding seven seasons. SEVEN. Meanwhile, gems like Freaks and Geeks run for one. Riddle me that one, nineties kids. Riddle me that. I'm sorry to say I'm a bit ashamed of our collective inability to appreciate witty shows in favor of cackling over a couple of oversize-headed kids in Metallica and ACDC t-shirts. For shame, children of the 90s. For shame.

Beavis and Butthead wasn't all stupid, of course. Beneath the veneer of rudeness and outright obnoxiousness lay a thinly concealed layer of social commentary and witty observations. Of course, B&B themselves were too oblivious to make these observations themselves. Rather, the social criticism was tied to the fabric of the show, emphasizing the stupidity, laziness, and anti-intelligence of youth culture. It was a pretty multi-faceted approach at social commentary, though it probably didn't do much for viewers in terms of elevating youth culture. If nothing else, it probably taught many of them to light stuff on fire and delight in general idiotic mayhem. Maybe I'm just a cynic, but I think that qualifies as missing the point.

It wasn't all fun and games for MTV, though. A young child burned down his family's mobile home, purportedly influenced by Beavis's maniacal obsession with lighting things on fire. It was certainly tragic, though you have to wonder where the boy's parents were during this whole thing. As with other controversial shows, movies, and games, parents often expressed outrage that these characters were being portrayed as an idealized example.

They weren't, of course. It was a pretty thin argument. MTV began running a caveat before the show, saying:

Beavis and Butt-head are not role models. They're not even human. They're cartoons. Some of the things they do could cause a person to get hurt, expelled, arrested, possibly deported. To put it another way: Don't try this at home.

At the end of the day, that was the moral of the story. They weren't humans. They were cartoons. They weren't people to aspire to emulate, they were fictional characters and moronic ones at that.

Beavis and Butthead got the full-length feature treatment in Beavis and Butthead Do America, where they continued to terrorize the nation with their unapologetic stupidity:



The movie boasts a surprising 72% positive rating at rottentomatoes.com, suggesting that perhaps their juvenile sense of humor was enjoyed by more people than would care to admit it. Like any guilty pleasure, B&B provided us with laughter for things that we knew deep down we probably should not find funny. But we did. Because it was funny. Beavis and Butthead may have been a pair of music video-ragging idiot savants, but they were a lot more perceptive than people gave them credit for. Inadvertently, that is. The show was ripe with contradictions, but then again, so is real life. Heh heh. Heh heh.

Father of the Bride

Once upon a time, when Steve Martin was not busy making ill-advised career moves like The Pink Panther 2 and Cheaper by the Dozen 3, he was out there making some genuinely funny movies. In fact, Martin has appeared in a few of my favorite films, notably 1991's Father of the Bride, a remake of the 1950 movie starring Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor. In the 1991 version, Martin plays ultimate protective dad George Banks, hilariously hesitant to marry off his 20-year old daughter to a man she met while studying abroad. Between his worries of weakening the father-daughter bond and the inevitable bankruptcy sure to result from his daughter's desired lavish wedding, Banks has his hands pretty full.

Back in the early 90s, a movie didn't need to be raunchy and racy to garner laughs from audiences; indeed, Father of the Bride was only rated PG. It had a real it's-funny-because-it's-true type of quality to it, playing on the traditional child coming of age story from a parent's perspective. Martin plays George Banks, a middle-aged owner of a sneaker factory happily married to wife Nina (Diane Keaton) and with two children, the aforementioned bride-to-be Annie (Kimberly Williams) and much younger/most-likely-a-mistake son Matty (Kieran Culkin, aka Macaulay lite).

Banks' world is shaken when Annie comes home from one semester abroad with startling news: she's engaged to some guy they've never met. Annie reassures her dad that her mysterious betrothed is a good guy and that he is gainfully employed as a "independent communications consultant", whatever that means. Mom Nina is ecstatic but George's reaction is noticeably subdued. If anything, he seems downright opposed. Then again, the kid is 22 and has known the guy for all of a couple of months. You can sort of see where he's coming from.

To give you an idea of Martin's mental picture of his daughter at 22, here's a handy clip:



So while Banks still sees his daughter as an adorable plaited 7-year old, he is forced to accept that she is here claiming to be a grown up with the autonomy to make these kinds of decisions.

This is all, of course, before mother and daughter can slap a big ol' price tag on the whole shebang. While George is pretty unnerved just at the thought of losing his precious baby girl to some common independent communications consultant, he is downright apoplectic at the staggering costs of putting on a big to do for his daughter's wedding. At the opening of the film, George says in voice-over, "I used to think a wedding was a simple affair. A boy and girl meet, they fall in love, he buys a ring, she buys a dress, they say 'I do.' I was wrong. That's getting married. A wedding is an entirely different proposition."

So as they are not particularly equipped to plan the whole thing on their own they enlist the help of flamboyant wedding planner Franck Eggelhoffer, a man of unknown national origins with a strange accent that can only be the work of Martin Short. Franck also has his assistant in tow, the inexplicably Asian-with-a-Jewish-named Howard Weinstein. The awkwardly ponytailed Weinstein is played by B.D. Wong, and you can imagine my surprise the day I realized that that was the psychologist guy from Law and Order: SVU. I'll never watch another analysis of an assaulted jogger or molested nanny in the same way.

Franck is...eccentric, to say the least, though it seems his intentions are good. At times it's actually impossible to tell what he is saying through his mysterious European accent, so I can only assume his intentions are good. Observe as George fails to understand a damn word this Fraaaanck character says:



On top of all that, when the Banks' go to meet their future in-laws, they find out that they are totally and completely loaded. Aside from their lavish digs in Bel-Air, the Mackenzies also spring for a brand new car as a gift for the happy couple. Unfortunately for George, it sort of trumps his measly gift of a cappucino maker:



Throughout the movie George is all about the nickel-and-diming, going so far as to get all giddy when he finds out one of their potential guests is in fact deceased. All the more money to feed those live ones. Rather than reveling in the celebration of this soon-to-be hopefully blessed union, George is horrified to find that for his own family to attend their own wedding at their own house comes with a whopping price tag of $1000. And they want to invite the wedding player? What's next, swans? Oh wait, that part comes later.



George gets a little wacko, going so far as to end up in jail in a mad quest for hot dog buns. He comes out of his wedding-induced insanity long enough to reunite the bride and groom after a quarrel, pleased to still be able to play the hero. We get a cute if admittedly corny montage of Annie throughout the years, and it finally appears George is ready to relinquish the reigns on his daughter.

After all is said and planned and hopefully paid for, the wedding day arrives with a surprise snowstorm in LA. Like there's any other kind of snowstorm in LA. Needless to say, the swans Franck brings in are pretty pissed. Despite the minor hiccups, the whole thing goes off without a hitch and the neurotic overprotective George actually manages to relax long enough to let his daughter get married.



Sure it's all a bit cheesy, but you have to admit overall it's pretty sweet. Somehow in the midst of George's craziness and Franck's eccentricity, things come together and the whole affair is so nice it's worth the $100,000 they spent on it. Well, almost.

Memorable SNL Sketches: Early 90s Edition:

Saturday Night Live in the early 90s was a flourishing comedic enterprise. The first season of the decade brought us many new stars including Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, and David Spade. Mixed in a with a group of old pros like Mike Myers, Kevin Nealon, Phil Hartman, and Dana Carvey (oh, I think there were some female cast members as well), the cast had a unique chemistry and produced consistently funny sketches. SNL in the early 90s featured several recurring sketch themes and characters (you can find some of them here). They seemed to adhere to the old adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Continue not fixing it for as many years as you can possibly milk a single concept...perhaps longer if necessary."

For the most part, the recurring sketches were pretty funny. To keep them fresh, the show's producers brought in flashy big-name cameos, sometimes to the surprise of the show's staff members. As a side effect of the sketches' enormous popularity, they spurned a generation's worth of annoying new catchphrases. Viewers seemed immune to the notion that things that are funny the first time from the mouth of a talented comedian are notably less funny when some regular joe says them over and over and over again. There are only so many times you could hear some shmoe claiming to be "verklempt" before wanting to spill a hot pot of Linda Richman's coffee all over him.

Though there were many, many humorous sketches during the early 90s, here are just a few of the most well-known and recognizable.


Coffee Talk with Linda Richman


Mike Myers actually based the character of Linda Richman on his mother-in-law, whose name was (wait for it) Linda Richman. I'm sure she was just ecstatic. As if relationships with mother-in-laws weren't tenuous enough, why not add an overblown and ridiculously mocking character based on the M-I-L herself to the mix? Well done, Myers.

Linda Richman hosted a show called "Coffee Talk" (pronouced "Cawfee Tawk" for those of you who don't have any older Jewish female relatives). Linda, full of middle aged New York Jewish wisdom, had huge hair, gaudy gold jewelry, and enormous darkened glasses. If you were to step into any deli in Boca Raton, no doubt you would find a hundred of these Linda Richman look-alikes munching on pastrami on marble rye. Myers' overblown stereotypical portrayal perfected the exaggerated New York accent and captured the essence of the modern Jewish mother.

Richman was famous for her many catchphrases. Whenever she was overcome with emotion, Linda would explain, "I'm getting verklempt." To help pass the time between her verklemptness and recovery, she would usually give us something to chat about. It went a little something like this:

"Rhode Island is neither a road nor is it an island. Discuss.""
"The chickpea is neither a chick nor a pea. Discuss."
"Duran Duran is neither a Duran nor a Duran. Discuss."

Richman and her cohorts occassionally took calls from viewers at home. Linda would announce, "Give a call, we'll talk, no big whoop." Linda Richman was absolutely obsessed with Barbra Streisand, who she frequently described as being "like buttah". Babs actually played a surprise visit to the show in a segment costarring Roseanne Barr and Madonna alongside Myers. Her appearance was planned by producers and kept secret from the actors, who somehow managed to stay in character while experiencing Streisand-induced heart attacks of joy:







Matt Foley, Motivational Speaker

I'm going to come right out and say it: I love Chris Farley. Not everyone is a fan of his shtick, but you have to admit that he knew how to drive a joke home. He consistently gave it his all and had no sense of propriety about going completely insane on camera. As Matt Foley, motivational speaker, Farley hammed it up in a plaid jacket, green tie, and thick glasses, constantly bent in an overly eager leaning-forward position.

Foley's brand of motivation was not particularly positive. In fact, it usually involved Foley speaking disparagingly about his own damned existence in which he was 35 years old, divorced, and living in a VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER. He told his audiences that they too would probably end up living in a VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER, throwing their comments back in their face with a triumphant "la-dee-FREAKIN'-da!" In this first sketch, Farley accidentally tripped and fell flat on his face, which was later turned into the sketch's recurring gag. Watch for David Spade's uncontrollable laughter:


Matt Foley-Motivational Speeker



Gap Girls

There was a lot of cross-dressing going on at the Saturday Night Live studio in the 90s. It seemed their theory was that every concept would be funnier if we used our male actors in drag instead of the many females actresses we have on hand. Pure brilliance, I tell you.

Admittedly some of the male cast members made better women than others. For instance, David Spade was moderately passable, whereas Adam Sandler was completely and utterly ridiculous. One of the more popular tranvestital* sketches featured Spade, Sandler, and Farley as the "Gap Girls", a group of ditzy, mall-ratty valley girls who folded jeans at the Gap. They characteristically giggled uncontrollably nails-on-chalkboard style at their own inane jokes. Their jokes were really, truly terrible. Just awful.

Whenever a customer came in with any sort of question, their advice was always the same, "Just cinch it!" as they tightened the belt to eye-bulging proportions. The clip below shows off the characters nicely, though their jokes about Michael Jackson are probably a smidge on the untimely side. If it offends you in anyway, just listen to Adam Sandler's character's counterargument. He (seen here as a "she") directly repeats what s/he heard on CourtTV, so you know it has to be true.





Pumping up with Hans and Franz
Kevin Nealon and Dana Carvey played Hans and Franz, two Austrian bodybuilders comically based on then-actor now-governator Arnold Schwarzenagger. On their set of life-size Schwarzenagger cutouts, Hans and Franz dispensed quasi-useful bodybuilding advice that usually consisted of openly mocking their clients and referring to them as "girly men".

Hans and Franz wore trademark grey sweatshirts complete with enormously padded fake muscles. They would issue their bodybuilding expertise with their trademark promise to pump (clap!) you up!



Hans and Franz finally received their comeuppance when the Terminator himself came and flexed a little pre-gubernatorial muscle:




Opera Man

Fake accents were another popular theme of 90s SNL recurring sketches, the vaguer the better. In fact, overblown accented English was nearly enough to pass for a foreign language. As was the case with Adam Sandler's Opera Man, an Italian operatic singer who belted out arias about current events.

Sandler wore a cape and was somewhat Dracula-esque in appearance. Well, technically he reminds me of the Count from Sesame Street, but maybe that's too embarrassing to admit. Then again, I just did, so maybe it's not as shameful as I'd imagined. Opera Man sang loud and ostentatiously in a language that sounded like Italian until you took a look at the subtitles flashing across the screen. In reality, he added a lot of Italian-esque suffixes to English words to make them sound Italiany. This is definitely one of those hit-or-miss ideas that could have crashed and burned into an unstoppable pile of mounting flames, but Sandler's comic timing was well-suited (okay, well-caped) to its silliness.




Church Chat

Dana Carvey's Church Lady character had quite the SNL lifespan, with sketches running from 1986-1992. In the sketches, Carvey played Enid Strict, an uptight, sanctimonious schoolmarm-type who openly chastises the alledged sinning behavior of her celebrity guests. While ordinarily other cast members would play the roles of celebrities, occasionally the celebs themselves would good-naturedly appear on Church Chat for some pious berating.

The Church Lady wore cats-eye glasses and drab knee-high hosiery and displayed a notable amount of bitterness and sarcasm. She was famous for her rhetorical, “Well, isn't that special?” and also for calling out celebrities with the phrase "How conveeeeeeeeeeenient!" For someone so supposedly full of Christian love, she was kind of a bitch.




Yes, the early 90s were a sort of renewed golden age for SNL, with its talented cast and memorable sketches. Sure, the writing wasn't exactly Pulitzer-worthy, but the actors had the comic chops to infuse life into the characters. To this day, we have to wonder what could have been had Chris Farley lived to make the Matt Foley, Motivational Speaker movie. Then again, what do we know? We'll probably just end up living in a VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER.


*This is a made-up word

Joe Camel

If you ever needed proof that we're fighting the wrong battles, look no further than the late 90s Joe Camel controversy. It's not that these moral crusaders didn't have good intentions, for no doubt they meant well. However, in their fixation on a single cartoon product spokescamel, they began to focus on symptom's of society's ills instead of the root cause. "If we could just get that blasted camel off of Playboy back covers," they thought, "No child will ever feel inclined to pick up a cigarette again."

Unfortunately for these folks, being The Man in telling the younger generation how to behave is probably the worst way to get them to acquiesce. In fact, the way most of us find out what's cool is by seeing what The Man brings down. That's not to say I'm calling cigarette smoking cool, of course. I'm no Joe Camel. That cartoon was one smooth character.

If nothing else, this media crusade only reasserts how uptight Americans are. This is what we do. We see that there are many problems that can not be fixed. Instead of picking a problem to focus on, we pick a tiny aspect of that problem from which to launch a media maelstrom of outrage and discontent. What can we say? We were too lazy to take a swing a solving the problem of youth smoking, so we cast out our excessive anger dart and target whichever minuscule point the dart pin pricks.

Admittedly I'm being a tad facetious. The Joe Camel ads, while certainly not as detrimental to society as moral watchdog groups would claim, absolutely came with myriad of mixed messages. The original Joe Camel ads (commemorating the company's 75th anniversary) featured the tagline, "75 Years and Still Smokin'". Perhaps this isn't the most welcome complement to anti-smoking programs in schools warning of emphysema and lung disease, but then again the ad isn't claiming that after 75 years you'll still be smoking. It's all in the semantics, you see.


Though the first to come under fire (from the media, that is, not lighters), Joe Camel was certainly not the only cartoon smokesanimal. From the 1930s through early 60s, Kool cigarettes had an adorable little anthropomorphic penguin hawking their goods.



A closer look into the Joe Camel Campaign shows it's pretty unlikely these ads were somehow intentionally aimed at children. A 1991 New York Times article explains

He has a penchant for dressing up in stereotypical masculine gear like hard hats, T-shirts, skin-diving wet suits and tuxedos -- all meant to appeal to the male smokers who predominate among Camel customers.

First of all, that sentence is ridiculous. It implies all real men go around alternating between their hardhats and tuxedos before a quick scuba diving jaunt. Obviously on all sides of the Joe Camel argument, serious amounts of exaggeration were in play.



The article also suggests that critics wanted to, er, penalize the character for its supposedly inappropriate traits:

Among the most contentious aspects of Joe Camel's appearance has been that nose. Reynolds has always said this protuberance is nothing more than an exaggerated rendering of a camel's nose; critics say it was drawn in a phallic fashion to suggest that smoking is a virile pursuit.

I have to say I'd never heard that one before, but my God, these people are Freudian. Okay, let's break this down. We've got a penis-nosed camel wearing sunglasses and a tuxedo, surrounded by fawning beautiful women, and proclaiming himself to be a "smooth character". This doesn't sound much like something to appeal to ignorant and impressionable young children. It sounds like something to appeal to ignorant and impressionable young men.

In all likelihood, the actual intent of the campaign was to be edgy and hip in a seriously calculated way. Sure, it's certainly an offense, but it doesn't mean they're trying to stuff cigs into the unsuspecting mouths of 3-year olds. Apparently not everyone felt this way. In this Bill Maher clip, an oddly mismatched group of interviewees discuss the controversial cartoon camel:



Regardless of Baptist Minister Tony Campolo's accusations against Camel, I beg to argue comic Kevin Nealon says it best in this segment: "If they influence kids, then why aren't more kids, like, riding camels?" Hmm. Probing question, favorite Weekend Update host. Why weren't more kids, like, riding camels?

The Journal of the American Medical Association stepped in and dealt the final blow to the thriving Joe Camel campaign. They produced a study that claimed that more kindergartners could recognize the Joe Camel character than Mickey Mouse or Fred Flintstone. First of all, that's really great news for these ad people. Secondly, maybe these researchers should have chosen some more contemporary characters.

The whole affair exploded in a highly-publicized trial, as testimonials claimed that the company was targeting young people because they were the most viable consumers with the most potential for growth. Well, as we said in the 90s, duh. That's how advertising works. We advertise to the people who will maximize our profit margins. It's not exactly rocket science.



Under pressure, the company pulled the ads, paid some money for anti-smoking campaigns, and replaced their spokescamel with a decidedly less cute generic camel silhouette. It just goes to show you: if you make a big enough fuss about some misguided notion, you can use a great deal of time, money, and effort formulating vicious allegations against a supposed wrong-doer and eventually bringing them down. Apparently a great victory for the moral crusaders of the world, the suave Joe Camel character was permanently benched. Thank God for that, too. We wouldn't want our kids exposed to obscene phallic-nosed caricatures.

Yes, I acknowledge that cigarette companies do a whole lot of wrong. That point is relatively moot. I just don't think that producing a suave hardhatted camel is one of them. Unlike today's more direct and effective anti-smoking campaigns, this didn't focus on stopping kids from smoking; instead, it sought to eliminate a character that children may potentially find appealing that could eventually lead to their interest in smoking. Not exactly a direct route there, is it?

Before They Were Stars: Celebrities' TV Commercial Pasts

Image via Orlandosentinel.com

Everyone has to get their start somewhere. Once upon a time, our current celebrities were children and teenagers still yearning to prove their worth to the entertainment industry. Lucky for them, appearing in television commercial spots is a great way to get noticed and jump-start a burgeoning career. Lucky for us, many of these clips are now available online for our perusing and light mocking pleasure.

Seeing footage of celebrities before they hit their fame stride is a sort of unnerving phenomenon. On one hand, it gives you a bit of that well-once-upon-a-time-they-were-just-normal-kids kind of feeling. On the other, you realize that they've always been attractive and special and brimming with a level of star quality you couldn't even imagine possessing.

You want to believe they're just ordinary people, but even in their youth they were spectacular. While the rest of us were getting fitted for thick-framed glasses and sleeping in orthodontic headgear, these happy-go-lucky future celebrities were carefreely frolicking on our TV sets, hawking desirable products.

Without further speculation on how little the rest of us had accomplished by the time these pretty young things already had a hefty work portfolio in hand, I present a handpicked compilation of delightful before-they-were-incredibly-huge-stars-beyond-the-reaches-of-our-wildest-fantasies. Enjoy!



Paul Rudd for SuperNintendo



Okay, okay, so Rudd definitely isn't a kid in this one, but it was certainly before the hit his career prime. A young lad in his early 20s, Rudd's cheesy overly impressed expressions are truly priceless. When you compare this zealous enthusiasm with his contemporary deadpan humor, there is quite a divide. I love that frightened, sort of paranoid look on his face. It's like he's thinking, "Ohmygod this video game is so so so fun...but wait! What is that booming voice? That ominous wind? That increasingly dark commercial set?" He just looks like he can't believe he's getting away with playing video games while wearing a blazer. Well played, Paul Rudd. Literally.



Leonardo DiCaprio for Bubble Yum


This really is a quintessentially 90s commercial. That dialogue? That flannel shirt? That boombox? Oh, that boombox. Our boy Leo is up there giving it his all, illustrating the superior unpoppability of Bubble Yum in comparison to industrial-grade sound speakers. Pure 90s brilliance.




Sarah Michelle Gellar for Burger King



Don't be fooled by SMG's adorably innocuous appearance; this commercial was perceived as highly controversial for its time. Sure, compared to today's vicious attack ads this seems pretty tame, but back in the day this was considered a pretty heavy slam. In this 1981 ad spot, Burger King (via miniature spokesperson Sarah Michelle Gellar) contended that McDonald's burgers contained 20% less meat. I know, it's awful. I'm still getting over it.

Unlike today's openly aggressive ads, retro commercials featured the niceties of passive aggressive anonymity in their bashing of rival companies. This ad may seem pretty benign by today's standards, but it was indeed among the first commercials to bash a competitor by name. That's right: they named names. Burger King would have made out awesome during the Red Scare. Gellar herself even appeared in court to bear 4 year-old witness, if that makes any sense. I smell a publicity stunt. And a delicious, delicious, 20% meatier burger.




Brad Pitt for Levis



That swoonworthy floppy 90s hair really drove the girls wild. In the ad, Pitt plays a prisoner being released back into the wild, upon which he is immediately met by a super-attractive brunette in a skintight dress and convertible. The girl throws him his Levis and the warden looks on creepily as puts them on and publicly displays affection for this mystery woman. I really love their impromptu photo shoot, too. You sort of have to wonder what he was in for that he seems so carefree and unaffected by his stay in prison. My vote is for driving while intoxicatingly attractive.

This was not the only commercial in Pitt's youth; he'd also done a TV spot a few years earlier for Pringles potato chips. The quality is sort of pixelated, but perhaps its just to cover the obscene amazingness of Brad's shirtless physique. The height of his hair in this ad nearly rivals its Burn Before Reading proportions.

Brad Pitt for Pringles





Jessica Biel for Pringles



Brad Pitt wasn't the only future star who, once popped, could not find it within himself to stop. Jessica Biel also showed up in a Pringles ad a view years later. The clip above is a fairly recent one with Biel on the Letterman show, but be patient. I swear they show the commercial eventually and even handily smack a red arrow on the screen to identify Biel. She also describes the audition process, which seems to err slightly on the side of bizarre. They wanted to make sure she could adequately move a Pringle from one side of her mouth to another. I'm sure Biel gets that sort of thing all the time.




Lindsay Lohan for Jello



Ah, remember the days when Lindsay Lohan was but an adorable auburn-headed sprite? Say what you will about the oft-misguided starlet now, but back in the day she could certainly hold her own bopping around next to Mr. Cosby himself. Our freckly little pal was just bursting with enthusiasm, sporting a near-maniacal smile. I suppose I'd be pretty excited to if Mr. Huxtable let me hang out and chat gelatin snacks with him, too.




Steve Carell for Brown's Chicken


This 1989 ad reflects all that is good about Steve Carell--his open charm, his easygoing manner, his love for chicken. The whole thing comes off as very Michael Scott to me, though perhaps I tend to blur the line between Carell and his character during my many idling hours of Office DVD-watching.

This ad, shot low-budgetly on location at a local Chicago Brown's Chicken, is certainly evident of humble beginnings. At the time, Carell was a part of the acclaimed Second City comedy troupe. Unluckily for him, this role didn't quite let him show off his comedy chops. It did, however, enlighten us about the cholesterol-free goodness of cottonseed oil. Mmmm, cottonseed oil.




Kirstin Dunst for Baby Dolly Surprise



Just look at little Kirsten in her polygamist cult-grade floppy lace-collared dress. She's one hair pouf away from being a mini-Chloe Sevigny on Big Love. I do love her little blonde 'fro, though. Whatever happened to curly Kirsten? You sort of have to wonder if she had some perm-crazy stage parents. Luckily, the phase seemed to have passed by the time she was interviewed by a vampire. A very, very good-looking vampire.



It just goes to show that stars really aren't just like us, no matter what counter-evidence US Weekly tries to peddle. For most, it was a quick hop, skip, and a jump from adorable child to devastatingly good-looking adult. Until those long lost awkward phase bar-mitzvah photos show up, we'll just have to settle for admiring them from afar.

Aqua

There's a lot to say for a musical act whose breakthrough hit was a techno remix of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider". There's probably even more to say for that band going on to produce the most successful Danish record to date. Either they have some mystical unspoken musical quality that we have yet to discover and qualify, or the Danish music scene is really, really, bad.

Popular music is a funny thing. Extremely talented musicians work a lifetime churning out soul-baring musical manifesto after soul-baring musical manifesto with no quantifiable following to speak of. On the other hand, a few Danes can throw together a little ditty about a leggy blonde doll and ride the waves of success, fortune, and fame, for many many years (note: this rule also applies to Swedes. See Base, Ace of).

That's not to imply that Aqua's music was not catchy. If anything, it was overly so. To listen to one of their many international chart-topping hits was to commit yourself to at least a day with their tinny, electronicized voices reverberating in your skull. The 90s music scene inexplicably embraced trashy Europop, opening their arms and ears to incessant pounding beats backed up by male rappers and hypnotizing female singers.

The skills necessary to be a part of one of these acts are pretty questionable. Bubblegum pop was a burdgeoning genre, and thus it seemed any vaguely eccentric former DJ or moderately good-looking specimen of 90s Eurotrash could become a star. Whatever the reason, the Danish Aqua managed to finagle their way into the limelight.

Image via Billboard.com

To show just how flexible the musical integrity of these types of artists are, it's pertinent to point out that our good pals in Aqua were quick to change their tune (literally) after a few failed ventures. With the quick rise and fall of their single Itzy Bitzy Spider, the group reconsidered their initial formulation as JOYSPEED and sought to adopt a lighter, sunnier, poppier style.

In case you're just dying to hear JOYSPEED's nursery rhyme gone techno, here's the audio to their original track release. Spoiler alert: The itsy bitsy spider crawls up the spout again in the end.





The single contains artistically crafted lyrics like:

Always on a mission in every little corner
of the wall so tall, of the wall so tall,
with his sexy legs and hairy back

Excuse me? That part was not in my nursery rhyme.

After their techno child's play gone awry, JOYSPEED was eager for an image change. With a new manager they became Aqua, lords and ladies of the European bubblegum pop scene. While they enjoyed moderate success with their first few singles*, their crowning achievement (and this is more of a claim to shame than claim to fame) was the immense success of their inane hit, Barbie Girl.

Presented in "Aquascope" for your viewing pleasure:

Note: those foreign subtitles are not a part of the original video, but YouTube is on major embeddable trademark video crackdown and it will have to suffice.

This song has quite a few mild sexual references, but it wasn't exactly earth-shatteringly shocking subject matter. The music video was campy, but then again, so was the song. It was light, moderately spoofy, and generally pretty benign. Its only real offense was on our eardrums.

Mattel, however, begged to differ. In a terribly ill-advised legal move, Mattel sued MCA records. Apparently their slinging of phrases like "blonde bimbo" and "let's go party" didn't sit well with all the Mattel product managers seeking to make Barbie into a dentistry-practicing elementary school teaching Olympic gymnast.

Mattel sued MCA for alleged infringement of copyright and some form of defamation of (fictional) character. MCA retaliated by slapping Mattel with their own defamation suit, claiming the company was sullying the company's good name. All this over a Barbie parody, and a poor one at that. Just imagine what would have happened if they'd pulled Skipper and Midge into the mix. That Midge was nothing but trouble.

Lucky for the integrity of the American judicial system, Judge Alex Kozinski dismissed the case and sagely stated, "The parties are advised to chill." How's that for straightforward legalese?

Aqua continued churning out irritatingly bubblegum popping hits off their multi-platinum album Aquarium. Among them, Dr. Jones enjoyed relative popularity and sat comfortably atop many countries' popular music charts. Dr. Jones has Indiana Jones-esque undertones that are most evident in the video. I never knew that until I just watched it for the first time, but I did know that this song keeps me going on the treadmill. You should try it. If anything, your body will run faster for hope of escape.




You do sort of have to admire how plot-heavy their videos were. You really get a feel for the characters.

Another follow-up single released in the US was Lollipop (Candyman), which featured adorable lyrics like:

I wish that you were my Lollipop.
Sweet things, I will never get enough.
If you show me to the sugar tree,
will you give me a sodapop for free?

Oh no. The internal repetition has begun. It's uncontrollable, really. If you dared venture to press play on that video, your brain is now screaming out repeatedly, "Oh my love - I know you are my Candyman" and "You are my lollipop - sugar sugar top." I think we can all see why this album went multi-platinum, what, with brilliant lyrical twists like those.

Aqua's success was intense but justifiably short-lived. Though they did continue to release music (including some uncharacteristic slow jams), the magic quickly waned and the group split in 2001. If nothing else, they deserve a joint award for most Europop-ish band member names and most accent marks used in a listing of band members: between Lene Nystrøm, Claus Noreen, René Dif, and Søren Rasted, they certainly had that edge of the market cornered.

The band's profundity measure may have been admittedly low, but their overall Eurodance schtick will forever live in our memories. Mainly because try as we might, we will never, ever be able to get these songs out of our heads.


*I will admit, however, that in their first big European single "Roses are Red" I really enjoy the way she sings "Roses are red and wiiooooolets are blue." Wiolets. I love it. It's like my IKEA assembly guide come to life.

The Brady Bunch Movie

It's odd to think that a satirical movie based on a 70s sitcom could be so prototypically 90s, but The Brady Bunch Movie seemed to defy these decade-spanning odds; the movie oozed 90sness from its every frame. The entire premise was based on the contrast--the groovy, carefree 70s versus the dark, grungy, Gen-X-infested 90s. Let the jabs begin.

The Brady Bunch Movie was a mish-mosh of many of the sitcom's episodes and storylines woven into a 90 minute movie, turning every cheesy Brady trope into an easy punchline. The movie was not cruel or malicious in its mockery of the original series. In fact, original series' creator and producer Sherwood Shwartz served as writer and producer on the 1995 cinematic reincarnation. The film managed to successfully poke fun at the original series without shredding it apart. Well, without completely shredding it apart. In truth, the Brady family became fairly easy retrospective comic targets.

Of course, to get away with this brand of parody required extreme attention to detail. The only real way to give the Bradys their satirical due was to exaggerate the characters while staying (mostly) true to their original traits and mannerisms. After all, the very notion of satire requires humor and irony based on the original work. Hence, the 1995 movie makers worked tirelessly to adhere as much as possible to the look and feel of the original show:

Original series opening (5th season):



The Brady Bunch Movie opening:


As you can imagine, a lot of effort must have gone into the casting process to find suitable matches for each of the original actors. The new actors, though certainly in caricatures of the original roles, stayed true to the (usually) good intentions of their characters (hints of the step-sibling romance between Greg and Marcia probably don't qualify, unless we're looking at the original actors' real-life romance). Mike and Carol are still perky and sunny as ever, unironically sporting embarrassingly loud and overblown 70s clothing and hairstyles. All six kids are as unequivocally innocent and wholesome as in the series, and housekeeper Alice remains equally devoted to the family on no discernible pay. Though their roles may be exaggerated, the movie portrays them pretty accurately to their original forms. Their surroundings, however, have certainly taken a turn.

Cut to the 90s, chock full of flannel, grunge, garage bands, cynicism, and a splash of greed for good measure. The Bradys, campy as ever, seem utterly oblivious to the disparity of their surroundings. Admittedly, some fare better than others. Marcia, for instance, still gets to coast along on her looks, proving once and for all that beauty transcends time and allows people to overlook an untimely love for The Monkees' Davy Jones. Greg, on the other hand, is striking out with his frighteningly bad 70s singing aspirations, and Mike's continual architectural output of buildings that look suspiciously like the Brady's house is certainly suspect. Not to mention that Jan is bat-poopy crazy, seeking advice from her school counselor (RuPaul) and battling devious inner voices.

The general plot of the movie involves the state of the Brady's swingin' 70s digs, as villainous neighbor Mr. Dittmeyer seeks to develop the neighborhood into a shopping mall. Mr. Dittmeyer, by the way, is played by the ever-fabulous Michael McKean. If you have not done so already (heathens!), I implore you to go out there and rent Spinal Tap. I'll wait. No really, I'll be here when you get back.

Assuming you're now keen on McKean, I can only guess that you too see the brilliance of his casting in the role of greedy, plotting villain. Lucky for Dittmeyer, the family is teetering on the edge of foreclosure upon learning that they owe an astronomical $20,000 in unpaid taxes. In typical gung-ho Brady fashion, each child is determined to do his or her part to bring in the cash.

Observe as Jan and Marcia compete for modeling contracts to earn money to keep their family afloat. It doesn't end quite as lucratively as they would have hoped:



Of course, this isn't even the tip of the iceberg of their over-the-top sibling rivalry. In a fantasy gone awry Jan envisions herself cutting Marcia's hair during her sleep, though of course the ever-perfect Marcia comes out of it more beautiful than ever:




In true Brady rah-rah spirit, the family was determined to keep a positive attitude. In Brady-speak, however, this means going to the local Sears and throwing together an impromptu little musical number:



While you try to get "Sunshine Day" out of your head, I'll go on. Oh, and while all of this is happening, Marcia's juggling sleazy lecherous guys and unknowingly dodging the girl-on-girl advances from her friend, Noreen. Cute, right? There's your point of 70s-to-90s interaction right there. Anyway, Marcia steals Jan's idea to enter a Search-for-the-Stars competition and bring their family's 70s-tastic musical act onstage for a chance at $20,000. Convenient, I know. Jan is pretty pissed and proceeds to run off and is picked up by a truck driver played by the show's original Alice. What happens next requires a suspension of disbelief of Brady-esque proportion:



See, once Greg is willing to put aside his flashy rainbows-and-unicorns Johnny Bravo alter-ego, he can certainly churn out a Star Search-worthy song. Also, you've just gotta love Mike's long-winded moral lectures. Once the kids are finally free from Mike and Carol's verbal tyranny, they get the chance to go head-to-head with angsty garage bands with sweet names like "Phlegm". Peter's voice drops, and the show goes off without a hitch--spangly technicolored costumes and all. In a stroke of plot-necessitating luck, the Monkees are judging the contest and unanimously vote a straight Brady ticket.

(In case you were dying of Brady nostalgia curiosity, here's the original "Keep On" Talent Show clip to which the above performance alludes:)

Brady Bunch "Keep On"


As far as happy endings go, this just-in-the-nick of time conclusion takes the cake. Between Saved by the Bell's Mr. Dewey playing the auctioneer, a campy neighborly let's-all-be-friends-and-not-sell-out-to-the-evil-Mr-Dittmeyer scene, and a cameo from "Grandma" Florence Henderson (the original Mrs. Brady), it all wraps up pretty well.



Was it a cinematic masterpiece? No. Is it an enduring piece of movie history that will be archived for posterity? Probably not. It is, however, a fun and lighthearted look at both the original Brady Bunch sitcom and the time of the movie's release in the 1990s. The parody didn't just poke fun at the campy 70s TV family, it took equal jabs at the angst-ridden cynicism of the 90s. In the end, both are pretty equally worthy of satire.