John Hughes Lied to Us About High School (And We Believed Him) | Original Geek | S1E11

John Hughes shaped how Gen X understood high school — for better and worse.

In this episode, we revisit his iconic films and ask which ones still hold up, which don’t, and what they say about growing up in the 1980s. Nostalgia meets adult reality.

Topics include: John Hughes films, 80s movies, teen films, Gen X culture, pop culture history.

Welcome to Original Geek—the podcast for anyone who rolled their first d20 on shag carpet, waited hours for a comic book JPEG to load on dial-up, and wore the label “geek” back when it got you mocked, not monetized.

Hosted by stand-up comic Steve Scarfo and Forever DM Jeff Shaw, we dive deep into what it meant to be a geek in the '70s and '80s—and how that underground culture became the mainstream multiverse we live in today.

🎙️ Subscribe for bi-weekly episodes on Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars, comic book chaos, geek court debates, and critical hits from your childhood basement.

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Transcript

Steve Scarfo (00:20)
Right. Welcome back to Original Geek. This is the podcast for anyone who rolled dice in the basement, waited all night long for comic book covers to download and proudly wore the label of geek back when it could get you shoved into a locker. Each week, we're going to dive deep into what it meant to be a geek in the 70s and 80s and how that compares to this pop culture multiverse we live in today.

Who are we? Well, we're your hosts. We're two of the Gen X survivors who didn't just watch geek culture evolve. We live through every awkward phase. Hi, I'm Steve Scarfo

Jeff (00:53)
And I'm Jeff Shaw and we'll be your Saturday morning detention for today's coming of age story. What's our topic today, Steve?

Steve Scarfo (01:01)
Well, Jeff, you know, what if I told you that the entire teenage experience of the 80s could be summed up in one man's movies, but his but his name wasn't Spielberg or Lucas? Not going to buy it. What do think about? Come on, you know, it's John Hughes. That's it. And it's a good name because there were great movies in there. But I want to do a quick shout out to Josh Janvran.

Jeff (01:08)
I wouldn't believe you.

Still... No. NO!

Okay, that's the one name I will accept.

Steve Scarfo (01:30)
⁓ at Josh Janvaron 2254 on ⁓ YouTube on one of our very first, I think our very first episode. Josh made a request for these kinds of movies, Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles. ⁓ And we have been talking about jumping on this and doing this for a little while. So, Josh, this one's for you. Thanks for the suggestion. And it's.

Jeff (01:52)
Josh,

former student. That's hilarious. I had no idea. That's so funny.

Steve Scarfo (01:55)
Is that one of your former students? Yeah.

my goodness. I didn't know he was a student of yours. So even a double bonus. ⁓ So Josh was the person who requested this. I found the comment. I apologize, Josh. I tried to call you out a couple of times and I couldn't find it. But that's just because, ⁓ yeah, I'm just getting old.

Jeff (02:01)
Hahaha

Yeah

Well, thanks Josh

for being a listener. Really appreciate that.

Steve Scarfo (02:21)
Yeah, please keep telling, tell your friends, keep, keep dropping these ideas because this is a great one. Jeff and I talked about this after we ⁓ read the comment the first time. And this is an amazing topic because let me list the movies. OK, so this is one man's movies in one decade.

Jeff (02:23)
Spread the word.

Steve Scarfo (02:40)
16 Candles in 1984, The Breakfast Club in 1985, Weird Science in 1985, Ferris Bueller's Day Off 1986, Planes, Trains and Automobiles in 1987, She's Having a Baby in 1988, and Uncle Buck in 1989. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Hit movies in one decade.

with at least one year he had two of the, well to me the best movies of the decade in one year. And I think they were pretty popular Gen X movies of the 80s.

Jeff (03:16)
Well, and then if you

include ones that he wrote but did not direct the National Lampoon's vacation, European vacation, Christmas vacation, ⁓ mean, ⁓ what's that McCulloch, Culkin, Home Alone? mean, Home Alone, like is, I think that's one of the best selling comedies of all times. just, ⁓ everyone, like every Christmas people have to watch that movie. ⁓

Steve Scarfo (03:31)
Home Alone, he wrote Home Alone.

it's iconic

and had several sequels.

Jeff (03:45)
Yeah, Pretty in Pink. ⁓ Yeah, he's got and there's a ton of other writing credits that I'm just not even be able to think of off the top of my head. That's just what I came up off the top of my head, because I love those vacation movies. They're so good.

Steve Scarfo (03:48)
Yeah.

⁓ I can't do the quote anymore. But in the Christmas vacation, when he loses his mind, Clark loses his mind and he takes the chainsaw to the Newell Post. That is one of the best rants of all time in a movie to me. We can. I just don't remember the rant. No, no, I would say every all I remember is four flushing at some point in time.

Jeff (04:10)
Yes.

What we can't swear on this. OK. ⁓ It's good.

It's good because I was hoping to quote plane trains and automobiles later.

Steve Scarfo (04:30)
No, no, I

will say the one line I remember from that is, we're gonna have the hap-happ-happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap dance with Danny fucking K. His face is so red. ⁓ It's classic and it's, you know, it is, ⁓ it's a great topic because.

Jeff (04:39)
Yes

Yes, that rant is so good.

I mean, I think he he owned the 80s for like comedy, certainly teenage movies and comedy. Not that they're one of their great ones, better off dead, say anything. There's some other great. But his just are enduring stand the test of time. People still know them. Quote them. Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (05:15)
yeah.

Well, I mean, there was, he had a formula and it worked. You know, it was the fight of the underdog. I mean, look at Breakfast Club. It's an amalgam of underdogs. Even the jock character turns out to be an underdog in his group. Obviously, Weird Science was just underdog story. Ferris Bueller's Day Off was probably the,

I don't know if he was an underdog, but he was the underdog. But he was the support system for Cameron. Cameron aspired to be Ferris. ⁓

Jeff (05:41)
He was not an underdog. Cameron, his friend was. Yeah.

Everybody

loved him. The geeks, the dweebs, the druggies, going the principal's admin. That Ferris Bueller was one righteous dude.

Steve Scarfo (06:03)
Yes.

One righteous dude. That's good. I like that. Did she really? ⁓ There's some cool stuff I got. ⁓ So for Ferris Bueller's Day Off, ⁓ the girlfriend ⁓ Mia Sarah played the part, Sloane. ⁓ Molly Ringwald wanted to be that part.

Jeff (06:09)
She improvised that, which is pretty cool. Yeah, I read that.

Steve Scarfo (06:32)
And it's funny as I look back and you kind of knew he used the same three or four actors a lot Anthony Michael Hall Molly Ringwald. He had John Cusack. I didn't know this. So I just did a rewatch of 16 Candles and John Cusack, who was probably he was the king of the 90s and Joe Cusack. They were like the leaders of the 90s movies and they started in 16 Candles.

Jeff (06:40)
Yeah, he did.

I know it's his premiere and Joan Cusack. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (07:02)
And I guess Viggo Mortensen was gonna be Jake Ryan. The crush, the love interest. Yes, Aragorn would have been, and guess Molly Ringwald did a screen test kiss with him and really wanted him for the part. ⁓ She was hot for that Aragorn sword. ⁓

Jeff (07:08)
Really? Huh.

Wow.

See if he

would just burst into that church scene. Like Aragon would have been awesome.

Steve Scarfo (07:28)
But

this, ah. But all right, so I think maybe it's time to drop into the past just a little bit. What do think?

Jeff (07:39)
Yeah, let's do it.

All right, flashing back.

Steve Scarfo (07:52)
I think our intro is a bit of a flashback to start with. So I want to call something out. You said in the first episode, and I'm going to push it back to you when I when I think you might be heading there, I don't know. But you actually said that our group of friends was like the Breakfast Club.

Jeff (07:56)
Hahaha

Yes, except Boyd was Ferris Bueller. And as I rewatched Ferris Bueller, I realized, okay, when I watched The Breakfast Club in that time period as a teen, I wanted to be Bender and was really Brian. And Ferris Bueller, I wanted to be Ferris. I was Cameron. I was so Cameron and I have a story. Because as I'm watching this and I'm thinking of Boyd as Ferris.

Steve Scarfo (08:32)
Yes. yes.

⁓ did it?

Jeff (08:44)
I think about a time, and just like for Ferris Bueller for those who like need a refresher, Cameron was sick the same time Ferris was actually pretending to be sick. And Ferris didn't wanna be alone, so he wanted Cameron to come over. Cameron didn't wanna go over, he just wanna stay in bed and sleep. Cameron and ends up going over, against what he said he wanted. ⁓ Ferris Bueller wants to take Cameron's dad's Ferrari, which only has 100.

and 27 miles on it. And he's like, no, you can't take this Ferrari He said, no, no, no. Next thing we know, he's driving that Ferrari away. Cameron says no. Ferris says yes. Cameron loses. I'm the Cameron. Boyd's the the Ferris. And I can't remember because Boyd hardly ever got in trouble. But for some reason, he was grounded from using his motorcycle.

and it was one of those Japanese motorcycles. So one of those fast ones. There we go. he was forbidden from riding it. I did not want to drive this thing. I just did not want, all he wanted me do was drive it to the end of the street where he would pick it up and ride away.

Steve Scarfo (09:47)
he had a Kawasaki Ninja 800.

I remember this!

Jeff (10:11)
He just needs to be driving to the end of the street. That's all he needed. It was very reasonable request that I did not want to do at all. So I got on his motorcycle, got a lesson in how to use his motorcycle, rev that thing up, went across the street, literally crashed on the opposite his driveway, his motorcycle.

Steve Scarfo (10:14)
Ha ha ha!

my god.

Jeff (10:37)
Now it only broke like,

⁓ know, the mirror and scratched up some stuff. And he's like, he's so pissed. like, I did not want to do this.

Steve Scarfo (10:42)
I think it scratched up the fair ends, yeah.

Yes,

I tried to tell you. By the way, for anyone who's not ridden a motorcycle, that's not enough instruction. It was literally three minutes.

Jeff (10:59)
I just, oh God, so as much in these breakfast club and, you know, and then like in weird science, I didn't want to be one of those characters, but I'm trying to think if there was any other character I was. Anyway. I was long done talking. Yes, automobile.

Steve Scarfo (11:19)
I haven't thought of you as long, Dong. Yeah,

that... I was thinking about...

Jeff (11:31)
Oh, you know what? And then in 16 candles,

actually, even though he was nerdy, he was so self Anthony Michael Hall can't his character name was, but like. Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (11:41)
Can I tell you his character name?

It was The Geek.

Jeff (11:46)
That's right. That's right. He didn't have a damn. He was the geek.

Steve Scarfo (11:48)
His name, he did not, in

the movie they call him Ted, but when you look at the, in the credits, he's just listed as the geek.

Jeff (11:53)
that's

right. That's right. So any but he was so he was so confidently geeky. I actually admired that.

Steve Scarfo (12:06)
Yeah, I thought it was one of the things I was going to talk about for this segment was was Anthony Michael Hall specifically because I only came to this realization, I think, in the last few weeks while we've been talking about this episode and I've been rewatching some of the movies. ⁓ He was sort of the geek icon for the 80s because in that list of movies. Breakfast Club, he's the geek. Weird Science, he's the geek.

16 candles. He's the geek. Every movie that he's in, he plays that quintessential geek. Vacation. He's the geek. He's the underdog. And he wins. In every one of those movies, one of the better character arcs, one of the only, you know, there's a few character arcs and Hughes does a great job with characters who evolve.

Jeff (12:39)
vacation.

Steve Scarfo (12:57)
⁓ I don't want to dig into story methods or whatever too deep but like one of the things I love in the movies when you see a character start in point A and actually make it to point B and point B is some sort of ⁓ elevation of who they were right. He becomes it's not a huge deep emotional journey right but he becomes a little less geeky a little more.

aware of himself. In 16 Candles, it's that big, it's tiny, it's a very small jump. But like Breakfast Club, he evolves and you know, obviously, again, it's not a huge jump in vacation because a lot of the humor comes from that awkwardness.

Jeff (13:38)
Okay, so who were you in these movies? Because I've said who I am. Well, who I wanted to be and who I was more like.

Steve Scarfo (13:47)
I mean, I think I can't.

I don't want to have everybody's he's just going to say the same shit. But the reality is I was probably the Anthony Michael Hall character and pretty much all of those. You know what I mean? I wanted to be the jock. I wanted to be Estevez, ⁓ the wrestler guy that was, you know, I didn't want to be Bender. I wanted to be like the jock popular kid. I tried to play football. just wasn't, you know, I did track. I threw shot put. I was never great at any of it. ⁓ I loved

it but I was just not good at it but I was definitely more you know and I don't remember his name in Breakfast Club but I was definitely him. ⁓ I was probably either of the two guys in Weird Science if we have to pick because I certainly wasn't Chet ⁓ so if I had to pick it would have to be one of those I don't like I think you said I don't want to pick a Weird Science character. ⁓ 16 Candles I actually think I would have been the John Cusack character.

Jeff (14:49)
yeah. Yes, me too.

Steve Scarfo (14:50)
one of the two brothers right ⁓

the geeky tech nerd they always had their still look at us they had their head gear on i just remember them they walked up to the party and they had like headlamps on like they were going spelunking like that was the kind of awkward no but that was the level of goofy

Jeff (15:02)
Yes.

I would not have done that.

I would have been equally as nervous walking through that door though. I wouldn't have had the geek's confidence that Anthony Michael Hall

I love that scene when he's talking to Jake Ryan after that party's just destroyed his house and he's making a martini. He's just like, you know, hey, let me give you some girl advice.

Steve Scarfo (15:24)
Yes.

She's got the hots for you. Here, want some nuts? And he's just, yeah, he's great. So yeah. But I mean, had, you know, every one of those movies had that same formula. It was the, you know.

I hate to use the term, it's what I have in the notes. It's teen angst. I don't know a better word for it. I hate saying that word. I don't know what it is. It rubs me the wrong way. But that's what it was, that teen energy and anger and I can't get what I want. And then it's always funny. And then there's always like really heartfelt moments in there, which is what I think makes his movies.

sit well, you know, that's that at the end of Breakfast Club when Anthony Michael Hall's character reads the essay and like that really ties in all of their shared and it's honestly if you look back it's probably gonna people would say it's a stereotype it's like but no it started the stereotypes in movies ⁓

even in ⁓ which isn't one of his movies. Can't buy me love. ⁓ They dig into those stereotypes, but I think that came after this and I think it was modeled on this movie. You know what mean? So.

Jeff (16:49)
Yeah.

yeah, mean, gotta hold off for geek evolution though. I was almost gonna talk about his impact, but that's a later.

Steve Scarfo (17:01)
No, let's not impact yet.

Let's talk about whether or not 40 years has done these movies justice, Jeff. I think it's time to take it to court.

All right, so here's the real story. Here's the question. Do these, we're gonna talk in two zones, right? Do the movies hold up? And then we're gonna talk about one specific movie. And I'm gonna say there's parts of these movies that they just don't stand the test of time.

Jeff (17:41)
All right, so.

Steve Scarfo (17:41)
I won't

dig in too deep, I feel that there's parts of these things that are problematic.

Jeff (17:46)
Okay, so I very much believe that movies of an era, we just need to accept that they're a product from that. As a former English teacher, when I hear about things like wanting to ban Huck Finn because of the use of the N-word, okay, but at the same time, he's befriending a black man. Like, they're traveling together and he's treating him with dignity and respect.

Steve Scarfo (18:11)
Right.

Jeff (18:17)
And so at that, you know, way back when they wanted to ban it because a black man and a white boy were traveling together. And that was that was like that was the reason they want to ban it. Now they want to ban it because these the N-word. And I get that. I get that wanting to judge something from the current lens, not from the lens of the time. However, I will say there are two things in the rewatch that I just could not believe because at the

At the time, I don't know why, like it didn't strike me. One of them, was a little teenage nudity in 16 candles and weird science. Like what? Like teenage girl nudity, so topless girls in the shower. And so like that was a little surprising. And then the casual use of some homophobic slurs, which guilty.

Back then, like you just said, can we say it? I don't know if we should. the F word. So like we casually threw that around as an insult. And it didn't even mean like that someone was gay because in both cases that it really stood out to me.

Steve Scarfo (19:21)
I don't know, we'll call it the F word. But not the fuck word, the other F word.

Jeff (19:42)
and 16 candles and in weird science, a character is hitting on a girl and her response is you're a F word. Like that makes no sense, but it was just used as an insult. And then they're like.

Steve Scarfo (19:58)
Well, and in those cases,

in those cases, just before you jump on, I think maybe that's why they thought it, you know, and it was much more ubiquitous back then, too. But maybe that was part of the point. It wasn't a guy saying it to a guy. was a girl defending herself about against getting hit on by a guy she didn't want to get hit on. And it was sort of a defense. Right. I don't know why I'm trying to make an excuse for John Hughes dialogue, but.

Jeff (20:26)
Well, so I mean, so like there's a couple things, but overall, like I feel like they do hold up. ⁓ When I was watching, it's funny though, was watching planes, trains and automobiles. And I was thinking of a few things that the film absolutely I believe holds up. You I haven't shown it to someone of the younger generation to see if they would, but Josh Janvrin is as.

got, he recommended this. He's one of my students from the 2010s. he's like, yeah, these movies were 30 years old when he was watching them as a teenager himself. So like, so proof, thank you, Josh. But as I'm watching Plane Trains and Automobiles I'm realizing that some things that would be very confusing, the amount of smoking, there's like,

Smoking all the time. John Candy's character is smoking in their hotel room. Like gross. ⁓ Cash. He had Steve Martin's character had over $700 of cash in his wallet. And he only had one credit card. And then he had a gas card and had an Neiman Marcus like department store card. He had one credit card. It was diners club. What even visa or MasterCard like

Steve Scarfo (21:25)
yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jeff (21:53)
Cause those points are really central to the difficulty they were going to experience. Like if credit, like, I can use my phone. There's no cell phones. That was another piece that would things difficult. Like you had to use an actual phone and pay phones and what you could do on a computer. like none of this stuff. Like that would be, I think for younger generation looking at it would be hard.

Steve Scarfo (22:05)
Yeah.

Owen.

Jeff (22:23)
I don't think other than those things that we just kind of said, I don't think that they would otherwise have as hard a time as long as they can separate like, that was back then. Like when we were growing up in the 70s and 80s, we watched something from the 50s and thought, oh, that was back then.

Steve Scarfo (22:37)
Yeah.

Right. Yeah. And listen, I don't disagree, especially planes, trains and automobiles. That's probably one that you could ship as is. Right. Like like all the stuff you just pointed out, you can't remake that movie as is you need to update it because I mean, there's a whole montage where he has to sell, you know, shower curtain rings as earrings to make money because there was no other way for them to get cash. Right. It was the weekend. It was the holidays. Like there was no ATMs. There was all of that was.

wasn't a thing. that movie is great and it's so quotable. It's one of things I love about all these movies. They all have a quote, you know, where's your other hand between two pillows? Those aren't pillows. Like there are great lines in all these movies, right? ⁓ Anthony Michael Hall in two of these movies gets high and does the same voice, which I love. ⁓

He does the same exact stoner voice. You know what it is? Chicks can't hold a smoke. That's what it is. And it's they're just movie quotes that stick in my brain. ⁓ But. I say this with a heavy heart, there are elements of these movies that.

And I understand it was the time and it's fine for what it was. But if you were to show some of the stuff to kids today, they would be horrified and not even the use of the language. Right. So in 16 Candles, Jake is unhappy with his girlfriend, ⁓ who is the party girl, and she's taking advantage of his rich parents because they have this huge house and this huge party. And she's destroyed trash drunk.

And the geeky character, he he gets information about Molly Ringwald's character from him and he goes, well, I'll let you use. I forget exactly the exchange, but he's like, you can just have my girlfriend for the night. Essentially, he hands his drunk girlfriend to this kid who's a freshman. ⁓ And they never show anything, but the implication is by the end that they have had drunken sex together.

Jeff (24:40)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Steve Scarfo (24:53)
And she's happy about it because she woke up in his arms. And it seems to be like a very casual toss away joke. at the time it was played for like mild humor. like that's about as close to date rapey as you can get. And I don't want to say that phrase exactly, but.

Jeff (25:14)
Yeah, mean,

Revenge of the Nerd says the same thing.

Steve Scarfo (25:17)
Yeah, and so, and then there was another 16 candles.

Jeff (25:22)
Okay, so 16 candles

off the table. Can't show it, not allowed. That's what you're saying. How dare you?

Steve Scarfo (25:28)
I don't think you can't show it. just think that's

one of those you have to. It's almost like the John. Some of these and not listen, not just John Hughes movies. We're just talking about John Hughes movies. All movies from this era probably should come with a warning label of there's some insensitive shit on these movies because this is how we talked in the 80s. Right. The F word. ⁓ I mean. yeah, it was, you know, there.

Jeff (25:49)
And before 70s, 60s, 50s, the turn

was more the 2000s. Progress.

Steve Scarfo (25:59)
There

was an entire subset culture of movies called T &A movies that were just to show young teenage college girls running around half naked. Half the horror movies were just gratuitous nudity.

when you call out that there is nudity and 16 candles. Yes, it's in that movie. It's very I mean, as neutral as you get it. She's in a shower all by herself. It's not like there's anything gratuitous about it ⁓ other than the fact that she's naked. It's not like do you know what I mean? She's not it's not like us. It was unnecessary, but it was it wasn't like a sex scene. wasn't a dirty scene. They just it was as clean as you can get and make it nude at the same time.

Jeff (26:30)
Well, and it was totally unnecessary.

No, it's just new today. Yes.

Steve Scarfo (26:43)
But again, that probably wouldn't, you know, maybe that part would probably fly. But I don't know. But some of the racial references, the boys will be boys attitude, you've called it out. Ferris doesn't get in trouble for anything. You know what mean? I'm on our school board in town and if he was my student, I'd be losing my mind. I'm like, what do you mean?

Jeff (27:08)
You'd be Mr. Rooney, you'd be Principal Rooney chasing him down.

Steve Scarfo (27:10)
I'd be Ed Rooney.

Ed Rooney. ⁓ So, yeah, I think I see. Yeah, I think there's elements that don't hold up. I do love these movies. I'll never stop loving these movies, but there are parts of it that make me go.

Jeff (27:28)
So I actually think all but one holds up and that you could show it with a caveat in certain situations, but the one that doesn't hold up is weird science. That movie on rewatch is shit. I don't know why, like in the IMDB is still a 6.6. So I mean, that's pretty good. And I know the argument is, well, now you're watching it from an older lens. Yes, I rewatched 16 candles.

Ferris Buellers Day Off, Plane Trains and Auto mobiles Breakfast Club, and I rewatched Weird Science. Only one of those did not hold up and that's Weird Science. I don't know why I liked it so much and why others did too. But it worked at the time and I think that often happens. Like you watch a movie, you love it, and then you rewatch it decades later and it just doesn't quite work. And that's one. And it's not because of...

inappropriate stuff as much as the fact that it's just dumb.

Steve Scarfo (28:33)
Yeah. So it's funny because I agree it doesn't hold up in the way ⁓ like I don't think you could make that movie today. I think it would fail miserably. Right. But I also rewatch that not specifically for this just a few months ago just because I was like, hey, I haven't seen weird science in a long time. I wonder if it's still funny and.

Jeff (28:58)
huh.

Steve Scarfo (28:58)
I still and maybe it was the nostalgia enjoyment. will caveat. Maybe it was me because again, I loved it as a kid. But I think all the stuff you just said about why you didn't like it and why it's shit is the reasons I loved it because it was absurd. It was ridiculous. know, there's a fight scene at the end at the party where the two other guys also. Robert Downey Jr., one of his first spots.

Iron Man shows up as one of the jock a-holes and they're fighting with the guys and the little setup that they use to take a Barbie doll and make it a real woman hits the cover of a magazine where there's a picture of a missile and suddenly a missile comes up through the floor. It's absurd, it's ludicrous and to me that's what is hysterical about it. I love the absurdity of it. ⁓ Bill Paxton as Chet,

⁓ just a fucking dingus of an older brother like this

Jeff (30:01)
his

Bill Paxson is awesome in that as Chet

Steve Scarfo (30:04)
He's so good at his Chet

But like everything, all of the stuff you said, why you don't like it are the reasons I do, because it's absurd and it's foolish and you know, 16 candles could happen, right? Planes, trains and automobiles could happen. Weird science just couldn't happen.

Jeff (30:17)
Okay.

The reason I don't like it.

The reason I don't like it is because of the premise. The premise. The premise is Frankenstein. That they use science to create a woman that's the perfect woman. But she has all these abilities that make her really a genie. And so the issue I have, and the issue everyone has of it, but it's the fact that they keep treating this like it's a Frankenstein movie.

Steve Scarfo (30:27)
You're dead inside?

Jeff (30:53)
when it's an I dream of Jeannie movie, it's bewitched, it's not. She's able to just snap her fingers and change reality. Frankenstein can't do that. So my issue with it being garbage is the premise that it's Frankenstein. I'm sorry. It's I dream of Jeannie and they should have played it as such. And that's.

Steve Scarfo (31:17)
Yeah, they they try to explain that by saying they're using advanced computer technology because they supposedly there's a whole thing where they they dial into NASA and they put the phone on the modem thing. so they're suddenly getting all this compute power, which is, you know, in the 80s was was the ultimate, you know, my this is the power of the government. was the government's power. was Pentagon power. You know what mean? ⁓

Jeff (31:29)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Scarfo (31:44)
I never thought about it as a genie movie. I guess it absolutely is a genie movie. But that never... Yes.

Jeff (31:48)
Yes, be careful what you wish for. And yet, man,

it never comes, like if they just recognized, we got a genie, at some point I would have been okay with it, but no.

Steve Scarfo (32:02)
I will

say they're pretty loosely tied on the Frankenstein thing and the only tie-in is literally they happen to do a weird flash over to the old Frankenstein movie where he goes, it's alive! And that's it. They never say she's a Frankenstein's monster, really. She's a creation. ⁓ But. ⁓

And let me be honest, in the 80s, I had a mad crush on Kelly LeBrock. mean, who didn't? That girl was gorgeous. You know, I was, when did Weird Science come out? 85, 87? 85, so I was what, 16 when that came out? So like, we were in the zone for those two kids. So she was like the beautiful older woman. there was, you know.

Jeff (32:44)
yeah.

Steve Scarfo (32:49)
But yeah, ⁓ was definitely a weird one. But ⁓ I think it's time to ⁓ do some digging. I see you doing the dig. Hold on.

Jeff (33:10)
So for me, it's the soundtracks. That's my basement treasure with these things. have such, like there are songs that I just associate with a moment. Some of them make perfect sense. Don't you forget about me by Simple Minds, which I recently found out this year, before we did this podcast, but I did the research to make sure what I heard was true. Simple Minds did not.

Want to record this song that it was written by one of the composers that john he's works with and then So they went to another band another band and no one wanted or had the time to do it And chrissey hind of the pretenders married to ⁓ john kerr I think his name is of simple minds convinced him to record it They recorded in three hours thought it was garbage and moved on with their lives And it wasn't until Their agent told them

You your song's a huge hit in the United States that even knew. And then they look back and they realize that they were being dicks about this whole thing. So like, don't you forget about me. Love that song. I think that is one of the best songs of the 80s and the band didn't even want to make it. So I think that's that's amazing. And then for no good reason, ⁓ David Bowie's Young Americans, I think of the the wedding montage scene when they're leaving.

getting ready. It's playing while they're getting ready to leave for the wedding. And they see Long Duck Dong automobile because he's crashed the car and it leads right into that. And just young Americans is playing and it just really ⁓ hit with me. But like he made ⁓ songs that some were original, like Don't You Forget About Me and Oingo Boingo's Weird Science, which even though the movie doesn't stand the test of that song.

is still a banger. But I, ⁓ yeah, from Ferris Bueller. Like that had been out for a year and then that came out and he used it twice in the film and it, like perfect spots. So for me, like his use of music was so, so like solid and his like both using like original songs and ⁓

Steve Scarfo (35:09)
it

and and chick chick chicka yeah

Jeff (35:37)
and then finding just the right song to use in the moment. Like I thought he was brilliant with his soundtracks. So for me, it's a soundtrack.

Steve Scarfo (35:45)
Yeah, no, I agree. ⁓ I can't tell you the number of times I made that sound after the movie came out. Like, it's just...

guttural, it lives in your chest when you hear it. And you're right, the placement and the editing around the way they use that song is absolutely perfect. And I mean, don't you forget about me. I can't imagine that song not being paired. ⁓ We haven't talked about this movie and my kids and my wife make fun of me for it, but I love the original Pitch Perfect movie.

And I love it because they do that. There's a lot of great mashups of songs in that movie, and they're all songs. And at the end of the movie, they do a mashup. And he actually the character ⁓ Skylar, I think his name is, shows ⁓ the female lead. I say it's one of my favorite movies, and now I can't think of anyone who's in the movie. Kendrick.

Anna Kendrick is the female lead. And I think it's Skylar Astin plays the guy and he shows her Breakfast Club in that movie as this amazing movie with this anthem of the song. Can't you don't you forget about me? And then they use it at the end of the movie in their mashup. And like. It's like a really meta impact on.

culture and movies where they use a movie and that song in another movie about having an impact in that same way. And if you think, if you've seen ⁓ Pitch Perfect, it's got a lot of parallels to Breakfast Club in its own way, in its own musical crazy way, but it does. But I love... ⁓

And I've done it a bunch already, but I love the quotes. I love there's moments from those movies where, know, ⁓ the pillows quote and and Uncle Buck, goes in to see you talking about the smoking. Uncle Buck smoked through the entire movie in the car in the house with the kids walking through the school. He's smoking a cigar the entire time. ⁓

But he goes in to see the principal who is like a caricature of a horrible old woman. She's even got a wart. She's like the witch character. And he walks in and he goes, hi, I'm Buck Melanoma. I'm Molly Russell's wart. And it's.

like a conversation that would never truly happen. And he just continues to go through this whole thing. And finally, he gets pissed off because she's saying that the six year old shouldn't be a silly pants and a dreamer. And he loses his mind and he goes, here's a quarter. Why don't you go downtown and have a rat? Now that thing off your face, it's there's so many iconic lines. McCauley Culkin, one of his first movies was Uncle Buck. And the reason and I don't know if we said this before. ⁓

Hughes wrote Home Alone for Macaulay Culkin because he liked him so much in Uncle Buck. And he did that a few times. And some of these he wrote in like a weekend.

Jeff (39:07)
Yes.

Steve Scarfo (39:07)
Like

it's crazy how quickly he turned out this material that we have, you know, that we grew up in. And maybe that's where some of the problematic stuff still lives because he just did it in a weekend. don't know. But there are so many great quotes that I won't try to do anymore. But I loved how there's just so many iconic moments from our childhood that still live in in those quotes.

Jeff (39:28)
It's just amazing like that

he wrote essentially a dozen movies, maybe more. I think he may have more writing credits just in the 80s. And the reason he could be that prolific is he wrote them all like two or three days. At least that I keep seeing that like, you know, I wrote Plains Trains and Automobiles over the weekend. I did this one over a weekend. I did weird science over the weekend.

Steve Scarfo (39:45)
yeah.

16 candles. 16 candles

he wrote in a single weekend. Ferris Bueller's day off in less than a week. Those are the two that I found. Yeah. they're 90 minutes at best Yeah.

Jeff (40:00)
I mean, they're all like really fast, right? So ⁓ what's

crazy is that he stopped.

But yeah, so to go back to your point about quotes, 100%, we quoted those movies so much. I've actually been trained to stop living in quotes because, so Steve and I, and all of our friends, we said this in an earlier podcast, like I think 90 % of what we said to one other was from a movie or a movie quote is, it felt that way. And it felt that way to our partners, so to our wives and like,

Steve Scarfo (40:26)
I think so.

Jeff (40:37)
Will you please stop quoting things? So like that's what I blame for not being able to quote these movies anymore because I've been trained not to speak in quotes.

Steve Scarfo (40:40)
Can I tell you, I remember...

You're afraid.

I remember after me, myself and Irene, there was a quote Jim Carrey, I want my own cell. And we said it so much around your wife that she did. I remember her going, can you guys please stop because it's too much.

Jeff (40:56)
Yes. Warden.

Yes. ⁓

Yeah, and I know not John E's, but heady goodness from Simpsons. There's a frozen head in the froger. Yeah, it's full of heady goodness.

Steve Scarfo (41:13)
From the Simpsons, yes, from my poo.

And it was a Halloween episode because it was the Froger ⁓ which was also cursed. All right, well, I think it's time to move on just a little.

Jeff (41:26)
Also cursed.

Yeah, so I know we referenced earlier about talking about like influence and I was trying to think, because I talked about, know, someone watching these movies now is like us watching a movie from the 50s. I know, and I wondered, is it overstated that John Hughes was so impactful? And I thought about like what teen movies lasted.

over the years from the 50s, 60s and 70s. And a lot of them, weren't like funny movies. So I feel like one of the impacts he had was creating a quality teenage comedy that was also spoke to us, like spoke to that generation and to today. I do think these movies stand the test of time because of that teen angst, that struggle against the adults and the adults were all.

dumb dumbs in these movies. weren't they weren't admirable. Like Ferris Bueller, there was only two teachers you saw and they were the most boring teachers in the in the principal was was one of the main villains of the movie. The only cool one was the was the admin who, you know, but and that his parents were pretty clueless. And but then Cameron's parents were evil or at least his dad was. So. Yeah, so like all of that.

Steve Scarfo (43:03)
Yeah, made him sound like a dick.

Jeff (43:07)
You know was so influential because I think about you know the movies from the 90s some that I really like that were teen movies in the 2000s like they owe it to those John Hughes movies because before that we had like reveled with out of cause in blackboard jungle and American graffiti and not that there wasn't any potentially humorous aspects of those but they're mostly about teenage you know Teenage rebellion. Yeah

Steve Scarfo (43:34)
is rebellion. Yeah.

Jeff (43:37)
And it wasn't like that comedy in the quick, and I said like, even though a lot of our quotes have been wiped out from our minds, like there's so many quotable lines and it's just in the tightness of the plot, like almost everything was taking place in the course of 24 hours or two days.

Steve Scarfo (43:59)
16

candles was like one day.

Jeff (44:03)
Yeah, same thing with Breakfast Club and ⁓ Weird Science even was very tight timeframes. These were tight timeframes. ⁓ you can see that effect in movies and influence of movies like American Pie and Mean Girls and 10 Things I Hate About You. ⁓ The...

Steve Scarfo (44:10)
Yeah, like a weekend.

yeah. Pitch perfect.

Jeff (44:31)
And I haven't seen it yet, but apparently in weapons, there's a scene when they're running through like yards that ⁓ they were influenced by Ferris Bueller's, know, ⁓ running home to try to beat his parents. And then, ⁓ you know, and I'll see some movies where I'll see something similar to that, like in the British zombie movie, Shaun of the Dead.

Like where I'll see like scenes of people going through yards and I just can't help but think, they influenced by Ferris Bueller? Like Spider-Man with Tobey Maguire I think has a scene that he's kind of racing through yards and you know, it's like the impacts were really far reaching I think and a lot of directors have said that and writers, comedy writers have said that they were influenced by him, so yeah.

Steve Scarfo (45:28)
Yeah, it's funny ⁓ because I saw I just watched Uncle Buck and I know this is the Internet being evil and using its algorithms against me. then the other day I was scrolling on TikTok and I got Uncle Buck clips in my TikTok feed, which which is funny because somebody obviously took and it wasn't me. I didn't do it. But somebody took the time to take those clips.

Jeff (45:45)
Yeah.

yeah.

Steve Scarfo (45:57)
and put them on TikTok because they're trying to share and I will say that John, was a kid in Uncle Buck, there was another movie, it's the only other movie I remember him from and I don't remember the actor's name, it was called The Boy Who Could Fly, ⁓ which was another fantastical 80s, 90s movie ⁓ and he just terrorized this kid because he was dating the niece. ⁓

But I mean, just the impact of John Hughes on the lives of the actors, his core, I mean, the Brat Pack doesn't exist without John Hughes, right? He gave most of them, if not all of them, their start Like, don't know about, ⁓ I can't think of his name. ⁓ Rob Lowe, yeah, so Rob Lowe was.

Jeff (46:49)
He's the only

one.

Steve Scarfo (46:52)
Every other one of them, ⁓ Ali Shidi, Ali Shidi, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, all of these guys and girls. ⁓

Jeff (46:54)
was in a John Hughes film, yeah.

Steve Scarfo (47:04)
Demi Moore was maybe not in a John Hughes movie. don't remember her being in one of his movies. But I mean, he had of the six or eight of them, most of them were part of his crew. Anthony Michael Hall, I don't think he was ever technically a Brat Pack kind of kid, but like these people got their start. So I just I don't I don't know how that's a specific evolution for Hughes, but he was certainly the reason these people got to do and look at Macaulay Culkin.

Jeff (47:08)
that's true. Yeah, now.

Steve Scarfo (47:34)
if it wasn't for John Hughes, Macaulay Culkin is probably washing dishes in some restaurant. I don't know, he might have been brilliant anyway, I don't know. But he was great as a kid anyway in all of these movies. So I think as we're running through time here, let's talk to our folks, these folks that we need to talk to.

Jeff (47:46)
Yeah.

Well, I just have some advice based on what you just said. I mean, you said that you've seen TikTok clips. So go see the actual movies. I know, like you might see something problematic, but younger generation, give it a chance and just gain some distance, like realize that we've progressed. Like if you see that and you're thinking, oh, that's bad, I can't believe they said that or did that.

Steve Scarfo (48:03)
So.

Yes.

Yes.

Jeff (48:33)
Yes, it was bad and we progressed, we learned. ⁓ And we're Gen X, we were some of those perpetrators and we've changed. ⁓ But just look at it. I have to admit that I said some slurs back in the day.

Steve Scarfo (48:42)
I don't know if I like the use of word perpetrator for the record.

⁓ back in the day, Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. ⁓ You have to. And I don't know if it'll ever truly hit them the way it hits us, right? It probably won't.

Jeff (48:55)
Yes.

Steve Scarfo (49:08)
But so in a very weird parallel, my daughter, my younger daughter, Gianna just had her 10th birthday. She had a bunch of friends over. And there's a movie that's been out right now on Netflix. It's a kids movie called K-pop Demon Hunters. And it's a musical and the music's actually pretty good. I like the music. ⁓ You know, it's a standard fair kids animation.

Jeff (49:24)
Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (49:31)
and it's all in the title. They're Korean pop stars who fight demons. ⁓ But every girl at that party knew that movie inside and out. And so if you have an experience like that with a movie, whether it's one of ours or if you're young enough that it's K-pop Demon Hunters or something in between.

Think that, put yourself in that place, and then watch some of these movies and look at the character interactions and look at the absurdity of some of these, because these are great, great movies. look at Uncle Buck is 40 years old. And maybe it's because it's the 40th anniversary is coming up that they're clipping it and putting, you know, trying to get people to come back to it. But if you've seen those clips, go find the movie. Uncle Buck is hysterical. ⁓

Jeff (50:24)
Yeah,

and Breakfast Club getting re-released this month in September when we're recording this. ⁓ September 10th at the O'Neill Cinema in Epping where we live, Steve. And yeah, and I will say this. So if you do need a starting point, I think Breakfast Club has the least amount of material that you could be find objectionable today.

Steve Scarfo (50:35)
Ooh, might have... my God, Breakfast Club in the theater.

Jeff (50:52)
There's no teen nudity. There's if the homophobic EF slur is being used, it's not like it was in some of the other movies. It's not like they're saying it all the time, but it's just I think now we're so sensitive to it. But I because I showed the Breakfast Club in my film studies class when I was a know, when I was a high school English teacher and I am I don't remember it being ⁓ prevalent. So.

Steve Scarfo (50:52)
Yeah.

Jeff (51:21)
It stands the test of time.

Steve Scarfo (51:23)
Breakfast Club will always be one of my favorite movies. ⁓ In a different way than Weird Science, but yeah. It is, I'm getting there.

Jeff (51:31)
It's a critical hit.

Steve Scarfo (51:41)
All right, you were ready for it. Why don't you dive in?

Jeff (51:45)
Well, I already set made my pitch for Breakfast Club, but now I'm to make my my my pitch for planes, trains and automobiles, because I think he's considered John Hughes is like with teenage movies, ⁓ planes, trains and automobiles. Steve Martin, John Candy. I wondered if it would still stand at this time. Comedy has a hard time doing that. I and I do think this one does it. I really do.

it, it still holds up. It still has plenty of great comedy. Steve Martin has this rant because he's just at the end of or he just wants to get home for Thanksgiving and everything has been conspiring against him. And he's at the rental car counter and the car you're to get. He wasn't there. He's had trials and tribulations and he just goes on this rant where every other word is the F board.

And out he's like, tells the rental car woman who's the admin in Ferris wheelers day off. Sweet, sweet, sweet girl. Sweet woman. mean, and she is like, wipe that fucking smile off your fucking face. And then he just F bomb, F bomb, F bomb, F bomb. Now, can you give me a fucking car right fucking now? And she said.

Steve Scarfo (52:45)
Hmm

It's the same lady, yeah.

Jeff (53:13)
Do you have your rental agreement? I tore it fuck up. ⁓ I'm sorry. That means you're fucked and He doesn't get his rental car he gets screwed and It's so good so good

Steve Scarfo (53:31)
⁓ I

forgot about that scene because that's one of the hadn't gotten to watch again recently, but I love the juxtaposition

Jeff (53:38)
And the reason

that works so well comedically is he doesn't swear. He's calm and controlled as much as possible throughout the film. He flips out once before John Candy, but he doesn't ever swear during his little rant. He never drops the F-bomb, never swears after, before. Like it's out of character. He's just reached the end of his rope. And then this little sweet woman drops the F-bomb too. She's like...

Steve Scarfo (54:06)
Well, that's what I was going to say.

The juxtaposition in that scene enhances that because, he's never sworn. Now he's freaking out and he's doing it to the sweet lady. And you don't expect her to swear. And hers is the final turn that makes it that much funnier because you understand him because you've been on his journey with him. And she's just like, well, sorry. So. ⁓

Jeff (54:08)
Ha

Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (54:35)
One of the things that I love about those movies too is ⁓ when you were talking about how there was the world was conspiring against him. This might be slightly off topic, but it reminded me of movies like Meet the Falkers. And what I love about planes, trains and automobiles is the one thing I hated about Meet the Falkers.

And that is in planes, trains and automobiles, everything that conspires against him feels organic. Right. There is he gets so pissed off, he tears this thing up. That's a first. People do that. They're frustrated. Right. And.

in Meet the Fockers, like he gets in trouble because they're playing water volleyball and he hits the ball too hard. And it's like everything's so over exaggerated. And I know that's supposed to be part of the charm and the humor of that movie. It just grates on my soul because it's so absurd. They're taking what should be a real situation where people would go, my God. You know, he would still be in trouble, but not to the degree that they show it. But in Plains Trains and his movies,

The anger is organic and it's pulled out from real situations, right? Maybe the absurdity is everything does happen against him, but every one of those elements on their own could be a thing. ⁓ So I do love that movie and now I'm gonna have to watch it again.

⁓ So I'm going to take the fails and there's a couple big ones. ⁓ I mentioned one of them earlier, ⁓ the casually handing off of a drunk girlfriend from one guy to the next. Pretty problematic by today's standards and probably should have been by then too. And they I will say this, they try to play it very light. ⁓

Jeff (56:26)
Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (56:35)
because he's sort of a, because he's the dorky guy and it's the innocence of, he's never even hugged a girl, and they never show them having sex and they both just sort of assume that they've had sex.

Jeff (56:49)
Yeah, so the slight redemption of that over the way it happens or bench of the nerds is that in the next morning, he can't remember either. He's drunk as well. However, this the premise of even being in that situation is exactly as problematic as you said. It's the aftermath that he's that we're like, OK, he also doesn't remember. He also was drunk. He also.

Steve Scarfo (56:58)
Yes.

yeah, the whole idea that the jock would give away.

Yeah.

Yeah. And the guy, the jock guy, Jake, who everybody plays as a plays up as a Prince Charming character is a guy who gave his drunk girlfriend to a drunk guy and said, here, go have some fun because he's so upset with her. ⁓ That to me also in 16 Candles, as much as I love the character of Long Duck Dong because of its listen, it is about as extravagant a stereotype as you can make. ⁓

But like every time they say his name, there's like a clunk, like there's like a gong sound. It reminds me of ⁓ young Frankenstein. Whenever they say Frau Blöcke and you hear the horses. It's that same absurdity. Lang duck dong. And they can they constantly call him a Chinaman, which I apologize. I don't know if I I probably shouldn't have said that, but that's what they call him in the movie. I'm like, that's.

Jeff (57:49)
Is it gone?

Yeah, yes, yes.

Steve Scarfo (58:14)
You know, it's kind of off and he's sort of a geeky character too in that movie and kind of comes into his own a little bit with Automobile. ⁓ But ⁓ so those are the fails to me that ⁓ some of those elements have gone stale and have not aged well. ⁓

Jeff (58:39)
He gets an American girlfriend. Come on.

Steve Scarfo (58:46)
He was a great character for the time, but I think by today's standards, people would be like, that's about as offensive as you can. It's almost as bad as Mickey Rooney playing an Asian man at Breakfast at Tiffany's. It's only a half a step below that. No, was Mickey Rooney and Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Jeff (58:51)
Yes.

⁓ It wasn't Mickey Rooney, though, was it? Wasn't it? It was. ⁓

I thought it was. He did them, too, though, problematically. Yeah, Jerry Lewis did that.

Steve Scarfo (59:11)
Jerry Lewis did it. Jerry Lewis

did it too. Very proud. Maybe they both did it. At least one. I want to say in Breakfast at Tiffany's. It was Mickey Rooney. Yeah.

Jeff (59:20)
It was probably Mickey Rooney and Jerry Lewis did it and other stuff.

Yeah. Um, yeah. And so my fail just because I would have loved it is Hughes retiring before he could come through on his promise to have a sequel to the breakfast club 10 years down the road, like their 10 year reunion. That would have been awesome or 20 would have been great. Uh, but then he passed away in 2009 and so it was never going to happen, but that,

That was my quick fail.

Steve Scarfo (59:52)
I'm gonna give away a gold mine to anybody who might be listening who can actually produce this thing. They need to remake, the big thing right now is the Nostalgia sequel. So they need to make a version of the Breakfast Club where all of the original characters' kids are in detention together.

Jeff (1:00:11)
There

you go.

Steve Scarfo (1:00:14)
So you have that generational spread. You have all the original characters and then they get together and it's all their kids that are in this detention and they relive the the the experience of the Breakfast Club. All right. This has been a long one. We're a little over an hour.

you're still with us thanks for hanging out with us so ⁓ we don't have any ⁓ listener mail to to respond to at this point but once again josh janvran thanks for the idea obviously we this this this was our ⁓

Jeff (1:00:46)
This whole thing was a response to a listener email. Thank you, Josh.

Steve Scarfo (1:00:52)
We've gone. This is one of our longest episodes without a guest, and it's because we love if we love this topic so much. ⁓ if you have something for us, ⁓ Original Geek Podcast at Gmail dot com, go to the originalgeekpodcast.com website and you can send us notes. I'm starting to put up show notes from every show. I'm trying to find a good format so that there'll be images, all the stuff we talk about trying to get it in so that we can have it as you

Jeff (1:00:56)
It was passion.

Steve Scarfo (1:01:22)
have noticed I'm wearing the official Original Geek Podcast logo t-shirt. So our merch is live and it's really well done. We use a company called Printful. Shout out to Printful just in case they're going to give us some free stuff. I'm not an official sponsor, which is a quote from another Friends show. ⁓ But yeah, check us out. ⁓

Jeff (1:01:26)
Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (1:01:47)
Please like and subscribe, tell your friends about it, follow us on social media, ⁓ comment on the videos, everything that you can do to help us out. They're easily double-taps, clicks, love stuff, whatever you want to do. Everything helps us get our word out more so we can share our goofy remembrances of the 70s, 80s, and 90s with you guys and tell you why it's better to be an original geek than anything else.

Jeff (1:02:12)
All right, thank you OGs. Catch you next time.

Steve Scarfo (1:02:15)
All right. Take it easy.