May I help you? Uh, yes. This is not the best breakfast I ever
ate, and I'd like my money back. Uh, okay. I believe you
have to fill out a form for that. Uh, no, I'd like my money back
now. I'm sorry, it doesn't work that way. You see, I have to fill out
a form, and, well, you ate most of it already, so— You see that sign?
It says 100% guaranteed. You know what the meaning of guarantee
is? Do they teach you that here? Sir, if you just wait a minute— Look,
just put your little hand back in the cash register and give me my $2.75
back, please, Brad. Sir, if you just give me a minute, I'll find the forms.
I'll take care of everything. I don't have a minute. You've made me late enough.
I am so tired of dealing with incompetence. It says
100% guaranteed, you moron. Mister, if you don't
shut up, I'm. Gonna kick 100% of your ass.
It's Two Dads, One Movie. It's the podcast where two middle-aged
dads sit around and shoot the shit about the movies of the '80s
and '90s. Here are your hosts, Steve Paulo and Nick Briana.
Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of Two Dads, One Movie.
I'm Steve. And I'm Nick. And today we are continuing our journey that we are
calling Two Dads, Two Decades by looking at 1982's
Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Oh yeah, this is one
that I picked for us, and basically my history with Fast Times I
think I probably originally saw it in high school. This feels like
a night over at a buddy's house, it gets put on kind of thing.
I'm not 100% sure. It's a movie that just kind of began to exist in
my understanding of the world sometime in high school.
Definitely not something that I would have seen much before that.
You know, fantastic soundtrack. It's obviously the place where, you know, we get
just collectively humanity got our first real good look at people like Judge
Reinhold and Sean Penn and a few other actors and actresses who would go on
to have, you know, at least middling to good careers. Like,
like, you know, not a ton of superstars coming out of this outside of Penn,
obviously a huge star, but all the others that were in this, you know,
as major characters and especially. Over the course of the next like decade, decade and
a half, like they. Got a lot of work. Yeah. I mean, between this and
Gremlins, a lot of my, a lot of my life was taken up by Phoebe
Cates in my head for a certain amount of time. Certainly this movie, core memory,
uh, when it comes to her, which we'll get into. But yeah. So what about
you, Nick? What about your, what's your history with Fast Times? I think the same
thing. I think I probably saw this freshman, sophomore year
of high school and actually remember watching this
several times with our mutual classmate, one of my best friends to this
day, Matt Jones, one of your drama buds. And I remember
watching this over at Matt's house. We had the VHS and yeah, this just fascinated
us. I mean, first of all, as a teen to have a movie with some
good nudity and all that stuff, right? That gets you excited. But also just this
portrayal of like the cool guy and the nerd and the fucking big man on
campus and all these different— the stoner guy and all these archetypes from this
movie I thought were cool, especially at that time where you're kind of like comparing
like who's Spicoli at our high school, Jefferson at our high school and
everything. Yeah. So yeah. And I did, you know, probably watched it a couple of
times through then in college. I've seen it a bunch, but not in a long
time. So it was interesting to see this through a 2026 now.
Yeah, absolutely. It's actually funny that you mentioned— you brought up our old buddy Matt
Jones, because he came up in conversation with my kids recently. We were talking,
my kids and I, about theater in high school, and I played Ebenezer Scrooge in
A Christmas Carol our senior year, and Mr. Jones was my Bob Cratchit. So that
was very nice. Funny how that pops. I think I definitely went to a production.
You probably did. We did about 5 or 6 shows that week. Yeah, I'm sure
you made it to at least one of them. Cool. Yeah. So I mean,
let's jump into the facts on Fast Times at Ridgemont High. You know, let's Yeah,
there's no reason to delay any further. The movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High,
it came out on August 13th, 1982 with an R rating and a running time
of 90 minutes. Directed by, in her directorial debut,
Amy Heckerling. This is the second movie in a row we've done with a debut
director. That's right. Because last week we talked about Thief,
Michael Mann's debut. And Amy Heckerling, of course, responsible not just for this movie,
which so encapsulates coming of age, for Southern California
Gen X teens would go on, I think about
13 years after this, to do the exact same thing for millennial teens with
Clueless. Yes. Which is very funny to me that the same person had both those
movies on her resume. Written by Cameron Crowe, his first produced
screenplay, by the way, based on the book that he himself wrote, Fast Times at
Ridgemont High: A True Story. Apparently he went undercover as a high
school student in the late '70s, early '80s. I remember The book was written
probably in the late '70s, but in Southern California and kind of the things that
happened in this movie and that he wrote about in his book, he claims either
really happened or were stories he was told or based on characters, actual people that
he met. Crazy. The names have been changed to protect the guilty, of course.
Crazy that you could just do that. I mean, that's like a federal offense now,
right? Like you try to go undercover as a high school student.
It's like, it's almost like, I wonder if the movie Never Been Kissed was somehow
based on Cameron Crowe. This movie stars Sean Penn,
Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Judge Reinhold. Scores: Rotten Tomatoes 78%,
actually a bit lower than I— I was a bit surprised that I thought it
would have been higher. And IMDb of 7.1, also kind of. Lower than
I thought it would be. Yeah, a little bit lower. Both lower than the previous
movie, Thief. Right. Which, which after the discussion, I mean, see what we think
about that. Yeah. And we got two thumbs down from the curmudgeons
Siskel and Ebert who don't like movies. Get off my lawn.
If this was Fast Times at like Decatur Illinois High or
something like like that, they would love it. Exactly, right, exactly. Yes, the Fast Times
at Shermer High. Yeah, the movie was nominated for a
1983 WGA, that's the Writers Guild of America, WGA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
And I always think it's kind of funny, it is an adapted screenplay. Crowe wrote
the book first, then adapted it for the screen. Yeah. But I still think it's
funny, if you wrote the book, shouldn't you get original screenplay credit for it?
Right. Like, it obviously doesn't work that way, but I think it's funny. No other
major nominations or awards to speak of, except it was added to the National
Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2005. So that is
cool. On a $4.5 million— movie was added to the National Sex Offender Registry
for. Some of its scenes. Absolutely true. On a budget of $4.5 million,
it pulled in $27.1 million for about 6 times what it cost
in the box office. So it was absolutely clearly a hit movie at the box
office. This definitely struck a chord with people and, you know, was big and
I think has survived that. We'll see how we think about it as we walk
through it. But yeah, very cool. All right, Steve, you want to— you want to
start us off? Sure. Yeah. Very first thing we get right off the bat It's
just, this soundtrack is amazing. Great. The music is so good. There were some
original songs written for the movie. One in particular that became a massive hit,
Jackson Browne's She's Got to Be Somebody's Baby, was originally written
for Fast Times and is obviously a huge song. But every song on the soundtrack
slaps. Every one of them slaps. These are all hits. It's just so much fun
to watch a movie with really engaging music that doesn't
take you out of the story. Okay, so we start
off with a mall This is the kind of opening shots of the
movie are all within the mall. This is Sherman Oaks Galleria.
Absolutely. We saw it in Commando. We saw it in Terminator 2.
And it was used in several other movies of the era. So it is possible
that we will see Sherman Oaks Galleria appearing again on another episode of
2000 Movies someday. But for now, Sherman Oaks Galleria is actually a character in this
movie. That's right. Yes. Like when New York City is a character. Exactly. Or San
Francisco isn't in Pacific Heights. Yeah. But this is great. I mean, this scene,
it's just really— it just takes you
back and like showing the different activities going on at the mall. And it's the
students with their kind of like after-school jobs and all these different things. And it's
summer right now, actually. We find out. Okay, so it is summer jobs. Yeah.
Yeah. But they're all high school students or going to be in high school.
Exactly. So, yeah, I love it. It definitely takes you back to a mall that
actually has stuff in it. Yeah. Our mall has like an abandoned Sears and the
DMV. Yes. Which is such a fall from grace, it's unbelievable. I think the last
few times I've gone to, we're talking, might as well tell, but we're talking about
Stone Ridge Mall in Pleasanton, California. That's the mall local to Nick and I.
And I think the last time I went in there, it was because I needed
to pick something up for my wife from Lush. And that was the closest Lush
storefront. Yeah. The Apple Store, I guess, is closer to Walnut
Creek. So yeah, but there's like nothing there. No, not at all. And it's all
those specialty stores that should only last during Christmas, like the calendar
and sassy oven mitt store, but then it's just there year round 'cause there's nothing
to fill the spot. The store, the mall has a store that sells nothing but
pearl jewelry. Not nothing but jewelry, nothing but pearl jewelry.
Like why? Anyway, this was the old— might come in here. Yeah, there you go.
But this is old school mall. This is '80s, '90s mall culture. Thriving.
Yeah, thriving, full of kids, full of teenagers, full of activity. You got
the food court going, you got the movie theater, which, you know, our kind of
local mall Stone Ridge never did, but Sun Valley up in Concord had a movie
theater back in the day. And that was always kind of a neat thing,
I think, to have a mall with a movie theater. Totally. 'Cause you could spend
like a whole day there. Like as a kid, it was a place you could
legitimately go get get dropped off at 10 and get picked up at 4 PM.
And you have like a full day. You got the food court, got the movie
theater, all that stuff. Yeah, great place to go hang. My friends, uh,
uh, growing up, uh, guys, you know, like, like Greg and Kevin, these guys that
we went to high school with, we would all stand on a bus stop,
you know, in San Ramon waiting to go down. And we would just— it was
a half-hour drive to the mall. We would get at that bus stop at like
9 AM on a summer Saturday or whatever, go to the mall.
We'd be there all day. We didn't have a movie theater, but we had an
arcade and we had like all the shops and the McDonald's and the Sbarro.
I mean, what else you gotta have? Dude, it was great. So yeah, great opening
sequence, great like, you know, thing. We're introduced to a handful of characters, uh,
real quick, nothing that's really telling us much about them, but we see like Mark
Ratner has taken tickets at the, at the, uh, movie theater. We see Linda and
Stacy, uh, working— I think it's Perry's Pizza Palace— I mean, they're working at the
pizza restaurant, all this stuff. And of course one of our main guys, Mike DeMone,
is kind of talking to people, and it looks like, you know, he's, he's doing
a little dealing here and there. He's Mike DeMone, he's doing some dealing. He's the
ticket scalper. Exactly. Which I think is a— it's a fun, interesting thing
to him to do because he easily could have just been like the weed dealer.
Yeah, exactly. But, but I think it, it, it makes it more fun that he's
scalping tickets. 100%. And, and it's a thing that really, you know,
if you, you know, I don't know how it— this far back, I obviously don't
know exactly how getting tickets worked, but like in the '90s, you have to like
go and like line up at like the Ticketmaster thing. Yeah, this is all before
Ticketmaster. So it's got to be that he went down to whatever local venue
is in their town and every day just buys up a bunch of tickets Yeah,
right. For whatever he's got to do it for. Yeah, something, you know, he takes
orders from people when, like, when Earth, Wind Fire come around, Jefferson needs 2 tickets
or whatever, right? All that stuff. One thing I noticed here, the kids that
are asking Damone for tickets and trying to buy, I think, Van Halen tickets
off of him, I think it is. And he quotes them $20 apiece. They say
those were $12.50. It's like, yeah, kid, that's how it fucking works. Yeah, he's got
to make a business. You're making a business here. Unfortunately, not a dated aspect
of this movie. No, that part is still charges on tickets. Yeah, but an
almost 50% markup. Yeah. I noticed one of the young, one of the young gentlemen
buying Van Halen tickets wearing the t-shirt of your alma mater, I believe, UCSB.
I thought that was fun. All right, UCSB Gauchos t-shirt.
So another indicator that we are in Southern California. Yeah. But yeah,
so we have where Judge Reinhold works. We're showing his job,
which is not at the mall. No, it's a separate fast food place called All-American
Burger. Yes. And into that restaurant, you know, we see
Sean Penn's character, Jeff Spicoli. I think Eric Stoltz also stole his
buddy Anthony Edwards and Anthony Edwards. Okay. So like you said, people who had a
lot of star power several years later, and when they walk in, it's really funny
because Spicoli immediately takes his shirt off. They all do. All three of them,
as they walk in the door, like they're on in the car and stuff.
And Spicoli's already barefoot too. He's already barefoot. He walks in, they all pull their
shirts off and they're all smoking cigarettes. This is the '80s. You can smoke
inside. That was one thing I noticed. Mark, when he's giving people— taking people's tickets
to the theater, he's telling them smoking's upstairs. Smoking upstairs. It's like, what? What do
you mean smoking's upstairs? How weird. It is so crazy to think about that.
And this is LA. This would be like the center in the future of
like where it started to become illegal. Yeah, absolutely. One of the
earlier spots. Yeah, where that was— you go away. Uh, but this line always killed
me when Spicoli and his buds are sitting there at the table and they're trying
to figure out how much money do they have. And one guy pulls out a
dollar, he goes, I've got uno dinero. And then Spicoli pulls out
a nickel, he's like, Uno de
Nicolay. They don't have much money, but, uh, Brad Hamilton, uh,
Judge Reinhold's character, has to come over and basically tell him, guys, you gotta— you
came in here, you had shirts on when you came in. Yeah, what does that
sign say? And they all— I love the way that they do this— they say
it in unison. They go, no shirt,
no shoes, no dice.
It's so funny. Yeah, when he comes up and he's like, you had shirts on
when you came in here, and, uh, Spicoli goes. Something happened to him, happened to
him, man. Like, oh God, he's so funny. And like Sean Penn— I mean,
obviously we all know the actor Sean Penn would become— well, I mean, he is,
but, but we would come to recognize over time the actor Sean Penn is.
I wonder if you went back to 1982, people watching this movie, how much they
felt like, is the guy playing Jeff Spicoli just a stoner idiot
himself? Yeah, sort of a Jay Muse kind of thing, right? You know, James Allen
Bob kind of Or is this a fantastic actor putting on some great
performance and making great choices? And we all know now. Totally great actor making great
choices. But yeah, did they spot back then that like 45 years later this guy
will be nominated for an Academy Award? You know, that he'll have a career that
spans decades. It's, you know, from no shirt, no shoes, no dice to—
is that my daughter in there? Yes.
Is that my daughter in there? Sorry. All right, anyway, so,
uh, we cut over to Linda and Stacy hanging out at the pizza parlor back,
and they're talking about, uh, I don't, you know, like whatever. There's these cute guys
walking in, and this guy walks in and they both kind of notice him.
Well, now Linda, we hear, has got a boyfriend away at college, Doug,
so she's not interested. Canadian girlfriend that is a
model situation. Yeah, exactly. Uh, he's the college man, he's not a high school boy,
blah blah blah blah blah blah. Um, and some of the other waitresses are kind
of like, oh, he's super cute. I'm going to go serve him. We go,
no, that's Stacy's section. And they say she's not even in high school
yet. Now here's the thing. Most kids, and maybe this
was different back then, but I felt like most kids would be
turning 15 during their freshman year of high school, which would probably make her 14
years old then. Yeah. If you're not in high school yet, you're like 14.
That's what I was saying. Now we later hear that she's actually 15. I don't
know how the math quite works. It might be one of those. Middle school,
7th through 9th. Like, I've been in school districts like that before where high school
starts at 10th, 11th, 12th. So because I was thinking that same thing, because I
was like, that's kind of too young to even be working. Full time at a
restaurant and everything in the summer. Yeah. Yeah. But that does not make it any
better because we find out that this. Guy, Ron Johnson, is 26, 26, 11 years
older than she is. But she— but he asks right off the bat, like,
you, you look like you might still be in high school is the way he
puts it, which is like, nice try, pedophile. But she says, oh, yeah,
you know, no, I graduated. I'm 19. Or whatever like that.
So it's immediately she's lying about her age. It's like not a great idea,
just kind of dangerous and stupid. Don't do that.
But he likes what he sees. He asks for a pizza and
a Coke and your phone number. Yeah, right. All right. I'll give it to him.
Kind of smooth. If it was done to an adult woman, that would have been
smooth. But this is right. Right. The asking for the phone number. I mean,
needing it written by somebody else on a piece of paper. Yeah, that's kind of
a lost art. I do like that rather than let's tap our phones together or
you text me and then I'll have your number. It's not as— Yeah, yeah.
Right. It's not quite the same. And this is, I think, where we first get
the, the Jackson Browne. Yes. She's Got to Be Somebody's Babe.
So it's a really good song. I will say, though, this song shows up twice
in the movie at least. Yeah. And there's another song that shows up twice,
but none of the other songs do. Yeah, that's always a little weird to me.
It feels like it would have been an opportunity to put another song into the
film. I mean, the Jackson Browne song was written for the movie. Sure. It has
to get more screen time. They want to get the most they can out of
it, I think. Is kind of part of that. But, uh, because that Raised on
the Radio song shows up twice. Yeah, Raised on the Radio. Okay.
Yeah, so I just noticed that because I was like, damn, this is a loaded
movie. So when, uh, Stacy has this date coming up, right,
and she's talking to Linda— yes, Phoebe Cates. Yeah. And they're at the lunch table
and she's kind of like, I'm a little nervous about this. I got this date
coming up with this older guy, I don't know what to do. And they get
into talking about like blowjobs, right? And she's demonstrating because they have a. Whole bag
of like full-size— like like they're fucking reindeer. There haven't been
full-size carrots at a school in forever. Like, they were outlawed. Like, baby carrots at
most, right? So she's kind of demonstrating, like, how to give a blowjob on a
carrot. Kind of a famous scene. Well, there's a table of, like, horny boys watching
who all, like, erupt into applause at the end of the, uh, scene.
So one thing I noticed too, when we got some of the establishing shots around
the school, I think immediately before that, everybody's carrying those P-Cheese,
uh, folders. Oh yeah, everybody's got the yellow and with the brown, you know,
the— oh my God, really took me back. Did you ever have the folder where
it was like a replica of a baseball card? Like I had a couple that
were a replica of like an '89 Topps Jose Canseco. Jose Canseco,
100%. Oh man. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Can I carry my business stuff
around? Why can't my client folders be that? I don't know. I own— I'm in
charge of that. I can do that. I might do that. I keep all of
my precious tax documents year over year in a Trapper Keeper.
So every different folder is marked with a different year. So yeah, that's the one
that has Mr. T and Knight Rider on it. That's the good— the outside of
the Trapper Keeper isn't good, but the folders look look like the blue and purple
and red, like, you know, they look like the old ones or whatever. Yeah.
So, um, no, my actual Trapper Keeper— that's the outside of the Trapper Keeper— that
has Game Boy games in it because, you know, that's who I am. Um,
we get to the— we're at the parking lot at one point in the,
uh, school, and Forest Whitaker's character, uh,
Charles Jefferson, shows up. And they make— uh, Damone is— Mike Damone is
the scalper, right? He's talking to some other kids about a show they want to
buy from or whatever, and he starts bragging on how he knows Jefferson. Oh yeah,
this, you know, uh, like a booster bought that for him to just play,
you know, for playing football, whatever. Like, I was there when he picked it up.
I mean, he's trying to like really play like he really knows this. Yeah.
And he has this like new Firebird. This cool— yeah, it's really cool looking car.
And, uh, and, you know, so he goes, hey Charles, how's it going? And he's
like, so your cars, you do— you're taking good care of it? Like, whole thing
goes, don't fuck with it. Yeah, he's just— he's like, he does not know this.
No. And then walks away. And then he kind of turns back to the other
kids. I, I like DeMone's like unshakable dork confidence.
Oh well, it's very unshakable. It gets badly shaken later. But,
but the, the, um, let's see, the facade of his
unshakable dork. The machismo. It's very Anthony Michael Hall in like
Weird Science. It's kind of like the super nerd, the king of the nerds.
Like, I'm still not cool, but I know how to be cooler or take.
Advantage of these like dorkier guys. Yeah, I mean, you get, you get later,
later on, and it's very Jonah Hill in Superbad too, kind of a lot of
ways that kind of attitude. Yeah. Um, but yeah, we also are
then introduced to, uh, Mr. Hand. We get into U.S. history class.
He like locks the doors, the bell rings or whatever. And, and we see this
is an interesting class too, because we see that Jeff Spicoli is
there, although he is a senior, we learn. And Stacy is— Stacy Hamilton's in it
too. We know she just started high school. So it's a little interesting is that
I guess it's just because Spicoli is a remedial student. Right. And is taking younger
classes. But yeah, so Mr. Hand is sort of like telling everybody about the course
program or— and he hands out the sheets and we, you know, that they're on
the old school Ditto machines because everybody smells them. Yes. And I was like,
yes, I remember for us it was more like elementary school, but like smelling the
Dittos. Yeah, but that's something from this that I feel like would definitely have to
be explained. Yes, today. Oh my God. Yes, because you get the warmth in.
That and that— oh, is that just unmistakable? It doesn't smell like anything else.
Like, uh, yeah, so, uh, Mr. Hand is a hard-ass played by Ray Walston from
TV's My Favorite Martian. Oh really? Yeah, he was my favorite Martian in that
old, uh, TV show. Um, so Spicoli, yeah, of course he comes to class
late after he just finished explaining why I have rules and nobody comes in
late. Yeah, and just the way Spicoli is so cluelessly standing there, the teacher's talking
to him and then he's just like, hey, I know that dude, just like pointing
to a guy in the class, like being surprised to recognize somebody at his
own high school that he's been. At for 4 years. Oh my God,
it's really bad. Oh man, um, we get, uh, a little
bit of— so, so then there's a brief moment, I think in biology class,
where, um, they're learning about, uh they're going to have to dissect things or
whatever. And the biology teacher is a very crazy looking,
strange guy played by Vincent Schiavelli, who, you know, he's always looked.
Very distinct, like, you know what I mean? Sunken in eyes, very tall, kind of
like Frankenstein posture and everything. And he is like 6'3" or 6'4", big guy
too. But they learn a little bit about this stuff. And this is the class
that Mark Ratner, who works at the movie theater, and Stacy Hamilton have
together. And Mark is like immediately like kind of smitten with Stacy. And clearly,
you know, into her, like, whatever. When he's— because he kind of— when he's working
at the movie theater, he can look across and see her at the pizza place.
So he's had his eyes on her probably all summer, and now she's at.
The same school as him, in his biology class. It was like, oh yeah,
this is cool, you know. So, so, um, we see him chatting with his
buddy Mike Damone, like, probably, I guess, maybe after the first day of school.
They're like at Damone's house and hanging out in his room, and he's kind of
like, oh Mike, like, I— there's this girl and she's just my type, and all
this stuff. And, you know, Damone's doing the whole It's all about attitude,
right? You gotta, you gotta have attitude, you know? And he's just like,
it's all this bullshit. Everywhere you go, you get to act like that's the place
to be. Like his little speech. Oh my God. And it is. And it— but
like, it's true to a certain degree, but don't use it
to manipulate people. Yeah. Like, you will have a better day if you leave your
house with the idea of like, things are going to go good today. Like,
yeah, I'm— have a good approach to the day. But he's
like using it in a manipulative way, I think. And I don't know. No,
I agree with that. DeMone is a proto-pickup artist. He is. He is
the precursor. Mystery DeMone. Yeah. He needs a fur hat and a boa.
It's bad. But I will say some of his little pieces of
advice are actually very good. I do think the idea of wherever you are on
your date, act like it's the best place to be. I think that is a
generally good attitude. But like, you know, 'Never let a girl know how much you
like her.' Like, that shit is so fucking tired. Like, knock that shit off,
you know? 'Never let her order for herself.' I mean, here's what—
gentlemanly thing to. Do— and sometimes find out what she wants, then order for her.
And I'm kind of like, all right, I could— look, I'm not saying you have
to do that, but that doesn't seem bad to me. Like, you know, as long
as you actually let her choose. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, I can
see that being like— and again, this is also 40-something years ago, you know?
But, but yeah. Oh my God. Hey, I'll have the
lobster Thermidor and she'll have the tap water.
Um, okay, so Stacy, uh, is on her date, right? So we
have different types of guys here, and she's there with Ron Johnson, who has suggested
the location of their date. Why don't we go to The Point, which I expected
in LA to at least be some kind of like overlook, right? Some vista point
where they can look down at the city, the lights are there, they're in a
cinema-friendly convertible. But no, none of that, none of that at all. They go to
what looks like a derelict Little League field, like, that probably isn't even in
use anymore. Like, it's like if there was a montage about, like,
an inner city neighborhood, like, coming back, this is how the
baseball field would start before they start. Fixing it up and making it playable.
Before Keanu Reeves gets there to, like, help his little league team out. Yeah,
yeah. This is also, uh, uh, very much like— I swear to God, I saw
that exact dugout in, like, two different Dateline documentaries. I'm not sure which
two. I'm pretty sure Bad shit went down in that dugout, and bad shit goes
down in that dugout for Stacy because it's really bad. I mean, he like gets
out of the car, bringing the blanket with him, going straight into the dugout.
I mean, there is no delay. It is one final check of,
you really 19? Yeah, I'm really 19. Fucking 15 years
old, dude. But yeah, she— and you know, there's a lot of
what Heckerling shoots in the scene. I don't know anything about her personal
history, but I have to feel like there was some element of this taken from
her own experience, both in the way Jennifer Jason Leigh reacts to
the physical feeling of losing her virginity, having sex for the first time. It's obviously
very uncomfortable for her, whatever. But then the way that she shoots the ceiling,
the things that she's actually seeing from her perspective,
is very dissociative and like very— like she's just trying. To get through this
because she's not showing like Ron Johnson satisfaction. He's not—
exactly, he's not a party to this. No, he is ancillary in a lot of
ways to Jennifer, to, to Stacy's
experience. He is just the penis. Like, he— she wanted to lose her virginity.
She was tired of like like not ever having had done this and have this
be a, a fact of her life is that she's never done this. She believes,
for one reason or another, as a lot of kids around that age do,
that this is what they have to do. I think this is thankfully less of
a thing in current generations, right? But we were feeling like you're behind if you
haven't hit certain milestones by certain ages. Exactly. Especially when you have friends who are,
A, older than you. Yes. And B, fucking lying to you. You're right.
So she doesn't know that. So she's like feeling that pressure. Her brother lies about
his experience. I mean, everybody lies about— Damone lies. Everybody lies.
And Stacy believes all So then she is actually trying to accomplish these things that
she believes everybody around her has already done. But I really, really love the way
that Amy Heckerling shoots this scene and makes us feel the discomfort
and the sort of uncertainty that Stacy must be feeling, right? It's very interesting.
Not being a woman, not having gone through that experience, you know, of a first
time in that kind of way, I don't know for sure that this is,
like, relevant to women in general, but it feels like that. And having
been a— you know, coming from a woman director, feels very intentional. I really like
it. Yeah. And I, and I think especially because a lot of what we look
at in a movie from this time frame is like, is it— does
it hold up? Is it like, is it too much to have
to explain about the way things were? But this is not filmed in
an exploitative way. So you're, you're— I think you're taking it the same
way now as you would have been supposed to take it in 1982. Yeah.
I mean, I think it's a great point. It's definitely, it's interesting. I think it
adds a little purpose to the scene that, you know, possibly a
male gaze director, you know, whatever, like somebody looking at it from a man's perspective
wouldn't have been able to bring to it. And again, just also looking back at
the fact that this was 1982, I don't know the exact numbers on
female directors of Hollywood films to this point, but it was minimal. Oh, for sure.
Super tiny. So, so, you know, to have a woman do this and have this
scene be part of this movie, I think is really great and fantastic. Fantastic.
So, um, however, it is for the character kind of an awful experience. Terrible.
Yeah, yeah, she's not enjoying it. She doesn't enjoy it. And she very quickly is
telling Linda, um, afterwards that, that it wasn't great,
like that it hurt like hell. Yeah. And it was like this dream that she
had. Yeah, exactly. It wasn't what she had expected. Um, and she gets— and she
gets back home, uh, basically to find— or maybe her brother finds
it first— is like a dozen roses or two dozen red roses,
right, with a tag that says has, you know, Ron Johnson, memories of your— memories
of you. And this paints Ron Johnson to me, and I think this is accurate,
is he's the kind of guy that has like a standard gift that
he sends to women after he has sex with them. That's like,
like Tony Soprano would have a certain like piece of jewelry that he'd give to
all of his ladies or whatever, kind of a parting gift or whatever.
So I disagree. Yeah, I think that the red roses and the memories
of you, he's directly referencing the fact that she lost her virginity. Humanity, that she
would have bled on him. I think that that's what— and that's one of the
reasons that he then. Doesn'T call him being like a sinister, like,
asshole. Just kind of like, yeah, kind of like, like, essentially I think what he's
saying is, you lied to me about— you didn't tell me you were a virgin,
so which means I think you lied to me about your age. I, you know,
I'm gonna send this. Yeah, as like a kind of a fuck you, but also
kind of a gift. Like, but like, there's an element— the whole memories of you
thing is too weird of a message to me. Oh, interesting. So I took the
red roses to. And maybe I'm completely saying you were 19.
It's the only memory I have, right? And maybe I'm completely out of left field
and making that up, but that's— I felt like there was a symbolism there,
like the red roses and, and losing her virginity. But, but maybe not. If Amy
Heckerling, if you're listening, or. Cameron Crowe, if you're listening— well, Amy Heckerling, Michael Mann
told her about the podcast after last week, so now Amy's listening.
Amy, uh, let us know. Just shoot us an email.
The show@2des1movie.com. Anyway, I do. Yeah, but, but regardless Thankfully,
Ron Johnson does not come back. We don't get any more Ron Johnson in this
movie. We don't need him. Let's focus on the actual, like, kids, the high school
kids. That's much more interesting. But, you know, for Stacy,
the reality is, you know, she's no longer a virgin. She's now crossed this path
or whatever. This gateway through her life is now behind
her. We get to a part where we're at All-American Burger and
Brad is talking to— he's gotten his buddy who wanted a job at All-American Burger.
He's at some other burger bar and he doesn't like it. He got him a
job there, so he's kind of showing his buddy like how to do stuff like
flip burgers and talking a big game about how he's going to break up with
his girlfriend Lisa because, you know, hey, she's great in bed,
but, you know, I've. Seen too much going for me to be tied down to
one person. I got— look at this. I got this great burger flipping job.
Yeah, I got a car I owe a couple more payments on and then it's
mine. The cruising vessel. The cruising car. Fucking weird. Which is
like— now, to be fair, did you have a car in high school?— I did.—
Did. It have a nickname? Um, no, my cars were
too shitty for nicknames. Oh no, we had shitty cars too. Greg Nielsen had
a like 1985 or '86 Buick LeSabre. It was like
maroon, all maroon cloth interior. We called it the Land Cruiser. Nice. And then I
had a 1981 Honda Accord in like light blue with like sunspots all
over. '81 Accord. Real small, really old Accord. We called it the Escape Honda.
So they had nicknames. I like that. I like that. I had an 80— my
first car was an '82 Datsun 280Z.
Oh, sporty. It had sporty— worst decision for first car.
Had so many problems. New, had a lot of options and stuff, but I bought
it for $925. Oh my god. Wow. And so it had all these like options
that would kick in, but like the radio didn't work and the heat didn't work
and had 250,000 miles on it. It was a terrible idea. Was smashed up on
the sides. So yeah, it was kind of like. —Didn'T need a nickname. I was
like, I don't want to think about it enough to give it a
nickname. Fair enough. Okay, so, so Brad and Lisa, right, are kind of bickering back
and forth too. So as he's telling his buddy
about like, oh, this is what I'm going to do, and then his girlfriend's bickering,
but he's like, he's not leaning into this being like, oh, this is my way
out of the relationship. Perfect. He's like immediately like, oh no, it's okay.
We're good. We're good. And he's also still trying to sleep with her apparently.
Like, you haven't because he says like, we've been together 2 years. Like, why aren't
we doing that? And she's like, I'm not going to talk about it. Talking about
how good she is. Right, exactly. Yeah, all these kids lie about this stuff,
right? And, and she's like, I don't want to— I'm not going to talk to
you about having sex or not having sex with you at work. Are you crazy?
Like, yes. He's like, what do you want to talk— I mean, it's just Brad's
a whining punk. He reminds me of Ross Geller. And I don't know,
dude, totally. He has that. Yeah, he has that essence to
him. Um, Mr. Hand, uh, is, is back in school and we're kind of
like— he's handing out the tests And I always hated this shit. And this is
a good— it's a good stereotype of the teacher who's saying the grade out loud
as they're handing it to everybody. Gotta be a HIPAA violation. Oh, terrible,
right? It's the worst. So, you know,
C, D, F, F-, F-. Like, he's like, what are you
people, on dope? So his thing is he thinks everybody's on dope,
right? And given his interactions with Jeff Spicoli, he's not wrong 100% of the
time. Yeah, because Some of the time he's talking to Jeff Spicoli, who clearly is
on dope at every moment. So absolutely. We, we have hit
ahead a little bit to Christmas time. We get a little montage at the mall
of like Christmas time. A lot of Christmas, more than Rocky IV. That's actually
true. Good point. Yeah. And we even get— I love getting the Santa
who gets peed on with the little kid sitting on his lap. He's like,
oh, goddamn it. Like, you know, kind of thing. Very funny.
And then I also love there's this this, um, moment here because we've
got, uh, Damone and, and Mark Ratner, Rat, at the mall together.
And Damone's wearing the keyboard scarf. I love the keyboard scarf so much. So good.
Such a great scarf. I wrote Damone keyboard scarf down. That's an important
part of this. Um, I also like this line. So he's kind of telling him,
hey, go up and talk to Stacy, like, just go start
a conversation, right? And, uh, and he goes, uh, he's in his, like, tuxedo from
the theater, right? And Damone says, hey, you got to ace that jacket. So he
takes his jacket. I love ace that jacket. That's a great one. That's really good.
Damone's a total and complete piece of shit, as we'll get into later. But there
are elements of him that aren't like— there's,
there's pieces of his attitude and stuff that I'm like,
man, actually, like, harnessed to positivity, this would actually be— he'd be a motivational
speaker, right? I mean, like, there's elements of what. He tells Rat that is like
pretty good advice. Totally. And I mean, I do feel like that's why there's
redemption available for Demone. Yeah, later in the film,
you know. Yeah, so, so Mark goes up to Stacy and he's like, he tells
her, I lost my jacket, what do you do with the jackets you find there?
And she's like, we keep them until you come back, here's the lost and found.
And it's like not even a full moving box-sized box, and Mark's just
like, nah, it'd take too long to go through that, I'll just grab a new
one. There's like 5 jackets in that box, maybe 5 jackets, it's It's such a
weird— because he didn't give a shot. I mean, we know he just wanted a
chance to talk to her, um. But I love it popping into his head is
like the cool thing for me to say is like, whatever, dude, I got a
ton of jackets, what. Do I need a jacket for? I think what he's more
saying is like, I'll just go buy him the one. I got a good job.
Yeah, I'm a kid with money, I'll go buy a jacket. Yeah, it's all
good. Um, but he also, uh, does get her number. He asks for
her number, um, he's actually fairly smoothly— I thought it was really, really good actually
when he actually does finally ask for the number. Yeah, he wasn't stammering, he was
being nice and polite to her. I mean, he was very at least making
himself worth a shot, right, to this girl by not, you know,
being. Too aggressive or anything, like non-threatening. No, that's— and,
you know, obviously non-threatening to his detriment later, but, but that's a good guy.
Like, like, we can definitely, we can definitely say Mark Ratner is a good
guy. Um, okay, yeah, so that quickly we're back
at All-American Burger, and this is an important scene, but the very beginning of this
scene, yeah, is, uh, Brad Judge Reinhold is cleaning a profanity
off the mirror. Yeah, in the bathroom said
blank big hairy pussy. Whatever the first blank is, is what he's erasing
first. I gotta say, if you're working at a restaurant right now, there's profanity and
there's also non-profanity words. You gotta prioritize getting pussy off
there and then maybe get hairy off there. So it would just say great big.
And then have some smudges. I think it was eat. I think it was— is
the indicator— eat big hairy pussy. Okay, original graffiti. So, so So
even that, right? Eat certainly can stay. It's a restaurant. Whatever comes after, that's the
important part. Yeah, yeah. I will say, if it said great, it would, it would
end the same as eat. So, um, but yeah, I always thought that was funny
that he's just like, why the, the main bad part is still up there.
Yeah. And then his buddy, I think Albert, who he got, uh, the job there
at a Mall of America Burger Fork, runs in and has to use the bathroom.
He's like, dude, can you cover me on the, on the register? I gotta use
the bathroom. I gotta, I gotta go. He's like, oh, okay, sure. So he goes
out And he's not a registered guy. No, he's a burger. He's a cook in
the back. He does— he usually flips burgers, although I'm sure there's at
least some cross-training. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I actually never worked in fast food.
I worked in retail. But, you know, we did— no, you know, there wasn't like
I only worked the videos or the music. Like, we definitely moved all over and
did whatever. So, yeah. So he goes up and immediately there's this like dude in
like a business suit who's like bringing up a
80, 90% finished plate of breakfast and goes, I'd like my money back. It says
100% guaranteed breakfast. It wasn't the best breakfast I ever had. Which is like super
shitty and dumb. And Brad's stammering a little and stumbling, but he is trying to
say like, there's a process. Like, I can't just give you money out of the
till. There's like a form to fill out. Let me get the form. And the
guy's like, no, fuck you. I want my $2.75. Like, give it to me.
He doesn't say fuck you because he doesn't swear at him initially. But like,
he's like, no, like, like, give me my money back. It says, you know,
you know what guaranteed means, moron, or whatever. And that's when like Brad has been
looking at the thing. He goes, mister, if you don't shut up, I'm going to
kick 100% of your ass. Yes. Just not as intimidating as I think. No,
it was very Ross Geller, like the way that he delivered that. That's how he
would do that. He was swimming
it up. Yeah. And, and you know what? He dealt with that very poorly.
Very poor. It's the restaurant's money, not your money. You could have refunded the
guy. Absolutely. Whatever. The guy was being unreasonable. As a business,
don't put some vague promise like 100% guaranteed breakfast because people.
Will interpret that differently. Differently. Yeah. And, and so the manager,
the assistant manager comes out and the guy says, hey, your, your employee just threatened
me, physically threatened me and used profanity. And he's like, Brad, is that true?
He's going, well, the guy called me a moron or whatever. He's like, you're fired.
So immediately that's it, Brad is fired at All-American Burger. He yells
back towards the bathroom, I. Hope you had a nice shit.
Yeah, yeah. Because he really didn't want to be on the register there. And,
and yeah, so, so Brad has been shitcanned. He now,
now no longer has quite as many things going for him as he did moments
before, right? He's still got the car, he's still got the girl. He does not
have a job. And, and he's leaning now back into, okay, well, I get
to lock this girlfriend down because I just lost my job. So he's kind
of pleading to her. Yeah, they're at like a pep rally. It's cool now.
Yeah, like, we have to stay together. I do like at the pep rally,
the, the Spirit Girls or the cheerleaders, the way that they're
talking. It's just those characters are very funny where they're like, I don't like being.
Called a spirit bunny, it's such a put-down. Also, are there only two
cheerleaders? I don't know, it seemed like that's it.
Like, it's very interesting. Um, um, so yeah, so Brad's basically saying, hey, I think
it's important that we're together. Like, I really need you right now. Yeah. And she's
like, oh, you know, I think we owe it to ourselves to be free.
Basically gives him the exact speech that he was telling his friend.
I'm a senior now.
Yes, exactly. So Brad's not loving it right now. Yeah, absolutely.
Um, so yeah, he's dumped and now we, we go to, uh,
I think Mark and Lisa, or excuse me, Mark and Stacy are going to have
a. Date together at a sit-down knockwurst restaurant. So we're getting there because
first Mark DeMond, or Mike DeMond tells him, he's like, he's like, when it comes
down to it, Rhett, when you get in the car, you always
put on side one Led Zeppelin. For. And so of course that's
what's playing, you know, it's at the beginning of his Black Dog or what song
is, whatever. But it's like, that's what's playing, uh, uh, in the car when they're
going, and really loudly too. They're having to kind of shout to each other totally
over the music. But you know, of course Damone said this is what you do,
so, so you better do it, man. Better do it. Um, and then yeah,
they go to this like German restaurant basically, right? And they are sitting
in the most comically enormous chairs. They look
like like 5-year-olds. They look— and this is— it's that Lily Tomlin character where she
would sit. In the giant— the giant chair. Yeah. And it's clear this is an
indicator. So, you know, taking a step back for a moment, the only
two characters in this movie that, as far as I can tell, are at all
main characters who like never lie about
their maturity pretty much are Mark and Stacy, right? Because all the things Stacy says
she's done, we've seen her do, right? She admits to never having done X,
Y, and Z until we see that she's done But like almost everybody from Brad
to Linda, you know, Damone, everybody except maybe Spicoli, they're lying
to somebody about something that they're doing. These two are kind of the most
innocent in a sense when they're together. So putting them in these enormous chairs that
are much larger than any of the chairs in the restaurant. Yeah. All the chairs
in the restaurant look the same, but they are not sat in the same.
So either they've— I think what they did was they maybe had the same chairs
and then took the cushions off the seats. So they're like low. Yeah.
It's, I think, very, you know, deliberately giving us
this childlike feel. Between Rat and Stacy and making us feel that they are more
innocent than their compatriots and, you know, less corrupted by, you know,
the sort of like. Goings-On of teenage America at this point. Yeah, I get
that. I get that. Uh, it's just— it's such a funny location because I couldn't
think of where I'd go to sit down for some knockwurst around here. Uh,
I will also say, next time we're making this movie and we need
a blowjob demonstration scene, let's go knockwurst restaurant instead of, uh, Carrots at
the Lunch Table. Would have been more accurate, I guess.
Yeah, that's true. Um, So yeah, so they, they go to order food and
that is when Mark realizes he does not have his wallet with him. He left
it at home, which first of all, dude, should not be driving without your
license on you. Mark Ratner, that's not cool. In a borrowed car. In a borrowed
car. Exactly. Not your car, your sister's older sister's car. And so he
goes to the payphone because of course it's 1982. That's what you have to do.
He goes to payphone, he calls Demone, and Demone is sitting
at home doing nothing. Watching TV, eating something, drinking milk out of
the carton, something, watching Leave It to Beaver. And he basically asked me, he's like,
hey dude, can you like borrow your, I don't know, brother's or sister's, your whatever
he says, your brother's car or your sister's car, drive over to my house,
get my wallet and bring it to me at this restaurant, please. Like, I got
it, you know. And it's like, I'm kind of busy here,
right? Like, yeah, like really, dude, just be a dick about it. But he agrees
to. Damone, generally speaking, is a good friend of Mark, and he does, and he,
and he brings it. And then I thought But you know, like watching this,
even again, I've seen it so many times. I thought to myself, oh yeah,
I bet he like slips him the wallet. Same thing. Yes. Cause he does
a little like handshake. I thought, oh, the wallet's in there. No, he's like,
hey, I found your wallet. I thought you might want it back. And like tosses
it on the table. Like, what is that? Not dude.
Like, that's not helpful. It's great. And he broke up the kind
of tension of Mark and Stacy at the date where he's waiting for his wallet
to arrive and they keep like ordering refills on their Cokes and stuff.
They've clearly been there forever. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it was funny because
Mike DeMone, Mr. Smooth, is decidedly unsubtle with
the water. And, you know, knowing what happens a little later, was that him being
like, you know, I don't like that Mark has this chick. Like, I sound like
I do, but I don't have any chicks. Maybe I'll try to sabotage him a
little bit. Could be. I think, I think anything related
specifically to Stacy that happens later is more spur of the moment. But yeah,
maybe just in general, he's just like jealous that he's not the one on a
date. That's very, very possible. Yeah, I like that. Like, it's interesting. And I,
and I like Damone picking something off the table and popping it in his mouth.
That's a good cool guy move, is you just walk up to someone who's eating
and grab something with your fingers. Off their plate and pop it in your mouth.
To be fair, he was pretty convinced they were done at this point, given.
Why he was there. But that gives you something cool to do.
That's true. That's true. So let's see. They— okay,
so, so Stacy now takes Mark back. Well, yes, so Mark drives Stacy home.
Well, no, no, no, Mark is driving his sister's car. She needs a ride home.
So he's driving her home. Apparently somebody broke into his sister's car and stole her
tape deck. They mentioned in conversation— I'm so— I can't believe it. He goes,
yeah, I can't believe that happened in front of such a nice
restaurant. Somebody has stolen Mark's sister's tape deck out of her car.
That sucks. And Stacy invites Mark in, says, my parents are gone,
I think she tells him, or or maybe that's later, whatever, like, or they won't
be home till later. Do you want to come in? Um, and so they're,
they're really cute together. She decides to get— should she
get changed is what she says. Yeah, she basically just like puts on a robe,
which is like, okay, massive sign number one, Mark, that she's into you,
right? Help me with my dress. I mean, that's— yeah, she's rolling
out the red carpet. I know, I, I had to marry a woman before she
asked me to help her with her dress, you know what I mean? So Um,
but yeah, he is so crazy
awkward. But he, you know, they start making out and then he
freaks out basically and is like, oh, you know what, I gotta go. Like,
it's clear he just— he's not comfortable with it, he's not ready for it,
and he just wants out. And the downside of it is that it makes Stacy
think he doesn't like her at all, right? And that's the bummer of it,
is that, you know, he's just not ready for this. He's not ready
for it and he doesn't he's not gonna do it, and he just freaks out.
And all he can think to do. Is say, I gotta go, or whatever.
And my sister's really weird about her car, which is like, you already blew that
one, buddy. So her tape deck is gone, so you could show up 2 hours
late and she's still gonna be mad, more mad about the thing that happened.
But yeah, it also kind of seemed like Mark might have
prematurely ejaculated. But possible. I don't think we get enough indication that's going on.
But yeah, it wasn't— he didn't make the face. But, but when they sit
down on her bed and she's like like, what do you want to do?
I gotta give advice to anybody listening. You gotta have an answer. Yeah, chambered for
that. Because her next thing is, well, you don't have an answer, do you want
to look at old photo albums? Which sounds like a fucking nightmare. I would also
say, if you find yourself in a place where an age-appropriate,
uh, uh, partner of your desired gender is sitting with you, they have asked you
to help them undress, they have now put on a robe, you are sitting on
their bed in their bedroom, and they ask you, what do you want to do?
All I'll say is, if you do want to kiss that person
that is all the active consent you need, right? You have active consent. You should,
you should go ahead and feel free to kiss that person. That's all I'll say
about that. That really— she could not have done more. She really did.
Jumping on him, which she almost did when she reaches for the, for the photo
album. She has like reach over his body, like over his lap. Like he couldn't
have gotten more positive signal that this is okay and what she wants. Dude,
this was down the middle of the plate, hanging curveball for him, and he kept
the bat on on his shoulder. Yeah, um, he hit himself in the head with
the bat. Yeah,
that's right. Oh man. Uh, we get, uh,
now we've got Spicoli driving Jefferson's car with Jefferson's little brother,
who's like Spicoli's bud, which I think is a fun, you know, weird dynamic,
frankly. Seems like, you know, Spicoli clearly is several years older than this,
but just mentally, I like video games at the arcade, I like smoking weed,
I like hanging out with this guy, like they're bros. House. Yeah, he's not trying
to get at Jefferson for anything. He's just like, this is my bud. Yeah,
100%, just enjoying. So they're smoking pot, he's drinking a beer, and they're driving
the— was it like a Firebird, right? You know, driving it around town
and kind of crazy, a little bit of crazy driving. Yeah. And Jefferson's little brother
is kind of like, man, you better be careful, this is my brother's car.
Like, he's gonna— he's gonna— don't mess up my brother's car.
Sure enough, they crash into like the scaffolding on like a business that's maybe being
painted or built or something. It's a very interesting situation, almost like a construction
site. Yeah, right. They crash into— where where did that. Ramp come from type situation?
Seriously, it like flies up and they're okay, but when they come to a stop
and like there's cinder blocks just all over the hood of the car because of
whatever they slammed into, a cinder block wall. I love this. Spicoli's like, dude,
I can fix it. And I think his excuse or his explanation is that his
dad's a lawnmower repairman. Is that what he said? It was something like that.
My dad's got a whole bunch of tools. Like, I can do it. You can't
fix this car, Spicoli. And he's I got an
idea and. It'S a brilliant idea. I think it's the best thing he. Could have
done, right? I don't think Spicoli's smart enough to come up with this. Yeah.
And yet here we are. They put the car in the front of the school
and they spray paint like Lincoln rules or like,
you know, kill Ridgemont, Ridgemont sucks, whatever. Right. Because it's their rival school and they
have the game coming up. They've been doing this rally and all this stuff building
to it. Lincoln High. So it's the perfect way to like motivate our guy and
pass the blame. In a believable way. Yeah.
Yes. Um, it quickly— there's a scene where it shows Damone and he's standing
by his locker. Inside his locker he has like several ties
hanging. Yeah. And like a full Devo poster on the inside door, and then a
bottle of Hennessy. I really love his locker setup, dude. It's nice. Yeah,
that's part of the whole sequence. It's clearly like game day. It's the morning of
the game against Lincoln. Yeah, we know Jeff— we know Charles Jefferson is super pissed
about stuff, and all the people— kids are wearing shirts that either say Kill Lincoln
or Assassinate Lincoln. I like it. I do dig that. It's really good. I feel
like if your rival is Lincoln High, assassinate Lincoln, uh, be the
Booth the world deserves, something like that, you know what I mean? Like, whatever,
you know, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln? You know, something along those lines.
I feel like that's a big thumbs. Up for me, uh, leaning into that for
sure. And it works like crazy. Uh,
we get a very, uh, non, you know, probably accurate
sports-wise football scene, but it's just showing it's fun. Uh, Jefferson going through and
injuring every. Other player on the other team. He's clearly like the linebacker whatever,
right, on the defense, and just, and just, you know,
doing amazing like toe taps before the snap and then just diving. Over the offensive
line. Everyone has these like terrified looks on their face. Well, they pull at least
2 or 3 kids from the Lincoln side off on stretchers. Yes. Like, I mean,
it really— he is just absolutely like causing true
havoc here on the football field. And we get the score at the end and
it says 42 to nothing, Richmond beats Lincoln. And his
moves are like He just leapfrogs the entire offensive
and defensive line and then grabs like 2 guys by the head and like
Arnold in True Lies with the dogs, like, stay. His moves
are good. His moves are good. Oh, it's killer. This is, you know,
I think that when there was some kid said something about Jefferson and he said,
does he actually go here? I thought they just flew him in for football games
or whatever. This guy is like clearly like legendary.
Totally. Totally. But yeah, um, so Lisa and Stacy. Are hanging out by
the pool here. At Stacy and Brad's house. Uh, and again, I mean,
I guess nice year-round, like if it was Southern. California and yeah, they got
some good weather. We get the whole school year in this movie and time passes
like fairly quickly. It is a little interesting, like, but there's some still in football
season. The weirdness is if it's Christmas time, it had already
been Christmas time And yeah, it should be colder unless we,
unless we skip way ahead after the football game. Yeah, it's a little
hard to tell. But this is, again, I mean, this is something that you can't
really get too tied down on with this movie because it is just a series
of. Little— this is also, I think, the first time we see Brad at his
new job or from his new job, right? So he's gotten a new
job at Captain Hook's Fish and Chips. Yes, with the pirate costume and everything.
So he's got his second job of the movie. And he come, you know,
because basically what happens here, right? Yeah, Linda and, uh, um, uh, Stacy are hanging
out doing like a Cosmo quiz or whatever about, you know, what's your love life
like or whatever. And, and she's answering about her and. Doug,
which— and again, you know, Linda, everything that she says about her boyfriend is totally
something that she read elsewhere that she's relaying as her own story. Or whatever,
you know. And, and she said, uh, Stacy asks her, do you, do you climax
every time with Doug? And she goes, oh yeah. I think number one way to
tell she's lying. Yes, exactly. Ask any woman on the planet,
she would know. Oh my God. If you don't know, it's just because you haven't
yet. That's pretty much why you don't know. Um, but yeah, so then,
uh, Rat and Damone show up. Uh, Damone drives them over there and is like,
you know, look— and here's, here's this moment is where Damone is being a real
homie. He's being— he's trying to get Rat back on the, back on the horse,
you know? And it's like, hey, look, you like this girl. 'You had kind of
a weird encounter. Let's go. They'll invite us in. We'll have a good time.
Like, we'll get back on, on the horse here.'. And so they're hanging
out, and when he walks up to the fence, I love the way Damone says
this, where he just— they look over the fence, he goes, 'Hey, we came to
help you. With your math homework.' So
they, they let them in. And, you know, I love too, Linda's immediately like
just nonplussed about these high school boys jumping in the pool and splashing.
That's not— would be less interested in it. It's not what men do. Absolutely.
Um, she has the, the look of someone who's like Vegas and someone who's brought
their kids down to the hotel pool, where she's like, this is not. What this
is for. Even better, she looks like someone who is at— in Vegas for a
business conference and happens to be at the pool and is pissed off that the
day club is happening around her. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of even— you know what
I mean? So Brad comes home wearing his, you know,
Captain Hook's fish and chips pirate costume, and, uh, you know,
he sees them all and says, oh, your mom and dad know your friends are
over, and like, whatever. So he heads and, you know, he says hi to Linda,
but he heads inside And this is where we get the, you know, one of
the most iconic scenes in the movie. Certainly a core memory for me.
But, you know, Brad daydreams about Linda diving into
the pool and coming up. Out of the pool. And very Christmas
Vacation. Yeah, there's definitely a— you know, I feel like there's the Christmas Vacation
sequence that Clark daydreams is very much a reference to this. And, you know,
she takes her top off and, you know, Brad, you know how cute I always
thought you were or whatever. And he daydreams about them making out. Out while
she's got her top off. And we have this great song, this, uh, Living in
Stereo or Moving in Stereo by the Cars, which is just an excellent song playing
in the background. And it's really impossible if you're familiar with this movie
to separate that song from this scene. Yes, absolutely. It is,
it is 100% just completely tied to the
song and to the— yeah, Moving in Stereo, uh, is tied to this moment in
so many ways. Um, but But, you know, Linda dives in, and then we get
Brad's daydream, and we notice Brad is in the bathroom with a view out
to the pool, and, and he is rubbing one out, basically. He's taking care of
himself because Lisa dumped him, so he's got nobody. And now Linda's out there,
who's in, in his class. She's a senior like he is. They've known each other
a long time. Probably, frankly, how Linda met Stacy was probably through
Brad. You'd have to figure some kind of a school event or something, you know.
Um, why else would Stacy— unless she. Just met her from work. That's true.
I guess it could have just been work. Yeah, but either way, she's known Brad
a long time time. Um, he— she dives into the pool and comes up and
immediately is like, I've got water in my ear, I need a Q-tip, which is
like, it never happened to me. Yeah, I don't know what that's all about.
Uh, Brad does not know how to lock bathroom doors, it would appear. Uh,
there's not a bathroom built in a house in California since the 1940s that didn't
have locks on the doors. Like, dude, insane. And if I
am— if I'm jacking it and I know that there's like other people on
the premises, my head is on a swivel. Like, I am the most vigilant person
alive, man. The doors are locked. The masturbation is like the fourth thing I'm worrying
about because number one is OPSEC, you know. I'm just like, I gotta make sure
I'm covered here. Yeah. So yeah, terrible job by Brad. Brad with
the Hegseth-level OPSEC on his, uh, on his little covert action. Um, so she of
course walks into the bathroom and, and, you know,
doesn't even like react. Her reaction to him whacking it is
interesting to me because she kind of does this like— and this is an audio
medium so you're not gonna see me, but she cringes a little or
like goes, "Ooh, sorry." Like, ooh, like Jerry Lewis pulling at his
collar kind of thing almost. And then it's like, I think she still grabs the
Q-tips or something, but she doesn't leave right away. And he goes, "Oh,
oh, sorry." You know, whatever. And it's just like, yeah, that's, I'm not
under any impression Brad ever would've had a chance with Linda, but if there had
been a chance, it is now gone. You don't come back from that. That was
it there. I mean, that is a really tough. One to
come back from. Uh, lock the door, Brad, lock the door. But what a scene.
I mean, that's one of those scenes from this movie that everyone
can not identify with that it's happened to them, but it just relate
to that fear and that, that feeling and stuff. Because even if it's never happened
to you, you've been in a position, at least as a guy, at some point
in your youth where you were afraid it might happen to you. Yeah. Or you,
or you were worried it. Could happen to you. Dude, 100%.
And just the feeling of being in proximity to this person you have a
crazy crush on and just being like, oh my God, I can't believe they're at
my house or whatever. Like she'd probably been there before, but he's really like,
oh, I'm getting every look I can in this world.
Yeah, so now we're kind of back in class. I think we're
in Mr. Hands' class here. And great feature of this
school is you can get a pizza delivered directly to the classroom. Well,
I mean, look back, I mean, nowadays, right? You can't go on a school campus
without checking in at the front desk. Everything's, you know, fenced off, whatever, you know,
pretty much all those changes started happening since the late '90s when Columbine and everything
else. So I think, yeah, campuses were just kind of like, they were just,
you just walked onto campus if you needed to do something there. Yeah. Right.
During the year. And this is, you know, again, being a California school, it was
probably very open, you know, whatever. And sure enough, Jeff Spicoli
has ordered a pizza, extra cheese with sausage is the order.
And one Taylor Negron is the delivery boy from Mr. Pizza Guy.
He's been in a ton of stuff. I love Taylor. Like he's listed. And I
don't know what he is in IMDb, but I'm pretty sure in the credits of
the movie, it's listed. As Taylor Negron, himself. Oh really?
I don't understand. Weird. Yeah, it was really weird because, yeah, that guy's— he's
such a recognizable guy. Um, yeah, I mean, he's just been in a thousand things
and, you know, until he passed, uh, tragically about 10 years ago, far too
young. Um, yeah, like, that's interesting. I'll have to look and see if I can
find some reference to that because that would be— that would be weird, right?
He clearly played a delivery pizza boy or pizza delivery boy. Like, yeah. Um,
but anyway, the point being, he brings the pizza. Yeah. And, you know, Spicoli makes
a reasonably good argument to Mr. Hand. He goes, you know, Mr. Hand, I've been
thinking about this If you're here and I'm here, doesn't that
make this our time? There's nothing wrong with a little feast on our
time. And Mr. Hand agrees. That's very good, Mr. Spicoli. And so he gets the
pizza out and he starts calling up students to like take a slice. And it
looks like pretty damn good pizza. I actually really solid and big
slices. I mean, you're bold to take a. Full slice there, but it's in my
heart. If you've ever been to a Pizza My Heart, they do slices that big.
I like that. So Damone sees Stacy after school. She, she's— they're
leaving school and basically like chatting a bit, whatever, I think. And then, and then
Stacy's like, ah yeah, I gotta walk home. And he's like, oh yeah, okay,
I'll walk with you, whatever. And he's starting to say, you know, Mark really likes
you, you know, he's like, he's a really nice guy, he's really into you.
Yeah. And she goes, yeah, no, Mark's, Mark's sweet, he's a really sweet guy,
but I don't like Mark, I like you. Which again,
this is like— I feel like if everybody at this age was this forward,
there would be a lot less confusion of being a teenager. She is very clear
about what she wants and, and, and And look, Mike still should have said,
yeah, okay, but my buddy likes you, so I can't do anything, whatever. But it's
like, I have to have a conversation with him. I can't move on this right
now. Yeah, something like that. But there is an element of me that's kind of
like, she's a, you know, autonomous acting unit within this
threesome relationship, whatever it is, this friendship or this knowledge base for these three humans.
Like she has her own autonomy. She's decided she doesn't, she's not interested in Mark.
Sure. So who is Mark to be mad at Damone?
For acting on Stacy's interest in him when Stacy has no interest in Mark.
Like, there's an element of that. Yeah, it's like Stacy can decide who the fuck
she wants to see or. Be with or whatever. I think eventually— but I
think Damone, especially because he's been so involved in this relationship, kind of— yeah,
needs to at least tell Mark, hey dude, this. Is what she told me.
100%. It's still— he still should have backed off. But you know, there is a
part— I feel like— I think the point I'm trying to make is like,
when I was like 20, I felt much more strongly that like, you know,
fuck Damone, like he shouldn't do that. And watching it through this time, I went,
yeah, but you know what, That's what Stacy wants. Yeah, I mean, DeMone didn't force
himself. He didn't misrepresent anything other than just. Being his normal, like, bullshit self,
right? I mean, he's always flossing like that, like kind of trying to be whatever.
But he's still that guy. Yep. Um, yeah, so Stacy,
you know, hey, uh, you want to go in the swimming pool? He says,
no, it must be nice having a pool. No, but this is the thing.
So the one thing he does do when he— they get to her house and
they stop, and he— what he should have done at this point is say,
oh, I see you at school tomorrow, and like leave. Instead he goes goes,
got any iced tea? So he's inviting him, you know, he's opening up the idea
of him coming in. So that's the point to me where Damone crosses the line.
Yeah, between him and Mark. What happens after that is just between him and Stacy.
But like, he did not need to go into that house. He could have just
said— he put himself in there. He put himself— exactly. So that's where he kind
of betrayed his buddy, was even just asking to come in, just because it opens
the door, it, it, it, it shows her his interest, right? Yeah. Uh, and that's
when he goes, yeah, like, somebody— it must be nice to have a pool you
could use anytime you want. And she's like, hey, I'll get changed in the pool.
And she's got the weirdest bathing suit. Both, both the times that she's in the
pool in this movie, it's like a bathing suit bottom and then just like a
tank top. Like, she doesn't wear like a normal bathing suit at like any point
in this movie, which is very odd to me. But especially because she is
like naked in parts of the movie, so it's. Not a modesty concern. No,
it's not a modesty thing. And, and the character lives in a home with
a pool, so clearly goes in the pool a lot. Probably has— needing a bathing
suit, surprising. Exactly right. Not caught by surprise there. Uh, so she gets changed and
then she tells Damone, okay, Brad's got a bunch of stuff in the changing house,
the little pool house area. Yeah. And then immediately gets it on
with him. Yeah. And it does not last long. Damone lasts maybe longer than
Mark did, depending on how— what you believe about what happened earlier. Uh,
Stacy, I guess, just has this effect. I mean, well, I also feel this is
probably Damone's first time. Oh dude, totally. Guys this age, I mean, yeah,
that would have been Um, so yeah, Damone, uh, finishes extremely fast, gets out
of there. No pleasure for her, no enjoyment. It did not go the way that
she had hoped, especially with him bailing. Out of there immediately. Yeah, exactly. And,
and that's one of the shittier things he does is the immediate, like, I gotta
go, I gotta get out of here kind of thing. It's just like extra,
extra shitty. Uh, it's funny how the guilt though—. That'S classic post-nut clarity
for Damone there. Yeah, he's guilty, feeling guilty, feeling embarrassed about finishing
too fast. Yep. Feeling guilty about what he's done to his buddy arc, all feeling
all kinds of terrible shit, but like reacts to it in also a bad way
and kind of doubles down on it being a shitty move. And that
sucks, but, but there you go. So he really is a really quite
a dick to her, but I think it's mostly embarrassment. Um,
we cut to, uh, Brad Hamilton now at Captain Hook's fish and
chips shop. Yes. And he is asked by his— well, I guess there's an interaction
first with a couple customers who are like like they're twins, very odd-looking twins,
talking about, is any of your fish not fried? Or yes, like nothing on the
menu. Can you say blemish? You really want me to eat fried food? Like,
whatever. They both decide not to eat there, but it's like, all right guys,
you walked into the place, like, right? You know what it is? It's called Captain
Hook's Fish and Chips. Like, we're not burying the lead here. This is not a
health food store, you know what I mean? And then Brad is told by his
manager, uh, that he needs to go make a delivery of like 20 fish and
chips boxes or whatever to this like business, IBM, I think. And so, um,
he's like, okay. So he goes into the back to change out of his uniform
because it's this really crazy looking, you know, dude. Theme park,
huge, like novelty-sized hat. Like, it's crazy. It's like a Three Amigos costume almost.
Yes, with a pirate hat. And he says, it's uncomfortable, I was taking it off,
I'm going to exchange my street clothes to do the delivery. And the guy's like,
dude, this is a very like, uh, Mike Judge in Office Space. Chachki is like,
you know, people come here for the, for the atmosphere and the attitude. He's like,
you Hey, a big part of the Captain Hook's appeal is this uniform. You know
that, like, kind of thing. And so he's like, you want me to put it
back on? He goes, yes, I do. And so he puts it back on,
he gets into the car to drive the stuff over, and for whatever reason,
he's already pissed and, you know, he hates it, but he like goes to like
try some. He like eats some of the food basically, which is what I just
assume every like Uber Eats or, you know, DoorDash person does at some places,
you know. Yeah, that's why you only have like. 4 chicken nuggets when it gets
to your house. Yeah, I didn't think McDonald's made a 9-piece. What happens here?
Yeah. Um, but it doesn't taste good and he like gets mad about it and
it like gets— and he like throws it out the way. He ends up dumping
the hat and all the food like out the window. Well, because he pulls up
next to this chick that he's kind of trying to flirt with at the light.
He doesn't— he forgets he's wearing the uniform. So he's kind of just like,
I'm still Brad, like a single successful guy mode. And then she laughs at
him and he's just kind of like, ah, fuck this entire thing. So yeah,
throws the uniform, throws all the food out the window. He's done with that job.
We don't see him technically quit that job, but that is Brad quitting
that job. Exactly. For sure. And, um, so then next thing we're at the— we're
at the back of the school, but like the track, the football field, sort of
outdoors. And Damone is trying to sell cheap trick tickets to this girl who's like,
isn't that kid stuff? And he's like doing like the dream police
stuff. Surrender, surrender. Um, and, and Stacy has been kind of trying to like catch
up to Damone a couple times already, like, hey, I need to talk to you.
Oh, hey, uh, yeah, I'll talk talk to you later, I'm busy. Yeah, yeah,
yeah. Um, so yeah, she interrupts, uh, his important sale
of cheap trick tickets to tell him that I'm pregnant
and there. Wasn'T anybody else, right? So his initial reaction is
the standard douchebag reaction. How do you know? How do you even know it's me?
You know, kind of thing. He's like, I haven't been with anybody else. Like,
which again, at this point it has been many, many months since she was with
Ron, right? So it's like, yeah, that would have— if it was him, it already
would have happened kind of thing. So she's right, this This is who it
is. And she says, like, there's a good line here where she's like,
it's $150 at the free clinic. He goes, doesn't sound free to me. It's like,
yeah, good point. It's not. But there's no money needed to go into the clinic,
I guess is more the idea. But he agrees to— The free admission clinic.
Yeah, exactly. Free admission clinic. Exactly. But he agrees to pay half, $75, and give
her a ride. So he agrees. All right. So here goes on a ride.
And I'm like, hey, man, compared to like 18 years of raising a child,
Well, yeah, that's a pretty good deal if that's what you're going to do.
Like, consider yourself lucky. Yeah, there are many more than one ride involved in raising
a child. So at least the ride ledger tips in your
favor there. Yeah. This— okay, so now to
me, we've got— we have Damone. He's got to come up with the $75.
He doesn't have $75. Right. And there's a scene of him like going through and
making phone calls for people that owe him for the different tickets. Yeah. And I
had to pause it so that I could write down what is on his little
ledger because it really cracked me up. Good. To me, this is the funniest joke
in the whole movie. So he's got two columns on this paper. He's got people
who owe me and then expenses. Okay. So people who owe me on
the left, $50, Rick Shasta, REO Speedwagon, $10,
Deana Phillips, The Knack, $5, Ratner, $20,
David Brandt, The Clash. And then on the expenses on the other
side, he has abortion, $75, and then it says
says, Rod Stewart, $60, question mark.
I think that's the best joke in. The entire movie, to be able to.
Get those— having his expense ledger where. He'S trying to figure this out. He sees
him running the business. I hope I can make it to. Rod Stewart after I
take care of this baby thing. Oh my God. So yeah, so, and his
buddy he's calling is just like, dude, I don't have the money. I can get
it for you Thursday. And he's like, no, I need it tonight. Like, he's like,
I don't have— can't give you what I don't have. Yeah. He's like, fine,
I'll take it from you Thursday or whatever. Because I would have got him— I
mean, $50 would have got him most of the way there, you know. But,
uh, but then, you know, we cut to watching Stacy stand on the
curb outside her house waiting for Damone to show up like he
agreed to, and nothing, nothing. And so she— and he can't borrow it from Ratner,
who would be like maybe the main source, because that's the one guy who can't
know, maybe other than his parents, right, or the other. People that would have the
money potentially. Exactly, that's the point, is the people that— yeah, the people he could
rely on for the money are people he desperately does not want to know that
he's he needs it for this, right? Um, so Stacy's waiting for
him. Stacy, you know, he does not arrive. She goes back in the house to
call him, and he gets— she gets, uh, Damone's mother, who says, you know,
she said, there's Mike there, I need to talk to him. This is Stacy.
Well, let me check. And he says, uh, Stacy, he says he's in the garage
helping his dad. And it's like, this says so many things,
right? First off, it says yes, he's there. Yeah, so he is actively
ignoring your call. Second, the mom doesn't even know for sure that he is in
the garage helping his dad. It's just what he said he's doing, so who knows
what he's actually doing, right? It is
super, super shitty. Um, Stacy hears Brad's car start up, so she heads out
and basically flags him down and is like, hey, can I— I need a ride.
I need a ride to a bowling alley. Yeah, right. And, you know, and so
yeah, Brad's like, of course I'll give you a ride to the bowling alley,
no big deal. But then he drops her off, she goes kind of towards the
bowling alley door, and he drives off, and then she runs across the —this gets—
the clinic is across the street from the bowling alley, and he sees her.
She doesn't give it enough time. I gotta say, you have to at least fake
go actually into the place you're going, 90 seconds, and then dip across the street.
Yeah, like 90 seconds would have been plenty, but she takes 9 seconds and.
It'S enough for Brad to see her in the rearview. That's right.
Yeah. Um, yeah, so she, you know, goes in and has it done. And I
mean, it's very kind of matter-of-fact in this movie. There's not a lot
of like trauma associated other than the fact that she was kind of abandoned by
this guy who was supposed to help her get it. But the actual procedure
Again, very casual, kind of like an airplane where there's the fake— the voices at
the airport talking back and forth and it's just like, it's just a procedure.
There's nothing wrong. It's like, I'm really kind of pro-abortion more than you think for
it still being like an issue 45 years later. And here's the thing, though,
this was so close to Roe v. Wade, right, that I think
this was relatively new still. And I feel like that the anti-abortion rhetoric in the
country really ramped up more in like the early '90s. With the Newt Gingrich
Congress and the Contract with America and Fox News and all that kind of stuff
really came, you know, about 10 years after this movie is when it really ramped
back up. Yeah, that was more like the religious right. Yeah, so I feel like
at this stage it's like, yeah, this is a thing that is available to you
as an option now and wasn't 10 years ago, right?
And so that it is an interesting take on it and really inappropriate one.
It's a medical procedure. If it's done in a medical facility by medical professionals,
there is no real reason So yeah, they're not making me afraid of it or
something. Yeah, there's not a lot of like hysterics attached to anything that happens in
this movie. It's all very matter of fact. So yeah, I, I think this is
like well handled, especially when it's 45 years old. Yeah,
for sure. So yeah, Damone, you know, doesn't show up and, you know,
she tells Lisa that he didn't show up, or Linda. Yeah.
And, and they write prick. They spray paint prick on the side of his car,
which he very conveniently just covers with a box of cardboard, which I love.
I would have done that. Duct tape, baby. But then on his locker as well,
it's Little Prick. Yes, is written all over his locker.
And everyone knows which locker is his because he's walking through the hallway, people.
Are kind of giggling at him. I never would have known a random person's locker.
No, unless maybe, hey, that's the locker where I go get cheap trick tickets from.
That's a good point. That's your Hennessy locker. Yes. Yeah,
this is where we go to get our Hennessy during pep rally. Hennessy shot.
Gotta get my Henny before PE. Um, so yeah,
so Linda really does a number on Damone and gets everybody basically hating him and,
you know, and everything. Um, I think our next thing is we're back to,
back to biology class, but on a field trip. We're at, uh,
um, I believe the name of the hospital is
Hancock Hospital, not Hancock like,
like Herbie or, or whatever, but Hancock.
Okay, I noticed that too. Thank you for, for for seeing that. And I
just wonder, is that the makers of the movie just throwing a little extra in
there? We want to make sure it's definitely. Not a real hospital. That's maybe that.
Maybe I feel more like that, where it's kind of like, well, we feel confident
there is no hospital called this, so let's call it that because it sounds like
a hospital name. But basically it's Mr. Vargas, uh, uh,
you know, doing the whole, um, you know, they talked about that
early in the movie, like a final exam that involved going to a hospital and
like, like, you know, seeing where he actually pulls organs out and all this stuff.
And the kids were all getting freaked out by that idea. And that's apparently exactly
what this is. This is a cadaver who sold their body
to science for $25 or something like that, is what he says. And they've broken
open the chest plate to like, you know, take a look inside. And I love
Spicoli when he like pulls the heart out, he goes, oh, gnarly!
Like, he's so— and he showed up that he's not in that class when,
uh, Mr. Vargas Mr. Vargas is like, are you in this class? He's like,
I am today. I am today. Like, oh my God. And then I thought
this was weird though, as Mr. Vargas is pulling, you know,
pointing at organs within this human body, goes, these are the human lungs,
this is the human heart. I'm like, what other fucking lungs or heart would it
be? Yeah, yeah. Human, like, how dumb is that? Like, it makes him seem like
more of an alien to have to say human before something. I was taught
to laugh by my overlords before. I came here.
Hahaha. Um, so Rat has, uh, he's confronted Damone
here. Yes, the locker room. Yeah. Um, I gotta say, it's shown him in this
a couple times. Ratner, as much as we love Damone's piano key scarf, which is
one of the best things, Ratner's Popeye iron-on t-shirt is one
of the most dogshit pieces of clothing I've ever seen on
cinema. It's terrible, and he's wearing it at least twice in this movie. That's why
he should get no pussy. That's why it's justified what happened happens to
him. Oh my God. Um, but of course, yeah, so he confronts Demone for being
a piece of shit, and Demone kind of tough-guys through it. He doesn't let—
he doubles down on the piece of shit. Yeah, he's just like, oh, you know,
she, she forced herself on me, or whatever he says, and it's all fucking bullshit.
Like, sort of like, I did you a favor, right? Right, Mark, you don't want
to deal with that girl. I did you a favor. And it's all bullshit.
Uh, and they almost get a fight. It gets broken up by the gym teacher,
I guess, right? He says, not gym. Um, but you know, and I love Demoni's
like going, I woke up in such a good mood, what.
The hell happened? Like, um, we get a couple more little montages.
So it's final exam, it's the end of the school year, right? And it
shows like different ways that the students are cheating on their tests. Like they have
the answers on the inside of their sunglasses or written on their shoes and everything.
So I, I always like to see that. I always love the girl, one of
the, they mentioned, you know, 3 different girls of the school have like cultivated the
Pat Benatar look, right? You know, and one One of those girls has like a
bunch of notes written on her thigh, so she like hikes up her skirt.
I'm like, ah, I can appreciate that. Like, I would have, you know, I.
Would, I would have been cheating off of that crew. Yeah, seriously, whatever. That class,
good lord. Uh, and then a bunch of people were cheating off of Mark.
So Mark's in class and he's— and like a couple people are cheating off of
him, and then other people are cheating off the people cheating off Mark. Yeah,
because they know, well, that guy's cheating off that guy, and that's the smart kid.
He's the vector for the creative, the correct answer. Patient zero for the cheating
scandal at Ridgemont High Um, but yeah, and then it's, uh, it's, it's,
you know, final dance night. Yeah, basically party, big last night of
the year. And, uh, Jeff Spicoli is on the phone with one of his stoner
buds, the Eric Stoltz, the redhead guy, and he's like, so, you know, you ready
to go to the dance? Whatever. He goes, yeah, man, I'm gonna be— I'm so
high. He goes, well, how high are you? And he goes, listen— he like hits
his head with the shoe and he goes, what was that?
My skull! And I don't— I gotta be honest. It'S funny, but I don't get
it. Like, no, I don't either. Yeah, like, listen to how hollow my head
sounds or something. But it's funny. So he's obviously excited. This is
it for him and he's done with school. That's right. Uh, but you
know, Mr. Hand, uh, shows up at his house. His brother comes into his room
like. Yo, there's someone here for you, Jeff. He's like, you know how to knock.
You little piece of shit. Like, you know, dude, Curtis,
I don't hear you unless you knock. It's just kind
of funny. And Spicoli's room, he's got, of course, like the Playboy pictures and all
the—. Just covered them Naked ladies everywhere, over the place.
Um, really ridiculous, frankly. Like, there's the sheer amount of nudity on that
boy's walls. Like, this is still a, you know, a child. Maybe he's 18 by
the end of the school year, but like, this is. A young guy, like someone
who's very unparented, right? 100%. He's lightly parented.
Latchkey kid for sure. Totally, totally. And Mr. Hand shows up, and this is
kind of a— is a good scene of him saying like, well, Mr. Spicoli,
I calculated you've wasted this many of my minutes this year. I'm here to take
that time back. He's like, oh no, I really want to go to the dance.
And you know, he's not there that long, but gets through and then
sees Spicoli actually understanding in his stoner way, like, the root of what he
was trying to teach in the class. So he allows him to go. It was
actually interesting. I do like that there's a really nice, um, resolution between Spicoli and
Hand on this. And, and you know, I think
it's, you know, Hand even kind of says like, oh well, you know, you'll have
to take my class again. He's like, no, I'm out of here. I'm graduating,
whatever. He goes, oh, I don't know, will you, will you pass? He goes,
oh, you're not gonna flunk me. And he goes, no, Mr. Spicoli, like, I think
you did just enough to get by. Yeah, you know, kind of thing. Which is
like, first of all, that man does not want that, does not want Spicoli in
his class next year. Screw that. That becomes a calculation as a teacher,
right? 100% has to. It has to come into the, to the idea between is
this an F or a D minus? Yeah, because if it's a D minus,
I'm still making a point and they can go. Totally. No.
Child left behind. Go. So we get to the dance and I love that there's
a live band at the dance. Yeah. And I didn't really think about it a
whole lot before this because there's other movies we've seen with live bands at dances
in the '80s, right? I mean, Back to the Future has a whole subplot around,
you know, auditioning for the dance and stuff. Not even in the '50s. I mean,
the one in the '80s, right? And I didn't think about it, but like the
first dance, the first school dance I ever remember having was in 8th grade because
in middle school, I don't think we did 6th or 7th grade dances. We had
an 8th grade dance. Charlotte Woods. Charlotte Woods. Yeah. At the end of, at the
end of the school year. And it was a DJ. It was definitely a DJ.
There was no live band or whatever. And then all our high school dances,
every single one of them was DJs. As far as I can remember. Never had
a band. Maybe a senior prom was different. I think I went to a few
weddings in the '80s that had bands. Yeah, that would make sense. Like a wedding
singer situation. Like, yeah, yeah. But like, I don't remember. We never had school
live bands at school dances. But then I thought about it, like, they— how would
they have done DJs back then? There were no— there were
no digital. Everything was analog records. So I mean, you bring your— so. You'D have
to like— but then you'd actually have to like have like— how many people in
the early '80s before really rap took off could DJ
that way with vinyl and like, and like, and like go into one thing or
another? You have to sit there the amount of time between songs,
right? Like put on a new record and find the right spot. Like there's no
way. The portable DJ situation was much worse. Yeah, if you had
like a spot set up, you have a nightclub club. I've got my records.
I know where everything's at. That's nice and easy. Sure. But yeah, the band made
a lot more sense back then. And it's much more film-friendly to have a band.
It's much more interesting for a movie, 100%. But it just made me think about
it. I'm like, yeah, by the time, you know, because that 8th grade dance,
it would have been like, what, 1994, give or take? Yeah. By then
CDs were ubiquitous. So all the DJs just had CDs that they, right, you know,
had a mic there. They lined them up in order and like the next 2
songs are on these CDs and they could do them, you know, and there could
be no delay basically between songs. Songs. But if you had two turntables, you could
do that. You could, you could. But I think I have a feeling the number
of people that could pull that off in 1982 were pretty few, right? That was
not a common skill back then. So yeah, but yeah, this is kind of a
fun scene. And this is almost like everyone
forgetting their differences to a certain degree, coming together a bit. Like, Damone's there
and he has a talk with Rad about like, hey, they make up, like,
you know, they make up and stuff. And then they're all kind of enjoying their
time together. So it's a great way for the school year to end. Like whatever
we've been through these last— right, this last year, here we are, the last day,
let's enjoy it. And there's not really like tension during this scene. Well, the only
person really not enjoying their night, of course, is Linda. So Linda is
talking about— to Stacy in the bathroom, she's talking about how Doug is not going
to make it to her graduation. She's written a strongly worded letter and says,
you know, Doug, this is not how a relationship between two adults goes. If,
you know, you think that I'm being immature, but you know, you're the one acting
childish, all this kind of stuff. And, um, and I love because she goes She
goes, "There's this one." And she's like choking back tears. And she goes, "There's this
one, or I have another version where I call him an asshole." And she's like,
"No, no, no, this is better. This sounds more." And Linda goes, "More mature?" She's
like, "Yeah, more mature." And it's like the idea of being mature is so
important to Linda, right? Paramount over everything else. But she is having a very
bad night because her boyfriend Doug is not coming to graduation. Oh man.
'Cause he's apparently at college in Chicago. I think they said. Doug is just a
Ron Johnson that lives in a different state. Yeah.
Like, um, yeah, so, so that's too bad. And, you know,
Stacy, um, let's see, so she's having that conversation with her, and I think now
we're back kind of— it's summer break, we're back at. The mall, everyone's got their
summer jobs. Exactly. So Linda and Stacy are working at Perry's Pizza Palace or whatever
again. She even says, another summer at Perry's, I don't know if I could do
this, you know, kind of thing. Ratner's working over at the, uh, at the movie
theater, and Stacy sees him and like waves him over. Yeah. And he And multiple
times the dude points at himself, goes, me? Me? And she goes, yeah,
'cause nobody close—. There'S not a crowd near him. He looks behind himself, sees no
one, and still goes, me? Are you sure? Me? Like, motherfucker, move your ass over
there. So he does come over. Um, and if you've helped someone with
their dress before and they point remotely. In your direction, they probably mean you.
It seems likely. Um, so I don't remember exactly what they talk about other than
that, like, you know, he— she basically, like, wants him to call her, like,
basically, right? I mean, that's— she gives him a— she got her picture,
her school picture, whatever. She gives him her picture with her. Phone number on the
back. Picture, it's such a cute thing. And then she actually leans up and gives
him a quick peck on the lips. Yes. Uh, before heading off to work.
And again, they're, they're the cutest. Like, like, Stacy and Mark, you know, I hope
they— I hope they got married, you know, someday. They're an adorable— seems like a
very sweet kid and, like, uh, sincere and everything like that.
Um, so I think the, the final scene we have here in the movie is
we've got Brad who's at his job, which now he's working at like a 7-Eleven.
Mighty Mart is what it's called on the outside. But yeah, it's basically a convenience
store. Yeah. Yeah. And she doesn't have to wear a crappy uniform for now.
Just kind of an overshirt, you know, a work shirt over like a t-shirt.
And that's it. Nobody cares. Right. That's right. And I'm by myself here. I don't
have a boss like breathing down my neck. Like I'm in charge here. Yeah.
And Spicoli, of course, walks through the door and Spicoli is,
you know, buying something and pulling crumbled bills and change and everything. He seems like
he can never get his shit together. Together. I will say Mark Ratner's Popeye
shirt, worst shirt I've ever seen in cinema.
Spicoli's Colt.45, so absolute top of the line. I love this thing. So good.
I love this. You realize what he bought though? It was a can of Kern's
Nectar. That's what he really— oh, that's hella funny. I used to think that was
such a treat. Yeah, the Kern's Nectar seemed fancy in. The way that like,
uh, uh, Vionetta, right, seemed fancy. Totally.
100%. 100%. Dude. Um, yeah, and he's kind of, uh, Brad's given Spicoli—
because I think they were the same year, probably same graduate class— it's just
like, Spicoli, like, when are you— how do you do this? Like, when are you
gonna get your life together or whatever? And Spicoli gives a little speech.
He's like, all I need are some tasty waves, a cool
buzz, and I'm fine, right? And then he goes to use the bathroom. Good attitude.
So, which says like, you know, washroom for employees only, but he asks, you know,
can I use your bathroom? Oh sure, go head. Yeah. At which point a
car kind of screams up to the, to the convenience store, really, really quickly drives
up. Guy runs in with a gun and it's just immediately to Brad, like,
you know, I've been casing— give me the money out of the safe. I've been
casing this place. I know you got a safe, like all this stuff. And Brad's
like, look, look, I just started here. I gotta remember the process. Like, I don't
remember how you guys yell at him and knocking shit over. And I love this
actor. I don't know the actor's name, but he played Mikey Tandino in Beverly Hills
Cop. So he's the friend of Axel Foley. Who steals the bearer bonds and goes
to Detroit and gets killed or whatever. So he's kind of the— he is the
inciting incident of Beverly Hills Cop. Hell yeah. Um, but yeah, so he's doing this
stuff and this is when, uh, Spicoli comes back out of
the bathroom and distracting the, the robber and he points the gun that way and
then Brad like, you know, whips, uh, like the coffee pot
coffee at him, burning his face, the hot coffee in his face,
jumps over the counter, grabs the gun and like points it at
him. It's just like, all right,
yeah, he's walking out of the bathroom and he sees all this happen. Um,
so Brad gets some redemption. He finally takes control of a place he's
working at, you know, and is able to, uh, to be a little bit of
a hero. And somebody saw it. Yeah, which is the most important part of that
behavior. That's a good point. Well, and then it's— so we get a little like,
uh, I don't know if you've ever been big on watching, um,
the Real Housewives franchise I've never seen any. Yes, we watch them religiously, my wife
and I. Uh, and at the end of every season they give you this little
like blurb that like looks very much like this movie. It's like, you know,
so-and-so is now like working on a book or like whatever little thing about what
they're doing. I always love that at the end. Of a film, by the way.
Yeah, and so they do the whole thing here where it's like, you know,
Brad was made manager of Mighty Mart like a month later or something like that,
which is like, you know, great. We get a little thing I know that mentioned
that Linda is now going to school in Riverside and living with.
Her abnormal psych professor. Yes, I like that detail. Perfect. Yep. And the one from
Mark and Stacy is they are having a torrid love affair and still haven't gone
all the way yet. Yeah. Yeah. So good.
But that's Fast Times at Ridgemont High. That is Fast Times, man.
This is good stuff. Yeah, I'll go ahead and give my rating first.
I really, I really enjoyed this movie. I don't think there are parts of it
that definitely don't hold up. There are parts of
it that are maybe a little just kind of, not even heavy-handed,
but like maybe a little obvious at times. But it's a good movie. It's a
good coming-of-age movie. It's, you know,
an interesting set of characters that we kind of enjoy spending an hour and a
half with. The movie's not long. It jumps from
kind of vignette to vignette in a way that can keep you from ever getting
bored. Like it's not, there's not like a lot of just chit-chat that kind of
happens. It's very fast moving. And it's still very relevant. A lot of
the, you know, a lot of the details of stuff are different today than they
were then, but a lot of the underlying sort of shit teenagers go through,
like a lot of that is still relevant and still the same. I really enjoyed
the movie. I guess it's Amy Heckerling's debut,
Cameron Crowe's writing debut. So many actors and actresses that, you know, we kind
of grew to love after this movie and later stuff. I am
a 3.5 out of 5 on Fast Times at Ridgemont High. It's a good,
solid movie. I still enjoy it. It, um, didn't blow me away or, you know,
make me go like, oh, I can't, I gotta watch this again right away.
It's like, I'll probably watch this again 5 or 10 years from now and that'll
be, that'll be fine with me, you know. Yeah, I think so. But yeah,
3.5 out of 5 is my take. What's your take on Fast Times? Yeah,
I think I'm probably, uh, pretty similar to you. I, I like the movie
and I, I guess I'll say I like the characters and thinking about the
characters more than I liked watching what they were actually doing.
Like, I think they, they do a good job of taking these different types of
high schoolers that you're familiar with. Yeah. Um, and, and I
think these characters are interesting, but nothing that
much happens true during the film. And also, as like something that I remember
as more of a comedy, there's not that much that was really
funny. That's true. Um, but it is an enjoyable watch. It is 90 minutes,
which is, you know, half hour less than
Thief. Um, and it, and it ended with someone trying to get into a safe,
you know. So there you go, very similar film. Um, but yeah, This was
a breeze. I enjoy it. I think I'm probably good. Yeah. Every 5 years,
10 years or so with this. Yeah. This is a 3 out of 5 for
me. It's solid. It's an enjoyable movie. You'll smile. I don't really laugh
out loud. Comedy doesn't age that well, but I think it set the tone for
a lot. And like you said, the first time we're seeing a lot of these
actors that were a big part of our cinematic and television lives for the
next 20 years. Very true. All right. 6.5 out of 10 on Fast Times
at Ridgemont High is the official rating from the two dads.
We have more movies ahead of us. We are marching down the calendar in
Two Dads, Two Decades, and our next stop is 1983. So Nick,
what movie from 1983 are we watching? Yeah, so 1983, a lot
of, a lot of great choices, but I reached into
my own personal nostalgia for this one. As I talked about, like, there weren't a
lot of movies that were a big part of my life when I was younger.
Yeah, but this is one that I definitely was, and I know that we had
rented it several times when I was a kid. It's the one my dad wanted
to make sure to show us and things that— and I haven't seen
this in 10+ years. Nice. Uh, 1983, we're gonna visit our
old pal Rick Moranis, one of the best. Absolutely. Uh, Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas,
a great comedic duo. And we're gonna spend some time in Canada with Strange
Brew. And I will say that, uh, this new movie also features, uh,
Max von Sydow. Oh, Max von Sydow. Yeah, I think it's one of the best
actors we've ever had. So it's very interesting that he shows up in such a
goofy-ass movie. Yeah, but I remember this being super. Fun and I can't wait to
chat about it. I love it. Bob and Doug McKenzie, let's go hang out with
those guys for a little bit. I think it's great. I also have not seen
it in at least 10 years, I think, maybe even longer. But yeah, I mean,
how do you not remember a loser and stuff? I mean, it's very permeated
through like the humor of the friends I grew up with. Them,
you know, obviously the SCTV connection with Moranis and Thomas. I think a lot of
the creative crew behind it, you know, this was the same group of people that
gave us John Candy and Bill Murray, right? And Harold Ramis and like all this
kind of stuff, you know, so there's just all these people are intertwined together.
I can't wait. That's going to be a fantastic watch. That's a wrap. So if
you like what you hear, and we hope you do, please consider heading over to
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the show. Be sure to check out our website at twodads1movie.com. 2dads1movie.com. That's the number
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We'd also love it if you followed us on Instagram @2dads1movie. Once again,
this has been Fast Times at Ridgemont High, another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie.
I'm Steve, and I'm Nick. Thank you so much for listening, and. We will catch