Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

Steve brought a childhood favorite to the table this week, and Nic brought a grudge he didn't know he had. Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) is John Hughes's love letter to the perfect skip day — a senior with no car but a god-tier hacking setup, a best friend's dad's priceless Ferrari, and a city full of places most suburbanites never bother to visit. Steve first watched it on LaserDisc in elementary school and has seen it a few dozen times since. Nic? He'd seen it once, maybe, and knew the ska band Save Ferris before he knew what it was referencing.

What follows is a spirited 90-minute argument about whether Ferris Bueller is a charming rogue or, as Nic puts it, a selfish, entitled con man running "Ferris LeVey's Day of Do What Thou Wilt." The dads agree on more than you'd expect: the parents are shockingly good people being ruthlessly exploited, Cameron Frye is the emotional core of the movie, and Ed Rooney is a man who abandoned an entire student body to stalk a teenager through the suburbs. They compare Ferris to Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can, note the convenient fantasy logic that lets nobody hear him when he breaks the fourth wall, and wonder why the real Abe Froman never showed up to claim his table. Steve drops a jaw-dropping Ferrari deep cut — a 1961 250 GT California sold at Pebble Beach in 2025 for $25.6 million, meaning the car in the movie is now worth more than the inflation-adjusted budget of the film itself. And yes, Ben Stein's economics lecture about the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act hits a little different in 2026.

The parade scene becomes a full flashpoint. Nic's take: a teenager hijacking a German heritage celebration to lip-sync a Beatles cover while a marching band pretends to play along is grounds for a riot, not a standing ovation. Steve doesn't entirely disagree but has decades of goodwill banked. Cameron's poolside diving board stunt, Jeannie's clutch save at the back door, and Charlie Sheen's method-or-meth approach to looking strung out all get their due. Two dads, one LaserDisc classic, and a gap wide enough to park a kit car Ferrari in.