Were you ready for the summer? Were you ready for the good times? Were you ready for the short shorts and William Katt-like ‘fros? This week, in honor of camp season, the Pop Culture Club watched Bill Murray’s first hit, Meatballs, which is now — bye bye, youth! — 30 years old.
First off, I should have known that outrageous comedy does not always age well. What (or who) was considered the funniest, most raucous thing ever will — after a couple of decades of comedy being either pushed farther or made subtler — make you wonder what all the laughter was about. Comedy evolves. I loved Mel Brooks in his day, but the deadpan, fast-paced lunacy of the Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker Airplane! school of parody rendered much of his stuff obsoletely vaudevillian. I recently caught High Anxiety on cable, and cringed as Brooks left large pauses for huge laughs after each gesticulated joke. Laughs which didn’t come nearly as often as they used to.
So it’s difficult judging a comedy as beloved and old as Meatballs. I remember roaring at it when I was a kid: Murray was anti-authority! Kids swore and made out! Pants were pulled down! Rebels offered to shake hands with bullies, and then at the last minute pulled their hands up over their heads, proving them too slow, Joe! And yet in 2009, the snobs-vs.-slobs thing just feels trite. You have to keep reminding yourself that these jokes and characters were fresh in 1979, they only turned into clichés later. It was painful watching Spaz run around with tape on his glasses (he’s a dork, get it?), and Larry the fat CIT play basketball while clutching a chocolate bar (he likes food, get it?). And yet, if you listened to the DVD commentary (yes, I go all out for the Club), you heard director Ivan Reitman reveal that putting tape on the glasses was the idea of the actor who played him, and Reitman describes this inspired character choice as if it was Marlon Brando showing up to Apocalypse Now with a shaved head. Spaz wasn’t just another movie spaz to have tape on his glasses, he was the first: He is Nerd Zero.
And then there’s Bill Murray. When he emerged as a comedy superstar, the smirky, hip comic persona of the Saturday Night Live era was something new. Watching him slouch and leer, cracking wise about virgins and sticking it to the dopey bossman was hilariously novel and anti-authority at the time. But now I found it smug and self-satisfied: That long scene when he dances in place (making Batman eyes, etc.) at the camp social was excruciatingly self-indulgent. I felt like I was watching a guy who, if this were real life, I’d pray would just shut up and cut out the shtick. This may sound weird, but he came off like somebody doing a bad impression of Bill Murray in Meatballs. Since I remember him as the ultimate cool guy, seeing him act this way jolted me into cognitive dissonance, so I convinced myself that the movie was wrong, not my memory.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t now hate all old Bill Murray. While I enjoy his current minimalist Wes Anderson/Lost in Translation-era deadpan work, I also love him when he used his broad comic superpowers to play a pain in the ass or a grotesque, like in Kingpin, What About Bob?, or Groundhog Day. (Although, to be fair, I haven’t seen those movies in a while either: I can’t bear to fact-check that opinion.)
But before I come off as a complete hater, here’s something. When I watched Meatballs as a kid, I only cared about watching Tripper schmooze girls and abuse the camp director; the whole subplot with Tripper and Chris Makepeace’s Rudy seemed treacly to me. But now, it was those bonding scenes that really worked for me. I make no secret about how obsessed I am with my own summer camp days, and Murray completely captured the cool counselor who can make a lonely kid’s summer without coming off like he’s doing charity work. As he slyly nudges Rudy to try new things and be more outgoing, Tripper acts like his friend, not a superior, which makes Rudy feel all the better about himself. I had a counselor just like that, which is why, as I write this, I am weeping softly and humming my camp song.
What did you think about Meatballs? Did it hold up for you, and do you think I’m just being a grump? Or were your laughs more out of nostalgia than actual amusement? (Okay, that was a leading question.) And do you have a counselor or teacher whom you are now bawling about in a similarly mawkish way? All right, go rent Dead Poets Society and get it out of your system.
Okay, before we discuss, let’s get to next week’s assignment: Wipeout. Wednesday at 8 p.m., on ABC. But I’d like to approach this from a philosophical angle: Is a wipeout still funny if it's been engineered, and the wiper outer knows it's coming? Doesn’t the humor in a wipeout come from its very unexpectedness? Watch the show, and then test your theory like so. First, trip a friend. Then, tell that same friend that you are going to push him down the stairs, and then do so. Compare and contrast. Science!
This is my favorite movie of all time. I have the original DVD release and the newer one with commentary. I have the soundtrack somewhere in my car. “Best Friend” and “Moondust” can still make me tear up. I still want to be Roxanne or A.L. and Crockett and Wheels are still as adorable in 2009 as they were in 1979. As for Murray – no one was cooler than Tripper. It is for this movie that I would forgive him just about anything. Love, love, love Meatballs.
This was my first experience with “Meatballs,” and it was mostly boring. However, I can respect that these characters weren’t cliches back in ’79, like you said, so I won’t make fun of it. Much like “M*A*S*H” though, some of the parts that definitely were funny were the random PA announcements. In “M*A*S*H,” they were a little subtler, but it worked in both movies. As for real camp counselors, I’ll never forget the camp counselor that I once kicked in the shin because he made fun of my brother (ah…good times!). On a better note, I’ll also never forget another counselor who carried me across the whole camp to the nurse’s office when I was bleeding profusely from my knee. We were all warned not to run down a certain hill. A certain someone didn’t heed this warning, proceeded to fall, and slammed his knee directly on a jagged rock at the bottom of the hill (ah…more good times!). And I still have the massive scar because I was scared of getting stitiches.
I watch it every summer with my now teenage kids. They love it, so as long as they enjoy it, so will I. In 79 I watched it for all the jokes but now it is such a sweet sentimental movie.
So this movie is a classic in my family, so I can’t give it the fresh review as you did — my laughs would definitely be out of nostalgia, not just for the movie (spilled milk at the table in my house resulted in the chant “spaz, spaz, spaz”). However, I agree with your thoughts on the Tripper/Rudy storyline — when I was younger it was a distraction from the silliness, but as I got older I could appreciate the subtle approach and truthfullness in that relationship. Nice touch in a crazy summer camp movie.
I’m sad that I wasn’t able to track down a copy of Meatballs. It’s been years since I’ve seen it, so I think I probably would have forgiven any lapses in humour for nostalgia’s sake. Plus, I never actually went to summer camp, so this has stood in my mind what summer camp would have been like for everyone.
And Josh, I’m not sure you could be considered a grump about Meatballs, considering you wrote an entire (very very funny) book about your camp days. I would imagine it would be hard to have nostalgia for mock-camp like Meatballs stack up to the hilarity of real life.
Bring on Wipeout!! Now, who am I going to push down the stairs…
This is one of my husband’s favorite movies. Sure its super cheesy, but I still love it. I find myself chanting “It just doesn’t matter” at least once a month or so.
The actor who played Larry died of brain cancer a while ago.
I don’t find Bill Murray smug in this movie. I just saw it again on Comedy Central and still found him very funny. Any movie that is 30 years old will have some problems when looked at thru a modern lens. Even classics like The Godfather
This makes me afraid to watch Meatballs again. I know how you feel about comedy’s evolution ruining some of my favorite old movies. I too watched High Anxiety recently. The movie used to be hilarious to me. Now it seems self-indulgent and corny. Sigh.
It’s still funny
This is definitely a quotable movie (i.e. “It just doesn’t matter”) but it kind of appeals to me just for those quotes in a vacuum. I guess I’d like this movie more as a soundboard than as a movie.
There’s an interesting Q&A with Harold Ramis in GQ this month in which he talks about what a mercurial guy Murray is. Apparently Bill hasn’t talked to him in years, mad at him for some crime that Ramis isn’t even aware of. Worth reading, especially for the insight of someone who had a hand in so many famous comedies of this time. I wonder if Vacation will hold up?
I watched Meatballs last year after seeing it way back in 1979. I agree with the author that what really holds up well is the Tripper/Rudy relationship as it shows Tripper to have more dimensions to his personality and I’m sorry–STILL love the “It just doesn’t matter chant” and campfire scene. Thanks for providing this topic, Josh.
Josh, I’m surprised to find myself agreeing with you about “Meatballs” because I assumed that a camping fanatic like yourself would still love it. But you’re right – it really doesn’t survive the test of time. Like most summer movies from the late seventies, I recall seeing this at a drive-in, sitting outdoors in a lawn chair while sucking back copious amounts of Molson Ex beer (oddly, I also remember the second feature it played with: “The Villian”). I remember finding it amusing, not hilarious, and looked forward to seeing what I would think thirty years later. Mostly I just kept asking myself “What did I find so funny about this?” And the bonding scenes have become unbearably cloying. I found myself nostalgic not for the movie, but for the things I did as a teenager but can’t do now. Like going to drive-ins. And drinking copious amounts of Molson Ex.
Now I have the song from the dance “Makin’ It” stuck in my head. Classic movie.
I LOVE this movie – always have, always will! When you look past the shmaltzy 70′s stereotypes, you will find lessons in what true friendship and loyalty are all about that are timeless!
When I saw this on VHS in the late ’80s I remember my friends and I being distinctly chuckle-free. We’d already been exposed to stinkers like Porky’s and Revenge Of The Nerds. If it was indeed once considered funny, it didn’t last long.