Undertaker > Hogan

[jdw]

The Breakfast Club was made for a million bucks on a single shoot location with a no-name director and group of actors who gained notoriety during '85. To gross that much on an R rated film is a big deal.

No name?

 

He wrote the #9 and #11 box office hits of 1983. It earned him enough of a name that Universal gave him $6M+ to make, while it doesn't seem like much was about the same Footloose got made for and more than Police Academy... and likely more than Purple Rain got made for.

 

As far as actors gaining notoriety in 1985, as the "Brat Pack", that's certainly the case. But Sheedy got her notoriety in 1983 with WarGames. Hall got his with Molly in 1984 with Sixteen Candles, if not already getting notice as Rusty in Vacation the year before. The people it broke were Nelson (who did nothing before it... and ended up being nothing anyway), and Emilio... though he was part of the similar kid-packy Coppola version of Outsiders in 1983. This wasn't a bunch of unknowns when it got released.

 

No one is saying that the film doing business wasn't a success, or that it was a blip on the ass of hollywood that year. It wasn't. But for those of us who actually went to movies in 1985 and can testify, it wasn't Back to the Future or Rambo. It wasn't Hughes' biggest hit of the period (Ferris was), nor of his career (the Home Alone's were).

 

John

[jdw]

Bigger star? Hogan or Steve Guttenberg? Hogan or Al Bundy? Hogan or Kathleen Turner? The funny thing about Hogan is that outside of North America he was more famous than Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Joe Montana or Wayne Gretzky.

The Hogan vs Magic & Bird & Montana & Gretzky would be compelling if it weren't for guys like Maradona and Carl Lewis and Plantini who were known for global sports rather than largely in the US.

 

I mean, if you gathered up 1000 French folks randomly and asked them who was a bigger star in the 80s, Hogan or Plantini... Hulk is kind of fucked. In England if you asked them Gary Lineker or Hogan, then Terry is fucked. We could do this in every country, and Hogan would be stoned.

 

Is it a positive for Hogan that he crosses boarders? Of course. But then again, we've all been saying:

 

Hulk Hogan = Pro Wrestling

 

Even Maradona didn't equal Futbol, despite being the best player in the world at the time. Folks in England were getting woodies for Lineker, Barnes, Robson, etc and not watching Maradona regularly like we now watch Messi (as in I was able to watch 95% of his games for club and country the last two seasons).

 

John

[Jesse Ewiak]

On a total side note, Union Square was the "show between Friends and Seinfeld" and Veronica's Closer was the "show between Seinfeld and ER." A test pattern during those time slots on Thursdays in NBC could've drawn 15 million.

[JerryvonKramer]

On a total side note, Union Square was the "show between Friends and Seinfeld" and Veronica's Closer was the "show between Seinfeld and ER." A test pattern during those time slots on Thursdays in NBC could've drawn 15 million.

This is known in TV-land as "hammocking". Put a weak show in between two stronger ones.

[jdw]

I have countless examples, but this is just from the past 3-4 weeks of the new semester that I can remember. Usually between 50-60 in the lecture hall.

 

Godfather: no one

Seventh Seal: no one

Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey: 2 people

Labyrinth: 2 people

"Have you heard of Bill Murray?": 4 people

Ghostbusters: 3 people

The Princess Bride: 4 people

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves: 1 person

Mary Poppins: 7 people (heartbreaking for me!!)

 

Some dates:

 

1957 = Seventh Seal: no one

1964 = Mary Poppins: 7 people (heartbreaking for me!!)

1972 = Godfather: no one

1985 = Ghostbusters = "Have you heard of Bill Murray?": 4 people / 3 people

1986 = Labyrinth: 2 people

1987 = The Princess Bride: 4 people

1991 = Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey: 2 people

1991 = Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves: 1 person

 

They're kind of old.

 

20 years ago is a hell of a long time ago.

 

18-22 year old.

 

For me, that would have covered 1984-88. 20 years prior to that would have been 1964-68. Godfather is 41 years ago, which for me would have been 1943-47.

 

I don't think *a lot* of kids my age would have know the semi-obscure films like Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Bill & Ted and Labyrinth from the 1964-68 range. By semi-obscure I don't mean that those weren't hits (though Labyrinth wasn't). But more in the sense that none of them even had much staying time within their own era. RH:POT was a bit of a throw away blockbuster. B&T was fun for it's time, but there are all sorts of goofy comedy's that come and go like that (such as Police Academy that was a big hit). So... that's not terribly surprising. Maybe someone was a big enough movie fan of 1964-68 to know what their equivs were, but I'm not sure.

 

Ghostbusters was huge at it's time. But I'm not sure that it was still huge in say 1995, other than for those of us who had some fond memories of it. Murray's career ran aground. Ackroyd's went bust. There wasn't any big reason for it to stay in younger folk's minds, other than the iconic symbol.

 

Going back further... not may at the age of 18-22 would know the equiv of Godfather from 1943-47 in 1984-88. I'm looking at the Oscar nominated Best Picture movies from 1943-47, and Casablanca stands out to me as the most likely to be known by my peers in 1984-88, though there are other great films. Kids in the UK in that same time frame would have a lay up: Henry V, because it's an iconic movie. But going beyond those... how many 18-22 kids would have cared much about those older movies, to the point of knowing riffs from them? Not many. :/

 

I think sometimes we think what we know, or how we are, is what others probably know or how they are. I toss out Animal House references at work, to friends, on boards, etc. But... it was a 1978 movie. I was 12 when I saw it for the first time. Most of the folks on the board weren't even born at the time. They have their own Animal House... and since we have so many different ages, there are probably several different Animal House equivs for the posters here.

 

It's at times jarring that people don't know that, or who Rod Carew and Reggie Jackson are, or for whom Fleetwood Mack is an oldies group. [insert joke of me going to a John Fogerty concert a couple of weeks ago and having a blast]

 

My past, your past, or collective past... it doesn't mean much to folks today. But my father's past growing up in the 40s and 50s didn't mean a whole helluva lot to me, other than the really big things (WWII, Korea, etc).

[jdw]

On a total side note, Union Square was the "show between Friends and Seinfeld" and Veronica's Closer was the "show between Seinfeld and ER." A test pattern during those time slots on Thursdays in NBC could've drawn 15 million.

I know. I clicked on the links to look them up and refresh my memory on them when making that post. By Friday I will have forgotten about them. I barely remember the Brooke Shields show, and only because it was Brooke Shields.

 

On the flip side, I remember this one and likely always will despite not having seen it since it was cancelled 38 years ago:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Things_Were_Rotten

 

I was 9 when it aired. It's now out on DVD:

 

http://www.amazon.com/When-Things-Were-Rot...r/dp/B009CI8S6Y

 

Who knows... I may find that it sucks all these years later. It's just a case of things sticking in one's head at certain points in their life.

 

Ask me about 1997-99 AJPW and NJPW, and my brain will get fuzzy. In each, at a certain point, I was increasing unenthused about them. Ask me about 1989-96 AJPW and NJPW, and it's closer at hand in my brain, or needs only a little looking up to refresh. My guess is that a lot of us having things like that.

[Jesse Ewiak]

I think Jerry's point, is that in the recent past, kids in the 18-22 age would've known Animal House, Ghostbusters, etc. because it would've been shown on TBS/HBO/other major cable companies a zillion times, so they would've been exposed to those titles. Now, the time that would've been spent watching Ghostbusters from 8 to 10 on HBO or USA during a Wednesday night because you're 14 and have nothing else to do is spent watching Youtube videos or Skyping with people.

 

I don't know if I buy that, but I don't think it's completely out of the realm of possibility.

[JerryvonKramer]

I think Jerry's point, is that in the recent past, kids in the 18-22 age would've known Animal House, Ghostbusters, etc. because it would've been shown on TBS/HBO/other major cable companies a zillion times, so they would've been exposed to those titles. Now, the time that would've been spent watching Ghostbusters from 8 to 10 on HBO or USA during a Wednesday night because you're 14 and have nothing else to do is spent watching Youtube videos or Skyping with people.

 

I don't know if I buy that, but I don't think it's completely out of the realm of possibility.

I have no idea what's being said because I can't see his posts, but that's exactly what I'm saying. It's my hypothesis. Someone should do a study into it ... they probably already have.

 

My feeling is that the gap between my generation and say the 60s generation is much smaller than the gap between myself and these 20-year olds. There are just so so so so so many things they don't know about that, say, myself and a man in his 50s or 60s do.

 

I won't bore you with details of UK TV shows, but on that front there is whole raft of shows the BBC showed again and again and again. Fawlty Towers, Only Fools and Horses, Monty Python to an extent, Blackadder. Now, they don't watch TV, not like we used to, so you don't get that.

 

There's a certain amount of culture you just absorb through osmosis. Remember sitting through the Antiques Road Show while you were waiting for your tea? Remember sitting through one show waiting for your favourite to come on?

 

Now things are "on demand". They don't sit and wait. They don't have to. They get whatever show they want, when they want. And if they do have to wait they'll go on Facebook for 30 mins or whatever.

 

It's a totally different ballgame.

 

That's my view. If people want to debate it, fine. I think it's self-evident.

[jdw]

On a total side note, Union Square was the "show between Friends and Seinfeld" and Veronica's Closer was the "show between Seinfeld and ER." A test pattern during those time slots on Thursdays in NBC could've drawn 15 million.

This is known in TV-land as "hammocking". Put a weak show in between two stronger ones.

 

In this case they didn't want to hammock. They wanted shows that could hold their leads. The classic example was the start of NBC's "Must See TV" Thursday's becoming a dominant force:

 

1984/85 - 1991/92

8-8:30 Cosby Show

8:30-9 Family Ties / A Different World

9-9:30 Cheers

9:30-10 Night Court / Wings

10-11 Hill Street Blues / L.A. Law

 

The whole thing looked like this in terms of annual ratings:

 

3-1-1-1-1-1-5-18 Cosby

5-2-2-2-3-4-4-17 Family Ties / A Different World

12-5-3-3-4-3-1-4 Cheers

20-11-7-7-11-15-x-19 Night Court / Wings

30-x-x-12-13-16-23-28 Hill Street Blues / L.A. Law

 

Cosby was Hogan.

 

Family Ties / A Different World were tremendous in holding a large chunk of Cosby's lead, and both died without it (Family Ties when moved to a bad day, and Different World the minute Cosby ended his run). I don't think a lot of people viewed Family Ties as a weaker show, in fact MJF was bagging Emmys left and right as MPK in the show. It was seen instead as a natural "family based" sitcom to pair with Cosby. In turn, Different World was a spin off from the Cosby show though younger in the storylines / themes it targeted.

 

Cheers was Macho Man, or Flair: not as strong as Cosby, but ended up with a long run and really good ratings. It's largely remembered now as the best comedy of the era.

 

The 9:30-10 time slot took a hit when they tried to move Night Court to another night to act as an anchor. Night Court was a lesser series than Cheers, but pretty fitting with the zany cast of characters revolving around one general setting (a Bar in Cheers and the Night Court of the title). Also... it bagged quite a few Emmys as well for a certain actor. It survived 4 seasons after the move, two with decent ratings in the Top 20. Makes you think that sitting behind Cheers probably could have given it another 2-3 years in the Top 10. Anyway, they had issues filling that spot: those #11 and #15 spots were for series that didn't hold the killer viewship draw from 8-9:30 well enough into the 9:30-10 slot. Wings eventually took over the spot at the tail end of that run.

 

The 10-11 was a change of pace: NBC's Crown Jewel Drama. Hill Street Blues and LA Law won a combined 8 of 11 Best Drama awards from 1981-91. The spot wasn't expected to hold the viewership, but was expect to do decently well: deliver prestegie to the network, but have enough viewers to justify the 10-11 Must See spot.

 

Jesse's point is how NBC viewed these covert time slots: even shows that were of quality got bounced out of those spots if they couldn't hold the enough of leads of big hit shows like Friends and Seinfeld. Even shows like Seinfeld and Friends started out in those tweener spots as the network was looking for hits.

 

It's frankly mind bending to look at the number of shows they ran through in the 8:30-9 and 9:30-10 slots in Friends/Seinfeld era. Probably should have known at the time that they weren't going to come up with stuff of the lightweight hit level of Friends / Mad About You or the quality hit level of Seinfeld / Fraiser after those shows ran their course.

[anarchistxx]

What a strange comparison. Hulk Hogan is a cartoon character, instantly recognizable. Molly Ringwald is an actress who was in some cool, popular teen movies.

 

Small, unrepresentative sample size, and I imagine she is much bigger in America, but very few of my friends would know who Molly Ringwald is. All of them would know who Hulk Hogan is. Hogan Knows Best increased his profile a lot, at the very least brought his name and image back into the public consciousness. People go to fancy dress parties as Hogan, nobody ever dresses up as Molly Ringwald. Would there be any market for a Molly Ringwald related reality show today? It certainly wouldn't draw as high rating as Hogan's shows.

 

Hogan has been in movies like Rocky III that have grossed way more money than any Ringwald films.

 

I don't think Molly Ringwald is at all famous or relevant to many people who weren't around in the 80s. Or even to anyone who wasn't young (Aged 10-30) in the 80s. Hulk Hogan crosses generations; he is known by both sixty year olds and forty year olds and twenty year olds.

[BrickHithouse]

If NBC's 1980's Thursday TV lineup and 1920's boxing gates are being used to demonstrate that Hulk Hogan > Undertaker, then I wholeheartedly agree with jdw.

[Loss]

Where is this idea that Hogan draws television ratings coming from? What about TNA?

[Loss]

Also, what does dressing up in a Halloween costume have to do with anything? Jack Nicholson is not a popular Halloween costume either. Is Hulk Hogan a bigger star?

[ohtani's jacket]

The Breakfast Club was made for a million bucks on a single shoot location with a no-name director and group of actors who gained notoriety during '85. To gross that much on an R rated film is a big deal.

No name?

 

He wrote the #9 and #11 box office hits of 1983. It earned him enough of a name that Universal gave him $6M+ to make, while it doesn't seem like much was about the same Footloose got made for and more than Police Academy... and likely more than Purple Rain got made for.

 

 

Hughes wrote The Breakfast Club in '82 when he was fed up with being a writer and wanted to direct, but A&M weren't sold on the idea and the budget was so low that Hughes got nervous and tried writing something more commercial in Sixteen Candles, which sold to Channel Productions and was picked up by Universal. After that, he was able to shoot TBC, but he took a huge pay cut on it and made nothing from it. Being a writer isn't worth as much as being a director in Hollywood; that's why Hughes wanted to switch to directing because he'd been fired off Mr. Mom and National Lampoon's Vacation. He'd never directed a film when A&M agreed to finance TBC, but even after Sixteen Candles he didn't have a name. Not one that the public would recognise. As for the Brat Pack, I think they really rose to prominence with TBC and St. Elmo's Fire.

 

The other thing about TBC is that it had a short theatrical run. I don't think it's much of a surprise that more people went to see Back to the Future or Rambo, that's a given, but considering where TBC came from, the fact that it was allegedly an extremely poor pitch and this was strong opposition among the studio execs, the overall pulling power should be measured a little differently from Michael J. Fox or Sly Stallone. It's a second tier level of stardom. If Hogan isn't analogous to Fox or Stallone then it's a little hard to compare him to what the Brat Pack were able to achieve with a low budget, almost indie level, planned directorial debut. But really the Brat Pack faded so fast I don't think they had the same level of stardom as Hogan.

[ohtani's jacket]

Why do you expect a bunch of kids to know your outdated pop culture references, Parv? People I work with ten years younger than me don't understand half the shit I rabbit on about.

 

The Breakfast Club was made for a million bucks on a single shoot location with a no-name director and group of actors who gained notoriety during '85. To gross that much on an R rated film is a big deal.

Well, it depends what you mean by "outdated". Is Wizard of Oz outdated or has it become a part of our collective cultural memory / conscious? Poppins? The actor Bill Murray? The Godfather?

 

In my mind, all of these things aren't "outdated" but are "ingrained" in our culture. Seemingly (and sadly), however, it's just in my mind.

 

Firstly, one of these things just doesn't belong here with Bill Murray. I can see how Wizard of Oz, Mary Poppins and the Godfather wouldn't be so culturally relevant to today's young people. I doubt very much that kids today grow up on Playschool and Sesame Street like I did. I don't really get why you're so surprised. Peyton Place meant nothing to me when I was a kid, but I remember my parents talking about it a lot.

 

I'm not saying you're wrong about your overall point re: television vs. the internet, but it's not often someone sings the virtues of television so loudly. And from a literature professor no less.

[jdw]

I think Jerry's point, is that in the recent past, kids in the 18-22 age would've known Animal House, Ghostbusters, etc. because it would've been shown on TBS/HBO/other major cable companies a zillion times, so they would've been exposed to those titles. Now, the time that would've been spent watching Ghostbusters from 8 to 10 on HBO or USA during a Wednesday night because you're 14 and have nothing else to do is spent watching Youtube videos or Skyping with people.

 

I don't know if I buy that, but I don't think it's completely out of the realm of possibility.

I don't fully buy it. I deal with people 15 years younger than my 47 who have no reference point for Ghostbuster or Animal House riffs. Really, by the time people were watching USA, there was a ton of other stuff on much like the internet now.

 

There was far less available when I was a kid in the 70s on though the mid-80s: Cable didn't have the same penetration, we had 3 networks, a few other local channels. Something like the Godfather was a massive movie when it came out in 1972 (one of the biggest box office movies to that point), and then a massive TV event when it finally aired (with Coppala going all Godfather Saga on the two movies). Still... my age range was a little young for it as a hole: 6 when it came out, very early teens when it hit TV. It meant something to me because my folks took me with them to see GF2 (I was 8), and let me watch the Saga when it was on TV. But not all of my peers saw it. And as we moved past it to people born in 1976 rather than 1966, it starts to lessen.

 

The masses always focus on the Now, especially younger folks. Elvis fans didn't listen to Frank. For Beatles fans, Elvis was the prior decade. When I was a kid, Paul was backed by Wings, George was past his prime, John was retired, and Ringo's peak was over and dead. I became a Beatles fan, but if there were 5 Beatles fans at the time in my entire high school class it would shock the shit out of me. I cann't remember getting a single "Cool!" comment when wearing my Beatles shirt, though plenty for wearing a Stones shirt since they were still releasing albums.

 

As youtube and the internet and 800 channels increased the lack of interest people have in things past, or the speed with which stuff becomes "old"?

 

Perhaps.

 

I suspect that folks would say the same thing about Radio and TV, and how they killed reading and going to plays and people enjoying reading the classics.

 

Shakespeare? I was the only person in my class to take all of the classes offered on him at my high school. I know this because the same guy taught the classes, and he made the comment to me that it had been a decade since anyone took more than one of them. In the first class I took with him, I was literally the only person who would laugh at the Bard's jokes when we were reading them outload, which the first few times would cause the teacher to look up, a quizical look on his face trying to figure out whether I was laughing *at* the kid reading the lines, or actually laughing at lines that were intended to be funny by the author. He eventually got it, but I'd still see him take a quick peak up from time to time with a smile on his face that reflected:

 

"Finally, after all these years... a student who gets this and enjoys it."

 

And I'm not pulling that out of my ass: he actually said it to me in the second class I took with him.

 

That was 1983-84. Go backwards to say 1863-64. I suspect you'd still have a lot of 16-18 year old kids who found the Bard boring as all fuck. But I'd also suspect a teacher at a decent school would find more than 1 a *decade* who enjoyed Bill and though someone like Falstaff was a fucking riot.

 

Shit changes over time. Technology has caused a lot of it. But I think the differences between the 70s/80s and Now are far less radical than the 70s/80s and say 1900s/10s. When we get up at arms over someone not knowing our Animal House riffs, it's little more than someone getting up at arms about "kids these days don't get my riffs about Mr. Darcy"

 

 

 

 

"Hey... wait a minute. I saw that BBC/Masterpiece Theater/Kira Knightley film!"

 

 

Again, this:

 

I think sometimes we think what we know, or how we are, is what others probably know or how they are. I toss out Animal House references at work, to friends, on boards, etc. But... it was a 1978 movie. I was 12 when I saw it for the first time. Most of the folks on the board weren't even born at the time. They have their own Animal House... and since we have so many different ages, there are probably several different Animal House equivs for the posters here.

Seriously... Ghostbusters was 1985, nearly 30 years ago. Who would expect a kid born in 1995 to give a fuck about it. I was born in 1966. Elvis was 1956, and I've never really given a shit about his movie except a song or two. Herb Albert and his Tijuana Brass Band? They had hits in my lifetime, including a #1 in the period after I started listening to music... and I've never cares about him. But there's little doubt that he, and Elvis, means a lot to someone. In turn, some of those folks don't know who Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, Bonzo and JPJ are... and to be honest, it doesn't matter to me. No impact on my enjoyment of Zep.

[anarchistxx]

Also, what does dressing up in a Halloween costume have to do with anything? Jack Nicholson is not a popular Halloween costume either. Is Hulk Hogan a bigger star?

The fact that Hogan is popular as a fancy dress choice shows that his image has entered cultural iconography. Nobody ever asks "Who have you come as?" to people dressed as Hulk, because they just know.

 

I would argue that if you showed 1,000 random people in the world a picture of Hulk Hogan, and 1,000 people a picture of Jack Nicholson, more people would be able to name and recognize Hogan. Whether that makes him a bigger star is debatable.

[ohtani's jacket]

Or are we about to side-drain into a discussion about the top entertainment acts of 1913?

This we should most definitely do. Who can forget that Canadian crooner Henry Burr or the irresistible Alice Joyce?

 

Bigger star? Hogan or Steve Guttenberg? Hogan or Al Bundy? Hogan or Kathleen Turner? The funny thing about Hogan is that outside of North America he was more famous than Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Joe Montana or Wayne Gretzky.

 

In Southern Europe in the 90s Magic and Bird were much bigger than Hogan (I imagine Central Europe too but I'd be only guessing). I think the difference is that your dad would know Magic, Bird and Hogan, but your grandpa wouldn't know Hogan.

 

Montana would mostly be known by teenage males as the guy on the NFL video game on the SEGA consoles. Gretzky is a total no name. I know he's a hockey player but I couldn't pick him out of a lineup.

 

Before satellite it was next to impossible to see NBA games. When satellite took off, it was Jordan who led the NBA boom. Bird and Magic were basically out of the picture after '92, though I'm sure they were a big deal in Barcelona that year. In their primes, they were basically inaccessible compared to wrestling unless Europe had some major NBA coverage I'm unaware of.

[JerryvonKramer]

Why do you expect a bunch of kids to know your outdated pop culture references, Parv? People I work with ten years younger than me don't understand half the shit I rabbit on about.

 

The Breakfast Club was made for a million bucks on a single shoot location with a no-name director and group of actors who gained notoriety during '85. To gross that much on an R rated film is a big deal.

Well, it depends what you mean by "outdated". Is Wizard of Oz outdated or has it become a part of our collective cultural memory / conscious? Poppins? The actor Bill Murray? The Godfather?

 

In my mind, all of these things aren't "outdated" but are "ingrained" in our culture. Seemingly (and sadly), however, it's just in my mind.

 

Firstly, one of these things just doesn't belong here with Bill Murray. I can see how Wizard of Oz, Mary Poppins and the Godfather wouldn't be so culturally relevant to today's young people. I doubt very much that kids today grow up on Playschool and Sesame Street like I did. I don't really get why you're so surprised. Peyton Place meant nothing to me when I was a kid, but I remember my parents talking about it a lot.

 

I'm not saying you're wrong about your overall point re: television vs. the internet, but it's not often someone sings the virtues of television so loudly. And from a literature professor no less.

 

I don't really want to get into it on this board, but some time ago I devised a way of thinking about "cultural knowledge" with different levels or strands.

 

Some things are just part of the collective memory. Basic cultural knowledge.

 

Beatles.

 

Some things are only really part of the memory of "if you were there".

 

Cilla Black.

 

Who? Exactly.

 

Godfather is not an "if you were there" picture, it's reached a level where it transcends that. Most people who've seen it were not "there" in 1972. Most people who've heard the Beatles weren't about in the 1960s either.

 

A more succinct way of putting this perhaps is "staying power" vs. zeitgeist.

 

I'm not really extolling the virtues of TV. I'm just pointing out that our mechanisms for "receiving content" have fundamentally changed. When I was a kid there were 4 channels and everyone watched the same shit. Now kids have the internet and everyone is doing THEIR OWN shit.

 

I don't think that change can be underestimated. Culture becomes less monolithic and more diversified. Good or bad, that's been happening. But oddly at the same time knowledge becomes more monolithic and shallower because 99% of the internet is the same shit repeated over and over and over again, and people are encouraged to communicate in 130 characters or fewer. This feels like a digression. Let's leave it there.

[Jesse Ewiak]

"The masses always focus on the Now, especially younger folks. Elvis fans didn't listen to Frank. For Beatles fans, Elvis was the prior decade. When I was a kid, Paul was backed by Wings, George was past his prime, John was retired, and Ringo's peak was over and dead. I became a Beatles fan, but if there were 5 Beatles fans at the time in my entire high school class it would shock the shit out of me. I can remember getting a single "Cool!" comment when wearing my Beatles shirt, though plenty for wearing a Stones shirt since they were still releasing albums."

 

I largely agree with what you said, even though I think Jerry has a couple of decent points, in that as part of the last generation that grew into teenagerdom without the Internet being ubiquitous (late 20's/early 30's), there are older references that I get that people just a few years younger don't get and when I ask them, they've never heard of the book/movie/TV show. But, again, maybe I'm getting old too.

 

However, I actually think it's easier for kids to get into older music these days. Youtube/Spotify/etcerera plus songs being three minutes (as opposed to 30 minute TV shows or 120 minute movies) mean it's easier for a kid to click on a link for an older band and as a result, get into other stuff. On a purely ancedotal level, I see a lot more kids in 'older' band t-shirts than I ever saw at my high school.

 

Now, I'm in Seattle, so it might be different in Des Moines or Peoria, and I'm well aware most kids just listen to the latest hot thing of the moment, but I do think music is the one thing that the Internet has helped widen access too, at least among older stuff. It's one click away instead of having to dig through your Dad's old records or be at some creepy record shop.

[JerryvonKramer]

Jesse, I'd agree with the point that "for the enthusiast" i.e. for the person who is interested and cares and wants to follow things up, there has never been a greater time to be into anything than now. We've seen that as wrestling fans. It's true of just about any medium.

[anarchistxx]

Some things are only really part of the memory of "if you were there".

 

Cilla Black.

Cilla Black has the advantage of being "there" twice. She could be part of the memory for her fairly average pop career in the 60s, or she could be part of the memory for all the families who sat and watched Blind Date of a Saturday night in the 90s.

 

Perhaps Sandie Shaw is a better example, or Twiggy?

[JerryvonKramer]

Some things are only really part of the memory of "if you were there".

 

Cilla Black.

Cilla Black has the advantage of being "there" twice. She could be part of the memory for her fairly average pop career in the 60s, or she could be part of the memory for all the families who sat and watched Blind Date of a Saturday night in the 90s.

 

Perhaps Sandie Shaw is a better example, or Twiggy?

 

Take your pick

 

The other point I'll make before leaving this is Home Video and then DVD. You can't compare our generation's way of processing these things to people from the 1950s, for example. We were part of a generation sold on the idea of "take home and keep".

 

Many of these "old" films that are being talked about as if no one should give a shit about them 20 years after the fact received a second life once VHS became a thing. I wouldn't look at Godfather 1972 box office figures alone, I'd look at VHS and DVD sales and things like #number of magazine articles about it and #number of times it's in "Top 100 films ever ever" type lists. I feel like this whole concept of a canon of great films or whatever was very big in the 1990s and especially around 2000 when every publication under the sun wanted to make "best of the century" style lists. Right around the time we were all buying lots of CDs and VHS tapes and DVDs.

 

It is entirely disingenuous to pretend that there is no difference between certain "hyper-canonized" texts / films and films that just happened to come out in a given year.

 

Godfather is hyper-canonized. Most films from 1972 are not. This idea that "the young ones don't care because it's from 1972" is not entirely accurate. Godfather doesn't exist simply as a cultural artifact from 1972, it exists as something iconic. Or at least it did in 2000.

 

As I've been trying to articulate, I think the game has irreversibly changed since then.

[Grimmas]

A few years ago Tampa Bay & Calgary were in the finals for the Stanley Cup (2004) and I was at the bar watching the game. In the pre game hype and they showed videos of Hogan and Bret Hart to hype up the hockey game. This was in Canada, so that explains some of it, but that was kind of crazy.

[jdw]

Hughes wrote The Breakfast Club in '82 when he was fed up with being a writer and wanted to direct, but A&M weren't sold on the idea and the budget was so low that Hughes got nervous and tried writing something more commercial in Sixteen Candles, which sold to Channel Productions and was picked up by Universal. After that, he was able to shoot TBC, but he took a huge pay cut on it and made nothing from it. Being a writer isn't worth as much as being a director in Hollywood; that's why Hughes wanted to switch to directing because he'd been fired off Mr. Mom and National Lampoon's Vacation. He'd never directed a film when A&M agreed to finance TBC, but even after Sixteen Candles he didn't have a name. Not one that the public would recognise.

As far as how over he was, it depends upon which Vince McMahon-like version of his bio you read. I've seen ones where he got a three-picture, $30M deal with Universal in 1983 off Vacation and Mom making $60M each that summer. Was he kicked off the production of them? Again, depends on the bio. In the end, he is the only person with a writing credit on either of then, which wouldn't be unique for someone getting the the boot for re-writes, but also we've seen plenty of movies where the rewriters are listed as well if it's a major rewrite.

 

He shot TBC after Sixteen Candles. It was part of his Universal deal, as was TBC and Weird Science... which oddly enough lines up with 3 movies before heading off to his Paramount deal. Again, it all depends on the bio one wants to point to, and Hughes' track record in the 80s bouncing back and forth from Universal to Paramount to others was one of being a giant pain in the ass for studios to deal with. When he was successful, they put up with it. When he wasn't, they really didn't want to have a lot to do with him.

 

 

As for the Brat Pack, I think they really rose to prominence with TBC and St. Elmo's Fire.

The "Brat Pack" did. The individuals didn't exactly.

 

Like I said, Sheedy was over from WarGames. Perhaps because Broderick has gone on to such a long career, and we think of Ferris as his iconic movie of the era, we tend to forget how big of a hit WarGames was at the time. It was big enough for Sheedy to get a another film before TBC with another Brat Pack actor: Rob Lowe.

 

Molly was over from Sixteen Candles, not to mention people noticing her even before that in The Tempest. And I'm telling you at the time that Hall got on the map for that movie as well, after people had noticed him in Vacation.

 

Here's Ebert putting over Molly strongly, and adding Hall to the list of "effective" performances:

 

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/sixteen-candles-1984

 

That was at the peak of Siskel & Ebert, shortly after they were so over on freaking PBS that they got a syndication deal before the mass of cable came along and people started watching all sorts of thing. Ebert praising Molly in that role was the rule, not the exception for how critics viewed it.

 

Nelson never was anything, so yeah... TBC put him over on his way to a shitty career. It was Emilio's break through, but not at all dissimilar from the earlier movie of his that I mentioned.

 

 

The other thing about TBC is that it had a short theatrical run.

I don't think it had a short run at all. BoxOfficeMojo.com shows 10 weeks of box office, at which point it was down to making $1M a week at a time when it had just over $10M left in the tank (it had made $35.2M and would end up at $45.9M). Another 10+ weeks in release for a movie that by it's 10th week was down to #13 in the box office with May and the summer box office around the corner... it's not a short release.

 

I don't think it's much of a surprise that more people went to see Back to the Future or Rambo, that's a given,

First Blood made $47M. Sly had only two movies that ever made $100M. I don't think anyone thought it would make $150M at a time when $150M was a shitload of box office.

 

In turn, Back to the Future was the biggest movie of 1985 in terms of box office, so big that its number wouldn't be match until Batman in 1989. No one thought it was going to be that huge. It was #1 all the way to September, and still had another $50M left in the tank after it fell off the top spot. It was a Phenom.

 

 

but considering where TBC came from, the fact that it was allegedly an extremely poor pitch and this was strong opposition among the studio execs, the overall pulling power should be measured a little differently from Michael J. Fox or Sly Stallone. It's a second tier level of stardom.

I believe I said it was a hit and a success. My comments about it in response to Loss putting over Molly is that Molly wasn't even close to huge.

 

 

If Hogan isn't analogous to Fox or Stallone then it's a little hard to compare him to what the Brat Pack were able to achieve with a low budget, almost indie level, planned directorial debut. But really the Brat Pack faded so fast I don't think they had the same level of stardom as Hogan.

Within the context of pro wrestling, Hogan is Sly... just bigger.

 

On the bigger picture of US stardom, it's hard to so relative to the Brat Pack. Hogan had longevity as the face of pro wrestling, while the Brat Pack were largely disposed of. Some have had good careers, though no one really has been a superstar other than Demi Moore at her peak (relative to women/actresses). Someone like Rob Lowe has had a good career, with lots of work and landing in a pair of series for decent lengths of time. But he's never really been Bill Cosby / Ted Danson level on TV, and his biggest hits in film was as a supporting character. It's a good career, and there are thousands of actors who would take it. But he's never gotten as huge as one could have projected if things broke right.

 

Of the group, only Demi has hit or exceeded any level one could have projected for her... and good lord there are a ton of bombs strewn across her career. She's clearly famous, some of it tabloid / marriages, but... hard to comp with Hogan.

 

John