Tribute by Sam HendersonNOTE:Readers who are extra-specially tender hearted, easily dismayed in the feelings department, prone to devastating bouts of moral distress, just too beautifully sensitive for this world, and/or pretty much on the dense side should please be aware that the following feature is one in a series of (already clearly labeled) articles by guest columnists paying homage to their favorite Teen Sex Comedies.
Mr. Skin himself loves these films, and every grotesque adolescent overindulgence for which they stand, but the words below emanate from different writers.
This most recent contribution comes from comical funnyman Sam Henderson, creator of The Magic Whistle, Emmy-nominated staff writer on Spongebob Squarepants, and devotee of all things Eddie Deezen.
Yuk it up with Sam at MagicWhistle.com.
For young Sammy Henderson, many nights in the pre-PC early '80s were spent alone at home on a Friday night watching a teen movie on cable. I had a channel nicknamed the "Wavy Blue Tits Network" because some kids' parents wouldn't shell out for legitimate, crystal-clear reception of this premium cable outlet and thus the youngsters were reduced to squinting and turning the set sideways in a frantic bid to glimpse some nudity.
I had a family that did pay for it, so I didn't have to go through such desperate measures. I didn't have a color TV, but that's another story.
Come the weekend, I could always count on seeing The Hollywood Knights (Picture: 1), Screwballs (Picture: 1), Private Lessons (Picture: 1), My Tutor (Picture: ), H.O.T.S. (Picture: 1), The Last American Virgin (Picture: 1), etc.
These movies seemed to have been made expressly for the puberty-afflicted male sitting alone at home on a Friday night--movies where the ten seconds of bare breastage makes up for the previous hour where nothing happens. Sometimes there was a chance you'd see an actress before she became famous. Back when cable channels were fairly new and desperate for content and didn't yet feel the need to relegate films like this to a three A.M. showing once every few months, if at all.
Cut to almost twenty-five years later and I'm doing the same thing, except that I'm getting paid for it and I can fast forward through the slow bits.
But getting back to teen movies, there's the enduring classic Zapped!, a.k.a. Wiz Kids, an example of the "wish fulfillment" genre of comedy that continues today with Adam Sandler's Click.
Zapped! (not to be confused with Zapped Again!) was billed as "the comedy that won't let you down" and it sure didn't when I was in junior high. My father was a movie critic at the time and I saw a lot of things like this in the theater that other kids my age weren't allowed to even venture near.
Zapped! stars the sort-of comedy team of Scott Baio and pre-born-again Willie Aames, who both went on to do Charles in Charge, along with Felice Schachter, who played boy-sick Nancy on the first season of The Facts of Life.
This movie could almost be an episode of those shows, and in retrospect it may have been originally intended as made-for-TV, but with gratuitous nudity put in, who cares about the innocuous parts? Sitting through scenes with scuba-diving mice and flying toy spaceships is redeemed with the promise of a little noo-didity to come. Oh, to have the tolerance of a horny teenager once again.
Anyway, Baio plays Barney Springboro, a high-school student who finds he has telekinetic powers and proceeds to do the first thing anyone in the audience would do--use these powers to take off women's clothes. He gets his powers by accidentally ingesting the growth formula he's been testing on marijuana combined with the beer his friend Peyton (Aames) has snuck into the lab. (Remember that in 1982, alcohol and drugs were considered innocuous. There are things now you couldn't get away with then but the same applies in reverse.)
Anything with Eddie Deezen is guaranteed to be good, and this won't disappoint his fans since much of his role in this film is spent wearing a t-shirt that says "God's Gift to Women," plus it's worth it to hear filmdom's nerd-for-hire say "Why should you care? You beat off every night anyway."
Scatman Crothers takes a break from higher-prestige projects and gives a fine performance as the janitor who gets stoned when he finds the aforementioned super-pot and has a drug-induced dream about salami, Einstein, and LaWanda Page (as normally happens).
Skin-wise, there are two main reasons for watching this film, and those reasons belong to Heather Thomas (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3) (or rather, her body double. Damn you, "no nudity" clauses. Or in this case, probably nudity added in afterwards to give the film an R-rating), who plays Jane, the token hot chick that Aames has a crush on, and upon whom Baio uses his telekinetic powers.
When somebody in the junior-high cafeteria mentioned there was a movie with the girl from The Fall Guy naked, of course everyone with a penis had to see it.
I didn't go to my prom. I'd had enough of high school by then, though this movie sometimes makes me wish I had if it was anything like Barney's. When he uses his telekinesis to open the door, he creates a breeze that tears off everyone's clothes in a tribute to the climactic scene from Carrie meets Modern Problems meets Porky's (plus a little Seven Year Itch homage for those who care about such things).
Girls have their dresses ripped off as they're chased by guys who become distracted from their dates' '80s hair after seeing them stripped down to their bras and panties. Those come off too, and again the tits being exposed may not actually belong to the actresses they're supposed to belong to, but at that age, any pair of tits will do.
Cut to almost twenty-five years later and things like this still don't matter.
I'm eternally grateful for cable in the '80s, even more so that I was around to experience it. If I somehow had sex non-stop with every actress at MrSkin.com for the rest of my life (for argument's sake), it would not be nearly as exciting as when I saw these films in my youth.
Kids today are lucky. There may be a higher ratio of fake boobs now, but kids still have the opportunity to go back and see the classics. Good thing I didn't have a VCR when I first saw it; I probably would have broken the "pause" button countless times.
