Summer Classic

Revisiting Some of the Late Night B Films of My Youth

A childhood friend of mine recently posted to his Instagram story a photo of several VHS tapes he plans to watch this summer. Among said tapes was a copy of the 1989 comedy, Summer Job. It brought back some memories. Memories of late Friday & Saturday nights as a young teen watching HBO or USA Up All Night catching replays of low budget (usually straight to VHS) raunchy, screwball comedies. After seeing this photo I did only what came naturally - I logged into Tubi and found Summer Job (thanks for the tip, Frank) and watched it. And it was not as bad as I remembered it to be. It was worse. Much, much worse.

The rise in cheap video production in the 1980’s made it easier for anyone with a camcorder and a group of friends to produce a low budget movie and release it straight to video. And there was no shortage of these movies. I remember catching many of these movies late at night - they were never on during the daylight hours - and thinking they were great. The crime dramas were delightfully cheesy. The horror films were both terrifying and terrifyingly stupid. But it was the comedies that stuck with me the most.

What they lacked in budget, star power, plot, acting, production value, and script, they made up for with pointless gags, great (yet awful) soundtracks, and boobs. Always boobs. And for a young, straight teenage boy, what more could I want? I remember watching Summer Job on repeat. My brother and I loved this movie. Watching it again at 46 years old, I see why it appealed to me at that age. It was for all the aforementioned reasons. And while I to this day (and probably for the rest of my life will) appreciate boobs, there really was no point to why they were being exposed except to just have them there. Outside of that, the acting was bad, the script is awful, and the plot is non-existent.

But it made me think about some of the other movies. Spring Break was made in 1983 with a seemingly slightly higher budget about college kids on spring break in Fort Lauderdale. There’s plenty of drinking and raunchy jokes (and, of course boobs.) Again, not much of a plot. But it did feature David Knell, an actor who would go on to act alongside both Eugene Levy & Tom Hanks in Splash, and several other big studio movies.

Meatballs and the subsequent sequels would also fall under the genre of screwball comedies, but with far more future star power. I loved the movie Fast Food where cocaine ends up in a fast food restaurant’s special sauce and triggers a wild party. And let’s not forget Hard Bodies, My Tutor, Screwballs, and the original Revenge of the Nerds.

While the majority of these movies would for good reasons never be made today, they continue to hold a special place in my memory and my heart. As a proud member of Generation X, the cringe factor is mostly lost on me. I get it - but I also get that these movies are a product of the decade in which they were made. By the time I was in college and traveling to beach locales for spring break the vibe had changed. We still had fun.