Pop Culture anti-traditional conformity

Rating: 9/10 (5 August 2001)

This 1980 "summer comedy" was given the Primetime hero's treatment last night on the NBC TV network (August 3, 2001). A weekend anchor from the TODAY SHOW even presided over a series of pompous interviews (What was great/memorable about this part of your movie career?) that made it seem like a past Oscar-contender. Director/co-writer Harold Ramis knowlingly smirked through all the worshipful treatment his effort was getting from this media giant. It all seemed a bit "scratch my back, I'll scratch your back" when Bill Murray's family (including a co-writer of this movie) was given a commercial of sorts for a St. Augustine, FL Restaurant-bar themed "Caddyshack." [Where were the mini-interview with the female performers or the musical composer?] In certain ways, I don't understand how CADDYSHACK rated such a reverent homage. Other than a previously drastically edited-down network broadcast of this effective vignette/sketch "cotton candy," it wasn't a blip on my cultural "radar screen." I can't remember hearing this much tribute being paid to it from any of the original audiences singing its praises. Now more than two decades after its theatrical release, it does seem to have marked the onset of a genre of studio product that is quite UNcommendable. Certain captivating "Saturday Night Live" sketch performers are routinely given the opportunity to take their improv skills or "fixed" characters to the "big screen" and thumb their noses at the Hollywood establishment or American traditionalism in a film project of some sort. When a creative script and a charismatic comedian's persona jel and become "more" appealing, then you have a breakaway hit like BEVERLY HILLS COP was for Eddie Murphy (a SNL alumnus). The uncreative scripts and uncharismatic or downright offensive comedians are a horrendous litany of movie schlock. In the case of CADDYSHACK, the script concerns a "sport" that is familiar to mainstream Americans and is quite effectively irreverent toward the "Country Club" set. Ramis' employing several strong comedic actors who are doing fair to middling (with apparently only slight direction from him at the helm) does make for a positive result. NBC still managed to "cut and paste" around some of the profanities and barely-there nudity to make this a de-fanged product. The gopher, to me, looked barely better than a TV character from my childhood TV watching: Bunny Rabbit on the CAPTAIN KANGAROO morning schedule. I would be a more solid admirer of this film if the entire enterprise was greater than the sum of its separately funny (often hilarious) parts; unfortunately, it's not quite the best work that this director/writer has to offer. Young videophiles in search of good counsel should keep searching in your video store's comedy section for the same director's GROUNDHOG DAY or a more effective comedy of this era titled GHOSTBUSTERS, if seeking a "nostalgia"-comedy from the 1980's. I give CADDYSHACK an 8 out of 10 [but not the snipped version of the TV broadcast].