Build a movie plot around this: What is Thornton Melon trying to encourage his son to do? Stay in school
The answer to this question is:
This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (July 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)Thornton Melon's is a rags-to-riches story. The son of an Italian immigrant tailor, he is shown as a boy (Jason Hervey) in his father's shop, bearing a report card with poor grades. His ambition is to go into his father's line of work, but his father reprimands Thornton for his poor schoolwork, and tells him no matter how hardworking, skilled or wealthy one may be, "if a man has got no education, he has got nothing".As decades pass, Thornton is shown opening his first "Tall and Fat" clothing store and eventually becoming a corporate giant, complete with a TV commercial in which he asks:Are you a large person? Pleasantly plump? A little on the hefty side, perhaps? Well, let's face it: are you fat? When you go jogging, do you leave potholes? When you make love, do you have to give directions? At the zoo, do elephants throw you peanuts? Do you look at a menu and say, 'Okay'?He also has changed his last name to "Melon" (from the original "Meloni").After his college-student son Jason (Keith Gordon) cancels a visit, Thornton goes home to Vanessa (Adrienne Barbeau), his second wife. Thornton is a widower and Vanessa is a social climbing gold digger, unable to bear her crude husband. Upon agreeing to a divorce, he threatens to expose her adulterous affairs (showing her Polaroids of her with other men, including a midget) after she threatens to sue him for half of his net worth.Thornton tells his friend, chauffeur and bodyguard Lou (Burt Young) to drive him to Jason's college. It turns out Jason has been keeping secrets from his father. He is not on the Grand Lakes diving team, but instead works as a towel boy, treated badly by star diver Chas Osborn (William Zabka). Jason has only his best friend Derek Lutz (Robert Downey, Jr.) for support and intends to drop out. Thornton pleads with him, offering...