My first R rated movie was Caddyshack. I saw it in the theater. I was nine. Thanks, bro. I cant say it changed my life because it really hadnt started, yet. It influenced my life in many ways, including the kind of writers, actors and filmmakers I emulated. Growing up, there was Monty Python and Saturday Night Live. Through those two institutions I found a rich heritage of risk taking and clever writing that brought me to love Steve Martin, Second City, National Lampoon, the Goon Show... so many more. I used to stay up late to watch the original cast of Saturday Night Live and then SCTV when it ran as a summer replacement. To me, those guys were rock stars. The 1970s was to comedy what the 1960s was to music. It changed hands from the old masters to the young subversives who werent afraid to make you uncomfortable or challenge the establishment. The last frontier of activism following what Hunter Thompson called the end of that inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil long after the wave broke and rolled back, was comedy - black, gallows humor of the Nixon/Vietnam era. Fed by Lenny Bruce and George Carlin and Richard Pryor, the mood of audiences in comedy clubs and improv theaters crowded the kind of shows put on by The Second City. There, Ramis was one of many voices producing brilliant material. From them, we take SCTV, SNL, Kids in the Hall, Upright Citizens Brigade, The Groundlings and most contemporary, thoughtful and subversive comedy. Of course, I didnt think about it that way when I was nine. I saw Spalding puke into the front seat of Doctor Beepers convertible. I saw Carl Spackler in a HazMat suit hold up a Pay Day bar off the floor of a swimming pool and then eat it in front of a mortified group of people who thought it was poop. I watched Ty spill baby oil over a girl who showed her boobies. I watched Carl chase a Muppet across a golf course and later turn to high explosives for his ultimate sanction. The rest of the movie fell into place later on HBO late at night. I didnt see Animal House until I was the ripe old age of 12. One of my favorite things to do was sneak into my brothers closet to read the Faber College Yearbook. And then there was Ghostbusters. Harold Ramis is credited for taking Dan Aykroyds huge treatment for a futuristic spirit disposal team and converting it to a more human (and affordable) script that eventually became Ghostbusters. When you think about it, much of Ramis best work is a collaboration of varied genius, either with Second City, National Lampoon or the alumni from both schools. Alone, they were brilliant at their strengths. Together, they made classics like Caddyshack and Animal House and countless shows in Chicago, Toronto, and New York. Those stories were about teamwork and the leadership of the Oddball against the establishment. Animal House was a home for wayward weirdoes. Stripes brought us a squad of them. Meatballs radiates the awkwardness of growing up. Ghostbusters is the masterful application of the kind of flawed heroes Ramis is known for. Ghostbusters gave us a group of guys with particular skills who might have been lost on their own, but together could save the world. A major exception to this is, of course, Groundhog Day, where Phil Connor suffers through the same day until he can figure it all out alone and the answer is getting his head out of his own ass to pay attention to everyone else. Those films - and especially Ghostbusters - spoke to me growing up. Back then, we - those of us who identify as geeks -- were oddballs. Geeks and Nerds (dorks, dweebs, spazzes, etc.) were the confused and downtrodden refuse who needed an Oddball to lead them out of the darkness. Oddballs could teach them self-confidence and maybe how to dance so that one day they could become Oddballs. The Oddball could be the hero and get the girl. The Oddball always won. The Oddball could speak truth to power and not be scared. All you had to do was believe in yourself, your cause and - above all - be able to laugh about it. Thats what I needed to hear growing up. The passing of Harold Ramis hurts more than a strangers passing should. Like the passing of Douglas Adams, I feel it comes at the end of an age. Adams passed months before 9/11 and the introduction of the paranoid bureaucracy her always warned us about. Ramis is the latest in a line of brilliant minds lost of that learned school of comedy, not just the alumni of Second City or veterans of National Lampoon like Doug Kenney or Michael ODonoghue, Tom Davis and John Belushi, but others who carried the banner - Bill Hicks, Sam Kinison, George Carlin, Andy Kaufman and others. Mark Twain wrote The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter. More enduring than musicians and sincere than politicians, the comedian can make plain the issues of our age and help us see our world a little clearer by being able to laugh instead of hating or fearing it. Thanks. And goodbye. By the way, Egon....
Posted on: Mon, 24 Feb 2014 23:19:55 +0000
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