I feel like if you’re visiting this site and this show then we had a pretty similar high school experience. Did you have a couple close, goof-ball friends? Did you feel like you didn’t fit in with a certain crowd? Did you find comfort in music? Did you only ever see the version of The Breakfast Club that was formatted for TV and had all the curses edited out? Then yeah, I’d say we had a pretty similar high school experience. And that’s totally true about The Breakfast Club, I saw that movie probably once a month on Comedy Central when I was in high school. Always edited. I didn’t know it had curses in it until like two weeks ago, when I saw it on Netflix. Watching the movie with fresh eyes in my mid (to late) twenties flipped something on in me. It brought back this weird ‘getting-close-during-a-teenage-dance’ nostalgic feeling - and with that a rush of deep and powerful, mostly selfish feelings to my dumb lizard brain.
I don’t get how a movie that was made two years before I was born could so perfectly nail those high school feelings. It’s John Hughes dude, and it's not just The Breakfast Club. So many other Hughes films from the 80s and early 90s can do that. This is probably due in part to the just perfect soundtracks to these films. Pretty In Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful, shut up - they’re perfect. Wang Chung is my jam.
John Hughes built these worlds for us and we relate to the characters he created within them. For me this was especially true in Ferris Buller’s Day Off. I saw myself as him. Oh no, not Ferris. I was not that cool. I was more of a Cameron.
These feelings I get, and I think you get too, from these Hughes films are somehow both extremely personal and incredibly universal. On this episode of TMSIWTH we’re exploring the sounds and feelings of John Hughes films. We’re getting all Hughesian with our emotions. Why? Because you’re like me and totally want to make out with Mary Stuart Masterson.
We also have a house band this week too, they’re called The Ice Cream Trucks and they met in high school and played a couple John Hughes Soundtrack songs and covers from their high school days that will be sprinkled throughout this episode. It was a lot of fun.
We have a 5-track show for you all in celebration of John Hughes, nostalgia and high school.
- Opening Track: The Ice Cream Trucks
- Track One: Pretty In Black, Theresa Martin
- Track Two: The Breakfast Me, Nick Orsini
- Track Three: TMS Listening Party - The Smiths
- Track Four: 17 1/2 Candles
Opening Track: The Ice Cream Trucks
(8:25) Some of the greatest bands are those that got together in high school. We're not talking about high school bands, we've been to Battle of the Bands, most of those groups are garbage. No, we're talking about those groups that have stayed together since then, and grew up together. The Ice Cream Trucks are one of those bands.
Track One: Pretty In Black, Theresa Martin
(13:40) Did you know there was an alternate ending to Pretty in Pink? Seriously. In the alternate ending, Andie and Duckie end up together. And SOME HOW, test audiences didn't like it. It's actually outrageous. Not that I always root for the underdog. But I kinda do.
I can relate to Duckie, I really can. Not in the "in love with my best friend" way, but in the hopeless romantic, grand gesture, forever kinda nerdy way. It's how I've always been. Starting at around 11 years old, I began fantasizing about love and being swept off my feet. Mostly by Zac Hanson, but that's neither here nor there. And 16 years later? Still a romantic. I haven't changed too much. I'm still a huge awkward nerd. Maybe slightly less dramatic and flamboyant than Duckie, but I get it.
Track Two: The Breakfast Me, Nick Orsini
(17:43) I was a criminal. Right before that, I was a brain. Around the same time, I was a basket case and an athlete. I was also a princess on some random months of a random year, forever ago. The Breakfast Club is about five people, six if you count Richard Vernon, Vice Principal. Five sets of skills and talents. Five sets of shortcomings and flaws. The truth is, they are fractions of a whole. Five distinct phases and outlooks inherent to every single person. The reason The Breakfast Club is the perfect coming-of-age story is because it's not about confronting the other, the differences between people and cliques, but rather the phases of self.
Track Three: TMS Listening Party - The Smiths
(27:15) At one of the strangest concerts I learned the difference between The Smiths and The Cure. The Cure were a bunch of sad dudes, The Smiths were a bunch of sad dudes who were always included on mix CDs I made for girls. "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" is the anthem to every high school boy's pursuit of girls. Below is Space U2's cover of The Smiths classic Hughes tune.
Track Four: 17 1/2 Candles
(32:51) Do you know what the average age someone loses their virginity? We do thanks to a study by The Kinsey Institute. Unlike what the research tells us I was not 17 and 1/2 when I lost my V-Card. I was much younger and without going into any great detail it was not a pleasent experience. Maybe it was because of my partner, or maybe it was because of the place I did the deed. Most likely it was because I didn't know what song I should play while I awkwardly flapped around. REWIND's Theresa Martin fills us in on what we should be listening to while we're "filling it in". Get it?
THE END
Thanks to the Executive Producer Jeremy Allen, Nick Orsini, Matthew Meylikhov, Kelly Cashman, Theresa Martin, Keri Wise, Tim Cahill and our new favorite band The Ice Cream Trucks. Go on Netflix and watch a Hughes movie ya jerks!