The Dawn of Pay Cable, or I Just Watched Midnight Madness Again

...and introducing Michael J Fox, as the pain in the ass little brother...

Before the 1980’s became the Madonna-drenched, hairspray-laden breakdancing clusterfuck we all remember, there was a brief and unique period that immediately preceded it.  It was roughly 1980 to 1983-ish; a small era where it wasn’t the 70’s anymore and MTV, Michael Jackson and Miami Vice had yet to truly influence the scene.  It was just a nondescript blah of the first round of Generation X teenagers; kids that looked like extras from The Bad News Bears were growing up and becoming a bunch of foul-mouthed cranks with no direction.  It is the realm of Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Pat Benatar, knee-high gym socks and rollerskating, the end of disco and the beginning of well… not much.

This was my era.  Well, my era to be a tweener.  It was not memorable at all.  However, there is one detail with which anyone my age can usually connect; the beginning of cable TV.  We were the first generation of kids with HBO.  That’s right, four local channels and the special box that gave you uncut movies.  Eventually the same box would be the gateway for seeing boobs; but for right then and there it was about those movies.  We were still kids who watched whatever was on when it was time to watch TV.  Reruns, black and white movies, cartoons from the 1940’s, it didn’t really matter. When HBO was available, we followed the same ritual.  Whatever piece of garbage that was on, we ate it up.  One thing to remember: HBO repeated the same movies over and over and over, sometimes for years.  Three times a day you might see Ice Pirates or MegaForce, Hooper or The Secret of NIMH, The Great Muppet Caper or Super Fuzz, and the next day, Ordinary People and Chariots of Fire.  But the crappy movies were the best because kids could understand them, and we also weren’t children with the burden of irony.  We actually thought these movies were cool.

They’re not.  But we thought they were when we were ten, and that’s all that matters.

Midnight Madness (1980), feels like an episode of Happy Days.  It is actually a Disney movie, although Disney did not put its name on it until its rerelease in 2004.  It is a scavenger hunt movie, where five teams of college kids run all over Los Angeles getting clues to eventually lead them to a finish line.  That’s it.  It is a light comedy with jokes that still made me laugh when I re-watched it.  I don’t want to nitpick the film, because it’s just silly, but I do want to point out one thing.  When I was ten, I thought these clues were so clever and I would have loved to be involved.  As an adult, they could not be easier.  If these are college kids, they should have never been allowed to graduate. 

This is one of those 80’s movies of the area with all the most cookie cutter clichés you could possibly want in there.  All of the jocks are dumb, beer-swilling animals.  The nerds are dorky and unlikeable, and led by Eddie Deezen, the king of all nerd actors.  All the fat people are ugly and gross.  They seem to make an extra effort to make the fat people disgusting.  Old people are slow, rich kids were jerks, and handsome guys have trouble with girls.  So clear cut; so refreshingly simple.

A few observations:

Oh, the things they thought computers could do.  Stephen Furst’s (Flounder from Animal House) character Harold has a rich dad who buys him a new van, complete with flames painted on the side, and an onboard computer to win the game.  (Why is not clear.  The prize is just a trophy). This computer can “solve any clue in five seconds” so Harold can cheat and win.  Remember, no internet. He types in the clue and for some reason, it spits out the answer. His dad just had a clue-solving computer lying around gathering dust in the garage or something.

Michael J. Fox is in there as a little brother who looks 14 but was actually 19 in real life.  Two years before Family Ties, five before Back to the Future.  Paul Reubens also has a cameo. 

The ugliest character onscreen was the game’s creator, Leon. He organized the Great All-Nighter for some reason. For the entire movie, he was flanked by two hot chicks, Candy and Sunshine, who seemed to be at his beck and call. Was he a pimp?  Again, no explanation.  Disney movie.

One more scene. I remember it driving me nuts as a young nerd.  One of the stops is at a miniature golf course. The jocks leap out of the bushes and take the nerds’ ball.  They throw it into the water trap.  While everyone is leaving to find the next clue, the nerds are in the water, in rubbers waders, looking for the lost ball. Even as a little kid I could not believe it: “Just get another damn ball!” 

If you can stomach this era, if you can handle the hair and the awful clothes and the ridiculous theme song, if you can handle the cheesiness and Michael J Fox’s annoying bratty brother character, this movie is still pretty fun.  Apparently there are some tributes to the movie around the country, with real life Great All-Nighters and dammit, I still want to do one.