The CB radio used to be the CNN of my small hometown. Or the internet. Or the cell phone. Everyone had one. Everyone talked on them. We all had handles, we all used the lingo. And the rest of the world stopped talking on the citizen’s band, but trust me. It didn’t go away.

We learned one very important lesson: don’t make the truckers angry. The kids in this movie should have known better.

College students Lewis Thomas (Paul Walker) and Venna Wilcox (Leelee Sobieski, remember her?) are headed home from college, but first they have to pick up his brother Fuller (Steve Zahn, remember him?) who needs bailed out. Again.

Fuller has a CB radio installed on Lewis’s car so they can listen in to trucker chatter on their long trip. They end up playing a prank on a trucker named Rusty Nail (voiced by Ted Levine from Silence of the Lambs) and act like a hot girl named Candy Cane, luring him to the hotel room of a man who treated Fuller badly. Rusty Nail ends up killing that man and stalking the brothers — and eventually Venna — for the rest of the film.

Written by J.J. Abrams, this movie is obviously influenced by Steven Spielberg’s Duel. The movie makers couldn’t decide which star Sobieski should have a love scene with, so they shot both. And then, they didn’t use either.

They also shot five other endings. One had Rusty kill himself as the police found a truck filled with bodies. Another had him arrested. There was one where the two brothers beat him up. One had him and his truck get blown up real good and the final one had him hit by his own truck.

That said, Rusty Nail would survive to appear in two direct-to-video sequels: Joy Ride 2: Dead Ahead and Joy Ride 3: Roadkill.

I love the working titles of this film: Candy Cane, Highway Horror, Deadly Frequency, and Squelch. I love the alternate titles for foreign countries even more: Roadkill, Never Play with Strangers, Radio Killer, Never Talk to Strangers, Mortal Frequency and What a Ride!

If it wasn’t for the book Teen Movie Hell, I would have never discovered this film. I feel like my life is infinitely better for watching this, a movie that surprised me every single step of the way with how out there it was willing to be. Every time I thought that it had reached the limit, it climbed over, under and above it.

The movie starts with these words:

“Long ago in “The Good Old Days”, surfers ruled. It was bitchin’! That was before the threat of chemical pollution, nuclear waste and the horror of Buzzz Cola.

Menlo Schwartzer was a high school genius who hated surfers. He invented a weird soft drink, involved local businessmen and set out to rule the coast. He nearly succeeded. This is the story of Buzzz Cola and Menlo’s revenge.”

This is a movie that is willing to be every genre. It’s a parody, a teen movie, a slasher, a zombie movie and more. It’s all about Menlo, played by Eddie Deezen. A practical joke went wrong — an 80’s slasher trope if I ever heard of one — and he’s now putting chemicals into Buzzz Cola that turns drinkers into zombie punks that eat garbage. Yet even though he’s angry at the world, he still has a girlfriend named Sparkle (the beyond beautiful Linda Kerridge from Fade to Black).

After several of their friends become zombies, surfers Chuck (Eric Stoltz) and Bob try to fix things, along with their weird science teacher, all so they can do the big surf contest.

There are plenty of fun spot the actor moments: Tom Villard (Popcorn, High School U.S.A.); Corinne Bohrer, who is pretty much a teen movie all-star with appearances in Zapped!, Joysticks, Revenge of the Nerds IV: Nerds in Love and the fourth Police Academy movie); Cleavon Little from Blazing Saddles as the principal; 70’s heartthrob Lyle Waggoner as police chief Boyardie; Ron “Horseshack” Panillo as Inspector Underwear; America’s first ska band The Untouchables and an early Brinke Stevens appearance.

The parents in this film are played by an all-star cast. And by that, I mean all-star in my world of 70’s TV and exploitation adoration. Chuck’s parents are played by Morgan Paull (the only person I know to be in both Mitchell and Blade Runner) and Laugh-In‘s Ruth Buzzi. Bob’s mom is played by Brandis Kemp from Fridays and Biff Manard from the first two Trancers movies. And Jocko’s folks are Terry Kiser, Bernie himself from Weekend at Bernie’s, and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson model/actress Carol Wayne.

Ironically, Wayne would die from accidental drowning after an argument with companion David E. Durston. It gets weirder. Durston was also present when Diane Linkletter jumped out of a window, a suicide that her father, TV star Art Linkletter blamed on LSD. Want to go one step stranger? Durston is also the director of I Drink Your Blood.

Writer/director Randall Badat came up with this movie after suffering a surf injury where the board went into his butt cheek. While enjoying heavy doses of painkillers, he came up with a movie that he called “Frankie and Annette Go to Hell.” He wrote the film in two days, saying, “We set out to make the most brain-dead movie of all time. In that regard, I believe we succeeded.” His agent told him that it was, “the worst piece of shit.”

He still made his movie, permitting actors free reign with their characters and dialogue. And somehow, he was able to get cinematograph Alex Phillips, Jr. (Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Demonoid, Fade to Black, The Devil’s Rain!), composer Peter Bernstein (who worked on both Hot Dog…The Motion Picture and Hamburger the Movie) and make up artist Greg Cannom (who won the Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling for 2018’s Vice; pretty good for a guy who did effects for this movie and Dr. Alien).

In Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film, Badat says that, “The target audience loved it. Their parents hated it. My family hated it. People that I was doing other business with hated it. I remember going to meetings and people would find out that I’d done this movie and that was it”.

This is a movie that can have slasher-esque sequences mixed with cops blowing up buildings and barely harming the heroes, along with a sequence where a punk is dissected and a Dick Dale record is found inside his stomach, like something out of Jaws. It’s pretty much the dumbest and smartest movie you’ve ever seen, often at the same time.

It also has a soundtrack that features the expected — The Beach Boys, The Ventures and Dick Dale — with bands like Oingo Boingo (Danny Elfman was briefly involved in producing the soundtrack) and The Circle Jerks.

If you haven’t seen Surf II, you don’t need to see the previous film. It doesn’t exist. If you find that funny, then you’re on the right wavelength for this movie.

Any movie that starts with a plane crashing into downtown LA that’s played as a total farce is one I’m going to remember. Philo (Brett Cullen, who was on Falcon Crest and played Johnny Blaze’s dad in 2007’s Ghost RIder) has always wanted to be a pilot, but that crash — in a simulator — is because his contact lenses got knocked out by his friend and fellow pilot George (Donny Most, here booked as Don).

They decide that they want to stay on planes, so they enroll at Weidermeyer Academy, a stewardess school. Imagine Police Academy throughout this movie, with the teachers like Miss “Ironpants” Grummet as the older cops and the students as the cadets. Mary Cadorette — who played Vicky, the girl who finally got Jack Tripper to settle down and go from Three’s Company to Three’s a Crowd — is Kelly Johnson, an extremely clumsy girl. There’s a stereotypical gay guy. A frumpy overweight girl played by Wendie Jo Sperber, as Wendie played this role in nearly every film. There’s Wanda Polanski, a pro wrestler who just lost her latest boyfriend played by Conan the Barbarian‘s Sandahl Bergman. Julia Montgomery — yes, Betty Childs herself — plays an overly nice version of that role. Corinne Bohrer plays a punk rock girl in love with a biker (she’s a vet of these movies, appearing in Zapped!, Joysticks, Surf II, Revenge of the Nerds IV: Nerds in Love and the fourth Police Academy movie). And oh yeah — Judy Landers as Sugar Dubois, a hooker with a heart of gold that’s on work release.

After going through hell, everyone graduates and gets a job at the struggling Stromboli Air. Their first flight has a blind person’s convention and a man with a bomb who doses people with LSD. Of course, our heroes have to land the plane and fix things. But don’t worry — everything works out just fine.

Voiceover artist Rob Paulsen (Pinky of Pinky and the Brain amongst 250 different animated characters and over 1000 commercials) shows up in a rare live-action role. Sherman Helmsley appears briefly as Mr. Buttersworth. And the owner of the school is played by William Bogert, who hosted the Frontline segments on Chapelle’s Show.

If you had Comedy Central in the 1990’s, there’s a good chance you saw this movie. Trust me. You did.

I was lucky enough to have some teachers that cared back in high school. One of them was the only teacher who gave me a D in my entire history and believe it or not, I should thank him for it.

By ninth grade, I didn’t care at all about school. I went through the motions, I knew that I wanted to be an artist or something creative, and I couldn’t wait to escape my small town. Every decision felt like something I was committed to and just did to fit in or fulfill some set role: marching band being a major one of these decisions. One of my few joys was the computer club, where Mr. Brown would allow students to learn how to program at night, watch movies that he selected or just hang out. It’s where I first heard a dubbed tape of Metallica’s song “Orion,” which put me on a path to the music I enjoyed. And it’s where I watched two movies that I can remember — My Science Project and this film.

Mitch Taylor is 15 and already in college. He’s been fast-tracked to Pacific Technical University where the best and brightest minds develop weapons — unbeknownst to them — for slimy Professor Jerry Hathaway (all-time all-star asshole William Atherton).

Chris Knight (Val Kilmer, never better) was once like Mitch but has now become burned out on academics and would rather party. Hathaway assigns Mitch to lead his laser research team because he has fresh ideas, but he’s also hoping that he’ll kick Chris in the butt and remind him how he used to be.

The bad kids of the college — such as it is, they’re all nerds in this movie — try to beat on MItch, but Chris rallies to his aid and explains why he is like he is. There was once a student named Lazlo who was devoted to his experiments until he learned they were all being used for weapons research. He went insane and now he lives inside the walls of the college. Chris didn’t want the same thing to happen to him, so he now enjoys life more than college.

Chris and Mitch get on the same page and they form a team to get things done. Lazlo even shows up to help. Mitch even gets a girlfriend, Jordan (Michelle Meyrink, who soon left acting to be a Zen Buddhist), who became pretty much every girl I looked for from that moment on. Then I learned the truth: there aren’t many genius geek girls that look and act like Michelle Meyrink.

Hijinks ensue — as they should — with the team taking down Hathaway, including taking his assistant Kent’s car apart and rebuilding it inside his dorm room, then placing a radio receiver inside his teeth so he thinks he can hear the voice of God, which ends up being Chris. Also: the prank at the end with the laser exploding Jiffy Pop inside Hathaway’s house is truly the prank of all movie pranks.

That’s what I love about this movie — the heroes may be put upon, but never emerge as mean spirited or hurtful in their revenge. They’ve been treated badly but there’s no reason to perpetuate the pain. They just want to have fun.

This movie is packed with talent. There’s Yuji Okumoto, a few years removed from his amazing heel work in The Karate Kid Part 2. Lazlo, the man in the walls who ends up entering tons of contests and becomes rich, is another cameo star turn by the always surprising Jonathan Gries. Warhol girl Patti D’Arbanville shows up (interestingly enough, she was the inspiration for two Cat Stevens songs, “Lady D’Arbanville” and “Wild World”). Severn Darden – Kolp from the last two Planet of the Apes films — plays a professor. Dean Devlin — who would go on to write Universal Soldier, Stargate and Independence Day) — acts in this. And the Valley Girl herself, Deborah Foreman, shows up.

By the way — Lazlo’s multiple Frito-Lay contest entries is more than just a funny scene in this movie. It’s based on reality. In 1974, Caltech students Steve Klein, Dave Novikoff and Barry Megdal did the same thing to win a McDonald’s contest. They sent in around 20% of the total entries and walked away with a station wagon, $3,000 in cash and $1,500 in food gift certificates.

I also love that Lazlo has left this quote inside his tunnels: “Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain,” a translation of a quote from the German poet Friedrich Schiller. Seriously, what a strange and well-rounded character, but that’s the genius of this movie (and Jon Gries).

Between Valley Girl, National Lampoon’s Joy of Sex and this movie, Martha Coolidge sure had a great teen movie run in the 80’s. She went on to make the critically acclaimed Rambling Rose and still works today in TV.

Back to that D. Mr. Brown — that same computer club teacher — was the one who gave it to me. I was taking a programming class and didn’t study and thought because he was so friendly to us he’d cut me a break. He didn’t.

At first I felt betrayed and angry. But as I realized that I had coasted and not lived up to my full potential — and spent 6 weeks grounded with no computer and had to apply myself — I realized that he was right.

From then on, I changed out my classes so that I would take classes that would prepare me to be an artist and writer. I dropped out of band and even went to school in the summer so that I could take more electives. That D changed my life. It’s funny because I was one person away from graduating with honors and part of me could be mad about it, because I had worked so hard. But I wasn’t in the National Honor Society or graduating with the smart kids because of that D. And that was fine — I refused to peak in high school. Better things were on the way. I learned that thanks to that class, that teacher and yes, this movie.

Girls Just Want to Have Fun is named for the Cyndi Lauper song, but it doesn’t even have the original song in the movie. If that fact upsets you, perhaps this isn’t the film for you.

What it does have is plenty of star power before they were famous. Sarah Jessica Parker, Helen Hunt and Shannen Doherty appear here way before anyone knew who they were. It’s a fun little bit of fluff all about Parker’s character getting to be on the show Dance TV.

Parker’s dance partner for the show is played by Lee Montgomery, who is practically royalty around these parts. After all, he played the kid in Burnt Offerings, the rat loving Ben in the movie of the same name, the undead Bobby in the TV movie Dead of Night and he also stars in the fantastic TV movie musical The Midnight Hour.

I love how completely off the wall Helen Hunt’s outfits are here. There’s also an astounding scene where punk rockers and bodybuilders infiltrate a sweet sixteen party that had me laughing out loud.

This is a movie that knows how to cast people. Parker’s rival’s dad is played by Morgan Woodward who played the frightening Boss Godfrey in Cool Hand Luke. There’s a lot of suggestion here that he’s in love with his daughter in all of the wrong ways. Or maybe it’s just that she treats him like a sugar daddy. Oh yeah — Parker’s dad is played by Ed Lauter of Death Wish 3 and so many more films!

One of the actors in the film, Terry McGovern, has a pretty interesting career. He invented the term Wookie while filming THX-1138 with George Lucas. He was the voice of Launchpad McQuack and was also Dan Stevens, the fake announcer for the NFL2K series of games.

When it comes to the kids dancing, there are even more people who would go on to greatness. One of the dancers is Robin Antin, who was the creative force behind the Pussycat Dolls as well as a noted choreographer. Plus, other dancers are noted film programmer Bruce Goldstein and Gina Gershon.

Hank Azaria has an uncredited role here and so does Cyndi Lauper, which kind of makes me laugh that she’s in the movie and her song isn’t.

The final dance-off is astounding, with the evil girl doing dives off the set. I think more movies should have a final dance-off. It makes it way more interesting. Now I have to go think of how to work them into other films.

Deborah Foreman is my favorite 1980’s comedy girl. From Real Genius to Valley Girl, April Fool’s Day and Waxwork, she’s always dependable, always cute and always real. She’s the kind of girl that 80’s dorks like me wish we’d get as girlfriends. And people noticed, with one critic comparing her to a “New Wave Carole Lombard crossed with early Shirley MacLaine.” Sadly, she never really broke through to the mainstream. She has said that My Chauffeur is her favorite of the films in which she’s appeared and the most fun she ever had making a movie.

In My Chaffeur, she plays Casey Meadows, a free spirit who somehow ends up working for the Brentwood Limousine Service, which brings her into conflict with the company’s manager, McBride (Howard Hesseman!). At first, the older drivers all treat her like dirt, but her plucky spirit and hard work soon win them over. Even when they set her up with nightmare client Cat Fight, a goofball drugged out rock star, she succeeds.

Casey soon starts driving around Battle Witherspoon (Sam J. Jones, Flash Gordon), the son of limo company owner Mr. Witherspoon (E.G. Marshall, Creepshow). She helps him through a breakup, but he’s a heel, a rich boy unable to be kind to anyone — until Casey breaks through.

However, she soon runs afoul of an oil sheik and a con artist who take her for a ride even more ridiculous than the band at the start of the movie. It turns out they’re wanted men, which gets Casey fired. Penn and Teller play them and this was at the very start of their career.

Battle becomes a better person and he and Casey fall in love. He takes her home to meet her father and when in her house, she was deja vu. That’s because her mother was a former employee and she played in the house. And Battle’s dad is actually her real father. But whew — luckily for those who don’t want a Flowers in the Attic situation — Casey’s real dad was Giles, one of the other limo drivers. That means our young couple can get married and all ends happily.

You can watch this on Tubi and Vudu for free.

Hikmet Avedis was the director of 1974’s The Teacher. Howard Avedis is the director of this film (as well as Mortuary). They’re similar films. And the same person. So there you go.

This movie is all about Jay (Eric Brown, Private Lessons), who gets caught up in a film noir-like murder mystery. And see, you thought that this was going to be all about teen comedies and not death! Wrong!

What sold me on this movie were the two leads: Andrew Prine (The Town that Dreaded Sundown, Simon King of the Witches) and Sybil Danning (Battle Beyond the Stars). They’re a married couple who want to get his mom into a retirement home, but things go wrong and she gets killed. Jay gets way too deep into their affairs, but look: if you were a 19-year-old college kid and Sybil Danning regularly rumbusticating you, chances are you’d do anything she asked.

This movie has a lot in it, to tell the truth. It’s somewhat a sex comedy. It’s sometimes a slasher, like when a hidden Santa Claus beats a woman with a baseball bat. It’s got Dominick Brascia in it, who played the candy bar eating heavy guy in Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. It’s got Alvy Moore in it, who was Hank Kimball on TV’s Green Acres. It was the best role Sybil ever thought that she acted in. And by the end of the movie, it’s become a giallo complete with a room full of horrific artwork, dead bodies and a secret sibling!

Despite the tagline, “From his French maid, he got Private Lessons. Now his English professor is giving him a REAL education,” this is not a sequel to that film. Also: I kind of hate Eric Brown, as he got to do love scenes with both Sybil and Sylvia Kristel. That’s kind of getting way too much out of your life. No one deserves that much.

Just listen to this song and remember: Eric Brown got to do three love scenes with Sybil Danning. Try not to get enraged.

You can get this from Kino Lorber.

I ask you this: why did they keep making movies after Caddyshack? This is as perfect as film gets, quite literally a movie that you can drop into and out of at any time with your damage to the timing or spirit of the film. It has never failed to lift my mood or make me feel better about life. It is all that movies should endeavor to be.

It’s based on the memories of writer and co-star Brian Doyle-Murray as he worked as a caddy at the Indian Hill Club in Winnetka, Illinois, along with his brothers Bill and John. Director Harold Ramis had also worked as a caddy and even been hit in the genitals with a golf ball once, just like the film. Even better — that Baby Ruth candy bar in the pool came directly from Murray’s high school.

Is there a plot? Sure, Danny Noonan is supposedly the hero and its all about how he wants to escape his huge family and go to college. But really, it’s the personalities that this movie is all about, like Ty Webb (Chevy Chase), the son of one of the club’s founders who has turned slack into zen. Then there’s Judge Elihu Smails (Ted Knight), who is perhaps the best bad guy ever in a comedy. Or newly rich construction boss Al Czervik (Rodney Dangerfield) who is a buffoonish man out to annoy every wealthy person in the club. And of course, there’s Carl Spackler, the groundskeeper who is at war with a gopher.

It’s also the only movie where Chase and Murray appear in a scene together. Famously brawling on the set of Saturday Night Live once, where Murray referred to Chase as “medium talent” before punching him — the best insult ever — they got along here and wrote a quick moment where Ty’s golf ball ends up in Spackler’s ramshackle hovel.

Murray dialogue in the film is completely unscripted, including his Cinderella story scene. There, he was told only to act as if he were a child announcing his own imaginary golf moment. He was only on set for six days.

The constant improv really bothered Knight, an actor who prided himself on knowing his lines. Dangerfield never did the same take twice, so their constant battling has its roots in reality. In fact, Rodney would never begin doing anything when Ramis yelled “Action!” Instead, he had to be told, “Rodney, do your bit.”

The original cut of this film was around 4 and a half hours with Bill Murray’s Cinderella speech coming in at around half an hour. No one was happy with the second cut, so the gopher was added at the last minute to give the movie some structure. It was shot on a soundstage, so that’s why the film stock in these scenes looks completely different.

Caddyshack was a failure upon release and was hated by critics. It’s gone on to show them all the error of their ways.

Sadly, writer Doug Kenney would never see this movie be embraced. At the press conference for this film, he drunkenly yelled at reporters, convinced it would be the end of his Hollywood career. A trip soon after to Hawaii with Chase lifted his spirits, but only for a brief time. He either slipped on a rock or jumped while there and was dead at 33, leaving behind work with the National Lampoon and the film Animal House along with this one. You can learn more about Kenney in the movie A Futile and Stupid Gesture.

Auggie Hamilton is all about making that fast buck. He’s just been kicked out of college for a gambling and drinking party after being there for way longer than four years, as well as trying to sleep with the dean’s daughter. What’s he going to do now?

So when he learns that his friend Samantha (Tracy Griffith, Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland) is about to sell her father’s garage to make way for Wrangler Bob Bundy (Jim Varney, yes, the Ernest P. Worrell playing, Slinky Dog voicing Jim Varney. Trivia note: Blake Clark, who is also in this movie, was friends with Varney and took over the voice of Slinky after Varney’s death) and his constantly growing burger empire.

How do you defeat a megacorporation? Well, you go get some drugs that make people horny and put them in your burgers, that’s how. And if you’re wondering how they get that drug, one of the way they get women in bed is to sneak them into a lab where men suffer from non-stop erections. The girls see  all these bald-headed yogurt slingers and the next thing you know, they’re in bed with the guys. Because you know — that’s totally how romance works. Movies like this are why I didn’t get laid until I was 24.

How does the new fast food place get successful? Well, beyond the date rape drugs in the special sauce, they also cater a fancy preppie sorority bash been thrown by Mary Beth Bensen, who is played by the same person who played the grown-up Angela in Sleepaway Camp II and Sleepaway Camp III. That’s Pamela Springsteen and yes, she’s the Boss’s sister.

Stick around — Traci Lords also shows up as an industrial spy, sent by Wrangler Bob to ruin our heroes. And oh yeah — the judge of their big case is played Kevin McCarthy from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Michael J. Pollard shows up, too.

This isn’t a movie you’d be proud to talk about with anyone, but who cares? Varney is great, Traci Lords is Traci Lords and burgers cause people to get laid. You could do much worse.