We have arrived at the final installment of our ground-mending, non-thought provoking, utterly pointless review of YouTube Movie Reactions. What I like to call THE BOYS’ OWN GUIDE TO STUFF PEOPLE SAY NO MATTER HOW STUPID.

This episode covers the 1980 laugh-fest AIRPLANE. I think, along with THE BIG LEBOWSKI, and MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL, this is the most-reacted-upon comedy of them all. 

I first saw AIRPLANE on the big screen on the very day it opened over 40 years ago. Going in, I knew it was a comedy, but that’s all. I loved it that day and laughed so often and so hard (in an almost-empty theater) that I wasn’t sure if this was a hilarious movie or if I’d lost my freaking mind.

Before watching any of these reactions, I thought I had a fair idea how the movie would play to these youngsters. There would be some things which would seem dated, some references which might not register, and some things which would be familiar to them from other sources (“Don’t call me Shirley” most notably.) But all-in-all, I thought this was pretty basic 10-jokes-a-minute-comedy and would play now just about as it did then. But there were some surprises for me, and some belated awareness.

Some people who were so familiar in ‘80 didn’t register now: Ethel Merman…”is that really her?”  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar…one lady recognized him, uh, maybe. “I think that’s him. I think so.” Others had no idea who he was. Barbara Billingsley: not surprising I guess, but not a single person recognized the elderly lady who “speaks jive” as the mother of Wally and the Beav.

The ancient commercial being mocked by “Jim never vomits at home” does not, of course, mean a damn thing now.

There’s a mild laugh or two at George Zipp, “the Zipper”, but only for the funny name itself. Nobody here had ever heard of Knute Rockne’s “win just one for the Gipper.” Of course, in ‘80, Ronald Reagan was running for President and he had played George Gipp in the old movie and was nicknamed “the Gipper”.

The smoking airline ticket got some chuckles but was mostly lost in the reactors’ disbelief that there had EVER been smoking on an airplane.

Is the Mayo Clinic still around? Nobody seemed to realize that it was a genuine place being joked about. 

Nobody got the parody of the FROM HERE TO ETERNITY beach scene, while it was about 50-50 on the SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER bit. Most recognized the music, only about half knew it was from “some movie,” nobody got the title or mentioned Travolta.

There was a disturbing amount of “that’s just silly,” “that’s stupid,” “why does he…” and such. I fear for the national sense of humor.

Unsurprising sign of the times: “Have you ever seen a grown man naked?” gets the expected “Eeeuuw…that’s not funny.”

Saddest of all--one of the true genius aspects of AIRPLANE was the casting. Using such familiar folks as Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack, Peter Graves, and Leslie Nielsen in comic versions of the kinds of roles we’d seen them play a hundred times over the years. 

Now, though, Bridges, Graves, and Stack are simply nameless old actors. Nielsen is sometimes recognized, but always as a comedy guy, a role he never played till AIRPLANE took him there. And, of course, he wasn’t ALWAYS recognized. “Hey, look, it’s Steve Martin!”

All told, the movie still got big laughs from all of them (except for one young lady who, I fear, has never laughed and doesn’t know of the possibility of laughter.) It was a little sad to note just how much of what seemed permanent memory has become just…nothing.

 

Here we are again in the world of YouTube movie reactions. As before, most of these “reactors” are young women, and all of them claim (and I believe them on this front) to have not seen the movie before.

This time the movie is SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. I’d guess, not having taken a headcount, that this might be THE single most often reacted-to movie on YouTube. Here’s what folks had to say…

…Almost all of them are initially confused by Clarice running through the woods. “Don’t run in the wilderness by yourself!”  “Is somebody chasing her?”  “It’s too muddy.”  Only when we see “FBI” on the trainer’s cap does the truth occur to them.

….The reaction to Dr. Chilton is immediate and strong. “I hate him”  “Ugh, what a creep.”  And ultimately, nobody minds at all that Hannibal is “having an old friend for dinner.”

…”Hannibal Lecter was a real person…right?”

….”What? Is it possible for a person to swallow his own tongue?”

….Maybe a third of them recognize Anthony Hopkins’ name. Maybe a couple of those know who he is. And who is he? Why, he’s Thor’s dad. Of course.

…I especially loved the one lady who didn’t know Hopkins from Adam. After his first couple of scenes, she nods approvingly and says, “They chose a good actor.”  Glad you approve, sweetheart.

….Almost all of them are very curious about just how Lecter got his hands on Chilton’s ballpoint pen. They were so unanimously curious that I started to wonder myself. I did come up with a simple possibility which satisfied me. But, ultimately, we don’t need to know. We just go with the flow, you know?

….When Buffalo Bill is about to grab his next “special lady”, there is clear certainty that she absolutely should not fall for the ploy of a guy needing help with a sofa. There is no question of this. They just can’t believe she’d be that stupid. With one exception. One lady said, “oh, go help him…look at him, he’s having a hard time. I’d help him. I’d go help him right away.”  You have to appreciate her kindness and question her gullibility.

….Everybody loves animals, right? Well, all these ladies certainly do. They seem to care much more about the cat in the window waiting for the kidnap victim than they are about the victim herself. “Oh, no, not in front of the cat?”  As the kidnap victim is beaten, abused, and carried off, at least two of the ladies were really concerned: “What’s going to happen to the cat?”  “Who’s going to feed the cat?”

….On one of our visits to Buffalo Bill’s cellar, when we see the victim down in the well, one daring lady had a suggestion for her:  “What if you PRINCE OF PERSIA up the side of the well?”

….I’d say that two out of three are adamant that Clarice must not go down in the cellar alone after Bill.  “No, no, go get backup.”  “Don’t go down there, you don’t know the place.”

A couple of the ladies felt otherwise:  “Yeah, she’s gotta go down there. That poor girl needs help.”  

….And finally, the FBI cake, which gets a nice closeup, is highly approved.  “Oh, nice cake.” “Wow, look at that cake.”  “I could do with some cake.”  And best of all, from a few of the ladies… “CAKE!”

I understand that it’s unlikely that these “reactors” are going to go all negative on the movies. I also understand that most of the movies chosen are well worthy of high praise, but still, as I read it, all these “reactors” were genuinely taken with SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. As they well should be.

So. There are these folks on YouTube who watch movies and “react” to them. In most cases

they watch movies they haven’t seen before and, since most of these people are very young,

there are LOTS of old and not-so-old movies which they’ve not yet seen. 

Of course I realize that these are people who are seeking money and notice for a

minimum of effort. Still, I fell into a pit of them about ten days ago and have been drowning

in that mire ever since, watching oodles of the things.

Some of them I watched for two or three or ten minutes then decided, nope, too stupid

or too unappealing or too clearly faking their reactions. What I was left with was a series

of mostly women, primarily aged I’d guess from 22-40. There was a man or two, and one

older person but they didn’t figure a lot in my viewing. 

This was all interesting to me on a couple of levels. First, I enjoyed seeing how some

old movies would play to fresh, young viewers. Second, I found it interesting, and

sometimes appalling, what younger folks knew and didn’t know.

Of course, I don’t expect younger people to know everything I do about old stuff. I

was there for much of those times and saw it first hand. Plus, I’ve had many more years to

learn stuff. So I try not to expect too much from the young, but I’ve made note of some things

which surprised or disappointed me, whatever age they might be.

My plan is to spread this over three or four posts. This one will just cover a few movies

and a few comments for each. The next two posts will focus on some specific movies which

got a lot of interesting coverage from these “reactors.”

 

Most of these folk seem to have trouble with comedy, especially of the wild, farcical variety.

They seem to enjoy AIRPLANE, MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL, THE

NAKED GUN, BLAZING SADDLES, or LIFE OF BRIAN, but they don’t seem to entirely

ge it. There’s lots of “that’s so dumb” and “why would he do that?” And this for films which

are intentionally sort of dumb and full of characters who do things for laughs, not because it’s

behavior expected of real world humans.

Sadly, when they do recognize something from an old movie it’s because “it’s a meme!”

Or something they’ve seen online or parodied in FAMILY GUY. When they recognize an“old” actor, it’s because they saw him in a Harry Potter or Marvel movie. 

A couple of comments from movies whose titles elude me. 

“Who’s Wyatt Earp?”

“What’s Ovaltine?”

I guess those are somewhat understandable, but still upsetting.

Here are a few things gleaned from various movies:

Life of Brian

I watched maybe half a dozen people comment on this movie, and the single thing which

surprised me most was that none of them seemed to recognize the Sermon on the Mount.

They’d say things like, “is that Brian talking?”  “some guy is speaking to the crowd” and

so on.  It probably doesn’t speak well for modern Christianity that this was so unknown

to all of them. But worse than that, it killed the comedy. “Blessed are the cheesemakers”

meant nothing to anyone.

Rear Window

The people sleeping on the fire escape confused everyone. Eventually, about halfway

through the movie, one person did say, “oh, it’s cooler out there.”  Actually, the whole

problem of the heat had them baffled. A couple of them, after a few moments of confusion

finally said something like “oh, I guess air conditioning was a kind of thing for rich

people.”

I shouldn’t be surprised that none of these youngsters recognized Raymond Burr, but as

a guy who grew up watching him weekly, I kept waiting for someone to say, “it’s Perry

Mason!”

Fargo

Every single person who watched this one was totally taken in by the Coens’ “true

story” notice.

“What is a Fargo?”

“Who is Paul Bunyan?”

“What is unguent?”

Pulp Fiction

A favorite comment from one person: when Mia Wallace volunteers herself and Vincent

Vega for the twist contest, one lady said, “uh-oh. I wonder if he knows how to dance?”

And, of course, the “he” in question is John Travolta.

Back to the Future

Only watched one of these, but it provided a favorite observation: About 90% through

the movie, she says, “so I guess this isn’t just a drama, it’s a comedy too.”

Young Frankenstein

In the same vein as the above. We had to get to the “werewolf” / “there wolf” scene

before she said, “Oh, I think this might be comedy.”

The Big Lebowski

Walter, played by John Goodman, is either hilarious or needs to “shut up right now”.

Die Hard

 “Who are Arafat… Gary Cooper …Roy Rogers… John Wayne” … the first three don’t

surprise me too much but…John Wayne? Really? I thought every American of any

vintage would know the Duke.

The Godfather II

The Senate hearings sequences seemed to baffle everybody. “Is he on trial?”  “Uh-oh,

he’s in court.”   I guess they haven’t seen much in the Senate hearing genre. For those

of us who grew up with Kefauver, Watergate, and Ollie North, we can only admire the

authenticity of these scenes.

Casablanca

First, the movie played great with everybody. 

Second, not a soul recognized Peter Lorre. One guy, reading the credits aloud, said

“Peter Loar”.

The reactions to Paul Henreid and Claude Rains surprised me. Everybody loved

Henreid and not just the character of Victor Laszlo. I always found him eminently

forgettable.

And all the women kind of despised Rains because of his admittedly vile habit of

trading exit visas for sexual favors. I’m sure that a lot of people were uncomfortable

with this over the years but forgave it because Rains was so charming and funny. But

21st century women fail to see the humor. To them he’s just a slimeball using his office

instead of Rohypnol.

So you get the picture. More later.