RIP John Hughes (with new player comp!)
Posted: August 7th, 2009 | Filed under: Pop Culture | 62 Comments »
John Hughes directed eight movies. I saw all eight movies. I don’t know if there’s another director I can say that about. I can say that Martin Scorsese is my favorite director, but I haven’t seen every one of his movies. Boxcar Bertha? No. New York, New York? Always thought I would see it, but no. There are others.
I love Woody Allen but haven’t come CLOSE to seeing every one of his movies in large part because he releases a new one every 27 days. Francis Ford Coppola? It’s no secret that I’m a Godfather junkie, but I’ve seen fewer than half of Coppola’s directing efforts … and I never saw Godfather III. Well, I did see it. But I didn’t see it. Ya dig? Because it never happened.
This goes for popular directors too. Steven Spielberg? I’ve seen most, but I’ve missed a few through the years. Ron Howard? I like his movies, but never saw Da Vinci Code and never will and I despise the very idea of “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” so much that I would ask the pilot to drop me off early if it was ever showing on a plane. If someone asked me if I like Rob Reiner movies, I’m sure I would say yes. But I haven’t seen one of his since The Story of Us back in 1999, and that movie was so exaltedly terrible that I’m pretty sure it will never drop out of my 10 worst movies ever (where “North” has it’s own reservation). I wrote about The Bucket List … but I never saw it.
John Hughes though … eight-for-eight. I saw them all. There are reasons for this, of course. Hughes has not directed a movie since 1991 — And in those days I would try to see pretty much every movie that came out.
That 1991 movie, incidentally, was the tooth-aching “Curly Sue,” when Hughes decided that Jim Belushi was ready to carry his own movie — or at least carry it with a homeless girl with naturally curly hair.
Before that, was Uncle Buck, She’s Having a Baby (Elizabeth McGovern, you are missed), Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Weird Science, The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles. Saw them all, of course. But more than that: Every person I knew growing up saw them all. We would not have called ourselves “John Hughes fans” by any stretch. But we saw his movies. And we kept seeing them.
For some reason, I thought Hughes had something to do with the preposterously horrific St. Elmo’s Fire — probably because he discovered most of the cast. It is nice to know, upon Hughes’ death, that he actually did not have anything at all to do with that horror show. And in retrospect, it makes perfect sense: Yes, John Hughes became known as the “Bard of Teen Angst” or whatever … but really his movies did not have real ANGST in them, not the sort of grotesque, angry, self-mutliating angst of St. Elmo’s Fire or Bright Lights, Big City or Footloose or Wall Street or Dead Poets Society or dozens of other movies and books of my generation. And, look, I liked many of these books and movies — but John Hughes’ movies were different. They were, above all, fun. Was there angst? I guess. Duckie seemed troubled. Cameron had some issues.* But it always seemed to me that the angst was not over the top, that even the characters seemed to understand that it was all just something they had to go through. The John Hughes message — if there was a message — was so blindingly obvious that you could not miss it. Don’t judge kids by their looks! Rich kids suck! But don’t judge them because some don’t suck! Don’t travel with shower salesmen! Don’t let Emilio Estevez smoke a joint because he will go dance crazy!
*Did you know that Alan Ruck — who played Cameron in Ferris Bueller — was THIRTY when the movie came out? Did you know he was born in Cleveland? You did?
You wouldn’t want to spend too much dissecting the oeuvre of John Hughes because that was never the point … but as a director and writer (add the Vacation movies, Pretty in Pink, Home Alone to the mix) the overriding essence was always to make people laugh. You remember that game show “Make Me Laugh,” where (fittingly) comedians would try and make contestants laugh. And the first comedian would try and tell jokes and usually get nowhere. The second comedian, meanwhile, would go “Blah! Booga! Bully bully bully!” and make funny faces and that was usually the one who broke the contestant. John Hughes was like the second comedian. He wasn’t trying to win Oscars. He was trying to make Oscar break a smile.
A Brilliant Reader said he couldn’t wait to see which baseball player I would compare with John Hughes. Well, I’ve thought a lot about it … and I guess my best shot is one of my favorite players, Casey Blake. He has never been an All-Star and I suspect he never will be. He has had some OK years and a couple of good years. He’s not fast and he has never hit 30 home runs in a season (though he has hit 28, 23 and 21). He has played every position except catcher and center fielder … none of them especially well, but all of them very professionally. And, yet, I just really like the guy. Everybody likes the guy. He lives in Iowa and grows a beard because he doesn’t like to shave and he plays hard enough and is so much fun to be around that managers insist on playing him and teammates and media people like me insist on giving him more credit than, on the surface, he seems to deserve.
That’s John Hughes to me. If I had been born 15 years earlier, I probably would have thought his movies were beyond stupid. If I had been born 15 years later, I probably would not have gotten the joke. But I was born at the right time … and the movies made me laugh a lot. Movies, to me, are a mysterious thing. Words that look good on the page sometimes don’t sound good in the movies. Words that would look dumb on paper sometimes jump off the screen. Plots that shouldn’t work do, and plots that are brilliant and intricate on a storyboard sometimes just confuse the heck out of people in movies. John Hughes’ movies were simple and fun for me and they still are, and you know what? I like simple and fun movies. I don’t think there are enough of them in the world.\
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Update: Brilliant reader Mikey with this comment …
Casey Blake? You gotta be kidding.
John Hughes was one of the most famous directors working for a decade. Casey Blake is a nobody in baseball compared to John Hughes’s status in pop culture.
You’ve got to look for somebody who was extremely popular and likable for a significant period. Someone who helps to define an era of baseball. At the same time, the player should be somebody whose production didn’t quite measure up to his popularity. Someone who hardcore fans might look at as overrated but who the masses see as a superstar.
I nominate Kirby Puckett.
This is a great point … and I must admit that my problem was that I was trying to think of a CURRENT player comp. And that was wrong. The comp has to be someone who was hugely popular, wholesome, utterly successful but someone who didn’t get much critical acclaim — someone who, frankly, you kind of had to be there to fully appreciate. He has to be a player who probably isn’t going to the Hall of Fame but was a Hall of Famer for a while and is a hall of famer still to those who love him. And yes, he should be a player from the 1980s — that John Hughes decade — and he should be, as BR Mikey says, someone who defined the time.
Mikey nominates Puckett. That’s pretty good, but I don’t know how anyone can see Puckett the same way considering all that came out about him after his retirement and early death.
I may have an even better nomination: Dale Murphy.
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Bravo, Joe.
Once again, you’re right on the mark.
I’m in my mid-thirties, so his movies really weren’t for me back in their day. But I watched them (and loved them) anyway thanks to my older brother and sister.
1. Why would you never see the Da Vinci Code?
2. Ferris Bueller remains the one timeless movie of the decade. It holds up incredibly well.
3. Home Alone has climbed into my top 2-3 favorite holiday movies over the years, up there with It’s a Wonderful Life. Seriously.
4. Nothing after 1992 happened.
Born in 1969. Like Joe, I am 8 for 8. Didn’t know that Curly Sue was his, but did see it. To this day, the Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off make me 16 again when I watch them.
Random stat: Johnny Damon now has exactly the same number of career home runs as Mike Sweeney.
* Would it be appropriate for a player who hits a double and a triple in the same game to be credited with a “YuniCycle?”
Over dinner last night, I told my wife that John Hughes had died, and my kids were like “Who’s that?”
Granted, my kids are only 12 and 10, but it still made me cry on the inside a little…
And, I’m almost embarassed to admit that I forgot that “She’s Having A Baby” was a John Hughes vehicle, as it was only the movie my future wife to be and I saw on our first date way back when….
Joe, sincere thanks for the BR label. After I’d heard that Hughes died I knew you were going to write about him. Blake works for me.
And “Cameron” was 30? No wonder he was a depressed high schooler. I always thought it was because he was wearing a Red Wings jersey in Chicago, in an era where the Wings weren’t particularly good.
Hughes’s tale “Vacation ‘58″ in National Lampoon (upon which the movie’s based) was a hilarious display of the man’s writing talents. Well worth a look-see: http://www.bizbag.com/Vacation/Vacation%2058.htm
Thanks for mentioning Elizabeth McGovern – one of my favorite young actresses from that time period; talented, attractive and with some apparent brain capacity.
I see now she is married and raising two children in Cheswick, England. Music is now her passion.
Casey Blake? You gotta be kidding.
John Hughes was one of the most famous directors working for a decade. Casey Blake is a nobody in baseball compared to John Hughes’s status in pop culture.
You’ve got to look for somebody who was extremely popular and likable for a significant period. Someone who helps to define an era of baseball. At the same time, the player should be somebody whose production didn’t quite measure up to his popularity. Someone who hardcore fans might look at as overrated but who the masses see as a superstar.
I nominate Kirby Puckett.
-”You’re going the wrong way!”
-”How does he know where we’re going?”
-”Oh, he’s drunk!”
One of the best laughs I’ve had while watching a movie.
Jack Butler: You wanna beer?
Ron Richardson: It’s 7 o’clock in the morning.
Jack Butler: Scotch?
Michael Keaton (Jack) to Martin Mull (Ron)
in “Mr. Mom”, maybe 25 years ahead of it’s now topical theme.
Hughes did hit some for the Boomers, as well as working with some very funny people.
Was going to leave a lengthy comment, but Mikey #10 nailed it.
Nice post, Joe, but totally wrong baseball comp. There was a certain point of time, for people of a certain age (5-10 years younger than you, I’d say), where Hughes was THE movie director, period. The comp has to reflect that.
The problem with you comparison is that you don’t account of the peak that Hughes had.
The Breakfast Club works as a movie, and it’s not for laughs. It’s about the connections between teenagers, just because of the point they are in their life. That is, their relationships with parents, adults, authority and the demands that our culture places on conforming to predetermined roles.
It looks like a movie of the white suburbs, but minority kids from the inner city who weren’t even born when the movie came out have told me that it’s a great movie.
I’m not saying that it’s the greatest movie ever made, but it was a great movie.
It was no-hitter, perhaps even a perfect game. But as a director, Hughes is probably not a hall of famer, though he wrote almost all the movies he directed. What happens, however, if you add the writing credits for movies he did not direct? That’s like a second career as a pretty good, but not great, manager.
So, two-time all-star . Perfect game. Short career as pitcher. Decent career as pretty good manager. Who does that describe?
Joe, I think you’re pretty much spot-on except for one thing: “The Breakfast Club” was positively dripping with angst. The only character in that movie who didn’t have angst (usually about their home life and their awful parents) was the principal and I don’t think it’s an accident that he was so lacking in self-awareness that he didn’t know enough to feel any angst.
Oh, and Cameron did have angst about his dad and his dad’s great love for his car.
Turns out I am 8 for 8 as well and had no idea. I laughed at you just a bit when you said you’d seen all his movies in the opening. Then you list them and I’m reading and thinking, surely I didn’t see one of these! But, no.
Perhaps Dave Stewart?
No, Dale Murphy is wrong. Joe Carter is your man.
Did Hughes ever explain why he seemed to have a gripe with Kansas? The only examples I can think of off the top of my head are the scene from Planes, Trains, & Automobiles and Cousin Eddie in the Vacation movies, but those two alone speak volumes about how he viewed people from the area.
Beautiful epitaph for John Hughes. As someone who’s worked on a few short films and is trying to get feature-length screenplays out the door, I know how hard it is to make something that plays as well and as effortlessly as Hughes’ movies did. I loved “She’s Having A Baby,” perhaps the Cesar Geronimo in the Big Red Machine of Hughes’ works, for the brilliant job interview scene if nothing else. “I…like alcoholics?”
Simple and fun.
Boxcar Bertha.
Barbara Hershey, young and naked.
‘nuf ced.
Murphy is closer, but he won two MVP’s, which is sort of the baseball equivalent of Best Picture. Frankly, Ron Howard strikes me as being Dale Murphy (wholesome, all-American, huge popular successes, a few critical successes but real movie snobs wouldn’t include him on a list of big-time auteurs).
For the Hughes comp, what about Mark Grace? Let’s go through your criteria:
Hugely popular? Check.
Utterly wholesome? Not really, though when he first came up that was sort of the image. But I’m not sure Hughes was utterly wholesome either. And seriously, what baseball player is more like Ferris Bueller (good looks, charm, the party follows him, a righteous dude) than Mark Grace?
Utterly successful but not much crit acclaim? Grace was obviously a big success–had some nice seasons, and at his peak any casual fan would have known who he was, but no fan with Sabermetric inclinations would ever take seriously the idea that Grace was a truly great player.
Your Hall of Fame idea? There was probably a moment when Grace was going off in the ‘89 NLCS when it seemed plausible that we could be watching a future Hall of Famer. And certainly his fans freaking loved him.
From the 80’s? Well, he certainly first rose to fame in the 80’s, though he obviously played long beyond that. I’m not sure that he defined the time, though his personality probably defined the Cubs of the time.
But here are a few other points for Grace:
1. Like Hughes, Grace’s best work is set in Northern Illinois.
2. Remember that Hughes’ one great baseball scene is set at Wrigley. That’s automatic bonus points for a Cub.
3. What everyone remembers Grace for is that swing, and if you had two words to describe the Mark Grace swing, they would have to be “pretty” and “effortless”. To my mind, those are the precise qualities that made a Hughes movie. They were nice to look at (specifically, pretty: not necessarily “gorgeous” or “breathtaking”). And I don’t know if there was a filmmaker more defined by his seeming effortlessness than Hughes. His movies didn’t seem like the work of an obsessed genius, but of a guy having fun. And Grace never seemed like a psycho competitor–just a dude having a good time at the park.
4. To my mind, you’ve left out one of the big things that define Hughes: he is, without a question, one of the whitest filmmakers who ever lived. His defining films are set in utterly white environments, and feature some of the whitest casts known to man. And Mark Grace might not be headed to Cooperstown, but he is most assuredly one tremendously white man.
How about Willie McGee for the comp?
Only I like Willie much more than Hughes…
Joe, thanks for the props. That made my week.
No doubt the Puckett analogy is strained by a certain “Ewww, I guess this guy wasn’t who we thought he was” quality.
But I partly went with Puckett because he has indelible moments that are like Hughes catchphrases. The player has to have at least one moment that EVERY baseball fan remembers (Game 6, 1991), just like every person under 50 can pull out at least one Hughes quote. Murphy is a great call but I don’t know if he has that.
This is why I waste so much time on this blog. Where else is anybody having this discussion?
As a member of a slightly older generation, one not under the sway of the perceived power of the Hughes oeuvre–and yet amused by his product (I think I’ve also seen all eight of ‘em) if not wowed by same, I’m thinking he equates with Ken
(5 0 2 0) Oberkfell–a singles hitter with neither speed nor timing, who looks much better on paper (see above for “Vacation ‘58, which must be read) but won’t win you many ballgames.
As a teen aged reader of National Lampoon in the 70’s, I was a big fan of John Hughes. When “Vacation” came out, I realized I had read it years earlier in the Lampoon as “Vacation 58.” RIP, funnyman.
Here’s another example of Mr. Hughes’ work before he was famous…
http://www.tgfa.org/fiction/MyVagina.htm
I wonder whether you might have seen all of Cameron Crowe’s six movies, or (harder, because of their prolific output) all of the Coen brothers’ movies. I have not. I haven’t seen a Crowe movie called Singles, whatever that was. And a couple of the Coens’.
Without getting into a meaningless debate over who is better than who, I’ll just say that while both Crowe and the Coens have made some clunkers, Almost Famous is one of my favorite movies. Ever. (Favorite not being the same thing as great, of course.) And several Coen movies rate very, very highly, too. I enjoyed reading what you had to say about John Hughes’ work, Joe. His death yesterday was a shock.
Re: Michael D. Singles is an alright, but far from must-see, ensemble rom-com set in grungiest Seattle. It is definitely an early-90’s time capsule, but as early-90’s time capsules go, it is a ton less embarassing than Reality Bites. And you get to see Eddie Vedder “act,” so that’s worth something.
HERE’S the John Hughes/baseball blog crossover question … what game did Ferris Bueller go to? I no longer know the whole damn movie by heart, but I know that you hear Harry Karay giving clues during the “Principal Rooney cleaning up at the hot dog stand” scene, and I think it’s enough that you could track it down on Retrosheet.
I guess I should feel stupid for being a baseball fan and not knowing much about Casey Blake.
But… John Hughes was, first and foremost, a writer. To make comps based on the films he directed is sort of like judging Mark McGwire by his fielding.
Joe,
Yeah, I think it’s better to use a baseball player who’s associated with the ’80’s like Hughes was. Also Blake isn’t the caliber of ballplayer as Hughes was a filmmaker.
Dale Murphy was the first player I thought of from the 80’s.
Murphy won 2 MVP awards that’s kind of like winning 2 oscars so I don’t think that’s the best comp.
I was thinking about Mark Grace because of his Chicago roots but I think Hughes was better than Grace.
Then the player I really thought about was Will Clark. A player who should be regarded as a HOF player, someone who never got the credit he deserved during the 80’s, mainly because of Candlestick Park. Hughes never got the credit he deserved because he mainly worked in the “Teenage Genre”. Then he kind of faded away in the 90’s like Hughes.
Mark Grace is a very good call, but you could even step up a little and go to Sandberg since Hughes is probably a little bit higher caliber than Grace. Also, as time passes Sandberg’s greatness and value is diminishing each year. I suspect folks today look at Sandberg’s numbers and don’t get why he was great and I have a feeling that kids today might not get what the big deal is/was with Hughes’ movies, but in both cases they were HoF (IMHO) whose work might suffer in comparison across eras, but seemed unquestionably great at the time.
Dale Griffith from P, T & A is one of the best movie characters ever invented.
On a related note, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone write “I really hate reading” as BR Higgy wrote on your last blog post. Reminds me of Dubya (the Will Ferrell version) tripping over part of a speech. Flustered, he crumpled up the paper and groaned: “Words is hard!”
FRANK WHITE
Unless you count the short film he did as a prologue for “The Darjeeling Limited”, I’ve seen every Wes Anderson film. Up until last year I had seen every David Fincher film, and I may get around to “Benjamin Button” one of these days.
For the baseball equivalent of John Hughes, I nominate Dan Quisenberry. He was a terrific fireman/closer, well liked, and from what I hear, a very funny and smart guy. His numbers don’t quite look hallworthy*, though if you squint hard enough you could see a case for him. Since his retirement and untimely death, he’s become largely forgotten. But when I think of ’80s relievers, I think of Quiz.
*Quiz’s numbers are a bit better than Bruce Sutter’s, though.
Like Ryan said just before me, the player I keep thinking of as a comp is Frank White.
How about Don Mattingly as a comp?
And a belated congrats on the new job Joe!
Great story about JH.
http://wellknowwhenwegetthere.blogspot.com/2009/08/sincerely-john-hughes.html
My brother, age 13, has seen Ferris Bueller over 100 times, probabaly, and knows every line by heart. I’d say at least three of Hughes’ films (that, Home Alone and maybe Planes, Trains and Automobiles) are timeless. Some of the ones that are more specifically about high school (Pretty in Pink and the Breakfast Club) I think are a tad more dated.
So maybe the player comp should be someone who is still playing and who evceryone will remember but won’t ever be a hall-of-famer. Mark Grace was pretty good.
I might suggest somebody like Jamie Moyer. He’s old, still effective in some respect but by no means overpowering. He’s very dated but still has some moments where you watch him and think he’s not that old. Everybody likes him (don’t they?) but he’s never won a major award and will more than likely not be in Cooperstown.
Thoughts?
by your criterion, John Hughes may just equal Steve Garvey
Kirby Puckett is a great comparison to the baseball world.
I think for a more recent guy I like Larry Walker.
He’ll probably never be considered for the HoF but he was a titan in his day that never really got the chance to shine in a big time playoff game on the national stage.
5 time all star. 7 gold gloves. 97 NL MVP.
Great track record, but he probably won’t get the nod. Like Mattingly and in a few years, Mussina.
I agree with Adam. I thought of Quiz. He got it done, even though it wasn’t the conventional way. He left behind a legacy which is certainly hall-worthy, even though most people don’t look at him that way. And he entertained us a great deal along the way. If that’s not John Hughes, I don’t know what is.
Since Hughes’ movies were mostly, if not all, based in Chicago, the player comp should be a Chicago guy.
I nominate Mark Grace.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles is an iron clad classic. “Her first baby come out sideways. She didn’t scream or nuthin.”
I was going to nominate Quisenberry but see that others already have. Perfect
Mark #31 has it exactly right: Ryne Sandberg. A John Hughes baseball comp has to be set in Chicago, and someone who was big in the 1980’s. They have to be good, but not thought of as good anymore, and they have to have just the right amount of fame– famous enough so that people who were young in the 80’s get it, but faded enough so that people growing up now do not.
That profile fits Sandberg to a T.
Quisenberry wouldn’t be a maker of teenager movies, he’d be a flat-out comedy director. Harold Ramis, maybe? Or probably someone quirkier than that.
I think the longer this discussion goes, sooner or later the perfect player will be named. Based strictly on the straight up comparisons, I have to say the first Mark Grace theory(#21 Ben) is pretty convincing, plus it closes with the epic line ” And Mark Grace might not be headed to Cooperstown, but he is most assuredly one tremendously white man.” However, based on the timeline theory, I have to agree with the Will Clark theory(#30 John Q), especially the drop-off after 1991. Except for one season in Texas(!!!) late in his career, Will Clarks career fell off a cliff after 1991. Hmmm, I know he had one good season in Texas(!!!) and part of a good season in St. Louis(!!!) other than that he was done for, I wonder how those 2 fluke seasons hapPenED?
I thought there would be directors that I had seen all their movies just based on the relatively small output, Quentin Tarantino, Cameron Crowe, the Farrelly Brothers…but on all 3 I’ve missed some of their movies. I was dismayed to see that I had seen almost all of one of my least favorite directors movies…Michael Bay, I guess I should be glad I haven’t wasted money on “Transformers 2″ or had the pleasure of viewing “The Lionel Richie Collection”.
2 final notes:
Note number 1: As a White Sox fan, I’ll make my token baseball comp of John Hughes with George Bell. Hot in the 80’s, put up big numbers, and effectively done by 1992.
Note number 2: IMDB.com is addictive.
Can’t remember the first time that I saw Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, but it’s easily my favorite movie of all time (pretty good considering it’s older than I am). Off the top of my head, I don’t think there’s really a movie that has a comparable storyline. Sure there are other movies of students skipping school, but how many of them lived out a single day the way that Ferris, Cameron, and Sloane did?
IMDB.com is not just addictive. It’s ridiculously useful.
And now, for two of my favorite quotes.
Principal Rooney: What’s the score?
Cook: Zero, zero.
Rooney: Who’s winning?
Cook: *pauses, thinks* The Bears.
Ferris: The key to faking out the parents is the clammy hands. It’s a good non-specific symptom, I’m a big believer in it. A lot of people will tell you that a good phony fever is a dead lock, but, uh…you get a nervous mother, you could wind up in a doctor’s office. That’s worse than school. You fake a stomach cramp, and when you’re bent over, moaning and wailing, you lick your palms. It’s a little childish and stupid, but then, so is high school.
I think the best comparison would be John Kruk. He was brilliant for only a brief while, but was always funny to look at and to watch. I’ll never forget that face against Randy Johnson in the All Star game when Johnson sent one over his head. That was a trip.
this is great…
Dale Murphy is good, but i feel like after he dies he won’t be as fondly remembered.
i’m leaning jim rice. in a sense, his hall of fame entry, years later, is similar to the outpouring of emotion for a director / writer that everyone – even people of our *i’m 39* generation had assumed was washed up.
everyone says he was the most feared hitter of his generation, but hindsight was not so nice as he was disrespected left and right until this year.
like hughes until he passed.
who WAS the most feared hitter of his generation – the man knew what worked and he did it well AND the stories hold up fairly well to the ages. the 80s pretty much date themselves, but the stories hold up okay.
Don Mattingly seemed to sum it up best. Consistent, beloved by a large group, had some years that were undeniably great and a few where the reputation seemed to carry him.
See, I’m thinking the comp has to be a pitcher, someone with his hand in all the action (the actors are the batters). Someone who came out of the gate quick, who displayed both an above-average fastball but preternatural command, and who was admired as an early master of his craft.
Hughes’ early retirement from directing and subsequent focus on writing would be analogous to a pitcher who flamed out a little early, but still hung around to occasionally remind us of his greatness. Expectations gradually diminished over time, but nobody forgot what he once had been.
There happens to be an exact contemporary for Hughes who embodies all these characteristics, so I nominate Bret Saberhagen.
When I read Mikey’s description, I thought of Puckett, too.
At least two or three Hughes movies have to be considered stone cold classics. To me, that says the comparable player has to be at least a borderline Hall of Famer. What part of Casey Blake or John Kruk’s career matches up with Ferris Bueller?
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.”
John Hughes’ advice to us all, via Ferris Bueller.
Errr, Eight for nine.
Some Kind of Wonderful was a John Hughes movie (and in my mind, a darn good one).
And as an aside, my all time favorite JH moment is when Ferris is racing the clock home to beat the principle, everything hanging on arriving in time, hauling ass through a backyard passes two hotties sunbathing, leaves the screen, then a second later returns all cool and composed to introduce himself.
“Ladies. Ferris Bueller.”
The man understood priorities.
Also 8 for 8. I didn’t realize Hughes did “Curly Sue”. I didn’t think the movie was half bad, but went into it expecting a horrible film. Maybe it is because you knew that it was Hughes film that you had higher expectations. Put it this way, if we went and saw Gil Meche pitch, however I thought Davies was on the mound that night and you thought Zack was going, wouldn’t that change our view of the experience?
The easiest comp here is simple. Griffey Jr. everybody loved Griff and he had a great 10 year run just like Hughes. Then it kind of wasn’t so great with all the sequels (Mariners II == Beethoven’s 5th). Some people thought Griff was the best, some didn’t but everybody liked him.
OK, so the comps are: (i) hugely popular in the 80s, (ii) box-office but not critical success, (iii) over-appreciated by masses at the time, (iv) only a few accomplishments/stats (e.g. Ferris) hold up very well over time, and (v) an eventual retirement from the public spotlight (i.e. directing) into a peripheral role (i.e. screen-writer).
How about Donnie Baseball? Everyone loved him in the 80s (i), but he never won anything (ii). He was overly popular because he played for the Yankees (iii). His stats don’t hold up well over time (e.g. unlikely HoF case; iv), and he’s transitioned from being an in-the-spotlight player to a behind-the-scenes hitting and bench coach (v).
Adored by all, yet not a member of the immortal artistic/athletic greats, I submit that Don Mattingly is the baseball equivalent of John Hughes.
griffey is a terrible comparison.
i agree puckett or mattingly are probably the best. grace and sandberg and will clark are pretty good as well.
After far too much thought, I couldn’t find an 80’s player with just the right vibe. Then I turned on the A’s game, saw Nomar Garciaparra, and realized that despite being a decade off, he’s a perfect comparison.
First and foremost, the player has to be fun and likeable. All you have to do is say Nomah and people smile. At shortstop Garciaparra dominated a position not known to hold much talent, much like Hughes did with his teen movies. Both burst onto the scene with immediate success (Nomar won the Roy and went to 3 All-Star Games his first four years, Hughes’ best flicks were his first ones). However, neither produced a real masterpiece. Nomar had some great seasons (once hit .372, once hit 52 doubles), but was only a serious MVP candidate once. Both had a short stay at Wrigley.
Now in the twilight of his average-length career Garciappara can still contribute to a team, but doesn’t generate the magic of before. Just like Hughes did. Yet whenever Nomar steps to the plate you still love to watch him. Anytime I hear Nomar I immediately think of late 90’s baseball and anytime I hear Hughes I recall the mid 80’s teen movie.
silly people. the perfect comp is Jack Morris. He will not make the hall of fame, but had some brilliant moments in baseball history. Had the most wins in the 80’s (as did Hughes). Is loved by a diminished segment of the population (Detroit and Minnesota) and disdained by the rest (East Coast, West Coast)
I look back at Morris’ career with fond memories just as I look at Hughes’s career. However, I will not argue either man’s greatness to my “expert” friends in the film or baseball fields of study.
Johnny Damon is your player comp for John Hughes.