Blank Check

1994. You'll remember that year as being the time two "rich white boy" movies hit the screens. This is the other one. And while Richie Rich (Macauley Culkin) was busy just inheriting his wealth (ah, the American dream), this one, (uh... the kid from ...Family Ties anyone? Yeah don't look up his post-acting activities... he's "moved beyond that" and good for him!) he was busy just stealing his way to the top (also the American dream), proving that those truly are the only two ways of "making it" in life long before it was common knowledge to anyone who isn't a boomer. 

So, as all we millennials get ready for the inevitable second coming of the Great Recession, let's take a lesson in why the whole American dream of financial independence is the sham we all know it is, taught very well in a little movie from our childhood called Blank Check. First of all, it's actually smarter than you'd think it should be for a Home-AClone movie with heavy Aladdin overtones, with a premise that (on the surface), while far fetched, is at least a bit more thought out for a live-action Disney kids movie. The basic idea being perhaps the most Disney of all: if you can't make it to the top on the back of your own output, simply buy out everyone else's thefts and collect the rent. As such, it's WAAY less insulting than Richie Rich ("if only the rich kids had more friends!!"), although not as "memorably awful" either. This kid was living my dream as a kid, and suffering for it. Welcome to life. 

Now, as a guy who's watched quite a bit of American Greed, I can tell you how this kid went wrong in his fraud scheme. He got greedy. This kid makes the most boomer move any millennial ever has, which means in the eyes of the boomers who made this movie, it's "wrong." But seriously, like most fraud schemes, it's pretty telling that all this kid needed to do to get away with this scheme was start investing to shore up the gains (like anyone who steals a lot of money does)... but unfortunately, like any typical 90s kid, he just goes hog-wild, and it's only by a stroke of luck that he does get away with it. I suppose this same kid would've grown up to be a r/WallStreetBets WIZZARD... but for the time being, back in 1994 or so, he's just the typical "90s flannel, backwards-hat dorkwad"... just like everyone on r/WallStreetBets used to be back in 1994, God bless them. 

The movie opens up on a dark heist that makes you think it’s a Terminator movie... or at least a very, very intense episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? It's the dark of night, and a shadowy man is stealing money from a stash under a sewer grate? Then... HARD CUT to an extreme close up of this kid dork's face dead-eying you and calling you “dad” like he's in a daughter's-first-Tampax commercial. Well, it seems this precocious runt's name is "Preston" and he doesn't want his older butthead big brothers (presumably named "Beevis" and "Butthead" respectively) to open their "business" up in his room. After shoving him around and calling him "penis breath" or "penis minor" or "penis penis" or whatever big brothers call their little brothers, they start holding each other's feet and throwing around the kid's coin jar I mean, "life savings." His dad (the military secretary dickcheese from Independence Day) starts lecturing him about how he "had his own business at his age" polishing cars for 75 bucks a week. (Well, DAD... with stagnant wages since the 70s and the cost of living six times what it was back then...) 

"butt to face..."

Anyways! Dad gives the bros a computer to do their "Hand to Foot" business on (sounds like they got an OnlyFans account)... that’ll “do everything but teach them how to make love to a woman." You guessed it! It's the Mac Performa 600 (otherwise known as "Your Elementary School Computer"). The important thing is this computer has a text-to-speech program that Preston immediately makes say "Damian and Ralph" (his brothers) "sleep BUTT to FACE… BUTT to FACE… BUTT to FACE… BUTT to FACE....” over and over again, to which they reply "who told you?" before the two of them headlock and bend him over BUTT to FACE. They punch him in the shoulder and order him: “DON'T RUB IT! Be a MAN!” Now there's that good ole' Toxic Masculinity just like I remember it! I'm telling Twitter on you! (Seriously though, in the 90, this kid is more like #FailingMasculinity... amirite fellas? Just don't hurt me anymore...)

So his home life sucks, so how does he do with his peers? Well, he's invited to the birthday party of this spoiled ginger kid named Butch from school, but because his dad is such a cheapskate, he only sends him off with a couple bucks. "You can have fun all day on that” dad says. He gets there and this Butch kid looks like the GAP mugged Ronald McDonald's Mini-Me. Every sleeve is its own primary color. At least the birthday is at this theme park called "The Funzone"... but ouch... too bad all fun is strictly BYOB (bring your own bucks), which means Preston is out of luck and all alone riding the cheap kiddy rides. Thus, the poor can never break the cycle of poverty. Instead, they always have to wave from the splash zone of the rich kids as their water slide rains down upon the poor kids' cotton candy! 

Welcome to America!

Over dinner, kid confronts his parents about why they're so cheap when they're not actually poor. It turns out his parents are just boomers. "Save your money son." Easy right? “Well, how can I save money if I don’t have any?” “A penny saved is a penny earned.” But that's when he gets the most Millennial birthday present ever: MONEY. It's a blank check from grandma. Dad writes "11.00" dollars on it with the sage advice: “Now you’ll be surprised how fast 11 dollars will grow with interest.” Naturally, this kid does the millennial thing and fact checks his parents’ BS on the computer only to find out that it would take 342,506 years at a (VERY GOOD) interest rate of 3.45% to grow into a million dollars. At this point he realizes his parents are idiots and he decides he wants to one day have enough money to "buy his own house" and have his brothers "knocked off" ...and "investing in the bank" just ain't gonna do it. 

Nice kicks... Juice.

Meanwhile, we meet this corrupt bank manager named Biderman (who looks like his part was written for Wayne "Newman!" Knight but he was obviously too busy being eaten by a Dilophosaurus in 1993, so instead they seemed to have gotten the... Deitech.com guy? How appropriate...). He has snitched on a few too many corrupt bank investors and now one of them named Quigley (looks like Smith from The Matrix) has come to blackmail Biderman into laundering crime money for him. He tells him “someone” named “Juice” is gonna show up with a blank check tomorrow... just give him the money, send him on his way, and your family doesn't get harmed. Gee, I wonder who will get to him first?

So kid goes in to cash his $11 check in what looks like the Philadelphia train station lobby (that's a bank??) and instead discovers his heterosexuality with this gorgeous bank teller lady named Shay (played by Karen Duffy... who played... uh... another character named "Shay" in Dumb and Dumber the same year... thank you IMDb!) who asks him if he’d "like to make a deposit" (damn girl... I think I might!). But he can’t open an account without a 200 dollar deposit, so she sends him off, but just as he’s leaving, Butch comes out of nowhere and steals his 11 dollar check. He gives chase on bike and ends up almost backed over by none other than Quigley who's also leaving the bank. The guy does what every rich asshole who knows he’s at fault for the accident does and offers the kid a check for the damage just so he doesn’t have to see his insurance go up. He signs a check to the kid but the presence of a police car makes him flee the scene, so now the kid has a "blank check" from this guy too... one that has a lot more money behind it than grandma ever will.

The bike is still ruined though, and his parents tell him it's his fault for "not taking care of it." They’re not up for giving him a new bike now, but it’s not a bike this kid’s after. Like most millennials, he wants "his own house, his own money"... and his own shit, all gangster and squinty… but his parents make it impossible for him. “You’re grounded!”

THAT is the millennial experience. 

Unlike most millennials though… this one has a blank check. He uses the computer to create a fake check from the blank check for 1 million dollars, made out to “Cash.” Technically legal (as far as I know) as long as there’s money behind it, which to his surprise… there is! And so, just like his parents, Preston learns that the only way to really make money in the world is to cheat and get absurdly lucky… which he doesn’t, because instead of getting the boner-fide hot chick teller the next day at the bank like he wanted, he gets the shriveled up, hunched over Barbara Bush-looking old crone where all boners go to die. She doesn’t believe that he’s got a real check but still takes him to the bank manager anyways to see about cashing this cool "$1,000,000." Biderman thinks this kid coming in to collect a million smackers with the Quigley check is the “Juice” the guy was talking about, to which the kid replies, “No thanks, not thirsty.”  

Either way, the kid ends up walking out of there with a million dollars. How he does it, he can't even fathom. But while he's leaving, the actual Juice (played by rapper Tone Loc... in a role that was obviously written for Ice Cube... but once again, he was probably busy in the mid-90s doing something called Friday or something) shows up looking to collect for Quigley, and now the hunt is on for the kid who already walked away with it! Quigley finds out and utters the most boomer thing any boomer ever said: “I worked hard to steal that money Biderman! And you gave it to some zit-faced little kid??” "I don't know, he seemed to have nice skin to me..." he says. All three of them know what the kid looks like, they just don’t know who he is or where he is, and because it’s the 90s, they can’t just look for big purchases in town… speaking of which…

Before the day is over, the kid is already buying this freakin’ CASTLE utilizing some Kevin McCalister computer voice shiz to put a cash offer on it by phone. His mom interrupts to say she’ll be home by “3” and as a result, he ends up outbidding the competition over the phone (none other than Quigley himself), so he spends 300g's and buys the house before they even know his name (this WAS before the housing crisis after all). They ask what his name is and he frantically looks around… so he makes the computer read: “My. Name. Is. Mac. In. Tosh.”  (Certainly sounds like it!) And so, this "Mr. Macintosh" now owns a castle, and the kid makes it rain on his bed and rolls around in the stacks-on-stacks-on-stacks...

Anyway, while Preston is checking out his new CASTLE digs he meets his new limo driver chauffer he ordered with his money, a guy named Henry (a guy who's part was obviously written for John Candy or even Chris Farley... but ... well you know). He's a loveable oaf, a funny-man with jokes tailor-made for a 10-year-old boy who forms a quick bond with the kid Uncle-Buck-style, and seems to follow him around on his shopping spree in town. 

So what follows is the obligatory “Money (That's What I Want)” song montage where the kid goes on a shopping spree with his limo driver… including changing room fashion show makeovers, big wall-o-Circuit-City-TVs, VR headsets, massage chairs, NERF and Super Soaker guns, Tennis courts, basketball courts, roller blades IN the shopping mall, and garbage barrels full of ice cream and whipped cream mountains, with life-in-the-fast-lane head-out-the-sunroof-of-the-limo-while-eating-Haagen-Dazs-in-oversized-hillarious-sunglasses hijinks… etc. Henry asks the sensible question of why “Mr. Macintosh” is spending all this money on a kid, and Preston replies that “his boss” (Mr. Macintosh) is really rich but never had a childhood, so now he’s having the childhood his rich "boss" never got to have. Insert your Michael Jackson joke here. 

He sees Shay jogging on the side of the road, so he stops his limo to talk to her and says he’s ready to open his account at the bank because he's working for a rich guy named "Mr. Macintosh." Like any good bank employee, she tells him to come on down and open that account!! “Nice kid, real nice…” Henry replies and they drive off. Well, it turns out she's not a bank employee at all. In fact, she’s only out running to relay info to her fellow FBI field agents who are out on the stakeout looking for Quigley and his cronies. And even though she shirks this suddenly-rich kid off for now, soon she’ll discover a lot of cash is also "suddenly" going through the bank marked by the FBI from all these purchases under that very same suspicious name “Macintosh.”  Hmmm…

Next we join the kid on move-in day as the Sharper Image, Coca-Cola, and a water slide company (among many, many others) are setting up this kid's (and EVERY 90's kid's) personal XANADU at the neighborhood castle. This is where his dad learns about his son’s new “job” working for “Macintosh” in this rich castle, and is skeptical at first, but can’t argue with results! And what follows is the obligatory “I Want Candy” montage of the kid having fun in his own 90s kid Shangri-La… including his own outdoor backyard go-kart track, bouncing castle, Velcro wall (like something out of Wild and Crazy Kids), trampoline with bungee chord lift, full video arcade in his living room, and swimming pool, all book-ended with the equally obligatory "feet-up-on-the-office-desk" pose. He’s playing his video games with his limo driver buddy Henry and being fitted for fancy clothes, sliding down his water slide, and having drinks delivered to him on RC speedboats in his big pink car pool float in the middle of his below ground swimming pool like he's Tony Montana. Basically, he’s living. And best of all, when Butch shows up, just like Tony Montana, he has his paid security throw the kid out. 

But when Shay comes by looking for “Mr. Macintosh”… of course it's... okay, you... you can stay. He couldn’t make it to the bank to “open his account” because he "had to work," he says from the middle of his swimming pool. But he gives her a check for 200 dollars to open an account after retreiving it from the house and sliding down his water slide from his office right into his pool. “Looks like you fell into some money...” she says. She knows something’s going on. She tries to set up a meeting with this “Mr. Macintosh” but of course "he’s busy"… "but I'm not..." he says. 

So he sends his driver out to pick her up later that night and she agrees to do it. “Okay, it’s a date then,” she says. “A… date??” But he’s never been on one of those! So he gets advice from Henry. And Henry's advice is the advice of every dad who ever lived: “Women love a good body… women love all you can eat salad bar… women love a pocket full of hot wings… women love the word non-committal…”  (Damnit, I knew I was doing something wrong!) So what follows is another montage of Preston and Henry fighting in a backyard blow up boxing ring, I guess in an effort to "get him chiseled" for the date, but also flipping around in a backyard gyroscope ride, lawn bowling in a giant ball, playing backyard sumo wrestling with comically fat blow-up suits…etc.  Oh-right!

But apparently all this time “working for Mr. Macintosh” is making Boomer Dad mad, so he grounds his son. Preston replies, “but it’s my job!” Dad replies, “Your job is to be grounded!” (Oh hamburgers...) But Preston does a very Trumpian thing by bribing his dad out of his own grounded-ness by promising to show "Mr. Macintosh" his dad’s investment prospectus for pointers on how to get the most out of investing. Naturally this works. So our boy Preston has a hot date and needs to get to the fancy restaurant to go meet up with his fine fully grown adult girlfriend with a.... VERY low-cut dress....

....And here we go. We’ve seen this before…  young boy puts the moves on grown-ass adult woman… and somehow wins her over! Well... we KNOW she’s just on a "fact-finding mission" about this “Mr. Macintosh”… and heck, she even turns down the obvious mafia wife hush-present gold heart necklace he bought for her (and no woman does that), but come on... This movie is setting this up as a romance plot. She's like, “It’s way too expensive.” And he's like, “It’s deductible… just a little business gift... it's nothing... Mr. Macintosh has a million dollars.” 

Shay: “You know, a million dollars doesn’t get you much these days.” 

Kid: “Do you think he should’ve asked for more?”

Shay: “What does Mr. Macintosh do anyway? Is he an entrepreneur?”  

Kid: “No, he’s American.”

(“Okay, kid checks out…” she's thinking.)

But the two of them really do hit it off. He learns she’s not married and that he’s probably the "shortest guy she’s ever dated," before ditching the fancy place (in Three Stooges style slapstick scene) for hamburgers at the mall’s fountain park where the two “love birds” have their little Groundhog Day style “fun date” in the water jets. And yesh.... it’s all totally natural looking and not the slightest bit weird seeing this kid and this grown-ass woman having a slowmo "fun date" together arm in arm and getting soaked as the music swells emotionally. Unfortunately, this "every young boy's WET dream come true" is tragically cut short for him (like most wet dreams are) by the sudden appearance of Quigley and his goons who show up to apprehend him, but the presence of the water jets and his quick limo getaway cut them off. On the ride over, he invites her to his Mr. Macintosh’s "birthday party" the next day, and like "Guy of the Year" tells her "bubbye!" as she's getting out of the limo. Smooth kid.

So it’s the day of the big party and we learn that his brothers are now also working for "Mr. Macintosh" (but we know it’s really Preston just making his brothers slave for him at his personal batting cages). His hired party planner (this woman named Yvonne I think) is prepared to make "Mr. Macintosh’s" birthday the Project X of the year and get the whole town out to see this mysterious rich "Macintosh" man in the flesh… but we kind of get the idea that Preston is tired of being second fiddle to a guy who doesn’t exist. His only real friend is Henry the chauffer guy and even he’s getting lied to anyways. It’s basically the plot of Aladdin at this point. 

He goes to the park to go make some friends like a normal kid for a second, but ends up getting chased by the bad guys who spot him out and about. He evades them once again in an overly elaborate chase scene involving them crashing their car and the most obvious line of the entire movie, delivered by Biderman: “Wouldn’t it just be easier to steal another million dollars?” Um YEAH! Though the kid escapes unscathed, the evil trio picks up Butch at the park and the kid sings like a canary on who and where Preston is and joins them in their quest.

Preston gets back to the party to hear from his big bros that Shay might just be a “golddigger” (because obviously they are right and yes, she would be) … so the seed of doubt is planted in his little head. That night he asks Henry before the party if she might be a “golddigger” … and the lovable oaf gives the kid very wise advice that Trump obviously never got: “Anyone who is your friend because you have money is not your friend at all”  and “A fool and his gold are soon parted.” But then... Henry gives him some more sage "dad" advice all the more Seinfeldian, and I quote: 

Henry: “A fool and his gold is soon parted." 

Kid: "What's that mean?"

Henry: "It’s one of those old sayings man, I don’t get ‘em… like, you ever hear there’s more than one way to skin a cat? You ever hear that one? What does that mean? I mean... who skins cats? And there’s not more than one way to skin a cat...  there's one way... you skin the cat. You grab the cat, and rip its fur off. I mean, think about it. What’s the number two way to skin a cat? What? Do you put a hose up the cat’s butt and he gets so bloated that he skins himself? What? Does he have a little piece of Velcro under his butt there and you just un-velcro him? No. ... Kill two birds with one stone… how does that happen? You can’t kill one bird with one stone… kids try it all the time. It can't be done. Not unless you got a big stone and they’re little tiny baby birds… then you can brhhchch! Cheep! Cheep! Dead.”

Kid's face while receiving that "dad" wisdom.

Kids with dads will know.  "Hahaha! Hose up a cat's butt! Funny one dad! Hahahaha!!"

Anyway, Preston joins the party (full of adults who have been paid by "Mr. Macintosh" and now only want to see this fellow) and suddenly discovers he’s not even welcomed at his own party. After all, he’s not Mr. Macintosh, he’s just “some kid” who works for the man. He goes looking for Shay, but she’s actually off telling her FBI coworkers when to rush the party and capture the elusive Mr. Macintosh. Everyone, including the party organizer lady is looking for Mr. Macintosh, with bills… her’s being 100 grand just for the party alone… and guess what? Computer says he’s out of money! The jig’s up! Better get to South America kid.  It’s all gone. He's back in his office and the million dollars is spent, and the bills are still pouring in. 

Finally his dad shows up looking for Preston, but the kid’s got his office chair turned and his dad mistakes him as Mr. Macintosh being aloof as always. His dad asks Mr. Macintosh to send his boy home for his birthday party with his family, says he’s been working his son too hard and that life isn’t all about money and how he always “pushed Preston too much” and such. “I’m afraid he’s missing out on his childhood” by working so hard....etc. Preston hears every word and feels a grand sense of buyers remorse, and not to mention the weight of the many, many years of bankruptcy and debtors prison that surely awaits all of them over this little stunt. And t’is true… Preston wants to come home, but dad leaves too fast. Heck, even Henry seems to have left the party. Who is at the party but chickipoo looking for Mr. Macintosh as well, like everyone else… but because she’s such a “golddigger” for wearing the necklace he bought her (typical WOMAN!), he shirks her off. The party planner lady shuts down the party and Preston tells all the party guests: “There’s been a terrible mistake…”   

“Close down the bar!” the lady yells, and the party quickly empties out.

Kid slumps back inside his castle all alone ("What have I become... in my empire of dirt...") like Citizen Kane after he loses the election... like Tony Montana on the pile of coke… but gets confronted by the evil trio there who have been closing in the whole time with the help of that son-of-a-Butch. He tells them that there is no "Macintosh" and that it was him all along, and that he spent a million dollars in six days. ("Not that hard to do" Tone Loc says. And he would know.) They decide to steal the identity of "Macintosh" that the kid created and just get rid of the kid, but the kid takes off. 

Screwball!

And now the movie turns into some Home Alone-style shenanigans in the big house for a half minute as he picks them off one by one with his "Richie Rich" gadgets and gizmos. Biderman gets the VR headset over-stimulation. But that's nothing. Tone Loc gets in the batting cage and Preston decides it's time for some "screwballs!"... comandeering the RC ball-shooter baseballs to shoot the "Wild Thing" rapper right in his own screw balls. “OOOH! That musta HURT!” the kid joyfully exclaims. NUTSHOT!

So two down... but the big boss fight is on its way. “Did you think you were going to get away with it kid? Spending someone else’s money?”

No… the kid somehow sumo's Quigley right into the lawn bowling ball thing, locks it, and then pushes it down the track on the front of his go-kart race car, spinning it so fast it flies up and lands smack down in the swimming pool! And all this just in time for Shay and her fellow FBI to show up and capture the baddies. Preston learns that Shay was FBI the whole time and the FBI learns that Quigley is "Macintosh" (or at least, that's what they're told). As a result, Quigley and his cronies are under arrest for "money laundering, fraud, and grand theft" and Preston is off scot free.  

Hey! My badge is down there.

Dad also shows up to claim Preston. But Preston is busy getting.... busy with super-low-cut dress-wearing hot FBI agent Shay. He asks, “So that date, was just for your job?” Shay replies, “Well, it started out like that…BUT..." (yeah folks). She does tell him to get a little older first, so they agree to date again in six years, but not before this grown ass woman kisses this young boy… on the LIPS!

Lucky kid.

Ok, you know what movie? I’m just gonna say what everyone in the audience was thinking at this scene of a full grown hot chick kissing this illegally young boy…  

...

"Niicccce."  

...

Actually, the correct response is "wHAAT??" but South Park has proven that no one really cares as long as she's hot. Anyways, after that possibly illegal scene in a Disney movie (that nobody would ever condemn) she goes home and keeps the necklace he bought for her (of course!). After that, Henry shows back up. He says he went to go get ice cream in a giant trash barrel (okay), but then is the real tear-jerking scene. Henry goes, “If you see Macintosh, tell him I’m really gonna miss working for him…” (he KNOWS the kid was "Macintosh" all along!) “You too Henry…” (the kid KNOWS he KNOWS! Screw Toxic Masculinity... I'm a dude and where's my tissue?!) Then Henry presumably goes home with the barrel of ice cream… which for him I suppose is every night... 

Anyway, Boomer Dad shows up and Preston admits that “Mr. Macintosh wasn’t who he thought he was” and that “he shouldn’t have fooled everybody.” He goes home with dad and meets his family waiting with a surprise birthday cake... even his butthead big brothers for some reason. And over lit birthday candles, like a reverse Willy Wonka in his ear, his dad whispers “be careful what you wish for.” But wouldn’t ya know it, he doesn't know what to wish for because he’s got "everything he wants right there…" Awww...

But on the other hand…

He looks at the sexy picture of Shay from the bank.  And blows out the candle. END. 

So what did we learn in the end? That boomers are idiots who don't get the millennial experience... that to gain the world is to lose your soul... that the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor (unless the poor get extremely, absurdly LUCKY...) ... and that furthermore, full grown hot chicks really will go after literally any guy who has money for as long as he has money... no matter how criminal or, in this case... how underage they are.

Some guys just have all the luck! 

Console Wars: Mistakes Were Made (or were they?)

There's a weird part of me that thinks video game companies during the "Console Wars" of the 90s, especially Sega and Nintendo... were trying to market to dudes... and being very successful at doing it. I may be wrong, but... what do I know? Of course, chicks play video games too, and always did, but it's almost like these companies didn't know or something because... well... something about how these things were marketed... I can't put my finger on it... doesn't seem like they were trying to appeal to "feminine sensibilities."

Yeah, here's why that was a bad idea:

1. Bigger is better confirmed.

2. Haha sex!

3. Underwear is all you really need.

4. OK, a second pair of underwear is all you need... (cuz poop)

5. Haha! OK, this one still works. 

6. Not so much this one...

7. You can lose your masculinity. 

8. Uh... not sure how I feel about this one... give me a few minutes...

9. "Groveling, spanking, decapitation, nut bustin', flying spit... rippin' a good long stun gun fart... suckin' heads up Rhino butts, BALLZ... and all the other stuff that makes life worth living." 

I KNOW how I feel about this one!

10. Haha. Playing with yer worm.

11. And finally: 

Luckily, times have changed and this would totally not happen now... right?

Treehouse Hostage

I'd say it's time for another one of these. And nah, I'm not even gonna try to frame a "social critique" excuse to write about this movie. In a world gone crazy, sometimes it's good to just kick back and huff some paint... and by that I mean watch 1999's Treehouse Hostage, not only because that's clearly what everyone involved with it was doing, but also (probably) what everyone who watched it immediately went and did afterwards. (Come on, I can't be the only one...) Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

In any case, the core message of this live-action South Park may be more relevant than ever in its depiction of an age-old and undeniable truth: that the incomparable idiocy of male youth is truly without limit. It's a warning about why they shouldn't be given sole reign over a society when they grow up. Yikes. And try as you might to cry "sexism" on that, you will still have to explain this movie's existence, it's production, the bags of day-old Testosterone it's made for, and why this one too thought it was damn "hill-aaaaaarius" back in the day. Seriously, this thing is a checklist for every "boy comedy" trope possible... slapstick, wedgies, fart and pee jokes, Porky's stuff, peeping Tom stuff with "hot moms," dressing in drag, gross concoctions, "girls are evil"... it's all here, for the lowest of low common denominator markets. Two decades before the likes of Seth Rogen's much better movie Good Boys, the very existence of this thing proves the point: yes, "boys will be... idiots"... and will also have a lot of ill-advised fun while doing it. "But hey man, it'll make a great story someday..." And I'll be damned if I say it's not... well... "funny"?

This every-boy's tale of the "Three F's of Boyhood" (fighting, flunking, and farting) begins where that lifestyle usually ends: with a prison break. A lone prison inmate named Carl is scaling a wall to make a break for it. It's hard to tell in the dark, but then it hits you, this guy is Earnest P. Worrell himself, Jim Varney... (knowwhadimean?) who actually turns in a more subdued and even sometimes funny performance in this movie (which sadly turned out to be one of his last). Surprisingly he doesn't rely on his Earnest character schtick too much but just goes classic Jim Varney, and is easily the funniest thing in the movie for real. His "captive observer" antics are almost meta with the audience also watching these inexplicably silly shenanigans unfold... and his straight-man reactions to it all often make this movie even legitly funny at times. His prison break isn't explained though as the movie keeps the action going, by... bringing us back to elementary school! 

There we meet young Timmy Taylor (presumably no relation to the Tool Man) playing video games on his 90s chunky laptop during class with a built-in joystick. He's one dog-eaten, BBQ'ed "Current Event report" away from flunking out and ending up in the dreaded summer school. (Talk about stakes!) "Sorry about BUMMER school. I'll be thinking of you when I'm water skiing at Camp Grenada!" chimes "Buddy," a blonde mushroom-cut flannel jerk sitting next to him. To which Timmy eloquently retorts: "Shut. Up. Bazooka butt!" (Oh snap!) "Don't call me that!" Buddy replies. (Why kid? That is the most "duuuude..." superpower I ever heard!) Timmy then shows off his "late 90s lEeT mAtRiX haXXoR sKillZ" using his laptop and joystick to drive a camcorder taped to an RC car through the hallways of the school. And just to show you how profoundly "compromised" this particular goon squad is, he doesn't even do anything cool with it like... uh... No. He just uses it to torture his principal, Mr. Ott, (named just so they can say "Ott the snot!") with an elaborate prank requiring Joker-level insight and coincidence to drop paint on the man's head... and also hacking the bell to make the school day end sooner.

But while Timmy is busy beginning his delinquent career, Jim Varney (Carl the prison breaker) is at the other end of his... on the lam, and with the "cops" on his trail. And by that I mean the dirtiest, shadiest, most Boss Hogg-type cops this side of the Appalachians. They corner him robbing what I think is literally the Haunted Mansion, an old busted-up house, but he gets away from these generic bad-guy movie cops by... uh... outrunning the police car? Anywho... during his getaway, he crosses paths with guess who! It's Timmy and his Baseball-obsessed dad, known so far for making sure he hears the game's final call on the radio before his own son is even allowed to speak to him. (All dads were like this... right?) Anyway, after Dad hears that "the Commies lose again!" (Soviet baseball in '99?), he starts grilling Timmy about the missing homework, to which Dad replies: "Timmy, you got to stop blaming the dog..." (Seriously kid, get a new alibi for your farts... cuz that's weeeeeak.) But then Dad continues to put forth sage fatherly advice: “Excuses are like armpits, everybody’s got em, and they all stink.” (Once again, this guy is EveryDad... although mine used a different body part.) So, moral of the story? Kid, you need you some Axe... badly. Even your DAD is dropping the hints. (And that never happens!)

So, Carl ends up running away to Timmy’s house, and after being attacked in the backyard by a particularly grumpy Wishbone (Timmy's dog... named "Potato" I think?), he inexplicably ends up bumbling into the pulley system of this kid's sub-Home Alone-level contraption that also knocks him unconscious (I guess?) and suspends him in the tree, right outside the kid's treehouse. Timmy and Dad get back, and apparently his "babe" of a hot mom doesn’t care for Dad's "armpit advice" either. Kid hears about the escaped convict on the news and the 50,000 dollar reward for any tips.... but let's forget that for now because the other dork kid from school, Stevie (Todd Bosley, who also played the dork in Jack and Little Giants, and even appeared in Seinfeld... a very "memorable" face...) shows up with a plan to go blast the "rich girls" next door with super soakers at their girly hide out. Claaaaassssiiiic! 

And yeah, they go all “Red Leader! Come in Red Leader, do you copy?” wearing battle fatigues, helmets, binoculars, and carrying huge super soakers like something out of Predator (or at least how every 90s kid played Predator in the backyard). They sneak up on the girls' pristine little pink playhouse, but then just abandon the stealth and go open season on the front of it for no reason, only to get ambushed by the girls with a garden hose from behind a side table! Take that BOYS! Get rekt! "Retreat men!"

Coming back from the water-soaked ambush defeated BY GIRLS! ... mushroom-cut Buddy shows up (that's his name) and establishes that he's into recording things on camcorders and makes fun of them with "haha... you're wet..." like he's Butthead Himself. The three of them head up to their treehouse "clubhouse" in Timmy's backyard, which of course looks like any kid's sweet-ass bedroom and even has computers in it all hooked up. Now dried off, Stevie reads the "minutes" of last week's meeting while HUFFING helium, and it's here we learn what important things actually go on in these "all-boy secret clubs." Let me huff some helium myself and quote: "Last week, we talked about summer camp, Timmy bought Root Beer, Stevie... that's me... paid a 10 cent fine for leaving the clubhouse door wide open... and of course, we instituted rule 409... no ice cream in the clubhouse, due to Buddy's... delicate condition..." (Ahh! So THAT's why he's called "Bazooka butt!"... In case you were dying to know.)

Then they decide to "go cellular." Timmy whips out the most "Cellular Telephone" thing I've ever seen, a total brick, and he extends the antenna and the whole works... and at first you think they're gonna try to claim the 50-G's for having seen Jim Varney in the wild (Timmy even morphs his voice with a “Talkboy-like thing for it)... but no. They just crank call this fat cop at the police station and the guy swears his vengeance. Apparently they've done this before. Sadly, this is when they discover Mr. 50-G's (Carl), the prison escapee himself, hanging in their apparatus-thingy out the window, passed out, and quickly reel him inside. They determine he's alive but unconscious. Timmy suggests Buddy give him "mouth to mouth"... but Buddy's got a better idea. Naturally, the kid cops a squat over the dude's face and rips three overly-loud stock-sound farts right in his face! The boys reel in disgust. "UghGhughgh! That STINKS! What do you got, a demon in there??" Stevie shouts. (Ah, the old "out demon spirit!" joke stolen from Jack, which also had that same kid in a different fart-filled treehouse). Surprised as you may be, farting on the guy doesn’t work. (Oh well... they tried their best.) So they film him on their camcorder as evidence, and then decide to go get Dad, but they do manage to at least tie the guy down so he doesn’t escape (okay, that's smart). For good measure, they even stuff one of their socks in his mouth as a gag, making sure it’s an extra smelly one... by sniffing it. (Oooooooooooookay.) 

But then the movie turns into Porky's for a second when the boys run inside and immediately burst in on Tim’s “babe” of a hot mom coming out of the shower in a towel... after inexplicably barging into... the bathroom?? (Guess they just assumed Dad was on the good ole' "Dad Throne"). "Dude, your mom's a babe..." Buddy goes. (Durrrrr!) They find Dad exercising and bring him back to the treehouse to see who they caught, but in the meantime, their captive fugitive has already woken up and somehow manages to stumble back into the pulley thing to get suspended out the window all over again, concealing him from view and knocking him out again(?), just in time for Dad to show up! Dad sees nothing there and gets annoyed. "Show him the tape!" YEAH! Finally a real flash of intelligence! .... Uh.... ... There's nothing on that damn tape but a Peeping Tom shot of another neighborhood mom working out in spandex through a window. "Uh... I guess I didn't hit record." Buddy says. (Durrrrr!)

“Dad come back!” Timmy yells. Dad replies: “EHHKCH!”

So the boys call fat cop back to report their captured fugitive, but fat cop tells them, in no uncertain terms, precisely what they can sit on and how fast they should indeed spin on it. So, calling it quits on that idea, Timmy figures he can at least get something out of this by maybe blackmailing this fugitive guy into being his "Current Event report" (about him turning the guy in), and then collect the reward money afterwards of course! Aid and abed the guy why don'tcha! Carl wakes up (from concussion again?) to find himself in a Misery situation too twisted even for Stephen King. He’s tied up, Timmy is force-feeding him sandwiches and telling him to "be a nice Current Events report for me, or I'll turn you in!" The kid then threatens that his tiny "vicious" Wishbone out there named "Potato?" will rip him to pieces if he tries to escape. Kid tucks his tied-up prisoner in though at the end of the night, so it's "awwww??" He steals these counterfeiting money pressing plates off of him while he's asleep, then goes off to his own bed in his own house.

“Mom you don’t think I’m crazy do you?” he asks his mom as she's tucking him in under a horrific poster in his room displaying a tabloid cover of "World’s Biggest Baby." Yeeek.... maybe you are kid! You're definitely not normal!

Then we learn that those crooked cops who were chasing Carl were trying to get those very same counterfeiting money pressing “plates," and now the two of them, along with a shadowy "boss" figure, are going full-Darth Vader mode to find Carl and "those plates!"  

Morning comes, and Carl’s being held in a stockade under slingshot. They have a stupid "court hearing" in the treehouse with stupid Perry Mason talk, spraying their captive with squirt guns and giving him Chair Wedgies in his stockade if he refuses to answer questions like “what did you have for dinner on the night of the 4th??” They get him on the “pizza defense” though, insisting that he was "temporally dumb by the pizza affecting his brain!” (Alright, this movie has officially gone off the rails...) 

Despite all this stupidity, they learn about the counterfeiting plot the guy was just trying to stall, and how he's being used as the scapegoat by his old "crooked cop" bosses. So... while Buddy tickle tortures ole' Earnest in a... very unpleasant scene ... the other two goofballs for some reason go to the Haunted Mansion where they had just learned Carl had stolen the money pressing plates from (and almost get busted by the thugs in the process). Meanwhile Buddy’s gone full Misery on this poor felon, trying to get Carl to piss himself by pouring water into a jug repeatedly and regaling the mofo with “Tales from the Urinal... By I. P. Standing!" 

This is when Carl busts out of his stockade and gives Buddy a good ole' Atomic Wedgie for revenge... the waist band ALL the way over the head!! Then he picks the kid up and hangs him on the wall by his pants (Owwwee! An Atomic Wedgie with a Dangling Wedgie mixed in... nice technique... this guy could be a contender in the Wedgie Olympics).

 

I'll give that wedgie a 9.5... nice form, fluid motion, and sticks the landing!

So, this supreme Atomic Dangling Wedgie torture forces Buddy to reveal that the "plates" Carl is looking for are in Timmy's room. Carl distracts the dog with hot dogs and makes it into the house… to take a leak (poor guy)... destroys Timmy’s room looking for the plates... and then.... I don't know... chases off this military-like lawn care guy by... dressing in drag?? (Honestly, it's a scene too dumb for words...)

The two goon squad dipshits come back to the treehouse to discover Buddy strung up by his underwear and learn that Carl escaped and is trapped up in Timmy's Bedroom (now that his parents are home). So the boys put their heads together and stage an oil leak on the car to get Dad out, and then Timmy gets to cop a feel on his hot mom by hugging her so that Carl can escape out the back behind her (dressed in drag of course). It's "hide-the-thing-from-the-parents" shenanigans!! For some reason he ends up back up in the treehouse and back in the stockade.

But don’t think about that, because the girls are back!! And they're ready to besiege the boys' treehouse with water balloons!! So the boys devise a plot to create this spit/booger/condiment/poop sludge concoction (also ripping off Jack), set to a dumb rock montage from out of nowhere that sounds like the Might Be Giants or something... and then float the stuff in a basket out over the girls with helium balloons. They shoot it with a sling shot, which "makes it rain" its nasty contents down upon them. Nailed! Take that GIRLS! Then they victory dance in the treehouse and eat ice cream, forgetting rule 409… which means Buddy's butt immediately explodes into a puff of farts. Everyone rolls back aghast at the... gas... waves of pure fart filling out the treehouse... (once again...) and (once again) we get an "Oh that's NASTY!" and an"Ughghg! Gonna die!" as they're all gagging... and of course it's hilarious once again. Luckily they have gas masks on hand this time, so... YAY! "Ice-cream-and-fart" ON!

Okay, so NOW this movie is so far off the rails it's an airplane... And yet we plow on... After the sludge-making montage and the (second) fart joke, now's a great time to immediately shift tone to one of those slow "emotional" scenes with the sad music as Carl tells a sad story of why he quit being a "hero fireman" when it got too hard for him to handle, eventually finding his way into counterfeiting with these crooked cops, a hustle so sweet, let me tell ya boys... "the women are so big..." He says he was eventually busted by his crooked cop friends (big brain guy here, right?), so he broke out of jail to steal back the counterfeiting plates and try to end their whole illegal operation for good, which is why they're out for him. So yeah, ole' Carl's actually a good guy at heart and he was framed! Where have we seen this before, Bushwhacked? So now that they've all bonded over dumping snot upon girls and farting, they all vow to help Carl defeat these “bad guys" and help clear his name... but more awesomely... they suit up in their spy gear cut with a fun 90s "cool" montage!

They get to the Haunted Mansion place and Buddy records Carl splainin’ his whole story on his camcorder, but then guess who shows up? WHAT A TWIST! It's their principal, Mr. Ott! It turns out HE'S the one masterminding the whole counterfeiting operation! He explains his entire evil plan not knowing the camcorder to recording in the background, and an altercation ensues that the kids manage to escape from but have to leave the camera behind while Carl gets captured by the bad guys. Principal Ott then calls Timmy on his Cellular Telephone and says he’s got "more than homework assignments to worry about now!" (heyyy-ooh!) and orders the kid to meet him at a golf course to trade "the plates" for for "their friend" Carl… but they decide to do one better. They're gonna screw with the plates to make them unable to print money with. But for some reason they need some help doing it... from an unlikely source.... Hmmm.

Timmy has a hilarious nightmare that night about being old in jail and, finding his teeth have fallen out in the slop bucket, unleashes a truly blood-curdling scream under his Santa beard (it's legit hilarious out of context, trust me). That morning, he decides they need to go "grovel with the girls" if they're going to get this plan into action to rescue Carl and stop all the counterfeitin'!... because the girls have "software" or something. So the girls, being evil little bitches (as ALL girls are, amirite?), draw up a thousand-page contact as a set of conditions to helping the boys out, including a clause about giving up their treehouse on Friday nights so the girls can use it (why they'd want that fartitorium, I don't know). There is one other stipulation whispered in Timmy's ear, which causes him to exclaim, "What? In front of the whole school??" But because they're dumb boys being outsmarted by the girls and their evil minds, they sign it and the girls rubber stamp it. So the girls help them with some computer skills to cause the plates to print obviously non-passable money. How, I'm not quite sure, but whatever. Before the plan can be put into action, it turns out Timmy’s got to go to his aunt’s "5th or 6th wedding"...? but luckily it's right next door to the golf course where they’re making the exchange! ("Lucky coincidence!" -Wilford the Dog) He gets there, but escapes the ceremony using a bathroom break excuse and switches with Buddy at the wedding. Not even his own dad notices he's gone.

Timmy goes to give back the plates to Team Evil, who have shown up at the golf course, and they make their trade and release Carl to them, only to find out that the plates were tampered with and now print nothing but the face of principal Ott! Team Evil gives chase through the mini golf course, and Stevie takes shots at them with his golf swings! And now these kids have embraced their Three Stooges idiocy in full. Woop-woop-woop! Of course Carl sacrifices himself by getting the bad guys to run after him so the kids can escape... and they do run... right into the wedding cake! Woompf! Annnnnd.... Down Goes the Bride! Woop-woop-woop! The cops show up to arrest the counterfeiters only to find out these guys are crooked cops, and Carl gets busted with them. Principal Ott speeds off. Fat cop releases Carl from the jail later that night because of the camcorder footage of him the police found at the Haunted Mansion, and offers him a plea bargain to testify against his former dirty-cop bosses.

The next day at school, it's the day of the big report presentations. Stevie is in the middle of giving his presentation of having tried to "clone sheep in the bathtub" ... to which he adds, "And I don’t recommend it because cloning sheep can be kind of stinky... and messy" (pointing to some very disturbing-looking fluid in a test tube.) We don't see Buddy's "current event" presentation but knowing the depth of his characterization, he probably just farts or something. So okay, now it’s Timmy’s turn to do his, and uh… well, he explains what happened and the teacher basically gives the entire plot of the movie an F (seems about right). This ensures summer school awaits our poor, idiotic protagonist… but then! The cops bring Carl to his school so Carl can be his “Current Event” report! YAY!!! Principal Ott tries to escape when he sees this but gets captured and put in handcuffs just as the whole school gathers outside to celebrate his incarceration. The cops give Timmy the reward money for bringing in Carl (50 G's!!!), even though Carl is technically a free man now… and the girl finally gets her part of the deal… coming up and kissing Timmy on the cheek in front of the whole school... (The horror!!!). Apparently she wanted that? Now I have second thoughts about her intelligence! All is well and good, but alas, it's revealed that night that "Potato" takes the 50,000 dollar check and buries it in the backyard... Oh well. The End.

So what can we take away from all this? Did this movie prove that what passes as moth-brained idiocy can actually in the end really be taken as innocently heartfelt and ... (pun-intended) ..."earnest?" Maybe that empathy for people as individuals (and not mere collections of stereotypes) can bridge any divide between people? Maybe that all humans need are second chances? That perhaps... the outward appearances, behaviors, and even mistakes that people make in the immaturity of their lives aren't what we should be judging their worth on as people? That we shouldn't be so quick to just write people off just because they do dumb stuff? That people can grow and mature? That human beings... of all stripes... can still have a heart of gold down below even the most crude, mean, silly, or goofball antics? That people are all complex and can always surprise us? Perhaps...

But then again, if this was made just to make what could actually be the ultimate "boy movie"...and it actually worked, then... never mind.