Uber-Dork (The 8-Year-Old Me)

Free Willy

Kamehameha!

Let’s cast our minds back to 1993. Bill Clinton was in the White House, dial-up internet was screaming its digital mating call into our telephone lines, slap bracelets were a public safety hazard, and the cinema was graced with a cinematic titan: Free Willy. A movie that could only be about one thing... a clarion call demanding freedom for willies everywhere, damn it. Now that's a cause I could always get behind.

Ah, yes. The movie that single-handedly convinced an entire generation of elementary school students that... there is no sound more annoying than the distinctive pitched-down mosquito-like warble of an orca whale crying into the night (and also put it into our brains for all time). That taught us all that the white dots above their eyes are not, in fact, their eyes (I can't be the only one who thought this, right?). And also, that a troubled, baggy-shirted foster kid with anger management issues could not only be rehabilitated by Captain Ahab's archnemesis, but also coordinate a multi-ton marine-mammal-jacking using nothing more than youthful angst, a wet suit, and a really, really big ramp. Seriously, if you've ever wanted to see whole fish slide down an orca whale's throat again and again, boy-oh-boy have we got a movie for you, ya weirdo!

If you grew up in the 90s, this movie wasn't just a film; it was a cultural event on a VHS tape that you rented fifty times from Blockbuster and probably even watched at school on those big roaming carts they used to wheel out when the teachers were bored. But looking back at it with adult eyes? Hoo boy. Aside from the sheer peak 90s fashions and aesthetics, Free Willy is actually a really touching movie and really does make you believe ("Hold me, like the River Jordan..." *wipes tear*). However, it's also an absolute fever dream of absurd plotting, deeply questionable parenting, and a protagonist who is honestly a bit of a menace to society and would probably end up in "the tank" anyway irl.

So grab your neon-purple-and-pink windbreaker, pop some Dunkaroos, and let’s dive deep into this one... or sink our teeth into it.. or whatever...

RIP cake.

Speaking of which, let’s talk about our hero, Jesse. Played by Jason James Richter, who also did that awful Neverending Story III that shall not be named lest it curse me to remember it (damn it!). Jesse is introduced to us not as a misunderstood cherub, but as an absolute feral goblin of angst, hormones, and probably piss. Within the first fifteen minutes, this street urchin is taking discarded and untouched food from outdoor eateries, which... okay, that's okay actually. I mean, even urchins have to eat. But then night sets in, and Jesse is hanging with his boys, out robbing a bakery for some birthday cake (maybe a play on the name of the real whale, "Keiko"), and committing the crime of plowing (and mowing) into it with his bare grubby hands. The Man comes swooping in, so the urchins scatter, running from the cops and committing the SIN of stepping on the cake (an image that has haunted me for decades).

Is he... Banksy?

He and some of his fellow "urchins" decide to break in and hideout inside "SeaWorld?" (I know it's not SeaWorld in the movie, that was a pun), and of course they start spray-painting private property with an assortment of dicks and Stussie S's and such (to which, as any 90s kid will tell you, "art is subjective man"), including the below-ground viewing area of the whale tank where he first meets the "beastie" itself (sorry, Star Trek IV reference). Yeah, this kid and his gang are a walking, talking PSA for what boomers think we all were back then, and they were only mostly right. Sadly, his goons abandon him to get busted by the cops.

After this, and a close call with the juvie clink, his social worker drops this little anarchist into the laps of Glen and Annie, two of the yuppiest cereal commercial parents you'll find this side of the Mormon Church. And it's probably best that he does, because can you even imagine what that street urchin's pits must SMELL like after being homeless? Allow us to introduce you to, the shower! Glen and Annie live in a lovely house on a hill, and give Jesse a killer room with a killer view of the ocean that would be the envy of any backwards-hatted, flannel-shirted shitstain of the 90s, especially the litte 8-year-old shitstain I called ME. And how does Jesse repay them? At first, by spending the first 30 minutes of this thing sulking, staying out late at the whale park to brood forlornly over the whale tank and play some hobo harmonica for the whale (a tune that unites him with Willy). Then, by busting up his new bedroom window with a baseball his foster parents gave him as a welcoming present, when they're mad at him for staying out too late. And then, by considering running away with his street urchin friend to California to pick up the beach babes they see on a post card. Ultimately, the deep calls unto deep, and he decides against going with his old ratpack buddy. Instead he decides to "go straight" and play this whale park thing out.

Enter Willy. The whale that is.

Willy is an orca, played by a real life show-orca named Keiko—a "killer whale" if you don't mind, which is a marketing term that implies excitement, though Willy spends 90% of the movie looking like a depressed bus submerged in green water. Willy is essentially the aquatic equivalent of an angsty teenager stuck working the register at a suburban multiplex: he’s underpaid (in dead herring), overexploited (in bouncing balls on his nose), and forced to listen to awful carnival music while doing tricks for screaming tourists while refusing to splash the tourists in the front row LIKE THEY PAID FOR. What a spoiled rock star...

Anyways, Jesse is sentenced to "clean up" the whale tank that he was caught spray painting, which is where he starts to bond and "dance" with Willy. There he meets the very attractive, my dream-chick, my preadolescent awakening, every teen guy's "bedroom wall poster," hot-in-a-wetsuit (and soaking wet), Rae (not surnamed Palpatine...), played by Lori Petty, Willy's marine biologist and trainer, who doesn't much care for the lad at first (and even kind of hates him) but slowly begins to see something desperate and sensitive in him despite his troubled life as a literal HOMELESS KID (yeah lady, give the kid a break! ...Oh and if you're not doing anything later...). Even more important to her, she begins to notice he has a calming and positive effect on the whale. "He's not like the other urchins" or whatever.

Naturally, Jesse and Willy lock eyes. It is an instant, psychic connection forged in the fires of mutual juvenile delinquency, the kinship of all living things, Native American mysticism, and the shared ability to gulp down large amounts of food without swallowing. Jesse looks at Willy, a captive apex predator trapped in a tank that’s chlorinated and way too small, and thinks: "Hey, that guy also hates authority and refuses to cooperate with management. We're twins! And not just because he's boss at playing Mirror-Mirror with me." It doesn't take Freud to tell you what this is really about: the "hero of a thousand willies" who must first contend with the ole' caged-in "beast from below" if he's ever going to save himself from the captivity of adolescence and enter the open ocean of adulthood, freedom, and getting laid... metaphorically speaking. It's every-dude's hero's journey really, should we choose to accept it.

So now that we've established that "taming the orca" is just a metaphor for "taming the willy"... and since Jesse really seems to enjoy hanging out at the ~~SeaWorld~~ whale tank, Rae decides to offer him a summer intern position there helping her train the thing, teach it to do tricks, and even get in the tank with it and ride it around over the course of a few months. He even becomes a kind of whale buff, and makes friends with another employee of the park, a wise Native American mentor-figure (can there be any other type?) named Randolph who teaches him the Native wisdom of the whales (something about how "whale spirits" can see the "true soul" of a man, or something). At this point, Jesse’s journey from "slipped-through-the-cracks runaway" to "slippery-when-wet Whale Whisperer" happens at light speed, mostly because the plot demands that he "learn how to care" (and fit into latex), so he can, you know, make Willy the star attraction he was bread to be.

How does Jesse bond with Willy? Jesse hangs out by the tank at night, throws fish at the whale, and plays that harmonica. Yet, somehow, it works. Willy responds. He splashes. He does tricks. He learns sign language faster than a Harvard linguistics major. Soon, Jesse and Willy aren't just "spinning in circles" together, they're a tag-team, culminating in Willy even letting Jesse RIDE him in the pool, synchronized swimming, and heck, even choreographed song and dance "Puttin' on the Ritz" showstoppers that would make Young Frankenstein weep, but ONLY when there aren't any crowds. And aye, there's the rub!

"And a 5, 6, 7... If you're blue and you don't know where to go why don't you go..."

Cut it out you dicks!

Sadly, Willy had become so much of a loss leader for the park that the manager turned evil. The park’s evil manager, "Dial" (played by a man whose entire performance radiates "I foreclose on orphanages for fun"), is losing big money because Willy still has trouble performing in front of CROWDS who love to BANG ON THE GLASS constantly. And what kind of "big money" is Dial losing? Well, given the fact that Michael Jackson actually wanted to purchase Keiko but decided against it because owning a whale was too expensive even for him (true story, look it up), we can kinda get an idea. Unfortunately, the banging and stomping crowds anger Willy so much that he lashes out and breaks the walls of his tank during a performance, triggering an evacuation and an attraction closure. This was the final nail in the Dial, so he decides he's gotta "rub out" the ~~fish~~ (MAMMAL!). Dial actually decides the best financial move with Willy is to bump him off in a "suppose he should meet with an unfortunate accident..." mafioso-style, big dickbrain insurance fraud scheme, and cash the check. And this sets up the grand finale: the greatest, dumbest, most physics-defying jailbreak in cinematic history. Because apparently all the cruelty to the whales is only a problem when they're not bringing in the big mamoo: that's right, the "Shamu" money.

Okay Beavis, let’s set the scene for the climax of the Free Willy.

Jesse, along with his fellow ecoterrorist friends from the whale park, Rae and Randolph, who love Willy more than keeping their jobs or avoiding prison, decide to steal Glen's flatbed truck, and use it to steal a four-ton orca from a heavily lit, commercial marine park and turn him loose in the open ocean. This makes Annie and Glen very worried that they're thinking of adopting a kid who just stole their truck, but once they see it's all in the service of giving Jesse his redemption arc, they say "oh what the hell, you already got it in the truck, so..." Okay, sounds good, says the 8-year-old me. ...So you have a whale. Whales weigh tons. They are essentially massive, blubbery water-balloons that collapse under their own weight when they aren't supported by the buoyancy of the ocean. Moving a whale requires... er... well I don't know because whales are huge and heavy. But our heroes achieve this using: (1) a crane and sling that looks like it was rented from a local Home Depot; (2) Glen's flatbed trailer; and (3) a lot of hope and duct tape.

They hoist Willy out of the tank—an image that is genuinely hilarious because Willy just lies there like a discarded sofa cushion for the last act of this, looking mildly inconvenienced and wailing like a banshee—and load him onto the truck, hosing him down to keep him moist like they used to do with the meat at the Old Country Buffet carving station. And then begins the slow, agonizing chase scene where the evil park owners try to stop their Grand Theft Orca (a much more badass title for this... Such a missed opportunity!). The cops are called. Roadblocks are set up. Snags are had (at one point getting stuck in a ditch). But in the end, Jesse is successful at getting all the adult accomplices driving the flatbed truck straight toward a breakwater, looking at a massive rock wall barrier, and deciding: Me and Willy have been training for this moment our entire lives...

Just like we practiced!
*wipes tear*

Now, let’s talk about the famous jump (the one you do in your theatre seats when it happens because it's THAT AMAZING). The gang of thieves here back the truck all the way into the water, finally get the tail open, and finally coax Willy out into the water, just as the cops come bearing down on them amidst a hail of shouting baddies... and with just a little encouragement from Jesse out on the jete (because Willy only does tricks when Jesse is around), that whale triumphantly launches himself through the air like a majestic, airborne torpedo, clears that massive rocky barricade with just enough clearance to not smash Jesse backwards into the water (or crush him like a bug), and lands gracefully in the deep blue ocean behind the kid. If a real killer whale tried that stunt, it would have turned into a four-ton tube of toothpaste against that concrete wall, and maybe a half-eaten kid, who knows.

And yet... "WOOOOO!!!" As 90s kids sitting in a dark theater or watching it on VHS for the hundredth time, we didn't care. We stood up and cheered. We pissed our neon-pink shorts with jubilation! We cried tears of pure JOY as Willy splashed down, stuck out his tail in the sunset, did a little victory flip, and swam away to go live his best life to the tune of Michael Jackson's "Will You Be There"... a song you can't help but cry to (and are doing so right now, admit it), presumably eating seals and ignoring Jesse forever... until the sequels of course. In the end, Jesse's life mattered. He and his foster parents hug it out.

So yeah. I'm not crying, you're crying... *wipes away many, many tears*

The movie doesn't dwell on any of the ramifications of what they just did, but save to say they get away with it and the villains are vanquished... yada yada. But we don't really care about any of that anyway. The point is that Willy is free, and all because Jesse cared to set him free. Because see, to understand Free Willy, you have to understand the specific flavor of environmentalism we were fed as 90s children. The 90s were a weird golden age of eco-guilt. Captain Planet was yelling at us about recycling. The FernGully fairies were asking why we were so intent on cutting down the rainforest when we could just use our magic powers to do everything instead (See? Simple!). Polar bears were drowning in Coca Cola for goodness sakes! We were a generation raised on the solemn promise that if we didn't personally save every endangered species on the planet, the earth was going to explode by the year 2000.

Free Willy tapped straight into that (still very real) anxiety, but weaponized it with a potent emotional cocktail for a 90s kid: the longing to be understood, the needing to pave our own destiny, and one big penis joke of a movie title. Every 90s kid felt a little bit like Jesse. We were misunderstood by adults, trapped in institutional systems (the elementary school industrial complex!), and desperate for a profound, cinematic connection with something, we wanted to be moved and deeply touched by something, even if that something was Michael Jackson (in SONG! In SONG! Okay?). So of course if that something happened to be a majestic, captive sea creature that could solve our emotional trauma through interpretive splashing, even better.

The movie taught us some very specific, highly vetted and true life lessons:

Jokes about penises are funny.
If you love something, steal it from a multi-million-dollar corporation.
Adults are either evil corporate villains or helpless bystanders who will eventually support your heists if they're big enough.
Pop music solves all barriers between species, even whatever species Michael Jackson was.
Any problem in life can be solved by screaming "WILLY!" in a dramatic, cracking pre-pubescent voice.
Never eat birthday cake with your damn grubby paws!

It was earnest, it was cheesy, and it was aggressively manipulative. It had a funny name for a movie. But goshdarnit, it worked. We're not made of stone here, okay? And now that it's been over 30 years, we could all stand to grow in compassion for each other and our fellow creatures... rather than just surrendering to cynicism, and hating and fearing each other (except the evil corpos of course!). "90s kids" these days need a reminder from our childhoods about what true compassion looks like, and why it is the key to our salvation as a generation. We still need this movie to remind us of what we once were.

Because when Michael Jackson started singing “Will you be there?” over the credits, every kid in America had a tear in their eye and a sudden, burning desire to become a marine biologist, despite having C-minus averages in fourth-grade science. It gave an entire generation a hero they could root for—not because Jesse was smart or polished, or even smelled any better than the fish tank, but because he was just as messed up by the world and confused about the future as we were, and still are. But if he could find his saving grace in compassionate outreach to those "different than us" and learn that "down deep, we're all the same," maybe there's hope yet for us 90s kids.

And as for the fishy smell, he took care of that too.

I'll just leave this here

Truly the Citizen Kane of aiming low... and sticking the landing... The Stupids (1996) ... possibly the greatest cinematic achievement of Tom Arnold's career, and of our lives.

Always remember, 6 wheels > 4 wheels.

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!

Insane 90s Print Game Ads: 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? I was kinda in the core demographic for these things and it's like "nose blindness" to me at this point. Seriously, I think everything I learned about "the birds and the bees" I learned in kindergarten... via 90s video game ads. What a world.

Below you'll find these self-same cultural artifacts, and trust me, there's some I don't even want to post here because... well... they are definitely too "past yer bedtime" for the 8-year-old me. (Holy panty-clad-chicks-tied-up-in-cages Batman!) I don't even know how they got away with some of the ones I've dug up. In fact, these are some of the more tame ones!

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 marketing exclusively to dudes is a bad idea: