November 16, 1990: “Home Alone” Premieres

November 16, 1990: Home Alone premieres, becoming the biggest Christmas movie ever, box-office-wise. I am convinced that the reason Rocky V didn't do so well isn't that it was a bad movie, but because it was released on the same day as Home Alone.

The film was written and produced by John Hughes. It was directed by Chris Columbus, who says he is not descended from Christopher Columbus. But the film's star, Macaulay Culkin, only 10 years old when the film was released, is the son of actor Kit Culkin, the niece of actress Bonnie Bedelia, and the brother of actors Kieran Culkin and Rory Culkin.

Macualay played Kevin McAllister, who is growing up in a large family in the northern suburb of Chicago. After all, John Hughes is involved. The McAllister house is in Winnetka, 2 miles northwest of the Page house in Planes, Trains and Automobiles, in Kenilworth; and 6 miles southeast of the Frye house in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, in Highland Park. The Bueller house is in Long Beach, California.

The family is preparing to spend Christmas in Paris, but a power outage causes them to miss their alarm on Christmas Eve, and, in their rush to get ready, a kid from next door comes over, causing Kevin's mother, Kate (Catherine O'Hara), to miscount, and think they have everybody before they leave for the airport.

After having been ridiculed for his immaturity his whole life, and having had a bad night the night before, Kevin realizes he has the house to himself, and can do whatever he wants, with no rules. Oddly, he gets bored with this rather quickly, and actually starts to miss his family.

Kate is in midair with the rest of the family, over the Atlantic Ocean, before she realizes Kevin isn't with them. As with Steve Martin's Neal Page in Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Kate has a hard time getting back to Chicago, due to it being a holiday and flights being booked up. And the phone lines are still down in Winnetka, so she can't even call. And, as with Neal, she ends up getting home with help from a character played by John Candy.

I wish Candy had lived. Given the tropes of his movies, and those of Tom Hanks' movies, surely, at some point, there would have been a movie where Candy would have gotten a stranded Hanks home.

Meanwhile, Harry and Marv (played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern, respectively), a pair of thieves known as the Wet Bandits, had been scouting out houses to rob over the holiday season. Realizing that Kevin is home alone, they target his house.

Afraid, Kevin goes to church, and prays to get his family back. He meets another neighbor, Old Man Marley (Blossom Roberts), rumored to have murdered his family. He assures Kevin that it's not true. He's there to watch his granddaughter in the choir, but he's never met her, because he and his son, the girl's father, are estranged. Wishing his own family were back, Kevin tells him he should try again to reconcile.

Kevin "breaks the fourth wall," saying, "It's my house. I have to defend it!" So he booby-traps the house, and the result is a lot of slapstick. But it only succeeds for so long, and it looks like the Bandits, now infuriated to the point where whatever loot they could take is secondary to revenge -- one of them is played by Joe Pesci, after all -- are actually going to kill Kevin. But Marley, having heard the ruckus, knocks them out with his shovel -- allegedly, the murder weapon from the rumor about him. The phone lines back up, the police arrive, and take the Bandits away.

The next day, Christmas Day, Kate makes it home. Shortly thereafter, because a direct flight had opened up, so does the rest of the family. Kevin doesn't tell them what happened, although it's reasonable to presume that the police soon did. The film ends with Kevin seeing Marley reconciling with his family.

On an episode of Seinfeld, George Costanza (Jason Alexander) admits to never having watched Home Alone, and watches it at Jerry's apartment. Jerry comes in just as the closing credits are rolling, and sees George crying. "You're crying over Home Alone?" he asks. George says, "The old man got to me!"

Given the similarities between their improvisations, and the basic immaturity of each, there is a fan theory that John McClane from Die Hard is Kevin McAllister from Home Alone, all grown up. But the technology levels of each film make this impossible. I think it's a desperation move, from people who want us to believe that Die Hard is a Christmas movie.

The film was so successful, it became a franchise. In 1992, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York was released. Much of it takes place at the Plaza Hotel, then owned by Donald Trump, who insisted on being in the movie in exchange for using the Plaza as a filming location. Therefore, the Wet Bandits are not the most evil people in the movie.

Home Alone 3 was released in 1997, but had none of the actors from the 1st 2 films, and there is no effort to pretend it's the same characters. While the kid is left home alone due to having chicken pox, the idea of booby-trapping the house to protect it from crooks is roughly the same. So, basically, Halloween 3. At least Speed 2: Cruise Control had Sandra Bullock.

Every film since has been made-for-TV. Home Alone 4 aired on ABC in 2002. Kevin is back, but Culkin isn't: The character is played by Mike Weinberg. Only one of the Wet Bandits is, Marv, and is now played by French Stewart. Not only have the Bandits separated, but so have Kevin's parents.

The ABC Family Channel (now known as Freeform) aired Home Alone: The Holiday Heist in 2012. As with HA 3, no effort was made to connect it with the Kevin character. A family moves from California to Maine, home State of Stephen King, and one of the kids believes the house is haunted. So, in a mash-up of Home Alone and Ghostbusters, he sets traps to catch the ghosts. He ends up catching thieves instead.

Disney+ aired Home Sweet Home Alone in 2021. It's basically a remake of the original film, but with different characters, the only returnee being Devin Ratray as Kevin's brother Buzz, now a police officer.

Speaking of "buzzes": In 2018, actor Ryan Reynolds smoked some marijuana, and his stoned-out haze gave him the idea to write Stoned Alone, a sequel where Kevin, now in college but a stoner, is so high he misses his flight for a ski vacation, and thinks thieves have broken in, and so the whole thing starts all over again. Nobody wanted the idea, and, as of November 16, 2022, it "remains in development hell."

Every so often, now 42, does a TV commercial that calls on him to copy his face-slapping yell from the original film. And Capital One has done a series of commercials where Catherine O'Hara has lost Kevin again, only this time it's actor Kevin Hart, who had already done a few commercials for the bank. Part of the joke is that Hart isn't much taller than Kevin McAllister was in 1990. (Hart is 5-foot-4. Fully grown, Culkin is 5-foot-7.)

*

November 16, 1990 was a Friday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. There were 8 games played in the NBA:

* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Detroit Pistons, 105-96 at the Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Utah Jazz, 114-89 at the Boston Garden.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Washington Bullets, 115-102 in overtime at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Charlotte Hornets beat the Atlanta Hawks, 119-109 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The Dallas Mavericks beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 99-86 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas.

* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 99-94 at The Coliseum in the Cleveland suburb of Richfield, Ohio.

* The Indiana Pacers beat the Miami Heat, 106-80 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.

* And the Phoenix Suns beat the Los Angeles Clippers, 121-110 in overtime at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

There were 4 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Winnipeg Jets, 6-4 at the Winnipeg Arena.

* The New York Islanders lost to the Vancouver Canucks, 3-2 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.

* The Chicago Blackhawks beat the Washington Capitals, 4-3 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* And the Edmonton Oilers beat the Buffalo Sabres, 4-2 at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton.

And in New Jersey high school football, my Alma Mater, East Brunswick, beat Sayreville, 20-8 at War Memorial Stadium in Sayreville, to wrap up the Greater Middlesex Conference Red Division title. We would lose in the Semifinal of the Central Jersey Group IV Playoffs.

June 11, 1986: "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" Premieres

June 11, 1986: The film Ferris Bueller's Day Off premieres.

John Hughes directed Matthew Broderick as high school senior Ferris, Jennifer Grey as his sister Jeanie, Lyman Ward and Cindy Pickett as his parents, Alan Ruck as Ferris' best friend Cameron Frye, Mia Sara as his luscious girlfriend Sloane Peterson (Ferris? Cameron? Sloane? Who gives kids last names as first names?), Jeffrey Jones as vice principal Edward R. Rooney, Edie McClurg as Rooney's secretary Grace, Ben Stein as an economics professor (presaging his similar role in the TV series The Wonder Years), and Charlie Sheen as a ginker who Jeanie meets at the police station.

The action takes place in Chicago and in the fictional town of Shermer, Illinois, 15 miles northwest of the city, based on Hughes' real-life hometown of Northbrook. (Until he was 12, he lived in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. Hence, Cameron wears a Red Wings jersey with Gordie Howe's name and Number 9.)

Northbrook's original name was Shermerville, and his alma mater, Glenbrook North High School, is on Shermer Road. We know it's 15 miles because of the differences in the mileage on the odometer on the Ferrari between North Lake Shore Drive and Cameron's house.

Hughes set a lot of his films in this fictional town, including Weird Science, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink. The "home" scenes of National Lampoon's Vacation, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and Home Alone were also set there. Not all were filmed in Northbrook: Some of these were filmed in nearby Winnetka, Illinois. The Bueller house and the streets around it were in Long Beach, California; the rest of the movie was shot in Chicago and the suburbs, including the Frank Lloyd Wright-ish Frye house, in Highland Park, Illinois.

In the film, Ferris decides this spring weekday (I usually think it's April, but this is not specified in the script) in his senior year at Shermer High School is too nice a day to spend in school. So he fakes out his parents, pretends to be sick, convinces Cameron (who appears to actually be sick) that neither one of them is sick, and gets his girlfriend Sloane out of school on a phony death in the family. Then they head for the big city, have some fun, run a couple of cons, and head home, and have to face the consequences of their actions... sort of.

All the while, Mr. Rooney is trying to catch Ferris cutting school. That Sloane is also cutting appears to be incidental to him. That Cameron is also cutting appears not to be something he's even aware of. He heads for the mall, thinking Ferris might be there, and gets embarrassed. He goes to the Bueller home, and gets nearly shredded by their Rottweiler and attacked by Jeanie (who's also trying to catch Ferris in the act, and fails, hence the police station).

How many times have I seen this movie? Nine times? More than that: Maybe 15. After 36 years, it remains the only movie I have ever gone to the theater to see, and literally laughed all the way home from. And it helped make Jennifer Grey a star, which is a good thing. Although Mia Sara didn't become a big star: Other than this, her biggest movie has been Timecop, and that was 8 years later.

Yeah, Ferris was a legend. A great guy. Right? As ESPN's Lee Corso would say, "Not so fast, my friend!" He lied to his parents. He got away with that, and he rubbed the fact in his sister's face. He cut school. A lot. How many times, in that semester, alone? Say it with me: "Nine times!" "If I go for 10," he admitted in one of his periodic breaks of the fourth wall, as he set up his synthesizer to produce fake sounds of snoring, sneezing and coughing, "I'm probably gonna have to barf up a lung, so I'd better make this one count." Gee, not real big on remorse, are ya, F.B.?

I mean, think about it: Since he knew Spring was coming, and that he would probably want to take a day off to enjoy it, shouldn't he have saved up his sick days, instead of using so many? It's like in basketball: You get a limited number of fouls per game, before you get tossed. It's 6 in the NBA, 5 in college, usually 5 in high school. Use them wisely.

He took advantage of his sick best friend. Cameron was sick. Probably with the flu. Does Ferris consider this? Does Ferris consider that spending the day with a clearly sick Cameron might make him sick? Does Ferris consider that it might make Sloane, the girl he allegedly loves, sick? Does he consider that it might make anyone else Cameron interacts with sick? Not by a long shot. And then, Ferris steals a car, a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California, belonging to Cameron's father.

He took advantage of his girlfriend. No, I don't mean in a sexual way – at least, not onscreen. First, Ferris has Sloane thinking that her grandmother has died. Remember her reaction? This was not the face of a girl who knew that her boyfriend was behind this. It wasn't until she saw Ferris – standing in front of the Ferrari, wearing the trenchcoat, the shades and the hat, impersonating her father – that she realized, "My Grandma's alive! And my boyfriend is awesome!" No, he's not: He had you thinking your Grandma was dead! All so he could cut school.

He scammed the entire Chicago metropolitan area. "SAVE FERRIS" signs went up everywhere, from the Shermer water tower to the electronic portion of the familiar Wrigley Field marquee!

I can see getting an entire school to think you're sick as a dog. But conning the Cubs? Well, maybe. We're not talking about an organization that's been known for smart decisions. Besides, pay a sports team enough money, and they'll put anything (short of profanity or defamation) on one of their signs or boards.

But the water tower? This was not some kid spray-painting it on: This was a professionally-painted "SAVE FERRIS," which would not have been approved by the municipal government unless they were convinced that the kid in question needed contributions to pay for his health care.

And, since we've seen the Bueller house, and we know that Mrs. Bueller is a real estate agent and Mr. Bueller works in a high-rise office downtown, apparently as some kind of executive rather than a cubicle drone, we know they're not exactly hurting for cash, if not stinking rich like the Fryes. They can afford health insurance for their kids.

So why would the town allow this message on their water tower? Maybe it was a bribe. Nah, can't be. After all, it's not like the Chicago area is known for political corruption...

Don't get me started on the fact that the attempt to get into Chez Quis, the fancy French restaurant on the Near North Side, was a rotten thing to do, and should have failed, for a dozen reasons, and almost did.

He hijacked a parade. Bueller is a German name, and German-Americans – by 1986, they no longer had to worry about discrimination or suspicion like they did in the era of the World Wars – celebrate their heritage on Steuben Day, on or around September 17, the anniversary of the birth of Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, who left the Prussian army under dubious circumstances, and then helped George Washington whip the Continental Army into shape during the War of the American Revolution.

Parades in his memory are held in New York, Philadelphia and, as seen in the movie, Chicago. Hughes filmed during Chicago's real Steuben Day parade on September 28, 1985, so while the film has it in the Spring, for some reason, at least it really was Steuben Day when they filmed.

So how did a high school student playing hooky get to jump on a float in a municipal parade (i.e. sponsored by the City government) and sing Wayne Newton's semi-German song "Danke Schoen" and the Beatles' cover version of the Isley Brothers' "Twist and Shout"? In real life, someone who tried that would have been pulled off the float by the cops before finishing the 1st verse! (Well, maybe Ferris could have bribed the cops to look the other way. Another bribe? Nah... )

And he got away with it all, thus inspiring others to try things they shouldn't do. Remember what Rooney told Grace, his secretary, near the beginning of the film? "What bothers me about Ferris Bueller is that he gives good kids bad ideas."

A 2011 article by Cezary Jan Strusiewicz that Cracked magazine put in its online edition included FBDO on a list of movies whose bad guys weren't so bad after all:

Mr. Rooney was the mean old Dean of Students who spent the entire movie trying to prove that Ferris was skipping school while pretending to be sick. What a mistrustful tight-ass. Why the hell does he care so much if one student takes a day off?

Let's get the obvious out of the way: this is his goddamned job... People are always all up the public schools system's digestive tract for not taking a more active interest in their students and that's exactly what Mr. Rooney was doing. It doesn't matter if, on a personal level, he's a dick or not -- he is literally paid with your tax money to make sure kids aren't doing exactly what Ferris did. The kid can go to a museum and drive a sports car on the weekend. During the week, he and the other kids are Rooney's responsibility so they can, you know, get an education.

And you know what? He was right all along. Ferris was skipping school. Worse yet, he lied to his parents and friends about being sick and pretty much got the whole town involved in the farce. He lied, he stole, and he caused millions in property damage by destroying Cameron's dad's beautiful car. That's not adorable, that's just being an egocentric cock. It wouldn't have been a satisfying movie ending to see Rooney expose Bueller for his douchebaggery, but it would have been by far the more just outcome. What happens instead is that Rooney loses his wallet and almost has his nipples ripped off by a Rottweiler.

In the end, Ferris gets saved by Jeanie, his sister – posing as his mother! This is one thing I've always hated about movies & TV shows set in high schools: The kids are, all too often, played by grownups. At the time of filming, September through November 1985, Broderick was 23 and had a serious 5:00 shadow. Grey was 25, and didn't make Jones' Rooney think, "Wait a minute, Mrs. Bueller looks damn good for 45." She pretended to be Ferris' mother, and Rooney bought it. And Ruck was a whopping 29. Only Sara, 18, was actually of high school age. Considering the things Jeanie was saying and thinking about Ferris all through the movie, this is really out of character.

True, her police-station conversation with Charlie Sheen (oh, yeah, there's something you want to go through in real life) made her think differently, but, come on: This guy (in addition to being Charlie Sheen, but you didn't yet know what he was going to become) was a damn ginker! (Metalhead, for those of you who didn't grow up where I did.) He admitted that he was arrested for drugs. (I'm presuming possession, if not also intent to sell.) Anything he says, I'm taking with an entire mine of salt.

And Strusiewicz and I aren't the only ones upset that Ferris keeps putting one over on the film's adults. Social scientist Martin Morse Wooster said the film "portrayed teachers as humorless buffoons whose only function was to prevent teenagers from having a good time."

Looking back, it's easy to see that Ferris wasn't such a great guy. And the movie has its flaws. In her book Screening Generation X: The Politics and Popular Memory of Youth in Contemporary Cinema, author Christina Lee said it was a "splendidly ridiculous exercise in unadulterated indulgence," and the film "encapsulated the Reagan era's near solipsist worldview and insatiable appetite for immediate gratification -- of living in and for the moment."

Indeed, with its Reagan Era selfishness, showing teenage neuroses and at the same time ignoring them, its synthesizer-driven soundtrack, and its protagonists getting to avoid serious consequences, this might be the most Eighties movie there is.

On the other hand, Ben Stein, who played the economics teacher – and who had previously been a speechwriter for President Richard Nixon, who probably would have called Ferris one of "these bums, you know, blowing up the campuses" – and was very much a Reagan guy, and remains a political conservative, gave the film his seal of approval, and not just because it launched his career as an actor and a game-show host:

It will never die, because it responds to and calls forth such human emotions. It isn't dirty. There's nothing mean-spirited about it. There's nothing sneering or sniggering about it. It's just wholesome. We want to be free. We want to have a good time. We know we're not going to be able to all our lives. We know we're going to have to buckle down and work. We know we're going to have to eventually become family men and women, and have responsibilities and pay our bills. But just give us a couple of good days that we can look back on.

And you know what? This is a good thing. For 1 hour and 43 minutes, Ferris Bueller's Day Off lets you relax and laugh. Should we think about all this stuff while we're watching it? No. Save that for afterward. While the movie is rolling, enjoy the escapist fare.

I sure did. Many times. And I will again. After all, like the man said, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

But then, it's a movie. If you miss it, you can play it again.

Then there's the "Ferris Club" theory: That the whole thing is happening in Cameron's head, and Ferris isn't real. That's a story for another time.

One more thing: The Chicago Cubs game shown on the TV? It's from June 5, 1985, against the Atlanta Braves, and while the score was indeed tied in the 8th inning, it was 2-2, not "nothin'-nothin'." The Braves went on to win, 4-2 in 11 innings. But the game at which Broderick, Sara and Ruck were filmed was on September 24, 1985, and the Cubs lost to the Montreal Expos by a football score, 17-15.

Director John Hughes died in 2009, of a heart attack, only 59 years old. Del Close, who played the unnamed English teacher ("In... what... way... "), died in 1999. Virginia Capers, the school nurse who tells Sloane about her grandmother's death, not knowing that it isn't true, died in 2004. Larry "Flash" Jenkins, along with Richard Edson one of the parking garage attendants who takes the Ferrari for a joyride, died in 2019. Comedian Louie Anderson, in an early role as a deliveryman for a florist, died early in 2022. As of June 11, 2022, every other notable actor from the film is still alive. (UPDATE: Joey D. Vieira, the pizza guy who gives Rooney the "nothin''-nothin'" score, and then, when asked, "Who's winning?" tells him, "The Bears," died in 2025.)

*

June 11, 1986 was a Wednesday. Football was out of season. Hockey season had ended on May 24, with the Montreal Canadiens winning the Stanley Cup, beating the Calgary Flames in Game 5 of the Finals. Basketball season had ended on June 8, with the Boston Celtics winning the NBA Championship, beating the Houston Rockets in Game 6 of the Finals. These Major League Baseball games were played on the day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Detroit Tigers, 9-3 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Ron Guidry was done in by 2 errors, although Dave Winfield hit a home run off Frank Tanana. Don Mattingly went 0-for-4, and Rickey Henderson went 1-for-3 with a walk.

* The New York Mets beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 5-3 at Shea Stadium. Ron Darling outpitched Steve Carlton: The days when a Carlton start meant, "It's Win Day" were long-gone. Ray Knight hit a home run off Carlton. He, Mookie Wilson, Kevin Mitchell and Rafael Santana each got 2 hits. Knight and Gary Carter each had 2 RBIs. For the Phillies, Von Hayes hit a home run, and Mike Schmidt singled as a pinch-hitter.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 3-2 at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto. Roger Clemens advanced to 11-0 on the season, finishing 24-4.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Chicago Cubs, 5-3 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Oakland Athletics, 7-4 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The California Angels beat the Chicago White Sox, 12-11 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Reggie Jackson went 2-for-5 with an RBI.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 4-3 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Eddie Murray went 2-for-3 with a walk and an RBI, Cal Ripken went 2-for-4 with an RBI, Robin Yount went 1-for4, and Paul Molitor was injured and did not play.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Minnesota Twins, 6-2 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. Kirby Puckett went 4-for-6 with an RBI, but Kent Hrbek went 0-for-6. Oddibe McDowell won it with a home run in the top of the 16th inning.

* The Montreal Expos beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-3 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Jim Wohlford won the game with a sacrifice fly in the top of the 10th inning.

* The Seattle Mariners beat the Kansas City Royals, 12-2 at Royals Stadium in Kansas City. (It was renamed Kauffman Stadium in 1993.) George Brett went 0-for-3 with a walk.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Houston Astros, 11-7 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. Tony Gwynn went 2-for-2 with an RBI before leaving the game with an injury.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Cincinnati Reds, 5-4 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Franklin Stubbs singled home the winning run in the bottom of the 11th inning. He and Alex Trevino had homered earlier in the game for L.A. Dave Parker homered for the Reds, and player-manager Pete Rose went 1-for-3 with a walk.

* And the Atlanta Braves beat the San Francisco Giants, 2-1 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Ozzie Virgil Jr. won the game with a home run in the top of the 10th inning.

One more baseball game of note, from high schools in New Jersey: The Final of the 1st-ever Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament, replacing the former Middlesex County Tournament, was played at Memorial Stadium in New Brunswick, Middlesex County, New Jersey. East Brunswick beat Madison Central of Old Bridge, 14-3.

I have a separate entry for this event. Why? Because I was then a junior at EBHS, and the scorekeeper for their baseball team. It was one of the best nights of my life, and that's before I knew that Ferris had been released the same day.

Also, the 1986 World Cup was underway in Mexico. The host nation beat Iraq 1-0 in Mexico City. England beat Poland 3-0 in San Nicloás de los Garza. Morocco beat Portugal 3-1 in Zapopan. And Belgium and Paraguay played to a 2-2 draw in Toluca.

And actor Shia LaBeouf was born.

February 15, 1985: "The Breakfast Club" Premieres

Top: Judd Nelson and Emilio Estevez.

Middle: Ally Sheedy and Anthony Michael Hall.

Bottom: Molly Ringwald.

February 15, 1985: The Breakfast Club premieres in theaters.

According to the film, on March 24, 1984 -- the date on the essay read at the beginning and the end of the film -- there were 5 students in an all-day Saturday detention at Shermer High School in Shermer, Illinois, a fictional place apparently in the northern suburbs of Chicago:

* Brian Johnson, "a brain," played by Anthony Michael Hall.
* Andrew Clark, "an athlete," played by Emilio Estevez. 
* Allison Reynolds, "a basket case," played by Ally Sheedy.
* Claire Standish, "a princess," played by Molly Ringwald. And...
* John Bender, "a criminal," played by Judd Nelson.

At the time of filming, Hall and Ringwald were 16, Estevez and Sheedy both 22, and Nelson 24. So only the 1st 2 in this sequence were age-appropriate.

They are watched over, in the school's library, and not especially well despite his boasting, by Richard Vernon, an assistant principal, played by Paul Gleason. I suspect the character was named after John Vernon, who played Dean Wormer in Animal House, as well as the Mayor of San Francisco in the 1st Dirty Harry film.

There are only 8 credited actors in the film. The other 2 are Ron Dean, as Andrew's never-named father; and John Kapelos, as Carl Reed, a janitor. Gleason died in 2006. The rest are still alive, and all 5 "kids" are now older than Gleason was at the time of filming, 45. Sports connection: Gleason played Mr. Cushman, the Yankee executive who interviewed George Costanza (Jason Alexander) for a job with the team in the Seinfeld episode "The Opposite."

Years earlier, Gleason appeared in 4 different episodes of Adam-12, playing a different police officer each time. He also played cops in the films Fort Apache: The Bronx and Die Hard (humiliated by both the terrorists and Detective John McClane), and on TV shows Cagney & Lacey, Dallas, Remington Steele and One West Waikiki. He also played James T. Kirk. No, not that one: A U.S. Army Major in the 1979 film Women at West Point. He also played corporate spy Clarence Beeks in Trading Places.

So he was used to playing lawmen, other authority figures, and alleged tough guys. He parodied his Breakfast Club role by playing an older, but no less nasty and ego-driven, Vernon in the 2001 spoof film Not Another Teen Movie.

The kids go through the day, resisting Vernon and each other. John and Andrew verbally abuse each other. Both verbally abuse Claire and Brian. Claire tries to verbally defend herself, with little success. Brian, as the weak, skinny nerd, is in no position to successfully respond. Allison barely makes a sound, let alone interacts with the other 4, for the 1st half of the movie.

Each of them ends up baring his or her soul, showing that their chosen personalities are the result of how their parents have treated them. They begin to see each other not as stereotypes, as Vernon sees them, but as human beings with feelings.

In the end, instead of each of them following directions and writing an essay about "Who you think you are," there is one joint essay:

Dear Mr. Vernon:
We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong, but we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are.

You see us as you want to see us, in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain...
and an athlete...
and a basket case...
a princess...
and a criminal. Does that answer your question?

Sincerely yours,
The Breakfast Club.

We never find out Vernon's response. This is what it should have been:

Dear Punks:

I've reviewed the security footage. Clearly, you learned nothing from your time in detention. I am shocked and dismayed that "the athlete" and "the brain" decided that violence was a solution. So you got one thing right: You ARE all criminals. Furthermore, Bender, I have you on record making a rape threat to Claire. And since you've been held back so many times that you are now past age 18, you are going to be charged as an adult. And do you know what they do to rapists in prison? Brian, I don't know what they do in prison to boys who bring guns to school, but if I don't do something about this, it could become a problem in our schools later on.

I won't press charges on any of you for the pot smoking, but, Andrew, colleges will care, so you can forget about that wrestling scholarship. As for Claire and Allison, at your detention next week, I'm going to show you "The Blackboard Jungle." It's a movie from 1955, about juvenile delinquents. So you'll see who's really in charge of a school, and why they're worthy of respect. Besides, it's a better movie than any you've seen this year. I'm going to use the "bull" analogy again. They say the strongest bull is always the first to the slaughter, but not if he is smarter than the butcher. You may be criminals, but you're NOT butchers. Sincerely,
Richard Vernon. P.S.: I've shown the footage to our principal, Edward R. Rooney. For some reason, he doesn't seem to care. He seems to be fixated on some other kid here at Shermer High.

I was at East Brunswick High School in Central Jersey from September 12, 1984 to June 23, 1987. My generation seems to have adopted The Breakfast Club as one of its defining movies. We shouldn't have: It is a horrible movie.

"Ginkers" were what we called the barely verbal metalhead thugs who smoked anything that would stay lit long enough, like Bender. Ginkers were scum. I hated Bender from the beginning of the movie to the end, and I had no sympathy for his home life. If he hated his father that much, the best revenge should have been to be a better man. He chose not to be one. Think about it: The first thing he says to any of the others is a rape threat to Claire.

And instead of ending up expelled, and possibly also in the County Jail (or, at least, in Juvenile Hall), he walks away having kissed Claire and received the gift of a diamond earring from her. What the flying fuck?

Allison was the misfit, the one nobody understood. I have no problem with Claire going out of her way to understand her, and make her glamorous, possibly for the first time in her life. But she ends up with... Andrew? She should have ended up with the guy who needed more understanding, Brian. Giving her to Andrew was a major league copout.

The kids deserved detention. In fact, with the hindsight of a third of a century, we can see that a common theme of John Hughes' movies is that the protagonists were rarely heroic, and the antagonists were usually just people doing their jobs.

What did they do to get there? Okay, Allison said she'd done nothing, and that she just wanted something to do on a Saturday. Fine, she gets a pass (not a hall pass). The others? In ascending order of offense: Claire cut a day of school, Andrew taped a kid's butt-cheeks together, Bender pulled a fire alarm when there was no fire (that, all by itself, should have gotten his ginker ass arrested), and Brian brought a gun to school. This was before Heathers, let alone the Columbine High School Massacre.

Did the punishment fit the crime? At my alma mater, we didn't have all-Saturday detention. Most likely, here's what would have happened: Claire would have gotten 1 day's detention; Andrew would have gotten away with it completely, aside from, maybe, a stern talking-to, but he would have deserved at least 3 days' detention; Bender would have gotten a week's detention, which still would have been fewer hours than all day Saturday; and Brian would have gotten some serious counseling. They would have all deserved that. And none of the four of them was particularly repentant for what they did.

Sometimes, a Hughes protagonist will learn something, as did Neal Page in Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Usually, he won't: Cameron Frye may have learned something in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but Ferris himself is the same jackass he was at the beginning of the film.

What did these kids learn? Nothing useful: Bender and Andrew both learned you can treat your peers like shit, and still get the girl; Brian learned that bringing a flare gun to school, and wrecking your own science project as a result, was more punishable than all the things the bastard kids at that school had done to drive him to bring a gun; Claire learned to be a little nicer to people, maybe; and Allison learned that if you sell out, a BMOC (Big Man On Campus) will notice you, so she sold out.

These kids didn't start out as heroes, and none of them ended up that way. And, as I said, none of them was sorry for what they'd done.

Indeed, their bad behavior is actually rewarded. The "bad boys" aren't rebels, they're just bad. They're not redeemed: They're still bad. And yet, they get the girls, and the closest thing the film has to a "good guy" walks away alone, with no hope. The true rebel sells out, and gets rewarded for it. And, of course, the use of drugs helps drive the plot.

The is the most 1980s movie there is. The only thing missing is an explosion.

*

February 15, 1985 was a Friday. Baseball and football were out of season. There were 9 games played in the NBA:

* The New Jersey Nets beat the Detroit Pistons, 124-123 at the Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands. Micheal Ray Richardson (yes, he spelled "Michael" with an "ea") scored 30 points.

* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 112-107 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. Moses Malone had 26 points and 23 rebounded, but it wasn't enough to get the Sixers past the Cavs.

* The Phoenix Suns beat the Dallas Mavericks, 126-103 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas.

* The Indiana Pacers beat the Chicago Bulls, 114-96 at the Chicago Stadium.

* The Denver Nuggets beat the San Antonio Spurs, 129-119 at the HemisFair Arena in San Antonio.

* The Utah Jazz beat the Los Angeles Clippers, 109-100 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Atlanta Hawks, 120-111 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California. Johnson led all scorers -- Eddie Johnson of the Hawks, with 29. Earvin "Magic" Johnson of the Lakers scored 23.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Golden State Warriors, 107-100 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Washington Bullets, 93-89 at the Portland Memorial Coliseum.

In contrast to a nearly-full NBA schedule, there were only 2 games played in the NHL that day. The New York Rangers beat the Edmonton Oilers, 8-7 at Madison Square Garden. The Oilers took leads of 2-0 and 3-1, before the Rangers got 5 straight goals by Mark Pavelich, Mike Rogers, Ron Greschner, Rogers again, and Grant Ledyard. The Oilers closed to 6-5, thanks to Wayne Gretzky's 2nd goal of the game. The Rangers took an 8-5 lead, and hung on to win.

And the Montreal Canadiens beat the Buffalo Sabres, 4-3 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium. Mats Naslund scored the winning goal with 2:29 left in overtime.