The comedy genre tends to operate in waves, these waves often driven by concentrated groups of collaborators. Consider most of the great comedies from the late seventies through the eighties. Time and again you find the same names connected with these films, the same actors, writers and directors: John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, John Landis, Ivan Reitman…
The story of the simultaneous ascent of these various minds, who would largely drive the evolution of cinematic comedy, is far, far too expansive for my lazy ass to attempt tackling right now. So I shall take a reductive approach, rather simply discussing Meatballs, in the hope that at least a scant amount of insight into this overall movement can come to light.
Meatballs was the first directorial effort of Ivan Reitman, following his work as producer of many great movies, and also an Ilsa entry. He had just come off of masterminding National Lampoon’s Animal House, the college film that destroyed all that came before and defined all that followed. This movie, of course, was directed by John Landis, later of The Blues Brothers and An American Werewolf in London. At this stage, Reitman was anxious to direct something himself, feeling the timing was right in the interim between Animal House’s production and its release. And since his last movie (as producer) was the quintessential college film, for his follow-up Reitman would simply identify another institution to riff on – summer camp.
The script for Meatballs was fashioned not so much as a narrative, but as a series of idealized summer camp memories. What little narrative it had was simply a scant adhesive to connect the individual moments together. Meatballs would focus on comedy, in marriage with a nostalgic slice-of-life reminiscence on childhood and adolescence – all in all, it’s a younger skewing and more innocent Animal House.
But a vague portrayal of summer camp does not a motion picture make, and so a head camp counselor character was devised to act as a master-of-ceremonies of sorts, one Tripper Harrison. There was only one man Reitman felt could essay this role, a man without whom Meatballs may never have happened, and who wasn’t even connected with the film until three days into shooting.
That man was Bill Murray. This was his first starring role.
Bill Murray is perhaps the brightest star of his generation of comedic minds, best combining wry, caustic humor and a certain common man schlubbishness all can relate to. Despite a total lack of movie star looks, or ego, or workaholism (or because of such things), Murray is, I believe, among the greatest movie stars of all time.
Murray began his comic career at the fabled Second City Chicago, the improv theater responsible for creating countless gifted performers. From there he teamed up with John Belushi for “The National Lampoon Radio Hour,” which led to an off Broadway “Lampoon” show, which then led to the creation of “Saturday Night Live.” Murray didn’t join the show until the second season, replacing Chevy Chase – isn’t it amazing how much historical talent passed through that show in its early years? This was the position Murray found himself in when he agreed to spend a summer with Reitman at an in-operation summer camp in Canada, to create a little independent film. And indeed, with Animal House yet to prove the generational phenomenon that it was, Ivan Reitman had yet to truly prove himself, as did Murray and untested screenwriter Harold Ramis.
Looking at Meatballs from a future perspective, it appears a (minor) part of an incredible string of movies to follow, with rotating creative members from film to film…films such as Caddyshack, The Blues Brothers, Stripes, Ghostbusters… On its own, Meatballs is a tad underwhelming, but considered in this company, one can find the raw seeds that would make up the later movies.
In tone and narrative, Meatballs seems most akin to Caddyshack, though with somewhat reduced humor and star power. Quick! What’s the plot of Caddyshack? Apart from a basic “slobs vs. the snobs” theme, most people couldn’t answer that, no matter their love for that film. The same answer fits Meatballs, which simply follows a large group of young characters and assorted comic set pieces.
Murray’s Tripper Harrison is the glue, as stated. All throughout Meatballs, head counselor Tripper provides commentary and wry humor in a series of P.A. announcements across camp – commentary that also supplements otherwise gag-free footage of the actual camp operation (real campers interact with the actors on a regular basis).
Tripper’s first announcement precedes a montage of the various late teen counselors-in-training (CITs) who shall make up our main cast – the CITs, it turns out, were initially supposed to be the film’s entire focus, in earlier conceptions. These are the sorts of characters with names like Spaz, Fink, Wheels, Hardware, Lance, Ace, Horse, and the Stomach. Since then, many films have adopted a similar trick, and indeed many of the elements that define Meatballs have been diluted through time and overuse.
These character introductions are peppered with a very generous quantity of good gags, and I realize something – most movies nowadays don’t make the same effort at the mere density of humor. The jokes in Meatballs and its ilk get in and get out, cutting perhaps a little too early and trusting the audience to follow the jokes. Most comedies today are less trusting of audiences, spending entire scenes to set up and over-explain lame gags, lest anyone not get it. The artistry has been replaced with executive worry…but I’m digressing.
The CITs of Camp North Star, owned by mustachioed nebbish Morty Melnick (Harvey Atkin), greet their various young charges before four school buses in a parking lot, ready to spirit them away for a summer of rambunctious shenanigans. Little vignettes set up the standard camp counselor personas – characters who would regularly die horribly in summer camp movies a mere year later. Of chief interest among this group are Spaz and Fink (Jack Blum and Keith Knight), the token dweeb and fatso, respectively, ready for a season full of unrequited sexual awkwardness. There are also a few standard romantic subplots amongst the blander, (relatively) more attractive CITs, but thankfully this never becomes a preoccupation that cuts into the wackiness. And hardly anyone in this movie is supermodel hot like in most teen comedies – Hell, Bill Murray might actually be the most attractive person here.
With all this light silliness, a movie like Meatballs needs heart, something to really ingratiate the audience amidst all the prankery and raunch. Cue Elmer Bernstein’s light, soulful melodies, accompanying preteen Rudy Gerner (child actor Chris Makepeace), a character who embodies all the homesickness and loneliness one experiences at camp. Despite exclusion from his fellow campers, a series of scenes strung consistently throughout the story shall develop a sweet relationship between Rudy and Murray’s Tripper – this is seen particularly in scenes where they jog together through the woods. As is the case with this script, the relationship is sketched in hazy details, but it is the quality of the performances and chemistry that really endears this subplot, and really elevates Meatballs beyond the humor. Murray’s consistent ad-libbing helps, his character doing a fine job to undercut the treacle.
(This particular connective tissue is the result of later reshoots, as Reitman and company understood that comedy on its own could not sustain the picture. It was a good decision.)
While we’re still here in the parking lot, let’s focus on the other major element in this story: Camp Mohawk. In a rare moment of truly arch humor, an actual newsman is on hand to report the start of the summer season at this super-exclusive, $1,000-a-week camp resort, across the lake from the rough and tumble Camp North Star. That’s right, here is the germ of all those “slobs vs. the snobs” eighties comedies (already commonplace in other forms dating back to at least the Marx Brothers). As the first example of the eighties snobs, Camp Mohawk does not come across as nearly as hateful as its followers. One would be forgiven for expecting an entire plotline defined by vindictive rivalries between the two camps, so it’s to Meatball’s credit that the relationship between North Star and Mohawk remains good-natured and sportsmanlike.
Sorry, but one final thing to mention during the parking lot scene (I’ll speed up, I promise). Tripper manages to worm his way into the news broadcast, posing as one of Mohawk’s activity coordinators, an excuse for Murray to perform a truly awe-inspiring bit of ad-libbing brilliance. This is the sort of moment that can be ruined in writing, so I’ll simply mention to watch out for his wonderful bit about Sexual Awareness Week…Heh heh, “raping and pillaging.”
Most of the remaining movie, which we’ve barely scratched, is simply a series of vignettes presenting a lightly comic summer camp experience, buoyed by Murray’s observational antics. I cannot comment directly on how nostalgic or accurate this is to others’ childhood camp experiences; despite my plentiful experience in the wilderness, it’s never been quite as structured – if that’s the right word – as Camp North Star. Still, childhood is childhood, and Meatballs seems truthful where so many Hollywood movies appear calculated. I can’t speak for all directors, but I guarantee Ivan Reitman wasn’t always an adult.
There is little point in actually relating the structure or content of the film. All the comments I’ve made in regards to the characters and humor should suffice. (There is a particularly amusing running prank, though, where the campers transport the sleeping Melnick to a new random exterior location each and every night.) Camp Mohawk has barely even figured into the story for about 80% of the movie, until dialogue goes and announces mere moments before it happens that tomorrow is the big, all-camp Olympiad.
The Olympiad between Mohawk and North Star is an opportunity to grant this rather aimless narrative a climax of sorts, and to give triumphant crowning moments to each of our main characters. But since this is nominally an underdog story, the first day of competition (out of two) sees Mohawk roundly triumphing over North Star, for the twelfth year in a row. Some amount of underhanded Mohawk cheating takes place, but compared to most other movie antagonists, it all seems rather inconsequential. Oh wait…they intentionally break one girl’s leg during field hockey…Yeah, if Mohawk’s lawyers weren’t so high-priced, there would’ve been lawsuits from that one.
If Meatballs has any claim to classic status (apart from just being sorta old), it’s the next scene. Melnick proves just as useless as ever in trying to pump up his camp charges, so our hero Tripper takes the bull by the horns to deliver what is truly one of the greatest pre-battle speeches in film history. And this speech’s greatness comes from how decidedly it mocks all those other speeches – Patton in particular, in my mind. To repeat Murray’s performance here in its entirety would again be futile (if you want, go check out the quote on the IMDb, or better yet, watch the freaking movie). Still, the climactic sentiment warrants endless repetition, both here and as one’s mantra throughout life as a whole: “It just doesn’t matter!” Is there any better way to psych up a ragtag assembly of losers than that?
Indeed, North Star’s newfound Zen-like ambivalence towards the Olympiad leads to their resounding success the following day – all accompanied by a funky, boppitty disco tune (unquestionably dated). At first I thought this tune was called “Big Balls,” (I’m an AC/DC fan, okay) but it turns out, much more sensibly, that it’s called “Meatballs.” Okay, that makes sense, even if the movie’s title itself never does.
A montage carries us through the majority of North Star’s carefree conquests. We win at swimming. We win at baseball – hitting a ball down a big boobed girl’s shirt, for this PG film is the spiritual predecessor to all filthy sex comedies to follow.
Spaz, that lovable dweebazoid, wins in a tense game of…tea cup carrying? Okay then.
Wheels wins rounds of woodsy wrestling with wild, well-timed ways.
Fink feeds fiendishly on fried frankfurter foods (“Look at those steaming weenies.”), triumphing against a Seth Roge-esque moose – these fat kids are lucky Kobayashi wasn’t around yet.
The rival camps are nearly tied, and it’s time for the final event, a four-mile “marathon.” North Star is at a disadvantage, due to that vicious leg-breaking yesterday, but the almighty Tripper has the solution. See, he’s been cross country training with Rudy, the film’s young heart, remember? Rudy protests this honor, but Tripper pumps him up as Rudy “the Rabbit.” Rudy thus earns the confidence he needs to win, finally besting the far-older Mohawk runner in a tense straightaway sprint that I’m sure anticipates Chariots of Fire – if only I’d ever bothered to watch that movie. So North Star wins the Olympiad, and Rudy earns the respect of the entire camp.
The summer has come to an end, surprisingly soon, and it’s time for misty-eyed, heartfelt goodbyes, and promises of more great summers to come (in the form of several unworthy sequels). A sweet song that sounds like the kind of thing Randy Newman writes sees the school buses home, everyone having learned a little from the past summer – even Tripper.
And Melnick is stranded asleep on a raft in the middle of the lake, victim of Tripper’s final prank.
For as much as Meatballs echoes the caustic, anarchic humor that defines so much of Murray’s and Reitman’s careers, it is also surprisingly sweet. It is a decidedly amateur film, but made with hints of the dedication and craft that would serve those films that followed. And indeed many great films would follow Meatballs, only they weren’t sequels. They were the likes of Caddyshack, Stripes and Ghostbusters. As for the three alleged sequels, they are mostly unrelated efforts made by different filmmakers and starring different characters. The only thing they have in common is an entirely nonsensical food-based title. And I have little to say about those things…for now.
Related posts:
• No. 2 Meatballs 2 (1984)
• No. 3 Meatballs III (1986)
• No. 4 Meatballs 4 (1992)
No comments:
Post a Comment