110 Puberty Philosopher transcript (John Hughes)

Listen to the full episode and see show notes at this link.

 

Michael: [00:00:00] Famous and gravy listeners, Michael Osborne here. I've got two things to say before we start today's episode. First, we could really use your help growing the show and there's a very simple thing you can do. Leave a review for Famous and Gravy on Apple Podcasts. If you're listening on Apple, you just scroll down on our show page, tap the Stars, and write a few words.

These reviews help feed Apple's algorithm and help new listeners to find our show. The second thing is if you yourself are interested in starting your own podcast and you wanna learn about how we built Famous and Gravy, we would love to have a conversation. Our email, as always is hello@famousenggravy.com.

So two things. Please write a review, and if you're fantasizing about your own show, please reach out. That's it. Thanks again. Let's get to it.

Jennifer: This is Famous and Gravy biographies from a different point of view. To participate in our opening quiz, email us at hello@famousandgravy.com. Now here's the quiz to [00:01:00] reveal today's dead celebrity.

I.

Michael: This person died 2009, age 59. He began his career as an advertising copywriter in Chicago. Well, I don't know.

Friend: I mean, I hear Chicago and I think Belushi, but he died way before that. Bill Waterston, is that the guy who does Calvin it up?

Michael: Not Bill Waterston. Uh, who I think actually as of this recording is still with us as a writer.

He occasionally wrote under his pin name. Edmund Dantes, the real name of the Duma Hero in the count of Monte Cristo.

Friend: Okay, so he is a writer of some sort. I don't know. That's a great pseudonym, but no, is that Genesco? Not Roger Eber. Is it Genesco? Not

Michael: Genesco. While visiting New York during his advertising days, he hung around the offices of National Lampoon Magazine and was published when he showed a gift for comedy.

Friend: Okay, so comedic. National Lampoon, that who's also dead. Wow. This is a tough one. Alfred e Newman is a fictional person, correct? [00:02:00]

Michael: Not mad magazines, Alfred e Newman, but I'll verify his fictional status. He faded from Hollywood in the early 1990s and some surmised that he had stepped away simply because for all his successes, he did not particularly like the film business.

He was known as a stickler for control who often tangled with executives. Even as he made their companies a fortune, you already did. Harold Ravens, right?

Friend: He was so young. I feel like I was thinking like John Candy, but I think he died before that,

Michael: not John Candy. His greatest professional effect came from a series of teen oriented films he directed in the 1980s.

Friend: John Hughes. I'm ashamed, I should have gotten this much earlier. John Hughes. Oh, sweet Lord. This is uh, John. John Hughes. Today's

Michael: dead celebrity. I. Is John Hughes.

Archival: What the picture was saying to adults, what those characters were saying to adults is, please listen to me. You know, I mean, I'm, I'm [00:03:00] young, but I have problems.

They may not seem particularly important to you because in the context of, of, you know, life and death and survival and all those other, you know, major issues, my being upset because someone who doesn't like me or I can't, uh, I don't have any friends or whatever, looks relatively insignificant to you, but it's really hurting.

Michael: Welcome to Famous Engraving. I'm Michael Osborne,

Jennifer: and my name is Jennifer Keisha Armstrong.

Michael: And on this show we choose a famous figure who died in the 21st century, and we take a totally different approach to their biography. What didn't we know? What could we not see clearly? And what does a celebrity's life story teach us about ourselves today?

John Hughes died 2009, age 59. All right, so I am once again thrilled to be joined by friend of the show historian, author, [00:04:00] savant Gentrification. Armstrong, it's always a pleasure to have you here. It's always fun to be here. So I feel like I need to start this off by asking, not necessarily what's the best John Hughes movie, but what's the most meaningful to you?

What's the one that you have the deepest personal connection with?

Jennifer: It's a good question. I think Breakfast Club. I just, I actually kind of think if he has kind of a masterpiece, especially in the genre, he is remembered foremost, this is it. It feels like the time when he was being the most serious about it.

Archival: Mm-hmm.

Jennifer: It feels like what he wanted to do instead of like what he thought the world wanted from him. And in fact, I even read about him. Arguing a little with executives specifically on this one, where they said like, there's no story. And he was like, it's characters. It's about the characters changing together.

They don't leave the room barely. You know, like it's a play. And so to me it's sort of the most. Soulful of his teen [00:05:00] works.

Archival: Saturday, March 24th, 1984. Sherma High School, Sherra, Illinois, 6 0 0 6 2.

Michael: When I was a teenager, I watched that movie over and over again. I had a kind of obsession with it at age. 12, 13, 14 or so, and then in my adult life, I feel like I've dismissed it or downplayed it, but then I'm getting ready for the research on this.

I really swung back. That movie spoke to me. That movie hit me in the gut. With how important and confusing and emotional adolescence is and our identities and our relationship to other social groups as represented in those five characters. I don't know if it's the best, and I think you're right by the way that I do think it's the one he most wanted to speak to.

Jennifer: You're right, like it seems cliche to us now, but so many things end up feeling that way when they become part of the culture. But at that time, I mean, I think we all identified with at least one. If not kind of like, oh, [00:06:00] I really, I'm Molly Ringwald, but I kind of wish I was this other, you know, like the pressures you, it's, you just sort of forget, and this really brings that to life.

Michael: Yeah. Revisiting it for this episode. Reacquainted me with my adolescent self in a healthy way. I think we talk a lot about our inner child. Yeah. Some part of us never quite leaves our inner adolescent either. You

Jennifer: know, it's traumatic for almost everyone. Right? And it's like stressful. It's still traumatic.

Michael: It's just a hard phase of life, and I'm sure we'll get into that a little bit. All right. Category one, grading the first line of their obituary. John Hughes, the once prolific filmmaker whose sweet and sassy comedies, like 16 candles and the Breakfast Club plumbed the lives of teenagers in the 1980s. Died Thursday on a morning walk while visiting Manhattan.

Jennifer: I don't know why I hate this so much. I mean, I just, it's, I guess what I wanna say is like I've actually never had a stronger reaction to the first line. [00:07:00] The others, I was always like, okay, I sort of know how hard this was. I get it. I don't know if I'm just getting hardened by repeat appearances on the show or what.

But I just do not like this.

Michael: Okay, so walk me through it. Take it apart.

Jennifer: It's possible. It all just falls apart for me. It's sassy, and then I can never crawl outta that hole.

Michael: That's a weird word to use. Sassy comedies. It's so dismissive, right?

Jennifer: I mean, did this person hate him personally and No, because I feel like, again, I don't know this man at all, and yet I'm like, don't you think he would be like, what?

Michael: Why would you say that? It is way off, it is not the right word. It doesn't describe the movies very well. It certainly doesn't describe his legacy very well. I, I, let's, let's back up once I, because I, I'm with you. That, that word has a bullseye on it. Oof. Wrong. Yeah. No good. All right. The once prolific.

Filmmaker. I did like that. It hints at the story. There was a time when this guy was cranking [00:08:00] it out. Mm-hmm. He was the bell of the ball in Hollywood and then he disappears. Mm-hmm. And so it does get at that mystery. Agreed. Then sweet and sassy. We talked a little bit about Sassy. I'm okay with sweet.

Jennifer: It's like fine, but it's not even that good.

For him.

Michael: It doesn't capture the emotional depth if these are the movies you're gonna talk about. Right? 16 candles in the Breakfast Club. Also, it's weird how much else is not mentioned. Ferris Bueller, which is arguably one of the more durable of these. I mean, I think they all have their own shelf life and cross generational appeal, but.

Ferris Bueller, I feel like kind of needs to be thrown in here. Mm-hmm. How could I possibly be expected to handle school in a day like this

and then home alone? Yes. Uh, you know, planes, trains, and automobiles. Like I know our primary association with him is teen movie guy, but he's a much, much bigger deal than 16 Candles and Breakfast [00:09:00] Club. Yes. This is way understating his stature. So, okay. Uh, I, I wasn't as pissed off until you got me all riled up about Sassy, and now, now I'm with you.

Jennifer: Do you know what I think why? I just realized why, for me personally, it upsets me. It's that it feels like the person who wrote this sentence didn't really know who this guy was or experience his work. And they like looked it up on the internet. They like saw a picture of like Molly Ringwald and they were like sweet and sassy.

I dunno. Oh, okay. That guy, right? Yeah, that guy. Yeah. He wasn't super young, but he wasn't old. And it makes me wonder, like, did they not have a pre-write on him?

Michael: Well, yes. His death was sudden. It caught everybody off guard. I assumed that there was no pre-write. So a little bit of grading on a curve for that.

Yeah, but the more we're talking it out, the more like this really misses some huge, huge pieces that need honoring. All right. So where did you land score wise?

Jennifer: I guess four.

Michael: Okay, I was gonna go five. I will say [00:10:00] this, to their credit, we do associate him with the teen movies. Agree. And these are two of the four or five most important of those teen movies.

Fine. And again, I do like once prolific,

Jennifer: I agree you that brought it up at. A notch for me when you mentioned that little bit of

Michael: redemption. Yeah, yeah. But, but this is very middling and they should have done better. Shame on you New York Times. Alright, let's go. Let's go right into it. Category two, five things I love about you here.

Jennifer and I develop a list of five things that offer a different angle on who this person was and how they lived. I'll kick us off. So you and I talked a little bit about this before the recording. The creative journey here Yeah. Is really worth talking about. I did not know the John Hughes story. I don't think it's so interesting that we're ever gonna see like a John Hughes biopic, but I do think that walking through the beats of it, there's something really instructive here.

He's a kind of classic baby boomer, grows up in, in the Midwest, is moving around a lot. A very middle class kind of family goes to University of [00:11:00] Arizona of all places. That's for art school. Mm-hmm. Right. Nobody is at the University of Arizona in the sixties for art school, except by the way. Gary Shanley.

Oh, weird. Their paths never crossed, but they're there at about the same time. That's

Jennifer: actually very strange.

Michael: Isn't that kind of strange? Yeah. Anyway, okay, so he, he drops out and never finishes college, gets married young, and he gets into the advertising business. This came up in the quiz, takes the leap into a kind of risky career in his late twenties, and he even says, this was maybe not a great idea.

Archival: So I moved to the Lampoon. I was about to turn 29, and I realized that if I didn't move soon, I'd be so deeply entrenched in corporate business life. And, you know, as it was, it was kind of financially, uh, irresponsible. I had a, a 3-year-old son and a pregnant wife and a new house. And, you know, I went off to be, uh, an editor for, uh.

Like a salary that was somewhat less than my Christmas bonus, you know?

Michael: But he had been writing some jokes for comedians, Rodney Dangerfield and Joan Rivers, among them [00:12:00] also Playboy Magazine. He's not really making money outta that. He's like just, you know, freelancing. But then he starts hanging around nationally.

Lampoon develops a friendship with PJ O'Rourke, decides to take the leap and work for National Lampoon in his late twenties. And then that winds up being a really fortuitous time 'cause around that. Moment is when National Lampoon starts getting interest from Hollywood. So John Hughes finds himself in a position to be able to pitch scripts.

One of his stories, a short story, gets adapted into vacation. The Chevy Chase movie, and then there's Mr. Mom all. Things, and then his rocket ship kind of takes off at that point. He starts writing these teen movies. 16 Candles and Breakfast Club are sort of concurrent. I wanna get back to the creative journey piece of this though, because he reaches a point of commercial success in the nineties with Home Alone and the sequels and his movies start to fizzle.

John Candy dies a close friend, and then he kind of walks away from the whole thing and becomes sort of a notorious recluse. [00:13:00] What I like are two pieces of this. One that he takes this leap in his late twenties and that it's risky, and he says, there's a part of me that really wants to do this that feels a calling.

If I don't do this now, I never will. I also like the tail end of it. I'm walking away. This is no longer doing it for me. There is so much mystery around this. We really don't know the. Reasons why. Maybe it was John Candy's death, maybe had it with the Hollywood business. Maybe he just wanted to focus on family.

People speculate on this, but it's a rare move and it's kind of awesome and I feel like teaches me something about when to jump in and when to walk away. So that's my thing, number one, his creative journey.

Jennifer: Yeah, I totally agree. I was fascinated because this was kind of something, I don't know if I wanna say I didn't know, or if I wanna say.

I just hadn't thought through as an arc. There's something about him, which I'm sure is gonna keep coming up, which is like, I dunno, he's, he's huge. And you just like never thought about him. I never thought about him as a person.

Michael: Yeah, yeah,

Jennifer: yeah. [00:14:00] I was never like, what's his deal? Or

Michael: his name was more known than his likeness, than his personality then his creativity.

He's a big name, but he's a. Behind the scenes figure who we never really get to know all that well except through the art. Exactly. In the movies. And he even says, I don't know if I would call this art. This is a business. But I, I feel like as somebody who's incredible creative force, he is a creative to be studied.

Jennifer: Yeah. And he's concurrent with somebody like Harold Ramis, who does something a little different, but he has a similar body of work. He also, of course it's 'cause he was an actor, but you know, he would go on a talk show or whatever and if you knew who he was. Whereas this guy, it's like you knew him as a brand, but you didn't really know him.

Or interestingly, I felt care. I don't mean that in a bad way. Yeah. He was just. Such a behind the scenes guy. And I actually, to me that's sort of aspirational. It's not like the tabloids were like, what's John Hughes up to? You know, like, yeah.

Michael: I, I, [00:15:00] well, and I think I've been reading this book, I think I've told you about it, monsters, and one of the things that Claire Deter says in there that I hadn't heard anybody framed this way.

It's interesting how much biography. Intrudes into modern pop culture consumption. So true. Right? We just know so much about these people that there is something kind of amazing about how little to this day we know about John Hughes. He gives some interviews here and there, but he really retreats from the spotlight.

I put it together, a little list of other artists who fall into a similar category, not just Hollywood, but mm-hmm. Artists and creatives. So Rick Moranis, Lauren Hill, JD Salinger, where those comparisons come up a lot with John Hughes. Probably my favorite Bill Waterson author. Mm-hmm. Author of Calvin and Hobbes.

Mm-hmm. Notorious Rick Loose I, I don't know what that list tells me other than I am impressed by a creative who says. You know, for all the adoration and validation that I may or may not perceive from fame, this is not doing it for me. That's a question that all creatives [00:16:00] wrestle with and John Hughes did.

The reasons why we don't know, but that, that he stepped back good for him. So that was my thing. Number one, great creative journey. Okay. What'd you have for number two?

Jennifer: Um, so this is my big pet thing and so I have to be the one to say it for him, which is just his taking teens seriously.

Friend: Yeah.

Jennifer: Which is obviously the whole crux of his career being in that suburban high school.

I. Assuming that your audience is other teens, you're talking to them on their level and not at a level. I don't mean like talking down to them. That's exactly what I don't mean is like being like, I know what your life is really like, and being able to show that and communicate that with them in a way that is not.

Talking down to them or being like, you should be this way. Right. It's honoring

Michael: their humanity. Honoring their humanity. Yeah. Even the dirty stuff,

Jennifer: I feel like to a large extent says, look, I know you guys are like horny and doing drugs and drinking and doing a bunch of stuff you shouldn't be [00:17:00] doing, and he's acknowledging that.

And finding the humanity within it. And yeah, that's ev every teen thing ever since.

Michael: Yeah. I mean, I actually think it's worth talking about the dirty stuff, the sexuality stuff, just for a second, because I have young kids who have yet to enter puberty and puberty is looming. Yeah. The way I see it is that they have these instincts that they're born with fear, enthusiasm, and there is another thing about.

To come online. That is extremely disorienting. It's part of the thing that does not hold up well in some of the John Hughes movies, the way gender norms are treated, the way there's abuse, the way there's maybe assault. Yep. Especially in 16 candles. But that he is willing to go into that territory, wrestling with that as an adolescent, even if the norms have rightfully shifted in the time since those movies came out.

Archival: I bet them that I'd do it with you, but this is before I knew as a person I can get [00:18:00] proof without actually getting physical. How?

Michael: Can I brought you underpants for 10 minutes? It sort of goes back to my thing. Number one, I expect the creative effort to try and respect the humanity of adolescents with the instinct of sexuality layered onto all of that because it is driving so much adolescent behavior and, and angst,

Jennifer: right? And so is the other.

Uncomfortable. I'm not saying, I mean, I'm super not just to be clear, like I'm not like this is the way we should be addressing these issues. Right. But like I think 16 candles in particular is like trying to create this like chaos. Of is that just, I think it's just 24 hours in a high school life.

Basically this short piece and this total chaos of going to the parties and this and that. I like the image of him holding up her underwear is like so burned into my brain. Yeah. The geek Anthony, Michael Hall, like yeah. And like to me. That part is fine. It's not fine behavior, but [00:19:00] it's something that would happen in high school, whereas like

Michael: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The

Jennifer: assault and she, she is willingly participate, you know, like she gives it to him, all that stuff. Whereas like the stuff later. Where like the hot girl is basically blacked out, drunk and then Right.

Michael: And, and her boyfriend's like, you

Jennifer: can have her or whatever. Yeah, Anthony. And comes to learn that we're supposed to feel like happy that maybe the geek had sex with her while she was passed out.

Did we? Um, yeah,

Archival: I'm pretty sure. Excuse me. But do you know if. Um, did I, did I enjoy it? Not, of course, I enjoyed it. I mean, um, what I meant was, um, did you, Hmm. You know, I have this weird feeling I did,

Michael: did you read the Molly Ringwald Yeah. New Yorker article. She is incredible. Right? And so one of the things she says, I'll just read this.

Mm-hmm. Because what she's doing in this article is sort of reckoning with. The stuff that doesn't hold up. Kind of post Me Too in 16 Candles to some extent in Breakfast Club and a few other movies. Here's what she says. John's movies convey the [00:20:00] anger and fear and isolation that adolescents feel. And seeing that others might feel the same way is a balm for the trauma that teenagers experience.

Whether that's enough to make up for the impropriety of the films is hard to say. Even criticizing them makes me feel like I'm divesting a generation of some of its fondest memories or being ungrateful since they helped to establish my career and yet. Racing them entirely feels hypocritical. And yet, and yet, how are we meant to feel about the art that we both love and oppose?

What if we are in the unusual position of having helped create it? Erasing history is a dangerous road when it comes to art. Change is essential, but so too is remembering the past in all its transgression and barbarism so that we may properly gauge how far we have come and also how far we still need to go.

Damn Molly. That's it. Right? Like that was like that. I thought that just nailed it. Yeah. And, and she talks about reaching out to that actress in 16 candles and having a coffee, and they had K, they kind of came away with like mixed interpretation of how to evaluate that [00:21:00] storyline. So representing adolescence, it's complicated.

I think we did a good job talking. Yes. About it. Yes. Uh, and let's move on to thing number three, and you kind of actually touched on this. For my thing number three, I wrote one Day at a Time. What I'm really getting at here is stories in the short term. Mm-hmm. So not all of them, but a lot of his movies take place in extremely abbreviated time periods.

Yes. Home Alone is about three days, breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller one day. Sunrise to sunset. 16 candles. It's about 24 hours. We had science somewhere around a few days to a week vacation, 11 to 12 days, it starts to span out, right? But what I love about this is that so much can happen in a day. That is how life happens.

Life doesn't happen over a duration. Life happens in these moments, and it can all be condensed down to single days. That can completely change our point of view, abbreviated. Punctuated periods of growth. I sometimes think of that Stephen j Gould's idea of punctuated equilibrium. This is how he understands evolution.

Mm-hmm. [00:22:00] That you don't have linear change with organisms over time. You have these abbreviated periods where you get, you kinda like level up. Totally. And that's kind of how life. Works. Right. And I think John Hughes movies get at that We handle life and we understand life one day at a time. That can be a, a trite, 12 step saying, but it's one I actually find a tremendous amount of value in because it's not just one day, it's one moment.

Jennifer: Yeah. And you are taking the deep. Angle on that, but I would just add, I see such a brilliance in screenwriting that a lot of us can learn from here.

Archival: Yes.

Jennifer: I think I'm surprised he wasn't a trained playwright because that's like a very play oriented, but I wonder if it comes from his advertising background a little bit.

And also it allows you to like smush. Obviously the 16 candles day is absurd.

Michael: Well, it's same with Ferris. Like people have like actually tried to chart out, can you make it to the museum, to the tower? That's, that's a Right, right. You brought up Harold Ramis earlier and others. Harold [00:23:00] Ramis, John Hughes crossover, and of course both very Chicago people where, and you have roots in Chicago, right?

Jennifer: I do. So why don't we do my next one? Um,

Michael: yeah, yeah.

Jennifer: Perfect. 'cause it's that I kind of had a. Few that at first I thought were different and now I feel like all go together. His devotion to the Chicago suburbs. It made us feel really seen. I was growing up there when all this was happening and the amount of times we would just drive 40 minutes to go look at the home alone house or the, the, you know, anything that was like a filming location,

Friend: the breakfast club, a high school or whatever.

Yeah. Yeah. It was so

Jennifer: exciting. There's like this unpretentious that he has that actually comes from, it feels very Midwestern to me, and by that I mean I actually kind of love. I guess I'm making an excuse for sort of lowbrow entertainment, but I didn't see a lot of him making excuses for his commercially appealing products.

Michael: I agree with that. I mean, I sort of alluded to it earlier. He backs away from the idea that I'm not sure I'm [00:24:00] making art, even if he's expressing something emotionally resonant in story that is wholly original. I mean, there is a make a living. Vibe to To John? To John Hughes, you know? Yeah,

Jennifer: exactly. And I actually believe that it makes his work more appealing to the masses.

Yeah. Because you can kind of sense when a filmmaker is sort of like doing it for the money. Mm-hmm. He is in a way, but in this like pure way of just like, yeah, it's what I'm doing. I'm trying to make something that people like. Yeah. Yeah, and I love when people are unabashedly trying to entertain me.

Michael: It feels kind of healthy and balanced.

It kind of goes back to my thing number one, it's very practical, but it's not sacrificial and it's not selling out necessarily. That's, that's it. You know what's actually a sort of interesting other sort of Chicago mainstream, but also strikes this balance. I don't know if you'll see this comparison, but this American life.

Mm. You know, this American life is such a heartfelt. But still like mass appeal kind [00:25:00] of, you know, story that's really storytelling really. Yeah. And there, there is something to be said for the creative energy that exists and not on the coast. Right. And that, you know, he was always uncomfortable in California.

That is pretty clear. Right? All right. For thing number five, I just wanna get this in there. I wrote holiday candy and this is my way of. Touching on two things, holiday movies, and John Candy. Mm-hmm. Nice. Uh, so I, I don't know if you've seen the internet have this debate of there is no Thanksgiving movie except maybe one planes, trains, and automobiles.

Agreed. That's the Thanksgiving movie, but he also home alone and Christmas vacation come up on the short list of great holiday movies. But I also wanted to talk about John Candy.

Archival: Allow me to introduce myself. Gus Polinsky Polka, king of the Midwest. I had a few hits a few years ago. Uh, that's why I, you know, just pull Kaka.

Oh, Kaka.

Michael: No. We actually had a listener, Leticia suggested we do a John Candy episode. I said, he's too dead. And she said, what about John Hughes? And I said, oh, that's a good way of getting it in. Oh yeah. I didn't realize how [00:26:00] close they were. First of all, there are people who speculate that John Candy's death was one of the things that led John Hughes to really step away.

Mm-hmm. From the industry in a big way. I don't know. But they were more than just colleagues. They were deep friends. They went to each other's family farms. The family stayed in touch. It sounded like they were godparents between them and John Candy. I forgot just how much, how happy I was every time he showed up on the TV screen on the film, like he is such a ray of sunshine.

Where do you live? In

Archival: the city. Do you have a house, apartment? What A rent. Rent. What do you do for a living? Lots of things. Where's your office? I don't have one. How come? I don't need one. Where's your wife? Don't have one. How come? It's a long story. Do you have kids? No, I don't. How come? It's an even longer story.

Are you my dad's brother? What's your record for consecutive questions asked?

Michael: 30 age. Even when his movies suck. Yes, I, or even when his characters are not strong, he just like brightens the room. So I like the friendship between them. So, holiday candy. Was my thing number

Jennifer: for I agree. And I actually, it [00:27:00] doesn't surprise me, we're just basically writing fan fiction about John Hughes here.

'cause we so don't know real stuff. I think it's all

Michael: we get from him, right? For the most part. Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer: And I can see a world, especially given what I just said about the Midwestern notes, where I'm always very. Attracted to Canadians and Midwesterners as a mid westerner. I love Canadians and they have a similar vibe.

Yeah. And can't you imagine John Candy is kind of an oasis for John Hughes in Hollywood? Yes. And maybe even for each other.

Michael: Yeah, I, it's a thing I'd like to imagine. Yeah. And let's just go ahead and run with that fantasy. I mean, I think that they're, they also both have. Terrible habits. I mean, I, it doesn't sound like John Hughes was much of a drinker or anything like that, but they would stay up all hours, both heavy smokers.

John Hughes was like famous for working late into the night and, you know, writing like a maniac,

Archival: fell asleep on his couch. You at five in the morning. 'cause he, John was doing rewrites for some kind of wonderful and um, when I woke up, he handed me 50 [00:28:00] pages and he said, I said, what, what's this? I don't, we were just doing a couple of pages rewrites, you know.

He goes, oh, I didn't do that. I did something else. And just tell me what you think. And it was the first 50 pages of Ferris ER's day off. And he did it in like, like five hours.

Michael: Okay. Let's recap then. So number one, I said the creative journey. Number two, you said taking teenagers seriously. Number three, I said one day at a time.

Stories in the short term. Number four, you had unpretentiousness, maybe number five, holiday candy. Awesome list. Okay, let's take a break. Category three. One love. In this category, Jennifer and I will each choose one word or phrase that characterizes this person's loving relationships. First, we will review the family life data.

So one marriage to Nancy. John was 20, she was 19. This is high school sweetheart, essentially married his entire adult life, so 38, 39 years. Two sons, John the third, and James, the only other thing worth knowing is just how [00:29:00] unbelievably private, and we've already kind of covered that, so, uh, I had something pop into my head on this.

You want me to lead or do you want to Yeah, go ahead. Okay. I'm gonna invoke a totally different eighties movie and draw a comparison for my one word love. I'm going back to the future. George McFly. Mm. All right, so here are the comparisons. I see. So first of all, one thing that's interesting about Back to the Future is the kind of fifties, eighties mirror of conventional nuclear family.

Mm-hmm. John Hughes marries his high school sweetheart, like George McFly. There's, you know, 2.3 kids, conventional nuclear family. A second thing. He's very, very private. George is extremely private, and while there's some maybe sexual impropriety in places, the whole peeping Tom thing, John Hughes treads into that territory a little bit.

But maybe that's not a good point of comparison. Uh, consummate writer. So John Hughes, we were talking about this a second ago, insanely prolific. He wrote letters, and I loved this. He wrote letters to his [00:30:00] grandkids, even his like eight week old grandson. So cool. But well before they were old enough to read it.

Jennifer: But they're gonna have that, that's what's cool about it.

Michael: Totally. And this is George McFly and Back to the Future is a writer. Mm-hmm. It's really into sci-fi. Weird science, anyone. Okay? Mm-hmm. And then here's the maybe most important point. This comes up in examinations of John Hughes. Which character was he?

George McFly. If you look at Back to the Future, fits into a few different high school stereotypes, depending on which timeline we're talking about. There is one where he's absolutely the geek, the nerd, the outsider, the Anthony Michael Hall and Breakfast Club. There's another where he gets the girl in the end, where he is the stud, where he is the cool guy.

There's another timeline where, uh. He's dead because Biff Intrudes. And so all of this is to say there's many possible futures here for George McFly in the same way that I see many possible identities for John Hughes. He is all of those figures. There was even a, an [00:31:00] interview I saw, uh, somebody was talking about how in Ferris Bueller people assumed he was more the Cameron character because he talked about like there's always this third wheel, but then he kind of mentions in passing.

Yeah, I always had a buddy in the backseat, like he's the Farest character too. So I don't know if that. Comparison holds up. Really. I love it though. That's great. Do you, I dunno. Yeah, there's, there's something, I wanted to get an eighties teen in here too, but also a boomer transported into the eighties too.

'cause he's a classic boomer in terms of his upbringing, but he's also singularly associated with Gen X teen movies.

Jennifer: Yes. And honestly, like, it's very interesting to me that you almost always realized whoever made the quintessential art or pop culture of. A generation is al almost always gonna be a generation older.

Yeah. Isn't that funny? It wasn't gonna be a high school, like a high school kid couldn't make it 'cause they were still in high school, so.

Michael: Totally. No, that's a really interesting point. You're actually making me think about past Famous and Gravy episodes. Leslie Nielsen. Yep. Or Kurt Vonnegut. I mean, this actually comes up quite a lot.

Yeah.

Jennifer: It only [00:32:00] really works for music, you know that. Yeah. That Cobain is Generation X like, but for the most part you've got, you know, I always thought about with Seinfeld, it's like, to me Seinfeld is a quintessential Xer show and it's.

Michael: Boomers. That's, yeah, that's wild. That, that's a really interesting point, Jennifer.

I'm glad you, you brought it up. So, all right. I told you after one minute,

Jennifer: when I was first doing this, I just wrote down, whoa. Like, I kept being like, so he's, he really stayed married to this one. Like I was like looking other places and being like. This is crazy and there's gotta

Michael: be some dirt somewhere, right?

Yeah. And she

Jennifer: was a cheerleader, which I only mention, I mean, I'm an ex cheerleader, so like I don't like the stereotype and it's not true. But I just said on brand because, right. Yeah. That's good because it's so interesting to me that he married his high school sweetheart, a cheerleader. And it's interesting to think, I think he might have been Ferris.

I mean, if cheerleaders. Stereotypes hold up. Like if she was like pretty and popular. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's just interesting 'cause we, I think we all think we're all [00:33:00] of them. We're every single person in the breakfast club at one point or another. And even if you were popular or whatever, you had times that you felt.

Dorky or stupid. But what we

Archival: found out is that each one of us is a brain and an athlete,

Jennifer: and a basket case, a princess,

Archival: and a criminal. Does that answer your question?

Jennifer: And so I bet he kind of identifies with all of them, but I wouldn't be surprised if he was maybe a little bit. I, you know, doing okay. High school.

Michael: I, I love that. That's perfect. I do think, you know, I don't need to talk about it much more, but you and I are both doing the sort of fan fiction thing because there is so little biographical information out there on him other than. Few scarce interviews and articles and bits and pieces, you can't help but interpret from the work.

Yeah, right. That's sort of all we're left with in a way. Exactly. All right. Let's move on. Category four, net worth. In this category, we each write down our numbers ahead of time. We'll talk a little bit about our reasoning, and then we will [00:34:00] look up the. Net worth number in real time to see who's closest.

Finally, will place this person on the famous eng gravy net worth leaderboard. I didn't think much here other than I think he's pretty rich, and the where I came to was comps. So John Hughes transitioned from bringing a writer director into being a producer home alone, and the franchise is. Enormous. And even the movies that don't hold up very well still perform pretty well at the box office.

One thing I did not know before embarking on the famous and gravy journey is the disparity between actors, directors, and producers. Mm-hmm. That there is a stepping up in terms of net worth. So just as two points of comparison, Wes Craven, 40 million, Harold Ramis wound up with 90 million. So I. Figured John Hughes movies are a bigger deal than those, which is my reasoning.

Jennifer: I just went with, I think he has a lot of money. Like we, we have no evidence that he was a prolific spender or charitable giver. Right. So just like [00:35:00] thinking of all those movies and like the absolutely sick amount of money that they made. That they did.

Michael: Yeah. Okay. I wonder if we're actually in a similar place.

So Fication Armstrong wrote down $100 million.

Jennifer: Michael Osborne wrote down $140 million.

Michael: The actual net worth number for John Hughes is $150 million. There you go. Okay. Yeah, that tracks. Yep. It's about where, I can't believe how close I'm getting. I'm getting better at this myself. Yeah, I mean, you've done

Jennifer: like, because I was just kind of like, guess I was like, I don't know.

10 million isn't enough.

Michael: I mean, this category makes me feel uncomfortable to be clear, but Okay. So, uh, it's interesting though. Yeah. And I think we're all kind of curious. Yeah. You know, so let's place John Hughes on the famous eng gravy net worth leaderboard at $150 million. The other person there is Joan Rivers of all people who he wrote jokes for, and he is tied for position 13 on the famous engraving net worth leaderboard.

Well done. John Hughes. I thought you made a lot of money. Makes it a little bit easier to step away from [00:36:00] Hollywood, I'm sure. Okay, well let's move on. Category five, little Lebowski, urban Achievers.

Archival: They're the little Lebowski urban achievers. Yeah, the achievers. Yes and proud we are of all

Michael: of them in this category, we each choose a trophy, an award, a cameo, an impersonation, or some other form of a hat tip that shows a different side of this person.

Jennifer: I didn't really achieve the different side part. Um, it's hard to find one, right? Yeah. I just, yeah, this, I'll just tell you what popped into my head and I think it's worth mentioning, which is that, and you, and I've talked about this before, the naming of the, not another teen movie high school as John Hugs High School.

Yes. There's a lot of references to him out there. Tons of different things have made references as they should, but I just thought that was, that's so

Michael: perfect. Great one. Okay. I had a hard time with this category as well. There's only so much to work with. I actually, so this is small, he took his name off it, but he apparently came up with a concept for Dumb and Dumber Oh.

That the Farley Brothers bought. And so he's uncredited on Dumb and Dumber, which is a [00:37:00] movie that holds a special place in my heart. Yeah. And I was happy to see that John Hughes had at one point had fingerprints on it.

Archival: You sold my dead bird to a blind kid, Lloyd, the, that you what? Pete didn't even have a head,

Michael: Harry.

Archival: I took care of it.

Michael: Not a, doesn't feel like a John Hughes movie, but still important to me.

Jennifer: So that's great. And 'cause I, to be honest, my other alternative for this that I can mention here since you just did that is yeah, that the quiz mentioned his writing screenplays under the pseudonym.

Archival: Yeah.

Jennifer: So some of them include Made in Manhattan, which is about Jennifer Lopez.

Being an unassuming maid in Manhattan. Right. Um, and then having kind of like a pretty woman moment with a hotel guest. It's not great at all, but like it's so, and I guess maybe part, I mean he did do so many things that were off brand over time that I don't know what was up with doing the uncredited stuff, but you can see that some of these things that he really went, [00:38:00] the pseudonym or uncredited are super off-brand.

Right. So he's like, I don't need credit for made

Michael: in Manhattan. I'm good. Right? And, and nor dumb and dumber for that matter. The word muse comes up a, a couple times they talk about, yeah, Molly Ringwald is for a period of time described as his muse. And when he writes 16 candles, he apparently has her headshot and is imagining the story through this figure.

It doesn't sound like there was ever anything all that inappropriate. Right. But you, you, you know, you had to. Wonder, you know, it'd be a little, if I was his wife, ID be like, like, right. He's in his right, he's in his thirties, she's a teenager and he's calling her his muse. Let's just make sure we're all okay here.

You know, she sort of grows up and they have a falling out. Right. Same thing with Anthony Michael Hall and, and I feel like John Candy is also described as his muse at one point. I do wonder if this is totally speculative, but part of what happened with him, I, I think he is a very. Character driven writer.

And I think that his actors that he attaches to evolve [00:39:00] and grow up or in John Candy's case die. And I do wonder if as his wealth grew and as his name grew, that he had a harder and harder time kind of. Connecting back with a character he could lock on to as, as a kind of muse, you know, it's a theory. I, I think

Jennifer: it's a good one.

And also just with Molly Ringwald for instance, I'm fairly certain that it was okay. I mean, she

Michael: seems to have done a public, like let's put this man under a microscope, warts and all, all the good stuff and bad stuff, and she never really talks about anything, all that. Inappropriate. Agreed. So I assume it's cool and I think,

Jennifer: I'm not a fiction writer publicly, but like the times I've written fiction for me anyway, and maybe other people are different and have better imaginations, but it's so helpful to me to imagine a person and she is so, I mean, you can see it.

There's something so special about her and what's happening in those movies. She's the sort of popular girl in Breakfast Club, but like pretty in pink and 16 candles. She's cute, but she's kind of a miss. Fit and she's just very specific and I think that's what works. And I can see looking at [00:40:00] her and kind of going like, oh, I can imagine that this girl is like super cool, smart.

She's obviously cute, but not in this glamorous way. My point is just simply, I can see her inspiring this very specific kind of character that he locked onto for a while and turns out to be kind of a portal into exactly the world he was trying to get to.

Michael: Yeah, well said. That's really interesting growing up.

So I have a sister who's 10 years older than me. Mm-hmm. And was always, compared to Molly Ringwald, like looks a little bit like her redhead, similar spatial features. Ellen hated those comparisons. But I definitely felt in watching Breakfast Club, because it was just above my age that I felt like I was watching my older sister's high school experience.

Yeah. And that was interesting.

Jennifer: Yeah. To me. So I think her, and it turns out she has a thing, she has like a charisma and also just acting ability, whatever it is. That she was so, she felt like, I can remember it as a young girl, that you would just watch her and be like, I wanna be her so bad, even though she's not playing the popular girl.

Michael: Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so interesting. She's a [00:41:00] canvas.

Jennifer: Yeah. And you can believe that she would be, feel dorky. You can also believe that Jake in the end would pick her. Right? Like both seem possible because she's in this middle ground that we actually rarely see in teen movies.

Michael: Yeah. Very well said, Jennifer.

Okay, let's take another break. Alright, category six words to Live by. In this category, we each choose a quote. These are either words that came out of this person's mouth or was said about them,

Jennifer: and this is actually super simple and it's sort of related to exactly what we were just saying. So that's cool.

I found this little clip where he says, his movies are not so much about what happens, but how it happens. His point is, and I find this interesting as a storyteller, that he was like, I'm not delivering surprise endings. You pretty much can guess what's gonna happen at the end of my movies, at the beginning of them.

'cause they weren't tragedies, they weren't dark, you know, it's like, oh, you know, Samantha's gonna go through this day and probably this Jake guy's gonna come around.

Michael: Right. It wasn't about plot twists. Right. And who

Jennifer: donuts. Right. Whatever. Because it's all about the little changes that happen [00:42:00] in the characters that they make happen to each other along the way.

Mm-hmm. It's not about, mm-hmm. Again, like Breakfast Club. It's not like you watch the ending and you're like, oh, I never saw that coming. Like, of course they're gonna all like understand each other and then they're gonna go home and whatever.

Michael: You know, it's interesting. I like, I also saw him talk about Kevin McAllister and Home Alone as, even though the movie does, you know, trend towards cartoonish, almost like Charlie Chaplin comedy of, of Old Hollywood or Wiley Coyote for that matter.

Mm-hmm. Towards the end, like there is, there is a like. Well, this is what a kid would do. He'd find some string and some nails and some paint and, you know, this is how he'd defend the house. And I, I, I think that there was a, that's how a kid thinks, know that's exactly what that movie is. Right? Which is part of what makes it work so well.

Yes, the premise is great on its own, but I do think that there is a subtlety to the character that makes us, you know, accept what happens even as it gets cartoonish.

Jennifer: Ferris Bueller is really the bridge between the high school and high school movies and home alone. Mm. Because first Bueller is actually not that much [00:43:00] different from home alone.

It's an adolescent kids fantasy about the most extreme he could be.

Michael: What if I had no rules? Yeah. What if there were no supervision? Yeah. Wow. That's a really good point. And it also

Jennifer: is a cartoon and it also has those, even there's a couple of real Mad Cap. Do you remember all the visual stuff they do in the, like in the city where he sees his dad?

Yes. In, you know, like there's all this stuff that's so more physical. Than it is, which is not what he was doing in Breakfast Club. So he clearly hit upon this new sort of formula at some point of it's, to me, both of those movies always are more like, this is what it's like in this kid's mind.

Michael: Yeah. But I think one of the more beautiful moments in all his movies is the scene with.

Cameron and the Art Institute of Chicago, the pointless painting, the George Ott Sunday in the park. It's such a, like almost steps out of the flow Yes. Of the rest of the movie, but it, God, it works. I've had that moment in museums before where I'm just sort of lost in something. Mm-hmm. And he even talks [00:44:00] about Ferris as being like a pointless painting.

Mm-hmm. That the, the closer you get to it, the more it kind of all fault disintegrates into nothing but dots. You know, anyway. Ah, just shout out

Jennifer: to Cameron. That's all I wanna say. I could do an hour on Cameron in that movie. Oh my God, my God. What a fascinating character.

Michael: My God. Yeah. I'll go. I'll go. I'll go.

Archival: He'll keep calling me. He'll keep calling me until I come over. He'll make me feel guilty. There's, this is ridiculous. Okay, I'll go. I'll go. I'll go. I'll go with, I'll go. Shit.

Cut. Damn it.

Michael: God, that, that, that's the other scene that just kills me is like indecisiveness

Friend: when he turns the car on and off. Oh my God. Oh, he's, and like

Jennifer: it's clear in that movie, I think when you watch that he [00:45:00] is. Sort of the crux of the movie more than, I mean, Matthew Roderick is like chewing the scenery, but

Michael: no, I, I kind of, I rewatch it for Cameron.

Yeah. You know, it's the emotion. He's the emotional center. Here's a quote that it's actually two parts. I've sought it some places all as one and then some places as two separate quotes. But here's where I went with for where it's to live by a geek is a guy who has everything going for him, but he's just too young.

He's got the software, but he doesn't have the hardware yet. A nerd will be a nerd all his life.

Archival: Hmm.

Michael: I don't know how I feel about this, but it made me think, I know a lot of people, I put myself in this category who absolutely sees geeky, nerdy qualities, but I also think that there are people who have the ability to adopt other identities.

I put myself in that category too. I'm more of a geek than a nerd. To me, there was something important about the way he was drawing out the distinction because it spoke to agency. Mm-hmm. On some level and. I thought it was also kind of important in the [00:46:00] way that outcast, geek, nerd Neil Maxey zoom weby,

Friend: but face it, you're a neo maxey zoom d weby

Michael: people kind of almost rush these days to that outcasts identity.

That nerd culture has become cool. Yep. In a, in a contradictory way. And there was something about the way he drew this distinction that, that made me recognize something deeper. You know, and and more fundamental in how identities work.

Jennifer: Yeah, I agree. And what's interesting too is just to think of like if nothing else, the subtlety that he could see in all these different categories.

Yes. That probably comes from trying to really get to the core of these things.

Michael: Exactly. Okay. Category seven, man in the Mirror. This category asks a fairly simple question. Did this person like their reflection? Yes or no? This is not about beauty, but rather a question of self-confidence versus self-judgment.

Let me give you my notes. I wrote one quite the persistent mullet. Uh, he's got, uh, that's true. I wrote Walk, walking Away as a ballsy move. [00:47:00] Yeah. That speaks to confidence for me. Thin skinned, a lot of people did describe him as saw that too. Really thin skinned. Yeah. Like his feelings were hurt. Easily by his muses at times.

Yeah. So I didn't know where to come down. I said I, the walking away was the most confident, ballsy thing that, so I said, I suppose I'll say yes, but I don't feel like on terra firma here with, in this category, what, what did you have? How did you think through this?

Jennifer: I mean, I agree he's not looks driven or anything, so it's, I think that this is sometimes more meaningful for somebody who is like on screen or whatever.

Friend: Yes.

Jennifer: I kind of feel like, yeah, probably mostly, like he does seem pretty ballsy. Overall,

Michael: it's kind of the creative journey point. I feel like he knows where his creativity is and is not reflecting back on him. Exactly. One thing that I think that is interesting that I, I don't know if you saw that Vanity Fair article after his death with his sons, I thought that article was actually outstanding.

Mm-hmm. He keeps writing and maybe even screenplays. He's just not writing for anybody else any. Body who does that? Who's [00:48:00] still like, I mean if I, it's hard to imagine, but if I could think about doing recordings and podcasting and not put 'em on the internet, that's actually a kind of higher ideal. Yeah.

You know, I just wanna do this for its own sake. I mean, again,

Jennifer: we're just making stuff up here, but it seems very, like from the very, from pretty early, he knows exactly who he is, marries this woman. There's a confidence to that. And then just being like, now I'm gonna make movies, even though, you know, first Lampoon, I guess, and then movies.

Even though no one asked me to do this and I probably shouldn't, and quitting seeming like he really knew who he was the whole time. I think all of that just seems. Confident to me

Michael: that kinda adds up to, to yes. Direction. And he's a, I mean,

Jennifer: being a director, I mean, you could be annoying and it sounds like possibly that was true sometimes, but that's a very stereotype, like the kind of demanding sensitive director.

But

Michael: I mean, it did sound like he was also like a shadow director when he transitioned to being a producer too. Exactly. Like there are people talking about not exactly. An easy guy to oversee [00:49:00] things.

Jennifer: Yeah. So I think that takes a confidence.

Michael: Yeah, I agree. He liked his reflection. All right. Category eight, cocktail coffee or cannabis.

This is where we ask which one would we most want to do with our dead celebrity. Oh, you know, you late here.

Jennifer: I just, I couldn't imagine anything except coffee. I mean, I'm sure he has some stories to tell outta school in terms of Hollywood, but I feel like he'd probably tell you, first of all, I can't. I have no reason why I believe that.

I just kind of do like that. If you got. Sat down across from the man and you were like, what's this guy like? He'd be like, let me tell you and all. I just feel like it would be so interesting to just sort of talk through his career, all the empty spaces we've got here, and it particularly, I think I just want creative career advice from him.

Michael: Yeah. That's basically where I'm at too. I started to say alcohol because I kind of wanted truth serum. I could see that too. I actually went with cannabis because I, people describe him as funny. I would like to draw out his sense of humor, kind of to like, understand it in terms of relationship to the other stuff.

Mm-hmm. [00:50:00] I have the same curiosity you do. I kind of want his advice as a creative 'cause I do think that there is a sage wisdom and a knowledge of self there that we never really get in other places. Yeah. So if, if given the opportunity to have a one-on-one, that's what I'd like. But. I'd like it to be funny too.

I mean, I think that the, the guy has good jokes for sure, and you know, was a joke writer. The fact that he sold jokes to Rodney Dangerfield and Joan Rivers is a fun little trivia fact. And Playboy nationally, Lampoon and some of his movies are branded and build as comedies. Some of 'em are just funny with good story.

So yeah. I wanna get high. All right. So that's it. That's it. Uh, I think we've arrived. The final category, the VanDerBeek, named after James VanDerBeek, who famously said in Varsity Blues, I don't want. You're life in that varsity blue scene. James makes a judgment that he does not want a certain kind of life based on just a few characteristics.

So here Jennifer and I will form a rebuttal to anyone skeptical of how John Hughes lived. We've been talking about it the whole time. It's so [00:51:00] hard to know what's going on on the inside, outside of the work. The work does offer a view into the inside, I think. Yeah. You just can't write this stuff unless you are putting some of your ways of thinking and emotions on display.

There was a documentary called, don't You Forget About Me. Mm-hmm. That was interesting in that it was essentially fans including Roger Ebert and Kevin Smith. Right. And others saying, John, please come back. And he didn't. I mean, he was, he stayed shut off. That all seems to add up to, if we're going to talk to a.

Counterargument of why you would not want this life. I do think that what the times obit speculates at him having a distaste for the entertainment industry. That feels true. Yeah. That feels really right. But there's one big thing why you would not want this life. Maybe that's it, that he chose a profession that ended up having an aversion towards, and that kind of sucks.

Yeah. If that story's right. And then I think the young death, I think it may be for sure the falling out. So there's other reasons. Let's move [00:52:00] right into the argument for why you would want this life. What is the sort of top line item here?

Jennifer: I mean, he was so prolific, and I don't wanna make success the benchmark completely, but it's the kind of success that I don't even know if we'll ever see again.

Simply 'cause of what we were talking about with the monoculture. I just don't know if, oh, John Hughes can exist exactly anymore because you can't even make a movie for, that's supposed to be for all teens anymore. You'd still be making a niche movie for like these kinds of teens over here. Right. And it would be on Netflix and everyone would forget about it in a week.

And so I just think maybe we wanna say like. That opportunity to have such a huge impact on the culture.

Michael: Yeah. I think that there is a interesting cross-generational stream combined with the economics of Hollywood in his moment of opportunity, all kind of lined up for impact and for legacy in a way that is sort of singular in the way it speaks to a certain chapter of life that is arguably the most.[00:53:00]

Complicated chapter of life, or often one of the more complicated chapters of life. That is a great thing, number one, and I do think that creative journey here, but appears to be balanced and healthy relationship to his own output. That it is prolific and you're right about success. It's not about necessarily the windfall, the cache.

It's also to me about the. Ideation. Yeah. And generation of stories. And let's take a day here, one day where a teenager does this thing, or one weekend where a kid's left home alone. Coming up with those premises and then filling them out with character sounds great. Yeah. Like that's like, what a thing to do.

It's all we, it's all most

Jennifer: of us want. And honestly. I wonder too. I mean, it would suck if it's truly true that he was just miserable the entire time he was in Hollywood. I'm sort of skeptical of that. I actually think you're crazier if you don't at some point go like, what is this place? Totally. When it comes to Hollywood, that is [00:54:00] totally an endurance test that most people cannot handle and maybe most people don't get to make the choice.

Because they aren't successful for long enough to reach a choice point. They're just kind of aged out or whatever. Whereas this guy kind of was like, oh God, I'm still making movies that most people come to enough. What am I doing? Why do this? Why do I, why do I don't wanna do this anymore?

Michael: I I don't have to do this and I'm out.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, that actually to get to a core famous and gravy theme does suggest an upward staircase. Yes. You know, and, and I have reached a point in life where it is. Time for others to fill whatever it was I was doing. This has run its course. The, that self-knowledge, if that's what we're seeing here, it speaks to a deeper, uh, awareness and growth that, uh, is absolutely enviable.

Jennifer: Yeah, and I think the thing about something like Hollywood is we all look at it as this like grand dream that most of us can't have, so we always question it. If someone doesn't like it or leaves or whatever, but I really believe that if [00:55:00] most of us were in it, especially for that long, that we would get tired too.

And yeah, it's really hard, like the social pressure is to stay in it. And the big paychecks

Michael: and the big paychecks. Which are related to social pressures.

Jennifer: Yeah. I mean, people just, you, he had to know that people were gonna think he was crazy for stopping. But that is why it's so cool is because it's just such a baller move to be like.

I'm good. I'm good. You know, I'm gonna do something else now. And I also just people who say I have enough money. Yeah. That's extremely unusual.

Michael: It is downright un-American. Yeah. It's, you know, we, we don't do that here. Yeah. Oh, wow. I, you know, I'll, I'll add one other thing. I, it does seem, the family life does look like not just good, but a priority.

I want the opportunity to be their father and a grandfather and a husband. If that is ultimately the real reason to get out of bed in the morning, then good for you. Yeah. And

Jennifer: to just, it seems like an awfully rock solid place to go back to.

Michael: Allison and I have been together basically since [00:56:00] early college, and the upside of having been with somebody for so long is just like how much we know about each other.

Yeah. And how many chapters we've gone through. Yeah. Together, like we come back to that in a way that absolutely tips towards a tremendous amount of gratitude.

Jennifer: I get that you're, I mean, the vast majority of your life. Like this person knows what you're talking about.

Michael: Yeah. And has seen you evolve. Mm-hmm.

And you see yourself reflected back in that evolution. Yeah. And that is a beautiful thing. It is. Okay, let's recap. So we said, reflecting back adolescence and capturing adolescence in a moment in time, we said the creative journey and from what we can tell the family life. So James VanDerBeek, I'm John Hughes and you want my life.

Before we conclude Famous and Gravy listeners, if you enjoyed this episode of Famous and Gravy, if you liked reflecting on the legacy of John Hughes, if you have your phone in your hand, please send this to a friend. It helps us to grow. You can do it right now and you can think of who [00:57:00] you connected with over a John Hughes movie, A Speed Round, Jennifer Plugs for past shows.

If people enjoyed this episode of John Hughes on Famous and Gravy, what episode from the archives would you recommend the checkout?

Jennifer: I'm going to say a recent one, I think Penny Marshall. Oh, I love that. I think directors are so interesting and she's very different. Yes, obviously, but just kind of like thinking about the different ways of coming to and going about being a director.

She obviously loved it, so very different, but I'm always interested in, maybe other people are too, maybe because of a lot of what happened in this episode. Episode, which is, we don't know as much about them, you know?

Michael: Love it. Okay. Episode 1 0 4, community Gardner Penny Marshall. Yes, I, I am very tempted to go Harold Ramis.

I haven't plugged this one in a while. I'm gonna choose episode 29, Zen comedian Gary Haning. That's a good one. That was an important episode for me, Gary Shandling. Also, the point of [00:58:00] comparison is he approached George Carlin about advice while at the University of Arizona. At the same time, just about that John Hughes was pitching jokes to Rodney Dangerfield and Joan Rivers.

Something about that intersection of creative force and standup comedy. Uh, and the University of Arizona has me wanting to plug that one. So episode 29, z comedian. Gary Shanley. Here is a little preview for the next episode of Famous Eng Gravy. He earned his medical degree in 1969, and he spent a year as a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

Jennifer: Robert Coles. I'm trying to think of doctors from Harvard,

Michael: not Robert Coles. Good. Famous and Gravy listeners, we'd love hearing from you. If you wanna reach out with a comment, a question, or to participate in our opening quiz, email us at hello@famousandgravy.com. In our show notes, we include all kinds of links, including to our website and our social channels.

Famous and Gravy was created by Amit Kapur and me, Michael Osborne. Thank you so much to [00:59:00] Fication Armstrong for guest hosting on this episode, it was produced by Ali Ola with production assistance from Jacob Weiss. Original music by Kevin Strang. Thanks. See you next time.

Next
Next

109 Late Bloomer transcript (Betty Ford)