Podcast Tuesday: "The Marshall-Belson Experiments"

Will Hutchins and Sandy Baron on Hey, Landlord!

One of the strangest major studio movies of the '90s was Gus Van Sant's Psycho (1998), an extremely literal remake of the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock classic of the same name. If you've ever seen Van Sant's film, you know that it is a curiously empty, uninvolving experience. The actors are self-conscious and ill-at-ease, and scene after scene falls flat. But why doesn't it work? Van Sant's actors, including Vince Vaughn and Anne Heche, are faithfully reenacting the original. The cast and crew are certainly talented enough. Shouldn't it be just as good? There must be some intangible element that is missing from the remake.

A classic episode.

This phenomenon can work in reverse, too, when a remake outshines its predecessor. I'll give you an example. One of the most famous episodes of Garry Marshall's Laverne & Shirley is "Guinea Pigs" (original airdate: January 18, 1977), in which the title characters participate in kooky medical experiments in order to earn some money to attend a fancy cocktail party. The problem is, the girls are so zonked-out from the experiments (Laverne has been deprived of regular sleep, Shirley of normal food) that they struggle mightily to make it through the party once they get there. Like Hitchcock's Psycho, "Guinea Pigs" is considered a classic in its field.

What I didn't know until recently is that the plot of "Guinea Pigs" is recycled from a previous Garry Marshall sitcom, Hey, Landlord!, which ran from 1966 to 1967. This earlier show revolves around two roommates, Woody (Will Hutchins) and Chuck (Sandy Baron), sharing a bachelor pad in a New York brownstone. In "Testing... One, Two," the boys agree to take part in some medical experiments so they can have the money to rent tuxedos for a neighbor's photography exhibition. You can probably guess how it turns out. It's the same story that worked so well on Laverne & Shirley, but I'll bet you've never heard of, let alone seen, "Testing...One, Two." Why is that?

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, my cohost and I review the Hey, Landlord! episode and try to deconstruct why this series never caught on. We'd be most appreciative if you would join us. The podcast is available right here:

Podcast Tuesday: "The Top 5 Garry Marshall Movies of All Time"

Garry Marshall sure did make some films, I tell you what.

Every pretentious film geek on the internet has a "hot take" on the movies of Quentin Tarantino, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, and Martin Scorsese. And they probably have plenty of opinions about David Fincher, Steven Spielberg, David Lynch, and Paul Thomas Anderson, too. But how many of them have bothered to watch all the movies of Garry Marshall, huh? Probably not too many. Well, that's why you come to my blog. I pick up where the others leave off. I go where no nerd has gone before.

Garry Marshall was a very successful writer and producer of TV sitcoms in the 1960s and '70s, scoring hits with The Odd Couple, Happy Days, and Laverne & Shirley. (Of course, there was also the occasional Blansky's Beauties or Me and the Chimp. Hey, they can't all be winners.) By the 1980s, he naturally wanted to graduate to feature films. And so, he made 18 of them, including some box office smashes and a few major bombs. Along the way, he worked with some of the biggest actors in movie history and turned more than one newcomer into a superstar. For all these reasons and more, I think his films—good, bad, or indifferent—are as worthy of study as those of any famous director.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, my cohost and I give you our picks for the Top 5 Garry Marshall Movies of All Time. And we talk about what we liked and didn't like about our journey through Garry's filmography. Doesn't that sound like fun? Click the play button below and find out.

Podcast Tuesday: "Skype, We Hardly Knew Ye"

Julia Roberts in Mother's Day.

When Garry Marshall was directing Mother's Day (2016), did he know it was going to be his last movie? He must have at least suspected. He was 81 when this lighthearted all-star ensemble comedy was released, and he died of pneumonia less than three months after it premiered. At the time, he hadn't even made a feature film for five years, the longest significant gap in his directing career. He hadn't completely disappeared during that time, still working regularly as a character actor and popping up as a frequent talk show guest, but he was definitely slowing to a halt.

In a way, it's nice to know that Garry went out doing what he loved. I have rarely encountered a director who so wholeheartedly loved the filmmaking process. It was important for Garry that his actors were having a good time on the set, even when the movie they were making was of questionable quality. Even Rosie O'Donnell and Dana Delany had fond memories of making the abysmal Exit to Eden (1994). It's no wonder that actors kept working with Garry over and over.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we review Mother's Day in all its maternal glory. Is it one of Garry Marshall's proudest achievements? Or did his career end in disappointment? That's what we aim to find out.

Podcast Tuesday: "Garry Marshall Drops the Ball"

Zac Efron and Michelle Pfeiffer in New Year's Eve (2011).

A vintage matchbook.

Are you a New Year's Eve person? Does that holiday mean anything to you? I can't say that December 31 holds too many special memories for me, fond or otherwise. For the last few decades—not just years, but decades—I have stayed home on the last day of the year and only intermittently glanced up at the countdown festivities on TV. So a movie like Garry Marshall's New Year's Eve (2011), in which a bunch of celebrities celebrate the titular holiday in various wacky ways, does not have a lot of intrinsic appeal for me. File it alongside Rudolph's Shiny New Year (1976). Nice try, but I'm not terribly interested.

However, if I rummage through my own storehouse of memories in search of ones related specifically to New Year's Eve, I can zero in on a now long-gone restaurant called The Greenery in Clio, Michigan. A classy place, the kind you might take your grandparents for an evening out. The food there was pretty bland, and my family definitely didn't go there on a regular basis. But, for whatever reason, my parents took us to The Greenery every New Year's Eve for years. The place's best feature was an extremely generous and varied dessert bar. That was definitely the highlight of December 31 for me. (The lowlight was the drive home, since there always seemed to be a winter storm raging that night.) Other than that, I can't say I'm for or against this particular holiday.

Nevertheless, in this week's edition of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we are tackling the aforementioned New Year's Eve movie from 2011. As with Valentine's Day (2010), Garry Marshall assembled a boatload of TV stars, movie stars, and pop stars and put them in little, interconnected vignettes, all happening on one special day. If you've ever wanted to see Jon Bon Jovi, Halle Berry, Hilary Swank, Robert De Niro, and Ludacris in one movie.... well, here's your chance. Our review is included below. Do me a favor and listen to it. Thanks.

Podcast Tuesday: "Jennifers, Julias & Jessicas"

"Starring everybody and me!"

"Hyperlink cinema."

 It's a term I'd either forgotten or had never heard until recently. Either way, it refers to those movies that are sort of like anthologies but not quite. "Hyperlink" films tell multiple, basically self-contained stories, but the characters in those different stories know each other and occasionally interact. Some characters even take part in more than one story per movie. Think of Pulp Fiction (1994), Magnolia (1999), Nashville (1975), Crash (2004), and many more. In Pulp Fiction, for example, there are three different stories ("The Bonnie Situation," "The Gold Watch," and "Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace's Wife"), and John Travolta's heroin-shooting hitman is a factor in all three of them.

Toward the end of his career, director Garry Marshall (1934-2016) got way into hyperlink cinema. He made three of these movies back-to-back, the first being Valentine's Day (2010). The setup is very simple: it's Valentine's Day in Los Angeles, and we follow the romantic ups-and-downs of various characters, all played by major movie stars. It's actually kind of mind-boggling how many Oscar winners there are in this one, extremely slight romcom.

But does "slight" equal worthless? That's what we aim to find out in this week's edition of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast.

Podcast Tuesday: "A Tyler Perry Movie for White People"

Lindsay Lohan and Dermot Mulroney in Georgia Rule.

Garry Marshall got his start in show business as a writer, working for sitcoms and variety shows and even crafting material for standup comedians like Phil Foster. He became known and established in the entertainment industry as a "comedy guy," which led to more work. When Garry started producing his own TV shows, including the sitcom Happy Days (1974-1984), he wanted to prove that he was more than just a joke machine. He could handle serious topics, too. That led to such Happy Days episodes as "Kiss Me, Teach" and "Such a Nice Girl," both of which deal with the subject of sexual assault.

Garry's urge to tell darker, more meaningful stories continued when he became a film director in the 1980s. As I've made my way through his filmography, I've seen him waver between the desire to entertain and the desire to educate. Young Doctors in Love (1982), Overboard (1987), and the two Princess Diaries movies (2001-2004) are mindless, cotton candy comedies, while Beaches (1988), The Other Sister (1999), and Nothing in Common (1986) tackle some weightier themes.

And then there is Georgia Rule (2007), a comedy-drama about an exceptionally tricky subject: child abuse. As is often the case with Garry's movies, this one has an incredible cast, led by Jane Fonda as the highly religious title character and Linsday Lohan (then at the height of her tabloid infamy) as her rebellious granddaughter. This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we talk about this highly unusual movie and our strong reactions to it. Please do join us.

Podcast Tuesday: "Garry Marshall is for the Children"

Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement.

About a quarter of a century ago, author Meg Cabot had a revelation: girls like stories about princesses. Cabot herself liked stories about princesses as a child and still did as a grownup. And so she wrote The Princess Diaries (2000), a popular YA novel in which an American teenager named Mia finds out she is the rightful heir to the throne of a small European country called Genovia. Director Garry Marshall successfully adapted Cabot's book to the big screen in 2001 with Anne Hathaway (in her first major screen role) starring as the clumsy but endearing Mia. Cabot has since written many more books in the Princess Diaries franchise, while Marshall and Hathaway reunited for a sequel to the first movie called The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement in 2004.

I've yet to read any of Cabot's novels, but I have now seen both of Garry Marshall's Princess Diaries movies. To me, this is a classic "chosen one" narrative. At the beginning of the first film, Mia feels very un-special. Her prep school classmates either mock her or ignore her entirely. Even her one friend, Lily (Heather Matarazzo), treats her with some degree of scorn. But then, out of nowhere, her grandmother Clarisse (Julie Andrews) shows up with the very unexpected news that Mia is of royal blood. According to Clarisse, the unassuming American girl may be Genovia's last hope for survival. And so, Mia has to overcome her own self-doubts and rise up to claim her rightful place on the throne.

There's no denying that the Princess Diaries movies were made in the shadow of another, even more popular multimedia franchise about a chosen one. The first Diaries movie actually beat the first Harry Potter movie to theaters by three full months, but J.K. Rowling's books had been a worldwide sensation since 1997. To me, the influence of Harry Potter on The Princess Diaries (at least the movie version) is undeniable. It's a very short distance from "You're a wizard, Harry" to "You're a princess, Mia." Mia is Harry. Clarisse is Dumbledore. Clarisse's bodyguard Joe (Hector Elizondo) is Hagrid. Lily is Hermione. And throughout the film, Mia divides her time between a fancy private school and the Genovian embassy (where she studies to be a princess). Put these two together, and you've got Hogwarts. Mia even has a snotty, blonde-haired rival, Lana (Mandy Moore), the equivalent of Draco Malfoy.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we talk about The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. Is this sequel merely a cynical cash grab or does it manage to tell a compelling, entertaining story on its own? That's what we're hoping to find out. Please do join us.

Podcast Tuesday: "Hot Lutheran Love!"

Kate Hudson in the somewhat forgotten 2004 film Raising Helen.

When I sat down to screen Garry Marshall's 2004 romantic comedy Raising Helen for the podcast, I knew virtually nothing about the movie other than its title and the fact that it starred Kate Hudson. I didn't even know about the tragic incident that sets the plot in motion. In other words, I went into the movie as blank as possible.

However, within just a few minutes of pressing play on Raising Helen, I started to suspect where the film was going. Kate plays Helen Harris, an "executive assistant" at a chichi New York modeling agency run by the Anna Wintour-esque Dominique (Helen Mirren). Helen's life is frantic and fast-paced, but she's good at her job and seems to be enjoying herself immensely.

I knew that this couldn't last. By Hollywood law, Helen would have to be tamed over the course of the movie. By the end of the story, she'd either be married or at least in a serious relationship, and she'd probably given a child to raise, too. And if the plot could get her from the city to the suburbs, all the better.

Was I right? Do any or all of these things happen to Helen? Listen to the latest installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast and find out for sure.

Podcast Tuesday: "Straight Outta Genovia"

Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries.

August 2001. It must have happened. There must have been one. The month before everything changed. America's Last Days of Pompeii. 

Thinking back, that was a very busy month for me. That was when I quit my customer service job in Flint and moved to Joliet, Illinois to become a middle school Spanish teacher. It was also the first time in my life I ever had my own apartment and lived totally on my own. (I don't count living in the dorms.)

Yeah, August 2001 was a pivotal time in my life. And yet, for obvious reasons, I barely remember it. Because of... well, you know.

This week on These Days Are Ours, we review a movie from August 2001: Garry Marshall's The Princess Diaries starring Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews. The lightest of light entertainment. Just the thing for a late summer movie. I hope America enjoyed the holy hell out of it.

But how does it hold up in October 2025? Push play on the podcast below and find out.

Podcast Tuesday: "Julia Roberts in Love is Nice"

Not Pretty Woman 2 but an incredible simulation.

Director Garry Marshall had the biggest hit of his life with the romantic comedy Pretty Woman (1990), but he didn't spend the next few years trying to copy it. His follow-up film, Frankie and Johnny (1992), was an adaptation of a Terrence McNally play, and he only slightly watered it down and gussied it up for Hollywood. It did acceptably. But then came what I think of as Garry's Trilogy of Terror: three back-to-back critical and box office disasters that should have had him seriously rethinking his career. Ignored by audiences and reviled by the press, Exit to Eden (1994), Dear God (1996), and The Other Sister (1999) were all major miscalculations on Garry's part.

Did Garry Marshall start to have self-doubts? Maybe, because he then reteamed with Pretty Woman stars Julia Roberts and Richard Gere for Runaway Bride, a romantic comedy expressly designed to remind people of the previous film. The script had been bouncing around Hollywood for years, with various stars attached to it. But the version that got made was the movie we're reviewing this week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast. To hear what we thought of it, go ahead and push the play button on the podcast below.

Podcast Tuesday: "Legend of the Black Widow"

Joanna Lee lines up a shot in The Other Sister.

When asked about his favorite episodes of Happy Days, producer Garry Marshall mentioned the show's so-called "very special episodes" that dealt with more serious situations. When Garry was a young writer on such lighthearted sitcoms as The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Lucy Show in the 1960s, these topics might have been off-limits to him. But TV changed drastically in the 1970s, especially because of the popularity of Norman Lear's controversial sitcoms like All in the Family, Maude, and Good Times. Those shows were not afraid of tackling uncomfortable topics, and they got good ratings. So the major networks decided to discuss such previously-taboo subjects as disease and mental illness in their prime time comedies. Garry took full advantage, as he explained in a career-spanning archival interview:

With Happy Days, we could do all the pressure group stuff that we couldn't do in some of the other situations, that were not done in the Van Dyke/Lucy days. So it became, you know, philosophically, while you have the audience's attention, you might as well say something. So then we did all our series of pressure groups in a good sense. We did our diabetes show, we did our mentally challenged show, our hard-of-hearing show, whatever that was, the blind challenge. I don't know the politically correct things, but we did all the shows that pointed out to the audience that you could overcome a handicap. You could do all these things.

Did that philosophy carry over into Garry's movies? To an extent, sure. His characters dealt with serious, life-threatening illnesses in Nothing in Common (1986) and Beaches (1988). There was at least one terminally-ill child in Dear God (1996). That film was mostly a feel-good comedy, but it had a preachy side, too, with its message about helping the poor, lonely, and depressed even when you're poor, lonely, and depressed yourself.

However, with his 1999 romantic comedy The Other Sister, Garry really went for it. It's a "very special episode" in movie form, complete with a message about overcoming a handicap. Yet again, he lined up a very impressive cast, including Juliette Lewis, Giovanni Ribisi, Diane Keaton, and Tom Skerritt. This was obviously a project very close to Garry's heart, since he cowrote the screenplay himself with Happy Days scribe Bob Brunner. 

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we talk about that film and our reaction to it. We'd love for you to join us.

Podcast Tuesday: "Still the Beaver" or "The Myth of Sissy Foods"

The unsold 1983 pilot Herndon centers around a goofy tech genius.

You might assume that, when Garry Marshall started directing feature films in 1982, he'd let his TV career quietly die out. Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley would slowly but surely run out the clock, and Garry would concentrate on movies. And, for the most part, that's pretty much what happened. From the mid-1980s onward, Garry was a known as a movie guy, not a TV guy.

But he did make a few last attempts at getting another sitcom going in the 1980s. One of his most intriguing misfires is Herndon (1983), in which future Seinfeld star Michael Richards plays a clumsy tech genius named Dr. Herndon P. Poole and a mustachioed Ted McGinley plays a down-on-his-luck wheeler dealer type named Shack who finds much-needed employment at Herndon's Silicon Valley startup. Garry directed a half-hour pilot written by Happy Days veterans Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, but ABC didn't take the bait. The network aired the pilot just once, then forgot about the project. Garry and everyone else involved moved on to other things.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we take a good, long look at that unsold pilot and talk about whether or not Herndon should have become the first major sitcom to take place in the tech industry. We'd be tickled pink if you'd join us.

Podcast Tuesday: "Oh, Dear God..."

Greg Kinnear in Dear God.

After the catastrophic failure of his kinky softcore sex comedy Exit to Eden (1994), director Garry Marshall decided to do something completely different with his follow-up film, Dear God (1996). This time around, he made a squeaky clean, heartwarming holiday film in the tradition of Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and George Seaton's Miracle on 34th Street (1947). Surely, this would get him back on the right track career-wise and allow him to reconnect with the audiences who had loved Happy Days (1974-84) and Pretty Woman (1990). For extra insurance, he cast up-and-coming actor Greg Kinnear, who had already proved extremely popular with viewers across America, in the lead role of Tom Turner, a con man with a heart of gold.

How surprised and frustrated Garry must have been when Dear God bombed with critics and audiences nearly as badly as Exit to Eden had two years previously. The film was box office poison and received withering reviews to boot. It quickly disappeared from theaters and didn't make much of a splash on home video or cable either. Garry had missed again.

But that was nearly 30 years ago. A lot can happen in 30 years. Maybe Dear God has aged like fine wine. Or maybe it's somehow gotten even worse since the Clinton years. This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we find out by doing a thorough review of this forgotten film. If I were you, I'd click that play button.

Podcast Tuesday: "Horny Idiot Island"

Dan Aykroyd (left) and Rosie O'Donnell in Exit to Eden.

What made him do it?

It's one of the great mysteries of movie history. Why did Garry Marshall, the genial Brooklyn writer-producer-director behind such decidedly mainstream fare as Happy Days (1974-1984) and Pretty Woman (1990), think he was the man to bring Anne Rice's kinky BDSM novel Exit to Eden (1985) to the screen? And why did he enlist Happy Days showrunner Bob Brunner to cowrite the screenplay? More importantly, what are Dan Aykroyd, Rosie O'Donnell, Dana Delany, and Iman doing in this thing? So many questions. So few answers.

Nevertheless, in the latest installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we talk about the megabomb Exit to Eden (1994), certainly one of the most unusual films of its year (or any year). We analyze the plot (what little of it there is), critique the actors, compare the film to the novel, and speculate about what it all means. This episode, I can tell you, was quite an ordeal to research, record, and produce. It would be rude of you to skip it, and I know you're not a rude person. So click that play button. You wouldn't want me to spank you on your tushy, would you?

Incidentally, this episode marks something of a technical milestone, as it's the first one completely written, recorded, and edited on my new laptop. I think my previous one, purchased from a Best Buy in 2015, has seen its final days. Goodbye, trusted friend. You were enjoyed.

Podcast Tuesday: "Frankie Goes to Johnnywood"

Michelle Pfeiffer and Al Pacino in Garry Marshall's Frankie & Johnny.

Director Garry Marshall and playwright Terrence McNally both faced professional challenges in 1991. Garry's challenge was following up the biggest movie of his career, Pretty Woman (1990). Terrence's challenge was taking his humble, two-character play Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune (1987) and expanding it into a major motion picture featuring two enormous stars, Michelle Pfeiffer and Al Pacino.

As it happens, Marshall and McNally were working on the same project: the $29 million Paramount production Frankie & Johnny (1991). Perhaps wary of trying to top Pretty Woman, Marshall opted to tell the humble story of a chef named Johnny (Pacino) and a waitress named Frankie (Pfeiffer) who meet at the New York diner where they both work and embark upon a romantic relationship. Johnny sees Frankie as his soulmate and wants to pursue a serious relationship. Frankie's been hurt before and wants to keep things casual. Who prevails? Have you seen a movie before?

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we're reviewing Frankie & Johnny. We talk about the film, the play, New York diners, "Love Shack," and many other topics. We'd be very pleased and happy if you'd join us.

Podcast Tuesday: "Attractive Female"

Richard Gere and Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.

As my cohost and I have made our way through the films of Garry Marshall, I've been reminded time and again of just how different media consumption was in the 1980s and '90s. For one thing, I saw a lot more movies in the theater back then, at least three or four each month. These days, I'll see maybe two or three movies a year on the big screen.

Another big difference was that, in the days before streaming, we were reliant on VHS tapes if we wanted to screen a film at home. Most we rented, a few we owned. This system wasn't all bad. My sister and I had our own VHS copy of Garry Marshall's smash romcom Pretty Woman (1990) and watched it dozens of times. That film simply became part of our consciousness, and we quoted it frequently.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we talk about Pretty Woman. The film was extremely popular in its own time, but how does it hold up in ours? Well, click below to find out.

Podcast Tuesday: "The Teaches of Beaches"

Barbara Hershey and Bette Midler in Beaches.

Remember the so-called "monoculture"? If you grew up in the 1980s or earlier, you certainly do. Back then, due to the constraints of technology and commerce, we mostly consumed the same media at the same time as everyone else. Whatever the "big" movies and TV shows were, that's what we watched. Whatever was in the Top 40, that's what we listened to. This may not sound like an ideal system, but it gave us a common frame of reference. When we talked about "the media" in the abstract, we were referring to the same material. Cable and home video started to erode the monoculture just a bit in the '80s, but the '90s was when the entertainment world truly started splintering into a lot of little hyper-specific facets.

Nowadays, thanks to the internet and the rise of personal devices like smartphones and tablets (meant to be used by an individual rather than a group), the entertainment we consume is well-tailored to our various demographic groups and delivered to us by algorithms that know us better than we know ourselves. We stay in our lanes, culturally speaking, and it's considered "weird" (read; undesirable) to do otherwise. In 2025, it's very possible to have a supposed "hit" song that most of the country has never heard or a "hit" TV show that most of the country isn't even aware of. If it's not intended for you, it generally doesn't reach you. I suppose the last vestiges of the monoculture are the big franchise films that dominate the box office: the sequels, remakes, reboots, and adaptations of familiar intellectual properties.

Director Garry Marshall's fifth film, Beaches (1988)—a tearjerking melodrama starring Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey as lifelong friends with clashing personalities—is a definite product of the monoculture. Produced by Walt Disney's Touchstone Pictures division, it's a film designed to appeal to the widest-possible audience. And it did just that! Not only was the film a hit in theaters and on video, it launched a massive hit single ("Wind Beneath My Wings") and led to one of its cast members (Mayim Bialik) getting her own prime time sitcom. I don't think any of this would be remotely possible in 2025. Today, a film like Beaches, if it got made at all, would be shuffled off to a streaming service and quickly forgotten. Indeed, a 2017 remake of the film went straight to cable and was largely ignored.

So Beaches is a reminder of who we once were and of what pop culture used to be. But is that a good thing or a bad thing? We'll try to figure all that out as we review it in the latest installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast.

Podcast Tuesday: "Stockholm Syndrome: The Romantic Comedy!"

Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn in Overboard.

Boy, were we obsessed with money in the 1980s! It was all we ever thought about, apart from sex, drugs, leg warmers, video games, and the music of Adam Ant. 

Admittedly, we humans have been obsessed with money ever since it was invented about five-thousand years ago, but our fixation on the topic hit a new high during the Reagan-Bush years. Or a new low, depending on your point of view. Either way, the subject dominated popular culture across all media in the '80s. On the radio, we'd hear "Money for Nothing," "Big Time," "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)," and "Material Girl." On television, we'd tune into capitalist fantasies like Dallas, Dynasty, Diff'rent Strokes, Silver Spoons, and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. These shows taught us that, with enough cash in your bank account, you could live as you please and make your most vulgar consumerist dreams come true. And we bought into it!

But the movies outdid them all! Year after year, Hollywood gave us silly, over-the-top comedies about the extremely wealthy, often showcasing how they reacted to being around the extremely unwealthy.  Just off the top of my head, I remember Arthur (1981), Annie (1982), Trading Places (1983), Brewster's Millions (1985), Ruthless People (1986), Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), Big Business (1988), Coming to America (1988), and more. This was a time when it seemed like the characters in film comedies always had maids and butlers.

Somewhere in all this mess was Garry Marshall's fourth feature film, Overboard (1987) starring Goldie Hawn as a spoiled rich woman who loses her memory and Kurt Russell as an earthy carpenter who takes advantage of that situation. Edward Herrmann, Katherine Helmond, and Roddy McDowell come along for the ride. Have you already guessed that this is the film we're covering this week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast? Well, it is. You can hear what we thought of Overboard by clicking the play button below.

Podcast Tuesday: "Diabetic Neuropathy of a Salesman"

Tom Hanks and Jackie Gleason square off in Nothing in Common.

Back in the 1980s, movies depended a lot more on star power than they do today. In the 2020s, some franchise or intellectual property is generally the "star" that sells a movie. But the way to market a film successfully forty years ago was to emphasize the big-name actors in it. If there were any major celebrities in a movie, the studio would make damned sure that their famous names and equally-famous faces appeared very prominently on the posters and in the trailers. 

Garry Marshall's comedy-drama Nothing in Common (1986) is a perfect example. The film is about a hotshot Chicago ad executive whose aging parents suddenly split up. What the ad campaign really wants you to know, however, is that the movie stars Tom Hanks and Jackie Gleason. The one-sheet is literally a closeup of their faces, glaring at each other. Why should you go to the theater? To see these two guys that you already know from other stuff.

Whenever my parents asked my grandmother to accompany us to a new movie, she'd always ask, "Who's in it?" And if we couldn't supply any famous names in the cast, she wouldn't be interested. When Nothing in Common came out, I'm sure it was Jackie Gleason's presence that convinced Grandma to go with us to the theater that day. So we saw Garry Marshall's film as a family. I can't remember if any of us loved or hated it. In fact, there were only a few aspects of the film that stuck in my memory at all, namely Tom Hanks' answering machine message and Jackie Gleason's diabetes-ravaged foot.

Is there anything more to Nothing in Common worth remembering? This week on These Days Are Ours, my cohost and I review the film and give you our unvarnished opinions on it. Please do join us.

Podcast Tuesday: "The Devil's Cabana Boy"

Janet Jones, Matt Dillon, and Jessica Walter in The Flamingo Kid.

One of the common complaints about Happy Days in its later seasons is that the long-running sitcom gradually gave up on the nostalgia angle that had been so important to its initial success. Oh, sure, you'd still hear the occasional oldie on the soundtrack, and Fonzie (Henry Winkler) never stopped wearing that iconic leather jacket. But Happy Days didn't put much effort into this aspect of the show in its final years. It became just another generic sitcom that might as well have been set in the 1980s.

Had Happy Days creator Garry Marshall lost interest in recapturing the past? Not hardly! His second directorial effort, a coming-of-age film called The Flamingo Kid (1984), was awash in the cars, clothes, hairdos, and slang of the early 1960s. What's more, the film was set in Brooklyn, where Garry himself grew up. The film definitely evokes a time and a place, much more so than late-period Happy Days did. But does this mean The Flamingo Kid is a great film? Is it "better" than Happy Days? The only way you'll know is to listen to the latest installment of These Days Are Ours.