We’re usually taught to respect our elders, but there have been plenty of characters in film who never quite got that memo. There’s a long and proud tradition in movies of elderly abuse and bad doings being transgressed on the 4:30 dinner crowd. This is the generation that did things like survive the Great Depression, fight the Nazis (and the Reds!), raise our parents and all too often us. One would think they’d earned a bit of consideration like guaranteed Social Security, adult diapers that don’t leak or generally not getting the shit beat out of them and snuffed like some third-rate red shirt. In this CHUD list, we’re going to take a look at a batch of old timers who, unfortunately, turned into having-a-really-bad-timers.
The Film: Weird Science (1985)
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The Director: John Hughes
The Elders: Carmen and Henry, aka Nanny and Grampy
Milquetoast Wyatt’s stuffy old grandparents, who don’t take too well to the notion that he’s having the party of the century in his parents’ house while they’re out of down. They crash the soiree that crashed Wyatt’s house quite literally and immediately start to throw a damper on the festive proceedings.
The Abuse: Creepy American Gothic pantry stuffin’
Lisa tried to make Nanny and Grampy see reason, but there wasn’t really much that could be done with a pair of old fogeys that were determined to shut down a truly kickass party. Henry wasn’t going to stand and listen to Lisa’s baloney. Because he doesn’t like baloney. So the way that Lisa saw it, this was the best solution. Wyatt and Gary might not have necessarily seen it that way:
But under the circumstances, they had more important things to worry about, like a Pershing missile that also made an unexpected appearance, and a certain group of unruly bikers that Lisa conjured right after this little incident. All things considered, Nanny and Grampy didn’t mind. In Lisa’s words, “They’re fine, they’re better than fine. They’re not aging anymore.”
Lack Of Respect By: Lisa
Gary and Wyatt’s heavenly-conjured ’80s goddess of mischief and fun. Was she a real goddess out for a good time? A bored pixie who took pity upon two total losers? A genie who traded in her bottle for a pair of panties and a loose fitting sweatshirt? Beats me. What is known is that she was devoted to Gary and Wyatt and could whip things up like Porsches and Ferraris and bikers and cool threads and all kinds of other interesting shit to drag them out of the slums of nerddom and into the penthouse of coolsville, whether they wanted her to or not. Her feelings about the whole grandparents-in-the-pantry thing? She saw it as the best alternative because honestly, “they weren’t having a very good a time at the party.”
Did They Have It Coming? Well…yeah. I mean, sure, Wyatt probably shouldn’t have been throwing some kind of crazy party with indoor blizzards, a missile silo, blue kitchen and the fun time bunch from Road Warrior lurking about and causing havoc. But come on, that’s what teenagers do, man. Having crusty forebears barging in and throwing a damper on the whole thing is part of the problem, not the solution. And Lisa dealt with the problem. At least she didn’t turn them both into flatulating shitmounds like she did Chet, who, by the way, wasn’t that thrilled with the situation either:
Could the AARP Have Helped? I’m pretty sure Lord General killed their rep on the way into the party.
If Nature Had Taken Its Course? Fortunately, the entire movie is really about nature not taking its course. ‘Cause nature wasn’t in the habit of whipping up creations like Lisa, whose body was rivaled only by her supernatural ability to have a good time and cause mayhem…all for a good cause of course. But if she hadn’t made Wyatt’s and Gary’s scene, there would have been no party, and thus no need to have the ancestors making like some kind of dry goods storage family portrait. More than likely, their visit would have been the crushing, uneventful bore that it usually was.
What Andy Rooney Might Say: Call me old fashioned, but I don’t know what the big deal is. I hang out in the pantry all the time.