Invasion of the Body Switching Comedies, Part 3:
September 13, 2019
Although it was’t a particularly common practice, back in the day you would occasionally bring a tape home from the video store on find an infomercial where the previews are supposed to go. It was almost always an infomercial pimping swag for a mega blockbuster with tons of merchandizing tie-ins. Think Batman or Indiana Jones or something Disney-ish. Almost always a movie that was coming off a super successful theatrical run. In other words...not a movie like this goddamn stupid 18 Again starring nonagenarian comedian George Burns. But alas...that’s exactly what we see on this here VHS tape! Someone over at the long-defunct New World Pictures thought that someone would A-actually enjoy watching this film...and B-enjoy it to the point where they would want to own a motherfucking polo shirt with the movie’s logo on it. And holy christ and all of the apostles...what an informercial it is! They went out and found a lady who sounds older than George Burns to narrate the ad...and she just GUSHES like she’s selling “cure for cancer” pills. “Ohhh my now this is NICE! An 18 Again sports shirt! Sid is always complaining that he doesn’t have enough sports shirts!!” Like...who the hell is Sid!? Sid Caesar?? And then there’s the piece de resistance: an 18 Again crew jacket that costs SIXTY...DOLLARS! Do you know how much sixty smackers is in 2019 money?? I don’t either...but probably like $5k. Anyway...so yeah...if you were alive during the late 1980’s you surely remember where you were during the great Invasion of the Body-Switching Comedies. This is something that has happened every now and then throughout the history of cinema: two movies about the same subject hit the screens around the same time. You know...like when we got two Truman Capote movies in the mid-aught’s. I get it...movie producers are a competitive lot. “You’re making a movie about Steve Prefontaine?? Well so are we...and our film is gonna eat yours for lunch!!” As if the moviegoers were just dying for a rash of movies about an obscure Olympic runner who died in 1975. (FYI: Those two Prefontaine movies made less than 2 million dollars...combined! I recommend the one with Billy Crudup). Between 1987 and 1989, though, we saw FIVE body-switching comedies unleashed on the public (all white- dude-to-white-dude, of course). There’s the Tom Hanks flick Big...which was nominated for a couple of Oscars and currently holds a score of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. And then there’s the other 4 flicks...which are all various shades of terrible. 18 Again, though, is a truly special kind of awful. Seriously, it makes Vice Versa look like Tootsie. What happens is this: Poorest man’s Patrick Dempsey Charle Schlatter plays David Watson, a college freshman who is having a real tough go of things. His only friend is Pauly Shore...which is a legit problem...and he’s constantly being hazed by his fellow frat brothers...which I give less of a shit about. Russ, the 35 year-old frat leader is constantly making David do one-handed push-ups and write papers for the other brothers...even though the centerpiece of the frat house is a giant painting of David’s grandfather. Haven’t these clowns ever heard of nepotism?? David heads to history class, where he immediately falls in love with the Farrah Fawcett-haired Robin...who is, of course, dating the odious Russ. Speaking of odious; the history professor tells the students that they need only to study the life of President Harry S Truman. When Robin suggests that JFK was a more important prez the professor humiliates her and then tells her to stop by his office so he can give her a little (long pause) INPUT on Truman. So it’s gonna be that kind of movie, eh. Garrosss! After class David goes to work at his family’s super rich non-specific white people company. So let’s pull back a second: this David fucker is the scion of a billionaire family who already has a gig with the family company. And we’re supposed to, what, root for him as some sort of underdog? Why go to college at all? Why even make this movie?? Eject! Seriously though...we are now introduced to David’s CEO grandfather Jack (George Burns) who has a real soft spot for David...but completely disregards his own son Arne, played by Woody Allen mainstay Tony Roberts, who is also the president of the company or some bullshit. Jack’s all “how’s college, kid? you must be bangin’ tons of broads!” Literally everything that comes out of this old man’s mouth hole is something sexist and terrible. I might cut the old bastard a bit of slack since he was born in the NINETEENTH CENTURY when attitudes were, you know, different. But only a tiny bit. Jack invites David to his big birthday bonanza blowout. The old man is turning 81...which...I mean...who gives a shit? It should be noted that George Burns was actually 92 when they filmed this movie, which is much older than 81. They tried to cast an 81 year-old actor in the part but all of the 81 year-old actors at the time were dead (waka waka!). It should also be noted that I first saw Burns act in the film Oh God! when I was about 3 years old and thought that God and George Burns were the same person until the catholic school nuns beat that idea out of my head. So the old man is at his party and they ask him what he wants for his birthday and he launches into an old timey song called “I Wish I Was 18 Again”...which also happens to be the name of the movie we are watching. Jack’s favorite grandson David is 18 years old...and if you reverse the numbers in 81...you get 18! I have a feeling this is going to come up again in about 3 minutes. Instead of hanging with the 300 people who showed up to his inconsequential party Jack hops in his Rolls Royce and takes David to an all-night greasy spoon in Sherman Oaks or wherever. There, he offers the kid more precious nuggets about the meaning of life. “You’ll never have a wider selection of broads than you do now, kid! This Robin gal that you like...tell me she’s got money and I’ll book a church today!” He also makes lewd comments about the waitress. It is terrible. Typically, in these body-switching movies, bodies are switched as a result of some vaguely racist voodoo spell or potion or magic skull or what have you. The people who made this friggin’ flick literally couldn’t be bothered. Jack is driving David home from the diner when he loses control of his Rolls because 92 is way too old to be driving. They crash into the front of a drug store at, say, 25 mph. Like, the car isn’t even totaled! But because they were holding hands during the crash (huh?) they have now switched bodies. Could happen. Here’s the rub, though: the old man is in a coma...so any scenes of an 18 year-old discovering what it’s like to live in George Burns’ 92 year-old body will have to exist only in your imagination. Jack-as-David, though, is wicked jazzed to be 18 again (cough). He immediately checks himself out of the hospital and heads straight to the running track where he sprints and does 500 backflips and 1000 pole vaults and 5000 one-handed push-ups (you might want to check my math here). As if it isn’t enough to simply tell us that Jack is now living inside of David, the filmmakers decided to let George Burns narrate the rest of the movie from inside David’s head. It’s kind of like Look Who’s Talking but with no babies or Scientologists. So now Jack-as-David heads back to campus and starts rippin’ mad cigars and dressing like an asshole acting all haa cha cha cha chaaa! Unpredictably, even though he looks like a super drunk and high David Lee Roth, he’s suddenly popular. He goes to history class and that creepy professor is going on about how the “S” in Harry S Truman doesn’t stand for anything and David is all “pump the brakes, homie--the S stands for Sergei!” Turns out the grandpa Jack and Truman were thick as thieves. The professor doesn’t believe him...and neither do ! I mean...why doesn’t someone just google that shit? Since I live in 2019 I can go ahead and look it up on my phone...and it turns out the David is full of shit. David goes to Jack’s mansion to see what’s crackin’ and finds Jack’s ginger trophy wife Madeline in the middle of some swingers party. Madeline grabs the kid’s junk and tries to ball him. Says she ain’t gettin’ any action off of the old man. George Burns says he’s going to have her killed in his voice over. Jokes about murdering women: laff city. David offers to help Robin with her Harry Truman homework. He tells her that Truman was originally going to drop the H-bomb on Switzerland because he kept having trouble with his watch. Seriously, are we supposed to laugh? David tells the frat boys they should throw a toga party. “You know...really put on the ritz! I’m talking lots of beer and bathtub gin! Live music from the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies!” (OK...I totally made up that last part). The other frat boys EAT IT UP! It’s a zoot suit riot! Well...not that one dude Russ. He wants to pound David’s ass...and rightfully so, I say--David HAS been stepping out with his gal! David offers to settle it things with a bet--$1k says David can beat Russ at the upcoming track meet. But stop the presses! Before we can get into all of that word comes down that they are gonna pull the plug on the old man! That means that David-as-Jack will die...which means actual David will actually DIE! Hey...whatever it takes to get those end credits rolling...I’m all for it. David races to the hospital...but he’s too late! The plug has been pulled and George Burns and his lying-on-his-back-collecting-a-paycheck-for-nothing ass has been moved to the room where they just line up half-dead old people on stretchers. David punches an orderly in the grill and steals Jack’s body and goes tearing ass down the hallway of the hospital. He crashes the stretcher through the stained glass window that leads to the upper level of the hospital’s chapel. They both suffer a good 50 foot fall to the ground. What kind of sick son of a bitch would design a hospital like this anyway?? So now Jack is no longer dead and, also, Jack again. David is David...and I’m totally thinking about other things. Like...there’s an old codger in this flick named Red Buttons that I totally thought was Red Skelton. There’s a name you never hear anymore: Red. I’m gonna name my kid Red Tebo...boy or girl. ANYWAY...even though George Burns was lying is a coma for weeks and just fell through a church he is suddenly completely fine. He goes home and tells his butler to put his wife out with the trash. Gross Pt 2. Oh...and we still have to watch the goddamn race! David’s all “I can’t win a race...I’m unpopular and suck at everything!” Jack tells him that he is now popular and good at everything and gives him a pair of magical running cleats from 1928 to help him win the race. At first he sucks...because he does actually suck...but then Robin winks at him from the stands and he hauls ass and wins the race by doing a motherfucking cartwheel at the finish line. I know exactly zero things about running track but I’m pretty sure that sort of shit is not allowed. David wins the money and the girl and George Burns lives to be 100 years-old and blah blah blah nobody cares!! The movie ends...and after all that we just suffered through they think we’d still want to drop 60 clams on a commemorative jacket?? Hard pass.