Summer 1980: When Comedy was the MCU

The biggest hit movie in the summer of 1980, and of the year, was The Empire Strikes Back. The "Spielberg-Lucas" decade began with Lucas leading off. The next summer, 1981, Lucas and Spielberg together (as producer and director respectively) would take the summer and the year with Raiders of the Lost Ark. The next summer, 1982, the hit of the summer and the year -- and all time for a long while -- was Spielberg's: ET. The next summer, 1983, Lucas came back with his third -- and supposedly final -- Star Wars capper, Return of the Jedi. The next summer, 1984 Lucas and Spielberg together had Indiana Jones ready to go: Indiana Jones(name in the title now) and the Temple of Doom. But they didn't get the hit of the summer and the year. What beat it was interesting.

Yes, the 80s were the Lucas/Spielberg decade overall, but as it turned out , they were stronger in the FIRST HALF of the 80s. Lucas second half of the decade saw Howard the Duck, Willow and Lucas pretty much dropping out in the main for years to come. Spielberg's second half of the decade saw him trying to "go serious" with The Color Purple and Empire of the Sun, and rather crapping out with "Always" a remake of "A Guy Named Joe." In 1989, at the end of the decade, Lucas and Spielberg would join again to bring us Indiana Jones "one last time"(ha) in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. They didn't get the hit of the summer and the fall that time -- Batman took the honors.

..but back up to that summer of 1980.

Lucas had The Empire Strikes Back. Spielberg offered us nothing as a DIRECTOR, but he had a surprise in store.

And that surprise was part of the "comedy dominatiion of summer 1980" -- a pretty impressive takeover of the box office ASIDE from The Empire Strikes Back (and the other notable big one of summer 1980 -- Kubrick's The Shining.)

Comedy was King in the summer of 1980. You could say that "SNL was the MCU" that summer, but that would be wrong -- there were two SNL driven hits, and two non-SNL driven hits, and as a cumulatve matter, they ruled the summer and our catch-phrase ridden talk, and American culture.

Here are the four:

The two from Saturday Night Live:

The Blues Brothers. As I post this, Saturday Night Live is about to enter its 50th year after having given us scores(hundreds?) of comedy players over those decades. A comparatively small percentage of those players became bona fide bankable movie stars. Another group of them became "network TV comedy series stars." Others became supporting players in movies. And others went nowhere.

But in 1980, "the first class of SNL" (from its first season of 1975-1976, with one big one from 1976-77) had four bona fide male movie stars and all four of them ended up in two movies that summer.

The Blues Brothers paired John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd in a full movie based on a recurring SNL "musical sketch" in which Belushi and Ackroyd --in black suits and ties and porkpie hats -- took a legitimate swing at singing blues hits. The sketch "took" and the next thing you know(it took about four years), Belushi and Ackroyd(as a comedy team they never took alphabetical order -- Belushi was the bigger movie star thanks to Animal House) as Jake and Elwood Blues had (1) a hit music album all over 1979 radio; (2) a 1980 US concert tour and (3) a movie.

"The Blues Brothers movie" did double duty as a comedy vehicle: it brought The Blues Brothers to the big screen and it was the follow of director John Landis to HIS influential (and very funny) big hit of 1978: National Lampoon's Animal House.

And therein lie a tale. Landis had been held to a tight budget and a tight schedule on Animal House, but when it hit big, he was given carte blanche on The Blues Brothers and you could tell: it went over budget and over schedule as Landis staged a sprawling movie with wall to wall car chases and a large number of big musical numbers(featuring black soul artists in a nod to counterbalancing white Jake and Elwood.)

I don't much think that The Blues Brothers was a good a movie as Animal House. The reason was the script. Animal House had been finely honed by National Lampoon writers Doug Kenney and Chris Miller(from their college experiences) with a third very funny writer: Harold Ramis. The Blues Brothers was, in the main, a Dan Ackroyd script from his rather simple plot idea -- just less "full a meal." Director John Landis got a co-writing credit, but seemed a better director(the comedy timing of Animal House was his and his alone) than writer.

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