Wolf Movie Breaks Ground

There's a mold? Sure there is. What does every classic 80's comedy have in store for you? Other than including the title of the movie in the lyrics to the movie's opening song, there are six simple character arch-types that have become mythological legends of 80's comedy cannon.

1. A cheesy blonde bad guy with an army of henchmen. See Better Off Dead, One Crazy Summer, Back to School, Just One of the Guys and the Karate Kid. Not only is the antagonist always cheesy and blonde, more than half of the time he's played by Bill Zabka. His entourage may also have its own selection of blonde cheese but hair color is no requirement for henchmanliness.
2. Everyman teen loser with a wastoid for a best friend. The protagonist is always experiencing some degree of common teenage angst but for wastoid sidekicks, see pure-snow-snorting Charles De Mar of Better Off Dead, the redhead nerd from Can't Buy Me Love "You *&^$@! on my house!" Winona Ryder in Lucas, Derek Lutz in Back to School, the interchangeable wastoids from Weird Science and the supporting cast of Sixteen Candles.
3. Goofy neighbors and acquaintances. There is no better example of this than The Burbs but for graduate-level study, check out Pee Wee's Big Adventure.
4. Oblivious parents (possibly struggling to connect). Weird Science has some rather oblivious parents due to the fact that they're out of town and not in the movie until the final frames but check out Ronnie Miller's parents in Can't Buy Me Love (talk about a couple of clueless loons) and the Lamaze-panting duo from License to Drive. But for sure weirdness, no one beats the TV-dinner-gifting, green-slime-baking mom from Better Off Dead (who also plays a "bad guy" in the much lampooned and greatly ignored sequel Teen Wolf Too).
5. Fair weather girlfriends. Beth in Better Off Dead dumps our hero for ski legend and acoustic guitar seducer Roy Stalin, only to dump Stalin when he loses the K-12 race to our hero. And don't forget about the popular bimbi from Can't Buy Me Love who are all over Ronnie when he's totally sheik but pull up their pants and run the other direction when he becomes totally geek.
6. The pretty girl who sees our hero for who he is. Elisabeth Shue in Karate Kid is a good example until she sells out and goes fair-weather between KK1 and KK2. For better loyalists see Monique in Better Off Dead, the Weird Science babes, and that chick from Back to School who went on to play in that Ted Danson sitcom about the diner.

If you have all these components or Anthony Michael Hall then you have the formula for classic cinema worthy of a TBS Saturday afternoon. But Teen Wolf does things that most of our 80's favorites don't do and manages to succeed. For starters, no Anthony Michael Hall, but what about the six character arch-types? This is where Teen Wolf truly broke ground and set itself apart.

Let's break these arch-types down one by one.

No cheesy blonde bad guy or army of henchmen. In the realm of Teen Wolf, the bad guy is Mick: dark hair and no entourage to speak of! He has no gang of goons to point out that the hero just arrived at the high school dance with the gang leader's ex-girlfriend, no meat headed jocks to laugh at his bad jokes, no flunkies to follow him around while he gets dissed by babes at the party. Mick, most famous for "shoot it, fat boy," shows us the world of the lone antagonist, a precursor of soloist movie baddies like Darth Maul from The Phantom Menace, Heath Ledger's Joker and Stiffler from American Pie.

No wastoid for a best friend. Sure, there's Chubby (better known as Buxton from Pee Wee's Big Adventure) but Teen Wolf's best friend is Styles, one of the coolest characters in the world of high school comedy. This Wolfmania profiteer capitalizes on Teen Wolf's popularity while wearing sunglasses, driving his Wolfmobile through town to the tune of "Surfin' USA" and generally revels in making himself the center of attention. He's actually the most popular guy in school long before Marty McFly plucks that first long, abnormal hair from his chest.

Goofy neighbors? Not really. In this case it's a childhood friend with a great nickname, the Tom Boyish "Boof" from next door. Boof hangs out with Marty, shoots hoops with his dad and even accompanies Teen Wolf to the dance. In a world of zany characters and wacky hi-jinks, Boof is the only character that's somewhat normal. I think the writers realized this when they were concocting their masterpiece, which is why they (brilliantly) named her after backdoor sex.

Oblivious parents (not on your life). Marty's dad is not only completely in touch with his son's daily comings and goings, he's actually a Teen Wolf too! In a hilarious moment when Teen Wolf finds himself changing into the werewolf uncontrollably, while locked in the family bathroom, his dad knocks and demands to be let inside. When Teen Wolf opens the door, expecting to scare the pants off his dad, it's Daddy Wolf who shocks the world. This was the 80's comedy equivalent to Darth Vader announcing his fatherhood to young Luke. Not only is Daddy Wolf complete in touch, he even takes it a step further and confronts the school principal, Teen Wolf's arch-nemesis, and scares the guy into wetting his pants!

Fair weather girlfriends. Teen Wolf has Pamela, beauty queen and aspiring actress, who only gives Marty the time of day when he turns into the wolf. He even dates her for awhile but at the end of the movie - in one of celluloid's most romantic moments of all-time - Marty pushes her aside and makes a B-line for Boof. This is a stark contrast to other 80's legends like Better Off Dead, where Lane actually takes the fair weather girlfriend back. You may remember the celebration at the bottom of the ski hill, where Lane is seen sucking face with Beth. It's not until he needs to rescue Monique from the disgusting Ricky that Lane realizes his true love and runs away with her to Dodgers Stadium. Why so many references to Better Off Dead? Four reasons: 1) It's sweet. 2) It's awesome. 3) It rules, and 4) It's got raisins in it.

The pretty girl who sees our hero for who he is. Again, enter the adorable Boof, who never doubted Marty, even when he got carried away doing handstands on the top of Styles' Wolfmobile.

The movie does have one major shortcoming: the basketball game at the end goes on for way too long. I don't care to see Marty in Michael J. Fox form. Give us more of the wolf! Next to Michael Jordan, Teen Wolf is the greatest basketball player of all time. We get it that Marty can throw layups sans wolf - we don't need 20 minutes of amateur basketball to convince us. Let's see more Styles too. That guy got screwed when they didn't offer him his own spinoff movie.

In the end, Teen Wolf raked in an astonished $33 million at the US box office, ranking it (not ranked) on the all time list and was such a masterpiece that it spawned the sequel Teen Wolf Too with Jason Bateman as Marty's cousin. If only they had capped the saga with a third movie, the Teen Wolf series would have rivaled the great movie trilogies of all time, challenging even the sacred Lord of the Rings. But sadly, TW3 is a movie we will never see as visionary director Rod Daniel astonishingly stopped making movies after Home Alone 4. We'll have to content ourselves with Teen Wolf's cartoon spin-off and late night reruns of Big Wolf on Campus.

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