i want you to hit me as hard as you can
sincerely yours the breakfast club
mueller
hello and welcome to our new job video series we'll be taking a look back at some of our
favorite films from revered filmmaker john hughes and taking a closer look at what made them tick
their cultural impact and lasting legacy and other cool tidbits we learned about along the way
hugh's films more often than not struck a chord with us and a lot of us grew up on his films
especially since he was the undisputed king of the teenage angst genre when you consider
all the films we missed out on from hughes due to his untimely death at the age of 59 in 2009
we decided to go back and appreciate the cinematic classics he bestowed upon us
today we're setting our sights on you guessed it bueller ferris bueller ferris bueller's day off
the pinnacle of teen comedies written and directed by john hughes the film stars matthew broderick as
the eponymous ferris bueller a high school slacker who skipped school for a day to explore chicago
with his best friend the shy and nervous cameron fry and his girlfriend salone peterson the trio
run all around the windy city attend a baseball game chill by the pool and become part of a city
parade all while ferris's sister jeannie is trying to prove he's in fact lying about being sick
his principal is also not convinced about ferris's illness and dedicates his entire day trying to
catch him in the lie god i miss the 80s when it came to casting hughes said he had broderick in
mind as he wrote the screenplay saying broderick was the only actor he could think of who could
pull off the role calling him charming and clever broderick admitted he hadn't seen the director's
work until he was being considered for the titular role molly ringwald hoped to play salon peterson
but according to the actor hughes wouldn't let her do it claiming the part wasn't big enough
for her the role of ferris's girlfriend went to mia sarah instead for the role of ferris's bff
it had originally been offered to emilio estevez another breakfast club alum but he turned it down
alan ruck had previously auditioned for the role of bender in the breakfast club
which ultimately went to judd nelson however hughes remembered rock from his audition and
cast him as the 17 year old cam and fry producers were worried about ruck's age as he would turn 30
by the time the film was released but rux's agent alleviated fears by pointing out that ruck had
played the same age as broderick every night on stage during the production of bloxy blues even
though ruck and broderick shared this connection the team still wasn't convinced of their chemistry
after an awkward wardrobe test luckily any concerns quickly subsided once the cameras
began to roll for real during the phone call scene where cameron impersonates salon's father ruck was
actually doing broderick's impression of their stage director gene sax help me what the hell was
the matter with you anyway who would at times get flabbergasted this real-life connection between
the actors translated to a beautiful on-screen friendship next jeffrey jones was cast as
principal ed rooney based on his role in amadeus where he plays the emperor hughes thought that the
character's modern equivalent was principal rooney and while jones plays a terrific villain watching
him hunt down a child is somewhat tainted due to his legal troubles you know his mugshot even kind
of looks like how we last saw rooney perhaps he was foreshadowing reportedly the casting
of ben stein is ferris's economics teacher was an easy and early choice as he wasn't a professional
actor he had a flat voice he looked like a teacher stein's monotone performance launched
his acting career with him basically playing a version of that character in subsequent roles
the film also features a brief cameo from none other than a young charlie sheen who plays a
boy in the police station and winds up making out with ferris sister perhaps sheen got a little too
into character he stayed awake for more than two days to achieve his burnt out look and you know
what he nailed it featuring many iconic chicago landmarks such as the then sears tower wrigley
field and the art institute of chicago the film was essentially hugh's love letter to the city
minus cameron's detroit red wings jersey according to legend hughes wrote the entire screenplay in
only six days apparently he developed the basic storyline in a single day and successfully pitched
it to paramount the very next day the editor paul hirsch recounted that hughes had a trance-like
concentration to his scriptwriting process working for hours on end and would later shoot the film
on essentially what was his first draft of the script the first cut of the film clocked in at
2 hours 45 minutes so any trimming of the script had to come in the cutting room the unexpected
upside of having the episodic story take place all in one day meant the characters were wearing the
same clothes hirsch suspected that hughes wrote his scripts with few if any costume changes just
so he could have that kind of freedom in the ending the parade scene took multiple days of
filming and much of the original choreography had to be scrapped as broderick had injured his knee
badly during the scenes of running through neighbors backyards then there's the car
ferris convinces cameron to borrow his father's rare 1961 ferrari 250 gt california spider one of
the most recognizable cars in the world thanks to its inclusion in this film john hughes had
actually planned for the car to be a mercedes until he came across a replica of the ferrari in
a magazine the only time you see the real ferrari 250 gt were in the insert shots every other car
seen in the film was a replication you see there are only around 100 of these bad boys in existence
so destroying an actual ferrari 250 gt was out of the question instead the filmmakers created
a replica which was universally hated by the crew as it gave him quite a bit of trouble
for instance the scene where ferris turns off the car to leave it with the garage attendant
had to be shot not once not twice but a dozen times because the darn thing wouldn't start
and that ferrari that flew out of cameron's garage window it didn't even run that model had
a fiberglass shell specifically built for the sole purpose of being destroyed in that climactic scene
and while the film and its characters feel so fully formed not everything made into the final
film with several deleted scenes being left on the cutting room floor one lost scene has the three
teams trying to order in the french restaurant shocked to discover pancreas on the menu even
though in the finished film ferris still remarks we ate pancreas other cutscenes include additional
screen time with genie in the locker room ferris's younger siblings both of whom were completely
removed from the film and additional lines of dialogue all of which can be seen in the original
theatrical trailer hughes also wanted the scene where ferris stallone and cameron go to a strip
club but paramount executives told him there was only so much time left in the shooting schedule
so the scene was scrapped a few months before the premiere the three leads caught early screening of
the movie and didn't laugh once they left thinking they had made a bad movie and paramount executives
were similarly concerned so hughes and editor paul hirsch then spent two weeks cutting and
pasting it into the movie we all know and loved today and while it's an iconic part of the film in
the original cut the museum scene fared poorly at test screenings until they switch sequences around
and change the soundtrack you see the museum scene originally came right after the parade sequence
but the filmmakers realized that the parade was the highlight of the day and there was no
way to top it so that centerpiece had to be the last event before the three teens returned home
so they reshuffled the sequence of events and moved the museum scene before the parade
everybody loved it and the rest is history ferris bueller's day off was released on june 11
1986 and went on to become one of the year's top grossing films making 70 million dollars
on a 5 million dollar budget the movie received the claim from both critics and audiences who
praised broderick's performance the film's humor and its tone it seems that hughes knew that the
film was destined to enter the zeitgeist telling multiple cast members including jeffrey jones that
their roles would follow them the rest of their lives and after playing the high school senior
broderick's career went stratospheric during broderick's oscar tribute to the late hughes
he says hardly a day goes by without someone tapping him on the shoulder and asking hey ferris
is this your day off
richard roper called it one of his favorite films of all time he along with many others view this
something of a suicide prevention film despite the title the film isn't really about ferris
bueller but rather his timid friend cameron who starts off in a depressed state and by the end
finds his inner strength and self-worth to stand up to his materialistic father if ferris is who we
want to be then cameron is who we are representing our daily struggle within ourselves the basic plot
is centered around ferris making it his mission to show his best friend that the whole world in front
of him is passing him by and that life can be pretty sweet if you wake up and embrace it now the
idea of a sequel has been floated for years after production wrapped roderick and hughes stayed in
touch they spitballed ideas for a potential sequel where ferris would be in college or at his first
job and the same kind of high jinks would happen again neither the actor nor the filmmaker found
a very exciting hook to pull off since this movie is about a singular time in your life allen ruck
joked that they could wait until him and broderick were in their 70s and do a ferris bueller movie
set in a nursing home cameron wouldn't really need to be there but he just decided his life is over
so he committed himself to a nursing home ferris comes and breaks them out and then
they go to a strip club and other ridiculous stuff happens honestly i'd be lying if i said i
didn't want to watch that movie especially since hughes would finally get his strip club scene
in the 90s there was also a television series starring charlie schlatter in the titular role
and featured a pre-friends jennifer aniston who plays his sister okay let me tell you this show is
bonkers it's strange it's neither a prequel nor a reboot but also a mix of both those things the
show takes place before the events of the movie but ferris also references stuff that happens
in the movie oh remember when i said that jennifer aniston plays his sister
yeah keep that in mind when you watch this scene you and i we're flesh and blood i know i've never
said this to you before but i am so glad that you were my sister really absolutely oh ferris
yeah don't remember that in the movie compared to the film the show had a much colder reception
it also suffered competition from another series parker lewis can't lose that show was also heavily
influenced by ferris bueller's day off and proved to be more successful when it came to ratings
lasting for three seasons ratings for ferris was strong at first but declined in later episodes
it was ultimately cancelled before the end of its first season a mere few months after its
debut due to poor viewership and low ratings it probably didn't help that hughes had zero
involvement in the show's production although his involvement didn't exactly benefit homo 103 either
the closest will probably ever come to a sequel is this he bought it how can i handle work on a
day like today a teaser for the ad appeared two weeks prior to super bowl 46 which had created
rumors of a possible film sequel fun fact that spot was directed by todd phillips the ad was
actually somewhat controversial as broderick was involved in a fatal car collision shortly
after the premier ferris bueller killing two people the family of the victims criticized the
multi-million dollar honda commercial saying that broderick wasn't the greatest choice of drivers
knowing his past how could i resist they definitely have a point it'd be like if petco
hired michael vick to endorse his products but hey at least it wasn't as terrible as the tv show
the film has been referenced time and time again in other films like easy a television series
such as the goldbergs he's faking it like ferris bueller and in advertisements like domino's pizza
looking for this and broderick wasn't the only one to reprise his iconic role as alan ruck recently
returned as an older cameron fry for a commercial been there done that the film's influence in pop
culture extends beyond the film itself but also its musical elements the oh yeah song by yellow
illustrates the mouth-watering desire of cameron's dad's ferrari
since then the track has become synonymous with lust and greed
it's pretty much known as the ferris bueller song due to its attachment with the movie and 16 years
after the beatles broke up twist and shout shot back onto the charts thanks to this film
the track heard in the movie is actually a different version that included brass
over dubbed onto the beatles original recording which did not go over well with paul mccartney
upon hearing mccartney's reaction hughes felt bad for offending a beatle but defended the decision
by saying we saw a ban on screen and we needed to hear the instruments
originally an official soundtrack was not released for the film as director john hughes
didn't see the need he felt the songs would not work well together as a continuous album
going on to say who would want donkey shane and oh yeah on the same record donkey shane
is one of the recurring motifs in the film hughes actually despised the track calling it the most
awful song of his youth finally in 2016 the official soundtrack for the film was released with
only 5 000 physical copies in existence the film was also inserting memorable mid and post credit
scenes way before the mcu was even a thing in fact it was this film that inspired mcu ringmaster
kevin feige to insert post-credits scenes into the mcu films as it caused him to watch credits
for every film he saw when he was younger and as the credits roll rooney looking like hell
boards a school bus full of ferris bueller fans his worst nightmare there's also a post-credits
scene where ferris comes out on the robe and tells the audience the film is over and to go home
that post-credits scene was paid homage by none other than deadpool in his first outing huh in
a way it's kinda come full circle in 2016 toronto artist sarah kinleyside recreated ferris bueller's
bedroom in the documentary ferris's room as part of celebrations for the 30th anniversary of the
film the documentary captures her process as she tracks down replicas of ferris's prized
possessions and works against the clock to get the installation ready in time for the big day
along the way she meets fair super fans who keep the spirit of ferris bueller's day off
alive and reveals how art whether it's a nostalgic art installation
or a classic comedy film brings us together there's also a really cool 360 degree video
experience available on youtube if you want to check it out the longevity of the film
is obvious as its cultural impact has permeated pop culture throughout the years bueller bueller
bueller those three words spoken in the monotonous tone became instantly classic as it captured the
feeling of pure boredom so perfectly since we've all experienced a teacher like this
in 2014 the film was selected for preservation in the national film registry and this year the
film celebrates its 35th year anniversary most of the cast even reunited virtually in june 2020 for
an episode of josh gad's reunited apart series the film can also be seen as a precursor to home alone
with the childlike wish fulfillment in the fourth wall breaking star
there's also a theory that ferris is simply a figment of cameron's imagination a la fight club
why don't you kick me where's your brain i asked you first while definitely intriguing
i'm not sure i buy the ferris as cameron's tyler durden there's also another theory floating out
there that alexander payne's film election which starred matthew broderick as a teacher this time
paid against a student he doesn't like played by rhys witherspoon is a sequel to ferris bueller's
day off truly you could almost see it possibly being a super dark quasi sequel where ferris loses
his way and somehow grows up to become ed rooney quick side tangent before they were sold on brian
cranston for breaking bad amc network actually had broderick in mind for the world walter white hmm
maybe they were thinking of both of his roles in election as well as ferris's knack for ingenious
schemes and getting out of trouble anyways i also love that ferris is essentially a fixer we never
see him in a school setting but all the students are rooting for him even starting a fundraiser to
buy him a new kidney the sportos and motor heads geeks [ __ ] bloods wasteoids dweebies they all
adore him they think he's a righteous dude hell even the cops are rooting for ferris tell them
all the guys at the station here are pulling for them honestly the casting of broderick is key in
the wrong hands ferris bueller could have been an arrogant grating punk i mean just look at the tv
show's version it's less ferris bueller and more american psycho they say curiosity killed the cat
i'm ferris bueller and color me curious but i've never killed a cat
ferris bueller is the living embodiment of cool he doesn't follow the rules everyone loves him and
everything always seems to work out for him if i had to give ferris bueller's day off a rating
i'd awarded 9 out of 10 molly ring walls to hughes and many others ferris is more than a man
he's an attitude a way of life and a mindset we could all learn something from ferris especially
in our world that moves at a million miles an hour today life moves pretty
fast you don't stop and look around once in a while you could miss it well said ferris
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shane
you