movie music beatdown vol. 3: OH YEAH

Week 3 of the WEDNESDAY MOVIE MUSIC BEATDOWN brings us closer to a song we all know, but didn’t know it until it showed up in a movie. Now it’s been copied about 1,000 times, but the first two times it showed up in pop culture are the ones we’re taking a look at today.

In case you didn’t know the rules: Every Wednesday we take a look at one song that’s appeared in at least two movies to figure out which one used it better, scoring on a 1-10 scale between the scene, the song’s appropriateness and the overall movie. Then we add them up and come up with a winner. You can check the archives for Tequila and Shout.

This week: 

THE SONG: Oh Yeah, Yello

Movie 1: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

The scene: It’s every teen’s dream to have a friend whose old man owned one of the best-looking cars ever made. Ferris Bueller — still the international educational symbol for “slacker” — had that friend in Cameron Frye. When the two went into Cameron’s garage to unveil the masterpiece of Italian car-making, in the background we hear the lyrically challenged classic blaring. Oh Yeah, indeed. It’s a quintessential 80s scene, even if it’s a little dated now that no one in their right mind would leave such a machine unguarded. SCORE: 8

Appropriateness: Pitch perfect in every way. A classic example of how a song — especially one no one had ever heard before this scene — can turn a great scene into a classic scene. Without that song, you probably wouldn’t remember the dialogue that goes behind the montage of car details — “It is his love, it is his passion . . .” “It is his fault he didn’t lock the garage.” SCORE: 10

Overall movie: By all accounts and logic, this movie shouldn’t hold up 25 years later. No one believed the whole “running from your parents through the neighborhood” gag, a principal tracking down a rogue student for a whole day or the third-largest city in the country rallying behind a faking-sick con man, and they certainly wouldn’t believe it now. But this movie isn’t about believability, credibility and isn’t steeped in any semblance of reality. This is one big, juicy fantasy, one shared by anyone who’s ever attended high school. So, all of us. When we skipped school and sat around at our buddy’s house playing our 23rd straight game of Tecmo Bowl, we wondered why we weren’t having as much fun as Ferris/Abe Froman and almost felt bad we didn’t go to school. No one has ever had as much fun ditching school as Ferris Bueller did. Since it still holds up well and is considered a classic that shouldn’t be tampered with, that makes it an easy candidate to be remade by Jerry Bruckheimer within the next two years. Until then, anyone who grew up in the 80s – and beyond — always will have a special place in our hearts for it. SCORE: 9.5

Movie 2: The Secret of My Succe$s

The scene: Michael J. Fox’s Brantley Foster worms his way into driving the boss’s wife a limo to her house in what seems like West Chester. He makes the mistake of complimenting her while she shops, and her frail ego sees it as a come-on. The two engage in a contrived cat-and-mouse game, hitting every switch, button and lever in the limo short of the emergency brake while the decidedly unsexy Vera, the boss’s wife, crosses her legs a couple times Basic Instinct-style and tries to look alluring while she coats on lipstick. It doesn’t work. The punchline to the whole thing comes a couple minutes later after they’ve done the deed and we find out the two are aunt and nephew through marriage. Ba ha ha. SCORE: 3

Appropriateness: As long as you’re not putting a funeral scene together, Oh Yeah works just about anytime you’re trying to create some kind of anticipated excitement. If that excitement doesn’t play out, you’re left wondering, “If that’s it, why did they use that song???” That’s the case here, as incest isn’t nearly as funny as these people make it out to be. At least not the last time I checked. Oh Yeah is exponentially more appropriate every time Duffman comes around in The Simpsons. It’s also fair to mention SoMS came out just one summer after Ferris Bueller. So even if the people who made this didn’t steal directly from John Hughes, they had a year to rework the script once they saw/heard/read about Oh Yeah in Ferris Bueller. They never did. SCORE: 5

Overall movie: If you study the parts Fox took in the 80s and early 90s, the progression of roles could easily be a compilation of one real-life person living those roles. A cocky high schooler who needed to be knocked down a peg, but is too smart for anyone to ever do it to him in his hometown (Alex P. Keaton). He hits post-high school and goes into his rebellious punk phase where he decided to chuck it all, buy a guitar and rock out (the Springsteen-inspired Light of Day). His music “career” quickly fizzles, so he returns to the business world humbled for everything he went through, ready to work his butt off when he leaves his small town and hits the big city (SoMS). Then come the drugs and depression (Bright Lights, Big City). He gets clean, starts over and moves to the country to work (Doc Hollywood). He stays in the sticks for years and you don’t really hear that much from him until he returns to his roots, gets cocky again, and is ready to retake Manhattan (Spin City). I just wasted two minutes of your day opining on my personal opinion of the career choices of Michael J. Fox because there really isn’t anything else worth mentioning in this movie other than the complete — and thoroughly welcome — physical change of Aunt Vera in this movie to playing Rachel Phelps, owner of the Cleveland Indians in Major League. Bravo, Philly native Margaret Whitton. Bravo. SCORE: 4

DECISION: Our first blowout! Ferris Bueller 27.5, Secret of My Succe$s, 12. This is the easiest one we’ve done so far, because there is absolutely no argument when you ask yourself the question: Where do I remember that song from? Michael J. Fox himself would say he remembers it from Ferris Bueller.

We’ve got some new songs up on the poll over there on the right for next week’s MOVIE MUSIC BEATDOWN, so vote now so you can be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.