Netflix and Nostalgia
I kicked off my Halloween viewing with Hubie Halloween, my kind of low-stakes fun. One of the best things about this being a Happy Madison production is the cameos. There are some cool people that pop up in this film. It really adds to the nostalgia. Like no, seriously, at one point while watching I blurted out “Everybody’s in this damn movie!”. Just actor you love/know after actor you love/know after actor you love/know. A lot of established people. A lot of people that are underpraised in my opinion (you know I’m rooting for everybody black). It really helps to make it clear that this movie is intended for everybody. It’s very familiar and yet obviously I’ve never seen this movie before.
With all these cameos (for real, I started tracking every time I got surprised by an actor I wasn’t expecting to see about 30 mins in and then lost track about 60 mins in), it really feels nostalgic. And that’s perfect for me for Halloween. There’s something about holidays that just makes us connect over memories. And movies and actors are a huge part of my memories. My favorite cameos are China Ann McClain roasting a lil shithead kid in the cafeteria, Maya Rudolph playing Mrs. Hennessy (who doesn’t love seeing her onscreen), and George Wallace as the Mayor (“We ain’t canceling a damn thing, Sergeant!”). And when I say everybody’s in this damn movie, I mean EVERYBODY’S in this damn movie lmao It feels so random. And the whole thing just made me think of the purpose of cameos in film and TV.
So what’s the difference between cameos and actors just playing a role in a project? To me a cameo is more gratuitous; the person just has a few lines, if that, and usually appears only once. Since many of these characters appear multiple times they might not “count”. But there’s so many established and very well known actors in this movie, that it’s hard to not think everything is a cameo when they first pop up onscreen lol When I think of cameos, I think of This is the End where Rihanna fell through a crack in the earth and a bunch of celebs got swallowed up in the apocalypse. Then I think of Chr*s Br*wn in Stomp the Yard. While he was in more than one scene and had more of a “small role”, him dying in the first 15 minutes of the movie made his role feel like a cameo. It was so obviously a bait and switch to get his fans to see the movie (It worked and fortunately Stomp the Yard was a moment even beyond CB’s character’s death). Sometimes the cameo is just a chance thing. I’ve read about actors who happened to be on set or nearby during filming and pop up in the background. Or actors who just love a show or franchise and want to be a part of it for a sec. Sometimes, it’s a part of a joke. Like when a character is told they look like some famous person and for a second the famous person actually shows up. Sometimes it’s just an onscreen reunion for actors who have worked together in the past. Like when Jasmine Guy (famous for playing Whitley Gilbert on A Different World) was on an episode of KC Undercover where Kadeem Hardison (who played Whitley’s boo Dwayne Wayne in A Different World) is a series regular as KC’s father. They cracked a joke about these new KC Undercover characters maybe knowing each other in “a different world” *wink*. In this movie, the cameo is everything. It’s a huge part of the execution of the film. (Some might say it’s the whole point of the film)
Now it’s an Adam Sandler film so there’s a lot of White Guy Comedy ™ in here (I’ll elaborate on WGC some other time) that’s sometimes funny and sometimes falls flat (random puke gags, guys just pissing to be pissing, etc.). It’s not especially exciting and the jokes can come off stale. But again, it’s a Happy Madison production. You know what you’re getting because you’ve seen this gag before; it’s part of the nostalgia (not mine personally). To be honest, I probably won’t ever watch this movie again. It was cool for a lil ki ki on a cold night, but it wasn’t a great plot or a particularly strong story. But for a Halloween movie night with the family, why not watch Adam Sandler hang with everybody and they mom on screen.