Within the Eighties, the dorks defeating the jocks and profitable the affections of the cheerleaders appeared downright progressive. However the comedy Revenge of the Nerds hasn’t precisely stood the take a look at of time, with its hidden cameras, homosexual and racial stereotypes and nonconsensual intercourse inflicting up to date audiences to cringe. However none of these missteps are why Freaks and Geeks creator Paul Fieg hated the film.
“After I first arrived in Hollywood and began writing comedy within the late eighties and early nineties, I discovered that executives would at all times react extra positively to over-the-top characters,” Fieg informed Mike Sacks in his ebook And Right here’s the Kicker. “They most popular the nerds with the massive glasses, who snorted and laughed actually loud. And I hated that. It was faux and improper.”
Folks at all times ask Fieg if he loves Revenge of the Nerds since he’s explored comparable comedic themes in regards to the underdog. “I at all times suppose, Really, no, I form of hate that film. It feels ridiculous,” he says. “The type of comedy I don’t like is when the performers and writers are winking and mainly saying, ‘I do know that is silly and you recognize that is silly. I’m not likely this dumb, however I’m enjoying as if I’m.’ And that’s superb, I suppose, nevertheless it’s dishonest and it’s type of imply to the characters.”
The perceptive Fieg wasn’t improper in regards to the actors trying down on their roles. “Bobby Carradine (who performed Lewis) stated, ‘Look, I do not know what I am doing right here—I am not a nerd, I am in all probability a man who would beat up a nerd,’” stated director Jeff Kanew in GQ’s oral historical past of Revenge of the Nerds. Carradine was so embarrassed when shopping for geeky eyeglasses for the half that he needed to whisper to the clerk, “It’s to play a nerd.”
Curtis Armstrong, who performed Booger? “I hated (the character) on sight,” Armstrong writes in his sarcastically titled Revenge of the Nerd. When he was supplied the position, he blanched. “Neglect it! It’s a horrible half!” he screamed at his agent. “All of the man does is choose his nostril and belch.” After accepting the position, he couldn’t abdomen the concept of dealing with “all of my appearing lecturers from the Academy of Dramatic Artwork at Oakland College.”
When Fieg got here up with Freaks and Geeks, he needed actors who took a special strategy. “I don’t thoughts a broad comedy once I imagine what’s occurring and when the characters are genuine,” he says. “That’s what we tried so laborious to perform with Freaks and Geeks.”
So as an alternative of going after guys like Carradine, who’d been one thing of a Hollywood stud earlier than Nerds, “we needed to keep away from the everyday stunning actors you discover in most highschool TV reveals,” Fieg says. “We didn’t need fashions. We didn’t need characters who had been going to take off their glasses and let their hair down after which, unexpectedly, they’re beautiful.”
It’s not as if Fieg and his cohorts went out of their strategy to forged unattractive actors. However as an alternative of on the lookout for outrageous comedian personas, Freaks and Geeks employed children like John Francis Daley. When Daley got here in to audition, says Fieg, “he was simply so actual and so humorous and so heartbreaking.”
