The Breakfast Club, AKA The Greatest Night In The History Of Moviedom

A short few months ago, my brother posted a link on FB with the message to me: We're going.

My response? We are so going.

The Breakfast Club celebrates its 30th Anniversary this year.  Remember?  Saturday, March 24, 1984, Shermer High School, Shermer, Illinois, 60062.

We got advanced tickets online to ensure we would be able to see on the big screen what we spent our childhood and teen years watching on the small screen boxy television that we had to hit on the side to see the picture and then on the several bigger, less boxier televisions that rotated through my parents' living room.

We watched mostly on Channel 11.  We recorded it from that channel, and we memorized it--the censored version.

Then we got it on VHS tape and found that the censored version had some scenes that the regular version did not, and also, the regular version does not have Bender say, Eat my socks. He says, Eat my shorts, which, apparently, was too racy for the FCC.

As I waited in the vestibule for my brother to arrive at the theatre, people were streaming in, asking to buy tickets to see The Breakfast Club. It was sold out.  One woman was very upset, indicating that she'd called the theatre half an hour ago and that she couldn't understand how 25 tickets that were available were no longer available and why on Fandango it said tickets were available yet the theatre had none left.  Some others were upset and mentioned Fandango's offer of available seats, but they did not get irate about it.  The lesson here is to buy your tickets for the 30th Anniversary showing of The Breakfast Club months in advance.

We walked into the theatre and stopped in our tracks.  This was real.  And surreal.

We found really good seats, first row of the high section in stadium seating.  Next to me sat a guy with his two kids. Some other people had brought their kids, too, and while it's not exactly a movie for young kids, it was cool to see the next generation viewing my childhood flick.  Come to think of it, maybe we shouldn't have been watching when we were kids.  Then again, we were mostly watching the censored version.

Because it was a Fathom Event, not only did we get to see the movie, but we also got to watch interviews of the cast from today.  Ally Sheedy popped up on the screen, and if I look like her in ten years, I will be thankful. My brother even said, Ally Sheedy looks better now than she did then.  Yes, agreed.  Except for crabby pants next to me who said, Well she looks like shit.  To his children. 

The guy next to me was a talker, and he explained to his kids several things about the actors and the movie through the whole experience, which at first I didn't mind because I figured it was bonding, but then I got really annoyed when I noticed he would talk to his kids, but then when they would talk back, he would point at the screen and hush them--Shh! Shh! 

Everyone else was awesome.  We were all laughing at the same time.  The one part that everyone laughed at that was not funny until last night was when the school principal, Vernon, locks Bender in the closet and threatens  him.  He proclaims, I make 31,000 a year!  It was too funny.  My how salaries have changed.

We were all quiet at the same time. We were all saying the same lines at the same time.  I'd quote a few lines here, but I realized last night that me and my brother know the whole movie line by line.  The entire thing.

And then it was over. 

Neither of us had watched it in such a long time, yet it was still fresh in memory, and it was simply awesome.