It’s easy to see why this 80s Flick resonated at the time. Layoffs in traditionally American male workplaces, especially the auto industry, had landed innumerable men on their living room couches - a stark contrast to the seventies when a total of six men reported being stay-at-home dads in America. That’s right, just six. This resulted in many of their wives having to head into the workplace themselves to help make ends meet, but it also meant these men were forced to tackle domestic responsibilities previously foreign to them. You know, like their kids.
For those of us who grew up in the eighties, a movie like this was a staple of cable TV. It’s popularity coincided with the rise of HBO and Home Video rentals, so it was in constant rotation in a lot of households. It was also the launching point for stardom for its lead actor, Michael Keaton, and original screenwriter, John Hughes.
So grab your woobie, hide the chili from the baby, and get ready to make some home improvements (220, 221…whatever it takes) as Ben Carpenter and I discuss “Mr. Mom” from 1983 on this episode of the 80s Flick Flashback Podcast.
Here are some additional behind-the-scenes trivia we were unable to cover on this episode:
• The discussion between Jack and factory workers about the movie Rocky where Jack says "when you're down, you're not necessarily out." A worker then imitates the Rocky theme song. Jack later heeds his own advice, and his turnaround montage uses the Rocky theme song.
• In the scene where Jeffrey Tambor's character fires the engineers, he reassures them that "you guys are terrific engineers. You're too good not to catch on somewhere." Michael Keaton's character Jack replies, "Where are we gonna catch on? Nagasaki?" Three years later Keaton starred in “Gung Ho”, a film which opened with his character, an automotive factory foreman, traveling to Japan to convince a Japanese automaker to reopen the factory.
• This film wasn't released until a year or two later in some countries as in 1983 Michael Keaton was an unknown outside the USA and although Terri Garr was slightly better known, she wasn't considered a big enough name to carry the film. By the mid 1980s Keaton had a couple of moderate size hit films behind him so the film finally crept out into some cinemas or onto video.
Sources:
Wikipedia, IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes
https://colehaddon.substack.com/p/on-its-40th-anniversary-its-time
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/84008/11-surprising-facts-about-mr-mom
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