The Shermer High Alumni Association

Valley Girl is a 1983 romantic comedy that captures the vibrant culture clash between two distinct Los Angeles teenage worlds. The story follows Julie Richman, a popular, trendsetting Valley Girl from the San Fernando Valley, who grows tired of her arrogant boyfriend and her shallow, conformist social circle. When she meets Randy, a raw, edgy Hollywood punk rocker with a sweet heart, the two share an instant, undeniable connection.

As their whirlwind romance blossoms against a backdrop of iconic new wave music, Julie faces intense peer pressure from her judgmental friends to dump him, forcing her to choose between the safety of her social status and the thrill of breaking the mold.

An aspiring teenage cartoonist goes to Nantucket for the summer and accidentally gets drafted into a high-stakes class war, where the only logical way to save a singer's ancestral home from greedy yacht-club billionaires is by unleashing pure 1980s chaos, a ragtag group of misfits, and Godzilla. This masterpiece of absurdity turns a standard coming-of-age romance into a beautiful disaster of property damage and working-class spite, proving that John Cusack doesn't need smooth words to woo Demi Moore when he can just draw aggressive cartoon rhinoceroses and win a rigged regatta. It is a wonderfully unhinged time capsule where logic takes a vacation, corporate greed is defeated by teenagers, and the power of animated imagination triumphs over cold, hard cash.

Kurt Russell stars as Jack Burton, a big-talking, wisecracking truck driver who's suddenly hurled into a wild adventure even he could never invent. At the root of it all is Lo Pan, a 2,000-year-old evil magician who rules an empire of spirits beneath San Francisco's Chinatown. Doomed to a fleshless existence, he can only be saved by a green-eyed Asian beauty. When the fiancé of Jack's friend is kidnapped by Lo Pan's minions, Jack goes to the rescue. He finds himself dodging demons, grappling with goblins, and facing baffling terrors like the Room of the Upside-Down Hell as he battles his way through the labyrinth of Lo Pan's dark domain.

In a nutshell, it’s a little Flash Gordon meets Goonies meets Dark Crystal vibes.

This week Kristin, Jeannine, and Carole take on Jim Henson's 1982 puppet fantasy The Dark Crystal, a movie plenty of us remember as a cozy childhood favorite and absolutely none of us remembered as being this dark. Kristin walks through the story of Jen and Kira, the last two Gelflings, and the thousand year old crystal that split one race into the gentle Mystics and the monstrous Skeksis. The group gets into how Henson wanted to strip fantasy back down to something closer to the older, stranger versions of fables before Disney smoothed all the edges off them, and there's a real appreciation for what it took to build this world entirely with puppets and practical effects rather than a screen full of CGI. They also dig into the cast of puppeteers behind the creatures, including some familiar names from the Muppets and Star Wars, and compare what critics said about the film back in 1982 to how it plays now. Stick around for a shoutout to the podcast Myths and Legends, which scratches the same itch for anyone who loves hearing the original, unfiltered versions of stories they thought they already knew.

Did The Dark Crystal age well? Press play and find out.

If you enjoyed this episode, hit follow, leave a review, and share it with your fellow '80s movie lovers.

Part two picks up right where Tuesday's episode left off, with Tommy still along for the ride as the Goonies make their way through the Fratellis' hideout and down into the tunnels below. Chunk gets taken hostage and ends up locked in a room with the mysterious chained-up man the family's been keeping prisoner. That relationship turns out to be one of the sweeter surprises in the whole movie.

So did The Goonies earn a spot with the greats, or does it belong back in 1985? Listen to find out.

Thanks for joining us at the Shermer High Alumni Association. If you had as much fun as we did, hit follow, leave a review, and share this episode with your fellow '80s movie lovers.

We have a special guest, and he might be the most qualified one yet!

Tommy, a friend of the pod, met Jeannine during her travels to Ireland and is a Goonies EXPERT.

This 1985 Spielberg-produced classic follows a group of Astoria, Oregon kids who find a centuries-old pirate map in Mikey's attic and go after One-Eyed Willy's treasure to save their neighborhood from a real estate deal that's about to wipe it out. Part one covers the setup: how the doubloon lines up with Haystack Rock, a real debate over whether the movie's foreclosure plot actually makes sense, and Brand getting stranded on his little sister's training-wheel bike after his tires go flat. Tommy, for the record, refuses to believe anyone would build a country club where this one is supposedly going.

We have so much to say, this one is a TWO-PARTER!

This week we go WAY BACK, back to Episode THREE - a classic: Howard the Duck:

Some movies age like fine wine. And some age like a humanoid duck with a questionable libido.

In this episode, we dive headfirst into Howard the Duck (1986)—a high-budget, high-concept, low-explanation film that somehow features space travel, duck boobs, demon possession, and Lea Thompson in full 80s rockstar mode.

We break down:

• The truly bizarre plot that nobody signed up for
• The animatronic phenomenon that was Howard
• Why Lea Thompson remains an absolute queen despite everything
• And the parts that made us laugh, cringe, and stare at the screen in open-mouthed confusion

Yes, it’s messy. Yes, we have notes. But we still kinda love it.

Because if we survived this movie as kids… we can survive anything.

Risky Business

Starring: Tom Cruise, Rebecca De Mornay, Joe Pantiolano, Curtis Armstrong, and Bronson Pinchot.

Distributed by: Warner Bros.

Release date: August 5, 1983

Budget: $6.2 million

Box office: $63.5 million

This week's movie opens with Joel Goodsen (played by Cruise) being left alone for a week by his parents, and what should be a quiet stretch of teenage freedom turns into sinking his dad's Porsche into a lake after hiring a call girl (De Mornay). We talk about Tom Cruise in one of his earliest comedic roles, whether Joel plays as a genuinely good kid caught in a bad situation or something douch-ier (if that's a word).

Thanks for joining us at The Shermer High Alumni Association. If you had as much fun as we did, hit follow, leave a review, and share this episode with your fellow '80s movie lovers.

This week, we rewatch Popeye, the 1980 cocaine-fest from Malta. Arguably Robin Williams' best role ever. We love everything about it - Sweethaven, Sweet Pea, Dennis Franz(?). We talk about our forever friend Adams recent trip to Popeye Village and Jeannine sings for us.

The question now is... is it Hall of Fame-worthy?

#popeye #robinwilliams #shelleyduvall #80smovies #adamthewoo #popeyevillage

IT'S OUR 50TH EPISODE!!!!

Ferris Bueller's Day Off turns 40 this year, and Kristin, Jeannine, and Carole rewatch John Hughes' love letter to Chicago. They've collectively seen this movie so many times they briefly debated whether rewatching it was even necessary. It was. Is it cringe? Is it Hall of Fame material? Listen this week to find out!

#ferrisbueller #matthewbroderick #ferrari #80smovies #genxpod