"Hit! Smash! Hit! Make it all bloody! He sure did a good job with that beef!"

August 23^rd, 2012

The Best of Times, (1981)

Nicolas Cage is Nicolas Coppola

I've known about The Best of Times for years and years but have never been able to find any information on it besides the basics: in 1981 teenage Nicolas Cage and Crispin Glover co-starred in an ABC pilot for a Laugh-In-style variety show. For a collector of weird pop culture ephemera could there be a more tantalizing sentence? It's just too weird to be true. I'd searched all the legal and illegal places on the internet I knew and inquired with people and places that collect such things but no luck! How could I start a zine about Nicolas Cage without seeing this? Surely it would be the crown jewel! 

Is it a sign from Heaven? Today, the day I finally decide to do this zine and skip right to Fast Times at Ridgemont High, I run into the Best of Times pilot just sitting on YouTube waiting to be watched. God has given his blessing to this Nicolas Cage blog.

Best of Times begins with Crispin Glover sporting a Beatles mop-top and a sweater with army epaulettes sewed on the shoulders introducing himself and, via montage, his group of wacky friends. (“This is my best friend Nic. You know why? Would you tell him he wasn't your best friend?”) Yes, Crispin Glover is Best of Times' version of The Wonder Years' Kevin Arnold - a relateable, easy-going everyman and audience surrogate. We are already through the looking glass. 

 

After introductions Crispin launches into the kind of speech usually reserved for the end of a TV episode: “We're all teenagers and we're all treated as faceless members of the society. Our parents bug us at home, our teachers always hassle us at school and when we drive the cops are always on our backs. And everyone thinks you're on dope! Well I just want you to know that teenagers are woven into the fabric of American life and without us there's no future. We're not just interested in having a good time and goofing off. We are concerned.” Then a phone call alerts him that it's time to be off to the 7-11 to bring more quarters to “the gang”. “Remember,” Crispin tells the camera before shutting his bedroom door, “these are the best of times!” Queue the impossibly chipper theme song!

And that scene sets the tone for the rest of a very bizarre episode of television. Like Laugh-In, The Best of Times jumps from set-piece to set-piece allocating one or two lame jokes to each. Whoosh! To the mall where some of Crispin's friends are trying on lipstick: “Girls, I had a date with Bruno Kowalski last night. I got into his car, we drove down the Pacific Coast Highway and before I knew it we'd went all the way... to San Diego!” Bwamp bwammmp! Then zooom! To the convenience store where Jackie Mason works (that's right) to hear some of his delightful observational comedy. Then zip! To the kitchen of one of the young actresses who suddenly delivers this monologue while washing dishes:

“I know this is silly but I'm afraid of being alone. Oh sure, I've got my folks and my friends but they're not there all the time. I used to have this dog and then I got this kitten and I used to talk to her. Next year I'm going away to college and I certainly can't bring a dog or kitten to college, can I? I know I'll make new friends but other times, like when there's a storm outside and you're all alone and there's nothing there to hold onto or talk to...? It isn't easy getting old.”

The vacillations from broad, inoffensive comedy to dour teenage introspection to song-and-dance numbers is jarring but there's a charm to TBOT. It's clear the writers were trying actively to “talk straight” to teens and their strategy was to throw everything in their arsenal at the wall and see what would stick. The teenage cast throws themselves into the production with a marvelous earnestness and it's no surprise that the two that throw themselves with the most abandon are Glover and Cage. In one scene Glover spasms in manic ecstasy as he rhapsodizes Jackie Mason about how great Talking Heads' “Houses in Motion” is. In another Cage boxes the air and describes the training montage from Rocky looking equally possessed: “Hit! Smash! Hit! Make it all bloody!” Both radiate the alien charisma that has made them cult figures in the subsequent years but from under a patina of teenage innocence that renders the whole experience twice as weird.

Was it worth the wait? Absolutely. The Best of Times met my expectations and doubled down on them with long, loving shots of Nic Cage rubbing his butt with a towel while dancing to “9 to 5”; Nic Cage giving a tearful speech against war in El Salvador; Nic Cage singing a song about chores with Crispin Glover. If that's any indication on how the rest of this project goes then I am beyond excited.