Listen, there IS something strange in my neighborhood, and I’m not talking about the baby bear that wandered into the front lawn the other night. Something ate one of our foam water cannons. Who am I gonna call? I mean, Best Buy, to see about a Ring camera. But I’d love to call the Ghostbusters. This is one of the most classic and catchy movie themes, of my favorite variety: the kind that uses the title of the movie and is hella literal about its connection to it (see also: Footloose).
Mike Ryan did a fabulous retrospective of this on its 30th birthday for ScreenCrush, which is full of anecdotes, like how they got all those surprise cameos (they shot John Candy’s on the Brewster’s Millions set after a vague lie to security about being producers) and a bit about how the neon effect was accomplished. And, amusingly, that Ray Parker Jr. wondered if he’d look stupid materializing in translucence. This is a super toe-tappy earworm for your Wednesday; I hope you enjoy it.
What are YOUR favorite movie themes of this ilk? Footloose to me is an obvious one, and although it’s not a classic, I can sing the Spaceballs theme that they use at the end of the movie when MegaMaid has gone from suck to blow and is about to explode. Top Gun has one of the all-time best soundtracks, too, but unfortunately none of the songs are called “Top Gun” and don’t have painfully obvious lyrics like, “I’m a Maverick in the air / and my copilot has no hair / Iceman’s chest is fun / but I’m the only Top Gun.” Can Kenny Loggins get on that for a special edition?
