Was It Worth It?

I just saw Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star. Weak, even by David Spade standards. But I wasn't expecting anything.

What bothered me is he plays a former 70s sitcom star whose catchphrase, repeated throughout the movie, is "nucking futs!" A friend of mine was insulted by the language. I was insulted in another way.

The idea that anyone could get away with such a catchphrase, when "kiss my grits" or "sit on it" was as dirty as it got, is ridiculous. (You couldn't get away with it today, either.) Is a cheap line like this funnier than a well-thought out catchphrase that might actually be possible?

I'm reminded of two films from the early 90s that both made a similar mistake. For The Boys follows two entertainers, played by Bette Midler and James Caan, over several decades. In one section, they have a TV show in the 50s, where they make sex jokes that were simply unimaginable then. Same for Billy Crystal in Mr. Saturday Night, who, no matter how angry his character was, would simply not make gay jokes against a competitor on 1950's TV.

Both these movies spent millions on sets, costumes, makeup, hair, etc., to capture a period look, and then tossed it all away in the need to make dirty gags that they figured a modern audience would respond to better.

Was it worth it? Nucking fo!