Movie Time Capsule Blog #13: "Mac and Me"

“Mac and Me” is a movie that almost doesn’t belong in the movie time capsule blog since its infamy is boundless. Many writers more talented than I have taken shots at this movie over the years from “The Onion” to the writers of “Robot Chicken” to “Slate” and even Keith Buckley, the former English teacher and lead singer for Every Time I Die. If you have heard of it, my take on it probably won’t be much different. It is a terrible movie with little if anything to redeem its existence.

For a moment, let’s briefly talk about the movie “Mac and Me” so shamelessly borrows from. “E.T.” was a surprise blockbuster for three different reasons. The first is that it really isn’t standard Hollywood fare. The idea of a kid befriending an alien is so simple in itself that it’s hard to believe no one really thought of it before 1982. The fact that “E.T.” was ultimately a high drama with complex family dynamics driving the story ultimately makes it a tough sell for the average family crowd.

The second surprise of “E.T.” was its remarkable longevity. “E.T.” became the highest grossing film of all time (until “Jurassic Park” came out) because it was still showing in theatres three years after it was first released. The video wasn’t even made available until the late 1980s, allowing Universal to keep it in theatres for a long time with the occasional re-release and special screening. It wasn’t always the number one movie in the country, but it consistently made money week after week and seemingly never went away during the 80s.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about “E.T.” was how infinitely marketable it turned out to be. If Spielberg and company made the movie a blockbuster of great substance, wit, and heart, the Universal Studios marketing and licensing team made the film iconic. E.T. might have been pretty ugly (and I certainly thought so as a child; shunning the life size stuffed alien I had as a baby. I even ripped one of his eyes out because he was freaking me out.), but he was everywhere including sleepwear, fast food, the candy aisle, and as star of what was arguably one of the worst video games in recorded history. “E.T.” was a cash cow not seen since the original “Star Wars”.

Studios from Disney (with “Flight of the Navigator”) to the lowliest of indie studios (Trimark’s abysmal low-budget “Star Kid”) tried to recreate the “E.T.” formula with middling to dismal success. Audiences for once didn’t care to see the same movie again because not only did Spielberg get it right the first time, but people no longer wanted the marketing thrust in their faces as blatantly as it was with “E.T.” After that and “Star Wars” people started to get burnt out, and as bad as things are now, a quick look over at YouTube will show you that it was far, far worse back then. None of this, however, stopped producer R.J. Louis from creating one of the most indolent cash-in attempts ever committed to celluloid. It almost makes “The Garbage Pail Kids Movie” look subtle and nuanced by comparison. You would have thought that he would have learned his lesson not only after the waning marketing power of a successful franchise, but also from a much maligned movie released a year prior to “Mac and Me” that proved co-branding a motion picture and a product just doesn’t work: the much maligned “Million Dollar Mystery”.

“Million Dollar Mystery” was another egocentric cash grab from Dino DeLaurentis, a man who thought his ludicrous remake of “King Kong” and the unnecessary sequel “King Kong Lives” were the greatest movies ever made. “Mystery” was a movie that took a familiar template, in this case the reproduced to death plot of “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”, and tried to pass it off as fresh and original with the help of a corporately aided gimmick. Upon the release of “Million Dollar Mystery”, which features Glad Trash Bags shill and former “Happy Days” star Tom Bosley and a cast of “colourful” characters searching for four million dollars hidden somewhere in the United States in Glad brand trash bags, patrons were given lobby cards with DeLaurentis’ face plastered all over them giving them one hint as to where to find the last remaining million that isn’t found by the actors by the end of the film. The movie doesn’t give you any more clues; for those you have to buy Glad products. To this day the million has not been found leading many to believe that the whole thing was a scam, but others to keep searching for the money despite the contest being over since January of 1988.

The fact that this not-so-high profile failure almost killed DeLaurentis’ already fledgling career (he also produced former time capsule entries “Maximum Overdrive” and “Trick or Treat”) did not dissuade R.J. Louis from doing something similar in tone and cynicism. Louis, a former advertising executive who used to be in charge of McDonalds’ corporate accounts, created a spurious grafting of E.T.’s plot onto what was nothing more than an hour and a half commercial. Louis was instrumental in forming the Mac and Me Joint Venture Corporation: McDonalds and fellow megacorporation Coca-Cola teaming together for what they must have seen as a license to print money. The only problem was that Louis and company didn’t bother to focus on making anything that could even be considered a movie under the loosest of terms. “Mac and Me” is the motion picture equivalent of those Bugs Bunny and Tasmanian Devil dressed as Kriss Kross T-Shirts or decals of Calvin pissing on the corporate logo of a car manufacturer. It is a perversion so blatant and tasteless that had McDonalds and Coke been successful lawsuits would have and should still be filed. Oh, the wondrous loopholes of copyright law.

The plot of “Mac and Me” is almost the exact same as “E.T.” with only the dialog and plot showing just enough variations to avoid Spielberg’s outrage. A single mother named Janet (played by T.V veteran Christine Ebersole who looks like she could care less if she kept this job or not) is moving with her two sons to Los Angeles. Michael is the older, annoying tween who fluctuates wildly between being an ass and being the nicest guy you’ll ever meet and Eric, the younger brother who is confined to a wheelchair. Eric is played by Jade Callegory, a young man who has been in a wheelchair almost his entire life thanks to the debilitating effects of spina bifida. Jade is now a successful portrait artist and photographer who still fields questions about “Mac and Me” to this day, but he neglects to mention his brief foray into acting anywhere on his website.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the desert a group of scientists have captured a family of aliens (mother, father, sister, and little boy) who have found their way to Earth from a far off planet that looks like the same desert they were found in where the survived by sucking a Coke-like liquid out of the ground with their faces. The family of aliens escapes the probing clutches of science by making all matter of electronic equipment go screwy and ‘splodey. The family hides out in the desert but Mac (the little one, not the big one, whose name means mysterious alien creature) gets away from them and makes his way to the big city.

Back in L.A. (if I had to die I couldn’t choose a better location), Eric has befriended his hippy like next door neighbour Debbie and her very un-hippy like sister Courtney, who not only works as McDonalds, but proudly wears the uniform in every single one of her scenes no matter how inappropriate it may be.

One day while playing in a backyard far too palatial for a single mother with two kids working at Sears (home of the McKids clothing line, y’all!) to afford, Eric loses control of his wheelchair and begins careening down a rocky hillside and off a cliff in one of the worst stunts ever committed to film. The dummy Macauly Culkin threw off an overpass in “The Good Son” looks way more convincing than the one used here and Culkin’s was made to look fake to begin with.

Naturally Mac, who followed the family home by secretly hitching a ride on the family’s van, is there to save Eric because there wouldn’t be a movie otherwise. I am amazed that I am this far into the blog and I haven’t mentioned how ugly the aliens look in this movie. They look like random shapes shoved into latex sacks and made to act like puppets.

In order to meet/trap Mac properly, Eric and Debbie leave a trail of Skittles and open cans of Coke to lure him close enough to suck him into a vacuum cleaner. We all know why they would use the Coke by now, but why the Skittles? There is no concrete proof that I can find on-line or in print, but it is a well known fact that M&M-Mars turned down Spielberg’s request to use M&M’s in “E.T.” and he went with Reese’s Pieces from Hershey’s instead. Mars, who make Skittles, probably saw the error of their ways and was now just glad to get anything. It should also be known that Coke backed out of product placement in “E.T.” as well and Pepsi was brought in.

Somehow in this movie’s magical 1980s universe, vacuums could suck up anything. I know from trying to suck my Hot Wheels off the floor when I was six that they just don’t work that way. Mac falls for the trap and we are treated to a scene even more ridiculous than the wheelchair scene in which the kids try to contain Mac in the bag that I wish I could show you but I don’t have it and can’t find it online. When the kids finally subdue Mac, Eric’s brother suggests they let Mac out by somehow throwing the vacuum in reverse and having it spit him out. When your movie rips off “Spaceballs” in the logic department, you are hopelessly fucked. Mac nearly dies from these shenanigans, but lo and behold Coke can bring the little guy back to life. Even though Coke is something like 90% water, Mac shuns it when it is offered. I could only wonder how he would have reacted to Cherry Coke or Sprite.

From this point in the movie on, Mac and Me” just becomes a race to see who will get to Mac first. The government sends faceless and nameless agents to try and get him back or kill him; their intentions are never all that clear. When Eric wants to go to a friend’s birthday party at (surprise, surprise) McDonalds, he figures he can’t leave Mac alone so for a seamless (meaning, completely fucking implausible) disguise Eric somehow finds a bear suit and tries to pawn Mac off to everyone as a toy. Actually, every scene in the movie just builds and builds on how ridiculous it is right up until the end, so it is worse than the wheelchair scene and the vacuum scene; worse than both of them combined. It is a scene that insults its audience so badly, you can see director and former Disney hack Stewart Raffill (who would follow this up with “Mannequin 2: On the Move”) and co-writer Steve Feke (who had a hand in version of “When a Stranger Calls” ever made) in the background with handfuls of cash, waving them around. This scene raises so many pointed questions. How come I have never once seen a dance contest break out at my local McDonalds? Who the fuck wears full football uniforms to dance contests at a McDonalds? Why the fuck is Mac dancing in a bear costume on the order counter and no one seems to give a shit or even look slightly annoyed? Did the makers of “The Wicker Man” remake take notes from this scene on how to successfully disguise Nicolas Cage? These and many questions will sadly remain unanswered even after you watch this clip as many times as I sadly have.

After narrowly escaping from the evil agents and a Sears, Mac and Eric manage to track down Mac’ family at a rural supermarket where the aliens are trying to shoplift Coke. A security guard tries to stop them by opening fire with a gun so large that no supermarket security guard would ever be allowed to carry. Pretty soon the entire cast except for Ronald McDonald arrive on the scene. The agents open fire and the entire supermarket explodes. That’s right. It bursts into a cataclysmic fireball with Eric and the aliens inside just from firing bullets at the building itself.

The aliens are not harmed in the attack, but Eric has died. He hasn’t been shot or burnt to a crisp; he’s just dead. The aliens being him back to life, but can’t give him the use of his fucking legs back and all of a sudden and without explanation the government grants the aliens a full pardon. At the film’s end, the entire alien family is sworn in as United States citizens and I’m not even entirely sure they wanted to be in the first place since all they can do is whistle and grunt. In the final shot of the movie the aliens drive (!) off into the Los Angeles mid-to-late afternoon with a cheesy looking lavender and orange though bubble coming from Mac’s head with the threat “We’ll be back!” Twenty years later, the sequel has not arrived. I guess they are just waiting on the right script.

“Mac and Me” is a vacuous black hole of ineptitude even without the product placement. None of it makes sense as a movie and it is the most annoying commercial I have ever seen that wasn’t for Axe Body Spray. It wasn’t even really bad enough to win the Golden Razzie award for worst picture in 1988. That distinction went to Tom Cruise’s god awful blockbuster “Cocktail,” but director Raffill won worst director and McDonald won worst new star. I guess parents simply drew the line at any more movies that didn’t try to hide the fact that they were just feature length commercials. After a decade of sub-par animated features based on toy lines parents couldn’t take it anymore. “Mac and Me” died a silent and painful death at the box office and most people involved in its making, including its distributor Orion pictures, rarely worked again after the mid-90s. For better of worse, the feel good Hollywood economics of the Regan era were over by this point.

“E.T.” was finally released on home video three moths after “Mac and Me” disappeared from theatres. Pepsi and Hershey’s had their tie-ins all set for one more round with a movie where the products told only an integral part of the story. They never drove the story or forced character motivation. Coca-Cola and McDonalds were left with hideous rubber suits and a movie only held in esteem by less discerning 80s nostalgia lovers and Conan O’Brien who plays the wheelchair scene every time Paul Rudd shows up on his show. Coca-Cola and McDonalds are far from poor and together they had more than enough money at their disposal to at least create a decent looking “E.T.” rip off, but they clearly seemed more intent on simply getting their product out there on the screen to even care about what was going on around it. These companies weren’t going bankrupt. They were never in any danger. So why does this movie reek of desperation? Why does it even exist? As a result of this movie’s failure, R.J. Louis never worked a day in advertising again. And neither did Mac.

Verdict: Best Left Forgotten