Cotton Candy

My friend and I watched this cheesy movie because we were 14 and had our own band together. My Dad was watching it with us, and being the experienced professional singer he was, he was pointing out the importance of vocal harmonies. We listened and related to the shaky starts and ruined rehearsals...but I was most interested in the drums, as they were the popular Vistalite series made by Ludwig. I had my own set of them, the same era too, only mine were not the spiral pattern like those used in the film; they were "smoke" black (thus, my kit was cooler). We realized it was a bit of a stupid movie, but we were early high-schoolers and inspired by anything we could catch on TV that involved bands (of course MTV changed that soon after). I loved Smith in American Graffiti but he was MORE of a dork in this one. We howled laughing when he resents his nosy old neighbor complaining about the noise and says disgustedly, "rinky-DINK!" We knew WE would have said something far worse! Corny music, some fair acting, but a pleasant film. But I always wondered...was "I Shot The Sheriff" the only damn song Rapid Fire even knew? I couldn't figure out why they had FANS, when they knew only one song and were lousy at it to boot!

The guys that played the bad guy band Rapid Fire in the movie were 4 guys from MacArthur High School (Irving, TX...Morgan, John, Mark, and Tad) and the drummer was from Dallas (Oak Cliff - David J...) Marty Bongfelt was from Mac as well (always had a crush on her - there, the cat's out). While it really was/is a cheesy flick, we got out of 2 weeks of school, received A's, and were local heroes for awhile. And it's still great at a party when someone is spewing garbage, to throw out "I was in one of Ron Howard's" movies. After the wrap, Ron took us out to Campisi's for dinner (if you're from Dallas you know of where I speak)... I have LOTS of funny stories from the shoot but would have to incriminate myself as well : )

This is surely no piece of great cinema, but it is incredibly kooky and anyone who likes lamb-chop sideburns and bad, bad pop music will love this one. That is, if you ever see it. Seems like maybe Ron "Opie" Howard has locked this one up in a vault, because I have not seen it aired since they used to play it on the 2 O'clock Movie on WBBM in Chicago over and over and over back in the 80's. If you like bad stuff, ie the Love Boat, Robbie Benson movies and anything made by Aaron Spelling, you'll love this.

I attended Lake Highlands in '84-'86 and some of the staff extras in the Movie were still working when I went through. I still love to watch the movie because of the nostalgia when I see all my old haunts. The school still hasn't changed much and I can place almost all the scenes of the school. I was lucky enough to get a decent VHS recording off of it back in 84 and I still drag it out every few months to watch it commercial free. It's just not in good enough shape to try to transfer it to disc. I'm hoping they release Skyward on DVD eventually as well. Another film right here in Dallas...mostly Mesquite this time though. Man, Bette Davis. Some high power acting for such a small film and director (at the time).

Look...yes this movie is dated, silly and at times sickeningly sweet, but darn is it ever fun! I was a kid when this was first aired, and not surprisingly just starting out on the bass guitar myself, so ANYTHING that remotely had anything to do with music on television in those dark days before MTV was very welcome. Watching it now, of course, I see how cheesy it was, but I also realized how well it was done. It is easy to look at Ron Howard now and take for granted that he always had talent but who, at that time, could have foreseen how far his career path would have taken him? It is actually quite remarkable to look at this film and see how ambitious it actually was. Not only did he direct the movie to tell an interesting and fun story, but from a technical standpoint, he had to deal with film making situations that demonstrate how much faith the network put in him to pull this off. I am sure that it must have been difficult for him to, not only direct large crowd and concert sequences, but also do it while being nearly the same age as all of the actors themselves. There have been many rock and roll movies made over the years. Some have been great (8 mile, Almost Famous, This is Spinal Tap,) some have been simply good and fun (Rock and Roll High School, Eddie and the Cruisers,) and some have been terrible (You cant Stop the Music, Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.) But Cotton Candy is a R-n-R movie that tells a heartfelt story and simply entertains. It is nothing terribly fancy, mind you, but since I don't think that Ron Howard was trying to change the world with this movie, its shortcomings can easily be overlooked when weighed against its fun-factor!