9 TO 5: A Snapshot of 1980

12/18/20 • 26 min

80s Movies: A Guide to What's Wrong with Your Parents

Pour yourself a cup of ambition, this episode covers what's considered the most successful political movie of all time -- wonderfully executed as a broad comedy. Film authorities Tara McNamara, Gen X, and Riley Roberts, Gen Z, look back at the 1980 Jane Fonda-Lily Tomlin-Dolly Parton revenge fantasy with a modern lens and evaluate how it reflects the attitudes of the day that affected a generation.

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STIR CRAZY: Why 40 Years Later, This Black-White Buddy Comedy Holds Up

In 1980, Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor's follow-up to their 1976 hit Silver Streak was highly anticipated. Despite critic's panning the film, Stir Crazy did double the business, was the 3rd highest grossing film of the year, and broke box office records. The prison buddy comedy holds up 40 years later, largely because two of Hollywood's most powerful black figures (Pryor and director Sidney Poitier) made it. Film authorities Tara McNamara, Gen X, and Riley Roberts, Gen Z, examine Stir Crazy with a modern lens and discuss how it influenced a generation.

Next Episode

MODERN PROBLEMS: Chevy Chase's Comedy is about the OG Crisis of Masculinity

MODERN PROBLEMS is the weirdest, off the rails, PG-rated Christmas hit. Families flocked to to the theater to see scenes involving a male ballet dancer's testicles exploding and Chevy Chase snorting "demon powder." While it used to run on HBO all the time in the '80s, it's a little hard to find now. Find it. Watch it. And then decompress by listening to film authorities Tara McNamara (Gen X) and Riley Roberts (Gen Z) explain how it's indicative of many hot topics of the early '80s and how it explains what's wrong with your parents.