ET may not have stayed on Earth long, but he spawned a lot of imitators.
“Mac and Me” comes to mind. It’s like a guy saw an ET bootleg, told his friend about it, and then that friend used what they heard as a prompt for a writing class, and one of those kids forgot about the assignment, and then on the morning on the train on the way to school they came up with “Mac and Me.”
Reese’s Pieces treasure trail? Mac has a choreographed dance party at McDonalds. Flying bicycle chase scene? Best Mac can do is a kid with a broken wheelchair rolling toward a cliff. Federal agents taking over a suburban Los Angeles neighborhood? Let’s try aliens blowing up a gas station. Heartwarming message about home being wherever your family is? Okay, yeah, that stays.
“Mac and Me” is gleefully derided. It became a years-long joke between Paul Rudd and Conan O’Brien. And it was featured on episode 10 of podcast “How Did This Get Made?” But it got some repeat play in my household. In fact, we had “E.T.” on VHS, with a special green flip-up cover protecting the tape. But we rented and watched “Mac” a lot more often than that special VHS came out of its clamshell.
My kids haven’t seen “Mac and Me” yet, but they’ve earned it. Over a long holiday weekend we watched “The Boy Who Could Fly,” “Fuzzbucket,” and, finally, “E.T. the Extra Terrestrial.”
All three movies tell the story of a child who is visited by a magical creature as a sort of reaction/solution to a traumatic family event.
In “E.T.” the dad has bailed on the family to carouse with his girlfriend in Mexico. “Boy” makes this estrangement permanent with a dad who battled terminal cancer and met it halfway with suicide, plus two parents who died in a plane crash. In “E.T.” the mom is at her wits end, so she lets the kids smoke cigarettes and doesn’t mind if they sneak a few beers in the middle of the day. In “Boy” the mom’s returning to the office but can’t figure out how these newfangled computers work. (Her boss gives her a meter-high stack of MS-Dos for Dummies-type books to read all weekend.) Marital discord clouds “Fuzzbucket” but the furry freak leaves gifts for the parents that neatly patch it all up in the end. “Boy” gets a creepy familial boost from Fred Gwynne, aka Herman Munster, who plays the boy’s hardcore-drunk uncle. Typically he’s the only one–besides the hero–who believes that the kid really can fly.
That’s another commonality. No one believes the kids when they meet these magical beings. Of course not. Elliott in “E.T.” gets teased for his close encounter. But the real star on this score is Michael in “Fuzzbucket.” Actor Chris Herbert plays opposite an invisible Fuzzbucket for the first half of the movie. It’s a shame he never got to work with the likes of Andy Serkis in the CGI era. He can still convince me that Fuzzbucket is really in the office at school tickling him.
One other “E.T.” trope that “The Boy Who Could Fly” makes good use of is broken speech. This is kinda like the Silent Bob trick. Since he never talks, every time he opens his mouth it’s supposed to be profound. So we get the auto-didact E.T. spending all day figuring out what home and phone mean, so when Elliott gets home he can say, “E.T. home phone.” Elliott corrects his syntax and E.T. turns it into a catchphrase. Likewise, the Boy has been diagnosed as autistic, and his silence is maybe a coping mechanism to losing his own parents. Finally, near the end of the movie, he offers up “Mil-lie…” Fuzzbucket totally fumbles the impact of these strong-silent examples. As soon as the creature slurps down a disgusting milkshake he becomes visible and blabs with a grating scattershot baby talk that doesn’t let up for the rest of the movie. (Luckily it’s only 45 minutes long.)
It’s almost like “The Boy Who Could Fly” and “Fuzzbucket” are “E.T.” split into two lesser movies. “Fuzzbucket” has the critter. “Boy” has everything else. Instead of a flying bicycle sequence you get the older sister flying with the boy. And the younger brother, played by Fred Savage, facing off against the neighborhood bullies in army fatigues with a big-wheeler.
This article has been a little light on opinions from the kids. That’s because they were bored, checked out, or asleep for most of these three movies. Will we get an “E.T.” rewatch before the VOD rental expires? Or will it expire, unseen, like the green-tipped cassette in the video drawer? I don’t know. But one thing’s for sure–the most entertaining of these movies, “Mac and Me,” is due for a rewatch.
___
We did rewatch the second half of “E.T.” And when the bikes took off over John Williams’ swelling score my stoic older daughter burst into the biggest smile of amazement. There was even the glisten of a tear.
I also noticed that while the brothers are searching the garage for detritus that E.T. can turn into their phone the older brother yells, “Grab that fuzz-duster!” Coincidence? Not a chance.