It’s slobs vs. snobs, divas vs. duffers, and Be Reel vs. the bygone bubble of American golf comedies. “Caddyshack” turns 40 this week, which gives us a great excuse to talk about this frozen-in-time genre: when class conflict could allegedly be solved with a 400-foot slapshot (“Happy Gilmore“) and any old folkloric failure could tear through the US Open (“Tin Cup“).
While all three of our movies this week hinge on the concept of outsiders spoiling the country club for a howling audience’s pleasure, they do present intriguing stylistic contrasts. Harold Ramis’ 1980 classic is as leisurely as a relaxed front-nine and then suddenly scrambles into a panic. The latter seemingly represents both the chaotic work that goes into keeping up course appearances and also scraping together an influential comedy in an era of anarchic humor and plentiful … let’s call it recreational stimuli.
LISTEN: ‘Cane River’: A Long-Lost Black Romance, Deepened By Untold Histories [Be Reel Podcast]
Then, “Happy Gilmore” hinges entirely on early Adam Sandler’s juvenile fury. Its absurdity has less do with place than with a 30-year comedy persona taking shape before our eyes. And finally, Ron Shelton’s 1996 return to the sports-comedy mode finds the writer-director and his star, Kevin Costner, leaning on old tricks for one last winsome but bloated go-around of the athlete-poet underdog myth.
These sports comedies are long on charm, light on logic, and were all clearly made in a time before Tiger Woods. Let’s tee off.
As always, Be Reel is part of The Playlist Podcast Network—which includes The Discourse, The Fourth Wall, and more—and can be heard on iTunes, AnchorFM, Soundcloud, Stitcher, and now on Spotify. To listen on this page, you can stream the podcast via the AnchorFM embed below or up top. Follow us on iTunes, and you’ll get this podcast as well as our other shows regularly. Be sure to subscribe, and drop us a comment or a rating as we do appreciate it. Thank you for listening.
![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://dev.theplaylist.net/caddyshack-be-reel-podcast-20200724/&media=https://cdn.theplaylist.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/14185855/Caddyshack.jpg&description=It's slobs vs. snobs, divas vs. duffers, and Be Reel vs. the bygone bubble of American golf comedies. "Caddyshack" turns 40 this week,){kind=link}