Any Ernst Fans?

[D'Snowth]

I just happened to stumble on this today:

http://jimvarney.org/Ernest/JimVarneyShow.wma

It's a radio/phone interview with Bill Byrge, who played Bobby in the Ernest universe, it's funny to hear that for a southern fella, he actually talks like a mile a minute, lol.

They do touch on the movies and Jim Varney in the interview, but it seems like they spend a majority of the interview on the subject of Christianity. And their anecdotes of Tennessee are pretty much true.

 

[minor muppetz]

Another thing that strikes me curious too, like I said, Bobby never spoke on Hey, Vern! It's Ernest!, and I'm assuming he probably didn't speak in the commercials, did they decide to add just a little more dimension to the character, since he spoke a little in some of the movies?

You know, I've noticed that in many movies "silent" characters tend to eventually get some sort of line, sometimes brief, sometimes as a plot point/surprise/gag, and sometimes seeming like it's not much of an event (it seems Bobby's lines in the movies aren't that spectacular of moments... In Ernest Goes to School he says a brief line right when he first appears on-screen).

Other examples: Mr. Bean got the occasional brief lines on his series and movies (including the memorable long speech in the first movie), Silent Bob gets a line in both Clerks movies plus other movies he appears in, Lyle starts talking in his final scene in Ernest Goes to Jail (and Ernest points out that he talked in the scene), the caddy in Happy Gilmore is silent for most scenes but gets a brief conversation with Happy and a brief line at the end, and in Looney Tunes: Back in Action Mr. Chairman has a henchman/bodyguard who doesn't talk, but does get a line that got cut from the movie.

I wonder if there's any reason for so many "silent" characters getting dialogue in live-action movies.

 

[D'Snowth]

Of the nine Ernest movies, rate them from your most favorite, to your least favorite.

1. Ernest Goes to Jail
2. Ernest Rides Again
3. Ernest Goes to Camp
4. Slam Dunk Ernest
5. Ernest Saves Christmas
6. Ernest Scared Stupid
7. Ernest Goes to Africa
8. Ernest in the Army

Ernest Goes to School is the only movie I haven't seen... too bad about Jim Varney's untimely death, because I think Ernest the Pirate sounds like it would've been good.

 

[minor muppetz]

Of the nine Ernest movies, rate them from your most favorite, to your least favorite.

1. Ernest Goes to Jail
2. Ernest Saves Christmas
3. Ernest Goes to School
4. Ernest Goes to Camp
5. Slam Dunk Ernest
6. Ernest Scared Stupid
7. Ernest Rides Again
8. Ernest in the Army
9. Ernest Goes to Africa

The last three, I have only seen once each, in the order I listed, but I feel the order from most to least favorite is right there.

 

[D'Snowth]

Scared Stupid is low on my list mainly because I felt it was on the long and dull side; I was really impressed with the troll army the Chiodo Bros created and executed, but I the whole battle sequence with the milk squirt guns and everything seemed like it lasted forever and I just wanted it to cut to the chase and end already.

Goes to Africa and In the Army simply had weak and tired storylines, IMO, and they had really, really small budgets, and it showed.

I think many will agree that Goes to Jail is the best one of the series mostly because of Jim Varney's duel role as Mr. Nash: it gave him a chance to play a serious character who wasn't part of Ernest's kooky family. Plus it was just a great story, and all of the characters were top-notch and on the ball (save for the last couple of minutes when it seems like all the actors were tired and didn't really put any energy in their performances).

 

[minor muppetz]

Somebody has uploaded all of the deleted scenes from Ernest Goes to Jail on YouTube! Here is the first of them, you can find the others in the link

Some of them are better than others. I remember seeing a few of them on TV (I've only caught a few TV broadcasts... In fact when I first saw it on video I wondered where a few scenes were, and then noticed more additional scenes when watching it on TV later).

I particularly like the shadow puppets scene, the scene where Ernest tries to vault his way out of jail, the extended interview for the clerk job, and the ending where Ernest finally has a job as a bank clerk. I feel most of those should have been left in.

One scene I'm confused by is the one entitled "Conjugal visit". By the looks of it it seems Nash is entitled to a prostitution visit, but why would a prisioner be allowed this kind of service? Especially one with a reputation like Nash? Does he have some sort of deal with those guards or something?

 

[D'Snowth]

Sometimes, movies do seem to actually benefit from having certain scenes cut, and this seems to be one of those movies: in watching those deleted scenes, they really didn't help advance the plot very much, and had they remained in the final cut, they would have kind of slowed the movie down (one of the reasons "Scared Stupid" is low on my list, because it was seemed slow and tired, especially the climax battle)... and I don't know, the extended/alternate ending didn't really do anything for me... "I came, I saw, I got blowed up" seemed like the perfect ending for the movie anyway.

Another movie like this is Pee-wee's Big Adventure... there's a deleted scene where we actually meet Amazing Larry, and we see what exactly is up with his hair (it's his magic trick)... removing it was a good move, because it makes the later scene where Pee-wee blurts out, "Is there something you can share with the rest of us Amazing Larry?!" much funnier and random: you didn't question why, you just accepted that only Pee-wee would know someone who happened to be named Amazing Larry and had weird hair. A lot of the other deleted scenes were simply more nightmare sequences... there was an extended hospital scene where the Satan's Helpers visit Pee-wee in his room, while he lies in bed with depression (rather boring scene), and a much longer chase scene throughout the Warner Bros. Studios lot that was simply long and dragged out.

 

[minor muppetz]

Sometimes, movies do seem to actually benefit from having certain scenes cut, and this seems to be one of those movies: in watching those deleted scenes, they really didn't help advance the plot very much, and had they remained in the final cut, they would have kind of slowed the movie down (one of the reasons "Scared Stupid" is low on my list, because it was seemed slow and tired, especially the climax battle)... and I don't know, the extended/alternate ending didn't really do anything for me... "I came, I saw, I got blowed up" seemed like the perfect ending for the movie anyway.

I feel the movie could have used a few more of those escape attempts. As the uploader said in one of the clips, after Ernest accidently pulled off a guards pants he drops only one prision ball, and in the next cut Ernest is getting a second ball chained to the other leg. Though the shadow puppet scene seems odd... Like he was trying to just walk out of prision at night.

I recall in the TV broadcast after Ernest's final line it goes to commercial, and then the additional ending comes on right before the credits, kind of like a tag. I wonder how the transition would have been (cutting straight to the scene? Fading to the scene?). But if anything, it shows that Ernest DID get his dream job.

And regarding the scene where the boss interviews Nash about the clerk job, I have been wondering a bit about that scene, whether it be the version shown in theaters or on TV. It looks like he's about to get the job, and then Nash purposely smashes a trophy, angering the boss. I sort of wonder why he did that... I know that he didn't really need the job because he was planning on robbing the bank that night. But since it was so close to him robbing the bank he could have just "accepted" the job, stole the money, and than ran off. Unless he thought he wouldn't be able to work as a janitor that night, eliminating his chances of robbing.

And another thing, when Reuben called Nash after Nash switched places with Ernest, I wonder who made the call. Reuben wouldn't know where to reach Nash (he didn't appear to be using a cell phone, which wasn't even common back then), and if Nash called the prision guards, I wonder how he would have been able to say he wanted to talk to Reuben (did he disguise his voice?). And I thought that while prisioners can make phone calls, I didn't think a non-prisioner could just call the prision and ask to talk to one of their prisioners.

And finally, in the scene where Nash threatened a prisioner who owed him money, how would Nash have been able to loan money while in jail, and how would the other be able to pay him back? And how would a prisioner have been able to spend money while in jail? I don't know if this is a question for somebody whose been in prision or if info is common knowledge.

 

[minor muppetz]

There's a website called http://thatfellowinthecoat.com which includes many videos of reviews for movies (much like That Guy with the Glasses). One series on that website, Vaulting (found when looking under "other shows" and then "Morgan's videos"... By the way, the same Morgan uploaded all the Jim Henson Hour episodes on YouTube), which has reviews of the first four Ernest movies, as part of "Ernest month". I'd say the reviews are good, though I haven't been able to see all of the Ernest Goes to Jail review (a few times I clicked on that and it said "this video can't be viewed", and once I watched it but then for some reason a commercial suddenly appeared in the middle of the review and then the video stopped, and I've tried clicking on the time thing a few times to go straight to where I left off only for the video to freeze).

While the reviewer does talk negatively about the movies, he also has a lot of positive things to say about them, citing Ernest Saves Christmas as a good movie to watch during the holiday season and Ernest Goes to Jail as being better than the first two, and disliking Ernest Scared Stupid the most. The Ernest Scared Stupid review is broken into two parts, though the second half of part two has him talking about the other movies, giving a mini-review of Hey Vern It's Ernest, and telling viewers NOT to request reviews of the other movies. It seems like with his Ernest Scared Stupid review he repeats many of the kinds of jokes The Nostalgia Critic used (including him looking up what "Miak" is, at the same moment The Nostalgia Critic did, and while he actually finds two descriptions, the first one is the exact same as what the NC read).

In the first of those reviews, a copy of The Essential Ernest Collection DVD is shown. I had seen this in stores a few times, but after seeing the reviews decided to look up the contents online... And what kind of "essential" Ernest collection is this? Most of the contents are compilations of the commercials, which I agree are essential, but the only two movies included are the worst of the made-for-video films (Ernest Goes to Africa and Ernest in the Army). I feel that all four of the movies from Touchtone are essential Ernest viewing (I know, the DVD set was released by a different company). I thought all of the made-for-video films were released by the same company, and the two of those not included are much better.

 

[D'Snowth]

My sentiments are pretty much the same, I feel "Goes to Jail" is probably the best of the Ernest movies, while I'm not too fond of "Scared Stupid"... but that whole thing about the definition of "MIAK" actually IS on the internet, I think it's listed in the Urban Encyclopedia, but it is pretty much word-for-word what they are reading, which begs the question... IS miak fictional or not?

As for the Essential Ernest collection, I received that as a Christmas gift a few years ago and like, but I agree, it's kind of a lackluster set when it comes to content (there was also a smaller set called "The Ultimate Ernest Collection" which I believe only contained one of the discs from the Essential collection). Most Ernest titles seem to be distributed by Mill Creek Entertainment, they've released the collections, as well as more recently the complete series set, as well as a triple-feature set with "Goes to Camp", "Goes to Jail", and "Scared Stupid" (all of which have actually been restored much better compared to their previous single releases); I contacted a representative at Mill Creek about the possibility of a great compilation set that included all of the movies, the series, all of the commercials, and other such Ernest goodies, to which he said as much as he would actually love to compile such a collection, he's not sure all of the interested parties would be willing to participate, but apparently there may be some new Ernest DVDs in the works, so we'll just have to wait and see.