Any Ernst Fans?

[minor muppetz]

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?

I wonder if they put it in there because of the movie. The "which may or may not be fictional" part of the description sounds like somethign they'd do on The Simpsons or Family Guy.

[quote="D'Snowth] 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); [/quote]

Come to think of it, I have the blu-ray of Ernest Goes to Jail, and the Touchstone Pictures logo does not appear on the packaging. Makes me wonder if Touchstone still owns those films.

And if there are to be new Ernest DVDs, hopefully those will have bonus features.

 

[D'Snowth]

Come to think of it, I have the blu-ray of Ernest Goes to Jail, and the Touchstone Pictures logo does not appear on the packaging. Makes me wonder if Touchstone still owns those films.

And if there are to be new Ernest DVDs, hopefully those will have bonus features.

I was under the impression that Disney actually owned the theatrical movies, but apparently not...

And likewise, on this triple-feature set from Mill Creek, while there is no Touchstone logo on the packaging either, they are listed in the little credit blurbs on the back, and on the actual movies, they do still retain the logo at the opening and closing of each movie.

 

[minor muppetz]

And likewise, on this triple-feature set from Mill Creek, while there is no Touchstone logo on the packaging either, they are listed in the little credit blurbs on the back, and on the actual movies, they do still retain the logo at the opening and closing of each movie.

I noticed that stuff, even though the logo's not there. Maybe Disney sold the distribution rights?

 

[D'Snowth]

I finally caught Ernest Goes to School on YouTube, so now I can say I've seen every Ernest movie at least once.

However, as far as this particular movie goes, I don't think too much of it, it's definitely one of the weaker movies in the series, I think even "Scared Stupid" may have been a little better than this... the plot was okay, but the acting and directing seems a little tired in this installment. Linda Kash's performance was great as always, but she somehow seemed out of place in this movie, I think it may be that she was basically made to play a stereotypical and cliched German-accented mad scientist-type character... and somehow, pairing her with Bobby seemed off... Bobby didn't have that Chuck-type character to play off of, where Chuck would screw something up, or cause some kind of little chaos, despite having good intentions, while Bobby would just smile and nod, and somehow in his own, quiet and collected way, would fix the problem... in other words, being the straightman to Chuck (or Tom in "Scared Stupid")... here, since Gerta wasn't really a bumbling character, that schtick wasn't there, so the pairing just wasn't quite right. I'm sure Jim Varney was pleased to actually play Ernest in an intelligent manner for a change, given his near-genius I.Q. in real life, but somehow, I didn't really care for how it seemed like the smarter Ernest got, the ruder and more uppity he became. Oh, and his crush on the teacher... yeah, that just isn't funny anymore... I guess living in a state that is notorious for teacher sex scandals, any kind of romantic interest plot involving a teacher just doesn't seem funny anymore, even if it is on an innocent level.

So yeah, not one of the better Ernest movies, if you ask me. Plus, with the big football game in the end being a subplot of the movie, that was kind of like whitenoise, since the mid-90s cranked out a little of kiddie sports movies (Little Giants, The Big Green, Sandlot, etc.)

 

[Scooterforever]

Ernest Scared Stupid remains an unsurpassed masterpiece of modern cinema which I remember fondly from my childhood. Those trolls terrified me!

 

[minor muppetz]

I just found some of the old commercials with Chuck and Bobby. I had been looking for them a few years ago, and now I found them (and see that they have been online since 2012... Should have kept looking).

 

[minor muppetz]

I just thought of something (actually I thought about this a long time ago, but just remembered).

Vern is short for Vernon, I think, and in Ernest Goes to Camp, Sherman Krater is played by John Vernon. Could he have been cast because of his last name?

 

[minor muppetz]

Recently I bought the DVD Ernest's Wacky Adventures, which includes Your World as I See It and Ernest's Greatest Hits Vol. 1 and 2, and I've got to ask.... Was Your World as I See It meant to be broadcast on television? I know, according to IMDB, that it was first released on video in 1994, but it's broken up into several segments, and it looks like it might have been planned as an interstitial series for some kind of programming block.

Each segment beginnings with the title card, then Astor Clements provides an intro before obviously introducing a commercial or commercial break, and then goes back to him talking about something (leading to a segment with Ernest or some other Varney character). Even if it didn't air, was it meant to be shown on television somewhere?

I can't find any such info online. There's an Internet Movie Database page which isn't really helpful in what I want to know, and it seems it doesn't have a wikipedia page. This is such an intriguing project.

Additionally, I read that "Ernest the Pirate" was never actually meant to be an Ernest movie. I found that there was an interview where John Cherry said that it was a non-Ernest movie, I forget the title, and Jim Varney was originally cast to play the lead, only to be replaced by Tim Curry after he became too ill, and I think it was released in 1999 (just before Varney died). Aside from the fact that it was to star Varney, I wonder how the rumor got started that it was "Ernest the Pirate". I remember seeing that among Jim Varney's filmography on IMDB before he died, and now that I think of it I sort of remember an obituary which said that there weren't any unreleased Ernest movies in production when he died.

And speaking of unreleased Ernest movies, I just read on the Ernest P. Worrell wikipedia page that there were a few unproduced scripts and treatments.... And the descriptions for those unproduced movies sound horrible (but maybe they would have been better than the titles/descriptions).

 

[D'Snowth]

I'm really curious about YOUR WORLD AS I SEE IT as well - but even if they were produced for television, how would they air? Perhaps on a cable channel as intersentials? Like maybe Disney since Touchstone produced the original theatrical movies?

As for other Ernest movies, I'd take what Wikipedia says with a grain of salt, but I have no doubts they were probably planning others - John Cherry said in an interview that they were using Ernest as a character in a similar fashion as James Bond in that every movie has Ernest with a new job, with new friends, with a new love interest, et al, so Ernest could easily be sequeled in new movies like Bond.

As for non-Ernest movies Jim Varney starred in, I was reading about one recently that came out in the 80s that sounds like GOOD BURGER, only Varney was the owner of a big corporate burger chain, and the competition was putting drugs in their burgers to entice customers instead of a secret sauce.

 

[minor muppetz]

I'm really curious about YOUR WORLD AS I SEE IT as well - but even if they were produced for television, how would they air? Perhaps on a cable channel as intersentials? Like maybe Disney since Touchstone produced the original theatrical movies?

Last night I thought maybe it was shown during a programming block, but I think an interstatial series shown between two programs might be a better bet (wasn't Schoolhouse Rock shown right after a program ended?). Considering each one begins with what is clearly Astor introducing a commercial, I guess they would have started after the program begins, then have a brief commercial, then do the rest of the show.

And the video ends with a few really short segments that appear to be special promos for Your World as I See It (was it common to show promos for interstitial series?).

Wasn't there recently a biography book on Jim Varney? I wonder if there's information in there.

As for other Ernest movies, I'd take what Wikipedia says with a grain of salt, but I have no doubts they were probably planning others - John Cherry said in an interview that they were using Ernest as a character in a similar fashion as James Bond in that every movie has Ernest with a new job, with new friends, with a new love interest, et al, so Ernest could easily be sequeled in new movies like Bond.

Yeah, I thought of Ernest as being a bit like Pee-Wee Herman, Cheech and Chong, Looney Tunes, and The Muppets, all characters with no set continuity.

As for non-Ernest movies Jim Varney starred in, I was reading about one recently that came out in the 80s that sounds like GOOD BURGER, only Varney was the owner of a big corporate burger chain, and the competition was putting drugs in their burgers to entice customers instead of a secret sauce.

I think that was titled Fast Food. But I only know that Jim Varney was in a movie with that title, not the plot or anything.