Doctor Movie: Episode 300 : Harry And The Hendersons

Show Notes

We have hit 300 episodes here at Doctor Movie, I still can’t believe that. To celebrate we go out in the wilderness and rediscover the fantastic film Harry And The Henderson. This movie really belongs in every movie collection. Lets enjoy and discuss this forgotten classic.

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What is Doctor Movie! and Hail Ming Power Hour!?

Cinematic oddities and awesomeness under the watchful of the all-powerful Ming and Doctor Movie!

Wait a minute, I hear something.

Hey, what's happening, everybody?

Welcome back to the number one show on the road.

The road show?

Doctor Movie, I'm your host, Rick.

I guess I'm the doctor.

You know, when I put this together, I never thought one time of me being like, doctor?

It was kind of just a play on an old Italian gore splatter movie, Doctor Butcher, MD, Medical Deviant, that's a little wink-wink there to my buddy, Cort Psyops.

And so when I named this thing, that's kind of where it came from.

And I failed miserably in really making it, you know, sticking the landing on that.

But hey, who cares?

Hey, here's one, this movie, I haven't seen, gosh, probably since it came out.

And from 1987, it's this comedy slash family movie, Harry And The Hendersons.

Now, I can go on for an hour on this movie, or I can just go ahead and tell you right now, folks, this movie is pure 80s magic.

Man, I wish they made movies like this again.

For several reasons.

I've totally forgotten really how good this movie is.

And we are missing this terribly in the world nowadays.

And it reflects on so many things.

Maybe it's just watching the perfect movie at the perfect time.

But wow, what a meaningful movie to kind of lift the spirits.

And I don't know, I think when it comes to iconic 80s movies, this one needs to be on that list.

I think it's forgotten about.

And it's a shame, because it's really, really good.

It's really fun.

It's got that senseless kind of 80s feeling about it, but delivers a great message at the same time.

And there's no over-explanation.

You don't need explanation.

It's telling a simplified story, and you care back the characters, even though you see them juxtaposed from wherever they stood on issues from the beginning of the movie to the end.

And that's what this is all about, right?

It's cut and dry, simplistic, good versus bad kind of mentality.

And you don't have to expand on that.

The simplicity of it is what makes it so great.

So let's get into this one.

If you're not familiar, it came out in 1987.

It says, while returning from a trip in the woods, George Henderson and his family runs into something with their car.

It turns out to be a Sasquatch.

It keeps going from there.

It's got a lot to read.

Thinking the creature is dead, they take it home.

But Harry soon awakens.

They call him Harry, for obvious reasons.

Despite their initial fears, Harry is a cat and citizen of being.

And The Hendersons become very fond of him.

However, it's difficult to keep him secret.

And soon they begin to fear for Harry's safety.

Yeah, man, it's ET right?

And it's the formula of ET which I'll go ahead and say it.

ET is one of my favorite movies of all time.

For this exact reason.

Because it makes you feel something.

You know?

And this is executed so well.

Let's see if there's a why to watch.

Why to watch?

Hey, Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling.

Can't argue with that.

The great Rick Baker pulls off some impressive effects in this movie.

To this day.

Absolutely amazing.

Absolutely amazing.

It's sweet, humorous and moving.

Hey, we got two.

That's the first three order.

Sweet, humorous and moving.

Absolutely.

Great comedy and family movie that everyone will enjoy.

I couldn't agree more.

Wildly funny, Harry And The Hendersons is a sweet and charming family movie.

Comedy.

Yep, that's true.

The film is very light hearted and fun.

One the whole new generation should enjoy.

A genuine family film.

Yeah, it's kind of the last of these that we got in the 80s.

AMDB gives it a 6.1 out of 10.

I can go ahead and tell you, it's way higher for me than that.

Let's see, directed by William Dear?

Uh oh, I'm having internet problems.

Hold on, folks.

What did William Dear do for us?

Let's see.

He also brought us Angels in the Outfield.

So you can kind of tell this guy's kind of put in that direction, right?

But yeah, let's see.

Let's look at our cast.

Well, we start off with the great John Lithgow playing George Henderson, the dad of the family.

And this is one of my favorite roles of John he can play any type of character.

But this one, you really go through a roller coaster ride with him emotionally.

It's just a great performance, it really is.

Kevin Peter Hall, that's right.

He also played not only did he play Harry, but he also played Predator in 1 and 2.

He was in Without Warning, which is another favorite B-grade movie of mine that I absolutely love.

We got Joshua Rudoy, he plays Ernie, which is the son of the family.

What else has he been in?

Flatliners, looks like he did some stuff with Amazing Stories back in the day.

We've got Margaret Langrick, who plays the daughter in the movies.

nothing I've seen besides this movie.

Melinda Dillon is in this, known for A Christmas Story, Close Encounters, Slapshot.

I've got to do Slapshot, one of my favorite movies ever.

She's always kind of the mom character in these kind of movies, or any kind of movies, really.

Don Amici, which is in Spies Like Us, Trading Places, a lot of stuff.

Liz Kazan is the neighbor.

I'm sorry, Lainey Kazan.

You know, from everything.

My Greek Wedding, my Big Fat Greek Wedding, Sohan, Lust and Dust.

I mean, her spectrum is wide, folks.

She plays the annoying neighbor in the movie.

Emmett Wash is in this.

From, you know, Raising Arizona, The Jerk.

I mean, the guy has been in all kinds of stuff.

So, tons of great actors.

David Chouchet is in this, who plays Jacques Lefour, who is a Bigfoot hunter.

And, you know, you got to have your bad guy that's trying to hunt them down, right?

So, I feel foolish even trying to talk about this one.

I feel like everybody has seen this one, I think.

Families out camping.

They're loading everything up.

They're heading back home.

John Lithgow is the father.

He's having a hard time kind of seeing down the road.

Hits something in the road.

Ends up being a Bigfoot.

They think it's dead.

They strap it to the top of the car.

It wakes up.

They slam on the brakes.

It throws him on the ground again.

Now they think he's really dead, so they pick him up, take him home.

And he comes alive.

Starts wrecking the house, because he's never been inside of a house.

John Lithgow gets his gun.

He grew up with a father that's a hunting extraordinaire, I guess you'd say.

He owns a gun shop.

And John Lithgow works there with his father.

So they've got this background of being much old man.

And so while all this is going on, Lithgow, which is the Bigfoot tracker, found some hair and some tire tracks and a license plate that leads him to Seattle, which is where this family is from, and tries to track down Harry.

Well, you found out pretty quick that Harry is not a big, scary monster.

He's a vegetarian who loves animals, and he's in absolute remorse for the animals that John Lithgow has killed and made trophies in his house.

The scene with the deer, there's a deer head on the wall, and he's trying to find the back half of the deer and get the deer out of the house, not knowing that it's just the head.

Breaks through the wall and then notices on the backside, there's no other part of the deer, so he takes that deer head, and the wife has a coat that was her grandmother's mink throw or whatever it was.

He takes these out back behind the house and buries them in the yard.

So, you know, Harry's obviously got feelings for these animals being killed.

And, you know, the story just kind of grows from there.

They start trying to figure out what to do with him.

He ends up escaping and leaving home, and you start having sightings throughout the town, and you got John Lithgow going around trying to find him.

And, you know, during all this, the family starts falling in love with him because, you know, he's just...

he's awesome.

I mean, everything about him is, you know, this big creature who's happy, you know, learning everything.

He's getting attached to the people.

The people get attached to him.

They kind of become family.

And, you know, you actually care for everybody in this.

So you see hearts change.

He reaches out to Dr.

Wallace Wright.

Wright, well, what was his name in the movie?

Don Amici, anyways.

And he's trying to say in a roundabout way, you need to come see what I've got.

Of course, he deals with these crackpots all the time that claim to have seen Bigfoot.

Matter of fact, he knows Lufura very well.

And, you know, he's not buying into it.

Well, like I said, Harry gets loose.

He's running around town.

And you have to have this in every 80s movie.

You have to have the 80s shot where our hero of the movie, our antagonist, not antagonist, protagonist, Harry, is the scene where they're in front of a store that has a bunch of TV setting in the window.

You know what I'm talking about.

And they're all showing the news, and they all stop and watch the news because there's somebody on there they recognize.

Well, he sees George on the TV because there was a guy that was on a bicycle that saw Harry, and he's making up this big bullcrap story about what happened and how scary he was and all that stuff.

George calls him on it and becomes a big hit, and they got him all over the news.

And Harry sees him, so he busts through the gate over the window, busts the window to grab the TV because George is on there, and he licks the screen, in other words, showing that he loves him, right?

The affectionate animal thing.

But he keeps backing away with the TVs, and they keep getting unplugged.

And then he'll pop up on another TV, and he grabs that one.

Then the cops show up, and then he's on foot.

So now you've got the cops that have actually seen Bigfoot, and now the whole town is buying ammo, and it's the whole jaw scenario, where everybody's now shark hunting, or in this case, Bigfoot hunting.

And George's dad, who owns the gun shop, is loving it, because things are selling like never before.

And he actually wants George to draw a huge picture of Bigfoot and put it up in the window, because he knew his son liked to draw.

And he's trying to draw a big, scary one, and he just can't do it, because he knows it's not true.

So he ends up drawing one that actually looks like Harry, and the dad hates it.

And he ends up redrawing over it, making it look scary, puts it up in the window, and George just hit his limit.

He can't do it anymore.

Everybody's buying these guns.

He knows that they're all going to go try to shoot and kill Henry.

Harry, Henry.

Different movie, folks.

And, you know, so you got the chaos going on here, and you got Lafleur out there as well, trying to track him down.

And eventually, George finds Harry, gets him back home, and calls the doctor, Danimichi, to come visit him and see him for himself.

And from there on, they're on a rescue mission of trying to get Harry out of there and back to the civilization where he belongs.

And I'll just leave it there, because I don't want to ruin it all.

It's a perfect movie, folks.

I don't say that very often.

This is such a good, lighthearted, entertaining movie, great performances.

Again, the effects in this, it's just, you forget that it's an effect.

It's that good.

It's just brilliant.

It is so good.

I'm so glad I revisited it.

And it was just on a whim.

Wasn't even on my list.

I just thought, you know, I want something kind of fun, kind of lighthearted.

Boom.

This covered it all in spades.

So I really can't recommend this one enough.

It should be, I think, in every movie collection.

I'm really thinking about showing it to my granddaughter and seeing if she would like it as well, because I think she would.

Because you've got the young kid, right, who's attached to it kind of like, you know, Elliot was with ET.

You got the teenage sister, who, you know, is all teenage-y, right?

Ooh, he smells and doesn't really like him, but comes around to him at the end, that kind of deal.

You know, you get that.

It's 80s textbook movie making.

And I'm so proud that it is, because, man, it just made me realize again, what are we doing?

What in the world are we doing in the movie world?

We have totally lost our minds.

These movies are out here that deliver on so many levels.

And I don't know, do we just feel like we have to do something?

Is it because Tarantino came along and just changed the way we're supposed to make movies?

I don't know why.

I mean, why is it when we try to do a throwback 80s type movie, we just fail miserably?

The formula is here, folks.

It's not hard.

It's very, very simple.

So I don't understand why we can't have more of this.

Thank goodness we can go back and actually watch these.

And I really wish the filmmakers of today would go back and watch these and realize where the magic really is.

Is it in the effects?

Not necessarily.

It's in the storytelling.

The effects are only one small part of storytelling.

Now, storytelling doesn't need to be bogged down in details.

Simplify.

Make it easy to understand.

Don't have to sit here and explain everything.

I don't need a backstory of the history of the Bigfoot in this.

I don't.

All I know is it's a mysterious creature, and we find out that it's more like ourselves than we ever thought.

It's teaching you that people react in fear for things they don't understand.

But once we find out it lives and breathes and reacts and has feelings just like we do, then, you know, you see the other side of it.

It's a great life lesson, right?

So, again, I'm going on too far.

Easily, five out of five for me.

And again, I have not watched this since it came out.

This is only probably my third viewing of this movie ever.

And I'm just blown away.

I mean, I knew it was good because I remembered before and I thought, this would be fun to revisit.

It's so good.

It's so, so good.

So do yourself a favor.

Go find your...

It's on Tubi.

You can watch it on Tubi.

Watch it immediately.

If you need a little light in your heart, a little light in your life, this is the movie, folks.

Because even the bad turns good.

We need more of that.

We got to stop grumbling around in the mud and life is dark and, you know, bad.

That's what these movies are for, is to pull you out of that junk.

Make you forget how crappy life is.

Life is crappy, folks.

Anybody tells you that life is all rainbows and unicorns?

Absolutely wrong.

It's not.

Now, I'm not being pessimistic either.

At the same time, life is good.

Life is about balance.

But you have to have things that make you realize it's worth going on.

Life is worth living, even though it sucks at times.

That's what I get out of these movies, and you should too.

All right, folks, that's all I got for this one.

I appreciate you for hanging out with me.

Let me know if there's something you'd like me to cover.

I'd be glad to do it.

Till then, folks, au revoir.