You know, it’s funny… I remember being fairly indifferent to the movie Footloose when it first came out way back in 1984. Being the geeky boy that I was — oh, hell, still am — I was far more interested in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Star Trek III, Ghostbusters, and even Gremlins. I snottily dismissed Footloose as a movie only girls would like. At some point, however, I did finally knuckle under and see it. I no longer remember why I gave in — maybe I was on a date or something — but I do recall that the setting was the old Cameo Theatre in Draper, the single-screen neighborhood movie house where I would soon have my first job, and if it was playing there, it must’ve been several months after the movie’s initial release. Surprisingly, it turned out to be not such a bad movie after all. In fact, I ended up enjoying it quite a lot.
Even so, I never anticipated how much that little movie about teens who want to dance would come to mean to me. With each passing year since 1984, Footloose has moved higher and higher up my list of all-time favorites. In part, this is simply because the movie was filmed near my home and it’s a wonderful time capsule from a lost era. It fills my sentimental need to see the world I grew up in and which is now long gone. And it’s a great feel-good flick where the good guys win in the end, and the bad guys turn out to not be so bad after all. But a bigger issue, I think, is that its message of continuing to think freely in the face of even well-intentioned oppression resonates with me more now than it did even in my teen years. Make of that what you will given recent topics on this blog.
Anyhow, not only do I love this movie, but I’m also a sucker for those cast reunions you occasionally see on TV; I like to know what’s become of people whose faces and voices are so indelibly printed in my imagination, to see how well (or poorly) the years are treating them. Which brings us, at last, to my point: The three stars of Footloose — Kevin Bacon, John Lithgow, and Lori Singer — recently appeared together on The Today Show, but I was only able to catch a few moments of their interview before I had to leave for work. Tonight, I thought to look up the video clip online, and I thought I’d share it with anyone who may be interested:
