Superbad, 15 years later

August 21, 2022 9:32 AM

“It’s Either Going to Be Really Funny, or They’re Going to Be Horrified”: An Oral History of Superbad [Vanity Fair / Archive / via]
posted by ellieBOA (16 comments total)

ROGEN: R-rated comedies are so commonplace now. So commonplace that it’s on television. At the time, the idea of a big theatrical comedy that was very R-rated—especially one about high school kids—was really unheard of.

Rogen wasn't even alive for the late 70s and 80s cavalcade of R-rated teen sex comedies, so I guess he can say this with a straight face...
posted by chavenet at 9:54 AM on August 21, 2022 [11 favorites]

Rogen wasn't even alive for the late 70s and 80s cavalcade of R-rated teen sex comedies, so I guess he can say this with a straight face...

He seems to have conveniently forgotten about the R-rated American Pie series (and its many similarly R-rated imitators - Road Trip, Van Wilder, Not Another Teen Movie, etc.) that dominated the US box office around the turn of the millennium, not all that long before Superbad.

(On preview: no, he mentions American Pie in TFA. OK, then. I saw Superbad in the theaters, and never thought it was substantially different than that earlier batch of teen comedies.)
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 10:33 AM on August 21, 2022 [3 favorites]

ROGEN: What’s horrifying is a comment I get a lot where cops come up to me and say, “I became a cop because of Superbad.” That has been said to me on numerous occasions. And when they say that to me, I say, “That is fucked up. You did not understand the movie.”

posted by zamboni at 11:12 AM on August 21, 2022 [24 favorites]

DTF was a term in popular parlance long before Superbad.
posted by nestor_makhno at 11:19 AM on August 21, 2022 [1 favorite]

I actually just watched Superbad for the first time a few weeks ago and was surprised at how "modern" it felt, especially compared to American Pie. It definitely feels more in touch with 2022 than it does with the raunchy late 90s comedies like American Pie and There's Something About Mary that I grew up with.

Almost everyone (other than the cops) in Superbad is at least vaguely attempting to be a good person while also enjoying themselves, which is nice to see in a raunchy comedy. The ambiguity definitely matched my experiences growing up through highschool and my 20s.
posted by JZig at 11:19 AM on August 21, 2022 [1 favorite]

And when they say that to me, I say, “That is fucked up. You did not understand the movie.”

Or they completely understood it, just not in the way Rogen would have liked them to.
posted by Ashwagandha at 1:30 PM on August 21, 2022 [3 favorites]

As I said in the fanfare thread, I put off seeing this in the theatres because I thought it was just another stupid teen comedy. Then a couple years later I rented it on dvd and lo and behold, it was a hundred times better then I expected. I laughed my ass off and still kick myself for not seeing it on the big screen because it's still one of the best comedies made in the last 25 years. It raised the bar for teen comedies so high, it will be a long time before anyone else can top it.
posted by hoodrich at 1:53 PM on August 21, 2022 [1 favorite]

Fun story... for my birthday the year it came out, I decided I wanted to go see this movie. Entire family, both grandmothers. I couldn’t look at either of them afterwards. We laughed about it later but what an awkward family trip to the movies it turned out to be.
posted by one4themoment at 2:01 PM on August 21, 2022 [3 favorites]

I went to Sonic a few weekends ago and the server's name on the receipt said McLovin. That is all.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:21 PM on August 21, 2022 [5 favorites]

The dick devil scene is right up there with the funniest bits of comedy ever.
posted by the duck by the oboe at 5:10 PM on August 21, 2022

“I became a cop because of Superbad.”

maybe they were thinking of super troopers?
posted by kliuless at 5:41 PM on August 21, 2022 [5 favorites]

Superbad is a good movie, and I'm glad this post was made, because it reminded me to finally check out 2019's Booksmart. Which I heartily recommend to anyone who likes Superbad; it's got some of the same end-of-high-school friendship premise and raucous approach. (It's also got a family connection; star Beanie Feldstein is Jonah Hill's sister.)
posted by Superilla at 11:07 PM on August 21, 2022 [4 favorites]

I saw SB in the theater with my mother and grandmother. It felt pretty awkward at points, but my grandmother was laughing the hardest at the awkward points, so it worked.
posted by bootlegpop at 2:48 AM on August 22, 2022 [1 favorite]

Not to derail but I saw Animal House in the theater when I was 12 sat between my mother and father. It was awkward. My mother (and I) laughed whilst my father was less than happy to be there.
posted by terrapin at 4:19 AM on August 22, 2022 [1 favorite]

(On preview: no, he mentions American Pie in TFA. OK, then. I saw Superbad in the theaters, and never thought it was substantially different than that earlier batch of teen comedies.)

Me either. It's exactly the same movie as American Pie, but with slightly different high school social class characters. It is funny though, so making basically the exact same teen movie is no big thing.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:37 PM on August 22, 2022

I was hoping this was about superbad.com

So mysterious…
posted by xtian at 7:42 AM on August 23, 2022 [1 favorite]