I'm in major need of a laugh today (if you follow the news and have a half a brain I imagine you are too) so I am grateful that today is the birthday of Stephen Stucker (1947-1984).
Stucker literally hopped into our lives, seemingly from out of nowhere, in the 1980 disaster movie spoof Airplane! As it happens, it wasn't his screen debut, but for all intents and purposes it was, and few introductions to the popcorn-eating public have ever been more triumphant or spectacular. I know I'm not in the minority in regarding Airplane! as one of the most perfect motion picture comedies of all time, a solid 87 minutes of belly laughs from start to finish that scarcely allows the audience a second to catch its breath. It already would have been that WITHOUT Stucker. But Stucker is the coup de grace. He's this force of nature, this lawless wild card they threw into the mix on top of everything else. Ostensibly his character is one of the air traffic control guys, but his actual role is to be a sort of anarchistic one man Marx Brothers-Hellzapoppin element. He mischievously leaps in and out of the frame at sundry points, spouting one-liners and non-sequiturs, then just as quickly gets out of the way so we can savor the quieter insanity of the rest of the movie. And he just gets crazier and crazier as the film goes on. On top of this over-the-topness, Stucker was screamingly gay, Alan Sues level gay, in such a way that it enhanced both his hilarious appeal. He was, in a word, perfect.
At the time, the big question was, who IS he? We knew most of the other people in the movie, even ones in bit parts, and Stucker came on so strong he's virtually the star of the movie, yet, most of us had never seen him. I think I assumed at the time he was a non-actor, some gem the ZAZ guys encountered in the supermarket checkout line or something. But NOPE. Stucker was actually a big part of the ZAZ comedy machine. Hailing from Des Moines, he had been part of their Kentucky Fried Theatre comedy troupe in Madison. (Believe it or not there is a respectable and influential comedy scene in the Wisconsin capital. Why didn't you do anything on THAT in your last season, Top Chef???). Stucker is also in the ZAZ penned Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), directed by John Landis, but I never saw that until years after Airplane!
Stucker's star burned so briefly. His biggest films after Airplane! were Airplane II: The Sequel (1982) and Trading Places (1983), in which he just had a bit part. These were the peaks of his ten year screen career. His other films rate as comedy schlock. In the low-budget sexploitation picture Carnal Madness a.k.a. Delinquent School Girls (1975), he played an escaped mental patient. In 1977 he was in the first of the many movies title Cracking Up, co-starring members of Ace Trucking Company, The Credibility Gap, Firesign Theatre, et al. (Later movies by that title include Jerry Lewis's 1983 picture, and one made in 1994 by my friend Matt Mitler). He has a bit part in the Gary Coleman comedy Jimmy the Kid (1982). In 1984 he was in a teen comedy called Bad Manners a.k.a Growing Pains with Martin Mull (RIP!) and a similar thing called Hot Resort with Bronson Pinchot and the now-cancelled Dan Schneider. He was also on an episode of Mork and Mindy and a tv special hosted by Marie Osmond (sans Donny).
And that's it! Why so little? The death date tells you all you need to know. In 1984 Stucker became one of the first public people we knew about to be taken from us by AIDS. All of that laughter, all of that FUTURE laughter, snipped out of our lives with one cruel snip. Or more to the point...unplugged:
I know God's a prankster, but would that he were more like Airplane's "Johnny" -- decided to say "Just kiddin'" and proceeded to plug it back in!
Speaking of the Marx Brothers, I sure do hope you will check out my new book The Marx Brothers Miscellany: A Subjective Appreciation of the World's Greatest Comedy Team (2024).
No comments:
Post a Comment