John Hughes’ ability to connect to teenagers in the ‘80s is why he was famous, as both a writer and a director. His ability to craft minor characters is what truly set him apart. From very small one-line cameos to characters with one or two short scenes often end up the characters with the most quotable lines in movies chock full of lines film fans say all the time to each other. Like any list, it’s hard to pick out the best, but we think you’ll agree that these are classic miner characters in Hughes’ films.
Car rental agent – Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Edie McClurg was a mainstay in John Hughes movies and one of her shining moments was a fairly brief scene at the St. Louis airport in Planes, Trains and Automobiles when Steve Martin’s character, Neil Page, attempts to rent a car in his desperate bid to get home for Thanksgiving. McClurg plays a very pleasant car rental agent forced to listen to Page’s profanity-filled barrage towards her. She takes it all in before delivering one of the best lines of the movie: “You’re fucked.”
Mutant Biker – Weird Science
While he only has one line, it’s a total gem. After the bikers crash Wyatt and Gary’s party in Weird Science, Lisa convinces them to stand up for themselves. When they do, the crazed “mutant” bikers back off and suddenly get very polite. Character actor Michael Berryman, known more his work in horror flicks and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest than comedies, has one of the classic lines as he’s leaving,
Can we keep this between us? I’d hate to lose my teaching job.
Economics Teacher – Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
“Bueller…Bueller….Bueller…” Is there really anything else that needs to be said here? Ben Stein’s brilliantly deadpan delivery as the most boring economics teacher ever in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is so famous and so often quoted, the phrase could be added to the dictionary.
Ed, The Car Salesman – National Lampoon’s Vacation
Eugene Levy only gets one scene in National Lampoon’s Vacation, but wow is it fantastic. Levy plays a sketchy sales guy perfectly, as the first person to rip off Chevy Chase’s Clark Griswold before the trip even begins. Instead of the Arctic Sports Wagon with the optional CB and rally fun pack, Levy still manages to sell Clark the now-infamous Family Truckster in metallic pea color (a damn fine automobile, if you want his opinion).
Carl Reed – The Breakfast Club
Who doesn’t love a guy like Carl the janitor (John Kapelos) who turns around John Bender’s (Judd Nelson) insulting question about getting into the custodial arts into a way to freak out Bender and all of all the kids in detention at Shermer High School, where he has become the eyes and ears of the institution in The Breakfast Club. By the way, that clock is 20 minutes fast.
Jinx Latham – Mr. Mom
Jeffery Tambor is often the funniest actor in anything he’s in, even when he’s not the star. Mr. Mom is no exception where he plays the hapless, somewhat idiotic boss to Michael Keaton’s character, Jack Butler. The first scene in the movie, when he fires Jack and everyone else is great. It’s when he returns in the movie, revealing his dark side, that viewers get to see what Tambor does brilliantly, playing the comedic bad guy.
Grandpa Howard – Sixteen Candles
Sixteen Candles is filled with great smaller roles, like John Cusack on the nerd wall at the dance or his sister Joan as the nerdy girl with the headgear. But the funniest is Sam’s (Molly Ringwald) grandfather Howard Baker, played by Edward Andrews. His exchanges with the foreign exchange student living with him, Long Duk Dong (Gedde Watanabe) are as funny as they are offensive. Even at the time, writer John Hughes’ stereotyping was offensive, but it’s as easy to make fun of Howard and his prejudices as it is to be offended by The Donger.
Pooter The Clown – Uncle Buck
Mike Starr is probably most famous for his role in Dumb and Dumber, but his funniest role is in one scene in Uncle Buck when he is hired as a birthday clown for Buck’s (John Candy) nephew. He rolls up in his mouse-themed cars (he must have something for vehicles that look like animals), after having been up all night at a bachelorette party, clearly still drunk.
Margo And Todd – Christmas Vacation
How many times have you been tempted to buy the “I don’t know, Margo” sweater for your annual ugly sweater party? It’s become a legendary line from Nicholas Guest’s character Todd, husband to Margo (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss) and frustrated neighbor to the Griswalds in Christmas Vacation. Do you think Margo ever figured out why the carpet was all wet? One thing is for sure, they didn’t deserve all that they dealt with.
Gus Polinski – Home Alone
Not only does John Candy save the day, but he also steals the movie Home Alone with his performance as Gus Polinski. Abe Froman might be the sausage king of Chicago, but without the polka king of the Midwest playing “The Twin Lakes Polka” you can bet those bratwursts wouldn’t taste nearly as good. It really makes you want to find a way to get to a beerfest in Chaboygen in the John Hughes-verse.
The Diceman – Pretty in Pink
After floundering around looking for a career on screen, Andrew Dice Clay entered the collective consciousness as the bouncer in Pretty In Pink. Let’s be honest, he’s really just playing himself, and Duckie (Jon Cryer) even refers to him as “The Diceman,” so it’s not exactly an acting stretch. Still, it’s all worth it when Dice lights that cigarette as only he can, inspiring a generation of kids to take up smoking.
Reg – The Great Outdoors
Actor Britt Leach plays one of the more outlandish characters in any John Hughes film as Reg, the guy that’s been 66 times – make that 67 times – in the woods around Pechoggin, Wisconsin in The Great Outdoors. The stutter that he developed as a human lightning rod is one of the goofiest, yet genuinely funniest bits in this cult classic.
The Bike Rider – National Lampoon’s European Vacation
Ok, maybe the most outlandish character in John Hughes world is actually Eric Idle as the bike rider in European Vacation. This poor bike rider is menaced all over Europe by the Griswolds, and by the end, he’s quite literally falling apart. He’s so over-the-top it doesn’t really fit in with most of Hughes’ characters, but casting a Monty Python vet makes it all work perfectly.
Laura Nelson – Some Kind Of Wonderful
Maddie Corman plays Laura Nelson, younger sister to Eric Stolz’s Keith Nelson in Some Kind Of Wonderful, and in one scene-stealing moment, she leaves the audience and her family in shock (and in stitches). After finding out her socially awkward brother has a date with a beautiful popular girl, she sits down at the breakfast table to explain just how ridiculous it all is – in explicit detail. She’s the kind of sister we’re all terrified of, but by the end, you know she really cares about her brother.
C.D. Marsh – Career Opportunities
We end this list without one more John Candy appearance. Career Opportunities may be most remembered as a movie with only two main actors, Jennifer Connelly and Frank Whaley, but there is a scene in the beginning that might be the best in the movie. In an uncredited cameo, John Candy plays C.D. Marsh, the manager of the Target store Whaley is trying to get hired on as a security guard. As only Candy could, he makes the seemingly mundane scene come alive with his subtle frustration in confusing Whaley as a candidate for a much more important position than Whaley is applying for.
John Hughes could write for just about any kind of character. He wrote jerks you hated, he wrote people you love, but most of all, he always brought the funny. He is missed every day, but will never be forgotten because he wrote so many.