So, let me give you guys a quick background on this. This is a pilot for a show called The Best of Times, Nic Cage’s (at the time Nicolas Copolla) first role. Here’s the synopsis from IMDB:
"This ABC pilot starred 7 teenagers in a (sic) 80's style Laugh-In. It told the light and dark side of teenage thoughts with dancing and singing added in for color. It would have done wee (sic) in a Saturday morning slot (think saved by the bell), But, alas, it was put up with the big guys and was swallowed up before it even had a chance. Bummer!"
Grammatical errors aside, thanks anonymous IMDB updater, that description is not super helpful. First off, and my age is going to show here, I’ve never seen Laugh-In, so that isn’t going to help describe the show. Saved by the Bell is a much closer description, but this show aired in prime time.
Thankfully, the entire pilot episode is on Youtube. I present it to you here:
Let me break it down as succinctly as I can: It is a show about a group of eight “diverse” teenage friends (where “diverse” means not one but TWO nerdy white guys and a chunky white girl, plus a fourteen-year old girl who looks 5’10” and wants to play guitar in a rock band) living somewhere in California by the looks of the beach (but our main character wears the ugliest sweater over his shoulders for most of the episode). While the show does have an overall story and plot, the episode ends with the school dance, the show is broken down into many little scenes and snippets that don’t always connect with one another and, for the most part, aren’t all that funny.
Also, everyone bursts out into song and dance.
You heard me, they sing for no real reason whatsoever.
As I sort of hinted above, the writing is pretty lazy (each characters’ name is the actor’s name). Why did I watch this? Because it was the starting roles for both Nicolas Cage playing Nicolas AND Crispin Glover playing, you guessed it, Crispin. (A small aside: Who the hell names their kid Crispin?)
Now, the best way I can describe it is Saved by the Bell crossed with Glee. One major difference between Best of Times and Glee is that, despite your opinions of the latter show, the singers on Glee actually have some modicum of talent. Trust me, if there was singing talent in the cast of Best of Times, the producers incorrectly decided to hide it for the second episode. Additionally, while there is at least some justification for why the students of Glee would spontaneously burst out into song, I can’t seem to figure out the rhyme or reason in Best of Times. In fact, their first “song” comes so abruptly, it really makes you wonder why this show was made in the first place. However, it does give us a shot of Nic Cage doing something creepy:
Why was this show like Saved by the Bell? Well, Crispin frequently speaks directly to the camera and the audience. He’s our 1981 version of Zack Morris if you will. However, Crispin is not the only character to speak directly to the camera. Jill, the slightly tomboyish, however clearly the “attractive” girl, gets a little one on one time with the audience, but it is Nic Cage’s scene about three quarters of the way through the episode that is critical.
Let’s talk about Nic’s performance for a second, shall we? Nic is supposedly Crispin’s best friend. (“Do you know why?” Crispin asks. “Would you tell him he wasn’t your best friend?” Well played sir, well played.) There is not a single scene in the entire episode where Nic and Crispin hang out. We get introduced to Nic like so:
Simply put, I was super impressed with how jacked Nic was for this role. Half of the show he is shirtless. In every scene he is wearing some form of denim, whether it be some nice cut-offs – perhaps he is a Nevernude, there are dozens of them – or overalls for the carwash dance scene. Luckily, I have saved it for posterity:
All in all, Nic is really a precursor to A.C. Slater. The jock of the group, Nic, like A.C., is a little rude to his nerdy friends, but the mocking and browbeating is out of love. Additionally, Nic uses his body to try to get the ladies (he is clearly the only person on the show, like A.C., who gets any sort of tail). Most importantly, it looks as if Mario Lopez stole most of his dance moves from Nic Cage. This short shot at the Dance shows that Nic knows how to break it down:
That all being said, for most of the episode, Nic is a total jerk, a little creepy, and really one of the more uninteresting characters on the show and his performance is nothing special. In fact, if I were to tell you that one character on the show would become an international celebrity, Nic would have probably been guess number four or five. However, his scene on the beach really steals the show. Fast forward to 45 seconds into this clip to see what I’m talking about:
As I said above, this scene happens about three quarters of the way into the show. Up to this point, the show was pretty stupid, somewhat pointless, and had a very “Saturday-morning special” feel to it. In fact, up to this point, I couldn’t understand why this show was put in prime time and what the message of the show was. In this scene, we get why this show exists. 1981 is a super scary time to be a teenager: There are more responsibilities than ever AND nobody understands them or their music. PLUS there’s a chance each of hem could be drafted and enter a war in El Salvador! I guess it really isn’t the “best of times.”
Nic Cage acts the hell out this scene. It’s still has an “after school special” feel about it, but it grounds all the silliness of the rest of the show. Additionally, it seriously humanizes the Nic character. (One more similarity between Nic and A.C., their dads are both military men). It is the longest single shot in the entire episode and it carries the most weight. It seems the producers knew what they had on their hands: a serious acting prodigy.
So, what did I learn from watching Best of Times? Nic Cage was a little creepy and crazy from the get go, but it is clear that he could turn it down and act with gravitas.
All in all, I pretty (unintentionally) hilarious show. I’d recommend it tentatively to everyone only because it is only 48 minutes and some of the moments of the show are so awkward and unfunny they become really funny. 1981, I guess, really were the best of times.
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