J is for John Hughes

This month I'm participating in the A to Z Challenge. My theme is the 80s. Today's letter is:



A few movies have become icons of the 80s. Films like...

And...

And...

And...


These movies have one man in common. This man...

...wrote (and, in some cases, directed/produced) all of them. In fact, John Hughes is behind almost every great 80s movie there is. National Lampoon's Vacation, Weird Science, Mr. Mom... The list goes on.

Hughes began his career selling jokes to comedians like Rodney Dangerfield and Joan Rivers. While working as an advertising copywriter in Chicago, he began hanging out at the National Lampoon magazine offices. He wrote a story called Vacation '58, which landed him a writing position at the magazine. Vacation '58 would later become the basis for this movie:

And the rest is history.
Sadly, Hughes died of a heart attack in 2009. But his films will live on for generations.

I leave you with this trailer recut of Ferris Bueller's Day Off that turns the movie into a tearjerker. There are also recuts that turn Pretty in Pink and Home Alone into horror movies.