Back in the early 80’s, a handful of raunchy movies (this side of the beaded curtain) managed to achieve legendary status amongst impressionable pre-pubescent youths.
Very few of us had easy access to the sort of material that was often relegated to the bottom of dad’s sock drawer, so the promise of accessible teen smut beckoned from the video store shelf. And the one movie that every 11 year old claimed to have seen, and could describe in every lurid detail, was Porky’s. I hadn’t watched it at the time, but I could still recount every seedy scene by parroting what was circulating around the schoolyard. Especially the scene with Paulie in the girl’s shower. I may have embellished it a tad. Anyway.
It was impossible to tell who had actually seen a rental copy that had been left lying around by absent parents, or who had had their skeevy older brother rent it for them… but we had all ‘experienced’ it. When I finally caught it on cable years later, I found my imaginary version had been much better. For one thing, Paulie stretched like a rubber band for a few feet before snapping back.
As I got older, my taste for raunch got arty and air-brushed, but I appreciate the role Bob Clark’s screwball comedy had on the collective psyche of my generation’s schoolyard.
It was certainly a bigger deal than A Christmas Story at the time.
-Pop
Porky’s arrived on Home Video this week in 1983, after a March 19th 1982 theatrical release.