Ah, the summer of ’82. I was nine years old and my entire world revolved around a short, wrinkled alien with a glowing finger. Every conversation led back to E.T., and if you asked me about anything – favourite candy, dream bike, whatever – the answer would somehow involve Reese’s Pieces or a Kuwahara BMX with a milk crate strapped to the front. I’d memorized every trading card and constructed the entire film in my head from newspaper photos and Entertainment Tonight clips.
My room was basically a shrine with posters covering every wall, and I’d carefully cut out the newspaper ad for E.T. and tacked it above my bed. But my parents didn’t do movie theaters – too loud, too much hassle – so when my friend invited me to see it for his birthday, I marked the calendar and counted down the days.
When the moment finally arrived, his mom drove us to the theater and there it was on the marquee: E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL. We joined the line that wrapped around the building and then came those two words that crushed everything: Sold out.
My friend’s mom offered to come back another day, but he was impatient and “Rocky III” was playing in the next theater, so he just said “that one then” and that. Was that. I’d never seen a Rocky film and didn’t know who Mr. T was or care about boxing, but it wasn’t my birthday or my choice, so I took my ticket stub and followed them into the dark, expecting to spend the next two hours in a coma.
The thing about disappointment is that it can make you more receptive to whatever comes next, and maybe because I wasn’t looking for anything, Rocky III actually worked on me. By the closing credits, I had a new favourite song, and this Mr. T guy was someone I needed to keep an eye on. Sure enough, Mr. T became part of my personal mythology, right there next to E.T., and they even shared the same last initial which seemed important at the time. Rocky would eventually make it onto my mental roster of favourite movie characters, the guy who kept getting back up and turning losses into lessons. I liked that.
I finally saw E.T. in November for my birthday, five excruciating months after everyone else, and even though I knew every beat from the trading cards, it was still everything I’d hoped for. The frog liberation scene that had confused me in the stills finally made sense in context, and Elliott’s goodbye floored me exactly the way it was supposed to. But with E.T. finally somewhat satiated, there was room for new obsessions – and sure enough, when I caught Michael Jackson on the Motown 25th anniversary special the following year, I was ready to moonwalk without missing a beat.
These days when I think about that summer, I don’t think about missing E.T. that first time around. I think about sitting in that theater expecting nothing and finding Rocky, learning that sometimes being knocked down leads you somewhere you didn’t know you needed to go.
And that detour becomes part of the story you end up telling thirty years later.
-Pop
Rocky III arrived on home video this week in 1982, after a May 28th, theatrical release.