Non-Guilty Pleasures: Ernest P. Worrell

There’s a Youtube video of a newsmagazine show in the 1980s introducing comedian Jim Varney to the world. His brief standup career had not led him to lucrative work, but then he began doing commercials as the bumbling character Ernest P. Worrell and everyone knew the persona. He peddled everything from Mello Yello (which used to be good) to ice cream to car lots—local and national ads that were extremely popular in their day, so much so that the best of the best were released as compilations on home video. But the intro for the newsmag piece featured him performing a Shakespeare soliloquy with great utility. Varney didn’t live long enough to be appreciated as the good actor he was, but he did bring to life a character that launched nine feature films (ten if you include his tacked-on cameo in the indie film Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam).

Varney’s success as Ernest gave the Walt Disney Company the notion of bringing him to film through their Touchstone division with 1987’s Ernest Goes to Camp. As a child, I was not immune to Ernest. I would frequently rent the movies at the local Turtle’s rental shop and probably wore out every copy. That being said, after the fifth film, I was “too old” to still be watching Ernest movies, so I’ve never seen the remaining four films that were released direct to home video. But Ernest has stayed with me long enough that when his kids’ series Hey Vern, It’s Ernest! came out on DVD, I bought it and realized he was not a guilty pleasure. He was another non-guilty pleasure.

My VHS copy of Ernest Goes to Camp was bought second-hand and the start of the tape is so warped, you don’t get to see Ernest until the first of his many pratfalls. Ernest doesn’t exactly go to camp, he works there—along with Jake, played by the late Gailard Sartain (albeit with a different partner than Bobby from the later films) who appears as various characters in the Ernest saga but had real acting chops (Fried Green Tomatoes) and was a beloved star of Hee Haw and other Southern-themed fare. Ernest’s Southern-ness may be one of the reasons I loved him so much as a child and rejected him as a teenager when I entered drama school and being from the South was decidedly looked down upon.

The film concerns Ernest supervising a group of juvenile delinquents who set him up for failure as a potential counselor but come to love him and help him run off some corporate big wigs who want to ruin the historic Native site of the camp and shut it down. Stylistically, the film is a mess. It is, like the Police Academy films, a series of slapstick comedy bits. But it also is a film about bullying and being an outcast and, in one scene, it’s even a musical! Varney, who later recorded “Hot Rod Lincoln” for The Beverly Hillbillies soundtrack, sings a surprisingly touching song with the following lyrics: “I’m awfully glad it’s raining/’Cause no one sees your teardrops when it pours.” Not exactly Joni Mitchell, but in the context of the film, it’s poignant.

But style isn’t the point. The juvenile nature of the humor isn’t the point. Ernest’s best quality is on display—his ability to push through obstacles and become a winner though, to the world, he’ll always be a lovable loser. In the end, it’s a fitting beginning to the film journey. It’s not the best, but it wasn’t a bad start. The better film was clearly the sequel.

Much to some people’s embarrassment, I watch Ernest Saves Christmas every year. Like Doug Walker, the Nostalgia Critic, I believe it has the best Santa Claus of any movie, even if Douglas Seale was a bit too skinny for the part. Another lost kid heading for juvenile delinquency gets caught up in a plot where Ernest runs into Kris Kringle, who is looking for a replacement as he has begun to lose his touch. The film is the first to introduce Vern, though Vern is never seen. Vern is Ernest’s neighbor and probably wishes he wasn’t. Every time Ernest shows up, Vern’s house is usually destroyed, and this case is no different. You really can’t think of Ernest without Vern and it’s telling the primary catchphrase is “Hey Vern,” which became the title of his kids’ show—a sort of low-budget Pee-Wee’s Playhouse.

So, like The Empire Strikes Back and Weekend at Bernie’s II, the second film is better. Yeah, I said it. I considered this week’s blog post to be about bad sequels I love. I still laugh at Ernest, and I still think Bernie’s corpse wobbling around being charmed by voodoo is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in a film.

The next film, Ernest Goes to Jail, was one of my favorites as a kid, but it is decidedly in the camp of, “What was I thinking?” While the movie certainly gives Varney plenty of opportunity to show off his skills, particularly as an evil doppelganger character, it is almost unbearably unfunny. Still, the sweetness with which most of Ernest’s employees treat him has its own kind of charm. As is generally known, the third in a series is almost always a let-down.

With the novelty of the films were wearing thin, they decided to go back to holiday fare with Ernest Scared Stupid, a Halloween movie that gets a bad rap today, but in my opinion, is very funny and infinitely quotable. All I have to say to members of my generation is “Authentic Bulgarian Miak” and it is akin to trading off lines from the opening of David Bowie’s appropriation of “You remind me of the babe./What babe?” This time, they went with younger children than before and none of them are particularly good actors. To make up for it, though, we do have the hag played by Eartha Kitt (whose acting I loved, but her singing just didn’t do it for me) to make up for it.

With an ancient curse associated with the Worrells that revivifies a troll, I don’t know—I laughed. One of the staples of Ernest movies are the various “characters” Ernest plays, the best of which is the Auntie Nelda, the old lady with the neck brace, who never fails to make me laugh. In this one, Ernest perhaps has his finest jump cut moment of characters including his underbite-ridden redneck snake-handler who, when he utters the word Botswana—I don’t know why it’s funny, but it is. Yes, there are comedies and there are comedies. But if it makes you laugh, it’s done the job.

The most overlooked of any of the films was the last to be released in theaters—a massive flop (probably from the gimmick wearing thin)—Ernest Rides Again. A plot involving Ernest and a befuddled professor riding a Revolutionary canon down a hill? I think it’s a hoot and I always will. It also gives Ernest an anthem in the title sequence that is fun to sing (the lyrics are on screen so you can sing along). This one really got short shrift. It’s probably a better movie than even Ernest Saves Christmas because it pulls back on the most eccentric stuff. If you can find a copy, you will like it. It should be a cult classic and not just remembered as a glum flop.

As I said previously, I never saw Ernest Goes to School, Slam Dunk Ernest, Ernest Goes to Africa, or Ernest in the Army so I can’t comment. Needless to say, there was enough home video demand for them (as there was with those terrible sequels to Don Bluth’s The Land Before Time), but by the late 1990s, Varney was pigeonholed into the role as happens with some comedic actors. The aforementioned Beverly Hillbillies adaptation, though, showed Varney in fine fettle as Jed Clampett. It is probably his best role in any film and, though it was lambasted at the time, the movie is still funny to me.

So, there you have it: a few weeks of non-guilty pleasures. Let me know in the comments some of your guilty pleasures for which you feel no guilt. And go watch something funny. KnowwhutImean?