Hey bud! 25 years later, ‘Fast Times’ still cool

‘He was Spicoli the whole time’
Penn came into “Fast Times” right on the heels of “Taps,” and although he played surfer Spicoli as a guy without a care in the world, he took the role as a pot-smoking, Vans-wearing high school flunky with the utmost professionalism. Once arriving on set, he went into full Spicoli mode and stayed in character all day long, even during breaks in shooting.

“I watched Sean do a scene and then I’d go home and knew I had to work harder,” Romanus recalled. “He was Spicoli the whole time. We used to study together. I knew he’d be special as soon as I saw him. There were a lot of good actors on the set but his character was pretty stunning.”

Added Heckerling: “He had just done ‘Taps’ and that was unfortunate because he had a haircut so he had to wear a wig. Everyone knew (he was special).”

And then there’s the music. Crowe, who grew up a child of ’70s rock and roll, has references in the film to Springsteen (Brad wears a Jersey Devil T-shirt), Cheap Trick (“the magic of Robin Zander,” as Damone describes the band), posters of Elvis Costello adorn a bedroom wall, and then there’s the girls in school who dress up exactly like Pat Benatar.

If box office was the key factor to determine cinematic value, “Fast Times” would’ve been forgotten long ago. Filmed at the Sherman Oaks Galleria during nighttime hours and Van Nuys High School on a budget of only $4.5 million, the film went on to earn $27 million. That was fairly impressive in 1982 for a teen movie with an unrecognizable cast but, compared to the current summer where success is solely based on tickets sold and many films that gross under $100 million are deemed disappointing, the film might be considered a loser.

That would be a shame, considering how much “Fast Times” has stayed with us over these past 25 years. It survives not because we laugh at those kids, but because they remind us of a time when high school, unlike today, wasn’t about the pressure to get into the right college or making career contacts, but where we made our imprint as teens of our generation.

And, more importantly, a final chance for Spicoli to catch that perfect wave.

Stuart Levine is an assistant managing editor at Variety. He can be reached at .

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