Rewatchables Reference

• Joanna: All the Kenny and Denise bathroom stuff – 'if that were just one scene, that's the most rewatchable scene.' Him dropping his whole act, her calling him out, their history. 'Do those shoes serve an orthopedic function?'
• Bill: Trip McNeely's one cameo (Jerry O'Connell) – 'You were a sexual icon.' 'I thought college was going to be a 24/7 orgy.' 'Guys like us are a dime a dozen.' Also: the four idiots deciding to dump their girlfriends, Korsmo and the nerds planning the attack using 'Star Wars' language, the letter flying around the party (rolling on the keg, stuck in someone's shoe), Jason Segel's one scene, Amanda's friends comparing her to Gwyneth Paltrow, the Mike/Amanda showdown, and the end credits revealing Charlie Korsmo's character became the next Mark Zuckerberg.
• Joanna also mentions the Jenna Elfman / Scott Baio monologue as really good.

• Both: The soundtrack – specifically Smash Mouth and Blink 182.
• Joanna: The X-Files being so prevalent ('Trust no one,' 'The truth is out there,' one nerd claims to be dating Christy Turlington via the Internet). Also Seth Green's character – a white kid adopting a hip-hop persona only worked for about a 3-year window.
• Bill: The Gwyneth Paltrow comparison. Amanda's yearbook quote being from Jewel – 'just having a yearbook quote from Jewel is the most late 90s thing possible.' Jennifer Love Hewitt trapped in the mid-90s.
• Craig: The rave culture goggles – 'Were people wearing goggles in 1998?'

• Joanna: The movie being sex positive. Kenny and Denise's first time being very bad – 'I think that's great.' The Trip McNeely stuff really plays. The blurring of social circles – a step forward from the rigid stratification of 80s teen movies.
• Bill: The frenetically edited party that captures what it's like to actually be at a party. Denise Fleming yearbook activities: none. Kenny playing JV basketball for one game. The Fiji thing. Seth Green's 'Why y'all got to waste my flavor?' Charlie Korsmo as the McLovin template – 'I can't feel my legs. I have no legs.' Paradise City as a nostalgic rock song. UFOs aging well because 'now UFOs are attacking us.'

• Bill: Dire Straits 'Romeo and Juliet' – 'perfectly dropped' when Preston is driving.
• Joanna: Yazoo 'Only You' – 'has that intro you can play underneath the dialogue and then it hits.' An 80s throwback track. Also great: Sneaker Pimps under Jennifer Love Hewitt's entrance, the Barry Manilow 'Mandy' use, Guns N' Roses 'Paradise City.'

• Bill: Ethan Embry as Preston. Research revealed he was 'the world's biggest stoner' during filming – director asked if he was altered, JLH gave him breath mints for the kissing scene. 'I just don't understand Preston at all.' Compares the villain role to the Billy Zabka scale – Facinelli 'is like a three.'
• Joanna: Doesn't think the movie has a weak link since anyone slightly wobbly is gone in seconds. If pressed, Peter Facinelli as Mike Dexter – wished he was a little less evil and more understandable. 'You need to understand why Amanda was with him for so long.'

• Joanna: The gay sex trap / F-slur use. 'Very Heathers.' Also Scott Baio – 'this is before Twitter, before we knew what Scott Baio was.'
• Bill: Amanda being with Mike Dexter for three years just because he's good at football – 'it makes you think less of her.' The Lestat reference ('does anyone under 40 get that joke?'). Breckin Meyer calling Donald Faison's character 'Hootie' because he wants to wear a cowboy hat.

• Joanna: Sarah Rue as Earth Girl – 'Your sheep, all of you. Bah!'
• Bill: Ethan Embry's 'big speech for Amanda. That's my pick.'

• Joanna: Preston and Amanda should not end up together. 'She should Kelly Taylor choose herself.' Amanda gives a monologue about not knowing who she is without Mike Dexter and then immediately gets into a relationship with Preston. 'Go backpacking in Europe. Watch Runaway Bride and figure out what kind of eggs you like.' Originally Preston was supposed to end up with Denise.
• Bill: An ensemble cast high school movie centered around one big party is the easiest and most watchable movie anyone can possibly make. 'I don't understand why there aren't twenty of them a year.' Craig: 'It's the most sought after. Everybody wants it.' Bill: 'It should be a federal law. We have to make one a year to capture whatever the year was.'

• The role of Kenny was written for Breckin Meyer, who was shooting the Studio 54 movie instead. He took a small role as Love Burger's lead singer.
• Ethan Embry was asked to read for the Nerd (William), but insisted on the lead – 'I know I'm not your typical leading man type, but I thought this movie is better suited.' Bill: 'Big mistake.'
• James Marsden was looked at very closely for Mike Dexter. Kaplan said Facinelli had 'a hint of danger that he didn't.'
• Alicia Witt was wanted for the Lauren Ambrose role. Also considered: Reese Witherspoon and Christina Ricci.
• The original nerd (William) was cast with Adam Henburd from Little Man Tate, who was only 15 and looked like a baby – they had to fire him and bring in Charlie Korsmo.

• Bill's all-time big three nominees: The guy who paid Dirk Diggler (one of Mike Dexter's friends), Poppy from Seinfeld as the cop, and Tara from 90210 as one of the high school kids. 'Boogie Nights, 90210, and Seinfeld. That's retiring.'
• Joanna: Amber Benson from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

• Bill: Klepto Kid – no name, just continually showing up and stealing something. 'He's my favorite.' Steals the gumball machine at the end.
• Joanna: Ryan Kulkman as Stoner Guy – 'He shows up with a dinosaur throughout the whole movie.' Has the Velma from Scooby-Doo line and 'Preston wears T-shirts sometimes.'
• Also eligible: Melissa Joan Hart, Sarah Rue, Jenna Elfman, Jerry O'Connell, Jason Segel.

• Joanna: Freddie Prinze Jr. as Preston – 'he was often cast as the cool popular kid role, but I think he would have really thrived in the sensitive kid role.'
• Bill: James Marsden as Preston – 'I'm way more believing that she's going to be immediately smitten by Marsden.' Or: Jason Segel and Ethan Embry just switch parts. Segel was 19, tall and gawky but cool, and proved over the next decade he could pull it off. Joanna: 'Similar to his role in Freaks and Geeks.' Also tested: Mark Wahlberg in his Fear era as Mike Dexter.
• Craig: Justin Long as Preston (same age as Embry).
• Joanna: Tom Everett Scott from That Thing You Do – 'nerdy, cute sweetness.'

• Melissa Joan Hart was filming Sabrina the Teenage Witch simultaneously and took B12 vitamins to stay energized during the all-night shoots. Bill: 'I'm going to wonder what that really was.'
• When they finished filming, the entire cast was allowed to destroy the house set for one last scene – spent an hour destroying it.
• Breckin Meyer married co-director Deborah Kaplan; they had two kids.
• Seth Green's first high school movie wasn't this – it was 'Can't Buy Me Love', where he played Chucky, Patrick Dempsey's annoying little brother.

• Ethan Embry: Definitely. He was never going to lead another movie.
• Jennifer Love Hewitt: 'No question. Party of Five crossed with this crossed with I Know What You Did Last Summer. This time she never got bigger.'
• Peter Facinelli: Joanna says maybe Twilight is bigger – he's the patriarch of the vampire family. 'That's Twilight money.'
• Jenna Elfman: Dharma and Greg plus this cameo.
• 90s teen movies: 'Clueless' or 'American Pie'. Joanna argues 'Clueless' because it's 'pure 90s' without spawning sequels outside the decade.
• All-in-one-night high school movies: Probably 'Superbad'. Also: 'Dazed and Confused' (the art house one), Booksmart.
• Blink 182 and Smash Mouth: 'This is Smash Mouth's movie.'
• Charlie Korsmo: 'Great in What About Bob and Hook.'
• Seth Green: Austin Powers, this, Buffy – 'just all over the place.' Also 'Can't Buy Me Love' and Airborne.

Both: Spielberg. Bill: 'Scorsese's 'Can't Hardly Wait' – a lot of cocaine.'

• Bill: Trip McNeely (the Jerry O'Connell role).
• Joanna: The Jenna Elfman angel role – 'male angel.'

• Bill: The cops break up that party in one hour. Amanda Beckett has no identity, no friends, just wanders around – 'you have no identity. What?' Nobody else uses the upstairs bathroom for the entire party – 'has anyone ever been to a high school party?' Amanda has no idea who Preston is despite going to the same school. Kenny and Denise having sex after talking for 10 minutes on the cold bathroom floor.
• Joanna: Amanda's lack of depth is intentional but still 'just not that interesting.' At least Ione Skye's character in 'Say Anything' had a reason nobody knew her.

Bill: 'Semi-prestige' – an 8-episode Amazon series, all set during the final night of high school, almost done like The Pit where each hour is an actual hour. Joanna: 'Similar to what American Vandal tried to do.' Bill: 'The Pit crossed with 'Can't Hardly Wait'.'

• Joanna: Danny Trejo in the Jenna Elfman angel role – 'not even an angel, just the one adult who wanders in and gives you advice and it's Danny Trejo.'
• Bill: Sam Jackson as the cop instead of Poppy from Seinfeld – 'just Sam Jackson's it up for like 6 minutes and then they just give him a million dollars.'

Joanna: Best editing. Also: costume designer Mark Bridges, who went on to win an Oscar for Phantom Thread – 'Kenny's goggles, everything Kenny, everything 90s, what the popular girls are wearing.'

Bill: The five-year reunion sequel was sitting right there in 2003 – all these people were still relatively famous, they could have made it way more raunchy. 'I don't know why they didn't do it.' They could also do the 30-year reunion movie. Joanna: 'It would be exciting to see them. We don't see Breckin Meyer that often.'

• Joanna: The Love Burger band t-shirt.
• Bill: The Love Kit. Also the yearbook because people signed it. 'The goggles are pretty good – I would give those to Craig.'

• Bill: 'Fate only takes you so far.'
• Joanna: 'Always wear shoes in the dorm shower.' A kid in her freshman dorm got something gnarly on his foot. 'If you had seen 'Can't Hardly Wait', you would have known.'

• Joanna: 'Superbad'.
• Bill: 16 Candles. Or a quintuple feature of generational one-night high school movies: 16 Candles, 'Say Anything', 'Can't Hardly Wait', 'Superbad', Booksmart.

• Joanna: Seth Green – 'he's the most quotable. Someone was just always running around dropping Kenny Special K quotes.' This plus Austin Powers plus Buffy – having an incredible run.
• Bill: Also considered Ethan Embry ('he gets to at least point to hey, that time I led a movie') and Lauren Ambrose ('had the best career after and it's so cool to see her in this movie now – she gets Six Feet Under off the back of this').

Craig: 'The bar is just high for high school comedies. This is like watching Bob Pettit' (1950s basketball player). 'It feels like you ran if you asked ChatGPT to write me 'Say Anything' in 3 minutes and it cranked out 'Can't Hardly Wait'.' It has the look of 'American Pie' but the earnestness of 'Say Anything'. 'The hopeless romantic shtick was tough for my generation. The lack of star power in the cast was shocking.' Best part: the Jerry O'Connell scene – 'could have been the sequel, exploring the theme of peaking in high school.' Wanted to see Mike Dexter going to college with Jerry O'Connell and burning out.