“You win… the pickle!”

Justin’s rating: They don’t make parental waivers for experiences like this

Justin’s review: Hey, you know what’s a pretty darn good but underrated ’90s comedy? National Lampoon’s Senior Trip. You get Jeremy Renner with the most floppy of Gen X hair, Tara Strong being the most beautiful woman on the planet, and Matt Frewer in his ludicrous prime. But it’s not like that was the only movie about a high school class trip that was ever made, which made me curious if 1981 had its own hidden gem with the similarly named Senior Trip.

However, be warned! This subject matter is so controversial, so risque, so sensationalist, and so offensive that it could only be seen… on CBS? OK, this might not be quite the lurid adventure I feared. You could probably show this to your grandmother’s knitting circle, to be honest.

School’s over for the year, and the senior class from Youngstown, Ohio are off on a trip to the fabled New York City for a weekend of avoiding their chaperones and getting into trouble. I really like how this kicks off with 14 or so minutes on the bus, letting us get to know this rowdy ensemble of teens (including a young Scott Baio and Jason Alexander) as they goof off and share some personality traits. Everyone’s pretty genial and — this is important — funny, and I actually began to relax and hope that I was in for a good time.

The students’ enthusiasm for an NYC trip, to the point where they’re cheering over highway signs, is weirdly contagious. Never underestimate how much fun it is to watch people having fun in films! Each of the teens clearly want to get something out of this trip, whether it be sightseeing, messing around, partying, or getting their feet in the door with a career opportunity.

Apparently no sets were built for Senior Trip; the cast and crew simply went to NYC and cobbled together a series escapades and vignettes. It does give a more real and grounded feel of the city in the early ’80s. Unfortunately, because the kids all scatter to the wind, there’s very little chemistry that a potential ensemble could’ve provided.

Senior Trip is not a full-bore teen comedy as the bus trip sequence made me believe. There’s lots of sightseeing padding, some rather abrupt turns into “after school special” drama, and the occasional slapsticky bit. I am a little bit aghast how quickly these three adults turn all of these kids loose in a giant city to fend for themselves. One would assume that by the end credits, that school bus would be returning with perhaps a half-dozen survivors and a lot of survivor’s guilt.

While I can’t recommend this as a movie, Senior Trip has become something of a time capsule that preserved the turn-of-the-decade NYC. There are some absolutely, positively awful songs that mug the viewer from time to time and a lot of unvarnished glimpses into street life. I suppose that might make this a curiosity, but no more than that.

Intermission!

• All of those people are WAY too rowdy for 6:00 am
• Dude, that is the youngest Jason Alexander I’ve ever seen yet — and with so much hair!
• Every good trip begins with a list of rules
• All the teens urging the bus driver to outrun the police is completely believable
• “Go bunk yourself!”
• “I guess I was just competitive.” “Ha! So was Hitler.” what?
• The bus song wasn’t the worst thing ever
• Tall buildings are very tall, apparently
• Oh the goofy running-between-rooms while fast piano music plays
• Need to get a window open? Eh just break it with a metal rod
• The Friday the 13th Part 2 and Alligator signs in Times Square
• Hey it’s Mickey Rooney being Mickey Rooney
• Just riding a herd of horses through the streets of NYC, nothing to see here
• How do you get a horse up to a hotel room?
• And yes, the Twin Towers get a big moment, which is sadly surreal to watch post-2001