Ever since I started this blog fifteen years ago, writing a Film Appreciation article on the 1984 comedy Revenge of the Nerds has been on my “to do” list. The movie reached theatres when I was seven months old, putting it on track to be on the TV screens in the homes of family members a lot in my earliest days of TV watching, whether through airings on cable or because my brother (ten years older than me) had rented it on VHS. Again and again. Revenge of the Nerds has been a part of my life since I was a toddler, and I have loved it ever since then. I wish I had gotten around to it sooner, because now there was a bit of sadness to my most recent viewings of the movie: I was watching it in memory of lead actor Robert Carradine, who passed away at the end of February at the age of 71.
It may be the greatest accomplishment of Carradine’s career that he’s best remembered for being a nerd, because the guy wasn’t a nerd until he landed the role of Lewis Skolnick in this movie. He was a Carradine! He was a race car driver, a motorcycle enthusiast, a musician, and had dated Jamie Lee Curtis and Melanie Griffith. Before this movie, he was mostly playing cowboys, soldiers, football players, and cool dudes. And then he turned in the most iconic nerd performance of all time.
Directed by Jeff Kanew from a script assembled by Steve Zacharias, Jeff Buhai, Tim Metcalfe, and Miguel Tejada-Flores, Revenge of the Nerds tells the timeless and heartwarming story of outsiders standing up for themselves against oppressors, advocating for acceptance and self-pride.
As mentioned, Carradine plays Lewis Skolnick, who has enrolled at Adams College with his best friend Gilbert Lowe (Anthony Edwards) because it has the best computer department in the country. Gilbert is nervous about leaving home, but Lewis is excited – especially since 58% of the 6,127 students at Adams are female. (7,017.32 boobs on campus!) He’s ready to party.
Lewis and Gilbert are stereotypical nerds in behavior and appearance, complete with thick glasses and pocket protectors, but they don’t seem to realize they’re nerds until they’re walking past the Alpha Beta fraternity and they’re called out by a hulking football player called Ogre (Donald Gibb). That’s just the start of their issues with the Alpha Betas.
The frat guys manage to burn down their own house and Dean Ulich (David Wohl) and Coach Harris (John Goodman) let them take over the freshman dormitory. Lewis, Gilbert, and the other new students are forced to move into the gym, which brings Lewis and Gilbert into their first contact with other major characters: Timothy Busfield as ultra-nerd Arnold Poindexter, Larry B. Scott as the flamboyant Lamar Latrelle, Andrew Cassese as child prodigy Harold Wormser, Brian Tochi as foreign student Toshiro Takashi, and Curtis Armstrong as Dudley Dawson, a filthy pig with the nickname “Booger.”
Since these characters, and some others we don’t really get to know, are each outsiders in their own way, they don’t get accepted into fraternities – and after being set up by Pi Delta Pi sorority girl Betty Childs (Julia Montgomery) for a humiliating encounter with the Alpha Betas, who are headed up by Betty’s jock boyfriend Stan Gable (Ted McGinley), Lewis and Gilbert decide to secure a rental property and start their own frat.
A loophole allows them to get accepted, on a probationary status, by the traditionally all-Black frat Lambda Lambda Lambda... and when the head of the organization, U.N. Jefferson (Bernie Casey) sees that the nerds stand up for themselves as they continue to be antagonized by the Alpha Betas and Pi Delta Pis, the officially become Tri-Lambs.
There’s just one more hurdle to overcome: since Stan blocks their attempt to be sanctioned by the Greek Council, they aim to replace him on the Council by defeating the Alpha Betas in the Homecoming carnival.
All this, and the main nerds still find time for love. While Gilbert falls for a fellow nerd, Michelle Meyrink as Judy, Lewis actually pulls off the impossible and ends up in a relationship with cheerleader Betty.
Revenge of the Nerds breezes through its perfect 90-minute running time, bringing entertainment every step of the way. Like pretty much every ‘80s comedy, there are rough edges and elements that haven’t aged well. There are racial jokes that wouldn’t fly today, and neither would the fact that the Tri-Lambs install surveillance cameras in the Pi Delta Pi sorority house as part of their revenge mission. And the way that Lewis wins over Betty... wow. It’s not surprising that some have written damning editorials about that moment, but it is surprising that nobody thought twice about it in 1984.
But, the movie is a product of its time, and if you can set aside its issues, it still holds up as a really funny movie that’s populated with likeable characters.
Robert Carradine wasn’t a nerd, but he got audiences (and Betty) to fall in love with his nerd character. If Oscar nominations were decided based on actors being able to play characters that are nothing like themselves, Carradine would have been a Best Actor contender for his performance in Revenge of the Nerds. He could have given those Amadeus guys a run for their money.
Not only did he return for all of the sequels – Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise (1987), Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation (1992), and Revenge of the Nerds IV: Nerds in Love (1994), all of which I enjoy to varying degrees – but he also teamed with co-star Curtis Armstrong to host a really fun reality competition show called King of the Nerds, which ran for three seasons, from 2013 to 2015. In 1988, his nerd notoriety even earned him a role in the Disney special Totally Minnie, where his character (named Maxwell Dwebb) gets a makeover from the animated mouse.
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