When you watch these movies a hundred times, you start to notice things. Weird Science turns 40! How the teen fantasy comedy is connected to 2 other John Hughes
When you watch these movies a hundred times, you start to notice things.
Weird Science turns 40! How the teen fantasy comedy is connected to 2 other John Hughes classics
When you watch these movies a hundred times, you start to notice things.
By Jordan Hoffman
Published on August 2, 2025 09:00AM EDT
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Kelly LeBrock in 'Weird Science' - an icon of the 1980s. Credit:
Universal Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
Grab your dial-up modem and strap a bra to your head, *Weird Science *is turning 40.
John Hughes' (mostly) benign look at adolescent hormones and early home computer technology was quickly cemented as an '80s classic — the Oingo Boingo song and Kelly LeBrock in her underwear made sure of that. The movie asks an important question: what if nerds were horny enough to create a supermodel? This was actually a genuine concern back in 1985. You'd turn on Phil Donahue or *The* *MacNeil/Lehrer Report*, and it would be wall-to-wall coverage about such a threat. Luckily, it stayed in the realm of fiction.
llan Mitchell-Smith and Anthony Michael Hall summoning their cyber-sexual fantasies in 'Weird Science'.
Universal Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
Though beloved by many, it's fair to say that its silliness keeps it a little separate from the writer-producer-director's other classics like *The Breakfast Club* or *Pretty in Pink*. It might be considered the dopiest entry on the suburban auteur's resume, but there are a few connections to some of his more highly regarded works.
If you look closely at a shot of the high school at the end of *Weird Science*, it may look familiar. It is, in fact, not just the same location as the high school seen in the opening credits of Hughes' directorial debut *Sixteen Candles*, but it even reuses some of the exact frames of footage.
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The location is Niles East High School, in Skokie, Ill. But don't look for it now. Like so much of the innocence of Hughes' movies, it exists only in the past. The building was torn down decades ago to make way for new buildings affiliated with Oakton Community College.**
Molly Ringwald and Michael Schoeffling at the conclusion of the 1984 film 'Sixteen Candles'.
Universal Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
While the same physical structure was deployed to represent the *ne plus ultra *of 1980s high school, if you pay strict attention, you may discover that the *Weird Science *kids attend the same institution as the ones from Hughes' masterpiece from 1985, *The Breakfast Club*.
Yes, the buildings are different, but they are both meant to be Shermer High School. (Shermer being a fictional Illinois suburb.) Indeed, there is a rather famous photo of LeBrock in a Shermer High Phys. Ed tube top and tights, and the name Shermer High School was hung on the brutalist exterior of Maine North High School in Des Plaines, Ill., which today is used by the Illinois State Police and is also apparently a lottery payment facility.
It's a little odd, of course, because Anthony Michael Hall is in both movies, but playing different characters. Hey, weren't there two dudes at *your *school who looked a hell of a lot alike?
Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall representing THE '80S YOUTH in 'The Breakfast Club' (in which no one is once seen eating or even discussing breakfast.).
Universal Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
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As it happens, Hall's characters (Brian Johnson, "The Geek" in *The Breakfast Club*, and Gary Wallace in *Weird Science*) both made claims to having a girlfriend in Canada. All research seems to indicate that this back-to-back joke from 1985 was the lodestar for the meme of a socially inept teen feigning virile worldliness with a gal in America's northern neighbor country. We've long been curious if Canadian dorks pretend to have romantic entanglements with someone in the USA, or if they keep with the Commonwealth and say Britain. We'll have to ask our girlfriend (who you don't know, because she lives up in Canada) the next time we have one of our epic, loving phone calls.
Now that you're amped up for that John Hughes triple feature, why not boogie down with Danny Elfman and Oingo Boingo for a few minutes to this eternal earworm?**
Source: "AOL Movies"
Source: Astro Blog
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