Troop Beverly Hills, after.

When you're watching a movie you haven't seen in years, but one you've seen so many times before, it's strange what sticks with you and what you forget. I hadn't laid eyes on Troop Beverly Hills in ten years, at least, but I remember certain lines and inflections so clearly, while completely blanking out on complete scenes and sequences. The opening credit sequence is one of those things I lost to time. Now, I can appreciate the fact that it was drawn by John Kricfalusi; his pin-up styled Phyllis running around as The Beach Boys play over the animation.

 

The cartoon is a perfect introduction to the silliness and the chaos that follows, especially because nearly every scene of the movie looks like a cartoon. It's bright, it's broad, and garish in a way that screams late '80s, but somehow avoids being assaultive on the eyes like some other flicks of the period. (Cool World, '92, I'm looking at you.) Troop Beverly Hills is all soft pastels, sun-drenched storefronts, and manicured lawns. If you want to see excess and decadence boiled down lavishly, Phyllis' outfits are one of the most fun parts of the experience. From my notes: "Phyllis looks like a live-action Strawberry Shortcake."

Human petit four.

Phyllis Nefler (Shelly Long) is our heroine, a Beverly Hills housewife in the midst of a divorce from Freddy, "The Muffler Man" Nefler, played by Craig T. Nelson. They have a daughter Hannah (Jenny Lewis), who is cautiously excited that her mom has decided to take over leader duties for her Wilderness Girl troop. Phyllis' shortcomings are quickly made clear - she doesn't follow through with things, she's spoiled, she has "no skills." Freddy says those exact words to her less than ten minutes into the movie, in a argument/exposition scene that's seriously heavy duty for a comedy directed at pre-teens. It's one of the most realistic and plain scenes Troop Beverly Hills has, though - it's an argument about money and lost potential, and what happens when the person you married isn't the person you end up married to.

The earnestness is there throughout the whole movie, which was a new observation for me. I remembered Phyllis being kind of haphazard, spoiled like a housewife on a reality show might be. But watching her now, she's not even close to that archetype. Phyllis is a mom who's trying very hard to be a part of her daughter's life, to involve herself in something that means a lot to Hannah, and as the movie goes on, a woman who struggles to find the determination to follow through.

Catered camping in fur.

Phyllis has trouble with the "wilderness" part of the Wilderness Girls, but she's creative, and is able to lead the girls using the means that are available to her - an outdoor concert and a celebrity fashion show (if you consider Pia Zadora and Dr. Joyce Brothers celebrities) to sell cookies, developing both jewelry appraisal and a divorce court patches, and inventing a backpack that allows you to stow away a sizeable chunk of your wardrobe. "Just because you're out in the woods," she tells the crowd, "it's not excuse not to look your best." While I totally disagree with the sentiment, I appreciate the hard work, even if she and the girls are laughed out of the craft day event for it.

It's cookie time, it's cookie time, it's cook-ie time.

One of the first to laugh is Tori Spelling, playing a Redfeather, the humorless subset of Wilderness Girls that wear red feathers in their headwear and generally act like dicks to everyone. All the pushback and difficulties Phyllis and the girls come up against are cooked up by Velda Plendor, a Redfeather co-leader and higher up on the Wilderness Girls Southern California chapter. Velda describes herself as "a mother, a widow, an ex-Army nurse, but first and foremost, a Wilderness Girl." She's as plain as Phyllis is glamorous, a sourpuss and poor sport whose distaste for Phyllis is never really explained. Yes, she clearly views Phyllis from the outside as spoiled, shallow, and too pretty for her own good, but Velda orchestrates some events are mean and straight up dangerous in hopes of disbanding the troop. She lacks everything that a good Wilderness Girl should embody (oh irony of ironies!), and is completely blind to her shortcomings in true cartoonish villain fashion. There's no redemptive story arc for her. She's a jerk for no reason. Betty Thomas sneers and scoffs and makes Velda's vitriol seem as terrible to me now as it did when I was ten. She's got a dart board with Phyllis' face on it, for fuck's sake.

Velda in a sensible frock and Phyllis in my favorite pastel wonder.

Phyllis' efforts eventually get the girls to the Wilderness Jamboree, the Troop Beverly Hills version of the championship game.  The wild is impossible to escape this time, and the movie really leads up to the big moral lesson taught at the jamboree: doing the right thing isn't always easy, but it's always worth it. Awr. I wouldn't call it a story of redemption exactly, because Phyllis never struggles to come back from anything more serious than being overly enthusiastic about shopping. But the kindness and care that she shows for people throughout teach slightly more subtle lessons: be nice to people. Look out for each other. Be true to yourself and it'll be okay. All a little after school special, maybe, but good messages for young girls to hear and see. Troop Beverly Hills was a "girl power" movie before the popularization of the term. The movie is absent of any young love storylines. There are no Outdoorsy Boys on the other side of a lake, no panty raids, no first kisses by campfires. The only men of note are the father's of the Wilderness Girls; the other dudes are bit parts all and used basically as props for Phyllis and Annie, her eventual co-leader, to fawn over.

Most of the girls in the troop are defined by a single characteristic, but their dedication to one another and their friendship as a whole matters more than their narrow definitions. Jenny Lewis' Hannah really just wants her mom and dad to get back together; understandable but unrealistic. I find Tessa insufferable, because everything out of her mouth is psychobabble. From my notes: "Everything out of Tessa's mouth makes me want to deck her." That's her thing, she's in therapy because her parents are divorced and throws the terms back solemnly at everyone around her. Tiffany is a money-conscious redhead with a plastic surgeon father who's happy to bribe her to get things done - also not my favorite. I love the Chica character that Carla Gugino plays, because her asshole behavior is ultimately explained and hopefully alters how you view her. Lily, who is virtually silent, is the daughter of a dictator and wears sunglasses all the time - of course I think she's cool.

Lily, killing it in Ray Bans.

A few other things. Phyllis smokes like a chimney, and Evian is referenced and seen no less than five times. Her idea of a bender is to drink something like 13 bottles of it, which are scattered around her neat bedroom in an effort to make it look, well, like a bender. Hannah's home gym has a full size balance beam in it, something I was and continue to be envious of to this day. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar cameos as himself. Jo Marie Payton, the mother from Family Matters, drops the first curse of the movie as the woman who runs the Wilderness Girl uniform shop. ("Are you sure you're Wilderness Girls? We're not selling this shit for no masquerade parties.") Lily earns an International Affairs patch for teaching the rest of the troop to "launder money and crush a revolution."

I'm happy I started the project with this movie, even though I know they're not all going to turn out as well. From my notes: "Five minutes and it already feels like I put on a well-worn hoodie." Troop Beverly Hills suffers from some corniness, and it's dated, but it absolutely lived up to the expectations I had.

Faded front cover.

 

Back cover.