Growing up, one of my favorite movies to watch was Ernest Goes To Jail. I would rent the VHS tape again and again from the nearby grocery store, and howl with laughter every time Ernest became magnetized, or did a weird impression, or said one of his catchphrases. Then I started to notice him on tv, too. He was on commercials all the time for the local Chevy dealership, saying KnoWhatIMean, Vern. Always wearing his signature blue vest, grey t-shirt, jeans and a blank beige baseball hat. My dad and I would chuckle every time he came on. Good old Ernest. And then I grew up, and my slapstick tastes evolved to Naked Gun and Spaceballs. And I had never really thought much about Ernest again until recently, thanks to one of those internet rabbit holes you end up falling down from time to time.
Somehow I had landed on the Ernest P. Worrell Wikipedia page, and I was shocked to learn that the character originated from commercials, and not the other way around. An ad agency in Tennessee had created Ernest, and started booking more and more clients who wanted to use him as their spokesperson for local ads. Just like the car commercials I had seen in Sacramento, it was always the same gag for millions of people all over the country. He would speak straight to camera, treating the viewer as somebody he would call Vern, and recommend a new product. It is a weird concept looking back on it. Ernest can probably be best described as annoying. And he always seemed to be bothering the viewer, but you were supposed to be buying what this guy was selling you. Why would anyone think that Ernest had good taste?
This was so, so weird to me that the commercials came first. I had always assumed that the success of his kids movies had opened the door for Jim Varney to use Ernest to sponsor things for easy money, like how every other celebrity peddles soda or chips. But not Ernest. Somehow a character that was created in thirty second commercials had become popular enough to star in several of his own ninety minute movies. This would be like if Flo from Progressive had gotten her own series of films about her weird life inside that white room in the internet she works in. And even that’s not a great comparison. Flo only does ads for Progressive. Ernest would do ads for HUNDREDS of brands, often doing several commercials for different products in one shoot (Varney was said to have a photographic memory, and could look at the scripts once and rattle off each specific product’s commercial in one take, one after the other).
Learning this made me VERY interested in revisiting the movies. I was kind of morbidly curious to see how the hell they pulled this off, if at all. How do you stretch a character that really only exists to tell you to buy cars and milk into someone that can carry a whole movie franchise? Would there be product placement in every scene? And what were these movies? I had heard of a few, but I had no idea how many there were. One of them was called Ernest Goes to Africa! If I didn’t know about these, I’m guessing hardly anyone else remembered them, either. And that fascinated me, too. How does a character go from being the ‘Dude, You’re Getting a Dell’ guy to the American Mr. Bean to not even having a single meme? Do people under twenty even know who Ernest is?
So I fired up my computer and started to search for Ernest movies, and eBay naively auto-filled thinking I was interested in Ernest Hemingway crap instead. Uh no. NOBODY cares about that guy, I’m looking for ERNEST P. WORRELL. $40 later I owned all nine movies (two of them only available on tape). I didn’t even own Ernest Goes to Jail as a kid, and now I had all nine Ernest movies in my thirties. I thought it would be a funny idea to try to watch all of them in a row, to really get the full Ernest experience, and see if this favorite character from my childhood was still funny at all. It would take almost fourteen hours to complete. I would quickly become an expert on all things Ernest. And I would regret it immediately. Here’s part 1 of my running diary during this marathon of pain (part 2 will be released shortly).
ERNEST GOES TO CAMP (1987)
Starting at 8:30 AM. Feeling good. I guess the whole premise of every Ernest movie is taking what you know about Ernest (that he’s an annoying bumbling uneducated klutz) and saying “imagine if you sent him to BLANK?!” But a random summer camp doesn’t actually seem like that bad of a place to send this guy. Ernest is introduced as a janitor and repairman at Camp Kikakee, where it’s his dream to someday actually be a camp counselor.
Right off the bat, I’m surprised at how nice Ernest is. He’s not even that annoying, really. Not like in the commercials, anyway. I was expecting these movies to be all about how much grumpy adults can’t stand wacky Ernest, like early Jim Carrey or Adam Sandler or John Leguizamo. But this version of Ernest would never dare barge into someone’s home and yell at them to buy something. You would think this movie would have a pretty straightforward arc: Ernest proving himself as a worthy counselor. But they also try to combine two other camp movies into this: there’s the troublemaker kids from the nearby detention center that will have to learn to care about respecting camp and get along with others, and also an evil mining corporation (!) that wants to bulldoze over the camp in order to find some valuable mineral called Petrocide (the name is better than Unobtanium I guess). There are also two camp chef characters for comedic relief (which feels weird, because isn’t Ernest himself the comedic relief?), and that roughly translates to gross-out humor with nasty ass food. They have a machine where they throw all of the ingredients to chicken pot pie in one end and it shoots out the completed dish in the other. I hate these chefs.
Ernest goes through a lot in this movie. He over-pumps butane lamps and turns them into rockets. He tries to build an elaborate meat roaster over a campfire and burns himself. He gets attacked by badgers, fire ants, and a turtle, and also gets poison ivy all over. He ruins everything by getting duped by the evil mining CEO into convincing the Native American who owns the camp land to sign it away. This leads to the craziest scene in the movie, where we get a montage of the camp closing while Ernest sings an original sad song written for the movie!
Is it just me, or is this song kinda good? In like a sad Kermit the Frog kinda way? You’re getting some definite range from Jim Varney here that you didn’t expect. I was baffled and delighted. I really hope there is more singing in the rest of the movies (editors note: there isn’t).
Eventually, blah blah blah he redeems himself (I guess) by leading the camp in a Home Alone style assault on the mining goons (including parachuting nose-biting turtles onto them) until they flee the site, the “love interest” camp nurse (who I’m not sure even came as close as giving him a hug) forgives him for almost selling off her granfather’s land, and the detention center kids…get completely forgotten about and don’t have any sort of resolution. Sorry, boys, you belonged in a different movie. One down!
ERNEST SAVES CHRISTMAS (1988)
I’m immediately taking out one dvd and popping the next one in, every precious second counts. It’s 10 AM and I’m really thinking this whole day won’t be so bad. The opening credits tell me that someone is actually going to play the role of Santa in this movie. This is a little surprising, since the last one didn’t really have any fantastical elements (beyond Ernest being impervious to pain). We’re in Orlando this time, which makes me realize I had no idea where the last one was set. The internet tells me it was shot in Tennessee, so I guess it was probably also set there?
So Ernest has moved to Orlando and now is a taxi driver for reasons unknown (Did the summer camp shut down despite everyone’s best efforts? Does he just come to Florida the other nine months of the year? Are these movies going to reboot Ernest’s reality each time, or will there be any sort of continuity in Ernest’s lore?). Anyway, who does he happen to pick up at the airport? Santa Claus himself (when we see Santa go through customs, his passport photo is just him in his Santa outfit and the name says Santa. They didn’t even go for a Kris Kringle joke). The guy playing Santa is about a hundred and fifty pounds too skinny, I’m guessing he was the best old man actor they could find, but why not throw him in a fat suit??? He tells Ernest he’s in town to find the host of a cancelled children’s show, who he plans on getting to replace him as Santa. So after realizing that Home Alone’s violent contraptions had to have been at least partially inspired by Ernest Goes to Camp, I now see that Tim Allen’s The Santa Clause was kind of a rip off of this movie. Will I slowly realize every movie ever has just been copying Ernest?
One thing leads to another, Santa gets thrown in jail, and we get a real Miracle on 34th Street plot with nobody believing he’s real…it’s rough to get through. The problem here is that this movie seems to still not yet understand what makes Ernest Ernest. Shouldn’t he believe in Santa? Shouldn’t he be the ONLY adult who still does, and he’s the only one who can help Santa because he’s so darn nice and naive? Nope. He needs to see to believe just like everyone else. I guess he loves Christmas more than the average adult, but Ernest is wayyy too normal in this. And shouldn’t he at least be paired up with a kid who does believe? This movie kind of suffers from the same problem as the first one, which is that it wouldn’t really matter if you removed Ernest from the plot entirely. Santa isn’t trying to get Ernest to replace him (Tim Allen’s version realized the obvious problem of this. Why isn’t Ernest becoming Santa? I guess so that he can still be Ernest in future movies?), nor does Santa end up needing Ernest’s help recruiting new Santa. Ernest doesn’t actually save Christmas at all in this movie, he just misplaces Santa’s toy bag for a while and then struggles to return Santa’s sleigh to him in time (he’s flying around in SPACE for a while, and the air force also scrambles some fighter jets to shoot him down, which means, yes, Nightmare Before Christmas also copied Ernest).
We do get an extended Vern moment, which feels so out of place with the rest of the movie. Ernest and his female drifter friend stop at Vern’s house, to help him decorate for Christmas. It is an excruciating five minutes of Ernest spiking the camera and returning to his old commercial form. He completely ruins Vern’s house and then leaves. Fun! There’s also the introduction of the Ernest disguises in this movie, something that becomes more and more of a calling card. Ernest dresses up as an old lady, and also a dirt covered snake wrangler. It’s all an excuse to show off Varney’s range, which I remember loving as a kid.
My nemeses, the camp chefs, have unfortunately returned here. This time they are airport baggage handlers, and it looks like one of them has been replaced by a bug eyed guy I think is in Ernest Goes to Jail. They now go by Chuck and Bobby, and they have a big guy-little guy, one talks-one doesn’t, Penn and Teller shtick going on throughout. So I guess we will be getting some returning actors, but they won’t be playing the same roles? Ernest really paved the way for American Horror Story. The chefs-turned-baggage handlers whole plot involves them not knowing what to do with the Reindeer Santa left at the airport in crates. They do serve the purpose of padding this movie out enough to hit 90 minutes, but what a drag. Two down!
ERNEST GOES TO JAIL (1990)
11:30 AM. I am getting hungry and heat up some leftover pasta from Jon and Vinny’s. This is the movie I’m most looking forward to out of all nine, since it was the only one I cared about as a kid. Either I’m already starting to lose it, or the opening credits look actually legit, a jokey take on James Bond (which makes me realize an Ernest spy movie should have been a no brainer).
The fucking chefs/baggage handlers are back immediately, this time as brothers who are working security at a bank. Who the hell are these guys? I look them up and they were apparently ALSO in commercials for the same Tennessee ad agency. So really this would be like if Flo’s movie series always featured the ‘Can You Hear Me Now?’ guy as comedic relief. Anyway, Ernest is the janitor at this bank and his new life goal is to be a bank teller there. I don’t want to be a dick, but maybe if Ernest actually stuck around at the same job for a while he would actually accomplish his goals.
Right away it’s obvious that this one is ratcheting up to Looney Tunes levels of slapstick. Ernest’s floor buffing machine drags him up the wall and onto the ceiling, where he gets electrocuted and briefly becomes magnetic. Ernest is kind of becoming a superhero? (also, a superhero Ernest movie seems like a no-brainer, too). Looks like we’re actually getting our first actual love interest for Ernest, a nice bank teller who believes that he can get the job. She’s agreed to go out to dinner to discuss Ernest’s goals, and Ernest considers this a date. He goes home to change into another exact copy of his outfit, and for the first time, we actually get to see what the hell this guy lives like. His house is an extreme rip-off of Pee Wee Herman’s, with all sorts of Rube Goldberg contraptions and clashing decorations and tchotkes . They even give him a little dog, Rimshot, to really complete the Pee Wee picture. Is Ernest the Southern Pee Wee? Sure. It turns out Ernest can be whatever you decide he is.
Besides the unfortunate increase in KnoWhatIMean’s, I’m relieved to see that, just as I remembered, this movie rocks. It’s a classic switcharoo. Ernest is happily assigned to jury duty, and, after a particularly disgusting ink pen gag, he gets tricked into trading places with a criminal on death row who looks just like him (Varney pulling double duty as the criminal Mr. Nash, who I’m just gonna call Bad Ernest from here on out). Good Ernest gets thrown in jail, and Bad Ernest takes over his life. The prison is strangely futuristic, too. Everything is a little foggy and backlit in pink, and the guards wear sunglasses and gigantic maroon jackets with cool sleeve patches. Wait a minute. Futuristic prison. Two characters switch lives, the good guy getting stuck in jail while the bad guy turns his home life upside down. I’ve seen this before. Damn, let’s add Face/Off to the list of movies that have borrowed from Ernest. Quick aside, I recognize the prison warden as one of the guards Hannibal Lecter eats during his grand escape in Silence of the Lambs, which comes out a year later. This guy was on quite a hot streak in the early 90s!
The rest of the movie is pretty straightforward, Good Ernest learns to become tough in prison, while Bad Ernest redecorates Ernest’s house in draped velvet and matador paintings, unsuccessfully tries to woo the bank teller, and plans robbing the bank without tipping off Chuck and Bobby (the security guards/baggage handlers/chefs). Then we get to Ernest’s execution, and holy crap they are actually putting him on the electric chair. Everything is of course fine, as this just causes him to reach the next evolution of his powers and now he’s not only magnetized, but also able to shoot Palpatine electricity from his outstretched Frankenstein arms. I loved this part the most as a kid. But what do we think this movie’s stance is on capital punishment, though?
Bad Ernest is eventually defeated, but he really stole the show and they definitely should have had another one of these remaining SIX movies be about Bad Ernest’s revenge. The end credits also have a pretty catchy Harry Belafonte rip off song that Shazam doesn’t recognize. Three down! It’s all downhill from here.
ERNEST SCARED STUPID (1991)
1pm. I take the dog out for a quick walk and then head right back to this prison of my own making. True story, this movie was too scary for me when it came out. I was six and the trolls gave me nightmares for days. This is also the first movie I think of whenever I see the old Touchstone Pictures logo at the start of a movie (which is funny, because this is the last Ernest movie to be released by Touchstone). Dare I say the opening credits of this one are the best so far.
Ernest now lives in Missouri, and works as the town garbageman. At least he brought his dog Rimshot with him. Even though he moves every movie, he is always kept in the south, and that gives me the idea of another no-brainer Ernest movie: why not send him to the big city one of these times? Crocodile Dundee style, it would write itself. He could be a doorman or a valet. Or a butler in high society? If we’re not putting Ernest in fish out of water scenarios, what is the point of an Ernest movie???
Anyway, this town has an old legend about some trolls and it seems like Ernest’s only friends are elementary school children. Wait, what? Ernest hangs out with them in his garbage truck all day, then leads them into the woods to build a tree house. One of the kid’s dad is the town sheriff, and if I were him I definitely wouldn’t let my child hang out all day in True Detective backwoods with a drifter janitor (and even though we never see Ernest’s house in this, his zany version of Neverland Ranch from Ernest Goes to Jail isn’t doing him any favors in the pedophile department). Yada yada yada, they build a treehouse on some creepy old tree that a troll is buried under, and Power Rangers villain level trolls comes out and attack the town, turning a bunch of kids into little wooden dolls. It feels like an extended Goosebumps episode featuring Ernest, but after having Santa and Electro Ernest, this isn’t even much of a stretch. The trolls only weakness is milk (???) and you get a fun climax of the kids all taking out the trolls with squirt guns filled with milk.
The weirdest part of the plot is that the legend says to defeat the troll, Ernest is the key. Somehow Ernest’s ancestors are from this town, and they were the original ones to bury this troll back in early 1900s. Wait wait wait. Is this Ernest’s hometown? There’s no mention of him moving back home, and he has no relatives. This seems like a huge oversight, we could have gotten a Nutty Professor Klumps situation with Ernest having Aunts and Uncles all played by Varney! The damn chefs/baggage handlers/security guards are back, of course, this time as hucksters looking to capitalize on Troll Fever by selling every possible troll repellent from their handyman store. The Chuck in this version has been replaced by a new actor, and even though I Googled “Why isn’t Gailard Sartain in Ernest Scared Stupid?” the internet doesn’t seem to care enough about Ernest to have answers. This Chuck doesn’t do the character’s patented pig squeal shriek, so I don’t mind him as much.
The real MVP of this movie is Eartha Kitt, who plays an eccentric old woman who lives in an creepy house in the woods. She seems to be some kind of welder or something? And she at one point calls Ernest The Great Redneck Hope. She is the first actor in this franchise who is tolerable when embracing the camp. I realize I have no idea why Eartha Kitt is famous, so I look her up and holy shit, this woman has led a life. Orson Welles, the director of a little film called Citizen Cane, once called her “the most interesting woman alive.” She was the original Catwoman on the old Batman Boom Pow tv show, and was blackballed by the CIA after telling LBJ that the Vietnam War was bullshit during a visit to the White House. Eartha Kitt was awesome. This movie was not. Four down!
While I for some reason forced myself to keep watching Ernest continuously for eight more hours, I’m going to take mercy on you and break this up into two parts. Check back soon for part two, where I suffer through the worst of Ernest’s sins, and also start to just feel really bad for Jim Varney.
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