jim varney – PopCult Reviews

Movie Review – Ernest in the Army

Ernest in the Army (1998)
Written by John Cherry, Jeffrey Pillars, and Joseph Dattorre
Directed by John Cherry

Just less than two years after Ernest in the Army’s release direct-to-video, Jim Varney passed away from lung cancer at his home in White House, Tennessee. He recorded dialogue for Disney’s Atlantis: The Lost Empire and played a small role in a Billy Bob Thornton film. His career as Ernest ended in a downturn. Varney consistently adhered to the transparency that they made these movies because they made money. There was never a faux sense of artistry. Varney also seemed to understand how important characters like Ernest were for kids. That makes the previous film, Ernest Goes to Africa, and this disappointment feels so out of place in the franchise.

Movie Review – Ernest Goes to Africa

Ernest Goes to Africa (1997)
Written and directed by John Cherry

The Ernest franchise felt like it was running on fumes at this point. It had been ten years since Ernest Goes to Camp. Touchstone/Disney were out of the picture. The films were no longer being released theatrical, going straight to video. Budgets were meager. The ideas were also drying up. When this film came out, I was sixteen, and I don’t have any vivid memory of watching it. Our family likely rented it for the younger siblings, and I was probably present, but I remembered very little of it. John Cherry was writing & directing solo now. Film production had gone from Tennessee to Vancouver and South Africa for these final two pictures.

Movie Review – Slam Dunk Ernest

Slam Dunk Ernest (1995)
Written by John Cherry and Daniel Butler
Directed by John Cherry

The final three Ernest films were direct-to-video releases, making it very clear that the salad days of Disney financing were long gone. It wasn’t a terrible move. As we can see today, theatrical release is hardly the primary way people engage with media. What would Ernest have been like in the streaming age? He’d likely end up on some platform like Pureflix, especially looking at these final three. If, in watching these movies, you think they resemble television far more, you wouldn’t be wrong. I can easily see these being cut way down and being episodes of a low-budget streaming series.

Movie Review – Ernest Goes to School

Ernest Goes to School (1994)
Written by Coke Sams and Bruce Arntson
Directed by Coke Sams

Amidst a sea of mediocrity (and trust me, it gets so bad with the last two films), Ernest Goes to School emerged as a decent watch. Part of this is likely because it’s the only Ernest film that was not directed or written by John Cherry. Instead, Cherry’s longtime writing collaborator, Coke Sams, was promoted to the lead position. The result is a film that resembles the previous films but adds some new ideas that Sams must have had rattling around for a while. The problem, though, is that Goes to School is two scripts that have unsuccessfully mashed together. There’s a script about Ernest playing football and one about him returning to high school.

Movie Review – Ernest Rides Again

Ernest Rides Again (1993)
Written by John Cherry and William M. Akers
Directed by John Cherry

This was the end of an era. The Ernest films lost their Touchstone financing post-Scared Stupid. It was the largest budget with the second-highest box office returns, which wasn’t too bad. Ernest Rides Again would be the last nationally theatrically released entry in the series, and the decline in budget is evident on screen. The previous film had been given a $9.6 million budget, while Rides Again clocked in at $3 million. As a result, this movie resembles John Cherry’s first theatrical venture, Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam. What we get is a movie that is trying to be something of theatrical quality but ends up being the first of many slogs we have to get through.

Movie Review – Ernest Scared Stupid

Ernest Scared Stupid (1991)
Written by John Cherry, Charlie Gale, and Coke Sams
Directed by John Cherry

Of all the Ernest films, this is the closest we got to perfect synergy between a big Hollywood production and the particular sense of humor John Cherry & his collaborators shared. Every Ernest film had made more money than the last, which led to this being the highest budget Touchstone had ever given the production team, $9.6 million. Ernest Scared Stupid made less than Goes to Jail – $14 million compared to $25 million. This was also the final film handled by Disney, fulfilling the original four-film deal that started with Ernest Goes to Camp. Scared Stupid would mark the end of an era for Jim Varney and lead to a very different type of Ernest movie for the rest of the 1990s.

Movie Review – Ernest Saves Christmas

Ernest Saves Christmas (1988)
Written by B. Kline and Ed Turner
Directed by John Cherry

Ernest made his film debut in Goes to Camp in the summer of 1987. By Christmas 1988, his second feature was in theaters. Ernest Saves Christmas is my personal favorite of the series. I think it understands some things about Ernest that many other films, especially the post-Touchstone movies, don’t seem to understand. Between these two films, we saw the airing of Hey Vern, It’s Ernest, a CBS Saturday morning kids show in the vein of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. Varney played Ernest plus other characters, the cameraman as Vern was continued, and Chuck & Bobby were brought into the canon. This has all the elements you expect, which is why I was surprised as I watched the rest of the franchise and realized certain things like this is the only film Vern appears in.

Movie Review – Ernest Goes to Camp

Ernest Goes to Camp (1987)
Written by John R. Cherry III and Coke Sams
Directed by John R. Cherry III

While his first film appearance was a cameo in our previously reviewed film, Ernest made his starring debut in this film. The story goes that in the mid-1980s, Disney took part in a parade held for the Indy 500 in Indianapolis. Studio executives Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg attended and noted that this Ernest person received louder applause than Mickey Mouse. The audience started yelling, “Hey Vern,” while the Disney dudes had no idea what that was about. They contacted John Cherry and Jim Varney and decided they would finance an Ernest feature film. It wasn’t precisely what Cherry had wanted as Disney nixed certain elements, mainly Ernest speaking directly to the camera when he talks to Vern.

Movie Review – Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam

Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam (1985)
Written by John Cherry and Coke Sams
Directed by John Cherry

Jim Varney had made a solid go of it in Los Angeles. He’d been a regular & recurring cast member on multiple nationally broadcast shows by the end of the 1970s. A cast member of Johnny Cash & Friends, a recurring role as a sleazy used car salesman on Norman Lear’s Fernwood2Nite, and even in the cast of the notorious Pink Lady and Jeff. He was married to Jacqui, his first wife, and was helping to raise her two sons. But things weren’t going well in L.A., so Varney returned to his hometown of Lexington, Kentucky. His big dream was to star on Broadway, which was a challenging goal.