1994’s Airheads has an incredible cast including Adam Sandler and Brendan Fraser, so it blows my mind that the movie has never been reclaimed as a cult classic in the three decades since its release. Not all of Adam Sandler’s movies are classics, but some of the actor’s most underrated efforts flew under the radar despite his many box office successes. Similarly, although Brendan Fraser enjoyed early career success and recently had a major resurgence thanks to his Academy Award-winning turn in The Whale, not all of his movies got the love they deserved upon release.
1994’s Airheads is one such movie and one of too many misfires for the underrated director Michael Lehmann. Lehmann’s career started strong when the director helmed 1989’s superb Heathers, a dark high school comedy that helped kickstart the blockbuster careers of Winona Ryder and Christian Slater. However, Lehmann couldn’t seem to shake a string of bad luck after that, first directing the brilliant, bizarre, but financially disastrous Meet the Applegates, then 1991’s infamous Bruce Willis misfire Hudson Hawk a year later. Unfortunately, Lehmann’s next outing was one of Brendan Fraser’s most underrated movies.
Airheads Is One Of The 1990s Most Underappreciated Comedies
Brendan Fraser, Adam Sandler, and Steve Buscemi Star In Airheads
Compared to Hudson Hawk’s $65 million price tag, 1994’s comedy Airheads seemed like a pretty safe investment. The movie follows the luckless, brainless rock band The Lone Rangers, played by Fraser, Sandler, and Steve Buscemi. The absurd story of Airheads sees the trio break into a radio station and demand that a DJ play their record, only for things to soon escalate into a full-blown hostage situation. Fraser’s comedy credentials are impeccable and Sandler is as funny as viewers would expect as the band’s drummer. However, Buscemi holds his own in a lineup full of famously funny stars.
MTV icons Beavis and ʙuтт-Head call into the radio show at the center of the movie’s plot at one point, annoying the band with their inane banter.
The supporting cast of Airheads includes Ernie Hudson, Chris Farley, Judd Nelson, Michelle Hurst, and David Arquette, as well as Kurt Loder and Rob Zombie as themselves. Even MTV icons Beavis and ʙuтт-Head call into the radio show at the center of the movie’s plot at one point, annoying the band with their inane banter. With such a strong supporting cast and a clever, self-contained premise, Airheads is one of the most underrated forgotten ‘90s comedies.
Why Airheads Wasn’t More Popular Upon Release
Airheads Arrived At A Time When Its Brand of Antiheroes Were More Commonplace
Considering what a huge star Fraser became shortly after its release and how popular Sandler was during his run on Saturday Night Live, it can be hard to see why Airheads was so undervalued upon its original release. However, the answer most likely lies in a comedy stock character who was everywhere in the early ‘90s and faded from the spotlight as the decade continued. Like the Wayne’s World movies, the Bill and Ted series, and the aforementioned Beavis and ʙuтт-head, Airheads followed a group of dumb but lovable rock fans whose immaturity was central to their appeal.
On the surface, this sounds a lot like the characters Sandler would continue to play for decades afterward, earning him plenty of critical and commercial success. However, crucially, characters like Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore were loners, whereas the heroes of these ‘90s movies and shows were defined by their bromances. This fell out of fashion from the mid-’90s until the mid-’00s, when Judd Apatow’s success made bromance the order of the day again. Unfortunately for Brendan Fraser and Adam Sandler, Airheads arrived at the wrong time.
