It was a different world in 1982. This was a pre-Internet universe where films that offered a hint of nudity or debauchery were latched onto by teenage boys everywhere due to the difficulty of getting to see such things. There were no Google searches for us, as we had to work hard to see nude women on a movie screen. My friends and I knew about Porky's through word of mouth but we hadn't seen it. The more we heard it discussed, the more legendary it sounded to us. Porky's promised lots of skin and lots of filthy jokes--just the sort of thing any regular 13 year old wants to see. I was one of those 13 year olds.The first time I got a chance to see Porky's was late at night at my friend Scott's house. His family had HBO and we'd mentally circled the late night screening the moment we saw it in the monthly guide. I got permission to stay over and hoped the rest of his family would be asleep by the time the movie started so we could watch it in the middle of the night. As it grew later Scott's dad went off to work the graveyard shift, his mom went to bed after the news and finally his sisters did too. It was exciting and an adrenaline rush. Could it be? Would we soon be watching Porky's?
This being 1982, Scott didn't have a remote control for their TV (this detail of the story makes me feel old!), so we had to come up with a plan to watch a film that we weren't allowed to see but were watching anyway. During an earlier super-late screening of Lady Chatterley's Lover (lots of flesh on display but a bit on the dull side for teenagers) we figured out we needed one person by the TV and one person to serve as lookout. I positioned myself at the edge of the living room so I could see anyone walking down the hall toward where we were; Scott took the spot right in front of the TV. A code word was agreed upon that would signal a quick channel change so we wouldn't be busted watching the infamous shower scene or during some other naughty shenanigans. We test ran it a few times and decided we had about five seconds to spot someone, say the code word and then flip the channel to avoid being caught.
It took seemingly forever for the last few minutes to go by and for Porky's to start. When it began Scott and I had giddy grins plastered on our faces and we gave each other an enthusiastic high five and took our assigned spots. Porky's delivered everything we'd heard about and more. Here's my synopsis: nudity, teenage pranks, near nudity, drunken antics and oh, yeah, nudity. When the movie ended around three in the morning we went to bed, thankful we'd pulled it off and that no one came down the hall to interrupt the film. Our plan had worked like a charm and we got to brag that we'd seen Porky's to our friends who still hadn't seen it. We were kings.
4 comments:
You two were, no doubt, shamelessly flaunting your 13-year old boners & giggling.
No! We were repressed Southern Baptists, ha.
I had the same reverence for Porkys (although this was early grade school). But I never got to see it. Then when we were 16 or 17 my buddy Matt and I realized that neither had seen it so we got it and watched it. By then we both had plenty of exposure to porn (print and video) and weren't virgins. Needless to say, we were a bit disappointed in Porky's. We should have watched it when we were 10.
Yeah, I think your appreciation of it depends on how old you are when you see it and how innocent you are too. We were pretty innocent at the time we saw it.
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