The Coneheads is a movie based off of the classic series of Saturday Night Live sketches of the same name, starring Dan Akroyd, Jane Curtin, and Laraine Newman. In these sketches, we would explore the life of cone shaped headed aliens from the planet Ramulak, who have been stranded on Earth. In monotone speech, the Coneheads overly describe their lives while consuming mass quantities of food and beer. Oh, and raising a teenage cone. They are the average, alien family. The movie expands on their lives from how they got there, to their happily ever after. It guest stars SNL alums Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, David Spade, Laraine Newman, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Garrett Morris, Kevin Nealon, and Tim Meadows. As well as appearances by Michael McKean, Jason Alexander, Micheal Richards, Ellen DeGeneres, Drew Carey, Parker Posey and more. Needless to say, it is star studded. The Coneheads is and about many things but all in all, its about a family.
The movie starts with Mr. and Mrs.Conehead crashing into Earth and nearly escaping authorities that have spotted their UFO. They quickly acclimate to human life and, despite their cone shaped heads, they fit right in. Beldar (Mr.) even finds a job as a appliance repairman. When Beldar's boss finds out that he doesn't have any citizenship papers, he helps him get a false identity. This triggers an alert to the INS, our bad guys of the movie. Meanwhile, Beldar and, his wife Prymaat manage to make contact with their people and are informed that it will take several years before they can come and get them. In their despair, there is a light for Prymaat has become pregnant. They decide to do the only thing they can which is make money and make a life for themselves and their unborn cone. This includes having their teeth, which are rows and rows of horrible spikes, capped. While they work hard for their American Dream, they are attacked by the government, who have been trying to find the foreigners who have been living under their trap name. Once again, the Coneheads have been able to escape the government officials. They find new work as a taxi driver in NY. Once they have saved enough money they decide to buy a house in New Jersey, where they give birth to their daughter and raise her in a lovely family environment. Beldar finds a job teaching drivers ED and supports his family well. While they are off living that picture perfect family life, the guys trying to hunt them down have been promoted and have dropped finding what they assume now are extraterrestrial aliens. It isn't until the agency discovers a hole in their funding. Determined now to find the aliens, the bad guys make their move.
Back at home, daughter Connie Conehead finds herself a boyfriend, a car mechanic named Ronnie. Things move fast for these two and Beldar doesn't approve, but allows his daughter to see him. Things seem to be going okay until Beldar receives word that their rescue ship is approaching and they need to be ready. The government officials find out about it and manage to attach to the Coneheads car as they are lifted into the spaceship. Everything seems to be going great for the Coneheads (minus Connie, who doesn't want to leave her life on Earth) who have offered gifts from Earth, including the two government agents as prisoners. The gifts are received well, however Beldar has changed his teeth and that is frowned upon in Ramulak. He is then sentenced to fight the ferocious Grathok. Using his new found Earth wits, he outsmarts the beast and in doing so he earns the right to having anything he wants. He asks to be returned to Earth so he can destroy it and to take the head of the INS with him. He bamboozles his leader, however, and gives the world to his daughter. And they all live happily ever after.
That was a brief synopsis and I missed a lot of details, but only so I could tell you about my favorite parts of the movie. I want to start with their speech. Like I said earlier, it is a monotone barrage of overly specific details and spontaneous "EEEEEKKKS!". Everything they say is a dictionary definition of simple phrases and nobody around them says anything about it. They just casually go along with what they've said as though the Coneheads had spoke just like everyone else. I think my favorite example of this is during a scene where Mrs.Conehead is grocery shopping with her neighbor and are talking about how men are pigs. Mrs.Conehead defines pigs a text book definition and, without missing a beat, her neighbor responds "Exactly". Then Mrs.Conehead spots an eggplant, eeks, grabs the eggplant and laughs. No one says anything about how weird this is, which brings me to my next point; the coneheads misshaped heads.
No one throughout the whole movie says anything about their cone heads. Their speech, I could see why people wouldn't say anything about that, but their heads? They are obviously cone shaped and hairless. I love this detail because literally no one either wants to be rude or really doesn't notice. The next thing that makes me laugh out loud is the mispronunciation of their last name. Even when they were using a different last name, everyone gets it wrong. The Coneheads, of course, politely and thoroughly state their name correctly. Its a simple running gag, but it works for me. I also love, and this is a little off topic (but falls into their politeness, I suppose) is how Mr.Conehead becomes sort of a chick magnet. He is drivers ed teacher and has passed himself off as being European. Well, this just drives one of his female students crazy (see what I did there?). I love this because why? Is it the giant misshaped head or the "European Accent"? Whatever it is it makes for hilarious and uncomfortable movie watching.
The final thing that I love most about The Coneheads is Chris Farley. I love him just in general but he is particularly lovable in this movie. He plays Ronnie, Connie's boyfriend. He is a big party animal who truly loves his girlfriend, even if he was moving faster than she was. My favorite scene with him is after Mr.Conehead finds out that Ronnie was moving faster than they all are comfortable with. Beldar finds Ronnie sitting in his car and rips off the roof, warning him that if he ever sees him again there would be hell to pay. So what happens the next day? He sees him at the golf course. Beldar just tries to ignore him, but Ronnie just won't stop talking. He yells across the course something along the lines of "Hey Mr.Conehead, I hope you didn't hurt your hand when you ripped off the top of my car!...I'm alright!" and so on. Chris Farley is just genuinely hilarious and incentive to watch this movie. Come for the Coneheads and stay for Farley.
Well, that's all for today. I hope you have enjoyed today's post. Feel free to let me know if you are familiar with this SNL classic. What's your favorite SNL movie? Maybe I will do a list of my favorite SNL movies before too long. I'm a huge fan of SNL, so maybe. Until next time stay spooky!
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