You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News - Writers of Cracked dot Com [16]
In addition, the movie tells us Gardner got arrested for unpaid parking tickets, forcing him to show up to his first day of work wearing his friend’s grubby clothes. It’s one of the only memorable scenes that actually happened, except instead of parking tickets, Chris was arrested after Jackie accused him of domestic violence (he claims she fell into a rose bush). That’s why she wouldn’t tell him where she was. During the events depicted in the movie, Chris wasn’t caring for his adorable son, he was crashing on his friend Darnell’s couch while the mother of his child and his son hid from him.
Don’t get us wrong, Chris did indeed get his life turned around. But in the book the movie was based on, he also admitted to some things they couldn’t quite bring themselves to have Will Smith do on screen. Like selling drugs or doing cocaine with Jackie (who it turns out was his mistress from a previous marriage).
Doing drugs and having sex with your mistress? Not having to worry about the resulting offspring? It says something about the man that he didn’t drop the pursuit, despite having pretty much found happyness already.
3. LEAN ON ME
The Hollywood version
Joe Clark is badass. When Eastside High School in Paterson, New Jersey, found itself on the brink of being taken over by the state due to piss-poor test scores, Clark was brought on board as principal to right the sinking ship.
And right it he did, by fighting expelled students in the hall and throwing chains and padlocks on the doors. After all, if Joe Clark was going to go out in a blaze of glory he was going to take as many students with him as possible. In the end, thanks to a hip new school song and the bullying ways of Principal Clark, Eastside saw a meteoric rise in its test scores, and everyone celebrated by joining together in song, as inner-city ruffians often do.
In reality . . .
Apart from the fact that the test scores never improved, or that state takeover had never actually been threatened, or the various ways they fudged facts to make it appear that Joe Clark was a super badass, it’s pretty close to the real story. That is to say, a man named Joe Clark did serve as principal at Eastside High for a short time in the eighties.
Here’s the punch line to the whole thing: One year after Clark resigned and less than two years after the film’s release, the state came and took control of the school. And since they weren’t actually threatening takeover in the first place, we’re forced to assume they got the idea from the movie.
2.RUDY
The Hollywood version
Back in the seventies, there was a plucky little football player who dreamed of nothing other than playing for Notre Dame. Unfortunately for Rudy, he was small enough to be played by Samwise from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and his support system consisted of people who repeatedly went out of their way to let him know that dreams are the main ingredient in the devil’s pudding.
After graduating from high school, Rudy and his best friend resign themselves to a life spent laboring in the same factory as Rudy’s father and brothers. Luckily, his best friend gets blown up right in front of him, teaching Rudy a valuable lesson about how much hard manual labor sucks and reigniting his childhood dream of playing at Notre Dame. And play he does, no thanks to the evil scheming of head coach Dan Devine, who only allowed Rudy on the field after the entire team threatened to walk out otherwise.
In reality . . .
The real-life Dan Devine was actually the one who insisted on playing Rudy in his final game; they were good friends. Sounds like one helluva guy, right? So naturally he was repaid for his kindnesses by being turned into the Snidely Whiplash of college football in the film.
By the way, ever wonder who saw Rudy play that day and got so inspired that they just had to make