Pop-culture pundits have long predicted the inevitable implosion of all things bubble gum. Freddie Prinze Jr. can’t mindlessly grin his way through life forever, and James Van Der Beek will be up Dawson’s Creek without a paddle if he doesn’t stop playing the same 33-year-old college freshman soon.

But these Tiger Beat pin-ups aren’t going anywhere without first receiving a parting shot, which comes in the form of this weekend’s “Not Another Teen Movie.”
Written in part by UW-Madison/Badger Herald alum Andrew Jacobson, the film covers two generations’ worth of teen-y fare, skewering films from the John Hughes catalogue to those involving man-pastry love scenes. Mr. Jacobson recently talked shop with The Badger Herald about the days of yore, contemporary teen culture and why his screenwriting debut will not be just another teen movie.

The Badger Herald: What was your reaction to the success of “Scary Movie”?

Andrew Jacobson: Well, before it opened [my writing partners and I] were never going to do [“Not Another Teen Movie”]. So it motivated us to capitalize on the fact that these movies are making a comeback.

BH: What was the writing process like?

AJ: Once we got hired, every morning we had one of those [teen] movies on, just to remind ourselves what the scenes and conventions were.

BH: Is there any one movie that you really wanted to go after and parody?

AJ: Our big thing was to draw on the ’80s movies as well as the ’90s movies and use those more reverentially than anything. I hope that [the jokes] are seen as compliments to those movies, as opposed to just trying to take cheap shots at Freddie Prinze Jr. movies. “She’s All That” was a huge one we used as a model for a bad teen movie.

BH: Do you think references to the ’80s movies will go over the heads of your target audience?

AJ: It turns out that, as the test audiences went, the ’80s jokes are the most popular ones in the whole movie. In the focus groups, all these 17- to 19-year-olds who we thought weren’t even born when “The Breakfast Club” came out — [when asked] “What was your favorite scene in the movie?” [responded] “Oh, ‘The Breakfast Club’ ones!” Universally, every single audience loved the ’80s stuff. Apparently, these kids have grown up the same way we have on those movies, just on TV. And it’s going to draw in people over 25.

BH: So you got a good response from Gen-X in the focus groups?

AJ: Well, I think the people over 25 all went in thinking, “This is just gonna be another ‘Scary Movie.'” They came out saying, “It was a lot better [than ‘Scary Movie’], and thank you for putting in the ’80s stuff.”

BH: What’s the difference for you between the John Hughes movies of the ’80s and the teen movies of today?

AJ: It’s not like those ’80s movies were so great, it’s just that they had a lot of heart. These new ones have obviously relied on this gross-out principle.

BH: Would you point to the influence of the Farrelly brothers as a cause for all the gross-out gags in today’s teen movies?

AJ: I think they’re too different genres. “American Pie” kind of bridges the two, but the real teen movies of the ’90s — the “She’s All That,” “Never Been Kissed” — these are all classic teen movies. But the gross-out movie, whatever that is, is totally separate. Our movie certainly is trying to blow out what “Scary Movie” did, because you have to go further.

BH: As far as …

AJ: The gross-out factor. It’s definitely taking it to that edge of what you can do.

BH: What caused this resurgence in late-’90s teen culture?

AJ: Generation Y has a lot of disposable income. For that short window — which I think has already disappeared — they really loved the WB and Freddie Prinze Jr. They went and saw those movies, and suddenly they were back.

BH: How do you respond to the criticism this is, indeed, just another teen movie?

AJ: One of the things we really tried to do in that “Airplane” tradition was give this movie somewhat of a story. Here are characters you can at least care about. I don’t think too many people are gonna view it as adhering to teen-movie conventions. Not that that’s a criticism that bothers us, but really the whole idea was to turn the conventions on their head. Hopefully we did that.