Son in Law (1993) was Pauly Shore’s Attempt at Semi-Normal Movie Stardom

Hello readers! If you missed Tuesday’s bonus promo newsletter, and you happen to be in the Birmingham area, don’t forget to come on down to the Sidewalk Cinema tonight for Tapesgiving! My friend KB (of KBSVHS in Huntsville) and I will be hosting a VHS double feature of mystery titles: a comedy at 7:00 and a horror at 9:00. And it’s free! All you have to do is reserve a ticket since events like this sometimes sell out. I’m not allowed to officially say what films we’re screening, but let’s just say I chose today’s newsletter topic for a very specific reason. Hope to see some of y’all tonight!

Reader, I think about Pauly Shore more than any rational person should in 2024.

The Weasel’s career over the last quarter century hasn’t exactly been illustrious. His IMDb page is littered with little more than stunt cameos, appearances as “himself,” and voice-over parts in animated films you’ve never heard of. I actually saw Pauly do a standup set in 2013 where he talked about how he can’t even get cast as a background actor nowadays because he’d be a distraction; viewers might see him and say “...Is that Pauly Shore?” I really feel for the guy.

The passing of time has caused Pauly to evolve from a celebrity—one ranging anywhere from the A-list to the D-list—to a living cultural artifact of sorts. Most people don’t think about him much anymore. I’m willing to bet lots of young people don’t even know who he is. And you might sound like a crazy person explaining how a nepo baby MTV VJ became a movie star seemingly overnight.¹

But it happened. I was there. Maybe you were there too.

One fascinating thing about his blip of relevance is the fact that movie studios were willing to take him as he was. Pauly Shore was almost never really asked to “act.” He performed, but he was only ever his authentic self (or at least the character he’d created for himself). So the plots of his movies usually centered around Pauly by a different name being dropped into random situations. “What if Pauly Shore had jury duty?” “What if Pauly Shore joined the Army?” “What if Pauly Shore was in a bio-dome?” And the public ate it up.² Or enough teenagers and stoners bought tickets to keep him relevant at least.

From 1992 to 1996, America was treated to (or tormented by) a new Pauly Shore vehicle every year. The sun rose and set on his empire of entertainment in just a mere five years. But if you look closely, one movie stands out in his filmography. In the midst of a barrage of dumb comedies, Son in Law manages to almost normalize Pauly by fitting him into the classic fish-out-of-water romantic comedy formula and creating a world where his pre-established persona could work. And you know what? It actually does work.

While Pauly is the star of Son in Law, the hero and romantic catalyst is Becca, played by a young Carla Gugino.³ After growing up on a farm in South Dakota, Becca attends college in Los Angeles and quickly becomes the early 90s version of a bohemian—a transformation instigated primarily by Crawl, her seventh-year senior residential advisor “played by” Pauly. When Becca brings Crawl home for Thanksgiving, he rescues Becca from her high school sweetheart’s marriage proposal by saying that he’s already engaged to her. Hijinks ensue as Becca’s friends and family attempt to adjust to this young man who might as well be an alien.

Son in Law stands out in Pauly’s filmography for a few reasons. For one, it fits nicely into a relatively niche holiday subgenre. If you separate the horror flicks and filter out all the straight-to-video garbage, there aren’t that many Thanksgiving movies!⁴ And this isn’t one of those films that spends 10 minutes on a few scenes set at Thanksgiving; the whole plot of the film revolves around that holiday week. And as the title suggests, it’s a film (silly though it may be) focused on an earnest theme of finding common familial ground with people who are very different from us. If that’s not in the spirit of Turkey Day, I don’t know what is.

And because of that thematic thread, Son in Law has something that no other Pauly Shore movie can match: It gives him a genuine character arc. Crawl isn’t just a goofball looking for a good time—he’s a loner seeking genuine human connection. As he’s falling in love with Becca, he’s also quickly growing fond of her family, and his strange charisma eventually grows on them too. There’s genuine pathos here if you can get on the film’s comedic wavelength. Crawl is easy to root for, and the payoff is satisfying, especially when compared to the inconsequential nature of Pauly’s other films.⁵

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Jeremy, you said this is a romantic comedy, right? Do you honestly expect me to believe that Carla Gugino would catch feelings for that guy?” First of all, who are you to judge Becca? The heart wants what it wants. Secondly, you really had to be there to understand the Pauly Shore phenomenon. Because his landing a starring role in a romcom is not as crazy as you’d think.

In fact, the Son in Law promotional campaign included a particularly clever marketing stunt: MTV ran a contest where the winner got to marry Pauly Shore in Las Vegas. And do you know how many people entered that contest? More than 25,000, that’s how many. A woman named Tanya Cinotti from Massachusetts ended up winning the grand prize, which included a four-day weekend with Pauly as well as “a bumblebee ring” and “a yo-yo that lights up.” (Appropriately weird prizes, I suppose.) And though there was a wedding ceremony, sadly enough, no marriage certificates were signed.

So Pauly and Tayna didn’t fall in love. But America sure did have a crush on Pauly for one brief, beautiful moment at a time where anything felt possible. And his lone romcom is the proof.

Son in Law is now streaming on Hulu and Hoopla, and it is available to rent elsewhere.

1. Earlier this week, I was delighted to join my friend Matt Scalici and his co-host Caroline Darney on their terrific podcast For the Watercooler, and they humored me with 50 minutes of Pauly Shore discussion. Give it a list and then subscribe! (They get some pretty great guests, you know. Like the screenwriters of Inside Out 2 and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.)

2. From what I can tell, the only theatrical Pauly Shore vehicle that didn’t make at least a modest profit was Jury Duty, which inexplicably had a $21 million budget. Encino Man was his most profitable film ($41 million on a $7 million budget) but Son in Law almost matched it ($36 million on an $8 million budget).

3. Gugino appears on the Son in Law poster, but only Pauly’s name is listed in big letters across the top. That’s how much juice this guy had at the time. (Sean Astin suffered a similar fate in the Encino Man marketing.)

4. I wrote a piece last year about how Rocky is actually a Thanksgiving movie, in case you need a reminder.

5. Though it may be circumstantial evidence, Son in Law earned Pauly his only real award nomination: Best Comedic Performance at the MTV Movie Awards. (We’re going to ignore his slew of Razzie nominations because we don’t respect the Razzies in this house.)