Harry and the Hendersons (1987)

Joe Ramoni (0:18)

Hello, this is Joe Ramoni from Hats Off Entertainment, here to discuss one of my favorite 80s family comedies with you. Harry and the Hendersons.

SPEAKER_2 (0:35)

The survival of the fittest, son.

SPEAKER_3 (0:37)

The law of the forest, right?

SPEAKER_4 (0:40)

Right.

Joe Ramoni (0:41)

One of the things I've always, like, appreciated about this movie is just how simple the premise is.

It's one you can't believe hadn't been done sooner. The family on a camping trip hits Bigfoot with their car and brings them home like the new family pet. I mean, that's such a fun, inspired premise, that it's like a diamond on the sidewalk that everyone's stepping over until it was two guys who realized its potential, writers Bill Martin and Ezra Rapoport.

SPEAKER_3 (1:24)

What happened at home before, dark rabbit bite on the way?

Joe Ramoni (1:27)

And they originally came up with the concept for Harry and the Hendersons in 1978 And they envisioned it originally as a sitcom.

SPEAKER_5 (1:40)

Back off, Sarah.

Joe Ramoni (1:41)

It was him or me. They were inspired by the Munsters and the Adams family, shows they had grown up with, and wanted to kind of make a version of that in the 80s.

And they actually were hoping that Fred Gwynn would play Harry.

One of the details in their original script has the family rubbing nair on Harry's face to blend him in with humans more.

And the director of this movie, William Deere, met one of those raiders, Bill Martin, at a cocktail party in the late 70s, and that's where he first learned about this concept. And William Deere has had a really unique career. He did industrial films, and he worked on the second unit for Pulse Raider's early movies like Blue Collar and Hardcore, which could not have been easy experiences. And then he becomes a director himself. He directs a movie in 1982, I believe, called Time Rider, which is, you know, it predates Back to the Future, but it's kind of a very similar story. It's a dirt bike racer is transported to the Old West, and it ultimately ends up flopping. But I think it was such a bold idea for a movie then, that it put him on a lot of people's radars. And I think one of them was Steven Spielberg, whose amblin produced this film. I don't think Spielberg was too involved in the day-to-day decisions or in overseeing anything. I think it was just a, you know, he was just the executive that kind of helped this movie get made.

But he ends up working with this film's director, William Deere, on an episode of Amazing Stories, which Spielberg wrote the story for. And then William Deere came in and developed that into the teleplay and also directed it. And it's the, one of the best episodes of Amazing Stories, in my opinion, it's the one with the mummy. And it's such a fun concept. It's a mummy actor in this movie shooting on location. I think it's his wife is going into labor, and he's trying to get to the hospital, but he couldn't get the suit, the mummy costume off, and everyone thinks he's a real mummy. It's very fun. And this movie has that Spielberg, Amazing Stories quality to it. There's a little bit of a Twilight Zone, you know, so.

When you look at the timeline of the production, that's how it looks like everything played out. You know, Spielberg brings in William Deere to direct Amazing Stories. They get to know each other. And I think it was around 1984 Deere decides to get in touch with Bill Martin and redevelop the concept with the original writers. He wanted to make it into a movie. You know, pun intended, he felt that the concept deserves something bigger. And one of the things that William Deere brought to this movie that he was really vocal about that, I think most people were in agreement on at the time, what later felt it might have hurt this movie was the idea to keep Harry hidden from the marketing. To not reveal Harry in full until that big scene in the kitchen later on, which is a great, great reveal.

But they really hid Harry from the movie's marketing at the time. Today it's really easy to overlook that because subsequent DVD releases and when you see it on streaming, Harry is rightfully front and center. At the time, he was really teased in the movie's marketing.

There are two posters done for this movie, one by McGinty, who had, I believe he did the Jaws 2 poster, the one of the girl on water skis running, you know, being pulled away from the shark. And his poster is the one with, you just see Harry's eyes holding a flower. And then the great Drew Struzan did some posters for this movie as well. And his always show the Henderson family looking through kind of a hole in the wall. That's his, the outline of Harry's body. So they were teasing the overall size and shape of the character without showing him. And I think William Deere was really trying and was really inspired by what Spielberg had done on ET. He had done something really similar on that movie in hiding ET from the audience until you see him revealed. You know, keeping that character away from the marketing. And it worked for ET., but it did not work as well here. William Deere has gone on the record saying he thinks it, you know, hurt this movie's commercial success, because in hiding Rick Baker's designs so intentionally, you know, might have caused audiences to skip this movie. Whereas, if they had shown the amazing work that Rick did in bringing Harry to life, I mean, it would have been a... Could have been a powerful marketing tool, but who's to say? It is, you know, a modest hit, but I think they were all expecting it would be a bit more successful.