Looking back, there’s something morbid about watching the opening scenes of Tommy Boy. After the hapless Tommy Callahan chugs beers and huffs down bong hits, he falls face first into a coffee table. Less than three years later, Chris Farley would be found sprawled on his living room floor, dead of an overdose. Nevertheless, in addition to being the only memorable film in Farley’s short career as a movie star, Tommy Boy both sums up his comedic genius and exploits his personal flaws—all within the familiar framework of the zany road trip.
Tommy is the kind of schlub who celebrates a bachelor’s degree-clinching D+ with (relatively impressive) fat guy cartwheels. He has lived a privileged life as the son of an auto parts magnate, to the point that he really doesn’t have to grow up. But he’s clearly the archetypical loveable loser, bumbling his way through pratfalls and probable head injuries as he coasts along into the nepotism of a desk job at his dad’s company. When Big Tom Callahan (Brian Dennehy) croaks during the climax of his wedding reception (after he’s been briefly joined in matrimony to a fraudulently-minded Bo Derek), Tommy Boy is forced to hit the road with David Spade’s ultra-sarcastic corporate stooge in an attempt to save the company, and thereby the town.
All in all, the plot is as thin as a shaky “SNL” sketch, even if it gives us the underdog story of someone, against all odds, trying to save hundreds of heartland jobs. Tommy Boy is entirely fueled by Farley’s likeability and his odd-couple mashup with a fastidious Spade. The well-soundtracked, mid-’90s road trip comedy had already landed belly laughs with Dumb and Dumber three months prior, but only one member of Tommy Boy’s traveling duo is dumb, the other is simply a prick. More formulaic than outright copycat, Tommy Boy does steal blatantly from 1987’s Planes, Trains and Automobiles, complete with the freewheeling and affable fat guy paired up with the uptight jerk. Tommy Boy’s good jokes are all crammed in early (the third act is pure cheese), but this isn’t the first or last beloved comedy to go over the top by the end—and not even the only one featuring an obnoxious Dan Aykroyd.
But there’s heart at the core of this movie, even if many of the jokes are mean-spirited. Set in Farley’s Midwest stomping grounds (including notable time spent in his native Wisconsin), Tommy Boy showcases Farley at his most earnest. Like Farley, Tommy loves to party irresponsibly. Like Farley, Tommy hides the lifelong jabs about his waistline behind a happy-go-lucky schtick. Given 20 years of distance, Farley’s Tommy is an even more loveable presence, especially when time has made all the lame fat jokes and Spade’s incessantly condescending snark all the more off-putting. The fat jokes are relentless (there are 19 in all) and seem like supremely lazy writing in retrospect. But for better or worse, there will likely always be a market for lowbrow slapstick about fat guys. Just ask Kevin James.
Tommy Boy’s supporting characters largely hold up two decades later. It’s fun to see Rob Lowe in all his mid-’90s comedic villain glory (“Party on, Wayne!”), though Bo Derek (who’s meant to pass for his mother) is a bit of an odd casting choice at only seven years his senior. Whether he likes it or not, Spade will perhaps always be more memorable as Farley’s sidekick than for much of his own work since. Re-watching this 1995 film now, it’s clear how much of the punchy dialogue has wriggled its way into our lexicon. At this point, many children of the ‘90s still paraphrase Tommy Boy and other mid-’90s comedy quotes in their daily speech, perhaps without fully realizing it (something that’s particularly evident upon revisiting these critically-panned cult classics).
In the film, Tommy gets his shit together to follow in his idolized father’s footsteps. In real life, Farley would go on mimic his own idol, John Belushi—both died of drug overdoses at age 33. In another uncanny coincidence, both Farley and John Candy died before the release of final films set in the 19th century American West. Farley’s tragic end can be hard to put out of one’s mind while watching his comedy bits now, no matter how many onscreen pratfalls the preservative magic of movies allows Farley to continually take.
At the same time, Tommy Boy is a Lorne Michaels-fingerprinted—and therefore likeable but flawed—comedy that encapsulates the kinetically corpulent wonder that was Chris Farley. You can’t help but wonder what might have been for him, once he got ineffectual follow-ups like Black Sheep and Beverly Hills Ninja out of his system. Would he have bestowed upon us a few darkly dramatic gems like those put out by Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler? Like his obvious successor in Melissa McCarthy (she did, after all, just stand in as Matt Foley at “Saturday Night Live”’s 40th anniversary bash), would Farley have transcended the bulbous physical comedy that defined his early career in the same way that she has just done with Spy? Who can say. Due to a troubled life and the excesses of fame, we’ll never know what was deep down inside the fat guy in a little coat.