Frat Packer Jack Black in the lucha libre wrestling comedy, Nacho Libre.
It’s every class clown’s dream: come to Hollywood, pal around with your buddies, hang out with pretty girls, make people laugh, and get paid to do it. Get paid lots and lots to do it.
In 1996, two groups of class clowns in L.A. and Texas made a small dent at the box office with two underdog comedies. Ever since, the guys behind Swingers and Bottle Rocket and a few of their assorted friends have been causing a seismic shift in pop culture.
A label coined by USA Today’s Susan Wloszczyna, “The Frat Pack” comprises seven talents: Swingers’ Vince Vaughn, Bottle Rocket’s Owen and Luke Wilson, and pals/frequent co-stars Jack Black, Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell and Steve Carell. Since 2003's Old School, they've been comedy’s surest thing at the spring and summer box office.
Summer 2006 is gearing up to be another barrel (a few bottles and a couple kegs) full of laughs, featuring six out of the seven Frat Packers in new projects. The following is our scorecard of their upcoming projects, their memorable moments so far, and a few extra bits about these amiable pranksters.
1. VINCE VAUGHN / FRAT KING
Summer Activity:
The Break-Up (In Theatres): Vaughn is the fast-talking king of ‘frat-funny,’ and an undisputed box office force. The Break-Up’s first place weekend opening may have surprised pundits, but not the crowds primed to see Jennifer Aniston and Vaughn trade quips in a battle of the exes.
Selected Class Credits:
• Wedding Crashers: As cinema’s favorite party-crasher, Vaughn delivers memorable quotes about tattoos, bulls-eyes and motor-boats, and a lengthy monologue about why he could never go on a blind date.
• Old School: The actor revisits his Swingers image from the thirtysomething perspective, and adds his own spin to the words “ear muffs.”
• Titanic 2 (MTV Movie Awards Spoof): A hilarious short in which Vaughn and Ben Stiller pitch a sequel to director James Cameron, wherein the passengers of the doomed ocean liner survive in a huge air-bubble under the ship.
Pack Profile: Vaughn met Swingers co-star Jon Favreau on the set of the Notre Dame football flick Rudy. The two buddies went on to make the underrated Made together, and re-teamed on The Break-Up. As Favreau tells it, early on Vaughn was projecting more of a James Dean-like persona at auditions, while friends were treated to the real Vince on the way home. After a string of more serious leading roles, Vaughn brought his improvisational “dude’s dude” to the forefront, and has been honing it ever since.
2. JACK BLACK / PARTY CHAIR
Summer Activity:
Nacho Libre (Opens 06/16/06): Only one man can properly portray a Mexican orphanage cook who dreams of becoming a lucha libre wrestler. The former School-of-Rocker-turned-Man-of-the-Cloth romances a nun and inspires young disciples with his “stretchy pants” heroics.
Selected Class Credits:
• Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy: He’s only in it for a couple of minutes, but that’s just long enough for Black to pull over his Harley and drop-kick Ferrell’s pet off a bridge.
• School of Rock: The whirling dervish’s defining performance finds him acing the role of a substitute teacher who guides his young proteges in all things rock and roll.
• High Fidelity: His record store employee/lounger singer extraordinaire has no problem spinning Katrina and the Waves, or using Evil Dead 2 as a metaphor for true love.
Pack Profile: Jack’s in a comical universe unto himself. As a comic actor, and as the lead singer of the metal band Tenacious D (who will be appearing later this year in The Pick of Destiny), Black espouses the Frat Pack mentality of total gusto and zero humility.
3. WILL FERRELL / MR. OBNOXIOUS
Summer Activity:
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (Opens 08/04/06): As a clueless stock car driver, Will Ferrell may deliver the summer’s biggest comedy surprise. Ferrell, running down the race course wearing a helmet and little else and calling out for help from higher authorities and Tom Cruise, should be good for a laugh or two.
Selected Class Credits:
• Anchorman: Ferrell, with his period hair, outfits and oversized machismo, shows us how hilariously dimwitted some guys were in the ‘70s.
• Elf: Ferrell is perfect as the only elf over 6 feet: oblivious as usual, but in a rightfully jolly way.
• Old School: When the beer bong hits his lips, look out. We love Ferrell as Frank the Tank, the Frat Pack’s ageless party machine.
Pack Profile: One of “SNL’’s” shining lights from 1995-2002, Ferrell began to pal around with many of the Swingers/Bottle Rocket crowd during their guest hosting stints. Later, Ferrell would co-star with Frat Packer Steve Carell in Anchorman, Woody Allen’s Melinda and Melinda and the big screen version of Bewitched.
4. OWEN WILSON / THE SUNSHINE KID
Summer Activity:
You, Me and Dupree (Opens 07/14/06): Wilson adds his surfer slacker shtick to the mix in Dupree, as the third wheel in newlyweds Matt Dillon's and Kate Hudson's domestic life.
Selected Class Credits:
• Wedding Crashers: He’s the straight man for once – but he’s also still a bit of the laid-back smart guy – who plays a perfect counterpoint to Vince Vaughn.
• Starsky & Hutch: Wilson’s Hutch, unable to strecth too far from his lacksadaiscal life approach, borrows his partner’s undercover “Do It” disguise, as in “Bacardi and cola - do it.”
• Bottle Rocket: A mastermind of small-time cons, Wilson sketches flip-pad drawings to illustrate how to properly pole-vault during a crime.
Pack Profile: At the University of Texas, Owen (along with actor-brothers Andrew and Luke Wilson) began to collaborate with filmmaker Wes Anderson. After their script for Bottle Rocket fell into the hands of producers James L. Brooks, Polly Platt and others, the duo were given $5 million and a distribution deal through Sony to make the movie. During the same year Bottle Rocket was released, Owen also appeared in Frat Packer Ben Stiller’s The Cable Guy. From there on, he would co-star in seven more movies (and counting) with Stiller.
5. LUKE WILSON / THE REGULAR GUY
Summer Activity:
My Super Ex-Girlfriend (Opens 07/21/06): Luke is the Pack’s perennial straight man. He sees the craziness around him in these comedies, but can’t quite remove himself from the chaos. Here, he’s the perfect victim for ex-lover Uma Thurman, who turns out to be a superhero who’ll do everything in her powers to humiliate him.
Selected Class Credits:
• Anchorman: This is a nice change of pace where Wilson plays the baddie: a squinting, scheming newscaster who, during a streetfight between rival news shows, has a nasty encounter with a battle-ax.
• Old School: Someone must suffer the mischievous deeds of Vaughn and Ferrell. Wilson does his darndest to keep a straight face while refereeing co-ed wrestling matches.
• Bottle Rocket: Luke takes to the spotlight naturally, placating his kooky sibling’s knack for thievery, and gamely wearing a yellow Devo suit during the final robbery.
Pack Profile: Like Vaughn, Wilson has attempted more conventional leading man roles, but when he gets the call, whether it be for a Wes Anderson opus or a “for-fun” cameo, Luke’s been dependable for his Frat Pack family.
6. BEN STILLER / MR. DO-IT-ALL
Summer Activity:
Taking a well-deserved summer off: at last count, Ben Stiller appeared in eight movies in the last two years.
Selected Class Credits:
• Dodgeball: Anyone willing to do the milk shake dance in a fat suit, and stuff pizza where it doesn't belong, deserves a hurrah.
• Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers: Stiller endures the indignities of his fiancee’s pretty-boy ex (Owen Wilson) in the Frat Pack’s most successful comedy series.
• Zoolander: Some get it. Some don’t. But it’s easy to appreciate Stiller’s various model poses which all look exactly the same.
Pack Profile: Ben Stiller is the Frat Pack’s Orson Welles – he’s their triple-threat, a writer-director-actor. His second film as a director, The Cable Guy, was instrumental in bringing together three fellow Packers for the first time: Owen Wilson, Jack Black and Stiller himself. Stiller would go on to work with each actor nearly every year since, and on almost all of the spring/summer Frat Pack comedies since '03.
7. STEVE CARELL / THE NEW GUY
Summer Activities:
Little Miss Sunshine (Opens 07/28/06): Steve Carell earns more mainstream laughs as the voice of Hammy in Over the Hedge, but his performance as depressed Uncle Frank in Sunshine received raves from the indie crowds at Sundance.
Selected Class Credits:
• The 40-Year-Old Virgin: Painfully funny and real, Carell gave hope to aging nerds everywhere in last year's sleeper hit. Great eye for detail: Carell’s room displays a framed poster of the band Asia on the wall.
• Anchorman: Carell's sidekick weatherman pulls off the improbable task of being more exquisitely clueless than Will Ferrell.
• Bruce Almighty: Carell first teased moviegoers' funny bones as the egotistical newscaster in Jim Carrey's box office hit. It's a role that he’ll repeat in the upcoming Evan Almighty.
Pack Profile: Carell put in his time as the mock news correspondent on Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show,” but it was Ferrell who helped break him into the big leagues by having him along for three films. Last year’s solo turn in Virgin -- ably supported by a smart script (which he co-wrote) and surrounded by a great cast of Frat Pack stepbrothers -- moved him to the front of the line. He continues to get laughs on the small screen, too, as the grating supervisor on “The Office.”
OTHER MEMBERS AT LARGE INCLUDE:
JON FAVREAU: The star of Swingers and co-star in The Break-Up. Favreau directed Ferrell in Elf; and wrote, directed and co-starred with buddy Vaughn in Made. Along with Stiller, he’s one of the Frat Pack’s busiest behind-the-scenes, in-front-of-the-camera multitaskers.
TODD PHILLIPS: The filmmaker responsible for Old School (based in part on his documentary Frat House) and Starsky & Hutch. Once upon a time, he directed a hilarious doc about punk rocker G.G. Allin called Hated.
WES ANDERSON: The brainiac of the Frat Pack, he co-wrote (with Owen Wilson) and directed Bottle Rocket, Rushmore and The Royal Tennenbaums before letting his full visual style and quirky sense of humor loose in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.
ADAM MCKAY: Helmed and co-wrote (with Ferrell) Anchorman and Talladega Nights. Being Ferrell’s biggest fan comes naturally to McKay, who was an “SNL” writer from 2000 – 2001, and often appeared as the obnoxious guy in the on-air audience. He’s also the brother-in-law of actor Jeremy Piven (the quick-witted Hollywood agent on HBO’s Frat Pack-esque “Entourage”).
PAUL RUDD: A serious actor who occasionaly likes to fool around with his friends, Rudd's added his comic instincts to The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Anchorman.
JASON BATEMAN: Co-stars in Dodgeball, Starsky & Hutch, and The Break-Up. Headlines the acclaimed sitcom “Arrested Development.” Back in the 80s, he made a name for himself as a kid actor on “Silver Spoons” and (lest we forget) starred in Teen Wolf Too.
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