#38: Clifford

Release Date: April 1st, 1994

Format: Streaming (YouTube)

Written by: Steven Kampmann (billed as “Bobby Von Hayes”) and “Jay Dee Rock”

Directed by: Paul Flaherty

3 Stars

I love when things click into place, when something is seemingly nonsensical and then you get a tiny bit of missing information and everything comes into focus. 

Immediately after watching Clifford this morning (I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve seen it already, but it’s an embarrassingly high number), I had to jump onto the internet and figure out just what the hell is going on with this movie. How is it so close to being brilliant, yet has this bizarre undertaste that can’t be ignored? It’s a pasta from a 5-star restaurant that you’re pretty sure the waiter dropped on the kitchen floor and then put into a clean bowl.

A glance at the movie’s wiki helps explain what’s going on. The movie’s credited writers are “Jay Dee Rock,” who seemingly does not exist on the internet and has no other writing credits, and “Bobby Von Hayes,” the alias of Steven Kampmann, who was a writer on WKRP in Cincinnati over a decade earlier before he went on to write such feature comedy classics as The Couch Trip and Stealing Home. It’s the type of comedic crap that you could get out into theaters in the ‘80s. The bar was low and the cocaine was high.  

Clifford’s director is Paul Flaherty. This is his only feature-length director credit, and it shows. According to IMDB he worked on SCTV and has writing credits with other Martin Short projects, including Jiminy Glick. Probably a funny guy, but not the guy that you want in charge of a (reported) $19 million dollar budget.

Speaking of the production, another thing that I found out in my internet sleuthing is that Clifford was actually shot in 1990. Orion, the production company, was on the verge of bankruptcy and was scared to release Clifford too soon after the release of another comedic evil child movie, Problem Child (another movie that I’ve seen countless times). So apparently they just shelved it, biding their time. Then Problem Child 2 was put into production, so they just stashed Clifford in the archives, collecting dust until 1994. When it was finally unearthed and put into theaters, it had to compete with the other big budget comedies from ‘94, such as the Jim Carrey holy trinity (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Dumb and Dumber, and The Mask), Mrs. Doubtfire, and sequels from the Naked Gun, Mighty Ducks, and Major League franchises. The competitive box office and further studio financial constraints killed any motivation to market Clifford, which opened at #7 its opening weekend, then fell to #10, #16, and out of the top 25 within its first month of release. Estimates are that it lost around $12 million. Well played Orion, well played. 

So what doesn’t work in this movie? First, there’s a terrible wraparound frame story, in which an elderly Clifford is a priest at an orphanage in the year 2050. It looks bad, it’s not funny, and it’s bright and schmaltzy in the worst kind of 1990s way. Maybe they were reaching for a Peter Falk-in-Princess Bride-vibe, but they fell way, way short. 

And that’s it for what doesn’t work, for me. That’s the only thing that doesn’t work. I know it’s an important part of the narrative (remember, the pasta fell on the floor), but there are absolutely brilliant performances and writing in this strange little movie that make it completely worth seeing despite the awful frame story. 

I’m convinced that the four lead performers (Charles Grodin, Martin Short, Mary Steenburgen, Dabney Coleman) improvised and buoyed this movie on sheer talent alone. It reminds me of a basketball team with bad coaches and a bad locker room atmosphere, but an incredibly talented starting lineup. Some nights you can just roll the ball out there and the players will win you the game on sheer ability.

The brilliance of the movie, beyond the performers, is the plot conceit. There is no explanation for why Clifford looks like a 40-year-old man, or does he not look 40-years-old? Are we supposed to believe that he looks 10-years-old because the other characters in the movie completely behave as if he is a normal looking child? It’s a bizarre, possibly brilliant idea. It doesn’t make sense in the best kind of way. 

And the photography is so cleanly and generically (I’m using this as a compliment) lit and shot, it makes the plot all the more insane. We have a completely disturbed and dangerous character, yet he looks like he’s been dropped off into just about any random, pleasant mid-’90s family comedy. It’s like Hannibal Lecter showing up in Angels in the Outfield. 

And a word about Charles Grodin. I can’t think of another performer that has a higher success rate to make me laugh. I have not seen many Grodin movies (Rosemary’s Baby, The Great Muppet Caper, Midnight Run, Beethoven, and Clifford are all that come to mind), but he’s hysterical. He also dominates my YouTube watch history once or twice a year, as I periodically re-watch his dozens of appearances on The Late Show with David Letterman and his work in Louie as Louie’s apathetic doctor/neighbor. 

He’s a brilliant performer, and there is a scene in Clifford that I would put up against any scene in any comedy movie. The scene: Uncle Martin (Grodin) has already been framed by Clifford for calling in a bomb threat and has just returned home from jail. Sitting at the kitchen table is Clifford, and Uncle Martin wants Clifford to write a confession to the police that he was the one who doctored an audio tape of the fake bomb threat. As Uncle Martin is angrily confronting Clifford, Clifford is holding his beloved toy dinosaur Steffen. At one point Uncle Martin rips Steffen from Clifford’s hands and places it on the table out of arm’s reach. Uncle Martin continues his confrontation, but Clifford cannot focus without holding Steffen, and slyly tries to reach out and grab him. At the sight of this, Uncle Martin exclaims, “You know, you touch the dinosaur, I’m gonna kill you.” 

I usually have to pause the movie at this point because I’m laughing too hard. That is the funniest thing to say to a 10-year-old that I’ve ever heard.

Okay, I’m going to stop writing about Clifford. I’m not sure what it says about me that this strange movie elicited my longest review yet. I’d like to think it’s because it has brilliant performances in a completely original plot. Or maybe I’m just a simple-minded moron.