What is the fascination with those in that era for movies? He's not the good guy or bad guy but just some snivelling slimy type, although they can also be with the badguys in some of the teen comedies especially in all of the Nerds movies (well they are the badguys), this is the Animal House path. But say like a movie Ghostbusters, there's the guy who wants them jailed, then there's this uptight jagoff walking with Dana who apparently dislikes Venkman, WHY? Back to the Future badguys are pure a-holism. Highlander made it a point to make one of the interrogators be a prick. There was the backstabbing weasly guy in Aliens. Even something like Die Hard had THREE characters, the coked up yuppie, the sleazy news reporter, and the police chief, who is also the a hole in Breakfast Club. I'm sure there are others in other times but there's a strange spotlight on that time.
and without further audieu: MCFFLYYY!!!!

IMO, King of the 80s Assholes, I present to you, Academy Award Nominee*, Mr. William Zabka


*Best Short Film, Live Action MOST 2003

This thread is a lie. Those characters act like assholes. They are not actual asshole character. I see no asshole here.

Asshole does not exist in this dojo

I call bullshit!!!

William Atherton was "the Asshole" of the 80's. The EPA guy from Ghostbusters, the professor from Real Genius, the sleazy reporter from Die Hard, and the department store owner in the 80's Twilight Zone version of Night of the Meek.

I love the story he told about walking around New York and having people constantly call him Mr. Pecker.

Chet from Weird Science.

James Spader in Pretty in Pink & Less Than Zero

though with much respect and RIP as he did it so well...



Die Hard
The Breakfast Club
Johnny Be Good

Also the A-hole in Mannequin.

DthRdrX, I heard that story too but it's got to be easier for him nowadays.

He was the coolest thing in that movie.

I saw Atherton in a deli a few blocks from the theater (the old St. Mark's Cinema) where I'd just seen him in LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR. I didn't talk to him.

Does anyone know what happened to William Zabka?

Biff wasn't really a true asshole. His character was a bit more fleshed out than most.

According to one of the posts above, he is an Oscar-nominated short film director.

And I really miss the asshole characters. It was always so much fun when they got their just desserts. Biff getting punched out by George in BTTF, for example. Great stuff.

I'm surprised that he never received a MTV Movie Award for his body of work as the biggest douchebag in movies of the 80's.

Michael Bowen was such an asshole in Valley Girl (1983) that Tarantino cast him in Kill Bill 20 years later.

If it wasn't for his genre defining turn as Hudson in Aliens, he'd be the most rad Paxton character ever. "An accident? An ACCIDENT? Do you...realize...it's snowing in my room goddammit!"

Speaking of which, Burke from Aliens. No matter how badly you hate Mad About You Paul Reiser has never been more deserving of getting his ass kicked. And boy does he!

Don't forget Zabka is in Back to School as well. And the Zabka/Rutger Hauer-looking guy in Night of the Creeps.

LOVED when Biff showed up in The Informant!

Joe Pantoliano in Risky Business. "I have a midterm in trig tomorrow and I'm being chased by Guido the killer pimp!"

Not 80's, but The Girl Next Door had some great douchebaggery turns from Timothy Olyphant (KILLS in every scene he's in) and James Remar.

Also, Dick Jones. Sometimes HE even called the Old Man...ASSHOLE!

Pretty much all James Spader roles in the 80s, no?

Also forgot, Michael Bowen also plays a pretty decent-sized, Lea Thompson-banging douche in The Wild Life (get this on DVD dammit!). Plus you get to see Rick Moranis as a douche, which also happens in Streets of Fire.

Anyone ever see The New Kids? Spader really goes to psycho levels of asshole in that one.

History lesson: The 1980s were, in fact, full of those kinds of people who really did think they were the funniest people in the room, and alpha dog enough to be vocal about it. For a while, the entertainment industry targeted these people with such characters so the rest of us could all laugh at how absurd and oblivious they were to how obnoxious they really were, and applaud when they receive their comeuppance at the end.

Somewhere in the 1990s, though, they stopped being stood up to and, instead people began to take them at face value without seeing the parody behind them. Now, we have Comedy Central where most of the fodder is built around people who don't realize their 1980s predecessors were not, in fact, intended to be a comedic blueprint.