Talkin’ About His Generation: New Book Chronicles the Making of Millennial Touchstone “Superbad” | Interviews

Andrew Buss was 14 when he, his father, and grandfather went to see “Superbad” at the Regal Cinema in Lake Zurich, Illinois. He has two memories of that night. The first is that it was a bonding experience between the three generations that the Buss’s rarely seen outside of a Cubs game. Second, was the laughter. “Like there was going to be structural damage to the theater,” he recalled. “To this day I’ve never experienced anything like it where the laughter was that strong. Something special was happening up on the screen and everybody was just eating it up.”

In 2022, Buss, an entertainment writer, commemorated the film’s 15th anniversary with an oral history about the making of the film that made such an indelible impression on him. It is a testament to how much the film meant to its cast and creators that he was able to coral all the major players to talk about the film’s fraught journey to the screen. Now, it’s been expanded into a book, I AM MCLOVIN: How Superbad Became the Biggest Comedy Hit of Its Generation.

Buss is the author of Top Five: How ‘High Fidelity’ Found Its Rhythm and Became a Cult Movie Classic, which New York Magazine included in its list of 2023’s “Best and Funniest Comedy Books.” It, too, originated as an oral history.

Directed by Greg Mottola, produced by Judd Apatow, and written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (they knocked out a first draft when they were 13), “Superbad” follows a long night’s journey into day as college-bound BFFs Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) volunteer to score alcohol to gain entry into the party of the end-of-the-school year and hopefully, their crushes.

“Superbad” went on to gross more than $121 million and is an oft-quoted cult classic and basic cable perennial. In his three-and-a-half-star review, Roger Ebert called it “a four-letter raunch-a-rama with a heart, and an inordinate interest in other key organs.”  

We talked to Buss about “Superbad”’s status as a generational touchstone.

So, what are we talking about when we talk about “Superbad”?

Like a lot of the great high school movies, it is defining for a generation, but universal in its appeal. “Dazed and Confused” is set in the ’70s, “The Breakfast Club” defines what it means to be a kid in the ’80s, and “Clueless” is very ’90s. But each still holds up today. “Superbad” is set in 2007. I saw it with my father, who belongs to Gen-X, and my grandfather, who was born in the 1930s. We were all able to laugh and relate to the film’s underlying theme of friendship; it’s these two guys who have separation anxiety about going to different colleges. And yes, they’re both trying to land their dream girls, but at the end of the day, it’s about this friendship between Seth and Evan. Everyone’s had a best friend that they’ve drifted away from.

“National Lampoon’s Animal House” is a baby boomer touchstone and It’s interesting to compare its mindset with “Superbad.” On the one hand, Seth and Evan would have fit right in at the Delta House.

Yeah. Absolutely. And Fogle would be more like Flounder, the one that no one really wants to take in, but he’s a legacy, so they have to.

But “Animal House” has in its DNA that boomer mistrust of authority and sense of rebellion out of a Marx Brothers movie. Seth and Evan definitely want to be in with the in-crowd.

One thing that makes it a millennial touchstone is that it doesn’t shy away from embracing the awkwardness of the characters. They don’t suddenly become cooler by the end of the film, with the exception of McLovin, thanks to the assist from the cops. But McLovin never thought he was a nerd to begin with. He holds himself like he’s the coolest guy in the world, Seth and Evan, however, are not suddenly the most popular guys in town by the end of the film, which was a common trope of films in the ’70s and ’80s. They remain outsiders, and don’t seem to mind being outsiders, so long as they have their crushes by their sides.

“Superbad” puts its own spin on the “one wild night” sub-genre of high school films, along with “American Graffiti” and “Dazed and Confused.”

It’s also a mission movie, but, unlike the Deltas in “Animal House,” they completely fail in their mission: “We’re going to get alcohol.” What happens: Emma Stone’s character doesn’t drink, and Evan’s dream girl is already drunk. It’s corny to say, but they didn’t need alcohol to get the girls to like them.

But everybody has that one best night, that one last party that they think back to. So, these movies are ultimate fantasies in a way, even when things go horribly wrong, as in “Superbad,” which has so many things in it that are just completely wild and out of left field. I don’t think many people can relate to firing guns at the police car as it’s being lit on fire, but I do think they can relate to the overall feeling of being an outcast, or one last party.

It’s a testament to how meaningful this movie is to the cast and crew that you were able to get everyone for your oral history.

Absolutely. Everybody expressed what that movie meant to them because they were all young. At 28, Bill Hader was the elder statesman. As I write in the book, it’s a movie of night shoots, and that bonded the cast together. They were just hanging out. It was a party atmosphere. In the party scene, you’ll see Danny McBride. Clark Duke, who was Mike Cera’s friend, is in the movie as an extra. The cast and crew were like, “Hey, why don’t you come hang with us? We’re filming ‘Superbad.’” Emma Stone and Martha MacIsaac are friends to this day. When I interviewed Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, they told me how they all hung out, and Evan said, “Jonah’s going to teach me how to surf next week.”

So, obviously, you place “Superbad” in the pantheon of classic high school movies.

There’s a lot of raunchiness in “Superbad,” but it’s not afraid to wear its heart on its sleeve. I don’t know anyone in high school who doesn’t have moments of being very vulnerable and very emotional.