The Games of the Films of Pauly Shore Vol 1
Along with Encino Man, Son In Law is considered one of Pauly Shore’s better movies. It’s a standard fish out of water tale involving Shore’s eccentric Californian ways clashing with rural tradition with comedic results. As Shore spends time with his temporary family for thanksgiving he wins them over through sheer force of will and his complete commitment to the way of The Weasel. At one point he mimes swimming while laying on a dirt road while repeatedly exclaiming “middle america” to nobody in particular. The first family member to warm to their new guest is Zack, the young computer whiz whose hobbies aren’t appreciated by his father. At one point, his father specifically calls out the fact that all Zack prefers playing his video games instead of engaging in the farm’s upkeep. But what game is Zack playing?
Well we see he’s got a computer in his room, and the sheer number of PC games available by 1993 makes any attempt to figure out what he’d have on there a fool’s errand*. That leaves us to look at the Game Boy that he’s seen playing throughout the film. What could he be playing?
Son In Law was released on July 2nd, 1993. The Game Boy was released just under four years earlier on July 31st, 1989. This gives us a good range of dates, but we can get more specific. While released in July, IMDB has the filming dates listed as being between November of 1992 and January of 1993. The movie itself takes place during Thanksgiving. It’s safe to say that this would be the Thanksgiving of 1992 given director Steve Rash’s rarely makes films set in the future.
So now we have a date range of July 31st, 1989 to November 26th, 1992. During that range, between 251 and 254 games were released for the Game Boy. Three of them were unlicensed releases by Wisdom Tree, and release dates are unavailable outside of a vague 1993 listing on GameFaqs. “But wait!” you say “You’re completely ignoring an entire dataset! What about imports?”.
True, Zack is a well connected teenager. It can be assumed that he knows how to order things via catalog, and while internet shopping would be practically nonexistent in 1992, he could in theory make connections via newsgroups, allowing him to import video games by sending someone money overseas and having the games shipped. I find this unlikely, however. Zack isn’t old enough to have a job, and it can be assumed that most of his money comes from a weekly allowance. A quick search of parent sites shows that a recommended allowance for an early teen is around $12 a week. Adjusted for inflation, this is between five and six 1992 dollars. From what I can gather, in the fall of 1992, the Japanese Yen to US Dollar exchange rate was roughly 124 to 1. While this does point to his money going further in Japan, any savings from exchange rates would be completely demolished by what are sure to be high import fees due to the specialty nature of importing a video game as well as shipping fees that themselves would be significant. So while Zack seems like the type who may enjoy a good taste of import gaming, the barriers of entry seem a bit too high, allowing us to limit our search to the US market and saving us from sifting through another hundred or so releases exclusive to Japan.
Now, onto context clues within the movie itself.
In the scene where we see Zack playing his Game Boy, there’s no label on the game. There is a game in the Game Boy, this isn’t a Rumble in the Bronx scenario, but the game itself remains a mystery visually. Zack tells his sister Becca that he’s playing a fishing game, and he claims it’s called “Whopper”. The sounds coming from the system are typical sound library video game effects which doesn’t give us any fishing leads, but does let us know he’s not playing a heavily modded version of VCS Donkey Kong. Given the lack of a label and the minimal description of the game, it’s back to the chronological list of game boy releases to figure out what fishing games were released when Son In Law was being filmed.
However, looking over the list, we learn that by November 1992, there weren’t any fishing games released for the Game Boy in the US. Hyper Black Bass would have been released in Japan, but wouldn’t get a US release until 1994. So what could he be referring to when talking about “Whopper”? The evidence only points to one remaining game.
Fish Dude is a fish based game released for the Game Boy by Sofel in 1991. Sofel also gave us Wall Street Kid and Casino Kid, but their other titles aren’t nearly as well known. Fish Dude plays similar to Shark Shark! onIntellivision, with you controlling a fish that has to eat smaller fish while avoiding the larger fish that want to eat you. It’s not an overly complex game, and while it is charming, it’s charming more so as an oddity than as a novel or particularly fun game.
Fish Dude is also a bit simplistic for someone of Zack’s age. He seems to be around 14, given his demeanor and love of Playboy, and he’s proven that he’s got some pretty advanced computer skills for the time. He seems to think he’s a bit too cool for his age, and clearly wants to be seen as an independent human. He’s somewhat irritated by his family and their lives as farmers, but doesn’t seem to outright dislike them. In fact, by the time we see him playing his Game Boy, the family unit seems to be functioning pretty well, as evidenced by thefact that he’s letting his older sister Becca watch him play his game boy game. All of this is typical teenager stuff, which makes a scenario where the game he’s playing is Fish Dude even more plausible.
Zack likes technology and the outside world far more than he does the farm he lives on and the tasks associated with it. However, he doesn’t want to entirely alienate his family, and does seem to have some skill as a farmer (at one point he teaches Pauly Shore’s character how to milk a cow). It’s reasonable then, that on a trip to his local video game retailer, he sought out a game that could reflect a marriage of his love of video games and his family’s farming background. He no doubt came across a copy of Fish Dude, and a lightbulb went off. There was just one problem.
Fish Dude looks like a child’s game, and “Fish Dude” is a title surely to be scoffed at by his father, who spends the bulk of the movie making fun of the same California inspired slang that Fish Dude’s title is playing off of. Thus, after covertly purchasing and bringing home his copy of Fish Dude, he removed the label, and played it conspicuously in the dining room where his family members might inquire about it. Knowing his father uses somewhat dated phrasing, Zack made up a title based on how his father may describe a sizable fish he’s caught - Whopper. By playing a fishing game, and giving it an appealing title, Zack is attempting to covertly signal to his dad that he’s not adverse to the more traditional and outdoor lifestyle offered by their rural life, he just wants to approach it on his own terms. It’s a subtlety that he himself may not even be aware of. Given that he’s in the early grades of high school, he’s probably taking his first steps toward developing his own distinct identity. Buying a Sofel game signals to everyone that he’s not afraid to go against the mainstream every now and again. Or at least it would, had he not removed the label. He is a teenager, after all. He’s not going to bat a thousand when it comes to long term decisions.
And so there we have it. From scarce little information, we can make the plausible argument that the kid in Son in Law is playing Fish Dude. Our case isn’t airtight, but given the available games of 1992 and the personality of the person playing the game, I think we can safety call this mystery solved after all these years.
I wanted to get this game/movie combo out of the way first. In other Pauly Shore films, the games involved are far easier to research, and one of them even holds a significant place in gaming history. Sadly, these other titles will also offer far less in the way of wild speculation. Then again, maybe that’s a good thing.
Next time: Can Sonic’s first appearance help a caveman parallel park? Can an arcade racer teach you how to push the limits of a 1992 Ford Tempo? Find out this and more in The Games of the Films of Pauly Shore Vol. 2: Encino Man.
*Incidentally, The Fool’s Errand did have an MS-DOS release, so there is a possibility Zack has played it in the time of the movie.