5 Questions: The Adventures of Ford Fairlane
After working in the entertainment industry for nearly a decade, Andrew Dice Clay’s career skyrocketed in the late 1980’s. There was never a character quite like the Diceman and people couldn’t get enough. He had a hugely popular stand up special on HBO, he sold out Madison Square Garden and he revolutionized the nursery rhymes industry. Clay’s success and the fact that he had acting experience led to his starring role in the action comedy, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane.
The Adventures of Ford Fairlane surrounded Dice with an eclectic cast of supporting players that included fellow comedian Gilbert Gottfried, Ed O’Neil, Priscilla Presley, Lauren Holly, Wayne Newton, Sheila E, Morris Day, Tone Loc and even Robert Englund.
The movie also had me asking some questions…
1. What came first the man or the car?
Does Ford Fairlane drive a Ford Fairlane in honor of the name his parents bestowed upon him at birth? Or is he just known as Ford Fairlane because that is his car of choice? I am going to go with the latter since Johnny Crunch jokingly refers to him as both Chevy Nova and Suzuki Samurai.
2. Has any other movie featured the phrase “rock-n-roll detective”?
Clay’s character, Ford Fairlane, is a private detective that specializes in investigating crimes in the music industry. Fairlane chose this specialty because he had originally moved out to California (with his now shock jock buddy Johnny Crunch) to pursue a musical career. When that didn’t pan out, Fairlane became a “rock-n-roll detective” to have some association with his dream job in the music industry.
While Fairlane isn’t a fan of the moniker “rock-n-roll detective”, nearly every other character in the film utters the phrase. I’m not sure if this phrase was use in any other movie, but I am confident no other movie used it as frequently as The Adventures of Ford Fairlane.
3. Do all CD-ROMs make computer noises if you put them in a CD player?
I have not used or even seen a CD-ROM in quite some time and I don’t recall ever putting one in the CD player in my car or home stereo, but something tells me if a person was going to do that, it wouldn’t play “computer noise” as it does in The Adventures of Ford Fairlane.
4. Who had more screen time? Vince Neil in The Adventures of Ford Fairlane or Bret Michaels in No Code of Conduct?
One was the front man for the legendary Mötley Crüe, the other was the front man for Poison. But aside from being the lead singers for famous rock groups, Neil and Michaels also have been known to die early on in movies.
Vince Neil’s character Bobby Black, lead singer of the Black Plague, is murdered in The Adventures of Ford Fairlane shortly after the opening credits are over. Bret Michaels’ character in No Code of Conduct is an undercover cop who has his cover blown and is killed.
I will give the edge to Vince Neil, since the Bobby Black character appears again later in the movie, when Fairlane is watching a Black Plague music video.
5. Is that really what goes on at sorority houses?
After his car is destroyed, Ford Farilane hitches a ride with a sorority girl (played by Kari Wuhrer of Berserker: Hell’s Warrior fame) and she takes him back to her sorority house where Fairlane thinks he has died and gone to heaven. There are scantily clad girls as far as the eye could see, the girls are touching one other, exercising together and provocatively eating corn dogs. Ohhhhh!
