MR. HOLLOW'S OLD PUSS

MR. HOLLAND'S OPUS (1995)
dir: Stephen Herek

MR.HOLLOW'S OLD PUSS
MAD #346, June 1996
w: Stan Hart
a: Angelo Torres

The movie is about the life of Glenn Holland (Richard Dreyfuss), his career as a teacher at John F. Kennedy High School over thirty years, when he initially took the job on the side while working on a composition. It begins with its changing the name from Ulysses Grant High School. Through stock footage of Vietnam, the oil crisis, punk rock, etc, it shows the passage of time. The passage of time here is shown by the campaign buttons of Principal Jacobs (Olympia Dukakis). The “No Dukakis” button is a joke about she's a relative of 1988 candidate Mike Dukakis.

Gertrude Lang (Alicia Witt) is a student of his who becomes inspired by him. Mr. Meister (Jay Thomas) is a phys ed teach that becomes Mr. Holland's best friend. Another, student, Russ (Terence Howard) is a student he inspires to play drums in a marching band. At home, Mr. Holland finds out his wife (Glenne Headley) is pregnant. This parody has all kinds of sight gags referring to previous Richard Dreyfuss movies.

Mr. Holland's students are unenthusiastic until he shows them the similarities between classical music and rock'n'roll, which doesn't sit well with the principal, and Vice Principal Wolters (William H. Macy), who's had it in for him since he started there. His student Rowena (Jean Louisa Kelly) is a singer for a school play saluting Gershwin. The Hollands raise their son only to find out he's deaf.

Russ is killed in Vietnam and Mr. Holland attends his funeral. Rowena drops out of school to become a professional singer in the big city. The Hollands' son Cole (Joseph Anderson) acts out feeling his father ignores him. Mr. Wolters, now the principal, has to cancel the school's music department and fires Mr. Holland.

As Mr. Holland gathers his things and leaves the school with his family, they catch him by surprise revealing an auditorium full of every student he's taught over the last thirty years. Gertrude (Joanna Gleason) is now the Governor of the state and introduces him for an assembly. They must have edited out footage of Rowena returning since it wasn't in the cut I saw. MAD's later movie parodies often had scenes that weren't in the movie, leading me to believe the parody was written from a script or advance screener before release of the movie. There were scenes where the wife suspected something was going on between them, which would explain it. Mr. Holland finally gets to perform the symphony he composed.