Coneheads



Coneheads is the title of a 1993 film based on the vintage Saturday Night Live sketches about the Coneheads. The film was directed by Steve Barron and produced by Lorne Michaels. As was the case with the previous Saturday Night Live skit-inspired film The Blues Brothers, has been said to have made an "accidental" or "unintentional" political statement or social commentary about the nature of the immigrant experience in America, the filmmakers' ostensible intent being merely to entertain. Coneheads remains the only SNL film in history to receive a PG rating.

The film stars Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin as Beldar and Prymaat Clorhone (who later Anglicize their Remulakian surname to "Conehead"), parents of Connie (Michelle Burke, taking over the role played by Larraine Newman on SNL). Michael McKean and David Spade play INS officials; also appearing are Sinbad and SNL alumni Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Tim Meadows, Jon Lovitz, Peter Aykroyd, Tom Davis, Garrett Morris, Chris Farley, Larraine Newman, Kevin Nealon, Julia Sweeney, and Adam Sandler.

Other supporting cast members include Jason Alexander and Lisa Jane Persky. Alexander's Seinfeld co-star Michael Richards makes a cameo appearance, as do Eddie Griffin, Joey Lauren Adams, Parker Posey, Ellen DeGeneres, Drew Carey, Dave T. Homas, and Tom Arnold.

The movie largely took place in Paramus, New Jersey, with scenes also shot in New York City and the New Jersey towns of Jersey City, and Wrightstown.

"Larry: Wanna know a little secret? Not all my own hair. Hard to tell, isn't it? Beldar: Only from very high altitudes."
 * Adaptation Expansion: This movie is based off of a series of skits on Saturday Night Live.
 * Alien Among Us: Beldar and Pryymat ended up stranded on Earth for many years.
 * Alien Invasion: Beldar and Pryymat arrive to Earth with this goal in mind, but Beldar screws it up and ends up stranded. Of course, it's not clear how two Remulakians are expected to take over a world of billions.
 * Some of the dialog hints that Beldar and Pryymat were essentially sent to scout out the world and report back on its capabilities, and then summon the rest of the fleet.
 * All-Star Cast
 * Big Eater: The Coneheads engage in consumption of mass quantities.
 * Buzzsaw Jaw: ...and when they do, they tend to do it very quickly.
 * Bizarre Alien Biology: Wow.
 * Black Dude Dies First: the disgraced guardsman.
 * Brutal Honesty: Beldar and Prymaat, often.

"Prymaat: (doing a newspaper crossword) What is a seven-letter word for a tomb in ancient Egypt which is a quadrilateral masonry mass having smooth, steeply-sloping sides meeting at an apex? Beldar: A flendar. Prymaat: Ahh! (happily fills in the crossword)"
 * Call a Rabbit a Smeerp

"Eli Turnbull: Excuse me sir, but should they be, in fact, creatures from another planet, isn't that the Air Force's responsibility? Gorman Seedling: If they're just visiting, sure... but the minute they try to work here, they're mine!"
 * The Cameo: Tons of them, in fact.
 * Chekhov's Skill: Beldar's golf skills come in handy
 * Cigar Fuse-Lighting: Beldar does this when he lights the fuse to a tiny homemade firework...that produces a massive explosion.
 * Expospeak Gag: Along with Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness and Call a Rabbit a Smeerp, composes almost all the Conehead dialog.
 * Extreme Omnivore: Coneheads are capable of eating many things. For one, Beldar ate the soap and toilet paper in their motel room.
 * Happily Married: Beldar and Prymat are probably one of the best examples you could ask for... and that's in spite of the fact that they regularly engage in Brutal Honesty with each other. Just how much they're like a loving married couple is what lets the audience empathize despite all the humor revolving around how alien they are.
 * Hollywood Jehovah's Witness: Seedling and Eli impersonate Jehovah's Witnesses to infiltrate the Coneheads' house. They have the unbelievable bad timing to do it on the very day the Coneheads' rescue ship arrives.
 * Inhumanable Alien Rights: Subverted. INS Deputy Commissioner Gorman Seedling does not care they are aliens, and treats them like humans. In fact, he treats them exactly like illegal immigrants, although would probably be at a loss how to deport them.

"Connie: It's just a decal, everyone's wearing them. Beldar: If everyone jumped into a bitumious cauldron, would you jump in too? Connie: I am not a little cone anymore, dad!"
 * Ironic Echo: Beldar is driving Connie and her girlfriends who turn on the radio and sing along wildly to "Tainted Love", to which Beldar looks repulsed. Later, when Beldar must fight a coneheaded monster, he starts singing that song. It's not like it came in handy like a Chekhov's Gun since singing that song would cause the Garthok to better zero in on Beldar's hiding place, but it does set the stage for the aforementioned Chekhov's Skill.
 * Joisey
 * "Jump Off a Bridge" Rebuttal: Beldar Conehead's reaction at his daughter's fake tattoo on her cone.

"(Beldar tears open the roof to Ronnie's car) Ronnie: H-hi, Mr. Conehead. Beldar: I find you unacceptable! Ronnie: Yes, sir. Beldar: If I did not fear incarceration from human authority figures, I would terminate your life functions by applying sufficient pressure to your blunt skull so as to force its collapse! Ronnie: Th-thank you."
 * Microts: The Remulak unit of time known as the zerl. Seven of them constitute about sixteen Earth years.
 * More Teeth Than the Osmond Family: Beldar demonstrated how many teeth Coneheads have when he went to the dentist to get them capped... all four rows of them. And he can open his mouth reeeeeeally wide.
 * My Brain Is Big: The aliens have huge heads shaped like cones. That is why they are so intelligent.
 * No Sense of Personal Space: Beldar and other Remulakians often exhibits behavior like this, being aliens. Once Beldar has been informed that Earthlings dislike having their personal space invaded, he often seems to use this to his advantage.
 * Omniglot: Seedling speaks French, surprising even Eli. He uses it in an attempt to poke a hole in the Coneheads' story, except they have already covered that eventuality.
 * Overprotective Dad: Although he does warm up to Connie's boyfriend by the end of the movie, Beldar can be quite the Overprotective Dad in his own peculiar way (and backed up by Super Strength):

"Prymaat: Say "lactate extract of hoofed mammal!" Connie and Ronnie: Cheese!"
 * Pragmatic Adaptation: The Coneheads in the original skit were almost a Shallow Parody of Vulcans mixed with Mork. The movie has them emote a lot more (so that they're more relatable and watchable), has Connie act like an American girl (rather than exactly like her parents), and has the Coneheads at least try to blend in aside from claiming to be from France.
 * Product Placement: Connie's consumption of mass quantities involves her downing an entire Subway footlong in three bites. Subway even promoted the movie with their "Mass Quantities Meal Deal".
 * Professional Butt-Kisser: Seedling's assistant Turnbull (David Spade). He even manages to become a confidant to the leader of the Coneheads' people after he and his boss are captured and enslaved.
 * Ready for Lovemaking: Prymaat, after consuming mass quantities of women's magazines looking for advice on how to keep Beldar interested in her.
 * Screaming Birth: Connie's birth is accompanied by oceans of fluid, truly epic mugging from her mother Prymaat, and glass-shattering howls. Considering that her biological readings at that point are apparently enough to cause Earth medical machines to howl like a red alert and fling sparks, the screaming's likely justified. Also literally crushing her husband's hand as she shouts "I hate you, Beldar! I hate yoooou!" And then Beldar, when asked by the obstetrician if he would like to cut the umbilical cord (and being offered a pair of scissors to do so), leans in and bites clean through it. Cue the obstetrician's humourous fainting.
 * Serious Business: It's, apparently, high treason for a Remulakian to alter his teeth... excuse me, tralns in any way. Beldar forgets this.
 * Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Another side-effect of being from Remulak, summed up in the ending:


 * Stay with the Aliens
 * Inverted. . Making it an inversion of Going Native.
 * Seedling's assistant does in fact stay with the aliens, when he realizes that he has a chance to brownnose a planetary ruler.
 * Super Strength: Beldar can lift up a car from its back wheels and tear the roof off with his bare hands.
 * Tempting Fate: Prymaat just had to go and say "Life on Earth is good"...
 * Unusual Euphemism: "He will surely cut off my plargh and hand it to me."
 * Uwehhhh!
 * Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The Coneheads' Bizarre Alien Biology is remarked upon, but no one ever treats it like more than an oddity, rather than obvious signs that they are not human.
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist: Seedling doesn't seem to actually be racist (unlike indications from his assistant), and is apparently sincere in his beliefs about why immigration must be controlled. He just takes it too far. Even at the end he sticks to his principles, and then it's just, "As long as you're not stealing a job from an American, I'm fine with you being here."
 * Wild Card Excuse: The reason that they are so weird is that they are from France.