This week's Doonesbury storyline involves Joanie Caucus getting back in the campaigning game as a consultant for Elizabeth Warren's senate race in Mass. She's in Worcester today. (Worcester!) Monday's strip (above) demonstrates just how strongly the trope of the road trip grips our culture. And, while it all goes back to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, movies have become the primary delivery vehicle.
Two people get in a car and take off. They might be buddies (Thelma & Louise, Stranger Than Paradise), rivals (Steve Coogan & Rob Brydon in The Trip), even husband and wife (Lost in America with Albert Brooks and Julie Haggerty). Of course, one of the great variations is strangers thrown together, as in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. It's not my favorite John Candy movie (that would be Uncle Buck) or Steve Martin movie (The Spanish Prisoner) but it's got a ton of great moments. My favorite: Riding in the back of a pig farmer's truck on the way to catch the "people train," a freezing Neal (Steve Martin) asks the ever-optimistic Del (John Candy) how much farther. Del: "Not far.... Not all that far."
Here's a scene that will cheer up anybody--as we should be cheerful just before disaster. (R.I.P. John Candy and John Hughes.)
This post goes out to my brother Tony, who may not even remember that he introduced me to Uncle Buck. He's also the undisputed road warrior of the family.
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