John Hughes, trivia–what more could an arts and entertainment geek want on a Monday night?

Oh, how I love AMC’s “Story Notes” series.

I was watching “The Breakfast Club” Monday night on AMC and there were facts that would intermittently flash about the actors, movie, script or the writer/director himself.

I took interest in a particular fact that popped up in the bottom left corner of the screen. Hughes studied to become an artist at the University of Arizona at one point. He took creative writing as well, but he failed the class. He failed it. Can you believe it?

Hughes, of all people, failed creative writing. He later dropped out of the University of Arizona and threw out all of the paintings he created while he was there.

With this in mind, I continued to watch “The Breakfast Club” and I remembered the gloriousness that is “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” I listened to the monologue of the jock and how he taped a poor kid’s hairy butt cheeks together. That monologue alone captures the spirit of high school pressure and adolescence, and the monologue of The Brain was even better.

The man was a genius and he knew how to make teenage movies that are timeless. How could he have possibly failed creative writing?

Bear in mind my last blog entry. After I read that fact, I couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief.

Hughes didn’t need higher education; he made movies that will be quoted for generations to come. If Hughes could do that–crank out movies one after the other–without the help of a bachelor’s degree, think of what I’m capable of with a degree.

I just hope that it won’t be for nothing. The worry’s still there; I want my degree to mean something in my efforts to be the best journalist I can be. Hopefully the integrity of higher education isn’t ruined by the time I’m out in the work force.