It’s time for the most obscure Tiger Trivia ever.
Question: What was playing on the radio during the garage sale scene in the 1983 movie Suburbia?
Answer: The broadcast to the 1982 Auburn-Nebraska game.
The pop-culturability of Auburn football knows no bounds, but hearing the broadcast of an Auburn football game in the background of a classic punxploitation film is truly surreal, and truly inexplicable.
I’ve yet to see Suburbia in its entirety; something about the child being mauled to death by the wild dog at the beginning, followed by the screaming girl being stripped naked in the mosh pit at the D.I. show just wasn’t doing it for me. (Can’t see the video? Try here.)
But you’d occasionally hear folks talk about the garage sale scene at Auburn house shows back in the day. “Dude, I swear you can hear the Iron Bowl.”
TWER finally got our hands on the clip. We poured over it with all the sick attention to detail you’ve come to expect. It’s not the Iron Bowl.
Nor does it seem to be an Auburn (Network) broadcast. The meter and inflection, if not the tone, is similar to Jim Fyffe’s, but the announcer lacks familiarity with the Auburn players — he mentions Bo Jackson, but describes a substitution under center not with a name but as Auburn “going with another quarterback.” (Can’t see the video? Try here.)
We’re assuming it’s Nebraska crew.
You can tell it’s an Auburn home game due to an audible “Waaaaaaaar Eagle, Hey!” during the second half kick off. But the only other context clue is the score of a game read between downs: “At the half, Oklahoma 10 – Iowa State 3 in the league opener.”
That would almost certainly make the date October, 2 1982, the day the Sooners beat the Cyclones, 13-3. Which means that the disaffected youth of Costa Mesa, California — director Penelope Spheeris thought it easier to teach local punks (including a young Flea) how to act than actors how to act like punks — aren’t listening to Bo Over the Top as they harass their lower-middle class oppressors, but Auburn on its way to a 41-7 drubbing by the Nebraska Cornhuskers.
Question: Why?
Answer: We have no idea.
Punk rock.
…
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Perhaps it is a broadcast recording from the Nebraska network. Doubtful they would of been able to identify who the AU back up QB was and they would be the only ones that cared enough to announce the OU/ISU score at that time.
My husband and I were living in Minnesota in 1982 and drove 9 hours to meet my folks in Lincoln, Nebraska to attend that game….we sat in the pouring down rain but even at that, it was still good to see the Auburn Tigers in action (at the time, we hadn’t seen a game in person and only a limited few on TV since 1979.) Our Minnesota friends could not believe we were going to drive 9 hours to see a college football game; I just told them, “It’s an Auburn thing, you wouldn’t understand”.
The guy in the yellow sweater looks so much like Michael Emerson aka Benjamin Linus from Lost, sounds a little like him too. According to imdb.com Emerson’s first film appearance was in 1990 but maybe he went uncredited…
Cathy, if I’m not mistaken you’re thinking of the 1981 game which was in Lincoln and which Auburn played them very close. The 1982 game, which was Bo’s freshman year, was in Auburn and we got beat 41-7.
I’m not 100% sure but I think Auburn’s lone touchdown was indeed a “Bo over the top”.
The 1982 game was in Auburn–I was in the Auburn Marching Band so I was there. The 1981 game was in Lincoln–Auburn actually had a 3-0 lead (at halftime, maybe??) but the Huskers came back to win either 17-3 or 14-3. It was a “moral vistory” you might say but the next year when everybody thought Auburn might actually have a chance was an embarrassment.
“Victory”
I saw this movie about 4 or 5 years ago for the first time, and TOTALLY picked up on that. “Auburn Offense” completely caught my attention. I rewound it several times to make sure I heard it right.