A Superior Use of Warrant’s “Cherry Pie” in a Movie Trailer

Earlier this summer, my very good friend Anso DF bemoaned the use of Warrant’s “Cherry Pie” to help sell a homophobic (not to mention just plain unfunny) joke in the trailer for Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, David Spade and Kevin James Want New Yachts. See, Jani Lane hated “Cherry Pie” — he wanted Warrant’s second album to be named after the track “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” because he thought it was more “mature,” I’m guessing because he knew that Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe is considered a very important book, even though the lyrics to his song indicate that he neither read nor possessed even a passing knowledge of that book’s contents. “Poor Jani can’t catch a break even in death,” Anso wept. “Paired with such a hacky, wack scene, ‘Cherry Pie’ has shamed him yet again.”

Would Jani be any happier with the use of the song in yet another trailer for a new comedy, Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa? I suspect not; the bottom line seems to be that he wanted to be taken seriously as a guy who, like, read books and knew stuff and shit, and detested being known for writing history’s third-best hair metal anthem for strippers (after “Girls, Girls, Girls” and “Pour Some Sugar On Me”). But although the gag here is every bit as tasteless and stupid as the one in the trailer advertising Four Lazy Fucks and Salma Hayek’s Tits (having a child actor target child beauty queens seems a little like a guy with no legs making fun of a guy with no arms), I’d argue that it’s a much better joke, in no small part because it’s actually unexpected. It certainly had the audience I saw it with this weekend in stitches. So “Cherry Pie” lives on through history, and continues entertain millions of people around the world. The shame here isn’t that Hollywood keeps using the song — it’s that Jani was super-bummed about the world’s biggest Uptown Problem. Sigh.

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa comes out October 25.