Due to its modest gross of $14,143,280 at the U.S. box office,[3]Disney opted not to continue the franchise, making this the fourth and final Ernest film to be released under the Disney label, Touchstone Pictures. The next film in the series, Ernest Rides Again, was independently distributed and was the final Ernest film to be released theatrically. Subsequent Ernest films were made for the straight-to-video market.[4]
In the late 19th century, the demonic troll Trantor transforms children into wooden dolls to feast upon their energy in Briarville, Missouri. The townsfolk capture him and seal him under an oak tree, with Phineas Worrell, one of the village elders and an ancestor of Ernest P. Worrell, establishing the seal. Trantor vengefully places a curse on the Worrell family, stating that he can only be released on October 30, the night before Halloween, by a Worrell. As part of the curse, every generation of Worrells will get "dumber and dumber and dumber", until the dumbest member of the family is foolish enough to release him from his earthly prison.
One hundred years later, Ernest, a sanitation worker, helps a few of his middle school friends, Kenny Binder, Elizabeth and Joey, construct a treehouse in the same tree that unknowingly contains the dormant creature, after the mayor's sons demolished their own cardboard haunted house. When Old Lady Hackmore discovers this, she angrily leaves. Following her, Ernest learns the story of Trantor and idiotically reports it to the kids. Inadvertently, Ernest releases the troll.
Joey is walking home from the treehouse when he hears something rustling through the trees. Joey slowly walks and slips down in a muddy hole. Trantor grabs Joey's wrist and turns him into a wooden doll. Ernest finds Kenny's dad, Sheriff Cliff Binder, and explains the situation but Binder does not believe him. After none of the townsfolk will assist Ernest because of the upcoming Halloween party, he mounts a one-man (and one-dog) defense operation in preparation for Trantor's appearance. Meanwhile, Trantor captures a boy on a skateboard as his second victim.
Tom and Bobby Tulip, hoping to exploit Ernest, sell him various fake troll traps, but one backfires on the mayor's sons and Ernest loses his job. Ernest, Kenny and Elizabeth return to Hackmore, where they learn that only "the heart of a child, and a mother's care" can defeat the troll. Later that night, Trantor claims Elizabeth as his third victim as he sneaks into her house while she is resting on her bed.
While Kenny and his friend Gregg are walking, Trantor uses Elizabeth's voice to lure Kenny away, then takes Gregg as a fourth victim. Despite parents being upset at their missing children, Mayor Murdock and Sheriff Binder still proceed with a Halloween party at the school, believing the missing children will be there. Trantor appears there and takes the mayor's oldest son as his fifth and final wooden doll. In the ensuing fight between Trantor and Ernest, Trantor turns Ernest's dog Rimshot into a wooden doll before being repelled by soft-serve ice cream on Ernest's hands. Kenny realizes that "mother's care" refers to milk and rallies a troll-fighting team to destroy them.
Back at the treehouse, Trantor successfully summons his army of trolls while Ernest unsuccessfully tries to stop them. The townspeople show up, only for the trolls to overwhelm and beat them up. Kenny and his friends arrive and begin destroying the trolls with milk. During the fight, Trantor escapes beneath the tree where he summons the powers of the underworld, making him invincible, especially to milk. Enraged, Kenny unsuccessfully tries to destroy Trantor, who also turns Kenny into a doll. With the other townsfolk now backing him up and telling him to douse Trantor in milk, Ernest realizes that milk weakened the troll children, while unconditional love ("the heart of a child") would weaken Trantor himself. He takes Trantor and dances with him while the mob watches, overloading him with love, and finally kisses his snot-ridden nose, causing Trantor to explode.
With Trantor's destruction, Ernest is proclaimed a hero. Sheriff Binder apologizes to his son for doubting him and Ernest. All of the wooden dolls as well as Rimshot are restored, including those from the early 19th century, and everyone is reunited with their families.
Like previous entries in the series, Ernest Scared Stupid was directed by John Cherry. He initially conceived a simple premise: Ernest trying to stop "a bad guy with a mission". He researched several types of antagonists in fiction, pondering who the "bad guy" would be, and became intrigued with trolls, leading to a Halloween Ernest film.[5] A film named Ernest Scared Stiff was announced in two issues of Variey, published June 10 and July 22, 1991. Sources contradict on the start of principal photography. Both the July 22 Variety article and the film's production notes claim May 1991, the Variety piece being more specific with May 21, while the June 10 article claimed it was going to begin. July 18.[5] The June 10 issue also mentioned the final name, Ernest Scared Stupid.[5] Filming took place in Nashville, Tennessee.[5]
James Albert Varney Jr. was an American actor and comedian. He is best known for his comedic role as Ernest P. Worrell, for which he won a Daytime Emmy Award, as well as appearing in films and numerous television commercial advertising campaigns. He played Jed Clampett in a film adaptation of The Beverly Hillbillies (1993) and also covered a song for the film titled "Hot Rod Lincoln". and performed the voice of Slinky Dog in the first two films of the Toy Story franchise (1995–1999). He died at age 50 of lung cancer on February 10, 2000, leaving two posthumous releases, Daddy and Them and Atlantis: The Lost Empire.
A troll doll is a type of plastic doll with furry up-combed hair depicting a troll, also known as a Dam doll after their creator Danish woodcutter Thomas Dam. The inspiration came from trolls in old Scandinavian folklore. The toys are also known as good luck trolls.
Ernest P. Worrell is a fictional character that was portrayed by American actor Jim Varney in a series of television commercials and then later in a television series and a series of feature films.
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Ernest Goes to Camp is a 1987 American comedy film directed by John Cherry and starring Jim Varney. It is the second film to feature the character Ernest P. Worrell, and the first film in the Ernest series. It was shot at Montgomery Bell State Park. It was also the first Ernes film to be distributed by Touchstone Pictures. This film also marks Iron Eyes Cody's final appearance on screen.
Hey Vern, It's Ernest! is an American children's television program. It aired on Saturday mornings on CBS for one season in 1988. Each episode involved short sketches on a certain theme or scenario, featuring Ernest P. Worrell, his unseen friend Vern, and various others. The filming locations were in Nashville, Tennessee, and Burbank, California. It was a production of Ernest creator John Cherry's production company, The Emshell Producers' Group, in association with CBS, and was co-produced with DIC Enterprises. The series was later rerun on The Family Channel in the early 1990s.
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Ernest in the Army is a 1998 American direct-to-video comedy film directed by John Cherry and starring Jim Varney. It is the tenth film to feature the character Ernest P. Worrell, the ninth and final film in the Ernest series and the final appearance of Jim Varney as Ernest, before his death in February 2000. In this film, Ernest joins the Army because he wants to drive large vehicles, but ends up being sent into combat. It was shot in Cape Town, South Africa's Koeberg Nature Reserve.
Carl Ernst Fosselius, better known as Ernie Fosselius, is an American filmmaker. He is best known for his satirical spoofs of popular films, including the Star Wars parody Hardware Wars.
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Ernest Goes to Africa is a 1997 American direct to video comedy film. It was written and directed by John Cherry and stars Jim Varney. It is the ninth film to feature the character Ernest P. Worrell, and the eighth film in the Ernest series. In this film, Deacon County, Ohio resident Ernest unknowingly comes into the possession of some stolen jewels and is kidnapped and brought to Africa where he must rescue the woman he loves. The film was shot entirely in Johannesburg, South Africa.
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"Treehouse of Horror XXI" is the fourth episode of the twenty-second season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 7, 2010. This is the 21st Treehouse of Horror episode, and, like the other Treehouse of Horror episodes, consisted of three self-contained segments: In "War and Pieces", Bart and Milhouse discover a real-life board game that they must win to return home; in "Master and Cadaver", Marge and Homer go on a honeymoon on a sailboat, and rescue a mysterious castaway named Roger; and in "Tweenlight", Lisa falls in love with a vampire named Edmund.
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References
↑ Ernest gets Scared Steroid, The Tennessean (Nashville, TN), Apr. 2, 1991 ("With numbers like that, it's no surprise Disney was ready to okay another $9.6 million budget and give their approval to the script for Ernest Scared Stupid, written by Cherry, Coke Sams and Dan Butler."), https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/113033380/
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