During the first ice age, a caveman attempts to make fire with his cavewoman girlfriend. An earthquake causes a cave-in that buries the two of them.
In 1992, an earthquake awakens Dave Morgan, an Encino teenager who strives to attain popularity in high school, but unlike his popular friend, Stoney Brown, is unsuccessful. Dave is in love with Robyn Sweeney, who was his best friend in grade school and had been rejected by him several times prior. Her boyfriend, Matt Wilson, is a jock who constantly humiliates Dave and Stoney, usually due to Dave's affection toward Robyn.
One day, while digging a pool in his backyard, Dave discovers the caveman, who is frozen in a gigantic block of ice. He leaves the ice block unattended in the garage before leaving for school the next morning, and space heaters left on cause the ice to melt, releasing the caveman.
When Dave returns home with Stoney, they find hand paint covering the walls and the house in disarray. A beeping smoke alarm leads them to Dave's bedroom, where they discover the caveman attempting to start a fire. At first, he panics upon seeing them and hearing a telephone, but Stoney uses the flame of a lighter to mesmerize and calm him. After bathing and trimming him, Dave names him Link.
Dave and Stoney manage to get Link some clothes and fool Dave's parents and sister into thinking he is an Estonian exchange student sent to live with them. They enroll him in school, where Link's bizarre behavior and supreme athletic skills make Dave and Stoney popular by association, allowing Dave to get closer to Robyn, stoking Matt's anger.
Soon, Stoney's eccentric attitude influences Link's own mannerisms, which causes a rift between Dave and Stoney. Matt starts a fight with Link at a skating rink and becomes more enraged after Robyn leaves him.
During a school field trip to the La Brea Tar Pits, Link grieves after realizing that the cavepeople he knew are all dead. Stoney and Dave reassure Link that he is not without friends in this time. During a driver's ed lesson, Link drives away in a car with Dave, Stoney, and Robyn before stopping at a dance club. Dave and Link are arrested after the police follow them there.
Dismayed at the caveman's antics and Robyn's desire to go to the upcoming prom with Link, Dave tries to abandon him, but Stoney reprimands him, leading to a fight between the two. This causes Link to return and break up the fight, leading Dave to apologize for his actions.
On prom night, Link is a hit at the party with Robyn as his date, while Dave stays at home for the evening. Matt breaks into Dave's bedroom and steals photographic evidence that Link is a caveman. As Dave and Stoney pursue Matt and his friends, another earthquake happens. Matt exposes Link as a caveman in an attempt to destroy his and Dave's reputation, but this instead makes Link even more popular. Matt is left humiliated, Dave and Robyn make up, and the three boys lead the entire prom in an impromptu caveman-like dance with Infectious Grooves providing the music.
After the prom, some of the students visit Dave's house for a pool party, where Dave and Robyn kiss. Meanwhile, Stoney and Link discover breast prints on the slider and paint covering the walls of Dave's home. They follow muddy footprints to the bathroom and find Link's girlfriend, who also survived the earthquake during the ice age. He joins her in the bathtub and embraces her happily. She is also made to look like a modern human.
Originally Ben Stiller, Keith Coogan, and Jeff Maynard, were cast as the 3 main characters Link, Stoney, and Dave for a screen test. This was to show that the concept of Encino Man could work, as well as show the studio that Mayfield was capable of directing a comedy like this. Pauly Shore uploaded this screen test on YouTube.[6]Encino Man was directed by Les Mayfield, a veteran of behind-the-scenes promotional documentaries, making his feature-film debut. The film was shot from December 1991 to February 1992.[7] Filming locations across northern Los Angeles included Los Angeles Mission College in Sylmar and Six Flags Magic Mountain, while the family home was filmed at 7532 Sedgwick Court, West Hills, and the minimart scene was shot at 6586 Van Nuys Blvd, Van Nuys.
Pauly Shore was known for his show Totally Pauly on MTV, and Disney expected this would bring an existing audience to the film. The film tested well with teen audiences, and Mayfield thanked Wayne's World, which was released three months before Encino Man, for showing a comedy aimed at this demographic could do well.[2]
Costume designer Marie France decided not to buy clothes; instead she custom-made the wardrobe for the characters of Stoney and Link. For Shore, she took his own unusual style and gave it a younger look. For Fraser, who stands at 6feet 3inches (190cm), it was a matter of practicality, easier than trying to find the sizes needed, and she dressed him in baggy, knee-length shorts and oversized T-shirts.[8]
Reception
Box office
The film was a box-office success.[3] The film made $9.9 million in its opening weekend, coming in fourth at the box office. The film went on to earn a total of $40.7 million at the North American box office on a budget of $7.5 million.[4] The film was released in the United Kingdom on September 25, 1992, titled California Man, and opened at number five.[9]
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 14% based on 35 reviews, with an average rating of 3.4/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Encino Man isn't the first unabashedly silly comedy to embrace its stupidity and amass a cult following, but whether or not it works for you will largely be determined by your tolerance for Pauly Shore."[10] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 25 out of 100 based on 20 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[11] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.[12]
Variety panned the film, saying "Encino Man is a mindless would-be comedy aimed at the younger set. Low-budget quickie is insulting even within its own no-effort parameters".[13] Peter Rainer of the Los Angeles Times wrote: "There are a lot of funny ideas in Encino Man that don't come off because the director, Les Mayfield, and his screenwriter, Shawn Schepps, don't seem to have made up their minds how smart they want to be. A scene like Link freaking out during a visit to the La Brea tar pits museum should count for a lot more than it does here".[14]
The film was the basis for a book titled Stoney's Encino High Notebook.
A made-for-television movie, Encino Woman, aired on April 20, 1996, on ABC.[16]
According to Shore, Disney+ was discussing a sequel, as of May 2022, with the possibility of him, Astin and Fraser back as their characters.[17]
In popular culture
Link, again played by Fraser, makes a cameo appearance in the film Son-in-Law (1993), which also stars Pauly Shore. Fraser also briefly appears as a soldier with the name "Link" on his fatigues in In the Army Now starring Shore.
In Evan Wright's book about the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Generation Kill, the U.S. Marine company commander is nicknamed Encino Man, supposedly for his incompetence.[18] In the 2008 HBO miniseries of adaptation of the book, the officer is played by Brian Patrick Wade.[19] The South Park episode "Prehistoric Ice Man" (1999) was a parody of the film, wherein the boys find a man who has been frozen in ice since 1996.
Jeffrey Bertan Cohen is an American attorney and retired child actor best remembered for appearing as Chunk in the 1985 Steven Spielberg production The Goonies. He is a founding partner of law firm Cohen & Gardner.
Sean Astin is an American actor. His acting roles include Mikey Walsh in The Goonies (1985), Billy Tepper in Toy Soldiers (1991), Daniel Ruettiger in Rudy (1993), Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–2003), Doug Whitmore in 50 First Dates (2004), Bill in Click (2006), Lynn McGill in the fifth season of 24 (2006), Oso in Special Agent Oso (2009–2012), Raphael in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012–2017), Bob Newby in the second season of Netflix's Stranger Things (2017), and Ed in No Good Nick (2019).
Ke Huy Quan, also known as Jonathan Ke Quan, is an American actor. As a child actor, Quan rose to fame playing Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and Data in The Goonies (1985). Following a few roles in the 1990s, he took a 19-year acting hiatus, during which he worked as a stunt choreographer and assistant director.
Brendan James Fraser is an American-Canadian actor. Fraser had his breakthrough in 1992 with the comedy Encino Man and the drama School Ties. He gained further prominence for his starring roles in the comedies With Honors (1994) and George of the Jungle (1997) and emerged as a star playing Rick O'Connell in The Mummy trilogy (1999–2008). He took on dramatic roles in Gods and Monsters (1998), The Quiet American (2002), and Crash (2004), and further fantasy roles in Bedazzled (2000) and Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008).
Encino is a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, California.
Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels is an American animated mystery comedy series created by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears and produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions for ABC. The series aired during the network's Saturday morning schedule from September 10, 1977, to June 21, 1980. All 40 episodes are available on the Boomerang subscription app.
Paul Montgomery "Pauly" Shore is an American comedian and actor. He is best known for his roles in 1990s comedy films. Shore began as a stand-up comedian at the age of 17, before becoming an MTV VJ in 1989. This led to a starring role in the comedy film Encino Man in 1992, which was a modest hit. He followed this with leading man vehicles, including Son in Law (1993) and Bio-Dome (1996). Shore provided the voice of Robert "Bobby" Zimuruski in A Goofy Movie and its direct-to-video sequel, An Extremely Goofy Movie.
Megan Marie Ward is an American actress. She is best known for her numerous credits in science fiction and horror movies and television series. In 2007, she joined the cast of the American daytime drama General Hospital as Kate Howard. She also appeared in the 1990s comedies Encino Man, Freaked, PCU, The Brady Bunch Movie, and Joe's Apartment.
Sandra Hess is a Swiss and American actress and fashion model. She is best known for her role as Sonya Blade in the film Mortal Kombat Annihilation, and Lieutenant Alexandra "Ice" Jensen on the television series Pensacola: Wings of Gold.
Keyrock, known as "The Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer", was a recurring character created by Jack Handey and played by Phil Hartman on Saturday Night Live from 1991 through 1996. He was a caveman with the beetle brows of a Neanderthal who had fallen into a glacial crevasse, or "Big Giant Hole in Ice", during the Ice Age, thus preserving his body well enough for scientists to thaw him out in 1988. He subsequently studied law at the Oklahoma City University School of Law. The character exploits his humble origins with thinly-veiled cynicism in order to manipulate others.
In the Army Now is a 1994 American war comedy film directed by Daniel Petrie, Jr., written by Ken Kaufman, Stu Krieger, Daniel Petrie, Jr., Fax Bahr, and Adam Small, and starring Pauly Shore, Andy Dick, David Alan Grier, Esai Morales, and Lori Petty. The film earned US$28,881,266 at the box office, making it the fourth-highest-grossing film starring Pauly Shore.
Son in Law is a 1993 American comedy film directed by Steve Rash, written by Fax Bahr, Adam Small, and Shawn Schepps, and starring Pauly Shore, Lane Smith, and Carla Gugino.
Exposed is the debut solo album of Mötley Crüe frontman Vince Neil following his exit from the band in 1992. It was released in 1993 and reached No. 13 on the US Billboard 200 chart.
"The Resurrection of Jimber-Jaw" is a 1937 short story by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, about an unfrozen 50,000-year-old caveman.
Patrick Van Horn is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Sue in the 1996 film Swingers, starring alongside real-life friends Jon Favreau, Vince Vaughn and Ron Livingston.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem Church and School is a Catholic church and elementary school located in Encino, Los Angeles. Founded in 1949, St. Cyril's was voted the "Best Parish" for music in the Los Angeles Archdiocese in 2000.
Les Mayfield is an American retired film director and producer.
Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge is a 1989 American slasher film directed by Richard Friedman, and starring Derek Rydall, Jonathan Goldsmith, Rob Estes, Pauly Shore, Kari Whitman, Ken Foree, and Morgan Fairchild. It follows a young man who apparently dies in a suspicious house fire after saving his girlfriend, Melody; a year later, at the new mall built over the site of the burned-out house, thefts and murders begin to occur as a mysterious figure secretly prowls around the shopping center and takes a keen interest in watching over and protecting Melody.
Ride Along 2 is a 2016 American buddy cop action comedy film directed by Tim Story and written by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi. It is the sequel to the 2014 film Ride Along. The film stars Ice Cube, Kevin Hart, Ken Jeong, Benjamin Bratt, Olivia Munn, Bruce McGill and Tika Sumpter. Universal Pictures released the film on January 15, 2016. Like the original film, this sequel was panned by most critics but was a box office success, grossing $124.6 million worldwide during its theatrical run.
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