SCD crew with a Hollywood connection ...

Tom Hultman, whom SCD readers will remember as one of our editors for many years and who is now a school teacher here in Central Wisconsin, sent me a link to a movie trailer the other day. In keeping with our nostalgia theme around here, the movie in question is almost 20 years old, and the reason he sent along the link to the trailer is to enjoy once again the appearance of yet another SCD notable.

Rick Firfer, our longtime correspondent in the metro Chicago area, is a member of the Screen Actors Guild and has turned up in a number of major motion pictures over the past 20 years.

In the trailer of the hit 1989 film “Home Along,” Firfer is the manager of the grocery store where Macaulay Culkin goes for supplies as he stocks up for the ordeal of being a home “survivor” as an enterprising 8-year-old kid inadvertently left alone by his family over the Christmas holiday.

As Culkin checks out at the cash register, Firfer questions the kid about where his mother and father are and whether he has any sisters or brothers. Told that that he is an only child, Firfer asks the kid where he lives. “I can’t tell you that,” Culkin tells him. “Why not,” Firfer counters. “Because you are a stranger.”

click here

SCD readers wouldn’t concur with that, but it is great fun to see somebody you know show up in a movie. Toward the end of the two-minute trailer, the Firfer charcater sets up the ultra-precocious kid for a line that ultimately became a real-live catch phrase in the early 1990s.

Asked if he’s at the grocery store alone, Culkin responds, “I’m 8 years old. Do you think I’d be here all alone? I don’t think so.”

So Firfer’s got a claim for a role in altering the national lingo, to say nothing of all the different roles in various movies he's been part of. He also gets those residual checks ... and it hardly matters that the film editors clipped his talking part out of the final version for widespread release.

Just like the guys who get a cup of coffee in the major leagues, it leaves the rest of us green with envy to be able to say you’ve had your moment up on the silver screen.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you about another friend who suddently popped up in a number of movies and several television roles. Here’s a hint (though not a particularly helpful one): he’s much, much shorter than Firfer is.