[Nerdspresso] Kenny Rogers and a "Six Pack" of Orphans

Let’s take a moment and look back on the cultural impact of Kenny Rogers. Before he was famous for fast-food rotisserie chicken and a bad eye lift, Kenny was a pretty big deal in country music. He had a string of hits with evocative “story songs” like “The Gambler,” “Ruby,” and “The Coward of the County.” He also sang “Islands in the Stream” with Dolly Parton, unknowingly creating a karaoke staple that would go on to inspire endless boozy duets. You all know what I’m talking about. Uh-huh. 

Kenny’s smoky rumble was omnipresent on the radio in the ’70’s and ’80’s. I can attest that his songs were on constant rotation on my grandma’s 8-track back when I was a kid. She was a joyous woman who loved music and dancing. Grandma was especially fond of country music and introduced me to Mr. Rogers, Ms. Parton, and other classic artists. She also taught me how to dance, which are the same moves I employ on the dance floor to this day. The woman knew how to cut a rug. 

My grandma loved, loved, LOVED Kenny Rogers. So when he showed up on the silver screen, she took me to the tiny theater in her little Iowa town to check it out. Kenny was kind of the Justin Timberlake of his day, parlaying success on the Billboard charts for a run at Hollywood glory. His path to big-screen stardom started with a series of TV movies based on his popular songs. Decent Nielsen ratings convinced Hollywood that Kenny might be box office gold and greenlighted him for a starring role.

Six Pack was the result and that flick lives forever in my head thanks to a matinee showing with my grandma during the summer of 1982. Rogers plays Brewster Baker, a has-been stock car driver trying for one last shot at NASCAR fame and fortune. He’s on his way to a qualifying race when his car is stripped for parts, leaving him stranded in a podunk Texas town.  After witnessing another car getting cleaned out, Brewster chases the culprits and discovers that it’s a band of wily orphans. Isn’t that always the way?

These Oliver Twists of the auto world are being coerced by Big John, the town’s corrupt sheriff. Brewster confronts Big John, played by Barry Corbin before he became known as Maurice on Northern Exposure. Corbin’s cowboy bluster is perfect for this cartoonish lawman in the vein of Jackie Gleason’s Buford T. Justice from Smokey and the Bandit. Big John throws Brewster in the hoosegow for resisting arrest and speeding. 

The kids bust him out and sabotage the police cars so they can’t give chase. Brewster reluctantly takes the kids with him on the race circuit, ultimately discovering that they are a very efficient pit crew. The kids learned all about cars from their deceased parents and were indebted to Big John so he wouldn’t call the authorities and split them up. Such is the plight of plucky orphans in the movies. 

The family is held together by their protective older sister, the spunky Breezy (Diane Lane from The Perfect Storm, Under the Tuscan Sun, and Man of Steel). The other notable young’un in the cast is Anthony Michael Hall (Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Weird Science). He plays Doc, the boy genius gearhead. The remaining four kids in this “Six Pack” are just there for the sake of math. They’re standard ragamuffins. 

The kids start to bond with Brewster as they rack up victories on the track, getting the attention of sponsors and edging closer to their goal of a NASCAR title. Along the way, Brewster rekindles a romance with Lilah, a sassy barmaid from his past. Lilah is performed by Erin Gray, who just a few years earlier had won my heart as the brassy Colonel Wilma Deering on the Buck Rogers TV show. Gray was one of my first celebrity crushes. While it was disconcerting for early teenage me to see her serving beers instead of slaying aliens, it was great to see her back onscreen. Although I did miss those cool spacesuits. 

Since Six Pack is a flick about stock car racing, it’s stacked with cameos of prominent NASCAR drivers from that day. Not that I noticed. I was a just a kid back then and not a huge NASCAR fan. And remember guys, WILMA DEERING was in this movie! Six Pack is chocked full of car jockeys like “Alabama Gang” racing legends Bobby, Donnie, and Davey Allison. Brewster is also seen racing against LeeRoy Yarbrough, Darrell Waltrip, and Rusty Wallace.

But again, Wilma Deering is in this movie so I didn’t really notice who was behind the wheel. There are lots of montages of cars going around in circles really fast while country music blasts on the soundtrack. Brewster keeps winning races, which irks his main rival Terk Logan. He’s an obnoxious hot-shot driver played by Terry Kiser. This actor would get props several years later for playing a dead guy in the popular Weekend at Bernie’s. 

Terk is mainly there to give us someone to root against and to perform dastardly deeds that put our hero in peril during the third act. If he had a handlebar mustache, he would twirl it. Brewster triumphs in the end, winning the big race and the heart of the lovely Lilah while rescuing the orphans from being snatched up by the authorities. This movie is one supercharged engine full of happy endings! There’s not a lot of nuance in this movie so hard to tell if the writers were lazy or were just ordered to make Kenny Rogers seem heroic and begrudgingly paternal. 

Six Pack was written by Alex Matter and Mike Marvin. I couldn’t find any writing credits for Matter after 1982, but Marvin went on to write and direct the 1986 Charlie Sheen opus, The Wraith, about a murdered dude who comes back from the dead to avenge himself by chasing down the bad guys with a cool car. So I’m guessing that cars are Marvin’s thing. He also directed a bunch of movies you’d probably watch late at night on Cinemax. 

I’m thinking most of the good things in this movie are products of the cast’s charisma. And lots of footage of NASCAR races. The director of this flick was Daniel Petrie, who also made a Paul Newman movie (Fort Apache, the Bronx) and the sequel to Cocoon. He also directed a lot of forgettable movies and TV shows in the ’70’s. Petrie is probably better known these days as the father of two directors of popular movies. 

His son, Donald Petrie, grew up to make a bunch of successful but mediocre comedies like Miss Congeniality and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. His other son, Daniel Petrie, Jr., directed Toy Soldiers and In the Army Now with Pauly Shore. That’s quite a cinematic legacy. The Hustons and Coppolas they were not.

Looking back at Six Pack makes me remember all the really good movies that came out during the Summer of 1982. This is the season that gave us Blade Runner, The Thing, Star Trek II, and E.T. to name just a few. It also saw the debut of a movie about a man and his car who faced big odds to win the day. Yeah, I’m talking about The Road Warrior. And then there was Six Pack. 

It’s not an endearing classic. It was a modest success at best. This movie’s pretty corny with characters defined more by the personalities playing them than anything in the script. It’s really just a by-the-numbers family comedy. So you might be asking why did I waste so many words on an old Kenny Rogers vehicle? Right? I mean, is Kenny Rogers even relevant these days? 

Well, Six Pack did spawn a short-lived TV spinoff in 1983 with Don Johnson playing Brewster Baker. This was only a year before he exploded into the zeitgeist with Miami Vice. But that’s not the reason. Kenny wrote and recorded an earworm of a theme song with “Love Will Turn You Around” that still pops up on playlists every now and then, but that’s not it either. 

Six Pack has parked itself in the winner’s circle of my heart because it reminds me of a fun afternoon spent with my grandma. When everyone else wanted me to go play ball outside, especially my cousin so he could throw lit firecrackers at me, Grandma knew I liked going to the movies. That lady just got me. And I miss her. 
If that small-town movie theater had been playing The Road Warrior, however, this would be an entirely different column. Just sayin’. Now if you’re in the mood for Kenny Rogers driving fast, Barry Corbin and Terry Kiser playing stock villains, and Diane Lane being a teenager, you can find a copy of Six Pack on DVD from Amazon. Give it a spin and see for yourself. I suggest maybe watching it with an actual six-pack. Couldn’t hurt.