Murray, who famously played the demented, gopher-hunting groundskeeper Carl in that film, attributed its continued cultural presence to two things: first, its clever social commentary, the way it pits the blue collar caddies against the wealthy yahoos of the Bushwood Country Club. "Take away the candy bar in the swimming pool," asserts Murray, "and it's a class story." Second, he credits cable television. "You can see 'Caddyshack' six times this month somewhere," he said. "These things have a life."

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It was a beautiful thing to say, really, the idea that a work of art could keep on working. Not to mention that Murray's words would have been unimaginable as recently as 20 years ago. Before cable and then satellite television became household norms, before video, seeing a movie again was a random event. Aside from revival houses or, on television, the late show and -- remember this? -- things like the "ABC Sunday Night Movie," the average citizen had no say whatsoever in picking and choosing which movies to get (re)acquainted with.

Murray's words might have struck a chord in me because "Caddyshack" just so happens to be the first movie I ever saw on video. That was the featured entertainment at Laura Seitz's 13th birthday party circa 1982. I had never seen a VCR before, and now I hope for their sake that the Seitz family went with VHS instead of Beta. I remember being extremely distracted from the movie -- even though it was my first R rating, too -- because I couldn't get over the sheer fact that Laura had decided she wanted to usher in her adolescence with an ensemble cast including Chevy Chase and Ted Knight, and she and her mother went to a store and brought it home. I was there to celebrate Laura's rite of passage, but I couldn't help but get the feeling I was moving on to something better myself. Just as our parents were the last generation to remember a time before the family TV, we would be the last generation to remember the first time we saw a VCR.

It would have enormous consequences -- personally and educationally. Television in general and video in particular have mostly deserved bad reps. But before the VCR, an informal film education, especially away from the cities, was impossible. And because my hometown had a wildly intelligent, revered video store called "Video Rodeo," which featured sections broken down by director or country of origin, my twin sister and I worked our way through Hitchcock and Scorsese and, for our 16th birthday, the scant four films of one James Dean.

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