Austin Powers is my bag, baby

You are probably wondering why there is an article about a trilogy which ended 14 years ago, and honestly I am just as confused as you, but I feel I have to write this. I watched Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery for the first time since I was young about a month ago; I considered writing a think piece on it because it’s a very groovy movie, but I thought better of it. But ever since then, Austin Powers keeps coming up in my life, and I’ve taken it as a sign, a sign to get the word out about this bafflingly good movie franchise. Let me explain—a few days after watching the movie someone on my floor loudly played “Soul Bossa Nova” by Quincy Jones, better known as the Austin Powers theme song. A few days later, a podcast I listen to spent an entire episode talking about Austin Powers, and whether or not he made them “horny, baby” and I began to take notice of these coincidences. A few days after that it was announced who would be writing Shrek 5; it was Michael McCullers, one of the co-writers of the Austin Powers trilogy. After that, the TV show Comedy Bang Bang had its Halloween episode, where the band leader ‘Weird’ Al Yankovic dressed as, you guessed it, Austin Powers. So I took these signs to mean that my mojo is telling me to get the word out about Austin Powers.

For those of you who don’t know, Austin Powers is a film franchise starring Mike Myers as the main character and the main villain. It parodies spy movies like James Bond—Austin Powers is a swinging spy from the 60’s who was frozen and woken up in 1997 to fight his arch nemesis Dr. Evil, who was also frozen for the same amount of time. The best way to describe these movies? Shagadelic.

The thing that is so interesting to me are the jokes, and how they shouldn’t be funny, but they are. For example, in the third film, Goldmember, there is a scene where a character has a large mole and Austin Powers keeps saying mole, and that is the scene. It sounds like the dumbest thing, but it is very funny when you see it. The character, who Austin Powers calls Moley, is played by Fred Savage. Austin Powers fills out a form that asks for his sex, and he puts down “yes please;” if anyone but Austin Powers said that joke I would not find it funny. The first movie has a long scene of Austin Powers peeing—he pees for about a minute—and this is a real feature film. This is a movie that made over $67 million worldwide; if you are not in awe of this scene something must be wrong with you.

Something else to consider when discussing Austin Powers is how the first two movies are basically interchangeable. The plots are different, but the two films have basically the same feel to them, meaning they repeat the same jokes over and over. I am going to list as many jokes that are exactly the same in both International Man of Mystery and The Spy Who Shagged Me as I can: dance sequences to the song Soul Bossa Nova, Dr. Evil interrupting his son trying to be helpful by going “zip” every time he tries to talk, Austin Powers walking around naked and people unknowingly moving things so his private parts are covered for the camera, Will Ferrell’s character not dying after being thrown into a fire pit and yelling for help as those who can hear him try to ignore it, and more. Somehow the two movies are able to be so similar, but they departed from that some in the third film Goldmember.

Goldmember is interesting because it starred Beyoncé, Mike Myers, Fred Savage, and Michael Caine to name a few. Some of its cameos were by Kevin Spacey, Gwyneth Paltrow, Danny Devito, Quincy Jones, Britney Spears, Nathan Lane, Katie Couric, Rob Lowe, most of the Osbourne family, Burt Bacharach, John Travolta, Tom Cruise, and Steven Spiel- berg. And, you want to know the craziest part? Goldmember is the worst of the three movies! Goldmember came out in 2003, the same year as Beyoncé’s first debut album, and to help promote it she costarred in a movie where Mike Myers played four characters and her costar drinks poop at one point. Ms. Queen Bee, what did Mike Myers do to you to get you in this movie, just as your solo career started? That is just one more piece of the unsolvable puzzle that is Austin Powers. I don’t understand how any of the movies were made, and what is more confusing is how they were popular and why I love them. If you have any theories or just want to talk some Austin Powers “baby,” find a way to contact me, because I’d love to have a conversation with you about it.