I still think about this sometimes
These are also from ~20 years ago:
My father has the most contagious laugh I've ever heard. Some lady on the TV just sang, "I threw my ring down the toilet, 'cause that's where our love went." He started laughing and then so did I. Later, I'll write about seeing "Blankman" with him. It was awesome.
[Later:]
(It's very likely this won't translate in print.)
Re: Blankman:
I went to see this awful film with my father, in a theater with maybe 10 other people, tops. We'd see everything together and, after all the quality options were seen, we'd lower ourselves to watching truly horrid shit like "Blankman".
In the movie, Damon Wayans (who plays Blankman, a semi-retarded, self-styled superhero) has typical superhero gadgets, but his are ultra-low-class versions thereof – stuff you would expect to see if Batman shopped at Kmart. One of them, for example, is a grappling hook made from a short-stemmed fishing pole. In one scene, Blankman is in an elevator stuck between floors (I can't recall if he was in the elevator when it got stuck or if he got in to help the others out, but I suspect the latter).
The doors to the elevator are opened and cops are lifting people out to safety on the higher floor†. When only Blankman remains inside the box, a cop reaches out his hand and Blankman slaps it away. He can get out on his own, dammit; he's a superhero. Then, from the upper floor, you see Blankman's head slowly rise. After that you see his shoulders, then his arms, and finally you see that he's frantically spinning his little fishing-pole grappling-hook, coming up on his own (absurd use of) power.
At this totally-, ridiculously-stupid scene, my father began to giggle. Then he began to laugh, and added, "What a stupid son of a bitch!". I began to giggle. Then he began to guffaw. Then the people across the center aisle started to laugh; then, the people behind us, too. Soon, and for the rest of the terrible movie, we were all laughing.
The movie may suck beyond all comprehension – not "may", "does" – but it remains among my favorite movie-going experiences, solely because my father found that scene so ridiculous it made him, and therefore the rest of us, laugh.
That was my "Blankman" story.
It's likely not even Damon Wayans remembers "Blankman", but I will; I still enjoy thinking of this experience occasionally. I can't believe it happened nearly 30 years ago.
† Fun elevator fact: most elevator-related deaths result from people jumping down to the lower floor when their elevator gets stuck between floors. They jump down, lose their balance, and fall backward into the open shaft. If you're ever in a stuck elevator between floors, climb.