“Shut the F----ing Door!”: WINNEBAGO MAN (’09) NO MORE! by Jill Blake
In the late 1980s, a friend of the family had been interviewed for the 11 o’clock news. There had been a serious natural gas leak earlier that evening in a relatively dense residential and commercial neighborhood. Miraculously there was no explosion and no one was hurt. In preparing for their story, the local news interviewed many of the neighborhood’s residents for their observations. At the time, our friend owned a restaurant in that neighborhood and was affected by a power outage and detoured traffic. It was all relatively minor, but it still negatively impacted his business. After he was interviewed, our friend called to tell us to keep an eye out for him on the broadcast. Like a lot of American families, we had a VCR and a stack of VHS tapes at the ready for such occasions. We scheduled the recording and all went to bed, unaware of the hilarious goldmine we’d capture. Fast-forwarding through commercials for car dealerships and furniture stores, we finally got to our friend’s interview. He did just fine and we were thrilled for his ten seconds of minor fame. But there was another star of this segment, one that had my family rewinding and watching over and over again. Immediately after our friend’s interview, an older man with a thick Southern drawl and a few missing teeth lent his two cents on the incident saying, “Coulda blowed us all up” and awkwardly clearing his throat in front of the cameras. My parents and I doubled over, tears streaming down our faces laughing at this man. Our friend saw it, and he too thought it was hysterical. “Coulda blowed us all up” became another one of our family’s inside jokes, and with the passage of time has almost taken on a life of its own. My husband even throws it out from time to time, and recently I caught my daughter saying it with no idea of its origin. A five-second sound bite from a complete stranger is part of my family’s history and that’s both hilarious and completely bizarre.
Around this same time, in 1988, a man named Jack Rebney was filming an industrial video for the Winnebago corporation (a manufacturer of recreational vehicles). The goal of the film was to provide Winnebago dealers and salespeople with all the information and expertise they would need to successfully sell the Winnebago line. Filming in the brutal Iowa summer sun, Rebney was irritable and agitated, flubbing his lines and missing his cues. In his frustration, Rebney cursed a blue streak, sometimes directed at himself or a young intern named Tony, or sometimes just toward the universe in general. The shoot was hell, particularly for the crew, who had to endure take after take of Jack Rebney’s profane outbursts. Once the film was completed, crewmembers made tapes of Rebney’s outtakes and shared their inside joke amongst themselves, as well as with friends and family. Their joke cost Rebney his job with Winnebago and he wasn’t seen on film again.
Throughout the 1990s, low-quality copies of the tape circulated amongst college students and cult film fans. In the mid-2000s, Jack Rebney’s meltdown had made it to YouTube and became an overnight viral sensation. The first time I watched the video, I could hardly believe it was real. I immediately shared it with my close friends and family, and before long, my husband and I added Mr. Rebney’s hilarious musings to our daily rotation along with our favorite lines from WAITING FOR GUFFMAN (’96), THE BIG LEBOWSKI (’98) and RAISING ARIZONA (’87).
While Jack Rebney earned Internet fame, for whatever that’s worth, and the title “The Angriest Man in the World,” he had no earthly idea about any of it. Filmmaker Ben Steinbauer, a fan of Rebney’s from the underground VHS days, decided to seek out his foul-mouthed idol and learn more about his life, and most importantly, find out if he’s still angry, while documenting his quest in his film WINNEBAGO MAN (’10). Initially, Steinbauer is unable to find any information about Rebney or his whereabouts, or if he’s even still alive. But after hiring a private investigator, Steinbauer makes contact with Rebney, who is far from Iowa, living as a groundskeeper at a remote fishing resort in the Northern California mountains. Reluctantly agreeing to meet face-to-face, Rebney invites Steinbauer to his home to talk. This first meeting goes fairly well, although Steinbauer is disappointed to find that Rebney is kind and mellow, uttering not one single profane word. But in a phone call several days later, Rebney unleashes a colorful diatribe about the ridiculousness of the celebrity that has been unwittingly bestowed upon him along with his unflattering take on his fans. Over the course of a couple years, Steinbauer encourages Rebney to talk about his life, and fails. Rebney is really only interested in using whatever platform Steinbauer offers to him to speak about his views on the world and politics, which he has written about in a now-published manifesto titled Jousting with the Myth. Through the help of one of Rebney’s close friends, Steinbauer eventually convinces Rebney to meet his fans at a screening of his outtakes in San Francisco. Rebney is clearly touched by the sincerity of the audience’s affection for him, if a bit perplexed as to why they care in the first place. And despite living a solitary life in the middle of nowhere, seemingly by choice, it’s clear that Mr. Rebney enjoys being at the center of attention, turning on that foul-mouthed, bombastic side of his personality when the situation demands it.
I don’t necessarily consider myself a fan of Mr. Rebney’s, but as a woman who loves a good curse word, I greatly admire his colorful use of the English language. I’ve seen WINNEBAGO MAN a few times, and with each viewing I come away with a great deal of sadness. While it’s clear that Ben Steinbauer cares for Mr. Rebney, especially in the follow-ups he’s shared on the film’s official website, I can’t help but feel that the film’s original intention might have been ethically compromised. To be clear, I feel this way about other documentaries I enjoy, such as GREY GARDENS (’75) and ROGER & ME (’89). Steinbauer touches on the potential negative implications of viral content, especially on the subjects themselves, but he still pursues Rebney as a fanboy hoping for another round of angry, profanity-laden recreational vehicle salesmanship. And Steinbauer’s documentary leaves more questions than answers. When I first saw the YouTube iteration of Mr. Rebney’s outtakes, I didn’t foresee a need to know more about his life. I just assumed he was another colorful character who happened to have a particularly interesting and embarrassing moment in his life (we all have them!) captured on film. But Steinbauer’s film showed us there is a real person behind all that sweating, swearing and blustering; a man with failing eyesight who lives alone in the boonies with his dog. While I believe that Steinbauer’s original intent was more of a lark – almost like he accepted a dare to find the Angriest Man in the World – I think he changes course once he realizes there’s a real and complicated man behind the moniker. But even the few moments of sincerity in the film feel like an act for the camera, and we never really get to know Rebney after the years of Steinbauer’s persistent intrusion into his personal life.
And so, I think back to that country boy who so astutely remarked, “Coulda blowed us all up” and wonder if our little inside joke would’ve become viral had it happened during this age of social media’s many overreaching tentacles. And then I wonder what he might think of that or if he has an interesting story to tell. Then I remember how funny that moment is to my family and me and how it’s probably best left alone.
