Top 10 Movie Scenes-Car Singing

This weekend, the long-awaited reunion of the Wedding Crashers tandem, Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, is finally here with The Internship. I fortunately got to see this movie a few weeks ago, and it inspired this weeks Top 10 list. The Internship right away starts out with a very short scene involving Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson singing along to a song in their car. To me, this scene is a gimmick and a cheap trick to make the audience laugh. And it always works. It never will fail, and that is why so many films have used it before and will continue to use it in the future. Mostly because it's so relatable, and it can be done in a variety of different ways. This Top 10 breaks down the scenes that have done it the best, as well as my personal favorites. Also, this Top 10 will break down the different ways to sing in your car, and different ways that movies have taught us to react to getting caught singing in your car.

Honarable Mentions:
Don Jon-This film is unreleased aside from a few film festivals. I have yet to see it, but from the trailer that has been released, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is shown hilariously singing along to a song in his car. It's easily the best part of the entire trailer. He pulls up to a stoplight, looks over at the car next to him and immediately stops singing along. It sums up the majority of the car singers out there. If this film was already released, I easily could have seen it breaking into the top 10. However, it was unfair to put it ahead of so many other deserving scenes and movies that have been released. An honorable mention will do for now.

That 70's Show- One of the most recognizable title sequences that has ever been created. But that's just it. It's a title sequence with lip singing, so it doesn't exactly count. It's so monumental and so recognizable though, that it was worthy of a mention. From the few lists out there that I've seen like this, That 70's Show is nowhere to be found. So here I am giving it a mention.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles/Meet the Parents- Not to say that these are the same film by any means at all. They just have similar scenes. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is one of the best comedies ever made. And it's a shame that so many movies (Due Date, Guilt Trip to name a few) have so wrongly recreated the premise of this film. You know, road trip gone wrong. They've never done it justice. Anyway, John Candy doesn't actually sing along in this film, he simply mouths the words and dances a little bit, which barely disqualifies the film from the Top 10. Also, Meet the Parents has a similar scene where Gaylord Focker and Jack Burns discuss "Puff the Magic Dragon". Awkwardness just ensues. No singing is done in either one, keeping both of these out of the list.

Without further ado, the Top 10, as always, presented in reverse order:

10) RV (2006)
Has anyone even seen this movie before? I feel like whenever I talk about it no one has ever even heard of it. Which, isn't a problem. RV's not good at all. There isn't anything real noteworthy in this movie. There are a couple great Robin Williams scenes which is expected of him. Otherwise, this movie was when JoJo started to get super hot. Those are really the only things worth mentioning in this movie. As well as the singing scene, which brings it to number 10 on the list. It's not great, but it's the most relatable to anyone who has ever gone on a road trip with their family before. Josh Hutcherson, JoJo, and Cheryl Hines all put in headphones and start singing (very poorly, to put it nicely) along to random songs. In that moment, you can feel Robin Williams' pain. Which is credit to the movie. It's also one of the most fascinating scenes to me. If you go back and watch it (which I don't blame you if you never want to see this movie ever again), Josh Hutcherson's character has Dre' Beats. It's a pre-Beats version of Beats. It's amazing. It's also really interesting to watch JoJo try to sing bad, mostly because she's awesome at singing (still a fan, JJ!). She really struggles. There's a brief moment where she slips and it sounds slightly good. I wonder how many times they had to shoot this scene and be like, "Yeah, JoJo, you need to try and sound bad. You sound good. It's supposed to sound bad and you just sound good." Also, it's very intriguing watching a pre pubescent Josh Hutcherson rap to what sounds like the worst rap song that was ever written. It sounds like a horrible Whose Line Is It Anyway? skit where they all have weird personalities or something. It's one of the few things the film got right. This is longer than anyone should ever spend discussing or writing about the film RV. I have problems. Let's just forget this ever happened.

Sing Along Style: "Annoying Tone Deaf Family". The typical result when an average family is singing along to different songs.

9) Step Brothers (2008)
It pains me so much to talk about this movie. I really can't stand this movie. It's one of my least favorite movies to watch. It's right up there with the first Hangover to me. Yes, I realize I just pissed off the 7 readers I have. What is worth mentioning in this film, though, is the trademark "Sweet Child O' Mine" rendition. It's done by a family, like in RV. It's one of the bright spots to what is such an annoying movie. The singing is actually really good, surprisingly. It's very funny as well. It's so great. It provides many chuckles. This is really hard for me. I'm proud of myself that I put it in the Top 10. But this is so hard to say positive things about it. To say my favorite part of a comedy film that stars Will Ferrell is when his douchebag brother's family is singing, says all that needs to be said about my opinions of Step Brothers. Great car singing scene for sure, though.

Sing Along Style: "Serious Family Sing Along." No Bullshit. This is about technique. Tones. All that singing shit I know nothing about. But it's serious. No fun and games. In the movie Alice found that out the hard way.

8) The Internship (2013)

I've been back and forth on including this in the mix. I just decided to do it because of how it starts the film. It was the first scene in the entire movie and it just kicked it off so well. And to be honest, Vince Vaughn knew exactly what he was doing when writing this. He needed a good script. One that would be worthy of rejuvenating the partnership with Owen Wilson. What better way is there to kick off the script/film with a classic singing a girly song in the car scene? Now, this is the first official breakdown of the Top 10 that describes how to handle being caught in the act of singing in your car. These guys use the "Embrace It" technique. One that I have never done successfully alone. Much easier to pull off with your friends in the car with you. Also, I don't feel any shame spoiling this because it's in the trailer and it's been in the commercials for it as well. Basically, hot girls pull up next to them, and the girls are looking at them odd and Vince Vaughn turns to them and pulls a Chris Anderson Birdman wing flap, still singing. Flawless. I'm a huge Vaughn fan. Although I'm wondering why there was no Jon Favreau in this movie. Makes me sad. I like Favreau, and I really like Favreau and Vaughn together. Random quick fact, did you know Vince Vaughn's first movie was as a defensive player in the movie Rudy? How great was Rudy by the way. Gets the waterworks going every time. Very under rated sports movie that our generation hasn't seen much of. A lot of people I know haven't seen it. Shame on them. Wow this is a Dick Vitale-esque tangent. The singing scene in The Internship is great. Me telling you that it exists won't change how funny it is. Because as established earlier, it's always funny. Always. We'll see it in films forever.

Sing Along Style: "Fuck it, This is Happening." Where you can sing whatever embarrassing song you want, as loud as you want, windows down, top down. All out blitz. This is like when you get really bored playing Madden 13 and you choose to do "Field Goal Block" on defense with the only mindset of sacking the quarterback. If they throw a quick slant for a 80-yard TD, who cares!

Getting Caught Style: Embrace It. Let your witness have some fun with you.

7) How I Met Your Mother-"Arrivederci, Fiero" (2007)

This episode is one of the most famous HIMYM episodes ever. What? You thought I'd get through a Top 10 without mentioning How I Met Your Mother? Think again. Ted and Marshall sing along to "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" which is one of the all time road trip songs out there. The best part is when they're driving and they both are so sick of the song, but then it cuts to the "Ba-Dah-Dah!" part of the bridge and Ted and Marshall are happy again singing along. It's a great singing in the car scene. It's also great because it was How I Met Your Mother. We've all been on road trips where the same song gets played and you just want to Ultimate Punch (Hot Rod reference, check) the stereo system. That's what this is. Very relatable.

Sing Along Style: "I Love This Song". No other way to describe it. Not worried about how it sounds. Just a good old fashioned sing along.

6) American Beauty (1999)
This example is nowhere near as funny as the rest. But it is one of the best uses of the singing in the car gimmick ever done in film. It's done metaphorically. It uses the lyrics to the songs to help attribute to the emotions of the two leads, Lester (Kevin Spacey) and Carolyn (Annette Bening). The styles are different for each characters individual singing scene. It's relatable in its own weird way. If you haven't seen this movie, stop everything you're doing and just watch it. It gets a lot of critique nowadays, but it's such a great film and I love it. Kind of related: Annette Bening has never won an Academy Award. Isn't that weird? She's been nominated 4 times and has never won. Within the next 4 years, she will get the pity Oscar win. You know, the one that doesn't necessarily deserve it but has just been screwed over so many times by the Academy they just feel bad about it and give it to her (Cough, Sean Penn for Mystic River in 2003. Bill Murray should've won, I'll fight that to this day). Bening was fantastic in this movie. As was the whole cast. Another fun fact: it's one of only 7 films to ever win at least 4 of the 5 major categories (Best Film, Director, Actor, Actress, Screenplay). This hasn't been done since American Beauty did it, by the way. This is a different type of car singing for sure, but it's important nonetheless, earning the number 6 spot.

Sing Along Style for Lester: "Fuck It, I'm doing me. Everyone out of my way". This is where if you get caught you just stare ahead and keep singing anyway. You don't embrace it, you just acknowledge that it happened. It's a powerful sing along style.

Sing Along Style for Carolyn: "Outta My Way Bitch". Outta My Way Bitch is not only the sing along style, but it's also the driving method used by many modern day female drivers. Yes, that did feel good to say. Worth it. Anyway, it's a slight difference from Lester's style. It's a style that most girls have when they drive alone. They think they're more powerful than they are. The difference between Carolyn and Lester: if Carolyn got caught singing, she'd immediately stop and stare forward (my personal favorite reaction strategy).

5) White Chicks (2004)

Hands down, by far the best part of the movie is when they sing Vanessa Carlton. It's hilarious. This is what I mean by it will always be funny. A movie like White Chicks used it to get cheap laughs. And not only did it get cheap laughs, but it brought the gimmick to a whole new level. It was unexpected and it was just so fantastic. If you hear the A Thousand Miles song by Vanessa Carlton and you've seen White Chicks, immediately you think of the scene. And that's how important this scene was. It's a great credit to the movie. It's pretty relatable, mostly because it's just fun. But it's a different kind of fun than the How I Met Your Mother version. It's windows down, hands up, scream every single word. I love this scene. I love this movie, too.

Sing Along Style: "Party Time". More of a female style. The male style would have to be renamed and it's more likely that the song choice would be different. Carefree nonetheless.

4) Office Space (1999)

My favorite character intro of all time. Michael Bolton sums up a majority of the car-singing demographic, when spitting a verse from the song “No Tears” by Scarface. He's hard, he's got some skills. He's letting it loose. But then, a black male walks past his car. As Bolton watches him come closer and closer, he stops rapping, turns down the music and locks the doors. He's only rapping under his breath now. The black man walks further past his car, and Bolton proceeds to turn the music back up and spit some more lines. This is one of my favorite car singing moments ever, and as I said, it's the best character intro I've ever seen. It amazes me how many people haven't seen this movie. To me, this is one of those movies where when someone says "I've never seen it", you stop everything you're doing and go to Netflix and you sit there and you make them watch it with you. I don't know if anyone has ever done this before. It might be just me. I'm also really weird, so remember that. Maybe just agree to watch it at some point in the near future. A lot less forceful than my method, I suppose...

Sing Along Style: "White Boy Unleashing His Inner Black Man". I apologize to my Black readers if there are any. No disrespect. But this is just a white sing along style. There isn't a black version either, unfortunately. I just can't imagine any circumstance where there would be a "Black Dude Unleashing His Inner White Boy" singing style. And if there is one, please direct me to it I would love to see it. I think we all would.

3) Tommy Boy (1995)

When I said earlier in the Honorable Mention section that no one can do Planes, Trains, and Automobiles justice, there are a few outliers. Tommy Boy is definitely one of them. David Spade and Chris Farley's chemistry is done to perfection. This is one of the all-time great singing in car scenes. I feel bad about not having it at 1 or 2. But it makes sense when you see what's ahead. I can't even imagine how much extra footage the producers have of Farley and Spade singing to random songs in the car. I would pay money to see them all. It'd be worth it. This scene has the optional route that many Singing In the Car scenes have done before. It starts off with them switching through the radio disagreeing with the songs they want, eventually ending up on something Celine Dion sings or something like that. And then it cuts away for a bit, and then it cuts back and they're singing along to the girly song. This has been done many of times, but it's more of an advanced Singing in the Car scene tactic. Other songs they sing include: Eres Tu, Come On Eileen, and of course, It's the End of the World as We Know It. The best song they sing. Hands down. Because once it kicks in to the high speed verses, they do the thing where they pretend to know the words and they don't. And they end the verses with the one word emphatically. So great. Quick Random fact-Chris Farley was originally cast as the voice for Shrek. His tragic death kept that from happening, which led to the Mike Myers version as we all know it today. But apparently, Farley did some voice overs before his death. Somewhere there has to be the audio of what he recorded. I would kill to hear what that was like. I hope someday that audio gets released because it would be so crazy. Ideally, what I'd like to happen is a Tupac situation. Where Farley recorded his voice for the whole Shrek movie underground somewhere. And then it gets released as a special edition Chris Farley version or something. I know this will never happen. A dream deferred. However, this is a great Singing in the Car scene. Comedic, exhuberant, hilarious, relatable. Everything you want in a Singing in the Car scene.

Sing Along Style: "Rockin' Out With Your Best Friend". Pretty self explanatory. Moving along.

2) Almost Famous (2000)

I am going to be kicking myself for not making this number 1 later. I know that. Tiny Dancer. That's the song, that's the scene. It's the most iconic moment of this film. It's the scene that most people have at least heard of if they haven't seen this movie (which if you haven't, you should know the drill by now). To me it's one of the Top 5 movie scenes ever made. It's so great. It's so identifiable. Like American Beauty, it's not funny. In fact, it's so much less comedic than American Beauty even is. It is so powerful what this scene does. It's one of those scenes where every time I watch the movie, I rewind to watch the Tiny Dancer scene multiple times before continuing on with the rest of the movie. There are very few movies that make me do that. Now that I'm actually writing this out, I'm amazed that I didn't put this at number 1. That's just going to make writing about number 1 harder. Anyway, the scene is that they just found Russell, the lead guitarist and egotistical member of the band after a party and they bring him back onto the band's bus. The mood is very tense and the band is on edge for sure. The song Tiny Dancer comes on and one of the band members just starts singing out the lyrics. Eventually it builds up where the band, the groupies, the roadies-everybody is singing the lyrics to Tiny Dancer. It's one of the best scenes that's ever been put to screenplay. Since I'm a huge nerd, yes I've read the script for Almost Famous before. The scene is described in the script as follows: "The song's vocal begins. There is only more silence. Then, after a beat, we hear a voice or two, fighting the quiet and singing along. Then others... waking up... joining in. Then Jeff. Russell hears them and starts to sing along too, louder now, without turning around. It's a voice everyone wants to hear. Like it or not, this is his family." I love it so much. It means so much. This is where Russell belongs, it's where William belongs. I love it.

Sing Along Style: "The Heartfelt I-Don't-Care-How-I-Sound-This-Song-Just-Means-So-Much-To-Me" I wanted this name to go longer, but I had to shorten it. Yes, that's the short version of the name for this Sing Along Style.

1) Wayne's World (1992)

Yes, this is it. The behemoth of all Singing in the Car scenes. It's Wayne's World. No one has done it better since 1992. And honestly, I think that's the way it'll always be. It's the Bohemian Rhapsody Wayne's World edition. I'm so glad that commercial came out a little while back that displayed this scene so that the younger generation can be introduced to what true Singing in the Car scenes are really all about. It's not like Almost Famous where it's the most talked about scene in it because Wayne's World is just all around brilliant. But it's certainly one of the first 3 scenes you talk about when you're recapping the film with your friends. Again, am I the only one that does this? I'm starting to really reevaluate where my life is at. I think I need help. I've gotten 10 times weirder since I've started this piece. Anyway, this is the peak of all singing in cars. While writing this up I've been YouTube-ing the scenes just to re-watch them all as I go along, and it makes me so happy to say that when you type in "Wayne's World" the first option is "Wayne's World Bohemian Rhapsody". That's the way that it should be. Have you ever listened to Bohemian Rhapsody in the car with 4 or more people? It changes you. That's the only way to describe it. I think it's just a trick that Queen is pulling on everyone. Because when we listened to Bohemian Rhapsody in a very similar setting in a car, a very similar outcome happened. Heads were banging, Backup vocalists were established, it was insane. I think out of the Top 10 moments of my life, that was right around number 4. I can't even describe it. I was going to try and discuss the plot, but it's essentially Mike Myers and friends going crazy on Bohemian. It's simply one of the most epic movie scenes of all time. 

Sing Along Style: "You Can't Not Sing Along To This". I was going to make a reference to a modern day pop song or something, but I realized Wayne's World deserves better treatment than comparisons to today's modern pop music.

Well, that wraps up the Top 10 for this week. I hope you enjoyed it, check out the blog and stuff. I'll have a review of The Internship up in a couple of days.

You can follow Will Harmon on Twitter at @willharmon8