excerpt

Are You Caddyshack?
You are if:

• After a poor shot on the golf course, you say, “That’s a peach, hon.”
• You have a gopher headcover or anything gopher in your household.
• You have a pet gopher.
• You have the Caddyshack video/DVD and watch it regularly.
• You know every line in the movie and recite lines frequently – not just on the golf course.
• Whenever someone says “President Bush” you add: “wood.” When you meet President Bush (either one will do) you accidentally say: “It’s an honor to meet you President Bushwood.”
• You named your dog Betty or Danny.
• You have looked at Caddyshack stuff on eBay.
• You have bid on Caddyshack stuff on eBay.
• When someone is about to putt, you yell “Noonan!”
• When someone asks you who your favorite golfer is, you say, without hesitation, “Danny Noonan.”
• When you see a photo of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, you say: “gunga, gunga galunga” or “Big hitter, the Lama.”
• You don’t hit the ball very far, so everyone calls you “The Lama. Big hitter, the Lama.”
• You recite lines from the movie, almost every day, in almost any situation. For example, someone offers you a bet and you say: “Gambling is illegal at Bushwood.” Or someone parks illegally and you say: “Porterhouse, there’s a brown Audi parked in my space, have it towed immediately.”
• You thought that Caddyshack should have topped all those “best movies of the 20th Century” lists.
• You think that any movie critic who thinks that Caddyshack is bunk, is bunk.
• You routinely imitate Judge Smails’ facial expressions.
• You argue passionately that Caddyshack is the greatest movie ever made – and your friends agree.
• You see a movie or TV show and see a Caddyshack actor and, loudly, tell everyone in the living room or theater: “He/she was in Caddyshack.”
• The other day, you saw “The Jim Thorpe” story starring Charlton Heston and you noticed that Ted Knight was in it or at least someone who looked a lot like Ted Knight.
• While watching Caddyshack, you recite every line before it’s delivered.
• You have (like Nick Price, PGA and British Open Champion) a boat named “Caddyshack.”
You would gladly buy a book about the movie because Caddyshack is life and the Book of Caddyshack is about life itself.
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The Cooter Preference Test
Author’s note. Early in the movie, when Ty Webb and Danny Noonan are getting into their early morning round of golf, they enjoy some wonderful banter. Noonan is angst-ridden over college and career decisions; he mentions that he has taken the ‘Cooter Preference Test’ and asks Webb if he has taken said test, which told Noonan that he should be an ‘underachiever.’ Here’s my bit about the test and its predecessors.

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The Cooter Preference Test is a wonderful pun even though the test to which Ty Webb and Danny Noonan refer is the Kuder Preference Record, Form C, according to Don Zytowski, the director of research at National Career Assessment Services, Inc., the company that owns the Kuder. It’s called the Cooter Preference Test in the early script. The founder of the test, Dr. Frederic ‘Fritz’ Kuder, died in 2000; he was 97.
Widely used from 1947, the Kuder Preference Record became well known in high school guidance programs and in the process of approving college plans for GI Bill veterans. The test is technically an ‘interest inventory’ presented in series of threes. The person taking the test responds to certain questions with a simple ‘most preferred’ or ‘least preferred’ or ‘in between most and least.’ The Kuder candidate punched holes with the help of a pin; the administrator counted the number of holes, using a key in the answer packet.
The Kuder Preference Record, Form C, offered percentile scores on ten different scales including Mechanical, Literary, and Social Service. Testees then referred to a separate booklet that provided a list of occupations associated with the final results from the form.
Today’s Kuder is the more modern Kuder Career Search; the candidate takes the test on-line through the NCASI web site (NCASI.com). Items from the former test made it to today’s test, which a computer scores: the punch card and associated booklet are gone; the result is instant.
Dr. Kuder was well aware of the mention in Caddyshack.
“Dr. Kuder was quietly delighted with the appearance of his work in a movie,” says Zytowski. Although not mentioned by name, the Kuder appears in Phillip Roth’s short story, You Can Tell a Man by the Song he Sings, from the short story collection, Goodbye Columbus.
The current owners of the Kuder estimate that over 100 million people have taken a version of the test. There’s a web site, kuder.com where those interested in Kuder can learn more about the test. There’s also a web site called cooter.com that’s a little different. I took the Kuder test which, today, comprises sixty questions grouped in threes. The test asks you which of the three options you enjoy the most (or least). Here is one of the sets of choices.

1. Take a several-day hike in a national forest.
2. Help a friend shop for clothes for a job interview.
3. Analyze different pizzas for their fat content.

Candidates rank these with one being the one you like the most and three being the one you like the least. After twelve pages, it’s over and the results come in. In lieu of a great big flashing banner saying “You Should Be an Underachiever!” it provides a sort of quasi aptitude rating based on clusters; the two clusters to which I am most suited are sales/management and arts/communication. The results page then provides six examples of suitable jobs within each cluster. The first one that popped up was grocery store manager. I would rather have razor wire spun through my nose than work as a grocery store manager; thankfully, the other options under sales/management were slightly more appealing. These included: marketing director, utility writer, contract administrator, hotel sales manager, marketing representative, not-for-profit store manager. However, under the arts/communication segment, the test was right on, recommending that I seriously consider editorial consulting or freelance writing—or fiction writing or being a librarian.
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You can order the book by clicking here.

If you have questions about the book, feel free to contact me at any time.

Scott Martin.