I don't know much about John Hughes except that I can't imagine my life with without him. Writer, producer, director, and babysitter of the 80s, his defining brand of teen-comedy tapped a main line into the spongy brain of American youth, making Hughes one of the most influential men in contemporary, pop culture.

His treasury of music heavy, modern classics effectively handheld a generation through adolescence, and in turn, we made him immortal, incorpating his stories, concepts and
John Hughes
John Hughes died in Manhattan of a heart attack at age 59. (Associated Press)
dialogue into the everday parlance of our time.

Early reports indicate it would take a top-loading VCR and a dozen space monkey scientists to calculate the billions of times per day The John Hughes Pop Culture Content Vault is referenced by the population of kids and teens who grew up watching his films. 1983-1987 captures the Wally World / Long Duk Dong / Save Ferris set, while 1990 begins the Age of Culkin. It's a lot of ground to cover.

Neither cheeky nor self-referential, his films endure without violence or graphic sexuality. They're not flashy movies, but they're also not pandering or pedantic. Kids aren't portrayed as overly precious with Ivy League vocabularies. Parents aren't particularly good role models or community leaders. Socio-political topics keep their distance, and you won't find a holy moral message to appeal to family-values extremeists. What you will find is a man punching a rubber moose, Christie Brinkley flirting from a Corvette, drugs in detention, hand written quizzes about who you want to 'do it' with, cutting class and crashing parades, cutting clothes and crashing Ferraris, and a vacuum cleaner named Jaws that desperately wants to eat your blankie.

So how do we quantify the influence and cultural consequence of this work? Well, can you apply lipstick by placing the tube in your bra? John Hughes can. Did you manifest Jake Ryan's feathered 'do and red Porsche to kiss you on your birthday? John Hughes did. Were you able to Frankenstein to life Kelly LeBrock to be your personal love-slave/fashion coodinator simply by hacking a computer and wearing a jock strap on your face? John Hughes was. He's the man that turned Anthony Michael who into Anthony Michael Hall, and created a groupthink of Molly Ringwald proportions.

Show Dick some respect. Leave a comment with your favorite JH quote. RIP.