Mr. Mom launches two careers, Michael Keaton's as well as John Hughes'. Mr. Mom was Hughes' first major script and it was Michael Keaton's first major role. Michael's super as Mr. Mom. Michael Keaton starts as Mr. Mom and he goes on to be Johnny Dangerously, Beetlejuice, Batman, Doug, Jack Frost and among many other good parts. John Hughes starts with Mr. Mom and he moves on to write Summer Vacation, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Home Alone are just a few of his numerous good films.

Michael Keaton is one of my very most favorite actors. He's so funny, and good. I love Michael Keaton! He really does make Mr. Mom a hit. Teri Garr's so good too, and the kids are great. Mr. Mom is a likable comedy adventure and very approving.

Mr. Mom makes light at suburbia family home life in a lackadaisical manner. It's lighthearted fun. Mr. Mom is unbound by categorical type restrictions of classification. It's widely amusing. Mr. Mom has a cultured and impetuous personality that's adequate for the viewing. It's kind family fun. Mr. Mom has firm and flexible humor, able to transfer into alternating comedic forms with certainty. It's lovably funny. Mr. Mom invites a relating relationship with the viewer displaying familiarized family issues. It really touches home. There's nothing heavy about Mr. Mom, just a friendly flowing showing.

Daddy's just can't handle the job of motherhood. That's obviously what this film is trying to say, impatiently insisting that the recently laid-off Michael Keaton should be able to learn how to run a household on his very first day of unemployment. Of course it also says that a former housewife who has rejoined the workforce should be able to handle the rat race on the first day too. So you got a combination of misogyny and misandry, showing very impatient housewives in a grocery store and sexist executives in the boardroom. Throw in a sexy neighbor (Ann Jillian) and you've got the recipe for a family comedy that is mostly funny outside of some of the messages that it's trying to imply. Throw in a lecherous boss (Martin Mull) and you got a combination of "Three Men and a Baby" and "Nine to Five".

Probably not as amusing as it was in 1983 (where it was a moderate hit),this does have some laughs and a few memorable moments, but it's mostly in the performance of its leading man, Michael Keaton, who better just to keep some dignity in spite of his character's situation. It's hard to believe that in their years of marriage that's eaten and garden ever went to the grocery store together so the sequence when he goes there and deals with the indignant women (particularly a nasty older woman who insisted her shopping cart has the right of way) and employees ("Match Game's" Patty Deutsch and the ever prtioys Edie McClurg) who seem to find pleasure in treating like a dufus. But if it's anybody treating him like a dufus, it's the script writer (John Hughes) putting him in all of these situations that in retrospect just aren't logical. Thankfully Jillian show sympathy but Garr gives her husband the evil eye when he makes her feel awkward in front of her boss.

Yes, it's supposed to be exaggerated, a washing machine exploding at one point while a vacuum cleaner comes alive and a pot on the stove goes ballistic. Of course there are bunch of judgemental repair people there at that time, none of them sympathetic or even willing to find out what the issue is. No wonder Keating becomes addicted to a soap opera, in this case "The Young and the Restless", put you at the time had a classic super couple in Victor and Nikki. (Just a few years before, "Taxi Driver" had Robert De Niro watching the show as well, kicking the TV set in after watching scenes with Jill and Brock.) This is very sitcomish in nature, funny on the first viewing, but in perspective when you look back at it, eye-rolling for its treatment of the poor Keaton.

Veteran character actor Jeffrey Tambor and Christopher Lloyd as memorable small parts, and Carolyn Seymour is a cold and calculating office know-it-all who resents Garr from the start. So the film is not a perfect view of a man taking over in the woman's world of the early 80s as she takes over going what he had done since they married. Outside of Keaton possibly for a Golden Globe nomination (which he did not get),this is a fun one time popcorn movie that has not really stood the test of time bit gives some likable actors an opportunity to let loose and be silly. It's not a total waste of ninety minutes, but I wouldn't give this any prizes for positive views of gender relations either.

Having just made a splash in "Night Shift", Michael Keaton got another really funny role in "Mr. Mom". As struggling dad Jack Butler, he and wife Caroline (Teri Garr) decide to switch roles: he'll stay home while she works. Needless to say, it proves to be not quite that easy.

"Mr. Mom" was the sort of early-'80's comedy that showed how cinematic comedy was shifting toward the outright loony. But don't worry, this one is totally zany without being idiotic (a previous viewer noted that this was before Hollywood wanted comedy to be scatological all the time). Moreover, there's a distinct feeling of realism here: when Caroline applies for a job, the boss comes on to her (I have heard of such instances). A really funny movie.

And yes, when I first read the title (long before I actually saw the movie),I assumed that "Mr. Mom" was an action movie or something such. The title was listed right next to "Night Shift", which I assumed was a horror movie; boy was I wrong!