I just got a press release informing me that there’s going to be an event at the Austin Film Festival tonight, featuring Glenn Gordon Caron, the creator of Moonlighting (for what it’s worth, he also directed the Warren Beatty/Annette Benning remake of An Affair to Remember, which makes him the last film director to work with Katherine Hepburn). Caron is scheduled to “present a hand picked episode from his acclaimed series Moonlighting as well as an episode from his unaired series Fling, starring Brooke Langton and Amy Sedaris.”

Moonlighting is one of my ultimate guilty pleasures, so if I was in Austin right now I would be genuinely excited to attend this event. But check out the image they put in the release to promote it:

That image is a pretty strong example of why, even though I’m totally a fan, I find watching Moonlighting today to be somewhat unsettling. Why do relics of the 80s like this somehow seem “older” than anything from the 70s?

The other day, my boyfriend and I were watching something on TV about the remake of The Heartbreak Kid, and they showed a clip from the original (which, if you haven’t seen, you should really check out — it’s one of my favorite films from that microgenre of 70s films about self-loathing Jewish guys who try to ameliorate their anxiety by going after WASPy girls). Anyway, my boyfriend said something like, “I never understood why anybody thought Cybill Shepherd was attractive, because all I knew about was Moonlighting. But then you see The Heartbreak Kid, and Taxi Driver, and it’s like a different person.”

The original appeal of Moonlighting is basically lost in time. For those of us who weren’t really old enough to get it the first time around, even if we really enjoy it, it’s hard to shake the feeling that we’re not enjoying it in the way it was originally intended. It feels too dated, too kitsch. The gravity-defying hair and the seemingly endless parade of strapless, taffeta evening dresses, as seen above, certainly don’t help. The overall effect is less “objet de l’amour” than “space alien in a thrift store prom dress.”

If you’re in Austin or can get there, the event is tonight at 9:15. More details at BSide.