This Oral History of the Clueless Party Scene Is Fantastic

At last, it has arrived — the perfect bit of web content, the most sublime expression of 90s nostalgia whose arrival the whole Internet has anticipated breathlessly. As part of its micro oral histories series, Vulture has published the oral history of the Clueless party scene.

It is a thing of beauty and wonder, bursting with treasures untold. For example, Coolio is there. So, without further ado, here are five of the most beautiful and wondrous nuggets from this stunning feature:

• Tara Reid was lurking around on set: “I remember falling asleep, and being woken up by Tara Reid, who was not in the movie but just came by the set to hang out. Which was really odd,” recalls Donald Faison, who played Murray Duvall. “I went to high school with Tara Reid so when she woke me up, it was kinda like, ‘Yo, what are you doing here?'” I cannot imagine anything more terrifying than falling asleep at a fake party and then being roused suddenly by the Debauched Party God incarnate, or whatever it is that Tara Reid was back then.
• The flying clog that incapacitated Tai was both a foam clog and an animation: According to director/writer Amy Heckerling, “We did the take a few times with a clog flying off and we also had a foam rubber clog that we made, and we hit Brittany [Murphy] in the head a few times with it. But when I cut it all together… it happened so fast that you didn’t really see it. So… we had to create a special effect, essentially on regular film that was not shot for special effects, of a slower, darker, more noticeable clog going from the girl’s foot and hitting Brittany.” (“A Slower, Darker, More Noticeable Clog” will one day be the title of my memoir.)
• “Rolling With the Homies” became the lyrical albatross around Elton’s neck: “It doesn’t bother me anymore [when fans sing it to me],” says Jeremy Sisto. “It did for years, because I wasn’t sure if I was going to keep working as an actor. If I hadn’t kept working then it would have been a constant reminder of my failure [laughs].” I guess if you have to pick one thing to serve as a constant and ubiquitous reminder of your stalled career, this one isn’t so bad?
• Some extras who were asked to make out in the pool found true love on that day: According to Heckerling, “At one point [in the scene], I wanted to see that the party was getting later into the evening: somebody would be throwing up in the swimming pool, and a couple would be making out in the pool, you know. Me and the ADs were saying that if any of the extras wanted to play a couple in the swimming pool that would be making out, they would get extra money for that because they would be wet. So, you know, a couple of people volunteered: a cute guy and a cute girl. And I thought, well, they’ll make a nice couple. So we asked them if they wanted to do it, and they looked at each other and thought, ‘Yeah, okay.’ Years later, I was walking down Melrose and I hear some people going, ‘Amy! Amy!’ And I turn around, and it was them. They met that night. They’re engaged. She shows me the ring that’s been in his family … They became a couple, and when I met them on the street, they were engaged.”
• Coolio says he got “basically white-boy wasted” at the premiere.

Also, on a more somber note, the cast takes a moment to remember Brittany Murphy, and it’s quite touching. In the words of Breckin Meyer, who played Travis Birkenstock: “She was amazing. She was so sweet and so much fun, especially that character in Clueless. It continues to suck that she’s not here.”

BRB, launching a petition to replace all textbooks with a printout of this page. In the meantime, you can read the whole thing here.