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The 1984 film celebrates its 42nd anniversary in July 2026
NEED TO KNOW
Revenge of the Nerds premiered on July 21, 1984
The college-based coming-of-age comedy starred Robert Carradine, James Cromwell, John Goodman, Curtis Armstrong, Anthony Edwards, Julia Montgomery and Timothy Busfield
One of the film’s signature gags, the nerd laugh, began with Cromwell and turned into a shared talent among the cast
Revenge of the Nerds was a truly collaborative effort.
The iconic college film follows a group of freshmen who grew tired of being tormented by the fraternity brothers of Alpha Beta at Adams College. The nerds decide to fight back, forming a fraternity of their own, determined to take down the jocks of Alpha Beta.
As fans reflect on the film’s 42nd anniversary, many will emulate the throaty “nerd laugh” that appears throughout the film. Actor Robert Carradine, who died in Feb. 2026 at 71, previously revealed that while his character introduces the laugh in the film, he wasn’t the one who came up with it, crediting the laugh to James Cromwell, who played his father.
“In the script it referenced that the character had kind of a honking laugh and I didn’t really pay attention to that. I was too busy trying to be in character, right? Well, sure as s--t, it’s the day before we’re going to start and I don’t have the laugh,” he recalled during a 2013 appearance on The Howard Stern Show.
When director Jeff Kanew asked him if he was ready for the laugh, Carradine admitted he didn’t have it.
“He said, ‘Well, here, check this out.’ And he put in Jamie Cromwell’s VHS tape of the audition, and he’s doing the laugh,” he said.
Carradine went to Cromwell, who taught him the “technique” behind the honk, noting, “He showed me ‘cause we thought it should be like father, like son. So, that’s how the laugh was born.”
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Cromwell, now 86, opened up about the laugh during A.V. Club‘s 2012 oral history of the film.
“I came up with the nerd laugh, which I didn’t know—I did it spontaneously. We had a lot of fun in the car. I’m very fond of Bobby Carradine, my son in the picture. And so, I taught them how to do the laugh,” he recalled.
“And when we had a screening of the movie and an audience—we were sitting with a big audience—I came onstage and I did the laugh, and I hear the laugh—just the nerd laugh but perfectly—and I look and it’s my wife,” he said. “It was my wife’s laugh and I copied it spontaneously. I don’t think she ever— I never said it to her.”
Read the original article on People
