In light of Danny Masterson being sentenced to 30 years for rapes, it should be noted that back in 1993, the cult sensation — Beethoven’s 2nd — already warned us about him. This predates (no pun intended) the Conan clip making the rounds of late by more than a decade.
Exhibit 1
Seth (Danny Masterson) tries to get George Newton’s (Charles Grodin) daughter Ryce out alone (“Say, are you going to be around for a while?”) and gets deflated when she says she’s actually out looking for someone else.
Exhibit 2
George finally gets to meet Seth. Right off the bat, he’s immediately suspicious of him and tries to break the tension by making small talk about his dirt bike. When asked by Ryce what he thinks of Seth, George reacts exactly how I would if questioned what I think about rapists and Scientologists.
Exhibit 3
Seth meets Ryce again by chance on the town fair and asks if she’s there with her parents (weird) and attempts to invite her on a “picnic” (mega weird). When Ryce correctly answers that she needs to tell her parents first, Seth whines that they’ll just say no because he could tell George has a low opinion of him. He then says that he understands and expects to win him over once he gets to know the real Seth.
Exhibit 4
Despite the movie wrapping things up by setting Seth up as a good guy, George remains wary and dubious of him.
This would be Charles Grodin’s final film shoot before taking a long break from acting — only to return in 2004, the same year as Danny Masterson’s infamous Conan interview.
I still can’t believe he’s Francis from Malcolm in the Middle’s brother :0