My friend and I watched this cheesy movie because we were 14 and had our own band together. My Dad was watching it with us, and being the experienced professional singer he was, he was pointing out the importance of vocal harmonies. We listened and related to the shaky starts and ruined rehearsals...but I was most interested in the drums, as they were the popular Vistalite series made by Ludwig. I had my own set of them, the same era too, only mine were not the spiral pattern like those used in the film; they were "smoke" black (thus, my kit was cooler). We realized it was a bit of a stupid movie, but we were early high-schoolers and inspired by anything we could catch on TV that involved bands (of course MTV changed that soon after). I loved Smith in American Graffiti but he was MORE of a dork in this one. We howled laughing when he resents his nosy old neighbor complaining about the noise and says disgustedly, "rinky-DINK!" We knew WE would have said something far worse! Corny music, some fair acting, but a pleasant film. But I always wondered...was "I Shot The Sheriff" the only damn song Rapid Fire even knew? I couldn't figure out why they had FANS, when they knew only one song and were lousy at it to boot!

I have fond memories of this movie and yet I know it was probably not that good. Nonetheless, I would love to see it again. The 1978 date makes me cringe, because it underlines just how uncool I was at 15 or 16 to have enjoyed the movie. But then again, that is what the movie was about: a bunch of uncool kids forming a band and competing with the cool kids in a battle of the bands.This movie may be ultimately responsible for my hatred of Eric Clapton's I Shot The Sheriff, which seems to be the only song the cool band could play.One of the effective scenes I remember from the film involved the Cotton Candy band members playing strip poker and the band leader halting the game, just as the girl in the band has to pay up by revealing it all to the male band members. As I recall the scene was quite titillating, and then just as suddenly sobering, as the band leader put the interests of the band ahead of a cheap thrill.If memory serves, this movie is probably too sweet, innocent, and bubble gum to hold up well today, but I bought the Partridge Family Season 1 on DVD and would pick up this flick in a second as a guilty pleasure, if it was available. If I had to compare it to a modern day movie, I'd say it is close in feel to the following mixture: the quasi-innocence of Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, the rivalry of What A Girl Wants and the musical depth of the Lizzie MacGuire movie. And yes, I actually enjoyed all of those to some extent too.

I love this film! Yes it's cheesy but it is also an accurate description if you were ever in bands while in jr. high etc. I also happen to know the brothers who were in Rapid Fire. Rapid fire was not the name of their band and the lead singer was an actor but the rest of the band was a real high school band at Dallas' lake highlands high school. The bass player is a friend of mine and he now owns/operates a famous studio in Dallas tx. A nice tid bit is that they(the band) thought their music would actually be in the film...but it didn't happen. If you haven't seen it, watch it cuz it's pretty good for us naive chees eaters.

I attended Lake Highlands in '84-'86 and some of the staff extras in the Movie were still working when I went through. I still love to watch the movie because of the nostalgia when I see all my old haunts. The school still hasn't changed much and I can place almost all the scenes of the school. I was lucky enough to get a decent VHS recording off of it back in 84 and I still drag it out every few months to watch it commercial free. It's just not in good enough shape to try to transfer it to disc. I'm hoping they release Skyward on DVD eventually as well. Another film right here in Dallas...mostly Mesquite this time though. Man, Bette Davis. Some high power acting for such a small film and director (at the time).