Stephen Herek is a director who excels at comedy, and the key to much of his success lies in his penchant for interesting, three-dimensional characters who transcend comic stereotypes and sincerely draw the sympathy of viewers. Whether his characters are as exceedingly dumb as the protagonists of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure or as painfully sincere as the singer from Rock Star, Herek has a way of making audiences care about them that renders the humor in his films so effective; in the hands of a lesser director, the same characters could easily fail to make such emotional connections with viewers.
After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, the San Antonio native eventually landed a position as a production assistant for Roger Corman's New World Pictures. Herek gradually gained experience with film editing during his time at New World, and with the release of the 1982 film Android, he received his first onscreen credit as assistant editor. It was only a matter of time until Herek finally decided to step behind the camera, and with the release of the 1986 Gremlins knock-off Critters, he successfully drew the attention of audiences away from the source material by means of a clever script and some memorably nasty little varmints. Three years later, Herek managed to avoid the dreaded sophomore slump with the definitive '80s comedy Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. In addition to launching the career of actor Keanu Reeves, the film also produced a successful franchise that would yield both a sequel and a popular Saturday morning cartoon. Herek's third feature, the curiously titled Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, scored yet another hit at the box office and went on to live a healthy life on the home video market. A subsequent association with Disney in the early '90s yielded the popular family comedy The Mighty Ducks. Although the film was essentially little more than a hockey-flavored Bad News Bears, the characters had heart, and numerous sequels were soon to follow.
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