Usually, I shy away from these types of tribute videos. They normally can’t do the person in question justice or often minimize their contributions in some way. Or, they are just plain bad and poorly put together. Fortunately, that’s not the case with this particular video.

In this one, YouTube user cpfilm has put together a great set of clips from most of John Hughes’s top films of the ’80’s, set to The Who’s song Baba O’Riley which, of course, includes the very appropriate “teenage wasteland” lyrics. Among the films represented are most of the ones I found inspirational and highly amusing as a teenager growing up in the 80’s including The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Weird Science, Pretty In Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful, Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Sixteen Candles.

This video took a great deal of time and effort and I, for one, appreciate what went into it and the feelings it evokes. You can say whatever you want about John Hughes and his post-80’s career, but in his prime, he made some of the most entertaining, influential and eminently quotable films of all time. For that, and much more, I raise my fist silently in the air. RIP Mr. Hughes and thanks for all the great memories.

Click through to watch the video.

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We are just getting word now that John Hughes, director of such 80s films as Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, and Ferris Beuller’s Day off has died of a heart attack during a morning walk today in New York City. He was 59 years old.

Hughes was an icon to many who grew up with the films of the 1980s and 1990s including The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Home Alone, Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and many, many more. The story is still developing, and we plan on having more to you as it comes in.