Red Sky at Morning: How Four Lines Can Serve as a Microcosm for an Entire Movie

 "Red sky at night,

sailor's delight.

Red sky at morning,

sailors take warning." -- ancient poem, original author unknown

"Green sky at morning,

neighbor take warning.

Green sky at night,

neighbor, take flight!" -- above poem, misquoted by Ricky Butler

The 'Burbs is a vastly under-rated 1989 horror comedy starring Tom Hanks as Raymond "Ray" Peterson, a man who, along with the rest of his neighborhood, begins to obsess over a growing suspicion that the new neighbors are a family of serial killers. The film does an excellent job of the difficult task of gradually increasing suspense and tension while at the same time poking hilarious, often slapsticky, fun at the ridiculous lengths Ray Peterson and his friends will go to find out whether their suspicions are correct.

    There is one quiet moment that seems entirely unimportant in the grand scheme of the movie. However, upon closer inspection, this rare moment of calm speaks volumes about character, plot and theme.

    There's a running gag in the movie about how the Klopeks, the creepy new family on the street, routinely run experiments in their basement. Nobody knows the nature or purpose of the experiments, but whatever the Klopeks are doing, those experiments create howling winds and require enough electricity to cause the lights in the entire neighborhood to dim. This results in the sky above the Klopek house to glow a beautiful but eery shade of green.

"Green sky at morning,

neighbor take warning!"

Ricky Butler recites. But it's night-time.

"Green sky at night?" Ray prompts, pointing at the night sky. He seems honestly curious about whether or not there's a similar saying addressing their current situation. There's the briefest pause, just long enough to let the audience know that Ricky's going to improvise his answer.

    "Neighbor take flight!" Ricky says with a grin.

    It's never stated clearly, but there's an implication that Ray doesn't know that Ricky has misquoted the poem. This speaks volumes toward the characters of both Ray and, as an example of one of his typical neighbors, Ricky. Why does Ray prompt Ricky for the next line of the poem? Because it's Ray, more than anyone else, who wants information. As much as he scolds his neighbors for their various outlandish assumptions about the Klopeks, and as sincere as those scoldings are, Ray himself proves time and again that he's willing to go further than anyone else to get more information. He's also the one character most interested in relevant information. Every time the neighbors talk about the Klopeks, they routinely churn the rumor mill with discussions of half-remembered horror films, entirely unrelated tales of gruesome true crime, and wildly unfounded assumptions, and it's up to Ray to repeatedly say, "yes, that's all creepy, but what do we know about the Klopeks!" How do we sift through all of this completely irrelevant information to get to the truth? When Ricky points at the night sky and recites what he falsely remembers as an old saying about "green sky at morning," it's entirely consistent for Ray to be dissatisfied and prompt "yes, but what about a green sky at night? That's our current situation."

    And what of Ricky's response? Without even realizing it -- or, at least, initially without even realizing it -- Ricky is doing what everyone in the neighborhood has been doing throughout the movie, unknowingly filling each other with misinformation. But, significantly, when Ray prompts for more info, you can tell that Ricky is more than happy to fill in the blank with something he's completely made up on the spot.

    And yes, there is significance in the nature of Ricky's misquotes of the poem. The poem cites two possibilities, one for danger and tempest, the other for calm and safety. Ricky's version offers only ominous possibilities: take warning or take flight. Even the possibility of a more reassuring alternative is not mentioned as an option. And that's very much how Ricky and the other neighbors see the eccentric Klopeks. What are they up to, exactly, in that creepy old house of theirs? Several possibilities are floated and discussed, but none of them are reassuring. Ray's wife Carol tries to convince everyone that just because the Klopeks might be odd and keep to themselves doesn't mean they're evil or dangerous -- but no one is interested in this viewpoint, and despite the fact that up to this point, Ray has seemed to be the most reasonable person among the group, when Carol gets too insistent that the Klopeks might be more normal than anyone realizes, he leads the scheme in getting Carol out of town so he and everyone else can go back to trying to figure out what the Klopeks are really up to. Neighbor take flight or neighbor take warning, but neighbor just go on with your life and allow for the possibility that the new guys might be ordinary people? Not an option.