Original subtitles

♪ Hey, everybody, have you heard the news? ♪

♪ Joe Bob is back in town ♪

♪ He's over at the drive-in, hanging around ♪

♪ Watching crazy movies, so come on down ♪

♪ To Joe Bob's "Last Drive-In" show ♪

♪ Blood, beasties, boobies, and more ♪

♪ Joe Bob's "Last Drive-In" show ♪

♪ It's a spooky good time with monsters and ghosts ♪

♪ Crazy, kooky fun with the world's greatest host ♪

♪ Joe Bob's "Last Drive-In" show ♪

♪ It's gonna be legendary ♪

♪ Joe Bob's "Last Drive-In" show ♪

♪ It's gonna be very scary ♪

♪ Joe Bob's "Last Drive-In" show ♪

♪ Let's go ♪

-You know, I take this job very seriously.

And...

Are you snickering? -Me?

-I detected a snicker over there.

-There's zero snickering over here.

-I take this job very seriously.

And when we were putting together this program

of "Jaws" rip-off movie-- Alright, excuse me.

We're not supposed to call it "Jaws" rip-off night.

When we were putting together this program

of ecological horror, we had a lot to choose from.

I mean, we already showed "Grizzly," which was

an almost scene-by-scene reproduction of "Jaws"

with a killer bear in a national forest.

But we wanted to follow that up with one of the classics,

you know, like "Orca: The Killer Whale!"

with Bo Derek and Richard Harris

and Keenan Wynn, who was actually in tonight's movie.

He was a "Jaws" rip-off specialist.

Or "Bermuda: Cave of the Sharks,"

the great Spanish, Italian, Mexican adventure mystery,

amnesiac film,

or "Tentacles" -- John Huston, Shelley Winters,

Bo Hopkins and a mutated giant octopus,

or "Tintorera: Killer Shark," starring Susan George

and directed by the great René Cardona Jr.,

or "Barracuda," the one where hypoglycemia research turns ugly

or "Evil in the Deep,"

better known as "The Treasure of Jamaica Reef,"

starring game-show host Chuck Woolery,

Pro Bowl defensive tackle Roosevelt Grier

and Alan Ladd's son.

Or -- I wish -- "Mako: The Jaws of Death" with Richard Jaeckel

as the deranged Vietnam vet

who communicates telepathically with the sharks

and fights a morbidly obese strip-club owner

who wants to use sharks in the dancers' acts.

-Which would be amazing.

-Yeah, but when you talk serious eco horror,

you want to go with top-tier animal-kingdom mutation.

And that means one movie and one movie only.

And that movie is...

-"Piranha." -..."Piranha"!

Or if you want to be snooty, "Piran-ya," but hell yes.

And Darcy, the Mail Girl, ladies and gentlemen,

here for your communications pleasure.

Message her, DM her, e-mail her, tweet her.

Let her know the stories

you'd be too embarrassed to tell anybody else.

She is the official

"Last Drive-In" tastemaker and influencer.

She not only knows the piranhas, she knows her piranha...

You've done "Piranha" cosplay, right?

She does "Piranha" cosplay.

-You know, speaking of cosplay,

why are you wearing a pith helmet?

-Well, thank you for asking that, Darcy.

-My pleasure.

-Since we're going with flesh-devouring mutant creatures

tonight, I thought I would apply some pith.

Like we're journeying into the jungle, you know?

Um, didn't you say we should do a Steve Irwin tribute

on a night like this?

-I did, because the second movie is "Crocodile,"

and he was the Crocodile Hunter. Get it?

I don't think he wore a pith helmet, though.

-Well, I'm not that satisfied with this helmet.

I don't think it has any actual pith in it.

I ordered it online.

-Pith is a -- is a thing? -Yeah.

It's supposed to be made of pith.

That soft wood from the rice paddies,

the sola plant, but this is something else.

And can you see this?

But that's not what pisses me off, really.

-You're "pithed" off, are you?

-Very funny. -Thank you.

-I ordered this from a place in Thailand

where they should know what they're doing

when it comes to pith.

And right away I get this e-mail and this text back

saying thank you for your order, blah blah blah.

We have additional products, blah blah blah.

You get these e-mails and these texts

that were not pithy, by the way.

And then a few minutes later, I get an e-mail

and a text from my bank saying, "Yeah,

we charged your pith helmet to your account."

And then the next day I get an e-mail and a text saying,

"Hey, we're shipping your pith helmet."

So apparently it's a big deal when you order a pith helmet

because, um, you know, in less than 24 hours,

I already have six messages from these pith people.

So I'm thinking, "Okay,

pith people are super anal and paranoid

because they're sending me all this stuff."

-Why paranoid?

-Well, they want to reassure me

that they're really putting my hat in a box

and really taking it to the post office

and really sending it to me.

And I don't really need that assurance,

but I guess they do, so...

-And that "pithed" you off? -No, it was -- No.

It was the next part that "pithed' me off.

"Pithed" me off. -Ah, yes. Got it.

-Two days later I get this e-mail

and this text saying your package is inbound into customs.

-And that was irritating?

-Well, I don't -- I don't need to know that.

I don't -- I don't need to know any of this.

Just tell me when you think it'll be here

and I'll take it from there.

But, you know, too much information, so...

-I think they do that

so you don't have to bombard them with questions about

when your package is gonna get there,

because you know they're getting that from you.

-I'm not tracking my pith helmet on GPS.

You know?

-They want you to know

that they are doing the tracking for you.

-Okay. Alright. -They're looking out for you.

-Okay. But listen to this. Listen to this.

"Accepted at International Mail Facility, Doral, Florida,

March 14th, 5:58 a.m."

Why are they telling me this?!

-Oh, you want a real answer? I don't know.

-Yes. Why are they telling me this?

So I'll know that people start work early

at the international mail facility

in Doral, Florida, because it's 5:58 a.m.

But there's more here.

"Cleared U.S. Customs and Border Protection Doral, Florida,

March 14th, 6:47 p.m."

Alright. Is this so that I'll know

that people are messing with my hat in Doral, Florida?

Did they -- Did they search the hat for drugs?

I'm gonna assume U.S. Customs and Border Protection

in the Miami area is very drug aware.

Right? And it's from Thailand. And they've seen "Scarface."

So is this so I'll think, "Wow.

13 hours to check the hat for opium and heroin."

Is that why this is on here?

-I guess they check everything.

-But do I need to know that they checked it for that?

-Apparently not.

-Okay. Exactly. Are they making a paper trail?

Are they telling me this so that if the hat gets crumpled,

they can say, "Hey, it wasn't us!

It was those Customs and Border Protection people.

They mangled that hat."

Okay. But listen up. Listen to this.

"Accepted at Fulfillment Center, Miami, Florida,

March 15th, 3:06 a.m."

So it's already been to three places in the U.S.,

and all of these are in Florida.

I mean, fulfillment. That's a good word, right?

That indicates maybe they're fulfilling an expectation,

maybe my expectation to get my hat, you know.

But they're still basically telling me,

"We're screwing around with your hat in Florida."

But now listen to this.

"Picked up Miami, Florida, March 15th, 6:17 a.m."

No idea what that means.

They picked it up? Somebody picked it up.

-They picked up your package. -But then the next one --

"Arrived, Memphis, Tennessee, March 16th, 4:06 a.m."

They sent my hat to Memphis!

-That's where FedEx is. -FedEx is everywhere.

But they flew my hat 1,000 miles to a random airport

in Tennessee from Doral, Florida, or Miami, Florida.

-That's where they sort all the FedEx's.

-Memphis is not in the direction of me,

so they're just -- they're just messing with me now.

They're saying, "By the way,

your hat is now farther away from you

than it was before, so ha ha ha!" You know?

-They're just showing you the progress of your package.

-They're showing me the regress of my package.

They're running away with my hat,

and they want me to know that.

For some reason, they want me to know that it's in Memphis.

- I don't know. - Alright. Alright.

Continuing. -Okay.

-"Leaves Memphis." -Oh, my God. Continuing.

"March 16th, 8:17 a.m." Okay.

Please go in the right direction. Alright?

They just say they're leaving Memphis.

They don't say they're going in the right direction.

Okay. Then the next one --

"Arrive destination sort facility.

Arrive destination sort facility.

March 16th, 12:02 p.m."

Alright. That doesn't sound good.

That's more people handling my hat.

-The word "destination" sounds good. Yeah?

-Okay. And they're back -- And I --

Alright, I have to say, they're back to e-mails and texts now.

They're sending me all these e-mails and texts

saying, "Get ready.

Your order is almost here."

Which is like,

I don't really need to get ready to get a package in the mail.

But anyway,

and then the next day, it says "Out for delivery."

What does that mean?

-It means that they -- -Out for delivery.

-They put it on a truck to be delivered to you.

-Alright.

But they don't tell me where that truck is.

Shouldn't they -- I mean, they're getting specific here.

Shouldn't they tell me where the truck is?

I mean, up to now,

they've been pretty damn specific about

where my hat is going.

And then they couldn't shut up about it.

And even after I got the hat, I'm still getting e-mails.

I'm getting texts from the seller,

from the shipper.

"Are you happy with your purchase?"

You know, you know how many messages I need

when I order something online? -How many?

-One! One message!

"We're sending it.

We got your money. We're sending it."

I don't really need to go on a transoceanic,

transcontinental journey with my package.

-Okay. -And then it gets here.

It's a pith helmet. There's no pith!

Look at this. Look at this. Does that look like pith to you?

-That is the most authentic pith helmet I have ever seen.

-Oh! Come on. -That's real pith, baby.

-It's not pith. -It's pith.

-I'm sending it back. I'm sending it back.

And you know what I'm gonna do when I send it back?

-What? Demand your money back?

-Well, besides that,

I'm gonna call up their customer service department

twice a day and say, "By the way,

I sent your fake pith helmet back to you.

It's probably going to Portland, Oregon first

before it turns around and heads back to you.

I'm gonna estimate that at 3:57 p.m.,

it will probably be loaded onto a sortation center

in Lawrence, Kansas."

And by the way,

that is a word they use -- a sortation center.

Shouldn't it just be sorting room?! Sorting.

They're sorting. They're not doing sortation.

See, this is why the world is going insane.

This is why we're going crazy.

We know too much about our packages

and not enough about our prescription medications,

to give one example.

-Oh, good lord. Is that your final conclusion?

-That's my final conclusion

from this whole pith helmet ordeal.

-I feel like we've all learned a lot

about your package tonight, Joe Bob.

-Well, thank you.

-I don't know if that was a compliment, but okay.

-Fortunately, we do have a movie.

-Whoo! -"Piranha."

Or as some of the characters say in it, "Piran-ya."

-Because they're fancy.

-The sensitive story of an Army research project

gone awry that causes a doofus private eye

and her drunkard helper to release thousands of mutant,

flesh-eating creatures into the Texas river system,

threatening both a middle school summer camp

and a luxury resort with gory carnage

in what might be called

"Huckleberry Finn goes to Crystal Lake"

because in this case, the raft gets chewed into splinters

by schools of voracious tiddlers

that turn the water into red goop.

Sure, we've seen it before,

but have we seen it with Keenan Wynn getting

his feet chewed off? I think not.

Let's take a look at those drive-in totals and get started.

We have...

Drive-In Academy Award nominations for Kevin McCarthy

as the scientist who bioengineers the fish

for saying, "Razorteeth.

You don't know what you've done."

Barbara Steele as the military expert

who sneers, "I'm not afraid. I'm a scientist."

Heather Menzies as the most aggressive skiptracer

ever for releasing thousands of mutant species

into the river system.

Bradford Dillman as the reclusive drunk

turned hero for being able to hold his breath

underwater longer than the current record holder

in the world,

and for saying "We'll pollute the bastards to death."

To the always excellent Dick Miller as Buck Gardner

for providing the worst time ever to open a water resort,

and for declaring Ralph the swimming swine

as practically a national monument.

And of course, to Joe Dante, the director,

for doing things the drive-in way.

Four stars. Joe Bob says, "Check it out."

Mm.

You know, they changed the name of Ralph in the movie.

Ralph the Diving Pig plays Ralph the Swimming Swine.

Ralph was famous in Texas, Aquarena Springs.

That was the amusement park where they filmed this movie.

San Marcos, Texas.

And Ralph would dive into the water several times a day,

swim for a while.

To me, Ralph the Diving Pig is a much better name

than Ralph the Swimming Swine.

Legal reasons? I don't know.

Besides, why not make Ralph the Diving Pig more famous

by using his real name?

They also had the dancing chicken at that amusement park.

They had the baseball-playing rabbit

and had the Tic-Tac-Toe chicken.

Chicken could win at Tic-Tac-Toe.

Um, but Ralph was the star.

I mean, because most pigs don't want to dive.

Most pigs don't want to swim, so...

-Did you know

that that's actually a real thing in the Bahamas?

-What is? -Swimming with pigs.

They literally have resorts where you can do that.

My mom went and did it last year.

-Those can't possibly be pigs as talented as Ralph

because Ralph the Diving Pig was special.

He was an institution.

-Did you go to this place often?

-I wish. No, I lived far away from San Marcos.

But Ralph, he was more famous than the Aqua Maidens

that performed at Aquarena Springs.

The Aqua Maidens were these girls that danced underwater.

And you watched them through a glass wall.

They were cute, but Ralph was cuter.

-Got to lead somewhere.

-Well, let's stop and make camp pretty soon.

Got your breath?

Yeah. Let's go.

What is this?

-Doesn't look like anyone's been around here for a while.

Let's go inside and check it out.

-You think we should?

-Barbara, who's gonna know the difference?

-Okay.

-Besides, the law-breaking will do you good.

-I wonder why this place wasn't on your map.

-Maybe it's supposed to be a secret.

-Maybe.

Hey.

Far out!

Feels great.

Come on, let's wash off

so it won't be so funky in that sleeping bag.

-What if somebody catches us?

-Who's gonna catch us?

There's nobody here.

Let's get wet!

Last one in...is a rotten egg.

-Oh, that's really original.

-Whoo!

-Wait a minute.

-What?

-What if this is some kind of a sewage-treatment plant

or something?

-Idiot.

-Oh, now you're gonna get it!

-Oh.

How is it?

Here I come.

-Hey, that's not funny.

-What? -You bit me.

I can't believe you actually bit me.

-What do I look like?

A creature from the black lagoon?

You are paranoid, kid.

Listen, I'll race you to the deep end.

-Something bit me!

Barbara!

There's something in here!

-David!

-Goddamn!

-David!

David?

David!

David! David!

Paging Mr. Patrick Hobby.

Mr. Patrick Hobby to the white courtesy telephone, please.

-Rent a Jeep?

-She'll be traveling on unpaved mountain roads and unless --

-Alright, alright, alright. Where do I sign?

The white zone is for immediate loading --

-Okay. We're all set.

When you get to Indian Springs, you'll get a Jeep.

The roads are very rough there.

-No sweat.

Hey, look, I can handle it.

-I know you can. I wouldn't send you if I didn't think you could.

Come on, come on.

-Wait, wait, wait.

Got ya.

I found the bigamist, didn't I?

-Right.

-And the bag check lady, Mrs. Pilgrim.

-Right. -And I found Mo Schneider.

-Three times, but those were all in town.

You're strictly a city kid

and these kids are way out in the boonies.

-I can find anything, Earl.

I'm two-thirds bloodhound.

I told you that when you hired me.

Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. My ticket.

I could have sworn I put it in my pocket.

Where's my ticket?

I can manage it. -Of course you can.

-It's money in the bank. -My money.

Hey, Brandy.

How are you, huh?

Big old man lagging behind. Huh?

-I'm telling you, this hike from town

is getting longer every week.

-You oughta get a car, Jack.

-I got a car.

It's up on blocks. That's where it belongs.

Scotch.

Gin.

Bourbon.

Tequila!

-You're the Seventh Cavalry, Jack.

You know, I just ran dry today.

-Your corn meal is down there,

but I ain't gonna walk down there and get it.

-Man cannot live by booze alone.

In lieu of rent. -Okay.

-So what's up in town?

-Same as usual.

-I bet you miss it, Jack, huh?

I bet you miss sellin' whatever it was --

that, uh, that plastic fruit.

-No.

Got the river.

It wakes me up in the morning.

Gives me a bath.

Does the laundry.

Gives me my dinner.

Puts me to sleep real gentle.

I got my river. I got Brandy.

Paul...

...what have you got up here?

-I got scotch, gin, bourbon, and tequila.

What's it to you, anyhow?

-Okay.

Okay, buddy. I'll see you.

Okay. Come on. Come on. Come on.

-Take it easy, Brandy.

-Ah.

Ow!

Ah!

Hmm.

It's open.

-Paul Grogan?

Hi. I'm Maggie McKeown.

I work for a skip-tracing company.

-What's that?

-We find missing people.

-Did my ex-wife send you?

-No.

Um...

I'm looking for a pair of teenage kids.

Some friends of theirs

said they might have gone backpacking up here.

-Well, I haven't seen 'em.

Did you talk to the sheriff's people?

-They said it was a big mountain.

-They're right, it is.

-Well, I figured they may have followed along the river.

Are there any places to swim near here?

-Well, if they'd drowned,

they'd be swept down to the dam, you see?

So you're startin' at the wrong end.

Boy, you're the wrong end, alright.

Look, am I interrupting something?

I mean, this is kind of important.

-Hey...

you cool your jets, lady.

I didn't ax-murder your young couple.

I can't help you, I haven't seen 'em.

-Are there any other shacks up here?

-Cabins. This is a cabin.

-Well, are there any more of them?

Any places where they might be holed up?

-Well, there's an old fella named Jack,

has a place down the river a bit,

but he's not with them.

And there was some kind of Army test site

way up the mountain.

But that closed down five or six years ago.

-Come on, let's go. -Go where?

-You're taking me up there.

-Oh, no, I'm not.

-You think I'm wasting my time here, don't you?

-No.

I think you're wasting mytime.

You find anything yet?

-Not yet, but it's still early in the day.

David!

Barbara!

What were they testing here?

-Who knows?

I hiked up here once with my ex-wife.

They had guard dogs out. The fence was electrified.

The works.

-B.R.

Barbara Randolph.

-Hmm.

Man, that is cold.

-Their parents said they were both excellent swimmers.

-Well, wouldn't they be floatin' up on top by now?

-It takes a while for the body to bloat with gas.

-Nice business you're in.

-You think there's a way to pull the plug on this thing?

-Tropical fish?

-Looks Like it's for laboratory rats.

You know, where they had to make it through

an obstacle course to get a reward.

-Hmm.

-It's still warm.

-Come here.

Take a look at this.

-Yecch.

-Let's get outta here.

This place gives me the creeps.

Hey! What are you...

-Well, they've been here, alright.

And they never left.

I say we drain the pond.

-Well, now... Now, wait a minute.

You can't do that

without gettin' somebody's permission, you know.

-Well, if it still works,

it's the quickest way to know if they're down there.

-What are you doing?!

You!

-Hey!

Are you alright?

-He's breathing. -No thanks to you.

-Well, what was I supposed to do?

He had you by the throat!

-I would have gotten loose in a second.

Look at this.

You put a dent in it.

-Could I have a sip of that, please?

-It's not water.

Ugh!

-What is it?

-The water's salty.

-Where does this drain to?

-It was a fish hatchery before the Army took it over.

It probably drains underground into the river.

-Uh-oh.

-I think it's a dog.

I don't suppose they would have fit through here.

-Not in one piece.

You think he's alright up there?

-Oh, shit.

-Oh, my God.

-I guess I must have left the keys in it, huh?

-Ohh!

-He's alive.

-He's indestructible.

-Ohh!

-Easy.

Easy, now. Easy, easy.

-Razorteeth.

-What's Razorteeth?

-You drained the pond? -Yes, we --

-You let them out?! -Let who out?

-You okay? What's he doin'?

-You -- You don't know what you've done.

Untie me. Untie me.

-The question is, what you've done, mister.

-You don't know.

They breed like flies.

There'll be no way to stop them.

-Would you talk sense, damn it? Now, what about those kids?

-I can't tell you, I can't tell you.

Mother of God, they'll kill us. They'll kill all of us.

-Okay, mister, listen.

They're gonna sweat it out of you in town.

-They'll kill us.

What have we done?

-Wow, that's a lot of star power

for a super-low-budget "Jaws" rip-off movie, right?

Keenan Wynn wanders in as a vagabond with a dog.

Richard Deacon is the private eye

who sees Maggie off on the plane

trying to find the missing teens.

And look who they just tied up.

The silver-haired star

of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers,"

Kevin McCarthy -- the guy at the end --

You know, at the end

of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers,"

the guy standing in the middle of the highway,

ranting and raving at the passing cars.

"The aliens are here. They're here!"

And nobody's listening to him.

Anyway here he is again, ranting and raving

that these idiots have unleashed the horror.

"They'll kill us all."

How do you get Kevin McCarthy,

Mr. Actors Studio Kevin McCarthy --

How do you get him to show up for "Piranha"?

-It's "Piranha."

-You got to know what indie filmmakers

we're working with here, I think is the answer to that.

When "Jaws" came out in 1975,

"The New York Times" film critic Vincent Canby

said "'Jaws' is basically a Roger Corman movie, but bigger."

And Roger Corman admitted "'Jaws' scared me

because what Vincent Canby did not say is that

they didn't just make a bigger movie, they made a better one."

And so he did not try to follow up immediately

with a "Jaws" rip-off

because he didn't think he could match the special effects.

But once they announced "Jaws 2" three years later,

he said, "Okay, here we go.

There will be massive publicity before this movie comes out.

We'll take advantage of the publicity,

come out two months before them,

and make a water-based creature feature

before Universal's release."

So there was a producer named Jeff Schechtman

who had already commissioned a "Jaws" rip-off script,

and it substituted piranhas for sharks,

and it was considered a fairly horrible script.

But Roger Corman bought it anyway so he could own

that concept,

and the first version of it

was written by a guy named William Elledge,

and the idea was that a crazed ichthyologist puts hundreds

of piranhas into Los Angeles swimming pools

in order to avenge the death of his twin brother.

Well, that script was sent out for a rewrite

by Richard Robinson,

whose main credit was that he had written

"Kingdom of the Spiders," the William Shatner cheapie.

So now the story becomes piranhas are unleashed

in a river so they can attack patrons of a resort

on Kern Lake,

which was a lake in the San Joaquin Valley

that no longer exists, actually,

but it had a bear that chases children into the water,

and then a forest fire

to drive the bear to chase the children into the water,

and nobody liked that script either.

-I like it.

-So Corman assigned Francis Dole to find a writer

who could work quick and come up with a good piranha concept.

Francis Dole -- I'm not sure what her title was

at New World Pictures,

but she was sort of the story department,

and she got a call from an agent who said,

"Hey, I have this novelist who wants to write screenplays.

Do you have anything for him?"

And she said, "Well, the only thing I have

is this piranha project that needs a second rewrite.

Who's your novelist?" And he says, "John Sayles."

And she says, "Oh,

the guy who writes all the short stories for 'Atlantic Monthly'?

We'd love to have him."

Now, I can guarantee you,

if that agent had called Paramount or Fox

or Columbia or Universal,

they would have said, "Who's John Sayles?"

But the people working for Roger Corman

were the kind of people

who actually read the fiction in "Atlantic Monthly."

And so John Sayles comes on board

to write his first screenplay ever.

And that screenplay was "Piranha."

Of course, he would go on to become

an acclaimed writer and director

and sort of Mr. Indie of the '80s,

but he was a total unknown in the Hollywood of 1978.

And what Roger Corman really liked about him

is that he was fast.

He tore up that Richard Robinson screenplay

and solved the principal story problem,

which was Roger wanted to kill every 10 minutes.

Well, how do you keep the kills going

if people already know that there are piranhas in the water?

Well, he solved that with a map and a dam and a raft.

And so New World was ready to go with this story.

But I'll tell you the rest of that story at the next break.

And by the way, did you notice that --

Um, you notice that little humanoid lizard creature

that skitters across the countertop

when Maggie and Paul

are skulking around the research lab?

That creature was supposed to come back at various times

in the movie, getting larger each time,

and they were gonna end with a giant version

of that creature attacking a pier.

-Wow. -But they had no money

for all that much stop-motion animation,

so they just used it that one time for creepy atmosphere.

But since we're talking about star power,

that was Phil Tippett who created the creature.

The effects genius who was our guest

when we showed the 30 years in the making

magnum opus "Mad God."

Um, but what did you think of that mini lizard monster,

Darcy? -Oh, my God, he's so cute.

They should have gone with that idea.

-Yeah. Also, over the years,

people have debated what those sounds are

that the piranha make when they attack.

-Dental drills.

-I always heard it was dental drills. Right?

-I think they did, uh, distort some dental drill noise,

but I think they also threw in some other stuff.

Um, when you think about it --

No, I don't think a piranha would make any noise, would it?

-Yeah, they actually bark.

-They do not. -Piranhas bark.

-They do not. They're underwater.

How do they bark? -They bark loud. I don't know.

-When did you study marine biology?

-Um, well, unofficially, since I was born, basically.

Fish are cool. -Yeah?

You have pictures of yourself in that shark cage

you went to?

-I would assume so. Yes, but that was forever ago.

-That just boggles the mind.

-Why?

-Major respect, Darcy, for getting in that shark cage.

-What? No, it's just a silly tourist thing.

And you should totally come next time.

-Alright, I'll think about that.

-You should. -Alright, back to the movie.

Do you think piranhas are as fierce as sharks?

-No, I do not, because I don't think sharks are fierce.

I think they just do what's natural.

-They eat things.

-Yeah, but remember, these are mutant piranhas.

-Right. These are piranhas bioengineered by the Army.

And I wonder why it was the Army that did it

and not the Navy since they're, you know, in the water.

-I mean, honestly, it should have been the Navy,

because they do evil shit,

like they train dolphins to be suicide bombers.

-True. Do they still do that? They still have --

-I hope not.

-Suicide dolphins. -That's not cool.

-You know what fish I think is evil?

-What? -Tilapia.

You know, whenever they want to pawn off some cheap,

random school-cafeteria fish on you, they say,

"Well, yeah, that's tilapia."

I mean, aren't there, like, a thousand different --

It always tastes different.

You have this tilapia and that tilapia

and this tilapia over here.

Are there, like, a thousand different kinds of tilapia?

Okay, that looks like alligator gar.

Nope. Tilapia.

You know, they just use that to mean, "Here's something

that's basically one of those fish

that'll eat anything," like catfish.

I think it is related to catfish,

only it doesn't taste as good as catfish

because we don't know where it comes from.

We don't even know what continent it comes from.

There's some fish we had. We had tilapia.

-I don't really eat fish, but I feel like tilapia is

actually -- It's a regular fish.

-No, no, it's not.

We should ask that Hell's Kitchen guy.

Mmm, mystery fish. We'll call it tilapia.

Put a label on it and sell it.

-And you've actually thought about this?

-Yeah.

The Army could bioengineer tilapias

and wipe out entire civilizations.

Just tell them it's tilapia.

I'm not kidding.

-He thinks someone's going to kill him.

-He's right. I am if he steps out of line.

-Do you have any cigarettes? -No.

Quit a year ago. It interfered with my drinking.

-Do you mind if I come in for a minute?

-Sure.

-So did you start drinking before or after?

-Before or after what?

-Your wife left you.

-What the hell kind of question is that?

-Look. I'm sorry. I mean, I was just interested.

Um...do you mind if I sit here?

-Go ahead.

-How long were you married?

-Hmm? Um...10 years.

She was just 17 when we eloped in her father's car.

And we thought we had the world by the balls.

-Where did you live? -In town.

I worked in a smelting operation downriver.

Then the government closed us down,

said we were killing too many fish.

They give it to the Army.

And the Army sold it to some resort outfit.

So you know that somebody was making a bundle

somewheres along the line.

-How do you make a living now?

-Oh. Back pay. Unemployment.

I'm gonna have to go to work come September.

Yeah.

Keep my daughter in saddle shoes.

-Does your daughter live with you?

-Yeah.

-What's wrong? -Hmm?

-You're so tense.

-Hmm?

I don't know.

Guess I'm not used to being around people.

-Well, that's obvious.

I've been trying to hint my way under the covers

for five minutes now.

-You are really something.

There's no way that we're gonna get this guy down to town

without your Jeep.

-We have to do something.

He might have fractured his skull.

-We got to get him to the dam.

There's usually a ranger there. -How do we get there?

-On a raft.

-Come on. Stop kidding. How do we get there?

-You'll see.

I read my daughter "Huckleberry Finn" last summer.

We wanted to light out for the territory,

so we settled on this as a compromise.

-Looks authentic.

-Yeah. Cut all the logs ourselves.

Not a single nail in her. It's all lashing.

-Where's your daughter now?

-Summer camp, other side of the dam.

-Just how sturdy is this thing?

-Well, I think it'll hold three people.

Though, to tell you the truth, we never tried it.

My daughter's afraid of the river.

-♪ Boys are made of greasy, grimy gopher guts ♪

♪ Mutilated monkey meat, little dirty birdie feet ♪

♪ Sneezed-up snail snot ♪

♪ Bashed-in beetles' brains ♪

♪ All in a bottle of blood ♪

♪ Boys are made of greasy grimy gopher guts ♪

♪ Mutilated monkey meat ♪

-Suzie. Suzie. Honey, don't be scared.

You just have to swim out to the marker and back.

You've probably swum twice that far in a pool.

Well, if you don't pass your solo swim,

you can't get your water badge.

-I don't care.

-Well, what is it that you're afraid of, honey?

-Things.

-You mean like sea monsters?

There's just a few little fish in here.

They eat plants at the bottom of the river.

They're not at all interested in little girls'

fingers and toes.

-Dickinson! -Over here, Mr. Dumont.

-Letter for you, Dickinson. That same boy.

-Oh. Thank you.

-Still haven't tackled your solo swim, Grogan?

-No, sir.

-Oh, she's kind of afraid of things in the water.

-Things? What things? Fish?

People eat fish, Grogan. Fish don't eat people.

Do you want to be the one

to lose the camp competition for the Minnows?

Of course you don't.

-Ah, she's doing really well in handicrafts.

-Handicrafts?

Handicrafts don't take any nerve, any intestinal fortitude.

You know what that means, Grogan?

-Yes, sir. Guts. -Right.

-Is there any mail for her?

-Nope. Skunked again, Grogan.

Grogan.

Guts!

-Aw.

Come on, let's go. We'll play some Monopoly.

Why don't we try it in an inner tube tomorrow?

Huh?

Come on.

-Hey, Brandy.

I ever tell you about that other dog of mine called Philip?

Well, Philip, he was in Baltimore with me.

He was a good dog. He...

He was walking across the street one day...

...and he walked right in front of a trolley car.

Trolley car ran over his tail. It surprised him.

He turned around and the trolley car...

I'm telling you a story.

Trolley car ran over his head.

Huh.

That's what you call losing your head

over a little piece of tail.

It's pretty funny, huh?

-What's the matter with you?

You didn't like the story?

Want me to tell you another story?

Maybe you didn't get the point.

-You getting soft in the head?

Aah!

Aah!

-Okay, my friend.

Number one... what happened to those kids?

Alright, then, try number two.

What were you doing up at the Army site?

-Stop that. -Oh, he speaks.

Hey.

-Keep your hand out of the water.

-What's wrong with the water?

-Since you're talking this morning, buddy,

how about a name?

-Hoak. Dr. Robert Hoak.

-What's wrong with the water?

-The water is filled with carnivorous fish.

Piranha.

Oh, Christ.

-In here?

How did they get in?

-You let them in when you drained the pond

at the test site.

-Paul. -Piranha are tropical fish.

Look, this is -- This is cold mountain water.

They wouldn't last in here for a minute.

-What about that skeleton?

-Okay.

What would piranha be doing up in that pond?

Huh?

-Untie me.

-Hey, what if I dip you in the water

a little bit first, Doc,

see if you're making the whole thing up or not?

Huh?

That's Brandy.

Jack's dog.

-Is he always so ferocious?

-You know, I don't think I ever heard him do more

than roll over and beg for food.

We better take a look.

Easy, boy. Easy.

He must have dragged himself this far.

Bled to death.

-I'm sorry.

-Yeah.

Well, I'll get a shovel.

He wouldn't want to be buried in town.

-Ah. Why don't you open your mouth?

Ah.

-Alright.

-No.

I just wanted one more. Okay.

-The third victim of the piranhas

is the great Keenan Wynn.

But before we get to that, Darcy, did they have sex?

-What?

-Did Maggie and Grogan have sex?

-Oh, yeah. I think she came on to him.

Yeah.

-That was one of those fades.

Like in the old movies where it's the next morning

and we're supposed to know that they had sex, right?

-Right. It's not completely clear, honestly.

-She says she's been trying to get

under that blanket.

If -- if you know what she means.

And I think we do.

-Well, yeah. Then they had sex.

-So that's the storytelling genius of Joe Dante.

This is not his first film.

He had done the ultra-cheapie

"Hollywood Boulevard" previously.

He co-directed that with Allan Arkush,

and Dante and Arkush

were the 2-man trailer-cutting team at New World Pictures.

They edited all the trailers,

and so they were perfect for "Hollywood Boulevard,"

which was a parody of the place they were working,

New World Pictures.

They used all the stock footage

and the inserts from numerous New World films

to satisfy a challenge.

Dante told Corman he could make the cheapest feature in history,

breaking Roger's record for "Little Shop of Horrors,"

and he did.

I think the whole movie cost $60,000.

Anyway, in 1978, Corman had two pictures that he wanted to make,

"Rock 'n' Roll High School" and "Piranha,"

and he told Dante and Arkush

to fight it out over who directed which movie,

and they both wanted "Rock 'n' Roll High School."

Nobody wanted "Piranha." -What?

-It sounded like a huge headache to make "Piranha,"

and it was a huge headache.

But Arkush was just so totally dedicated

to "Rock 'n' Roll High School."

It was his life's dream to make a movie like that.

So he got that assignment.

But doing a "Jaws" rip-off is not cheap.

And so the original budget for this movie was $800,000.

And then two weeks before shooting,

Roger looked at some of the second-unit footage

that they were shooting in Griffith Park,

and he decided that 800K was too high.

He said, "Just forget that footage.

We'll use it on some other movie."

And he canceled the movie.

And so Dante and Arkush and Francis Dole all went to Roger

and virtually begged him to reconsider.

And he finally said, "Okay, I'll make it, but no more than 600K."

And that was when they already thought they were --

they were short on funds

to pull off the actual piranha kills.

So Francis Dole suggested that he bring in United Artists

and sell United Artists the foreign rights.

So the idea was that New World would put up 400

and United Artists would put up 400.

But then Roger changed his mind again and said,

"Okay, I'm gonna take that United Artists' 400,

but we're only gonna put in 200 for our part."

Um, and I guess, you know, the accounting was secret, uh...

After Joe Dante begged him again, he added $60,000.

So the budget ended up at $660,000.

And I think they never told UA

that they had those foreign rights, cost 61% of the budget.

It was supposed to be 50%.

On the other hand,

the movie did better overseas than it did in the U.S.,

and it did especially well in South America

because in South America, people know all about piranhas.

-Good point.

-The key decision that Joe Dante made

was to acknowledge the "Jaws" rip-off.

And he does that in the scene in the airport

where we first see Maggie

and she's playing the "Jaws" video game.

But -- But then he -- But then acknowledge it,

but then execute the story without letting the goofiness

of that overwhelm the horror of it.

And he ends up with a nice balance

by inserting people like Paul Bartel,

the Nazi summer camp leader, but treating the mutant,

flesh-eating fish as a real menace.

Alright, let's go back to the movie.

So roll it.

Have you ever been afraid to go into the water, Darcy?

I can't imagine that you have.

-I was never scared of the ocean,

but for some reason,

I was always scared of the deep end of the pool.

-Really? I mean, not because you thought

creatures were in the water at the deep end of the pool.

-No. Actually, yeah, because when you go to the deep end,

it's really shadowy there.

So I always thought that, like, it could be anything.

I literally thought I saw sharks swimming around in the abyss.

-At the deep end of the pool? -Yeah.

-Alright. Interesting. At my Boy Scout camp,

we should have been afraid to go into the water

because it was nasty, but we were not.

It was the Buffalo River

and it was infested with water moccasins.

And sometimes they would brush up against your leg

and the counselor would just say, "Well,

just don't bother them.

Don't bother them, they won't bother you."

But what does a kid want to do

when he knows there's a snake there?

-Um...take it home and make it a pet?

-No! You want to kill it!

We wanted to kill 'em. We'd try to kill 'em.

But you can't kill a water moccasin.

-Really? They're indestructible?

-Well, you can cut their head off.

That is the only way to kill a water moccasin.

Otherwise they play dead, and then they come back to life.

-But that's awesome.

-Well, yeah. And they hate Boy Scouts.

They have a special anger towards Scouts.

-I understand that.

-Boy Scouts started in 1910,

so we've killed a lot of water moccasins.

And they don't forget. -As they should not.

-We should make that movie.

-What, "Killer Boy Scouts"?

-No, "Cottonmouth, the Movie."

Would you go to that?

-I would, I would be rooting for the snakes.

-You'd be rooting for the snakes to kill

innocent Boy Scouts? -Absolutely.

-Sick, Darcy. -Puh!

-Even in an inner tube, huh?

-Uh-huh.

-It's almost impossible to fall in.

-But they can still get you.

-They, huh?

Okay. Okay, if that's really the way you feel about it,

I'll try and help you get out of the race.

But we've got to come up with an excuse.

Do not lie.

-I got poison ivy.

-So does everybody else in the camp.

Hey, maybe you could just be getting your...

No, you're too young for that.

-Huh?

-Wait a minute. I have an idea.

Come with me.

Come here.

Sit down here.

Let's see what we have in our magic box.

Give me your knee.

Okay.

Get Darlene to take your place in the race.

Okay? And if Dumont squawks, limp a lot.

And I'll get you a huge bandage for this.

-Feels like this thing's snagged on the bottom.

Got myself tangled in it, too.

-Want me to help?

-No, you better stay there.

You might tip the canoe.

-I thought you knew all about this kind of fishing,

from when you were a boy.

-Listen, when I was a boy, we made our own nets

and made 'em right.

Jesus.

It feels like something's snagged in here.

Ow!

-Did you get bit?

-Ouch! Ow!

-Dad!

-Stay back! Stay back!

-Dad! Dad!

Dad!

Dad!

-The government paid you?

-Of course they paid.

Where there's germ warfare, the bomb, chemical warfare,

there's plenty of money.

Special agencies.

They pay.

They pay a lot better than they do in private research.

-For raisin' fish.

-Oh, no. It's a matter of genetics.

Radiation, selective breeding.

They called it... Operation Razorteeth.

-What was it all for?

-To destroy the river systems of the North Vietnamese.

Our goal was to develop a strain

of this killer fish that could survive in cold water

and then breed at an accelerated rate.

We had everything. Blank check.

And then the war ended.

-You sound disappointed.

-They poisoned the water.

After all that work,

they poisoned the water.

-But some survived.

-We developed a lot of mutants

and a few of them were able to resist the poison.

They ate their own. Their own dead.

And then began to breed

like some wild species.

Suddenly there were hundreds.

Maybe thousands.

-Our tax dollars at work, huh?

-Well, that's science in the service of the defense effort.

-Sure.

Spreadin' strains of bacteria in the subway system.

-You put them in the river where they could kill people.

Including civilians.

And little kids swimming in the rivers.

-I never killed anybody.

If you wanna talk about killing,

you talk to your politicians, the military people.

No, no, I'm a scientist.

-Kids in the water.

-What?

-The dam.

They let the water through every couple of days,

you know, to keep the level steady on the new lake.

The resort's down there, the summer camp.

All those kids. Come on.

-Hey, stop splashin'!

-It was pure research.

No scrounging for grant money.

No academic politics.

You don't know what that means to a scientist.

-You fed them.

You kept them alive.

-I continued the experiment.

There was so much more I could do with the species.

So much further I could take them.

You're not holding me responsible?

I think you are.

You pulled the plug and you're holding me responsible?

Incredible.

You're blaming me.

-I think if you open your mouth again,

I'll stick this pole in it.

-Do you think they've opened the dam yet?

-I don't know. We can only hope not.

-Daddy.

-Let's move it.

-It's sinking, Paul.

The canoe is sinking. -Yeah.

-Daddy?

Daddy! Daddy! It's going under.

-Don't do it! Get outta there!

Come on, Maggie.

-Hold it here! Hold it!

-Come on! Come on!

Come here!

Come on!

Give me your hand! -Get the doctor!

Okay, now the doctor.

Easy, Doc.

Here.

Here you go.

What do we do? What do we do?

How do we stop them?

Oh, Christ.

Campers!

No swinging after lunch.

-So far we know that they can live in cold water.

-They seem to be moving downstream.

Gotta find someone who knows how to deal with these things.

-There'll be a phone at the dam.

We can call on ahead.

Hey. -What?

-I don't know.

It seems like the lashing's workin' loose.

-Paul...

there's something under us.

-His blood.

It's the doc's blood.

It's seepin' through.

They're eatin' away at the lashing to get to it.

-Daddy! -Let go, son.

No. We gotta get rid of him.

-No, that's what happened to my daddy.

-Let go.

-They're eating him. They're eating him!

-Come here. -They got my daddy!

-Come here!

You okay, boy?

How about you? -I'm alright.

-You gotta stay here.

I'm gonna try to get to the dam

before they let 'em through with the water.

Acres and acres of reclaimed land

nestled in a scenic mountain valley,

site of the newly formed Lost River Lake.

Swimming, sailing, snorkeling,

skin diving, shuffleboard,

and for the small fry, there's Buck Gardner's

Aquarena Amusement Arcade.

So pack up your RVs, your station wagons,

your trailers and cars,

and hustle on up to Lost River Campsite

for a free introductory weekend.

No charge, no obligation to buy.

Just be part of a modern ecological miracle...

-Don't open it!

Whatever you do, don't open it.

-Once again, I would like to compliment

the storytelling skills of Joe Dante.

He is telling three stories at once.

He's with Maggie and Grogan

and Hoak, the scientist, on the raft.

He's with little Suzie and her counselor at the summer camp

and their dashboard target, Dumont, played by Paul Bartel.

And he's with the boy and his father in the canoe,

which allows him to get another grizzly kill into the narrative

while bringing a subplot into the main plot

through Hoak diving in to save the boy

and then getting eaten by his own creations.

Dante was an experienced editor,

which served him very well in this movie,

but he was also working with John Sayles,

and Sayles made it clear that he was ready

and eager to do rewrites and additional dialogue,

especially after Dante gave him a role in the film,

which I will point out later.

So when I say Kevin McCarthy as Hoak was Mr. Actors Studio,

I am not exaggerating.

He was a founding member of the Actors Studio,

and his famous first class was taught by Elia Kazan.

You don't get any more method than that.

Of course, we all remember him

from "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" in 1956,

but he was already well established by that time.

His breakthrough was actually playing Biff

in "Death of a Salesman" in 1951,

in the version with Fredric March as Willy Loman.

I always think there are two American plays

that if you ever make it to Broadway

in either one of these plays, then you are an actor's actor.

And those two plays are "Death of a Salesman"

and "Long Day's Journey Into Night."

We have both plays represented in this movie

because Bradford Dillman, who plays Grogan,

played Edmund Tyrone, the alter ego of Eugene O'Neill,

in the 1956 Broadway premiere of "Long Day's Journey Into Night."

And that was actually what led to his contract

with 20th Century Fox.

But, um...alright.

But Kevin McCarthy first.

Kevin McCarthy was the brother of Mary McCarthy,

the novelist known for "The Group."

Does anybody read "The Group" anymore?

I don't think so.

It was a 1960s novel that was considered super hip

because it dealt with abortion

and free love and lesbianism and socialism,

all kinds of isms.

Anyway, that was Kevin McCarthy's sister,

and they were both orphans because their parents

were killed in the flu epidemic of 1918.

But Kevin McCarthy's first career choice was

to be a government diplomat, to work for the State Department.

Ironic in view of this particular role,

but he attended the School of Foreign Service

at Georgetown University,

which is a ticket straight into government.

But then he got bit by the acting bug.

He switched to the University of Minnesota

because Minnesota is where he grew up,

and he majored in drama there.

And then he moved to New York

and got tutored by Lee Strasberg,

who he said was, "A nasty individual."

But he was already tied to Actors Studio people

at the time of his Broadway debut in 1938,

in "Abe Lincoln in Illinois," starring Raymond Massey as Abe.

And then he served in the Army Air Force in World War II.

And then he ended up going back and forth

between Broadway and film.

And in the movie "Winged Victory,"

he did the play and the film,

but he ended up portraying a whole lot of authority figures,

including, notably, President Truman

in "Give 'Em Hell, Harry!" -- this one-man show

that he performed for 20 years all over the country.

Passed away in 2010 at the age of 96.

-Wow. -So Joe Dante thought

Kevin McCarthy was a little toomethod.

He got so carried away

that Dante thought he was gonna kill Bradford Dillman,

but he didn't really have to worry,

because the reason

that that raft is getting chewed up by more than piranhas

is that Bradford Dillman was also Actors Studio.

He almost always played shady characters, though.

He made his acting debut Off-Broadway in 1953,

in "The Scarecrow," which also had James Dean in it

and Patricia Neal and Eli Wallach.

And then after that,

he got that Fox contract,

and then he won the Golden Globe for "A Certain Smile" in 1958.

And if you want to see -- see him at his very best,

he got the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival

for "Compulsion,"

the 1960 movie based on the Leopold and Loeb murders.

And of course, Dillman was the alpha killer in that story.

Bradford Dillman never quite broke through

as a bona fide movie star,

but by 1978, the year of "Piranha,"

he was mostly playing --

He was mostly playing supporting roles

in big-budget flicks

like "The Way We Were" and "Lords of the Deep"

and the immortal guilty pleasure disaster movie "The Swarm."

He was also John Wilkes Booth in "The Lincoln Conspiracy,"

had many, many TV guest spots.

He spent two years on "Falcon Crest."

He was still acting on "Murder, She Wrote" in the '90s.

He died in 2018 at the age of 88.

And while we're describing the acting chops on that raft,

let's not leave out Heather Menzies,

who plays Maggie,

best known for playing Louisa von Trapp

in "The Sound of Music" when she was 15 years old.

And then for appearing in, uh --

Well, she appeared in an article called "Tender Trapp" --

Get it? -- in "Playboy" in 1973...

-Oh. That's an important part of the puzzle.

-...when she was 24 years old.

-Oh, wow. -Nude pictorial in "Playboy."

Roger Corman really liked her.

She also starred in the 1973 New World picture,

um, that you can't really pronounce or say.

It's just a string of S's.

-Oh, yeah. -"Sssssss."

Is that how you say it? -That's how I say it.

-That snake movie that he made.

But by the time of "Piranha,"

she was devoting most of her time

to raising three children that she had with Robert Urich,

um, died of brain cancer at the age of 68, in 2017.

And now we're gonna return

to the 1978 exploitation classic "Piranha."

Roll it.

Do people even call it method acting anymore?

Do they still use that term?

-Yeah, I think so.

-But when they say it, they're making fun of it, right?

-Oh, no.

I think people take it really seriously, at least in L.A.

I don't -- I don't know.

-See, I think Lee Strasberg was just trying

to describe how he teaches.

He was given an interview one time and he just said,

"This is our method."

And somebody picked up on that

and decided that method means fully committed

emotional acting, you know, steroidal, right-brain acting.

-Oh, what did you -- what did you just say?

-You know how everybody's left brain, right brain?

The right brain is emotional.

I think the right brain is emotional.

Right? Yeah. The right brain is emotional.

The left brain is logical.

-Yes, but go ahead.

-So a great method actor can go 95% right brain.

Like when Nicolas Cage does a berserker role,

they say he's full Cage.

And that just means he's hit that 95% right-brain point.

He's -- He's got emotions seeping out of his eyeballs.

-Why not 100% right brain?

-Well, because Joe Dante is right.

You want to make sure when you're acting,

that the person you're killing doesn't get killed.

-Okay. Got it. That makes sense.

-It can happen. -Oh, I've seen it.

-Yeah. Where'd you see it?

-What? The full cage? -Yeah.

-I mean, I live in Hollywood.

I see that full cage on the street every day.

Trust. -You see it on the street?

Okay, dial that sucker back, man.

-I know, right?

-Alright, men, off your butts.

Fall in.

Move it!

-You'll forgive our skepticism, Mr. Grogan,

but we don't come across stories like yours every day.

-Piranha are warm-water fish.

This is hardly the Amazon.

-But I told you, these are mutations.

They've already killed five people that I know of.

-Science fiction.

-You ready with that bait, soldier?

-Yes, sir. -Let her go, son.

-Actually, a piranha was caught once

in a pond in Miami, in '72, I believe.

But the Fish and Game Commission

poisoned the water, and that, of course, was that.

-That was that, huh?

-I mean, the rumors persisted, you know, but...

-Pull it in, son.

Sergeant, tell the major to start the pumps.

-We should be able to contain them in this area.

Piranha travel in schools,

and we've brought heavy doses of rotenone 235.

-Came pretty well-prepared, didn't you?

-Won't it ruin this part of the river?

-Sometimes it's necessary to destroy in order to save.

-What if they realize they're bein' slaughtered

and head back upriver?

-We're talking about fish, Mr. Grogan.

They don't realize much of anything.

-Now, wait a minute. Who are you trying to kid?

You must've known all along that these things were here.

You wouldn't have brought all this stuff.

-Okay, Mr. Grogan, here it is.

You and Miss McKeown are the only two civilians

who know about this project.

-What the colonel really means

is that he'd like you to join us.

Become one of our team, as it were.

-It figures.

-Impossible.

-Look, you're a full colonel, right?

I assume you can read a map.

Here.

We are here at the dam, okay?

Now look over here, and you'll see

that there's a stream that feeds into it.

Okay, we follow the stream back

for about an eighth of a mile and you see there's a fork.

Take this branch, follow it downstream,

and you'll see it empties into the river

on the other side of the dam.

In other words, the piranha

have got a way to get around the obstacle.

-Even if there's a chance that he's right,

don't you think you should do something?

-No. Even if a bypass exists,

piranha have neither the intelligence

nor the motivation to find it.

-But you know what Hoak was into.

He was breeding them for endurance

and intelligence and...

-Well, Bob was a dreamer.

He, uh...

-Bob?

Dr. Hoak?

You knew him?

-Well, fish genetics is a very small field.

-You were friends?

-Let's say we were a great deal more than that.

You're covering up.

Is it Waxman?

Are you afraid of what the Army might do to you if you --

-No, I'm not afraid.

I'm a scientist. I'm head of my department.

It's just that there are priorities, and...

Some things are more important than a few people's lives.

-That's not how Dr. Hoak felt.

Not at the end.

-As I said, he was a dreamer.

-If anything else happens, it's your responsibility.

-The situation is entirely under control, Grogan.

-Hold on now. What is this?

Why won't you listen to me?

-Would you excuse us for a moment, please?

As far as you're concerned, Mr. Grogan,

this project does not exist, understand?

The piranha do not exist.

-And if I make a squawk?

-Paul...

-The interests of national security

permit very extreme measures.

-Oh, come on! The war's over, damn it!

-There'll be other wars, Mr. Grogan.

-I think for your own protection,

we'd better secure you a tent for the night.

-Look who's here. -Hey, Tom, what's goin' on?

-Nothin'.

-Psst! Is he still out there?

-Yep.

-Then you'll have to distract him.

-Why? -So I can get away.

-So you can get away? -Shh!

-What about me?

-Alright, suit yourself.

But first you're gonna have to distract him.

-How? -How would I know?

Just get him with his back to the opening.

You know, come on to him.

What if he's gay?

Then I'lldistract him. Let's go.

Uh...

Hi.

Uh...

Nice night, huh?

Listen, are you gay?

-What?

-Oh...

Well, I was just reading

this article in this magazine, and...

-What did you ask me before?

-Look!

Up in the sky!

It's Superman!

-Oh, shit!

-What's wrong? -Have you got a dime?

-Hello?

What? What piranhas?

What are you talking about?

What?

Are you crazy? Who is this?

Oh, Grogan.

Yeah, I remember you.

You're not crazy, you're drunk.

No, I don't wanna talk to her.

I'm sure she's as drunk as you are.

You wake me up again, I'll have the cops on you.

What?

No, you can't talk to your daughter.

Sober up, Grogan, and fly right!

Piranhas.

-Asshole!

-He didn't believe you.

-He thinks I'm drunk.

-Can you get through to your daughter?

-No way. We gotta get down there.

-Paul, behind us.

-I know.

No way we can outrun him in this thing.

-Maybe we can talk to him. Maybe he'll believe us.

-Piranha, huh?

And where did they come from?

-From an Army test site up on the mountain.

-That's posted up there there's no trespassing.

-Posted or not, two people have been killed up there,

and more have been killed along the river.

-You've gotta believe us.

-Now, wait.

Say, aren't you Grogan?

-Yeah, that's right.

-Uh-huh, I remember.

We had you in on a drunk and disorderly last month.

-I am not drunk, damn it!

You give me a breath test, whatever you want,

only please would you listen to me?!

-I think I'm gonna take you up on that, buddy,

back to the station.

And while we're there, you can explain

what you're doing this time of night in an Army staff car.

And don't you get any notion, man,

'cause I got my gun in my other hand here.

Okay?

Okey-dokey, let's go.

-Yes. We've got a bit of a situation up here. A very delicate situation.

And you can help us control it by holding them for us.

-Yes, Colonel, yes, yes. I understand.

We'll do.

-Make sure they don't try to communicate with the outside.

We're tryin' to avoid unnecessary panic.

-Certainly.

Their best interests, I agree.

Well, you're welcome, Colonel. Uh...

See you in the mornin'.

Well, you best make yourself comfortable, folks.

You'll be spending the night.

-What about a phone call?

You have to give us a phone call!

-I don't wanna hear it. I don't wanna hear it.

I gotta get back on that road now.

So you folks, you just behave yourselves.

-Now, wait a minute. You can't just leave!

My daughter's down there!

There are kids down there,

and the piranhas are in the river!

Please!

-Okay, I've been complimenting Joe Dante throughout this movie,

but it's time for a little negativity here.

Because, Joe, what's with those stunt breasts?

It's not just that you're using fake breasts --

the old trick where you insert some other girl's chest

for the chest of the main actress,

but it's the roughest-looking, grainiest jump-cut, insert shot

in the history of exploitation film.

It's like you just cut breasts out of a magazine

and had somebody hold them up in front of the camera.

I'm not even sure those breasts should be part

of the breast count.

What do you think, Darcy?

-It was a lame move, for sure,

but all breasts should be counted.

-And Heather Menzies had done a whole "Playboy" pictorial.

Was that a thing where, "I'll get naked for Hugh Hefner,

but I won't do it for Roger Corman"?

-I feel like Roger was really strict about that, actually.

Didn't one of his stars get fired

because she didn't do -- She refused to do her nude scenes?

-Yes, she did.

As a matter of fact, in "Angel of Destruction,"

they had to invent a new plot.

They killed off the lead

and had her "sister" arrive to finish the movie with nudity.

You know, we've talked about that before.

In fact,

I know Roger started putting it in the contract

that if you accept a role with breast nudity,

you had to do it

because I think it was a pattern of women waiting

till they're on the set to say, "I'm not gonna do that."

And he considered breast nudity part of marketing at the time.

So anyway, supposedly,

Heather Menzies said she didn't think

her husband would like her doing the above the waist nudity

because apparently she never showed

that "Playboy" pictorial to Robert Urich.

That was her... -Right.

-And apparently,

Robert Urich never worked with anybody in show business

who had done "Playboy" pictorials, because...

-You're right.

-Anyway, she wouldn't do the scene.

So they went to a local restaurant.

They picked out a waitress who looked like her boobs

were big enough, and they said,

"How would you like to be in a movie?"

And she accepted enthusiastically.

Um, so I believe those are uncredited stunt breasts.

-Welcome to my world.

-If those were your breasts,

if you're listening to this show,

and if those were your breasts, please let us know.

We will acknowledge your two contributions

to "Piranha..." -Yes, please.

-...in a later show. But the military policeman

who is so transfixed by those breasts

that Maggie and Grogan

are able to escape, that military policeman,

is John Sayles, the screenwriter.

Sadly, because of Joe Dante's editing techniques,

he never got to see the actual boobs.

We talked about John Sayles when we showed "Alligator,"

but he used money from his Roger Corman scripts

to make the indie hit "Return of the Secaucus Seven,"

big indie hit.

He was a New Yorker originally from Schenectady, New York,

who worked in factories, worked in hospitals.

He worked as a meat packer for a while,

while he was all that time writing short stories

that got him noticed.

And then he wrote a novel called "Pride of the Bimbos" in 1975,

about a little person who dresses in drag

and goes from town to town playing baseball.

Yes, that's what I said. -Okay. Just checking.

-And anyway, this was his first screenwriting job,

but he would have many more screenwriting jobs.

Besides "Alligator,"

he wrote "Battle Beyond the Stars" for New World Pictures.

That was based on Corman's idea to do

the "Seven Samurai in Space,"

as well as "The Lady in Red," produced by Julie Corman,

about the woman who accompanied John Dillinger the night

he was gunned down at the Biograph Theater in Chicago.

But right now, we're gonna watch Grogan and Maggie,

two of John Sayles' most inventive characters,

I must say, figure out how to get out of jail a second time.

First, they escaped the Army.

Now they have to escape the local deputy dogs

as the piranha move downriver

and the flick moves toward massive carnage.

So roll it.

What about you, Darcy?

Did you --

Did you ever have to sign one of those breast nudity contracts?

-Oh, yeah. Of course.

-I've heard this story a lot, though.

You're on the set arguing about it.

Isn't that something that could just be agreed on

before the camera's ever turned on?

I mean, yes or no.

You're either gonna do it

or you're not gonna do it, right?

-That happens.

But then the opposite also happens

where they just throw it at you last minute.

-Oh, sneaky filmmakers.

-Exactly.

-Yeah.

You need three pairs of breasts in an exploitation film.

Roger Corman taught me this.

This is the Roger Corman -- Can I tell the story?

-Yes. Please do. -Okay.

-Um, "Joe Bob, we normally have one girl

who is nude above the waist twice,

once near the beginning of the movie

and once near the dramatic high point of the movie.

Then we have two supporting actresses

who are nude above the waist in one scene each.

If you deliver those four scenes using three girls,

the average male viewer will believe he has seen a lot more

than he has actually seen."

-That was good. -I loved Roger.

-We all did.

-The witch and the demons of the forest scoured every corner of the church,

venom dripping from their fangs.

"Where is he?" hissed the witch.

The demons peeled their heavy eyelids back.

There he is!

-There's absolutely no cause for alarm.

It's a complete hoax, believe me.

Yeah.

I just wanted to warn you in case

they were able to get a call through.

Groundless panic of that kind

wouldn't help our grand opening any.

-Uh-huh.

Well, look, I really appreciate the warning.

I'll brief my staff. We'll take care of it.

Yeah, don't worry.

Uh-huh.

By the way, are you comin' down tomorrow?

Ah, good. Good.

Your presence will lend a certain prestige to the opening.

Mm-hmm.

Huh?

No. No, Colonel.

Nobody knows about your investment.

Colonel, with me, a silent partner's privacy is sacred.

I swear to you on my honor as a Texan, nobody knows.

Yes, Colonel.

Good night. Good night.

Schmuck!

Hey, come on, you guys! Will you haul ass?

This stuff's gotta be set by 10:00.

What are you doing back there?

Hide, that's all they do, they hide.

They drink beer and they hide.

-Hi. -Hi.

I always like it at night.

-Yeah, me too.

It's like it's resting.

-Hey, wanna race me across?

-To the island? -Yeah.

Ever since I got here,

I haven't been able to just swim by myself.

I've always had half a dozen campers hangin' on to me.

-I don't know. I don't really feel much like swimming.

But go ahead, I'll watch you.

-What's the matter? -I don't know.

-Something -- Something's wrong.

-Come on, why don't you come with me?

It'll do you some good.

-You know, you're probably right.

-Good, okay. -Okay.

-Grogan, turn off that flashlight!

Don't be alarmed, ladies, it's only me.

There's a rumor some of the campers

are coming down here for a midnight swim.

Well, if I catch any of them swimming, they'll be

in pretty hot water, I can tell you.

What are you doing down here, by the way?

-Oh, well, we --

-I thought I heard some campers swimming.

We came down to look. -Yeah.

-Swimming? Where?

-Over by the waterfall.

-The waterfall? -Yes.

-Is that where they're doing it?

What was that?

-It sounded like campers on the other side of the lake.

-The other side of the lake?

Thank you.

Kim Burrell, is that you?

-Well, there's always tomorrow for that swim.

-Yeah. Let's do it tomorrow.

-What are you doin' there?

-Did I ever tell you about Mo Schneider?

-Who's that?

-He was this guy they sent me to find one time.

He was a plumber.

He kept running off and getting busted

for indecent exposure.

-Hey. What are you doin' there?

-Mo was in the poky so many times

that he developed a regular escape routine.

Of course, being a plumber, he used what he knew best.

-What the hell was that?

-What are you doing?

Are you alright?

Christ, listen.

This, uh, this plan,

whatever it is, did it ever work?

-No. But he came pretty close a couple of times.

Pretty damn close.

-Hey, Jesus, what's all that racket?

Sounds like the roof fell in.

What's all this water from?

-Something's leaking in here,

and I'm gonna catch pneumonia if it doesn't stop.

-What's the matter with that sink trap?

-I've tried and I've tried, but I'm just not strong enough

to put the pipes back together.

-Alright. Stand back, I'll take a look at it.

What the hell did you do to this thing?

Tryin' to crawl through the drainpipe?

-What's happenin'? What's goin' on?

-He's knocked out, but he's alive.

-Get his keys. Can you get his keys?

-They're chained to his pants!

-Well, take his pants off, then.

Come on.

I'd have thought you could get a man's pants

off quicker than that.

-Got 'em! I got 'em!

-Come on. Let's go.

What did you hit him with?

-A piece of the toilet lid.

-Oh, Jesus.

-Maybe I should have tried bribing him first.

-Thank you, Mo Schneider.

You don't suppose that one of those keys

would fit a patrol car?

-I wouldn't be surprised.

-Howdy, folks. I'm Buck Gardner.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

On behalf of Buck Gardner's

Aquarena Development Corporation,

it gives me great pleasure to invite you

this afternoon to our opening-day festivities.

If you have any questions about purchasing land up here,

our people will be mingling in the crowd

to answer your questions, help you out any way they can.

Just remember, you got no obligation to buy anything,

only to enjoy yourselves.

Annie?

Right there.

Right there.

Try again.

Nice try, kid.

That's it!

Don't forget, free barbecue this afternoon at 1:00.

Enjoy yourselves.

We got 'em.

-No comics! No comics, no discipline.

Water competition. Muster up.

Time for the water competition.

Put those arrows away.

Put the bows in the tep--

That isn't funny.

-Okay, Minnows, over here!

Come on, kids, let's line up.

Come on, you guys.

-Guppies! Come on, let's go!

Come on, line up. That's right, come on.

-Okay. -Stand in line.

-Straight line.

All the way to the back, there we go.

-Okay.

We're gonna have a tube race really soon.

And who's gonna win?

Minnows! -We are!

-We are!

-Alright.

Okay, you guys.

-You cannot swim with your glasses on.

Let's turn this way now. Buddy system.

Arms up. There we go.

Stand up straight. Come on.

-Stand up straight. -Okay.

-Come on, be proud you're a Guppy.

Hold your stomach in.

Put your arms down.

That's good, that's good.

Hold your stomach in.

Dumont: Morning, campers.

Fall in back here and buddy up.

-Mr. Dumont, we're ready for you, sir.

-Arms down!

Alright now, campers.

This is where we're going to separate

the tortoises from the hares, the wheat from the chaff,

and the sinkers from the swimmers.

-Saltwater. -What?

-I just remembered, it was saltwater.

-What was?

-In the pond at the test site.

I thought it was strange at the time,

then I forgot about it.

-So? -Piranha are freshwater fish.

That means that Hoak must have developed a strain

that can live both in fresh and salt.

You know, like salmon.

That's why they headed downstream.

-And if they get to the ocean?

-There'll be no way to contain 'em.

They'll be able to swim up every river system

in the country.

-And what are you doing here, young lady?

You're supposed to be out in that race.

-But Betsy told me --

-I don't want to hear any excuses.

Get yourself a tube and get out there.

-But I hurt my knee. -On the double, camper!

Listen up, you kids, listen up!

We're gonna start the tube race in a minute.

Kathryn! McCarthy! MacBride!

All you campers, come in here. You're too far out.

-Goddamn Sunday driver.

Ready?

Come on!

This is a race, people!

Jacobson, put a little muscle in it!

Parkinson, a little effort!

Kids, let's get a little leg action!

-What's the matter?

-What is that?

Oh, my God, Laura! Laura!

-Suzie! Suzie, no! Go back! Go back!

-Get on the boat.

-Come on! Come on! Dig into it!

-Oh! Oh! -Betsy.

-Betsy!

-And that's the sad moment

when the kind counselor Betsy meets her demise.

That actress is Belinda Balaski,

who made 12 films with Joe Dante,

including probably the one most people remember

as Terry Fisher in "The Howling."

-Nice. -But how about the massive

killing of children in this movie?

Could you get away with this today, Darcy?

Killing this many children?

-"Terrifier 3" exists,

so I'm gonna say "Piranha" would be fine.

-Yeah, but, I mean... -Just saying.

-...they wipe out the equivalent

of an elementary school and two middle schools in these scenes

where the kids are trying to get out of the water.

I mean, the piranha that leaps out of the water

and eats Paul Bartel's face,

I think they wanted to stick in a cartoon element

just so they could get away with all that violence

against children.

Alright. Then, I guess I have to mention

the gratuitous Barbara Steele role.

-Yes, you do.

-She's the scientist who shows up to support the military.

And there's a hint that she was the lover

of the dead scientist played by Kevin McCarthy.

I don't know why you needed that character, actually.

It would seem to be enough just to have

the pompous Colonel Waxman.

Why do you need two military characters?

And then you have the late,

great Dick Miller as the resort promoter,

doing what he does best, being sleazy.

All of Dick Miller's scenes

take place at the Aquarena Springs Amusement Park

in San Marcos, Texas,

which opened in 1951 but shut down in 1996,

and which every Texan of a certain age

knows as a kind of guilty-pleasure place

because it was the home of not just Ralph the Diving Pig...

-Oh.

-...but the underwater theater with the Aqua Maidens

and the soaring gondola Swiss Sky Ride

and the underwater theater and the Wild West shootout

and the alligators and the glass-bottom boats.

-Nice. -It's amazing

people would want to ride in a glass-bottom boat

on any Texas river.

All you're gonna see is spotted gar and turtles

and a lot of underwater vegetation, you know.

But anyway, it was a big deal for almost 50 years there

at the headwaters of the San Marcos River.

And they eventually sold it to Texas State University,

which still uses those glass-bottom boats

for nature tours.

At its peak, though,

Aquarena Springs had 350,000 visitors a year.

But alas, Ralph the Diving Pig was downsized out of a job.

-Aww. -Okay.

Back to the stunning conclusion of "Piranha."

Roll it.

Oh! Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!

Forgot to mention Glurpo the Swimming Clown, too.

When I first heard they were doing "Piranha"

at Aquarena Springs,

I thought, well, it's gonna be great

to see Glurpo eaten by piranhas.

'Cause Glurpo, he worked under--

he worked in the underwater part of the show.

He looked a little like Bozo the Clown,

but he had a cowboy hat,

and his real job was to hold the air hose for the Aqua Maidens.

So if they started getting out of breath,

they could take a hit off the air hose.

But he cavorted around

and pretended to take pictures of little kids

through the glass,

probably terrifying the little kids in the process.

Anyway, the reason we never saw Glurpo get eaten by piranha

is that the piranha carnage was all shot

at the University of Southern California in L.A.

They have an Olympic-size swimming pool there

where Rob Bottin did the effects.

And that was the same swimming pool

where they had shot the Johnny Weissmuller

Tarzan movies.

But Piranha would be the last time

the university ever allowed filming there,

because the "Piranha" effects guys

poured 300 gallons of Karo syrup into the pool

and they dropped about $1,000 worth of aquatic weeds

into the pool, and after eight days of filming,

the pool was just black

with some kind of fungus that was growing there.

And when they poured chlorine into the pool

to try to clear it out, it made it worse.

And the fungus started eating the paint off of the fake fish

that they were putting in there.

And the actors -- the actors started complaining

about ear infections and...

diaper rash, if you know what I mean,

and I think you do.

-Oh, my God. -So, anyway.

The pool had to be drained and sandblasted

to get rid of whatever new life form

had been created by the "Piranha" filmmakers.

They had to send experts from Sacramento

to check it out and make it safe for humans to enter it again.

-That is actually kind of awesome, though.

-Indie filmmaking at its finest.

-Yes, true.

-Never let an indie film crew near your house.

-Also true.

-Suzie!

-Daddy!

-There's a phone in there.

You call the resort and warn 'em.

I'll get those kids out of the water.

-Operator, get me the number

of the Aquarena Springs Resort.

Well, look in the phone book. It's in the phone book.

-Enjoy yourself. Enjoy yourself.

Have a good time. Everything's free today.

Enjoy yourself. Keep 'em moving, Terry.

Wrong way, kid. This is the exit, come on.

-Hey, baby. -Mr. Gardner?

Mr. Gardner? -What is it?

-Oh, real important.

-Buck Gardner.

-Now listen to me.

This is not a crank call.

I am completely serious.

-Emergency?

-Easy, now. Easy.

I got you, I got you.

Alright.

-Please.

Please, you've gotta believe me.

-Thank you.

-Listen to me!

Look, please, before it's --

-Thank you.

Piranha.

-And they said they're sending an ambulance from Cable Springs.

-We're gonna have to drive to the resort ourselves.

-Kids, sit down, sit down.

-Can you handle this?

Uh, yeah, I think so.

-Honey...

Honey, I'll be back for you real soon, I promise.

So you be brave, huh?

Help out here?

That's my girl.

It's okay, Suzie.

He'll be back.

-We got plenty of targets. Yes, sir. Right over there.

-By the way, sir, they've noticed.

One woman thought she recognized

the submarine ride from somewhere in Florida.

-Of course she did.

I picked it up second-hand in Coral Gables.

Skyway's from Redondo Beach.

Boathouse is army surplus.

Dancing chickens, I got 'em from a carnival in Idaho.

Ralph the Swimming Swine?

He comes all the way from Atlantic City.

-That's just it, sir. They're saying,

for a new resort, nothing's looking very new.

-Eh, what the hell do they know?

Ralph the Swimming Swine's practically a national monument.

That little porker's been swimming around the steel pier

for more years than I can remember.

The rest of this stuff, they just don't make it.

I mean, that submarine ride is a piece of Americana.

-Yes, sir.

-Maybe they never heard of recycling.

-I don't know, sir.

-Smile, we're goin' public.

Hello, Senator.

How are you?

-If they get to the media, we're both screwed.

-Colonel Waxman.

Dr. Mengers. What a pleasant surprise.

-They busted jail.

-Look, I know. They already called here.

-Is your staff ready? -They're all set.

-I think you should call some of your friends

in the local newspaper and warn 'em

they might be getting some crank calls.

-Wouldn't it be better if we waited till --

-You got your orders, mister. Hop to it.

-Hey, cool it with the military crap, will you, Colonel?

I'll take care of it.

Whitney? -Sir.

-Let's, uh, hop to it.

-General Waxman, it's been so long.

-It's Colonel, ma'am.

-Colonel? Still?

Oh, I can't imagine why.

-Politics, ma'am. Politics.

Stupid cow.

-Ready?

-Okay!

-Hey, he really does ski great.

He's such a show-off.

-He thinks he's such hot shit.

-Maybe we're not going fast enough for him.

-I can fix that.

-Hold it! There's something back here!

Take me in!

Now!

-Hey, I think something's wrong.

-Yeah, we haven't dumped him yet.

-Stop!

Take me in!

There's something in here! Come on!

Get me outta here! Come on!

-Slow down! Stop!

-Faster! Don't stop!

-Wait. He says...

-No!

-Speed up. Speed up!

-Stop!

Aah!

-Damn it!

-No, Bob. It's completely false.

There's not a word of truth to it, believe me.

We already talked to the other newspapers about it.

-Sir? -Excuse me, I'm on the phone!

-Sir. The piranhas.

-I thought I told you not even to say that word!

-But the piranhas...

-What about the goddamn piranhas?

-They're eating the guests, sir.

-Uh...

Uh, Bob, I'm gonna have to get back to you on this.

Um, we've got a...

Uh, we got a-a situation down here.

-Come on. -Get off!

-You'll tip us over.

-Get off!

-Damn it, get off!

-Help, help!

-Where are we going?

-The lake narrows where the outlet for the refinery was.

They'll be bunched tight when they come through there.

-What then?

-If it isn't capped off,

there might be enough waste left in the smelting tanks.

-It'll kill the fish?

-It'll kill anything.

We'll pollute the bastards to death.

Oh, Lord.

No!

-What's wrong? -It's all flooded.

The control booth is underwater.

-What can we do?

-Well, we gotta do somethin'.

Where's that towline?

-It's in the back.

-So, I want you to start counting slowly up to 100.

Then, whether I'm up to the surface or not,

you hit that throttle and gun this sucker outta here.

If I'm not up by then, it means I'm in trouble,

'cause that's as long as I can hold my breath.

So, let's count it down together.

-Okay? -Okay.

-One... -One...

Two...

-Three... -Three...

-Four... -Four...

Five...

Six...

Seven...

48...

49...

63...

64...

82...

83...

98...

99...

100.

Paul!

-Lost River Lake.

Terror, horror, death.

Film at 11.

-Medic!

-Medic! -Help!

-What the hell are you filming?

What the hell are you filming?!

-Try and take some.

-And where do we go from here, Dr. Mengers?

-Well, I'm personally going to head

a full-scale investigation into this incident,

both to discover who was responsible

and to make absolutely certain

that nothing like this could possibly happen again.

-As an expert in tropical species,

what danger is there in the possibility

of the piranha reaching the ocean?

-Oh, none at all.

Most of them will have been destroyed

by pollution at the end of the lake.

Of course, if any of them did get through,

there's no way they could survive the salt water.

There's nothing left to fear.

-Okay, that ending is a little abrupt, but that's "Piranha."

And it has one of the classic lines in exploitation history --

"They're eating the guests, sir."

The most impressive thing to me, Darcy,

is that they trained those fish to chew off bikini tops.

What do you think?

-About the bikini tops? It's impressive.

-No, about the movie. -Oh. Pfft! Okay.

I agree with you that it's one of the best "Jaws" rip-offs.

I like the tongue-in-cheek style,

but it's not a complete spoof, like, silly, you know?

It's a really solid monster movie

that just happens to have a strong sense of humor.

-True.

And it's the only monster movie, I think,

where the monster is polluted to death.

I challenge everybody, though --

Try to hold your breath from the time

Bradford Dillman goes down into the water

until she pulls him out with the speedboat.

And I don't care how slowly you're counting to 100 --

I got to say, that's impossible.

Anyway, you may be wondering how they got the U.S. Army

to provide all that equipment --

the Jeeps, the uniformed extras, all that stuff.

What they did is they gave the military a fake script

that promoted the Army as the heroes of the story.

And as a result,

the Army provided all that military equipment for free,

not realizing it was one of the worst portrayals

of the Army in film history.

So, the movie was a gigantic hit, even though --

do we ever see a fish actually eating somebody, Darcy?

I remember a close-up of a fish eating a foot.

-For what, one-tenth of a second?

It counts. It's a foot.

-The piranha were actually rubber puppets

attached to sticks. -Aw.

-And yet they pulled it off.

It was released on August 3, 1978,

and both Joe Dante and John Sayles expected it to bomb.

But three weeks into its release,

it had recorded $2.1 million in box office in 196 theaters,

and it became the biggest hit of Roger Corman's

New World Pictures up to that time.

It ended up -- it ended up grossing $6 million domestic

and $10 million overseas,

even though Ebert and Siskel,

who were the two most influential film critics

at the time, despised this movie.

Gene Siskel called it, quote, "disgusting."

He said, "If you like seeing pre-teenagers yelp with pain,

then you'll love 'Piranha.'"

And they had a feature on their weekly show

called Dog of the Week, and Ebert delivered

his review of "Piranha" while holding a dog on his lap.

Um, Universal Pictures actually wanted to sue New World

for ripping off "Jaws",

even though of all the "Jaws" copycats,

this one is the most original, in my opinion.

Unfortunately for the Hollywood legal community,

Steven Spielberg screened the movie and loved the movie,

and so the Universal lawsuit went away.

The main importance of "Piranha," I think,

is that it launched the directorial career

of the pride of Morristown, New Jersey -- Joe Dante. Joe had...

-Whoo! -Yeah!

-Joe had polio as a child,

just like I did... -Aw, yeah.

-And so he spent much of his time

at the local movie house.

He had aspirations to be a cartoonist.

He attended the prestigious Philadelphia College of Art.

He became a film reviewer after that,

and then he discovered his calling in 1974

when he became Roger Corman's trailer editor.

And I already mentioned "Hollywood Boulevard,"

the quickie that he did with Allan Arkush.

He was also the co-writer on "Rock 'n' Roll High School."

He was the editor on Ron Howard's directorial debut,

"Grand Theft Auto,"

and then this movie led to another big, low-budget hit

with "The Howling" in 1981,

and then two big-budget hits.

He did a segment of "Twilight Zone: The Movie,"

and then he did "Gremlins."

Uh, he actually prefers "Gremlins 2: The New Batch"

to the original, I've heard him say.

-So do I.

-Huh? -So do I.

-He considers that his best film,

but he's done lots of other stuff, like "Innerspace" --

Dennis Quaid injected into the body of Martin Short.

Um, "Explorers" -- -Nice.

-...a sci-fi fantasy about three kids

who build their own spaceship. -Ethan Hawke, right?

-Uh, Tom Hanks in "The 'Burbs."

Uh, John Goodman in "Matinee."

Many other movies and TV shows.

He holds the Dick Miller record.

He cast Dick Miller in every movie he ever directed,

plus four TV episodes that he directed

and even as late as 2011,

he was directing 10 episodes of "Hawaii Five-0."

Talk about a guy who continues to work, work, work, work, work.

He does the "Trailers From Hell" podcast.

Still actively working.

I think the last thing I heard that he's doing

is a "Little Shop of Horrors" remake.

Um, but the sequels and remakes of "Piranha" did not do so well.

Um, Corman didn't have rights to the sequel,

so "Piranha 2: The Spawning" was a flop,

even though it was directed by James Cameron

and had Lance Henriksen in the lead.

Um, not to -- not to mention they had

three times the budget of "Piranha 1."

Some people like the, um, Alexandre Aja remake in 2010.

-Yeah, I'm one of those people.

I-I feel like you knew that.

-Yeah. Come on. -I love it! I love it.

-Nobody likes "Piranha 3DD," from 2012.

-Well, we're not talking about double-D.

We're talking about...

-A lot of people like "Piranha 3D."

-That's the way. -But not "3DD."

-Alright. You love that one too? -"3DD"...

-What about "3DD"? Do you like that?

-Nope. -Has a couple of good points,

if you know what I mean. -"A couple of good points."

Great. -If you know what I mean.

and I think you do. -Alright.

-Here's an intriguing factoid.

Barbara Steele, who played Dr. Mengers

in the movie... -Yeah!

-...um, and was extremely famous in the exploitation world

because of "Black Sunday," "Caged Heat,"

all those great horror roles in the '60s and '70s.

Barbara was the official still photographer on "Piranha."

-Nice! I love her.

-Intriguing factoid numero two-oh.

The casting director for the film was Susan Arnold,

daughter of Jack Arnold

of "Creature from the Black Lagoon" fame,

and Jack showed up to give advice.

And, of course, Joe Dante welcomed the advice,

since Joe is a film historian

and a fan of all genre filmmakers.

Alright, intriguing factoid numero three-oh.

At the wrap party,

Jamie Anderson, the director of photography,

drove his rental car into the swimming pool

at the Holiday Inn.

So, I guess working with special effects

and water and dogs

and crazed method actors and children

in just 20 days made for a high-pressure shoot,

so he was relieving that high pressure.

And speaking of high pressure, Darcy...

-Yes? -It's time for a letter.

-Oh! -Give me a letter.

Give me some mailbag.

Give me some mailbag that kills.

I get depressed that so much of our mail is so similar.

-What do you mean, it's similar? Here.

-Well, it's either, "You're great," you know,

or, "Play this movie."

You know, I want some hardcore intellectual debate.

Intellectual?

Do you know what show we're doing?

-Okay. -Just sayin'.

-Hardcore debate. -Hardcore debate I'll take.

You will like the hardcore debate

that is in this letter.

It's from Katie Moore of Marysville, Pennsylvania.

-Okay. Where did this come in?

-Um, actually, she -- she put it in my mailbox at a con.

-Oh, she actually delivered the mail herself?

-Yes! -And she was eight years old.

-She says so. I assume she's telling the truth.

-Oh, dear Darcy. -Yes.

-This is your hardcore debate.

-I mean, it's the best I could find last minute, what do you want?

-"Dear Darcy, I like when you dress up like animals."

-Yay! Good debate.

-"The turtle costume was my favorite.

What pets do you have? And does Joe Bob have pets too?"

-I don't know. It sounded like debate.

-"Did Joe Bob really eat turtle soup?

Thank you. Katie Moore, age eight,

Marysville, Pennsylvania." -A debate...

whether you ate turtle soup. -Another eight-year-old.

This is the second eight-year-old.

What's the debate?

-The best animal costume, obviously.

I don't know. -Okay. Exactly.

Okay, so, um...

I guess you've done animal costumes.

I guess you did alligator for the movie "Alligator."

-And "'Gator Bait." I did two alligators.

-Okay. And bear for "Grizzly."

-Yes. -And pig for "Slaughterhouse."

-Oh, man. "Slaughterhouse" is rough, man.

What else?

-Oh, the turtle for "Cannibal Holocaust."

That's -- that's my favorite,

'cause we actually raised some money for turtles that night.

-To save turtles. -Mm-hmm.

-Katie is eight and she's watching "Cannibal Holocaust"?

-I assume she just saw our segments,

but I'm not judging.

-I'm calling

Pennsylvania Child Protective Services on that.

You had two wolves, for Werewolf Night

and "WolfCop."

WolfCop! It counts.

Rabbit. -What was rabbit for?

-"Rottentail."

-"Rottentail"! Okay. -Obviously.

-You didn't do piranha, though.

Too tough to do piranha?

-If I'm being completely real, I didn't have time,

or I might have planned something.

But I have something in store for the next movie

that she's gonna love. -Alright.

Well, we have another eco-horror "Jaws" rip-off

coming up right now.

-And I do have that one covered.

-But to answer your question, Katie, I have a Persian cat.

-Aww. -And Darcy...

-Um, right now I have two dogs and three kitty cats.

-What kind of dogs? -One's like a Chihuahua mix,

and the other one's a pitbull.

But the kitties run all over the pitbull.

That's funny. Okay.

-They boss her around.

-Darcy, why are our fans getting younger and younger?

-I feel like they identify with your sense of humor.

-Oh, right... -Just sayin', pith hat.

-Give me some adult mail, please.

And I do believe that's it for me.

-You're so picky.

-We do have a second feature, but for now,

Joe Bob Briggs and Darcy the Mail Girl

are reminding you

that if you hang a dead snake on a fence,

it won't stop raining.

And the drive-in will never die.

-What? -Is that true?

-I don't know, my grandma used to say that.

Okay.

-Alright, a priest and a nun are taking turns riding on a donkey

on their way to a new parish

that's way out in the middle of the desert.

And it's very hot, and the sun is blazing

and the donkey is struggling.

And suddenly the donkey brays and collapses

and kicks a couple of times and dies.

So the nun and the priest sit down,

and they know that without that donkey, they're both doomed.

So after a while, the priest says, "Sister,

I've been a priest since I entered the seminary as a boy,

and I have never seen a woman naked.

Since we're gonna die, may I look upon you?"

And so the nun thinks for a minute and says,

"Well, I guess seeing as we're gonna die,

I can't see any harm."

So she undresses and stands before the priest,

and he stares at her body and immediately becomes aroused.

And then the nun says, "Father,

I too have led a religious life

and would like to look upon a naked man before I die."

And the priest says, "Okay, how could it be wrong?"

Priest removes his cassock and he stands before the nun,

and the nun is shocked and she says,

"What is that standing between your legs?"

And the priest says, "It's the rod of life.

If I were to stick this into a woman, it would create life."

And nun thinks for a minute and says,

"Why not stick it into that donkey

and we can get out of here?"

Katie, you're welcome!

-I hope the eight-year-olds are watching.