1 00:00:02,120 --> 00:00:05,980 These are the Kentucky Fried Movie DVD extras. 2 00:00:07,740 --> 00:00:10,140 Which makes us, are we extras? 3 00:00:11,240 --> 00:00:13,840 No, that's a good pun though. Thank you. 4 00:00:14,580 --> 00:00:15,800 Extras also means? 5 00:00:16,880 --> 00:00:18,200 See you in the movie business. 6 00:00:18,420 --> 00:00:19,420 Okay, sorry. 7 00:00:19,700 --> 00:00:22,220 Well, we call them background, though. Background, that's right. They're called 8 00:00:22,220 --> 00:00:23,320 background, not extras. 9 00:00:23,800 --> 00:00:27,380 Extras is a little real rude, isn't it? Yeah, who was the guy, John, who was my 10 00:00:27,380 --> 00:00:28,400 AD and all that? 11 00:00:28,620 --> 00:00:30,940 Kretschmer? Kretschmer, always used to say background artist. 12 00:00:31,220 --> 00:00:33,180 He was like the ultimate polite. 13 00:00:34,020 --> 00:00:38,080 He's the most polite and wonderful assistant director. Performance artist. 14 00:00:38,160 --> 00:00:39,420 Yeah, well, that was, yeah. 15 00:00:42,860 --> 00:00:48,320 It was 1971, and I was just out of college. Jerry was doing his practice 16 00:00:48,320 --> 00:00:51,020 teaching because he was an education major. 17 00:00:51,640 --> 00:00:57,340 And Jim Abrams, our friend, was a private investigator for a law firm in 18 00:00:57,340 --> 00:01:01,620 Milwaukee. And Jerry was in Madison at the University of Wisconsin. 19 00:01:01,920 --> 00:01:08,720 So I managed to get a hold of some videotape, which my dad borrowed from a 20 00:01:08,720 --> 00:01:09,720 friend of his. 21 00:01:09,980 --> 00:01:16,740 And so we just thought we could make spoofs of TV commercials and 22 00:01:16,740 --> 00:01:23,120 maybe put them and combine them with a live show because Jerry also knew our 23 00:01:23,120 --> 00:01:27,900 friend Dick Chudnow who was another TA at Madison and they had a performance 24 00:01:27,900 --> 00:01:34,480 group which was improvisations. And so we combined that with our TV commercials 25 00:01:34,480 --> 00:01:37,060 and we just made a stage show. 26 00:01:37,440 --> 00:01:40,420 I thought my razor was dull until I heard that last answer. 27 00:01:42,220 --> 00:01:43,240 Should we start over? 28 00:01:43,880 --> 00:01:44,880 No, no, no. 29 00:01:45,040 --> 00:01:46,040 It's fine. 30 00:01:46,400 --> 00:01:49,860 Yes, that was excellent. You would agree with that. I was all correct. Everything 31 00:01:49,860 --> 00:01:54,500 in there was correct. Very monotone, but just right on. I'll try to vary the 32 00:01:54,500 --> 00:01:59,060 pitch a little bit. But I just got off the plane. I should say David just got 33 00:01:59,060 --> 00:02:03,760 off the plane. We're in London now, and David just got off the plane from 34 00:02:03,760 --> 00:02:06,520 America. So this is not my usual self. 35 00:02:06,740 --> 00:02:09,660 His suitcase is actually just back there. You can see it in the background. 36 00:02:09,680 --> 00:02:13,200 It's probably in the back of the shot anyway. So, okay, just to set the stage. 37 00:02:16,910 --> 00:02:20,830 Well, I think at some point we decided we didn't want to be a performing group, 38 00:02:20,970 --> 00:02:26,390 you know, and we had done some television, but it just didn't seem to 39 00:02:26,390 --> 00:02:30,170 be our thing either, so we thought, wait a minute, you know, maybe movies would 40 00:02:30,170 --> 00:02:37,050 be good. And, you know, then Ken Shapiro had done Groove Tube, the 41 00:02:37,050 --> 00:02:41,550 film, which was a bit film, and I think there was, no, I guess that was it. It 42 00:02:41,550 --> 00:02:43,070 was just that one, and we thought, gee. 43 00:02:43,690 --> 00:02:48,250 we have this whole show with all these different bits and you know it's be fun 44 00:02:48,250 --> 00:02:52,970 to write new stuff and and and try to make a movie and maybe we could actually 45 00:02:52,970 --> 00:02:58,710 get that made because we could do it cheaper so i think that was kind of the 46 00:02:58,710 --> 00:03:04,010 genesis of it and then we met john landis and because we didn't know 47 00:03:04,010 --> 00:03:06,110 anything about david actually saw 48 00:03:06,860 --> 00:03:08,780 John Landis on The Tonight Show. 49 00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:12,600 And he was on The Tonight Show because he was a 21-year-old kid who had 50 00:03:12,600 --> 00:03:15,180 directed a movie called Schlock. 51 00:03:15,740 --> 00:03:22,400 And so he was on the show. And so David got his number 52 00:03:22,400 --> 00:03:27,500 from the distributor of the movie and called Levitt Pickman and called John. 53 00:03:27,500 --> 00:03:31,220 And what did John's reaction was? How'd you get this number? I said, well, they 54 00:03:31,220 --> 00:03:34,880 gave it to me. And he was like about to get on the phone to Levitt Pickman to 55 00:03:34,880 --> 00:03:36,020 scream at them. 56 00:03:36,490 --> 00:03:39,470 I said, no, no, I don't want anything from you. I just wanted to invite you to 57 00:03:39,470 --> 00:03:44,350 our show. We have this Kentucky Fried Theater show on Pico, so come over and 58 00:03:44,350 --> 00:03:45,350 see it. And he did. 59 00:03:45,570 --> 00:03:52,530 And then we took him out to lunch, the three of us, Jim 60 00:03:52,530 --> 00:03:59,490 and David and I, took him out to lunch and just asked him questions about, 61 00:03:59,590 --> 00:04:00,930 how do you make a movie? 62 00:04:01,690 --> 00:04:03,310 And he said, first you need a script. 63 00:04:03,920 --> 00:04:06,900 And we said, we know that, but what does one look like? 64 00:04:07,400 --> 00:04:12,100 And so he went out to his car and brought us back one of his scripts, 65 00:04:12,240 --> 00:04:16,140 which happened to be titled American Werewolf in London. 66 00:04:16,760 --> 00:04:20,560 And this was like years before he ever got that on film. 67 00:04:20,899 --> 00:04:25,000 But we actually, we took that and we used that as kind of a template so we 68 00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:30,460 knew how to do it. Not the structure of the movie, but just the format. 69 00:04:31,630 --> 00:04:36,550 Because we didn't even know, you know, fade in, how dialogue was, I mean, we 70 00:04:36,550 --> 00:04:40,730 knew nothing. As a matter of fact, I think the reason David called him was 71 00:04:40,730 --> 00:04:45,290 because he thought, gee, the guy's 21, maybe he'll talk to us, because, you 72 00:04:45,290 --> 00:04:46,290 know, nobody else would. 73 00:04:46,710 --> 00:04:50,610 So, and he was right, and John was really nice, and he was just very happy 74 00:04:50,610 --> 00:04:56,570 to, you know, tell us what he knew, and kind of got us started. 75 00:04:59,630 --> 00:05:05,250 I don't think so. I don't think that actually in a way it sort of made it, it 76 00:05:05,250 --> 00:05:09,930 seemed to make it easier because it was all, you know, most of it could be done 77 00:05:09,930 --> 00:05:15,570 on locations and, you know, could be done fairly simply. 78 00:05:17,999 --> 00:05:22,200 you know, it didn't really require, well, in those days I guess they didn't 79 00:05:22,200 --> 00:05:25,520 have special effects, so forget that. No, special effects hadn't been invented 80 00:05:25,520 --> 00:05:29,580 yet. Hadn't been invented yet, but we knew they were coming, but anyway. We 81 00:05:29,580 --> 00:05:35,540 did the whole movie on really one big mansion on the grounds and in the 82 00:05:35,540 --> 00:05:37,320 mansion in Pasadena. 83 00:05:38,860 --> 00:05:42,960 What was it, the Dovidina? The Dovidina Mansion it was called, and some of the 84 00:05:42,960 --> 00:05:47,770 sets were constructed outside, and we just, you know, prayed that it wouldn't 85 00:05:47,770 --> 00:05:53,490 rain, and they didn't have any ceilings, so that the light, we just used natural 86 00:05:53,490 --> 00:05:56,070 light, just like they used to do in the silent movies. 87 00:05:56,290 --> 00:05:57,930 Yeah, we also prayed that they'd be funny. 88 00:05:59,030 --> 00:06:00,030 Yeah. 89 00:06:02,210 --> 00:06:06,210 Kentucky Fried Movie was just a really fun movie to shoot. I mean, every day 90 00:06:06,210 --> 00:06:10,010 there was something wild going on. Every day there was a great gag, or two, or 91 00:06:10,010 --> 00:06:11,010 three, or twelve. 92 00:06:11,230 --> 00:06:14,690 And I think probably, I don't know, if you're trying to... 93 00:06:15,240 --> 00:06:18,120 It's hard to say what the most fun one was. 94 00:06:18,520 --> 00:06:25,180 A Fistful of Yen was, I think, really fun to shoot. But, oh, you know what? I 95 00:06:25,180 --> 00:06:27,160 will tell you what I think the most fun was. 96 00:06:27,820 --> 00:06:34,220 My personal, I think, would be the Zinc Oxide. 97 00:06:34,820 --> 00:06:40,300 Zinc Oxide and you, that was great. That was really a treat to film. Yeah, it was 98 00:06:40,300 --> 00:06:43,600 great. Cleopatra Schwartz, of course, was... 99 00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:47,440 Well, then it doesn't make any sense if it's not an answer. So, okay, go ahead. 100 00:06:47,520 --> 00:06:48,520 You answer. 101 00:06:51,880 --> 00:06:57,540 What Jerry meant to say was that he enjoyed the Cleopatra Schwartz 102 00:06:57,540 --> 00:07:02,840 commercial the most because it involved nudity. In fact, those are the days when 103 00:07:02,840 --> 00:07:04,540 Jerry actually showed up on the set. 104 00:07:05,070 --> 00:07:08,770 I used to call in ahead of time and see if there was going to be any nudity. 105 00:07:08,850 --> 00:07:12,410 Yeah, were there going to be any breasts today? Oh, yes. Sure, Jared, come on in. 106 00:07:12,590 --> 00:07:14,130 Sometimes we have to lie about it. 107 00:07:17,930 --> 00:07:19,570 We actually thought it would be funny. 108 00:07:20,250 --> 00:07:24,470 I don't think we wrote any... I don't think we've ever written anything... 109 00:07:24,470 --> 00:07:26,550 Just to meet girls. 110 00:07:28,120 --> 00:07:32,040 No, that probably would have been worthwhile, but just for the box, 111 00:07:32,240 --> 00:07:36,660 because we thought this is what's popular in the box office, other than 112 00:07:36,660 --> 00:07:38,460 the fact that we knew we were... 113 00:07:40,719 --> 00:07:45,480 unbridled in terms of just, you know, it's a hard hour, we were going to go 114 00:07:45,480 --> 00:07:50,040 for it, we were, you know, we didn't have to be restrained. 115 00:07:51,100 --> 00:07:56,920 So, but other than that, we only write what we think is funny and fortunately 116 00:07:56,920 --> 00:08:03,260 we're all just really immature, so it tends to, you know, be that kind of 117 00:08:03,260 --> 00:08:04,260 humor. 118 00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:10,860 The spoof movie trailers that were in Kentucky Fried Movie, evidently we did 119 00:08:10,860 --> 00:08:15,660 invent that because now that we think of it, we can't think of anybody who did 120 00:08:15,660 --> 00:08:20,420 them before we did, so we may well have... Yeah, I had no idea. We were not 121 00:08:20,420 --> 00:08:22,660 aware at the time that we were inventing anything. 122 00:08:23,180 --> 00:08:27,100 Or sprocket holes, which turned out... Yeah, sprocket holes we invented. 123 00:08:27,440 --> 00:08:30,920 The movies prior to Kentucky Fried Movie, there were no sprocket holes, and 124 00:08:30,920 --> 00:08:33,159 they would make it really difficult for film. They were done on kind of these 125 00:08:33,159 --> 00:08:34,159 rubber rollers. 126 00:08:34,829 --> 00:08:41,309 So who knew? And David and Jim and I invented that. But I 127 00:08:41,309 --> 00:08:47,250 guess someone had just mentioned to us that they thought 128 00:08:47,250 --> 00:08:53,830 it was the first time that a trailer had been 129 00:08:53,830 --> 00:08:57,710 spoofed, a preview of coming attractions had been spoofed. I actually wasn't 130 00:08:57,710 --> 00:09:01,950 aware of that, but if that's true, then we'll take credit for being the first. 131 00:09:01,950 --> 00:09:03,210 And we never did it again after that. 132 00:09:03,530 --> 00:09:04,530 That's true. 133 00:09:04,610 --> 00:09:06,750 There had been a lot of spoof commercials. 134 00:09:06,950 --> 00:09:13,330 I think the first one that we saw that kind of delighted us was Putney Swope. 135 00:09:13,950 --> 00:09:20,950 It had a spoof of a TV commercial that was really 136 00:09:20,950 --> 00:09:25,250 funny. But look, television did spoofs of... 137 00:09:26,330 --> 00:09:31,510 TV commercials all the time. I mean, you know, I'm sure, you know, Milton Berle 138 00:09:31,510 --> 00:09:34,590 and all those shows. Oh, they probably did, that's right. Yeah, they all did 139 00:09:34,590 --> 00:09:36,930 that stuff. So we can't even claim that then. Yeah, well, that's, but that's, 140 00:09:36,930 --> 00:09:40,910 yeah. But in a film, but it wasn't in a movie. I don't know. And, you know, 141 00:09:40,930 --> 00:09:43,130 background, we also did a lot of background humor. 142 00:09:43,870 --> 00:09:49,130 And that, I mean, I remember seeing a movie called Harold and Maude, which had 143 00:09:49,130 --> 00:09:55,930 some wonderfully funny background gags when he would... He would be trying to 144 00:09:55,930 --> 00:10:00,090 commit suicide and burning himself in the background while something else was 145 00:10:00,090 --> 00:10:01,090 going in the foreground. 146 00:10:01,610 --> 00:10:02,950 I think that impressed us a lot. 147 00:10:05,630 --> 00:10:07,970 He was a friend of John Landis. 148 00:10:08,330 --> 00:10:11,710 Anybody who was famous was a friend of John Landis because we didn't know 149 00:10:11,710 --> 00:10:17,630 anybody. But Landis had worked on a bunch of movies prior to that, and he 150 00:10:17,630 --> 00:10:19,250 got Bill Bixby in. 151 00:10:20,720 --> 00:10:24,360 Who's the guy that was on Laugh-In? Henry Gibson. Henry Gibson, yeah, they 152 00:10:24,360 --> 00:10:27,860 were all friends of John's. Yeah, and Goldie Hawn. 153 00:10:28,260 --> 00:10:29,260 She wasn't in it. 154 00:10:29,540 --> 00:10:33,040 Oh, she wasn't in it. Nobody knew her. 155 00:10:36,240 --> 00:10:41,200 You'd have to ask Donald. I think he... I mean, I still don't get that gag. 156 00:10:41,460 --> 00:10:46,760 Yeah. I mean, it was just as used to have Donald Sutherland in, but other 157 00:10:46,760 --> 00:10:50,000 than that, just to have him fall into a cake without any reason. 158 00:10:50,510 --> 00:10:54,130 It wasn't really that funny, but we were really impressed with ourselves that we 159 00:10:54,130 --> 00:10:59,730 had Donald Sutherland. We got to meet Donald Sutherland. And then we resolved 160 00:10:59,730 --> 00:11:04,470 to whenever we had a big celebrity cameo in the future, we were going to make it 161 00:11:04,470 --> 00:11:05,470 funny. 162 00:11:07,910 --> 00:11:14,190 My favorite subsequent to that is Ethel Merman in Airplane. That's my favorite 163 00:11:14,190 --> 00:11:16,010 cameo in any of our films. 164 00:11:19,560 --> 00:11:20,560 Was she gay? 165 00:11:21,440 --> 00:11:25,240 Ethelman was totally gay and she was wonderful. 166 00:11:25,440 --> 00:11:32,120 She was a really sweet, nice woman and I 167 00:11:32,120 --> 00:11:38,560 think her only stipulation was, because I don't think we paid her very much, but 168 00:11:38,560 --> 00:11:41,420 she wanted to bring her hair person. 169 00:11:42,540 --> 00:11:48,300 Which we agreed to pay for. Yeah, to fly her hair person out and to do her hair. 170 00:11:48,560 --> 00:11:55,540 And you can look at her hair in the movie. It's that famous kind of beehive 171 00:11:55,540 --> 00:11:59,920 or whatever that was, that hairdo that she had. 172 00:12:00,240 --> 00:12:04,060 But that was her, and she loved it. But she was great. 173 00:12:06,300 --> 00:12:07,920 Ethel Merman was just... 174 00:12:08,940 --> 00:12:13,520 really a thrill to have her on the set I mean I think really certainly up to that 175 00:12:13,520 --> 00:12:18,540 time I was meeting her was was 176 00:12:18,540 --> 00:12:24,120 was one of the most more exciting 177 00:12:26,329 --> 00:12:30,390 things in terms of, you know, hanging with famous actors. 178 00:12:30,630 --> 00:12:35,590 Jerry had led an exceptionally dull life up to that point, so this was a thrill. 179 00:12:35,710 --> 00:12:36,710 Ethel Merman. 180 00:12:37,850 --> 00:12:43,990 Ethel Merman. Yeah, no, I'd take Ethel over all of them. She was great. 181 00:12:44,210 --> 00:12:46,890 Well, a lot of it, I mean, we used to play football and baseball, and Jerry 182 00:12:46,890 --> 00:12:51,930 would be in watching, you know, those musicals. Yeah, you know. It was kind 183 00:12:51,930 --> 00:12:52,930 of, yeah. 184 00:12:53,120 --> 00:12:56,780 I lived with mom for about the first 40 years of your life. 185 00:12:57,080 --> 00:12:58,960 Yeah, yeah. I lived with a lot of Judy Garland. 186 00:13:00,880 --> 00:13:07,440 We would always 187 00:13:07,440 --> 00:13:14,340 screen films in front of an audience. You can't put a comedy out, I don't 188 00:13:14,340 --> 00:13:15,680 think, without... 189 00:13:15,950 --> 00:13:19,850 pre-screening and and to see what works and a number of screenings and we've 190 00:13:19,850 --> 00:13:23,750 done that with all our movies now do you remember i know we did a lot of editing 191 00:13:23,750 --> 00:13:29,070 on kentucky fried movie do you remember what things particularly were i don't 192 00:13:29,070 --> 00:13:32,850 remember particular things but i do remember that the first screening of of 193 00:13:32,850 --> 00:13:37,190 kentucky fine movie like every comedy we've ever done had been it was a 194 00:13:37,190 --> 00:13:42,170 disaster the first time we we played it not not quite the disaster that airplane 195 00:13:42,170 --> 00:13:47,420 was when that first screening but You know, I remember I invited friends. We 196 00:13:47,420 --> 00:13:49,960 screened it up and we tested it in San Francisco. 197 00:13:50,200 --> 00:13:53,000 And I invited, at that time, I had friends. 198 00:13:53,860 --> 00:13:56,880 I remember those days. San Francisco. 199 00:13:57,220 --> 00:14:02,840 And, you know, five or six friends. And I invited them. I would never do that 200 00:14:02,840 --> 00:14:07,100 today. Of course, today I'm not doing movies either. 201 00:14:08,170 --> 00:14:11,870 But it's a danger. The first screening is always dangerous. We just pray. 202 00:14:12,370 --> 00:14:15,190 Because there's 20 minutes in there that's not going to be funny. 203 00:14:15,850 --> 00:14:20,830 And comedy really survives on that pace. 204 00:14:21,370 --> 00:14:22,510 Everything's going to be funny. 205 00:14:22,710 --> 00:14:28,150 And so every movie, at least 20 minutes is going to be cut out. So if you can 206 00:14:28,150 --> 00:14:33,130 imagine just sitting there for 20 minutes and nothing's funny, it's pretty 207 00:14:33,130 --> 00:14:35,910 deadly. And it's spaced throughout the movie. 208 00:14:39,400 --> 00:14:43,460 No, there were some things that came out completely, but I just don't remember. 209 00:14:44,040 --> 00:14:45,560 We needed everything, 210 00:14:46,820 --> 00:14:50,860 so we kept everything in. There was not one thing that we filmed? Not one thing 211 00:14:50,860 --> 00:14:57,340 that came out. Maybe there was a fixative where the thing caught fire. 212 00:14:57,480 --> 00:14:59,620 I don't know why that wasn't funny, though. 213 00:15:02,360 --> 00:15:07,980 The fixative sketch was a mock on an ad that was... 214 00:15:08,240 --> 00:15:15,040 playing a lot for one of these, you know, call-in products that 215 00:15:15,040 --> 00:15:22,020 you'd order. Order by phone. Order by phone things. And it was just this, I 216 00:15:22,020 --> 00:15:22,839 don't know. 217 00:15:22,840 --> 00:15:26,860 It was a coat. Paste or powder or something. Well, no, the product was a 218 00:15:26,860 --> 00:15:31,300 powder that you put on when there was a hole in fabric. 219 00:15:31,680 --> 00:15:36,360 You'd put this on and somehow it would patch it. I don't even remember what it 220 00:15:36,360 --> 00:15:40,240 was actually supposed to do, but it showed this coat. 221 00:15:44,550 --> 00:15:48,930 in the real ad, and they'd put the thing on, and the guy said, fixative, you 222 00:15:48,930 --> 00:15:53,190 know, fixes anything, and instantly, and it'd be just droning on, and what was, 223 00:15:53,350 --> 00:15:57,270 we did. No, it was, I remember the ad said, we're burning a hole in this coat 224 00:15:57,270 --> 00:15:59,670 to show you. Oh, that's right. And so they had a cigarette, and they would 225 00:15:59,670 --> 00:16:03,730 burn a hole in a coat on the camera, and then they would show, you know, it 226 00:16:03,730 --> 00:16:09,070 burned a hole in it, and then they put the fixative fabric adhesive, and they 227 00:16:09,070 --> 00:16:10,110 showed it just. 228 00:16:10,480 --> 00:16:14,880 knit together and sewn up and you couldn't even see. What we did was we 229 00:16:14,880 --> 00:16:18,960 kept that announcer going and we burned the hole in the coat and then it burst 230 00:16:18,960 --> 00:16:20,320 into flames. It kept burning. 231 00:16:20,720 --> 00:16:25,480 And then the whole coat in there throwing on fixative and water and all 232 00:16:25,480 --> 00:16:30,140 that kind of stuff. Yeah, it was funny. I don't know what... That was one of 233 00:16:30,140 --> 00:16:34,380 those rare cases where we were right and the audience was wrong. 234 00:16:34,720 --> 00:16:37,400 You know, it could have been... Hundreds of people were just wrong. 235 00:16:38,480 --> 00:16:39,480 It happens. 236 00:16:39,700 --> 00:16:45,500 We wanted to release the movie with an explanation of why some of these bits 237 00:16:45,500 --> 00:16:46,500 were funny. 238 00:16:46,740 --> 00:16:50,420 Maybe it burst into flames too fast. It was probably the special effects. 239 00:16:50,720 --> 00:16:52,860 And we couldn't afford to do take two. 240 00:16:53,280 --> 00:16:57,480 Maybe we did, but each time I think the coat burst into flames. 241 00:16:57,780 --> 00:17:04,420 In general, we like to spoof anything that 242 00:17:04,420 --> 00:17:06,119 took... itself seriously. 243 00:17:06,420 --> 00:17:13,280 I mean, that would certainly be the best, those 244 00:17:13,280 --> 00:17:14,800 would be the best vehicles for us. 245 00:17:15,140 --> 00:17:21,540 And disaster movies at that time were very in vogue, The 246 00:17:21,540 --> 00:17:22,980 Towering Inferno. 247 00:17:23,339 --> 00:17:26,380 And invariably they turned out to be B movies. 248 00:17:26,660 --> 00:17:31,700 Yeah. You know, even today, I just saw about a half hour of 2012. 249 00:17:32,840 --> 00:17:37,520 Have you ever seen that? No. It's exactly, you know, that kind of stuff 250 00:17:37,520 --> 00:17:38,520 that we would spoof. 251 00:17:38,740 --> 00:17:43,060 Oh, 2012, yes, right, right, right. 2012, Independence Day. Right, right, 252 00:17:43,060 --> 00:17:43,879 right, yeah. 253 00:17:43,880 --> 00:17:46,440 Invariably, there's something about these disaster movies where they have, 254 00:17:46,500 --> 00:17:50,840 you know, a big cast, and you have to get into everybody's personal life, and 255 00:17:50,840 --> 00:17:55,680 the stuff is just, the dialogue is unintentionally funny. 256 00:17:58,590 --> 00:18:03,150 Well, actually, we wrote Airplane before we wrote Kentucky Fried Movie. 257 00:18:03,650 --> 00:18:09,510 And we couldn't get backing to do Airplane. So when Landis came to see our 258 00:18:09,510 --> 00:18:13,970 show and suggested, why don't you guys do a movie of your show, then we did 259 00:18:13,970 --> 00:18:17,250 that because we were trying to get into the movie business. 260 00:18:20,130 --> 00:18:25,490 When our movies were hits, I have to say, nothing surprised us until Top 261 00:18:25,490 --> 00:18:26,490 Secret. 262 00:18:28,520 --> 00:18:35,140 We spent months and months and years trying to convince people to 263 00:18:35,140 --> 00:18:39,540 finance these movies, whether it was Kentucky Fried Movie or Airplane or 264 00:18:39,540 --> 00:18:42,000 Topsy or whatever it was. 265 00:18:43,060 --> 00:18:48,540 We kept saying, this is going to be a big hit. This is comedy gold or whatever 266 00:18:48,540 --> 00:18:52,480 we were saying. But we really did believe it. We thought the movies were 267 00:18:52,480 --> 00:18:55,140 funny and they would be a big hit. 268 00:18:59,500 --> 00:19:05,080 Well very difficult because you see it is kind of an axiom in Hollywood that 269 00:19:05,080 --> 00:19:09,520 you can only you only do they'll only let you do what you've already proven 270 00:19:09,520 --> 00:19:14,820 that you can do so you know at the time we did Kentucky Fried Movie we had 271 00:19:14,820 --> 00:19:19,560 proven that we could run a very successful small theater in a live show 272 00:19:19,560 --> 00:19:25,340 in LA so we want to take the next step we wanted to write and produce a feature 273 00:19:25,340 --> 00:19:30,330 film so when we did that then With Airplane, we were insisting on directing 274 00:19:30,330 --> 00:19:34,250 it. And not only being first-time directors, but we were insisting that 275 00:19:34,250 --> 00:19:39,050 all three of us direct at the same time. So, you know, we hadn't even gone near 276 00:19:39,050 --> 00:19:44,270 proving we could do that. I think the biggest question really was... I mean, 277 00:19:44,290 --> 00:19:46,730 there was... There were a hundred... 278 00:19:47,070 --> 00:19:50,470 you know, questions that people had about an airplane. 279 00:19:50,730 --> 00:19:56,470 But I think that one of the biggest was would satire, does satire work on film? 280 00:19:56,610 --> 00:20:01,010 Because there had been evidence to make people think that it didn't. There was a 281 00:20:01,010 --> 00:20:05,330 movie called The Big Bus, which was supposed to be, you know, which was 282 00:20:05,330 --> 00:20:10,950 satire. But it just wasn't, you know, we were doing a completely different kind 283 00:20:10,950 --> 00:20:12,630 of satire than that. 284 00:20:13,550 --> 00:20:15,710 convince people that this was different. 285 00:20:15,910 --> 00:20:22,670 And nobody really understood the way we wanted to cast it. I 286 00:20:22,670 --> 00:20:29,110 mean, we would explain it, but it's an easy thing to realize when you see it. 287 00:20:29,250 --> 00:20:35,150 But to explain it to someone beforehand has actually turned out to be pretty 288 00:20:35,150 --> 00:20:36,150 difficult. 289 00:20:37,510 --> 00:20:43,210 Paramount, who finally, you know, every studio in Hollywood turned it down, and 290 00:20:43,210 --> 00:20:48,110 finally Paramount said, okay, we'll make this. And the first day of dailies, when 291 00:20:48,110 --> 00:20:54,830 Leslie Nielsen says, I am serious and don't call me Shirley, that was in the 292 00:20:54,830 --> 00:20:56,250 first day's rushes. 293 00:20:56,530 --> 00:21:01,490 We got a call from the studio, you know, saying, okay, now we get it. 294 00:21:02,930 --> 00:21:06,290 We got a lot of blank looks before that. 295 00:21:06,760 --> 00:21:12,360 We were, as we cast one by one, actors like Robert Stack, Peter Graves, 296 00:21:12,460 --> 00:21:16,880 Lloyd Bridges, and Leslie Nielsen. 297 00:21:17,180 --> 00:21:21,360 And I remember Leslie Nielsen was the last straw for our casting director. 298 00:21:21,560 --> 00:21:25,640 He said, Leslie Nielsen? Leslie Nielsen is the guy you cast the night before. 299 00:21:25,940 --> 00:21:31,120 And we were just so thrilled to have Leslie. And it was like a month before. 300 00:21:33,530 --> 00:21:39,590 But this had never been done before. But as Jerry said, the first day of Daley's, 301 00:21:39,590 --> 00:21:40,590 they got it. 302 00:21:42,730 --> 00:21:49,270 You know, when we cast Leslie Nielsen, nobody got it. Leslie Nielsen in a 303 00:21:49,270 --> 00:21:54,790 comedy? And we actually, you know, when we talked with Leslie, when we first met 304 00:21:54,790 --> 00:21:56,670 him, we said, we just want you to play it straight. 305 00:21:58,080 --> 00:22:02,240 like you do all the other roles you played and it's going to work great. 306 00:22:02,400 --> 00:22:09,040 What we didn't realize was that Leslie was a closet comedian, but which anybody 307 00:22:09,040 --> 00:22:13,820 who knew him knew because he was a prankster and he was always making 308 00:22:13,820 --> 00:22:20,340 jokes. I think Leslie kind of shared our sense of anarchy, of wanting to... 309 00:22:22,290 --> 00:22:29,230 pull the clothes off the emperor or whatever, or announce that 310 00:22:29,230 --> 00:22:34,470 the emperor didn't have clothes, or shop at the Emporium or something. 311 00:22:34,690 --> 00:22:41,630 And so Leslie was really, more than anyone else, I think, was 312 00:22:41,630 --> 00:22:47,370 kind of one of us. And that was a surprise. 313 00:22:50,640 --> 00:22:56,360 It's great to write for someone, so we knew we could just imagine Leslie doing 314 00:22:56,360 --> 00:23:00,520 it, and we knew certain things that he was great at. 315 00:23:01,120 --> 00:23:06,520 And certain things we knew that wouldn't be funny with any other actor, but 316 00:23:06,520 --> 00:23:11,120 Leslie Nielsen doing it, then this would be funny. Leslie could get away with 317 00:23:11,120 --> 00:23:14,360 things that very few actors could get away with. 318 00:23:16,580 --> 00:23:22,820 Leslie was never trying to be funny. He was always, so you never, you never 319 00:23:22,820 --> 00:23:28,320 really expect it. So because his job isn't, you know, quote, comedian, 320 00:23:28,520 --> 00:23:35,000 unquote, it's always, it always has that aura of the unexpected 321 00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:40,000 when something, when Leslie does something. So he can get away with lines 322 00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:45,780 like nice beaver that, for a comedian, it would be a smart aleck remark. 323 00:23:46,320 --> 00:23:49,400 But for Leslie, it just played right in with that. 324 00:23:49,700 --> 00:23:51,220 We're not trying to be funny. 325 00:23:54,880 --> 00:24:01,440 We would frequently go into a screening with a two-hour movie, into a first 326 00:24:01,440 --> 00:24:07,900 preview, a two-hour movie, and we would think it all would be funny, but we 327 00:24:07,900 --> 00:24:14,380 knew... that we'd be lucky if 90 minutes of it was funny, because that's just 328 00:24:14,380 --> 00:24:16,520 always what happens. 329 00:24:16,920 --> 00:24:22,400 I think it is pretty... I mean, look, movies have done it. There have been two 330 00:24:22,400 --> 00:24:23,400 -hour comedies. 331 00:24:24,240 --> 00:24:30,460 I think for our kind of comedies, those satires, where 332 00:24:30,460 --> 00:24:36,680 you really... You know, it's really not about the plot. 333 00:24:38,470 --> 00:24:44,990 that it's more of a joke book, that it's hard to keep people laughing 334 00:24:44,990 --> 00:24:51,790 for more than an hour and a half. And with this kind of comedy, it's hard to 335 00:24:51,790 --> 00:24:57,850 take a plot too seriously, but if you don't get the plot up to at least a 336 00:24:57,850 --> 00:25:04,330 modicum of respect, then you don't have a movie. So they always seem to... 337 00:25:05,100 --> 00:25:11,360 work out to 85 minutes or you know 83 minutes and we you know we but but in 338 00:25:11,360 --> 00:25:15,960 the some of the well I'm including credits we we do everything we can't 339 00:25:15,960 --> 00:25:22,800 yeah you do you know really no no you just it's you eke 340 00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:29,600 out 80 85 86 minutes or even 82 minutes with the credits 341 00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:34,100 because it's just You know, the comedies depend on the pace. 342 00:25:36,060 --> 00:25:41,760 Our comedy influences, surprisingly, weren't really other comedies, but it 343 00:25:41,760 --> 00:25:48,380 was, I would say, first off, I mean, we were so affected by serious 344 00:25:48,380 --> 00:25:55,280 movies, and so we would watch a lot of serious B movies and think that those 345 00:25:55,280 --> 00:25:59,260 were somehow funnier than the comedies of the day. 346 00:25:59,980 --> 00:26:06,520 In the 1960s and 70s, I think we were all fans of Woody Allen and Mel Brooks. 347 00:26:07,520 --> 00:26:09,500 Also in college, the Marx Brothers. 348 00:26:09,800 --> 00:26:13,940 The Marx Brothers. Mad Magazine, I would say, was a huge influence when we were 349 00:26:13,940 --> 00:26:18,920 kids. That was probably the first comedy influence because that was a satire 350 00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:24,020 magazine, and they did scenes we'd like to see. It was a textbook of satire. 351 00:26:24,020 --> 00:26:28,910 Yeah. And they had little things in the margins, you know, they would... 352 00:26:28,910 --> 00:26:33,850 Backgrounds. Yeah, and so that was... And we loved that. We loved Mad 353 00:26:33,850 --> 00:26:40,250 Magazine. And I think that was probably our first, you know, real influence. 354 00:26:40,670 --> 00:26:43,890 And we loved the Marx Brothers. 355 00:26:44,150 --> 00:26:47,550 But that was a little bit later. That was when we were in college. 356 00:26:51,230 --> 00:26:52,830 When we first... 357 00:26:54,770 --> 00:26:58,810 We ran our show in Madison, Wisconsin, Kentucky Fried Theater. 358 00:27:04,620 --> 00:27:10,880 got a notice from the phone company that Kentucky Fried Chicken had written 359 00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:17,320 them and said they're sorry they cannot allow this comedy 360 00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:23,560 group, Kentucky Fried Theater, to be using their name and they wanted them to 361 00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:29,010 discontinue the phone line and the phone company sent back a notice to both the 362 00:27:29,010 --> 00:27:33,350 Kentucky Fried Chicken and us saying until there was some sort of legal 363 00:27:33,350 --> 00:27:37,830 direction, they would continue to list both of us. And that was the last I 364 00:27:37,830 --> 00:27:40,390 think we ever heard of Kentucky Fried Chicken. 365 00:27:40,650 --> 00:27:43,150 Yeah, once they were comfortable with the fact that we weren't selling 366 00:27:43,150 --> 00:27:45,190 chicken, it was okay. 367 00:27:45,550 --> 00:27:52,330 But then in our live theater on Pico Boulevard in L.A., only a block 368 00:27:52,330 --> 00:27:56,510 west of us was an actual Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant. 369 00:27:57,370 --> 00:28:03,850 And so I think somebody who worked there once told us that they had, actually 370 00:28:03,850 --> 00:28:08,290 some people would call and it would be confusing because the name of our show 371 00:28:08,290 --> 00:28:10,590 at our Kentucky Fried Theater was Vegetables. 372 00:28:10,790 --> 00:28:14,550 And so somebody called the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant saying, do you 373 00:28:14,550 --> 00:28:15,550 have vegetables? 374 00:28:15,990 --> 00:28:21,630 And so whoever the clerk was that answered the phone said, no, but we have 375 00:28:21,630 --> 00:28:24,990 coleslaw. So it was like, it was a comedy of errors. 376 00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:29,100 It is life imitating art a little bit. 377 00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:37,360 We've talked from time to time about doing a sequel to Kentucky Fried Movie, 378 00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:43,000 and actually we own the rights to it now because they've gone back to us. 379 00:28:45,060 --> 00:28:47,460 We're waiting to be contacted by investors. 380 00:28:48,560 --> 00:28:50,820 That's right, so if anybody sees this. 381 00:28:51,100 --> 00:28:56,400 We've talked about it, just a matter of, you know, because we're all doing 382 00:28:56,400 --> 00:28:59,700 different stuff and busy, whether we want to really take the... 383 00:28:59,950 --> 00:29:00,950 time and do it. 384 00:29:01,070 --> 00:29:02,470 Maybe we will, I don't know. 385 00:29:04,950 --> 00:29:11,650 When we wrote the script, we'd all meet at 9 a.m. At that time, it was above our 386 00:29:11,650 --> 00:29:16,930 theater. We had living spaces and our office, essentially, was there. 387 00:29:17,870 --> 00:29:21,330 We would write the script from 9 to 5. 388 00:29:21,550 --> 00:29:24,510 Yeah, we really had a ritual. We'd get up in the morning, we'd drink coffee. 389 00:29:25,130 --> 00:29:28,850 Talk about politics for an hour. Yeah, talk about politics until the coffee, 390 00:29:29,010 --> 00:29:33,750 until we were all like, until our motors were running. 391 00:29:34,030 --> 00:29:39,030 And then we'd start, wherever we happened to be, whether we were in the 392 00:29:39,030 --> 00:29:42,570 middle of some scene and, okay, how are we going to do this, or whether we were 393 00:29:42,570 --> 00:29:45,350 just, we'd always start just throwing jokes up. 394 00:29:45,800 --> 00:29:52,520 Sometimes we'd look at old movies or TV commercials or, you know, to get ideas 395 00:29:52,520 --> 00:29:53,780 for spoof. 396 00:29:54,600 --> 00:30:00,740 But, you know, we'd really write a sort of a pretty normal working day. And then 397 00:30:00,740 --> 00:30:04,720 at the end of the day, we'd kind of say, all right, we're all out of gas and see 398 00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:05,279 you tomorrow. 399 00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:07,960 Well, it was helpful to be in a group because you could always tell, I mean, 400 00:30:07,980 --> 00:30:08,969 if somebody... 401 00:30:08,970 --> 00:30:11,310 thought of an idea, you would get an instant reaction. 402 00:30:11,610 --> 00:30:17,450 Either it was funny or it wasn't. And if the initial idea wasn't that funny, 403 00:30:17,570 --> 00:30:21,910 somebody else would add it and change it. A lot of the 404 00:30:21,910 --> 00:30:28,890 bits in all our movies 405 00:30:28,890 --> 00:30:33,690 were built as opposed to one person saying, wait a minute, I got an idea. 406 00:30:34,570 --> 00:30:38,150 This is how we should do it. One person would say, wait a minute, maybe... 407 00:30:39,260 --> 00:30:42,440 maybe we should do something about this, and then somebody, how about this, and 408 00:30:42,440 --> 00:30:46,640 then somebody, no, no, no, but this, you know, and then add something to it, and 409 00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:52,880 then, you know, so it was a real collaborative effort, but I think, you 410 00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:59,260 know, after a while, or really pretty close from the beginning, we had 411 00:30:59,260 --> 00:31:05,920 the kind of respect for each other that if one of us proposed 412 00:31:05,920 --> 00:31:09,990 it, a joke and the other two didn't laugh we just go on you know they're 413 00:31:09,990 --> 00:31:14,470 just we would say oh i guess it's not funny you know because we we had that 414 00:31:14,470 --> 00:31:18,470 kind unless unless there was something that you would you'd think maybe the 415 00:31:18,470 --> 00:31:21,770 other two didn't understand what you were talking about or something but if 416 00:31:21,770 --> 00:31:28,030 they got what you meant and they didn't laugh then that was uh um you know you 417 00:31:28,030 --> 00:31:34,460 just accepted that as as as the final arbiter of of of of whether it was any 418 00:31:34,460 --> 00:31:39,780 good and also we we attach very little value or no value to whoever thought up 419 00:31:39,780 --> 00:31:44,400 what joke and so and what would happen and because we we just didn't have any 420 00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:50,920 individual pride of authorship so that we never told you we we had a really we 421 00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:55,380 had an understanding which kind of evolved naturally that we just didn't 422 00:31:55,380 --> 00:31:57,670 talk about who's who wrote what jokes. 423 00:31:57,970 --> 00:32:01,530 And it served us well. And a lot of times it was just kind of almost 424 00:32:01,530 --> 00:32:05,710 forgotten. And we really have. We just can't, I mean, there's all these, the 425 00:32:05,710 --> 00:32:10,390 classic lines from Airplane or The Naked Guns, I don't think we remember who 426 00:32:10,390 --> 00:32:11,269 thought of what. 427 00:32:11,270 --> 00:32:15,390 And as a result, it was all about... 428 00:32:16,180 --> 00:32:21,420 you know, the final product and what was funny and not about how many jokes I 429 00:32:21,420 --> 00:32:28,160 have in or David or Jim's. And by the way, I should say that the other side of 430 00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:34,640 the thing of proposing a joke and not getting laughed was if you say something 431 00:32:34,640 --> 00:32:39,280 and the other two laugh, that's great. You know, it is... 432 00:32:40,310 --> 00:32:45,950 It was really a fantastic collaboration. 433 00:32:46,330 --> 00:32:51,430 Not that we didn't have our disagreements and our battles, but 434 00:32:51,430 --> 00:32:58,290 underneath it all was a real love and trust, and 435 00:32:58,290 --> 00:33:01,870 we never went against the family. 436 00:33:04,820 --> 00:33:06,080 I thought that. I thought that. 437 00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:11,620 First of all, if you had we, I actually. 438 00:33:12,200 --> 00:33:18,420 I'll never forget, David and Jim and I, we all went to see, maybe even with Bob 439 00:33:18,420 --> 00:33:19,500 Weiss, I can't remember. 440 00:33:19,820 --> 00:33:20,479 Enter the Dragon. 441 00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:26,080 We saw the Bruce Lee film, Enter the Dragon, and we loved it. And we came out 442 00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:31,920 just karate chopping everything in sight. Pretty clumsily, of course, but 443 00:33:31,920 --> 00:33:34,720 we thought it was great. 444 00:33:36,810 --> 00:33:42,470 Which actually is, it's probably worth mentioning that to do the kind of spoofs 445 00:33:42,470 --> 00:33:47,170 that we do, the kind of satire, we really need to have some, a little bit 446 00:33:47,170 --> 00:33:52,370 of affection for what we're satirizing. I mean, if it's in a whole movie like 447 00:33:52,370 --> 00:33:59,150 Airplane or a 20-minute segment like, or half an hour like. 448 00:34:00,179 --> 00:34:03,240 Fistful of Yeah. But we really liked those airplane movies. 449 00:34:03,640 --> 00:34:04,820 Airport 75. 450 00:34:05,220 --> 00:34:09,679 We loved those, but we also saw the silly, you know, we could also make fun 451 00:34:09,679 --> 00:34:13,420 of them. So that was perfect. If we found something really hateful, I don't 452 00:34:13,420 --> 00:34:17,400 think we would have... We couldn't do it. We couldn't do a... We never had an 453 00:34:17,400 --> 00:34:20,820 interest in doing something. And we loved the Dirty Harry movies. We thought 454 00:34:20,820 --> 00:34:24,239 they were good movies, yet there was so much to make fun of also. 455 00:34:24,710 --> 00:34:30,909 Yeah, so, you know, I don't know, I don't remember the moment where someone 456 00:34:30,909 --> 00:34:35,170 said, hey, let's do, you know, Enter the Dragon. 457 00:34:35,750 --> 00:34:37,790 Let's do a spoof of that film. 458 00:34:38,590 --> 00:34:45,389 But we, you know, it just seemed like tremendous 459 00:34:45,389 --> 00:34:49,290 fun and plenty of meat there. 460 00:34:49,610 --> 00:34:53,190 And, you know, so I think we just dove in and never looked back. 461 00:34:56,300 --> 00:35:03,060 I would say that was a high point. I love the idea that David put that 462 00:35:03,060 --> 00:35:09,300 into Naked Gun 2, right? Yeah, well, I remember when I saw Ghost, 463 00:35:09,620 --> 00:35:13,360 aside from the fact that I loved it. 464 00:35:15,819 --> 00:35:19,020 tears coming, I mean, everybody cries at the end of that thing. 465 00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:24,400 But I called up Jerry, I was just so excited, and I don't know if you thought 466 00:35:24,400 --> 00:35:28,080 I was excited about the movie, I said, that pottery scene, we can spoof this. 467 00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:29,280 Exactly. 468 00:35:29,780 --> 00:35:30,880 That's David's, yeah. 469 00:35:31,360 --> 00:35:32,900 It's like, hey, more material. 470 00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:37,220 Yeah, the movie was good, yeah, yeah. But we can spoof this great pottery 471 00:35:37,220 --> 00:35:40,720 scene. But also, the tagline was wonderful, and if you look at that, 472 00:35:41,440 --> 00:35:48,060 you know, it was a trailer. Actually, It was a teaser trailer first and then put 473 00:35:48,060 --> 00:35:49,180 into the movie, right? 474 00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:53,800 Yeah, the teaser trailer. We did a couple of teaser trailers for The Naked 475 00:35:53,800 --> 00:35:58,300 Guns. And the greatest thing is being in the theater when these trailers played. 476 00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:03,500 And so you hear the, you know, unchained melody by the Righteous Brothers and a 477 00:36:03,500 --> 00:36:07,320 tight shot of the hands on the pottery wheel. 478 00:36:07,700 --> 00:36:12,040 And I would watch as every guy in the audience is going. 479 00:36:12,690 --> 00:36:15,130 All right, it's another chick movie or something. 480 00:36:15,510 --> 00:36:21,030 And then the shot widens out, and it's Leslie and Priscilla. And then everybody 481 00:36:21,030 --> 00:36:22,810 is just laughing. 482 00:36:23,450 --> 00:36:29,570 But also I love the tagline was, from the brother of the director of Ghost. 483 00:36:30,090 --> 00:36:34,130 That's right. So it's like, how often do you get a chance to do something like 484 00:36:34,130 --> 00:36:40,610 that? That might be in the high point of both our careers. It went down shortly 485 00:36:40,610 --> 00:36:41,630 after that. 486 00:36:44,350 --> 00:36:49,330 I did have that worry that perhaps 487 00:36:51,870 --> 00:36:56,870 just anything I did would just end up being, people would laugh at, even if I 488 00:36:56,870 --> 00:36:59,150 was intending it seriously. 489 00:37:00,470 --> 00:37:07,210 And in fact, the first screening, which actually went really well, but 490 00:37:07,210 --> 00:37:09,050 there's that scene where 491 00:37:11,790 --> 00:37:18,670 Patrick goes into Whoopi's body, you know, and so before, so he's 492 00:37:18,670 --> 00:37:25,330 now as Whoopi, and you see, but 493 00:37:25,330 --> 00:37:30,670 it's still the two women sitting together, and the hand comes over, and 494 00:37:30,670 --> 00:37:34,810 you're not sure whether this is now going to be too... 495 00:37:35,430 --> 00:37:37,110 women, you know, together. 496 00:37:37,930 --> 00:37:41,730 And the audience was tittering. 497 00:37:42,030 --> 00:37:44,130 It's a little uncomfortable. Yeah, it's uncomfortable. 498 00:37:44,370 --> 00:37:50,110 The audience was tittering and I was like, oh, you know, oh no, my worst 499 00:37:50,110 --> 00:37:51,130 nightmare has come true. 500 00:37:51,430 --> 00:37:56,170 I've done this heavily dramatic scene and people are, you know, with this 501 00:37:56,170 --> 00:37:59,450 music, you know, the Unchained Melody playing in the background. 502 00:37:59,950 --> 00:38:01,950 And that's also where Jared chose to put his directing credit. 503 00:38:02,310 --> 00:38:03,310 Yeah, right, exactly. 504 00:38:03,410 --> 00:38:08,250 And people are... are laughing, you know, they're not exactly howling, but 505 00:38:08,250 --> 00:38:12,870 tittering, you know, and it really almost like ruined the rest of the 506 00:38:12,870 --> 00:38:16,730 experience. And basically the, you know, the scores were high in the movie was 507 00:38:16,730 --> 00:38:22,790 people were, you know, like the movie and stuff. But in the end, I think I 508 00:38:22,790 --> 00:38:29,470 just said, okay, if it's the movie is a roller coaster, there's 509 00:38:30,470 --> 00:38:37,230 comedy and action and thrill, whatever, you know, in it. And so I'm just going 510 00:38:37,230 --> 00:38:43,400 to go, I'll just consider this you know, making the audience uncomfortable part 511 00:38:43,400 --> 00:38:44,299 of that ride. 512 00:38:44,300 --> 00:38:47,540 And in fact, I took out every ambient noise. 513 00:38:47,900 --> 00:38:52,740 I mean, I even took out, you know, like air conditioning hum and traffic outside 514 00:38:52,740 --> 00:38:54,020 and anything. 515 00:38:54,280 --> 00:39:00,180 So it's totally silent to make it more uncomfortable just because I just 516 00:39:00,180 --> 00:39:06,000 thought, well, great, go for it. That's another emotion sort of in a way. 517 00:39:06,380 --> 00:39:09,960 And then I just, you know, so I just, I... 518 00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:12,660 I relaxed with it a little bit. 519 00:39:14,500 --> 00:39:17,860 A stage musical, yes. It opens in London. 520 00:39:18,980 --> 00:39:22,080 Previews open end of March in London. 521 00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:28,740 And Bruce Joel Rubin, who wrote the screenplay, wrote a musical. Not the 522 00:39:28,740 --> 00:39:34,220 music. The music is Dave Stewart and Glenn Ballard wrote the music. 523 00:39:34,620 --> 00:39:39,320 And I think it's going to be, from what I've seen and heard, I think it's going 524 00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:40,320 to be fantastic. 525 00:39:44,160 --> 00:39:48,020 It is a lot different, but I mean, and I think there are jokes to be had, but not 526 00:39:48,020 --> 00:39:49,840 to fill up an entire movie. 527 00:39:50,220 --> 00:39:53,400 I mean, we just, our feeling is that, you know, we didn't really even have 528 00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:56,180 enough jokes to fill up, you know, the first airplane movie. 529 00:39:56,760 --> 00:40:02,300 And then we didn't, Paramount wanted us to do Airplane 2, and we just, you know, 530 00:40:02,320 --> 00:40:03,700 declined to do that. 531 00:40:04,180 --> 00:40:09,720 And so, but I think there are some great airplane jokes. It's just not enough to 532 00:40:09,720 --> 00:40:11,360 do an entire movie. 533 00:40:11,880 --> 00:40:16,320 There could be a 10-minute airplane sketch within a new Kentucky Fried 534 00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:19,900 Movie. I mean, Kentucky Fried Movie, you can go anywhere and do anything. It's 535 00:40:19,900 --> 00:40:24,700 just wide open. You can satirize anything you want. With an airplane 536 00:40:24,700 --> 00:40:29,920 movie, you're stuck on an airplane again and a control tower and whatever. 537 00:40:30,220 --> 00:40:36,760 I don't think either of us felt like we wanted to either then... 538 00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:43,800 or now, and it came up again, someone at Paramount had suggested that 539 00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:50,740 maybe this would be a good time to do another one, and I don't 540 00:40:50,740 --> 00:40:53,580 think none of us had any real interest in that. 541 00:40:57,000 --> 00:41:01,820 Our experience has kind of shown that there are a limited amount of genres 542 00:41:01,820 --> 00:41:02,920 that can really 543 00:41:03,640 --> 00:41:08,740 be sent up in a movie spoof. I mean, so far, I mean, we did okay with the 544 00:41:08,740 --> 00:41:14,360 airplane, the airport, you know, disaster movie genre. And then the cop 545 00:41:14,360 --> 00:41:18,680 genre, you know, the satire of Dirty Harry was very good. 546 00:41:18,960 --> 00:41:23,260 And then the Wayans, when they did the scary, the first scary movie, showed 547 00:41:23,260 --> 00:41:29,020 that, I mean, there's a huge, you know, well of material to be mined from horror 548 00:41:29,020 --> 00:41:33,390 movies. But then those last two, oh my God. 549 00:41:33,710 --> 00:41:36,810 Wait a minute, but I did those, Jerry. Oh, I forgot, sorry. Yeah, those were 550 00:41:36,810 --> 00:41:40,950 great, the last two scary movies. They still hold the box office records. Yeah, 551 00:41:40,950 --> 00:41:42,590 yeah. So if there's any... 552 00:41:44,210 --> 00:41:47,870 investors out there who would like to finance more movies that we could do. 553 00:41:47,970 --> 00:41:48,948 Yeah, exactly. 554 00:41:48,950 --> 00:41:54,430 If everybody who watches this would send a dollar... Well, then we could finance 555 00:41:54,430 --> 00:41:59,870 another movie. But, you know, the Wayans, they did a movie called Dance 556 00:41:59,870 --> 00:42:04,670 Flick, which was a satire of dance movies, and I don't think people want to 557 00:42:04,670 --> 00:42:05,529 see that genre. 558 00:42:05,530 --> 00:42:06,850 I did a movie called... 559 00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:12,400 high school high, and it's the dedicated teacher genre. 560 00:42:12,620 --> 00:42:18,040 Just those genres aren't as good, although my filmmaking was excellent. 561 00:42:18,520 --> 00:42:19,520 Brilliant. 562 00:42:20,180 --> 00:42:21,420 It's a lost gem. 563 00:42:21,700 --> 00:42:23,400 Yeah, it's a lost gem. You can still... 564 00:42:23,820 --> 00:42:25,020 Get that on DVD. 565 00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:26,700 No, they removed it. 566 00:42:27,340 --> 00:42:29,160 It's just completely gone. 567 00:42:29,460 --> 00:42:36,460 There aren't a bunch of genres that you can't really send 568 00:42:36,460 --> 00:42:37,138 up anything. 569 00:42:37,140 --> 00:42:42,180 I think it usually has to have a bad guy or a big disaster in it. 570 00:42:42,860 --> 00:42:46,580 This has to be something that people are familiar with. 571 00:42:47,950 --> 00:42:52,050 And lend itself to that. And just kind of be fun, you know? Yeah, fun genre. 572 00:42:52,250 --> 00:42:57,490 You know, the Chopsaki movies are just fun to watch, so they're great to 573 00:42:57,490 --> 00:42:59,550 satirize, and so are the disaster movies. 574 00:42:59,790 --> 00:43:03,450 Even when they're bad, they're sort of fun to watch. 575 00:43:06,470 --> 00:43:12,510 No, ever since I really just was internationally recognized as a much 576 00:43:12,510 --> 00:43:16,370 superior director to David, I don't think we've really, you know, that just 577 00:43:16,370 --> 00:43:21,930 kind of... Yeah, and I just went on to do just huge box office hits. 578 00:43:23,230 --> 00:43:27,010 But they didn't have the art to them that Ghost had. 579 00:43:28,270 --> 00:43:34,170 But I just went on to have a hugely successful career. So there wasn't any 580 00:43:34,170 --> 00:43:35,170 competition. 581 00:43:36,030 --> 00:43:42,510 No, we always talk and help each other with our... 582 00:43:43,850 --> 00:43:45,230 talk to each other about what we're doing. 583 00:43:47,830 --> 00:43:51,750 We're very good at pretending that we're really happy with the other's success. 584 00:43:52,430 --> 00:43:53,950 So that kind of makes it go. 585 00:43:54,230 --> 00:43:57,650 Like when Jim did the Hot Shots movie, whenever we talked to him, we were 586 00:43:57,650 --> 00:44:00,970 really pretending that we were proud of him. Yeah, pretending that we were proud 587 00:44:00,970 --> 00:44:01,448 of him. 588 00:44:01,450 --> 00:44:02,510 And not jealous. 589 00:44:02,790 --> 00:44:06,110 And he never found out that we were actually crushed. 590 00:44:07,290 --> 00:44:10,130 He showed that he could be a success without us. 591 00:44:10,470 --> 00:44:13,190 One day I wanted to tell him that it was so... 592 00:44:13,560 --> 00:44:17,600 good that I actually threw up and tried to kill myself. 593 00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:23,140 But I don't know. I just thought maybe I better not go there. And I had convinced 594 00:44:23,140 --> 00:44:27,680 myself that he could never do anything without us. And then he went to do hot 595 00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:29,100 shots. Yeah. 596 00:44:29,320 --> 00:44:30,320 Yeah. 597 00:44:34,090 --> 00:44:35,650 Hot Shots were great. Sorry, 598 00:44:36,450 --> 00:44:37,450 kidding, kidding. 599 00:44:38,330 --> 00:44:40,690 You better be sure to include this in it. 600 00:44:41,050 --> 00:44:43,330 Yeah, the Hot Shots were great movies. 601 00:44:44,030 --> 00:44:49,690 And a great idea for a spoof, too. Yes, there's another example of a really, you 602 00:44:49,690 --> 00:44:55,870 just, you want to be there. It was just fun to be on the battleship and in the 603 00:44:55,870 --> 00:44:59,310 planes and all that stuff. It was just, you know, beyond. 604 00:45:00,109 --> 00:45:06,390 above and beyond the Top Gun satire. And stuff that sticks with you. He had one 605 00:45:06,390 --> 00:45:10,470 character in it called Dead Meat. And you just, you knew that guy was going to 606 00:45:10,470 --> 00:45:14,370 die. And so every time I see a movie where you know a certain character is 607 00:45:14,370 --> 00:45:19,550 going to die, and I just think of that character in Hot Shots, Dead Meat. 608 00:45:20,590 --> 00:45:27,370 Dave and I were pretty close growing up, but we played, I mean, we 609 00:45:27,370 --> 00:45:32,250 were... We have an older sister, and so we were the two younger boys, and we 610 00:45:32,250 --> 00:45:39,150 would always be inventing games all the time and pulling pranks and all that. 611 00:45:39,230 --> 00:45:43,610 And we fought, you know, too, and stuff, and argued all the time, but we were 612 00:45:43,610 --> 00:45:49,130 kind of, you know, we were kind of tied together. We, you know, did a lot of 613 00:45:49,130 --> 00:45:50,069 stuff together. 614 00:45:50,070 --> 00:45:55,070 Except when David went off to college, and I was still in high school, and he 615 00:45:55,070 --> 00:45:59,900 got... bell-bottom pants, and I was like, I think I disowned him. 616 00:46:00,260 --> 00:46:03,200 Yeah, he was shocked. Yeah, I was shocked. I was shocked. 617 00:46:03,500 --> 00:46:10,180 It was 1967 and 66 618 00:46:10,180 --> 00:46:13,680 or something like that, and I was a junior in high school, and he was a 619 00:46:13,680 --> 00:46:14,680 freshman in college. 620 00:46:15,500 --> 00:46:19,100 My grades weren't that great, but I did make quite a fashion statement. Yeah, 621 00:46:19,240 --> 00:46:20,720 bell-bottoms. In those days, yeah. 622 00:46:21,770 --> 00:46:23,970 And then we made films. 623 00:46:24,950 --> 00:46:29,190 We made comedy movies when we were in college. And that's kind of what started 624 00:46:29,190 --> 00:46:31,950 our real professional collaboration. 625 00:46:34,010 --> 00:46:40,610 One was about Jerry taking LSD and then peeing all over the campus in Madison. 626 00:46:40,950 --> 00:46:45,510 Sort of. Yeah, but those were the... It's a rough description. And we did a 627 00:46:45,510 --> 00:46:47,110 satire on Midnight Cowboy. 628 00:46:47,880 --> 00:46:54,600 And later we both got to work with Dustin Hoffman and John 629 00:46:54,600 --> 00:46:56,960 Voight. Oh, that's right. That's funny. 630 00:46:58,720 --> 00:47:05,600 One of the class times was 631 00:47:05,600 --> 00:47:06,600 12.05. 632 00:47:07,120 --> 00:47:13,960 Just the way they scheduled it, every class at that time was 633 00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:14,960 12.05. 634 00:47:16,090 --> 00:47:22,270 you know 120 and whatever is that went on and and uh so the title was 1205 635 00:47:22,270 --> 00:47:28,770 cowboy and and it was uh just some guy who started on the dish crew because we 636 00:47:28,770 --> 00:47:35,510 worked on the dish crew at a dormitory in madison you know and and uh um 637 00:47:35,510 --> 00:47:42,450 you know it was sort of followed sort of vaguely the the you know, the story. 638 00:47:42,770 --> 00:47:48,190 It was not a great work of art, but the people on campus liked it. 639 00:47:52,930 --> 00:47:56,170 I think people were definitely ready for Kentucky Fried Movie. 640 00:47:56,530 --> 00:48:03,250 I think every, in a sense, everything paves the way for what comes afterwards. 641 00:48:04,050 --> 00:48:05,410 You know, certainly 642 00:48:06,300 --> 00:48:12,580 it became acceptable to have that kind of language and nudity in the theater. 643 00:48:12,680 --> 00:48:18,860 Now, interestingly enough, it would be tougher now to do Kentucky Fried Movie 644 00:48:18,860 --> 00:48:24,380 because that's all allowed on cable, television. You can do... 645 00:48:25,340 --> 00:48:30,340 You can do anything and say anything on the 646 00:48:30,340 --> 00:48:32,740 internet. 647 00:48:34,220 --> 00:48:40,920 But at the time, part of the appeal of that movie 648 00:48:40,920 --> 00:48:45,120 was naughty stuff that you couldn't see on television. 649 00:48:47,720 --> 00:48:51,720 you still have to do in movies. I mean, we're in the business, in the movie 650 00:48:51,720 --> 00:48:56,300 business, of getting people to leave their homes for something. So if you can 651 00:48:56,300 --> 00:49:02,020 do funny and make people laugh out loud, you always have to be kind of shocking, 652 00:49:02,180 --> 00:49:05,460 and you have to do something new that people haven't seen before. 653 00:49:05,680 --> 00:49:07,540 But there always is material like that. 654 00:49:08,840 --> 00:49:14,660 I think the cinema-going experience has... 655 00:49:15,950 --> 00:49:21,070 has remained relatively unchanged I mean the big difference is now there's so 656 00:49:21,070 --> 00:49:26,790 much competition because you can you can see it at home there's so much content 657 00:49:26,790 --> 00:49:31,270 available at home used to be three networks you know and and and now 658 00:49:31,270 --> 00:49:37,030 there's a hundreds of cable channels and and the internet but but when you walk 659 00:49:37,030 --> 00:49:43,170 into a theater and you sit in a seat and you see images projected on the screen, 660 00:49:43,390 --> 00:49:47,130 it's really basically the same experience. 661 00:49:47,570 --> 00:49:52,410 I mean, what's on the screen has changed a lot in terms of what you can do and 662 00:49:52,410 --> 00:49:54,690 the, you know, with 663 00:49:55,520 --> 00:49:58,880 special effects, CGI, and 3D and everything. 664 00:49:59,320 --> 00:50:06,180 But I think basically it's still that thing 665 00:50:06,180 --> 00:50:12,060 of a group of people sitting together to watch a story. 666 00:50:12,320 --> 00:50:17,040 And especially in comedy, it's so important to have that theater 667 00:50:17,040 --> 00:50:21,040 experience where you have people, you know, a shared experience and you hear 668 00:50:21,040 --> 00:50:21,658 the laughs. 669 00:50:21,660 --> 00:50:24,260 I mean, Jim's... 670 00:50:24,590 --> 00:50:30,250 Kids who are now in their mid-20s saw Airplane for the first time, I don't 671 00:50:30,250 --> 00:50:35,230 know, three or four years ago at one of these anniversary screenings of Airplane 672 00:50:35,230 --> 00:50:38,830 and they were just blown away by it. They had never seen it in front of an 673 00:50:38,830 --> 00:50:45,110 audience. And to sit in the audience and they're all laughing and it's a 674 00:50:45,110 --> 00:50:49,090 completely different experience than they had watching it on video at home. 675 00:50:55,160 --> 00:50:59,260 There is no right number when we screen a movie we like to have at least 300 676 00:50:59,260 --> 00:51:05,860 people because I mean when we're in the editing process because 677 00:51:05,860 --> 00:51:12,420 that's kind of what we need to get a sense of what's working and what's not. 678 00:51:12,680 --> 00:51:18,400 But in terms of just enjoying a movie, I mean, if you have 20 people there who 679 00:51:18,400 --> 00:51:25,000 are good laughers and really enjoying it, it becomes a much better experience. 680 00:51:25,180 --> 00:51:29,500 But there's nothing like a big auditorium with hundreds of people. 681 00:51:35,530 --> 00:51:40,930 There's a lot of Kentucky Fried movie that doesn't really hold up I think but 682 00:51:40,930 --> 00:51:44,970 but there's a lot of it that does you know and so I'm kind of like Take the 683 00:51:44,970 --> 00:51:49,150 optimistic point of view that that it's great that that's so much of it does 684 00:51:49,150 --> 00:51:54,530 hold up But but there's a run-in fistful of yen. 685 00:51:54,930 --> 00:52:00,930 Yeah, where he says he's getting the tour through the prison and he's and 686 00:52:00,930 --> 00:52:04,650 Evan asks who are these and he says 687 00:52:05,360 --> 00:52:10,800 just lost drunken men who don't know where they are and no longer care. 688 00:52:11,600 --> 00:52:12,600 And who are these? 689 00:52:12,880 --> 00:52:17,660 And then he says, well, these are lost drunken men who know where they are and 690 00:52:17,660 --> 00:52:18,780 care, but don't drink. 691 00:52:19,860 --> 00:52:23,940 And we played with that thing, and we kept playing. And it was every time, 692 00:52:23,960 --> 00:52:27,760 it's a laugh, and it's still funny today. And I think we're really proud of 693 00:52:27,760 --> 00:52:32,180 stuff like that that has lasted all these years. Some of the more topical 694 00:52:32,180 --> 00:52:33,180 stuff that... 695 00:52:35,740 --> 00:52:42,080 Something that includes specific references to specific commercials maybe 696 00:52:42,080 --> 00:52:43,940 can't be as effective. 697 00:52:44,320 --> 00:52:51,200 But most of it really holds up. And of course, naked breasts always hold up. 698 00:52:51,200 --> 00:52:52,200 Always hold up. 699 00:52:52,220 --> 00:52:57,120 In film. Yes, right, in film. In film, they always do. They're just preserved 700 00:52:57,120 --> 00:52:58,120 forever. 701 00:52:59,180 --> 00:53:03,460 It was $700,000. 702 00:53:04,330 --> 00:53:06,790 It was the budget of Kentucky Fried Movie. 703 00:53:07,130 --> 00:53:10,250 And that was in 1977. 704 00:53:11,910 --> 00:53:13,410 Wait a sec, 77? 705 00:53:14,570 --> 00:53:16,530 It was out in 77? It came out in 77. 706 00:53:17,190 --> 00:53:22,250 So we shot it in 77? It came out August in 77. 707 00:53:22,770 --> 00:53:27,450 So anyway, but the budget 708 00:53:27,450 --> 00:53:33,940 was $700,000. thousand dollars in 709 00:53:33,940 --> 00:53:40,680 1976 or 7 and which was low even 710 00:53:40,680 --> 00:53:46,520 then and but I think we got a lot out of it because there were no big highly paid 711 00:53:46,520 --> 00:53:53,080 actors and we really put every dollar on on screen obviously we weren't paid very 712 00:53:53,080 --> 00:53:54,080 much so 713 00:53:55,980 --> 00:54:00,800 It's a long story about how we got the financing, but essentially 714 00:54:00,800 --> 00:54:06,740 we made, David and Jim and I 715 00:54:06,740 --> 00:54:13,340 decided to invest $30 716 00:54:13,340 --> 00:54:19,280 ,000, which is about all we had, and made 10 minutes. 717 00:54:19,840 --> 00:54:26,660 of the movie that John directed and there were four bits and we showed those 718 00:54:26,660 --> 00:54:32,960 to everybody and because nobody would just finance it just on the script and 719 00:54:32,960 --> 00:54:39,400 the studios all turned it down but a friend of ours Kim Jorgensen who is the 720 00:54:39,400 --> 00:54:42,660 executive producer of Kentucky Fried movie 721 00:54:45,410 --> 00:54:51,870 loved it and took it to friends of his that ran United Artists Theater Circuit. 722 00:54:52,150 --> 00:54:56,070 So that's the people that own the theaters, not the movie company. 723 00:54:56,490 --> 00:55:03,110 And they played it in one of their theaters, and people laughed, and they 724 00:55:03,110 --> 00:55:08,870 figured, I think, that worst came to worst. They could make money back by 725 00:55:08,870 --> 00:55:10,170 playing it in their own theaters. 726 00:55:10,570 --> 00:55:13,050 And so they financed it. 727 00:55:16,330 --> 00:55:20,230 That was the hardest movie to make a poster out of. There were so many 728 00:55:20,230 --> 00:55:23,010 different designs, but they weren't bad. 729 00:55:23,250 --> 00:55:26,270 In the end, it took a while getting there. 730 00:55:26,910 --> 00:55:31,090 But there were so many bad ones on the way. United Artists Theater Circuit 731 00:55:31,090 --> 00:55:35,570 marketing department, or if they had a marketing department, or they farmed it 732 00:55:35,570 --> 00:55:39,270 out. No, they didn't have any kind of, because they didn't make movies really. 733 00:55:39,370 --> 00:55:46,270 This was one of a handful that they made during that time. And they went to 734 00:55:46,270 --> 00:55:52,830 an ad company to design a one sheet. 735 00:55:54,600 --> 00:55:58,920 this is what they came up with. I think they probably went to a number of 736 00:55:58,920 --> 00:56:04,860 different companies, and I just remember there were a lot of bad ones at the 737 00:56:04,860 --> 00:56:09,460 beginning, and then they came up with these, which everybody said, hey, wait a 738 00:56:09,460 --> 00:56:14,080 minute, this is pretty fun. Was the title the first one to have movie at the 739 00:56:14,080 --> 00:56:15,080 end of the title? 740 00:56:15,100 --> 00:56:16,019 I don't know. 741 00:56:16,020 --> 00:56:17,280 We could have maybe have another. 742 00:56:17,700 --> 00:56:18,700 No, no, no. 743 00:56:19,660 --> 00:56:22,320 Dennis Hopper made The Last Movie. 744 00:56:22,580 --> 00:56:24,200 Oh, okay, The Last Movie. 745 00:56:24,420 --> 00:56:25,420 Yeah. 746 00:56:26,640 --> 00:56:33,520 I actually wasn't really aware 747 00:56:33,520 --> 00:56:39,940 that Kentucky Fried Movie had that long... Second life. Had a second life 748 00:56:39,940 --> 00:56:44,260 or great longevity. Or that they were DVDs. Yeah, I don't... Yeah, they never 749 00:56:44,260 --> 00:56:45,260 sent us one, no. 750 00:56:49,230 --> 00:56:54,930 You know, it's different with... Airplane really has, I think, 751 00:56:54,970 --> 00:57:00,810 held up, and that was... I don't think we would have ever expected that, you 752 00:57:00,810 --> 00:57:05,670 know, 30 years from now, it would still be so popular. 753 00:57:06,410 --> 00:57:12,050 You know, Kentucky Fried Movie is still a cult movie, and it's hard, it's 754 00:57:12,050 --> 00:57:13,330 impossible to judge. 755 00:57:13,630 --> 00:57:17,350 I think for us to judge... 756 00:57:18,000 --> 00:57:23,640 to what extent or how popular, because I do hear people talk about it, but 757 00:57:23,640 --> 00:57:30,500 there's no measure for me. I have no idea what the DVD sales are 758 00:57:30,500 --> 00:57:37,180 or how people are 759 00:57:37,180 --> 00:57:40,020 responding to it, other than anecdotally. 760 00:57:44,780 --> 00:57:51,320 We were thrilled to have the movie not only make its money back, but make such 761 00:57:51,320 --> 00:57:55,920 a big profit, because that means that we didn't have to go back to the theater. 762 00:57:56,640 --> 00:58:01,360 We didn't have to be on stage anymore, so we definitely thought that now we 763 00:58:01,360 --> 00:58:02,380 could be in the movie business. 764 00:58:02,970 --> 00:58:08,290 That's why the money that we made from Kentucky Fried Movie, our profit 765 00:58:08,290 --> 00:58:14,350 participation, which was not enormous, but it was enough that we could write 766 00:58:14,350 --> 00:58:20,730 Airplane and take a year or more really to 767 00:58:20,730 --> 00:58:27,490 work on writing it and getting it made without having to find other work. 768 00:58:30,280 --> 00:58:32,660 There is no Samuel L. Bronkowitz, of course. 769 00:58:34,160 --> 00:58:36,780 Maybe not of course. I don't think people know. 770 00:58:37,120 --> 00:58:39,780 Oh, yeah, well... It was a made-up name. 771 00:58:40,020 --> 00:58:45,080 Samuel Bronkowitz was a made-up name, and we did it because nobody knew. We 772 00:58:45,080 --> 00:58:51,940 were all young kids, and we had to form our own company because the United 773 00:58:51,940 --> 00:58:57,200 Artists Theatre Circuit wasn't writing the checks directly for services. 774 00:58:59,320 --> 00:59:00,320 equipment, etc. 775 00:59:00,520 --> 00:59:05,040 So we thought that Samuel L. Bronkowitz sounded like a legitimate name. 776 00:59:05,300 --> 00:59:07,520 And so people would do business with us. 777 00:59:07,880 --> 00:59:14,680 And in fact, more than a few times, we would call someone and 778 00:59:14,680 --> 00:59:18,900 say, they'd say, well, who's this for? What's the company? And we'd say, Samuel 779 00:59:18,900 --> 00:59:23,320 L. Bronkowitz Productions. And they'd say something like, oh, is he still 780 00:59:23,320 --> 00:59:24,320 making pictures? 781 00:59:24,780 --> 00:59:28,020 Or Samuel, oh, of course, Samuel L. Bronkowitz. 782 00:59:28,759 --> 00:59:30,820 It just sounded legitimate. 783 00:59:33,000 --> 00:59:36,520 And then in the trailer, we actually cast a guy as Samuel L. Brunkett. 784 00:59:37,800 --> 00:59:44,780 Yeah, Samuel Brunkett, Sid Cain. Sid Cain. I believe I remember that. That's 785 00:59:44,780 --> 00:59:47,660 the name of the actor. He's still alive. He's 110 now. 786 00:59:54,030 --> 00:59:57,250 It just seems a shame that Leslie is gone and he's still alive. And he's 787 00:59:57,250 --> 01:00:02,750 still alive, yes. You know, is there no God? Anyway, but, sorry, but it's really 788 01:00:02,750 --> 01:00:04,610 cool. But, no, 789 01:00:05,470 --> 01:00:09,530 that was funny. We had stationery and cards and everything, and it was, you 790 01:00:09,530 --> 01:00:15,370 know, it was, and it actually did, I mean, it was fun and funny, but it 791 01:00:15,370 --> 01:00:16,730 actually did serve a purpose. 792 01:00:19,750 --> 01:00:23,810 Well, we're both working on a bunch of things, some comedies. 793 01:00:24,150 --> 01:00:28,050 We just, I don't know if it's open, has Fair Game opened here yet? 794 01:00:29,750 --> 01:00:30,790 Who's in it for you? 795 01:00:31,070 --> 01:00:33,450 Sean Penn and Naomi Watts. Oh, it's on its way, yeah. 796 01:00:33,670 --> 01:00:38,250 Oh, okay. That was, my wife and I produced that. The sort of Washington... 797 01:00:38,250 --> 01:00:40,910 Yes, yeah, politics. So we just finished that. 798 01:00:41,510 --> 01:00:47,330 And, you know, just, I don't have anything, I don't think either of us 799 01:00:47,330 --> 01:00:49,790 have anything right now scheduled to, you know, about to shoot. I have a 800 01:00:49,790 --> 01:00:53,050 couple of scripts that, again, I'm looking for investors for. 801 01:00:54,000 --> 01:00:58,840 So if anybody, you know, buying this DVD... I've read them and they're 802 01:00:58,840 --> 01:01:04,060 hysterical and they're guaranteed to make a fortune. 803 01:01:04,960 --> 01:01:10,380 Well, one is actually a PG comedy, a slapstick comedy that 804 01:01:10,380 --> 01:01:16,680 families would love to see. So it's not the opposite of a Kentucky Fried Movie 805 01:01:16,680 --> 01:01:21,360 R-rated thing. It's a buddy comedy about, you know, it's a Laurel and 806 01:01:21,360 --> 01:01:22,360 Hardy... 807 01:01:22,810 --> 01:01:28,050 combination who they would they work as busboys at the White House and they 808 01:01:28,050 --> 01:01:33,610 overhear spies talking about a plot to steal the secret plans to the the 809 01:01:33,610 --> 01:01:37,570 government's new invisible plane and so both these guys dream of being in the 810 01:01:37,570 --> 01:01:43,610 Secret Service so they you know they gradually it probably in the worst way 811 01:01:43,610 --> 01:01:48,350 get get it actually get to be in the Secret Service so and the movies called 812 01:01:48,350 --> 01:01:49,610 the secret Secret Service 813 01:01:50,640 --> 01:01:54,460 Well, it's going to be an ensemble comedy like most of the movies that 814 01:01:54,460 --> 01:01:55,460 we've done. 815 01:01:56,080 --> 01:01:59,040 And we want to cast two unknowns. 816 01:01:59,580 --> 01:02:03,700 And we'll make it into a franchise, hopefully.