0:01
Well, you've made some hilarious movies, Airplane, Naked Gun, and what I'm curious about is like when you're writing those movies and you're thinking about how do I make a good spoof movie?
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0:12
How do I make something funny?
0:12
What are the mantras, the oneliners, the things that you find yourself repeating the most?
0:17
Generally, you know, for directing, I tell actors, let the lines do the work.
0:22
So, I don't want anybody to try to be funny.
0:24
The first meeting I ever had with uh Priscilla Presley was that she said, "Well, you know, I'd love to be in the movie.
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I think the script is funny, but I don't know how to be funny."
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And I said, "You don't have to be funny.
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You just have to do what you did in in Dallas essentially."
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And we saw her in Dallas.
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She never came and read for the part.
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And I just thought, I want that person who did Dallas. And she got it.
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And I literally never had to direct her.
0:54
I just I I was able to concentrate on all the other actors.
0:57
And then how about in the process of actually writing the script out?
1:03
Oh well in the process of writing script we you know we we have rules you know we we basically what we do is we take off on serious movies.
1:12
So, Airplane was a uh spoof on Zero Hour, which was a very serious 1957 movie with the same plot, exact same plot.
1:22
And uh and so we just take those scenes and reverse the audience's expectations.
1:28
We just It's always a matter of surprise, which I learned in uh fifth grade from watching the Dick Van Djk show.
1:38
And there was an episode where when Dick Van Djk was asked to speak at his son, what was his son Richie or Yeah.
1:50
his class and all the other dads were speaking about what they did and Dick Van Djk was in a quandry about what he would talk about and so he talked about writing comedy and it's the first time I ever heard anybody talking about it as a somewhat of a science.
2:05
M and one of the things that he said is comedy depends on surprise.
2:11
You have to surprise the audience.
2:13
Anyways, cut to 40 years later.
2:16
I'm at a party at Kelsey Grammar's house in Malibu and who should be there but Dick Van Djk. I thought, "Oh, great."
2:24
You know, so I talked to Dick Van Djk.
2:26
I told him, you know, I've always liked thought he was great.
2:28
I liked his movies, the TV show.
2:30
And uh in fact your one a line from your show made me think about comedy and it and I described that to him and he had no rec recollection of it.
2:43
So this was the line about surprise or Yeah.
2:45
about the line about surprise or the episode was about speaking to Richie's class.
2:50
He didn't have any any recollection.
2:52
So I also you know he did hundreds of episodes of things.
2:57
So when you're thinking through surprise, what kind of surprises work?
3:01
And then what kind of surprises don't work? Break that down for me.
3:03
Oh, well, I mean, all any surprise, if it's funny, works.
3:09
If you just do a surprise, uh, you know, that's not necessarily funny.
3:14
But if uh if you start with the surprise of two 11year-olds or 9year-olds talking uh talking like adults and then one of them when asked how she takes her coffee says I take it black like my men. Well that's a surprise.
3:33
So, you know, and it was surprised to Jerry and me when we first heard it and we heard it because our partner Jim Abrams, he he would type and we, you know, we would all throw out ideas and but Jim would type and often he would just type stuff in, not tell us about it, not pitch an idea, just we just read it back and so we cracked up. So what do you do?
3:57
You just sit in a room and you just make each other laugh the entire time?
4:00
the entire time? We made a well we sit in a room and really how we write is we watched the straight movies you know with top secret we watched them uh World War II spy movies with the naked gun we watched Clint Eastwood movies and James
4:17
Bond movies and and a few film noir movies and and so we we got all of our ideas ideas from those and they were all done with serious actors And so a serious actor would say would discover something in a drawer and say bingo and then what our surprise was was that it's a bingo card. So you know if you
4:39
So you know if you remember you know a lot of that passed for humor then.
4:44
Yeah that yeah the beaver line cracked me up too.
4:46
And nice beaver looks up.
4:48
I just got it stuffed and yeah and the thing is I will say it looks easy.
4:55
It looks easy but it's not.
4:59
And there's a million things that can go wrong in comedy.
5:01
So that's why we evolved these rules which which date from 1972 when we did our Kentucky Fried Theater show in uh on Pico Boulevard in LA.
5:13
And and so somebody actually leveled a criticism at us, said the show was great.
5:20
Uh everybody has to tell us how great we are first.
5:23
And then he said, "But there was one scene where you did a joke on a joke and that became our first rule." Tell me about that.
5:30
Well, if you have one one character usually has to be a straight man and the other the funny guy.
5:38
So, you know, and that's been true since from Laurel and Hardy and uh and the Marx brothers, although all the Marx brothers were clowns, but they had they always had straight men around them to play their scenes off of.
5:53
So, if you had everybody trying to be funny, it's a joke on a joke.
5:58
So we have for instance uh Peter Graves doing these very hilarious lines in airplane but if if Bill Murray had been doing it or Jim Carrey it it wouldn't have been as funny right and this is nothing to say against these guys brilliant comedians Robin Williams brilliant comedian but we could we wouldn't know what to do with those guys in our movies. Well, joke on a joke.
6:27
Isn't that does that The way I hear that is that you don't want to pile on jokes.
6:33
So like you want to focus on one joke at a time.
6:37
Is that right, wrong, or am I just completely missing the point there?
6:41
You're completely missing the point.
6:41
Can we have somebody else coming? Yeah, exactly.
6:45
Is there another Is there another interviewer?
6:46
Is there another interviewer? Exactly.
6:47
No, it's really so in I'll go back to airplane and we have uh we we have Peter Graves in the foreground and Lesie and Julie Hagerty are discussing the symptoms of what happens when you eat the fish and Lesie is talking about these uh you know the these horrible symptoms like uh you know uncontrollable flatulence or whatever happens and Peter Graves is doing the funny stuff in the foreground, right?
7:20
So, it doesn't matter if it's the sometimes we do jokes in the foreground, sometimes we do sometimes it happens in the background and sometimes a lot of times we let the audience find the joke which we find is a you know that's the audiences appreciate that you you know they don't want to have everything pointed out and that's a directing note more than a writing note.
7:41
So, uh tell me about the difference between those two.
7:45
Well, Lesie Nielsen again an airplane uh is working on uh is attending to a sick woman and there's turbulence and he looks up to the cockpit.
7:56
He said, "What the hell's going on up there?"
7:57
And what the woman is, it's two legs in stirrups. Mhm. And he's got a speculum.
8:03
So, and he never acknowledges it, which is another rule called acknowledgement.
8:08
You don't you don't acknowledge the joke.
8:10
And you, you know, you don't anything to be subtle.
8:15
I mean, it's weird for me to be talking about subtlety because I don't think we're really known for subtlety, but it is subtle and it is disciplined.
8:24
And like I said, it looks easy and everybody thinks they can do it.
8:27
Why don't you want to acknowledge the joke?
8:31
Uh because it will make it half as funny if if if Lesie was clowning around or, you know, saying something to the woman.
8:40
instead he just completely ignores it. It's just the audience.
8:43
We know the audience loves finding things for themselves.
8:48
And it's the same with a reaction shot.
8:51
I often I don't want to cut to a reaction shot.
8:54
I want to I'd rather have a twoot and have somebody say something crazy and uh and again not acknowledge it and the other person in the shot, you know, doing the take.
9:05
But if Lesie said something or or uh George Kennedy say said something funny and you had to cut to the reaction, it's just like cuts it down 50%.
9:18
Where did your pacing come from?
9:22
Just boom boom boom boom the boom.
9:24
The pacing came from we did our show starting in Madison in 1971.
9:30
We had a little 70 seat theater and then we moved the show to LA and we did a live sketch show called Kentucky Pride Theater and Jerry and Jim and I were not especially talented clown comedians.
9:43
So we we wrote material for ourselves that enabled us to just be straight and reacting to the situations.
9:53
And while we were on stage we never wanted there to be silence.
9:55
We just we needed laughs all the time because it's it's this is not a rule, but it's it's something we always talked about, you know, our our flywheel theory, which uh means it's easier to keep an audience laughing than to have them stop and start them up again.
10:16
And this is why when I see stand-up comedians sometimes I say, why are they waiting till the last laugh has gone?
10:24
They should get on with it.
10:24
They should get on with it while the while the audience is still laughing. Well, it's funny.
10:31
I I'm only just realizing this now, but I feel like that's one of the reasons that your movies have stood up well.
10:36
Like I watched a documentary from the '7s the other day. Boring.
10:38
Like my brain just can't. It's just too slow. It's just too slow.
10:44
But I think the pacing of 50 years ago, it was too slow for us at whatever pace existed then in movies.
10:51
I mean, you had the Marx Brothers and it was a slower pace and uh Blake Edwards with they were a slower pace, but I mean, Peter Sers was brilliant and Blake Edwards was brilliant, but uh the pace of comedies was slower then.
11:06
So, we we we did something different because we we wanted everything to be either a setup to a joke or a joke.
11:16
And there's no reason to to have anything go on longer.
11:19
When I write a script now with and I write with Pat Prof and Mike McManis, uh I see I see the page very visually.
11:28
So if I see a speech with any more than six lines, my eye sees it as a it's a quarter inch too long.
11:38
And so I will work on cutting out words. H tell me this.
11:41
When you're doing the movies versus Kentucky Fried Theater, how do you do you do testing with audiences to make sure that you're still getting that consistent laugh? Absolutely.
11:53
We we tested everything with uh starting with Kentucky Fried Movie.
11:58
We we took it out and we tested it and uh and we cut the movie to to the laps and Airplane. Absolutely.
12:04
We we probably previewed a 100 minutes of Airplane and then we cut it down to 80, I think. Yeah. Short.
12:14
Yeah, but that's that's all all an audience can take in comedy.
12:19
Plus, in 80 or 90 minutes, you can do three acts and the only thing that's important is the story.
12:25
And you can get it done in 90 minutes.
12:28
There's no reason to go any longer than that. Yeah.
12:29
A lot of other comedies, they start as comedies and then they they turn into a story that has some more depth.
12:36
I'm like, "No, I came here to see a comedy."
12:39
Yours, I'm kind of laughing the whole way through.
12:40
Well, uh, well, not only that, but I I I think that not only the jokes are important, of course, but the more important than the jokes is the story.
12:51
I mean, you have to have a story. Yeah.
12:53
But you I mean, you don't want to be preaching or anything, but the story has to be a believable story between one or two humans that the audience is uh gets involved in and has a rooting interest.
13:07
So, this would be like the love story, an airplane. Yeah, the love story.
13:10
And people really didn't care that much if he uh if if he landed the plane. I mean, they did.
13:17
They ended up really caring.
13:19
They were on the edge of their seats, even though it was a stupid comedy.
13:22
But what they really cared about was the love story.
13:25
And in The Naked Gun, people laughed.
13:29
It was funny the whole time. Yeah.
13:31
They wanted to make sure the queen wasn't assassinated or whatever the plot was, but they really only cared about that Lesie and Priscilla got, the boy and girl got together at the end.
13:42
Same with two and a half and three.
13:45
And uh, you know, we didn't have that clearly marked off in Top Secret.
13:51
And so although Top Secret considered are maybe the funniest movie but and it's got the best jokes and the cleverest jokes and everything, it's another rule.
14:02
Merely clever isn't enough.
14:04
You have to you have to get the laugh.
14:06
Anyways, oh tell me more about that. Okay. Well, merely clever.
14:08
A lot of people stop at it's just clever.
14:10
If we had audiences saying that in a preview for Naked Gun, uh, Top Secret, Airplane, the scary movies, we would have cut it out.
14:24
We just if if people were going, "Oh, that's funny."
14:26
You know, but they had we had to hear the laugh.
14:31
So that's and that's the only thing.
14:33
It's like Vince Lombardi said saying, you know, winning isn't everything. It's the only thing. So I just made that up.
14:41
It's like that for humor. Yeah.
14:41
It's like that for humor. Yeah.
14:42
When you see comedy skits, movies, and you're just like, uh, they're completely missing the point.
14:50
What are the core things you just want to yell to the television?
14:54
Well, I want to yell, "Who cares?"
14:56
Because usually it's because you don't I I the filmmakers haven't involved me in the in the plot or the characters.
15:05
So, I'm I'm just I become a really real stickler about that.
15:09
And I I learned by making mistakes and you know when we did Top Secret we didn't realize uh how important that was to build a character in the first act because the story is the thing that that that drives it and we didn't have that in in top secret because you know so Val Kilmer starts out the first act and we didn't give him a problem to solve and not just a hardware problem but a problem an inner psychological problem that he had to solve.
15:41
Like Bob Hayes had an airplane, he had PTSD and was afraid of flying. It's very simple.
15:47
Lesie Nielsen at the start of Naked Gun, by the time of Naked Gun, uh we had learned how important that was.
15:55
So we said, "It doesn't matter that I beat up all these terrorists.
15:57
Uh uh you know, the his girlfriend left him and he's you know, it doesn't mean anything."
16:05
And so that gave him a problem.
16:07
He he needed love and then he meets Priscilla and you know and then it became boy boy meets girl gets girl loses girl gets girls.
16:18
What's funny is that a lot of these are ultimately just love stories.
16:20
And is that they should be Yeah, they should be. Why?
16:27
Because that's the only thing the audience cares about.
16:31
And this Yeah, they don't they don't care about hardware.
16:33
I mean this is I don't I'm not making this up.
16:35
This is stuff that I've learned, you know, and in baseball, we we had a great story with Matt Stone and Trey Parker.
16:43
They invented a game, but it wasn't clear what their problem was in the beginning.
16:51
And it wasn't a inner psychological problem, but we had them being friends.
16:57
And then they then they broke up.
16:57
It was boy loses girl in the second act.
17:01
And then Trey had to get the friendship back together, realized his mistake, but it wasn't it wasn't enough.
17:11
I think it it needed to be something more.
17:15
And you know, the hardware problem was, you know, they started this game and the evil Robert Vaughn wanted to take it over and make it like all other, you know, bad commercial sports, right?
17:27
And uh so it's it's another lesson, but Top Secret and Baseball are now I mean just people love those movies, so I'll I'll take it. Right.
17:39
So as you're writing the script, do you think, oh, I'm going to start with the story, the characters, the comedy, or is it just I'm going to mix them all together and I need to make sure that all three components are there?
17:51
Well, you have to mix it all together, but you have to start with something.
17:56
And of course in uh in in uh Airplane we had zero hours. So that was easy.
18:03
We had that to start with.
18:03
With the Naked Gun we had a bunch of movies that we wanted to put together.
18:11
One of them was it was about an somebody was trying to attract track to try to track an assassin across many many states.
18:24
And then we also used there was a movie called Telephon H with Charles Bronson and that was where somebody could mind control with a beeper and we just stole that. Right.
18:39
And but we didn't steal the whole plot so it was legal.
18:41
And uh and and that's that was a more difficult one to do.
18:44
And for the movie that uh Pat and Mike and I just finished writing, it's a film noir comedy uh named it's called Star of Malta and we hope to be in pre-production soon and we hope to be casting soon.
19:03
But there we used a movie called Detour.
19:06
H and Detour was a 1945 noir movie which was great for two acts and then suddenly it ends.
19:14
You know sometimes a movie ends and say what what happened?
19:19
What where's the rest of the movie?
19:21
Uh in Detour all I could think of was maybe they ran out of money and they couldn't finish it.
19:26
But we Pat and Mike and I watched about 20 noir movies.
19:34
Uh, and we used dialogue, we used plot, uh, we used scenes and put this thing together and it it it turned out to be a great plot.
19:43
But, you know, I I always say, you know, no one hits a hole in one.
19:47
It took us a year and a half to write it.
19:50
And uh you know, you just keep doing draft after draft until it it's ready.
19:59
How do you think about script detail?
20:01
Like when I look at scripts, there's some some writers write so much and then other writers write less.
20:05
But then you also do directing.
20:07
So you probably don't need to write as much or do you like writing that out in the original script of visualizing the whole movie? Oh yeah.
20:15
No, I like to write it out perfectly because and I want to take a year and a half.
20:19
That's why I'm not especially excited about doing TV where it's a grind and you have to, you know, hand in a script on Thursday day and, you know, everything.
20:28
Uh, we can really sit down and and be careful in the writing.
20:30
And so, for all the movie I've done, I've always been very happy that every day that I showed up on the set, I had, you know, two or three great pages to do.
20:43
And uh and I was always really confident and there's no improvising, you know.
20:52
And one movie I did called An American Carol.
20:57
It was uh I wrote it with a old friend of mine, Lewis Freriedman from my high school and he's a brilliantly funny.
21:02
And we you know we kind of wrote it and it was a little bit rushed.
21:09
So each day on the set, we finish the shooting and then we re we'd rehearse the next day's shooting and we were just appalled at how bad it was.
21:20
So we would write, you know, we would stay in the trailer a few hours after rap and o over uh bourbon we would we would write the next day's pages.
21:32
So, uh, but we I never started a day of shooting where I wasn't really confident that we had funny stuff to shoot.
21:41
And tell me about that year and a half. How does that go? Of writing. Yeah. Oh, it's it's fun.
21:46
I mean, write writing is You do it in your office right now.
21:50
Do it in my office right here. Yeah.
21:52
And uh and well Mike comes here in person and Pat lives in Minneapolis and we have Pat on Zoom or Mike and I will write a draft and then send it to Pat and he'll put his jokes into it and yeah Pat is just the best joke writer ever.
22:14
You know he's What makes a good joke writer? Uh I don't know.
22:18
Pat just always had that that ability to not only write jokes, but he could write Frank Dreban. He wrote Leslie Nielsen.
22:27
So all those great lines that you know when Lesie died, they quoted all of his great lines like, you know, like a at a urinal, I had to stay on my toes, you know, and all those were were Pat Prof lines.
22:42
And I I never wrote one of those things, but Pat could always and all also a lot of the slapstick stuff, the uh the the block comedy scenes Pat was great at and and he and Mike of course, you know, was more on my level, just just writing and, you know, less insane than Pat Prof. Yeah.
23:08
One of the things I noticed as I was going through the movies is all these funny misunderstandings that I think are really core.
23:14
So, you know, you have in Naked Gun, how about a rain check?
23:18
Well, let's just stick to dinner. That's Yeah.
23:20
You know, and then those aren't stupid puns.
23:22
I mean, those are great puns, but you know, we mix them in with with good jokes. Yeah. Well, you love those. I know that's a joke. That's You love those.
23:31
Or uh you know, can you fly this plane and land it? Surely you can't.
23:35
Surely you can't be serious.
23:35
I am serious and don't call me Shirley.
23:38
Like there's all these you just see him over and over and over.
23:42
That line wasn't even from Zero Hour.
23:43
It was from another airliner in trouble movie from the 50s called Crash Landing.
23:48
And someone said surely you can't be serious.
23:51
And one of us I you know we can't it's the most famous line in airplane but none of us can remember who came up with it.
24:01
So yeah, it's just it's but but those things I thought we we it was easy or saying when Bob says it's an entirely different kind of flying alto together and they both say it's an entirely different kind of flying. Yeah.
24:14
And so they they they So those things we thought in in puns.
24:19
That's that's what that's how we how we think.
24:22
Well, the other thing that stood out is there's there's all these I don't want to call them tropes, but that's the only word that comes to mind.
24:33
You'll have to forgive me.
24:33
But like there's these things that happen over and over again.
24:35
So, one of them is the the guy who keeps coming to the cockpit and wishes them luck.
24:39
And then like the third time it becomes really funny. It's like weird.
24:43
The joke is this is disaster.
24:45
And then the same thing is the car that just keeps slamming into stuff in Naked Gun. in naked guys.
24:50
He keeps doing it's just over and over and over again, right? Yeah.
24:54
So, you know, that's the that's what we call Yeah.
24:57
I mean, every it's not ours, but a running gag is when you can repeat it.
25:02
And I think some sometimes in airplane uh we we probably overdid it.
25:09
Uh and and so Jerry and Jim and I did a an edit of airplane. We did a director's cut.
25:18
Uh, interestingly enough, it's the only director's cut in human history, film history, that was shorter than the original.
25:26
So, we we went and edited out, you know, when we did, you know, these running gags can be annoying if you just if you do them too much, right? Yeah.
25:37
And and sometimes, you know, offscreen crashes are usually never funny.
25:42
And Bob Bob Hayes says, "You better leave, sweetheart.
25:45
You might get hurt in here."
25:47
So she leaves and you hear a crash. I don't know.
25:49
Just never never really worked that well.
25:51
May may have gotten a smile, but it didn't get a laugh.
25:56
Is there such thing as too many jokes? No.
25:59
There is too many jokes if you don't have a story to to hang it on.
26:01
So if you don't have a good story in the third act, the jokes start start to get tiresome and and so and that that happens.
26:14
I mean you upfront has to be the audience's interest in the plot and as much in flying down the plane as in the boy and girl getting back together and as much as protecting the queen in at the baseball game and as as the you know Lesie and Priscilla you know being being together at the end.
26:42
They we needed that and and that's that's the only thing the audience cares about.
26:50
If they if you just end with he flew a plane down and then the audience leaves it what no matter how many jokes you do wouldn't have the movie wouldn't have been successful.
27:04
How'd you go about getting better at your craft?
27:06
Was it just we're going to make stuff and see if people laugh or was it more deliberate than that?
27:08
Uh well getting better at our craft you know we we we got better by doing a lot doing a lot of movies and also by when we uh by failing too we got better and but when we failed we didn't blame it on other people.
27:27
So uh we we never blamed it on the studio. all of our flops.
27:34
Well, I usually say I I never had any flops, only cult classics.
27:38
But we we we never blamed this stuff.
27:42
If if something didn't perform, we never blamed it on anybody else.
27:44
I I always, you know, I always, what did I do?
27:49
What what did I do wrong?
27:49
And I and there was always a reason.
27:52
And I I always figured it out. H And it was usually me.
28:00
So, but that's how you learn, you know.
28:03
My my dad once told me, "I never learned a lesson that didn't cost me money."
28:06
So, you know, and that that is true. Yeah.
28:12
So, you just that's how you learn stuff for hopefully I'll teach my kids all these lessons before they make any mistakes in life. Yeah.
28:20
I want to get back to the rules.
28:23
I want to get back to the rules. Yes. Unrelated background. Unrelated.
28:28
Well, we made a mistake in airplane.
28:31
Uh, which the joke turned out to be not not a laugh.
28:37
Uh, it may be funny if you're uh if you're high, but uh you know uh stack and bridges are arguing about something and in the back in the background a spear hits the wall and a watermelon falls.
28:55
It's not not related to anything.
28:58
H but related background is in airplane as I spoke about uh Peter Graves being in the foreground and uh Lesie and uh and Julie in the background and so it was very related but it's it's two separate things.
29:16
We want the audience to ostensibly focus on one thing but the joke is happening in the in the background.
29:25
And there was a one of the one of the early movies uh which uh Jerry and Jim and I became aware of was Harold and Ma.
29:34
I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but it was Ruth Gordon had a romance with Bud Court and uh and so she was and Bud Court wanted to kill himself.
29:50
So Ruth Gordon was at some maybe a therapist's house or something and I I I haven't seen the movie in 70 years, but this actually happened in the movie.
30:04
So, she was talking to the this therapist woman and in the background you see Bud Court come, you know, set set up stand in the background and light himself on fire and he's he's in flames and they keep talking and it's hysterical, right?
30:20
And so that I think that taught us, oh, background, it's funnier if you don't put it up front.
30:29
You know, the OJ at the end of Naked Gun going down the when Leslie pats him on the back. He goes on the steps.
30:36
I mean, that was funny on its own, but it's funnier that we threw it away by putting it in the background because Priscilla says to Leslie, "Uh, Frank, everyone should have a friend like you."
30:48
So, that's definitely related.
30:50
She said something that actually helped the joke.
30:55
But we're telling the audience ostensibly, you should be looking at Leslie and the Priscilla OJ going in the background is that's if you if you like that, watch that.
31:04
So, and and it just it totally it it raises the joke by 50%.
31:14
And the same thing is as I was speaking about before if you have to cut to a reaction.
31:20
There was something in Scary Movie Five where You didn't write that one, right? I did.
31:26
You did three, four, and five.
31:28
I I wrote three, four, and five.
31:31
I I may have not gotten writing credit for three and four, but it was Pat Prof and Craig Mason. Okay.
31:39
And I I was I was fine just directing it, but I also of course I contributed stuff like uh you know the horse in the foreground in Scary Movie 3 which was from our stage show. Uhhuh.
31:52
And I tried to get that in the script and Bob Weinstein kept saying no, you can't do that.
31:56
You know, it's like no other studio executive would would try to tell us which jokes to do except that Paramount originally did uh have us write down a list of 15 jokes that couldn't happen.
32:10
But, you know, that was scary.
32:13
But they they didn't try to do that. When was that? That was for Airplane. Okay. Got it.
32:17
So they when we I think before we before they allowed us to direct they were they they just you know they were they were scared and I I don't blame them and and Weinstein actually is actually a really brilliant guy and a a good picture maker and but he had strong opinions and sometimes he made us do stuff that we hated and it and it got big laughs. So, you know, go figure.
32:49
How has the kind of prohibited joke changed over the course of your career?
32:57
Well, we we never figure anything's prohibited.
32:59
As long as if it gets a laugh, it's fine.
33:01
And we you the line changes of what you can do uh from year to year.
33:09
like I I don't know if you know by 1980 people wouldn't have thought you can't do the black dudes the the translations and and then sure enough 40 years later everybody was you know they wanted to re-release the movie for the 40th anniversary but the the frightened you know executives at Paramount were too you know afraid to to release it because of the black dudes.
33:38
Why would they why would they think that that was in in any way offensive?
33:43
But some people are so pissy and uh with their heads so far up their asses that they can't they don't understand humor.
33:53
And I wrote an article about that in uh in Commentary magazine that was reprinted in the in the New York Post on uh how PC is ruining comedy.
34:05
And I I lay out all that stuff and I just came to the conclusion there's there's 9% of the population who doesn't have a sense of humor and they're ruining it for the rest of us.
34:14
They're ruining it for everybody else, the people who who do have a sense of humor.
34:21
So, but sometimes we've gone too far and we test it out and it doesn't get a laugh.
34:26
If there's a huge sucking sound, you you don't want clever or not funny in your movie.
34:33
just, you know, you got you have to we need to have laughs.
34:38
Well, the thing is people are so relieved by the person who's willing to go there. I I think they are. No, it's it's great. Yes.
34:44
And so we did a lot of things that people were thinking because what we thought stuff it it it it was true and it was honest.
34:53
And so like when uh while we were riding airplane uh this was in 1979 and uh we went to see Shaft which is one of these uh outrageously exploitative black you know exploitation movies.
35:15
So, uh, and we loved it and we left the theater saying, "Oh, that's so great."
35:20
But then, but we didn't a lot of stuff we couldn't understand what they were saying.
35:25
And then the joke was, "Oh, they should have put subtitles."
35:28
And and we laughed and then and then we said, "Why don't we put that in?
35:34
We have two black guys on airplane doing that."
35:36
And so, and it was great.
35:38
And and then we put stupid white guy subtitles like the guy says she and we put golly.
35:43
So, it's as much making fun of, you know, white people as it is black people.
35:49
So, and all audiences enjoyed it.
35:52
And it's like only that 9% that that don't get it. Yeah.
35:56
I have this image of you working on these scripts and you're just pulling from here, pulling it from here, and you're just stuffing everything into the script.
36:03
You're trying to see all these different inspirations and that that's kind of how it comes together. Oh, yeah.
36:09
We got stuff from real life and from movies. Yeah.
36:11
mostly from mostly from movies.
36:14
I I'm always thinking of stuff that we got from real life.
36:18
I I think an example I think in uh Naked Gun 3 33 and A3. Okay.
36:26
We had Lesie in a supermarket and that's me in a supermarket.
36:29
He's trying to get the the plastic bag open. He can't do that. He's in the wrong line.
36:34
He uh he's feeling the melons.
36:39
I well that I didn't do that but you know that's and we use the same woman in that scene in the melon scene in the supermarket in three as we did in the in one when Leslie is on the ledge outside the building and he's groping the lady. Same same actress. Yeah. Yeah.
36:55
The foreshadowing in that scene is hilarious because you very clearly see that the first statue has a penis. Yeah.
37:03
And you're like, "Something's going to happen."
37:05
And then nothing happens at the beginning and you're like, I was like, "Dude, you missed an opportunity." Yeah. Yeah.
37:11
And then of course it just completely unravels. Yeah.
37:16
And that's, you know, it's one of those block comedy scenes where we keep building and building and building.
37:20
And another one I love is in Baseball when uh Matt and Trey uh go to visit the kid in the hospital and they think he's dead and they're pounding on him and and Trey is walking with the bed pans.
37:35
It just it just keeps building.
37:38
And then the other my other favorite scene uh of you know when you talking about a block comedy scene writing that is uh in Scary Movie 3 when they're at the funeral and they think that she's dead.
37:50
And so Anthony Anderson just goes crazy, you know, trying to pound this dead person's chest and and and we kept building in that.
37:58
In fact, I don't think much of that was in the script.
38:03
And I did improvise a lot of that on the set.
38:06
And Weinstein, I think, called Craig Mason and said, "What's going on?
38:12
I'm hearing reports that you're going over overtime or something."
38:16
And Mason said, "Don't worry.
38:18
He Zucker is getting good stuff."
38:20
Well, there's something that you do, I guess, in a lot of these movies where there's people who are either close to dead or very sick, something goes wrong.
38:27
Like in Airplane when the bed kind of collapses and she's like a V, you know, like this naked gun, but the but in Airplane, the little girl has an IV.
38:37
She's on her way to get a heart transplant and the guitarist knocks the IV out and she's Yeah, I think we've we've done a lot of that, but it always works. Death and sickness. I don't know why.
38:48
It's really funny when you bring that together.
38:50
Yeah, we've I don't know why because it's the it's just the opposite of what you expect, you know, we just, you know, a lot of stuff we do is irreverent, you know, like and we kind of learned from Mad Magazine, which which and the Markx brothers were kind of known as irreverent.
39:09
Woody Allen, uh Mel Brooks didn't care who he offended.
39:16
And uh we we always thought well look at they're doing it like you know we were always inspired by you know the Marx brothers and Woody Allen you know Mel Brooks to a certain extent but you know Mel Brooks used comedians so we we didn't want to do it in that style.
39:37
Uh and Woody Allen he was the comic in it.
39:40
Everybody else was straight, but Woody Allen not knew not to do a joke on a joke.
39:46
So, he was the he was the comedian in the whole thing.
39:49
You're talking about comedy blocking. What does that mean?
39:54
Well, the blocking is how how you set up a master.
39:58
So, uh, you just set up a a master in a rehearsal and the actors will say their lines and, you know, follow the slug lines in the script to, you know, move here and there and uh, and then you, the director, I mean, I have to make sure it works for the comedy and that it doesn't it doesn't slow anything down and I have to get enough coverage so there's always something to cut to and I have to be able to cut out any joke. I can't be stuck.
40:32
Uh, so is it in a scene you don't want to like a Jenga block, you don't want to not be able to pull a joke out. We Yes, exactly.
40:39
I mean, we just So, and that's that that is what that involves in.
40:45
So, if somebody just shot us two, you know, talking and a couple of my jokes didn't work.
40:52
I mean, you don't you'd have otherwise you'd have a jump cut.
40:56
But if you if you can cut to your single or my single, you know, we can keep it going.
41:02
And the whole thing depends on pace.
41:04
Uh, and if you if you if you miss on a joke, the audience loses trust.
41:12
So, we just have to make sure every joke lands.
41:14
So, I told Lesie once, I will never make you do anything that isn't funny.
41:20
And that is not to say he we wouldn't shoot anything.
41:23
We shot plenty of stuff that on Lesie where it wasn't funny, but it was never it was never released.
41:31
And I and I told that to Bob Kostas when when we did Baseball.
41:37
I said, I won't I won't make put you in anything that's not funny, but he he isn't a movie person. He's not a movie actor.
41:49
So, but he happened to have one of the funniest jokes in the movie where he says to Al Michaels, "You're excited. Feel these nipples."
41:56
And so, and it's a hilarious.
42:00
And so, we put it in the trailer. And he and he calls me.
42:02
He says, "How could you have put that in the trailer?" So, anyways, yeah.
42:08
What makes for a good trailer?
42:10
Oh, just you put the funniest jokes in the movie.
42:12
And in in Naked Gun, we put in OJ going over the, you know, we gave away the ending and it doesn't matter.
42:20
Nobody re either nobody remembers the trailer or it's still funny.
42:25
If you laugh at the joke in the trailer, you will laugh or enough people in the audience will laugh at the at the joke within the movie. Yeah.
42:34
It's just it's so funny about your work.
42:36
There's like the art of slapstick and I just don't associate those words together ever.
42:43
Oh, well, I I guess anything done well can be considered art.
42:46
Although, you know, I I don't really like to use the a word because it's like I'm an artist. Sounds pretentious. I'm an artist. You're an artist.
42:54
But, uh, you know, if it's done well, I suppose people could could call it art, but uh, you know, when we're doing hitting the fan, it's tough for Pauline Kale to say that's art.
43:11
But actually Woody Allen actually saw Airplane for the first time with Pauline Kale and she hated it.
43:16
And evidently Woody kept saying, "No, no, this is this is great. This is this is funny."
43:21
And she says, she said, "But there's not a comedian in the whole thing."
43:26
So some people just don't get it.
43:28
She may have been in one of the 9%. I don't know.
43:30
I don't think she's still alive.
43:32
So I can badmouth her completely.
43:35
I think whatever you want. I can Yeah. get away with it.
43:38
Woody I still have to be kind to.
43:40
I like No, I like Woody Allen. Axe grinding. What's wrong with that?
43:43
Axe grinding is when when you're trying to make a social or political point and if you're trying to do a message and it overwhelms the movie and it's like classic modern Hollywood. Yeah.
43:59
And you violate that at your peril unless you're so funny you can overcome it.
44:06
I did a whole movie of it and so you know I you know our 15th rule is there are no rules.
44:11
So you know I did a a movie called An American Carol.
44:14
I don't know if you ever heard of it but I've heard of it. I haven't seen it. Okay.
44:19
But um it's actually very funny.
44:19
I saw it a few months ago and I hadn't seen it in 15 years or whatever but it is funny and I wrote it.
44:28
It's making fun of the left.
44:31
And I wrote it with, of course, my friend from high school, Lewis Freriedman, who's, you know, somewhat to the left of Castro, but he loves making movies.
44:41
He loves making movies with me.
44:43
And so we wrote this thing together, and he's the one we we wrote every night over bourbon.
44:48
And we just had a ball doing it.
44:51
And uh it's actually interesting to hear the comment, you know, we did the commentary track for the the DVD materials and I mean I can't remember what we said but you know it is it is axe grinding but and it doesn't tell both points of view.
45:10
It just it just makes fun it makes fun of Michael Moore and the central character is Michael Moore in a it's a wonderful life situation where he wants to ban the 4th of July and he learns to love America.
45:23
So this is and that was the premise and uh clever premise but and it had a it had a lot of great slapstick in it.
45:32
So and I was surprised when I saw it and it was and it was really out there.
45:38
David Ellen Greer was in it playing a slave, you know.
45:42
Anyways, it's When do celebrity pop celebrity cameos work well?
45:49
Like why did you choose Kareem?
45:49
I know you went for Pete Rose.
45:51
Yeah, we we chose Kareem because uh it there was a practice of studios in a lot of movies to cast sports stars because they were very economical.
46:06
So, if they put OJ in uh Capricorn 1, where it was a fake supposedly a fake moon landing, but there's OJ.
46:19
Couldn't really act, but uh he was very famous and he looked great on screen and you know, he could say the lines, but I I always thought it it's that's Kareem.
46:34
I mean, you're the little boy with the emperor's new clothes saying the emperor has no clothes.
46:38
So, that's what we did in Airplane, you know, we stuck the guy in there.
46:43
He can't act and and was very nice.
46:44
He he totally, you know, I think he he liked the script, knew what we were doing.
46:50
And also Kareem was very happy to to do those to play that part because he had kind of been pegged as this der uh serious guy, not no sense of humor.
47:04
And here he was poking fun at himself and and he was really accused of that stuff of you know not trying right and not running up and down court and he gets a chance to answer.
47:19
Anyways, people loved it and it it made a couple of points because we were making fun.
47:24
What we were saying in in Airplane is movies are bad.
47:28
You know, movies are stupid.
47:28
So, and and we're making something more stupid than than the movies even that you're seeing and taking seriously. Yeah.
47:35
So, that that's that's what we were doing.
47:37
And then we did it the same thing in Naked Gun.
47:41
And then in in in the in this my scary movie 3, four, and five.
47:45
But the weigh-ins did it uh in there in Scary Movie 1 and two.
47:52
I'm such an outsider, but people always say, "Ah, Hollywood's dead.
47:53
It's a fraction of what it once was.
47:55
They're just stuck making sequels."
47:57
Do you think that's true? Uh, yes. I mean, they are stuck.
48:02
And I'm finding it, you know, very difficult to get a movie made.
48:05
But I always have and I, you know, I have no doubt that I'll make Star of Malta and uh what would have been Naked Gun 4, but the script was rejected by Paramount.
48:18
We've retitled it Counter Intelligence, spelled with one L and a J.
48:20
And we're going to make those somehow.
48:24
will get independent financing because the studios are only doing uh you know big stars, remakes, sequels, franchises, and Tom Cruz movies.
48:38
And I love Tom Cruz movies.
48:38
I just I think he's great.
48:44
He's the most underrated actor star in Hollywood history.
48:49
Anyways, don't don't get me started on Tom Cruz. I think I he's amazing.
48:52
He does the best movies anyways.
48:55
But his movies are also very expensive and that's what Hollywood is doing and so you know the studios are down to I don't know each four or five movies a year if that.
49:08
I don't know I I don't I what's the thinking behind that?
49:12
What's the rationale here?
49:14
I think that fewer people are going to the theaters and the money is more in streaming.
49:19
money is more in streaming. I you know I I actually this is above my pay grade so I don't really know the reasons but I do know that the result of it is there's not much creativity there's just people copying so that's what you know the
49:34
naked gun for will be do you feel it when you talk to other people in the industry that people are frustrated or do you feel like there's a general complacency I don't talk to anybody in the industry I don't I have no friends so I just I don't even go west of the 40 or east of the 405. So, I
49:49
So, I I pretty much uh stay here and I I write with Pat and Mike and I see my brother and a bunch of our Milwaukee friends.
50:02
We watch the Packer games on Sundays during the season.
50:04
Uh but I don't go to Hollywood parties.
50:08
I just, you know, just generally I mean I I don't think I'm sought after to be at these parties.
50:16
That's why I was didn't take any drugs in the 80s.
50:18
I just went straight through. Nothing. Just Yeah. Huh.
50:25
So, because we were we were very nerdy.
50:27
We were all about the work. Yeah.
50:29
Actually wanted to do the work.
50:29
We didn't we didn't want to do all the other stuff.
50:32
You never cared about the scene.
50:35
We didn't care about the scene.
50:37
And, you know, we didn't care.
50:37
And obviously now I don't I'm not that concerned about being liked.
50:43
you know, my a lot of my views are not in in line with the with the mainstream of Hollywood, but uh or or even my relatives.
50:54
So, but uh I think uh but people somehow still like me.
50:58
So, a a lot of people say, "What happened to you?" you know.
51:02
So, but uh I I just have my own way going about things and it's not I don't want to do either what I've done before or what everybody else is doing.
51:14
That's not, you know, so that's what a real artist would say.
51:20
That's what a real artist real artist doesn't care.
51:21
David, you sense that I'm an important artist? Yeah, exactly.
51:25
Finally, we're here with an important artist, everybody. That's right.
51:26
In Los Angeles, even if I have to remind everyone, an artist who doesn't care. I know. Yeah, I don't care.
51:32
But I do care about the course. Yes.
51:33
You care about the course. Care about the course. mastercrash. com. Yes. Mastercrash. com. And breaking the frame. Yeah. Breaking the frame.
51:45
You know, it's just like there is a certain suspension of disbelief as they say in movies and you have to believe that what's happening is really happening and not just a movie.
51:56
So, uh, when you break the frame, you're reminding the audience that it's, oh, it's just a movie.
52:04
And I think that, uh, Mel Brooks does a lot, but when Mel Brooks does it, I think it works.
52:12
And don't forget the 15th rule is there are no rules.
52:16
I don't recall Woody Allen ever breaking the frame.
52:22
His he really he doesn't ever look at the audience. Groucho did it.
52:24
He during one of his one scene, Harpo and Cho start to play piano and harp and uh Groucho walks up to the camera and says, "I'm I'm I have to stay here.
52:38
I'm stuck here, but there's no reason why you folks can't go in out in the lobby and have a smoke till this whole thing blows over." And so crowd show.
52:46
So Harpo and Chico will go and they play and the marchers would do these, you know, they suspend everything for five minutes.
52:53
We won't suspend anything for 10 seconds without a setup or a joke.
52:57
But uh but uh we've also we've done it also in in Naked Gun.
53:05
There's a great there's a what I think was a great joke when uh we start out with a stupid pun uh when Lesie says to the waiter, "Give me the strongest thing you got."
53:17
And the and the waiter brings in a muscle and and and and so Lesie goes, "No, no.
53:25
Uh just give me a Black Russian."
53:25
So what are you thinking?
53:28
The audience is thinking it's going to be a black Russian.
53:31
And but instead, the waiter starts to go and looks at the camera at the audience and goes, "Not going to do that." Yeah. So, and it's great. the audience.
53:44
We totally break the frame.
53:46
And there was another time in Top Secret.
53:48
If you're if you remember in Top Secret, uh uh Val Kilmer says, "I'm not the first guy who fell in love with the daughter of a kidnapped scientist."
54:00
And recites the entire plot.
54:03
And and the plot is pretty stupid.
54:03
And and Lucy Gutturidge uh who plays Hillary uh says, "I know it all sounds like some bad movie."
54:12
And we knew that the audience would start laughing and hooting and booing or whatever, you know, because it was a stupid movie.
54:19
So we actually had Val and Lucy look at the camera totally breaking the frame, just looking out and going, "Oh," you know, as though as if they heard the laugh. So, right. And it worked. It worked great.
54:34
And it worked even 30 years later, 40 years later when we we we showed Top Secret at uh at Sketchfest in San Francisco, full house, 800 800 people in the audience and they it worked exactly as it worked when it when Top Secret was released. Hm.
54:55
So, I was I just I love that joke and I love playing around with that and then giving again giving the audience credit for being there and meeting us halfway and then we're always we're one step ahead of them.
55:09
We know what they're going to do and they like that even more that they caused right the characters to acknowledge them.
55:16
So, that's one of my favorite jokes. How about trivia?
55:21
What's wrong with trivia? Oh, yeah. trivia again.
55:23
You know, you go back to the the the Marx Brothers did some jokes where it was about uh some Canadian quadruplets and they made reference to it and I'm sure in 1934 it was a big laugh, but it's trivia now. Nobody nobody gets it.
55:46
And so in airplane we did I I never uh have a cup of Jim's Jim never has a cup of coffee at home of of my coffee and that was a reference to an ad that played in the 1960s.
56:03
Yeah, that went over my head.
56:06
Yeah, but somehow it's still funny.
56:06
I don't know why people still laugh, but uh uh that's trivia.
56:11
And so we we don't it's it's tough to do, you know, if you do things that are contemporary references.
56:22
Uh I mean, we should be and I don't want to tell anybody else what to do, but when I make a movie, I want to make it to last 50 years.
56:33
I I think because Airplane, most of it is not trivia.
56:36
You know, we do we do a one joke about a singer named Anita Bryant.
56:42
Nobody knows who the hell that was, so it's trivia.
56:48
So, as you were working on that movie, that was your goal? No, we didn't know.
56:52
We didn't We didn't know too much during Airplane.
56:53
We thought if it got a laugh now and it was good. Yeah.
56:56
We just wanted to get, you know, our goal was not to make a comedy that would eventually be considered one of the greatest all stuff, but we just wanted to be able to do another movie.
57:06
We wanted the movie to be be a hit.
57:08
So whatever got a laugh in 1980, that was good enough for us. We we put it in. What's a straw dummy?
57:19
A straw dummy is This is probably a bad example because it worked.
57:22
So uh and it wasn't one of our movies, but uh in Meet the Parents, uh Ben Stiller plays a guy named So that's it's not a spook.
57:35
It's not they made up their own uh straight thing to make fun of.
57:42
You can always make a funny name, but it but I'm not looking down on them.
57:48
They obviously worked and then they made a whole movie title out of it.
57:53
Meet the But it's Yeah, they made up a funny name.
57:58
It's the same thing in Austin Powers.
58:00
There's Fuke you and f me. Yeah, that thing.
58:02
So, and and so in their style, uh, obviously it works because I, you know, Mike Myers does he is spoofing. Austin Power is a spoof.
58:14
And right, whatever he was doing works.
58:18
So, and he he he either didn't know any of our rules or didn't care and it was fine. He he shouldn't have.
58:24
He just he does his own style as as I said, the weigh-ins do.
58:28
So then, what's the purpose of the rules as you're writing?
58:33
Oh, so we we want to avoid mistakes that we made before, you know, both on stage and in the movies and when something bombs and we have to cut it out, you know, we want to avoid shooting that again and just taking the time on set.
58:49
So in subsequent writing movies we would just say oh that's you know we can't do that's joke and a joke or it's you know it's and we we would laugh at something because we would always write in a collaborative room and get instant reactions for what we wrote or we would just say oh that's funny but it's it's uh it's trivia you know it won't won't be funny in a year. Mhm.
59:13
So, we we use the rules mainly as uh uh as what not to do and and axe grinding, you know, we'll we'll think of a funny joke uh about Trump or something, but you know, but it won't be funny.
59:30
It's just and besides that kind of stuff is almost a straw dummy.
59:36
And it used to be uh you don't remember this, but in the 70s what was big in sketch comedy was Nixon jokes.
59:46
And just like in SNL, you know, Trump jokes.
59:49
Uh sometimes it's funny, but uh we never want to do that because it was a kind of a combination of straw dummy and axe grinding.
59:57
So you can see how we combine the rules and we just set a bunch of standards that we just don't want to we don't want to break and and we still make we still make mistakes but I think this saves a lot of time.
1:00:10
Well, I think it's cool the balance that you have between the freedom of, hey, it's going to be me and some friends. We're in a room.
1:00:18
We're just kind of making each other laugh, seeing what's going on, watching movies, but then also that's, you know, very right brain intuitive.
1:00:23
And then you have this sort of very logical these rules like, no, we're not going to do that.
1:00:28
And the way that those two kind of operate in tension, right?
1:00:31
And Jim Abrams would always say that what differentiated a lot of our comedy was the discipline. It was discipline. It looks crazy.
1:00:39
And I mean, Top Secret just looks so zany and crazy.
1:00:45
And Airplane, it's just all over the place.
1:00:47
And and and and the naked guns and the scary movies.
1:00:53
But it's it's got there is a discipline to it.
1:00:55
And the discipline is because of the rules.
1:00:57
It's because there is some things we won't do and we operate within this framework.
1:01:03
What's the discipline mean?
1:01:05
Like the consistency of joke quality or what?
1:01:06
It's just it's that, you know, we approach it as as a science.
1:01:12
I mean, it's it's weird that it's both, you know, we're all sitting in the room and Well, remember, you're an artist. You're an artist. I'm an artist. That's right.
1:01:19
So, uh, so it's not a science then.
1:01:21
I don't know what I'm talking about, but but it's, you know, our approach is that, you know, within, you know, we have to have fun.
1:01:31
We have to have we have to have a sense of humor.
1:01:33
It's it's obviously anarchy in the writer room, but I think the rules help us.
1:01:40
And and you know, uh I I started out with Jerry and Jim and then since really 1988, I've written with Pat Prof and then and later with with Mike McManis.
1:01:55
And we always just accepted the rules.
1:01:57
They they knew the rules just by osmosis.
1:02:05
Tell me about the question. Can you live with it? Oh yeah. Can you live with it?
1:02:09
It's you know a joke has to happen and then it's over and you can't if you hang on it's it it's it won't be funny anymore for and the example I usually give is in Naked Gun.
1:02:23
In Naked Gun, Lesie and George Kennedy are doing a steak out and while they're waiting endless hours, they're eating pistachio nuts and they're talking and then as they talk, we see their their lips are all pink from the pistachio nuts.
1:02:40
And so when they when Lesie the scene ends and he goes into Ricardo's apartment, it's cleaned up.
1:02:50
He's he's just it's done.
1:02:53
And when Leslie crashes through the uh the the skylight of Robert Goule, who the bad guy is in Naked Gun 2 and a half, his his lair, uh he's a mess, all scratched and his hair and everything, and he just goes like that and he's and he's fine.
1:03:11
We can't keep him like that.
1:03:14
And you can't live with a joke.
1:03:14
You can't a joke can't stay after it's a joke.
1:03:22
uh you you just can't you know if you dress up if you enter a party dressed up as a woman for as a gag or an event and that's very funny but can you live with it right you have to if you have a a clever license plate saying hi to you that how long is that going to be funny you have to a funny a funny license plate is can you is viol ates. Can you live with it?
1:03:51
Tell me about the rule that didn't happen. Oh, yeah.
1:03:57
That's one of my favorite rules.
1:03:57
That's one of your favorites.
1:03:59
It's all the way at number 11. Actually, I don't care.
1:04:01
But Paramount gave us those notes once or threatened to give us a note.
1:04:06
They wanted us to write down 15 things that that couldn't have that were unrealistic.
1:04:12
And it included where uh Lloyd Bridges says uh they they they have to come in.
1:04:18
and they're on they or they can't come in.
1:04:22
They're on instruments and we cut up to the cockpit and they're all playing saxophone and and flutes and you know and instruments.
1:04:29
So, and it's a dumb pun, but and then and then and then when we go back up to the cockpit, it's all gone.
1:04:38
They're they're not the instruments aren't there. Nothing. And it's goes away.
1:04:44
It's not it's not there anymore. That's the pacing.
1:04:48
And so, yeah, it has to every rule probably has a bit of other rules in it, but uh you you don't have to uh necessarily keep anything going, you know, if you do a joke.
1:05:01
And if you trap yourself into showing up at an event, you know, dressed up in a funny costume, then can you live with it?
1:05:13
You know, that's kind of what goes in that.
1:05:15
You're not big on the the CGI, big technical effects.
1:05:20
You're just like, keep it simple, huh?
1:05:22
So, technical pizzazz is it's, you know, big car crashes and uh, you know, big special effects.
1:05:32
It's just it's not funny.
1:05:32
And, you know, there was a movie called uh, Spies Like Us.
1:05:37
Spies Like Us. really funny movie, but they had all this all these car crashes or not car crashes, but a lot of big special effects and it's not funny and I think it interfered with the pace of the movie and Blues Brothers had a lot of
1:05:53
big car car crashes and I think it uh I think it interfered a little bit with the with the pace because it wasn't I I don't know if it was meant to be funny but just car crashes and all this big special effects aren't necessarily funny. One of the things that I noticed
1:06:12
One of the things that I noticed that is kind of funny is like a little rough around the edges.
1:06:16
You know, I talked about the the the car sort of crashing into into the trash can or someone's tie being like a little maladjusted, like a serious moment.
1:06:24
You can sometimes just kind of take something and make it off by a little bit and all of a sudden it looks sloppy is the word that comes to mind, but it's something like that.
1:06:34
Those are really cheap to film.
1:06:37
So, it's it's the opposite of technical pizzazz.
1:06:39
You know, we just those are really easy gags.
1:06:40
Or, you know, a slapstick gag like uh Lesie driving up and hitting the the the a post on a dock and the guy fishing from the dock is the stunt man is thrown into the water.
1:06:57
And those aren't big those aren't big expenses.
1:07:00
And you'll see that in most of the scenes in uh Airplane and Naked Gun, they're just really done.
1:07:08
You know, the the control tower is simple.
1:07:13
The the police squad office is very simple.
1:07:16
Just the sets are really simple.
1:07:19
And in uh in the trailer for Naked Gun 4, I mean, that looks like they spent a million dollars on that scene.
1:07:25
And it's like I'm going, "Oh my god, that's technical pizzazz.
1:07:29
So, you know, right off the bat and uh and so and I think for a spoof, you don't want to see a lot of money being spent on this stuff.
1:07:42
Neither did we do any uh you know, ostentatious expense in scary movie 3 or four.
1:07:49
And I don't think the way did in in scary in the original Scary Movie.
1:07:52
I mean, they did that for 10 cents.
1:07:54
would they and they did so well with and you know they weren't seduced by special effects.
1:08:02
They knew they they needed to do jokes and and they just they just concentrated on the jokes.
1:08:06
So the audience in a comedy doesn't care about big special effects or big expense expenditures uh is is what they they want that in a Tom Cruz movie.
1:08:21
M you want to see Mission Impossible, you know, but it's Yeah.
1:08:25
Big explosions hanging from a plane or whatever Tom Cruz does. They want to see that.
1:08:29
Other movies, you know, it's certainly comedies don't need that.
1:08:33
You don't need to be elaborate.
1:08:36
And that's that's really technical pizzazz.
1:08:38
I'm glad you brought it up.
1:08:40
It's really important rule, I think.
1:08:44
Why is it so helpful when you're writing comedies to do it in groups?
1:08:47
Uh, I know in comedy, well, you get that instant reaction because it's just, you know, comedy you depend on an audience and in our theater show in Kentucky Fried Theater, we we just got an instant reaction.
1:09:05
We knew right away, right?
1:09:07
And so when you're writing a movie, you don't have that audience.
1:09:10
You can't test it out in the audience.
1:09:14
Jerry and Jim and I and Pat and Mike trust each other so much that if we said if we tried a joke and we got a laugh from them.
1:09:22
I mean, I love it when Pat Prof laughs at one of my jokes, that's great.
1:09:26
Or or Lewis Freedman, it's like that's great.
1:09:29
I must be I must have made something funny.
1:09:32
So, that's the reaction you get in the room.
1:09:35
And you can't get that I can't get that alone and just, you know, yeah, writing by myself.
1:09:39
I always like doing a kind of reverse engineering and asking, okay, what has made this this writer, what has allowed them to be unique in one way?
1:09:50
And the thing that really sticks out is Kentucky Fried Theater from the early days, getting live reactions, trusting that, being in person, and being like, I now have a sense for the cadence and pacing, and I can really see how you brought that into your movies now. Yeah.
1:10:05
And that's what made the pace.
1:10:07
The the pace was all from that.
1:10:09
And we also used it as very independent laboratory to experiment and see what we could get away with.
1:10:17
And and uh it was apart from the mainstream comics who were at the comedy store.
1:10:28
They were doing they were all these stand-ups were playing the clubs and that was great for them.
1:10:32
And that's where we discovered Pat Prof.
1:10:38
And uh he we thought he was the funniest comic at the comedy store.
1:10:41
And you know we when one of our guys quit uh and and we needed we only had a week to work in a new uh actor we we asked Prof to be in it and we and he said okay sure I could be in for a couple of weeks.
1:10:58
Well you know he stayed for you know 40 years not not in the show but you know writing with us. Wow. Yeah.
1:11:05
And we just And I don't know if anybody else would have been that perfect for us, but I think I know we sense that in Pat's routines at the comedy store, he Pat's from Minnesota, so he comes from that same kind of he, you know, drinks the same uh water that we we drank out of in Wisconsin.
1:11:29
And it's very very much very related.
1:11:35
I like that scene in uh in baseball where you just go, "Oh, all these teams are moving like the Jazz from New Orleans to Utah." Yeah.
1:11:42
What are the Oilers doing in Nashville, right? Yeah. It's And it's crazy.
1:11:47
And we did point out some of those things that I I object to. And then it's Yeah.
1:11:52
It's kind of wishful thinking, but now uh this company wants to do a uh a a TV series based on baseball where there's real teams and it's a game show reality show.
1:12:07
So, yeah, we might be doing that. That sounds fun.
1:12:09
Yeah, it sounds like a lot of fun.
1:12:11
All right, final question.
1:12:11
How can people take your course?
1:12:14
Well, if anybody wants to take the course or just is interested in I want to take the course.
1:12:21
I want to learn how to be funny, right?
1:12:23
And uh and you could learn to be funny and I got game.
1:12:26
And so but but I got game.
1:12:28
Are we talking like LeBron potential?
1:12:30
We talking like, you know, could be like a D-League scrub.
1:12:32
There's some definite material there.
1:12:34
I think that could be developed. Yes.
1:12:36
But uh but you need to take the course, I think.
1:12:42
Otherwise, you're just raw, you know, raw talent.
1:12:44
Should I use the the tword in describing this man?
1:12:47
But uh you know it's it's you can go to mastercrash. com but it's informal.
1:12:53
I mean you know and we it's it's fun.
1:12:55
I'm not I I don't take it too seriously or myself seriously.
1:12:58
So uh it's it and we won't put people to sleep.
1:13:04
People I think will enjoy just even if they don't want to learn how to do this.
1:13:08
It's just a fun course to to watch. We'll be boring.
1:13:11
You'll have some fun and uh probably learned something. That's good. Yeah.
1:13:15
What what more could you ask or want out of life? Out of all of life? I don't know. Look at that.
1:13:21
A deep way to finish the episode. Cut. Cut.