Hot Rod
(Not all the clips we mention are available online; some never even aired.)
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Produced by Rabbit Grin ProductionsExecutive Producers Jeph Porter and Rob HolyszLead Producer Kevin MillerCreative Producer Samantha SkeltonCoordinating Producer Derek JohnsonCover Art by Olney AtwellMusic by Greg Chun and Brent AsburyEdit by Cheyenne Jones
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Transcript
Whose hair looks better between the three Lonely Island guys?
I feel like we're in a die for words.
It's a real arms race.
Yeah, I have so much to say about hair in this episode.
It's a race to the bottom here.
Our hair all looks like it looked before we got SNL.
Can I get a fake beer real quick?
Just real quick.
I'll just be right back.
Yeah, go for it.
Your arms grabbing an NAB.
Yeah.
NAB market exploded this year amongst
a lot of NABs.
Yeah, it really did.
Why?
I feel like two years ago, it was edibles, like gummies.
Yeah.
Was our age group.
Like, squares I knew in college were like fully doing gummies with their wives everywhere.
Doing gummies is such a funny way of putting it, but keep going.
And now I feel like it's NAB.
I think they were like, things got fucked up two years ago.
I think that is my guess is what happened is everybody drank too much over the pandemic.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
And then came out of it and was like, I got to quit.
But what I don't understand is, are NABs like calorie-free?
No.
It's lower, though.
This one's probably 90.
And this is like one of the heavier ones.
So it still chunks you out, but you don't get the joy of being drunk.
I'm drinking fattening water now.
Yeah.
I'm worried that the podcast hasn't started.
So I wanted to make sure that if it has started, what's happening right now is I'm drinking a regular beer and you're just drinking a non-alcoholic beer.
I am drinking an NA beer, but that's only because I became an alcoholic over the pandemic.
So you're just pulling back.
You're doing NA because you went full A during the pandemic.
I went pretty hard.
There were moments where I was like going inside and being like, I'll just switch out the beer and then everyone will think it's the same beer.
And I was like, whoa, I got to stop.
Yeah.
Why do people all call them NAVs instead of nabs?
Because if you called it a nab, you could go like, I'm going to grab a nab.
Yeah.
Don't you think that would get tiring over the course of like a barbecue?
You'd be like, I'm going to grab.
Well, I'm going to grab a nab.
I'm doing my Yorman project.
I'm going to tab a nab.
I call them fake beers at places, but then everyone gets confused.
where I say like, can I have a fake beer?
And everyone's like, what?
But I don't know why that's confusing.
It's like when when we tell people we're fake rappers, they're like, what is that?
People don't like that either.
Well, they don't like it because, unfortunately, or fortunately, you're a lot of people's favorite rappers.
Rappers.
So when you tell them you're a fake rapper, they take it as a personal insult.
Oh, they're like, so am I fake?
Do I exist?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It would be like if you told a non-alcoholic beer maker, brewer, this is my favorite beer.
And their response was, you can call it a beer.
Right.
It's just fattening water.
It's just fatty water.
We're making fatty water for people with no self-control.
It's alone the island and Seth Meyer's podcast.
We're going to talk about a feature film on today's podcast, and I'm a little worried.
This might have to be two parts, you guys.
I just watched five minutes of it, and it is a pretty great film.
We're going to talk about the film Hot Rod.
And real quick, I re-watched it last night.
Really?
Did any of you watch it?
I really wish I had.
I just watched 10 minutes of it right before we got on, and it really made me smile.
And it was just a random starting at Parnell through some great dialogue that you wrote, Seth, of Parnell.
Very funny.
Very funny stuff.
Have you guys re-watched it?
Keeve, Andy?
I've re-watched it in the last maybe four years because I showed it to my kids at some point.
Oh, Wolf.
Did your kids like it?
Now my kids are 10 and 12, and I bet you they'd love it now.
You were a little early.
I was a little bit early, and they definitely laughed at like falling down the hill.
They laughed at the big parts you'd think, like falling down the hill, cool beans, stuff like that.
I don't know that they were being entertained by like little wordplay stuff as much.
There's some sexual stuff in there because I just watched the scene with your great dialogue, Keeve, of the, he's got sperm trapped in his.
A little bit of semen is blocking his urethra.
Yeah, yeah.
Which I was like, oh, I can't show this to my eight-year-old.
This is very inappropriate.
I'm going to request that we go through this movie in chronological order once we start talking about it.
That's fair.
But, Andy, last time you saw it?
We watched it the morning after my bachelor party, me, Keeve, and Yorm.
And that was the last time I saw it.
That's the last time I saw it in full as well.
But I was with you at your bachelor party.
Did I oversleep?
No, you had already left.
I woke up at 5 p.m.
or something.
Yeah, you couldn't handle partying so hard, Seth, but we closed it up.
I want to say this real quick.
Andy's bachelor party also basically was my bachelor party.
Right.
Andy and I got married three weeks apart, and I did not have time from when I proposed to when I got married to have a proper bachelor party.
And then Andy was kind enough to invite me to his bachelor party, at which pretty much it was everybody I'd want at my bachelor party.
And the best possible bachelor party you can have is where you're at a bachelor party and you're not the bachelor.
Yes.
You know what I mean?
You get all the joy being at a bachelor party.
Yeah.
And you don't have to be the bachelor.
So it was the best, one of the best nights of my life in Las Vegas.
And then we went to LA to this awesome house.
And I did the dumbest thing, a thing I still kick myself for, because I was going into my last half year at SNL.
And I remember thinking, it's the first day of the pre-work at SNL where we write commercial parodies.
It's the grandest waste of time.
But I remember thinking, it's my last year here.
I want to set a good example.
I don't want to not be there on the first day.
And I left the best weekend of my life and showed up.
And no one noticed or cared
that I was back.
I'm still mad about it.
At least you get to to put it on this podcast to show how dedicated you are.
But you did miss us all watching Hot Rod together.
Stony macaroni.
You could have been hanging with the guys.
Yeah.
How did it play?
There was a fair amount early in the day of people sliding into the pool because the pool at that house had a slide.
Slept through it.
Like a stone cement slide that would go in the pool.
Yeah.
There was a slide party you missed as well, I believe.
Because there were two days at the house and I was only there for one day of the house.
And the first day at the house was impossible to fully enjoy because everybody was in the post-Vegas cloud.
It was just the haze.
It was just the haze in that I remember there was some kick-ass chef who brought this awesome wine and I feel like out of courtesy, we were all saying, I'll have a half a glass.
I think I was asleep in my food.
And we barely ate.
So I feel like the next day was probably the awesome day.
They were all awesome.
Yeah.
But I will say us watching Hot Rod was a real delight because when Hot Rod came out, it was a little bit of a kick in the gut for us.
And then we didn't, I don't think any of us watched it until then.
Keeve, I don't know if you watched it since it came out.
I'm trying to remember.
There was a time where all of us went to Austin to watch an outdoor Alamo draft house screening.
Oh, yeah.
It was like in a park.
Yes, that was a really fun screening.
So this is after it had come out, a ways after?
Well, it might have even been after The Bachelor Party.
So I don't know that The Bachelor Party is actually accurate.
I feel like a few years after that, maybe it was before The Bachelor Party.
Well, one of the things, though, we're establishing with an outdoor screening of it in Austin is this is a movie, and we're going to get to it, which was not received a muted reception from the press.
Yeah, that's putting it nicely.
And maybe was not a box office Titan.
And yet, in the years that have passed, it has become the sort of film that people would eagerly go to see at an outdoor screening in Austin because it has found its audience over the years.
Accurate?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Keep always describing it as wanting to make a movie that would come on on a Saturday afternoon on TV.
And when it turned on and you started watching it, you'd be like, oh, we'll just let this play.
With commercials.
One of those ones that like on TBS or USA when those were still things.
Yeah.
I mean, this might be jumping the gun, but I can say this, and all the movies I'm about to list, I will clarify, I like.
We went into it being like, we want to make Billy Madison or Wet Hot American Summer.
And Paramount wanted us to make Dodgeball.
Right.
Yes.
And I believe the movie lives somewhere between the two, except the box office part.
It did make a million dollars, though, guys.
I kept saying that, and then it happened.
It did.
It exceeded 1 million B.O.
Well, I remember Akiva saying something that was very hard for me to wrap my head around.
And yet then I understood, which is you actually thought the budget was too big for what you were trying to do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We would constantly ask why we were spending so much money because we were trying to make something that would feel like it was a little bit homemade.
Yeah.
And then would have less pressure on it, too.
yeah and weirdly watching the movie it still has that really fun homemade texture to it yet the problem is if somebody has just paid you a certain amount of money to make it they're not that psyched correct and by the way there was a moment where when we were working on the rewrite where it got even crazier and we were basically told to pump the brakes where they were like guys guys guys this is getting too niche it's getting too crazy and weird That's from where the movie ended up.
There was a moment that we were writing a scene where Rod came home and took a drink out of the refrigerator and was like, hey, mom, check this out.
And flipped the water bottle in his hand.
And then she was like, yeah, that's cool.
Check this out.
And then she did a back.
And then we handed in that draft.
And they were like, please no.
But there was also a whole like side story where like Kevin moves out of the house or Rod moves out of the house onto the lawn in a tent.
And it was long.
It was like a long side story.
All I remember is that he was staying alive by eating frozen tofu hot dogs that he would just snap off like Slim Jims.
Why didn't they like that?
It's so funny.
Having watched this movie in the last 24 hours, it's going to be very fun for me to hear things that were too dumb to make it.
Well, if you'll recall, when we were all writing it together in Lauren's office, you included Seth, you were getting mad at us for how dumb we were wanting it to be.
And at one point, you pitched that a guy would just say, Hey, stuntman, eat this sandwich.
Like, I suppose you want it to be like, He just yells, Hey, stuntman, eat this sandwich, and then throws a sandwich at him.
And we were all like, Here we go.
If it's in the movie, it was your fake pitch of, oh, I guess this is what you guys like.
You're so stupid.
Your fake pitch, your angry, fake pitch.
We're like, You get it now.
That's very imagine how jarring it is to be angry and think of the dumbest possible thing.
And then the people you're being angry with have the reaction of, yes.
Now you get it.
I would imagine a little disarming.
Did it make you happy, though?
Well, I do want to say, embarking on this, and I feel as though we've talked about this a little bit, you guys are going off to make a studio movie.
I'm very happy to be asked along for the ride.
And we get to spend the summer making a movie together.
And this will only happen to me one other time where I get to be on the set of a movie where people are listening to me 10% as much as I think they should.
The other one is Magruber.
So,
but I will say, what I'm really happy about is you've been on the show one year.
And at the end of the first year, the four of us are very good friends and have been until today and we continue to be.
So it's a very special time when I think back on it.
And then I also realized you're a threesome and then I'm also there and I'm a little bit different.
I'd be like, I'm the Connor Roy of this podcast.
Just a little bit older and not quite connected the same way.
Gotta run.
Express, dude.
Yeah, yeah.
Except for I don't think that they ever took any of Connor's ideas.
That's true.
Slightly more on to, you know, Lauren's side, Logan.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I will say the writing process, though, or rewriting, because we should say that Pam Brady wrote the original draft of Hot Rod, but the rewriting process for us, a lot of it was in Lauren's office on the Paramount lot in, if I'm correct, Crocodile Dundee's old office.
Yep.
Paul Hogan.
The actual, not the fictional, the real crocodile.
Yes, yes.
The real crocodile Dundee's.
The guy he was based on.
The real one.
You remember the office scenes in Crocodile Dundee?
This is where they shot them.
But the lighting in there is beautiful.
And honestly, like just the memories that I have of us all sitting around getting it in in the morning and Seth banging out like four scenes while me and Andy and Keith all just sort of sat around being like, ah,
like not even awake yet, not able to write one sentence.
And Seth was like, bing, bing, here's another scene.
Here's another scene.
I do want to say, I feel like the most show business address in New York is 30 Rock.
It feels like decades long institutional show biz in the best possible way.
You kind of can't believe you walk in there.
And I feel like the Paramount Lot is the LA equivalent.
Yeah.
It's up there for sure.
It was exactly where you wanted to be.
You kind of couldn't believe as a young person rewriting a movie that you got to do it in Lauren's office at the Paramount Lot.
Well, this was again the end of our first year.
So for us, it absolutely was.
We started rewriting in like february march we also had just left la like in credit card debt and broke in september of 2005 and now it was just like march because it was still during the show year oh yeah we came back multiple times on off weeks to do the rewrite to start rewriting but it might have been february as soon as february so we had only left la five months earlier totally broke with just suitcases like gave away all our furniture because it was all hand-me-down trash and then all of a sudden we're coming back and now we had like a nice rental car, and we're staying at the Sunset Tower.
And we'd go onto the Paramount lot, which we had like barely ever, I don't even know if we had set foot on that lot before, and going to a really nice Lauren's office.
And by the way, that was credit to Lauren being like, get out of New York to go do this.
He was like, I don't think you'll write it if you're in New York because it won't feel real.
He's like, if I send you there, you'll know you have a job to do.
So I want you guys to fly out there on off weeks.
So Sundays, all of a sudden, we'd fly right, and it was the dead of winter in New York.
And all of a sudden, you'd get off and it'd be sunny in LA and you'd be in the golf cart on the lot.
It was pretty rad.
It was not lost on us.
So the rewriting you did during the season was probably rewriting it to your taste.
I remember by the time the season was over and I was joining you in the Paramount office, I feel like we were writing to solve a lot of problems.
Does that seem like your memory?
We were cleaning it up and punching it up because we were like, shit, we're about to actually shoot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The first draft was also partially about that, but it was also just to make the movie have a complete story because I think we got sent kind of an interim draft.
So it had all the main ideas.
He's a stunt man.
He needs to do a big stunt because he hates his stepdad, but he wants him to live long enough to beat his ass.
Like those core ideas.
He has a brother, like the gang, the parts ended up being Danny McBride and Hater.
But it was a pretty different script when we got handed in.
It felt like we were getting one that was in the middle of rewrites and it just stopped because there were things that would start and not connect later.
It was pretty crazy, to be fair.
Like it was a pretty out there kind of script, but we just sort of made it our version of an out there.
Yeah.
Also, like, we decided we really wanted Danny and Bill and then rewrote both those characters entirely to be them.
Bill's was the character that he did in a story he knew already.
And we kind of jumped off from there.
And then we had seen Foot Fist Way and became obsessed with Danny like everybody else.
And that's the only Danny any of us had seen, right?
Foot Fist Way?
Yeah, yeah.
Because it is,
if you could get points for where I feel like you were angel investors, early hater stock, early McBride stock, because you can see.
I mean, obviously, people at this point had known Bill from SNL, but he's really great in it.
And McBride is so authentically McBride in the most wonderful way in this movie.
Yeah, I was going to say, to his credit, we just were like, we want you to be your character from Footfist Way, basically.
And we tried to write towards that.
And then we also let him improvise a ton.
And him and Bill both came in with alts and jokes they wanted to do because we told told them to, because we knew they were both super funny writers and they wrote a lot of funny shit for themselves.
Yeah.
And Bill's character is also based on a friend of his, too, right?
Maybe we could get a voice note from just say who he based it off and insert it here.
Yeah, my character is named Dave.
So yeah, Dave came from a guy I went to high school with named Eric, who's actually an incredibly smart person.
He actually runs the Native American Museum in Oklahoma.
He's a professor from OU, but in high school,
yeah, he like partied a lot.
So he had that voice, but he did not wear a visor.
The visor came from, I saw a documentary on the flaming lips, and there was a scene of them playing touch football in the late 70s, and everybody was wearing visors, and I just thought it looked funny, visors with long hair.
And then that scene where the piece of metal flies into his eye actually happened.
Eric called my friend Duffy Boudreau, who is a writer on Barry and Documentary Now and a guy I grew up with, and Duffy had to go pick him up.
And it is true he had his bags packed and he drove him to the hospital.
But Eric knew what a trash can was.
But I will say, like, Danny, like one of the lines people loved from Danny was the green tea, right?
I've been drinking the green tea all day or whatever.
And I think that was just him fucking around, right?
Yeah, him and Bill came in with it that morning.
And I don't know which one of them actually came up with it.
There was the one where he said, I go to church every Sunday.
You're going to bring the demons out of me?
Yeah, same scene.
Yeah, that sounds like a guy who's going to do everything Danny McBride has done.
He's trying something almost 20 years since.
You're like, oh,
he wants to be good.
That's the Gemstones guy?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's him as a kid.
Yeah.
On-brand.
Very on-brand.
The other thing I remember is then we move up to Vancouver and there's still some rewrite.
Now it's getting really close.
And one of the things I remember about how close it was then, now we are in a very almost industrial office park working.
All the fun of LA is gone.
Now it feels very real and not fun at all, save for the fact that Andy has to keep leaving rewrites to go practice riding that little moped, like moped around the parking lot.
That's right.
That's where you can't believe it's a movie.
I remember just sitting in that very gray office looking out the window into a parking lot where it was not showbiz anymore it was just this is where people work and have jobs and andy was just puttering around while he got
to him
serving it every one of these projects that you start is always that same thing where it's just like an abysmal office with nothing on the walls which is why every time i've ever started a new project i immediately order six scarface posters oh smart to make it feel like home yep i have pictures that we were looking at last week if you guys remember where i quickly was like oh here's some hot rod.
We might be able to share a couple of them to show like us all sitting in Lauren's office, us all sitting in that office that you're describing now.
I remember the day at the offices when they first brought in the grilled cheese sandwich and the taco costumes.
That was exciting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
That was a good time.
Based on a doodle that our friend Josh made when he was visiting us during rewrites.
Right.
We asked him for that.
When you're in Lauren's Paramount office, the posters on the wall are sort of movies you grew up with, you know, with legends of comedy, hit films.
And so you feel this very safe, comfortable, like, yep, we're on our way.
And then you get to just a room with no posters on the wall and you're like, oh, no, no, no, no, no.
We're adrift.
Nothing's going to work out.
Where are the posters?
Wait, Seth, because we all lived in a house together in Kitsilano, me and these two guys.
Where were you living?
I was at that.
Is it Sutton Place?
Is that the sort of thing?
I don't know if it's still there.
I have not been back to Vancouver since we did this.
I feel like it is still there.
And this is sort of where a lot of people who go work in Vancouver, especially if they are short time and maybe aren't going to get a house and be there for two months, would stay.
And I just remember going down into the bar there.
I remember his first time I met Christian Chenoweth, for example, was just randomly in the Sun Place bar.
I remember being jealous because Danny and Bill said they had seen Benicio del Toro in the gym.
Yeah.
And I was like, I was like, that's pretty cool.
Something to envy for sure.
Although the other thing I'll say, and this happened on McGrubber as well, you think, oh my God, we're going to be making a movie, hanging out every night.
When everybody raps, everybody's so tired.
Yeah.
Especially for Andy and Akiva and all of you.
Your next day started at 5:30 every day.
Yep.
All right.
So I want to say this is my first takeaway having re-watched the movie today.
Okay.
First of all, I loved it.
Second of all, what is it?
87 minutes, Keith?
Oh, I think it's like 88, 89, somewhere in there.
It's definitely sub 90.
Yep.
Oh, yeah.
And yet, what I was really taken with, it's a movie that's under 90 minutes, and there's still just 10 minutes of abject nonsense.
You managed to make a 90-minute movie that also has like, other than just the joy of watching it, indefensible additions.
Indefensible.
I would argue defensible.
Yeah, defensible.
Defensible.
Trust me, the grandest part of this podcast will be you defending them.
You'll have your day in court.
We all agree.
You're in the minority.
Aren't those kind of tangents and stuff what make the whole movie special in hindsight?
Yes.
But I just like that I think a lot of people would say of a 90 minute film oh yeah the plotting is so precise
but with that said i do think the first 10 minutes this movie lays everything out very nicely it moves very quickly yeah and is very clean as far as establishing everybody and i was i was impressed re-watching it how nicely stuff is done in the first 10 minutes And maybe all credit due to Pam Brady.
We'd have to go back and look at the drafts, but, you know, shout out.
And I think the first scene is a stunt gone bad.
And I feel like that was one of the first days of shooting as well.
Pretty close to the shoes.
About a third or half inch.
Okay.
So the first stunt in the movie, we have to say, and I have so much appreciation and respect for stuntmen having worked on this movie, right?
Because the other thing that was happening, while Andy was like tooling around learning how to drive a moped, and the same parking lot guys were working on stunts.
Yeah.
And I mean, you can believe because it's their life and limb, right?
But they're so, the amount of precision, the amount of work they put into this thing is insane and the first done the movie the dude hurt himself badly right yeah he like a lot of times on these things you have to go exactly the same speed you went in rehearsals and of course you know we yell action and you just go that extra like five miles an hour faster or whatever he's jumping over a mail truck like a um letter carrier mail truck and he's supposed to kind of slide across the top which would slow him down a little and then the ramp that was going to be the one he's supposed to land on had padding on kind of the front of it so he was essentially supposed to hit the ramp on the other side and fall kind of between him i thought it was supposed to collapse and he was supposed to go straight into the front side of the van No, I think he was always going to
hit across the top and then had a way in which he wasn't going to get hurt.
Yes, yeah.
It was going to be like hitting the side and then sliding the rest of the way and falling, like very lamely.
There was a part of it that was supposed to break his momentum and he missed that part and then flew right into it and he broke his.
I remember getting some critiques in some even of maybe reviews where people would be like, that first one's so fake, you can tell it's like a dummy because of the way his leg went.
Whereas that is a, there is zero CG.
You know, this is 2007.
So there's not, you know, there's no CG.
There's nothing like that.
2006.
Yeah.
He broke his femur on it.
And we were in the shot and I was recording on that little, on Kevin's little chemcorder.
And so there's footage of us running up to him and i remember him saying i broke my femur i broke my femur i also remember maybe this is wrong i also remember that for some reason the sound department mic'd him yes and we were at video village hearing him going oh oh and we were like oh fuck what the fuck like what happened yeah by the way it's really scary when something like that happens it was not funny at all it was like very scary and tense on set because you don't know if he could be hurt in a different way too because he doesn't even know really how hurt he is in that moment although i guess he could tell it was his femur.
When we ran up to him, because like it's me, Bill, and Danny that were in the scenes, we run up to him.
So I was filming him on that camcorder.
So there's footage somewhere of that actual, I forgot right that Andy, of course, you were at the monitors.
I also was at the monitors and I don't think this speaks to fight or flight, but I do remember my reaction to it was such that I just took off my headphones and walked the, I walked away.
Oh, yeah.
Well, you didn't want proof you were there.
Yeah, it's like when the cops pull up to a keg party, you're like, I was never here.
I was never here.
No, no, no.
If I was here, I'd have had fun.
You have warrants, though, right?
You loop around and walk past them.
Officers.
Oh, something going on over here?
What are they shooting?
Oh, this is weird.
That's weird.
Oh, how big's the budget?
Oh, it seems homemade.
Wait, did he win an award for it?
Yes.
He won a stunty.
I believe that's the name of the award.
Are they actually called stunties?
I want to say that, but I.
That dude who broke his leg and did that stunt was such a fucking G.
Like, as they were putting him in the ambulance, he was like, Was it funny?
Did it look good?
Yeah, all he cared was that we were going to use it.
I remember him like coming and grabbing us and being like, because he's on a stretcher, completely strapped down in case he, you know, has any spine problems.
And they called us over to like, come, come, come, come.
And they were like, make sure you tell him it was good.
And I was like, I mean, it's not a lie.
We were like, holy shit, we have lightning in a bottle with this shot.
It's like it was supposed to be a crash.
And the worry is that the crash will look not like a good crash.
And this was like the best crash.
But on most movies, if a stunt goes wrong, they can't use that footage because it needs to do what it's supposed to do.
This is one of the rare cases where it going wrong actually just made the footage better.
And so we could honestly go up to this guy as he's getting loaded into an ambulance and be like, no, dude, that's in the movie.
And that's all he cared about.
He was like, yes, all right.
Yes.
And once he said that, we then went back to monitors and everyone was like, the blood had drained from their faces because it was so sketchy.
He was like, he's okay.
He's just going to, you know, go to the hospital.
He wanted to know if it looked funny.
And at that point, I remember we watched it back on the monitors, and everyone was like, Is it too soon to laugh?
Because this shit looks really funny.
Yeah.
Well, I remember Lauren was not there for it, but then he showed up and we filled him in and he watched it and put on headphones.
And I remember his reaction was truly funny.
And then I want to also stress, because Lauren knew the whole story.
Lauren then got in the car and went to the hospital and saw the dude.
Yeah, but I do want to put an asterisk on yours, is that Lauren was laughing way earlier than the rest of us.
He saw the footage.
We were all still worried and he was just there like,
he's like, you got some shit.
That was killing, bro.
That's opening up the trailer, bro.
Yeah.
Bro, classic.
I will say, ever since then, any stuntman I've talked to who hears about that, like, obviously that we did hot rod has mentioned that stunt.
I was like, holy shit, that first time.
Yeah, they now.
It's really good.
Because it's funny because then later in the movie, obviously, the stunts do look stuntier.
Whereas that one, again, for the reason we've laid out, in the end, was not a stunt as for like reality television.
That one and the pool is just somebody just doing it.
Yeah.
Watching the pool one live made us laugh so fucking hard.
It was just like the slow fade through the air.
You're just like, well, this is what we wrote.
And then it happens.
Just up and down.
That's Rod tries to jump a pool and it really is the perfect guy going off a ramp, making it exactly halfway and falling in.
And also knowing there was no outcome possible like the first stunt.
Well, we were worried at that point that it could overshoot and that would be brutal.
Yeah.
Right.
That's what makes that one so funny is it's so intentional.
Like it looks like a dude driving straight into a pool.
Yeah.
It takes a lot to make sure that that's going to be safe for that guy.
Just into building the ramp at the exact right angle, making sure that the speed going down that hill, everything.
By the way, the first hunt is not the only broken bone because when we were shooting the montage of Rod training and he's all strapped up with the mattresses and everything and the van hitting him with the mattress on the front of the van, for some reason, I was allowed to be in the van filming that too.
So I was with the stuntman and he was like, hey, don't tell anyone, but the guy that we're about to hit broke his ankle this morning.
When he smashes into the Winnebago, he broke his ankle.
But apparently you get like 1500 bucks a pop or like whatever you get.
So he was like, I want to do the next one.
Oh my God.
So he also got hit by a van right after that.
We talked about Bill and danny ian mcshane still remains this incredible i mean what an incredible piece of casting this is height of deadwood yeah yeah we were massive fans if you haven't seen deadwood ian mcshane's alice wearing one of the great television characters of all time if you're a young person don't watch deadwood yeah it's not for the kids no no i will say this and you can beep this word because it's very hard for american ears to hear safe to say no pilots had
in it more than deadwood easily with a bullet right away you have have to get past that 50 times.
You guys, I'm so, so sorry.
Seth has spent a lot of time in England.
It means a different thing.
He doesn't understand.
I want you to beep it and then I want you to keep in the England so everybody knows the word.
It rhymes with chunt.
Oh boy.
What?
There was a moment where Ian was doing, do you guys remember this?
Where like where he was doing ADR on set?
He needed to do some ADR for Deadwood.
Oh, yes.
Universal filming.
He was doing ADR and he was like going like, you mama.
Yes.
This is a real real story.
And we were like, wait, what scene is that for?
And he was like, I had no fucking clue.
No, he took out a little piece of paper because they had sent him like, hey, we need you to do these pickups.
He's like, I'm in production.
They're like, just do it on set.
Yeah, the boom operator can just hold the button.
And it was like, okay, hold.
Ian's going to do a little ADR.
He's like, I'm the fucking bs.
It was like, we were all just sitting there with our like hands on our chin, like, oh, it's Al Swering.
My favorite thing about Ian McShane is every time he does my show, he says, how are the boys?
He collectively refers to you as the week, give them my love.
Oh, God, he's the greatest.
He would always call you like, My sons.
My sons.
He was.
He had a really paternal.
He's the best smelling person I've ever been around.
That's right.
And he has, in the years that have passed, he has aged so much better than the rest of us.
Yeah, talk about that.
He looks fantastic.
Yeah, he does.
Yeah.
Cut for Marble.
And he's in all the John Wicks.
He's in the Wicks.
He's in all of the John's Wick.
The Wickiverse.
Is that the plural?
Yep.
That's how you do it.
So it's like attorneys general?
That's right.
It's very easy to believe that you worked on hot rod when you make a joke like that.
Thanks for saying that.
First off, when one acts in a John's wick.
Because here's an example.
And again, I am jumping ahead.
There's a whole exchange with you and Yorm where your safe word is whiskey.
I mean, that's really John's wick neighborhood of joke.
Andyism, for sure.
That sort of started because me and my friend Chester, who's all of our friend.
Who's in the film?
Who's in the film?
He plays Richardson.
We were roommates in college and, you know, fast friends, loved rap music.
And there's a skit on a gangstar album where somebody calls Premiere, I think, to say that Guru's been arrested.
Yeah, he's been locked up.
Yeah, your boy Guru got knocked or something.
Yeah, got knocked.
Knocked.
He got knocked.
And Premiere, I believe, goes, what?
And probably, if you listen to it now, it'd be so subtle.
But for some reason, Chester and I fixated on how he says what.
By the way, it is so subtle.
I listened to it recently for God knows what reason, and it's like, it's so normal.
So, but Chester and I, it became a thing we did then for all words with WH.
And obviously, we're not the first people to have done it, but it was fresh on my mind when we were writing that scene, and it devolved from there.
And that's the little comedy history, always funny to talk about how jokes were written.
Well, the funniest thing about whiskey is you guys go back and forth, like, what?
What?
Like, what do you mean?
Yes.
Saying what, what way?
Why are you asking?
But then, the really funny thing is, then they push you down the hill and you yell whiskey, and you realize that a safe word is not helpful.
Like, for this stunt, there's no need for a safe cut.
Yeah, there's no help cut.
That part was probably in the Pam script, right?
Because that stunt was in there.
Yeah, I feel like it was hard to find a hill that was steep enough, right?
Right, but we did find one.
That was another delightful stunt watching that guy have to go down that hill.
I can't remember what safety things there were.
He broke his ankle.
He did a stunt later in the day.
Oh, that's when he did it.
When he hits, are you serious?
when he hits the side of the oh that winnebago when he flips up and hits that oh right the end of that is so fucking gnarly well we hide the hitting of it and just have the windows blow out which is obviously a special effect not a visual effect we didn't need to hide the hit because he broke a bone because he really did it
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Isla Fisher plays your girlfriend Denise and the scene we meet Isla Fisher, I forgot this line, which is it sort of plays off that trope of you seeing an old girl you grew up with who's back in town.
Yes.
And she walks away and you say, sort of nervously, you look pretty.
Right.
And then she turns back and says, what did you say?
And I had forgotten this.
Your cover is you say, you look shitty.
Right.
Yeah.
And then you run back to the house.
Sprint back in the house.
I feel like that moment, even though not a direct joke, feels the most Sandler early movie of any of the moves in Hirod.
It does.
In a fun way for us, where we were like, we got to do a thing like he did.
But it has a little Sandler-Hurley-hey energy to it.
Another thing that made me laugh early in the movie, so your character, Rod,
has fights Frank, his stepfather, to try to earn his respect.
And the first fight, you yell ultimate punch, and then you try to kick him.
And that really,
it's a very funny kick, and then he grabs your foot, basically throws you in the wall.
There's two fists thrown in the ultimate punch.
But it's very funny because you focus on the foot.
Like, you know what I mean?
Use the ultimate punch.
Yes, your fists, but they're not.
The fist will not connect with a man if your foot is also extended directly in front of him.
Depending on the length of one's torso.
That's true.
Frank gets sick.
This is sort of the plot device that happens.
Again, we're only like 10, 11 minutes in and we've laid out everything.
Flawless so far.
Flawless so far.
After Yorma was not at a stunt.
Yorma, your stepbrother.
And you come back and it's very clear that Frank is sick.
He's lying on a couch and the family and loved one, Yorma's hugging him.
And do you remember your line, Andy, when you walk in?
What you think is going on?
I know, because it's a Pam.
It's one of the ones that we always love from hers.
You say, what is this?
An interactive art piece?
An interactive theater art piece.
What's going on?
Is this some sort of interactive theater art piece?
Damn it, Pam.
Just dumb as a box of rocks.
Then you...
Such a leap.
Very upset.
Not because you love Frank, but you don't want him to die before you can kick his ass.
And you say you have to go to your quiet place.
And then you go to the woods and there's beautifully shot scene.
Keith, just gorgeous in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, light coming through the canopy of the trees.
It's gorgeous.
Yeah, they were able to put a lot of atmosphere in the air, which is hard to do sometimes when you're outside because it dissipates so quickly, but they knew how to do it.
Andrew Dunn, DP.
Yeah.
Do you want to do your Andrew Dunn rap?
Wait, what is the Andrew?
His name is Andrew.
What?
Andrew Dunn?
Beat your motherfucking face with the butt of his gun.
He's the most timid, well-mannered Englishman who is like in his probably 50s back then, who had done Gosford Park, the Robert Albin film, Gosford Park.
And then these guys would get on set and be like, Andrew, what?
Andrew done?
And you'd be like, oh, that's very nice.
Okay, well, can you get it on your mind?
I don't quite follow, and I'm not sure what you mean by that, but I suppose I should be flattered.
He had done that, and he had done Hitch, the rom-com, and we were like, if he can do Hitch and Gosford Park, which is like beautiful and candlelit, we were like, this guy's fantastic.
And he was a delightful man.
He was just the sweetest
man.
And shot the shit out of it.
Well, I remember there was a time where we were putting in a different backstory for Denise.
Do you remember I pitched that she should have been fired from the FBI?
Yes.
Yes.
Her character was getting weirder.
Well, here's a different one that didn't last.
She goes, Yeah, I guess.
Obviously, weirded out.
And then Rod goes, so you still into bugs?
And then she kind of like chuckles and goes, No, Rod, not since I was a kid.
And Rod's disappointed.
Oh, that's too bad.
So that was her storyline at some point was that she was into bugs.
She was into bugs as a kid.
I remember this was, even though Keith was like, oh, this is too much budget.
Everything I pitched, he was like, we don't have the money for it.
Well, we had to embezzle the extra cash.
I do still think this is a decent joke for a movie somewhere.
She got fired from the FBI.
And what happened was she was doing like one of those shooting range things where it's either like people pop up and they're either civilians or like that bad guy.
And she's amazing, right?
And then someone goes, hey, Denise, Jeff's back from his work undercover.
And he walks in.
He's dressed like the, and she shoots him.
That's his normal dress.
Yeah.
Because he was undercover.
And then does she go,
and kind of like pull her collar out.
Yeah, she went, oh, I probably wrote that in the time it took me to tell it.
So I'm not like all these years later, I'm not like, I put in days.
Wait, can I go back to one other thing?
Because one of the fun things that I think we added to that scene where Frank is dying and Rod needs to go to his quiet place is that he.
whips out a retractable club.
Yeah.
For no reason.
Starts breaking soap.
Yeah.
He has that on him at all times is what we were assuming.
So the quiet place, Andy's dancing, we can tell it's Andy.
Then it's very clearly a professional gymnast.
Some.
Well, some.
Well, it's from Footloose, right?
It's very Footloosey.
Well, it's the song from Footloose when he goes and punches, dances.
It's the most spoofy the movie gets the whole time, where we are doing a direct homage spoof of Footloose.
Yeah, because then he's smoking a cigarette.
Dude, I mean, the cigarette and the beer are like all of it.
It is that thing of writing in the script, Rod falls for an uncomfortably long amount of time.
I don't know how you guys wrote it.
I believe he trips, and what follows is the longest fall in cinema history.
And it is.
And it's really funny.
There were two more shots that we we cut out, and I still regret that we cut them out.
We showed the movie to Neil Brennan before it came out, and he's like, I've got one note.
He should get up after the fall and then trip again and fall for another five minutes.
I was like, yeah, it's a little late for that.
It's a pretty good pitch, though.
You just go get reshoot money for a new fall.
Like the one thing that they're probably begging you to cut.
Like that's our Spielberg rework.
But it's some really funny falls because some are like practical falls.
Other times it it really does look like a dummy's being thrown over the side of a hill.
Just last week, Seth, a kid that I bumped into asked me if it was really me.
It's great.
And I was like, no, it was a team of highly dedicated stub people who spent how many days?
Maybe two days up there.
How dead do you think you'd be if it had been you?
I would have been dead on the first one.
You did the last role is actually sort of a long roll and you do look kind of beat up from it.
And maybe that's why he felt that.
Thanks.
I did do a long roll.
I'll say this.
In a very unprofessional way, I beat the shit out of my body on the movie without doing any of the real big stunts, but like even just doing like the end of the big crash at the end a bunch of times, things like that, where I was like, by the end of the movie, I was like, I'm not feeling great physically.
Does that shock you, Seth, that Andy didn't feel well?
Yeah, because he's usually so resilient.
Well, that movie also, there was a lot of dander in the air as well.
Yes, and my tummy was.
You deserve all these burns, but I will say you did put in a lot of work, and I remember you being in a lot of pain.
But we were young and hungry.
Yeah.
I learned how to ride a fucking motorcycle, you know?
Right.
You did have to ride a real motorcycle at the end.
Yeah.
And I never have done it since.
Scared the shit out of me.
Yeah.
That's not.
Hang on.
I think I was too, I think I was too arched on that.
Scared the shit out of me.
Okay.
So that's.
That's more natural.
I like that.
That's good.
I will say because as you guys said, you were young.
I talked to someone on Broadway and they were doing a show, like one of these big long shows, emotional, singing, everything.
And I said, how How hard is it every day?
And this actress looked at me and was like, I'm young.
I'm like, Yeah, great.
That's what you should be doing.
She'd be like, just fucking balls to the wall, do it when you're young.
That's a real understanding of longevity and screw.
That is exactly why SNL works, though, too.
Like, because you're 20, whatever you're, you know, it's like you put in the work then, because I remember taking a break from SNL, trying to quit my fifth year, then sort of coming back and then not being in the swing of things and doing a digital short and being like, oh my God, this is insanely hard.
Yes, when we've gone back since we all left, it feels insane.
Oh, so dumb.
And we're in the best shape of our lives.
Yeah.
Cut to a picture of all of our abs.
That's where it's a bummer.
We're not like doing video for this because Andy's been doing just a series of curls.
So fucking shredded.
Oh, I also, there's a little, there's sort of a patina of get in the cage in this film, Andy.
Is there?
I think like Spirit of the Wolf, the Eagle, you see the early threads of where this might go.
You do a very fun thing where you lay out the plan of how you're going to make the 50 grand.
A very nice round number for a heart transplant, I will note, or whatever it is that Frank needs.
It's 50 grand.
Well, you did note it at the end through Parnell, his conveniently priced surgery.
He made it in.
Who wrote that line?
Was that Seth that wrote that line?
Yeah, that's definitely a Seth line.
It's great.
I like that I forgot that I burned it then and felt the need to get it now.
And we happily included your burn in the final film.
In my head, though, it actually took place at Vancouver and nothing costs more than 50 grand medically in Canada.
So it's okay.
All right.
You're giving the plan.
You're telling everybody the plan.
A moment I forgot is the three dudes.
Bill's at work at an ice skating rink.
And it's sort of like these fast cuts, really fun.
The little vignettes are very well composed.
And then all of a sudden, it's the three minus Andy standing around a homeless dude.
And he's just telling them how they're going to go, collect cans.
Oh, right.
And then you come out and you sort of look at those three guys like, why are you listening?
Yeah.
They got lost in the montage.
Yeah.
they just knew they were listening to somebody talk, and then this guy was talking.
They just thought he was Andy, I guess.
Some other stuff that we're gonna do that was fun.
By the way, we got to shoot at the ice drink on the Zamboni and everything.
That was fucking cool.
Yeah, that was great.
We replaced that guy's voice, and I don't remember why.
He has an amazing voice.
It was very deep and very gravelly, and like the kind of voice you kill to get into a dramatic, like Deadwood type show.
It was like a garbled line, and then we're going to go through some cans.
And for some reason, every screening, the bit wasn't really playing and then somebody kind of can conjectured that it was because he was hard to understand because it was a little marble mouthed and so they were like will you adr him to see if it can play and then that's steve higgins and it's higgins yeah yeah and then we're gonna go to excuse me
one of you i know went back and got his talking money back from him right yeah we said now you're just an extra now your back rash
give us back your talking money these are back-to-back lonely island flourishes pretty close there's the i like to Party scene where Rod is introducing Denise to the crew.
He says, let's all tell her something about ourselves.
I'm Rod.
I like to party.
The three idiots don't understand.
Pretty much all try to say they also like to party.
That was one of the most like our brand of scene that we added.
It was so much fun.
Yeah.
It's doppelganger-esque structurally.
Right after it, you do a stunt in a pool where there's a bell to ring.
Yep, Sam.
That's also good.
When you ring the bell, you guys all start making bell noises.
They're very close together.
Back-to-back bangers.
Back-to-back bangers.
I remember that one when we rewrote it.
We were all doing it as we were rewriting, but then on set, when Jorm started making the sound, I remember being like, oh, this is going to be so delightful.
This sucks.
I feel like having the little sister that Bill's character gets to yell at might have been Bill's idea, like early on.
Yeah.
Enough time for us to be like, oh, that's really good.
Let's hire an actor.
And do the whole thing.
I wrote one of Bill's lines down with his little sister because she comes out being really cool and trying trying to give you guys juice.
Yeah, and he's immediately mean to her.
This is something that's happening while basically Rod is drowning in a pool.
His string to ring the bell has broken off.
So you needed to be distracted as Rod is thrashing about.
And she says, where do you want me to put these down?
And Bill says, you tell me, Brainiac.
It's your front yard, too.
By the way, the bell immediately rips off, correct?
Yes.
Yeah, immediately.
Immediately like, no matter what I do, do not open this door.
By the way, you're trying to stay underwater for 40 seconds and you start thrashing at like five.
Click, click, open the door.
Okay.
I have a question for Andy and York.
Well, I guess Steph, too, because you were probably there day one.
Do you guys remember that the party scene is the only scene we shot twice?
Do you remember we shot a very fast, scrappy version our first day?
On our first day, and we ran out of light and it was.
Well, it wasn't even on the schedule.
It was a bonus.
It was that we were so used to being really scrappy and just making days whenever we could and and just shooting, not worrying about what the backgrounds are of things because from the shorts and from our pre-SNL shorts where we would just make do.
So we were in the parking lot.
The first scene we shot was the scene that is near the beginning of the movie where you're like eating the jelly bellies in front of the burger spot.
That was the first day.
We had done the main scene that the movie was going to have, but we were like, I don't really need much more.
And we have 45 minutes.
And I was like, we have two cameras.
Can we just do iParty?
That scene can be anywhere.
And we just moved into the parking lot and shot a version and i remember watching it in dailies and being like wow that's really flat and annoying and is really not a good version of the scene and it looks like there's just kind of a wall behind you and then the other side is just a parking lot and it just feels like nothing it wasn't working and i remember being like oh man that was one of my favorite scenes does that scene suck and then they were like well you did it as bonus it's still on the schedule we didn't take it off the schedule i was like okay good but i remember feeling a little tinge of failure about it like a little worry right but it was such a benefit too because we added you on the heely's
in between them there.
And added, like, hey, why don't we make some stuff at the beginning of the scene to kind of what were Bill and Danny talking about while you're on the Heely's?
And it's all the talk about the wizards.
And
we even gave that to them, saying, Hey, come up with some stuff you guys could be saying.
Like, why don't you be describing a dream you had?
And we had like four different versions.
And I think the one that's in is just something Danny made up.
And it helped us learn how to like conceptualize a full scene and turned it into one of the best scenes, but it helped having messed up once.
Definitely.
And by the way, since that same day of shooting where we did the scene with the jelly beans, I can't really eat jelly beans.
It still kind of bums me out.
I remember how many we
actually ate was an insane amount.
This is you eating jelly bells and guessing the flavors.
The flavors.
And when we wrote it, I almost think, I am not positive, but I think it was my idea.
And I think it was because I loved jelly beans and like trying all the flavors.
And then after we had finished, because it was first day, so we overshot a little, which you always do on the first day of everything.
So the the price you pay for your art you know yeah it's like for people who don't think i'm a serious actor
this is one of the reasons i had trouble initially accepting you as a serious actor i've since changed my tune obviously you know that indie but you are pulled out of the pool and you throw up yes this is also you've already thrown up in the movie from the previous time yes so i paused because i at the time and today i know you to love a good piece of throw-up humor true we are now 23 minutes and 40 seconds into your first feature and you've puked twice.
Is this meant to be an insult?
I mean, there's just something about a dude being out of control of his own body that makes me laugh.
Oh, I mean, we're going to get to my favorite, one of my favorite digital shorts.
Again, in general, I will say.
I held on to a few things I didn't like about your style, Andy, and you just wore them all away until.
It's because Andy has the energy of a younger brother.
Yep.
I was going to say, youngest child.
It's all charm.
If you don't laugh, you're going to eventually.
And then finally, I remember watching you.
It's going to be later.
We're going to talk about this digital short.
It's that one where you get hit with a tennis ball and
they shoot a tennis ball at you.
It's right after you say,
I've been Darius Rucker Jr.
And you get hit in the balls with a tennis ball and you throw up.
And you throw up.
I just hate it so much.
I mean, I love it.
You You hate it and love it.
All right.
So I love the scene where you're, again, this is your training montage.
You're covered in mattresses and pillows and you're sneaking through the woods.
We don't know what you're sneaking for.
And then Rico hits you with a van.
And it's really funny when you think about it because the idea is your training thing was you're going to.
You're going to try to make it through the woods.
And so Rico is just driving through the woods, I guess, looking for you in a van and hits you full speed.
Was that already in it?
Is that an inherited from Pam?
Was that a Pam Brady?
Yeah, that was.
I thought so, yeah.
Again, you're starting to see why we were so excited about the movie to begin with because it was already super funny.
Super bonkers.
Yeah.
Yes.
I still don't know why they would let an actor in the car.
Crazy.
It's not dangerous to just be in a van.
No, I know, but it was just, it did seem weird to me that they were like, oh, yeah, sure.
I think the side we were shooting from, maybe we would see you.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't see it when I watch the movie, but you're not really looking at who's in the car.
But you never know.
We find out your dad died, was a stunt man.
He died, your biological father, yeah.
And one of my favorite lines in the movie: you talk about the stunt that went wrong, and you say he died instantly the next day.
Really good line.
The photo of him is Stephen Altman, who was our production designer, with an added mustache.
Yeah, Robert's son, yeah, Robert Altman's son.
One of the things that happens in the montage is that we see that you're posing for Frank, who's painting a portrait of you, and you think it's you doing cool stunts.
Yes.
And then he turns it around and you're getting humped by a horse.
Yes.
There were a few versions of that painting.
There's two.
But I mean, even before it got officially made.
Like, there was definitely one with like a giant horse dick like fucking rod at one point.
Yeah, there were some questions about the MPAA and how they would react and how much air we needed to, how much space between the crotch of the horse and how close it was and like how bugged out my eyes were.
And then we even got two painted.
Some of my favorites think just about Hollywood is the idea that that gets said, it gets sent to a bunch of lawyers.
And then people have to be like, well, I think we need another couple millimeters of space between.
I'd love to see some air between the pelvic reasons to know there's not a full horse dick.
I think it was like a, hey, if you don't move it back, you're going to get an R and you want this to be PG-13.
And they don't know that.
They're just guessing.
We retro.
We got two and we shot two, you know, because it's just that single shot.
It's easy to swap the paintings.
So the painter made two real ones.
They're real paint on canvas.
I'm looking at it right now.
It says, I'm an idiot.
That's what Andy's character is saying.
And this one is not the one that's in the movie, the one we have.
So this one, I believe, has a little more space between butt and horse crotch.
So we went with closer.
Yeah, because we put it in the movie and no one said anything.
So then it was fine.
And that one is hanging proudly at Broadway Video SNL Lauren's office.
At least it was for years in his Paramount office.
I know they've moved to Beverly Hills.
I am not sure that it made the trip or not.
I feel like it has because I've seen it recently.
That had to be there, right?
That must be where.
Lauren loves hot rod.
Proof.
Lauren does love hot rod.
The really funny thing is, just a few scenes later, you walk into Kevin's room, enormous character.
That's my guy.
And he wants to show you something he's editing.
And the first thing that comes up is a video of two dogs humping.
Yeah.
It's like he has an open tab.
You guys have this long, long conversation about what you can get away with the MPA.
That's what Kevin likes.
That footage is just licensed from the Robert Altman film, The Long Goodbye.
It's literally in the...
Is that right?
Yeah.
Wait, are you serious?
Yeah.
It's in the movie with Elliot Gould.
I wonder whose idea it was to use that clip, Nepo Baby.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I wonder if we got the rights because we had, you know, greased the family wheel, if you, so to speak.
Altman wasn't just handing out that dog humping footage to anyone.
No, you had to write a letter at least.
I also want to pat us on the back for 2006 knowing that like open tabs on your browser when you're going to share your screen is a scenario that you have to be wary of when this is way before sharing a screen was even a possibility, except for in real life.
Now it's something everybody knows.
Like if you're about to share your screen, make sure there's no weird stuff on your desktop.
This predates that as a thing.
And Kevin says that's something else.
Is that right?
Yeah.
That's something else he's working on.
Something else he's working on.
I think.
Now, here's a line I still don't understand.
Maybe I don't know.
I decided not to Google it.
Okay.
Because you then say to Kevin, you're very impressed because he's edited together some of your stunts.
You think it looks rad.
You say you're a regular Douglas Bubble Trousers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's just a fake Akiva name.
Yeah.
That's just their favorite filmmaker.
A generic director.
But we, the audience, are supposed to think Douglas Bubble Trousers is a famous director in this universe.
You get it, right?
You do get it.
It's clearly a famous director.
Or maybe editor.
Yeah, yeah.
I think Rod's a bit of a film file.
In the rewatch, you not winking at it.
There's not a moment.
It just goes so fast.
You're a regular regular Douglas bubble trousers.
Yeah.
Well, also the video has been bouncing around the web faster than a beach ball at a Nickelback concert.
So more than a beach ball at a Nickelback concert.
But that's an actual quote in an article about how popular your early digital shorts were.
I think that was about Lazy C.
Yeah.
We read that and we were like, ooh, yeah.
Did that, whoever wrote the article ever comment on that?
I don't think they should know.
I hope they know.
We should look it up and let them know to listen to this episode of the podcast.
There's a chance like in the middle of a press junket at some point someone did you know what i mean and we're just zombies that don't retain information yeah i hope no one thinks i'm picking up the pace here with the things or details or plot points from this movie i'm just picturing that scene now do you want to talk about the whoopee boys at all oh yeah the whoopee boys is a movie yeah and it's a poster that's up in yorma and kevin's bedroom he's clearly a big fan of the whoopee boys film the whoopee boys i only know because i worked in a video store and i feel like there was a whoopee boys poster like up in the video store at some point.
It's an amazing poster that's one of those 80s posters that's clearly been hand-painted to look photoreal.
And it's of two men who are mooning you, but they have their boxers up.
So their pants are around their ankles and they're facing away from you, bent over at the waist, looking back.
And it's like a screwball, dirty, R-rated animal house style comedy.
Yeah, they're like fun time scamps, you know?
Yeah.
And we had never seen it.
But when we were saying that, you know, Kevin's character is someone who edits film and, you know, always has his video camera and that's his thing he's into movies he should have some movie posters up in his room paramount was like we'll get some that we can approve and the ones that were coming were like jimmy neutron boy genius and we were like no no and then one was the whoopee boys and we were like what is this because we had never even heard of it we just knew it was this incredible poster so we put it up in the room and talked about it a lot and there was a lot of improvs that didn't make it in the movie did any whoopee boys no whoopee boys made it in right no but but there was a lot of like i mean this is this could be the next whoopee boys boys.
He was like, no, but
you got
whoa.
You think?
Nothing's bigger than the whoopie boys.
Slow down, Rod.
And but we talked about it so much.
And Seth, I don't think you were there the night this happened because you came and went a little bit once we were off to the races.
You would have remembered this.
But we talked about it so much.
And then John Goldwyn was Lauren's producing partner at the time.
He was the kind of head of Lauren's Paramount movie making company.
And he was on set the whole time.
And we kept bringing it up to him.
And he, you know, is from samuel goldwin like mgm goldwin so he knows everything and he used to work at paramount as an exec and he knew a lot about the movie and we were like could you get us a screening of it and he got a 35 millimeter print shipped to vancouver and on a saturday night we rented out a movie theater yeah and invited anybody from the crew who wanted to come to a real movie screening of the whoopee boys 20 something years after it had come out.
And we pre-did it like a premiere.
We got a limousine.
We got limos.
Oh, yeah.
and we all did Jaeger bomb shots I believe because
McBride that summer was obsessed with Jaeger bombs so we had like a Jaeger bomb stand outside the theater
and we all watched and only like 20 of us I don't think a lot of people took us up on the offer but it was McBride and us and just watched and like had a bit of a mystery science theater like yelling up at the screen wonderful evening yeah and Goldwyn to his credit gave a beautiful preamble sort of explaining the history of the movie why it got green lit like what that summer what paramount needed in the slate and how there was a window and how they had made like he gave us the inside baseball.
There was an opening schedule.
Enter the whoopee boys.
And like what overall deals they had with some of the talent in the movie and how they needed a vehicle for them and what the producer had done last and just really set it up.
You know, I just remember having a great night.
This is not me recommending people go rent the whoopie boys.
No, no, it was just a magical evening that came together beautifully.
And now we just take care of our kids.
Yep.
There you go.
The thing that's equal now is just seeing a smile on my children's face.
You know, fills me with that same whoopee boys, Jaeger bomb joy.
That's how I get off socially.
One of the things I'm happiest about is at this point, it's almost impossible to imagine this podcast will be shorter than the running time of Hot Rod.
Is it possible that we do two episodes of this?
Hey guys, this is Seth just cutting it off here.
Believe it or not, Hot Rod was less than 90 minutes long.
The podcast about Hot Rod was so long we had to cut it into two parts.
So this is the end of part one.
But part two is the cliffhanger where we find out: was it a huge box office success?
Don't miss that.
We're all still here, Seth.
Why are you talking like we're not?
I think we know now why it took so long.
It was that segue.