Speaker 1: This is a podcast from Minute Media.
Speaker 2: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Shirley You Can't
Be Serious podcasts. Jason and I are on a cargo
plane full of rubber dog out of Hong Kong. Jeez,
I cracked myself out. Welcome back to Shirley fans, Jason,
Shirley fans are the top fans. You are the best
of the best, and this episode we'll make them better. Guys,
have we got an episode for you today? We have
the breakout movie for multiple actors, the breakout movie for
a pair of producers that are arguably the biggest blockbuster
producers of all times, that ultimately ends in a fiery
crash when a naked rehab doctor is found dead of
a drug overdose in Don Simpson's poolhouse. Is this going
to be an exciting episode or what?
Speaker 3: I can't wait to hear that story because I have
not come across that in my research. Okay, d I
should talk about how we sorry, sorry we Yeah, they
should talk about how this episode has been postponed three times, three.
Speaker 2: Times because this movie was supposed to come out in
twenty twenty and then COVID and then twenty and twenty
one and still COVID. And now finally, week from today,
when you guys are listening to this, we will be
watching Top Gun Maverick, the long awaited sequel to Top Gun.
Speaker 3: It's going to be fantastic. The reviews are already spectacular. Yes,
so call it the movie of the year. Really, yes, wow,
best picture of the year is what I've seen.
Speaker 2: So, guys, next week we are going to give you
our take. We're going to we are reviewing this movie
for you. We are going to see it before it
is released to the general public, and we will tell
you are the critics right or are they wrong? I
think we're gonna love it either way.
Speaker 3: Probably probably, So all right, hey, I will tell you
this people, if you're listening to this podcast today, this
is all Top Gun nineteen eighty six. Okay, so there's
no spoilers in this episode. Now, next week, when we
talk about Top Gun Maverick, we're going to give you
a preview.
Speaker 2: We're gonna give you.
Speaker 3: Kind of the history. Yeah, and then we'll tell you
at certain point that this is the spoiler zone. Okay, right,
you're entering the highway to the spoiler zone. Okay, go
all right, So come back next week. Listen to us,
and we'll give you plenty of room to hit the
eject button and then you can see it on your own.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, So let us start with the amazing pairing
of two of the most iconic producers of the eighties
and nineties. I can't wait to hear your Sins and
Bruckheimer stuff here. Okay. So, Jerry Bruckheimer was mister outside
and Don Simpson was mister inside. Okay, They're both born
about the same time, different places. Jerry Brookheimer came up
in Detroit. Don Simpson was born in Seattle, ended up
being raised in Juno a last, and knowing what you
know about his life, you will be surprised to find
out that he considered himself a straight a Bible student.
His parents were devout Baptists. He went to church four
to five times per week, knew the Bible backwards and forwards,
but it didn't stick.
Speaker 3: I guess Don Simpson, Don Simpson mister cocaine and hookers.
Speaker 2: Mister cocaine and hookers. So Don Simpson, raised in Alaska
under this straight laced conservative household, ultimately leaves and becomes
a ski instructor in Utah. Then he moves on to
San Francisco, where he gets into theatrical advertising and does
pr for the first International Erotic Film Festival. All right,
you can see that too, knowing what we know about him,
and ultimately he ends up in La marketing for the
Warner Brothers exploitation films, including Woodstock, the documentary on Woodstock. Okay,
you know, like Martin Scorsese and the other guys when
they were nobody's at that time, right, and a movie
you might have heard of called a Clockwork Orange. Yeah,
for sure. Now, Bruckheimer, let's just just take a pause,
just for a second. Let's let me throw this out here. Flashdance,
Beverly Hills, Cop Top Gun, The Rock, Crimson Tide, Conair, Armageddon,
Enemy of the State, Black Hawk Down, Bad Boys Franchise,
Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise, National Treasure one and two,
the CSI series, all of them, Cold Case, The Amazing Race,
all from Jerry Brookheim. He's got the golden touch. In
high school, he was a stamp collector. He liked photography
and stamps. He went to school, got a psychology major
from the University of Arizona. He also went to work
for an advertising agency that did commercials for Pontiac, Gto
and Pepsi, and he decided, Hey, I'm going to go
out to Hollywood start working with some directors. One of
the guys he worked with was Dick Richards, who did
Toutsie and Heat. Yeah, hadn't done much at that point,
but in nineteen seventy three, some important events happened. Number one,
he meets Don Simpson. Okay, Number two, Don Simpson, it's
a job at Paramount. And then number three, a experienced
pilot named Peter Pettigrew was released from active duty as
a naval pilot. All of these things happen in nineteen
seventy three. Yes, even though they met back in seventy three,
they didn't start working together until later. Don Simpson gets
a job at Paramount. He co writes a movie with
Paul Bartel, who had done Death Race two thousand. Yeah,
you know what the movie is that they co wrote,
No Cannonball, not Cannonball Run, but the original Cannonball with
Keith Grodine.
Speaker 3: Or whatever his name is really really.
Speaker 2: Seventy five they wrote that. By seventy seven, Don Simpson
is the VP of Production. By nineteen eighty one, he
is president of Paramount and in nineteen eighty two he
gets fired because he has passed out on drugs in
the middle of a meeting.
Speaker 3: I read that too, But.
Speaker 2: Michael Aisner Jeffrey Cassenberg know that he's a talented guy.
He's just obviously struggling with a drug issue. Before he
became known as Mister Inside, he was known as don
I've got some good blow for you upstairs Simpson. So
because Eisner and Katzenberg are really fond of him, really
think he's got some talent, he just can't lead this company.
They say, hey, we want you to stay on as
a producer, and they give him the movie Flash Dance,
and that is when he goes and finds his friend
Jerry Bruckheimer and says, can you help me out with us?
Speaker 3: Flash Dance was one of the first times you took
great imagery and paired it up with the MTV rock
and roll music video type of feel. They hit it
big with Flash Dance, right, So that.
Speaker 2: Was really the first big hit for both of them.
And in nineteen eighty four they come out with Beverly
Hills Cop.
Speaker 3: By the Way, before we move on, Yeah, just please
no charismatic people, charismanic characters. You know, interesting stories, great soundtracks, rock.
Speaker 2: And roll, high energy, and action is almost what Don
Simpson's life was. Yeah it's true, right, yeah, I mean
it says though he could pick that out, he wanted
to live that life and he wanted to make those movies.
At the same time they're making these movies. Don Simpson
goes to the dentist. He picks up a magazine in
the dentist's office, Are you kidding? And he flips to
this article that's written by elid You nay, that's about
the top was that guy's name again, elid yone? Okay?
And it's about the top gun flight school in Miramar, California.
Before he even goes in to have his teeth worked on,
he gets the phone and calls the guy who wrote
the article and says, this is awesome. I want to
do this as a movie. Can I buy it from you?
Speaker 4: Wow?
Speaker 2: The guy seems interested. He goes to Katzenberg and Eisner
and says, hey, this is going to be like Star
Wars here on Earth? Will you let me do this movie?
And they give him like three or four hundred thousand
dollars to buy the script and to hire the writers.
Speaker 3: Incredible.
Speaker 2: He's fascinated by the call names of these guys. You've
got Hollywood, You've got Radio, You've got.
Speaker 3: Rat and all kinds of viper and all these guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's also fascinated by like the reflection and the
helmets and just the imagery of what looked like space
fighters here in the blue skies of the world.
Speaker 3: Star Wars on Earth. How can you go wrong with that?
Speaker 2: So ultimately, how you can go wrong is they release
a television series about aviators from the nineteen fifties that
totally tanks, and the guys at Paramount freak out and
they put the script in Turnaround. So at this point,
Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson go to Michael Aisner and
Jeffrey Katzenberg and they're begging them not to put the
script in Turnaround. Don Simpson literally gets down on his
hands and knees and begs and if you know Don Simpson,
that's pretty impressive. Right. Yeah, They were impressed, and they
decided to let them keep it going, and they gave
them fourteen million dollars to shoot it.
Speaker 3: See, Okay, this is crazy, because I did hear that
they were impressed by their enthusiasm, Like, if these guys
believe in this project that much, we've got to let
them do this.
Speaker 2: So the guys that they hired to write this movie
were Jack Epps and Jim Cash. And the impression that
I got was that these guys were really on fire
at the time. And I looked and Jack Epps has
like some TV writing credits and Jim Cash has no
writing credits before Top Gun. So I don't know how
it is that these two guys were the guys that
they wanted to use. You got any insight on them?
Speaker 3: I was just gonna say Bruckheimer, I saw his interview
and he said they felt like Cash and Epps were
the best writers in the business at that moment, and
for them not to have any credits, I was like, Wow,
that's a really curious thing to say. But it turns
out that Cash and Epps had written these four or
five or six screenplays they just couldn't get anything made.
But their screenplays were really good.
Speaker 2: They were hot to have them right, and they were
hot to have something made.
Speaker 3: Yes, And I got to throw in a quick plug
in for our over at the Film By podcast. Okay,
So Brad and Jeff film by podcast, Hey Jeff, They
focus on a movie in nineteen eighty six about every
two or three weeks. Anyway, They actually invited me, I'm
coming over there. I'm gonna do an episode on Legal Eagles.
I was watching Legal Eagles the other day right there,
right after Robert Redford. It's like a screenplay by Cash
and Epps.
Speaker 2: There you go. So. Jim Cash was a three time
college dropout who drops back into college at Michigan State University,
gets his bachelor's degree in English, and then he goes
and gets a master's degree in television and radio, and
he becomes a professor. He's teaching over in Michigan, Okay.
And as it turns out, he never goes to California.
Like his entire life, he didn't go over there. A
few years after he starts teaching, he has a young
student named Jack Apps Junior, who does go out to California,
and I'm guessing he gets out there and he's like, hey,
professor Jim right they Professor Cash, I'm out here. You've
got great writing abilities. Why don't we work together on
these scripts? That they would talk to each other on
the phone for hours and hours. Epps was the guy
who was there in Hollywood doing all of the deals,
and just Jim stayed over in Michigan and had a happy,
quiet little life as he wrote these amazing screenplays.
Speaker 3: I heard Jack Apps talk about when they offered him
Top Gun, he said he wanted to ride it because
he was a private pilot and he was hoping to
get a jet ride.
Speaker 2: So they've got the writers, they've got the budget. Now
we've got to have a director, and they can't find
anybody who they feel comfortable doing the aerial footage. Like
the most recent well done aerial footage they can find
is like Howard Hawks from like back in the fifties
and sixties. It's nothing's good has been done in years,
and so they're like, Okay, well, let's just start looking
at directors. And one of the portfolios that they look
at is from this guy named Tony Scott.
Speaker 3: Tony Scott is the younger brother of Ridley Scott.
Speaker 2: Yeah, work together with him at the company that they
had together that we talked about in our Alien episode
that did advertisements before they started making movies. That's right.
Speaker 3: I also have in my notes that they went to
John Carpenter and David Cronenberg to see if they wanted
to direct a top gun. Okay, here's the interesting thing,
just a little interesting coincidence. We're about to cover a
movie by John Carpenter, Ridley Scott, you know, and today
is Tony Scott.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, Tony had only done one movie and it
was The Hunger. And we've talked about vampire movies, you
and I quite a bit.
Speaker 3: I love vampire movies.
Speaker 2: And one of the movies that I said, hey, here's
one I've never seen this, have you seen it? It
was The Hunger. Yeah, how'd you feel about The Hunt?
Speaker 3: That movie sucks so incredibly boring.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you are not alone in your assessment of that movie.
Everybody thought The Hunger sucked. And Tony Scott couldn't get
a job in Hollywood for four years, but he was
still doing advertising and one of the things that he
was doing advertising for was the SOB car Saab SOB car. Right.
His commercial involved the SOB in a sort of race
with a contemporary Fighter jet. I saw this commercial and
it's cool looking. Oh, it's way cool. I remember the
commercial from when I was a kid. As it turned out,
it was the best aerial footage they could find of anybody,
and so they said, hey, Tony, how about you come
direct this movie for us? Now. His idea initially was
to have it be like Apocalypse now on the seat,
and they're like, no, that's not it. And it took
a lot of back and forth, a lot of back
and forth, and finally he just wakes up one morning
and he's like, Okay, I think I got it. Now
it's got to be a rock video in the sky.
And he called he said, how about rock video in
the sky and Jerry Bruckheimer and Donald Simpson are like, yes,
you figured it out, that's it, and so they tag
him to direct the movie. He was fired three times
during this I know three times. The first time is
for filming that opening sequence in slow motion. Yes, he's
He's like, I filmed several sequences. I kind of wanted
slow motion. I knew they didn't, but I wanted a
slow motion bit. So I filmed like five reels and
one of them was slow motion, and the camera guys
sent my slow motion to them and they fired me. Fortunately,
they were hired me within twenty four hours. And he
goes and then I decided to make Kelly McGillis look
like a whore, and they said, you're fired. I know, Okay,
well it's got to be for sure. This time at
they rehired him again. Toned down, how slutty she looked, right.
And the third time he got fired was because he
was shooting scenes with the guys with their visors down.
Speaker 3: The actors.
Speaker 2: Yes, the actors, and they hired the actors because of
their face. Yes, and so it was not he said
once again, I had shot multiple reels with the mask up,
shot one reel with the mask down, and of course
the cameramen send in the one with the mask down.
I got fired again. I think the cameramen were against
me on this. Now.
Speaker 3: One of the things I think is vitally important to
this project is that Paramount got the US Navy on board.
That's a huge key. For instance, you go watch Iron
Eagle about a teenager who steals a jet away from
the Navy. Oh, the Navy's like bull crab, We're not
signing on boy in no way, right, We're not putting
our name on this.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Instead, they work in collaboration with the Navy, and all
of a sudden you get access to real jets you
get access to real flying, you get a top gun
and it's pilots.
Speaker 2: Now you think about the budget on this movie of
fourteen million dollars, I think it ended up being close
to sixteen, but still a sixteen million dollars movie that
you've got real, live f fourteen footage, I mean exploding
planes in the sky. It's amazing that it was done
for this budget. But the deal was with the Navy
when they got them to buy in. The Navy didn't
charge them for anything except fuel. But if you get
all of those shots, plus if the Navy was doing
aerial work anyway, they could film it and it was nothing.
It was no cost to the Navy, and so you
get this amazing footage for pennies. Yes, it's incredible.
Speaker 3: In fact, the Navy wanted a technical advisor on the
set at all times make sure these guys do it right.
But they couldn't have anybody in active service. They'd been
burned during the movie the Final Countdown. Yea and the
CEO of the base got in trouble for giving access
to maybe some top secret stuff on accident, and it
was just a bad deal, and so they needed to
hire a non active duty technical advisor.
Speaker 2: Right. So, when Tony had gotten the job, he thought, Okay,
I'm going to go do some research. He goes down
to Miramar to do research at the top Gun facility,
talk to the top gun pilots. This is where he
meets Pete Pettigrew, who I mentioned earlier. Now Pete was
a former top gun aviator. Ultimately becomes a consultant on
the film after Tony spends several days hanging out, talking
and drinking together. Let me give a little backstory on
Pete Pettigrew because I had to go look. Okay, yeah, yeah.
So he goes to Stanford. He's an All American in
both swimming and water polo. He was on the nineteen
sixty three National Championship water polo team. He graduates Stanford
in nineteen sixty four and of course immediately goes into
the Navy. Enters flight training in November sixty four, and
by June of sixty six he is given his Naval
aviator status. He is highly decorated. He flew in over
three hundred and seventy five combat missions, and in nineteen
seventy he is picked to join the fledgling Navy Fighter
Weapons school as an instructor. Can you give me a
little snippet on this weapon school?
Speaker 3: On March third, nineteen sixty nine, the United States Navy
established an elite school for the top one percent of
its pilots. Its purpose was to teach the lost art
of aerial combat and to ensure that the handful of
men who graduated were the best fighter pilots in the world.
They succeeded. Today, the Navy calls it Fighter Webons School.
The flyers call it top.
Speaker 2: Gun of it. I love it. So. Pete Pettigrew came
in in nineteen seventy when it's brand new YEP, and
is an instructor there until January of seventy two. In
May of seventy two, he and his wingman engage four
North Vietnamese MiGs over Vietnam. He takes out one, his
leader takes out the other one, and the other two
go away. They knocked out, They bug out.
Speaker 3: They bug out.
Speaker 2: Not one enemy shot is fired.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: So Pete Pettigrew, one of the original instructors there is
still over there in the eighties. Whenever Tony Scott comes over,
you know his call sign is by the way I
do Viper. It's the reason that Tom Skerritt's character is
named Viper, and it's also the reason why Pete Mitchell
Maverick's character is named Pete instead of Evan exactly. So,
right before he started working, he was still obviously there.
He's still in the reserves, he's still helping out and
doing stuff. He was also compeding in Ironman Triathlons before
it was even really a thing over in Honolulu, and
he has a part in the movie. Yeah, he does.
So when Kelly McGillis, you know, has to leave to
go meet with her date, he's the date.
Speaker 3: He's the older guy.
Speaker 2: He's the old man. I'm watched this movie, I'm like,
why is she with that old dude? And then I
just started thinking, I'm like, he was in his mid
forties at that time. That makes me an old dude.
At this point.
Speaker 3: He's in his mid forties, he's competing in triathlons. He's
a awesome super pilot, smart guy, and he's the he's
the old man.
Speaker 2: Twenty fourteen, he was a part of a swim relay
group that's seventy plus year old guys, all of them
who swam across the Catalina show. God. He is a
bad ass among bad asses. He really is, and I
see why they named Viper after him. He is the
elite and the elite. He's the best of the best.
Speaker 3: I did hear Rick Rossovich talked about when you hang
out with these top gun pilots. He said, he's talking
to guys they're the best fighter pilots in the world.
And the guy said, well, yeah, I'm a great fighter pilot,
but I'm also a concert pianist. Oh I'm also studying,
got my doctorate in philosophy. He's like, these guys are
just extra super talented people.
Speaker 2: Yep. And probably they go hand in hand. Ultra competitive,
mega competitive. An important note, an unrealistic part of this
movie is the Top Gun trophy, right, and Pete Pettigrew said,
if there had been an actual trophy, no one would
have survived the Top Gun School because they would have
all killed each other trying to That's how competitive they are.
That's awesome. So a couple of the other guys that
were involved. You had Scott Altman, whose call sign was Scooter. Okay. Now,
Scott Altman was the guy who you see given the
bird to the meg at the beginning of the movie. Okay,
and buzzing the tower was one forbidden like it did
not happen, Like, if you did that in real life,
hand in your wings, you're done. You're never gonna get again.
But they had to have it for the movie, and
so he's like, well, I guess we have to have
it for the movie. And so he is the first
guy to actually buzz the tower. He ended up doing
it nine times, but the first time they didn't know
it was coming. That is awesome. Actually got in trouble
and it wasn't that the guy just spilled his coffee.
They blew the windows out of the eyes. That's fantastic.
Speaker 3: Hey, I did hear that? Michael Ironside, the guy who
plays Jester, said that he was in a hangar. He's like,
I was in the hangar. I was like upstairs in
the hangar because those things aren't very tall, and I
saw that tom Cat below me, and he's like, it's
the craziest thing I'd ever seen. And in fact, by
the time he had done it several times, people were
gathering in the streets, going, what the f is going
on here? They thought that some fire pilot had gone crazy.
And was like, this is my last flight and I'm
gonna go out in a ball of fire.
Speaker 2: So that was Scott Scooter Altman, who would go on
after the movie to become a NASA astronaut, the guy
who buzzed the tower, the guy who had them watch
the birdie.
Speaker 3: You know finger.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry, just does that. Yes, he became an astronaut
at the NASA program in space. That is fantastic.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: One other pilot that I have to talk about is
Art Shoal. Yeah, we definitely need to talk about him.
So Art Shoal was a guy who had educated himself
as a pilot, got his master's in aviation, was a teacher,
had taught aviation for eighteen years, felt like he was stagnating,
and that said, after eighteen years of teaching, like I'm
gonna go be a stunt pilot. Yeah, and then he
did it for the next thirty years. Like every major
aviation film that you've seen, Art Shoal was almost certainly
a part of it. He did air shows, he did movies,
he did television commercials. Over two hundred films, documentaries and
TV commercials just for Art Shoal. So the original script
had a flat spin in that they wanted to get
footage for right and Arshall was like, no problem, I'll
go back up. And he had been shooting all day long,
and of course was one of those like you know,
you don't really need to go do this. He's like, no,
I'm good, I'm gonna do this. I'll get it, we'll
be done. So he goes up over the Pacific Ocean,
goes into his flat spin and then they hear him
say I have a problem. And then he says I
have a big problem. And that's the last day ever
hear of him. It never recovered his plane or his body. Yeah,
so this movie was dedicated to his memory because he
lost his life in filming it.
Speaker 3: I heard that he was filming like second unit stuff.
Oh yeah, like stuff to be projected behind Tom Cruise
while he's you know, in the in the fake cockpit.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, yeah, just.
Speaker 3: Just junk stuff, not even screenworthy stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: That was a bummer.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's flip back to Jack Epps for just a second.
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay.
Speaker 3: We talked about how he was interested in this because
he was a commercial pilot and he was hoping to
get a jet right out of it.
Speaker 2: They brought him down.
Speaker 3: To San Diego and he started hanging out with navy pilots. Now,
I called you the other day we were in. I
was in and I'm like, okay, I've got this thing
figured out. So one of the things that he found
out when he was hanging out with these pilots is
that they have a language all their own. So sitting
at the bar with these guys and they're talking about
you know, ACM and you know, I got the RIO
in the back, and he's like, I don't even know
what these words mean, but they do, and they all
speak the same language. And he said, it was a
conscious decision. Do we try and like explain this to
the audience or they just put the pedal down and
hope that the audience can keep up.
Speaker 2: Just drop them in the middle of it. Just drop
them in the middle of it.
Speaker 3: And so that's why you have RIO. And not once
do they ever say Radio intelligence officer, You're just expected
to keep up. So he gets his jet flight, he
gets in there and he realizes when there's you start
pulling four or five gs, He's like, right, you know
it beat you to death's And he started to realize
this is a super physical job. He goes, this is
about aerial combat maneuvers, but really what it's about is sports.
He said, this is the great greatest sporting event I've
ever been a part of. At that moment, he decided,
all these guys are going to be stud athletes.
Speaker 2: You have to have the trophy in order for it
to be a sports movie, which is why they took
that little deviation.
Speaker 3: You know, when they were talking to Pete Pedigrew that,
you know, all of his Navy guys are like, Pedigrew, what,
what in the world They've got a Navy trophy? What
are you crazy? He's like, guys, I'm just trying to
keep them from making it a musical at this point.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, they had a story and the b story,
and one was the flying and the jets and the competition,
and the other was the love story. And they kept
realizing that the love story kept growing and growing, Like
oh my gosh, yeah, Berlin song in here before too.
Speaker 3: I can't wait to talk.
Speaker 2: About the soundtracks here in a second. Yeah, so listen
to this.
Speaker 3: So when Ebbs turned into screenplay to Don Simpson and Bruckheimer,
they said it was the greatest screenplay they had ever seen.
Epps was like, this was music to my ears. Yeah,
every screenwriter wants to hear this. But then Pedigrew read
it and he's like, I know, the Navy's not gonna
make this. There's absolutely no way they're going to go
for this.
Speaker 2: A key reason that the Navy didn't want to be
involved with Hollywood is for the last twenty years, Hollywood
had been against the army. I mean we're talking about
Vietnam era, We're talking about Yeah, the military was not
portrayed in a favorable light at all, and a few
of the artists and actors who were involved, are almost involved,
didn't become involved because they thought it was a pro
war movie, and it kind of was. It was. This
was a flag waving, chest pumping I'm an American, let's
go kick ass movie.
Speaker 3: It absolutely is.
Speaker 2: Which was unlike anything had been for probably thirty years.
That's very true.
Speaker 3: So the Navy was in a little bit of a dilemma.
They needed some positive propaganda. And of course Simpson and
Bruckheimer are you know, balls out cowboys, so.
Speaker 2: Right, So Pedtigrew knew that the Navy.
Speaker 3: Wouldn't go for it because Goose's death in the original
script caused for a in air collision.
Speaker 2: Yep, okay, yeah.
Speaker 3: So he goes to him and he's like, guys, Navy's
not going to go for this and in their collision,
no way. We are absolute competent pilots. This would not happen,
no chance. And they're like, well, okay, Goose needs to die.
Help us out, okay, right, Goose needs to die. Mavericks
needs to feel responsible, but the Navy can't hold him accountable, okay.
And so Pettigrew's like, okay, let's see here, and he's
going through this list of accidents in his head. He
comes to one where a guy flew through a jetwash
that he couldn't see it caused his jet to spin
in a flat spin.
Speaker 2: Guy's name was Gary Barrett. Bean was his call name,
bean Bean. And so here's the interesting story. They'd never
fully explain the flat spin and jet and Goose's death.
Speaker 3: Okay, I've seen a thousand times now, it really makes
sense to me. So when the plane spins on its jaw,
the centrifugal force throws the pilot forward, and if you
look in the movie, Maverick's face is pressed against the
glass up front, he can't reach the ejection handles behind him,
and since the Rio is closer to the center of
the spin, it's easier for him to grab the ejection.
Speaker 2: Cords or whatever.
Speaker 3: But when you eject, there's two parts to it. There's
one the blast off of the canopy and then the
second is the ejection seat. And they always tell the Rio,
don't panic, make sure the canopy clears.
Speaker 2: Before you eject.
Speaker 3: Well, pe Pettigrew remembered a specific accident that happened where
the Rio pulled the ejector seat too quickly because there's
a low pressure spot above the plane and that canopy
wants to hover right there. And so absolutely positively happened
in real life Goose's accident.
Speaker 2: Now, I don't know if the guy died, but he didn't.
They walked away from the accident. One of them broke
a leg, but they were able to get away without
more significant injury.
Speaker 3: Now, here's my funny story about call signs, right, Okay, Yeah,
So I just got back from a trip with my
buddy Doug Huggin.
Speaker 2: Doug's a listener.
Speaker 3: He's excited about our top Gun episode, and so he
has a call sign right his name is Doug Huggin.
I said, what's your call sign? He says, Huggy right, okay,
and he said he got off light right, uh huh.
He knew somebody in the Navy and his call sign
was Skip. He said, think of your worst mistake and
think of a funny name involving that, and that's how
you get your call sign.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: So these cool names like Maverick and you know, Iceman
and all this stuff. His buddy's name was Skip because
he landed one time a little bit hard and went
like bounced off the ground.
Speaker 2: So yeah, they noted in the commentary the fighter pilots
who were involved with the movie noted, you absolutely cannot
give yourself your own call sign. Yeah, because one guy
tried to do it and give himself the call sign
of Shark, and he was Mino for the rest of
his career.
Speaker 4: I could totally see that.
Speaker 3: So one of the things that you said is that
paramount when they went to Katzenberg and they got on
the ground, they kissed his foot and they said, please, please, please,
we're begging you to keep this alive. Well it didn't happen.
The picture died right, and it sat until the was
turnover at Paramount. When the new management came in, they
went to lunch with Simpson and Bruckheimer and they said, well,
what do you guys got We got nothing in the pipeline.
Speaker 2: What do you have?
Speaker 3: First thing out of his mouth, he's like, well, we've
got this thing called top Gun and it's about airplanes
and fighter pilots and it's amazing and we love it
and we want to do it. The guy said how
much and he said fourteen million. Guy said go for it.
It was dead until new management took over and he
said the right word, fourteen million.
Speaker 2: Right. Okay, So we've got the director, got the script, yep,
we've got the money, yep. Who are we going to
put in the movie?
Speaker 3: So Jack Apps went to Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer
and said, guys, while I'm writing this, I'm thinking Tom Cruise.
Tom Cruise got his first movie in Endless Love. Then
in nineteen eighty three he did The Outsiders with Patrick
Swayze and see Thomas Howell and Emilia Estavez and Robblow.
Speaker 2: We're going to cover that next.
Speaker 3: Year, right, They needed risky business. And then he did
all the right moves and then he died legend with
Ridley Scott Ye and so Jack Apps kept pushing for
him to be the guy. But here's the list of
all most Mavericks.
Speaker 2: You want to hear.
Speaker 3: You want to hear the list of almost Mavericks.
Speaker 2: I do, okay.
Speaker 3: Some of these I was like, yeah, I don't know.
This is just kind of a list of everybody at
the time. Some of them, I'm like, wait.
Speaker 2: A minute, what, So here you go.
Speaker 3: Matthew Modine was the closest one.
Speaker 2: He was one of those guys who said pro war movie,
I'm out. So he does full metal jacket. Well, in
full metal jacket, he's an anti warman. It is. It
is absolutely yes, it is. Okay.
Speaker 3: So here's the other guys they had in mind. Tom
Hanks in nineteen eighty six, Michael J. Fox, Sean Penn,
Matthew Broderick, Nicholas Cage, Emilieu Stevez.
Speaker 2: So far, he's the closest one I could see to
be in Maverick. But still Billy the Kid in an
F fourteen. Sure I could go for that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, John Hughes, Patrick Swayze, Scott Bao, Scott Bayo. Then
you've got other names like Kevin Bacon, Eric Stoltz, Rob
Low Charlie Sheen at age eighteen, too young.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, but man has the right look.
Speaker 3: Then he does todper Harley a couple of years later
in Hot Shots.
Speaker 2: Right, Jim Carrey, What.
Speaker 3: Jim Carrey is a name on the list. No, Jim Carrey.
Speaker 2: In eighty five they've got they're looking at Jim Carrey. Yeah,
that's nuts.
Speaker 3: And then ready for this one, uh huh, get your
disco shoes on, John Travolta.
Speaker 2: That makes sense. Honestly, he was still very young at
that time. Yeah, right, age to be a fighter pilot
for sure. Yep. Yeah, totally could see that, but he
was too expensive. I could also see that he was
the number one box office draw Okay, last one for you. RDJ.
Robert Downey Jr. Oh wow, yeah I can see that too,
Tony Stark, Yeah I could. So they kept revising the script,
and every time they would revise the script, they'd send
it to Tom Cruise and go, what do you think?
Because he was the guy all those other guys, he
was always the guy that they wanted, yes, and he
never would commit.
Speaker 3: He expressed some interest, but they could never get him
to sort.
Speaker 2: Of sign it on the dotted line, right, And so
finally Jerry Bruckhmmer's like, we're gonna get this kid up
in the air. Yep calls his buddy at the Naval
aviation He's like, when the Blue Angels going up again.
Yep tells him. He's like, okay, come out, we're gonna
take you up. So there's this fantastic picture that I
have that is Tom Cruise skinny with a ponytail, because
he's just finished up Bridley Scott's legend and they're about
to take him up. They take him up and he
throws up everybody. He's like, grabs the bag. He's trying
to get into the bag.
Speaker 6: Oh and he, you know, finally kind of recovers and
he's like, okay, well I've already thrown up, might as
well see what this thing can do.
Speaker 2: And that's never something you're going to say to a
fighter pilot. Oh yeah, sure is shooting. They showed him
what he could do, brought him back down. He went,
walked over to the payphone, called his agent and said,
I want to do this movie, make it happen.
Speaker 3: I feel the need, the need first me.
Speaker 2: That's awesome, that's awesome. So here's what I heard.
Speaker 3: As he's in the jet and he bends to barfing
the bag again, and as soon as he does, he
does a straight, like five g climb straight up. So
he's heaving and his face is like on the floor.
And his pilot's name was Boso, right right, and so
he's hitting the Callsigne trying to go Boso Boso, and
then finally he releases and he is able to pop
back up and he's like, dude, didn't you hear me?
Speaker 2: The guy said, well, they don't call me Boso for nothing.
Speaker 3: So he said when he got off the plane, he
showed everybody held up the bag like here it is.
Speaker 7: Guys.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about Iceman for just a second.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, you guys really are cowboys.
Speaker 3: What's your problem because as.
Speaker 7: You're everyone's problem.
Speaker 5: That's because every time you go the air, you're unsafe.
I don't like you because you're dangerous.
Speaker 2: That's right, nice man, I am dangerous. Val Kilmer did
not want to do this movie. He thought it was
stupid and silly. Yeah, so when when they said something
to him about flying, he was like, no way. As
soon as we are done filming my part, I am
the heck out of here. He had no interest in
this movie at all, and as a part of that deal,
he still hung out with the guys and played with him,
but he would not communicate with Tom Cruise.
Speaker 3: It's the whole Greasers and the socials thing. Yeah, So
Val Kilmer had done real genius and he had done
Tom secret, top secret. He's notorious for being very difficult right.
In fact, the director of the Island of Doctor Moreau,
the guy who worked with him later in the nineties,
said if I were making a movie called The Life
and Times of Val Kilmer, I would not hire.
Speaker 2: That pract And this is a guy who worked on
a movie with him and Marlon Brando, I know, right right.
Of the two of those, you're not going to expect
Marlon Brando to be the more agreeable one. The other
guys who flew also threw up everywhere, except for Anthony Edwards. No, no, no, no,
that There's Two. I was in Goose Boys. Anthony Edwards
did not throw up. There's Two is a Goose Boys.
Speaker 3: So Anthony Edwards is the charming good nature everybody likes
him Goose you know, so.
Speaker 2: He's perfect for this part. A lot of his lines
are improvised. And he is a funny guy anyway, and
he's lovable, boyish, fun and a good friend like he
just he captured that good friend, comedy cut up guy perfectly.
Speaker 4: You know what.
Speaker 3: He never did his character never went to Maverick and said,
stop doing this cowboy crap. We're gonna get kicked out
of here. He just kept going, hey, man, listen, I
know you're Duke Mitchell's kid, and you know this and that,
and we'll make it and you know right, kind of
very softly guiding him.
Speaker 2: At first, I was worried about being the best, and
now I'm just worried of making it through the program.
I got a family. I can't afford to blow this.
Speaker 3: Also, Anthony Edwards did not know he was going to
sing Great Balls of Fire that day. Tony's god just
went to him and said, hey, listen, I've been listening
to jer Lee Lewis. We're gonna try something. You're gonna
seeing great balls of Fire. You check my nerve then
rather on my brain too much.
Speaker 2: Loved of the man insane, You browed my wheel.
Speaker 3: Race Great ball of Fire.
Speaker 2: He doesn't play piano either. Name of that bar that
they are in is called the Kansas City Barbecue. Yes,
how's the piano? Has it a juke box? Ended up
getting a bunch of memorabilia and then and I think
the early two thousand had a kitchen fire burned. Almost
everything piano survived, but almost everything else would burn.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about Charlie for a second.
Speaker 5: What were you doing there?
Speaker 2: Communicating?
Speaker 5: Communicating, you know, giving him the bird? You know the finger, Yes,
I know the finger goose.
Speaker 3: So Charlie played by Kelly McGillis.
Speaker 4: So here's here.
Speaker 2: You're almost on, Charlie.
Speaker 3: This list is amazing. Julianne Phillips okay, married to Bruce Springsteen.
Kind of a eighties actress. Whatever, Yeah, she's okay, Ali,
sheety almost got the part. She turned it down because
she did not think anyone would want to watch a
movie about Tom Cruise flying jets.
Speaker 2: She was wrong about Deborah Winger. You can see that.
I don't know about that one man, really, I mean
urban cowboy, Yeah, I could see that. Okay, Brooks Shields hmm, No,
too young and pretty at that time.
Speaker 3: Speaking of too young and pretty, Daryl Hannah, Diane Lane,
Sarah Jessica Parker, Dian Lane would have been great. Well,
she's gorgeous, but is she old enough to be her instructor?
Speaker 2: All too young? Okay. That was an important feature as well,
with the Navy saying no, you can't do it this
way because the original script called for him to be
in love with another Navy officer. Yep, and they said no,
they are not allowed to fraternize at all. And they're like, well,
are they ever around civilians and they're like, yeah, we've
got you know, inspectors and auditors, technical advisors. Well could
she be one of those? Okay? Yeah, And that's how
that happened.
Speaker 3: So here's here's the rest of my list, though, Linda
Florentino turned down this role. And here's the one that's
gonna blow you ay ready Yeah, Carrie Fisher.
Speaker 2: That would have been a void one. Carrie Fisher, I
mean Star Wars on Earth, right, she was old enough
to be the instructor. She was also three years away
from the Slave Girl outfit and Return of the Jedi,
so she's looking good. So she was looking great yeah,
and old enough, and she almost got the part in
Saturday Night Fever. And she would have been probably a
better height fit for Tom Cruise too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Killy McGillis is almost six feet tall.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she said.
Speaker 3: The entire time they were filming, she had to wear
her bare feet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and she sat hunched over the whole. She's like,
I watched that movie and I see my posture and
I'm like, oh, no, you know why she was cast?
Tell me she was cast? I do know why want
you to say it. She was cast.
Speaker 3: Because she was old enough.
Speaker 2: She was twenty nine.
Speaker 3: She had just come off a Witness and Tony Scott
had seen her with her shirt off in Witness.
Speaker 2: In Witness, yes, it was like, she's pretty and sophisticated
and she took her top off in Witness, So there
you go. That was enough for him. So listen to this.
Speaker 3: The character portrayed by Kelly McGillis is based on Christine
fox Yep, who is a civilian flight instructor that everybody
met while they're in Miramar.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: She eventually went through the ranks and retired in twenty
fourteen as Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense, the highest post
ever held by.
Speaker 2: A woman in the Department of Defense. Wow, that's something
that's a deep dive. Too, good job, thank you. I've
also seen her. Yeah, it's pretty. She's a good living,
all right.
Speaker 3: Kelly McGillis and Tom Cruise did not have a specially
good chemistry.
Speaker 2: Offscreen, you know who? She did have good chemistry with
very Tom Yep, yep, who was just I mean he
was jung He was like twenty one or something. I
think when they were shooting this movie. He's the guy
with the cowboy at if you don't know it hasn't done.
Just a whole lot of stuff after that. But apparently
she was walking along the street fell flat on her
face and he came and rescued her, and she said
I was a sucker for romance, and so they started dating. Yep,
that's a great story.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go to bat for Kelly McGillis here for
just a second.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay.
Speaker 3: A lot of people give her crap because she's not
Hollywood glamorous, gorgeous. I thought she looked great.
Speaker 2: I thought she looked great, and I thought that she
was The romance between them was very believable. Let's talk
about Carol for a second. Hey, guys, your big dad
that's me on it take me to better lose me
forever showed me the way hole. But that is Goose's wife. Now,
Meg Ryan hadn't been in anything except maybe soap operas
before this As the World Turns. Yeah, how that's crazy
knowing how big she became to think that this was
her first major movie role. She was the second choice.
Speaker 3: And I did every thing I could to figure out
who the first actress selected was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, couldn't find it.
Speaker 3: Tony Scott hired this other actress. Bruckheimer went to Tony
Scott AND's like, I'm not really feeling it with this girl.
And he's like, well, who's your second choice? And he said, well,
this young woman named Meg Ryan, but she's only done
soap operas. And I'm afraid that if we hire a
soap opera actress that people won't really go for. And
Bruckheimer's like, dude, only guys are going to be watching
this movie. Nobody watches soap operas. Who cares hire her?
Speaker 2: Well he's wrong about that. Well he was wrong about
it because Tony Scott made a movie for men and women. Yes,
And just not to deviate too far from your topic,
Meg Ryan killed it in this role. I mean, she
had just owns the part. She has a small part,
but she absolutely She's the perfect combo for Goose. She's
young and fun and silly and vibes so well with him.
And then after Goose dies that moment. I mean they
said that they filmed it nine or ten times and
every single time she went from normal to I'm crying
and this is the most emotional moment in my life
on a dime.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's talk about Slider for just a second, Okay,
Rick Rossovich, Yeah, we both love the movie Roxanne.
Speaker 2: We have to cover that soon. He plays Chris in.
Speaker 1: Roxhand because I was a freight of worms.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one of the best movies in nineteen eighty seven.
We absolutely love it.
Speaker 2: We're gonna have to cover that. At some point, he
got kicked off the ship a couple of times.
Speaker 3: He was a bit of a hell raiser thing, a
little bit of a turd. Yeah, he said he his
bunk was right next to a nuclear warning sign, and
so he's like, well, screw this, I'm not sleeping here.
So he just went and found a bunk. Turns out
he was in the bunk of an officer. That officer said,
get the heck out of my bed, and he stood
up and said, you want to you know, try to
take me.
Speaker 2: On for this thing. Yeah, you want, mister big mouth.
Speaker 3: And so he got called up to the chief's office
and the chief reprimanded him harshly and kicked him off
the ship.
Speaker 2: He was like, you know, I was in better shape
back then, which is why you catch me in the
volleyball scene, which is a great, very memorable moment.
Speaker 3: Sure it is.
Speaker 2: And if at the very end of the movie, as
they're all celebrated, you know the lines have changed. You
can be my wingman anytime, bs, you could be mine, right,
everybody's he's the one turning around so you can see
his face. He's facing the camera the whllway mugging.
Speaker 3: All right quickly viper Yeah, played by Tom Scarett.
Speaker 4: You're on the top.
Speaker 1: One percent all naval aviators, the elite, best, the best.
Speaker 2: We'll make you better, who had done work with Tony
Scott's brother, Ridley Scott an alien. Be sure and go
back and check out our Alien versus Terminator episode.
Speaker 3: They originally thought of Lewis Goosst Jnr. Iron Eagle, Iron Eagle,
an officer and a gentleman, so he played the military guy, right.
They thought about John Boyd, who would have been great
in that part. But I thought Tom Scatt does a great.
Speaker 2: Job, fantastic. Yeah, okay, all.
Speaker 3: Right now then Michael Limeside.
Speaker 5: Jester just dead, but about the heart deck and return
to faith immediately.
Speaker 2: Michael Ironside didn't think he should be playing this part
number one, he's Canadian. Number two. He didn't feel like
he possessed the right kind of attitude and physique to
be an officer in the Navy. And so he's on
board the ship. He's obviously in costume at this point.
There's he can hear this, and he sees this junior
officer running along as fast as he can, and when
he sees Michael Ironsides, he stops walks and Michael Ironside's like,
slow down, son. The guy salutes him and says, yes, sir,
sorry sir. He's like, okay, maybe I can't.
Speaker 3: Maybe I can do this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 3: Here's a funny story that I heard about Michael Ironside. Okay,
so this is a couple of years after Top Gun
and he's at a bar and he said, on either
side of him, these two giant jarheads came up and
they're like He's like, what's up? Fellas like, you're in
that Top Gun movie, weren't you.
Speaker 2: He's like, uh yeah. I was like, you're.
Speaker 3: Theughing reason why we joined the navy, this bull crown
because there wasn't fighter pilots and babes all the time.
Speaker 2: And he's like, eh, he said.
Speaker 3: It was very uncomfortable conversation and they were not happy
in blaming him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can say that. I have you mentioned Doug Huggan.
I've got two other friends that if they didn't become
pilots because of this movie, it was sure a big
factor in their decision.
Speaker 3: Doug Huggin, my college roommate, used to he was in
the Naval R two C. He would get out Top Gun,
put it in, play it to the bar scene, pause
it so that he could put his uniform on correctly.
Speaker 2: That's great, have a reference. That's right, that's funny.
Speaker 3: Another college friend of mine, Eric Mentorier, I know Top
Guns a big influence on him. Chris Alexander, one of
our patreons. All right, I got two more guys I
want to talk about before we move on. Uh huh,
all right, I want to talk about one of the
guys who got totally screwed over in this movie. Okay,
I'm spiking my football. This guy, for whatever reason, got
screwed the entire movie.
Speaker 2: Okay, Sundown my man, Sundown O.
Speaker 3: The O from die Hard and the quarterback is toast.
Speaker 2: Shame guy. Okay.
Speaker 3: So he gets paired up with Maverick halfway through Top
Gun for whatever reason, he's there at all the classes,
Goose gets killed, Sundown gets put with Maverick. Maverick won't
take the shot, so.
Speaker 2: He confronts him.
Speaker 3: Unlike other people, He's like, dude, good hat him, why
don't you take the shot? And Tom Cruise says, I
will fire when I am good and ready. You got that?
So what happens to Sundown? He gets fired, moved away.
I don't know, he goes away.
Speaker 2: You never see him.
Speaker 3: No, So at the end of the movie, when they
send Tom Cruise up, he still don't have a rio.
Should Sundown go with him? No, sticking with Merlin. So
they brought Merlin up. Tim Robbins and early in his
career Yeah Yeah, who later plays Nuklelouche Yeah, and Andy
Difran Yep. But Sundown, once he confronts Maverick, never see
him again. And then one more that's with a bull
you get to horn. He goes on to join an
international terrorist and uh it is involved in the Nakatomy
incident in December of nineteen eighty eight. All right, one
more person I want to talk about is Stinger.
Speaker 2: We didn't spring him along for his charming personality, did we? Yes?
Speaker 7: Yes.
Speaker 3: Sundown goes on to get punched out by Argyle.
Speaker 2: At Nkotomi Plasma. Speaking of crossovers.
Speaker 3: Stinger played by James Tolkien. He is never referred to
as Stinger, only sir. He's the guy who's like you.
Two characters are going to top gun. Oh didn't that
guy ever have had?
Speaker 7: Yes?
Speaker 3: How bad?
Speaker 2: Did you want him to call him?
Speaker 3: Slacker?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: You too, slacker? Are going to top gone?
Speaker 2: Gosh? Yeah, perfect for that part. Have we moved past casting?
We're done with casting. Let's talk about the movie itself.
Tony Scott realized that he wanted a rock and roll
in the sky movie, right, Yes, And it's interesting because
it was very important to him that he hit the
golden hour, right. So they're filming at six to seven
in the morning and six to seven at night when
the sun is just on the horizon and it's the
perfect kind of sun. And so I watched the movie.
If it's not a plane in the sky, it is
Golden Hour, Like you're if you are on the deck
or you're on the ground, the sun is hitting you
from the side. It is Golden Hour every single time.
And that very first scene that you see in the movie,
which is all very technical, real guys doing their real jobs,
which has the best music transition at the beginning of
a movie that's seen my doors off every time. Fantastic
and we can get there when we get to music,
but so good. That was the scene that he was
shooting in slow motion that he got fired for, right, yes,
And it's definitely Golden Hour. It's all orange and beautiful
and he's filming this stuff and all of a sudden
the ship turns and it's going a different direction and
he's like, what are you doing, Like this is putting
the sun in the wrong spot, and they're like, well,
we're you know, we're out of our time and all this,
and then he's like, what do I have to do
and they're like, it's going to cost you, like twenty
five thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: Way before that, he goes, can you keep going the
same direction. They go, nope, what will it take?
Speaker 2: Yes, it will take twenty five thousand dollars. He goes down,
it's his own personal checkbook, writes a check for twenty
five thousand dollars, gives it to them, and they start
heading back that direction again so he can get the shot.
You know what happened to that check? Don't check? It
balanced like a baller only money he had from the hunger.
Speaker 3: That's exactly where.
Speaker 2: Now can we talk about the first scene of the movie. Yes, okay,
so you got Cougar who That guy was real familiar
to me and I looked him up. I think the
only thing that I can recognize him from John Stockwell
is from Christine the Stephen King movie. Yes, he was
kind of the friends slash fullish kind of guy there
in that movie. Do you see My Science Project? No,
he was in that. Okay, well, there you go.
Speaker 3: He was also in Losing It with Tom Cruise, right,
one of the first boob movies that Tom Cruise did.
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, there you go. I'll check that one out
when we get home. So anyway, Cougar, his character is Cougar,
and he they have this experience with the meg and
he gets freaked out a Lilo cougar.
Speaker 3: Pull up cougar.
Speaker 2: Most war movies you start off with a death, right,
and Pete Pettigrew talked about that. He's like all of
these other war movies you start off with the death,
and now the main character has got to like, you know,
avenge the death or something like that. Sure, and so
you're watching him come in and that plant I get.
I don't know how they got the pilot to wave
that plane side to side, up and down diagonal like
he was, but I'm like, dude, that guy's going to crash.
He's about to crash into the deck of the aircraft carrier.
Everyone will die. You know that was in the original script, right, Well,
that was what Pete Pettigrew said, You guys shouldn't do this,
and they followed his advice. They're like, all the other
guys do this. Why don't you have something where you
build a relationship with a character so that when he
does die, that you feel it. And so that's why
they changed it.
Speaker 3: Was his advice, what you did was an incredibly heroic thing.
What you should have done was land that plane. You
don't own that plane. The taxpayers do, right. I listened
to the commentary on this. Yeah, you got Pete Pettigrew
and Mike mccabb and several other of the pilots right
who were talking, and they all said they knew something
like this happening to somebody that they know, and that
doubt and that second guessing it really will make guys go.
Speaker 2: I'm turning into my wings. I'm not going to do
this anymore. Wow, real life. Here's the thing I want
to talk about about. The opening scene.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so when Jackabbs was talking to all these guys,
He's like, what's the scariest thing you guys do. He's like,
man to man to man said, landing on an aircraft
carrier in the Middy Ocean at night one hundred percent
worst thing. And so he said, oh, that's great. We
got to put that in the script. We got to
find a spot for that. And they kept looking for
that spot. I think it was Jerry Brukhimer said, well,
let's just put it at the beginning. And so that's
why you have that super tense cougar, pull up, pull
up cougar, and uh, you start off that movie with
with such tension of that.
Speaker 2: So of course, before all of that happens, you have
the communicating, right, you know, keeping up foreign relations.
Speaker 3: You know the bird, you know the finger, Yes, I
know the finger.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 3: Love that scene.
Speaker 2: Look at the bird, JEZU myself. So, Pettigrew said they
did actually do this type of stuff with when they
would engage with an enemy. You know, he says, if
you're it's a true engagement, you probably are never going
to see the guy if you get hit, right, I mean,
if it's a genuine right we're in a fight. In
the situations where there was a meeting, but it wasn't
like a fight type engagement, they would communicate like they'd
see each other and they just kind of appreciated, Hey,
you know, he's just doing his job. I'm just doing
my job, he said. But we wouldn't like flip each
other off. It'd be like we'd show him playboy pictures
and they'd hold up a bottle of vodka.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: That was that was the exchange that they had between him.
That's pretty funny.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like that because, well, we're right here. This
is one of my biggest problems.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: It's a total cowboy move to be in an inverted
negative dive with a make twenty eight. I get it
a meter and a half from an airplane going a
meter and a half eight hundred an hour.
Speaker 2: Come on, ludicrous.
Speaker 3: Now giving them give pulling up next to him, give
him the finger, no problem.
Speaker 2: A meter and a half. No, I'm not No, you
can't do it. Yeah, not buying it. Okay, next scene,
far scene. It's my favorite. Like I told you, I'm
not a big, go fast sports guy, right, sure, So
this movie was good for me. I liked it, but
I didn't go crazy like ninety percent of the guys
my age did for this movie. So what was my
favorite scene for the longest time was She's lost that
love and feeling? I hate it, but she does that. Yeah, oh,
not to show.
Speaker 7: But.
Speaker 2: Oh that scene is so good.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's so many quotes in this movie. When
they walk in the bar and Matreick says, this is
a target rich environment. He said, even you could get
laid in.
Speaker 2: A place like this.
Speaker 3: But the the you've lost that love and feeling scene?
How so many proms and high schools and summer camps
re enacted that scene and top.
Speaker 2: Gun we did it routinely in the classroom of school.
We'd find a girl and we'd all go sing it.
And the place where they went was called the Oak Club.
And up until probably just a year or so before
they started filming the movie, they still had strippers at
the Oak Club. Oh yeah, they one of the officers wives,
you know, probably had enough of that and they were
sent out. But it's a real place where officers.
Speaker 3: Where her call sign was wet blanket pilots go right,
and obviously where girls who were interested in dating pilots
go looking for a naval aviator. By the way, you've
lost that love and feeling, sung by Bill Medley.
Speaker 2: Who we covered in our Dirty Dancing episode that introduced
Bill Medley to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I had never heard the Righteous Brothers. Okay, So
when Dirty Dancing comes along and the song Time of
my Life comes out by Bill Medley.
Speaker 2: And Jennifer Warrence, I'm like, hey, it's a guy from
Top Gun. Right.
Speaker 7: All right, we have to talk about the volleyball scene.
Speaker 2: Okay. So Tony Scott wanted to create a movie that
not only appealed to men, it also appealed to women.
So the way to do that was to have guys
who did awesome stuff like fly fighter jets, but guys
who looked like fashion models. Yeah, And so he had
this book by Bruce Weber that had all of these
black and white shots of different male models in them,
and a few of them looked like Tom Cruise and
there were other guys. He was like, hey, that looks
like Kimra. That's probably how he got cast in that part.
But he wanted to have something that was enticing for
both the men and the women. And the volleyball scene polleyball.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, you got the volleyball scene. You got the locker
room scene, which we need to talk about both.
Speaker 2: There are no showers for the real top gun students, yes,
there are not. They have locker rooms, yes, but usually
they just they'll leave in their flight clothes and if
they're going to the bar, they change clothes in the
parking lot exactly. It's there are no showers. But that
is pure Hollywood, the locker room scene. Yep. But as
a sports movie you have to have it, and as
a movie that you're wanting to appeal to women, you
have to have it in a situation where guys are
shirtless and wet.
Speaker 3: Yes, there's so many funny quotes in that locker room
that I still say today, right m hm. So the
one that cracks me up. It's in the background and
you're the guy in the background, and go five more seconds, wolfman,
I'm coming in. But when Val Kilmer and Maverick lockhorns
in the locker room, you have that really intense stare
down that we need to talk about. He goes, you
two really are cowboys. Maverick turns around says, what's your problem, Kazansky?
Speaker 2: Which I say all the time? What's your problem Kazanski? Right?
Speaker 3: He says, you're everyone's problem. Every time you go up.
Speaker 2: You're unsafe. I don't like you.
Speaker 3: Because you're dangerous. That's right, man, I am dangerous. And
then you get the teeth chump, which is a very
ridiculous retort. I don't really understand that it's memorable, but
that whole scene is put there so that you can
have some interaction between the characters and something for the ladies. Now,
then the volleyball scene. There was no volleyball net there.
Speaker 4: That afternoon.
Speaker 3: They brought in a dump truck full of sand, set
up a volleyball net, told the guys to take off
your shirts and let's look like studs. Tom Cruise is
spiking the volleyball. I'm not sure how that works because
he's five foot six. But the funny part about that
is that Val Kilmer says, if you look at that scene,
he's almost in none of that scene. You can see
his face, he's off to the side.
Speaker 2: He's never really featured in it.
Speaker 3: And Tony Scott said, sorry, Val, your stuff all got cooked,
which means got overexposed, so you can't use it.
Speaker 2: And he's like, man, that's bull crop.
Speaker 3: This is the best I've ever looked in my life.
Speaker 2: And Tony's guy's like a whole lot of ross, bitch
right well. And then in the locker room scene, Val
didn't know they were going to be shooting that scene
that day and so he, you know, he was his
food or something. Yeah, like, you've been drinking soda and
not worked out in a couple of days. And they're like, oh, hey,
we're shooting more in the locker rooms. What what?
Speaker 3: Okay before we tackle the big question. Yeah, I got
one more scene I want to bring up to you. Okay,
there's an elevator scene dropped in the middle of this
movie where Kelly McGillis is wearing a ball capp and
Tom Cruise just got out of a shower.
Speaker 2: His hair is wet, but it looks especially long. It
does tell me about that scene. So they had finished
with all of the primary filming of the movie. They
thought they were done, and when they go back and watch,
they're like they haven't built a relationship enough. The audience
who would watch it would be like, I felt like
there should be more between Kelly mcgillis's character and Tom
Cruise's character. It's just like, Okay, well we need to
film more. And so he's let his hair grow out
at this point because he's you know, doing in Color
of Money, Color of Money, which he's got the perm for, right,
remember that, Yes, it's the hustler part too, that's right,
great movie. And she's filming a movie called Made in
Heaven where she has completely dyed her hair and she's
also lost a huge amount of weights.
Speaker 3: The same reason why in the love scene it's completely
dark and sort of blue hues and stuff like that.
They're hiding the fact that the actors look totally different
than they did five minues earlier.
Speaker 2: The love scene was filmed later.
Speaker 3: Really, the love scene and the elevator scene were filmed
in the same day, one day in Chicago.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: And it was a.
Speaker 3: Rush job that literally they had like forty five minutes
to shoot that.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: So that scene was dropped in the middle. After screening,
audience has said they needed to fluff the love scene
a little bit more.
Speaker 2: Wow. All right, good, you blow my mind here.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, I got a big question for you. Okay, really,
this is the biggest question in the movie. Ready, who
is the better pilot, Iceman or Maverick?
Speaker 2: Are you asking me who I'd rather go out with?
Speaker 3: Do you want him on your side? Who do you
want on your side? You get the first draft pick
who you take it?
Speaker 2: It's unquestionably Iceman. You don't want a Maverick as part
of your team. You don't want a guy who's unstable
and reliable, unsafe. He's unsafe. Every time he goes up,
he's dangerous. You called me about this, Yeah, this was
the Walmart call, right, Yeah, you asked me this question.
I said the same thing then. And then I'm listening
to the commentary, and of course Pete Pettigrew says, well,
you know Iceman is the better pilot because you don't
want a Maverick. You want somebody who's going to be
safe and reliable on your side, your wingman. So there
you go, confirmation of your opinion.
Speaker 3: I totally agree Iceman is the better pilot. Maverick is talented.
I tell you who I don't want is Hollywood, who
got his butt kicked every time I Jester.
Speaker 2: Dido.
Speaker 3: Yes did.
Speaker 2: Here's another question for you.
Speaker 3: Okay, so we've already tackled the Iceman versus Maverick pilot question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, here's the second question.
Speaker 3: Yeah, is there any way you would have Maverick going
up attacking MiGs at the end of the movie after
he's demonstrated he's not ready to go back up.
Speaker 2: No, Iceman is completely right. And this is another thing
that's completely inaccurate about the movie. So the guys who
were called up to go to Top Gun, they were
the top pilots in their particular squadron. So what happens
was they would go train at Top Gun, and then
when they were done, they would go back and teach
the other pilots the dog fighting tactics that they learned
at Top Gun. There's no situation where the guys at
Top Gun would all go to the same place together.
They wouldn't get their orders at the graduation ceremony or whatever,
and they sure shooting wouldn't make it to the Indian
Ocean in twenty four hours. Right, that's all just ridiculous.
You got to have Iceman and Maverick flying together, and
you have to have that tension of is Maverick going
to lose it like Cougar did or is he going
to come back? Because that's what this movie is all about,
is can a guy get knocked down on his knees?
I mean, this is the this is the definitive naval superhero,
absolutely ego driven top of the I'm the best mentality
who gets knocked down to his core and he comes back.
Speaker 3: By the way, something I wanted to mention Don Simpson
had to go to rehab during the middle of filming Top.
Speaker 2: Gun and before and after, right, okay, mister.
Speaker 3: Cocaine and hookers. Right, But they said he would drive
into the parking lot, like straight from rehab. They say,
would crash the car in the parking lot. He would
just break into a meeting, disrupt the whole thing. Fire,
Everyone say, we're not shooting this bs And they were
like who in the crap is this guy?
Speaker 2: And he'd jump back in the car with David Lee Roth.
So Don Simpson a bit of a wild card and
struggling at this moment. It'll be interesting to talk about
the what happened after the movie with him. Yes, okay,
so we've got the movie made. Now it's time for
the soundtrack. One of the greatest soundtracks of all time.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, in the eighties, soundtracks were so important, so huge,
and for me, like anytime I want to revisit the
Summer of eighty six, I pop in the Top Gun soundtrack.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a huge album on the charts, and
they did a great job. I mean they went and
got Kenny Loggins, yep, who had just done Footloose and
had done Caddyshack, both great songs in the movies. Right, Yeah,
they go and get Harold Faultmeyer, who did Actual f
which I mean, of course they were involved with that movie.
Of course they're going to go get him. And then
they did Giovanni Mordor, who was a multi award winning composer,
did The never Ending Story, I mean, brilliant guy too,
and they put together a incredible rock and roll album.
Speaker 3: Here's the story behind this Okay, They put an open
call for artists who want to make rock songs for
the movie. They show the movie to the people. Kenny
Loggins and his people are there and they're watching. He
looks around. He's like, man, there's tons of talent in
this room. So we're gonna pick a scene that nobody
else is gonna go for, and so they chose the
volleyball scene. So they wrote playing with the Boys, which
is classic fun, it's very memorable. So he writes that
the other song, obviously that's super important to the movie
is danger Zone. You know who they had in mind
for danger Zone?
Speaker 2: I do because we talked about it in our Toto episode.
Speaker 3: The guys from Toto were scheduled to do danger Zone,
which is incredible. They went to him and they said, hey,
we like your singer. We want to get some session
musicians to play instead of you guys, and they were like,
we are a list musicians. What are you talking about? No, no,
thank you, we are out. So Toto called the ball
and said no, we don't have the ball. So at
the last second, I mean, they had talked to Brian Adams,
they had talked to Judas priests, about putting the song in.
They needed somebody to sing danger Zone right, and they
had Kenny Loggins, who was there at that time recording.
Speaker 2: Playing with the boys.
Speaker 3: So they called Kenny Loggins. They're like, hey, listen, we
got this great song. We got no singer for it,
Kenny Loggins, because I got one question.
Speaker 2: Is it up tempo?
Speaker 3: He's like, because I needed some up tempo songs for
my concerts, And they said yes it is.
Speaker 2: He's like, great on too.
Speaker 4: It didn't know anything about it, never heard it.
Speaker 3: Said yes, and that is how you get Kenny log
Is doing danger Zone perfect.
Speaker 2: It's perfect now. The song itself was written by Giovanni
Moridor YEP, which we talked about YEP, and his writing
partner Tom Whitlock. Okay, yep. Mordor did the music, Whitlock
did the lyrics. Okay. Do you know how these guys met?
He was this mechanic. Yes, Tom Whitlock was working on
Giovanni Moridor's Ferrari and he goes, oh, by the way,
in addition to being a mechanic, I'm also a lyricist.
So if you've ever got a song, you need some
words too. I'm happy I'm your guy bing bang boom
danger Zone.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, that's amazing.
Speaker 2: So on guitar on this one, Yes, we've got Dan
Huff from the band Giant. Yeah, he's the lead singer
from Giant. Yes, and on saxophone. Into the song has
saxophone on it. We have Tom Scott, who also played
saxophone for the Blues Brothers.
Speaker 3: By the way, quick shout out for my man from Giant.
He sings one of my favorite songs.
Speaker 2: Of all time.
Speaker 3: And absolutely I'm gonna fit this yeah song called I'll
See You in My Dreams.
Speaker 5: I mean.
Speaker 3: Love this song, all right.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you got that in there, but I mean
there's no way you can get in there otherwise because
we're ever going to talk about Giant never never, Okay, Okay.
So this song almost made it to number one, got
to number two, kept out by a song that you
probably had bleeding out of your ears in the summer
of nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 3: That's true, sledge Hammer. Listen, Sledgehammer's good and the video's cool.
It is not top Gun danger Zone.
Speaker 2: It was because of the video that that song received
the attention that it did. And it's catchy but it
it is obnoxiously catchy, obnoxiously in your ear.
Speaker 3: It's an earworm.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The next thing we got to talk about is the
song take My Breath Away.
Speaker 2: It is absolutely This was also by Mordoor and whitlock Yep,
they had another person who sang it first. The band
was called the Motels, Yeah, the Botells, and they recorded
a version of it, but ultimately they decided, hey, you know,
Berlin had us hit with us no more words, yeah,
and great song and the girl's hot. Okay, stop the
presses right there? Who's that all? Right?
Speaker 3: Rank the Top Gun babes because there's only three women
involved in Top Gun basically Kelly McGillis, Meg Ryan, Terry Nunn.
Speaker 2: So Terry. It's interesting because Terry Nunn and the stuff
that I saw, she was like really envious of Kelly
McGillis in this movie because she's getting to get down
and get dirty with Tom Cruise. It looked pretty nice, dude.
Terry Nunn still good looking at sixty two, guys, she's
still good looking. She is a major babe and still
looks great. Ye, I mean and in the eighties, whoa yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: The interesting thing about Berlin Terry Nunn is beautiful and
she's got a killer voice. But they were known as
kind of a synth pop band, true, and so this
didn't really fit their style. And so her partner in
the band, John Crawford, right, was like, this is not Berlin,
this is not us, this is not our sound. We
didn't write this, we didn't perform this, this is not us. Right,
and now the mega success of this song, we got
to play it every single concert.
Speaker 2: This is bull crap.
Speaker 3: And that song ultimately caused the Riff to split the band.
That is why you don't have Berlin anymore.
Speaker 2: It's tragic. Song went number one in September of eighty six. Yeah.
To me, there's four songs that we really got to
talk about this. We've hit two. The other one is
Heaven in Your Eyes by lover Boy. It's good, which
is interesting. Mike Rono. Obviously also in the Footloose soundtrack
with Kenny Loggins almost Paradise, Yeah, yeah, yep, great song. Yes.
And then of course the top Gun anthem. So Harold Faltemeyer,
who had done axel f comes along and they're like, hey,
we need a song that is like an anthem, but
also kicks butt and he delivered in space.
Speaker 3: So they're at dinner with Harold Baltimore and Jerry brock
Khmer's like, Okay, we need this anthem and it needs
to be heroic.
Speaker 2: And awesome and inspiring. And Harold Feltimar is like, well,
I've been kind of working on something.
Speaker 3: I think I've got it, and Jerry Bruckherber was like,
I'd like.
Speaker 5: To hear it.
Speaker 3: And he's like, oh, okay, well, you know, i'll run
it over next week or whatever.
Speaker 2: He's like, no, like right now.
Speaker 3: Carl Faltimore is like when I said that, I didn't
really have anything ready, and so Jerry Bruckhermer was like, no,
I'm coming over right now, like let's go, and Harrold
Faltimore is like, I'm gonna get a head start on you.
Speaker 2: Put your fork down. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So he raced home and started kind of doing stuff,
you know, and the next thing you know, bruck Himer's
over there and he plays this thing for him and
they're like this is great and he's like huh yeah,
and of course it is great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it turns out and who's playing guitar? Steve Stevens
from Billy Aisles YEP. Steve Stevens from Billie Idol and
Dirty Diana and all sorts of other acts that he's
been with.
Speaker 3: But yeah, which is interesting because one of the connections
I heard was they said before the Top Gun pilots
would actually fly, the original guys, the actual Top Gun pilots,
they would all listen to Billie Idol.
Speaker 2: Nice. How about that? That's good?
Speaker 3: Okay, Hey, one more song, two more songs. We got
to talk out real quick. I'm gonna throw some love
at the cheap trick song called Mighty Wings.
Speaker 2: Okay, I love it.
Speaker 3: Okay, A fantastic song they play while they're dog fighting.
Speaker 2: I love it. It was the only single that was
released that didn't end up charting. But I'm glad you
like it. I can't.
Speaker 3: I can't believe it. The other song we need to
talk about is Great Balls of Fire. How in the
world is that not on the soundtrack?
Speaker 2: Well? They it ended up being on the special edition
in ninety nine, thirteen years after the movie. Yeah, thirteen
years after the movie. You had that one you had
sitting on the dock of the bay, and you've lost
that love and feeling of course, right, that was the
one that I was like, why isn't this one on there?
But obviously we know it's pretty tricky to get songs
on a soundtrack. It is. And if the basis of
your song is, hey, I was listening to the Raid
on the way over and we're going to have you
sing this song, you probably haven't done a lot of
preparation with, you know, Jerry Lee Lewis or the Righteous
Brothers or whatever. Right, that's true, that's true.
Speaker 3: Interesting connection to Meg Ryan, Top Gun, Great Balls of Fire. Yeah,
Dennis Quaid plays Jerry Lee Lewis in a movie two
years later, right, Mary's Meg Ryan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there there you go. It all comes full circle. Yep.
Before we leave on the music, throw back to that
beautiful transition that we talked about. So the top Gun
Anthem without the heavy guitar, and it is what you
hear at the beginning, when you're seeing all of the
guys on the aircraft carrier deck prep in the planes,
pilots getting in the planes, all of that sunset. It's beautiful,
it's incredible, and then finally the plane pulls the throttle,
the jets light up, and you transition out of the
top Top Gun Anthem right into danger. Zone and it
blows your frickin' doors off, as you like to say.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, yes, my skirt is flying way off
at that moment, that, at that moment of me and
about a million other teenagers decide they want to be
naval aviators exactly. Speaking of the Navy received a five
hundred percent increase in people applying to be naval aviators
after this movie. Yep, it was so much that they
actually put naval recruitment stations outside the theater, the movie theater.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, might as well cut them off the pass, right,
get them all. They're hot, that's right, all right. So
just a couple of tidbits for you.
Speaker 3: The real Top Gun School, Yeah, institute's a five dollars
fine for every quote of the movie Top Gun that
you say, I am telling you twenty bucks.
Speaker 2: I'm in for the day.
Speaker 3: I would walk in. I'd be like Gushi, big stud.
Speaker 2: There's five.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, start a tab. And here's one that
always stuck with me. When Maverick lands on the aircraft carrier.
I've seen this movie thousand times, right, the guy in
the tower, as Maverick called the ball. Maverick says Roger
Maverick has the ball, and you get the idea that
each guy knows what they're doing. But what that actually
means is do you see the light up marker? And
Maverick's reply is yes, I see it. Basically, do you
see the aircraft carrier?
Speaker 2: Yes? I do, I see it, and I'm in control. Gotcha,
Roger Maverick has the ball, right, all right, So let
me ask you this question. You're ready, Yeah, most quoted
line from this movie for you and your household talk
to me goose. Okay, I say that all the time.
Mine is negative ghost writer matters because my kids are
always asking me for stuff and I'm like negative ghost writer.
The pattern is.
Speaker 3: Fall whenever somebody comes up to me in my household
and they're like that could ask you a question, I'm like,
talk to my goose. Of course, my wife says, Jason,
your big stud take me to bet and lose me forever.
Speaker 2: Uh huh, I wish.
Speaker 3: Okay, guys, we're gonna take a quick break and we're
gonna have our shirly showcase this week. It's from one
of my oldest friends of the entire world, Chris Alexander.
Chris is a Patreo member. He's one of my best friends.
So let's hear what Chris has to say about Top Gun.
Speaker 8: Everyone from the Shirley podcast. This is Chris Alexander. I'm
from touls Oklahoma. Just wanted to say thanks to Jason
D for doing the Shreley you Can't Be Serious podcasts.
Love it, love it all, and thanks for giving me
this chance to be part of the Shirley Spotlight. So
let's get this started. I feel the need, the need
for speed. I was twelve years old in May of
nineteen eighty six when Top Gun was released. I was
already obsessed with airplanes and especially in military aviation. Movie
could not have started off any better. The opening scene
is simply awesome. Visuals of the F fourteens and eight
sixes and eighty sevens moving around on the flight deck
of the aircraft carrier and all the deckhands, steam clouds
from the cattibolts flying by. It was just amazing. Not
to mention the music and how it builds up until
the first launch of the Tomcat in full after burner,
just as the electric guitar and drums kick in.
Speaker 2: It was just epic.
Speaker 8: I am positive that no matter what happened in the
movie after that, it wouldn't have mattered. That opening was
just that good. Luckily, the rest of the movie was
great as well. So many iconic moments in the movie
that remaining today's lexicon. All the one liners. You know
it's classified. I could tell you, but then I'd have
to kill you. Yes, goose, I know the finger sera.
I hate it when it does that. Hey, mav, you
got the number for that truck driving school slider you
stink you never leave your wing man. And let's not
forget the high low five of the sand volleyball pit.
All those things were just immediately added to the slang
across the world. Heck, I still say some of that
stuff today. Overall, the flying and dog fighting scenes were great,
the actors were great, the music was top notch. I
don't think anyone could have done a better job. Top
Gun two really has some pretty big shoes to fill,
and I'm looking forward to seeing it seeing how it
stacks up. Thanks again go to Jason and d and
especially to Cougar for turning in his wings. Anyone seeing
aircraft carrier around here? And oh, by the way, another
reason I know this movie was great because I'm one
of those guys that fell prey to the best Navy
recruiting tool ever created. I spent twenty years flying in
the Navy. Thanks Top Gun.
Speaker 5: Okay, there you go, Chris.
Speaker 3: I knew you were gonna have that opinion number one,
because back in eighty six we probably saw this movie
ten times together in the theater. Chris, Thank you for
your service, thank you for your friendship, thank you for
your patronage, and thank you for your shirly showcase.
Speaker 2: All right, we ready you talk reception? Yes quickly, Yes,
let's okay.
Speaker 3: This was the number one movie of nineteen eighty six,
number one, number one, number one, number one, number one
by a mile. This beat Crocodile Dundee at number two
and Platoon at number three.
Speaker 2: That's freaking incredible.
Speaker 3: And I know with me and my friends, anytime we
got bored, we wrote our back to the movie theater
watch Top Gun. That's all we did all summer of
eighty six. This movie basically is credited with starting the
home video industry.
Speaker 2: Can see that.
Speaker 3: Because VHS tapes before this were like one hundred bucks,
oh wow, and they were only sold basically to video stores.
Right when Top Gun came out on VHS is twenty
five bucks.
Speaker 2: This is how Vestron made all of its money so
that it could go on to produce sturdy dances.
Speaker 4: There you go.
Speaker 3: How about that good job, nice Tian right there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is not actually correct. I was just joking.
Speaker 3: Top Gun is the tenth highest grossing movie of the
nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2: So this created the true Simpson Bruckheimer combo that went
on to blow the doors off of all movie theaters
for the next twelve years. Sure, as we've mentioned, Don
Simpson was a bit of a wild card. Yes he was.
He's a bit of maverick if you will. He was
a maverick. And so I mentioned earlier, we would have
a story about a naked rehab doctor. Let's found dead
of a drug overdose in Don Simpson's poolhouse. This is true.
So Don Simpson's behavior got worse and worse and worse.
And these guys initially were known for guys who could
take a fourteen million dollar budget movie and turn it
into you know, hundreds of millions in revenue, which is huge.
And then Days of Thunder happened and it was like, oh,
maybe these guys aren't as gold as we thought sure,
and so as that as things continued to escalate, his
erratic behavior did as well. His drug use did as well.
And he would go to this place called Canyon Ranch,
which was supposed to be for rehab purposes, but probably
it's just where he was getting plastic surgery. He denied
getting plastic surgery, but good information is he probably had
about ten different ones, including a penis enlargement.
Speaker 3: There you go, folks, where are you going to get this?
Speaker 2: And so his behavior was getting more and more out
of control, and people with Jerry Bruckheimer, who was married
Don Simpson was never married with him, including Jerry Bruckheimer's wife,
was like, you got to end this. This guy's out
of control. He's going to bring you down with him.
And so at some point he's like, hey, I'm going
to have my own private rehab guy come in here
and help me out my own private rehabit. And so
he brings in this guy named doctor Steven Amherman, who
is a very sketchy rehab doctor, and his rehab is really,
let's do different drugs to get off the drugs that
you're on right now. Sure, and he ends up dying
in the shower at Don Simpson's poolhouse, and so that
news comes out and Jerry Brookheimer is like, Okay, we're done.
I mean, we've got dead naked doctors in your poolhouse.
I can't keep working with you. So it's the end
of this Mammoth production team. And a month later, Simpson
thinks he's getting back together. He's talked to a few folks,
he's going into rehab again, doing some work. Has a
guy call him, a guy named James Tobak who he's
talking to him about this script idea he has called
Harvard Man. Okay, that involves a guy who goes to
Harvard and then gets involved in sex and drugs and
it totally ruins his career, which is an interesting thing
to talk to Don Hickson about, right sure. And so
they talk like five hours straight about the script, and
at the end of the conversation Don Simpson is like,
I'm pretty sure I can get this movie green lit
by tomorrow at five pm. While the problem is that
the next day they come in Don Simpson is dead
less than two months after he and Bruckheimer and part ways.
And he's fairly young guy, right, yeah, fifty two years old,
not an old guy at all but lived hard. Now
with that happy note. Next week, we're coming in with
Top Gun Maverick, the stories behind the making of the
movie and our take on how good it is.
Speaker 3: Come back next week as we dive into Top Gun Maverick.
I can't wait to see this movie with u D.
It's gonna be awesome.
Speaker 2: Be sure and hit the follow button on your podcast
app so that you will get that episode as soon
as it comes out. Check out our Patreon page and
if you are so inclined, please leave us a five
star review. And if you would like to put in
a rating that says she's lost that loving feeling or
you've entered the danger zoner, any quote that would cost
you five dollars in the Navy will enter you into
a contest to win a special prize yet to be announced.
Speaker 3: Thanks guys, we'll see you here next week. Hit the
brakes fly right by Summer. By the way, I'm just
going to interrupt you for a second. Is there a
worse name in the entire world than Dick Richard's