Speaker 1: Hey everyone, this is Sam from the suburbs of Chicago.
Do you find yourself constantly on the go? Are you overworked, stressed, tired?
Need a break? Well, you've come to the right place.
Whether you're conscious or semi conscious. If you have a
pulse ears, are you above the ground and breathing on
your own? If you can't, try fifty five, but you
sure as hell can go eighty eight. And I got
the show for you. All the killer, none of the filler.
I am proud to introduce Jason and d Surely you
can't be serious podcast?
Speaker 2: Enjoy?
Speaker 3: Okay, Jason, I have a new criteria. As you know,
we frequently have guest hosts. Come on here. I've got
a new criteria that you have to meet in order
to be a guest host on the Surely you can't
be serious podcasts? Okay, okay? What is it? You have
to be able to hammer a six inch spike into
a board with your penis? Don't be a degenerate me.
What about that time I caught you naked with a
bowl full of jello. I was hot and I was hungry.
All right, Now that all the moms have turned to
the channel, right exactly, Welcome back to this Shirley You
Can't Be Serious podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back for
another fantastic episode of nineteen eighty five movies, because we
are here to talk about the movies real genius and
weird science.
Speaker 4: I know these are like nerds just want to have fun, right.
Speaker 3: I know. Nineteen eighty four we found out that nerds
can be heroes and it took off like a frickin' firecracker,
like a spaceship out of the back of a house. Right,
that's right, I mean, because we just we covered a
little earlier this season. We covered One Crazy Summer and
Better Off Dead, both totally nerds against you know, the
what about the snobs against the slobs? Right right? And
we've got a couple of movies that are just both
icons of nineteen eighty five, which we've been talking about
doing four years. We finally put it on the schedule
this year, and tragically it falls just after the death
of Al Kilmer. You know, that one really hit me hard.
Speaker 4: He was somebody that I enjoyed his movies. I found
him funny, he was dramatic, he was could be a
romantic lead. He kind of covered the board and just
a super skilled guy and real loss.
Speaker 3: Yeah, truly. And it was funny because when they announced
his death, like the New York Times included the Batman
role on there. And I'm like, guys, I mean, of
all the roles, you're gonna mention Batman, come on, I mean,
it's an iconic role, but he didn't but not for him.
He didn't really do it. No. No, I mean say
Doc Holliday, say Jim Morrison sayin yeah, Chris Knight even, yes,
but not not Batman.
Speaker 4: I'll tell you this for me, the most iconic roles
of Val Kilmer. I mean it's Iceman, Jim Morrison, and
it is Chris nine and Doc Holiday.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, and the you know he said he said
after a Top Gun he has never ever been in
an airport where another pilot didn't call him iceman. That
makes sense, right, right? I mean, how many pilots or
pilots because of that movie? Right? Oh?
Speaker 4: I know my roommate in college was one exactly, Doug Huggin,
friend of the show yep.
Speaker 3: Oh. And by the way, guys, we have covered Top Gun.
Definitely go back and check that episode out. We also
covered the soundtrack. Go check that episode out. We compared
it to Maverick, which is one of the best I mean,
coming twentieth century to the twenty first century remake or
reboot or whatever you want to call it, best sequels
I've ever seen. It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 4: Yeah, by the way, funny story. Yes, my roommate in college,
Doug Huggin, Yes, a friend of the show.
Speaker 3: You've met him.
Speaker 4: He would put in the top gun VHS tape in
our room. Uh huh, hit pause to look at and
make sure he's put his uniform together the way.
Speaker 3: That's fantastic, Doug.
Speaker 4: All right, So we're talking about Weird Science, which is
a John Hughes movie.
Speaker 3: Yep, we really haven't.
Speaker 4: We've dipped our toe a little bit into John Hughes,
but we really haven't.
Speaker 3: Gone all the way. This is the first one of
the John Hughes movies that we've talked about that he directed.
Speaker 4: Right, And you know he directed this one intentionally. He
made a deal with the studio essentially, yeah, you let
me direct the one I really want and I'll direct
this one, okay. And the one he really wanted to direct,
The Breakfast Club, Oh wow, And they said, okay, listen,
if you direct Weird Science, We'll let you do the
Breakfast Club.
Speaker 3: Oh that's great. Yeah, because he was just it was
just a comedy. He was a comedy guy, and Breakfast
Club was so much more so dramatic, so impactful. What
a great Oh my goodness.
Speaker 4: We're planning on covering that later this season.
Speaker 3: Yep. I'm excited to talk about Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: But I was going through so the John Hughes movies
that I think we've covered so far, and correct me
if I'm wrong. I know We've done Home Alone, which
he wrote, right, We've done Vacation, Christmas Vacation, Christmas Vacation,
which he wrote both of those. Yes, Vacation is where
Anthony Michael Hall kind of breaks.
Speaker 3: In exactly the Hollywood. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I heard him talk about that though even though John
Hughes wrote that script, Anthony Michael Hall did not meet
him until after that until on the set of sixteen Candles.
Oh okay, and I had always kind of thought, well, gosh,
you know Hughes wrote it, there's Anthony Michael Hall, and
that's where it began.
Speaker 3: I mean to listen to Anthony Michael Hall talk about
their relationship. It was an amazing. Like we talked when
we were talking about One Crazy Summer and Better Off Dead,
we talked about that John Cusack before he did those movies,
was one of the two sidekick you know, King of
the Geek Farmer Ted had, Yeah, and the other one
was in was in Real Genius. Did you see him
another little cameo bit? I told you he has this
had a tiny little cameo bit in One Crazy Summer
and he had he has a tiny little cameo bit
in Real Genius as well. Yeah, they're walking down the
hall and doing stuff like I think it may have
been at the party with the cosmetology students or whatever
they are. The invitational is, yeah, but just one of
those things where it's just like they're watching the girl
walk by and I'm like, oh, there he is again.
But all that to say, Anthony Michael Hall had developed
such a relationship with John Hughes at that point that
when they were auditioning the sidekicks, he said, why don't
you pick these guys because they're going to be your friends.
You pick them, And he was like, I get to pick.
I mean we're talking about what he's like, sixteen seventeen
year old kid, not even yeah, and he gets to
he so he picked John Cusack, that's right. And the
other dude whatever his name is, right, I can't remember,
it's real smooth Cliff. Hey, I got something for you. Yeah,
And we'll get into casting here in a few minutes.
But do you know who almost was hired to be
Chris Knight in Real Genius? No, John Cusack? Wow, Well
that would have been something.
Speaker 4: It's just, you know, it's just this pool of young
actors just kind of moving around each other all the time.
Speaker 3: I know you were, and you were telling me stories
about the actors that were hanging out with each other,
of course on the set, but also because Back to
the Future was being filmed at the same time, hanging
out with those guys as well.
Speaker 4: Start off, So these are both universal movies. Yeah, both
being filmed at the same time. So weird Science is
being filmed right next to the studio where Back to
the Future is being filmed, right, And I was listening
to Judy Aronson talk about this, and she is the
one who plays Hilly, she's one of the girls in
the brunette, right, And she said, so they're right next
to us. We were next to them we're all young,
we're all hanging out, we're watching that movie be filmed.
And she's like, I was just off camera when all
this stuff was going on. I was watching them film.
Speaker 3: Back to the Future.
Speaker 4: So we wrapped up Weird Science and left. And she said,
and to me, Back to the Future starred Eric Stoltz,
because that's the way it was, and when I left,
that's the way it had continued to be.
Speaker 3: And so she was like, what Michael J. Fox. Holy cow,
when did that happen? You know?
Speaker 4: So anyway, she was saying that Eric Stultz was actually
not the first Marty McFly right, And so I was like,
wait a minute, wait, wait a minute, because.
Speaker 3: To me it was Eric. They went after Michael J.
Speaker 4: Fox, they hired Eric Stoltz, and then they replaced him
with Michael J.
Speaker 3: Fox. Well, that's not totally true.
Speaker 4: So according to her, and I went online and I
found some corroborating video of this. Yes, so they went
after Michael J. Fox, they didn't get him. They hired C.
Thomas Howell to be Marty.
Speaker 3: McFly soul man. Yeah, wow, yes.
Speaker 4: Well here's what happened. The movie Mask came out and
Sid Sheinberg, who we've.
Speaker 3: Talked about in our Jaws episode.
Speaker 4: He is the head of Universal and he said, this
kid who's starting in this Mask movie is the Bee's knees.
Speaker 3: We need to hire him.
Speaker 4: And so they fired Tommy Howell, brought in Eric Stole.
Keep in mind, this is the same guy who said
we need to not call this back to the future.
We need to call it a spaceman from Pluto or whatever.
It's a tragedy, yes, but Zamechas ultimately made the call
Eric Stoltz is not working, get him out of here.
Speaker 3: Bringing Michael J. Fox and here we go crazy. Yeah. Well,
and Illan Mitchell Smith had just been run. It's like
Elon Musk. Well, okay, is it? I heard That's that's
how they were Okay. I was just listening to Anthony
Michael Hall in the interview and he called him Illan,
like like you be ill who knows. We don't know him.
His name is spelled I L A N. If you
want an easy name to pronounce, pick a different name.
We'll call it Mitchell Smith. Anyway, he had just been
in a movie before Weird. He had just been in
a movie before Weird Science with Eric Stoltz. He was
in what was the name of that movie. It's called
The Wildlife, The Wildlife. I was like, it's wild something. Yeah,
you know else was in that movie, Chris Pin, Leah
Tom those were those Those are the two Biggies. Yeah,
I think that is a Cameron crow movie. It is, Yes,
that was the other name I was thinking of. Cameron
Crowe wrote that movie. And of course Chris Pinn would
go on to do Footloose. Yes, and Kevin Bacon of
course we talked about that in our Footloose episode. Go
back and check out our Footloose episode and we did
the movie and the soundtrack on that one as well.
It was good. But going back to Val Kilmer, he
had when he very first started into like career acting.
He had been you know, acting since he was a
little kid. But when he started in career acting, he
was in a stage play called Slab Boys I think
was the name of the show. Okay, and he had
gotten the lead role and then they were like, oh wait,
we can get Kevin Bacon, do you mind doing the
second lead? And he was like, okay, I'll do the
second lead. And they're like, oh wait, we got Sean Penn,
do you mind doing the third. So he'd went from
star of the show to butt of all of the
jokes in this but his first like major acting gig
was starring in this play with Sean Penn and Kevin Bacon.
How about that? Yeah, well that's cool. I got a
story for you. Okay, you're ready for this? Yeah, okay.
So in March of nineteen seventy five, McDonald's has this
contest and it's just in California, okay, and they're going
to be giving away stuff, big prizes, but it's it
is literally a three week entry period, right, it's a
real short entry window. But it's March third through March
twenty third. And there are three students at cal Tech,
Steve Klein, David Novakov, and Barry Megdahl. And they notice
on the little they're reading the legal blueprint, you know
the stuff there. They're reading the boilerplate stuff, and it
says ter as often as you wish, no purchase necessary,
no purchase necessary. And so they start thinking about it
and they're like, well, what happens if we really just
follow the letter of the law here. So they recruit
about twenty three other friends from their dormitory, the Page
House at Caltech and they go to I mean we're
talking mid seventies big IBM mainframe computer. They programmed the
computer to print out these sheets of entry forms for
this contest. Because it wasn't like the you know, you
had to have a particular form. You could make your own.
And on the last day of the contest they got
all the sheets, they went to a print shop, they
cut them all up over On the last day of
the contest, they and their twenty three friends went and
stuffed ninety eight McDonald's box last day on the last day,
with one point two million entries. Good for them, one
point million entries. Now there were cash, prizes, gift certificates,
euro groceries, and a dots and Z available as prizes, okay,
but the total entry for the contest was something like
three point four million, so they had a third of
the entries, right. They ended up winning twenty percent of
the prizes, including the groceries, the car and much of
the cash and the gift certificates and stuff like that,
which very similar line came from one of them. I'm
not really sure how we had a third of the
entries but only one a fifth of the prizes. I
don't know how the math works out, but that was
the inspiration for Laslow Hollyfield and his entry of the
free doo Lay contest because and here's the rest of
her loops all the way back around the Caltech students
were inspired by a similar hoax act, prank, whatever you
want to call it, from guys from Caltech from nineteen
sixty nine who did it in a free delay contest.
Really yep, So that is the inspiration for Laslow Hollyfield's
machine of freeedolay entries. I love it, I love it.
Speaker 2: These are entries into the Freedom La sweep stakes. Don't purchase,
necessarily enter as often as you want, so I am
it's great. How many times welp?
Speaker 5: This batch makes it one million, six hundred and fifty thousand.
I should win thirty two point six percent of the prizes,
including the car.
Speaker 4: Weren't you telling me a legal type of story? Remember
when PEPSI did some competition in the early.
Speaker 3: Ninety yesh I go, You could win a jet harrier
Jet Harrier jet if you reached a certain amount of points.
You like it, and it's million. It was supposed to be.
I think it was supposed to be like a million points,
but they just the guys for the ad team didn't
put the right zero in there, so it was like
one hundred thousand points. And yeah, some kid wanted to
claim his Harrier jet. He entered enough to get the
one hundred thousand points, and PEPSI said no. When there
is a big old, ugly lot, there's a whole documentary
on it. It's really quite good.
Speaker 4: Yes, Okay, where do we want to start here?
Speaker 3: I would say, let's start with real genius.
Speaker 4: Okay, all right, d Before you start talking about real genus,
I just want you to know that compared to us,
most people have the IQ of a carrot.
Speaker 3: We're different.
Speaker 2: Better, let's just pause, put that down. Let's just take
a step back.
Speaker 3: No, I was wrong.
Speaker 5: Sorry, I take step forward, take a step back, step forward,
and step back, and then we're tutching.
Speaker 2: We stop it. I'm serious, Okay, I'm serious too.
Speaker 3: All right, So we start with a guy named Neil
Israel who he started off. He was raised in New
York and was an assistant to Broadway producer and director
George Abbott, who was a Pulitzer Prize winner, and he
eventually made his way out to la where he become
an executive. Became an executive at ABC and CBS, and
he wrote and directed a little independent film called tunnel Vision.
Tunnel Vision introduced are you Ready for This? Chevy Chase,
Al Franken and John Candy. His next movie was a
movie called Ringo, which starred Ringo Starr and George Harrison
and Vincent Price, John Ritter and Carrie Fisher. Like I've
never heard of either one of these movies, but I'm like,
what this is like mid seventies, right, Like Carrie Fisher
has just finished with Star Wars and she's in this
guy's she's in this guy's movie. And then he starts
writing with his writing partner for several other shows, a
guy named Pat Proft. Now Pat Proft helped him write
the original Police Acagement. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, So before you go any further, yes, Neil Israel,
I believe is the guy when High Tower smashes into
the back of the car.
Speaker 3: The guy gets out of the car.
Speaker 4: And says, you dumb idiot and sticks his head in
and he's like, that's try.
Speaker 3: And then then Neil Israel went on to write and
direct a movie called Bachelor Party, which introduced us to
Tony Katy, Oh my goodness. And so he's just got
this history of writing these movies that well they introduce
us to people who become big mega stars. And then
he writes this movie called Real Genius. Look, I want
to start seeing a lot more of you in a lab.
Speaker 2: Fine, all game? Wait, thanks, Jerry.
Speaker 3: Try Now. Martha Coolidge gets the script and I think
she turned it down the first time she saw it,
and so it went through some major rewrites with a
couple of script doctors that we've talked about before, a
guy named lu Gance and you'll remember this name, babbylo Mandel.
Remember babbylu Mandel. Yes, if you don't remember them, wrote
night Shift splash spies like us. And when we talked
about him, it was because they had written Multiplicity. So
to go back and check out our Groundhog Day versus
Multiplicity episode, fantastic episode. Yes, they doctored it up. Still
wasn't quite good enough. So she got together. Martha Coolidge
got together with a guy named PJ. His name was
Peter at the time, but he he transitioned she oh
to she in like two thousand and one, but anyway,
back then he was Peter or she was Peter, and
they worked on the script together to get it where
it needed to be, and it was always going to
be a revenge movie. But she didn't have the end.
She didn't know what the end was going to be.
And the end is maybe one of the most iconic
parts of the movie, right, Like everybody, if you talk
about that movie, they're going to be like, I wonder
how they did this right? Right? And so it was
I can't remember the guy's name, God forgive me, but
he like helped design some of the Star Wars guys.
He helped design the the DeLorean and Back to the Future,
like he had done all of this amazing design work.
And he was the one that suggested the popcorn destroying
the house ending. Really, yes, that's fantastic, you know.
Speaker 4: Martha Coolidge got her movie start with the movie called
Valley Girl, Yes, which introduced us to Nick Cage yep
and Deborah Foreman.
Speaker 3: Who makes her lovely appearance in this movie. She shows
up for seen a body like that before she's my daughter.
I guess you have funny funny, right.
Speaker 4: But this movie was originally supposed to be more like
along the lines of Revenge of the Nerds, kind of
boobs and jokes and yeah, you know, revenge and that
type of thing. Martha Coolidge was like, wait a minute, guys,
let's brain this in. Let's make it smart. Let's make
the nerds the heroes, and you know, let's make this
a smart comedy. Rather than just take the cheap low road.
Speaker 3: She spent months researching laser technology, CIA policies and tactics,
and she spent months interviewing Caltech students about what they
did at cal Tech. You know, when he's spouting off
some of the stuff and I can't possibly repeat it
because science is not my bag, man, but he's spouting
some of that stuff off, I had to pause the
movie and I looked it up. It's accurate stuff. The
stuff that they are saying is I mean you, is
it accurate that you can destroy a house with popcorn? No?
Probably not. But like the science that they're shooting out
of their mouths that makes sound really complicated, is real, genuine.
Speaker 4: Size a gashous not chemical state?
Speaker 3: You know whatever? I understood. This is ice. This is
what happens to water when it gets too cold. Right,
This is kent. This is what happens when someone gets
too sexually frustrated. That's so funny, right, This movie is
very clever. It's very so good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Val Kilmer's giving like this dry clever humor.
Speaker 3: He's dropping jokes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but he's looking at you deadpan.
Speaker 3: But he also will chuckle with you too.
Speaker 2: You know, what is that toy in your head?
Speaker 5: Because if I wear it anywhere else, it chase. I'm sorry,
it's just that I didn't want you guys to think
I was stuck. You know, no fun brain, no penis.
Speaker 2: Pardon me. I'm sorry. It's just an infantile response to authority.
Yes you are Chris Knight, aren't you. I hope. So
I'm wearing his underwear. It's a joke.
Speaker 3: I get it.
Speaker 2: Well, I just can't help. But you guys are such
fun yourself, try to be. Isn't that right, Mike?
Speaker 3: No, Yeah, they're like, ah, it's a joke. He's like,
it's the perfect delivery. It really is. So here's here's
something interesting. Like I was telling you, you know, I
caught the beginning of the Vowel documentary and he he
wanted to be an actor from the time he was
a very little kid. His older brother brother Wesley Kilmer,
was an aspiring film director, and he said his creativity
was dwarfed by his creativity. Wow, super creative guy, and
Val says he remembers the first time being on stage
and making a group of people laugh, and he says,
I want to do this for the rest of my life.
And he ends up being the youngest person ever accepted
into the Juilliard School of Acting. Before he goes, he
has a dream, and his dream he is with his
girlfriend and his girlfriend's mother, and his girlfriend's mother tells
him that she is not afraid of death because at
that point she will get to meet her creator. He
is awakened from this dream to his other brother telling
him that Wesley passed away the night before, had an
epileptic seizure in their whirlpool and drought. And so he
goes to Juilliard in this kind of despondent state. And
Wesley was also an avid painter and illustrator, and so
he put all of his artwork up in his dorm
room walls. Right now. He ultimately gets the top secret,
which is fantastic movie. I definitely think we need to
cover that at some point. Sure, but he said it
was just fluff. You know, this is Zucker Abraham's and
Zucker parody piece. Right, Well, they came out after airplane,
you know, yes, and so he kind of felt silly,
but he said he whatever kind of work he was doing,
he would try to find the truth behind it. He
was a an actor's actor studied with with the best, right. Yeah,
meets his wife out there, he comes back and in
the in the documentary they jump over with just the
shortest little clip of Real Genius. They go right from
Top Secret to Top Gun. But in that short little clip,
if you're not watching, you won't you'll miss it. You
remember what the dorm room looked like in Real Genius.
Sure had the Einstein and all the others. The Saturn
on the wall. Yeah, yeah, one of the pieces of
artwork on the wall was his brother was Lee's drawings.
Oh that's good. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, nice, nice moment.
I don't get the impression that Val was very proud
of Real Genius. Yeah, I mean he kind of he
kind of blew by it, and he even didn't want
to do Top Gun. I mean he but he said,
I was you know, I had signed a contract and
I didn't really have any choice.
Speaker 4: Tony Scott basically said, no, you're doing this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he's and he admired Tony Scott a lot
in that process, but he was he didn't expect it
to be as big as it was, and he wasn't
excited about doing it. But that's I mean, that's three
for three. I mean, I love all of those movies,
Top Secret, Real Genius and Top Gun. That he was
just wrong about that movie. So yeah, that's right, but
you gotta pay your dues. Whatever.
Speaker 4: Do you remember the last time we talked about a
movie with Tony Scott and Val Killer or.
Speaker 3: Is it not Top Gun? Not Top Gun? True romance?
Oh right? Because Val is the invisible Elvis. That's right,
he's the mentor, the mentor because they couldn't call him,
they couldn't him, and they never showed his face. It
was just his voice and his hands and his jacket
or whatever. Yeah, that's right. I forgot about that. Now
Tony Scott and Val Kilmer are both gone. Yeah it's tragic, yep, tragic.
Speaker 2: If you want to be a party animal, you have
to learn to live in the jungle. And now stop
borring and go and get dressed.
Speaker 3: John Hughes got the idea for Weird Science from the
comic book Weird Science, Called Weird Science, Call Weird Science. Now.
You remember when we did Creep Show with Amanda Janic, Yeah,
compared it to Twilight Zone. We talked about Bill Gaines
and his He had those comic books that would you know,
you'd see the severed head or whatever, and they put
the the the the controls and effect like the rating
for comic books into effect because of some of his stuff. Right. Well,
one of the guys that he worked with who was
big on the ec comics that he did and big
on Mad Magazine was a guy named al Feldstein. Okay,
and back when they were doing ec comics and doing
Weird Science, al Feldstein had a story that was called
made Him Ad of the Future, Made of the Future,
and this was the inspiration the first I've only seen
the first frame, but it's a guy whose fiance is
calling off the engagement and saying she's going to go
marry some guy named Bob. And then it looks like
he's got you know, he's got his Your bride is
Frankenstein's bride ready to pull the plug on? You know?
This is how dumb I am.
Speaker 4: It took me about ten times through a Weird Science
to realize this is a retelling of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
It is right, and you know, I know it. They
even watched the movie and get their watch there's a
live right. Well, when you're when you think you're watching
a teenage sex comedy, yeah, you're not thinking Frankenstein, you know,
So I think that's that's fantastic. John Hughes wrote the
screenplay in two days.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he said that, and Anthony Michael Hall. What I
caught was they were in the middle of filming what
was breakfast No, it couldn't have been breakfast club because
it was before that. They must know it was breakfast Well,
it was breakfast Club. Okay, so they're in the middle
of filming breakfast Club and he hands Anthony Michael Hall
thirty pages of a script. Yeah, and says I wrote
this last night. You should you should take a look
at this is our next project together. Yes, And that
was the first thirty pages of Weird Science. And it's
just absurd. Like if you look at John Hughes's other stuff,
this is beyond the absurd meter, comparatively speaking, like even
Uncle Buck and the crew, oh not even. It's just
there's nothing as weird as weird science.
Speaker 4: Nothing makes sense, but you absolutely accept it. Right, Yeah,
it's because we hooked up the computer, We bowled through
the access denied thing, We went around this skull, we
hooked up the doll. We put bras on our head
and boom, you have a magic woman who appears out
of nowhere.
Speaker 3: You have to put the bras on your head.
Speaker 4: So we mentioned that John Hughes came to Anthony Michael Hall.
You know, John Hugh's a very loyal guy, right, He
leans on people that he trusts. Right, So obviously Molly
Ringwold has been a big part of John Hughes's catalog.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: Mcaulay Culkin was a big part of his catalog as well.
He had latched onto Anthony Michael Hall. Okay, now get this.
So Anthony Michael Hall had been in vacation, he had
been in sixteen Candles, he had been in Breakfast Club.
Speaker 3: We're in Science.
Speaker 4: He was supposed to be in Pretty in Pink Next
and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. He was supposed to be
Ferris Bueller. He was supposed to be Ferris Bueller.
Speaker 3: John Hughes wrote Ferris Bueller with Anthony Michael Hall in mind.
Speaker 4: That's right, So get this. Matthew Broderck did such a
good job. I can't really say anything bad about that performance.
I think that was probably a better fit.
Speaker 3: But here's the thing.
Speaker 4: Anthony Michael Hall decided he wanted to do something other
than John Hughes comedies.
Speaker 3: Right, Which what was it he picked?
Speaker 4: He did out of the Bounds, right, Yeah, which I
did that podcast with Jeff Johnson. It's on their patreon.
If you go over to the film buy sign up
for their patreon, go listen to the out of Bounds episode.
It's like a fish out of water story where Anthony
Michael Hall is a country boy. He goes to La
Sunset Strip in eighty six, which is pretty fun, and
makes terrible decisions, gets in trouble with the law, but
he's kind of fighting for his own instance. It's a
dramatic role. It's kind of more serious. There's gun play involved.
It's not farmer ted. Yeah, and it's completely forgettable.
Speaker 3: Yeah it is.
Speaker 4: And really from that point forward he struggles. He does
Johnny Be Good, which was kind of a fun eighties movie,
but it wasn't a big hit. Yeah, he does Edward
Scissor Hands and then he vanishes for about ten or
fifteen years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean he did. I don't remember when the
Dead Zone TV series came out.
Speaker 4: Early two thousands, but that's when he really reappears. Yeah,
which that's a great show if you haven't seen that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh and by the way, SI, go check out
our old Kujo versus Christine versus the Dead Zone matchup
from I think it was October of twenty three. Yeah,
I think that's right. Yeah, Okay, that's kind of a
Halloween thing exactly.
Speaker 4: All right, d So let's get into casting. I got
some stuff for you on the cast. These casts are
amazing and have some crazy stories.
Speaker 3: Really for sure, they really do. Right, So let's let's go.
We're right here at Weird Science and scho word Skill
Word Science.
Speaker 4: Okay, So we talked to Gout Anthony Michael Hall already
elon Mitchell Smith.
Speaker 3: By the way, why are wearing bras on our heads?
Speaker 2: Ceremonial?
Speaker 3: He had just done The Wildlife.
Speaker 4: We talked about that with Rik Stoltz, Chris Pin.
Speaker 3: Leah Thompson got his start in ballet. Did you know this?
Speaker 4: I've read that I didn't see any video of that though.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, he was. He was had made it into
got a scholarship to a very good ballet school. But
that was where he got discovered. He played the younger
version of Timothy Hutton in the movie Daniel, okay, which
was based on the Book of Daniel. And then yes,
it's biblical.
Speaker 4: Well, I cruised right past that I saw Daniel.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I don't recognize no, no, no, no, no, it's
like there's a book called the Book of Daniel. Lions.
Then when we talking about I mean, I haven't seen
the movie. I don't know. Maybe it is biblical. I
really I don't. I couldn't tell you, okay. But then yes,
as we mentioned before, he was in The Wildlife, which
is written by Cameron Cowe and had Chris Pin and
Leah Thompson and Eric Stolton. And then they see him again.
This is I mean, John Hughes and Anthony Michael Hall
are tight and they see him in the Wildlife and
they're like, let's get him as the other guy for
this movie.
Speaker 4: Right by the way, I think he was paid about
a third of the amount of Anthony Michael Hall.
Speaker 3: But that's okay. That kind of makes sense. Here's some
tidbits on him. Okay, yeah, he acted. He did some
other stuff obviously, but he quit acting in I think
it was ninety one. Yes, he got his bachelor's degree
in medieval studies. He got his master's degree in medieval studies,
and then he got his PhD from Texas A and
M and is now a professor of English, I believe,
associate professor of English at cal State University in Long Beach.
But this whole medieval thing. He is a tabletop gamer.
He is a guy who like he not only plays it,
but like he organizes the events. He's like written some
major articles on tabletop gaming. So he's a huge dungeons
and Dragons guy. That's interesting, which is perfect for the
character that he played, right. He mean he admits that
he's a big nerd.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've heard that he doesn't really want students to
take pictures with him and gets annoyed that people are.
Speaker 3: Like, eh, why it's teaching my class? Right? You know?
Well he did. He did do a brief cameo in
The Goldberg. Yeah, in the episode Weird Science, where one
of the kids is like, I want to do what
they did in Weird science, and he's the science teacher going,
you can't that's not I can't do it right?
Speaker 4: And he lied, and Adam Goldberg is like, why why
did you lie? He's like, well, I had an older
brother who was a buttead.
Speaker 3: Sir, in your expert scientific opinion, is it possible for
me to weird science up a girlfriend?
Speaker 2: It was game over scientifically speaking.
Speaker 3: My teacher always took science seriously absolutely until he didn't.
I knew it. Watch out, Kelly LeBrock, the taste. He's
coming for you.
Speaker 2: Why would you lie like that? Between you and me?
I have a butt lot of an older brother too.
Speaker 3: That's hilarious. So okay, the part of Lisa.
Speaker 2: So what would you little maniacs like to do? First?
Speaker 4: Which I found super interesting. They took the name from
the Apple Lisa computer. Do you remember the Lisa way
back at the beginning, Like Steve Jobs had a daughter
named Lisa, I think, and he named that first one
of those first Apple computers he.
Speaker 3: Called the Lisa.
Speaker 4: Okay, And that's where they get the character Lisa from
Perfect Perfect Now Kelly LeBrock panting.
Speaker 3: Don't hate me because I'm beautiful. I still use panting conditioner.
To this day because of Kelly Lebron. I am not lying.
I have used panting conditions the last forty years because
you don't, because you're beautiful. Thank you.
Speaker 4: But you know, on a serious note, that was an
iconic commercial from the eighties. A lot of people girl
kind of turned off by that.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 4: I know some girls at my school were like that stupid.
Speaker 3: They didn't make it for them, I know. I mean,
they may envy her, but they're going to go buy
the stuff that is going to make them look like
or make their hair look like her hair.
Speaker 4: Right, So I sent you a little tidbit this morning
that you didn't know, and I didn't know until last night. Yeah,
there is a song, a prominent eighties song that is
written about Kelly LeBrock.
Speaker 3: Blue my mind, bro blew my mind. Okay.
Speaker 4: That song is the Hollan Oates classic man Ere.
Speaker 3: What you Wow.
Speaker 4: I heard John Oates talk about this. He said they
were at a club in.
Speaker 3: New York City. Uh huh.
Speaker 4: And it was one of those clubs where famous people
hung out, actors, singer and blah blah blah, and Kelly
LeBrock walked in the room, sucked all the oxygen out
and everybody's like, way will they were?
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course, So I mean you've seen her, yes,
and did an excellent job. Yeah. So she was born
She's born in nineteen sixty and.
Speaker 4: That makes her twenty four to twenty five in this picture.
Speaker 3: Ish yes, and Elan Mitchell Smith was born in seventies seventy,
like sixty nine. I think he was born in sixty nine.
So in both of these movies, you have women in
their mid twenties kissing deeply fifteen year old boy, it's
like what I know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and in both of these movies you have popular
songs written about those women.
Speaker 3: That's wait a minute, there's a popular song on Weird Science. Really,
I mean I real genius. Yes, Oh, I don't know
this old tight Okay, get there, Yeah, all right, we're
still talking casting on Weird Science's a little teaser, all right.
Speaker 4: So Kelly Imberg was originally hired. I think they went
after Kelly Lebron. She said something along the lines of
she's having too much fun riding horses in Spain because
that's what beautiful people do, right, rough life, right, And
so they brought in Kelly Imberg, who was a popular
model in the eighties.
Speaker 3: I looked at her.
Speaker 4: She's pretty, but I don't recognize her. Okay, two days
she gets the boot Creative Differences and they go after
Kelly LeBrock again, say hey, listen, we had to fire this.
Speaker 3: We really want you. Can you come?
Speaker 4: So she comes and she takes the role of Lisa.
Speaker 3: She had just done the woman in Red. Oh right,
Gene Wilder. Gene Wilder. Yeah. Can you name the song
that was Oscar nominated? Not? The name of the song
is not that one. It's it with Me and what
is it? I don't know.
Speaker 4: It's the Jason Colvin non favorite I Just Called to
Say I Love You, which against all odds by Phil Collins,
which we talked about a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 3: Right, go check out those episodes. All right.
Speaker 4: Do you know who almost got the job of Lisa
before Kelly Emberg was hired.
Speaker 3: Christy Brinkley. No, that's a good guess. Yeah.
Speaker 4: At that time, brace yourself. Robin Wright was almost hired
as Lisa. Wow, what was she twenty?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, she was a baby way Yeah. In eighty
seven when Princess Break exactly, yeah, what and Demi Moore, Wow,
that would have been a heck of a year for
Demi Moore, seriously, because that was that she was in
three from eighty five already, right.
Speaker 4: You got one crazy summer. Yeah, you had last night
and you had sat Almo's Fire. Yeah, and she was
getting ready to start melting the camera.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Still not Kelly LeBrock though, not that hot yet
man smoking. All right, we got to talk about Bill Paxton, Yes,
we do.
Speaker 2: How about a nice ceazy pork sandwich served in a
dirty ash tray.
Speaker 4: This was kind of when I first became aware of him. Absolutely,
he had had you know, he'd done a little bit
like he was one of the punks that got killed
at the very beginning of the Terminator movie, right, and
you know he worked as a stage hand on Yeah,
not only with the stars or whatever.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, he was, he was. He was one of
the right hand guys for James Cameron when James Cameron
was making crappy b movies for guy what's his name,
Roger Corman.
Speaker 4: Yes, he was like gluing big Mac boxes on the
walls and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And so Bill Paxton had done just a few things
here and there.
Speaker 3: He's hired.
Speaker 4: He comes and does weird science he had been hired
by this time to be Hudson in Aliens.
Speaker 3: Okay, but I heard Bill.
Speaker 4: Paxson talk about that he was nervous that James Cameron
was gonna watch Weird Science and think, this guy's an idiot.
Speaker 3: What are we doing?
Speaker 4: He's not a soldier, So he was real nervous about
Weird Science. Thought it was gonna costume his job in Aliens. Yeah,
but instead you get two fantastic Bill Paxon off the
leash rolls here.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 4: He's the funniest part of Weird Science.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, oh yes, oh yeah. That the gun and
he wakes him up and he's got the gun. So
the gun was made of plastic. Like I was like,
he's hitting hard, right, Apparently the gun's made of plastic.
But he but Anthony Michael Hall was like, we couldn't
stop laughing because he was playing. So he was so
freaking funny.
Speaker 4: I cracked up last night. I mean everything about it.
I mean whacking them on the head, pushing her nose off,
and then he goes in the other room and he
blows the doorknob off with his shotgun and it scares
the heck out of there.
Speaker 3: They wake right up. So Bill Paxton.
Speaker 4: On fire in this absolutely, by the way, I told
you right before we started. I read the guy in
charge of the special effect of the chet blob, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the doll the blob, yes, which.
Speaker 4: Originally they were gonna put Bill Paxton in and and
he was gonna kind of puppet it, but it just
didn't work, and so they had him like voice of
offscreen whatever. So the guy who was in charge of
that effect said, for they struggled with it for a while,
like initially it looked too much like job of the
Hut and they weren't real happy with that. And then
he said, they went to a different design and ultimately
it just wasn't funny. But he said it all flipped
when they added the Chet's crew cut to the blob.
Speaker 3: Would you please turn me back to normal? Please.
Speaker 4: I haven't done anything to you.
Speaker 3: No, but you've done plenty to your brother, like what, well,
let me see.
Speaker 2: You've nagged him, harassed him, suppressed him, kept him in
fear of you, extorted money from him.
Speaker 3: It's done out of love.
Speaker 1: Just for that, I.
Speaker 2: Ought to give you a set of elephant bulls.
Speaker 3: That's perfect. And I was like, that's funny. That's all
you need, right, you just need that one symbolic little thing. Yes,
Oh it's awesome.
Speaker 4: Uh okay, So a couple of the girls I want
to talk about real quick. Suzanne Snyder deb she's the Blobe.
Speaker 3: She's been in a few things. Yeah, but she's always
just kind of that girl that she never She's very pretty.
I always expected her to be more, but she had
been in like family Ties.
Speaker 4: She's like killer clowns from outer space. But there is
kind of a connection to another movie in eighty six,
which I've done with Jeff Johnson. Go over to the
Film by podcast check them out. But Suzanne Snyder and
the girl who plays Sue the perfume girl, perfume girl, either,
guys have got beat up at the homecoming dance.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: They were in a movie called Night of the Creeps.
Speaker 3: That's right, I remember. Yeah.
Speaker 4: By the way, Jason Lively plays the lead role in
Night of the Creeps. He replaced Anthony Michael Hall in
European Vacation.
Speaker 3: Oh he's rusty. Yeah, he's the new Rusty. Yeah.
Speaker 4: And Anthony Michael Hall passed on European Vacation to do
weird science.
Speaker 3: Okay, but here's the interesting part. The girl who was
originally supposed to be Audrey.
Speaker 4: They were going to bring her back, but when Anthony
Michael Hall didn't return, they were like, well, let's just
get two new people. So she lost her job because
Anthony Michael Hall didn't come back. Yeah, okay, I want
to talk about Judy Aronson for a second.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: First of all, she's about sixty years old now and
still a smoke show.
Speaker 3: Really, oh man?
Speaker 4: Okay, So she had been in Friday the Thirteenth Part seven.
She actually has kind of a cool little role cameo
role in Kiss Kiss Bang.
Speaker 3: Bang, Yes, which also has Valkilmer in it, which that's
why has Robert Downey Junior.
Speaker 4: Well, that's why she got the role is because she
had played Robert Downey Junior's girlfriend in Your Science There
you go, okay, and there was that connection.
Speaker 3: She walked up to him and talked to him in
kis Kiss Bank Bank.
Speaker 4: Robert Downey Junior, Yes, is in this movie.
Speaker 3: He plays Ian. His character's name is Ian. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 4: He talked about how at this time in his career
he's still playing the best friend. He's still he's not
leading role material. He is definitely way far from Tony Stark.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, he's way far from less than zero
at this point, even though it's just a few years away.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so, I mean he's playing the funny sidekick best.
Speaker 3: Friend Roles right by the way. He and Anthony Michael
Hall are like true blue friends, like been friends for
it makes sense years now.
Speaker 4: Anthony Michael Hall is the godfather of one of Robert
Downey Junior's daughters, and they also if you remember, Anthony
Michael Hall and Robert Downey Junior were cast members of
Saturday Night Live.
Speaker 3: That's right, for one week season. Yeah, that was the
last of the non Lauren Michael seasons. And at the
end of that season, he grabbed John Lovett's and pulled
him out of the burning building where the rest of
the cast was supposed to have ferished. That's how bad
Saturday Night Live had gotten at that game, Calley Robert
Rustler plays Max. Huh call him mad Max.
Speaker 4: This is his first acting role. In fact, his first
scene was dropping the slushie at the mall.
Speaker 3: That's great scene, he.
Speaker 4: Said, about thirty seconds before film was rolling. They made
up that fake little handshake. Nice and he and Robert
Downey Junior were friends from that. His next role he
played like one of the main people in Nightmare and
Elm Street Part two.
Speaker 3: Robert Downey Junior drove him to that audition. That's great,
pretty cool.
Speaker 4: Just a couple more people I want to mention real quick. Okay,
you have Vernon Wells, who plays the lead biker that
destroys Gary and White's house.
Speaker 3: So Anthony Michael Hall said, it's a weekend, John Hughes
and I are watching Matt Max and he said, we're
gonna get that guy to be in the movie. And
that's what happened. Wow.
Speaker 4: And he looks exactly like he does and it's the
same character. They don't it's a different name, but it
looks exactly the same.
Speaker 3: Yes, And I don't know who the metal face guys
guy is, but the bald guys, the guy from the
Hills Have Eyes. Keep this just.
Speaker 4: So that the guy with the metal face, Yeah, he's
a stunt man. Okay, in fact, he's a big guy,
so he always does like big stunts. Yeah right, But
Michael berryman, he's the bald headed guy from the Hills
Have Eyes. Yes, he plays the principal in the Motley
Cruz smoking in the Boys droops.
Speaker 3: He's got the ridiculous that's right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but Vernon Wells, the head biker. Yeah, he plays
a bad guy in a movie we're getting ready to
talk about. He's the bad guy in Commando. Yeah, I'm anxious.
Speaker 3: You still haven't watched it yet. I still haven't seen
it yet. I have not watched Commando. I have not
watched Rambo. Everybody be sure and hit that subscribe button
so that you will be here when I tell you
about losing my Rambo Commando Virginity.
Speaker 4: Yes, okay, I just want to touch on John Capelos
was in this for just a few minutes.
Speaker 3: He's the owner the of the bar. Okay, he was
the janitor in Breakfast Club. Oh, the Malacca guy. I
don't know what to tell you. She's in the Malaccas. Yes,
they improv that whole scene like they had it. They
had it kind of sketched out, but the rest of
it was just improv and it is. It's hysterical. It's
it's top top of I would say, top three scenes
in that movie. Oh, it's so funny. Yes, And the
other top scene in the movie is whenever she's talking
to his parents. Oh my gosh, it's so funny. Oh,
it's great. She need him in the nuts and call
him which they threw that word around a little bit
in the family jewels. Yeah, give it the keys.
Speaker 4: How do you know good so Chino Fats Williams. You
know him by his voice?
Speaker 3: Yeah, he plays Fats. Yeah.
Speaker 4: And I just want to drop a quick name on you,
Kim Mahlen, Does that name anything to you? Do you
remember when the piano gets sucked out of the chimney and.
Speaker 3: Well, sure, And that's a memorable scene for anybody who
is ten eleven in nineteen eighty kind of pose it.
Speaker 4: And really kind of focus in to see anything.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, having just watched it, I was I was like, oh,
she's less nude than I thought she was. She's she's
got her bron panties on when she's holding on, but
as she gets sucked out, she no longer has the
bra on because John Hughes.
Speaker 4: Well, when you have the Playmate of the Month from
May of nineteen eighty.
Speaker 3: Two, she's an excellent piano player.
Speaker 4: When you've got somebody of that caliber, you've got it.
Speaker 3: Don't you have to? Well, obligations, I don't know.
Speaker 4: Do you remember the last time we talked about a
playmate from nineteen eighty two, Marianne Gravett who was in
the lay It Down video which was in our Best
of eighty five. Oh wow, she was in the rat
video lay It Down. Okay, all right, that does it
for cast for Weird Science.
Speaker 3: Okay, guys, that is going to be the end of
part one of Weird Science Versus Real Genius. Come back
next week for part two. We will talk about casting
for Real Genius. We will tell you about all the
exciting tidbits. We'll talk about the cool songs and music
that we're involved in these movies, and we will give
you our final judgment on which of these two nineteen
eighty five Nerd Hero movies are the best. So you guys,
never pretending like it's nineteen eighty five and I'm drinking
a coke. I don't drink these on the regular. But
this is I notice that, and this is says Sis.
I guess I'm Sis today and I'm okay,