Speaker 1: All right, let's do this. Oh don't you, Let's do it. Okay, Okay,
here we are.
Speaker 2: We are here for our Eddie Murphy John Landis duo,
the Trading Places versus coming to America looking good, Jason.
Speaker 1: Feeling good.
Speaker 3: D Let's do this, all right. Remember to follow us
on Twitter at Shirley Podcast.
Speaker 2: Right or follow us on Facebook at Shirley Podcast. If
you want to, you can email us Shirleypodcast at gmail
dot com.
Speaker 3: That's right. We'd love to hear from you, So interact
with us. Tell us how we're doing, tell us what
you agree with, tell us what you disagree with, tell
us where we're way off.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I we had somebody say something once and it made
me think of my history professor in high school. He
started the whole class first day o' clocks. He's like,
I might tell you something that's not accurate, but you
have to figure that out. I was like, Wow, Okay,
we researched these things. We're not expert. It's in anything
that we do anything that we're talking about, but we
do research them.
Speaker 1: We do. Yeah. So but if we get something wrong,
call us out. We like it.
Speaker 3: That's right, let's hear from it.
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure.
Speaker 2: Okay, So we're going to talk about Eddie Murphy, who
I was listening to Delirious on the way over here today,
and my gosh, the man is so freaking funny.
Speaker 1: I wish he would do stand up some more. It's
been I think.
Speaker 3: It's been almost thirty years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it.
Speaker 2: Raw was the last actual stand up he did, right,
and it was only three big show stand up things
that he did. The first Eddie Murphy, then Delirious and
then Raw Wow. But he that's where he got his start.
You know, he started off in stand up. He was
the kid who didn't want to go outside and play.
He wants to stay in and watch TV, which is
kind of me too. He started doing stand up when
he was fifteen years old. It's incredible, my son is fifteen. Yeah,
to imagine them up on stage. Although Brock I could.
Speaker 1: Actually see him up on stage delivered.
Speaker 3: Some prist's right, yeah, get it together, man. He started working.
Speaker 2: He's so he starts that and then somebody says, hey,
you know, they're they're looking for a black guy over
Saturday Night Live. You should give audition for that, and
he's he didn't even I mean he didn't really watch
Saturday Night Live that much and just thought it was whatever, right,
But then he thought, oh, maybe it'll be good for
my stand up for him. Yeah, get me out there
and I'll get some better, get some better stand up gigs.
And then, as it turned out, it was opened a
whole lot more doors.
Speaker 3: When he was on Saturday Night Live, it was clear
right away that this guy is going to be a star.
Speaker 1: Absolutely well.
Speaker 2: And I mean I can understand his reaction to Saturday
Night Live at that point because Lauren Michaels had left
the show and Saturday Night Live sucked, right, I mean,
this is the early eighties and they were awful.
Speaker 3: Well, they had lost chevy Chase, they had lost all
these people had left.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so when he comes in to do the audition,
he does. The audition is an old bit from the
seventies with Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor where they do
the word association game, and you know, we're a family
friendly podcast.
Speaker 1: So he can't do it.
Speaker 2: But chevy Chase is using these racial slurs and Richard
Pryor is supposed to respond with, you know, the word response,
and all he could do is say.
Speaker 3: Honky, Honky and Deadny.
Speaker 1: Yes, he throws out the end word Richard bribbly like
did Honky.
Speaker 2: And so Eddie does that with Joe Piscopo is his
audition piece, and he just he knew the bit because
he loved Richard Pryor. And of course he nailed it
and he saved the show. I mean, yeah, he really
wasn't for him. I don't know that Saturday Night Live
would still be a thing.
Speaker 3: It definitely got that boost it needed at that early
stage when it could have died.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, right, it was the reason people started watching
it again.
Speaker 1: So cose.
Speaker 3: So we're going to talk about Trading Places from nineteen
eighty three, yes, which is an Eddie Murphy dan Aykroyd movie,
right and Coming to America, which came out in July
fourth of nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 3: This is interesting because Trading Places is Eddie Murphy's second movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, his first movie was forty eight Hours with Nick Nolty.
He had gotten that piece because his agent was dating
the guy who was going to make the movie.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah. So the rumor was that they.
Speaker 2: Had just seen him on Saturday Night Live and got
him from that, but it was actually like he had
a really inside.
Speaker 3: Nice deal on that one. You know, the scene that
stands out in forty eight hours to me, Eddie Murphy wise,
if you'll remember, he takes the cops badge. Eddie Murphy
is a con, you know, they get him out of
jail for this, right, and he goes and he said,
I'm going to take care of this problem. He takes
the badge, gets his cowboy hat and goes into a
honky tonk.
Speaker 2: You start running a respectable business and I don't have
to come in here and hassle you every night.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: And that scene is unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, at the point that at the point that that
scene finishes up, like people in the audience were standing
up and cheering because it was it was a straight
I mean it was not. It was still funny. You
can't be Eddie Murphy in the early eighties and not
be funny, right, But that was more of a straight
piece for him, right, straight acting.
Speaker 3: You know who wrote that scene, our friend Steven Desusa.
Speaker 1: Oh, right, from Diehard.
Speaker 3: He wrote Diehard that's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean a thousand movies, but yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's our of course favorite of his movies.
Speaker 3: We can get into that a little bit later. Oh sure, yeah, okay,
So so Trading Places have released June eighth, nineteen eighty three.
Just take those all, all right? So okay, so Curt,
event's right for me, just kind of a little fashion thing.
Swatch introduces their first watches.
Speaker 2: Oh, I love I had a Swatch for years.
Speaker 3: Years.
Speaker 1: Really, I'm still wearing Swatches into the nineties.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you want to hear my watch story. I bought
with my own money what I thought was a really
cool Swatchwatcheah, I didn't really know. My friends are like, hey,
Swatch is the way to go. I go to the store,
buy a Swatch. I like it looks cool, bring it
to school the next day, Hey, guys, check out my Swatch.
They're like, why'd you buy a girl's one? Like, what
are you talking about? The little ones where girls? The
big ones were boys? You only do the plot overview
of Trading Places therefore, all right. So Lewis Winthorpe the
third is a successful commodity broker in Philadelphia. He's got
a great job, beautiful fiance in a wonderful home that
includes a butler, Coleman Billy Ray Valentine is a con
man and a hustler who pretends to be a legless
Vietnam vett, begging and you know, bugging people for money.
Win Thorpe's employers, the Duke Brothers, make a bet that
if they switched and took Billy Ray Valentine from the streets,
put him in a job, and if they somehow disgraced Winthorpe,
he would turn to a life of crap. And so
they make this bet, and they set it up in
such a way that they bring Billy Ray in for
his job, and they cast out Winthorpe to the streets,
and some hilarity ensues, but Winthorpe and Valentine figure this out.
They join up and they're going to take down the
Duke brothers with the help of Ophelia played by Jamie
Lee Curtis, who is the coggar with the heart of gold,
and they're going to take down the Duke brothers.
Speaker 2: Okay, So nineteen eighty eight, that year I can remember
so clearly.
Speaker 1: We went.
Speaker 2: We were so excited because Mike Tyson was free defining
what it meant to be a boxer.
Speaker 1: I mean, he was just unbeatable.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, and I played plenty of hours Mike
Tyson's punch.
Speaker 1: Out on my name.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we went to we had a big event.
It was I think maybe pay per view was coming
out the first time, or maybe this was on HBO
and we didn't get it at the time. But he
had a fight with Michael Spinks. And I can remember
going there where it's a big party. There are several people.
There were all guys ready to go that I'm going
with my dad, you know, and the fight's about to start.
I'm thinking, okay, I'm gonna go grab a coke real quick.
I grab a coke, I see some chips. I come
back in and the fight is over. He had knocked
Michael Spinks out in ninety one seconds.
Speaker 3: I remember that too. That was amazing. This is the
time with Mike Tyson. I mean, this was a huge match.
I mean I thought, yeah at the time, man, these
are two big boys gonna duke it out.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 3: Turns out there's only one big boy. Yeah, and he
was big and bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was all right.
Speaker 3: So I don't know if you know this, d but
on Christmas Eve it was nineteen eighty eight. Yeah, terrorists
take over the knock Tommy Plaza Tower.
Speaker 1: Oh, I was. I was gut wrenched at that. I
was watching the news. Just kidding.
Speaker 3: Shots fire.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So the other movie that we're going to talk is
Eddie Murphy's second movie with John Landis.
Speaker 1: We talk about big stars of the eighties. Eddie Murphy
was one, but John Landis was also one of With
that question, you.
Speaker 2: Had five directors that were killing the eighties, He's got
to be on that list, right, So they do the
second movie together. The premise I'll do the loot outline
for coming to America, a wealthy African nation of Zamunda,
the crown princh a Keen Joffer grows weary of his
pampered lifestyle.
Speaker 3: Why bus and.
Speaker 1: He wakes up on his twenty first birthday. I tell you,
I want to.
Speaker 2: Get I know I'm supposed to be running through the
plot here, but I want to get the music. I
don't need the band. I don't need the orchestra, you know,
because that'd be a little expensive. But that music, if
I could just wake up to that music every morning,
every day, would be better.
Speaker 3: Good morning, your highness.
Speaker 1: So it's his twenty first birthday.
Speaker 2: It's the day he is supposed to meet his bride
to be, who he's never met before, but this is
an arranged marriage, and despite the fact that he lives
without any want in the world that goes unmet, he
is unhappy that he has to marry this woman who
he has never met, and then after meeting her, though
she is beautiful, she is completely complicit to every whim
that he wants. So he decides to go find himself
a bride in a place where people don't know who
he is.
Speaker 1: And where to go to do that is America.
Speaker 3: Where better than.
Speaker 2: Queen's Queens, And so he and his best friend Simmy
go to Queen's. They pose as poor African students. They
get a job at the local knockoff off of McDonald's
called McDowell's. Because Prince Akim has grown enamored with the
McDowell's owner's daughter, Lisa. Hilarity ensues. Ultimately the King comes
and tries to put an end to this crazy idea
that he would marry some American girl, and ultimately they
are reunited at.
Speaker 1: The end of the movie.
Speaker 3: Great, great movie. Two great movies, very very enjoyable movies.
The budget, let's just talk about that they were both
big hits, right okay. Trading Places was the fourth highest
grossing film in nineteen eighty three, behind Return of the
Jedi Flash Dance in terms of a dermitt So it's
a big, big movie. The budget was twenty eight million
and it made ninety million. Similarly, Coming to America a
big hit from nineteen eighty eight. The budget was thirty
nine million and it made worldwide two hundred and eighty
eight million plus. Huge, huge movie for ready money.
Speaker 2: We want to go through the actors actresses. Yeah, let's
start talking about the actors. Obviously, Eddie Murphy is in
both of these movies.
Speaker 3: Eddie Murphy for a moment. He made forty eight Hours, Yep,
he made Trading Places. He made Coming to America. Our
younger viewers and listeners may recognize his voice from Shrek, right,
he plays Donkey and Shrek. I like that bold.
Speaker 1: That is a ninth bold.
Speaker 3: He was in The Nutty Professor Norbit, The Adventures of
Pluto Nash. Have you ever seen that?
Speaker 1: I have not seen that one.
Speaker 2: I can tell you that he received the Golden Globe
nomination for his work on forty eight Hours, Beverly Hills
Cop Trading places a nutty Professor and for Dolomite. He
ultimately won the Golden Globe for dream Girls.
Speaker 3: Dream Girls, right, you know, the only movie that he
turned down that turned out to be a hit that
he regrets not taking the role. I thought this was
really interesting.
Speaker 1: Who Framed Roger Rabbit track? He never even knew that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The guy who went on to do Shrek had proposed
it to him before and said, hey, you should do
this movie. He's like, hey, cartoons, I don't want to
do that, right, And when Who Framed Roger Rabbit became
the success that it did, he was like, oh, I'm not.
Speaker 1: Going to refuse one of those offers again.
Speaker 3: And that's how he got Donkey Nice and Roger Rabbit
came out summer of eighty eight as well. All Right,
Dan Ackroyd, who you'll remember from Saturday Night Live, right,
Blues Brothers, yep, Ghostbusters, YEP, Spies Like Us with John Landis.
Speaker 1: Yeah, another eighties icon.
Speaker 3: He was in Conheads, Yeah, in one of the worst
movies in the nineteen eighties, maybe the worst movie of
the nineteen eighties, Ishtar, I don't see this star. He
was in Caddyshack too.
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't think I hated Caddy Shack too.
Speaker 2: Oh, it was terrible with the guy from the Jerk
in it, right, Jackie Mason, Thank you, Jackie Mason.
Speaker 3: It wasn't good. It was awful, all right. And Dankward.
So dan Akward was in maybe the worst movie the
nineteen eighties. He was also in maybe the worst movie
in the nineteen nineties called Nothing but Trouble. No.
Speaker 1: I liked that one too.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, No, that's hilarious.
Speaker 1: Okay, right, No, that's a great one.
Speaker 2: Debby Moore and Chevy Chack was and he plays the judge,
doesn't he doesn't.
Speaker 3: Do the judge.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. It's a lot. That's awesome, like that movie.
Speaker 3: Last time you saw that you were five? Come on,
all right? Also starring this is really cool Donna Michi
and Ralph Bellamy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Duke brothers. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Don Imichi hadn't done a movie in thirteen years. Thirteen years. Yeah,
here's some interesting thing about this one. You know, when
he started, he didn't know who these guys were. They
didn't know who he was. But he comes in and
I mean, the eighties are very different than the movies
that Dono Miichi was making. I mean, you've, especially with
John Landis, You're gonna have lots of F bombs. You're
gonna have lots of movies.
Speaker 1: It's just the way that John did his movies right, right.
Speaker 2: And so Donamichi's got two like big you know, drops
the F on f him about his brother. And then
I mean in the bathroom I was when rewatching, I.
Speaker 1: Was like, whoa, oh, he just dropped.
Speaker 3: The N bomb there, big gosh, that's right.
Speaker 2: And so he was he was adamantly I mean he's conservative,
religious guy. He was adamantly opposed. I'm not doing that.
And they're like, you've you've got to do it. I mean,
it's just part of the role. And he was like, Okay,
I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it once and
you better get it on the first take. And he
went before this, before the filming, before the scenes started,
he went early to go apologize to everybody about what
was about to happen.
Speaker 1: But he didn't hold any punches on it. Man, he
delivers it hard.
Speaker 3: He does.
Speaker 1: He just like, holy smokes.
Speaker 3: I love that about him, the fact that he's so
gentlemanly to show up and he apologizes to all the
cast and crew. All Right, everyone, guess what I'm getting
ready to drop a major f bar and I'm very
sorry about that.
Speaker 2: I realized that you've been listening to Eddie Murphy.
Speaker 3: All right everyone. I know that there are young people
who like to cuss, but that is.
Speaker 2: Not me, so DONOMICI then you know this is this
is kind of a comeback role for him.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The next movie that he did was Cocoon and he
won the Best Supporting Actor oscar from them, so cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah for him.
Speaker 3: You know, Ralph Bellmy kind of got a boost off
of this too. He ended up doing Pretty Woman. Yeah,
you know he's not related to Bill Bellamy.
Speaker 1: They sted to clean that up for Okay, So here's
that secret thing I was gonna throw.
Speaker 2: And if you have any idea who Bill Bellamy is,
which you should tell me, post a picture of Bill
Bellamy on our Twitter feed, say at Tuley podcast on Twitter,
post a picture of him, or if you're into Facebook,
post a picture of Bill Bellamy on Facebook and we'll
give you a shout out.
Speaker 3: I want to run. That dude has gone away. I
don't know what he's doing.
Speaker 1: I don't know either. He was a big thing there
for five minutes.
Speaker 3: Ye, all right. And also in treading places, you have
Jamie Lee Curtis.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you know dan Aykroyd.
Speaker 2: They were hesitant about having him come in and do
the show because they weren't sure whether he could be
funny without John Belushi.
Speaker 3: That's right, that's right.
Speaker 2: And they were also hesitant about Jamie Lee Curtis because
they didn't know that she could be funny at all.
Speaker 1: I mean, because the only thing that she.
Speaker 2: Had really done at that point were the horror flick
she was like screenplaying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she'd have done Halloween, she had done and Promni
and The Fog and some of these horror movies. So
they didn't know if she could be funny.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: One thing they did know though, yeah, she was beautiful.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Okay, So here's the story. You know,
you've told your Booby story from Airplane. I'm gonna go
ahead and tell this story now. So this movie came
out in nineteen eighty three, the summer of nineteen eighty three. Yes,
my birthday is in October. I was still seven years
old in nineteen when this movie came out. Okay, we're
in California and this is where This is where I
found out that what rated R really meant. Okay, so
I had, you know, at that point, at seven years old,
I know, I had asked to see the other John
Landis big hit American were Wolf in London.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and my dad was like, now you can'cy is
rated R. And I said what does that mean? He said,
it's too scary.
Speaker 2: You can't see it because it's too scary, right, didn't
mention the porn scene. So and so we you know,
we're in California, were visiting my cousins. My brother and
my cousins are all fifteen years old. I'm seven. That
parents are about to go out and they're going to
go see Doctor Detroit Detroit. Yes, that has dan ekrot
in it, which was a big bomb for him. Fortunately, yeah,
fortunately these movies came out at the same time or
he might have been shot. But the they're gonna go
see it, and I was like, oh, I want to go,
and you can't go.
Speaker 1: It's it's rated R. And I was like, I won't
be scared.
Speaker 3: Right, don't look scary at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure how this movie is scary,
but okay.
Speaker 2: And so then a couple days later, my cousins, my
brother and I go to the big Multiplex theater in
California and we buy tickets for Snow White, and then
we proceed to go in and watch trading places when
National Lampoon vacation when and risky business. Okay, like I
got no parents put their hand over my eyes, nobody's
saying don't look. And so all of a sudden, in
one day, I am exposed to Jamie Lee Curtis's boobies,
Rebecca de Mornay's boobies, and Beverly DeAngelo's bootpies.
Speaker 1: And it was quite a day for me.
Speaker 3: That's a glorious day.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: Yes, those are three big time girls from the from
the eighties. Man, I was a changed kid. Wow, that's awesome,
all right. So switch over to coming to America. Okay,
sounds good, all right. So we covered Eddie Murphy. The
co star with him was our Sendil Hall right, who
really hadn't done a whole lot.
Speaker 2: He had been in a little bit of John Landis's
movie Amazon, Women from the Moon.
Speaker 1: Have you seen that?
Speaker 3: I love this movie and I haven't seen it a
long time, but I know that it's like a it's
like a Kentucky Fried movie, right, it's different skits, and
his skit opens the movie Our Senior Hall doays and
it's hilarious.
Speaker 2: Okay, So he and Eddie Murphy come to meet in
kind of a weird way. I haven't gotten a good
story on this, but it's kind of the way Eddie
tells it is he's slipped through the channels and he
sees himself and he's like, well, I can't remember doing that.
And he goes back and it's like, oh, that's not me.
That's our Senial Hall and in our Cennial Hall. Not
having done anything. It's really surprising how big his part
was in this movie. I mean, he's he is the
other star of the movie.
Speaker 3: All without a doubt. And John Mannison actually commented that
the studio had known how large this part was, that
they never would have gone for our Sant Hall.
Speaker 2: And so both he and Eddie have this thing where
they play multiple parts in the movie, okay, And so
that actually was a way that Eddie got the studio
to buy in on his script, was Hey, I'm going
to play these multiple parts. He had done all of
these characters when he was on Saturday Night Live, but
all of his movies up until that point had just
been like him playing one character and that was it.
And so he does all these parts, and he and
Landis are tossing around ideas for different parts, and they
come up with the old Jewish Man saw. John Landis
tells it like this, he said, back in the early
nineteen hundreds, the a lot of Jews did get their
famous by doing blackface. So this would be like the
of that that you are going to go and play
this old Jewish man. Eddie Murphy's like, yeah, except look
at me, you know how how am I gonna be.
Speaker 1: A white man?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: And so at that point, John Landis says, well, I
know Rick Baker, Rick Baker. So here's here's a little
history on John Landis and Rick Baker. John Landis was
the first one to use Rick Baker and anything at all.
And if for those of you listening who don't know,
Rick Baker is the guy who did all of the makeup.
Speaker 1: For American We'reworth in London for the Star Wars movies.
Speaker 2: For I mean, he's the Michael Jordan of Yeah, he
he dominated. So John Landis had had worked on Planet
of the Ape stuff first go around back in the sixties,
had worked on it and went to the guy who
had done the stuff for that for this idea he
had for a movie called Schluck. Schlock was supposed to
be like a parody almost of this movie called trog
which had come out a little while which was short
for Charcolade and which was absolutely terrible. And he wanted
an actual bad ape costume to wear. And so he
goes to his friend who had done playing of the
apes and they're like, yeah, I can do one of
those for one hundred thousand dollars for you. Well, okay,
the budget for the movie sixty thousand dollars. I don't right,
And they're like, oh okay. We go to Don Pope
and so he gets here's another big name and he
goes to him and he's like, oh, yeah, I could
do it for you for only eighty thousand dollars. I think, okay,
I guess I don't know what to do. I'm going
to have to figure this out on my own. But
as he's walking out the door, the Don Pope Junior
comes to him, hands him a card and said, Hey,
this kid was in just a little while ago.
Speaker 1: He's really good.
Speaker 2: Give him a try, and he has this card, It's
Rick Baker's business card, and it says Rick Baker Monster Maker.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 3: Man, that's so cool.
Speaker 2: So he's so he calls Rick Baker up to come
do the makeup for Coming to America. And you know,
obviously Eddie Murphy plays several characters, but the one with
the most detailed makeup is Saul, this old man and
this old white Jewish man.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so Eddie can do the voice, right, And
so the thing is, can we sell a look?
Speaker 1: And Rick Baker actually models him after his father in.
Speaker 3: Law, who is a double in the movie. You can
actually see him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, on the scenes where Eddie Murphy is the barber,
you still have Saul. You see behind his shoulder. You
can tell it's not the same guy. Well, it's the
guy that they modeled Saul after. Y.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, So other people in coming to America
James Earl Jones, who you may recognize as the voice
of Darth Vader, Yes, who actually has a line in
the movie. Yeah, I'll deal with him myself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a throwback to leave them to me. I
will be with them myself.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, I love it. He was in ConA and
the Barbarian and the Sandlot. I mean, he's been tons
of things, but really he's known because he has.
Speaker 2: This great voice, right well, yeah, I mean he's a
fantastic actor all around, but everybody knows that voice. It's
unmistakable for sure. His dad was actually in Trading Places,
Robert Earl Jones. Yeah, he wants He has a small
role as one of the attendants in Trading Places.
Speaker 3: So James Earl Jones. Then you have John Amos, who
is well known for his role in Good Times, right yeah,
TV show from the seventies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then also really well known for his role
in Roots.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he plays adult.
Speaker 1: You're right, which comes up in the movie of course.
Speaker 3: Good duh, Yeah, it's good.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: That's right. He's one of the bad guys in Diehard too.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, Yeah, that's right. He was one of the
army guys I Thart. He's the leader of the Cuts
Rebels Special Forces.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Interestingly with John Amos, he had done a bunch
of stuff.
Speaker 2: He was Golden Gloves boxer, he was a football player,
had played for the Canadian League and eventually got dismissed
from that. And he's kind of figuring out what to do,
but has an agent and they say, hey, you want
to go do a singing McDonnell's commercial and he's like, sure, whatever, yeah, really,
So he does does this singing dancing, get your Get
a Mob, get a Bucket commercial with Potzy before he's
Potsy Happy Days and it ends up being one of
the best McDonald's commercials ever.
Speaker 1: And then of course, you know, he goes on to
own his own a Dallas.
Speaker 3: That's so awesome. A year or two, I make assistant
manager and that's where the big bucks start rolling in.
All right. Both of these were directed by John Landis,
who is well known for We touched on this briefly,
but Schluck, Blues Brothers, Animal House, Spies Like Us, Three Amigos,
the Thriller video, which if you'll go back to episode one,
we talked at length about the Thriller video, and then
American wirel from London, and then we need to talk
a little bit about the Twilight Zone movie.
Speaker 2: Okay, so just before Trading Places happened, John Landis was
one of a handful of directors that was involved with
the Twilight Zone movie.
Speaker 1: His segment was a segment.
Speaker 2: With Vic Morrow or Vic Morrow is this racist, bigot
who goes to different places and is in the body
of the people that he's got prejudices against.
Speaker 1: But in the production of the movie.
Speaker 2: There's an accident that occurs and Vic Morrow and two
child actors are killed by a helicopter that crashes after
an explosion.
Speaker 1: Kills them both or kills all three of them, sorry.
Speaker 3: Not just kills them, but horribly heascitates them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 2: So at that point, I mean, he's dealing with that
while he's making some of the best movies anybody see.
Speaker 1: This is kind of crazy.
Speaker 2: He doesn't end up doing the trial on it until
later on, like nineteen eighty seven, I think, is when
the trial happens.
Speaker 1: And so I can't.
Speaker 2: Imagine going through the experience itself, let alone going for
years as you're waiting, and then we're talking about not
a civil suit, we're talking about criminal action. Like he
and a few of the other people who were involved
were charged with manslaughter, and.
Speaker 3: So as a he was really close to going to jail.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, that had been a long prison term.
Speaker 2: And as it turns out, Eddie says, this is the
reason that we didn't get along.
Speaker 1: I'm coming to America.
Speaker 2: Now, John Landis gives a different reason why they didn't
get along, but Eddie says, you know, he was mad
because I didn't I wasn't there in supporting him during
his trial, and so he tries to, you know, treat
me like a little kid, like I was back in
trading places, and I'm not a little kid anymore. And
so eventually, like comes down to John land Is saying
something and Eddie kind of angrily but playfully puts him
in a chokehold.
Speaker 1: And then when John.
Speaker 2: Landis tries to playfully you know, grab his crotch, Eddie
tightens and cuts off his air and he runs off.
Speaker 3: It escalated really quick, right, Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was bad and it turned ugly.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I mean they were not happy with each
other as human beings. After the show, they're both very
happy with the movie obviously, but Landis, on the flip
side of that, said, yeah, he went from being this
you know, super kid to this pig headed jerk.
Speaker 1: Ahole is the word that he used.
Speaker 2: It just wasn't fun to work with him anymore. But
eventually they reconciled. They did reconcile. But here's the interesting
thing to me.
Speaker 3: In nineteen ninety, Playboy magazine interviewed Eddie Murphy. Yeah, and
his quote was, this is how harsh this is. Bick
Morrow has a better shot of working with John Landis
than I do.
Speaker 1: Ouch, that's rough.
Speaker 3: And then Beverly Hills Cop three comes out in ninety four,
so yeah, they buried the hatchet apparently, But yeah.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's unfortunate if you've seen Beverly Hills Top three
not good. Yeah. Interesting.
Speaker 2: You know we talk about John landisbying this huge rock
star of the eighties. You know, he's got several hits before,
but Trading Place was a huge hit to catapult his career.
Does a bunch of great movies, then does Coming to America.
Speaker 1: And then none of anything that he's done after that.
Have I thought it's good?
Speaker 3: Nothing?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: So composers real quick. Trading Places has Elmer Bernstein, our
big buddy, Elmer Bernstein.
Speaker 1: Olmer Bernstein, Kevin Bacon game, that's exactly right. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So Olmer Bernstein had done all of these great movies
back in the sixties and had been out of it
for a while, and then John Landis brings it back
in with Animal House, and then he starts doing all
of these other great movies again, including Ghostbusters.
Speaker 3: Kay Shack, Spies like Us To Kill a Mockingbird Ten Commandments. Yeah,
he's all over, all over the place.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: So the movie Trading Places starts off with this music
from the Marriage of Figure Out, Yes, which is fantastic
because it not only does it kind of set the stage,
it's kind of the you know, masterpiece theater type of
sound where you're seeing the regal dan Aykroyd getting ready
and then his butler who's played by Elliott right who.
Speaker 1: You'll remember from and there's a lost start now the throwback.
Speaker 2: Who by the way, on this one, and the scenes
that he's in he's always funny, like he's just quietly funny.
And the second a director on this thing, you know,
they would do a take where he would have to
walk through a door and he said, every single time
he would do something different. He had some other business,
some other thing that he was doing different, and it
was funny every single time. So he goes to him
after the takes and he's he says, mister Elliott, you know,
how are you funny? Over and over with different stuff
every time? And he says, my boy, when you have
parts as small as these, you learn to make something
out of them.
Speaker 3: That's awesome. He's great, he's great, he's great. It is
Marcus Brody and Raiders.
Speaker 2: So I've completely derailed the conversation about the soundtrack.
Speaker 3: No, it's fun, it's fun. Coming to America's composer is
a guy named Nile Rodgers. Is that ring a bell
with you? No? So he's you may recognize his face.
He's kind of a familiar, familiar looking person. Right, But
if you listen to eighties music at all, yeah, you
know who this guy is.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: He did the Reflex by Derandrean. Oh wow, yeah, like
produced it?
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: He produced Let's Dance by David Bowie.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: He was in the the pop band Chic and their
song good Times Good Times. And he produced Madonna's first
album Lucky Star Borderline Holiday. And he does a fantastic
job with his soundtrack. They wanted a somebody who could
do the African style music, which he does kind of
long the Lions Sleep Tonight in the opening credits, which
is great.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: It's by the group Lady Smith Black Mambazo, who you
will remember if you listen to any of the Paul
Simon songs from that era. Grace Land. Yeah, yeah, they're
they're a great musical group. And I noticed I don't
know if this is right. I haven't researched at all,
but as you're listening to that opening, the opening version
of The Lion Sleeps Tonight, there's a little part where
it sounds like they've inserted one of Eddie's laughs in there.
I will play it for you here. Okay, that's Eddie's laugh,
I really do. And I think a little bit later
on you hear Arsenior Hall's laugh as well.
Speaker 1: But anyway, all right, cool. So on the.
Speaker 2: Soundtrack side of things, you've got Ladysmith Black Mumbazo singing Moombe.
I'm sorry, I don't know it's The Lions Leaves Tonight.
But then you've got other songs that come throughout, a
few of them sang by Eddie Murphy.
Speaker 3: Yes, Oh the Greatest Love of All that's yeah, rand it.
Speaker 1: I believe you children, Okay.
Speaker 2: And we can't leave the actors and actresses in coming
to America without mentioning Match Sinclair. She was the queen,
of course, and then interestingly later on she is again
the queen, but the Lion Queen to The Lion King
because she again is with James Earl Jones.
Speaker 1: In the movie The Lion King.
Speaker 2: She plays the voice of Saribi, who is Simba's mom.
Speaker 1: Simba's mom. But what's the name of James Earl Jones.
Speaker 3: Is Mufassa Mufassa, Yes, so it's Mufasa Seribi.
Speaker 2: And then also she plays the wife of Kuntikine in Roots.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then James Earl Jones was not in the original Roots,
but was in the second version of Roots a couple
of years later. I can't remember what the subtitle was,
but he was in Roots, you know, part two.
Speaker 3: Rood Harder right, Roots with a Vengeance. I do think
it's interesting as we were diving into these movies that
we find out how many movies are sort of related, right,
Trading Places and Coming to America. We would say they're brothers.
I mean they are Eddie Murphy and John Landis their brothers.
Speaker 1: Right yeah.
Speaker 3: But of cousins to these movies, are you know, the
Blues Brothers or Roots, the Roots the Nutty Professor right right.
I do want to mention Sherry Headley plays Lisa from
Coming to America. Yes, and she does a great job.
She's just a sweetheart and has a great smile. She's
very sort of regal, even though she lives in Queen's right.
You know who finished second for the part of Lisa.
Tell me Vanessa Williams.
Speaker 2: Vanessa Williams, who was the singer.
Speaker 3: She's a singer, a very successful singer.
Speaker 2: She was the one who was stripped of her crown
for Miss Amaricas in America for this penthouse spread. Yeah, yeah,
for sure. Yeah, that was an interesting bit there for
the eighties.
Speaker 1: I remember that.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's dive in. I got some tidbits that I
want to bounce off you. Okay, So Trading Places was
originally to star Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor.
Speaker 1: Right, they had done Stircray, which was a huge hit
in nineteen eighty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it was originally supposed to be called Black
and White.
Speaker 1: It's not very creative.
Speaker 3: That name's terrible. Yeah, but Richard Pryor had to back out.
Did you hear why he had to back out? I
heard it had something to do with him setting himself
on fire. He set himself on fire after freebasing cocaine. Oh,
he was freebasing cocaine and went into this dragon deuced psychosis,
poured rum all over himself.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you how many times I've done the same.
Speaker 3: I mean, who hasn't done that? Oh man?
Speaker 2: So yeah, when when Richard Pryor was out, I mean
he was, he didn't. He didn't like only a thirty
percent shot of making it through that.
Speaker 3: They didn't know if he was going to live.
Speaker 1: He was a little twitchy after that. I could too,
I can remember.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know if it was the freebasing,
the cocaine or the being on fire, but he wasn't
the same guy after that.
Speaker 3: No, But he actually references that in one of his
comedy stand up routines, which oh yeah, make fun of yourself,
and people laughed and they kind of endeared him to him.
Speaker 2: It's one of my favorite lines from Scrooge, where Bill
Murray thinks that the waiter is on fire and he's
not actually on fire, and everybody else is confused, and
he grabs the bucket of water and throws it on
the waiter and the waiters looking at him like what,
and he goes, I'm sorry, I thought you were Richard Pryor.
Speaker 3: Oh man, that's awesome. There is a restaurant in Philadelphia
in a Weston hotel called Winthorpe and Valentine fantastic after
the movie. How cool is that?
Speaker 2: So I'm sure you're getting to the you're talking about
them being brothers. These two movies, you of course have
the connection that happens Eddie Murphy, in frustration with Simmy
making the crap whole apartment look nice, he grabs his
money and takes it away from him and sticks it
in a McDowell's bag. And then as he and Lisa
are walking, you know, romantically together, he hands the bag
full of money to a couple of bums. Well, a
couple of bums turn out to be the Duke brothers.
Speaker 3: I love that scene. That is my favorite scene in
coming to America. I partially because I love trading places
so much. But yeah, Donomichi's like, Randolph, leave me alone,
Mortimer Randolph, and there he says, we're back, Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I'm gonna again, I'm gonna derail this. So
this is you know, people talk about movies that are
important in black history, and this movie just doesn't.
Speaker 1: Come up, but it should. I mean, this is a
movie that there are only three speaking.
Speaker 2: Parts for white actors. He's talking about coming to America.
I'm talking about coming to America.
Speaker 1: Only three speaking parts in this movie.
Speaker 2: One is Randolph Duke, the other one is Mortimer Duke,
and those parts are obviously pretty small. And the other
one is Louis Anderson, who is hysterical.
Speaker 1: In this movie, but he's also not gonna.
Speaker 3: Wash let us now. Yes, pretty soon, I'll be on fries.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a couple of years, I'll make assistant manager. That's
when the big books start.
Speaker 3: When they were preparing for this movie, and I think
they were in costumes. They're hanging out together anyway. Ralph
Bellamy who had done ninety nine films, Don Amichi had
done forty nine films.
Speaker 1: This is trading Places.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, we're back on trade place.
Speaker 1: Yes, trading Places. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And Eddie Murphy joked that between the three of them,
they had made one hundred and fifty films. One more
thing on trading places before we kind of bounce around.
This movie is more than likely based on what's known
as Silver Thursday. I don't know if you're familiar with this,
but March twenty seventh, nineteen eighty, The Hunt brothers from
Texas tried unsuccessfully to corner the market in Silver Oh, Okay.
And when the time came and they were they had
to come up with one hundred million bucks, they didn't have.
Speaker 2: It right, kicked off the market. So that's the end
scene of trading places. And so obviously, you know, this
movie is based on a couple of old storylines. The Pigmlion,
my Fair Lady storyline, you take somebody from the gutter.
The Cinderella story, you take somebody from the gutter and
you pass them off as a sophisticated elite type of persons.
Done in that one, and that it's also based on
the Mark Twain the Prince and the Popper, whereas the
Prince trades place with the Popper and the Popper takes
over as Prince, and it's that whole same storyline, even a.
Speaker 1: Line in the movie.
Speaker 2: It's very original, but you know, they do an entirely
different thing with it.
Speaker 3: The same story is covered in The Three Stooges. If
you've ever seen Hoi POLOI.
Speaker 1: Hoi POLOI.
Speaker 2: Yeah, starts out with a couple of rich guys talking
about how they can take people from the gutter and
pass them off as rich people.
Speaker 3: Yes, they turn the stooges into gentlemen or try.
Speaker 2: Actually, yes, let's talk real quick before we get into
the plots, you know, get into the details of the movie.
There are a couple of actors that appear in these
movies in very small, non speaking or one or two
line parts in trading places. You get gian Carlo Esposito,
who if you've seen Breaking Bad, he was the guy
from Breaking the bad guy from Breaking Bad. If you've
seen The Mandalorian, he's the guy who shows up at
the end, who's kind of dressed like Darth Vader, who's
the bad guy there.
Speaker 1: There's been a ton of Spike Lee movies.
Speaker 2: Do the Right Thing is all over the place now,
but this was like his first major movie role. But
he's just a guy standing on the leaning against the
bars in the jail cell. And then also in that
same scene, next to Eddie Murphy is the guy they
called do Rag Lenny lay by Clint Smith, who's friend
of Eddie Murphy's.
Speaker 1: He'd been in a couple of Saturday Night Lives really okay.
Speaker 2: And then Clint Smith, of course also appears as the
third barber in coming to America.
Speaker 1: Who's that Boy's good?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Good and terrible. Yeah. That scene in the jail
cell is hilarious though, because Eddie Murphy's blowing all this
bs to a few guys who are listening to him,
and the couple of big guys like, hey man, you've
been in all these fights. How come you don't look
messed up? Mandy man brus on the inside, so we
don't show our weaknesses. But you too dumb?
Speaker 1: Remember, yeah? Yeah, finished that line? Family friendly.
Speaker 3: Family friendly scene is so funny. And then Clint's bed bags,
Yeah you do dumb?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 3: You know who was originally supposed to be the King
in Coming to America? No, I don't know. I'm trying.
I'm bouncing all over them that they wanted Sidney Potier
to be the king.
Speaker 2: Oh I didn't know that, And that would have been wrong.
That would have been he's too serious. Like James Earl
Jones can pull off the comedy somehow, but I've never
seen Sidney Pottier be funny.
Speaker 3: In my life. Sidney Pottier definitely could do the regal,
but not the funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and James Earl Jones actually wanted the part of McDowell,
John McLean McDowell. He wanted John Amos part. So here's
an interesting bit. We're just gonna we're all the scattershot shouted,
let's do it. So the interesting bit about McDowell's is,
you know, they went to McDonald's to say, hey, you know,
is it okay if we do this for the movie,
because they didn't want to get sued, of course, and
so McDonald's actually said, yeah, I think this is a
good idea. Yeah they were. They were like, yeah, go
for it, you can do it. We actually want you
to kind of emphasize how hard we're going to be
on anybody who tries to steal our trademark ideas.
Speaker 1: So that was kind of a theme of the show.
Speaker 2: But then the corporate office forgot to tell the local
franchise ee. And so when they show up to the
you know, the old Wendy's that's getting renovated to make
it into a mcdonell's, the local franchisee shows up with
his lawyer and they're taking pictures just like the guy
in the movie, and we're gonna sue your zack off.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, they got the Golden Arches minus the Golden arcs.
Speaker 1: See they got the big mac, I.
Speaker 3: Got the big make. We both got two all beef patties,
special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, and onions. But they use
a sesame seed punt. My buns have no seats.
Speaker 1: Our bunds have no seats.
Speaker 2: But as he delivers that line, which is already funny,
he smacks the door to Louis Anderson, who spills the
coke all over the floor.
Speaker 1: It's hysterical.
Speaker 3: Yes, that is super funny. On coming to America. We're
bouncing back now, but.
Speaker 1: We're still on coming to America.
Speaker 3: To America. The dance scene at the beginning during the wedding, Yes, okay,
you have this big, magnificent thing the wedding. Here comes here.
She's your queen, right that has this big dance routine.
You know that was choreographed by I Do Paula Abdul,
who had yet become the big name that she was
in the later part of the eighties.
Speaker 1: Yeah she was. She had not released Straight Up.
Speaker 3: Straight Up came out after coming to America in eighty eight.
Speaker 1: Right, and you know who plays a prominent part in
the straight Up video.
Speaker 3: Our City Hall, otherwise known as semi.
Speaker 2: Right man, and what a what a career launch. Did
you watch The Arsenial Hall Show when you're a kid?
I watched it all the way. Yeah, I watched that
all the time. I mean that part alone is iconic.
Speaker 3: Right, It was a big, big deal in the early nineties. Yeah,
there is an interesting Arsenio Hall clip. I'm gonna bring
us down for just a second. Jim Henson was on
The Arsenio Hall Show, interviewed by Arsenial Hall, and he
wasn't feeling good and talking about his career and talking
about some things. But he was on the show and hey,
I'm here, I'm doing You're feeling a little sick. It's like,
I'm all right. Two days later dead and he had
pneumonia or whatever.
Speaker 2: It was, and such a loss. Jim Henson was such
a critical part of our childhood. So you did all
these things. And you know, frank Oz was a big
part of the Jim Henson line.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: He did the voice for his piggy.
Speaker 3: Fozzie Bear, He did Sam the Eagle, Yeah, he did Yoda.
Speaker 2: And frank Oz of course, is also a big player
in all of John Landis movies. Yes, well almost all.
He's not in coming to America. But if you get
the scene where they just arrive in America and they're
still in the airport, there's an announcement that comes over
the PA system, Frank Oskowitz, please go to the white
courtesy phone. That happens, and that's actually Frank Oz's real name.
John Land has still found a way to put him.
Speaker 3: That's really cool. And he's the cop in Trading Places.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the cop and Blues Brothers too. There's another connection.
Speaker 2: He's the cop at the beginning of Blues Brothers when
Jake Blues is getting out of prison and he hands
them all.
Speaker 1: Of his stuff. By the way, another connection.
Speaker 2: The number that Dan Aykroyd holds up whenever he's getting
his mugshots done is the same number that John Belushi
had as his prison number in Blues Brothers.
Speaker 3: That's really cool. Yeah, okay, you mentioned the Muppets. Yeah,
and Frank Oz is in trading Places. Let's put back
to trading place.
Speaker 1: Trading Places.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's back to trading place.
Speaker 1: He's the police officer there.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So he's the one who's like he plants the
He's like, this is angel dust, right, PCB. You know
what the stuff does to kids. So he's the cop
that's sort of in collusion with Clarence Peakes. But do
you know who the trader is for the Duke brothers
when they send him in and say go buy orange juice? Wilson, Yeah,
Wilson by.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I don't just get in there.
Speaker 3: Let us worry about that. You know that is His
name is Richard Hunt. He did the voice of Scooter
from the Muppet movie of the Muppets Janice.
Speaker 1: Oh ye, Jannas is so cool.
Speaker 3: Okay, guys, I told him mom, if I want to
run around the beach naked. H He did Beaker and
he did Statler, so he was a very prominent muppeteer.
So pretty cool connection there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, someday will find the Lorraine the Long.
Speaker 2: So join us next week for part two of the debate.
Thank you so much for your support of the Shirley
You Can't Be Serious podcasts.
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