Speaker 1: Weary.
Speaker 2: Wait, welcome back, midnight viewers.
Speaker 3: Well, okay, listen. If you're listening on the Patreon channel,
Speaker 3: first of all, thank you for your continued patronage, and
Speaker 3: you're listening to Cable Box Theater. If this is the
Speaker 3: regular feed and you're listening to this for free, this
Speaker 3: is a show called HP Hates Me. We're tonight we're
Speaker 3: looking at a program now from the Cable Box Theater
Speaker 3: point of view. We like to take shows that were
Speaker 3: theatrical shows that were filmed and then presented on cable
Speaker 3: and this fits the bill. It was recorded. It is
Speaker 3: a live theatrical performance that aired on HBO on August
Speaker 3: the ninth, nineteen eighty six. Tonight, we are looking at
Speaker 3: Billy Crystal Don't Get Me Started, also known as the
Speaker 3: Billy Crystal Special. I don't know.
Speaker 4: I don't know if there's enough here.
Speaker 3: For a show. Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: We got tons of footage. We got tons of footage here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, madam, people aren't even gonna know what this show's about.
Speaker 5: Laura, will you explain it to than We explained that
Speaker 5: you were going to do a special. You rented a
Speaker 5: big house, you had all the cast members come over
Speaker 5: there I went and documented the whole thing with my
Speaker 5: documentary film crew. I mean, you just explain that to him.
Speaker 3: I don't know what it's beautiful.
Speaker 5: We'll get to see these characters in a deeper light
Speaker 5: and with with with more nuance and more depth. I mean,
Speaker 5: it's it's a chance to really get the I mean,
Speaker 5: I think we only scratched.
Speaker 3: The surface of the first time.
Speaker 6: It sounds like a cheap way to make money.
Speaker 3: Well it is that too, wouldee.
Speaker 6: It's different to.
Speaker 4: Me, and rather, it's not the money that I'm interested in.
Speaker 4: It's it's it's the.
Speaker 3: Art, ye say. Well, that's where we differ.
Speaker 5: I think money is part of the art. It's the
Speaker 5: art of making money. See, the thing is, we got
Speaker 5: all this footage. It's already shot. All we have is
Speaker 5: the course of the editing. Right, that's no big deal.
Speaker 5: We make a cable deal with HBO.
Speaker 6: There you go.
Speaker 4: Well, let's take a look at what you got.
Speaker 3: This is directed by Billy Crystal and Paul Flaherty, written
Speaker 3: by Dick Blasucci, Billy Crystal, Paul Flaherty, and uncredited work
Speaker 3: by Rob Ryan or Stone, Billy Crystal, mainly Rob Reiner
Speaker 3: as Marty de Berghie his second appearance as Marty de Berghie.
Speaker 3: Is this the second official appearance? Do you think I.
Speaker 6: Think it was? I think this is. I mean I
Speaker 6: mentioned to you I saw this before I saw Spinal Tap,
Speaker 6: so going back, I was like, wow, this is like
Speaker 6: the lost link between Tap and Billy Crystal's SNL sojourn.
Speaker 6: So yeah, this was anyway, short story long this, I
Speaker 6: believe this was the only the second time we see
Speaker 6: Marty de Burgie.
Speaker 3: Speaking of Spinal Tap, Also starring Christopher Guest, Eugene the Levy,
Speaker 3: Theodor Gottlieb. That's brother Theodor for those of you who
Speaker 3: don't know. In fact, if you don't know Brother Theodor,
Speaker 3: what are you doing here? Also with Mark Shaman as
Speaker 3: a piano player and Billy Crystal and Billy Crystal and
Speaker 3: Billy Crystal because he plays multiple roles HB. The question remains,
Speaker 3: why do you hate me?
Speaker 6: Don't get me started now this. I don't remember how
Speaker 6: I came across this recently. Maybe you can refresh my memory.
Speaker 6: We were communicating back and forth and I don't know
Speaker 6: how the subject came up. Maybe I just went down
Speaker 6: a YouTube rabbit hole. But at any rate, I I
Speaker 6: back then this would have been eighty six, so I
Speaker 6: was we were thirteen years older thereabouts, and the VCR
Speaker 6: for us was everything. I would tape everything on the VCR, movies,
Speaker 6: TV specials, you name it, and I remember videotaping this
Speaker 6: and rewatching it. But I had mentioned to you that
Speaker 6: watching this and this is available free on YouTube. By
Speaker 6: the way, there was no real effort expended to find this.
Speaker 3: That is a hallmark of cable box theater. Everything we
Speaker 3: review can easily be seen, so don't pretend you can't
Speaker 3: go watch this.
Speaker 6: Yeah, they're very little effort expended. But the thing that
Speaker 6: I quoted to you, that I messaged you, I said,
Speaker 6: watching this all these years later is I felt like
Speaker 6: somebody who had amnesia and they suddenly remembered everything, like
Speaker 6: they got their memory back, because things, line, readings, shots,
Speaker 6: scenes all came rushing back to me. These are things
Speaker 6: that I haven't thought about in forty years. Almost eighty
Speaker 6: six were coming up on forty years. So it was
Speaker 6: a remarkable experience, to be sure. But to try to
Speaker 6: answer your question, of course, I don't hate you, but
Speaker 6: I had to spread the gospel of this because the
Speaker 6: fact that we're on the precipice of a new Spinal
Speaker 6: Tap sequel. It seemed very current and appropriate to delve
Speaker 6: into this lost piece of the mythology where you have
Speaker 6: Marty de Berghie, who of course was the fictional director
Speaker 6: of Spinal Tap. So I was just delighted by the
Speaker 6: fact that he's in this and it's shot in a
Speaker 6: mockumentary format. Although I'm not sure how much of it
Speaker 6: was actually improvised. I suspect most of it was written,
Speaker 6: but I just I was charmed by it and I
Speaker 6: wanted to see what you thought, So that was the
Speaker 6: genesis of this.
Speaker 3: I think the improvisational parts that made it to the
Speaker 3: screen are the only funny parts of this special. Here's
Speaker 3: what I'll say, Okay, round about nineteen eighty six, Billy Crystal.
Speaker 3: In fact, everyone here, basically, in one way or another,
Speaker 3: seemed to have had a resurgence thanks to their appearances
Speaker 3: on Saturday Night Live. Christopher Guest and Billy Crystal were
Speaker 3: both cast members on Basically it seems like they finished
Speaker 3: their season on Saturday Night Live and then made this.
Speaker 3: I don't know if that's the time works out there,
Speaker 3: but anyway, so I watched every one of Billy Crystal's specials.
Speaker 3: I remember the one previous to this one a whole
Speaker 3: lot better than this one actually, which is a much
Speaker 3: more straightforward, hour long one man show. This is not
Speaker 3: that this is part of a Broadway part of a
Speaker 3: one man's show, and then a bunch of filler to
Speaker 3: fill out the hour. Basically, he was a.
Speaker 6: Weird hybrid for sure, and I for me I at
Speaker 6: the time, I remember I had Billy Crystal. He had
Speaker 6: a comedy album called Billy Crystal Marvelus, and that featured
Speaker 6: the song you Look Marvelous, which I think Paul Schaeffer
Speaker 6: was involved in. I think he might have performed and produced.
Speaker 6: But nevertheless, I was very aware of his stand up.
Speaker 6: I mean I saw him on SNL and I knew
Speaker 6: him from Soap. He was in Soap when I was
Speaker 6: a little kid. But he certainly was on the rise,
Speaker 6: and I think the Marvelous album was a precursor to that. Shortly,
Speaker 6: I think I'm trying to think when it probably came
Speaker 6: out in eighty six, actually that's probably about the time
Speaker 6: it came out. But then all of a sudden he
Speaker 6: got on a roll. He was in Running Scared, that
Speaker 6: movie with Gregory Hines from the Train.
Speaker 3: We should review this on We could potentially call this
Speaker 3: show Crystal Clear, Crystal Fest, no Crystal.
Speaker 6: It really this kind of presaged a real I don't
Speaker 6: want to call it a renaissance because but it was
Speaker 6: because he had been doing this for so long and
Speaker 6: yet here he was having this sort of second act
Speaker 6: as a comic actor, dramatic actor in some cases, and
Speaker 6: a director. So it was like the second coming of
Speaker 6: Billy Crystal, if you will. And this really was the flashpoint,
Speaker 6: if you will, this these specials, but this one in particular,
Speaker 6: I thought of that way Billy with the crystal plumage,
Speaker 6: always going back to.
Speaker 3: Argente.
Speaker 6: That's it, Argento. I was gonna I was going to
Speaker 6: talk about.
Speaker 3: Nevermind, Harlan Ellison. I love Harlan Ellison.
Speaker 6: Harlan Ellison, That's what I was going to say.
Speaker 3: That's a weird one to go to anyway. Weird, right.
Speaker 3: So the conceit here is that, just like Spinal Tap,
Speaker 3: the conceit in Spinal Tap is that filmmaker Marty de
Speaker 3: Bergie has heard that Spinal Tap are going back on
Speaker 3: tour after an absence of some time, and now he
Speaker 3: wants to document that and now he's gotten away from
Speaker 3: documentaries and an attempt to make I wish I knew
Speaker 3: what that? Do you know the title of the movie
Speaker 3: he made? Like in between he says it at the
Speaker 3: beginning of this.
Speaker 6: Attack of the Busty Women or something. It's implied that
Speaker 6: it's like something softcore.
Speaker 5: Perhaps I said to myself, Marty, it's time to move
Speaker 5: out of that documentary bag and stretch yourself, get into
Speaker 5: feature films.
Speaker 6: And I've done that. I just finished my.
Speaker 5: First feature, The Attack of the Full Figured Gals, which
Speaker 5: I understand the studio is holding for Academy consideration.
Speaker 6: So the documentary world was behind me.
Speaker 3: And so now he hears that Billy Crystal is going
Speaker 3: to be doing this live special and wants to He's
Speaker 3: gotten the documentary bug. He's going to film the lead
Speaker 3: up to the special, and in that vein, I guess
Speaker 3: I'm doing the plot here hps is where it's okay.
Speaker 3: So Billy Crystal has gotten this rehearsal mansion basically where
Speaker 3: he's gathered together this group of performers and hangers on,
Speaker 3: and well it starts at a party and then they
Speaker 3: show everyone away who isn't inv special but give us
Speaker 3: some of give us some of our guests, would you.
Speaker 6: So the guests are Eugene Levey plays a producer. His
Speaker 6: name is Morty Arnold, and it's just an excuse for
Speaker 6: him to do his oily New York stick. He doesn't
Speaker 6: Eugene Levey doesn't have a ton to do. But he's
Speaker 6: fine Eugene Levy. But the people that come to attend this,
Speaker 6: and these are all people that are supposed to help
Speaker 6: him write this and perform this special. So first of all,
Speaker 6: I guess in order of stardom, it's Billy Crystal doing
Speaker 6: Sammy Davis Junior. We'll get to the problematic bit there,
Speaker 6: and it is a problem.
Speaker 3: There's no, it's not the only one, not the only one.
Speaker 3: Can you dig it?
Speaker 6: I know that you can not by a long shot.
Speaker 6: So there's Sammy brother Theodore, as you mentioned, brother Theodor
Speaker 6: playing himself. We'll talk about him. Chip dement to Bella,
Speaker 6: which is Clair. It's Corky Saint Claire A Jason I.
Speaker 6: This might actually be the same choreographer from the Synchronized
Speaker 6: Swimming definitely is. They never say his name.
Speaker 3: And then let's say you were to point at each other,
Speaker 3: you're doing the same thing, aren't you.
Speaker 6: No, you're not angry at him. No, you're just pointing
Speaker 6: at him, right, Hey you, I know you. I know you.
Speaker 6: But it's basically the same. Hey you, I know you.
Speaker 6: That's him. He's gonna be the choreographer. He's he works
Speaker 6: with Sammy in this Buddy Young Junior, which is another
Speaker 6: of Billy Crystal's characters. This might even be the first
Speaker 6: appearance of Buddy Young Junior. He's essentially he's an old
Speaker 6: borsch belt comic.
Speaker 3: And mister Saturday Night. It's this weird obsession of his
Speaker 3: with the Boris Beelt comedians and paying tribute to. Billy
Speaker 3: Crystal is always paying tribute to everything of his fucking childhood,
Speaker 3: and this Buddy Young character, this bane of our existence,
Speaker 3: this unfunny bor spelt like like sub Don Rickles like
Speaker 3: he's like an insult comic kind of Yeah he is.
Speaker 6: But I heard you say, mister Saturday Night. Do you
Speaker 6: mean the Oscar nominated picture Mister Saturday Night Father Malone? Yeah,
Speaker 6: because David Paymer was nominated as Best Supporting Actor for
Speaker 6: I'm as surprised as anybody to remember that because it
Speaker 6: wasn't a very well received movie he directed, He wrote
Speaker 6: and directed and started it. It was his passion project.
Speaker 6: But this might very well be, like I said, the
Speaker 6: first appearance of Buddy Young Junior, he might have been
Speaker 6: on SNL as one of his characters.
Speaker 3: Probably he probably showed up on some special he did
Speaker 3: in the early seventies or something to late seventies or
Speaker 3: something like this.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's probably. That's probably the most fully formed of
Speaker 6: the characters that we see involved in this sort of
Speaker 6: I don't know this mansion that they're workshopping all of
Speaker 6: this material on, but those are the people that have
Speaker 6: been gathered to work on this special. Now, I want
Speaker 6: to talk a little bit before we get into the
Speaker 6: actual like nuts and bolts of it. You would you
Speaker 6: talked a little bit about Brother Theodore.
Speaker 3: Yes, fascinating.
Speaker 6: I admit I knew and still don't know much about
Speaker 6: Brother Theodore. My memory of him at the time was
Speaker 6: he was a recurring guest. He was a frequent guest
Speaker 6: on The David Letterman, which I was watching religiously around
Speaker 6: this time. But much like Harvey Peacarr, who I had
Speaker 6: no idea who he actually was, I only knew him
Speaker 6: as this, you know, grumpy, angry guy that would be
Speaker 6: on Letterman every once in a while. Brother Theodore was
Speaker 6: basically in the same vein he was this. I saw
Speaker 6: him as this sort of Germanic, angry street preacher esque
Speaker 6: guy that would just basically shout at Dave and just
Speaker 6: be generally truculent and unhappy. You seem to know more
Speaker 6: about the actual Brother Theodore and his stick. Can you
Speaker 6: elaborate on who he was and what he represented? No,
Speaker 6: for sure, you were gonna say, well, he was a
Speaker 6: performance comic from blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: Here's what I know about Brother Theodore. Here's what I
Speaker 3: knew about Brother Theodore. By the time this special rolled around,
Speaker 3: I recognized his voice instantly because I was a fan
Speaker 3: of those Pobbit and Return of the King animations, the
Speaker 3: rankin and bass covers of the adaptations of the Token.
Speaker 3: Thinks he was Gollum in those.
Speaker 6: Good God really, Oh yeah, it is tricksy.
Speaker 1: It says he doesn't know the way out, but it
Speaker 1: knows the way, my precious, it must no that way out.
Speaker 3: And you know, it's a great voice as Gollum. It's oh,
Speaker 3: it's so wonderful. So I knew him from that, and
Speaker 3: I knew him from the Letterman appearances, and that's on.
Speaker 3: Then eventually, when I think of brother Theodore, now I
Speaker 3: think of the verbs because he's one of the Klopex.
Speaker 6: Right, but that all stemmed from him his odd ball
Speaker 6: appearances on Letterman more than right.
Speaker 3: So where did he come from? I have no idea,
Speaker 3: and I do not intend to know.
Speaker 6: It's better him being a mystery, isn't it a little
Speaker 6: bit I time to think of it.
Speaker 3: Now, He's one of the few mysteries left in my life,
Speaker 3: I think, so I intend to keep him that way.
Speaker 6: Oh one guest I neglected to mention because he never
Speaker 6: actually makes it to this gathering. It's Fernando. I talked
Speaker 6: about the marvelous album Billy Crystal's biggest recurring character on SNL,
Speaker 6: I think we can all agree was Fernando's Hideaway, which
Speaker 6: was a he was doing Fernando Lamas basically, I think,
Speaker 6: without actually calling him Lamas, he was you know, Spanish
Speaker 6: sort of bone Latin lover.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like, but an aged one. He's got silver
Speaker 3: hair and he's basically talking about the past. Now everything
Speaker 3: is crazy, go nuts more doing.
Speaker 4: I'm in the desert near a town called rizom speed.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I spent last night with the last remaining members of
Speaker 4: the Great Peace March. We had the Hobo Steward.
Speaker 6: It was pretty nice.
Speaker 4: I'll tell you that right now. Listen more. I don't
Speaker 4: think I can get there tomorrow. Even if I could,
Speaker 4: my agent and his infinite lack of wisdom and hide
Speaker 4: had booked me to do the Hands across America too.
Speaker 4: I got to be in Missouri holding hands with Peter
Speaker 4: Lupez from the Mission Impossible and Rodney Allen Rippey, who
Speaker 4: got so big people are going to think it's going
Speaker 4: Mitchell or something.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And he would always there was his catch for.
Speaker 3: So it's better to look good than to feel good.
Speaker 6: Than to feel good. And he periodically during this mockumentary
Speaker 6: part of the special, he will he's he gets lost
Speaker 6: driving to this mansion and he'll call and say, Dolling,
Speaker 6: I don't know where I am, and he'll you know,
Speaker 6: it'll be a little bit of a comedy.
Speaker 3: With the tribe. They want to use the payphone.
Speaker 6: So so he is yet another character that Billy Crystal
Speaker 6: is doing. So they all gather and it's I think
Speaker 6: you're right. The stuff that you can tell is improvised.
Speaker 6: There is some stuff I know. When Rob Marty de
Speaker 6: Berghi is interviewing Buddy Young Jr. I am positive that
Speaker 6: he's actually delivering this comedy in the moment, because Rob,
Speaker 6: I keep saying, Rob Brander de Berghie's reaction is so genuine.
Speaker 6: He's actually laughing, real laughter, reacting really amused. He's acting
Speaker 6: very amusedly to his antics.
Speaker 4: See, this is what we're talking off the top of
Speaker 4: my head. What's left of it that decided to recede
Speaker 4: around nineteen I'll tell you that suddenly wake up on
Speaker 4: my fod my neck. Are the same guy? It took
Speaker 4: me four hours to wash my face. I said, what
Speaker 4: the hell is this? I look doesn't ask what eyes?
Speaker 1: Hey?
Speaker 4: Oh the hell no that I gotta ask what eyes?
Speaker 4: I look like Daddy Wallbucks. I don't know whether to
Speaker 4: wash my head, A'll wipe it.
Speaker 1: It's nuts.
Speaker 4: Getting old is awful. I got a prostatect the size
Speaker 4: of a void basketball. Now I just sit around. It
Speaker 4: takes me an now what a pipe like a guy's studs?
Speaker 3: It's awful.
Speaker 4: This is what your kids at home have to look forward.
Speaker 6: To, so that at least I know it is genuine
Speaker 6: so clearly is also a fan of that type of
Speaker 6: Boris Belt comedity.
Speaker 3: He remembers them fondly, probably from his childhood, so he
Speaker 3: thinks that's hilarious. I'm glad somebody found that character, Fronnie. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but I agree with you. It's clear that he that's
Speaker 3: Rob Ryaner like genuinely enjoying himself and he's.
Speaker 6: Laughing like it's not just a fake haha. He's really
Speaker 6: having a ball watching Billy do his thing. But one
Speaker 6: thing leads to another. I'm just gonna give you the
Speaker 6: nutshell and then we'll delve into the actual like nuts
Speaker 6: and bolts of what was so off about this thing.
Speaker 6: Eventually things fall apart. Buddy Young Junior's mother in law dies,
Speaker 6: so he has to leave this enclave. Then Chip Dementabella
Speaker 6: is working with Brother Theodore and Sammy and he's given them.
Speaker 6: They're doing Who's On First? They're doing their version of
Speaker 6: Who's On First, and Brother Theodore gets so upset by
Speaker 6: the madness of it all that he hits Sammy in
Speaker 6: the head with a baseball bat, which prompts Sammy to leave.
Speaker 6: Then Brother Theodore leaves, Then Chip and the producer Fellow
Speaker 6: leave everyone leaves except for Billy Crystal, who decides that well,
Speaker 6: I guess now I have to do the special all
Speaker 6: by myself. And then we cue wait the actual stand
Speaker 6: ups part.
Speaker 3: I don't I can call in one friend, right, this
Speaker 3: superstar will come and save the day. Who should I call?
Speaker 6: Who does he call?
Speaker 5: He?
Speaker 6: Fernando shows up.
Speaker 3: He calls what be Goldberg?
Speaker 6: Oh? Oh, I'm sorry. You're right. I blocked that part out.
Speaker 6: That's the other trouble I could I forgot that's the premise.
Speaker 6: He goes, all, I'll call all in a favor. But
Speaker 6: what but Whoopee has to drop out at the last
Speaker 6: minute because.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because brother Theodore also hits her in the head. Hey,
Speaker 3: who's playing with Goldberg? Who's playing whoopi Goldberg?
Speaker 6: Here it's Billy Crystal. All right, you know what we
Speaker 6: can't we can't. Let's talk about the real you know,
Speaker 6: the discomfort of watching this in twenty twenty five. Now,
Speaker 6: I was uncomfortable watching it then, I if I'm being honest,
Speaker 6: it was a different time. It because he was doing
Speaker 6: Sammy all the time on SNL and no one had
Speaker 6: a problem with it.
Speaker 3: The thing really, because here's the thing, Billy Crystal is
Speaker 3: never punching down. He's never punching anywhere. He's trying to
Speaker 3: do the most accurate recreations of these people that he can't.
Speaker 3: He is an impressionist in the truest sense of the word.
Speaker 3: If he's going to do Howard Cosell, then he wants
Speaker 3: prosthetics to make him look like Howard Cosell. If he's
Speaker 3: doing I don't know, jumpin Jack Flash, he wants to
Speaker 3: look like jumping Jack Flash. So he's just in the
Speaker 3: I don't know. There's no way to defend it. It
Speaker 3: sounds like I'm defending blackface here, but I'm absolutely not
Speaker 3: it other than to say that everyone knew at that
Speaker 3: time that Billy Crystal was coming from a place of
Speaker 3: a deep love with his impression of Sammy Davis Junior.
Speaker 3: There is nothing but admiration and genuine affection from Billy
Speaker 3: Crystal to that man. And I know they interacted with
Speaker 3: one another, and I'm sure Sammy Davis probably you know,
Speaker 3: had some comment or another, But the fact is he's
Speaker 3: not coming from a place of anything other than affection.
Speaker 3: And nevertheless, it was fucking how horrifying then and it's
Speaker 3: even worse now.
Speaker 6: It's really bad to agree. Like, I'm not impugning Billy
Speaker 6: Crystal's motives for doing this. I think it is truth
Speaker 6: be told, putting aside the blackface part of it, which
Speaker 6: is impossible to do, I realize that. But taken as
Speaker 6: a as simply as an impression, it is a solid
Speaker 6: impression of Sammy Davis Junior.
Speaker 3: At least, it is an incredible a little impression of
Speaker 3: Sammy Davis Jacks.
Speaker 4: Hi, I'm Sammy, I'm a feodore for you. I've heard
Speaker 4: so much about you. We're gonna be doing a lot
Speaker 4: of stuff together. It's gonna be fun. It can hardly wait.
Speaker 3: Ouch.
Speaker 6: He gets the mannerisms right, he gets the cadence right.
Speaker 6: He could even do a little bit of a soft
Speaker 6: shoe and kind of do his thing. All of this, however,
Speaker 6: pales in comparison to the fact that it's a you know,
Speaker 6: it's Billy Crystal in blackface doing Sammy Davis Jutor and
Speaker 6: that's not right. Bottom line is it's not right. It
Speaker 6: wasn't right then, even though it was accepted, But thankfully
Speaker 6: it is not. Only is it no more right now,
Speaker 6: but it's not accepted. So you will never see him
Speaker 6: doing Sammy ever again, which is I'm sure he would agree,
Speaker 6: is for the best. Also problematic is his impression of Whoopee,
Speaker 6: which made no sense to me because.
Speaker 3: Why didn't he just call whoopi Goldberg's pay what they
Speaker 3: doing like fucking relief?
Speaker 6: Comic relief. That didn't make sense to me because she
Speaker 6: Whoopy and quotes only appears briefly to relate this story
Speaker 6: about how brother theater or hit her in the head
Speaker 6: with a baseball bat. So I don't know why he
Speaker 6: couldn't have just had her come in and do five
Speaker 6: minutes and just say, okay, do your special now. That's because,
Speaker 6: to truth be told, his impression of Whoopye wasn't all
Speaker 6: that great.
Speaker 3: I didn't think, but it's terrible. It's it's her character
Speaker 3: from her show, like it's not Whoopy Goldberg, like we
Speaker 3: all know even then, we knew what she talked like,
Speaker 3: spoke like this is that sort of bubbleheaded serve she does.
Speaker 6: Well, he does the serve, okay, you know he does
Speaker 6: a little bit of that with her. It's I was
Speaker 6: very uncomfortable with this as a child, as a thirteen
Speaker 6: year old who didn't know any better. I wasn't troubled
Speaker 6: by it. Back then it was a different time. You
Speaker 6: can be fucking sure. I was very This was the
Speaker 6: biggest problem I had with this, and how could I
Speaker 6: not because this is not acceptable anymore. But again, it's
Speaker 6: nineteen eighty six. We're falling all over ourselves to make
Speaker 6: this excuse, but we can't make any more excuses for this.
Speaker 6: It is what it is. So having said all of that,
Speaker 6: let's move off of that a little bit. We'll talk
Speaker 6: a little bit and actually, truthfully though, if we're talking
Speaker 6: about problematic impressions, I have to say, Father Balloona, I've
Speaker 6: been thinking about this a lot lately because I rewatched
Speaker 6: all of Christopher Guest's mockumentaries in preparation for the Spinal
Speaker 6: Tap sequel coming out, and I have to say, almost
Speaker 6: equally problematic, maybe more so in the eyes of some
Speaker 6: people maybe watching this is his gay impression of his
Speaker 6: take on the character of Chip Dementabella, which is a choreographer.
Speaker 6: But it's stereotypically gay in the worst sense, of somebody
Speaker 6: who's just lisping and doing this, you know thing. I
Speaker 6: have to say, I was as troubled by that now
Speaker 6: I think, and it's something I hadn't occurred to me
Speaker 6: thinking about Waiting for Guffman Quirky, which is the same character.
Speaker 6: Let's be honest, it's a little troubling now thinking back,
Speaker 6: and because that's one of my favorite movies, is Waiting
Speaker 6: for Gufman, but trying to reconcile that. Now, did you
Speaker 6: have any thought towards that yourself.
Speaker 3: I've thought that in the past, certainly, but this time
Speaker 3: the glowing sun that was Sammy Davis Junior Billy Crystal
Speaker 3: in blackface blotted out my vision for anything else that
Speaker 3: was going on here, and then certainly followed up by
Speaker 3: the sorbet that was the wax figure nightmare that was
Speaker 3: supposed to be Whoope Goldberg? Am I letting him off
Speaker 3: to hook my comparison, maybe, but it's easier to take
Speaker 3: than the full on makeup.
Speaker 6: It was the only funny part. Well, I think one
Speaker 6: of the funniest parts for me actually involves both of them,
Speaker 6: because through the course of this mockumentary sequence, He's trying
Speaker 6: to marsh Sammy to do these routines, and Sammy's eventually
Speaker 6: just like I'm tired, my hip hearts, I can't do
Speaker 6: this anymore. I don't know why I'd found this funny.
Speaker 6: Then I found it funny now.
Speaker 3: Is said the Samy sensing routine sap dance routine sam.
Speaker 6: So Sammy says, I wait, I got it. I'm gonna
Speaker 6: I figured it out this I can rest and still
Speaker 6: do the tap dancing. So he gets a hard candy
Speaker 6: or a lozenge from Chip and he puts it into
Speaker 6: his mouth, and he has Mark Shaman do the little
Speaker 6: you know, the bouncy dance, the piano stuff, and when
Speaker 6: he gets to the part where the tap dancing takes place,
Speaker 6: he puts a microphone up to his mouth with the
Speaker 6: hard candy or lozenge and he rends it is deep,
Speaker 6: so it makes it sound like someone tap dancing. And
Speaker 6: Chip loves it so much that he puts one in
Speaker 6: his mouth and he says, can we do a duet?
Speaker 6: And they do this little I don't know, I just.
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 5: I like that a lot. Can I do it with you?
Speaker 6: It was so weird and so I've forgotten totally about
Speaker 6: it that I, despite myself, I thought it was pretty funny.
Speaker 6: Because you can see on Christopher Guest's face this might
Speaker 6: be one of those improvised moments because there's a smile
Speaker 6: that comes up on Christopher Guest's face where he seems
Speaker 6: genuinely having fun with this ridiculous sequence of them rattling
Speaker 6: a hard candy in their mouth to imitate tap dancing.
Speaker 6: It's ridiculous, but I thought it was pretty funny. I
Speaker 6: don't know why. Silly.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The only laughs in the first portion of the special,
Speaker 3: the documentary part of the special, the mockumentary, the yach
Speaker 3: youumentary part of the special, our Christopher Guest and Rob
Speaker 3: Reiner for me, Christopher Guests when we get his initial
Speaker 3: idea for Carl boreography is his gawky frame just bouncing
Speaker 3: all over that room is ridiculous. I could not stop
Speaker 3: laughing during that scene. The other thing that made me
Speaker 3: laugh out loud is Marty de Bergie, in his opening
Speaker 3: has blocked the scene but not realized that the camera
Speaker 3: is basically going to go all the way to the wall,
Speaker 3: which he walks into. But it's so masterfully shot because
Speaker 3: we've stopped just before the wall so he can deliver
Speaker 3: part of his speech. So it's him starting to move
Speaker 3: on and walking into it and then recovering and then
Speaker 3: going the other way. That made me howl.
Speaker 6: It's a wonderful callback too to the opening of this
Speaker 6: is Spinal Tap, where he's doing his introduction and if
Speaker 6: you listen to the commentary by guest mckien and Shearer,
Speaker 6: he's walking past every piece of film equipment known to man,
Speaker 6: and the funny joke is will none of this is
Speaker 6: going to be used for this shoe String documentary. But
Speaker 6: he's walking by all these fancy kleag lights and cameras
Speaker 6: and stuff. And I thought, I agree, that was a
Speaker 6: pretty funny little bit, and also to tie it back
Speaker 6: into Tap, I thought was pretty cool too. But Brother
Speaker 6: Theodore is funny too that the who's on first bit,
Speaker 6: that the argument they get into because Sammy is just
Speaker 6: trying to be the consummate performer, but Theodore is getting
Speaker 6: legitimately angry and he's shouting, and Chip is left to
Speaker 6: try to be the peacemaker between Sammy Davis Junior and
Speaker 6: Brother Theodore. I thought that was somewhat amusing. One of
Speaker 6: the best things about Spinal Tap being an improvised movie
Speaker 6: is despite the fact that they're coming up with this
Speaker 6: on the fly, they wrote down and they had blocked
Speaker 6: out where what the scene was going to start with
Speaker 6: and where they had to get to and the rest
Speaker 6: was up to the actors to.
Speaker 3: Come up with.
Speaker 6: I get the sense here there's no real plot to
Speaker 6: speak of. They get to this enclave, they try to
Speaker 6: work out the material, things didn't work out, and Billy
Speaker 6: Crystial is abandoned. Basically, it's not a lot of story.
Speaker 6: But then again, we're only talking about thirty minutes worth
Speaker 6: of material. Ultimately, because this is an hour long special,
Speaker 6: almost half exactly is devoted to this mockumentary, and then
Speaker 6: the other half is the stand up bit that takes
Speaker 6: place at Hofstra University.
Speaker 3: Ooh, I'll say it's a little more than half takes
Speaker 3: place at the mansion, at the rehearsal mansion. Incidentally, that
Speaker 3: was Billy Crystal's house.
Speaker 6: Really, Yeah, I did not know that. It's amazing. It's
Speaker 6: a palatial estate.
Speaker 3: Yeah. You saved on a bit of the budget of
Speaker 3: the production budget here by just filming at this house.
Speaker 6: That's impressive.
Speaker 3: I'd also like to point out I mentioned them at
Speaker 3: the beginning, written by Dick Blasucci and Paul Flaherty in
Speaker 3: addition to Billy Crystal and Rob Ryner, Dick Blasucci and
Speaker 3: Paul Flherty are fucking SCTV giants. They've wrote like thirty
Speaker 3: nine episodes of that fucking show. And Paul Flaherty is
Speaker 3: Joe Flaherty's brother. Obviously, that was my assumption to you,
Speaker 3: and those guys worked on fucking everything. Dick Blasucci in particular,
Speaker 3: seems to have written at least an episode of everything,
Speaker 3: Simpson's Fucking the Larry Sanders Show, Martin's Short special, just
Speaker 3: on and on. These are like, you know, those are
Speaker 3: the guys and anyway, I was just about to sell.
Speaker 6: No, no, look it's there are scattered bits of amusement
Speaker 6: to be had through this if you can wade through
Speaker 6: the troubling aspects, the dated, troubling aspects of so much
Speaker 6: of the production and so forth. It's a little meandering,
Speaker 6: but I was charmed by it in some sense. Certainly
Speaker 6: I preferred it to the back half of this special,
Speaker 6: which was missing what's.
Speaker 3: That Martin short?
Speaker 6: See, I thought you were going to say, Catherine O'Hara,
Speaker 6: and I was going to.
Speaker 3: Agree with you there too, well either one, yeah, well
Speaker 3: there you go and it. I know.
Speaker 6: The odd thing was the brother Theodore thing I thought
Speaker 6: came out of nowhere, like I was questioning why he
Speaker 6: was there, But then I later learned that he had
Speaker 6: a television show Billy Crystal did in the early eighties,
Speaker 6: and apparently Brother Theodore was involved in that, so it
Speaker 6: wasn't just a head scratcher of like, how did Billy
Speaker 6: Crystal and Brother Theodore get connected? I guess they had
Speaker 6: some connections to this other television show. But it also
Speaker 6: must be it has to be mentioned that we're making
Speaker 6: it sound like this was Billy Crystal's second act in
Speaker 6: his career, and that's true. But also bear in mind
Speaker 6: this was eighty six, so he would have been thirty
Speaker 6: nine years old, so it's not as if he was
Speaker 6: this over the hill comic actor who needed a break.
Speaker 6: I mean, he was in the literal prime of his career.
Speaker 6: It only seemed like he had been around for a
Speaker 6: long time because he had been doing stuff like Soap,
Speaker 6: like I said, which was a groundbreaking character for its time,
Speaker 6: and of course SNL. He was on there for a season, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like I said, like the year before here he
Speaker 3: was everywhere. We always knew about Billy Crystal, and but
Speaker 3: this was when this is the time period where he
Speaker 3: took off. This is right around City Slicker. This is
Speaker 3: right around you know, all the comic relief stuff. This
Speaker 3: is Billy Crystal's everywhere all the time, and this is
Speaker 3: on the heels of you owned the album that you
Speaker 3: look marvelous album. That fucking video was playing on MTV
Speaker 3: fucking non stop. We couldn't get away from Fernando. He
Speaker 3: was involved with the WrestleMania there for a while.
Speaker 6: But that was that was mister T and Hulk Cogan.
Speaker 6: We're on SNL the weekend of the first WrestleMania, right,
Speaker 6: was it the very was it the first of the third?
Speaker 6: I don't remember.
Speaker 3: It was first WrestleMania.
Speaker 6: Okay, it was the first and other things go bomb
Speaker 6: bit bomb bumpany bumpany bumpy. We all remember that. Because
Speaker 6: Hogan couldn't hold it together. He was just he was
Speaker 6: breaking on SNL.
Speaker 3: There r I P right, Well, yes, I guess we
Speaker 3: could rest anyway. Yeah, just rest so long.
Speaker 6: Hul Cogan bye. But but yeah, so it was he was.
Speaker 6: If he wasn't already a household names, he was knocking
Speaker 6: on the door of being a house namey. When Harry
Speaker 6: met Sally, which was probably the movie of you know,
Speaker 6: one of the big milestones of his career that was
Speaker 6: only three years away, so it's pretty you know, it's
Speaker 6: hard not to. I mean, he's such a household name now,
Speaker 6: but that was really his star was on the rise,
Speaker 6: so it's cool. And like you said, he'd already been
Speaker 6: a veteran of these HBO specials, so this was not
Speaker 6: a huge deal for him necessarily. But let's talk a
Speaker 6: little bit about And when I say a little, I
Speaker 6: mean a very little, because there's not much to talk
Speaker 6: about in the back half of this special, where he's
Speaker 6: doing a stand up routine, that's all it really is.
Speaker 6: Right he comes out, it's a solo spot at Hofstra.
Speaker 6: He talks often about how this is his homecoming. He's
Speaker 6: from Long Island originally, so.
Speaker 3: Wait he Bhilly Crystal is from New York.
Speaker 6: Hard to believe. I believe he's a Yankees fan. Don't
Speaker 6: quote what, but I think he is. And first I've
Speaker 6: heard not only that he might be Jewish and he
Speaker 6: might have a big family.
Speaker 3: The same that. I'm so glad we're doing this because
Speaker 3: I didn't know any of this about him.
Speaker 6: So his I feel like I know more about his
Speaker 6: stand up routine than I actually do because that's the
Speaker 6: record that we keep talking about was mostly his recording
Speaker 6: of his stand up bit, and this a lot of
Speaker 6: the elements here come from that tried and true set
Speaker 6: that he had developed or what have you. But of
Speaker 6: all that, there's really there's really three things to call out.
Speaker 6: Correct me if I'm wrong on this spot alone. So one,
Speaker 6: the one routine that he does a lot. He did
Speaker 6: a lot was his impression of his uncle doing a
Speaker 6: home movie in his backyard during a cookout, which is
Speaker 6: truth to be told for a few minutes anyway, it's
Speaker 6: actually a pretty effective silent it's all silent because it's
Speaker 6: supposed to have been done with like a little handheld
Speaker 6: eight millimeter camera, so it's.
Speaker 3: They didn't all the lights. It's a spotlight on him,
Speaker 3: and he's moving in a sort of herky jerky sixteen
Speaker 3: millimeter film manner, and it is.
Speaker 6: As if it's as if it's been under cranked. So
Speaker 6: he's moving a little too fast for the actual like
Speaker 6: real you know how he would move in real life
Speaker 6: and try to go ahead.
Speaker 3: Oh, and it's him doing a barbecue, so's he's flipping burgers.
Speaker 3: He does everything that everyone does in a home movie.
Speaker 3: Wave pretend that they're singing look at the burgers, pretend like,
Speaker 3: oh yum yum here, you know that rubbing the belly
Speaker 3: like well, calling friends over that kind of a thing.
Speaker 3: And you're right. It's very funny for one minute, but it.
Speaker 6: Goes on for like six or seven minutes because the
Speaker 6: uncle gets hit in the head with a ball. Then
Speaker 6: he starts yelling at whoever threw the ball, and then
Speaker 6: he's picking fights and this all goes on.
Speaker 3: He's like playing food at people.
Speaker 6: This could have been two minutes that would have killed
Speaker 6: like it would have just been in and out, and
Speaker 6: it would have been a really good bit. As it is,
Speaker 6: it goes on far too long, probably twice as long
Speaker 6: as it should. So that's one second. The next section
Speaker 6: is Fernando, who has been you know, who knows where
Speaker 6: he's been. He never made it to the estate, shows
Speaker 6: up at the show, and the weird thing is Billy
Speaker 6: waves from the stage and says, hey, look who's here,
Speaker 6: and then Fernando comes from the back of the auditorium
Speaker 6: and proceeds to do crowd work. But it's this odd
Speaker 6: conceit that they're two separate people, and I'm wondering it
Speaker 6: just seems odd to me, Like, I wonder how they
Speaker 6: sold that to the audience that are there.
Speaker 3: It was Billy Crystal went to the front, went to
Speaker 3: the front of the stage, and there's in an adorable
Speaker 3: way when now we're going to do some movie magic
Speaker 3: here where they're gonna film me here and then they're
Speaker 3: gonna I'm gonna come in at Fernando's gonna be here soon.
Speaker 3: Everybody yes, and then we're gonna film that. So play
Speaker 3: along that I'm talking to Fernando.
Speaker 6: Sure, And like I said, all he all that amounts
Speaker 6: to is about five minutes worth of crowd work. He
Speaker 6: pulls people up from the audience, how are you dolling?
Speaker 6: What's your name? And then it has to be said,
Speaker 6: like I know, it's not laugh out loud funny, and
Speaker 6: it's severely indebted to borsch Belt comedy, but he Billy
Speaker 6: Crystal is very comfortable doing improvised comedy, was in a
Speaker 6: crowd situation because he doesn't know who these people are,
Speaker 6: and he actually is very comfortable and he's funny. So
Speaker 6: I was actually somewhat impressed by that, even if it
Speaker 6: wasn't the best set in the.
Speaker 3: World to watch as an audience member of this particular
Speaker 3: special I will agree that he is best when he's
Speaker 3: doing that, and I wish he would just have done.
Speaker 6: That he just a Fernando thing, or him going out
Speaker 6: and talking.
Speaker 3: To people, Fernando thing and talking to people just to improve.
Speaker 3: If this had been a half hour of Fernando Lamas
Speaker 3: or Fernando's Hideaway, I would have been okay with that.
Speaker 3: He could have brought on some guests, he could have
Speaker 3: worked the audience, he could have had like some sort
Speaker 3: of like made it like a talk show, like a
Speaker 3: Letterman show for half an hour. It would have been
Speaker 3: great because.
Speaker 6: It would have been good. It would have been.
Speaker 3: Good everything else. Anyway, we're gonna say.
Speaker 6: What I was going to say, was it occurred to
Speaker 6: me as I was watching this. We talked a lot
Speaker 6: about the blackface element of him doing Sammy and doing Whoopee.
Speaker 6: But let me ask you a question. I struggled with
Speaker 6: this a little bit. Is Fernando just blackface, but you know,
Speaker 6: essentially Spanish blackface? Is it a similar thing because he's
Speaker 6: not Spanish, He's not a Latin gentleman. Could you levy
Speaker 6: the same criticism for him doing Fernando that we did
Speaker 6: him doing.
Speaker 3: Sammy Well, you know that you can give a lot
Speaker 3: to somebody if they don't do the brown face aspect
Speaker 3: of it. You know, Darryl Hammond ended up getting away
Speaker 3: doing Jesse Jackson with no makeup on, you know, like
Speaker 3: he's because the impression was solid enough. And I think
Speaker 3: that's the same thing here. But at the same time, yeah,
Speaker 3: now I was thinking the same thing as he was
Speaker 3: doing the crowd work while because we were inundated with
Speaker 3: blackface for the first half hour of this fucking thing
Speaker 3: that I had to like question all of his impressions.
Speaker 3: It's interesting, is he in the last portion of this
Speaker 3: like being offensive to dim witted Brooklyn Knights?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I just it's for just a silly nothing special
Speaker 6: from nineteen eighty six. These questions occurred to me that
Speaker 6: I hadn't really thought of in the past. Like I said,
Speaker 6: I hadn't thought of this special in decades. But I
Speaker 6: don't know, I just had to confront the fact, like
Speaker 6: I think Fernando is funny, but does that what does
Speaker 6: that say about me? Does that mean that he's essentially
Speaker 6: doing blackface? And I'm amused by that. It set me
Speaker 6: down some odd sort of you know areas in my
Speaker 6: mind that I haven't. To be honest, I haven't totally
Speaker 6: worked that out. It's at least worthy of discussion in
Speaker 6: my opinion. I don't know that I have an answer
Speaker 6: for that, or why maybe Fernando is good but Sammy
Speaker 6: and Whoopee are bad in this case.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 6: Maybe that says more about us than it says about him.
Speaker 6: I'm not sure, Father Malone, I know this is a lot.
Speaker 6: This is heavy when we're just talking about this stand
Speaker 6: up special, but it's I think it's worth discussing well.
Speaker 3: And the thing is is the joke with Fernando that
Speaker 3: he speaks in this sort of stereotypical manner, this sort
Speaker 3: of are we making fun of his vocal patterns here?
Speaker 3: Or are the vocal pattern I don't know. It's hard
Speaker 3: to subscribe. The thing is, as I said about the
Speaker 3: Sammy Davis impression, you never get a feel that he's
Speaker 3: punching down at all, that he's punching at all. He's
Speaker 3: just trying to do the best impression he can. So
Speaker 3: is this just a really great Fernando Lamas impression?
Speaker 6: I don't know much of I mean, I know a
Speaker 6: little bit about Fernando Lamas. I think he put out
Speaker 6: one of those co star records that was a big
Speaker 6: deal in the fifties. Have you ever come across these
Speaker 6: fatherle a side note? They were Vincent Price did one.
Speaker 6: I think a few actors did. It was essentially the
Speaker 6: actor in question in this case, Fernando Lamas would do
Speaker 6: a bit of dialogue on a record album, but it
Speaker 6: was between two people, and the person he was delivering
Speaker 6: the lines to would be left blank, meaning that if
Speaker 6: you're listening to this album, you could act with Fernando Lamas,
Speaker 6: or you could act with Vincent Price, or you could
Speaker 6: act with whoever. It was essentially like, you know, you'd
Speaker 6: fill in the empty parts of the dialogue. You know,
Speaker 6: it was actually funny thing. I would say, my memory
Speaker 6: serves it. It wasn't so much an exacting impression of
Speaker 6: Fernando Lamas as it is a caricature of his smooth
Speaker 6: Latin sort of banter. You know, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I'm so overwhelmed with the stereotypes and the sort of
Speaker 3: lack of grace when it comes to the impressions here
Speaker 3: that once again, like the Christopher dest One, offensive my
Speaker 3: comparison is offensive in general. I don't know. I can't
Speaker 3: tell anymore.
Speaker 6: It's like, it's a weird conversation to be having with
Speaker 6: yourself about a forty year old HBO comedy special, which at.
Speaker 3: The time Billy Crystals Don't Get Me Started, has gotten
Speaker 3: me start. Now my brain can't shut off.
Speaker 6: So let's well, we're not going to solve the issue here,
Speaker 6: you know, we'll leave it to the listener to make
Speaker 6: your own judgments. I think we are as confused about
Speaker 6: the situation as anybody. So if you have any comments,
Speaker 6: or if you have any insight, drop fathom along the line,
Speaker 6: let them, you know, let him know. We'll revisit this maybe,
Speaker 6: So that would be that's the second point. Good segue.
Speaker 6: The third portion of the stand up routine that he
Speaker 6: does in Hofstra is and I've seen him do variations
Speaker 6: of this, not necessarily always this character, but it's it's
Speaker 6: a monologue that he does where he sets a scene
Speaker 6: and it's a character that there's some poignant aspects to it.
Speaker 6: It's funny, it's supposed to be a slice of life,
Speaker 6: but exaggerated a little bit. In this case, he talks
Speaker 6: about his twentieth high school reunion, and this is supposed
Speaker 6: to be this sort of dim witted brooklynite who is
Speaker 6: you know, been through some things, carrying on a conversation
Speaker 6: with himself as he attends this high school reunion, and
Speaker 6: he it was so weird. You know, he's talks a
Speaker 6: little bit like like John Travolta, I guess of the time.
Speaker 6: But yeah, so it's essentially in this case, it's an
Speaker 6: Italian caricature. If my god, Billy, he can't get away
Speaker 6: from it. And but the through this monologue you learn
Speaker 6: that this this sort of hapless but you know, kind
Speaker 6: hearted New York kid went off to Vietnam and he
Speaker 6: saw some things and he came back. But he's actually
Speaker 6: really happy to be at the at this reunion, and
Speaker 6: he meets up with the girl that he dated in
Speaker 6: high school and they share a lovely dance together. And
Speaker 6: see that's it. But it's you know, it's a stock
Speaker 6: character that he's done a lot. Oh it's such a
Speaker 6: so weirdol. He does a lot of laughing as he's
Speaker 6: doing it. He's I've seen him do a similar thing
Speaker 6: where again this is shading into not shading. It actually
Speaker 6: is pretty offensive. Nowadays. He does a thing where he's
Speaker 6: he plays an old jazz musician from the forties and
Speaker 6: fifties who is taking like I guess he's supposed to
Speaker 6: be talking to young Billy Crystal as a child, and
Speaker 6: you know, hey, the catchphrase was can you dig that?
Speaker 6: I knew that you could. And there's no getting around
Speaker 6: the fact that he's doing an aged African American type
Speaker 6: of accent. I'm sorry, Father Ballone. I thought we're gonna
Speaker 6: get away from this, but this for some reason. But anyway,
Speaker 6: that's he's done these sort of slice of life monologues
Speaker 6: in other sets.
Speaker 3: He certainly has. He is an anomaly of a performer,
Speaker 3: isn't He's half one man show, half stand up, half
Speaker 3: Schmaltz machine.
Speaker 6: Let me ask you this, Let's get away from this
Speaker 6: just for a minute. And I'm just I'm curious. We
Speaker 6: talked a lot about his his catalog of work. Let
Speaker 6: me ask you, what's your favorite Billy Crystal performance. Let's
Speaker 6: say movie, what's your favorite Billy Crystal movie?
Speaker 3: What's the one with Alan King? Uh? Oh?
Speaker 6: Is that Memories of Me?
Speaker 3: Is that what it's called?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 6: It was. It was directed by Henry Winkler. Did you
Speaker 6: know that I did know that Joebeth Williams was in it. Yeah,
Speaker 6: that's the one. Does he have Alzheimer's or something?
Speaker 3: I'm kidding, by the way, it is all the Schmalts.
Speaker 3: That is Billy Crystal. Now, do not see that movie.
Speaker 3: Don't not, even as a joke. Do not go watch
Speaker 3: Memories of Me. That's like watching what was it called like,
Speaker 3: not nothing but Trouble? That's the right, fucking.
Speaker 6: The one with Jackie Gleeson.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, what is that called?
Speaker 6: Nothing in Common?
Speaker 3: Nothing in Common with Tom Hanks? Oh my god, same
Speaker 3: exact movie, Just awful schmaltzethon just baby boomers trying to
Speaker 3: figure out their parents.
Speaker 6: Do you remember what band did the song the theme
Speaker 6: song to Nothing in Common?
Speaker 3: Ooh no, I didn't. Let me guess.
Speaker 6: I'm not looking anything up. I know this off top
Speaker 6: of my head.
Speaker 3: Let me I want to say someone like like like
Speaker 3: like the Dream Syndicate or something.
Speaker 6: You're sniffing around the right places, father alone, believe.
Speaker 3: It or not? Is it the Thompson Twins.
Speaker 6: That was the actual name of the song. Was it was?
Speaker 6: We Got Nothing in Common inso Much to Lose?
Speaker 3: Yes, I am so excited that you said that Dream
Speaker 3: Syndicate was in the neighborhood, and the only band that
Speaker 3: came to mind in the neighborhoods Tops and Twins.
Speaker 6: You were definitely, like I said, you were sniffing around
Speaker 6: the right area there. I thought you were gonna get you.
Speaker 6: I thought you were gonna go with Howard Jones after that,
Speaker 6: because he's adjacent to the Dream Syndicate. But you went,
Speaker 6: you got there, That's the important thing.
Speaker 3: My my other guests would have been Stephen Bishop because
Speaker 3: this is right in his wheelhouse.
Speaker 6: Oh do you remember that?
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly, And that's probably what I'm thinking of. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's someone like here or whatever it is.
Speaker 6: Someone's telling something's telling me it might be you.
Speaker 3: Something's telling me it might be you, creaky right strike.
Speaker 6: So look anyway, you're not gonna get away from this.
Speaker 6: What's your favorite Billy Crystal movie?
Speaker 3: All right? Now? You're gonna force me to look at
Speaker 3: Billy Crystal movies?
Speaker 6: Gross, you don't have the top of your head.
Speaker 3: I don't have one off the top of my head.
Speaker 3: I like Billy Crystal overall. But like, something's telling me
Speaker 3: it might be you. Oh, I know, easily my life
Speaker 3: easily Okay, two things, hb Yeah. Number one these aren't movies.
Speaker 3: Can I do TV things?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 3: Okay. First of all, from nineteen eighty one, Midnight Viewing
Speaker 3: is mainly a horror anthology podcast. There's a television series
Speaker 3: called dark Room, which is a one series television show
Speaker 3: hosted by James Coburn, and it was a horror anthology
Speaker 3: and Billy Crystal starred in. So his character was named Patty,
Speaker 3: which means what he was in Irish face. Come on, Billy,
Speaker 3: leave some for the rest of us, where he finds
Speaker 3: a makeup hit that belonged to like a Lon Cheney
Speaker 3: type that when he puts the makeup on for the
Speaker 3: particular character, he becomes that character. So like, there's this
Speaker 3: bruiser character, so he becomes this giant guy who like
Speaker 3: you know, beats up the bullies that have been harassing
Speaker 3: him and stuff, and it goes on and on. It's
Speaker 3: that's one of my favorites. The second one, weirdly has
Speaker 3: a connection to James Coburn in My favorite Billy Crystal
Speaker 3: movie is Monsters Incorporated.
Speaker 6: And I was actually gonna go there as well. There's
Speaker 6: a yeah, those are good choices. That's solid I would
Speaker 6: say for me, I would say if we're talking television.
Speaker 3: Maybe his what that thing back where it came from?
Speaker 5: More?
Speaker 3: So help me, so help me.
Speaker 6: It's hard. I mean, Musters Inc. Is great, and I
Speaker 6: think it's somewhat overshadowed by the sequel, which wasn't nearly
Speaker 6: as good.
Speaker 3: Disagree, disagree with you.
Speaker 6: I think I thought the first one was I love
Speaker 6: the first one.
Speaker 3: The first one is magic. The second one is a
Speaker 3: really good movie that that is not as interested in
Speaker 3: tugging your heart strings.
Speaker 6: It was fine, it was fine. I'm not going to
Speaker 6: say it was the worst thing or the best thing.
Speaker 3: But I have to ask you again, HB, for the
Speaker 3: second time, why do you hit me?
Speaker 6: I would say, for in terms of movies, I would
Speaker 6: actually I think he's actually quite good and Running Scared.
Speaker 6: I think it's a good movie. I think it's a
Speaker 6: fun movie. I agree with it that isn't often thought
Speaker 6: of at that time. Throw Mama from the Train. I
Speaker 6: think he's fantastic. And then that's Danny DeVito's directorial debut.
Speaker 6: If I'm not mistaken, that is a very good movie.
Speaker 3: I agree with that too.
Speaker 6: So those two are probably the ones that I would gravitate.
Speaker 6: In addition to monstsinc of course, because it's great for
Speaker 6: as far as TV, though, I think I don't know.
Speaker 6: Maybe his appearance on the Love Boat is the Kissing Bandit.
Speaker 6: Do you remember that?
Speaker 3: He too? Remember that? You're right about this sort of amnesia,
Speaker 3: you know, like, yeah, it just comes back how much
Speaker 3: Billy Crystal was in our consciousness. He was always around.
Speaker 3: That's the thing, like you know that you can see
Speaker 3: it isn't like he left. It wasn't like he had
Speaker 3: a big thing and then fell off. It just seems
Speaker 3: like his career only got bigger and bigger. It is
Speaker 3: actually a remarkable career. I know, I'm making fun of
Speaker 3: him for his schmaltziness and his sort of he like
Speaker 3: the leans and look, the man has been mythologizing his
Speaker 3: childhood every day, Like he spent as much time in
Speaker 3: his in adulthood examining his childhood as he was a child,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, Like it's the same span
Speaker 3: of time, probably more thinks about anyway. Yeah, having he
Speaker 3: said all that, the fact is fucking started out with nothing.
Speaker 3: It was a stand up and then he like got
Speaker 3: his heart broken when he was cut off of Saturday
Speaker 3: Night Live, which I now understand by the way, because
Speaker 3: he was given seven minutes and if it was going
Speaker 3: to be seven minutes of fucking home movies of fucking
Speaker 3: and it wasn't. It was that horrible like Fari routine,
Speaker 3: the potato chips oof.
Speaker 6: Anyway, they portrayed it in the Saturday Night movie, the
Speaker 6: one that came out last year, remember, and actually the
Speaker 6: actor who played him was very good.
Speaker 3: I thought, yeah, oh fantastic, and that routine could have
Speaker 3: been done in two minutes, like he didn't need all
Speaker 3: the setup, just get out there and fucking do it,
Speaker 3: man like he should have done it. Anyway, from going
Speaker 3: from that to fucking like when Harry met Sally like
Speaker 3: he was he ruled the nineties with Robin Williams. They
Speaker 3: seemed to be everywhere all the time. Yeah, that's true,
Speaker 3: not to mention all of the Oscar like. His greatest
Speaker 3: achievement might be hosting the Oscars. Honestly, he was.
Speaker 6: I think we can all agree he was. I hate.
Speaker 6: I don't want to use hyperbole and say he was
Speaker 6: the best Oscar host.
Speaker 3: He was the bestcer host. He's the best Oscar host,
Speaker 3: There's no question about it. His shows were wildly entertaining.
Speaker 6: They were entertaining, and it didn't feel like the next
Speaker 6: day after the Oscars, all people want to do is
Speaker 6: tear down the Oscar host for every little misstep, everything
Speaker 6: they did that they didn't like. I don't remember that
Speaker 6: ever really happening with Billy Crystal. I think everybody accepted
Speaker 6: that he had it down to a science, and he was.
Speaker 6: He ran that thing like a well oiled machine. So
Speaker 6: I'm surprised you didn't mention Animal Olympics. He did voices
Speaker 6: for Animallympics.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I know, and I named a voice thing.
Speaker 3: You're right, I take it back. Animallympics is clearly my
Speaker 3: favorite of HISI oh my god. And you know what
Speaker 3: he does Muhammad Ali in that, but he does it
Speaker 3: as a kangaroo, so who cares. He also did maybe
Speaker 3: had he done all of his characters here and as furries,
Speaker 3: then this could have been an acceptable television special.
Speaker 6: He did do a lot of Ali, didn't he. I
Speaker 6: remember him even like he would make appearances with Ali
Speaker 6: on Awards shows and do them and hold up his
Speaker 6: fist to Ali. I think Ali probably thought it was
Speaker 6: funny that this, you know, this little Jewish guy from
Speaker 6: New York was you know, doing an impression of him,
Speaker 6: and that was always sweet.
Speaker 3: Good impression too, Like make no mistake, Billy Crystal's impressions
Speaker 3: are fucking spot on. Yeah, when in some cases not
Speaker 3: in Whoopi Goldberg's case, I don't know what.
Speaker 6: That it's the worst. But he did a very good
Speaker 6: Howard Grosell, which probably most of the listeners to this
Speaker 6: podcast probab don't even know who Howard Cosell is at
Speaker 6: this point.
Speaker 3: Most likely not, but he was. He also, speaking of people,
Speaker 3: nobody remembers he did his impression here. He did it
Speaker 3: in his previous special too. His el Brenner is out
Speaker 3: of hand.
Speaker 6: His eul Brenner is actually very cool. He did that
Speaker 6: in the Novels album too, but here you can see
Speaker 6: him because part of the magic of that is watching
Speaker 6: him walk around. Is Euel Brenner. Anybody who has watched
Speaker 6: Brenner in the Ten Commandments, which is his the point
Speaker 6: of the joke is he has him down to it.
Speaker 6: He's flawless. His impression. Also, he does Edward G. Robinson
Speaker 6: in Oh Yeah, where as You're Moses now Shay, which
Speaker 6: is I cannot watch the Ten Commandments and see him
Speaker 6: up there and not think of Billy Crystal because he
Speaker 6: pointed out the ridiculousness. It's like John Wayne, you know,
Speaker 6: doing Genghis Khan. Right, it's one of the all time
Speaker 6: worst you know, matchup of an actor to a role basically.
Speaker 6: But but look, we've bagged on My point is we
Speaker 6: bagged on this special a lot. There's certain charming bits,
Speaker 6: but you know, I don't want to I don't want
Speaker 6: that to sell you the man's legacy. I mean, the
Speaker 6: guy has a body of work which is pretty pretty
Speaker 6: well peerless, you know, in terms of what he did,
Speaker 6: what he brought to the table.
Speaker 3: You know what my favorite impression is of his?
Speaker 6: Is it one we've already discussed or is it a
Speaker 6: new one?
Speaker 3: It's we haven't talked about it yet. Oh did to
Speaker 3: tell I'd love to hear this blue crayon? Have you
Speaker 3: ever seen him do a blue crayon?
Speaker 6: Maybe enlighten me, Maybe it'll come back like amnesia.
Speaker 3: He takes a winter cap, a blue winter cap, and
Speaker 3: he peeks it on top of his head, so he
Speaker 3: turns into a blue crayon and then he says, same
Speaker 3: blue crayon after a lot of sky, and then he
Speaker 3: smushes it down. On his head. Fucking genius.
Speaker 6: That is conceptual in a way that I didn't think
Speaker 6: he was cape. I don't think I've ever seen that.
Speaker 3: That's in the previous special, which by the way, is
Speaker 3: wall to wall these sort of character pieces. But somehow,
Speaker 3: all everything that Billy Crystal that I tend to feel
Speaker 3: is Maudlin in his work works in that special, like
Speaker 3: it's the perfect encapsulation of Billy Crystal and his memories
Speaker 3: of childhood and his impressions and everything, without any of
Speaker 3: the blackface. It's not present in that special, although he
Speaker 3: does dress as Adamant, and I think that might be
Speaker 3: that might be offensive to Adamant, but he's a kind
Speaker 3: of a dead ringer for Adamant so well.
Speaker 6: So the name of the special that you're talking about
Speaker 6: is called Billy Crystal a comics line which is supposed
Speaker 6: to be a takeoff of a chorus line, and I
Speaker 6: tried and I could not find any trace of it online.
Speaker 6: There is a brief chopped up clip where you can
Speaker 6: see him do a little bit of the Adamant stuff,
Speaker 6: and I agree with you. There's something about the shape
Speaker 6: of his face and the way his hairline is receding
Speaker 6: in a certain way that he is a dead ringer
Speaker 6: for Adam An. It was spooky because they made him
Speaker 6: up with the makeup on his cheekbones and stuff. He
Speaker 6: looks just like him. But my point is I really
Speaker 6: wanted to find this based on your recommendation. I thought
Speaker 6: this could be a good prisoner exchange of Billy Crystal specials.
Speaker 6: But I still I haven't given up, but I haven't
Speaker 6: found it yet.
Speaker 3: I also searched for it and yielded nothing. I think
Speaker 3: we can buy videotapes of it off of eBay, but
Speaker 3: I don't know that I'm going to do that just yet.
Speaker 3: So hopefully HBO, which owns all of these, would just
Speaker 3: fucking make it available. But it wasn't available there either.
Speaker 6: I'm not sure, especially if it's a package deal with
Speaker 6: Don't get he started. I'm not sure HBO would want
Speaker 6: him doing Sammy Davis Junior and Whoopee Goldberg to be
Speaker 6: brought back up in the public consciousness. So maybe that
Speaker 6: it may be a long time before we see that.
Speaker 3: You know, this special has adenda. There is the lost minutes.
Speaker 3: There is a full other half hour of wandering around
Speaker 3: that mansion.
Speaker 6: No kidding, you know, I came across that listing of
Speaker 6: the Lost Minutes, but I assumed because the copy on
Speaker 6: YouTube is a video cassette copy, it's a rip of
Speaker 6: a video cassette, so I assumed that it was just
Speaker 6: incorporated in the video cassette. But you're telling me there's
Speaker 6: some bonus footage that I've not been privy to yet.
Speaker 3: Have you seen it? I have not because I'm terrified
Speaker 3: to go further into this fucking nightmare. Is he going
Speaker 3: to show up and be to share him afoon all
Speaker 3: of a sudden.
Speaker 6: Wow, I that's pretty wild. I'll have to I will brave.
Speaker 3: The let me brother, I did this one. I'm not going.
Speaker 3: I'm not going again.
Speaker 6: I will try to check that out. But I'm intrigued because,
Speaker 6: let's be honest, like, the first half is so much
Speaker 6: more interesting than the second half. So if we can
Speaker 6: hopefully not get anything more offensive in this lost minutes piece,
Speaker 6: maybe it's worth it. I don't know. We'll check it out, though,
Speaker 6: good luck. I will look for it. But see, now,
Speaker 6: knowing that this is part of our series, within the
Speaker 6: series of you know, HP hates Me, I'm now wondering it.
Speaker 6: And now is there something in the offering on your
Speaker 6: end that you're going to make me watch. No, no,
Speaker 6: there has to be something.
Speaker 3: Nope, no, no, this is not a reciprocal thing. This
Speaker 3: is called HP hates me. You go to town, my friend,
Speaker 3: because I've opened this door stupidly. But after rich little
Speaker 3: I thought what other fiendish things could he have? And
Speaker 3: then out of the blue you said, let's do this,
Speaker 3: and so well you I've.
Speaker 6: Got, As mister T said, I got a lot of more.
Speaker 6: I got a lot of more. Fottom alone, I'll get there.
Speaker 3: Good luck to all of us.
Speaker 6: May God have percy on your soul, Father Malone.
Speaker 3: So thank you once again, midnight viewers for tuning into
Speaker 3: this crazy ass fucking show that we're doing. HP. Where
Speaker 3: can people find you?
Speaker 6: Ah?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 6: I co host the Night Mister Walters Taxi podcast with
Speaker 6: Father Malone, of course, and I'm an occasional guest on
Speaker 6: the Culture Cast with Chris Dashu. I also host the
Speaker 6: Noise Junkies music podcast, and I have a band campsite
Speaker 6: with my music. Anyone who hears any of the Actually
Speaker 6: I do some of the music around the weirding Way Network,
Speaker 6: some of the themes and things. That's me hpmusicplace dot
Speaker 6: bandcamp dot com. Go there if you want to hear
Speaker 6: any more of my musical noodlings.
Speaker 3: And as for me, you listening to the show. Midnight
Speaker 3: Viewing mentioned this on another episode, but I'm gonna mention
Speaker 3: it here too. It's well in advance. In the beginning
Speaker 3: of October fourth and fifth, you happen to be in
Speaker 3: the Las Vegas area, please stop my the Silverton Casino
Speaker 3: at the Nightmare in Vegas Convention, where HP and I
Speaker 3: will both be manning the Midnight Viewing booth. Baby, we're
Speaker 3: gonna be there for both days. We're gonna be broadcasting live,
Speaker 3: we're gonna have guests, we're gonna have fun. Stop in
Speaker 3: say hello until next time. Oh my god. Here, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna play some Billy Crystal for you.
Speaker 4: So this is your ten commandments. Please, I only do
Speaker 4: it once.
Speaker 3: Molds us on the you Doze thing they us my