Speaker 1: Welcome back, everybody to the Shirley You Can't Be Serious Podcasts.
We are on part two of our Smoking in the
Bandit versus Cannonball Run episodes. Jason, how you doing, man?
Speaker 2: I'm good man. Let's just do the checklist real quick.
Speaker 1: All right? You ready? Yeah? Okay?
Speaker 2: Let's see here, zipper, most of the way down.
Speaker 1: Where's beer?
Speaker 2: Ready to go? Rosary bleeds ready to go? No smoking
in the rearview mirror. Let's put the hammer down and
give it hip.
Speaker 1: Let's shove those rosary bleeds right up your nose.
Speaker 3: Hello everybody, and welcome to the Surely you Can't Be
Serious Podcast, discussing and debating the iconic and the forgotten
of eighties and nineties pop culture with your co hosts
James D. Graves and Jason Colivin.
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Shirley You Can't Be
Serious Podcasts. Jason, are you ready to jump back in? Okay?
Speaker 2: Are we flip back to Cannibal Run? Are we still
unspoken the band?
Speaker 1: Hey? Man, I'm just here for the ride, right These
movies are about the ride, and that's what I'm here
for the ride?
Speaker 2: All right, Okay, it's it's a crime that we have
made it this far in the podcast without talking about
one of the funniest characters in Canniball Run, Captain Chaos.
Speaker 1: Dun Dun, Dunn.
Speaker 2: How can we forget to talk about him?
Speaker 1: Oh no, not him again.
Speaker 2: Be long.
Speaker 1: Welcome everybody. I'm Captain Chaos and this is my friend Kato.
Say hello Kato.
Speaker 2: Dom Delawise as his alternate identity. Captain Chaos is the
funniest character in Canniball Run. The interesting thing about Captain
Chaos for me is that despite being hilarious and despite
being obviously Victor Princey's stronger half, he really does have
special powers, Like whenever he takes over the ambulance, the
ambulance drives faster right. One of the funniest scenes in
the movie when they get in that big joint fight
at the very end, when the road is blocked and
they take on the biker gang, He's beating the crap
out of Captain Chaos is beating up bikers left and right.
Speaker 1: And I will say this, he takes the time to
give the movie heart that was missing in other scenes.
The conversation he has about how Captain Chaos would come
and save him when he was getting bullied as a kid.
It just it moves you. You're just like, ah, all right,
I can I get it now. I understand everybody needs
their own Captain Chaos.
Speaker 2: Captain Chaos actually Victor Charms, Sarah Fussett, Roger Moore playing
Seymour Goldfarb playing Roger Moore playing James Bond.
Speaker 1: So the music you know when the when the Aston
Martin pulls up for the race, you hear that them
Nan And how Needham said was he got within one
note of being sued over that one. Kubby Brockley talked
to holl Needham about this. They I guess they knew
each other pretty well, and we saw that scene. He
was not happy about what was going on. And it
was actually in the contracts for future James Bond movies
you may not spoof James Bond in any shape or
form in any of your movies. I think I like
James Bond better in this movie than in any other
Roger Moore James Bond movie. Wow.
Speaker 2: Wow right?
Speaker 1: Did you did you play spy Hunter when you're a
kid at the video game sick? Yes? Oh my gosh.
I loved the oil slicks and the smoke screens and
the bombs that came out. But yeah, and as far
as James Bond cars go, the Aston Martin is the
coolest car that they've ever had.
Speaker 2: No way, no way. Yes, I'll take the Lotus that
transforms into a submarine from the Spy Who Loved Me
any Day?
Speaker 1: So dumb. It's like Joe episode. Cars in this.
Speaker 2: Movie only worked for two or three days, right, They
needed them at the beginning, they needed them at the end,
and they needed them just kind of to do their
thing in the middle.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: I think Roger Moore worked like four days.
Speaker 1: Maybe, Yeah, I think he was probably a longer bit
on the shoot. And he would have a different girl
with him. They never explained that at all, but somehow
he had a different girl with him every single time.
And then one of them seems like she's from Russia
or something, the one where it's like the smoke comes
into the car. So the voice is not actually that
woman's voice. Yes, she sounds like Natasha from Rocky and Bullwinkle,
because she is Natasha from Rocky and Bullwinkle. It's that
lady coming in to do the voice.
Speaker 2: June Foura did the voice of Rocky from Bullwinkle.
Speaker 1: She did.
Speaker 2: She also does the voice of Granny from Looney Tunes.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean she's a voice actress. She's done tons of Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm going to pull in here and get some beer,
all right.
Speaker 2: Run is one of the first movies to do product placement.
I thought that was very interesting. They were paid money
to show Budweiser beer, uh huh, slurpees, Goodyear tires, and
sell eleven.
Speaker 1: So that scene they've got the plane, How awesome is
that scene. I mean, you got to think they don't
do stuff like that anymore. They don't out there doing
those crazy stunts because we have CGI and we'll just
see gi it all in. But back in nineteen eighty one,
if you're going to fly a plane and land it
on the city streets of a small town, you had
to actually fly a plane and land it on the
streets of a small town. And so there's power lines
and stuff. So they had to have a stunt pilot
come in, get it under the wire, and then also
stop the plane. I mean, you've got marks. When you're
shooting stuff. The camera doesn't just go everywhere. It's not
a handheld and so the plane's got to stop on
a specific spot. So when you see that butt of
the plane jumping up, it's because the pilot is trying
to do everything he can to get it stopped in
the mark. They then Dom Delauise hops out, just grabs
some beer and a slurpy why not. Yeah, And so
at that point that he and this Dom Delouise is
such a pro, he's walking in and then the wind
from the plane blows every that was not part, that
was not scripted. It just happened. The plane was actually there.
It's you know, it moves to move around and it
blows everything all over the place. Not phased a bit,
just grabs his beer.
Speaker 2: Do you know that? Hell, Ninam and nol Ruddy, who
you mentioned before, liked Terry Bradshaw and Mill Tillis's chemistry
so much that they actually proposed a TV show for
these guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were Actually.
Speaker 2: It was all set to go, ready to green light it,
and they're supposed to like get the green light on Monday,
and on Sunday the guy at the studio was fired. Yeah,
and so that was all scrapped perfect. Hey, Terry Bradshaw
is fresh off of Super Bowl winning victories with the
Pittsburgh Steelers and.
Speaker 1: Mel Tillis is a big country star. And Al Ruddy
is also in the movie. Did you know that he's
one of the cambel guys in the movie who asked
for the camel cigarette. I'm the camel schmuck Winston, which
is again hilarious. You got Jamie Farr, and you know
Jamie Farr is a Jewish guy playing an Arab and
Al Ruddy is this Jewish guy. Al Ruddy is the
guy who produced The Godfather. I mean, that's pretty freaking awesome.
That's incredible. There is a great we talk podcasts here
all the time. And one of the podcasts that Jason
introduced me to long ago is called Revisionist History and
it's by Malcolm Gladwell and it is fantastic. And there's
an episode that when you're done with this episode go
check it out. It's called Hutspa versus hut Spa. It's
kind of it's like they did a Shirley podcast thing
one versus the but it's about Al Ruddy, among others,
and producing this movie and how the Mafia, the mafioso
were completely against the idea of producing a movie about
the Mafia, and we're it was basically kind of like
one of those threats, like one of those offers you
can't refuse kind of deal. But al Ruddy says to
Mario Pusa, why don't you go talk to these And
then Mario Pousa's like, no, these guys hate me. I
don't want to go talk to him. He's like, I fine,
I go talk to him. So Already goes to talk
to him and he says, you just read the script.
Just read the script, and if you got any problems
with it, we will change it. And so they you know,
he's sitting there with these mafiosa guys and they're looking
at it and they're on page one. They're like, what
does fade in mean? So they get like a couple
of pages in and they're like, they're not going to
He knows they're not going to read a fifty five
page script, and they're just like, you know what, I
like you, We trust you. Just would you do this?
Just just don't use the word in the movie. And
Already's like, okay, and he knows the script and he
knows the word mafia is used once in the whole movie.
One time. He just scratches it out, scratches that one
line out, and they've got their movie, which is why
you know now the word mafia never comes up in
the movie The Godfather. That's interesting.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's cool. All right, So I gotta ask you.
Have you seen Cannonball Run Too?
Speaker 1: Yes? And I so I can remember two things about
Cannonball Run Too because it's been many years. Number one
is that draws from the James Bond movies. Richard Kee
is now the one driving with Jackie chan right.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing I can remember is Jamie
Farr being flashed by a woman in a fur coat. Yes,
and you can you can guess why I remember that.
Speaker 2: I wonder why. That's okay, So that came out in
nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 1: We talked about it briefly.
Speaker 2: It had Frank Sinatra as the chairman of the board
or whatever he was in that. The Lambeau Girls included
Catherine Bach from Dukes of Hazzard another Dukes of Hazzard. Okay,
so you've seen Canniball Run two? Have you seen Canniball
Run Three?
Speaker 1: I don't recognize that.
Speaker 2: Okay, here's why you don't recognize it all right, it's
called speed Zone. Came out in nineteen eighty nine. Okay,
the only character that you may recognize, Jamie Farr returns
as the chich that's it. Yes, while we're talking about
how Needham and Burt Reynolds, did you know that once
upon a time in Hollywood, the Leonardo DiCaprio character and
the Brad Pitt character are based on the relationship that
how Needham and Burt Reynolds had.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to a degree, those two characters are based on
a few people. But yeah, the how need Burt Reynolds
relationship was definitely inspiration for that. Because Quentin Tarantino loves
holl Needham loves him.
Speaker 2: Really, that's cool.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, speaking.
Speaker 2: Of strange fans, you know who loves Smoking the Bandit? No,
Alfred Hitchcock loves Smoking the Bandit really, Yeah, it was
one of his guilty pleasures. Also, comedian Norm McDonald says
Smoking the Bandit is his favorite all time movie.
Speaker 1: I'm still marveling over Alfred hitchcock.
Speaker 2: Guilty pleasure, according to his daughter. Okay, so Smoking the
Bandit has got lots of cussing in it, right, pretty
mild ones, but things like tick turd and some band
and he calls Junior a hit pile of monkey nuts, which.
Speaker 1: Is, do not use that kind of language.
Speaker 2: My favorite thing is when he says, uh, nobody makes
me look like Apostles packer. Yeah, but what about that?
What he's like shud joy ass.
Speaker 1: My favorite part. Took the life from me. It's terrible.
Speaker 2: The original actors redubbed their own lines for television.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: They dubbed in the clean words yes step for Jackie Gleeson.
Actor Henry Cordon, who voiced Fred Flintstone, was used to
replace a lot of Sheriff Justice's dialogue, right, which is
funny because Fred Flintstone is basically a complete copy of
Ralph Crampton from The Honeymooners.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But that's why when you're watching the clean version
of Smoking the Bandit, you're like, is that Jackie Gleeson?
Is that Fred Flintstone? I'm not exactly sure. Okay, here's
I just have to get these lines out. These are
some of the funniest lines of Smoking the Bandit All. Right,
When Jackie Gleeson says, what we're dealing with here is
a complete lack of respect for the law.
Speaker 1: They no way that you came from my lords, we
get back home. Punch Yo, Ma, punch Jr. Mama right
in the mouth. But I'm in a hot speed for soup.
Don't you hear good? I hear perfectly. The fact that
you are a sheriff is not germane to the situation.
German's got nothing to do with it.
Speaker 3: What do you say?
Speaker 2: God, We could go all day all this stuff, But
I like when Bandit says he's going to drop off
the little dolly at the choke and puke. So when
we go on ski trips, whenever we're ready to stop,
everybody says, okay, it's time to stop the choking puke.
Let's talk a little bit about the reception of these movies.
So we talked that Smoking the Man a huge success
in the United States, right, humongous success.
Speaker 1: Right, But on its opening night it was not like
they The first screening that they did, they did in
New York City, and the audience didn't like it, and
the studio suddenly got very concerned and they said, listen,
this is not our crowd. Let us let's take it
down south and see how the folks react down there.
And then, of course, once they did that. It was like, oh, yeah,
we found our demographic down here. The folks up in
New England don't get this kind of humor like we do.
Speaker 2: Cannonball Run was a huge success as well, not quite
as big as Smoking the Bandit, but sixth highest moneymaker
in nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 1: Which is not bad given that you've got Superman two
and All Star Lost Arc coming out within that same
short time period.
Speaker 2: Seriously, Cannibal Run was produced by Golden Harvest, which is
a famous Hong Kong movie studio. Yeah, they made the
movie Enter the Dragon, and that's really how Jackie Chen and.
Speaker 1: Michael Hoi get involved. Yeah, this was the first movie.
This was the first English speaking movie that Jackie Chan
was in, and he was brilliant. He gets to show
off his karate and stuff. But interestingly, like they're supposed
to be from Japan, even though they're from China, both
of these guys.
Speaker 2: Right, he knew who we forgot to mention, and I
would kick myself. We forgot the two Lambow girls who
managed to.
Speaker 1: What I was just about to say, Yes, we can't
forget her because I was thinking, oh, we're stilling Smoky
in the Bandit. But yeah, our throwback to Superman.
Speaker 2: Okay, Miss Testmucker is the female highway.
Speaker 1: Patrolman wearing an Oklahoma Highway patrol uniform better than any
Oklahoma Highway patrolman has ever worn that uniform before. I
gotta say, well, hello, hot pants, I don't suppose you
have a driver's license tuck down in there somewhere.
Speaker 2: Do you the same cleavage that shut down the US military?
We love Valerie Perine.
Speaker 1: Put evidence in the car.
Speaker 2: You did that on purpose?
Speaker 1: You'll ask him less. Okay, So when mel Tillis and
Terry Bradshaw are driving the car at the beginning of
the movie, do you know what it says on the
front on the hood of the car? Right? And so
then what happens to the hood of the car is
that it flips up. They're talking about not being able
to see which then they drive this car into this
pool area and drive the car into the pool and
all of these girls that are standing around at the
pool are actually the Hawaiian Tropic girls.
Speaker 2: More reason to hang out with hel Neaedam.
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, Hal said that the crew felt really nice
whenever they got to get together in the evenings at
the bar. At that hotel, and all of the Hawaiian
tropic girls were there having beers with all of the crew. Okay,
we have not talked at all about Jack Eelum. I
gotta think about this carefully before I just come out
there bold and brassy and say he's the need's part
of this movie. But if he's not the funniest part
of this movie, he's pretty dang close. I'm honored, sir,
I'm doctor Nicholas Health.
Speaker 2: I think he's the funniest part of this movie. Yes,
he's the funniest character in this movie.
Speaker 1: So he had been. He had been kind of the
bad guy and a bunch of the old westerns, and
and how Needham had gotten to know him through those
movies as well. Hal Needham and John Wayne were best
of friends, and so he met Jack elom through that process.
By the way, how Needham at some point in one
of John Wayne's movies was telling the director, he's not
throwing his punch right, which I can't even imagine saying
about John Wayne. I'm gonna correct his punch. But it
was not. It was not about what the punch was.
It was about how he was throwing it. With relationship
to how the camera was because you could tell the
way he was doing it that it wasn't a real punch.
And so how Needam, despite the directors telling him not to,
went to John Wayne and said, you're not on your
punch right, and then proceeded to show him how to
do it. And then apparently how Needham had gotten his
kind of party ideas from John Wayne, because John Wayne
would always have these big parties in the evenings with
all of the people from the movie. And when he
went to John Wayne's party that night, John Wayne came
up to him and had had I had a few
drinks and puts him in a bit of a headlock
and then starts giving him a scobnob and he's like,
don't you ever embarrass me in front of my crew
like that again. And how Needham's not a super big
guy and John Wayne was, and how Nea was like, yes, sir,
never again. And from he said, from that moment on,
they were the best of friends for the remainder of
both of their careers. That's cool, Okay.
Speaker 2: So Jack Elin plays doctor Nicholas then Helse Nicholas van
Helsing right, director prosor of proctology at the Nashville of faith,
healings goal. I can't. I cannot do him in justice.
But for whatever reason, he has one eyeball that looks
one way and one all it looks another way. And
he is the funniest, scariest, weirdest looking doctor.
Speaker 1: He sees Fara faucet for the first time. Oh my god,
the work specimen. Are we ready to go to Final Judgment?
I'm ready for Final Judgment? Okay, all right, we cannot
do these movies to justice. We will sit here and
laugh at funny things for the remainder of the night
if we keep going on. So let's go. Let's talk
about Final Judgment. Got two brilliant movies here, but which
one of them is the best?
Speaker 2: You go first, Okay, let me just talk about what
these movies mean to me. Both of these movies are
an absolute home run. I can put either one on
at any given time and laugh the entire way through.
I love them both, But for me, I have more
fun when I watch Cannonball Run, which will be blasphemous
for most of my friends because they know me as
a smoking the bandit guy. All right, So I feel
like I need to defend my choice here a little bit. Right,
the whole world loves Smoking the Bandit better than Cannonball Run.
Even though I think most people love both of these movies,
it's just a given that Smoking the Bandit is more liked. Okay,
So here are my three reasons why Cannonball Run is better.
Number one, star power. You've got Burt Reynolds, Dom de Luiz,
Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Roger Moore, Peter Fonda, Jackie Chan,
Jimmy the Greek, Farah Fawcett. The list continues, this cast.
Speaker 1: You had me at Jimmy the Greek. Okay, Greek. I
can't believe one of these does not.
Speaker 2: Look all right. Number two reason. Number two reason, and
I'm gonna try and say this without trying to sound
like a pig, all right, the number two reason that
Cannibal Run is better than Smoking the Bandit.
Speaker 1: There's no way you can say the rest of what
you're about to say without sounding like a pig. There's
no way, obviously, say Sally Field.
Speaker 2: Sally Field versus literally. The field of women in Canniball
Run is a mismatch of epic proportions. Here you have
the Bond Girls, which every time we see Roger Moore's
with a different girl, including at the very end when
he actually picks up one of the motorcycle biking girls.
You have the Lambeau girls once again, notice the continuity
airs with their zippers, and then.
Speaker 1: You'll think you're right, I'm gonna keep on checking that.
Speaker 2: And then you have Farah freaking Faucet, who at the
time in nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 1: I don't know that she's ever not hot honestly, well,
I mean yeah, even into old age, she was still smoking.
Speaker 2: And number three, the number three reason why Canniball Run
is a more enjoyable movie than Smoking the Bandit, even
though it's just a little bit, because I love Smoking
the Bandit tooth. It's the blue breel at the very end.
The bumpers are fantastic. They are absolutely the funniest part
of that entire movie, and it puts it over the
top for me.
Speaker 1: I love that part.
Speaker 2: I can watch it over and over and over.
Speaker 1: I would say, of your bullet points, that's the strongest
one for sure. The blooper reel is the funniest part
of the movie and potentially the thing that would push
it over Smoking in the Bandit.
Speaker 2: Thank you, And if I had time, I would take
these rosary bleeds and shove them over your nose. Bleeds,
those bleeds, those bleeds, right. I love the Blooper reel.
Speaker 1: It is awesome. That scene they're actually shooting at four
o'clock in the morning, it is, and they're all just
sleep deprived and they can't stop laughing, and Burt Reynolds
is actually hitting don belawise, which is why you see
the genuine fearation, Oh please, don't please.
Speaker 2: Hair out.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I love Smoking the Band, Smoking the ban It slows
down a little bit in the middle for me, with
the love story, they take kind of a break from
the full on, full throttle fun fest. I love them both,
but for me, Canniball Run is more fun.
Speaker 1: You bet a duck or you're gonna be talking at
your Okay, listen, these these movies defy the logic because
there's virtually no plot. You got, especially with Smoking the Band,
that you got a director that comes on just you know, hey,
I've been I've been the stuntman in a bunch of
movies and maybe Second Unit here and there, so I'm
gonna be able to make this movie. And they end
up being Burt Reynolds, who is the biggest star of
the time, his biggest movies and what have you got?
What I mean simply in both movies you have got
fast cars yep, hot women yep, cool guys yep, and
a fight in there knock flat out then, and so
it becomes the perfect movie for any Southern audience. I
guess I don't. I mean it is. It is just
flat out and brilliant. So I'm on the same boat
with you. These are both movies that you can put
on anytime and be happy. But I feel like that
this is kind of the Jurassic Park Jaws scenario, so
that you're picking Cannonball Run because instead of just one shark,
you have like a hundred sharks or whatever. But Jackie
Gleason is so freaking brilliant in this movie. And even
though I can tell that most of the dialogue is improvised,
and give me a minute, these beers are kicking in,
I need to go take a ten one hundred.
Speaker 2: Better than.
Speaker 1: Even though you can tell that these things are improvd.
The chemistry that's going on between Sally Field and Burt
Reynolds is better than the fair face hat scene with
Burt Reynolds, which seems kind of contrived and as funny
as all of the parts are in Cannonball Run, none
of them are as funny as half of the lines
of Bufford, t Justice and Jackie Leson. So I gotta go.
I gotta Smoke in the Band on this one. And
just as a backup for that, I watched this with
my kids, and the kids felt like Cannonball Run might
be dragging a bit, and with Smoking in the bandit
they were. They were fully invested for the whole time.
So I think Smokey holds up a bit better than
Cannonball does. Okay, that's fine politically, one of them really
hold up politically.
Speaker 2: But yeah, when my son my I have a sixteen
year old, he walked through the room while I was
watching these and he I was watching Smoking the Band
at the time. He walked by and he said, this
is such a freaking great movie. My sixteen year old
said that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And you know it's interesting you We posted something
on Facebook a little bit ago with like, how would
you recast recast Cannonball Run? And the overwhelming response, I mean,
we got a few folks who are like, oh, hey,
i'd put you know, Seth Rogan in this part, or
you know, Ryan Reynolds's part. But the overwhelming response was
you cannot recast this movie, don't test, you cannot be
made again, and it's already perfect, don't mess with it.
And I mean, I think they're right. I think you
can't redo this movie. You know how Needham passed away
a few years ago. But even that, even in that
commentary which I couldn't tell exactly when it was that
they did it, but he was talking to Al Ruddy about, Hey,
what do you think about doing another Cannonball run? And
Ruddy's like, heck, yeah, I'd do it. Yeah. So, I
mean almost all of those folks are gone at this point. Yeah,
I mean Al Ruddy happens. I think he's ninety, He's
really old. But how Needham's gone, Burn Rols has gone,
Farah Facets has gone, Don Delawize is gone, Dean Martin's gone,
Sammy Davis Junior is gone. Almost all of those guys
is gone. Yeah, And so I'm falling in line with
the folks who who are followers of us on Facebook
and this movie just cannot be redone. It is in
a glass capsule for the time that it was made
and should probably remain there.
Speaker 2: I mean, so much talent in the cab it's just unbelievable.
I mean, a guy tenths down on the list and
talent is Terry Bradshawn.
Speaker 1: He won Super Bowls for the Steelers, you know so,
and did a great job with this part too. Oh
he's great, He's great. I'll probably get ripped up in
this one.
Speaker 2: I know that Smoking the band and has held a
little bit higher in the public regard, But for me,
Canniball Run is a movie that I would like to
step through the TV screen and live in that world.
You know, nothing but fun and partying and fast cars
and jumps and girls and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I can't falter from that. It does. Of
the two movies, it does make me want to be
a part of the fun more than Smokey does. It's
just that Smoky gets me laughing out loud more often
than Canniball does. All right, let us know what you think.
Am I way off base like in Canniball Run? Maybe
I am. I know Smoking Band is great, but tell
us where you come down on this. Are you with
d Are you with me?
Speaker 2: Are we both crazy? Weigh in all right, that's going
to close it out for the Smoking the Bandit Versus
Cannonball run episodes. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 1: We'll see you guys next week.
Speaker 3: From Seeing to Shine In See