Speaker 1: Oh he is boots. It's show tied.
Speaker 2: People say good money to see this movie. When they
Speaker 2: go out to a theater.
Speaker 3: They want clothes, sodas, pop, popcorn, and no monsters in
Speaker 3: the protection booths.
Speaker 1: Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.
Speaker 3: Got it off from the guys who brought you the
Speaker 3: forty year old virgin of Talladega Knights and knocked up.
Speaker 2: Now get ready.
Speaker 3: For its super bad cases.
Speaker 4: What's up, guys?
Speaker 1: I was just walking down the hall and Nicola was
Speaker 1: wearing these tight white pants with this black chee streak.
Speaker 4: Uh, it's ten thirty three? What I told her?
Speaker 2: What time of check check?
Speaker 3: After a lifetime of missed opportunities, Heycca.
Speaker 2: They've got one final chance. You You hear girls saying like,
Speaker 2: I'm so calm last night. I shouldn't have slept with
Speaker 2: that guy. We could be that mistake to get it right.
Speaker 2: Oh no, it's the tall super Bad.
Speaker 5: Hey don't.
Speaker 4: I'm not a piece of meat.
Speaker 5: Hey, folks, Welcome to a special episode of the Projection Booth.
Speaker 5: I'm your host Mike White. On this episode, I'm talking
Speaker 5: with Andrew Buss. He is the author of I Am McLevin,
Speaker 5: How super Bad became the biggest comedy hit of its generation.
Speaker 5: It is a brand new book that is out all
Speaker 5: about the film super Bad, which I know a lot
Speaker 5: of people have seen, even I have seen that one
Speaker 5: wasn't necessarily the audience for it, but I definitely was
Speaker 5: a good audience for this book. Had a great time
Speaker 5: reading it, and I think you will too. Thanks so
Speaker 5: much for listening, and I hope you enjoyed the interview.
Speaker 5: Before we start talking about I am McLevin, I want
Speaker 5: to know a little bit more about you, how you
Speaker 5: get into writing, and what's your day job or is
Speaker 5: this your day jobs?
Speaker 1: Right now? This is my day job. This is what
Speaker 1: I'm focusing on. It's definitely tough, but yeah, this is
Speaker 1: where my primary focus is writing right now. As far
Speaker 1: as how I got started with writing, I've always been
Speaker 1: a big fan of just writers in general. I grew
Speaker 1: up a big fan of comedy and writing. Saturday Night
Speaker 1: Life was a big influence on me, and I knew
Speaker 1: I was a super fan when I become obsessed with
Speaker 1: people like Robert Smidel or Jim Downey. You're a fan
Speaker 1: of the show when you know who wrote What's the
Speaker 1: Growing up, I was a big fan of comedy, and
Speaker 1: I went to film school in the screenwriting, but I
Speaker 1: always had a mind towards journalism. I was always thinking,
Speaker 1: maybe go down that route. I got disillusioned with going
Speaker 1: into the world of film. I realized as a screenwriter,
Speaker 1: I wasn't setting myself up for success as much as
Speaker 1: I could have. And I realized that I love talking
Speaker 1: about things, and I'm very passionate about what I loved,
Speaker 1: and I realized that journalism is a great way to
Speaker 1: do that. So I was mentored by man by the
Speaker 1: name of bill's Amy, who is a brilliant, absolute genius
Speaker 1: journalist for Rolling stilled at Esquire, New York Times bestselling
Speaker 1: author last my Laborn interviewed Johnny Carson. He took me
Speaker 1: under his wing for the last seven years of his life,
Speaker 1: and I learned so much from him as a mentor.
Speaker 1: And then I wound up working with a bunch of
Speaker 1: different publications. I've written for manby Fair, Vocal, Sure, and
Speaker 1: that's how I got into it. Now.
Speaker 5: I know, before you wrote this book about super Bad,
Speaker 5: you wrote one about High Fidelity. Can you tell me
Speaker 5: how that project came about?
Speaker 1: Yeah, High Fideli is a movie I've always left, being
Speaker 1: from the Chicagoland suburbs. It's a movie that's always been
Speaker 1: very near and dear to my heart. And I did
Speaker 1: an oral history of the film in twenty twenty for
Speaker 1: Consequence of Sound, and I got to talk to everybody,
Speaker 1: John Cusa, Jeff Black, Tablulaiso, the film's cast, and then
Speaker 1: also the screenwriters. Deveen Sentchus Steve Paint, as well as
Speaker 1: director Stephen Fears and the author of the book, Nick Hornby.
Speaker 1: So I got to talk to everybody. But a year
Speaker 1: or two later, I was nearly represented by an agent
Speaker 1: and we were talking about what I could do, and
Speaker 1: I brought up the High Fideli oral history, and then
Speaker 1: we talked about pitching that around as a book, and
Speaker 1: we did that, and then Applause books who I did
Speaker 1: I'm mcleven with wound up picking it up. So that's
Speaker 1: how that one came with me.
Speaker 5: When was the first time you saw super Bad? And
Speaker 5: what did you think?
Speaker 1: The first time I ever saw I was fourteen years old,
Speaker 1: just about to enter high school, and it was the
Speaker 1: day I came out August seventeenth, two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: and I went with my dad and my grandfather and
Speaker 1: so it's the free generation of matter, I mean, bonding
Speaker 1: over this really raunchy teen comedy. And it was unlike
Speaker 1: a movie experience, a movie going experience. Rather, I've ever
Speaker 1: seen one of those experiences that really sticks with you,
Speaker 1: and to this day I refer to it as the
Speaker 1: best filmgoing experience I've ever had. There was an electricity
Speaker 1: in the air. The movie's very funny, of course, but
Speaker 1: the crowd, it was just firing out all cylinders with
Speaker 1: everybody was the night came out, and I just remember
Speaker 1: that feeling of being in that theater, realizing, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: part of something. Even at the time, this movie is
Speaker 1: something different than what we usually see. And I've seen
Speaker 1: all the Appaton movies up to that point. I loved Anchorman.
Speaker 1: I loved Four year Old Virgin, which was the first
Speaker 1: R rated movie I ever saw in the theater. Actually
Speaker 1: not dub but SuperM was just different. It just had
Speaker 1: a different kind of vibe. And getting to see it
Speaker 1: with my damn my grandfather who's no longer with us unfortunately,
Speaker 1: came to see it with them made it even more special.
Speaker 1: So I got to dedicate the book to them.
Speaker 5: How did the book project come about?
Speaker 1: I've done an oral history for Randy Fair. Just like Hyphidelity,
Speaker 1: it all starts there, and I'd gotten everybody. It was
Speaker 1: the first time in my career, and I believe the
Speaker 1: only time with the oral history. I don't think this
Speaker 1: has happened before or since, where every single person I've
Speaker 1: reached out to you said yes, that just doesn't happen
Speaker 1: when you're working on a big typestt the project like that.
Speaker 1: I talked to Jonah Haill, Seth Rogen, Michael Sarah, Christopherman's bloss,
Speaker 1: Bill Hayter, Emma Stone, Evan Goldberg co writer, as well
Speaker 1: as Judd Apatow, Greg Tola, producer, Seanna Robertson, and Marthon
Speaker 1: mcguys that who plays back. Then, everybody I spoke to
Speaker 1: you had nothing but amazing things to say about working
Speaker 1: on the film, and it was just so much fun
Speaker 1: to work in. Again, similar story, I was talking to
Speaker 1: my agent and he pitched the idea of maybe doing
Speaker 1: a book on this, and I love that idea, and
Speaker 1: it was so much fun to get to turn the
Speaker 1: oral history into a book.
Speaker 5: What's your process to say? Okay, this was an oral history,
Speaker 5: and I'm sure it was a very apprehensive and big.
Speaker 5: I keep thinking about the size of this, and then
Speaker 5: you've got let's turn it into a book. That sounds
Speaker 5: like a really big task for you.
Speaker 1: It is. The oral histories themselves are a lot of work.
Speaker 1: Having twelve different voices and making them all come together
Speaker 1: is one cohesive voice. It's not easy. That's an uphill battle.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of work. It's a lot of late nights.
Speaker 1: It's me staying up till four in the morning, tearing
Speaker 1: my hair out. And with the book itself, when I
Speaker 1: started looking through it, it's like, how I go about
Speaker 1: writing a book is I don't necessarily go into chronological order.
Speaker 1: I don't know many writers that do these types of
Speaker 1: books that would. I'm sure there are, but it helps
Speaker 1: me to go section by section. I'll start with a
Speaker 1: section I feel really confident about. I might have started
Speaker 1: with the first chapter for this one, actually, because I
Speaker 1: was really fascinated by the first chapter, which is seth
Speaker 1: Rogen and Evan Goldberg watching a really bad movie. They
Speaker 1: can't even remember the title of it, they just know
Speaker 1: it was bad, and then realizing, holy shit, we could
Speaker 1: make a better movie than this, and so they did that.
Speaker 1: They wrote a movie they were thirteen, and I really
Speaker 1: liked that idea of just this had drive and ambition
Speaker 1: at such a young age. Oh, we can do better
Speaker 1: than the Hollywood system. I love that kind of just
Speaker 1: thinking it looks so easy, and so they saw how
Speaker 1: to do it. And so that was the first chapter,
Speaker 1: I believe. And then the process of things coming together
Speaker 1: is I start with the interviews that I had done
Speaker 1: with them for the Oral History, just reading them over
Speaker 1: thinking Okay, what do we have. I look at the
Speaker 1: oral History again, and then I'm like, where do we
Speaker 1: go from here? And then research hundreds of articles and
Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds of articles and interviews. I got lucky
Speaker 1: with this book more than a High Fidelity because High
Speaker 1: Fidelity was a little more art house kind of vibe.
Speaker 1: Even though it was Touchstone film, meaning it was a
Speaker 1: Disney film, it was still very artsy, and how it
Speaker 1: was promoted and everything, it just hit a very intimate
Speaker 1: vibe where super Bad was a mainstream kind of balsam
Speaker 1: wall comedy that was marketing. With the Damschebus life. Luckily
Speaker 1: for me, they were sent on the most exhausting press
Speaker 1: tour of their lives. If you ask the three leads
Speaker 1: about doing a press tour for Superbad to this day
Speaker 1: now might be a lot PTSD involved because of how
Speaker 1: much they went through. They talked to anybody you know
Speaker 1: with a microphone, and that helped me. I'm very crateil
Speaker 1: they got. They did that because I was able to
Speaker 1: find new things and these forgotten interviews on the wayback machine.
Speaker 1: I learned so much that when I talked to Joe Mahel,
Speaker 1: he didn't tell me things like he lived at his
Speaker 1: parents' house while making Superbad to get back into the
Speaker 1: mindset of being a teenager again. That's fascinating, he said
Speaker 1: at one time in one interview, and I never saw
Speaker 1: it again. That one interview for a publication I can't
Speaker 1: even remember the name of off the top of my head.
Speaker 1: It was to look in the book. But that one
Speaker 1: interview gave me so much into the sight into his
Speaker 1: creative process. So research is the name of the game. Event.
Speaker 5: How early I have a draft of the script? Did
Speaker 5: you manage to find or was it pretty close to
Speaker 5: what we ended up seeing at the theater?
Speaker 1: I wasn't able to final in the earlier draft I scoured.
Speaker 1: I looked, I asked Greg Matila, I'm like, do you
Speaker 1: have an early draft and he didn't. But the closest
Speaker 1: I found was a draft right before shooting. And what
Speaker 1: was interesting was it was only a couple of months out.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I picked everybody's brain about the
Speaker 1: early drafts and I got as much background as possible
Speaker 1: on the early drafts. Seth and Devan told me a
Speaker 1: lot about those early drafts. The draft I found had
Speaker 1: some differences even right before shooting, entire character names like Becca,
Speaker 1: who is Michael Sarah's character's love interest in the film.
Speaker 1: Her name was Helen, and they just had a bunch
Speaker 1: of different lines changes throughout, nothing too drastic. But in
Speaker 1: the early days, it was about just going to the
Speaker 1: party and it ended at the party the missions complete.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until years later that they found the heart
Speaker 1: of the separation, anxiety and the friendship and the vulnerability
Speaker 1: of the film that really, I always say, it's not
Speaker 1: a film about you guys trying to get alcohols so
Speaker 1: they can impress their dream girls. Really it's a movie
Speaker 1: about two guys. It's their friendship. They are the movie.
Speaker 1: It's not about the girls, it's about them, And that
Speaker 1: didn't come until later on. I can't imagine two thirteen
Speaker 1: year old to writing about that something that heavy. And
Speaker 1: also they were twenty five when the movie came out,
Speaker 1: so even people in there, I'm thirty one now, I
Speaker 1: can't imagine that it's really heavy stuff for these early
Speaker 1: twenty year olds who are not that far removed from
Speaker 1: being eighteen years old. So they had a lot of
Speaker 1: perspective on it, and I think was really fascinating. And
Speaker 1: I did wonder while I was working on it how
Speaker 1: much treat there was to that, because in ninety nine
Speaker 1: seth Rogen gets cast on Freaks and Geeks and so
Speaker 1: he comes out to La and him and Evan are
Speaker 1: They called it a long distance kind of working partnership
Speaker 1: because Evan was still in Canada where they grew up
Speaker 1: in Vancouver, and so they were soil writing. But I
Speaker 1: wonder if a little bit of that was able to
Speaker 1: see ben Of and seventeen drift. They never drifted apart,
Speaker 1: they were always working together, but they were in two
Speaker 1: different physical locations. I imagine a little bit of that
Speaker 1: sensibility probably made its way into the film.
Speaker 5: As an outsider reading your book, it felt almost like
Speaker 5: the script was maturing as they were maturing.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, the characters were thirteen when I first started, and
Speaker 1: then they aged out at eighteen because it's a high
Speaker 1: school with VI and they couldn't tell any older than that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it matured as they were And that's something
Speaker 1: that I love about this book is that the book
Speaker 1: is also about these two guys. It's about their friendship
Speaker 1: and working relationship just as much as the movie itself.
Speaker 5: You mentioned a lot of people that you talked to
Speaker 5: for this book. Were there people that you're trying to
Speaker 5: speak to that you weren't able to get a hold.
Speaker 1: Of the book itself. Yeah, so it was difficult because
Speaker 1: it was in the middle of the actors and Writers' strike.
Speaker 1: Oh well, yeah, I had to rely a lot on
Speaker 1: archival stuff just due to that. Yeah, there were definitely
Speaker 1: people I wasn't able to get to, and but there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people I did get to talk to,
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of department and I had
Speaker 1: some great conversations with some people from the studio, including
Speaker 1: the Thumb studio president Ammy Pascal and Matt Tolmack, who
Speaker 1: also worked very closely on the Face film. And yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of department heads. Talking about the soundtrack, I
Speaker 1: love talking about the soundtrack, because the soundtrack for the film.
Speaker 1: When you have a movie called super Bad, you need
Speaker 1: to have that funky set, these vibe, and you got
Speaker 1: to go right to the source, which was the band
Speaker 1: that worked with James Brown. So Bootsy Collins and all
Speaker 1: of those guys were having basically a reunion, like some
Speaker 1: of them haven't seen each other in years at that point,
Speaker 1: and they were together again working on super Bad. And
Speaker 1: I think over the course of four days, which I
Speaker 1: was told is a lot for working on a film
Speaker 1: school I score, I was told usually as a one
Speaker 1: day session, but especially when there's only about fifteen to
Speaker 1: twenty minutes of scoring in the film, that they really
Speaker 1: wanted to get that vibe.
Speaker 5: I love the whole idea of them actually making full
Speaker 5: length songs for these little musical cues instead of just oh,
Speaker 5: here's a fifteen second, here's a two minutes, here's four
Speaker 5: minutes and six seconds for the first title track.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and I think it shows because nothing feels interstitial.
Speaker 1: It feels like every single song in the film is
Speaker 1: an actual song of that era. Down to the equipment.
Speaker 1: All of the equipment used was vintage equipment, so they
Speaker 1: were really going all in on the throwback and a vide.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that whole thing about the drum kit that was
Speaker 5: really old or like renting old equipment rather than the
Speaker 5: top of the line gear. I thought that was fantastic and.
Speaker 1: That was a lot of fun getting to talk about
Speaker 1: nitty gritty Earth, how the overall sound of that music
Speaker 1: came to life, and some of them sadly have passed away,
Speaker 1: So it was really helpful. There's a great kind of
Speaker 1: making of the music that really was good insight as
Speaker 1: well stocking a couple of people that were there.
Speaker 5: I was glad to read more about the music because
Speaker 5: I always wondered how Bootsy Collins was doing that almost
Speaker 5: like narration in the last song, and I'm just like,
Speaker 5: where the hell did they get Bootsy to come on here?
Speaker 5: And so I'm glad that he was actually part of
Speaker 5: the soundtrack itself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they brought him in. It fits the film so
Speaker 1: well in a way. I think I wrote about it
Speaker 1: in the book.
Speaker 2: The whole movie.
Speaker 1: These two guys feel like fish.
Speaker 4: Out of water.
Speaker 1: They're outcasts. They're not in any kind of click, They're
Speaker 1: just on their own island. The two of them with
Speaker 1: Fogel and the music kind of juxtaposes that as well.
Speaker 1: It doesn't feel like they're on the same wavelength of
Speaker 1: the music, but also makes sense if that meant yeah.
Speaker 5: And then also the clothes helped separate them both the
Speaker 5: Richard Pryor's shirt and then later on the Dad's shirt
Speaker 5: and pants.
Speaker 1: The dad shirt and pants and the cargo pants like
Speaker 1: something no teenager would ever wear, right, Nobody was wearing
Speaker 1: that in two thousand, said even Michael Sarah wearing my
Speaker 1: order Roy and that green shirt and of course you've
Speaker 1: got me c Lovin's fluffy it is puppy shirt, yes,
Speaker 1: and Aladdin dress like Aladdin, yes, yes, the Alabbin. It
Speaker 1: really set them apart from the rest of the teenagers
Speaker 1: because then when they get to the party, all the
Speaker 1: music at the party is of the era music, and
Speaker 1: yet when you're watching them on their journey, it's all
Speaker 1: this funky.
Speaker 5: It helps give the film another era as well. I
Speaker 5: was rewatching it the other night and I was like, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 5: the music like you said, at the party, but then
Speaker 5: seeing a world before smartphones and I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 5: I guess they are using cell phones. But it feels
Speaker 5: almost like it adds a timeless quality.
Speaker 1: To it absolutely, and that's one of the most important
Speaker 1: things about the film to me. Somebody pointed this out,
Speaker 1: so I can't take credit for it. But one of
Speaker 1: the coolest things is they do use cell phones, but
Speaker 1: the cell phones never worked that well, and so what
Speaker 1: that tells you is that it separates them from technology.
Speaker 1: In the film, durn I think he uses reception a
Speaker 1: couple times. And then the other thing is when they're
Speaker 1: at the only hand to find technology is they're playing
Speaker 1: video games at point. The video games I feel like
Speaker 1: doesn't date it, but that's it. And they shot on digital,
Speaker 1: but it had a real earthy kind of feel to it.
Speaker 1: It wasn't loud and vibrant and warm. It felt very
Speaker 1: of that time as well.
Speaker 5: That was rewatching it to speak with you, And after
Speaker 5: I read the book and I had forgotten just how
Speaker 5: much of the whole fo goal in the Cops part
Speaker 5: of the movie there is. Yes, it almost feels like
Speaker 5: fifty to fifty at times, but I always in my
Speaker 5: memory thought that it was just a smaller bit. But man,
Speaker 5: they really go all out with that. And I love
Speaker 5: the way that the stories intersect and come back together
Speaker 5: at the end.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I think that's really important that they have that,
Speaker 1: because as interesting as it is following Seth and even
Speaker 1: on their journey, we needed a little bit more as well.
Speaker 1: As they can get heavy with the two of none
Speaker 1: at times what they're drifting apart put it, that's a
Speaker 1: comedy after all. You needed some real high stakes just
Speaker 1: off the wall you weren't, and you really got that
Speaker 1: with me Gloffin. But then the cops are just as
Speaker 1: ridiculous as me Gluffin. As the cops ad these two
Speaker 1: bumbling idiots, it is scary how horrible at their job
Speaker 1: stay it really is.
Speaker 5: And to read about a hater and Rogan going out
Speaker 5: on a real ride a law, Oh my god, that
Speaker 5: was gold.
Speaker 1: I didn't follow up on it because I didn't know
Speaker 1: if this was ture or not. But I did have
Speaker 1: someone after the actual came out out. They wrote on
Speaker 1: my Twitter that's not how I remembered it. Oh, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, huh. So I looked into it, but I
Speaker 1: couldn't verify. So I didn't want to reach out because
Speaker 1: I didn't want to have some random person commenting on
Speaker 1: the book when I couldn't verify. I look up their name.
Speaker 1: I looked up everything trying to get some kind of verification,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't quite do it, and I just didn't
Speaker 1: want to include a random person in the book. But yeah,
Speaker 1: someone did at one point reach out.
Speaker 5: I wonder if it was one of the original cops.
Speaker 1: I have no idea, but yeah, that all that was
Speaker 1: really fine, And that was when the article came out.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that quote with there's something two quotes there
Speaker 1: about the cops and the oral history and that. And
Speaker 1: then he also had the people that come up to
Speaker 1: him and say you inspired me to be a police officer.
Speaker 1: And I think, sock goes that is fucking terrifying. You
Speaker 1: did not understand the movie at all. If there are
Speaker 1: people but admire these two jobs, it just it blows
Speaker 1: my mustard.
Speaker 5: So it sounds like it was great, the collaboration with
Speaker 5: all the folks that were behind the scenes and in
Speaker 5: front of the camera. But obviously there were a lot
Speaker 5: of struggles along the way, just the whole having to
Speaker 5: sit down and write this whole thing is obviously a
Speaker 5: big struggle because it just doesn't flow from the fingertips
Speaker 5: like they make it out in the movies that you
Speaker 5: can just whip up a book in a couple of days.
Speaker 5: But what were some of the other struggles that you faced.
Speaker 1: Definitely with the writer's strike and the actors strike, that
Speaker 1: was a big struggle. It's all little things with this one,
Speaker 1: and this one I got very lucky. It didn't quite
Speaker 1: flow out of my fingertips, but over the course of
Speaker 1: over a year that I was working on it, I
Speaker 1: got very lucky with how much, like I said, research,
Speaker 1: I was able to do, how much material was out there.
Speaker 1: Not only did they do commentary, they did a commentary
Speaker 1: for the DVD, but then they also did a reunion
Speaker 1: watch party. That was a benefit of one time only
Speaker 1: benefit that someone random person just put on YouTube. So
Speaker 1: thank you to whoever that is. You helped me a
Speaker 1: lot by doing man, but various other things, just going
Speaker 1: through archives, different libraries, looking at articles, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: It really was all that research and in multiple interviews,
Speaker 1: I talked to fifteen different people for the book alone,
Speaker 1: in addition to all the people I talked to for
Speaker 1: the oral history. Yeah, its struggle was just trying to
Speaker 1: navigate the strikes and think, Okay, how can I still
Speaker 1: do this? And luckily it was all able to come
Speaker 1: together as it was meant to happen. But yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a lot, and the interview has really helped Christopher
Speaker 1: Min's Pross's interview really helped a lot because he told
Speaker 1: me not for book, but for the oral hit. When
Speaker 1: he and I talked, he gave me a lot of
Speaker 1: great perspective. I'm most curious about his perspective with the
Speaker 1: movie because he is the face of the movie. He
Speaker 1: is mclovin. He walks into a target. It's one thing
Speaker 1: to go into a store and see your face on
Speaker 1: a magazine or even a DVD or something, because it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily going to be there forever. But we've seen
Speaker 1: that McK love and ID is going to be around forever.
Speaker 1: His face is still on graphic T shirts eighteen years later.
Speaker 1: Walk down the street we Kier in La, you'll see
Speaker 1: people with the big glove and T shirt all the time.
Speaker 1: It's just always going to be part of pop culture
Speaker 1: and the lexicon, I think. And so I wanted that
Speaker 1: perspective of someone who is constantly reminded of their eighteen
Speaker 1: year old self. And I think that's interesting and how
Speaker 1: do you deal with that? And what's it like when
Speaker 1: you get carded? And I really wanted to get into
Speaker 1: that with him. That was so beneficial. And also what
Speaker 1: happens when the movie comes out, You're recognizable all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, you go, it's zero to sixty overnight, like
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, nobody cares about who you are.
Speaker 1: One day, it feels, and then the next day you're
Speaker 1: getting accosted, and then Chipotle like that's wild. He and
Speaker 1: the girls gramming him, and guys taking their hands is
Speaker 1: zipping down their pants and putting their hands through Barry
Speaker 1: zipper on the pants and going, I got a bone
Speaker 1: and I got a Bononaiir and Hee's lying in the movie,
Speaker 1: and it's just horrified. He's eighteen. He's an eighteen year
Speaker 1: old kid who made a movie and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: overnight he's having to deal with this, and he was
Speaker 1: so gracious and I'm so helpful, and I really I
Speaker 1: do feel him. I really do. Even though the movie
Speaker 1: obviously made him down and all that stuff, I've always
Speaker 1: REALI he felt for him because I knew he got
Speaker 1: it worse than anybody else on this movie dead as
Speaker 1: far as had made to put up with the double
Speaker 1: ed short side of it, which is he's gonna have
Speaker 1: people shouting loving at him for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: It's just gonna happen. And he's come of the term
Speaker 1: for it. It was he's very happy. He's so grateful
Speaker 1: for this one. And I heard from the publisher that
Speaker 1: they actually spoke to him the other day and he
Speaker 1: was so happy that the book is coming out. And
Speaker 1: Christen said, I think, awhile bet that someone wrote to
Speaker 1: tell your book about our dumb little movie. And it's
Speaker 1: just it's so great that he's received it so well.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he was definitely someone that helped me a lot.
Speaker 5: That's the thing though. It's interesting because I don't even
Speaker 5: know how old when this movie came out, and to think, oh, yeah,
Speaker 5: two thousand and seven, that means a whole generation of
Speaker 5: people have grown up with this thing. This is their
Speaker 5: high school movie when you saw this at the right age,
Speaker 5: and this was my high school movie. Yeah, like you
Speaker 5: forget about those things. Like for me, it's like more
Speaker 5: the John Hughes era of things, of course.
Speaker 1: And I love those as well. I saw those movies
Speaker 1: before I saw Super Bad, so I have a connection
Speaker 1: to Breakfast Club and Weird Science. Farris b Ley's day Off.
Speaker 1: I'm Chicago Ank and of course I connection. But also
Speaker 1: I've got a connection to Daist in comput at least
Speaker 1: the Mayor Graffiti and not High School. But I've got
Speaker 1: a connection to Animal House. That wasn't my favorite movie.
Speaker 1: Same time that I discovered Breakfast Club, I discovered Animal House.
Speaker 1: So I'm well versed in me comedy realm. I think
Speaker 1: super Bad holds its own right up there with all
Speaker 1: those films.
Speaker 5: What's next for you? Do you already have your next
Speaker 5: project in mind?
Speaker 1: I don't have anything that I can really talk about next,
Speaker 1: but I do have stuff on the horizon here. I
Speaker 1: can talk about this because there is a press release
Speaker 1: that came out about this. I am a consultant on
Speaker 1: a documentary that's in the works about Andy Kaufman.
Speaker 5: Oh fantastic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been the Andy Kaufman historian or art biggest
Speaker 1: for the last decade. The title and the trailer haven't
Speaker 1: been anounced or anything like that. All that stuff still
Speaker 1: in the works behind the scenes, but I guess I
Speaker 1: can talk about it. David Letterman's producer The Rock is
Speaker 1: a producer on it. It's ketchen Stein.
Speaker 5: No offense to those Foreman or anybody, but I really
Speaker 5: would have rather had a documentary than that Man on
Speaker 5: the Moon movie. So I'm excited that there are documentaries,
Speaker 5: and I'm excited to see the one You're involved with.
Speaker 1: The thing with Man on the Moon that I've always
Speaker 1: said is what it did as far as kept Andy's
Speaker 1: name alive even beyond the movie. The best thing I
Speaker 1: think that movie can do is you see the movie,
Speaker 1: who was this guy? Then you get to go discover Andy.
Speaker 1: That's how it worked with me. I saw Man on
Speaker 1: the Moon because it was readily available when I was
Speaker 1: growing up, when I was like eleven twelve, and then
Speaker 1: I discovered Andy, and obviously my lunch shifted entirely over
Speaker 1: to Andy and who was this guy? And I'm so
Speaker 1: fascinated with him, growing up in them, getting to meet
Speaker 1: his family and his sister is a second mother to
Speaker 1: me at this point. Literally they are my second family.
Speaker 1: And you know Andy's brother Michael, and Andy's nephew Tyler.
Speaker 1: They're all the sweetest people. They take such an interest
Speaker 1: in everything going on, and they always to me alone
Speaker 1: for the ride. So I've been there at the Hollywood
Speaker 1: Walk of Fame ceremony. I was there when he got
Speaker 1: inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame into the National
Speaker 1: Comedy Center in James tun New York. I was at
Speaker 1: the very last Andy Kaufman Awards in New York and
Speaker 1: fortunate enough to be there for a lot of the
Speaker 1: really cool and Kaufman stuff.
Speaker 5: Is there a good place for people to keep up
Speaker 5: with you online?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I post a lot of stuff to my Instagram,
Speaker 1: Andrew Albuff's twitters Andrew L. Buss as well. Yeah, those
Speaker 1: are the two main places I always have stuff coming now.
Speaker 1: I'm always working on new things, and I do have
Speaker 1: one other thing I can plug with is I just
Speaker 1: did a rainy fair piece aple of weeks ago about
Speaker 1: the Saturday Night Live where I talked to a bunch
Speaker 1: of different writers from the show, seventeen different writers from
Speaker 1: the show. I mentioned my love of the writers. I
Speaker 1: got to talk to Robert Smigel and Jim Downey, but
Speaker 1: also Paula Pell and Doctor Chatty, Chase Colin Joe's. I
Speaker 1: got to talk to all these people about the first
Speaker 1: sketch they ever got on and their first week at
Speaker 1: the show. Because I'm fascinated by being thrown to the wolves.
Speaker 1: I think that's such an interesting thing that show does,
Speaker 1: where it's like just go talking to people. They got
Speaker 1: a sketch on their first week. Like it's mind blowing
Speaker 1: that all of a sudden you are part of the
Speaker 1: system when you first get there.
Speaker 5: Andrew, thank you so much for your time. This is
Speaker 5: great talking with you.
Speaker 1: It was so great to get to talk with you.
Speaker 4: Mike.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you taking the ton.
Speaker 2: These arms.
Speaker 4: Cry, every arms.
Speaker 2: Boo you, these arms long to hold you.
Speaker 4: Again. News on me, Hello them a big free arm
Speaker 4: the baby.
Speaker 2: Normally the game of promise.
Speaker 4: Mob be heir, you broke, it's you broke it o
Speaker 4: these arms. What you bring out with sums this parts.
Speaker 2: Could not accept. And for it's him.
Speaker 4: That his army head that I know that I've been
Speaker 4: pretty If you don't my mom with me here, you spoke,
Speaker 4: it's you spoke. These eyes I'm crying.
Speaker 2: These eyes I've seen a lot of enough, but they're
Speaker 2: never gonna see another.
Speaker 4: One thing like I happened.
Speaker 2: These eyes I cried. These eyes have seen a lot enough,
Speaker 2: but they're never gonna see another mother like.
Speaker 1: I have you.
Speaker 4: These eyes while you be I have seen, I'm not allow.
Speaker 2: I never gonna see im mother like I have you.
Speaker 4: These are.
Speaker 2: Cry him in Donalds.
Speaker 4: Oh you these are.
Speaker 2: These are arms going to hold you?
Speaker 4: Old you again?
Speaker 2: These are? I tried these. I haven't seen a lot
Speaker 2: of husband. I never want to see another.
Speaker 4: Word like a happy Lis.
Speaker 2: I I tried these.
Speaker 4: I haven't seen a lot of others, but I never
Speaker 4: want to see another water like a happy you. These I.
Speaker 2: Cry these. I have seen a lot of Asben they
Speaker 2: never want to.
Speaker 4: See another one like a happy.
Speaker 2: Jsies cry these. I have seen a lot of my father.
Speaker 2: Never want to see another one like that. You flavor
Speaker 2: the fa fam, don't you go