Okay, so I want to get a specific one. I am talking to Dan Gregor and Doug Mand for Snowman cottage sequence that is just like an exhibition of sequenceI laughed so hard in the area. I know you said this idea only came one in the morning, but I was interested if there were other drastic versions of this scene before you had this idea and what were they?
This is a great question. We definitely wrote some other assembly, but I don’t remember what they were. They were fine, but none of them felt different enough. Sufficiently different from the old “naked gun”, but only sufficiently different from all the assembly entertainment that has taken place in the last 30 years. It is a well -worn area. The first “naked gun” is classic and then there are so many more. What always comes to mind is like “team America”, “You need assembly”. For example, when they have a song that talks about it, they have really broken it. I wish I remember but don’t remember the rest. There was no debate. Once I wrote it, we were all similar: “Good”.
The last part I want to talk about is Tivo bit that feels so personal and specific, and it just comes out of nowhere. What was the beginning?
This is such a funny reason for some of these interviews, I talk a lot about the impulse and how the movie just had to move, and how if the joke didn’t work, I would always cut it. Even things that went on, for example, sometimes we cut off the last shot if its climax were in one part. When it comes to the Buffy joke, it is unspeakable. It’s just me.
This is the only joke that still makes me laugh. I’ve seen a movie a thousand times, checked every shot. It’s all like those that now have color and sound and mixing zeros. None of it makes me laugh anymore. This joke still laughs every time. It was always polarizing. Half the audience would be, “Don’t touch it. That’s the best joke in the movie.” And half of the audience would be: “Get out of here. I have no idea what it was.”
It’s so good. Especially the silence there when he is like “hold on” and he traverses it and waits for it to start.
Yes, “just stand there. Just stand there.” I think even people who don’t love it, if they were watching the movie now or twice, knowing it, I think it will become their favorite joke.
That’s how I believe it.
I had to say Liam: “No, I know it’s not – it only plays half of the audience.” It’s just my favorite and I like that we don’t explain it. I think there are also many people that by the time he is (…), when he is in the cab, after he rides the cab and he has Tivo, there are people laughing there, and I go, “I think there are some people just watching how it tries from something.” It is killed by Liam’s show.
Absolutely.
He is just so dedicated. So, I think these people are laughing next time from the beginning. You know what I mean? But I have to admit it was selfless. I know.
The “naked gun” is now playing in theaters.
