Revenge of the Nerds (1984)

Hi, this is Robert Carradine. Welcome to the commentary portion of Revenge of the Nerds. This is Curtis Armstrong. That's Tim Busfield, as I'm listed only in this movie as Tim Busfield. I got mad at my agent for that. I'm Timothy. I'm a serious actor. I do remember the rush of being out in the audience. And seeing the 20th Century Fox. 20th Century Fox and being out there thinking, I can't believe I'm in a movie with the Fox. Yeah, man.

Hey, isn't that Goose? Yeah. Sorry, I... Hi, it's Geoff Canoe, the director of this original Revenge of the Nerds. Here's Anthony Edwards. Started out Fast Times, this movie. He's a really good actor and a sweet guy. Now he's a really big name in TV and a rich guy. Alice, her son, plays his mom. She's a sweet lady and a good actress. Not very comedic, but we wanted to start the film on a kind of a grounded human note rather than a goofy, geeky mom. We gave him a nice mom. And soon you'll see that he's fully clothed, lying in bed, which... It gets a laugh. Oh, I never thought it was that funny. I kind of resisted that. I thought it was kind of stupid, but it was in the script, so I shot it. What was great about this movie is that a lot of what you see is the contribution of a lot of different people, not just the screenplay, not just the director, but the actors were instrumental in the way they looked and the way they laughed. Bobby's honking laugh, I believe, started with Jamie Cromwell, who plays his dad. He developed the honk, and Bobby took it to another level. Yeah. Thanks. This song you're hearing, the Revenge of the Nerds, it's a group called the Rubinoos, but there is a version somewhere where Bobby Carradine and Anthony Edwards are singing the lead on this, but it never got into the movie. However, if you listen to the background track, whenever you hear somebody go, nerds, it's me. Dad, how fast are we going? I've got the old cruise control set at 25. The car is blowing right by. These are those first dailies we were talking about. That's right. You know, that guy, Alan Balsam, deserves some sort of an attaboy because it's a really good cut.

Okay, so that's the real off-ramp by the University of Arizona, which we called Adams College. This was a very specially designed shot to take advantage of noses and glasses. And don't look up near the letterbox, because you'll see that we forgot to put the box on top of the car. I told you not to look. 6,127 students at Adams, 58% of which are girls. So? So that's 7,107.32 boobs. You college guys are all alike. All you really care about is getting laid. I wish I was going with you. Oh, my God. His first nasty joke. In front of his son. In front of his son. Yeah, we're college men now. Yeah, I know.

I love the fact that the three of you are jammed into the front seat together. In a station wagon. In a station wagon. The whole back seat's there, but the three of you are jammed in together. There's like two seats. Oh, yeah. There's the back seat and the way back. Those guys, Zach Rice and Steve and Jeff did a great job. Yeah.

Lewis is the engine of this movie. Gilbert is the reticent, hesitant guy, and Lewis is always moving forward. He doesn't get that he's not acceptable, and that's his big strength. And I do think he gets that from his dad, who also doesn't know that he's a geek. This is a love scene between the dad and the dadless. I wouldn't want her to worry. Of course not. Don't sweat it. And if you just listen to this next scene, you'll see why Bobby's character has such a positive attitude and such a geeky laugh. This is one of my favorite scenes. You're going to do fantastic here. Try not to break too many hearts, I'll lose. That hasn't been a real problem yet, Dad. Oh, come on. You're going to make some lucky girl very happy. You're smart, easygoing. Get your father's good looks. OK, profiles, profiles. They have the same nose. And that was kind of a gift in the casting process. We didn't cast based on the nose, but it was a plus. Little sound effect coming up here. Not believable, but got a laugh. I remember I didn't like that sound effect. because it was so fake. Yeah. We got Lewis. Besides, we're college men now, right? Right. Good ad lib by Anthony, taking the punch in the arm and reacting with pain. And now the boys are going to take a walk. And I guess we set up most of this. I love that brownie camera. That was our production designer's idea. Bye, Dad. The stunt here, I remember being there when you guys shot this. This was really fun to watch. Yeah. I mean, you got water in the dead. There'd be a puddle on that campus. This is that cool kind of geekazoid techno music that was just becoming very popular then, and Tom Newman did a great job creating our own version of it.

You might think that that was all set up, and it was. You know, Gilbert, I feel different already. And here comes this big bicycle stunt. Again, I mean, I'm not Michael Bay, put it that way. How many times do you have to carry that thing? A lot. And didn't you have the whole thing was filled with stuff? You had really, I mean...

That was great. But didn't you have that? It wasn't loaded down. We wanted it to be hard to carry. Yeah. So back to one was kind of a pain in the ass. Oh, yes. Yeah. Judge you differently than you did in high school. Ogre! Ogre! I think they're talking about us. No way. Donald Gibb. Ogre. Boy, talk about your great introduction to an evil character. Yeah. And he's not even the evilest of the evil characters. He's the sidekick. It's just... And he's 50. I know. Well, he got held back, you know? He was actually a stunt person who came in to audition as Ogre. He was way too old. He had a beard. I told him, you look too old and you have a beard. He walked out, came back five minutes later having shaved off his beard, and now I realize that he's going to kick my ass if I don't hire him. So I did. And he was great, and I love him. Alpha Beta. We shot this in a funeral home, believe it or not. They had a paneled room, which probably normally contained cheap caskets, but we made it into the party room.

Stair diving. It was in the script, but nobody really knew what it was, so we kind of made it up as we went along, and now I feel like it's something that's always existed. And I wonder if in any real college context they do this or have done this ever since, but it looks like fun. What's missing from this scene is when Gable gets a phone call from his secret nerd brother. Well, Gilbert, here's our new home. Can't believe we finally made it.

How old was everybody? I was born in 57, and we did this in 84. I was 27. Not yet. I was 26 while we were shooting. I was 29. You were 29, and I was 30-something. That's another thing that they would never do now is cast people as old as we were to play kids going into their first year in college. Now they'd get actual kids who were that age. Right. and things. Are you kidding, Gilbert? We can put a fridge and a microwave right there. I never noticed Gilbert actually has one of the Skolnick pocket protectors. Well, yeah, because, you know, we both work for my dad. Ah, yeah. Many people don't know this, but Gilbert's original name was Pinsky in the screenplay, but it was changed because there were too many Jewish nerds. The women, too. Women? Yeah. Let's say one of us is up here with a woman. This will be our early warning device so we don't walk in on each other. Wait a minute. We're allowed to have girls in our dorm room? He's so hopeless. He's hopeless, and Tony was such a nice compliment to that. They were so good together. It's in the part, the way it's written, but... that you guys really had such a great chemistry and you hung well together. Yeah. When you were there, you made sure that you had that relationship. Tony done a couple of movies and had a lot of confidence. I remember coming in, but he hadn't he he hadn't done your your body of work. And yet you folded him in and and, you know, you got the best. He was 21. Well, I remember I convinced him to get his haircut and the boy haircut. Yeah. And because he's more blonde. You know, when he got it cut, it looked kind of like he didn't have any hair, and he got all worried that he was going to get fired. Oh, really? Oh, really? Yeah. Right here. Matt Salinger, J.D. Salinger's kid. Your son, yeah. Such fun. More of our 35-year-old stunt guys. Right. You're right. Yeah. It's a great sequence. Yeah. Yeah.

Great cut. This was an afterthought. We had these fires going and somebody thought they should be roasting marshmallows, not scripted. That isn't what the fire department thinks, Stan. Dean, you look, if my boys say it was the wiring, they've got to believe them. You know, Dean, school ought to be more careful. And there's John Goodman, who was just brilliant as the coach. And David Wall. You know, David and John, I think, I don't know whether John believed it quite so much, but David had this whole subtext. You remember that the dean and the coach were actually lovers? Yeah. I didn't know that. No, he does. He totally brings a female perspective. They fight like lovers. Yeah. And you never see one without the other. I mean, they're always... see this next scene is not complete in the film these guys all are ejected from the dorm and there's a scene that we had to cut where they're forced to take a long humiliating walk across campus where we used the music from exodus but it somehow came out of the movie on the grounds that it was long and didn't get a big laugh This was our first moment on camera, right? I mean, for the rest of us. Yeah. I remember the, thank God, the prop, Art Lipschultz, the prop guy, got me that luggage cart. And we got it in about seven minutes before we went. And I said, wait a minute. What if I bring my, what if I have a rack, a clothing rack? Can I bring that out? You will be provided with the best possible food, shelter, and accommodations. Ted McGinley. When I first cast him, it was off a calendar. The men of USC, that's where I saw him. And he was a model. But he was great and he's still great. He's a great guy and he's funny and much funnier than you'd expect a handsome guy to be. Some of these college kids that we picked up as background players and put them in these scenes, this is a highlight of their life right here. I mean, these kids are... I remember the... The enthusiasm of these guys. Couldn't believe they were actually getting to be in a movie. And we sort of developed a little click of extras. Yeah. Like that guy. Yeah. The divided gym as a place to live, I think it certainly helps create sympathy for the nerds. Then again, my current living arrangement is not that much different than this. Actually, my current living arrangement is worse because I don't actually have my own bed. I sleep on couches and floors like the family dog. Everybody thinks I'm joking, but I'm not, I swear to God. You've got to go now, honey. Your dad has an appointment. Bye, son. Here comes Andrew. Man, look how little he is. Is there anyone here with allergies? Of course. I was the only one that raised my hand. That's why Canute said, I've got to do a close-up of you. You're the only guy who raised your hand. But I also love that he put in that thing about the fact that he had allergies too. Because, of course, he would be the only other person there who would have allergies. Nice little ad-lib by the dean. Me too. ...to join and live in fraternities. The fraternities will select their new members tomorrow. All right, enough of the social bullshit. Grab a cot. Move it or lose it! Okay, they scramble for their new homes. They just sent us running for cots. We didn't know where we were going. We had no place that we were supposed to go. This whole curtain thing, it's just all actors doing what they feel their character would do. None of it's direction and none of it's screenwriting. It's just watching it happen. This little camera slide, though, that's a directing thing, which hopefully is good. And here come the flying basketballs to interrupt the dean's speech. And that's what would happen if you lived in a gym. Not a lot of guys left because a lot of people have found homes. And also because we couldn't afford to have that many extras every day. Larry B. Scott, who plays Lamar, told me recently he's had to overcompensate his macho-ness because he's not actually gay, but no one believes him anymore. And he said he constantly has to talk tougher and swagger and look for trouble just to prove that he's not Lamar. I remember the reason they called him Dudley Dawson was because that was the president of the university. Do you remember this? No. No, I didn't know that. And he was throwing up all of these objections. About letting us shoot there. About letting us shoot places. So they named Booger after him. Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah. Daniels, Paul. I knew nobody would pick us, Lewis. Gilbert is probably not over yet. There's a fraternity for us. Julie, Edward, Wozonski, Joseph. And that was another one of our regulars once we moved into the... into the frat house. Bobby still has the original pen holder that he swiped from the costume department. Hi, girls. Bobby has got the full nerd pack, which if you look in the nerd manual, he's got a slide rule. He's got the pen holder. He's got the belt installed, calculator, everything a nerd would need. to solve any problem at any time, although not a lot of it is applicable to banging cheerleaders. Then again, it does open the door for him, so maybe he knows more than I do. The confidence is so great because it's so pathetic. Yeah. And unjustified. He doesn't have a clue as to why he wouldn't be... Exactly. Why he wouldn't have a shot. That's one of the things that's kind of cool about this is watching them, you know... especially Lewis, coming up against the hard reality of what life is going to be like at college. And I remember Bobby at the time, I referred to the girl that he was with as the goddess. Yeah, that's right. And Tony was dating Lisa Shu. Which is a goddess in her own right. So you two guys were with two of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen. That's right. The two leads in the Nerds movies. The magic of movies, man. Now we come to the hazing slash torture scene, which only a part of which is left in the movie. There was more stuff. It went on, I guess it just went on a little long, and we made the point. And again, in previews, it seemed like we needed to trim, so some of this torture got taken out. How much of this was in the script? We can check. We have a copy. We have a copy before us. There's the Dean's thing. That's pretty much right there. Oh, here we are. Tell Stan Gable where the guy's got a child sent over. Ogre grunts this way. Of course, he said, follow me, boys. Right. Well, there you go. So he's already ad-libbing. Animal House kind of set the standard for what these secret rituals looked like. I was in two fraternities in college and dropped out of both of them and never got as far as the actual ceremony, so I never witnessed it with my own eyes except watching other people's movies. I hope they're like this. This is all in the script. January 25th. Could you get those underwear up a little higher, Bobby? This was fun. I think I got to throw a bucket.

Oh, you poor bastards having to sit through this. Now, they told me they were going to put good violin over me, and you guys had to sit through me practicing. I remember that. And here's a semi-scripted, semi-ad-lib card game, which became a running bit between Booger and Takashi. Yeah, you guys made that up. That was improvised because once we were in the place, he just came through and told us to make up something. Yeah.

We never get to see them tarred and feathered with molasses or whatever they were tarred and feathered with, but we did shoot that. Now, we're all laughing, but imagine how that must have felt if it really happened to you, which it did. I was in a high school fraternity where I did get tarred and feathered like that, and it's a horrible feeling. And you kind of wonder why you're doing it. I mean, why is it worth taking this kind of abuse and humiliation just to be able to do it to some guys next year? Oh, yeah, that's why. Whose idea was it to keep your glasses on in the shower? This little scene was not in the script, but it seemed that after this little spat in the shower, we needed a healing moment between our heroes. And so we just set up the camera and said, why don't you guys try to make up before you go to bed? And they ad-libbed this right down to that little tandem eyeglass removal.

And this, of course, was sort of a... It was a total homage to Little House on the Prairie. No, no, no, Walton. I mean the Waltons, yeah. And then there's somebody at the end farts or... I belch. You belch. Supposedly. And I know you wanted to put in some sound effects after all the lights were out. Do you remember? No, I don't remember. Oh, I wanted to... Yeah, I tried to get a boner in most of the movies. Couldn't quite get the second one, too. This is kind of interesting because in these days, which was 1984, not everybody had a PC or a laptop, so going to the computer room was kind of a special area for only geeks, whereas now it's pretty much for everybody, especially with all the porn sites. There's Michelle Mayrink. And who didn't get this part, I'll tell you who didn't get this part, am I allowed to say? Sarah Jessica Parker auditioned Joan Cusack, Jamie Girtz, and we picked Michelle. I actually think Julia Louis-Dreyfus came in, too. Tony and Michelle also did a lot of improvisation in their scenes together. This was an animation that is kind of a... You have to sort of suspend your... And I'm sure nowadays there's a way that someone could create this but not on your home computer, not full-on brilliant animation like that. The juxtaposition of prison and the living conditions of the guys is quite a touch. I'm proud of that. I met a girl. Gilbert. One of the producers got to throw the food that's coming up here. I think it's a basketball into the stew. I had to share the fun with other people. See? And then Curtis. And you made that up, right? No, I didn't. Somebody else did. Do you remember? Was it you? I think it was Tim who made that up. This was an ad lib. A suggested ad lib. It wasn't an ad lib, but Ted McGinley suggested the do you know karate thing. You know karate? No. Good. Okay, I programmed him with all the rental units in the area. To achieve optimum efficiency, I've assigned each of you a different... We had a great costume designer on this movie, a guy named Eddie Marks, who's done a lot of great work. And a lot of the stuff that you're looking at is his ideas. And now you're going to see a montage of Some scripted and some improvised moments of the boys trying to find a home. And for those of you who don't speak Japanese, you don't know what this guy's saying because we forgot to subtitle it. But I think it kind of just says, get out of here, you stupid nerd. Hi. Hi. Mr... I don't know where we found this guy. I think he was one of our Teamsters. Hi there, big boy. And this is Marianne Muller-Lily. I had done stage work with her. Regional Theater. I didn't even know she was in the movie. Oh, really? She came and left, and I went, my God, I know her. Okay, this is our line producer. The guy in the male slot with Curtis, right? Yeah. Peter McGregor Scott. a man with a fine English education that's basically been thrown out the window and now he's resorting to crap like this and producing Batman movies. And that was made up on the spot, right? Yes, that was completely... I had no idea. In the script, scene 39, Booger rings the doorbell. A housewife... Oh, yeah, yeah. Booger... Picks his nose and places a booger over the people. And then say, nice meeting you too. Turned into the scene you saw. Which is memorable. Yeah. I don't remember if Judy played the accordion in the script. I think she may have. But we certainly expanded the role of the accordion in this movie. I think this scene was an expansion scene. Now comes the big moment. You'll notice the upcoming montage of fixing up the house was recently celebrated in a Family Guy episode, which I'm very proud of, and I want to get in touch with Seth MacFarlane so I can thank him, because it makes me feel like I didn't live in vain. They even used this actual piece of music in Family Guy. A dream in disguise You know we can have

Okay, now this is in old Tucson, right? Right. Now we're in old Tucson. All of these interiors of the Nerd House were shot at the old western place out in old Tucson. So if you walked outside the door, you'd be in the middle of dusty western street, which was kind of interesting. This went on for ages. Well, we shot this last, I do believe. Let me see. I think we shot... Because it was after it had been all torn apart. Because we decorated it and torn it down, and we got everything out, and then we shot this stuff right here. That's right. And because we did this, you guys dumped a bucket. Somebody dumps a bucket on one of the extras that we'd grown to wish was dead. I still don't remember. How did you do this? Wow. I said, look where it is. He locked off the camera and just let me play. It was so fun. Give me a head till I'm dead. Booger wore all of these t-shirts, which I'm asked on an almost daily basis where anybody can get them. Maybe we should reissue them. Actually, I think somebody has. I think you can get them online. You can get the Greasy Tonys. Remember Greasy Tonys? That's the next movie, though. Poindexter doesn't want to quite get... Well, no, he just needs a little help, that's all. Doesn't want to get his suit. Now that... That's back at U of A. That's U of A, yeah. This is my favorite line in the movie right here. Your line. You notice the robot is peeing on the lawn. What are you looking at, nerd? Huh? I thought I was looking at my mother's old douchebag, but that's in Ohio. See, I mean, you know, those kinds of things, I just hated them. You didn't want to do them. I know. You found those beneath you. Well, it's not they were beneath me. It's just I thought, oh, God, my mother's old douchebag? But then it comes out fine. Yeah, well, yeah, you sell it. The other thing is, though, he says, what are you looking at, nerd? And that brings up the... The whole point, which I had at the time, which was Booger wasn't really a nerd, really, at all. He was the least nerdy of the bunch of them. He just couldn't find a home anywhere. So he had to live somewhere. So you guys, the nerds were the only ones who accepted everyone without question. Right. Without judgment. Here's a continuing. Yeah, this is, you know, we just keep doing these little things that we would make up. Okay. Here we go. When do I deal? Well, you've got to win a hand first. I told you we'd find a better place. Here comes an action scene again. Whoa, that scared the hell out of me. I mean, Peckinpah never had the balls to do anything like that. It says nerds get out. Terrible. I mean, much more powerful than Mississippi burning, I think. Now we get into the social commentary. See that man over there? That's David Obst, who's one of our producers. Mopri is exposing yourself to a blind person. You know, I love the definition of Mopri. Is that... I mean, it's totally invented. Yeah. It doesn't exist as a word. No. There's only one organization that can handle this. What organization is that? You see that camera move? People say I'm a boring director. That's ridiculous. Look at the A. The table is shaped like an A. For Adams. Get it? Here's a local guy that, we shot this in a Masonic hall, and this was the caretaker. So we put a jacket on him. Or maybe it was his own jacket. I don't think we had budget for extra jackets. Neil, gentlemen. We're trying everything. I think you can tell right there, but I've... Yeah, there you go. My suit coat is snapped into the briefcase. I can't remember if it was Larry B. He said, hey, snap that into your briefcase. Gentlemen, as president of the Greek Council, I'm sorry to inform you that your membership has been denied. Excuse me. Here's our guys. You notice the subsidiary nerds, the local kids, are not in this shot because we would have had to pay them. Plus the... There was no room for them in that space anyway, so it was better. But all we have to do is get a national sponsor and we're in, right? Right. So I guess we'll see you in about, say, 20 years. Cruelty. See, that was one of the few moments of real cruelty that I got to stay in the movie because it was involving laughter rather than hitting. Are you really playing that? That's me. You're getting better, man. Yeah, I know. It was later in the movie. You poor guys. You and Judy both played your own instruments. Here again, Gilbert is picking up on the glass is half empty, but Lewis pops up with finding how it's half full. Here's one who'll see us. Lambda, lambda, lambda. Yeah, they're going to love us. Now we're going to introduce U.N. Jefferson, the National... president of Lambda Lambda Lambda, played by Bernie Casey, former pro football player, an excellent actor, and a brilliant painter, actually, in real life. And the first night on the set, we were shooting the bonfire scene. It was four in the morning. It was cold in Tucson. And I heard him whisper to somebody, I'm sick of this fucking movie already. But we actually had fun working together after that. But he did scare me. Those glasses were so thick and I couldn't see through them at all. And that all I would see is I'd wait for the queue line and it wouldn't happen. And I'd peer over the glasses and one of these guys, just the eye contact, being that close looking at the eyes, that it was a hazard. Yeah. Well, gentlemen, you are now probationary trial hands. Hey, great, Ewan. Why don't we have a party? You can come down and celebrate with us and observe us to make sure that we're trial and material, okay? Bernie's great. I mean, it shows that every minority group has another minority group that they hate. Because I think bigotry is such an inherent part of humanity. But it's all born of ignorance, and that's what this movie's trying to say. And maybe succeeding.

Here comes a moment that reminds me of many moments in my life. Nothing like that feeling of having a good looking girl laugh in your face and slam the door. It's happening to me on a daily basis right now. Ad-libs. Perfect for the characters. These guys were so into their characters that I didn't even show them the script after a while. We just put them in a room and said, be the characters. And they did those things. I remember being one night that these guys, you know, they actually had a tougher time pulling off the constant jock. It was tougher for these guys to be in that frame of mind. And I remember Ted McGinley headbutting Matt Salinger at some party we ended up at. It's just... He just butted his head, and they had that physical testosterone thing. They couldn't shake it. I think at the end of the day, we could shake it, but those guys, it was a little tougher for them. They had to live it. The hors d'oeuvres over there, and we'll pass the rumaki and the cheese puffs. Oh, good. That sounds expensive. Arnold, this party's important. If we don't impress the tri-lams, we'll never get in. Oh, maybe we can have lobster crust. What the fuck are lobster crusts? I mean, this is like... See, but you can play the guitar. You're playing the guitar there. You can play it. Yeah, I can play the guitar. I've been out combing the high schools all day. Maybe we should cancel the party. No, we can't cancel the party. Ewan Jefferson's coming. We've got to impress him. We'll never find dates. Hello, Lambda. We're the Pies. And we're here to... I remember one of these takes, we came outside, we did it in just our underwear. Do you guys remember that? Yeah. We came out at this point in the shot. It would have been this shot right here. Yeah. We immediately, as they were, I think it's just after they'd slayed it. It was that late that we decided to do it. It was like, wait, wait, let's take off all our clothes. I remember I couldn't look at them here because the lights would, it was very delicate to look in the right direction because I magnified any... It's like burning your retina. You could see everything. You could see all the camera equipment, everybody on the crew, if my glasses were in the wrong direction. They reflected everything. See, I'm looking... I can't look because all you see are the lights that are lighting everybody. I stand for? Hair pie. What's that? What did you whisper to him? I was just trying to remember. I think I had to change it every time, and I think I just got more and more vile. And this wasn't the guy dancing with Larry B, wasn't he on the crew? He was a crew guy. He was like an electrician or something on the crew. Not gay. Not gay and not happy. Because they asked him if he would be an extra, and he agreed to it. And then by the time he got out of wardrobe and makeup, they'd made him Larry's. And the crew would not leave him alone. Thanks. Where are all those good-looking sorority girls you're supposed to have dates with? You know women. This was something we came up with right on the set, this song. We did? Yep. I don't think the pies are going to show. They stood us up, huh? Yeah. I could call my sorority sisters. You could? You think they'll come right over? They're really spontaneous people. Another line I've always loved. Spontaneous people? Yeah. I don't know. I just think it's so charming. Oh, here's the bit Tim came up with with the blender. Yeah. Look away if you don't like carnage. He grinds his fingers. So stupid. Ad-libs by local college girls. They're all real local college girls who we cast as moos. And they were great.

That scene right now where all the girls were coming in was a rip-off of Risky Business. Yeah, you keep trying to shut the door and they keep coming in. Yeah, when all the hookers were coming in for the party in Risky Business. Oh, that's right. Somebody came up with that. It wasn't me. I like this song, Are You Ready for the Sex Girls? Written by a guy named Les Bohm, who's now a fairly successful Hollywood screenwriter.

We've all been in this place, boys on one side, girls on the other. And sometimes it does take a substance to break down the wall. I went to many mixers in college and never danced once. I will say that. They were so great, all the moves. They were so game. Yeah, and fun. Because we were, at the time, I remember I'd come out of my trailer. They're doing a 20th Century Fox movie. for the run of the picture. I'd come out dressed like Poindexter and hit on some college girl. And they were seriously like Betty Childs. Oh, I'm sure. You're not going to talk to me, are you? See, now, Michelle took lessons like you did. She was taking lessons the whole time on learning how to play the accordion. These guys stepped up. I mean, everybody had challenges to face and I mean, you'll see later how Takashi rode a tricycle and Booger wins an arm wrestle. People just went above and beyond the call of acting duty. I don't know why everybody's so uptight. Me either. Here's the message we want to deliver to all the children. Yes. Hey, guys. I just happen to have a fistful in my pocket. In today's market, street value, it's about $4,000 worth of marijuana right there. And, of course, you couldn't probably show in a movie like this giving marijuana to an underage child. Yeah, to a 12-year-old kid. So Thriller was out the same year, 84. Yeah. And it was a big song. It was huge that year. But it wasn't huge when we were doing it. Yeah, it was because I was listening to it. I auditioned with this song off the Thriller album. Nothing. Nothing. Oh, Kim, you are awesome, man. Didn't you create that out of somebody that you saw at a party that we were at? No, it was a story. The ah came from my moving into West Hollywood. No, no, no. Alan, you're so big. That story? Alan, you're so big. My brother and I watched Johnny Carson one night. Tell that story. What was that? I've sublet an apartment from an actress, Sharon Schlarth, and I'm with my brother, and Johnny Carson goes to commercial, and there's a quiet pause, and I hear from across the apartment complex, ah, I love you. You're so gentle. Alan, you're so big. Ah. And that came, that sound of Poindexter.

This was my audition. It was this. The thing I love about that is that the lower torso is moving independent of the upper torso. Oh, yeah. It's not happening for him. He's stoned to the bone. And he thinks he's got it all going on. It's... Oh, yeah. The contrast, that contrast of that dance with you is one of the funniest things in the world. Now, maybe that's where... Julia Louise Dreyfuss came up with the dance for Seinfeld. That line was in the script, but I think he took it to another level with his reading. Thank you. Oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You see, now, this was kind of sad. This was one of the things that I didn't like so much. That Lewis loses his virginity to this girl? No, no, no. I think it's lovely that he does. I just think it's kind of sad that then he winds up with a really good-looking... Blonde and who knows what happens to the girl. His first love. Just like this. He's done with her. Use her and throw her away like an old sock. These guys improvised this. Yeah, this was a whole scene that they came up with. I remember they showed it to Jeff while we were there. The framing of this shot I think is classic and I will take credit for it. as we're breaking the fourth wall by Andrew's eyes. He's got that Groucho face. He gets away with it, yep. And I'm saying to this woman, I'm sorry. I know, Curtis. You are so not this guy. I was so embarrassed. It's just not. I don't think there's an ounce of booger in you. Well, yeah. Scripted line. Scripted line. Ad-lib. Now, Canoe came up and whispered something to her before he cut. He was rolling. And my glasses were on. I didn't know what he said to her. But he'd gone up and said, grab his con. Go ahead, grab him. at the end of this thing. And so I had no idea that was coming, that she was going to do that. Bobby blowing smoke rings. The Hugh Hefner moment. You know, if we get into Lambda, we could be your partners in the homecoming carnival. See, Anthony always supplies the sweetness and the heart of this movie, which kept it grounded. Well, the pigs kept it grounded, too.

What, does he get eaten? Yeah, that's what it looks like. It's just so over the top. I'm making a choice that I was getting my leg gnawed off like it was a lion. Here's another scene where I can't look at it. I can't see anything anyway. Again, the actors were really so great and all were willing to go for it. Even if it required a certain amount of exposure. Matt Salinger not wanting to share his tush for as long as McGinley and Donald Gibb were ready. They had no problem. You think J.D. Salinger was still alive when he made this movie? Yeah, he was. Okay, so now our boys have been humiliated and probably will never be accepted in Lambda Lambda Lambda. Unless they do something radical. I say we blow their fucking houses up. No, we can't resort to violence. That'll just bring us down to their level. This is Gilbert's Jimmy Stewart moment. We've got to beat them at their own game. We've got to become the best. This is a scene we pushed for a day. We were going to shoot it late at night, and they were rushing through it. That's right. I remember saying, I don't. This doesn't feel like it has the weight. I remember saying, I don't feel like this is the weight it needs to be. It felt like we were rushing through it. And it would have been just fine. I'm sure I was wrong. But I remember Jeff Canoe listening and saying, let's move on. And Tony ready to play the scene out. And I don't know why. I don't have a line in the scene. I don't know why. But it was that sort of team effort that we all had where we all felt freedom to voice up when something felt fakey. Yeah. And we came back and shot the next day. And then Tony came back later and said, I'm glad we did that.

So you supplied the Mission Impossible music. Yeah, I supplied it. Then they went and got another. But this time, I ran home and got this. Okay, look at that. That's the scene you're talking about with Larry climbing the rope with no legs. Yeah. And he did it several times. And then he pulls this. He pulls up. He pulls it. That's him. Yeah. This was an old abandoned house where... It was really rat infested and horrible. We just painted one hallway and kept the camera in the same angle and then had the guys walk both directions up and down the hallway. And it looks like they're moving through lots of different places in the house, but this is all one silly little hallway. Now we come up to the famous built-in silencer on the drill. And I think same hallway. I think that's because when we started to film this, I thought, wait a minute, the girl's going to hear the drill. And then one of the actors threw out, we'll just say it has a built-in silencer. I think everybody buys that. Of course. That's whisper mode. Yeah. And this was a disappointing moment for me because I missed so much of what you guys were seeing in the movie. This is, is this? Yeah, she was beautiful. Yeah. Lisa Welch. Lisa Welch. One of our few non-U of A students.

Betty. God, that was fun tonight. We were the highlight of their party. Oh, I know. Those pigs sure were greasy today. I have got to get the smell off of me. Oh, I know. Listen, if Stan calls, tell him I'll call him back, okay? Okay. Good sport. Yeah, she's a good sport. Look at that choreography. I mean, just right out of the best of the... Keystone cops. Panty raids. I've actually been on panty raids at Columbia, but we never got into the dorms. We were just for some reason expecting the girls to throw the panties out the windows into the street, which one or two did. And we all got off on that. That's the projectionist daughter in the tan outfit. All right. Oh, I remember that.

I'm holding off for dear life. I am. I don't know where the... I have to hook on. And then Tony has to hook on to the other side just so it won't look ridiculous. There I go. How did you make it out of that house, man? I didn't. See, somebody's picking me up right there. Hit it again. Tony's got me. All right.

Also improvised, as I remember. I think that is improvised. Yeah. Yeah. We Love You When You're Mad was. OK. Every man's fantasy. Secret video cameras. You got other angles, Lamar? Lamar is participating with the other guys, even though he'd probably rather install secret cameras in his own house.

Now this is the thing that always... I was saying this earlier about Bobby here. But Louis just has become slightly... Debaucherous? Well, yeah. It's really wonderful. Oh, here she comes. God, take your... That's the projectionist's daughter, right? Yeah. That one? Yep, that's her. No wonder teenage kids like this movie so much. That's the problem with the mechanical stuff. They'll disappoint you now and then. This is bullshit. I want Bush. Pan down. We've got Bush. We've got Bush. And I don't know why not a single newspaper in America the morning after the most recent election didn't run the headline, We've got Bush. You see that? That was the director laughing in the background. Laughing and leaving it in there. Yeah. I'm tired of watching them brush their teeth. See if Betty's up. Dooley, throw me a beer. I mean, look at this. I mean, is this the new Lewis or what? Are you kidding? Zoom in. I could never get tired of Betty. How could you ever get tired of that ass, Takashi? That line seems a little out of character for Lewis. I think he would have said derriere. I mean, were you thinking about that at the time, about what a shift it was for you? I mean, imagine you at the beginning of the movie. That in the last, what, 24 or 48 hours, you lost your virginity. And you have become this other person. And you trumped the jocks. At this point in the movie, now we've trumped the jocks. Well, we got their chicks. Now we're going to get them. You know, I was disappointed they cut me from this scene. But I think I just went, then Jeff Cano said, it's stealth, Timmy. You can't do stealth. You can't see. They need to get in and out.

I remember when we shot this, and Takashi says, soured. Soured, yes. And I just, at the time, thought, that's really a stupid ad-lib, and it's now one of my favorite ones. Yeah, I know. Here, hit this one. Okay. Looks like salad. Yeah. And it's perfect. Mm-hmm. It's homecoming. You win that one, you got your alumni support. You could take this scene out of this movie and put it into Everybody's All-American or on any Sunday, and it would fit right in because this is how coaches really speak. We're in scene 103 now, page 64 of the script. We can't sit back on our laurels. We went homecoming. We take league. This is word perfect. We get a bull bid. It's as simple as that. But gentlemen... You have got to walk. You know, what's great about this also is Ogre never feels anything. It takes him the entire scene before the liquid he seeks through. Everyone else is in agony. He hasn't felt anything yet. No. And he's also unaware. You've got to let them know that you want it. I want it! Good! Now he feels it. It takes that long. Here comes an ad-lib by John Goodman. Shit, we forgot to practice. All right, this is a scene, pivotal moment. You did what? You put what? In there what? You guys are all right. He accepts them. Are you angry, Ewan? Now, this was like later, right? You shot this... This was an added scene. This was an added scene. This took the place of a scene when they went to Vegas. Because we lost the Las Vegas sequence. So I think we needed this to bridge that. Yeah. They redid the set for this. Okay, everybody ready? Okay, I focus now. I set timer. Now say, hi, UN! Hi, UN! Look at that, production value. We had a scene that became a black and white still, and we didn't use any computer graphics for that. We actually had a still and shot the two scenes on two separate days so that we could do that. I'm impressed. I requested the Beatle poster. You did? Yes. Remember they did that when we were setting up the Nerd House? Art came to us, the prop guy came to us and said, you know, whatever you want, what do you want? Right. And we had to give him a list. And that was on my list. Ogre is the sergeant at arms. That's why he's there. And also to keep the dean in line. Point of order. Dean Ulick. Dean Ulick. Yeah. Not many people know that Dean's last name is Ulick. And that may be a failed homophobic reference. I'm not sure. Therefore, I feel a vote at this time would be, shall we say, premature. Premature? Yes. You see, instead, I am going to organize a special blue ribbon fact... McGinley is really a nice guy, but I watch this and I really have trouble believing it because he's so comfortable being a prick. We will get to the bottom of this dastardly deed. Wait a minute, you can't get away with this. Oh, no, I'm afraid I can. You see, only the president of the Greek Council... There's an old Twilight Zone where everything is reversed and the beautiful people are considered horrific and these terribly deformed people are the norm. And everyone should watch that so you'll understand the dynamic at work here. But the only way to become president is to win the homecoming carnival. That's right, Arnold. And that's exactly what we're going to do. Yeah. Lewis is very upset.

This sequence probably took it. I seem to remember it taking like three weeks. I can tell you. Oh, you have the shooting schedule right here. I can't believe it. I pulled this out of a box. I said I didn't even know I owned it. All right. Carnival. Homecoming Carnival. We shot it fairly early while they were building sets. I remember it wasn't that long into the. Yeah. I love that bit. Good, man. So we started shooting. Check to the races to complete 20 laps around the track while stopping every lap for a mandatory pit stop at which time the driver will chug a beer. Don't have a fucking chance, nerd. Oh, thank you. Good luck to you too, Burke. Fuck off. Yeah. You know, Brian still has the headband. It took a week. We spent a week. A week. We spent a week shooting this sequence. It just felt like three. Yep. I'm assuming Brian was really drinking beer. I think everybody was really drinking beer in this. I think we were, man. I think we got pretty toasted shooting this. I remember I... This is trichloromethylene. Trichloromethylene. There's another thing. You know, what the hell is trichloroethylene? Trichloromethylene is a non-existent substance, and yet everybody bought it.

Oh, fucking great. Throw the word fucking in the right places in a movie and it would wake people up, whereas now it's probably a little overused. Yeah. Come on, Danny. We only got one more lap to go, buddy. It's just you and the Alpha Betas. Danny, you let that nerd beat you and you're nothing, you understand that? No sweat. He lost that look just now. That's right. Come on, let's go first. Here we go, let's go.

I love the music. This piece of music, which is a bicycle built for two in Japanese, was just a lucky find and fits the scene beautifully, as some people have pointed out. Poindexter's wearing garters. A nice touch. Times are changing, Betty. These nerds are a threat to our way of life. These nerds are a threat to our way of life. This is kind of the essence of prejudice, really. Betty's starting to struggle a little bit with Stan. You know, she's got a little thing going on, you know. The Trojan horse. We needed one more bit, and the production designer came up with this at the last minute. There's a post-production looping that. Beep, beep, beep. I always loved this one. He didn't even move. Yeah. I think we were giving it all we got. I don't think we were being too bashful there. Yeah. He was a big guy. Still is. He still is. Oh, this is funny.

So I remember when we were doing this, we were just one after one getting whipped. Point at you. Just gets his ass whipped. But then at the last minute, Canoe came up to me and whispered in my ear to pick my nose. Yes. So her reaction is quite genuine.

This girl was struggling here because Donnie really, they were going. And I remember her so sweet. She was really, this is hard, physically hard for her. Yeah. You know, by the time you get through doing this thing 15 times from all the different angles and covering it, you know, this poor girl had had a workout trying to make it real. That's one of the great things about it is that he doesn't just wipe her out. Yeah, no. It really is. Close. This guy was in the NFL. This is a really good lesson in tactics, probably originated by the Viet Cong. You don't have to out-pull the other team. You just have to let them destroy themselves. And that was Lewis's line, but you gave it to the kid who was in the front. Aw. Sweet of me. That was nice of you to do that. See, and there are problems between the two of them now, too. Yeah, they're struggling. See, it's beginning to... Frankly, I'm not too wild about this next event, but it has become a tradition here at Adams. The belching contest. Yeah! Our first of two finalists, Frederick W. Polowatzki. Ogre, you asshole. Ogre. Is that in the script? Did he make that up? None of that. That's just all David. That's good, man. Because David would make up all of this. It says Coach Harris saying let the competition begin. This is all letting him go with the microphone. Letting David Wall have the microphone and play. And he got serious, so he wrote it all down. The Lambda Moo team, Dudley Dawson. Booger. Booger. I don't know if I've ever exposed this before, but Booger's belch was a combination of human belch and the sound of a camel. Camel's mating. Yeah, it was the sound of camels mating. And your expression is so earnest. I just love it, man. Look, Ogre wants to cry. Yeah, he's very upset. And that is definitely David. Yeah. Putting in a line about the Peloponnesian War. He got so into it. It was just great. Yeah, he really, he wrote all this stuff. And these guys were all local. Like, I remember this one. Yeah, these guys were real athletes at the university. At university. But, I mean, that guy, you know, look out. That's serious Hitler youth. And Ted's a fantastic athlete. Ooh. McGinley's good. McGinley is good. It's more than just a pretty face.

And so is Larry B. Scott. Now this, if you've ever built a javelin, you'll know, or if you've ever tried to perform sexually, you'll know that the aerodynamic quality, once it's launched, it straightens out.

Well, look at the physique on that guy, man. I mean, that guy's totally ripped. Also, just the background that when people were standing up, you know what I mean? That's an underestimated thing, but the AD's doing their job making sure. That's right. You know, looking at nothing. Never any question about how legal it is to use an aerodynamically designed. It's never even brought up. We just win. The Alpha Beta Pi team leads. The Lambda Moos are a surprising second. Now let's see what happens at the charity fundraising booth. Eat a pie for charity. Come on. Let's go. Eat a pie for charity. You know, I mean, I have to be honest. This, you know, 20 years of kids. I got a 23-year-old, 16-year-old, 14-year-old. This movie's on at my house, you know, every month. Is it really? If somebody's watching or a kid's over watching it or... I mean, it's just constantly, it's on Comedy Central all the time. Yeah. I'm going to play this thing. You have to. And still, Bobby hasn't seen any of The Prophets. Yes. Sorry about that, Bobby. It's all right. Kiss this, nerd. And I'll apologize to this lady for the rest of my life. Kiss this, nerd. She's a good sport. Man. God, Betty, you're like a goat. Fuck. Here comes the scene on the moon scene, which was a set Again, built on a shoestring in a very creative way by our production designer and used in a very creative way by Bobby Carradine. This is Betty's dark night of the soul. Yeah. Got some smoke going here. Mounted the mask on top of the lens in case you don't know how this was done. Actually, it was just a little strip of cardboard to create that effect. I remember when they shot this, being around the monitors. I was so infatuated with the whole filming process. It seemed like one or two of us seemed to be hanging around the set even when we weren't working during some of those days. A lot of the sets where it's at, man. You didn't want to hang around the hotel. It was kind of like we'd go, especially when it's getting close to being the end of the day. Also, you notice that her cowboy boots have magically lost their high heels? Because it would poke holes in the waterbed. Right. Oh, yeah. That is such a great thing. And that was from you. That would be... That I love that it's a huge... I mean, without that, what do you really have to offer Betty that she couldn't get from a jock? Exactly. And it becomes a huge sort of... turn for her, which turns the audience who's been, you know. Sort of like Jane Fonda in Coming Home when she finally gets it on with John Voight and has her first orgasm. Maybe it's a similar thing here. Just a thought. You know, when I put the two films side by side, there's the endless comparisons. One of the sweetest guys in the world, Don Gibb. Yep. All these guys. All nice, fun, sweet guys. Great line. That's my pie. That was wonderful. He did things to me you've never done before. You're that nerd! Yeah. See, I think this is the scene that was missing from Napoleon Dynamite. Are all nerds as good as you? Yes. How come? Because all jocks think about is sports. All we ever think about is sex. So the line in the script is, well, all a nerd thinks about from the time he's 10 is sex. It's better the way it is. Yeah, we made it more real. We're always going for real. But I don't think, in all honesty, that Poindexter would be a better lover than any human being on the planet. No. It wouldn't last more than three or four seconds. If that. If that. And it would be painful. I remember this being so cold. Yes.

I remember there's a couple of guys here that do this joke coming up. These guys. The plaid guys. Yeah, they showed up at the premiere in a limo, and we all took our cars. We showed up in our cars. These guys I remember showing up in a limo. Ward, I think you were a little hard on the beaver last night. I remember going to the makeup trailer when they were doing this to these guys, and they did not like it. They were not happy about this. No, they weren't. They were not. And I think that's so much why Goodman is enjoying it, too, because they were very uncomfortable.

See, what I remember is it was absolutely freezing. It's whatever this is in February or whatever. Yeah, it's February. And it's 3 in the morning. 3 in the morning, and everybody is completely freaked. And they've got me. I've been working. I don't know if you remember this, but the reason I'm in the Elvis Presley outfit is because I was supposed to do this whole Presley routine. Right. You know, where I was lip syncing. a Presley thing, which in retrospect, you go, what? Yeah. But I was in the outfit, and he came to me afterwards. He said, we've run out of time. We can't do the Presley thing. And I've never been more relieved in my life. I remember you guys working on this. I mean, everybody, we all had to work on what we did here. Practice required a lot of practice just to do the violin, not having anything about a violin. And I remember you and Tony working... Everybody had very specific bits here. I was the lucky recipient of all that and kind of the coordinator, although I did write Lamar's rap, and I want my children to know that. This was the last shot of the night, and I'm so glad that King Bag at the DP forced me to shoot it because I was getting tired and cranky, and I think I was saying, we don't need it, but I love that shot.

Eddie Marks sent me to a place on Melrose with no windows. He said, go in there and find this guy. Hey, find these clothes. You need to get some sort of, you know, sexual. So I walk in, and there's a guy with spiked hair, just took whatever the guy had on, what he was wearing, and his hair. So Larry's got, like, the Michael Jackson outfit from that period. And we've come... here on stage tonight to do a show for you. I didn't know that Larry and Wormser could breakdance. And they came up to me one day and said, why don't we breakdance in the show? And I said, can you do that? And they just showed me. So that became kind of the focal point of this winning play, performance. And just when you thought you'd seen it all, along comes a lambdell for you. Andrew also, do you remember his Jaws imitation? No. He does a brilliant... He's actually a great mimic, but he would mimic Robert Shaw perfectly. Really? Yeah, he could do him. I mean, the best imitation I've ever heard. Look at those moves. Unbelievable. I know. It's May's athleticism. Well, it's not row, row, row your boat, but by God, we did all right. Yeah, we did. Now, of course, that is not me on the... the violin, but I'm hitting the fingers. No, you guys did it perfect. Well, we were all coached. Yeah. Well, you guys were practicing all the time to play back so that it was perfect. Yeah, it's really cool, man. Because I guess they didn't really need to tally up the votes. It became clear that the nerds were the winners. Boy, did we kick their ass.

You know, the simple structure of the movie, it just worked for me. The second I read it, I remember saying when I said, I don't know what to do, there's a movie, Revenge of the Nerds. It's going to make $100 million, but it's Revenge of the Nerds. I mean, you could see at the time. You could if you weren't a Fox distribution executive. Right. I thought it's there. I mean, the structure of just the classic structure of they win, we win, they win, we win. The way that lays out and the introducing of Betty's turn, especially when you added that giving her head is what makes her life turn towards, you know, I mean, the the the nerds. Better way to a woman's heart. You know, it amazes me that you think that. Tim that you because I wouldn't well it's just the way my mind works I would never have seen a hundred million dollars when I read that script I remember saying those words I said this movie is going to make a hundred million it's going to work and if I can find I don't know if I want to be in it because it's Revenge of the Nerds but the script works I can see that this from first read that the structure of the script worked I mean we made it much better I believe with a lot of the stuff that we came up with through Jeff's supervision thanks He realized this picture, the power of the picture really was in his hands to make sure that he allowed us to do what we did and that he still delivered cinematically. The style's very consistent, shot consistently. It's not a bunch of different movies in one. No, you're right. How he chose to shoot it. No, I think everything about the movie works tremendously well. It's just that it was not something I ever would have... envisioned just from looking at the page right i just never saw it if this were a serious movie john could get a nomination for this speech the scene that follows this was actually shot in a very violent serious way they trashed the hell out of this house We shot a lot of specific things. The robot gets crushed and destroyed. And then the nerds run up to the front porch and get manhandled by the jocks. Gilbert gets thrown down on the ground. And it was very reminiscent for me of real stuff that I experienced in high school. But when we previewed the film, the audiences were so bummed out by it that they couldn't laugh anymore for the next 15 minutes. So we had to tone it down, take it out. because at some point we had to accept the fact that we were a comedy and not a social document. We did shoot this last. Yes. We went away and shot other stuff and then came back and shot this. Yeah. I'm a nerd. Welcome to the real world. I never really wanted to believe that. It's okay. It's not okay. We're nothing. We let them destroy us. See, maybe it took Lewis's crash to let Gilbert step up and be positive for a change, or at least take action. So maybe that's the dynamics of couples, is that one has to be the weaker and one the stronger. I think we got something good going, and I'm not going to let him take it away from us. Gilbert, don't be a fool. You just get yourself hurt again. It's right out of Gone with the Wind. I remember laughing at all the serious stuff. It was hard to keep a straight face because you're listening to these guys, Bob. Tony, and you know that between takes, all we're doing is laughing. I mean, all we did all day long, pretty much, that I remember while we were making that movie was try to make each other laugh. And we laughed all the time. And yet, you guys slip into making that reel. It wasn't like you went away and said, I got to get my head on. Yeah. You guys got there. You made it. You sold it. You played it real. Yeah. And then all we tried, we just fucked around the entire time. It was so much fun. to make the movie. I remember this being, Tony's got a wetsuit on here. He's got a wetsuit and a fever. And a fever, that's right, he was sick. He and Bernie, both, were running huge fevers that night. And this water's so cold, they throw him in right here. And it's the end of the movie, he's got... Yeah, that water was really cold. Everybody was getting sick. I mean, you're doing these night shoots and stuff. And wide receiver, number 84, Danny Burke. Our defensive captain, number 79, Fred Polowatzki, the Ogre. Row like the tide. What was it the AD kept saying? He kept talking. We were mocking terribly as he brought the people out of the stands. Oh, row like the tide. That's right. Row like the tide. And we were going, row like the tide. I love this setup. You've completely forgotten that these guys are a black fraternity. Yeah. It's beautiful, man. Hold it, coach. You just hold it right there. Mmm. Oh, it's just so cool. And each one of these guys is badder than the one before. You know, it's just like... Yeah, when they do the pan across the... Yeah, it's awesome, man. And these guys are not kidding. They will kill you. They didn't know. We didn't tell them we were making a comedy. I think that's what worked right here. Yeah. Somebody holding me. Yeah, I remember that. I had to turn a corner. Every time we ran, somebody had to be in charge of Jim. Who's got Buzzfield? We were told to preview this movie in the South because the head of the studio felt that a movie where the black guys come in the end and back down the white football players would not play well in the South. But in fact, everybody got it and was exhilarated by it. We kind of crossed the color line here. Nobody was rooting against the Lambdas. They were all for them. for the rights of other nerds. I mean... As Steve and Jeff said, you know, substitute nerd for I'm gay. Yeah. I'm black. That was always the... I'm short, I'm tall, I'm anything. Yeah. I think we both wrote our own speeches. Yeah, I remember some rewriting going through here. That's not at all the way it's written in the script. And the script only has three pages in it, folks. I'm a nerd. Scene 150. There's a story about the subplot that's missing from the movie where Gable has a nerd brother. And you won't see it here, but there's a big moment at the end of the movie when Gable's nerd brother shows up and keeps Gable from being beaten by the Lambda Lambdas. He ain't heavy. He's my brother kind of a scene. Look at that great take on Don Kip. Doesn't get it. See, but look at, you know, when you see Ted. His look, yeah. There's something altogether different going through his head, which, because the scenes got cut out, you don't know. So many people tell me they're moved by this. Left out, picked on, put down. Whether you think you're a nerd or not, why don't you just come down here and join us, okay? Okay. Come on. Come on. I beg my due. Hi, Betty. Hi. Just join us, because... Hi. I think it's the absolute conviction of truth. Again, to Jeff Canu's credit, could have gone in a bunch of directions if the director wasn't making sure everybody stayed with this. Thanks. Making sure the tone stayed all the way to the end. He envisioned this emotional ending. In his mind, I think, as did Steve and Jeff. The band. I mean, of course. It's so beautiful. I mean, it's just really well done. Look at this. We didn't actually have a crane, but I think this was a tall ladder with the camera mounted on top of it. Next movie, I'm going to put a crane on. We are the champions. The perfect ending to this movie. It's probably been copied several times since, but I think we were the first to use it. What about us, huh? You're jocks. Go live in the gym. Turnabout is fair play. Look at that. I'm holding Andrew. To get him up in the shot. To get him in the shot. Fantastic. He'd have to hold me up now. Gotta remember how many takes we did of this. It's just like, oh, God, have we got it yet? Well, you know, how long was the shoot? Days, let's just say, 66 days or something? No. It wasn't that long, 40? No. 36 days? March 10th. 36 days. January 28th to March 10th. The choir singing We Are The Champions. That was also an existing recording that we found and happened to be in the same key, so that was great. And I will tell all filmmakers that if you have a comedy with too much heart, stick a gallery of funny shots at the end and it might help. Yay. It's not just because we're in it, man. I think this is a great fucking movie. Yeah. You know, it works. It still works. Yeah. It holds up. I mean, that's the one thing about... This movie, I mean, people continue, these kids, 14-year-olds, 16-year-olds, still just love this film. It's as a basic universal theme. And I think, again, you and Jamie and Tony, in sync with Jeff, kicked off the movie just perfect. Yeah, but look at this cast, man. John Goodman, Bernie Casey. These are all very established actors, and they all went on to become, you know... even more major in their own right. Yeah. You know, you get the questions. What's your most fun movie you ever made? Well, this is clearly the most fun I ever had with you guys making this movie. And the second movie was a lot of fun. It wasn't nearly the movie that we made here, but... It was just as much fun. It was just as much fun. Or more. And the camaraderie, the team sport aspect of it, the fact that we were together, we had each other's backs, and now forever... We have a classic that brings us always together. And there's not a member of that group, of the group of the nerds that we had, that if we ran into each other on the street, wouldn't feel like family. And that you get from a classic that you just don't get from a film that opens and closes. It's not another gig. Right. But it also is more than the fact that it was a classic. It was the fact that there was that indefinable thing where you cast people sort of like-minded people. I mean, a bunch of us could have been real assholes. Yeah. You know? Or there could have been just no real chemistry, you know, working. Right, right. And it still could have been... It turned out to have been a great movie. But it was everything working together. And everything worked together. And... And a lot of luck, man. It's always a matter... I mean, I think it's... Look, if you could actually make a movie gel, then people... be making movies that were hits all the time. That's right. But the odds are that 80% of the movies that are never going to be seen by any major population, maybe 5% are really good of the movies that are made in a year, if that. And of the 5%, maybe 1% is something that's going to live forever. Live on, yeah. Live on. Yeah, I mean, I'm just so happy with the fact that I was smart enough to let the actors... add so much to this movie. I think myself and the writers owe them a great vote of thanks. Hey, this was fun, you guys. I had a great time. Yeah, man. All right, get us out of here, Bobby. All right, that's a wrap. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks.

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