Episode 2: Caddyshack (1980)

Weird way. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Chasing Chevy Podcast, a podcast where we chase after Chevy Chase and ask him questions. No, it's a it's a It's a podcast where we take a look at Chevy Chase movies that he was ostensibly the lead or they were vehicles for him. However, on this episode, we're not even gonna talk about a movie that he was the lead in. We're gonna be talking about nineteen eighties caddy Shack.

I'm the host of the Culture Cast, and I'm who am i Christachue, and I'm joined by my two good friends. All the way from Wake Up Heavy, Mark Begley, This is in Russia? Is this Russia? And all the way from the projection booth. He chases after Chevy harder than anybody else.

Your friend of mine, mister Mike White. I only chase after him when I'm not stoned to the bit Jesus belt. Yeah, And if you don't know, like I said, what we're gonna be talking about on this episode, we will be talking about nineteen eighties caddy Shack. Some people belong to the Bushwood Country Club for the fine cuisine this stakes to has March when the jockey was hitting. Some belonged for the stimulating conversation, I might think I will, and some just don't belong.

Do you think i'd join? Is Chrummy Snobbatorium caddy Shack, starring Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight, and Bill Murray as Carl. It's the snobs against the slots in Caddyshack, righted R. No, we will not be talking about the sequel. Why because we'll be talking about the sequel eventually.

Because chevy Chase is also technically in the sequel. Uh so, yeah, boy did he do all him? Did he record all his scenes? You know, in a room off with no one else? Is that the technically in that?

Yeah? Right? I actually don't know. That's a good question. I never seen it.

I saw Caddyshack two one time, and I don't remember much positive about it. But I've seen Caddyshack one plenty of times, which is what we will be talking about on this episode. So the original Caddyshack is directed by Harold Ramis, written by Brian Doyle, Murray, Harold Ramis and Doug Kenny, and its stars, like we've already mentioned, Chevy Chase Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight, Bill Murray, Michael O'Keeffe, Sarah Holcome, a lot of people. There are a lot of people we're gonna be talking about. I don't know how we're gonna talk about this movie because I think we're all three of us are coming at it from very different directions.

So I'm curious kind of feelings and thoughts. But the person who I think I'm most curious because I know you're the one who didn't have the most experienced with this movie outright, Mike, tell me what you thought about Caddy Shak the first time you saw it and rewatching it now. I will admit that I saw the baby Ruth scene many many times for whatever reason. But I guess my folks really like that scene or something. But yeah, this was only the second time I've ever actually sat down and watched this movie all the way through.

And it's a strange movie. It is such a strange movie. I was reading, well, I've read a few books about Chevy Chase. It like Wild and Crazy Guys, and then there's I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not book, which is it doesn't even pretend to write that book. It just feels like it's all written from third person by the ghostwriter.

There was a lot of debate in the Wild and Crazy Guys book about who is the actual protagonist of this movie. Is a Chammy Chase, Is it Rodny Dangerfield? I don't even know if they mentioned or Michael O'Keefe, who I think should be the protagonist of this. The movie starts with him and kind of follows him through this, but the guest stars or whatever you want to call, like Chase, Dangerfield, night Bill Murray, they take up so much room that it really kind of edges your protagonist out of the spotlight through this entire movie. It's almost odd when you had the scenes with Danny Noonan, especially when you have the scenes of Danny Noonan and Maggie o'hold again, what are these things?

This is crazy trying to take my lucky charms. That's a lot like like does she usually speak with this accent? Or yeah, it was It was odd. It's an odd movie. I mean, there are great parts to it, but that's what this is.

This is a whole lot of great part and then there's some like hearts through it. But overall, I think it holds up and those great parts are pretty fantastic. I mean fucking Rodney Dangerfield and Ted Knight going at it. I would have loved to have just had a whole movie of those two because this movie really sets up I know, like Animal House had the snobs versus the slobs thing. This one really plays into it in the third act of it.

But yeah, it's pretty wild to just see how uneven this movie is. Mark Begley, same question directed at user, Well, I want to get back to all of the stuff that Mike talks about because it's stuff that I didn't notice as a kid. I've seen this movie I don't know how many times, at least twenty five, I would say over the years, just because it was one of those constant rentals back in the VHS days. But this holds the honor of being the first rated R movie that I saw in the theater, So it holds that place in my heart and soul. And it was between this and Blues Brothers that came out the same summer.

And as I've mentioned, I think I mentioned on the first episode of this series that I was a big SNL fan, even though I barely watched the show, but I was into all the people that were on it. So if they had a movie out that I could see, I wanted to see it. And I think previous to this, the only one that I really could see was nineteen forty one, which I'm still a big fan of, and I may have seen Foul Play on TV if it had played prior to nineteen eighty or around nineteen eighty. I don't know what the impetus was for my mom to decide to take me and my sister to a rate in ar movie. If we were clamoring to see one or both of these films, and it was like, Okay, we'll pick one and we'll go see it.

And we picked Caddie Shack, which later in life I feel was a mistake because I much prefer the Blues brother and became obsessed with the Blues Brothers back then. Even though I didn't see the movie, I had the album. I read the book, Oh Nice. I don't know how many times I'm still trying to track down a copy of the novelization. The novelization, it's expensive.

I bought it for a friend of mine. Yeah, it's crazy pricey. Yeah, I remember enjoying it immensely, probably mainly because of Chevy Chase and Bull Murray being in. It was incredibly uncomfortable during the sex scenes, and like I said, it just became something that you watched all constantly. Vha, I don't.

I've probably played on cable all the time. We didn't have cable until I was older, but just saw it tons and tons. In recent years have been noticing those oddities that Mike mentioned, and I think it's an interesting that part of the backstory or the behind the scenes is interesting, which I hope we could too. We kind of have to write. I mean that's our job.

We got Okay, what about you, Chris? Funny enough. I actually read that the Krishnadawadi book The Caddyshack Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story. I read that book when it came out a couple of years ago, and I rewatched Caddyshack fair amount of times around that time when I was watching the book. So I think, similarly to you, Mark, I was like, do I even need to sit down and watch this movie today?

Because I've seen this movie so many times. It was definitely something that when I was in college, my freshman roommate who would then be a groomsman in our wedding. Him and I would quote Caddyshack all the time. I don't know why. It's not like the two of us watched it together at any point.

I think we just both had it as a frame of reference. At me, especially Rodney Dangerfield, who I think, for me is the best part of the movie. He's not the lead of the movie by any stretch of the AMA. I think this movie, this movie fails as a movie, which is a really fucked up thing to say about a movie that I enjoy. But I think it's more fun as just a bunch of vignettes loosely held together by the setting, as opposed to again, like we've kind of already gotten into with Michael O'Keefe just kind of being there, just there to be there.

But I mean, I do remember relentlessly quoting woa did somebody step on a duck? And I'll you know it looks good on you? Though you know all of that. I mean, everything that Rodney Dangerfield has has in this movie, every tool that he has, he uses really well. And I find it really funny because one of the early stories in that Caddyshack book is like the first day on set Rodney Dangerfield, because I guess this was his first movie.

He was not used to people not laughing at his jokes, and so he did not realize that people weren't like he didn't I guess he didn't two and two together, like they're not gonna laugh because that's not the point. You're in the scene and you're delivering the lines, mister Dangerfield, so deliver the goddamn lines. And he was like, I guess, having anxiety about people not reacting to him telling his lines, and it's like, dude, it's because you're not doing a stand up bit. This is a movie. So I think that kind of like cuts to the core of the idea of like the people making this movie probably were a little bit in over their heads.

And I think that the Cadyshack book kind of speaks to that a little bit. But I think that the movie that you get on the other end is called is kind of also a product of that because it is an extremely messy movie. It is and I think even fans of the movie would agree that's an extremely messy movie. It is very muddy in terms of loot. If there is a plot, who the like to the like We've already mentioned who the main characters are.

But I mean, I think it has it has staying power because of all of those disparate parts working in spite of the fact that most of the time these kinds of things don't work this way or they don't kind of hum along as well as this movie does. But all of that to say, I mean, Caddyshack is a movie that I definitely enjoy. Is it in my top five comedies? Not really? Is it even in my top five Chevy Chase performances.

Definitely not for a number of reasons. But I think it's a fun movie. It's just not much of a narrative piece, but that's okay. But I think it's remembered more as I think it's remembered differently than it maybe is received, if that makes sense. And for my crowd, it was the Bill Murray lines that got quoted back and forth all the time, that opening when he's cleaning the golf ball and talking about the old women on the course, and of course the Cinderell story, all the stuff in the hut that Chevy is playing through.

Those were the lines that's stuck with my friends and I, Yeah, there's a lot of quotable lines in this. While I was watching it, think you know, things I'm not even familiar with. And then even shots that I forget are in here, like the guy on the boat who does the eyepop thing, Like I've seen that so many times as a meme, and I forget what it's from. Yeah, yeah, I thought the same thing yesterday. I'm like, oh, yeah, he's from this, not Jaws or something, you know, something else, police squad or whatever.

He feels like he came out of police Squad totally. Yeah. I mean, the just that they go to the yacht club, I was like, whoa are we in a different movie? Is this one crazy summer all of a sudden? But yeah, it's it's again.

It's all over the place, and it's I mean again, I I I think we know why. It's just because the movie's trying to be so inclusive to all these storylines. But it does feel like it doesn't really know what it wants to be. It does feel more like a not like a vignette movie, but I mean kind of. It's I would say it's much more of an ensemble cast.

It's just normally when you have an ensemble cast. You tend to have that ensemble cast interacting on screen together more than kind of popping in and out of each other's stories, because that it ends up feeling like the Michael O'Keeffe character is just kind of coming in and out of other people's. Other people's stories that are the you know, the established stars of the movies, the Rodney Dangerfield, the Ted Knight, the Chevy Chase. I mean, just look at the fucking poster for the movie, Like Michael O'Keeffe is not on the poster. Bill Murray, Ted Knight, Chevy Chase, and Rodney Dangerfield are on the poster.

And I mean, of those four, chevy Chase is the one who's in the movie the least. I mean, you could make the case that we shouldn't even be talking about this movie. I mean, will probably never be given another opportunity to talk about this movie, so that's why we're doing it now. But to talk about this as a chevy Chase movie, it is not a Chevy Chase his I would even go as far as to say his role in this movie is completely unnecessary, only because again it takes away some of the auto economy from the Michael O'Keeffe character, and it kind of gives I wouldn't say it gives his plot to somebody else, but again, it just makes him kind of a spectator to a lot of this going on. And then it's like, oh, yeah, by the way, he's the one doing the golf tournament.

Okay, right, and it's like, I mean, did we forget that he that there are other people in this movie, because I just don't understand what I never understood what the point of having him in this movie is if well, if it's everything, I mean, unless he's supposed to be the audience analogue, which again, these people were humans, not aliens from Mars. I think originally he was just supposed to have a cameo. And Okay, a lot of this is from IMDb, so take it with a grain of salt, but I think quite a bit of it is pulled from that book that you're talking about, Chris, that he all the people that become leads in this were cameo or minor characters. And this scrip just kept getting rewritten. Bill Murray wasn't supposed to have any lines the film, right, and that stuff got you know, redone and improvised and all that stuff.

It was supposed to be the Danny versus Tony story, basically that caddy Shack tournament that gets like two minutes of screen time. Yeah, was the goal, and I always watching it when I was younger. I was thinking, well, why are all these adults in the caddy Shack tournament, because I forget they already did the Caddyshack tournament between Tony and him, and he gets his little trophy and then we're done, and that's the only time that like Danny's parents make another appearance. They disappear after that first scene. It was supposed to be.

It was supposed to be his coming of age story, and that's why there's still bits and pieces of it in there. The opening with the huge family, you know, talking about going to college, which gets strung through the rest of the movie. That's his arc, I guess, of deciding whether he wants to actually go to college or not. The Maggie thing, which gets short shrift in the film, was probably more fleshed out in the script. Yeah, you know, you've got that horrible oh I'm pregnant trope from the eighties in there, and which is almost immediately taken away, like right.

It feels like five minutes later she's dancing around. Oh what's going on? Oh I'm not pregnant anymore. Yeah, And I think that was a reshoot or something they went back and did, because I'm pretty sure he's wearing a wig under that hat doing the pulling to Andrew McCarthy and pretty in pink deal there, and so you know, that may have gone a different direction in the original script. Who knows, because then he's got a Oh I got to get a job now because I got a kid on the way or something like that.

Who you know, I don't know. I have no idea, but it's it's weird. He threw every like stereotypical thing into the into the mix in this movie. For Michael o'keeff, it's like, why I see the Chivvy Chase characters being like a mentor and your life could go this way. He's an interesting character to me because there is, like I said, the whole snobs versus slobs thing, and you've got Dangerfield who has all this money, he's got the condos, and he's just super ghost.

I mean, he really isn't a slob quote unquote as far as he's got tons of money, right, it's that he's you know, just handing out. You know, he's given away, you know, twenty dollars just because the guy's keeping the ice cold, the ice cubes cold, those kind of things. And you got Ted Knight, who seems very well to do as well. You know, he's the judge and he's at the country club. And then you got Ty Webb, the Chamby Chase character, who it's like what he's got that line about like, oh, yeah, I own a couple lumberyards.

I don't know where they are. I mean, he is super wealthy, but he doesn't act like it. And he just seems like this kind of zend out guy who just wants to golf, and like there's a backstory there as far as why he won't golf for money, but we never get that, which is just strange. But for some reason, people, yeah, for some reason, there's a connection between him and Danny, and it's like, Okay, it's like, is this the path that he could go? But it really it doesn't hold much water.

It feels like these are different areas that Danny could go to. But at the same time, he's not rich, and everybody in this circle of these golfers are super rich. I mean, it really does feel like what this was, which was all of the writers had been caddies and they're just bringing all these stories together and just throwing them out there. But it feels like they read the Sidfield book and they're like, oh, well, we need to have something to hook all this stuff onto, and that's the Danny's story. And yeah, I totally agree.

Like the Danny versus Tony stuff, it's like, okay, yeah, this maybe should have been the movie, but it's definitely not that movie. Well, I don't know, like I don't think that that. I mean, as much as I like Scott Colombie as Tony d Nunzio, which he is great, I mean that's it's kind of a shame that he is kind of as an as perfectly antagonistic as he is, because it's like it's kind of wasted in this movie because again, like the Ted Knight plays such a perfect bastard. Oh yes that that almost anybody else in the movie well waiting, I mean, it's one of my ever I mean it's I mean, it's like it's it's shit like that in this movie that I remember, and it's that Ted Knight's face delivering that line, because he's just so perfect.

That's like nothing else in terms of an antagonist in this movie even matters if you have Ted Knight operating at full capacity. And Frankly, I mean again to your point. You know, the Thai Web character I think is so interesting because he's so strange, but at the end of the day, he also is just chevy Chase. Like it's it's like such peak chevy Chase that if he I'm surprised Frankly in this watch so that he didn't just look at the camera and go and you know, I am chevy Chase right, like you know what I mean. Like it it's so because we talked about it a little bit in foul Play when he is doing the kind of prat falls into the water and we were like, oh, that's you know, that's the chevy Chase thing.

This is also so the chevy Chase thing. This is the dialogue equivalent of the physical prat falling, Like this is the you know, the cool, disinterested and pithy guy, and it's this entire I mean, it's his entire role. This There is never a moment in this movie where someone one gets one up on Chevy Chase at all, thank you very little. Did you see the new sidelines from this week as we're recording this, that he fell off the stage someplace and I'm just now, I mean, the guy's old. I'm like, give up the Gerald Ford impersonations please.

Yeah. He does a little bit in the in the shrivery in this one, and I oh, yeah, I roll my eyes every time. It just isn't funny to me. Well, it's just a shtick. It's his thick his pithy lines are but this isn't.

And yeah it's not Buster Keaton. I mean, Wester Keaton could take a fall like nobody's business, and I guess it's yeah, it is his stick that he's going to fall falling down. Is falling down is not inherently funny to me for some or whatever reason. So it just never lands, never lands. Well, it's like in Fletch when he's walking and his head gets caught in the lamp shade thing.

I think about that scene. I'm just like, what the fuck is the point of this. Oh, it's it's part of his stick from the SNL and you know that from the seventies. But I mean I think him being kind of cool and disinterested is I mean, it's a cool he's a cool character. He's a cool customer in this movie.

But I also think that if he had been the main character, I think it might have gotten real old, real fast, because I'm not sure how much of a real character there is lurking behind what they've kind of what they have him drifted out of the movie doing, because what he's doing in every scene is more or less the same thing. Like it's there's not any dimensionality to the character. But that's okay. I mean, I'm not sure that there's a lot of dimensionality to Fletch or Clark Grizzly. I mean, maybe Clark Griswold might be the kind of exception there.

But I don't necessarily go into Chevy Chase movies going why can't wait to see the depth of character to this. It's like it's you're there for those one liners. I mean, you're really there for the one liners with Chevy Chase as far as I'm concerned, Like even his physical comedy, it's fine, but I don't think he was doing it any better than anybody else. I like that they tossed Murray and Chase together in a scene. Yeah, since they didn't like each other well, and that they realized that they hadn't been in a scene together or something.

But there is there's all these cut scenes or I don't know, they must have been cut because they exist, and I don't think they were shot just for the TV version. But if you go out and you look on you two, there's alternate and deleted scenes from the TV version of Caddy Shack, And there's a whole thing of Tie showing I can't remember if he's showing Bill Murray how to hit a golf ball, but like, Bill Murray's on this incredibly huge mower and he comes in and Danny is caddying. I can kind of picture where the scene would fit. Danny's caddying four tie and Bill Murray gets off the mower and he's hitting this golf ball. And at one point, these golfers across the lake hit a ball and somebody just offscreen tosses the ball to Chevy Chase and he takes it and he puts it down on the ground for Carl to hit, and of course all the other golfers are going crazy because it's like no, no, you can't hit our ball, and he was just hitting some balls.

And then once these guys start chasing or coming around the pond, Chevy Chase gets onto the mower with Carl and off they go. So I'm like, okay, well they had two scenes together, but one of them wasn't very funny at all. And I like the whole thing of being in Carl's Layer. Carls Layer is fantastic. That's one of my favorites.

Yeah, oh yeah, I love that. I love the whole Cinderella story. I mean, Bill Murray was just he made such an impression on this movie. Yeah, That's what I remember as a kid, was him. Mostly it's because he's silly, right like he he's clearly like this.

I mean, he's the silliest one of the movie because his character is just I like the Bill Murray character. I do. There is some there have been times where I've watched this movie where I've probably zoned out, if not tuned out of those scenes completely, because there are times when I've watched this movie and I've not necessarily been as inclined to watch Bill Murray just doing the doing the Bill Murray thing. I mean, it's his thing. Right, like if chevy Chase has his thing, Bill Murray as his thing.

I mean again, for me, I think it comes back to the Rodney Dangerfield and Ted Knight. I would watch a movie of just the two of them, yeah, going back and forth, just being complete dickheads to each other, Like I would watch that movie, and I think for me, those are the moments in this movie that are really fun. Are anytime that it's the two of them kind of going back and forth or in a scene together with some of the other players. Because towards the end of the movie they start sharing more scenes together. And I yeah, for me, I mean Bill Murray and Chevy Chase, it's they almost feel like the distractions more than anything else, because they are the real cameos of the movie, not Ted Knight in Dangerfield like they I mean, they're there for a fair portion of the movie.

I mean Rodney, I would say, as far as Rodney, Dangerfield is in almost every scene that Ted Knight is it other than some of the moments with Michael O'Keeffe, but they are almost in every scene together for the most part. Yeah, they're the yin and yang of the country club. Although, oh, Dangerfield isn't Tomember and wouldn't ever be. But it's the old money versus new money too. You know, this is nineteen eighty a real estate's hot.

I think there's a guy in New York who's doing a lot of real estate deals. I can't remember his name at this time, but yeah, it's like he basically is representing that new money where Ted Knight is the old money, you know, established family, the people that he surrounds himself with, the I can't remember. He's not a priest, he's like a bishop or something. And then the doctor doctor Beeper a little on the nose of doctor Beeper, but okay, it's as well as Lacy Underall. O god, Yeah, that whole Lacy Underall's character is a very problematic for me, just this whole that both Danny and Todd.

I mean, everybody lusts after her, but that Danny is trying to get with her. So yeah, of course she got you know, the good girl who apparently puts out though the Scottish lass versus the kind of town bicycle with with Lacy Underall. And then that I don't think Danny ends up sleeping with her, but definitely Ty Webb ends up sleeping with her, and I'm just like, well, that's an odd thing. You know. Again, it's like you would think he would feel Danny would feel betrayed or something, but I don't think there's any sort of emotional attachment to her whatsoever.

It's like, I mean, the Michael O'Keeffe character and everything with Lacy Anderoll just feels like a diversion into that one crazy summer, like you know, like let's let's give some wish fulfillment and oh that girl, that one girl that came to town for the summer, and oh, you get to hook up with her, and uh, you know, and your girlfriend doesn't really care. And it's like it's all of that. It's those wish fulfillment things that come from like like parts of this movie feel like a summer camp movie or like a camp movie almost. Like all of the stuff at the Caddy Shack with Brian Doyle Murray feels like like a summer camp or like a camp movie, just the way that they're interacting with each other and everybody kind of constantly posturing.

And again, I think that there's actually an interesting and fun movie there as well with those personalities at the caddy shack. It's just they never give it's it's almost like the movie is just has adhd. And I mean, given the people that wrote it and the amount of cocaine that they were doing, Yeah nose candy nineteen eighty Hello cocaine. Yeah, it's not even us saying that. Like in the book they talk about how much coke that these people were doing, so they were up to their eyeballs and the white stuff.

So I'm sure that that affected a lot of this. But at the same time, the movie feels like it's on cocaine because it's just ping ponging around all over the place and never I mean, wow, that's the thing like it it never sits long enough to establish what it wants to do. But I think it works in spite of that, and I think this this kind of movie. It's it's hard to do organically, it really is, and they managed to again make it work for the most part. But again there's also icon I mean the iconic moments of the duty, the baby Ruth thing like you mentioned, Mike, like that can be taken out of context and laughed at.

So at least the movie the movie has some staying power without I guess like the quotability, and obviously, I mean we haven't even mentioned it. That mother fucking gopher puppet Oh Jesus Christ, which opens the fucking film and closes the film. I mean, he's the last thing that you see. I mean, that odd, odd ending with the two goons chasing after ten night and then Rodney Dangerfield standing on the golf course apparently alone, but then all of a sudden he just goes, hey, everybody, let's get late, and then there's everyone there. I'm like, what what just happened?

So I was eleven when we saw this, and I loved that damn Gopher, so of course I got Gopher and the Kenny Logins song are fucking legit, man, I mean that Loggin's tune this started him, you know, like between this and Footloose and top Gun. Fuck. Yeah, Kenny Logins owned the nineteen eighties, man, yep, I had, yeah, I had the single, had the long form of the single with the choral stuff at the beginning that opens the movie, and I have the song on my phone now and it doesn't have that. So I need to track down that longer version because I love the choral opening. What strange end credits.

Storry to pick on the end credits for this movie, but the end credits are bizarre for me because usually in end credits now they list all the songs in the order in which they were played in the movie. This is completely the opposite because it ends with I'm all right, which started the movie, and like, oh, well, that's kind of weird. We should probably the placement. The cast placement is weird too. In the credits, it's like, way after all this other stuff and then it's like the full cast.

Yeah, yeah, it sorted to interrupt. No, no, I was just going to bring up John Peters. You guys are talking about cocaine, and that reminded me that this is a John Peters choint. This is the movie he also made the same year as one of my favorite films in the entire world, Die Laughing, which was the movie with Robbie Benson where he plays a Russian cab driver who ends up finding a monkey that knows the world's nuclear secrets. It's did a whole episode on it.

Apparently I tossed off the director quite a bit because I was making fun of the movie in a loving way because I love that movie, he didn't think it was a loving tribute to it, and then he would go on right after Caddyshack to do American World in London. I mean, the guy is all over the place as far as the quality of his filmography. But interesting person, let's just say that, Yeah, isn't isn't that the guy that what's his name? Supposed to be in sal Rubinik in True Romance? I think that's Jerry Silver latest Paul Thomas Anderson movie which I know, Oh, the Chris Pizza I haven't seen it, of course, but what's his name?

Bradley Cooper. Isn't he John Peters in that movie? I think so? Yeah? Yeah, huh yeah.

I find it amusing because again, like I feel like, if if you know nothing else about this movie, you know about The Gopher, yeah, oh yeah right. But I but for me, it's like again now with a fair amount of time since the movie has come out, obviously, I do wonder like, what is that The reference point for anybody at this point is just that song, the Kenny Loggins song and the Gopher. Oh fuck, I forgot about the is it? Is it? No?

No? I'm sorry, I sorry to interrupt you with wrong information. I was thinking of the vacation theme, but that's Lindsey Buckingham. Buckingham. Sorry, I'm sorry, Chris Well.

Let me interrupt you with the story. So about six months ago, my wife and I were in Omaha, Nebraska, and we walked into a Saint Vincent de Paul thrift store and I was wandering around the store looking for something to buy and I came upon this whowing fucking any thing that also say why anymore? Yeah, and it just it just goes and it dances, and I was thinking to myself, alazing, is that What is that? What people know Caddyshack for is the fucking gopher? Is that what it is like?

And that's so weird to me because again, like it, I think it further reinforces kind of my point of like, this movie really has no idea what it wants to be because I cannot believe that there is a fucking animatronic gopher in it. It's kind of defies explanation in a lot of ways because that is Bill Murray's antagonist throughout the entire movie, is this animatronic terrible gopher puppet. To the point where it's like it's not terrible. No, it's great, especially when it coughs dust at the end. It's got moves, man, Yeah, I know, I watched it dance just now.

It has the puppet. The toy that I have for six dollars has as much range as the puppet did in the movie. I'm aware. What is Bill Murray talking about the Gopher oon tang? What he just says things like some of this movie is just people just saying stuff.

I don't know how else to like, how else to describe chevy Chase as just like train of thought man, sometimes like he just you know, thank you very little. You're a tremendous slouch like that. I've you know, as much as I I know that the script for this movie was written by Doug Kenny. Like you know that chevy Chase was just going, just just going, Like when he's putting his arm around Ted Knight towards the end of the movie, It's like, this is just chevy Chase fucking around. Well, Doug Kenny was a big fan of that gopher.

From everything I've read, what was the what is the Doug Kenny story? Because I know the name, and isn't he part of that whole yeah, like the Stone whatever that that movie was. He's part of the National a movie. There's a movie called Delta House. No, that was a TV sho.

There's a movie with Will Forte playing him. That's what I'm trying to come up with, the Stoned, you know. That's that's the documentary about a futile and stupid gesture. The one you're talking about is the documentary about National Lampoon, which is good. The biography movie with Will Forte is okay.

I watched it, actually, Chris because of my interest in Peter Ivers because he was connected with all those guys and is actually in the movie played by I think played by the guy from it that played Wouldn't that be something Will Force could play Chevy Chase pretty well? I would think it's boy. Yeah, he's got big time energy and plus he studied him all those years on Community. Yeah, studied him a nice way. So anyway, yeah, that Lampoon gang.

So that's the connection between him and Murray and or the Murray brothers and everybody else. Oh my god, Brian to old Murray looks like a baby in this movie, even with that mustache, that horrible mustache, and that those eyebrows that connected the middle, but he just he was almost unrecognizable except for the voice. Yeah. Yeah, when I I didn't even know who he was when I was a kid, Like I didn't realize that Bill Murray even had a brother until years later and then seeing it later on going oh, he's in this because I saw his name on the credits, you know, as a writer, But didn't did never made the connection. Well, they have a few brothers, don't they isn't one of the lot like moving violations or something.

That's what the Noonan Family is based on. At that opening. That's why there's so many kids in that house. It seems to be like the eight Murray kids. Oh Jesus, okay, you know, the big Irish American family.

And you know, poor Albert Selmi gets like two minutes of screen time because of that, because I'm sure they had other stuff in there too, probably Danny at home arguing with his parents more and all that stuff got cut out for Chivy and Rodney and Bill. Yeah, the people on the poster, like you said, yep, so we haven't. We haven't mentioned Harold raymis a whole lot yet. But I kind of I was curious, you know, because again, obviously he would go on to direct a fair number of things. Does he bring a whole lot to this movie as a director, maybe, I mean, you know what I mean, Like I I because again, like the movie almost feels like it kind of directs itself.

I don't know, like, you know what I mean, there's a lot of just I this is such a weird, a strangely put together movie, I guess is what is what I'm getting at. It's there's no noticeable flares of directorial genius in the film, but it's handled well. Everybody's in front and nothing's weird. I don't know. He didn't direct that many films though.

I think a lot of his writing credits get confused for directing credits because he doesn't have nearly as many directing credits that you know, writing I mean, you know, meet Malls before this and then just tons and tons of stuff. I mean, it's one of those Year one guys come on yeah and be dazzled. The Brendan Frasier. I mean, this was his the first real film directorial debut was Scatty Shack, because before that he had only directed a TV special and they would go on right from this too, well, not right from it was a few years to Vacation and then fucking Club Paradise. Do you guys remember that one with Robin Williams and Peter O'Toole and Rick moranis cool?

It was bad? That was like there was a lot of years where it's just like, oh me away from this Robie Williams guy, because his movies are awful. Between that and what was the one he made with Walter Mathow all of that movie? Do you I mean? I saw very good It's theater so I mean at the drive end, yes, sur Rivers, Yeah, it's Yeah, it's another one of those weirdly off tonal movies.

But I remember seeing a lot as a kid and always liking it. Again, I had a thing for him because of Mork and Mindy, you know, and I when I saw what I Could either in the theater on TV went and saw Moscow on the Hudson in the theater and was like, this is not very funny. I did not like that at all. No, I of all the movies with Robi Williams that I liked a lot when I was a kid, and I haven't revisited in years was the World According to the Garb, I love that movie. That movie kind of traumatized me, the whole thing, the guy getting his dick bit off.

Oh yeah, it's it holds up. I watched it ended up on HBO Max a couple of years back. I had been looking for it online for a long time and always remembered liking it as a kidnam like is this going to work? Still? And it totally does on the next episode of the Robin Williams podcast.

Well that was my That was my concern with doing this movie because again, like, it's not a Chevvy It's not We're kind of going against our own definition here of like a Chevy Chase vehicle, because I would say that this movie is a Chevy Chase vehicle inasmuch as he is part of this movie and he and I think they almost like made made him seem bigger than he needed to be for the movie's sake. Top billing, face front and the poster what do you you know? What do you want? Yeah? Well what do you want?

Exactly? He edges out probably two thirds of Danny's story, So, I mean, he's the point where he's with Sarah Holcomb like to the point where he is having the interactions with the other female character that he would be having that Tom Nowonan's character or Danny Newton's character would be having because that's that stuff's character. Tom God though, Michael O'Keefe and Tom Noonan like like their hair styles, Like it trips me out because like they're tall dudes with kind of this like bushy the little bit of the bushy hair, but the everything it feels like the Thai Web character is just the Danny Newton character, just the side of it that they're taking away from him and giving to someone else.

And it's like, but why, because that's the thing. Michael o'keep is really good in this movie. He's actually really great, like and we haven't even said that, like for as much as he's just kind of sidelined like he's he's really charismatic and I like him a lot, and I kind of always forget that he's even part of this movie because I think that's what the movie wants. But he's actually really he is very good. His line deliveries always catch me off card I'm like, oh, he's really doing He's really doing the work here that I don't know what the begin name, when he's talking to his dad and when he's trying to do the blind fold shot and Chevy keeps talking and he's like, I don't know, it'd be a lot easier if you weren't talking so much.

I don't know. Something about his delivery just works. I mean, is he bitter about this movie? It feels like he should be. Yeah, yeah, I had a lot more.

He's coming off of The Great Santini, you know, where he plays a pretty big art of memory service. It's like between him and Yeah, it's all yeah, well, but I mean he's the main kid in that movie. He's the one who is really kind of telling the Pat Conroy story through this well yeah, and suffering at the hands of his father. Yeah, and then he comes over here and he's sidelined by all of these big names who were you know, weren't really huge names, but yeah that they were definitely coming off of SNL. I mean, I don't know where Dangerfield was in his career.

I definitely used to watch a lot of him on Parson on YouTube. I'm not aging myself that much. I didn't watch the original Tonight Show. Well what I also thought the Jack Pard in a way better job than Johnny Carson, you know, and really should have been Steve Allen show. This is Dangerfield's essentially his first like big role in a movie.

I mean, he was in The Projectionist in seventy, but I mean a very small role in that he was just that really dicky manager who's like put more assault than the popcorn so we sell more sodas. Yeah, I mean speaking of Chuck McCann, yes, but who doesn't. Yeah, but Patty Shack. I mean that's you know, that story I was telling at the top of this about Dangerfield not understanding why people weren't laughing at his jokes because he's just used to the stand up you know, stage, like I don't. I mean again that I wish that.

I almost wish that there had just been two different movies like two and Now and in this day and age, like I think you could do this movie the right way. I just think you would have to have a bigger actor cast as the Michael O'Keefe role so that his role doesn't get sidelined because of all the other you know. I mean, you could see someone coming along and making a movie like Caddie Shack in twenty twenty three with you know, some bigger name actors kind of at the periphery, but you have some still well known people as the ensemble cast. And that's what they did here, But the balance would have been better, because again, you really can't wait it in one direction just because Hey, these are all my friends and I've worked with them on various other comedy things, so I trust that they're going to do a better job than actually telling the narrative part of the story.

No, when I was watching this movie, I was thinking of kind of going along what you're talking about. As far as if this was remade today, I think that Ryan Reynolds really captures a lot of that self satisfied, smirking assholeism of should be Chase will say that I like Ryan Reynolds a lot in a lot of movies, but he can be us a. He's a spice that goes a little heavy on certain movies I just watched, and yes, yes, but it feels like especially that whole like I'm riffing now, that feels very Chevy Chase to me. Yeah, I can totally see that. It's interesting though that the sequel I think goes in the direction of those added on characters.

I mean, it looks to me. I haven't seen it yet, but it looks to me like it's the Rodney Dangerfield character movie for the most part. Yeah, even though it's not him. He's not Jackie Mason isn't playing that character, but he's playing that character. Wow.

Yeah. And apparently he's playing his character from the Jerk in that movie. Really yeah. Oh, gotta barely remember him even being in the Chirk. He's the gas station owner right the shooting the cab.

So, yeah, dad, he had a weird career resurgence. Do you remember that. I mean, I think it had something to do with him being cast in Caddy shak Too. It was like, probably he kinda he got canceled because he flipped the bird allegedly on that I might have been on the Tonight Show and he couldn't get work for a while. Then suddenly it's like, oh no, there's this great comedian Jackie Mason, you know.

Okay, I reserve judgment for the second movie until we watch it. But I do not remember enjoying it. I've never seen it, so I'm very nor have I And that's one of the ones I'm not looking for. But I mean, you literally never hear about the second movie, which I think probably speaks volumes about the quality. And I think our friend and father Malone would defend it because I know he is un ironically a fan of Caddyshack too, But I was thinking, you know that the staying power of this movie, I don't think is any one thing.

I because you know again, and I mean, if you think about something like Blues Brothers, which you guys already mentioned, I mean, what you remember from that movie is acrid and Belushi's performances and everything surrounding it. But this movie, I think is a little less specific as to what any one person is going to take away from it, because again, for me personally, like I've already mentioned, Dangerfield and Ted Knight are really just the pillars of the movie to the point where, and I mean we've already kind of mentioned it, like a remake or just like more of those two kinds of characters being dickheads to each other would have been welcome. And again I'm and you know you mentioned the snobs versus slobs thing like this, this movie and so many other movies in the in the eighties.

We're trying to do these these kinds of stories, and I don't know if this is even the best one. It's just I think one of the better known ones. It just tacked onto a golf movie. Like you know, ESPN claims that this is the greatest sports movie ever made. I disagree, Like, it's a comedy, but it's not a sports movie like at at all.

I mean, I guess, I guess if you're using the most, I guess, the widest of definitions. Yes, there is golf in this movie, just like there's Christmas in Diehard. So you're right, I guess it is a golf movie. Sure, it's just again like I feel like it's more just like a really extended snl skit more than anything else. Well, it's better than the Legend of Bagger Vance and way better than ten Cup.

Well, and that is I guess that's the other question. I don't dislike Happy Gilmore, but I also understand that Adam Sandler is definitely not everybody's cup of tea. I think that for me is peak Adam Sandler, those early movies that he did before. Again, he just kind of does, like some of the actors in this movie end up doing which is just playing the same character over and over again, and you know, because that's I mean, you know, we're probably gonna get to that point with Chevy Chase where we're just like, well, this guy is just doing the same thing to the point where now you're just being asked to do the same thing over and over again. I mean we're at eighty right now, which his shtick is still landing with people.

By the time we get to Nothing but Trouble, his stick is not just not landing with people. It is far from something anyone has any interest in. This is so much of this podcast is going to be a brave new world for me because I've not seen a lot of these movies. The ones that I have seen, like Modern Problems, I saw a lot, but the other ones, I mean, I've maybe seen Vacation once all the way through. I remember seeing European Vacation at the drive in theater in not enjoying it.

So I yeah, I'm very curious about how these movies are going to be because I haven't seen what's the one maybe Deal of the Century I saw once. I think I saw Fletch once, Spies like Us. I don't know if I ever saw that. So, yeah, this is going to be very new ground for me. Yeah, I'm gonna be It's going to be back and forth for me because as I go through the list, I've never seen, never seen the theater, saw in the theater, saw in the theater, never seen.

It's a weird mix. And I think I held on to my fandom of him via SNL up until a certain point and then it was like, I think I'm done. I don't think I liked this guy as much as I thought, But I mean, I saw spies like us in the theater. I saw three amigos in the theater I saw, and then there are some like under the Rainbow that I've never seen a minute of. So yeah, it's going to be totally back and forth for me.

So before we mentioned the next thing we're talking about that is kind of the last moment I wanted to kind of get to. Is from the last time we saw Chevy Chase chronologically an O Heavenly Dog to now this is this is more in line with what he was doing on SNL at the time, and in something like an O Heavenly Dog or a foul play, those those those bits were part of it, but now that's the entire focus. And I think it's just interesting to see how he's being used at the time, because in foul Play, it seems like they actually are asking chevy Chase to act and play a character, and in this movie, they're just like, just like you said, Mike, just riff, just do the thing. Just just start saying funny stuff, funny man.

And it's interesting to see how they're utilizing chevy Chase this early on in his career because I actually resonate a lot more with what he was doing in Foul Play than I at all. I'm resonating with what he's doing in this movie, because again, what he's doing in this movie is fun and fine, but what he's doing in this movie is we're gonna see that like the next twenty movie. He's like what he was doing in foul Play is such a different expectation that, I mean, there is a universe where that version of chevy Chase is more successful and his roles are more Taylor dim being a leading man and less a leading goofy guy, because that's the thing, Like, he's obviously very good looking, but in this movie, like he's so aloof it's hard to get it's hard to get a sense of any any character because he's so intentionally illud Notice his hat though in this movie that he's really starting to lose it a little bit up top, if you know what I mean, and keeping that hat on when he takes his hat off.

At one point, I was like, oh, that forehead is taking up a lot of space there, checking and speaking as a bald person. I mean, I'm not making fun of bald people, but it's just interesting to trace the hairline as you're watching these movies. Yeah, he's one of those I think that was going going early because even on the first season of SNL it's like not a comb over, but it's the comb down. Yeah, to create the illusion of more hair. If he pulled his hair back, I think that would be a five or six heads.

Oh yeah, it's like, yeah, it's like maybe that like the first quarter of his head is just completely exposed. I mean, looking forward to the next three, that's for sure RECs four movies. But the all I'm on board, No, I'm and I'm with And that's kind of my point with my question about Chevy Chase is like, again, he clearly has some range as an actor. It's just weird to me that again, by the time we get to the end of this podcast, we're gonna have felt like there is no range, I'm assuming, but to go from something like foul Play to O Heavenly Dog to then this, it's like they're really just taking Chevy Chase and having him do very little now thank you, very little, but very little. Like because again, like he could he could have been the lead of this movie.

He could have been the main character of this movie, and that movie I think would have worked just as well. It might have worked even better if it had just been the Thai Web character throughout. And I mean, obviously we're gonna see that as we progress with Chevy Chase's career. But yeah, it I think for me, Caddy Scheck is like end reading the reviews about it, Like every every review says the same thing that we have for the most part, if they're even kind of on the fence about it, it's like this movie is just kind of chasing its tail around in a circle. And yeah, I completely agree.

Even as like I said, as much as I love this movie, which I love this movie a lot, I think I love this movie for the bits where those lines come from, not necessarily the movie in its entirety, because there are parts of this movie where I just check out because I'm like, I don't really even know if I care about some of these interactions with something. Yeah, it's like the parts are more than the sum of the hole. Yeah. And if you're a Bill Murray fan, you get something out of it. If you're a Chevy Chase fan, you get something out of it.

If you're a Rodney Dangerfield fan. So I think that's where the stain power is is there's enough of that stuff for fans of those guys to keep it going. If you're a Michael o'keith fan, you know, he does some solid work. He just gets sidelined. Sidelined, Yeah, which is weird for a movie where again, like it opens with him, and it edged with him, and yet he's not there enough throughout to feel like he's just the book end of the Oh and we got to see him win the tournament, okay, and then he gets tie the tournament.

Actually yeah, yeah, and I would not have taken that. There's definitely interference there. Yeah. Well, and there's a time there's a time limit to on waiting for a ball to drop in the hole. I've watched numerous golf tournaments in my life and seeing situations like that, and you have a certain amount of time before you have to just hit it in.

So Mark no cinema sin number one everything with Gaddy Shack in fifteen minutes? Whoa did you know that there's not actually a saliva line that was made up in the movie? Yeah? What was That's bizarre? That was bizarre.

That's the first time I've ever heard that line. What is she saying? And then she licks his hand, so yeah, no thanks, no thanks, Lacy Underall. Yeah, I don't know where that tongue's been. I've been shot a penicillin right after that.

The last thing I want to mention before we close, is we because we haven't mentioned him? Shockingly, is John F. Barman Junior as Spalding double farts smales, Oh my god, the real hero of the film arts double turns. Yeah, he is the hero of the like he he makes such an impression and Ted Knight just ragging on him constantly is so fucking hilarious. And I mean just that thing.

I'll have a cheeseburger. No, it's like anything exactly like Ted Knight. I don't know, like fucking great. Yeah, I mean I think that's the big takeaway is like, yeah, it's a Chevvy Chase movie, but Ted Knight and rounding Dangerfield, that's really that's really why you would show up for this movie in twenty twenty three, I I personally so. On the next episode of the Chasing Chevy podcast, we're going to be taking a look at the next film chronologically in Chevy Chase's filmography, which seems like old Times, which has nothing to do with golf but everything to do with love, yeah or something like that.

And dogs a lot of dogs. Are there actually dogs? Oh? Tons of dogs? Yes?

Oh I thought you were kidding one thing. Oh there are tons of dogs. Yes, oh fun okay, so yes, Chevy Chasing Goldie On and Charles Groton. So I'm I'm very much looking forward to that. And until then, where can people find you and the things that you work on, Mark Begley, You can find me at Weirdingwaymedia dot com with my shows Wake Up Heavy and Cambridge and with Sean and wacap heavy dot com where all that stuff is listed, and on social media at Wake Up Heavy by you how much?

Go ahead? Begley, you you lead? You lead? How about you? Mike White?

I think this similar. I'm not on social media wake Up Heavy, but all the stuff that I do is available over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com, including the Projection Booth, which is a weekly movie show where I have covered a haul free amount of Chevy Chase films, in fact, I think all of zero. So if I could have gotten Carrie Fisher and Chevy to reunite to talk about under the Rainbow, I would have, But that just that will never happen now, So there's a loss. And how about you, Chris. As for me, you can find me at weirding Way Media as well, where we have covered several Chevy Chase movies, including Fletch and Fletch libs and Confess Fletch, which technically is in a Chevy Chase movie, but you know character that Chevy Chase played at Fletch.

Yeah, so we have covered some Chevy Chase movies if you're interested. If not, you can still go to Weirdingway Media and find all the other things that I work on that are nothing to do with Chevy Chase, which are more than the things that are for talking about Chevy Chase movies. You can go listen to our foul play episode on my show, which was I guess the impetus for this, Yeah toldly was you are the reason. How's that feel great? Send the hate mail to wordiwaymedia dot com right, Send it right to me.

I'll get it. Why are you talking about movies you don't even like? Yeah, right, you don't even like it. I'd like Chase, I like Caddie Shack a lot, but not as much as the Blues Brothers. Once we start getting out there, the iTunes reviews will tell us how wrong we are