Episode 796: Matilda (1978)

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People say good money to see this movie. When they go out to a theater. They want clod sodas, hot popcorn in. No monsters in the projection booths. Everyone for ten podcasting isn't boring.

Off. This is the greatest spider that ever walked. Mota'm boxing kangaroo. I mean now the boy is strong. Huh he's an animal?

To cut off the tale of a kangaroo and what happens. The championship fighters on and renal. Congratulations for the first time in my life, you made me a winner too. Thanks, and you'll thank Matilda for bringing out the winner in us all. He even has Debbie and Pat Boone singing out Matilda, what a knockout.

Rat did gee? Welcome to the Projection Booth. I'm here st Mike White joined me once again. Is mister Colin Gallagher heck fuzzy. Also back in the booth is mister Mike Sullivan.

Hey, hello, guys, it's a pre birthday thing. I had six chili dogs tonight, so I'm just gonna do my best. I'm just gonna hang in there for you. Just about. How many hot dogs do you eat a day?

We continue Comedy Month with one from nineteen seventy eight, Daniel Mann's Matilda. The film stars Clive Ravel as Billy Baker, a former boxer who has somehow made friends with a boxing kangaroo, Matilda, played by Gary Morgan. They meet up with an unscrupulous promoter, Bernie Bonelli played by Elliott Gould. Also in the picture our Robert Mitcham as a sportswriter, Harry Guadino as a mobster, and Karen Carlson as a goodie goody from the ASPCA. We will be spoiling this film insofar as it can be spoiled, So if you don't want anything ruined, turn off the podcast, go out and find the new four K blu ray from the Criterion collection and come on back.

We will still be here. So, Mike, when was the first time you saw Matilda and what did you think? Sir God. I saw it how to be like the Early Oughts, and I think it was in part. This was in the notes Paul Fright talks review of it, and that's where I found out about it.

He want to as it his website. And it's one of those movies that you hear about and you're like, oh, okay, and then you watch it and you're like, ah no, no, you know, like it sounds. It's one of those one that sounds better to talk about than actually sit through, you know. But I guess we'll get into up more tonight, and Colin, how about yourself. I think I first heard about this when I was preparing a feature for a website I used to write for it called Not Coming to a Theater near You, So that would have been about fifteen years ago.

The feature never made it to the website, but it was going to be focused on nineteen seventies sports films because there's some fantastic ones on Holy Rollers, Kansas City Bomber, Bad News Bears, and if you go into the early eighties, like All the Marbles. And then I saw Boxing Kangaroo movie with Elliott Coold and Robert Mitchum. What the hell is this thing, and I don't remember. When I finally tracked it down, I thought it was as weird and wild as the premise. Added, I really like this movie.

You know. It strikes me as something like you could only get away with in the seventies, but in a weird way, I think you could have actually got away with it in the thirties. Like there is something very old fashioned about it, and it's based off a novel by Paul Gallico, who had been a sportswriter, And there's this something about the story that I could picture Jimmy Cagney in the Elliott Gould role. You could put Edar g Robinson as the gangster. I think you're describing a better movie, better cast thing.

I like Elliott Gould, but I feel like he's miscast, and that it's kind of like almost doing like a half parted Phil Silver's impression, you know, like in being like the fast talking con man. I I'm like, but I think Cagney could have pulled this off a lot better than Gould. You like the movie, so I don't know what your thoughts on like Gould's performance in the movie is. I just found it delightful. It's such a strange mashup of sports movie, gangster movie, family comedy.

And then there's this like anthropomorphic relationship to this kangaroo that's a guy in a suit, And I actually love the fact that the suit does not look realistic. I don't think I would like the movie if it was more realistic. And I'm really glad there's not a real kangaroo because that would just be horrible. I agree with you, it shouldn't look real, but I think it should look less fake. I think maybe if the it wasn't a guy in a suit but a puppet, like a very elaborate like Jim Henson Studio's puppet.

I think maybe then I could I could sort of like hold on to it a bit better, you know, get a better grip on it, enjoy it more. It's such a such a strange movie. I've you know, rewatched it a few more times, and every time it never settles into normalcy, and everyone is playing it's so straight and so sincere. Yeah, it's very earnest. Yeah, And I.

Think that's part of what I really like about it. You can't write it off as a you know, okay, it's just a bad movie. It's like they're trying really hard. I like Elliott Gould, like I just find everyone charming for the most part. There's some scenes that I don't quite like with him that don't you know.

There's elements of the story when they try to have all these interpersonal dramas that don't quite work. But when it's everything with Matilda I think is really funny. I especially love all the goofy gangsters stuff when they're trying to like tick a hit out on them and it becomes a slapstick like when it's goofy, that's when it works best. You brought up a point that I was kind of surprised by with this movie. It's it's weirdly sprawling.

There's like a lot of characters and like a lot of I don't even want to say, like drop dramatic threads. But there's things like Art Matrano as the cab driver. You have Ellie Gould's brother in law who incidentally, how old is Ellie Gould's sister that is brother in law is linel Standard. You have all these like that, you have like the the guys under Harry Harry Gardino, you have all the you have the Carlson, you have that. I guess it was cut the actors that work with that, with Neville on that show, that fake show, that's sort of that convoluted thing to make it seem like Matilda's a guy in a suit.

You know, there's all these like it's almost like it's like at times there because this is way too this isn't true, Like it's almost like they're trying to do like an Altman movie all these characters. That's not the case. But there's a lot of like weird almost like drop dramatic threat with these like this sprawling cast. Have you seen the spine of the novel. It's it's not going to work on over the podcast, but it is over three hundred pages.

I didn't realize it was that long. It's funny reading reviews at the time in newspapers. Some critics liked it, some hated it, but everyone agreed this thing is way too long. I found an interview around the same time with Paul Gallico that was in New York Magazine, and he's being like self deprecating, saying like, oh, look, I'm not a good novelist. I'm not literary.

I just spin yarns. If I had been a cave man. I would just go from cave to cave, being like, let me tell your story and you can feed me. And the novel does sort of feel like it has a beginning and it has a twist ending and an in between is just how many more adventures can I come up with from Matilda? It is?

It just goes on and on and it keeps veering and you get so much more about No. No. There's a whole side story about how he has a dual identity, and it talks about him being a Harvard graduate. So the stuff that you're hitting on, Mike, especially having read the book, the movie is really fragmented with all these other characters. But at the same time, isn't the ASPCA lady.

Isn't she added for the movie, which adds a whole other subplot which really isn't necessary, doesn't feel very motivated, and she kind of changes on a dime when it comes to I hate this Elliot Gould character because he's exploiting this animal. Oh, I feel really bad because I got his TV show canceled, so now we can be romantic partners. That was odd. My history with this movie is and I probably have told this on the show before. If not here we go.

As we're recording this, we are two days away from the fifteenth anniversary of the Projection Booth. So about fifteen years ago also, I started thinking about writing a book about Elliott Gould. And what I wanted to do was have a book that was Elliott Gould on one side, and you would flip it over and be Donald's Otherland on the other, because between those two guys, they made such a wide breadth of movies in the nineteen seventies, and I'm just talking about the nineteen seventies only and just the wild ride that these two guys had, you know, starting off the decade with Mash and this huge unexpected hit that they had, and then you know, coming back together again and like the Little Cameo and Little Murderers and then that horrible movie Spies that they were in, and they just they had these crazy highs and lows.

And I mean you just look at Gould and just how high he was at times literally sometimes, and then how low he would get. I would consider this more one of his lows. But it's interesting because they're are like these family movies, and he's just all over the place when it comes to the like genre and stuff, like you look at something like this, you look at something like who or Roboman, which is like this kind of sci fi movie but not that sci fi, and it or like Capricorn One, which is also kind of sci fi but not quite sci fi. And he's just all over the place. And I'm just like fascinated by those ten years in the nineteen seventies and the trip that this guy took.

So like, that's why you know, we've been all these years, you know, especially over the last few where I've really been trying to talk with Elliott Moore and trying to get some of these stories out of them because I still want to write this book eventually. And so as back in twenty twelve, I think it was, I started interviewing people. So you're gonna hear interviews, some posthumous interviews later on, from Albert Ruddy who's no longer with us, from the co screenwriter who's no longer with us, from Gary Moore again, who thankfully is with us, and from Elliott who is also with us, thank goodness. So I'm sitting on all this stuff. Let's help share it with the podcast, and maybe you know, I can eventually massage these conversations into something as well, because, like I said, he's all over the map when it comes to this.

And like this movie, it's just such a strange thing, Like you know, it feels like a family movie. But then you've got the whole thing of the gangsters again more comedic gangsters, but I'm talking about cutting off this poor kangaroo's tail and trying to take all these hits out on them. It's just this weird blend of like mobster and comedy and then sports, and it just tries to tick all these boxes. And there's so many big question marks for me, even things like I mentioned in the opening, It's like, where the hell does Clive Ravelle know Matilda from? Do they ever talk about that in the movie?

I'm hoping that they talk about it in the book. I don't remember much about it in the book, to be honest, and maybe it just in those three hundred something pages. There's just too much for me to retain for one reading. But there's a lot of dropped floth threads in the movie, like the whole no no thing. Yeah, because I still kind of don't really and this is gonna sound bad for a movie that I'm talking about on my own show.

But I don't understand the plot that much when it comes to like the whole Robert Mitcham character, because I was reading reviews and they're like, oh, yeah, the villain of the piece, Robert Mitcham, And I'm like, really, is he the villain of the piece because I thought he was just like a sports writer and somehow he's getting Gould and Revel to go along with his whole thing of like, yeah, keep trying to box these other people, and then I'm going to what blow the whistle on Uncle No No? And just how corrupt boxing is? Am I getting that right? I took it as like he was gonna out No No as like I don't know, well, that one makes sense either, like he was sort of like rigging the fights. But if he's rigging, I don't know.

Yeah, it's he doesn't really know who Uncle No is. Oh really, Mitcham's not aware of No No. That's a good So that's something that's different in the movie in the book, And because in the book he's friendly with somebody unaware that he is Uncle No No. So Uncle no No isn't his Christian name. No that's that's his, like that's his like mafia name.

Oh I thought for sure I'd look at his driver's license. Is say, you know, no, no comma uncle. But you know, it's like in the beginning of the movie he's talking about I want to do these matches so you know, we can get no no out. But then at the end they see each other at the boxing arena and they seem to know each. Other, and there's a whole thing of like the money's going to go to like the children's hospital or something too.

Let's go back to Gould. Gould is like the wild card in this. It's like Revel we start, you know, well, first off, we start with Clive Revel greeting us and us going inside of his bar, which has a kangaroo on the outside, a big picture of Matilda on the inside, and he's talking to us and kind of setting us up with a framing device, which, thank goodness, actually come back to the frame later on in the movie, and he again he doesn't say where he picked this kangaroo up, because then we move into the story proper and the first thing we see is him and Matilda, and Matilda's just hopping down the street of New York City. We don't really know how they got there or anything. It just feels like they've been kind of dropped in the United States.

And even though Revel I think he says that he's British, but he talks like an Irishman, and just with his look and everything, it feels like he's a leprechaun. I kept thinking that he was going to be a mystical creature. By the end of this movie. I was really repulsed by his performance because he supposed to be a former prize fighter, right, but he plays the character like he's nine years old, like you just walking around like he's like mister Goulda, Like he's like twisting his hat. It's like, I can't believe this guy ever fought.

He seems like a dickensortion. Yeah. Yeah. Very soon after, we get the introduction that we've got the cops coming picking up Matilda taking the poor kangaroo to jail and kangaroo jail, I guess or dog jail, and then Revel is like, oh, well, you know, I need to find some help, and somehow he wanders into this I guess. It's what like a booking agency, which is run by, like you said, Lionel Standard as Pinky, I believe, and then his brother in law, this loser guy Gould, who will lie and cheat and do anything that he can in order to book these acts so he can get his cut of the money, is what I'm thinking.

And he just sees dollar signs, So it's a weird gool. Is not a good guy in most of this movie because he's just being motivated by I think just money and fame is what it feels like, like there's not a lot of charity towards this kangaroo and the kangaroo's friend slash owner. But eventually he learns the power of love. Who wouldn't want the power of love if you can get a big hug and kiss from this kangaroo. I can't even imagine how bad that outfit must have smelled.

Oh yeah, it definitely, it definitely smelled. Yeah. And what I read is they only had one outfit. Oh yeah, yeah, it's not like they had many kangaroo costumes. And it costs thirty thousand dollars in nineteen seventy eight money to make this costume for Gary Morgan.

Stan Winstein, Right, is that right? Hey? I think one of the interviews said that it was Stan Winston and I will let me confirm that. And I no more says that he got the job because he fit the suit. He was kind of like the Johnny Bravo of the time.

I think there was supposed to be a boxer inside of the suit to give it more verisimilitude, but he was like, no, you don't put a boxer in a suit. You put a mime inside of the suit because you have to be over exaggerating in your movements and stuff. You can't just, you know, expect somebody to get into this suit and actually give a performance. What was the deal with because I know at the end of the movie, that's when the ears move and the eyelids move. Like my theory is is that was the first scene they shot and after that it broke, So that's why it doesn't move the rest of the movie.

Because he talks about the servos and stuff. I think he said there's like they weighed like fourteen pounds this headpiece when they had all the servos in there, and I'm like yeah, I. Was like you. I was like, when does he move? I don't remember that?

And I was like, yeah, I think right to the end, I see like the eyelashes move and stuff, But yeah, it is not one of the know. It's a far cry from Amy the Gorilla from Congo, that's for sure. Going back to the interviews and just the articles and stuff. The other thing that was, and I don't believe this. I don't believe that this is true.

The thing that I kept seeing was, oh, the critics were mad at Albert Ruddy because when he was promoting the film, he kept talking about how Matilda was being portrayed by an actor and a real kangaroo named Wammo. And when they found out there wasn't a real kangaroo in the movie, and there is, there's the joey at the end, but when the main character, when Matilda, the teacher to Matilda, is not being played by a kangaroo, the writers are saying, oh, and that's when the critics turned against them. And I'm like, I don't think so, Like, like did they just like read all that stuff and the pres notes and they were expecting walking into this movie a real kangaroo and then they were so desperately disappointed that they that's what turned them against this film.

It's like such a minor quibble to be I'm like, Noah, what are you gonna do? You can't train an animal to box? That's like trying to teach Roy Clark how to act. Actually, I take it back. Roy Clark's probably one of my favorite parts.

Yeah, I think he's delightful. Heck, fuzzy yourself or something. I'm just like stun at the level of confidence they had in this movie after they made it. We're I'm always stunned at This had its international premiere at Radio City Music Hall. Oh Culin even found the program, which was amazing, great job Colin.

It was on ebit it it has all the orchestral pieces that are accompanying it and like little stage productions. It was a real show. Did the roquettes come out? And like like what was the whole like situation with that with like how what was did they show the movie? Have it in mission?

And then like have you know rockets come out and do other stuff? So it opens up with the Music Hall Grand Organ. Second part is Matilda. Three is something called cheffone produced and directed by John Henry Jackson with costumes by Frank Spencer. And then that looks like it has multiple parts, an overture, Romanian Rhapsody Number one, the Radio City Music Hall Symphony Orchestra, Lamier Mystique, and Underwater Fantasy with the Music Hall Ballet Ensemble, a German vocal piece I can't pronounce it, something called I Am Woman with Tina Fabric and Eunice Nukkerk, something called Girls, Girls, Girls, the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes, and then a finale a salute to the two oh two of the USA, performed by the entire company.

It's the heck of a show. Yeah, I guess, so Holy Cow, I mean, I guess. You know, if already wanted to do this movie big and starting in a radio city, he went from broke. Well, then all the tie ins, like also Cullen found a promotional item that was a Matilda themed like. Advantage the McConnell line.

Yes, that's great. And then I didn't know until rereading stuff that there was supposed to be a tie in between McDonald's and this movie. And it's so obvious when you see, like there's this big training montage or fighting montage, and then it's like they suddenly just stopped the whole movie and they're all around one tray of McDonald's. One of the few things I love about Matilda. There's two montages.

There's two montages and they both end with the dinner of McDonald's, and the second one has like Ellie Gould eighty yard I showed it. I showed my wife this so much. I love this, just him going he deserves it. As they're like feeding the fake kangaroo like a big. Mac and the kangaroo just like goes and says, this is a really good product.

We've tried this out in Portugal, my native Australia. I mean, some people were saying, what if the kangaroo talked? Would that have made this movie different slash better? I kept thinking what would happen if the kangaroo was imaginary? I kept thinking of Harvey, But I'm like that wouldn't work either.

So I love the scene where it stored the end and Elliot Gould is just sort of having like, you know, this moment where he's just like talking in the dark to Matilda and it's like trying to like get to the character. Because there's a couple of those in the novel. There's another one with a dupe, and I think they compare him to Matilda to having like a mona Lisa smile. I just love all these people just like trying to philosophize and like get into Matilda's brain and you never get what Matilda thinks about anything. I imagined that the Australians must have found this hysterical because I from what I understand, they look at kangaroos as being big rats, you know, just a menace.

And meanwhile everybody is writing about this movie, going, that's not a kangaroo costume, it's a rabbit costume. Well, I mean, have you ever seen just like you're like videos of kangaroo is just attacking, They're like they're terrifying. They're just terrifying. I mean there's that one video of that I don't know. A woman had like a house that was just made of like glass and it was like, I guess, like one sided glass and there's like a kangaroo just like staring intensely as reflection, just like flexing and grunting, and they're just scary.

And that's what I wrote Matilda's One Man's Noble Journey to Murder People of the Kangaroo. I mean, yeah, they are kind of frightening. Creatures and the way that they move and everything with their really more like on all fours a lot of the time too, and they'll just kind of move that way. But yeah, I've seen a lot. There's a little zoo by us that has a couple kangaroos, maybe a wallaby or two.

But yeah, they're strange, strange looking animals, and this costume just I mean, it doesn't anthropomorphize it, but it definitely makes it a lot cuter than a real kangaroo would. Be, I think. But yeah, I don't mind the costume either. Sometimes the little like grunts and stuff that it does. Speaking of grunts, it's just kind of weird.

Yeah, it. Reminded me of Gary the Snail from SpongeBob. So I guess the real thrust of the plot eventually becomes this whole idea of it helped me out here, fellas. It's that they're trying to get the kangaroo to box all these guys, and eventually it's at the behest of Duke the sports writer, the Robert Mitchum character, and that is seeing off the mob, pissing off uncle. No.

No, well, it's because the first in the movie, the first about the actual you know, champion gets is drunk and goes into the ring and gets knocked out by Matilda. And then the article that Duke writes sort of humiliates Uncle No No, and he doesn't Uncle No No doesn't like to be humiliated in the press like that. But they hadn't been letting the fighter fight anybody to defend his title, and so they decided. Duke had this plan, send Matilda on a cross country road trip, you know, get a lot of publicity. I Meanwhile, he's going to try and come up with an event that's so big that No No can't afford to have his fighter not fight Matilda.

And then he bets so much money and the Kangaroo has to take a dive. No, I'm just kidding. That's what I kept expecting to happen, was like there to be more intrigue around this fight and how the Kangaroo is either gonna win or not win, because there's this whole thing right towards the end of the movie where Clive Revelle, who really is kind of useless through a lot of this film, eventually says to Gould. He's like, oh, I'm so sorry. I should have told you this, but he says that in his little wee Irish accent, I should have told you this, but if you punch a kangaroo, it stops fighting and it never like fights again kind of thing.

You're basically ruining this kangaroo if it gets punched. Is that? Is that true? Because I don't think that's true, Okay, because I for years I was telling people that as a fact, and only recently that I realized why am I treating this this like plot point for Matilda as a fact? Like, only recently I started doing that.

I mean, I imagine they box each other, right, Yeah, so if you get if a kangaroo gets hit, it's probably gonna keep boxing, probably the next season or something, right, Yeah. Yeah, the intrigue about the final fight, that's a much bigger point in the novel. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. It feels like it just kind of floats on by.

It's funny as we're watching. As we're talking right now, I am actually watching Matilda on my computer screen, and whatever this print of it is. It's wild because it is boom City all over the place, and I'm watching Gould, you know, entering the office of Duke of Robert Mitchum's and you can see baby spots in the upper right hand corner of the I mean, it is so blatantly obvious that they have these. I'm sure it's just the transfer. I'm sure it wasn't matted correctly.

So I'm so glad that Criterion finally put out that four K that we can do. I just wish they would have sent me a screener copy of it. I didn't notice that in mine it's Majestic Films, it's it's a Region two D. Well, I'm sure they handled it way better than whatever I'm watching, which is probably a hopy off of a VHS tape. Yeah, this was nicely, nicely framed, clean print, good audio.

Yeah, there's a couple of moments in either this print or the one I might have a different one because this doesn't start with a video logo. And there were so many moments where I'm just like, God, this looks like shit. That's just like it's so dark and just the shadows are way too much, and I'm just like, yeah, this, I really wish I was watching a better copy of this, which when I said that out loud to my wife, she was just like why are you watching this again? I'm like, honey, I have to. So when you're talking about sort of this middle part of the movie, there were a couple of bits in the book.

I thought y'all would find a music if I can spoil the novel. I'm ready for the novel to be spoiled. Anybody listening that wants to read the book, you know, skip ahead. In Matilda's travels around the country, Matilda becomes an icon for hippies, and they like gravel to see Matilda. They like hold protests.

It's just like an icon for the hippie movement. When Matilda is fighting in oh I can't know if it's in New York, but it must be in New York. The mob decides to hire somebody to give Matilda the evil eye. And apparently they're known for going to boxing matches looking at a fighter giving the evil eye, and the fighter loses. And so Elliott Gould goes over to Jersey and finds one of his elementary school classmates who was known for spitting beaties out of his mouth.

And so this guy is planted in the front row and right before he can give the evil eye, the guy starts spitting Beaties and trying to blind this guy. Oh Jesus Christ. Galico is first actual novel. No So, he was a big sports writer in the twenties and thirties and then he trance switched to fiction. I think at the very end of the thirties.

He want to know Henry Prize, he wrote the novel that The Poseidon Adventure was based on. I haven't read any of his other work. He was a successful writer. He wrote a book about Lou Garrig I want to say that was made into a movie in the forties. And I think he passed away right before this movie came out, or like two years before.

Yeah, he did. Yeah, I knew he had done something and I couldn't remember what it was. But yeah, it's definitely The Poseidon Adventure is what I was thinking of. And that makes sense though, Like I was trying to think about, you know whatever. We're on a podcast with Richard Hadham.

He always talks about It's like, would somebody have gotten fired for green lighting this movie? And I'm like, I really want to know when al Ruddy got the rights, because I'm like, oh, if in seventy two the Poseidon Adventure made like one hundred million dollars. I get it. Somebody probably just like, let's license all the Paul Gallaco. Well, it feels like this was a really personal project to Ready too.

I mean, one, he agreed to talk to me about it, but two he's listed as the co writer on here. It sounds like he was the the biggest and like he would write other things. And actually, from what I understand, he gets a story credit for the Longest Yard, So like when he was producing, he definitely like tried to put his hands on a lot of stuff. And yeah, he's the co writer of this, so you know, he's you know, or at least credited as that and out there doing all of the press and all these things, like you know, the whole thing I was talking about how like oh we already lied to us about the real kangaroo. All right, great, but like it's not that typical for the producer to be out you know, shaking hands and kissing babies.

It's more the director of the star those kind of things. I think you can kind of feel it, like, even if you don't like the movie, as we were saying, it's done really sincerely and earnestly, like there's a heart to it, and I kind of feel like the performers. To me, no one seemed to be phoning it in, you know, everyone seemed to be trying their best to be likable and charming. I enjoy the goofy gangsters, said Lenny Montana, who had been in the Godfather, and it was a bit of a real life mobster, and he was a wrestler before that. I think, I think you're right.

Yeah, well, I was doing some research on The Godfather recently, and yeah, that rings really true. I think I've even seen a picture of him in his singlet. I like Mitcham's performance in this. I think it's really I always crack up the first time that Elliott Gould comes to his office and Elliott Gould introduces himself and Mitcham doesn't even look up from his desk. He's like, I know who you are, that's why you're here.

There's something kind of matter of fact and funny about that. I'm surprised Alex Rocco isn't in this movie. This really seems that like up Alex Rocco's alley. You know, he did a lot of like weird stuff like this in the nineties towards the end of his career, especially when we did I think he did like two movies based on Jay Ward cartoons. So to me, it's like he's it's conspicuous in his absence that Alex Rocco is not in.

This well, especially because he had the Godfather connection too. Exactly. Yeah, it's kind of a coup for. Me that they get Mitcham in here. I know, you know, in this part of his career he wasn't pumping out stellar work or whatever.

But yeah, I'd like him in here. Amsterdam Kill is terrific, which is getting a nice big blue maybe even four K disc sometime in the next few months. A lot of people were complaining, Oh, Mitcham just sleeps walks his way through this, and I'm like, I don't know. I think it's fine, absolutely fine. I mean, they don't give him much to work with, right, And have you ever seen Robert Mitcham be super excited?

I did a bouncing off the wall. I have never seen that the man's middle name is Laconic. I kept thinking about the title of the biography about a baby I don't care, and then what's the other line? Someone asked him what he thought about his own performances, and he said they tade me to make him not to watch him. Do you guys think that Elliott Gould walking all those dogs in order to meet up with the ASPCA lady again?

Is that a reference to Move? Do you think everybody here has seen Elliott Gould's film Move? I haven't, but I did listen to the episode. Maybe that was his like see an nex Wednesday. Like maybe maybe if we go back to all his movies, we've seen him like with a bunch of dogs.

You know, we just never realized that. Yeah, you mentioned Art Matronto before. I always love seeing Art Matronto show up and stuff. You know. You know what's crazy about Art Matrano.

Right before his unfortunate accident, he went to Germany and he's starting a comedy as his character from police Academy. He's not named it. It's not like common I think it was like Ouser Mauser. They can't legally say it Sam. It's just they say, oh, he's been retired from the Academy in the movie, and he's basically playing like an unlicensed commed at Mauser.

Yeah, I forget the name of the German movie. I had and I lost it. But yeah, you mean you had the Blu Ray, the four K of it, and then he lost that. I had the four K of the Criterion. Yeah, the Eclipse Edition of all the art but Toronto off license Police Academy ways, I mean.

And the ending, from what I understand, is very different between book and movie, and it sounds like they had a lot of discussions about how they're going to end this thing. So in the movie, at the big you know, the final showdown, Matilda does get punched, and Matilda then doesn't curl themto a ball, but kind of, you know, retreat and looks like totally sad, and the other fighter is going in for more punches and Elliott Gould frows in the towel and then Uttilda hugs everybody, including the other fighter, and I love all the Matilda hugs in the movie. I don't know, this makes me feel warm and Fozzi, I like that. And so then there's the sort of epilogue you find out that No No bought Matilda and then he you know, sort of retired from the mob.

Now he's in South America raising kangaroos. You know, the Fighter is now being managed by Elliott Gould. He married the one from the SPCA. And that is not the ending of the book at all, you know, sort of when you were talking about, you know, this idea about throwing the fights, that's the big reveal that all, along with the exception of the first and last fights, everything had been staged and the Duke character had been left out of that. You know, Matilda's trainer, you know Baker and Elliott Gould, they were in on it the entire time.

They paid all of the other fighters to take a dive, and they sort of used Elliot Gould or his character in the novel, used this as a way to sort of sell Matilda to No No. Four million dollars against Baker's wishes. So there's a lot more sort of con artistry going on at the end. And then when Duke finds this out, he is like, wait, so I've spent this entire novel trying to like out a gangster to make boxing less corrupt, and now I've been part of this whole corrupt thing myself. And then there's also it's a little sad because Baker, you know, the Bermansey kid, he did not want to sell Matilda, but there was another co owner and they outvoted him.

And when he tried to go to No Nos property to say goodbye to Matilda, Matilda like didn't want to see him. He was like mad at him. So it's it's a bit more of an emotional and dramatic roller coaster. We should note for the audience listening at home, who are just rabid Matilda heads. Matila is a boy is a male kangaroo, which lends itself to a few jokes throughout the movie and is also very difficult to remember when you're talking about a character named Matilda.

And the reason I'm constantly calling these characters by their names, by the actors' names is just because it's very confusing when you have Gould playing Bernie Bonelli and Clive Ravel playing Billy Baker and even like freaking Roy Clark is while Bill Wildman. It's like, I don't need all the bees going on here. So I don't know why they were focused in on those for character names, but it makes it very confusing if you try to start calling these by you know, Billy and Bernie. And there was also it was a name change from the book too. If memory serves, the names work well on the page, they pop and they have character and the Matilda is called Matilda because of the song Waltzing Matilda, which I don't think they explain in the movie.

No, though they do play waltson Matilda at the final match, I think right. And otherwise, the song the main song in the movie is this pretty bad song by Pat Boone and Debbie Boone. I don't think that there's ever been a soundtrack out for this. Otherwise you would hear that kind of off tuned Godfather song that they play whenever the mobsters are on screen. I remember when I asked the animal for his altogresh, you got just enough time to do what you gotta do.

They we get the call we're gone, and the Dutch gabby. I've sposter. Don't so your stool, No no, no. No, no, no stool. I'm just checking why you always get upset about its.

I love. God. I love the sort of goofy mob talk, you know when they just half go into Italian just randomly. And I really do enjoy all the attempted hits, like when uh, you know, Lenny's got the axe and then he like it's like part of like a ladder, it's on a car and then the hand the head flies off and hits somebody else that he hits the ground and it comes back and hits him in the head. You know, it's it's goofy slapstick.

But maybe I'm a cheek date, but it made me laugh. Well, I liked I really like Harry Gardeno when like he's really like swinging for the fences in this like just like this, you know, exasperated intensity, just like him. Yuh Like again, I'm not really seeing this thing three times, so this is crazy for me, says I don't like this movie, but I like I like him in it. I just I like his performance in front of the the Last Supper the Last Supper that's right, the Last Supper mural. Yeah, I mean that's a pretty power move if you're going to like be like decorating your office.

The scene though, that really left me queasy, was Roberta. Collins as this Kanye six who's this I guess she's Schoold's girlfriend in this movie and she just shows up very rarely. But when when Gardino busts the coke bottle and slashes her face with it, and he's like her, I like and turns to Gould says, I don't even like you. I mean that was that was really intense. No one gets the wong goodbye joke.

Come on, guys. That went about my head. I'm just like this like a different cut of the movie. That's what I was thinking. I thought it was like, I kind of want to see this print.

Yeah, Mike, I believe everything you say. So when you start talking, I'm like, did I miss this scene? Oh yeah? And then Arnold Schwarzenegger is there and they and googled makes some strip. Yeah.

I didn't get the I mean, he's her agent. There seems to be a little something, but like he doesn't really seem to be boyfriend material, and so I sort of, yeah, I didn't assume that there was much. I sort of to me, it was just like, Oh, he's buttering up because you know, he needs money in order to pay for this. I guess he's taking an advance on her salary so he can use that at the boxing match to lure people from the audience win five hundred bucks if you can stand, you know, ten rounds with Matilda. But then she's also there to butter up Doacrity with her feminine wiles.

Right, Yes, Hey, that's how he lures the fighter to come into the ring. Yeah, so that's like planned in the book, it's all by accident, Like Matilda's out of town, the fighter is out of town using his real name, and then Duke happened to be traveling and like was like stranded in this town. So it was all coincidence that they were there, and he just happened to recognize the fighter even though he wasn't using his stage name. It kills me. This was based on a book, but not just a book that's extremely complicated and convoluted.

It's so funny to me. Well, that's what I found interesting about that interview with him, where he was, you know, sort of just talking. It's just like I'm just spending yarns and just telling stories. And this really does just feel like you go into a bar in New York and some you know, old timer just sits down and just starts talking story after story, and it keeps rolling and rolling, and it's like, do you know where you're going with this? Because each of the you know, chapters like it's a good yarn, but I could see this going on for another one hundred pages.

They do it all at Clive Ravel's bar because he's kind of that character. I guess he's the in control of the narrative really, even though he's like one of the most minor characters in the film. It's like Uncle No is bigger character than Billy. I'd say, I'd say Pinky's a bigger character than Billy. Yeah, we didn't really tie that knot that Lionel Stander knows Uncle No and is there at all these mob meetings and so he eventually like gets gooled out of the office and all this.

That's before Uncle No does the the whole thing about how many touch points a fighter has a human has versus a kangaroo, which is just like these guys cannot get any dumber. Here we have our chant Dockety observed he is a human being. He has two legs. Huh see the dots one two repeat one two. All right, now here we have our kangaroo.

Now can you tell me the. Difference, Markanti? It's got a tail. But that's beautiful, Marchanti, that's beautiful, beautiful, all right, But not just a tail, not just the tail, Banaco, what else do you see? He just got a long tad?

What else do you see huh. Oh got skinny lins. No, you're really it. He's got an extra dot. He's got three dots.

This kangaroo has been fighting with three dots one two three, one two three while doc and he's only fighting with two dots one two, one two. That ain't fair. I'm gonna call a commission. And what are you gonna tell the commission about the extra debt? You stupid?

A scene like that is where it really feels like this is like a movie of the week. Yeah, And that's the thing. The versions that I've seen, I haven't seen that nice DVD that you've got. The versions I've seen, it just has that look to it just looks cheap most of the time. And I know a lot of that comes from bad transfers, because I've seen a lot of movies that I grew up with and they just look cheap.

And then you finally see a nice version, You're like, oh wow, this looks like a real movie now. I mean, I can I can send you this DVD and we can do another episode next year. Midfilda one year later. Matilda Reducks. I'm too busy working on my my next Megalopolis episode.

I'm trying. I'm still trying to see that. It didn't stick around New York very long. And it occasionally shows up, but it'll be at like ten o'clock at night somewhere and it always sells out. Oh yeah, well, and that's past my bedtime.

I don't know about yours. Oh no, I mean this is this is actually about my bedtime right now. Does every screen of Megalopolos have that guy in the audience? Ask them the question, do they have to have that guy in the audience? No, In most prints that you see don't get you get the guy in the audience, but the audience.

Is on the movie screen. Oh okay, okay, I was wondering how they work that out at every screening. Okay, yeah, it's a it's not really well integrated. I've seen the clip. It isn't.

Yeah, yeah, I've. Seen the clip of this where they actually were using the Alexa technology to answer the questions and yeah, that's rough. Just how long it takes for Adam Driver to respond. All right, guys, let's go ahead and take a break, and we're going to come back with that whole slew of interviews I was talking about. First up, we will hear from producer Albert s Ready.

After that, we'll hear from screenwriter Timothy Galfis, then Matilda himself, Gary Morgan, and finally Elliott Gould. And we'll be back with all of that right after these brief messages. Looking for something superior to streaming, a place with more than five times the selection available on all of the other streaming services combined, check out Scarecrow Videos Rent by mail service. Select from an unparalleled collection of over one hundred and fifty thousand films and get Blu rays, four case and DVDs delivered directly to your door. Get in on it now at scarecrow dot com and rediscover the one of physical media.

All right, welcome to the interview portion of the show. First up, we are going to hear from a producer, Al Ruddy. I'm not sure how many questions you get about Matilda versus The Godfather or some of these other films that you've done. I'm sure you get a few more about that. I can only tell you this, Eli Gould as an actor and as a human being is truly outstanding in my in my all my relationship with Elie, both socially and professly has always been.

I have enormous respect for Eliot Gold and I actually liked the guy a lot, and I can't say that for most people in this goddamn town. He moves ahead, always on a certain thing. There's no he won't set you out, there no real compromise in what he does. There's a purity and how he thinks about life and the people that mean something to him. He's an amazing, amazing man.

And I'm sure that you'll find a lot of more interesting things to write about Eliot gouldan Matilda, I might put it to you this way. Matilda was a movie for one big reason, which I'm going to get into. It didn't work, and not often I could say that when I recount the movies that didn't work in my life, the highlight of the things that happened that were unattractive, the nicest thing all the disasters was having worked with Elliot Gould. He made it all worthwhile. That's how special he is to me.

Yeah, he's amazing. What happened to Matilda's old Gallaga wrote a marvelous book called Matilda, the story of a hustler who finds the world's greatest botch in kangaroo and he gets his girlfriend to take the heavyweight champ of the world, who's infatuated with this girl, to the circus and Elias said, with Matilda blah blah blah, and they're gonna come and fight the kangaroo from an She gets the champ to go in, and the kangaroo knocks the champ down and becomes headline. Now Elliot Gould turns. Us into a huge media event where suddenly the whole world is saying, and this fucking kangaroo beat Muhammad Ali or whoever the champ was, and they boomed into the world heavyweight championship fight between Matilda and the chat.

The script is great, everything's great, And now I have an animal trainer in New Jersey, world famous animal trainer's name I forget and probably dead by now finds me in the world's greatest boxing kangaroo. Honestly, God that all this is the Muhammad Ali of boxing kangaroos. This is brilliant. I said, oh great, I've gotting this thing ready. Now we're opening the movie with the fight in the arena with Jerry Quarry and the kangaroo, with two thousand extras it's our big right.

Don't ask me what motivated me to tell my director Danny Man. You know, Danny, maybe put it check and see how the kangaroo is coming along, because it's going to be shooting in two weeks. Three weeks we called the annual Trainer Run. We drive, fly to New York, take a limb all out to Jersey to the Animal Kingdom. We pulled up this big company of giraffe looking.

As we finally get inside, the guy meets us, takes in a compound with the walls and locks. We get locked in with him. And in the middle of this company, it's this huge crate like they shook grapefruits in it. In the middle of it is this oversized rabbit, which is a kangaroo. Huge.

Hearts down right, and now he takes the red gloves and puts him on his cargar, tasts the canoos sits there and he puts these bread gloves that he puts red gloves on himself and he turns around the dandie and I said, now when I tell my gloves on his face like this, he'll send I'm start fighting. I said, okay. So he turns around the ganger is sitting there with the gloves on, and I've done the spects and would just sit Say looks at him with the gloves on. Is he just nervous because share hare? I said, oh yeah, yeah ha.

Caywage just sits Sarah looks at him, he said, I say, he'll get over in a second. Which point, before he could turn around, the kangaroo is up and punches this guy through the bushes and one shot ship the guy went flying by, hitting him punk forty miles an hour. This thing was scary, but this said was six foot three and leveraging out his ten went wow and hit this guy right in the face. We ran out. We ran and slammed the door.

So Holy Christ, fuck, he's going to kill us right. So now we're sitting there saying what do we do? I said, Danny, we can I use this kangaroo with two thousand people in cherry KOI The cagar will murder somebody. It's too dangerous. Can't control him.

So I called up in front of my Stan Winston and I said, I got again. Wait, I get a kid in the kangaroo kangaroo suit. He said, the configuration's wrong. Guys have little little heads on a pair of white bodies. You can't get a guy in there.

I said, I have to have a guy in a goddamn suit. Otherwise the movie's gonna be that someone's gonna get hurt. Grudgingly, it made me a kangaroo suit. There was so appalling. The pear shaped body was okay, but in order to get a guy head in there, I had a little kangaroo headed between the head and the and the body, we had another like the kangaroo had a goiter it with a fucking hairy net for my guy to get in and looking oh god, it was so.

And a guy hopping around. In his kangaroo suit, and it was the most such a scene in the movie. This is before annamatronis got good. There's like almost a love scene with Elliott and the kangaroo. The gango is going into the box the champ of the world, and Elliott says the Matilda, I want to thank you for everything you made my life and you know I love you and all, and he could to the kangaroo one eye is not working.

The ears. God, it was so fun. I want to kill myself. The great script and Elliagul was so fucking great. No kangaroo, he couldn't do nothing to play again, all right, But Elliott was a trooper man.

He was just great. He never complained, he did his job. He could have been nicer everybody, and he certainly enhanced his reputation with everyone that worked on that movie, especially with me. I just I think he's an amazing man, I really do. I couldn't believe the cast that you had for this movie.

Just amazing. I know, Robin, but we had a nice cat. Well. It's a great screenplay. It's a marvelous book.

Is what happens in the in the book which happened in the Moon with no One, which the Eli Cool. Character doesn't realize because the kangaroo is that good. If you ever really hit a kangaroo box them, it won't fight anymore. So in the final Danty mar in the movie, Matilda has got the chair reelingly ready to fall down, and then it verrely turns around and as he's reaching from the ropes, smashing Matilda in the nose with his glove, and the carriage just stands it won't fight anymore looking at him, and. He's gonna go in and kill the kangaroo and Ellien throws.

The towel in because he loves the kangaroo doesn't want to see him hurt. I was a sweet story. And then they have a gangship named Uncle. No, no, it was a riot. The fucking scriptless hysterical.

It was hysterical. It was not only its fault. It wasn't the fault of the director, the producer, the script, the money. We unfortunately, and I guess if I had to do it all over again, maybe should have canceled the movie. I could not, in all good conscience let that animal into the rain.

Weeks later in Reno would have gotten hurt. When I saw one shot what he did to the sky, we all ran like you could get out of the fucking play. Have you ever seen the kangaroo stand out? Pretty intimidated. Boy, They got the haunches on the back and they moved boom boom, Dann and I ran out.

Holy god, I'm looking to get out alive. I couldn't countenance that at all, though the protecular life. I ruined the movie in the bizarre way. I laugh at it now. And when they run the movie, I leave town.

I changed my name and then I had never, never complained, was always in there trying to do the best job because he was marvelous. But he didn't have anyone to play against. I've been walking down the street with the kangarool down Fifth Avenue and Kearnath and kangaroos are trying to hop with this phony tail. Oh god, it's just horrible. But into every life some rain must fall.

This is happened to be a deluge on this one. Yeah. What was it like for Gary Morgan playing the kangaroo itself? Well, Gary is a terrific kid. He tried to do his best.

If we were doing it today, you got ono suit with a computer, it wouldn't matter. We had a dray and we had a shoddy look in kangaroos suit. Gary tried to jump up and down with the tail not following the legs like it should. It was just the best that we could accomplish at the time. We had to make the movie.

We're two three weeks away from production, so we made the movie. We all got paid. Luckily, the movie wasn't not expensive, so no one really got hurt. So the only thing it did is it introduced me to someone who might have enormous respect for Lee Goold and it's the one good thing that came out of the movie for me. What was it like being both the writer and the producer on the said, you've done that before.

I worked as a writer. I mean I created Hogan Cerro's Walker, Texas range Rive. He always did some writing, but it was fairly easy because the Paul Gallico book had everything. It wasn't like The Godfather the way he had six hundred and fifty pages. Had to get one hundred and fifty pages out, You're going to have taken the novel and go right to the first page and say, okay, let's shoot this right here.

So just a matter of transcribing the novel to a screenplay for him, that's all. It was not one original line of dialogue that Paul and Paula Galico didn't write. Tim was the guy I met in New York. It was a huge one of the most highly paid commercial cameraman in the business, worked for Joyce Lois, all the big guys, and he wanted to direct. Think it is a chance, give him a shot and working on a screenplay.

And then we worked on the script and he was going to back us up, which he did with the B camera pigging up some extra footage for us. When you were making Million Dollar Baby, did you ever think about having her box the Kangaroo and that one too? I had an ever box of the Kangarooth. Actually, the only other movie I ever did about boxing was Million Dollar Baby, and that was came. Out of left field and the whole other area.

The problem I had selling that movie that no one wanted to do a girl a movie, but a girl boxer who goes and watch those girl bosses. How was the movie received afterwards? It sounds like you don't have a whole lot of good memories of what it turned into. Who was the public pretty receptive to it? Or no?

I titt you the effort we went. I suppose I titt You were opened a radio city musical. I staged boxing on Park Avenue at twelve thirty in the afternoon with a professional fighter, and gargar was soon. We worked our ass off to get the money back, which we did, but we well, let's be honest, we were sailing against the wind and not because of anything Elliott Gould did. Because Elliot Gould did Elliott Gould, which is what I wanted a guy with enormous who could play a really bright hustler, but we had an enormous heart and sweetness him and that's what I was looking for.

And that's what Elliott has on it. He can throw down a whit better than most people try to work it. And that's the way Elliott is. There never been a person who was beating his Zellen drum around Hollywood. Believe in doing that.

He's always just want to sell himself as just a working actor. So if he's not really booming the book, you have to Bestead. I've nothing to do with you or anxiety about the quality of the book. He does not exactly self effacing Elliot, but he's not. Everybody got to push himself, and I know guys who would be the same way.

Many times I've been offered deals to do books the Godfather to Beny Element, I'm not interested and write in my life's story and I don't want to do it. So does he's not with you. It's not that he doesn't respect what you're doing, and I have hope that turns out for the best. This is a sad antipathy that people have about doing books about themselves or being involved in books. Good luck with the book.

Thank you very much, sir. Thanks again for taking your time to talk to me today. I really appreciate it. I'm my pleasure. Up next, we have a very short and sweet interview with writer Timothy Gelfhis.

I was wondering if you could tell me how you got involved in the project of Matilda. I happened to be a paramount at the time, with already working in his office writing and this project came up and he added it to me to do it, and that's how it started. Was it a fairly easy adaptation? Because I have yet to read the book. I just got a copy of it in the mail.

I had a love from the author and telling me that he couldn't have written it better. Was there a lot of stuff that changed once it came from writing it to actually filming it. Nothing of any consequence. No. Sometimes when they're shooting they'll change a word or two or something, but that's common practice.

You had been a director? Was this your first screenplay that you'd written or had you done other stuff? No, that wasn't my first. No, I'm a fan of your film Boguard or, as I know, a Blackfist. What had you written before Matilda.

I really don't know, to be honest with you, it's been so long ago. Were you involved once the camera started rolling or were you pretty much off of it? I was pretty much off of it. I didn't want to get involved in it. What did you think of the film once you finally saw it?

I thought it was fairly good. I know it was a big hit because I kept getting residual checks. It played big in Europe. That's what I go by. I taught to mister Ruddy the other day, and he was still complaining about the way that the kangaroo looked a.

Little problem in that because you couldn't get an actual kangaroo to do it, so we had to send Australia as to get the ends of the outside of a kangaroo. What are you working on these days? No, I'm working on something called It Happened in Beverly Hills and it has to do a real love It's a real love story. And the title it Happened in Beverly Hills is those things don't happen in Beverly Hills. Love story is usually the last twenty four hours, I wish I had more.

To tell you. Well, Hey, you know, it's always nice just to talk to folks. But yeah, I appreciate your time very much. No, I said, I'm glad to do what I can for you. Well, I appreciate that.

I'm next, we're going to hear from Mattilda himself. Gary Morgan. How was it being a kangaroo for all those weeks of shooting? It was tough. It was a hard suit.

I do suit work. I doubled the dog in Kujo, and I've got a bear suit. I've been bearers and I do animals a lot, and I have a dance, mime, acrobatic. Back when my parents had a circus act, I would like in Voidville. Which is interesting because.

I know Elliott when he was. A kid singer dancer in New York. God. He took lessons and I referred to him as Broadway breaths, kids that are in Broadway shows. I was one of those, and so is Elliott.

Did you guys know each other? Way back in the day. I had met him, but I didn't know him well. I knew people that he knew, and we both took lessons of the same guy. I was older than I am known when you're a kid that age gap is you don't run around together.

But I knew him basically then, but I didn't really get to know him ntil Matilda, but I adore Ellie. It's an interesting guy because Elliott's got this he's like a real guys guy as far as sports and bedding and replays basketball and he's in that whole thing. But he's got this musical comedy background. He was a say Your dancer, which is a juxtaposition and as a spun man that that was like musical comedy is is also a juxtaposition. So elliotts he's got that whole thing.

So much went in about it already during that whole time when she was the Toaster Broadway, when they were doing what was it? No, I can get a few hole fill well. Elliott talks. He talks real slow. He wants to make sure that he's understood, and he he stops and thinks about his what he's going to say.

You know what I mean. He's very very careful, Like if you have conversations with Elliott, stop and really all over his words just to make sure he's expressing himself the way he wan. But Elliott is such a sweet eye and he cares about people. He takes care of people. And interesting because my wife was pregnant when we did Matilda and he had a daughter named Molly.

He's got two kids, Molly and Sam, and I just love the name Molly that I decided to name my daughter Molly after working with Elliott, and yeah, Sissy was pregnant. Through that whole production. We had great times hanging out, especially like we're doing in Reno. Jerry Quarry was supposed to be at our movie and one of the first kind of time that I was hanging out, They'll go. We all watching the Jerry Quarry fight because Jerry was had a heavyweight shot or something, and right after that fight he was so, it's come and do our movie.

I remember all of us watching that fight and Jerry Koy just got a shit kicked out of him. It was a horrible fight. It was really it was hard to watch. The last minute he landed a lucky punch and knocked the guy out and then decided instead of coming to do our movie, he said, oh no, I've got a title shot. I'm gonna I've got my career's got a comeback.

We're all going, Oh my god, Jerry grabbed this that he's offering you a part in the movie. Changed careers, it's over. But he didn't do the movie the last minute. He decided not to do it to play the heavyweight. But I remember hanging out with Elliott watching that prize fight, and Elliott bet on everything back then and was very big right then.

Elliott was was beat on everything, dead on fights, basketball, anything. You always have money on, whatever the game it was. But we really hung out during the promo tour after the movie. To promote the film, I went on the road with Elliott in the kangaroo suit. We did all these interviews, and I remember then he had some kind of pet charity wheat We're in Tennessee.

We got on a helicopter and flew into the mountains. It's some boxing camp that I think Sugar Ray Leonard was involved in, and it was for underprivileged kids or something. Ellie says, a good guy. He's got a big cart. He'll if somebody's in trouble, Elliott will, we'll give him money and and try to help him out.

He's just one of those you know what I'm saying quietly too, people don't even know about. And he said say. It was such a family man too, with his kids and Jenny at the time married to Jenny, whose father was a big director named Paul Bogart. At that time, Susi was pregnant. We did the movie and that she just had the baby.

Were we doing this promote tour and Susie came with me and I remember we had to get and Elliott just he loves kids, he loves the baby. And the publicist was all concerned that Elliot didn't want to have a baby around because he's a big star, but that Elliott is this family guy. He just loved it. He was I remember written in his Sweet New York. I had to put my baby for a nap.

She was like a couple of geez. I don't think she was two months old. Put her in Elliott's bed to go to sleep. You know what I Mean's all of you, but the kid in my room. It's let me see.

What else did we do, Elliott I did. We got in a helicopter, did that, and we did all these talk shows we were in New York, went and did the Mike Douglas Show in Philadelphia, and I was in the Bangarusa the whole time. You must have hated that suit after a while. Oh man, that so it was heart you couldn't breathe. A couple of times I passed out while we were shooting these big boxing scenes and I was fighting heavy with them and one guy just knocked me out.

You were in the Devil MX Deblin too, right. Yes, I was, but I didn't have a big part with Elliott. I was in it and I but I don't think I even had any scenes with Elliott. We became really close friends on Matilda and and stayed friend in a way. He's working out.

I'll visit him on shows and we both have a common friend, Martin Sheen. Martin's like my older brother. I know, since I'm twelve in Elliott Martin or pals Elliott's he's KOOKI too. I'm like an old hippie and so's Elliott. We come from that whole sixthies thing.

I remember we were doing Matilda too. We did a promo at Club fifty four, Studio fifty four. I was in the kangaroo suit and O. J. Simpson was because Elliott and OJ were pals.

Oh yeah, they were in Kepricorn one together. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember sitting with Elliott and O. J. Simpson in Studio fifty four doing this promo for Matilda. I was in a fucking kangaroo suit.

I noticed the eyes on the suit. Did you have a lot of control over that or did they shoot that separately or. I was looking through a little patch of fur like in the nose of the kangaroo, And when it was lit, I couldn't see at all. If the other character was lit, if the lights were in back of me, I could make at images, but when I was lit, it was pretty blind. Belly.

You look like, directly put your nose down where you know where to look at stuff. Because it was challenging and it was old fashioned mechanics and they had now they used light. They call them servos that make things work. But this was nineteen seventy eight, so the head was really heavy, the mechanics in it to make the eyes blink and the ears twitch and the nosework. But I think a big problem with it was the al Roddy was saying that they used a real kangaroo, and he was saying, oh, we used a guy in his suit just in some of the more difficult boxing scenes.

But it was a real kangaroo, and they told the name of the kangaroo, and he was telling the press it was all the kangaroo. Obviously they never used the kangaroo once in the whole movie. It's me in the press. What who are you kidding? That's a guy in a suit, and you can't lie to the press.

So we got terrible If you the script was brilliant. It was a poll ga from the Pole Gallico novel and it was such a great script that I know, why, Elly, you probably want to do it. I read the script, they went, oh, this is charming. It was like a yarn, like an old fashioned yarn. What I thought they should have done.

Of course I was shot there and I said, you should have the kangaroo talked to the guy like Francis the talking mule, like when they're alone, you know, the guy that owns them, and then when anybody else is right and he doesn't talk anything. It's a real kangaroo, just so that you could let the audience in on the secret, you know what I'm saying. But they didn't, and it got It was just it got terrible reviews, and I don't think it made very much money. It was a charm. It was a charming story.

For whatever reason, it just it didn't work. And he put just as much work into a movie that doesn't work is one that does. We all put our heart and soul in that movie. I'm sure you think, going into nearly everything, this is going to be great, or at least you wanted to be. Yeah, And it was after Star Wars.

I thought I was going to be like the new R two D two, the guy in the kagaroussu But this Preatont memory was Elliot because he Elliott is just such a kind, generous person and actor when you're working with him. Wait, I couldn't believe the cast in that in addition to yourself and Elliott, just Lionel Stander and Bobert Mitchell for God's sake. Yeah, I know. And it's funny because somebody interviewed me about Robert Mitcham for his book. We did promo stuff for that too, and I ended up like a couple of pages in his book.

Somebody said, you're a Robert Mitchum's biography when you're a kidding and it was like, I'm talking to you, so I don't even remember what it was for it wasn't about his book. It was about Matilda and it ended up in the Mitcham's book. And I was really happy to see Roy Clark in there too. Yep, Roy Clark, Lionel Standard was finny. Got to hang out with him.

And there's guy named Clive Revel that was in the movie that was the owner of the Kangaroo, a British actor. Cool guy. It was one of those things too, because it was his story. He was telling the story like looking right at the camera. It was this yarn that Clive Revel was like the storyteller.

He's still around too, He's doing a lot of voice work these days. God, I haven't I get a Christmas card from her every year. We still trade Christmas cards. But I haven't spoken to him. We did a show years after that called a TV special Pinocchio with Sandy Duncan and Danny Kay and I was lamp Wick the bad kid in it and Clive Revel was the coachman that anyway, we got to hang out afterwards, but Elliot and I are still friends.

I think it was that kind of that whole hippie thing that we both could relate to of the sixties. That was such an amazing time that you know, both of us lived through. You know what I mean, it's a certain old hippies. It's going through that new kind of shapes who you are later on. Had you been doing stunts before mental there, I was a.

Kid actor like I was the original Ritchie in the Dick Dan Dyke pilot in nineteen fifty nine. Then I came to California as a as an actor, but I also work as a I worked a lot as a dancer, an acrobatic dancer, because I was a tumbler, things like Academy Award shows and TV specials, and so I kind of seig when I was an actor. When I stopped looking like a teenager, and I still didn't look like an adult. I'm little, I'm like five five, and I was married and I had two kids, So I seged more into stunts when I didn't Matilda too, I was. I was doing stunts, but only if it was like an action role like I did.

Right before that. I did Pete's Dragon for Disney, played Shelley Winter's son, and they used me because I did all my own stuff so I would get like action rolls. So I do. I did a lot of stunts before Matilda, But then after Matilda, I seged more into just like the really the stunt apartment where I was doubling people and the stunt coordinating. But now that I'm over sixty, I'm segging back into acting because I'm tired of hitting the ground.

Oh man, you don't recover you even dream Matilda on man, I would get knocked out by these heavyweights by accident. And I remember hopping hopping on a wish like down the streets of New York on a loosh. Got the must have been exhausting. It was exhausting, and it was a It was a tough job, just physically. Did they have more than one suit?

Did you have to wear the one with the motors and stuff when you were doing the hopping stuff, or. Yet one suit nearly had what it was heavy and you had to hand over and I would hop for like a city block. But to the end, and sometimes you're like, you do these fight scenes and then you go as long as you can, because it took a while to get to get the head on and sealed in and brushed, couldn't see the seams, And I remember a companys go as long as you can, and then you make the silence getting me out in his head. And by the time they got it out, I had no air and I would be like passed out. And you must have been sweating up a storm too, because that did not look like a light.

Oh yeah, but let's do that. And at first they were gonna use their real kangaroo, and I took the job. They said, you're just gonna do just certain scenes, just like some of the fightings. But it ended up the suit didn't look anything like the real kangaroo, so they had to go with one or the other, and they just went with the suit. Kangaroos are dumb.

Kangaroos are like rabbits, and they could have done it, but they would have had to shoot like a zillion feet of film and just a little takes. But it just proved just not the way they wanted to shoot it. So it was all me in the suit. When I talked to mister Ruddy the other day, he was saying that they went out some kangaroo farm and the king garo just knocked a guy like forty feet without any effort whatsoever, and they're like, yeah, we can't have this. Somebody's gonna get hurt.

Oh yeah, the kagaros would rock back and just kick you. You know how I got into it is they actually had a boxer that was going to do the movie this Featherweight, And it's interesting is how I got it. I was doing another show, was a big TV special called The Brother's Grim about fairy tales, and I was playing the dog in the Bremertown Musicians. Okay, and where I'm a sound stage and the next on the same sound stage, they had a boxing ring setup and they had a punching bag of speedback set up. So I went over started punching his speed bag, just fulling oid.

I was not on that the production. I was on the feeder production, and the stunt coordinator when I knew, comes to every and goes, Gary, how tall are you? I told him, he says, and how much? She Wait what he said? We're in trouble.

The guy that was they made this suit for just backed out because he's afraid of getting hurt. Because there's a thing called an air ram where you stand in it throws you like a box that you stand on and it throws you across the room for the kangaro to hop like got this guy who was a professional fighter, and he was afraid he was going to get hurt, so he backed out at the last minute. And he wasn't an actor. He was at the boxer, so he didn't do any He would stand in like the fighting pos but he couldn't make the suit come alive. And if anybody didn't know suits, it's just a piece of fur.

The guy in the suit can't make it come alive, You're in trouble because it just looks like it just doesn't work. They were really down to the last minute and they couldn't find anybody else that would fit in this suit. So the stud quadier goes, you got to come tomorrow and try this suit on. And I did, and the director was here, Danny Mann, and I put the suit on, and I do this kind of stuff because I've got a dancer of mine background. So I put the suit on and it worked, you know what I mean.

They were like all I said, it went great, you got the job. I was on another picture for Disney at the time called North Avenue or Regulars, and it was about In that movie there was a walk group Shorty in the Shortcake, and I was Shorty and the end of that movie. In the beginning of Matilda had about a maybe ten days or two week overlap, but one was filming in LA and one was filming in New York. So for those couple of weeks, already made a deal with the producer of North Avenue Regulars so they could both use me. And what I would do is I would work in LA for North Avenue Regulars, get on the Red Eye, fly to New York, do a day on Matilda, fly back to LA that night.

Work for it was about two weeks where I was doing both pictures at the same time, literally flying catching the red I working one day one, one day on the other. And it was crazy. You'd wake up on the plane and not remembering what city you were in, you know what I mean. They worked that because it was too late to redo the suit. So that's how that worked out.

When it opened a Radio City music Hall, the movie just not the great reviews. And it's funny because they the reviews weren't like it was a bad movie. The reviews were all like, this is a guy in a kangaroo suit. Anybody could tell the guy in a kangaroo suit because because Roddy said it was a real kangaroot. Who the fuck are you kidding?

This is not a real kangaroo because the movie still tried me. When you look at the movie, it was a sweet movie, no great shakes, but I made a great friendship with Elliott through that movie. I was really grateful for that movie because we're still tals to this day. How was it acting against him? When you were in the suit, You got to figure.

What kind of animal are you gonna play? So I was like decide, I was going to play a dog, like like like a friendly German shepherd and do that kind of stuff. And Elliott was great. He would go, and it works when you cock your head this way or when you keep moving. He would like, give me like, look, and it works better for me when if you do this or do that for the scene, and I would, because you're inside a damn suit.

You don't know what you're looking like. I wasn't watching laid backs and stuff, and I didn't get to go to dailies, so like Elliott would, he said, this helps me if you do this, or helps me if you do that. Well, And it was probably more difficult for him playing against this stupid stuffed animal or that it was for me, but it was fine. Then he plays a comment and a scam and is of course they'll love interested all that, but it was it was a tough movie to do. He had me on wires a couple of times, tried to like jump me over the A lot of things didn't end up in the movieump like leaping over from the ground up into the ring.

Yeah, I was when you were talking about that air ram, I was like, I don't remember any scene like that. Yeah, because I hopped so well, they didn't even have to use it. What it was for was to put in my corner of the ring and hit the button so I could leap into the center. But I had such springy legs at that I didn't need it. I was twenty eight at the time too.

That's the kind of stuff you do when you're twenty eight and have a lot of entergy. I did another kangaroo in a movie after that called story Book and Milton Brale and Richard Maule from Night Court, remember Night Court, And it was a movie called story Book. But in this one the kangaroo talked. It was we had an hawsy accent and all that, and I went Oh my god. That was years later, and it was tough doing that again, hopping around and but that's it was a lot lighter than the Matilda suit.

The Matilda suit was heavy and come. More than your fair share of being a kangaroo and stuff. Oh yeah, I would say this towns made an animal out of me. I've done Gorilla Bear. I've done bears in a lot of movies, like Back to the Future three and Beverly Hillbillies.

But I a lot of like like in Kujo, you're you're doubling the animal using the real animal, and you're doing steenes that either the animal won't do or it's too dangerous for the other cast to be close to the animal. And then they put you in the suit. But see in that movie, like a lot of movies, it's the real animal, and then they're using just shots of you in the suit. But in until it was only me in the suit, so it was different. In hindsight, they probably should have let the audience in on the secret.

I think it would it would have been more successful, you know, review wise and all that. After the movie opened, when you said you were doing those promo tours and stuff, were they still trying to pass you off as a real kangaroo or nah. Now, I remember we did the Carson Show. It's obviously a guy in the suit, you know. But they still they did a whole press package and they talked about Whammo, the kangaroo and the special van they had to keep bit air condition and the whole thing, and the altitude, and then a little blurb about in certain of the boxing sequences these the stunman in the suit.

But back it was this whole press package about the real kangaroo that they never showed you in the movie at all. That was one of those things. Already was so busy selling this movie. He sold foreire rights in this right. I don't think he cared more about selling it than he did about making the movie.

And he did. He said he still paid all the investors because he made the movie made money on paper. It wasn't a success at the box office. But it's the classic cigar chomping big producer. This movie's better be a monster and make a g rain in.

Movie's gotta be a monster, forget about it. And we had a lot of the guys from the Godfather in the movie. A Lenny Montanda that played Luca Broadfeet was in Matilda. He was one of the thugs, and a bunch of the guys that were in The Godfather played the thugs in Matilda. Yeah, that was so strange to see him.

And then that kind of Godfather knockoff song that they would play every time they were on the screen. It was good to see him, though. I always liked him as Luca Brozzi. And There's somebody because I literally I go, I once wrestled with Luca Brozi and the kangarooster. They go get out of he like what the little trivia things.

Yeah, I fought Luca Brozzi, Lenny Montana, and half called in all his favors, all those mafia guys from the movie to from The Godfather to be in Matilda. But like I said, the script was so charming. I read that script, I went, oh my god, I just want to be part of this. This movie is gonna be a classic. Didn't turn out to be, but the script was just I could see why Elliott and Nichem and all that wanted to do it because it read so charming.

Yeah, and it was g rated. I remember already. It was like it was first like g rated movie he wanted to make a family film. I don't know why, but she rated a big something for everybody. There was a guy that he hired for Matilda that he actually named Joe the Fish.

Joe the Fish I think he died since, but he actually got Joe to Fish be like liaison between the Mafia guys when they were doing The Godfather because they didn't want a Nate he was. I'm sure you read all kinds of stuff about the Godfather. The real Mafia guys didn't want this movie made, and he got Joe to Fish to help him out. And Jodah Fish was on Matilda, a sweet guy, but a real like old mafioa guy. And the guys on on Matilda, which were some of the real Mafia guys, they'd be sitting around telling like mafia stories.

When you on a movie, a lot of the stunt guys you sit around, you tell war stories, like stunt stories and remember this time you missed. You either missed the Carl way, you know, or Soodzo didn't fill the ear bag up. War stories about spunts. These guys were telling like mafia's stories, and I mean like real mafia stories. I was sitting by going, oh my god, these you're talking about like hidden in and shit, you know what I mean.

It was like, I don't know, I said, this is real. They were just sitting with themselves and talking. I remember when. Louis miss did and all that. I'm like, oh my god, movies are great.

The people that you know you're put together with movies, the places you go and the people that you get to hang out, whether it is so bizarre, such a fun thing about doing movies. And even I was in a kangaroo suit, but it was like after Rocky came out. I was in Reno and I remember hopping down the corridor going into the ring as if like a heavyweight champion with the robe. And when Elliott girl and everybody walking down the thing like going into the ring. It was a truth that you felt like a damn with the full crowd and the thing while the band was playing Waltzing Matilda.

It was a trip. It was really sudden. He must have felt like a champ. When do you get to do that in your life with a folk out of everything. Art Matrono was in that too, and Elliott and Artmatrona were paled.

Both of them were like betting on everything. It's funny. I didn't realize I'm supposed to to Joseph Walsh later on this week, the guy that wrote California Split, And I didn't realize just how inte betting Elliott was. Oh yeah, And Elliott is into sports, all kinds of sports. And it was so sweet because I'm not at all I would have like stupid rudimentary questions about certain sports and he's betting us, and Elliott associates stop and take the time and really explain what's going on to me instead of going, what are you kidding?

You don't even know what that means. Hell, you're like on a football game or something, and he's tordly stopped and explained it to your light. You know. Elliott Gould, if I could say anything about him is he's a kind man, great with his kids, real family, and every time he calls, he just wants to know how my kids are and all that. My kids are at thirty and thirty three now and his kids are close to forty.

But it's still how he wants to know about the kids and all that. He's just a sweetheart. And Elliott's ups and downs too that I remember seeing an article about him. Got a few years ago, before of the Ocean's eleven, he was living like in a small place in Venice. And now he goes to me, Ellie goes, what do I need?

I just need nice little kitchen and a little clean place, and I don't need much in life. He's had a lot and he's had a little, and he seems to be okay with it all. I have only good things to say about Eli. He's such a sweet guy. I think trying to find somebody that's got bad things to say about him is going to be a real chore, because everybody said really nice things.

It's been great talking to folks, and no matter what they just they've echoed a lot of your sentiments. Sound it's been terrific. Now I'm a little guy. Elliott is a big guy. You got a big head, and Beckndy he took a large a large guy, and I'm like the exact opposite.

I'm going a little skiddy acrobat. There you have it, help I shed sunlight for you. Last, but not least, we're gonna hear from Elliott Gould where I first started asking him what he remembers most about Matilda. Al Ruddy, who produced did he also produce The Godfather? Offered me to do the picture, and I had always admired Danny Mann as a filmmaker and director.

I knew a little bit about Paul Gallagher, who was a sportswriter, and so they offered it to me and we did it. Had you worked with Danny Mann before? I don't think so, but I knew his work, especially The Last Angry Man, and then I discovered during the course of working with him on the picture that his father had been I think the lawyer for Shola Malechem, who was a rather renowned Jewish writer. How about already? I think I knew Al Ruddy or I had met Al Ruddy, and perhaps it was always right for us to try to work together.

I think a picture he made, million Dollar Baby. Al Ruddy was quite a producer. The story works, but the make believe kangaroo didn't work. But I loved to work. I loved to work and loved the opportunity to collaborate with whatever team I'm working with on the production of a motion picture.

I think some of the people were put out by the lack of a real kangaroo. We went to the ASPCA downtown New York and I took some pictures with the real kangaroo and a life size one of those large kangaroos, and it kicked me and bit me, but it was alive. I'm sure they had thought of it, but I just did the best with what we had. I love animals, the kangaroos. I've done a couple of pictures in Australia.

And also they hired the late great Clive Revel to play the trainer of the kangaroo. And we had a wonderful, wonderful actor in the body suited the kangaroo. That was somebody named Gary Morgan, who was a fabulous artist. I'm sorry that that wasn't believable and I had to relied on my director and my. Producer to get it to work.

But we did the best we could with what we had, and of course the source material was fun and Paul Gallagho was a leading sports writer during his time, so you know, it was an opportunity to work on something. And not everything we do works, but the idea is to work. How is it working with Art Matrono. Art Matronto was great. He was in all of the police Academy Movies.

Matronto was a great, a lifelong friend of mine. And then there's also Harry Guardino, he was fabulous in the movies and Lino Standard that was a great that was worth something because he would tell me all about Robert de Niro. He worked with de Niro, who was one of our favorite What. Do you remember the most about the production? I remember most about the production was that I would have lunch with Robert Mitchum every day and he would bring it.

We wouldn't go out, we would have a lunch close to the set indoors. And I also remember that I had another lifelong friend, Charlie Brill, who was half of a comedy team, but Charlie Brill and Mitzi McCall. Mitzi was his wife and their lifelong friends of mine. What do I remember most my lunch is with the mitchem getting to talk with Danny Mann, who had directed Paul Muni in The Last Angry Men, as well as working with all of those friends of mine. And for me, it's always a good experience to work in a movie with people with the crew, because.

We are all working to do the same thing. And I recall that already offered me hundreds of thousands of dollars for him to buy back the position that I had had in the profits of Matilda, because I think that he thought that it could be a very profitable picture course, and I thought, I want to be loyal to our work. Why would I sell out? So I didn't do it, and I got paid being a union man, I got paid for working. What do you remember about your love interest in Matilda, Well, Karen Carlson.

I didn't know her. I hadn't seen her, but she was very good to work with and very easy to work with, and. I thought she was right. She was good. Mister Gould, thank you so much for your time tonight.

Thank you so much for the opportunity. Thank you. It is I was so nice talking with you. I really appreciate it. All Right, we are back and we were talking about Matilda and Calm.

You have done just the most amazing job of finding other kangaroo related films, or at least boxing kangaroo films, even back to what was that the first one? It was like it wasn't the Loumier Brothers, but it was pretty damn close. It was like the Germany's, you know, Loumier, there's something like eighteen ninety five, because it's only like ten seconds. Early boxing kangaroo goes all the way back to the inception of cinema. Yeah, there was an article I found, I think it was in Vice that also referenced a Philadelphia zoo that the zookeeper would do these stunts with the kangaroo there and would box him, and so yeah, I guess it was a popular trope in the eighteen nineties side shows and stuff.

Yeah, even just watching those films from like the eighteen nineties, it's I found that uncomfortable. It's a sad and that's why I was. I enjoy the. Ridiculous costume of Matilda's I don't, as I said, I don't think this would. I think the less realistic Matilda is, the more fairy tale it is, the more enjoyable it is.

Philadelphia, Philadelphia zookeeper was doing that with boxing and kangaroo. According to the article on Weiss, this was in the eighteen nineties. Okay, because I mean, wasn't in the seventies when Chuck Webner would box the bear. Well, I'm not sure I heard about that would happen in Philadelphia. Too.

Chuck Webner would try to box bears. I was at a convention. I saw this wrestling bear, so I said, you know what, I'll ask my buddy Chuck. If he'll fight the bear. So here is Victor the Bear.

I don't get any ring with just any bear. This the bear. He was on the At Sullivan show. Who the very royal fame is bear? Yeah, the whole idea of boxing kangaroo, like, I was not familiar with that at all other than the one character that they had and a lot of the Warner Brothers cartoons, the Hippoty Hopper or something, but he was in like hop look and listen or hop him pop and.

Yeah I watched that one, right, Sylvester. And that was the whole thing. It was like Sylvester in his weird, controlling little kid version of Sylvester who would always be like, yeah, get him pop, get him pop. It was all about like Sylvester trying to teach his kid how to like I don't remember which one it was, but one of them was like, I want to teach how to mouse. And then they always think that this kangaroo is a giant mouse rather than a giant rabbit.

Why are you looking at me like that? Sun? Don't you believe there was a giant mouse? Yes, I do, pop because there's one in back of you. Now, oh, come now, kid, I'll do the fibbing around here.

And then there's always, yeah, like a lot of boxing going on, and of course Sylvester takes the brunt of everything. And there was a Mickey Mouse cartoon where kangaroo shows up and destroys Pluto's doghouse. And then somehow there's two kangaroos and they go to a gymnasium and hilarity in mayhemmon Zeus. Oh, going back to the very early one. It was from eighteen ninety five.

My German is very bad, but it is dust boxing Dick Hanguru just. To be a complete ust. And then there was a thirties Hollywood movie where Jimmy durantiif boxes at kangaroo, but I could not find that. Then, of course, you know, like we've talked about kangaroos on this podcast before, there's the kangaroos that are in Tank Girl. A lot of action sequences there.

There's the Warriors of Virtue. Do you guys remember that one where it was a martial arts movie from ninety seven. I think it was like kind of tying into the whole Hong Kong handover and all of the directors that would come over. It was a Ronnie you film, that's right. That was like his first American film, wasn't it.

Yeah? I think so, yeah, yeah. And then of course, you know, no discussion of kangaroo movies can be complete without talking about Kangaroo Jack. Of yes, yes, which is the opposite of having the creature be a person in a puppet suit, where I think almost all, if not all, of Kangaroo Jack the movie is a cig kangaroo, right, Yeah, that's right. I thought you were going to say that it's a real kangaroo.

And then a kangaroo in a human suit. Oh, there you go. It just zips down the front and the sides fly open. It's actually a cameo from Elliott Gould. Oddly, Kangaroo Jack originally conceived as an R rated mob comedy entitled Down and Under.

Negative test screenings led producer Jerry Bruckheimer to retool the film into a PG rated film, heavily re editing it and adding scenes of an anthropomorphic kangaroo, and there was an animated direct to video sequel called Kangaroo Jack Good Day USA. I said a hit. Walk aside, Kangaroo Jack is back in a brand new animated adventure with his friends Charlie and Lewis. If they think they're any braver, any tougher, any smarter, then they still don't know Jack. This is supposed to be an action piece.

I'm not feeling it. It's an all new, full. Length animated feature from the Kid's movie collection, Kangaroo Jack, Good Gay USA, coming exclusively to DVD and video. Do you have a work print of that Kangaroo Jack. I don't, but god, I would love to get my ants on it.

Right I'm just morbidly curious about because it sounds like, from what you said, there was no kangaroo in the original. I just remember the trailer for that and how embarrassing the trailer was. Like Jerry O'Connell and Anthony Anderson. I just felt so bad for them in that trailer. Judging from some of these character names, because I still haven't seen Kangaroo Jack, but judging just from the character names, you've got a Stella Warren as Jesse, a member of the Outback Wildlife Foundation so I would think maybe kind of Aspca lady, and then Christopher Walken as Salmaggio, a mobster, and Charlie's stepfather, and Diane Cannon as Ana Carbone.

So we've got a lot of oh, Michael Shannon, Michael Shannon nice as Frankie Lombardo, so we definitely are keeping all of the mob stuff. And kangaroo Jack apparently does have a voice that looks like Adam Garcia kangaroo Jack. So a red kangaroo on whom Lewis puts his lucky jacket. Well, I think that's the scene where Jeri O'Connell gets like hit on the head and he hallucinates like a rapping kangaroo rapping. Yes, it did win one award talking about kangaroo Jack.

Still. It was on the Kids Choice Awards. It won Favorite Fart in a Movie. But it wasn't kangaro Jack. It was Anthony Anderson who won.

Somebody's got to win and they. Were only nominated Anthony Anderson and Christopher walking for We're Supporting Actor by the Razzie Award. So fuck those guys anyway, because that's where, like most of the writing that I was able to find about Matilda was in Like the Golden Turkeys, the book that you shared with me colin the Hollywood Walk of Shame. So it's like, oh, let's just beat up on this movie. And it's easy to beat up on.

Obviously, this is a weird episode because normally I'm just like, yes, let's share the wealth. But this one's an odd movie. I would say I'm probably a better person for having watched it, though. You all know how I feel about this movie. I find the heart charming.

I love it. I love that you love this movie. Honestly, I'm not being facetious whatsoever. I think that's great. And I'm so glad because I didn't want to just come on here and beat this movie up, because there is a lot of charm to it and this cast is freaking amazing.

I'd like to think that somebody after listening to this would have a decent idea if this is for them or it's not. It's not a great movie made by great people, and sometimes these ideas just don't work. And they did the best they could, and I really enjoyed everyone's effort. And I guess I just enjoy the sort of fairy tale, sort of old fashioned fairy tale aspect of it. I haven't really touched upon the van they drive around in, and I really love that, Like it's such a seventies van.

It looks like the kind of van they would put in a movie that was making fun of the seventies. That's a good point. It's like it's got that cool bubble top and it's got like a painting out of Matilda on the side. And I love that van, and I love Lionel Stander, and I loved all the references to the McDonald's, Like there's things about it. I liked, you know, like it's but I didn't like it as a whole.

I liked those things and there's like other things too. Also liked the one line that Elliott Gould says, like his version of is the both cat is the Pope cathlic and his version was his rolls interested in Royce. That is good, yeah, am I. The line I liked was Lenny Montana and I'm not going to try to do his voice when I'm through the Kangaroos in two. It's just a silly mob.

Brian, I'm a really cheap Day eight. Calling to your point from earlier, it feels like only in the seventies. You know, it was a weird time and a lot of stuff got green lit where you're just like, what what are we doing here? Like even like looking at you know, Ruddy's filmography and I'm like, oh yeah, I forgot that. He he was the producer of well, Canniball Run that's the eighties, but the producer of Coonskin.

I'm just like, wow, Okay, I mean I love that movie, but it's just what a strange film. I mean, all those Bakshi films in the seventies are just like how did these get green lit? I what a wonderful time to live in. I've already also produced one of my favorite movies from the eighties, Mega Force. Oh yes, oh yeah, yeah.

I really wish I had gone back and talked with him. I haven't listened to the interview that I did with him since I did the interview, and I seem to remember him getting kind of salty around The Godfather because and I was basically like, I'm not going to ask you anything about The Godfather because I hadn't seen it like in a while, and I also wanted to do a shit ton of research if I was going to talk to the producer of The Godfather about The Godfather, but I really don't even want to talk to you about that right now. I would love to talk to you about it someday, sir, I'd love to have a conversation about that, and Cannamal Run and Mega Force and speed Zone and all that. But that right now. What I really enjoyed about the interview with him.

He knew the movie didn't work, but he didn't seem bitter like. He just seemed so overwhelmed with like good feelings about working with Elliott Gould and I you know, with Gary was also the same thing where you know, he didn't enjoy being in the suit, but he just talked about the camaraderie of the people and like loved working with Elliott, and I think those good vibes kind of come across. Yeah, nobody was hesitant to talk to me about this film, which is pretty great, other than I never got a response back from Karen Carlson's people, but that could just because they never passed it on. But yeah, it's also very sad how many of these folks have passed away. I mean, it is that so many of these actors were of that time where it's just like, I mean, hell, you know, I was making fun of Rory Clarke earlier, just a bit, but I mean I've fucking watched Hehaw Weekend week Out.

I loved him. I love Bucco Ones Man, those guys were great. I love him as a guitarist. There's a record he did but it's basically just like a straight sort of jazz blues out and he gets like Barney Kessel to play with him. So just hearing him and Barney Kessel just like grading solos is amazing.

It was nice to hear that side of his playing because he is just an amazing, amazing guitarist. I hadn't seen him act in that many things, but I was actually pretty good with his wild Bill character, wild Bill Wild wild Man Jesus said, But yeah, I thought he did a great job. I was very happy to see him. All Right, We're going to take another break and play a preview for next week's show. Right after these brief messages, Meet Ira Dear Samuel Beckett.

I've always been a great admirer of yours. He's a playwright. Ira Ellis with a day job, Ira. The pop We don't the pose with the platf Come. On over here, moved.

His plays are a little depressing life, life, hife, death, death, death, all that dialogue about life and death. I mean life, death is just so depressing. But what depressing is is good. Well, I thought it was excellent. I thought it was deep and very sensitive too.

His love life is very anxious. What do you tune to do? Pick me up for something? Does a body and latowns are ambicial? No?

No, no, no, not at all. And like I said, Sharon, you're a very special person. And he fears he won't ever get his first big break. I loved it. I love love, love love loved it.

Todd Saloons stars in his first feature film, Fear Anxiety and Depression, and it's a musical. I love you. I love you more and more. Every time I dream the work, I dream evermore. Fear Anxiety and Depression.

It's a laughing matter us. That's right. We'll be back next week with a look at Fear Anxiety and Depression as Comedy Month continues. Until then, I want to thank my co host Mike and Colin. So, Mike, what is the latest with you, sir?

Well? I mean you could find my work in Shock Cinema sixty six, which should be out now. Shock Cinema sixty seven probably should be out sometime the summer, maybe the Fall at some point also on letterboxed under the name magdum gu. I'm not under a lot, but if you want to see my thoughts on movies like Move or National Lampoon's movie Madness, you can swing on down and read those reviews. That's about it for now, and Colin, how about yourself doing a lot of music still.

The new project with a friend and filmmaker out of Baltimore who knows skiz. His name is Matt Berry, and we're called Hollywood Extras and it's sort of improvised experimental music, silent movies. So we just released the first EP called four Films, and then in June I should have a new album for my solo project, Modern Silent Cinemas, which is four it's piano, guitar and bass. It's called Passengers thirty three. Well, that sounds like a Philip Glass title.

I just take passages to describe these solo pieces I was composing, and I just number them in order. The first album I made the mistake, I think this passage is one through nine of titling them before them in order on the album, and so it makes no sense. And so this is the fourth album of passages two through four are all just chronologically numbered. THX one, one, three eight. I just love his titles.

Well, thank you so much guys for being on the show, and thanks ready if for listening. Do you want to support physical media and get great movies in mail, head over to scarecrow dot com and try Scarecrow Videos incredible rent by mail service, the largest publicly accessible collection in the world. You'll find films there entirely unavailable elsewhere. Get what you want, when you want it without the scrolling. And yes they have Matilda on VHS.

If you want to hear more of me shooting off my mouth, check out some of the other shows that I work on. They are all available at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. Thanks especially to our Patreon community. If you want to join the community, visit Patreon dot com. Slash projection booth.

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I think you think God'm clever. When I'm with you. You scud before smiling. God clowns, God loot. When I'm with you.

I feel. When i'm with you, I try to pay kids to be longer. When I'm with you. Your life makes me more stronger than I can carry your dreams. Will you be mother forever.

When I'm with you. When I'm with you, and. When I Beca