FH Mini #69 - Gnome Named Gnorm Gnews, with Parker Bennett

[0:00] Hey, hey, thanks so much for joining us.

Stuart Wellington

[0:06] That's right.

[0:07] You have tuned into the Peach Pit.

[0:09] And this is a special Peach Pit.

[0:10] This is the Peach Pit Pocket Edition,

[0:12] where we review a mini episode of the Flophouse Podcast,

[0:15] one of their Flophouse minis.

[0:17] As always, I am your host, Stuart Wellington.

[0:19] And today we're going to be talking about Flophouse Mini 67.

[0:23] We're doing a little special here.

[0:25] We're talking about a subsection of that mini episode

[0:29] where they talked about a little movie,

[0:32] a gnome named Norm.

[0:33] And joining me, I have some amazing guests.

[0:36] I have two of the hosts of the Flophouse Podcast,

[0:38] Dan McCoy, Elliot Kalin,

[0:41] and returning Flophouse featured guest, Parker Bennett.

[0:45] Thanks so much for joining me in the Peach Pit.

[0:49] Truly an honor.

Elliott Kalan

[0:51] Yeah, it was.

[0:52] It's always a pleasure to discover that that's what we're doing.

Dan McCoy

[0:55] Now, should we refresh our listeners' memories about Parker,

[1:01] about our previous encounter with Mr. Bennett?

[1:05] Sure.

[1:06] So, one of the-

Stuart Wellington

[1:08] Take us on a ride.

[1:09] Take us on a ride.

Dan McCoy

[1:10] Every listener, buckle your seatbelts.

[1:13] One of the credited screenwriters for Super Mario Brothers,

[1:18] starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo.

[1:21] The movie, not the Nintendo game.

[1:24] Yeah.

[1:25] And Parker popped up in our live show for Super Mario Brothers in the chat,

[1:32] and we were shocked and a little bit scared that a writer of the movie we were ragging on showed up,

[1:41] but he joined us, talked to us a little bit, could not have been nicer,

[1:46] talked to us again on a mini about more Super Mario Brothers tales,

[1:50] but now it turns out-

Stuart Wellington

[1:51] I feel like you slightly misrepresented the way we talked about Super Mario Brothers,

Dan McCoy

[1:56] because you said that we ragged on it,

Stuart Wellington

[1:57] but I think we all kind of liked it more than we expected to.

Dan McCoy

[2:00] No, no, no, that's true.

[2:01] It was fortunate that it was a movie that was wild in all the right ways.

Elliott Kalan

[2:07] I don't know if I'd say all the right ways.

Dan McCoy

[2:09] It was wild in every way.

[2:11] All the right ways.

Elliott Kalan

[2:11] No, I don't know if I'd say all the right, you know.

Parker Bennett

[2:14] I will say that a gnome named Norm makes Super Mario Brothers look like Citizen Kane.

Elliott Kalan

[2:20] Wow.

[2:22] Now-

[2:23] So on the box, makers of gnome named Norm, just put dot, dot, dot, looks like Citizen Kane,

[2:29] and then say Parker Bennett.

[2:31] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[2:32] Now, I know, Stuart, I'm sorry.

[2:34] I don't want to take over the reins of the Peach Pit.

[2:39] What is this?

[2:40] The Peach Pit Returns?

[2:42] In the pocket.

[2:42] Pocket edition?

[2:43] Dark Side of the Moon.

[2:44] Pocket edition.

[2:45] I don't want to.

Elliott Kalan

[2:48] Stuart's referring to the famous fact that Peach Pits have pockets in them.

[2:53] And there's a pocket dimension inside of every peach.

Dan McCoy

[2:55] Yeah.

[2:57] Now, I don't want to steal your job, but Parker.

[3:02] You know what?

Stuart Wellington

[3:02] That's part of the joy of the Peach Pit is that everyone, like, we're a communal table.

[3:07] Everyone can eat.

[3:08] Paying quotidian.

[3:09] You know, that kind of thing.

Dan McCoy

[3:11] You, again, this is directed to Parker, not Stuart, host of Peach Pit Pocket Edition.

[3:16] Thank you.

[3:19] Parker, now you contacted me and let me know that you had a connection to a gnome named Norm.

[3:26] Now, what connection is this?

[3:28] What part did you play in this film?

Elliott Kalan

[3:31] Did you play the part of Norm, the titular gnome?

Parker Bennett

[3:36] I was involved.

[3:37] So, I am an uncredited punch-up writer on a gnome named Norm.

[3:44] So, my writing partner, Terry Runte, and I, right after our first spec script sale of Mystery Date,

[3:54] we're looking for our next job.

[3:56] And our agent said, hey, there's a movie that's going into production.

[4:00] Would you guys be interested in doing a punch-up, doing a joke punch-up?

[4:04] It's being directed by Stan Winston.

[4:07] And we went, yeah, Stan Winston.

[4:10] He's like, he's amazing.

[4:11] He's the, you know, guy who-

[4:13] A legend.

[4:14] A legend.

Parker Bennett

[4:14] Get all of our favorite effects.

[4:15] Special effects.

Elliott Kalan

[4:15] One of the handful of greatest special effects artists in the history of movies, I would go as far as to say.

[4:20] Name the others.

[4:22] Rick Baker.

[4:23] Rick Baker.

[4:24] Sure.

[4:24] Gotta be there.

[4:25] Ray Harryhausen.

[4:26] Gotta be on top of that.

[4:28] Tom Savini.

[4:29] Tom Savini.

[4:30] Tom Savini.

[4:31] Yeah, Douglas Trumbull.

[4:32] Dennis Murin.

[4:33] Rob Poutine.

[4:35] Did you say Rob Poutine?

Dan McCoy

[4:36] Rob Poutine.

[4:37] Rob Poutine.

[4:37] The inventor of Poutine.

[4:38] Bob Botten.

[4:39] I don't know.

[4:40] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[4:41] I'd say Steven Kostansky, director of Psycho Gorpin.

Dan McCoy

[4:47] Of course, our listener, Todd Vaziri.

[4:49] Sure, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[4:50] And we're barely scratching the surface.

[4:52] There's, anyway, there's also, I forgot the name of the guy who did the special effects for The Invisible Man in the 30s, although I was just reading about him recently.

[4:59] That's an amazing movie to watch again.

[5:00] So, anyway, Stan Winston's directing.

[5:02] You said this Hollywood legend, he's going to be directing this film.

[5:05] Director of Pumpkinhead.

Parker Bennett

[5:06] Yeah, well, this was exactly when Pumpkinhead had yet to come out.

[5:10] So, we didn't, we weren't forewarned in any way.

Elliott Kalan

[5:14] It's hard, well, Pumpkinhead took a while because it's hard to pass a Pumpkinhead through the birth canal.

[5:19] It's an incredibly large head.

[5:21] It takes a lot of time.

[5:22] That's a C-section you're asking for.

Dan McCoy

[5:24] I gotta say, I like Pumpkinhead.

[5:26] Pumpkinhead has its qualities.

Stuart Wellington

[5:29] Yeah, one of those qualities is named Lance Henriksen.

[5:31] Yeah, that's true.

Elliott Kalan

[5:32] I knew it.

[5:33] I knew Stuart was going to point to the Henrik.

Stuart Wellington

[5:36] I got to introduce Pumpkinhead at the Alamo one time.

[5:40] And I was like, I really want to talk about how great Lance Henriksen is.

[5:44] But at the same time, like, I'm very nervous to look up any of his modern political beliefs.

[5:48] Because he is an old man.

[5:50] And he looks like he might be crotchety and have problems.

[5:53] But I did not look up anything.

[5:54] I love him.

[5:55] I'll keep my head in the Pumpkinhead sand, if you will.

Dan McCoy

[5:58] It also stars the dog from Gremlins, Pumpkinhead.

[6:01] It's Mushroom's other world.

[6:03] Stars?

Elliott Kalan

[6:03] Well, he's a featured player.

[6:06] That's his second lead.

[6:06] It says Lance Henriksen and Mushroom in Pumpkinhead.

Stuart Wellington

[6:09] He's above the title on the poster.

Elliott Kalan

[6:11] It says and Mushroom as Benji at the end.

Dan McCoy

[6:15] How do you get into uncredited punch-up work?

[6:18] Because that sounds ideal to me.

[6:20] As someone who'd also love to do that.

[6:21] You can get paid for it, but you don't have to take any of the blame for a gnome named Norm.

[6:27] How does one do this?

Parker Bennett

[6:28] I'll try to give you the advice that I give everyone, which is you just have to get lucky.

[6:36] Yeah.

[6:36] You know, when you sell your first script and all your friends go, well, how do you do this?

[6:40] How do you break into Hollywood?

[6:41] It's like, well, if you follow our path, we stumbled into an agent who was a book agent of one of our bosses in advertising.

[6:50] And he agreed to represent us on some rewrite job of a thing she was pitching.

[6:56] And then he wound up going to Triad Artists in L.A. from New York.

[7:02] And we kind of went along in his back pocket.

[7:05] And we wrote a spec script and he and another agent, so this is Todd Harris and Bruce Kaufman, managed to sell our spec script.

[7:15] But kind of, again, stroke of luck, we had this Writers Guild strike that, you know, went on forever.

[7:22] And so there was this huge demand for material.

Elliott Kalan

[7:24] Oh, so this was the big Writers Guild strike in the late 80s?

[7:26] The real big one?

[7:27] Yeah, 88, I guess.

[7:28] Okay.

[7:29] Yeah.

Parker Bennett

[7:29] And so after that happened, they went to work going, you know, here's the new hot advertising.

[7:36] You know, John Hughes, these are similar to John Hughes.

[7:41] You know, Harold Ramis, these guys are from Chicago.

[7:46] And there's two of them.

[7:47] So two for one, it's a partnership.

[7:50] You can get two for one.

Stuart Wellington

[7:51] That's some salesmanship right there.

[7:53] I like that.

Parker Bennett

[7:54] Yeah.

[7:54] And they, you know, they wrote, hey, mystery date.

[7:57] They wrote that in like three weeks.

[7:58] So you imagine what they could do for you.

[8:01] And they're cheap right now.

[8:03] Yeah.

[8:04] Get them while they're cheap.

[8:06] So we'd come out to L.A. to take a bunch of meetings.

[8:11] And this wasn't one of them.

[8:13] So later on, we got a call.

[8:15] Hey, you want to do this thing?

[8:17] And I had been a huge special effects nerd for the, you know, forever.

[8:22] Like I read Famous Monsters of Filmland and then Fangoria and then, you know, the big boys, Cinefex.

[8:30] And so Stan Winston was, you know, like a hero.

[8:33] He at that point had done The Thing and, you know, Aliens.

[8:38] And he'd done, oh, I can't even remember.

[8:43] You know, lots of amazing stuff.

Stuart Wellington

[8:45] He hadn't done T2 yet.

[8:46] Is The Thing the best monster effects of all time?

[8:50] It's up there, right?

[8:51] It's right.

[8:51] I don't think.

[8:52] You can't qualify.

[8:53] The head that sprouts the spider legs.

[8:54] Oh, it's so gross.

Elliott Kalan

[8:55] Certainly up there.

[8:56] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[8:56] It's still fucking gross.

[8:59] That's pretty impressive.

[9:00] Yeah.

Parker Bennett

[9:01] So we said, yeah, sure.

[9:04] And they said, you know, that'll be, you know, this is great.

[9:07] Two weeks of work.

[9:09] At that time, it was 12 grand, which, you know, was just like, oh, my God.

[9:14] I would have paid them to do it.

[9:16] Yeah.

[9:17] And they flew us out.

Elliott Kalan

[9:18] I'm glad your agent stepped in and stopped you from doing that, I assume.

[9:22] Yeah.

[9:22] He stopped us.

[9:24] From taking out a loan to pay them for a job.

Dan McCoy

[9:31] Stuart, I just want to pause for just half a second and let Stuart know that Winston's

[9:36] first Oscar nomination was for Heart Beeps.

[9:39] Ooh.

Stuart Wellington

[9:40] Oh, we're for Paul Schrader.

[9:41] Paul Schrader movie.

[9:42] Yeah, that's crazy.

Dan McCoy

[9:42] No, again, not a Paul Schrader film.

Stuart Wellington

[9:44] Oh, man.

[9:45] I'll have to zip over to Facebook and see what Paul S. has to say about this.

Elliott Kalan

[9:50] He's busy talking about why it's wrong to have any movies in the top 10 list of all

[9:54] time that aren't 100 years old.

[9:56] But at this point, Stuart, I start believing that Paul Schrader made Heart Beeps.

[10:03] You've said it so many times now.

[10:06] And I'm like, I guess did he go straight from like American Gigolo to working on pre-production

[10:11] on Heart Beeps?

[10:11] I guess he did.

Stuart Wellington

[10:12] Guys, I am a perfect example of just manifesting your wish, you know?

Dan McCoy

[10:19] Your wish is that he made Heart Beeps, okay?

[10:23] But sorry, I interrupted.

Parker Bennett

[10:24] Have you guys ever gone down the road of like what if Paul Schrader had made Heart Beeps?

[10:29] No, and that's a very good question.

Dan McCoy

[10:31] That's a very good question.

Stuart Wellington

[10:32] That sounds like the worst, like most specific 80s stand-up comic.

Dan McCoy

[10:37] You ever wonder if Paul Schrader made Heart Beeps?

[10:40] I think it would go something like this.

Elliott Kalan

[10:42] It would go a little something like this.

[10:43] I'm a robot being faced with temptation.

[10:49] So they offered you this job.

[10:52] It's an amazing amount of money.

Parker Bennett

[10:53] It was our first, you know, it was our first thing to work on that would actually be filmed.

[11:00] Because at the point, you know, at the point when you make a spec sale, you have no idea.

[11:03] And Mystery Date actually took two and a half years of rewriting before it was turned into

[11:08] sort of a muddled mess.

[11:10] We'd written Mystery Date and we forgot to add a mystery.

[11:13] So we'd written this dark comedy.

[11:16] It was basically after hours for teens.

[11:18] And it was just this chaotic, you know, descent into nightmares.

[11:22] This guy is trying to make his date go well, but he's being mistaken for his psychopathic older brother.

[11:29] And so we made this really dark comedy.

[11:33] And Orion wouldn't cop to the fact that they didn't want to make a really dark comedy.

[11:38] So we kept asking, you know, well, is it okay that it's this dark?

[11:43] And our producer would keep saying, well, if you can make it work.

[11:48] And we kept believing her.

Dan McCoy

[11:51] Oh, no, that's code.

Parker Bennett

[11:53] For about two years.

[11:55] And then we finally gave up and sort of made it all a wacky misunderstanding about the dead body in the trunk

[12:00] because he took the car without permission, et cetera, et cetera.

[12:03] Ethan Hawke, early Ethan Hawke role.

[12:05] Yes.

[12:06] Recently on a podcast, disowned.

[12:10] Speaking of Paul Schrader.

Elliott Kalan

[12:11] Speaking of Paul Schrader, who made one movie with Ethan Hawke.

[12:16] The famous duo of Ethan Hawke and Paul Schrader.

Stuart Wellington

[12:19] Do you think on the set of Moon Knight, Ethan Hawke and Oscar Isaac talked about Paul Schrader?

Elliott Kalan

[12:24] I bet you they did.

[12:26] I bet you they did.

[12:27] Because what else are they going to talk about on the set of Moon Knight?

[12:30] Not Moon Knight, that's for sure.

[12:32] Certainly not.

Dan McCoy

[12:33] I don't think anyone was talking about it on the set.

Elliott Kalan

[12:35] I feel like here's the thing about Oscar Isaac.

[12:37] Then we'll get back to this story, which is more interesting than what I'm going to say.

[12:39] Oscar Isaac has now played two different Marvel characters.

[12:42] And I feel like he is deserving of a better vehicle for him playing a Marvel character.

[12:46] He was Moon Knight and he was Apocalypse.

[12:48] And both times I feel like he was not super well served by the material.

[12:53] So who should he play?

Stuart Wellington

[12:55] Interesting enough, the meeting where Oscar Isaac convinced Ethan Hawke to do the project over beers was at the Brooklyn Inn.

[13:05] And my friend was bartending that day and complained that Ethan Hawke didn't pay for his beer.

[13:12] Burn.

[13:13] He can get away with it.

[13:14] You know, whatever.

[13:15] Yeah, come on.

[13:15] He's the Hawkeester.

[13:15] So Oscar Isaac, who should he play?

[13:17] He's Hawkeye.

[13:18] Yeah.

[13:18] Now let's get back to the story.

Elliott Kalan

[13:21] Okay, well, listeners, write in.

[13:22] Tell me, who should Oscar Isaac play in the Marvel Universe?

[13:25] I don't want.

[13:26] And don't tell me like Morth the Dead Teenager.

[13:28] Don't give me the super zealist characters.

[13:30] Give me a solid character.

[13:32] Let's give the card counter himself the proper respect.

[13:36] Wait a minute.

[13:36] What if Marvel introduced a character called the card counter?

[13:39] The card counter.

[13:40] Yeah.

[13:41] Yeah.

[13:41] So Mystery Day is taking forever.

[13:43] Stan Winston is going to direct a gnome named Gnorm.

[13:45] And you're going to be brought into the project to give it that Bennett Sparkle.

Parker Bennett

[13:51] Right.

[13:52] Bennett Runtay Sparkle.

[13:53] I think at this point, well, I'm steadfastly.

[13:56] I mean, you can take all the credit.

[13:57] He's not here.

[13:59] I've managed to put off talking about a gnome named Gnorm.

[14:02] I guess it's probably time.

[14:07] So we showed up in L.A. to do this work.

[14:11] And Pumpkinhead was premiering.

[14:14] So we got to meet Stan at the premiere of Pumpkinhead at the Cinerama Dome.

Stuart Wellington

[14:19] Oh, cool.

[14:20] Oh, man.

[14:20] Think of that red carpet.

[14:22] All the celebs.

[14:24] The sky was dark.

[14:25] All the stars were there.

[14:27] Mm-hmm.

Parker Bennett

[14:28] And we were not knocked out by Pumpkinhead.

[14:32] We were not big fans.

[14:34] We were a little perturbed by Pumpkinhead walking out and kind of wondering, you know,

[14:40] what are we going to say to Stan?

[14:41] And Terry's like, you're going to have to lie.

[14:45] And I'm like, that was not a good movie.

[14:49] You're going to have to lie a lot better than that.

[14:53] But our agent was with us and he said, no, no, no.

[14:56] You don't have to lie.

[14:57] This is how it works.

[14:58] In Hollywood, you have to master the 100% noncommittal, you know, phrasing after something that you don't want to comment on.

[15:07] So he would give us examples.

Elliott Kalan

[15:08] You walk out and you go, what a movie or something like that.

Parker Bennett

[15:11] Yeah, he gave us a lot of those examples like, you know, only you.

Elliott Kalan

[15:19] That's like my grandmother used to tell me about.

[15:21] It's all up there on the screen.

[15:22] It certainly is.

[15:23] My grandmother used to tell me about how she would, if people showed her their babies and she thought the baby was ugly, she would go, it's a baby.

[15:33] Oh.

[15:34] She couldn't break herself to say, oh, what a cute baby.

Dan McCoy

[15:37] It's just a pure factual statement with no value judgment.

[15:41] Yeah.

Parker Bennett

[15:42] But luckily for us, we didn't have to master the 100% noncommittal, noncompliment because Stan was, you know, he was surrounded by swarms of supplicants and we just waved and went our way.

[15:58] We met with him in his cool north, at this point it was in Northridge.

[16:03] He had his workshop.

[16:06] I think it was Northridge.

[16:08] That sounds awesome.

[16:10] Yeah, and it's designed to impress.

[16:11] Like you walk in and there's the power loader from aliens, you know, and the giant alien queen hovering over it.

[16:21] And you expect the fog machine to start any minute.

Stuart Wellington

[16:25] Yeah.

[16:26] And there's a big sign that's like, come inside, you bitches.

Parker Bennett

[16:32] And there's various predators are, you know, spaced around and the thing, the head from the thing and whatever he's worked on.

Elliott Kalan

[16:42] Now, when you say predators, you mean living, you mean living big cats that Stan Winston liked to have to keep his workers on their toes.

[16:48] Like, hey, get this ready and a jaguar might leap at you at any moment.

[16:52] Uh-huh.

[16:53] Or do you mean the predator, the special effects character?

Stuart Wellington

[16:54] They seem docile, but no, I meant the special effects from the movie.

[16:58] Oh, that makes sense.

[16:59] It's a framed copy of the Ice Cube album Predator.

Elliott Kalan

[17:04] Multiples.

[17:05] Multiples.

[17:05] Because Predator is a movie that Stan Winston basically saved.

[17:08] Because I don't know if you guys have ever seen the footage before of the early alien costume that they were going to like mad out.

[17:14] And it looks so goofy.

[17:16] It's like Big Bird is taking down the mercenaries one by one.

[17:21] And then they had to reshoot it with a much better costume.

[17:22] Now I got to look it up.

[17:24] Guys.

[17:26] It's worth looking into the history of Jean-Claude Van Damme in his one day playing the Predator with this goofy costume on.

Dan McCoy

[17:33] I got to break in for the traditional, of course, this will be peppered with Stan Winston, Winston Facts.

[17:39] Oh, as always.

[17:41] In 1983, Winston designed the Mr. Roboto face mask for the American rock group Styx.

Elliott Kalan

[17:46] I forgot he did that for their album movie that they made.

Dan McCoy

[17:50] Yeah, so look out for another one.

Elliott Kalan

[17:51] Not a design that holds up well.

[17:54] It's kind of a racist caricature of a Japanese person.

Stuart Wellington

[17:57] I do have to say, I just Googled original Predator costume and the first image is a sexy Velma costume.

[18:06] Yep, that's the thing.

Elliott Kalan

[18:07] Originally, it was a sexy Velma was taking down the mercenaries.

Stuart Wellington

[18:11] Probably should log out of my account before I do these things.

Elliott Kalan

[18:15] So Stan Winston's workshop, it sounds like, is an amazing wonderland of our favorite film monsters and creatures.

Parker Bennett

[18:24] So this is, you know, as anybody who's been involved in the entertainment industry, there's, it's sort of a bipolar experience where there's very, there's highs and there's lows and they sort of, you know, whiplash between them.

[18:38] So kind of a high, like we're in this workshop and there's all these great things and the work workers are working.

[18:44] And then Stan wants, is so excited to show us the work in progress, the maquette of the gnome.

[18:53] And he's very, very, very excited because he wants, he's going to design something that is so unhuman-like that it's impossible that it could be a guy in a suit.

[19:06] Like, so he's very excited about this one.

[19:08] It's going to be this million-dollar articulated animatronic puppet thing.

[19:14] And, you know, it's going to be very convincing and nobody will, you know, it's, the body's going to be super skinny and the head's going to be kind of long and extended.

[19:22] And there's no way that anybody could mistake this for a guy, a little guy in a suit.

[19:27] So that was his motivation.

[19:29] And then he showed us this thing and it, it looked like a drowned rat.

[19:34] It was, it was this sort of elongated, yeah, ratty face.

Stuart Wellington

[19:42] But, but was there any thought in your mind that it could be a guy in a suit?

[19:49] Yeah.

[19:50] Check it in.

Elliott Kalan

[19:52] Because it sounds like the mission was accomplished.

Parker Bennett

[19:56] Yeah.

[19:56] It had this weird, uncanny, I don't want to say valley, but because it was bigger than a valley.

[20:04] It was, it was like a, like a blast radius of, of uncanniness that was, that was like the eyes were not real, but the teeth looked like they were just dentures that were put in.

[20:17] And, and, and it was big ears.

[20:21] It, it was not cute.

[20:23] I was a little worried right away that this was not going to be a character that endeared itself to the audience.

Elliott Kalan

[20:28] You're saying Sam Winston was so focused on whether he could do it.

[20:31] He never asked whether he should do it.

Parker Bennett

[20:33] Yeah.

[20:33] I think that's it.

[20:34] And then when you look at the movie, there's plenty of like guys in suits.

[20:38] Like you got like, there's a lot of just closeups of, of, you know, of, of, of gnome feet.

[20:44] And it's not clearly some person in a suit walking around.

Dan McCoy

[20:49] I, I haven't seen a gnome named Norm.

[20:52] I have, I definitely checked out some of the trailer and scenes after we discussed it, uh, on the flop house.

[21:00] And I was struck by how defiantly uncute it is.

[21:05] Like Stan Winston really just like, even though this is kind of ostensibly a family film, he's like, okay, but I'm going to make a real creature here.

[21:14] It was just going to be living next to Anthony Michael Hall.

[21:18] And it was very disturbing.

Elliott Kalan

[21:19] It's a, it's a, it really seems like he took the Gelflings from Dark Crystal and was like, how do we make them scary?

[21:28] Like, how do we make them something that if a kid saw it under their bed, they would die of a heart attack?

Parker Bennett

[21:34] Well, I think this has always been the, the, um, the, the tension, I think, of our dark sensibilities and our wanting to do something more adult.

[21:45] And the fact that the source material sort of bends itself into kid territory, uh, is also present in Super Mario Brothers.

[21:53] So we, you know, we did this kind of weird, dark, twisted thing that was, you know, this parallel world where everything's really, uh, violent and, and, uh, reptilian.

[22:04] And, and here we, we added a lot of things that shouldn't be in a kid's movie.

[22:09] We have like a, uh, chase with our hearse and a, you know, guy, a dead body falls out of the casket.

[22:16] Someone tries to give it mouth to mouth.

Elliott Kalan

[22:18] Looking at the cast list on Wikipedia, it does mention that there's an actress who just plays stripper, which is not usually something you see in a kid's movie.

[22:25] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[22:26] I mean, it was, you know, back in the 80s.

Elliott Kalan

[22:27] I should go back to talk about this.

[22:29] It's also amazing.

[22:30] Wait, I should mention from the cast list, there's a character named Zadar, but it's not played by Robert Zadar.

[22:34] Robert Zadar plays a different character, so it seems like a missed opportunity.

[22:40] Robert Zadar plays Reggie.

[22:41] But sorry, but you're saying, so, okay, this.

Parker Bennett

[22:44] Um, what was I saying?

[22:46] Well, I wanted, I wanted to mention this.

[22:47] So we, we didn't write this script.

[22:49] This is a script.

Elliott Kalan

[22:50] I was curious about that.

[22:50] How much, how much of the script was written when it got to you and what shape was it in and that kind of thing?

[22:55] Yeah.

Parker Bennett

[22:55] So this was, this was ready to go.

[22:57] They were, you know, they were filming, they were building, you know, sets and designing gnomes.

[23:02] And, uh, they had yet to cast it at this point when we came in.

[23:07] Uh, but they were, like, they had a start date.

[23:10] So, uh, I think they might have had Jerry Orbach, uh, already cast.

[23:16] And I think he, he might have been excited.

[23:18] Like, he plays his first, possibly his first villain.

[23:22] But he's like, you know, he's the standard cop character.

Elliott Kalan

[23:24] He's kind of a villainous character in the, in the original off-Broadway run of The Fantastics, I guess.

[23:30] He's sort of a con man, so I don't know if he was an out-and-out villain.

[23:35] You know, there's something kind of whimsical about him.

[23:36] And in the end, he does help bring the lovers together.

[23:39] But you're right.

[23:40] Yeah, this is more of a, more of a villainous role than that one.

Dan McCoy

[23:43] The credited writers, uh, have credits, uh, on, uh, Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves as a screenwriter.

Elliott Kalan

[23:50] Well, they went on to write and produce Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves.

[23:52] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[23:53] Yeah.

Parker Bennett

[23:53] I think Backdraft was, maybe, they were involved with that.

[23:57] Oh, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[23:57] And now, I'm looking at this now.

[23:59] Jerry Orbach, his character name is Captain Stan Walton.

[24:01] I wonder if that was confusing on the set, to have a Stan Winston and a Stan Walton in the same place.

[24:06] And a Zadar and a Zadar.

[24:08] There's so many, the movie should be about all the, the goofy mix-ups on the set of a known name Norm.

Parker Bennett

[24:14] I can only imagine if Robert, I'm sure if you scroll down and look at the goofs, uh, you know, that'll, that'll be in there.

Stuart Wellington

[24:20] Imagine if Robert Zadar showed up to Zadar's trailer.

[24:24] Like, imagine opening the door and Robert Zadar's there.

[24:27] That's wild.

[24:28] Yeah, and he's bringing Zabars with him.

Elliott Kalan

[24:31] Well, that's just because he was so thoughtful, you know.

[24:34] Yeah.

[24:34] He had a, he had a heart as big as his face.

Parker Bennett

[24:39] So, so I think it's hard to remember because I didn't want to dig into the box that's, you know, four layers deep in an attic somewhere to find the script.

Elliott Kalan

[24:49] We appreciate that for this episode of the Peach Pit Pocket Edition, you didn't go into your archives.

[24:54] Yeah.

[24:54] I think that would have been too much.

Parker Bennett

[24:56] But I, I have a feeling that I, vaguely in the back of my mind, because it was 30 years ago, uh, I think Penn Dentium had written sort of a serious minded, you know, like it was, he took it very seriously.

[25:09] Penn Dentium was, and John Watson are both British, and Penn, um, is a little bit elven.

[25:19] Uh, he's got a sort of, uh, he's got a sort of that, that elvish quality to him.

[25:25] Uh, and I think he, he related a little more seriously to creating the backstory of this gnome's world, and they needed to get the lumen to bring it to the surface, to gather the sunlight, to bring down to the world.

[25:38] And so, we were brought in to basically undo all of that and make it jokey.

[25:43] Uh, and probably for the better, um, given that the gnome was not very convincing.

Stuart Wellington

[25:50] Yeah.

[25:51] So, you're, so your first, like, when you first approached the screenplay, you were, you were brought in to punch it up.

[25:57] Was it, like, joke-free?

[25:59] Or were the jokes just not working?

[26:01] What's going on?

Parker Bennett

[26:02] It was, uh, as I recall, it was pretty joke-free.

[26:07] It was, like, joke-light at any rate.

[26:09] Mm-hmm.

[26:10] So, the first thing we do with, at that, you know, in that era, the first thing you do is you turn your lead character into Bill Murray.

[26:16] Mm-hmm.

[26:16] So, we, we did that.

[26:19] Uh.

Elliott Kalan

[26:19] That makes, it's like the way, the way now, pretty much every lead character becomes Chris Pratt at a certain point in the process.

Parker Bennett

[26:25] Yeah.

[26:26] Yeah.

[26:26] That makes sense.

[26:27] Exactly.

[26:27] Again, the Super Mario connection.

[26:29] Um.

Stuart Wellington

[26:31] Well, because it's just natural casting.

[26:32] Oh, yeah.

[26:33] All roads lead back to, uh, Bowser's Castle.

[26:38] Well, he built them.

[26:39] It makes sense.

[26:40] It's true.

[26:40] Yeah.

[26:41] Yeah.

Parker Bennett

[26:42] Um.

[26:42] So, we, we wrote it sort of, like, you know, like a wise, wise acre, wise cracking, you know, laid back, kind of smooth talking detective, young detective.

[26:54] And, uh, about a, I guess maybe three or four days into our process, they'd cast Anthony Michael Hall as the lead.

[27:02] Mm-hmm.

[27:02] And we were hopeful, but dubious.

[27:07] Yeah.

[27:07] Um, we had actually met Anthony Heichel Hall.

[27:10] We were, we were trying to get jobs at Saturday Night Live a few years, like maybe five years before.

[27:17] And, uh, had visited the set.

[27:19] And it was the year that it imploded, essentially.

[27:23] Like, like, they, this was the year they, they wound up firing everybody in the cast.

[27:28] So, it was good we didn't get the job.

[27:30] Because, and Al Franken stole some of our stuff.

[27:34] It was not a good experience.

[27:36] Whoa.

Elliott Kalan

[27:37] Stole some of your material or stole, like, things in a box?

[27:39] Or, like, your stuff.

[27:40] No, like, out of our car.

[27:41] It was, it was.

Parker Bennett

[27:44] Uh.

[27:44] I, I don't know.

[27:45] Maybe, maybe that's too broad a word.

[27:47] But we had, we had come up with a sketch idea called That Black Girl that we wanted Denitra Vance to do.

[27:53] Uh-huh.

[27:53] She was a fellow Chicagoan, a fellow, as someone from Second City that we knew.

[27:57] Uh-huh.

[27:58] And, uh, we pitched this idea to her.

[28:01] And, like, maybe three weeks later, it was on the air.

[28:06] That she and Al Franken decided that that was a good idea.

Elliott Kalan

[28:10] That's because I was, he was a guest on The Daily Show once when I was a production assistant.

[28:13] And I made a remark backstage that then he used a variant of in the interview.

[28:18] And I was like, wait a minute.

[28:19] Really?

[28:20] Yeah.

[28:21] Wow.

[28:22] Breaking.

[28:22] Wow.

[28:23] And he went on, he went on to a political career with no issues, right?

Stuart Wellington

[28:27] He is now a very successful.

[28:28] No issue.

Elliott Kalan

[28:29] He continues to remain in the Senate.

[28:31] No issues at all with boundaries that he had to deal with.

Dan McCoy

[28:35] By the way, I mean, there are no goofs for a gnome named Norm.

[28:39] This is a perfect movie.

[28:40] Goofs.

[28:41] But, uh.

[28:42] There is.

[28:42] There's no gnoofs.

[28:43] But there's trivia.

[28:46] Filmed in 1988.

[28:47] Received limited release in 1990.

[28:49] Pulled from circulation and re-released in 92.

[28:52] I assume, like, the Manchurian candidate, that was because of the Kennedy assassination that there was then.

Elliott Kalan

[28:58] Yeah, they remembered the Kennedy assassination.

[29:01] Then they wanted to re-release it on the 29th anniversary.

S5

[29:09] You probably already have a favorite animal.

[29:12] Maybe it's a powerful apex predator like the tiger or a cute and cuddly panda.

[29:16] And those are great.

[29:17] But have you considered something a little more unconventional?

Dan McCoy

[29:21] Could I perhaps interest you in the Greenland shark, which can live for nearly 400 years?

[29:26] Or maybe the jewel wasp who performs brain surgery on cockroaches to control their minds.

S5

[29:32] On Just the Zoo of Us, we review animals by giving them ratings out of 10 in the categories of effectiveness, ingenuity, and aesthetics.

[29:39] Listen with friends and family of all ages to find your new favorite animal with Just the Zoo of Us on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get podcasts.

S6

[29:51] Hello, I'm a stuffy dowager, Countess.

[29:54] Travis?

[29:55] I'm judging everybody's manners.

[29:58] Oh, no.

[29:58] Schmanners isn't judgy.

[29:59] It's about teaching you to be your best self and be a little more confident when you enter social situations that you don't understand.

[30:06] And maybe also teach you a little bit about history you didn't know or give you interesting things to talk about at parties.

S5

[30:12] Yeah, like the secret life of Emily Post.

S6

[30:14] Or like why wristwatches are the way that they are.

S5

[30:18] We can talk about table manners from the Victorian era.

[30:21] Sure.

S6

[30:21] Or what it's like to attend a Regency ball.

[30:23] Yeah.

[30:24] You can find all that and more if you listen to Schmanners on MaximumFun or wherever your podcasts come from, I guess.

[30:33] Manners, Schmanners.

[30:34] Get it?

Dan McCoy

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[31:43] But again, that is microdose.com, code FLOP.

[31:48] And also, the Flophouse is sponsored in Sparta.

[31:51] In Sparta.

[31:52] Well, in Sparta, maybe?

[31:55] Let's look at the map.

[31:57] See whether we're sponsored in Sparta.

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Parker Bennett

[33:28] So I did want to mention, Dan, that I envy you that you have not seen a no-name norm.

[33:34] I tried to watch it again and really couldn't make it through it.

[33:39] It was not a good thing.

Dan McCoy

[33:40] I mean, I'll tell you, out of the three of us, I'm the one most likely to go out and seek it out.

[33:47] So I haven't escaped yet, but that's my own fault.

Parker Bennett

[33:50] Well, I urge you and all of the listeners to just know ahead of time this is a bad, bad movie.

Stuart Wellington

[33:56] Okay.

[33:58] No amount of convincing people is going to work.

[34:02] Elliot has done a presentation on the movie Nuki like 40 times.

[34:07] And every time I see him do this fucking thing, people come up to him afterwards and are like, I can't wait to watch it.

[34:13] And the whole point of the presentation is don't watch that movie.

Elliott Kalan

[34:17] Is that it's the second worst movie I've ever seen.

[34:21] And, but I used to, when I used to.

[34:22] Every time.

[34:24] Every time people are like, yeah, yeah, that's going to be hilarious.

[34:26] I'm like, no, it's not.

[34:26] That's the good stuff.

[34:27] No, it's the pure stuff.

[34:30] I used to host a screening series in New York in a movie theater there.

[34:35] And I would be like, this is a great movie.

[34:38] You've never seen it.

[34:38] It's really fantastic.

[34:39] You're going to love it.

[34:40] And I'd get minimal audiences.

[34:41] But if I was like, this movie is trash.

[34:43] It is the worst thing I would sell out.

[34:45] And it was just like, there's a certain type of person who's really drawn to junk.

Stuart Wellington

[34:49] Yeah, a little line around the block.

[34:51] Food fight.

[34:53] Food fight.

[34:53] Yep.

[34:54] If we, we could, I bet we could sell out a screening of food fight.

[34:58] Oh, of course we could.

Elliott Kalan

[35:01] I mean, we routinely sell out shows that we do.

[35:03] So I think, hopefully it'd be coming more for us.

Dan McCoy

[35:06] Yeah.

[35:07] You added food fight to the mix.

[35:09] Yeah, yeah.

[35:09] It'd be unstoppable.

Elliott Kalan

[35:10] Put us in Madison Square Garden.

Stuart Wellington

[35:13] We're selling it out.

Elliott Kalan

[35:14] Mm-hmm.

[35:14] Finally.

Parker Bennett

[35:16] So, gnome name norm.

[35:17] Okay.

[35:18] They had put us up.

[35:19] We were in a, we asked to be put up near the ocean because we're from Chicago.

[35:25] Mm-hmm.

[35:25] And they put us in the shoddy Holiday Inn in Santa Monica.

Elliott Kalan

[35:29] So they were like, technically you're near the ocean.

[35:32] Yeah.

[35:32] And did you see it?

[35:33] Did you look at it?

[35:34] And you went, that's the biggest lake I've ever seen.

[35:36] And then the bellhop had to be like, no, no, it's not a lake.

[35:40] It's actually an ocean.

[35:41] And you went, wow.

Parker Bennett

[35:43] Well, I don't know if you have experienced this, but coming from Chicago, the first time

[35:48] you hit LA, it's like, it's prehistoric.

[35:51] Like there's these huge palm trees and spiky plants and there's, it's very alien looking

[35:58] coming from the Midwest where you have.

Elliott Kalan

[36:00] I feel like even coming from the East Coast, yeah, like I've lived in LA for five years

[36:05] now.

[36:05] And when I'm driving, it'll suddenly hit me that these enormous mountains are everywhere

[36:09] around me.

[36:10] And it just strikes.

[36:11] And I'm suddenly, I'm like, what is this?

[36:12] Am I, am I in the Bronx?

[36:14] Is there going to be a rumble?

[36:16] But like, but it's just, just the fact that I'm surrounded, you're surrounded by this,

[36:19] this topography that is constantly reminding you how small you are, which really helps

[36:24] the studios when they're dealing with us as, as writers, that, that, that the very geography

[36:28] is reminding us that we're nothing.

[36:30] We're less than nothing.

[36:31] But yeah, it's a, I, I know exactly what you're talking about.

[36:33] It just, it feels like a different world when you come into it.

[36:35] Yeah.

Parker Bennett

[36:36] And also if you're from the East Coast or Chicago, it's like there's architecture there.

[36:40] Things that were built before 1950.

[36:44] So it's, there's, it's a very, it was very alien place that it actually took us a long

[36:49] time to consider moving out here.

[36:51] And Terry never got the chance, but I did and did it too late.

[36:57] Don't, for all of you listening who want a career in Hollywood, come to Hollywood.

[37:01] Don't try to do it from Chicago.

[37:02] Only we were convinced like, oh, well, you know, there's Harold Ramis and John, John Hughes

[37:09] and Tim Kazerinsky.

[37:12] There's people doing it from Chicago.

[37:13] And we thought we could do it, but it turns out not.

[37:16] Anyway, we, we, uh, stole your, stole your chance.

Elliott Kalan

[37:20] Maybe.

[37:21] Yeah.

Parker Bennett

[37:21] We, uh, started in on, uh, Bill Murraying up the character and, uh, putting a little romance

[37:28] in and.

Stuart Wellington

[37:30] Between, uh, between him and the gnome, right?

[37:33] Between him and the gnome.

[37:34] Between Michael Hall and the gnome.

[37:36] I think there's sort of some implied, you know, you don't.

Elliott Kalan

[37:40] Tension.

[37:40] Yeah.

[37:41] It was pulled from circulation because the sex scene was deemed too graphic.

Parker Bennett

[37:45] Yep.

[37:46] That's it.

[37:47] That's why it was pulled from 1990 to 1992.

[37:50] They had to wait for it.

Elliott Kalan

[37:51] They were like, it's not technically the nineties yet.

[37:53] People aren't ready for it.

[37:54] And then the nineties.

[37:55] Culture hasn't caught up.

Parker Bennett

[37:56] Yeah.

[37:56] So we, we wrote a bunch of things in that were just supposed to be in succions and, you

[38:04] know, uh, have a, the character would come in, like when he's introduced, he would come

[38:08] in sort of, you know, breeze in.

[38:10] He's every, he's late and he's going to miss this mess up this big gig.

[38:14] And, and they're going to hand it over to his rival Kaminsky.

[38:19] Um, and he like shows up at the very last minute and sort of walks by Kaminsky and Kaminsky's

[38:25] grabbed a candy bar out of the vending machine.

[38:28] And, and he's supposed to pluck it out of his pocket with, you know, flair and say, oh,

[38:34] good.

[38:34] My Zagnut bar.

[38:36] And so first of all, Stan, Stan wanted us to change it because he'd never heard of a

[38:41] Zagnut bar.

[38:42] Uh, so we weren't, we weren't aware that this was a Midwest thing and not a West coast

[38:48] thing.

[38:50] Um, and so he was like, you know, this, I've never heard of this thing and I don't, we don't

[38:55] even know where to get them.

[38:57] And, uh, you should change this to a Snickers.

[39:00] And Terry and I were like, no, no, no, no, no.

[39:04] Let us teach you about comedy.

[39:06] Snickers, despite being actually a word that means laughter.

[39:11] Is not a funny word.

[39:13] Even though it has the hard K sound, it sounds like product placement.

[39:18] Yeah.

[39:18] But Zagnut, that's a, that's a goofy candy bar.

[39:23] So we called the, uh, he said, nah, nah.

[39:26] We, Terry called the leaf candy company in Chicago and told them what we were trying to

[39:32] do.

[39:34] And they sent two cases of Zagnut bars to us.

Elliott Kalan

[39:37] Nice.

[39:38] Now he's got no excuse.

[39:39] I was hoping.

[39:39] They wanted those Reese's pieces money.

Dan McCoy

[39:41] They, they'd seen the ET thing go down.

[39:44] Yep.

[39:45] Sorry.

Elliott Kalan

[39:45] I was hoping you were going to say that, uh, that he called the Supreme court and, and,

[39:49] and justice Thurgood Marshall was like, no, Zagnut is funnier.

[39:53] I rule.

[39:57] But so, so did it get it, did the bars get in now that they had the cases there?

Parker Bennett

[40:01] Well, we got the cases and then we, we went around because we were pranksters at that time

[40:06] being young.

[40:07] We put them in various spots where Stan would run, would like stumble over them for days.

[40:15] So we, they were in his desk drawer and in his coat pocket and in his script binder and in the

[40:20] bookshelves.

[40:21] And so he would literally for days be, be running into Zagnut bars and they've got a bright orange

[40:28] wrapper with a big Zagnut thing on it.

[40:32] And he finally relented.

Elliott Kalan

[40:34] And yes, not only did it make it naturally occurring candy bar, it's everywhere.

Parker Bennett

[40:39] Uh, not only did our beloved Zagnut bar make it into the movie, uh, it's actually the last

[40:45] shot of the movie, which today would have been a mid credit sequence, but it's the rival character

[40:51] with like a pile of Zagnut bar wrappers at his feet.

[40:56] And the cleaning lady is like annoyed picking them up and he's stuffing another one in his

[41:01] mouth.

[41:02] Uh, so yes, Zagnut bars.

Dan McCoy

[41:04] Mm-hmm.

[41:04] Yeah.

[41:04] And of course they got that huge bump from a gnome named Norm.

[41:08] The Zagnut bar became the biggest.

Stuart Wellington

[41:10] Inspired a bit in Beetlejuice, I believe.

Parker Bennett

[41:14] That's true.

[41:15] When, when we were all done, uh, they, there was still like a, an entire case of Zagnut bars,

[41:20] uh, that we, and we had driven.

[41:22] So we, so this is the other thing when you're a young screenwriter is they, we had worked

[41:27] into the deal.

[41:29] We get unlimited, you know, we get a unrestricted first class plane ticket out to LA.

[41:35] And so we immediately cashed those in and then drove from Chicago to LA in Terry's 1957 Dodge

[41:45] Cornet.

[41:46] And, uh, and so we were driving back with this case of Zagnut bars and we, we were literally

[41:53] Johnny Zagnut bar.

[41:55] Every truck stop, every bar, every restaurant, every place we went, we just like handed out

[42:02] this coconut crusted goodness.

[42:05] Uh, people were very confused.

[42:08] So you did a, you did a real public service.

Elliott Kalan

[42:09] I was worried that you were going to say you cashed in the plane tickets and then spend it

[42:13] all on Zagnut bars.

[42:14] You'd have something to eat on the drive and then you get to LA and suddenly you're overwhelmed

[42:18] with Zagnut bars.

[42:19] Oh, you could have saved that money.

Dan McCoy

[42:21] And this is why there's so many, uh, Zagnut bar trees, uh, between LA and Chicago.

[42:29] Because of the propagation.

Parker Bennett

[42:30] But it has to be said that Stan, you know, he was, he learned and, and then he turned around

[42:36] and he taught us some stuff too.

[42:38] So we were young screenwriters and he, you know, had some experience in the business.

[42:43] So he helped us understand a little bit about like how to write a car chase that he could

[42:49] film.

[42:49] Like we'd written a really funny car chase with a hearse and a bunch of jokes about the,

[42:54] the line of cars that were following the hearse being turned into a police chase because Anthony

[43:01] Michael Hall jumps into the hearse, commandeers the hearse.

[43:03] And then, you know, the, all of the mourners that are following have to, you know, go super

[43:08] fast on the streets of LA following this hearse.

[43:11] But we'd written in such a way that, uh, it wouldn't cut together.

[43:16] Like we had, uh, we wanted the, uh, I think we wanted the, the coffin to fall out on a

[43:22] bridge and then like tip, teeter over the bridge and then tip over.

[43:26] And, uh, it was stuff that he, he basically sat us down and showed us like, well, here,

[43:31] this wouldn't cut with this.

Dan McCoy

[43:33] That sounds great.

[43:33] So it was kind of, you know, kind of, kind of a good little learning lesson.

[43:36] We were, we were in our twenties.

Parker Bennett

[43:37] We needed, we needed to know stuff.

[43:39] Yeah.

[43:40] Yeah.

[43:40] The, uh, the, the gnome was not convincing.

[43:43] We weren't on set, so we didn't see it be not convincing.

[43:46] Uh, we were in the, the horrid holiday inn.

[43:51] Uh, but they asked us to stick around for another week.

[43:55] And so our, we said, well, we'll stick around for another week.

[43:58] They wanted us to do it for no money, which I was all for.

[44:02] And our agents were like, no, no, no.

[44:04] Gnome money.

Elliott Kalan

[44:05] No with a G.

[44:07] It's probably just like.

[44:08] Yeah.

[44:09] No, it's not.

[44:10] It's fair.

[44:11] It's amazing how it, they, that's still, Hollywood still continues to want people to do things

[44:15] for no money.

[44:16] They're like, hey, we, we want to do a little bit of extra work for us, but guess what?

[44:20] Here's the fun part.

[44:21] You're doing it for free.

[44:22] You're going to enjoy this.

Stuart Wellington

[44:24] There's a little twist on it.

[44:26] Well, the, uh, film, because filmmaking studios are charitable organizations, right?

[44:32] Well, according to their leadership.

[44:33] Recording profits, it's all.

Elliott Kalan

[44:35] Oh, who was it?

[44:35] Who wrote Men in Black?

[44:37] And, uh, and every year tweets about his.

[44:40] Shane Black.

[44:40] Ed Solomon?

[44:41] Is that who did it?

[44:43] Oh, Men in Black.

[44:43] Yeah.

[44:44] Ed Solomon.

[44:45] Yeah.

[44:45] Co-writer of Super Mario Brothers.

[44:47] Oh, right, right, right.

[44:48] And every year he tweets about, uh, how Men in Black, according to the reports sent him

[44:53] by the studio, still has yet to make a profit.

[44:57] Uh, that's right.

[44:57] I forgot he was also, that's right.

[44:59] You were telling us at the time, you were telling us when we talked about Super Mario Brothers

[45:01] about how he, uh, about the stuff that he had, he had done on that.

[45:05] Anyway, uh, all roads lead back to Super Mario Brothers.

[45:08] This is really amazing.

[45:09] It's really the, the central cultural moment of the 20th century.

Parker Bennett

[45:13] I think it's clear.

[45:14] It's a nexus.

[45:15] Yeah, sure.

[45:18] Yeah.

[45:19] So we, we were, uh, we were moved.

[45:22] We, we, our agent negotiated a little more money for us and we got moved to the Hotel

[45:26] Shangri-La, which is actually right on the beach, which is, was nice.

[45:31] Although our room, of course, did not face the beach.

[45:35] It was facing inward.

Elliott Kalan

[45:36] But, and yeah, so there.

[45:38] It actually had the ice machine in it.

[45:39] The windows actually opened onto a hallway inside the hotel.

Parker Bennett

[45:44] They were just posters of windows.

Elliott Kalan

[45:48] I keep imagining like a, like a Groucho in a night at the opera where everybody else has

[45:51] these big suites and he goes to his room and it's like, there's a cot and there's pipes

[45:56] going through the walls and things like that.

[45:58] They put you up in the Shangri-La.

[46:00] Finally.

[46:00] The Shangri-La.

Parker Bennett

[46:01] And the first night there, Terry goes to the bar and he picks up some dancer, a professional

[46:07] dancer, and has sex with her on the rooftop while I'm writing gnome jokes.

Stuart Wellington

[46:14] Oh, the life of a comedy writer, right guys?

Parker Bennett

[46:19] Yeah.

[46:20] So, yeah.

[46:20] So Terry's sort of like the Stuart Wellington of our, our group.

[46:27] More of a combination of Elliot and Dan.

[46:30] Yeah.

[46:31] Yeah.

[46:32] So, so we stayed another week.

[46:36] The office assistant we'd befriended, Kehlani, was lovely.

[46:42] And we hung out with her.

[46:44] She's a sort of Polynesian, Hawaiian-born office assistant.

[46:48] She had an adorable daughter and we would hang out at her apartment.

[46:52] And then she wanted to show us her screenplay.

[46:55] So we just learned right away, like, let's go back to Chicago where not everyone is working

[47:01] on a screenplay.

Elliott Kalan

[47:03] Everyone's working on a meat sandwich of some kind.

[47:05] And they're always like, yeah, yeah, now we're friends.

[47:07] Let me show you this meat sandwich I've been working on.

[47:09] Give me your notes on this.

[47:11] You think you show this to the right people?

Stuart Wellington

[47:14] In all honesty, that meat sandwich is probably more exciting than most screenplays.

[47:19] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[47:19] That's a good point.

[47:20] Good point.

[47:20] That was a, that was a good, that was a good book.

[47:23] Notes on a meat sandwich.

Elliott Kalan

[47:27] It's much better than that movie Hands on a Meat Sandwich where whoever holds their hand

[47:32] on the sandwich the longest gets it.

[47:33] But by that point, do you really want that sandwich?

[47:35] Just sitting out for a long time.

[47:37] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[47:38] Hands on a hard meat sandwich because it's stale.

Parker Bennett

[47:41] So then the only other, I think, big contribution I made to the lore of A Gnome Named Norm was

[47:48] I wrote the joke that the G in gnome is not silent.

[47:52] You did?

[47:52] It's gnome.

[47:54] Yeah, that was me.

[47:55] And then there was some confusion about the name.

[47:57] And then it was, no, it's gnorm.

[47:59] And Anthony Michael Hall insists it's silent.

[48:02] And then gnome says, no, it's gnot.

[48:05] And that was me.

[48:08] And it's an echo of a joke I would write later that Mario's last name is, of course, Mario.

[48:14] Because it's the Mario Brothers.

Stuart Wellington

[48:17] Which became canon.

[48:18] Yeah.

[48:19] No small contribution.

[48:21] That's pretty amazing.

Dan McCoy

[48:23] I like that you were directly responsible for people tweeting at Elliot to correct him that the gnome in,

[48:31] a gnome named Norm is, it's pronounced G-norm and G-nome.

[48:37] So.

Stuart Wellington

[48:37] Dan likes to stick his legion of followers on us.

Dan McCoy

[48:40] I stick anyone.

[48:41] I just love imagining that unwittingly Parker is set into motion.

[48:48] Many years later, people tweeting at Elliot to tell him that he's mispronouncing the things in a movie that he's never seen that are mispronounced within the movie.

[49:00] So there was no possible way.

Stuart Wellington

[49:02] Yeah, yeah.

[49:02] Like Elliot was probably having a hard day.

[49:05] Maybe he was dealing with some family stuff, some work stuff.

[49:07] And he's like, look, I'm going to relax a little.

[49:09] I'm going to turn to my refuge Twitter.

[49:12] He opens it up.

[49:13] Oh, I have some notifications.

[49:15] Perhaps I should look at these.

[49:17] Looks at them.

Elliott Kalan

[49:17] Or should I call them good notifications for no reason in particular?

[49:23] Yeah.

[49:23] Not since a sound of thunder has a small incident in the past reaped such horrifying consequences in the future.

Stuart Wellington

[49:32] That's lovely.

[49:33] So takeaways.

[49:36] Takeaways from this experience.

Elliott Kalan

[49:39] I forgot you were hosting an episode of the Peach Pits, too.

Parker Bennett

[49:44] If we come back to talking about this episode, when I come back to talk about the thief and the cobbler, are we going to talk about this episode and it'll be the peach pit pocket pocket?

Stuart Wellington

[49:58] This isn't the question section of the podcast.

Elliott Kalan

[50:01] All right.

[50:02] That is –

[50:02] Work on the thief and the cobbler?

[50:04] Yeah, I am very curious about your work on the thief and the cobbler.

[50:06] I saw you worked on that and that's like – I feel like for years I grew up hearing about that as like the legendary missing work basically.

[50:16] Yeah.

Parker Bennett

[50:18] I feel like I'm cursed in some ways.

Dan McCoy

[50:21] Yeah, I was about to say you're like the zealot of ill-fated projects.

Parker Bennett

[50:25] It seems like I'm the – like almost the mascot of the Flophouse screenwriter potentially.

[50:32] Yeah, so the thief and the cobbler is another whole story.

[50:36] But basically it was – it's a tragic story.

[50:39] I'm a huge Richard Williams fan.

[50:41] Jake Eberts, who produced Super Mario Brothers or one of the producers of Super Mario Brothers, asked us, kind of begged us.

[50:50] Like the movie had gone into – it was taken away from Richard Williams.

[50:56] He'd kind of gone nuts and wasn't finishing it.

[51:00] So the completion bond company took it over and they were redoing – a Canadian animator was going to sort of finish it up so they could release something.

Elliott Kalan

[51:11] We should say for anyone who's not familiar with it, we should say that Thief and the Cobbler is – it's an animated film that is – the animation is astounding.

[51:19] Like it's gorgeous to look at.

[51:22] But did he try to do it all by himself or was it that it was just too ambitious the way they were trying or I don't know?

Parker Bennett

[51:30] I don't think he – well, he had a very – you know, at the time there was more experimentation going on in animation.

[51:39] And I think he had a sort of, you know, yellow submarine idea where it was going to be really super trippy.

[51:45] And his idea was there would be no dialogue.

[51:48] And the character was named – the Cobbler had a tack in his mouth and he would just sort of – the tack would sort of move up and down.

[51:56] And I don't know if he was going to do like peanuts trombones or I don't know what his thought was.

[52:01] He wanted to have basically this rich visual tapestry experience and it would fold in on itself and these crazy – you know, use all of the Arabian artwork kind of sensibilities.

[52:16] And he designed these amazing tank-like constructions that were like sort of steampunk before steampunk.

[52:28] And so he did all of this amazing work but it just was like half done or three-quarters done and he just kind of – I don't know.

[52:37] He couldn't get it finished and the Completion Bond Company took it away.

[52:40] We didn't know any of this.

[52:42] So again, we're like sort of our hapless heroes.

[52:47] You know, Jake, who we liked, we loved.

[52:50] You know, he was a very kind gentleman.

[52:52] He said, you know, I really need somebody.

[52:54] We're going to add dialogue.

[52:55] We've hired the guys from Disney, you know, to write the songs.

[53:00] Howard Ashman and whoever he was partnered with.

[53:03] I think it was somebody different on this one.

[53:05] But anyway, you know, we need to have some dialogue and can you help us out?

[53:10] And of course we were going to help our friend and we didn't realize we were ruining this vision of this visionary animator.

[53:20] So, yeah.

[53:22] So now I don't need to come back.

[53:23] This is great.

Dan McCoy

[53:24] If people don't – no, we can figure out another reason.

[53:28] If people don't know Richard Williams, though, like most famously he was the animation director for Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

[53:35] But he was sort of a legendary animator.

Elliott Kalan

[53:40] But I didn't realize this.

[53:40] It says that on the trivia on IMDb that it holds the record for the longest production schedule of a completed feature movie, 28 years.

[53:47] Wow.

[53:48] So at a certain point, it's – at a certain point, I guess it makes sense they took away.

[53:52] Oh, that's too bad.

[53:54] Well, Hollywood, you've heard it.

[53:57] We've got to get this man on a movie that wins a lot of Oscars so he can come back and talk to us about that.

[54:04] Yeah.

Parker Bennett

[54:05] I think what I take away from A Gnome Named Norm is that – well, it was definitely a worthwhile experience for a young screenwriter to have some – like to work with Stan Winston, to work on an actual production, to experience, you know, sort of that pressure and the shoddy holiday inn.

[54:30] And it was a time that I kind of miss when the effects were – required more suspension of disbelief.

[54:40] Like you couldn't – like now, today, you could literally just put anything on the screen and computers can make it happen.

[54:46] And now AI will probably take it from here.

[54:49] Mm-hmm.

[54:50] And so at the time, it was like you had to be ingenious.

[54:53] And Stan was ingenious, you know.

[54:56] So he had – he failed in this particular instance to translate his genius to the gnome puppet.

[55:06] I think the character design let him down.

[55:08] I don't know if that was him or someone else.

[55:10] But, you know, they had – if you look at the credits, there's like a team of 30 or 40 puppeteers making this Norm puppet happen.

[55:21] And, you know, at times it's pretty convincing.

[55:23] At other times it's just, oh, my God.

[55:26] What is that?

[55:28] Get it away.

Stuart Wellington

[55:29] My eyes.

[55:30] Yeah, I know.

[55:31] Let me look not at the screen for a minute.

Elliott Kalan

[55:35] I mean, even that could be seen as being too successful maybe with his – like you were saying with the design, like his original intention of I want this to be impossible for anyone to think it was ever a human.

[55:47] And maybe that was too far in the wrong direction since it seems like you could probably get away with a gnome that was just like a person with longer years.

Stuart Wellington

[55:56] No, I think – I mean, I think what I'm taking from what you're saying is that there was a time where special effects required a lot more like workarounds and some clever fixing.

[56:10] And it seems like it required a certain art in order to be able to sell the idea of something.

[56:19] And I think there's a lot of directors and special effects teams who are doing some really interesting work now.

[56:26] But there's also – there's a lot of people working in big films who are just like, okay, yeah, we'll just let computers figure it all out.

[56:34] And it shows.

Elliott Kalan

[56:36] Because – yeah, and well, because also they – I think there's a lot of – there's a lot of producers and directors who are like, yeah, yeah, the computers will handle that.

[56:44] And don't realize that it means a team of human beings working very long hours up to the last minute to get it done.

[56:51] Like, whereas when you can see a physical thing, I'm sure a producer could be like, Stan, we need this done by this date.

[56:57] And he could point to a puppet and be like, well, we've got to finish making this work.

[57:00] And they'd be like, okay, I can see that it's a real actual object.

[57:04] Like, let's – that human hands are building.

[57:07] Whereas now it's easy to forget that it's still people doing the work.

[57:10] Like, at least, yeah, until the AI steps in and they can finally make everything look super smooth and kind of lit as if it's not quite dark and not quite light.

[57:21] And people don't have cores anymore.

[57:23] Yeah.

[57:23] Well, also, I mean –

[57:24] Perfect world.

Dan McCoy

[57:25] The thing with – I mean, like, the fact that computers can literally do anything given, you know, enough time and ingenuity.

Elliott Kalan

[57:34] You say computers can do literally anything.

[57:36] Can a computer build a rock that was too heavy even for a computer to lift?

Stuart Wellington

[57:39] That's actually a really good question.

[57:42] It can render a rock.

Dan McCoy

[57:44] It can –

[57:44] Because computers can –

[57:45] That's a good point.

[57:47] Render whatever, I do think that a lot of people are just like, okay, because they can do whatever, then that's the answer to everything rather than being like a bunch of different techniques maybe is the way to get –

[58:02] Like, not like – I don't want the – I aforementioned Todd Vaziri to come out of the computer and slap me.

[58:10] It's too late.

[58:10] He's already mad at us.

[58:11] I'm not –

Stuart Wellington

[58:12] Yeah, he's already lawnmowered manned into our podcast and he's slapping you.

Dan McCoy

[58:16] I'm just saying that, like, clearly, like, you know, a grab bag of techniques sometimes is the answer.

[58:24] And when there's like a – when directors think that there's a magic wand, then they can, like, get into trouble because they don't understand what might look best, you know.

Parker Bennett

[58:35] Well, I would say that often the creative constraints help out a creative project.

[58:41] Like, if you are restrained by a budget or you're restrained by it has to be a practical effect, you get clever.

[58:47] You get more creative with it.

[58:49] In the case of a gnome named Norm, not.

[58:52] But –

[58:53] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[58:53] But it's possible.

[58:54] It's possible for someone to react in a clever way.

[58:56] Yeah.

[58:58] Like, what if –

[58:58] I shouldn't say that.

Stuart Wellington

[59:00] People work hard.

[59:01] How would the movie have turned out if the puppet hadn't worked like in Jaws and they had to just not show Gnorm?

Parker Bennett

[59:10] Well, we put off showing Norm as long as possible in the script.

[59:14] Like, we kind of – you know, that's a standard way to approach, you know, your character.

[59:19] You want to have that Indiana Jones reveal.

[59:22] So, he was – you know, we don't see him in the –

[59:26] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[59:27] It is ironic that we're arguing in favor of practical effects on the gnome named Norm episode.

[59:35] It's a slender read.

[59:36] It's a slender read to hold this argument.

[59:39] Argument against the –

Parker Bennett

[59:41] Well, the special edition – yeah, the legacy effects will come and save this movie with post-production digital effects.

Elliott Kalan

[59:51] You hand it to George Lucas and it's the same movie but there's little robots flying around in the foreground and background throughout.

[59:57] And he's like, there, I fixed your movie.

[59:59] I noticed you didn't put any little robots flying around.

[1:00:01] More stormtroopers in the back.

[1:00:03] I noticed there was a scene where a character was doing something really cool so I had a Ronto walk in front of it in the middle of the scene.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:12] Hey, I'm noticing what time it is.

[1:00:14] So, we should probably wrap up the most –

[1:00:17] Let me see.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:17] Oh, it's Norm time.

[1:00:18] That's right.

[1:00:19] We've got another guest with us.

[1:00:20] The gnome himself.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:22] That would be incredible.

[1:00:23] Parker, I interrupted you.

[1:00:24] Was there something – last thing you wanted to say?

[1:00:26] And also, is there a plug you want to –

Parker Bennett

[1:00:28] I was stumbling toward a conclusion and I didn't reach it.

[1:00:31] So, let's just leave it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:34] Guys, thanks so much.

[1:00:36] This has been an amazing episode of the Peach Pit Pocket Edition focusing on a Flophouse mini where we talked at length about A Gnome Named Norm, a movie that at the time we had not watched.

[1:00:47] And it's so exciting that I had two of them, a host of the Flophouse and Parker Bennett.

[1:00:52] You've been such a treat tonight.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:54] Yeah, I tried to ask for plugs.

[1:00:56] Does he have plugs of any kind?

Parker Bennett

[1:00:58] Well, I will mention, like I did last time, my screenwriting partner who died, Terry Runte.

[1:01:05] There's a site up that I tell the story of A Gnome Named Norm a little bit in more detail and about Super Mario Brothers and some of our other adventures in 90s Hollywood land at TerryRunte.com.

[1:01:19] T-E-R-R-U-N-T-E dot com.

[1:01:23] So, go over there and learn about Terry.

[1:01:27] Please check it out.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:29] Stuart, continue wrapping us up.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:31] So, this podcast is temporarily on the MaxFun Network.

[1:01:37] What?

[1:01:39] What do you know that we don't do?

[1:01:40] I'm talking about the Peach Pit is a one-time thing.

[1:01:43] Normally, the flop S is on here all the time.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:45] Oh, I forgot.

[1:01:46] I forgot that, yeah, the Peach Pit got purchased by Gimlet, right?

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:50] Yeah.

[1:01:51] Did we lose the fun from Maximum?

[1:01:53] Yep, it's just Maximum.

[1:01:56] So, we, I want to thank.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:59] It's actually now called Maximum Bob based on a novel by James Elroy.

[1:02:02] I'm sorry, by Elroy Leonard.

[1:02:05] By Elroy Leonard, sorry.

[1:02:06] Elmore.

[1:02:07] Elmore.

[1:02:07] Elmore, oh yeah.

[1:02:08] Look, it's late for me too.

[1:02:10] I apologize.

[1:02:10] I was thinking of Elroy Leonard was, of course, the son on the Jetsons.

[1:02:14] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:15] And, of course, James Elroy.

[1:02:17] It all, you know.

[1:02:18] And James Patterson.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:19] So, I also would like to thank our producer.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:22] Why do you mention James Patterson?

[1:02:24] Because he's your favorite author.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:26] Well, I like this.

[1:02:27] I like the school of James Patterson.

[1:02:29] When you buy a book by him and it says,

[1:02:31] attribute it to the school of James Patterson

[1:02:33] because they don't know which of his apprentices wrote it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:35] Yeah.

[1:02:35] So, I would like to thank our producer, Alexander Smith,

[1:02:39] also known as Howell Doughty.

[1:02:41] Elroy Doughty.

[1:02:42] There is a hot contest going on to make a video out of our little music song.

[1:02:50] I've been Stuart Wellington.

[1:02:52] I've been Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:54] I've been Elroy Kalin.

[1:02:56] And joining us has been...

[1:02:57] Parker Bennett.

[1:02:58] We did it.

[1:02:59] Hooray.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:05] MaximumFun.org

Parker Bennett

[1:03:07] Comedy and culture.

[1:03:09] Artist owned.

[1:03:10] Audience supported.

FH Mini #69 - Gnome Named Gnorm Gnews, with Parker Bennett

Transcript

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