September 9, 2025 • 34 mins
In this episode of "Takin a Walk," host Buzz Knight chats with Rob Reiner, acclaimed director and creator of "This Is Spinal Tap." Reiner reflects on the film’s improvisational style, its journey from misunderstood release to cult classic, and its lasting impact on rock satire and pop culture. They discuss the upcoming sequel, the evolution of mockumentaries, and the importance of communal movie experiences. Reiner also shares personal anecdotes about his father, Carl Reiner, and his creative process, offering insights into comedy, music, and the enduring appeal of "Spinal Tap."
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Buzz Knight
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Taking a walk. When we did the first one and
the second one, all the dialogue is improvised, and that's
comfortable for us. We enjoy doing that. I mean, you know,
people said, oh my god, the first film you made
and it was no script and it was improv I said, yeah,
because that's my training, and that's the training of the
guys that I'm working with. We're all that's what we do.
(00:22):
It's like, like I say, it's like jazz musicians. You
pick up a bass, you pick up the sacks, a
guy plays piano, somebody's playing drums, and you just fall
in and start doing it.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
What do you get when you take one of Hollywood's
most beloved storytellers, mix in a legendary mockumentary band, and
crank the volume all the way up to eleven. You
get today's guest. I'm buzz Night, and I'm joined by director, actor,
and comedy icon Rob Reiner, the man who brought us
(00:52):
this is Spinal Tap, a film that not only changed
the way we laugh at rock and roll, but also
invented its own play and pop culture. Now Rob is
back with a brand new chapter a Spinal Tap, and
we're going to be looking at the past, the parody,
the power chords that are still reverberating four decades later,
(01:13):
and as if a new spinal Tap isn't enough, Rob
has a new book about the Spinal Tap adventures, a
fine line between stupid and clever. Let's step into the
world where satire meets rock and everything, absolutely everything still
goes to eleven. Next, I'm taking a walk, Taking a Walk,
(01:38):
Rob Reyder, Welcome to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
So your life, you know, intersects everybody, so before we
dig into spinal Tap to the end continues, I have
to ask you if you could take a walk with
someone living or dead, who would it be and where
would you take a walk with him?
Speaker 1 (02:00):
That's a great question. You know. I think about my
dad all the time, and he's you know, he's in
my head at every move I make. And there's a
story that they tell I don't remember it because I
was little. I think I was eight years old, and
(02:23):
I went up to that Mike folks and I said,
you know, I want to change my name. And they thought, oh,
this poor kid, he's worried about, you know, being Carl
Reiner's son, and you know, living in the shadow and
you know, living up to and all that. And they said, well,
what do you want to change your name to? And
I said Carl because I loved him so much and
(02:46):
I wanted to be just like him, and I looked
up to him. So I think I would take a
walk with him if I could.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Ah, that'd be incredible. Now what did he think of
spinal tap?
Speaker 1 (02:57):
He loved it. He loved it. I mean, you know,
listen he you know, he was on the show of Shows,
said Caesar during the fifties and they did satire they
may you know, they were doing satire of movies and television,
and one of the things they did was the satire
of a rock and roll act called the Three Haircuts,
(03:18):
and there would be he had these big, you know,
kind of pompadour hair dues, and so he was always
into that kind of stuff. And you know, we this
is a long time ago, and I've said before, but
we you know, he was on television before we owned
a television and actually bought one so we could watch
(03:41):
him on television. Anyway, he loved satire, I mean, he
you know, if you listen to the stuff he did
with the mel Brooks and the Two thousand year old
man and a lot of the stuff saying, I know
he loved, he loved Spinal Tapp, and he was very,
you know, very complimentary me. He even actually said because
I was always trying to live up to him, and
I never thought I could do it, and I don't
(04:01):
know that I have or I still do. But he
told me at one point, he says, you're a better
director than I am, and I thought, wow, that's that's
pretty cool for him to say that. And I remember
there was one year, the year that Spinal Tap came out,
in nineteen eighty four, he had done a movie called
All of Me with Steve Martin, and you know, they
(04:25):
have these top ten lists at the end of every
year they put the you know, top ten films and
Spinal Tap and you know this is Spinal Tap and
All of Me were on a ton of lists together,
and I thought, wow, that's amazing. I don't think there's
ever been in the history of the movie business that
a father and son have had two films that they've
(04:45):
directed that were in the top ten so and I
don't think it's ever happened. So I was very proud.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Of that outstanding So bands evolve over time, they get
more mature, they find new creative outlets. So if I
was speaking to this guy, what was his name, Marty
de BURGHI.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Marty de Berghi. Yeah, he was the director of the
first film and the second one, the new one, The
End Continues. He directed that as well.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
What would he say about this band's evolution over time?
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Well, I think you know, first of all, Marty's a
huge fan of Sminal Tap. I mean, he goes way
back to when he first saw them in Branwi's village,
and you know, he was like, couldn't be more thrilled
to be able to get the chance to document this.
At the time was supposed to be their final tour.
(05:41):
Turns out that, you know, they have life after that,
and Marty was very hopeful that it would trigger a
bigger film career for him, that he would get a
chance to make a studio movie, and in fact he did.
He got to do was a It was a sequel
(06:02):
to a film that won a lot of Oscars, was
with Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffmann. It was called Kramer
Versus Cramer, and Marty did the sequel, which was Kramer
Versus Kramer versus Godzilla didn't do too well. No, no,
it bombed, it bombed, so oh my god. You know,
(06:26):
he's been floundering since then, and he got the opportunity
to do the new one, and he was like thrilled,
beyond belief.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Do you think when he evaluates though the band's growth
as artists, that he's seen them grow as artists.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
I think the beauty of a spinal tap is that
they have not grown at all. They have not grown
emotionally or musically, and I think that's that's their charm.
Now they have grown age wise, and they are quite
a bit older. But if you look around, you know,
(07:04):
you see, you see, you know, Paul McCartney's still out
there doing it, rolling stones, Mick Jagger's still running around
the stage in his eighties. Uh. You know, these bands
want to keep going. I want to keep going. And
as a matter of fact, in the second film, Derek Small's,
their bass player, wrote, I had an idea for a
song called Rocking in the Urn, which is all about
(07:27):
what happens in the afterlife. And his contention was that
you're still rocking, you know, wherever you are, you're still
playing music.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
I love the book A fine line between clever and
stupid and.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Between stupid and clever. Actually the line was from the
first film. Uh you know they that that that was
the line was my favorite line in the first film
was a there's a fine line between stupid and clever.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I love the various takes from the artist. I don't
want to give away, but I do want to less
if with your permission.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Look at how Don Henley weighs in on the spinal
Tap drummer STU as we would call it, and he
says being a drummer alive as a victory I haven't exploded.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
I mean he he's one of the few drummers that
has survived. I mean we you know, spinal tap went through.
I think it was eleven or twelve drummers. I'm not sure,
twelve I think. And they actually have to have an
audition to, you know, find a new drummer because the
last drummer they had, Skippy Scuffleton, died from sneezing. He
(08:43):
had a sneezing fit and he couldn't stop sneezing and
he sneezed himself to death. And you know, so they
have to find a new drummer and they put out,
you know, a wide net. They're trying to, you know,
see if there's anybody would come in and and fill
the bill. And they go to Questlove know it was
Jimmy Fallon's drummer and Eat from the Roots. They go
(09:04):
to Chad Smith from the Red Hot Jelly Peppers, and
I also go to Lars Alert from Metallica, and they
all they turn them down because none of them want
to die. They all would rather survive than than play
rock and roll. So they all turn them down and
they have to hold auditions and they wind up with
(09:24):
a new drummer who will see whether or not that
drummer survives.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
It did go to a friend of ours, Ed Begley Jr.
Oh yeah, yeah, I know you have some history with
him as John Stumpy John Shumpy Peeps.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
He was there drummer when they were the Thamesmen and
they had their first moderate hit called give Me Some
Money and we show that. It's interesting. But Ed just
did a little part in a film and a short
film that my daughter wrote me oat and directed and
acted in and so it was funny. Romy was trying
(10:06):
to figure out what he should wear, and they did
a FaceTime and they looked in his closet and she said,
I want that sweater. There was a specific sweater and
Ed said, oh, that's my favorite sweater. I love that.
I've had it for over fifty years and it was
knitted for him by Annette O'Toole, who was married to
Michael McKeon. So you know they had so when we
(10:29):
all got together, then Anette and Romi they bond over
knitting because Romi loves to knit too.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
So I asked that. I said, if if if Stumpy
had been interviewed by Rob Reiner, what do you think
the conversation would be like? And he said, and I quote,
I knew that was one dangerous hoe. I never thought
it would end like this. And I asked him too,
I said, so what do you think of the masters
(10:57):
of tap these days? And he says, as for the
masters of Tap, I'm laying low, as I owe each
of them a great deal of money, But if they're
willing to forgive and forget, I'm available for grip work
or craft service. And he says, for the record, doing
craft service on their next project is a sincere offer.
Grip work is a euphemism that's probably frowned upon by.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Hr these days, and Ed is so funny, you know,
we're talking about him, and I'm going to show you
something that might show you. Because we're on a podcast,
you can't see it. But I have a book here
that Ed wrote, and it's sitting right there on my
desk that you know, and it's sitting there right there,
Ed's book.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
He's the best for sure.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
So, as a master of directing people and giving them space,
can you describe the joy of collaboration in this process
for the new Spinal Tap?
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Well, to me, that's the most fun for us is
that we had, first of all, a sequel. It's like
forty one years after the first one, so I mean
there's time has gone by and we you know, we've
worked together in different iterations, you know, over the years,
but we hadn't really worked in like fifteen in the
last fifteen years, none of us. But the minute we
(12:16):
got back together, it's like old friends, you know, you
pick up right where you left off. And Chris Guests
used to call it schnadling, which is this byplay back
and forth that you do, and we fell right back
into it. It's like you know, jazz musicians that just
know how each other moves, and we all can you know,
schnadle with each other, and they fell back right into
(12:37):
their musical connection and it was fun. That was the
most fun is to be able to, you know, do
ship with people who are on the same level as
you are and have the same frames of reference and
know how to lay out, know when to come in.
All of that.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
It's effortless, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
It is it is. And when we did the first
one and the second one, all the dialogue is improvised,
and that's comfortable for us. We enjoy doing that. I mean,
you know, people said, oh my god, the first film
you made and it was no script and it was improvise.
I said, yeah, because that's my training, and that's the
training of the guys I'm working with. We're all that's
(13:20):
what we do. It's like, like I say, it's like
jazz musicians. You pick up a bass, you pick up
the sacks, a guy plays piano, somebody's playing drums, and
you just fall in and start doing it. And it
was to me it was a lot easier to do
that than to do a scripted film where I had
to figure out camera angles and you know, is this
tracking is the continuity and all that stuff. This was
(13:43):
easy for me.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Do you remember the first point in your life that
music had an impact on you?
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, No, I mean I'm the first. I'm
the first generation that grew up on rock and roll,
and that was in the fifties, and you know it.
It's why it exploded, because young people connected immediately, going
back to Bill Haley and the comments or any of them,
but little Richard, Chuck Berry, you know, Fast Domina, I
(14:14):
don't you know, the Everly Brothers. I don't care who
you listen, Jerry Lee Lewis, all these people spoke to
us and we loved. I had stacks and stacks of
forty five's records that you played, and I right, like
in diner, I could tell you what was on the
flip side of a song, you know, And so that
(14:34):
that was the stuff that got to me right. And
then of course in the sixties there was another real
explosion that happened in Great Britain and also in the
West Coast and San Francisco and in Los Angeles, and
I was part of that scene too, So I you know,
I grew up on this stuff. And there's been a
(14:55):
lot of cross pollination between the improv world and the
rock world. And that's why people said, well, how could
you be so aware of what happens to rock musicians
and tour because first of all, those guys are musicians,
they've been on tours and stuff. But I hung out
with these people. I hung out with Janice Joplin, I
hung out with Mama cass Elliott. You know, these are
(15:17):
the people that you know, David Crosby from Crosby, Silson Nash,
and these are the people that we hung out with
and t it was just natural. Janice Choplin would come
on stage a number of times when I was working
at The Committee, which is an improv group from San Francisco.
So this was part of our world and and I'll
you know, I you know, to me, that was that's
(15:38):
my background, you know, first generation to grow up on
television and rock and roll.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
We'll be right back with more of the Taken a
Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Do you mind if we share favorite protests the songs?
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Mine is the version of Blowing in the Wind by
Jim Nabors.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Oh my god, they're talking about an episode that I
did of Gomer Pyle where I sang Blowing in the
Wind with Lee French who was also in the committee,
and Chris Ross who was also in the committee. The
three of us as hippies were singing Blowing in the
(16:27):
Wind with It's one of my my proudest moments in television.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
All right, I'm cheating. That was not my favorite protest song,
I know, I know what was it?
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Though?
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Mine was by phil Oaks and it was called Here's
to the State of Richard Nixon.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Right right. Phillips did some great protest songs, you know,
Country Jne, the Fish, I have won two? Three? Forward? Are
we fighting for? You know, don't give a damn? Next
up Vietnam. And you know one of my favorites is
for what It's Worth, which is, you know, the Buffalo
Springfield does something happening here? What it is and exactly clear?
(17:05):
That was to me is like an anthem.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
So were there new challenges in directing a monumentary in
today's comedy and media landscape versus back in the eighties.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Well, it's different. I mean, you know, I used the
sixteen millimeter camera. I had one sixteen millimeter camera and
that's all I had. Now I'm used, you know, with
the you know, I've had a couple of digital cameras
and so, you know, I had a lot of more
coverage that I could get, and I try to not
(17:38):
mirror what I'm you know, we set a certain standard
of documentary type entertainment and you see it in parks
and rec and have a elementary the office. Even Ricky
Gervai talks about how he took from Spinal Tap and
created the Office with that kind of documentary field. But
it is evolved, it's evolved with all these supposedly reality shows,
(18:02):
they're not reality at all. I would argue that Spinal
Tap is more reality than some of these reality shows.
So there's a tendency to try to mirror how they
do these documentary things now. But my gut feeling was
to Marty is not very much like Spinal Tap not
(18:23):
making a lot of growth. I'm thinking that Marty didn't
grow all that much either, and so I try to
keep it sort of in the vein of what he
did the first time.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
What is so incredible is so many of the storylines
when you really dig into them, in you know, Spinal Tap,
are actually you know, true to life. Extensions of the
rock and roll world.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Yes, I mean that was the That was the thing
that people were so stunned by. You know. There were
things that we took from experiences we had, There were
things we took from articles from the newspaper. One of
the things we had was an original the original, not
the original, but the one of the keyboard players we
have is a guy named Johnson Claire, which we had
(19:08):
in this twenty minute demo reel that I put together
to try to sell the film, and he had to
make a choice we were going to start shooting the
film or he was gonna he got a real gig
with a group called They were doing an album called
Obama Knock and it was Oh God, I can't Oh
(19:33):
you're ya Heap. That was the name of the band
'orya Heap. And he went and show. He said, that's
a real gig. So he went and did that. But
during the tour he came back and talked to us
one time about this weird booking they got in a
military base, and so he said, oh great, we'll put
that right in the film. So anything that would that
(19:54):
seemed interesting. Getting lost backstage was something that happened to Tom
Petty and the Heartbreakers. The whole idea of the backstage rider,
what's provided backstage. That's something we took out of an
article we read in Rolling Stone about Van Halen called
the Endless Party. And in their case they said no
brown m and ms. They didn't want any brown m
(20:15):
and ms backstage. So we had that whole thing. So
we took from what we were presented with.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
And you went out and did some research on bands
such as Judas Priest. I think the other one was
Saxon and.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Ye Harry spent some time with Saxon. We Wall went
to a concert with Judas Priest. The guys also went
and saw a C d C and another concert, and
we just took from what we I mean, the one
thing that I got from, you know, going to see
Judas Priest is I thought I was having a heart attack.
The sound was so loud and intense, and the drum
(20:54):
and the bass were so heavy that it would like
it was pounding on my chest. So I thought, okay,
that's the that you know, England's loudest band, Spinal.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Pet breaking the Low, Breaking the Low. Yeah, that's oh
my god. Now did some artists when the first spinal
Tap came out. They did not get the joke. Is
that correct, that's true?
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Uh, you know Ozzy, Ozzy Osbourne, God Rest his soul.
I mean, he was a little bit upset. He said,
this is not nice. They're they're making fun of us.
I mean, the you know, what are they doing, you know?
And Axel Rose, I mean, we got a story from Slash,
you know, played with guns and roses and he said.
Axel Rose was very upset because he thought, that's not
(21:40):
that's not the way we are. We have real music
and we're you know, we real were important. We should
you know, we shouldn't be talking of And I think
old Steven Tyler also from Aerosmith didn't like what we did.
But I think over the years they've come to understand it.
You know, it was fun. And like I said, we
grew up on rock and roll. We all love rock
(22:01):
and roll, and we're all satirists. So it's you try
to find the way that you can blend satire with
you know, and make make fun of the thing that
you love.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Yeah, Spinal TAP's always been about, you know, a poking
fun at fame and excess. What does the rock mockumentary
say about celebrity culture.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Now, well, I mean, you know, because of social media
and you know, TikTok and Instagram and all that stuff,
everybody's a star. I mean, everybody wants to be a star,
and they put themselves out there in some kind of
semi documentary form and some realistic cinema verite style to
(22:48):
connect with people. That's what they try to do. It
is one of the best ways to connect because it
feels real. It feels like you're you know, you're really
experiencing something and everybody's doing it. You know. I remember
we're seeing a documentary years ago called We Live in Public.
I don't know if you ever saw that, but it's
it was done by the guy who initially created before Facebook,
(23:16):
there was what was it called. It was called MySpace,
MySpace MySpace. He had created MySpace, and he talked he had,
you know, left that world, and he was talking. He says,
everybody says, you know, like you know, Marshall McCluin. You know,
everybody wants their fifteen minutes of fame. But we've come
(23:38):
to a point where everybody wants their fifteen minutes of
fame every day. You know, That's what we've evolved to.
And I think, you know, it's it's this documentary style
that lets us in on supposedly who we are, but
you never you don't really get to know who people are.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Are you fascinating? Did how cult movies like Spinal Tap
ultimately turned into not only cult movies.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
But into classics. It's shocking to me. It's stunning because
when we first came out, nobody people didn't get it.
They didn't know what we were doing. It's a classic
line you hear from the theater. You know, satires were
closes on Saturday night and we have just almost closed.
People thought it was a real band. They thought, why
(24:27):
would I make a movie about a band nobody's ever
heard of? And why wouldn't I do something about the
rolling stones of the Beatles or something. So they didn't
get it, and it took many, many years. I think
it was the you know, it was home entertainment, It
was the videotapes and CDs, and people started, you know,
catching wind of it. And then over the years, over
many years, it became this thing where the Library of
(24:50):
Congress puts it in the National Film Registry, and and
you know, it's in the Oxford English Dictionary goes to
eleven and all this stuff becomes part of the culture.
And there's no way in a million years that you'd
think that you'd have this kind of impact. There's just
no way. You're just making a film that you think
is funny and you know, you think we'll have a
(25:11):
few laughs and maybe somebody will like it. There's no
way you think it's going to be what it turned
out to be. What are your some of.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Your favorite cult classics?
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Well, I there's a lot that I mean, I like
a lot of you know, give me the give me
what you consider a cult classic and I'll tell you
because to me, if I like a film, I don't
think of it as cult classic. You know, I'm just
like I like a film. But what would you consider
a cult classic. I know you say Rocky Horror Show
and stuff like I'm not a big Rocky Horror Show fan.
(25:43):
But give me another example of a cult classic and
I'll tell you if I I'll mention.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
It because you referred to it earlier. Diner.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Oh yeah, I know. I love Diner. And it's funny
because Diner and Spinalfap came out the same year, and
I remember being on a plane with Barry Levinson is
a good friend, and we were talking about these films
that we had made and we were trying to get,
you know, get somebody to promote it and all this stuff,
and we had no idea that you know, to him,
(26:15):
it was a very personal film about growing up in Baltimore.
To me, it was this personal thing of this integration
between rock and roll and improvisation. So it was just
things that we thought, I like this. I don't know
if anybody else will like it, but yeah, Diner's great.
I love Diner. So I know.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
The theaters are important to you as a creator. The
fact that you know this COVID kind of obviously knocked
everybody off kilter. It knocked that business off. It's kilter.
Talk to those listening about for you, as a creator,
as an artist, how important it is to go to
(26:55):
the theater and see any movie, this movie in particular.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Well, I think that you know, when you're looking at
comedies or horror movies, horror thrillers, those you want to
share with people because it intensifies the experience. There's nothing
better than being with a group of people and laughing
at something. And that's infectious, and the same thing with
(27:19):
a with a you know, thriller or a horror movie.
You can't experience that at home. People watch it at home,
they put it on pause, they go to the bathroom,
they go get something to eat, and it's not that
same experience. I can tell you something that it really
bugs me, and that is when I was doing All
in the Family. This is back in the you know,
in the seventies. And by the way, a lot of
(27:40):
young people never even heard of All the Family. They
don't even know what it is. But for those who don't,
it was the number one show in America for five
years straight. Every single week was number one, and we
were a country of about two hundred million at the time,
and every single week, forty to forty five million piece
people watched the show. And they watched it at the
(28:04):
same time. They had to because there was no DVR,
there was no TVO, there was no video cassettes. You
had to watch it when it was on. That meant
that there was forty to forty five million people having
a shared experience and being able to talk about it.
And it had an impact on the way people you know,
(28:25):
have viewed it and the way they talked about it. Now,
we're a country of about three hundred and forty million people,
and if you have a show that's seen by ten
million people, that's considered a big hit, and they don't
even watch it at the same time they're streaming it.
They're watching I don't tell me what happened. I didn't
(28:46):
see that episode yet. I'm still on season two, whatever
it is, And so you don't have that communal, shared experience.
I think that's important. It's important for theater, and it's
important for for movies to have that. And you're right,
COVID had a big impact on it, and so did streaming.
(29:06):
Streaming has had a tremendous impact on it. So, you know,
I'm hoping people will have it. They'll enjoy it. I
know they'll have a better experience and they'll enjoy it
if they go that they go to the theater.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
So two more questions, Rob. First of all, how do
you want fans, both longtime followers and new audiences to
walk away after seeing the sequel.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
I want them to say, I had a great time,
and here's it's something interesting. We screened both. You know,
we screened the sequel for an audience recruited, you know,
people regularly. Half the audience had seen the first film,
the other half had never seen the first film, and
the reaction was exactly the same. The cards came back
(29:50):
and said exactly, they enjoyed it equally. And so hopefully
I'm making a film that stands on its own, even
if you haven't seen the first one. If you have
seen the there are some references you'll get that you
wouldn't get if you didn't. But I want, I feel
obligated to put something out there that's a piece of
entertainment that stands on its own. I read this book
(30:13):
by Frank Capra many years ago, where you know, in
the days when that's when you went, you went to
the theater, and he said, you're asking people to pay
money to sit in a darkened room with strangers, and
you're asking them to pay attention for two hours. You
(30:35):
better have something to show them. And so I'm hoping
that people come away saying, yeah, I had a great experience.
I liked the first one, I liked the second one,
and if you hadn't seen the first one, you'll still
like the second one.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
So inclosing, beyond spinal Tap, are there stories you're excited
about additionally that you're working on now that you can share.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
I have one story that I've been playing around with.
It's going to sound crazy, but I've been playing around
with it for over fifty years, about fifty five years
as it is, because it came out of a sketch
that I worked on when I was writing for the
Smothers Brothers. This was back in the sixties and sixty
(31:15):
eight sixty nine and I was writing. Steve Martin was
a writing partner with me. We were together and Carl Gottlieb,
who wrote Jaws. We wrote this sketch was a Christmas
sketch and Tom and Dick's mothers and brother they came
out and they said, you know, they say he's falling
in love. Is wonderful, wonderful. So they say, who are they?
(31:37):
Who are these people that say these things? They say this?
They said. So we had a thing where it was
an office and on the office door it said us
and you'll walk. You know, you go in there and
there's Tom and Dickett typewriters, manual typewriters typing out look
before you leap, and he rips it out. He goes
ding dingy hits a bell, you know, a messenger comes in.
(31:57):
He says, take it down. Hayes makes ding ding ding,
take it down. Absence makes the heart grow reader a
fonder fonder. Yeah, they take it down and they keep,
you know, giving it to the messenger. And then he says,
do unto others as you would have them doing to you.
And he starts to hit the bell, and the other
(32:18):
guy stops him and says, no, what He says, what
are you doing? Says we can't send that down? He
says why not? He says, remember the last guy we
sent that down with, Remember what happened to him. They're
not ready for it yet. And that was the end
of the sketch. And I always thought, what if there
was some kind of modern in this modern world that
(32:39):
message came down? What would happen? What would happen? And
so this is the basis of something I've been working
on for a while. I haven't gotten a script that
I like, But the trick is to find a way
to do it that's uh, that's real, that has humor
in it and also is emotional and has this philosophical
thing to it. So I'm gonna see if I can
(33:00):
pull that one off.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Well, if I'm fortunate enough to talk to you again,
I'll ask you about the famous fart choke that you
guys created.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Oh yeah, No, we were the first one. We were
the first one. Steve Martin and I wrote a sketch
for the Smothers Brothers where Pat Paulson, who was an
actor on the show, was he was the president of
the Acme Novelty Company, and he was demonstrating all these
little gadgets and gimmicks, and you know, there was you know,
the pucker gum and the dribbled glass and the thing
(33:31):
where your finger gets stuck in the thing. And then
at one point he sits down and you hear a
big like this, and he goes, oh gee, they slipped
a whoopee cushion in under me when I wasn't looking.
And he gets up and there was no whoopee cushion there.
So it was the you know, we're very proud of
the fact that we wrote the first fart joke that
(33:51):
was ever on national television.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
See the movie, Get the book. I'm grateful beyond belief,
Rob Reiner to speak with you on taking a walk.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
Taking a walk. When we did the first one and
the second one, all the dialogue is improvised, and that's
comfortable for us. We enjoy doing that. I mean, you know,
people said, oh my god, the first film you made
and it was no script and it was improv I said, yeah,
because that's my training, and that's the training of the
guys that I'm working with. We're all that's what we do.
(00:22):
It's like, like I say, it's like jazz musicians. You
pick up a bass, you pick up the sacks, a
guy plays piano, somebody's playing drums, and you just fall
in and start doing it.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
What do you get when you take one of Hollywood's
most beloved storytellers, mix in a legendary mockumentary band, and
crank the volume all the way up to eleven. You
get today's guest. I'm buzz Night, and I'm joined by director, actor,
and comedy icon Rob Reiner, the man who brought us
(00:52):
this is Spinal Tap, a film that not only changed
the way we laugh at rock and roll, but also
invented its own play and pop culture. Now Rob is
back with a brand new chapter a Spinal Tap, and
we're going to be looking at the past, the parody,
the power chords that are still reverberating four decades later,
(01:13):
and as if a new spinal Tap isn't enough, Rob
has a new book about the Spinal Tap adventures, a
fine line between stupid and clever. Let's step into the
world where satire meets rock and everything, absolutely everything still
goes to eleven. Next, I'm taking a walk, Taking a Walk,
(01:38):
Rob Reyder, Welcome to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
So your life, you know, intersects everybody, so before we
dig into spinal Tap to the end continues, I have
to ask you if you could take a walk with
someone living or dead, who would it be and where
would you take a walk with him?
Speaker 1 (02:00):
That's a great question. You know. I think about my
dad all the time, and he's you know, he's in
my head at every move I make. And there's a
story that they tell I don't remember it because I
was little. I think I was eight years old, and
(02:23):
I went up to that Mike folks and I said,
you know, I want to change my name. And they thought, oh,
this poor kid, he's worried about, you know, being Carl
Reiner's son, and you know, living in the shadow and
you know, living up to and all that. And they said, well,
what do you want to change your name to? And
I said Carl because I loved him so much and
(02:46):
I wanted to be just like him, and I looked
up to him. So I think I would take a
walk with him if I could.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Ah, that'd be incredible. Now what did he think of
spinal tap?
Speaker 1 (02:57):
He loved it. He loved it. I mean, you know,
listen he you know, he was on the show of Shows,
said Caesar during the fifties and they did satire they
may you know, they were doing satire of movies and television,
and one of the things they did was the satire
of a rock and roll act called the Three Haircuts,
(03:18):
and there would be he had these big, you know,
kind of pompadour hair dues, and so he was always
into that kind of stuff. And you know, we this
is a long time ago, and I've said before, but
we you know, he was on television before we owned
a television and actually bought one so we could watch
(03:41):
him on television. Anyway, he loved satire, I mean, he
you know, if you listen to the stuff he did
with the mel Brooks and the Two thousand year old
man and a lot of the stuff saying, I know
he loved, he loved Spinal Tapp, and he was very,
you know, very complimentary me. He even actually said because
I was always trying to live up to him, and
I never thought I could do it, and I don't
(04:01):
know that I have or I still do. But he
told me at one point, he says, you're a better
director than I am, and I thought, wow, that's that's
pretty cool for him to say that. And I remember
there was one year, the year that Spinal Tap came out,
in nineteen eighty four, he had done a movie called
All of Me with Steve Martin, and you know, they
(04:25):
have these top ten lists at the end of every
year they put the you know, top ten films and
Spinal Tap and you know this is Spinal Tap and
All of Me were on a ton of lists together,
and I thought, wow, that's amazing. I don't think there's
ever been in the history of the movie business that
a father and son have had two films that they've
(04:45):
directed that were in the top ten so and I
don't think it's ever happened. So I was very proud.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Of that outstanding So bands evolve over time, they get
more mature, they find new creative outlets. So if I
was speaking to this guy, what was his name, Marty
de BURGHI.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Marty de Berghi. Yeah, he was the director of the
first film and the second one, the new one, The
End Continues. He directed that as well.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
What would he say about this band's evolution over time?
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Well, I think you know, first of all, Marty's a
huge fan of Sminal Tap. I mean, he goes way
back to when he first saw them in Branwi's village,
and you know, he was like, couldn't be more thrilled
to be able to get the chance to document this.
At the time was supposed to be their final tour.
(05:41):
Turns out that, you know, they have life after that,
and Marty was very hopeful that it would trigger a
bigger film career for him, that he would get a
chance to make a studio movie, and in fact he did.
He got to do was a It was a sequel
(06:02):
to a film that won a lot of Oscars, was
with Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffmann. It was called Kramer
Versus Cramer, and Marty did the sequel, which was Kramer
Versus Kramer versus Godzilla didn't do too well. No, no,
it bombed, it bombed, so oh my god. You know,
(06:26):
he's been floundering since then, and he got the opportunity
to do the new one, and he was like thrilled,
beyond belief.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Do you think when he evaluates though the band's growth
as artists, that he's seen them grow as artists.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
I think the beauty of a spinal tap is that
they have not grown at all. They have not grown
emotionally or musically, and I think that's that's their charm.
Now they have grown age wise, and they are quite
a bit older. But if you look around, you know,
(07:04):
you see, you see, you know, Paul McCartney's still out
there doing it, rolling stones, Mick Jagger's still running around
the stage in his eighties. Uh. You know, these bands
want to keep going. I want to keep going. And
as a matter of fact, in the second film, Derek Small's,
their bass player, wrote, I had an idea for a
song called Rocking in the Urn, which is all about
(07:27):
what happens in the afterlife. And his contention was that
you're still rocking, you know, wherever you are, you're still
playing music.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
I love the book A fine line between clever and
stupid and.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Between stupid and clever. Actually the line was from the
first film. Uh you know they that that that was
the line was my favorite line in the first film
was a there's a fine line between stupid and clever.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I love the various takes from the artist. I don't
want to give away, but I do want to less
if with your permission.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Look at how Don Henley weighs in on the spinal
Tap drummer STU as we would call it, and he
says being a drummer alive as a victory I haven't exploded.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
I mean he he's one of the few drummers that
has survived. I mean we you know, spinal tap went through.
I think it was eleven or twelve drummers. I'm not sure,
twelve I think. And they actually have to have an
audition to, you know, find a new drummer because the
last drummer they had, Skippy Scuffleton, died from sneezing. He
(08:43):
had a sneezing fit and he couldn't stop sneezing and
he sneezed himself to death. And you know, so they
have to find a new drummer and they put out,
you know, a wide net. They're trying to, you know,
see if there's anybody would come in and and fill
the bill. And they go to Questlove know it was
Jimmy Fallon's drummer and Eat from the Roots. They go
(09:04):
to Chad Smith from the Red Hot Jelly Peppers, and
I also go to Lars Alert from Metallica, and they
all they turn them down because none of them want
to die. They all would rather survive than than play
rock and roll. So they all turn them down and
they have to hold auditions and they wind up with
(09:24):
a new drummer who will see whether or not that
drummer survives.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
It did go to a friend of ours, Ed Begley Jr.
Oh yeah, yeah, I know you have some history with
him as John Stumpy John Shumpy Peeps.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
He was there drummer when they were the Thamesmen and
they had their first moderate hit called give Me Some
Money and we show that. It's interesting. But Ed just
did a little part in a film and a short
film that my daughter wrote me oat and directed and
acted in and so it was funny. Romy was trying
(10:06):
to figure out what he should wear, and they did
a FaceTime and they looked in his closet and she said,
I want that sweater. There was a specific sweater and
Ed said, oh, that's my favorite sweater. I love that.
I've had it for over fifty years and it was
knitted for him by Annette O'Toole, who was married to
Michael McKeon. So you know they had so when we
(10:29):
all got together, then Anette and Romi they bond over
knitting because Romi loves to knit too.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
So I asked that. I said, if if if Stumpy
had been interviewed by Rob Reiner, what do you think
the conversation would be like? And he said, and I quote,
I knew that was one dangerous hoe. I never thought
it would end like this. And I asked him too,
I said, so what do you think of the masters
(10:57):
of tap these days? And he says, as for the
masters of Tap, I'm laying low, as I owe each
of them a great deal of money, But if they're
willing to forgive and forget, I'm available for grip work
or craft service. And he says, for the record, doing
craft service on their next project is a sincere offer.
Grip work is a euphemism that's probably frowned upon by.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Hr these days, and Ed is so funny, you know,
we're talking about him, and I'm going to show you
something that might show you. Because we're on a podcast,
you can't see it. But I have a book here
that Ed wrote, and it's sitting right there on my
desk that you know, and it's sitting there right there,
Ed's book.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
He's the best for sure.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
So, as a master of directing people and giving them space,
can you describe the joy of collaboration in this process
for the new Spinal Tap?
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Well, to me, that's the most fun for us is
that we had, first of all, a sequel. It's like
forty one years after the first one, so I mean
there's time has gone by and we you know, we've
worked together in different iterations, you know, over the years,
but we hadn't really worked in like fifteen in the
last fifteen years, none of us. But the minute we
(12:16):
got back together, it's like old friends, you know, you
pick up right where you left off. And Chris Guests
used to call it schnadling, which is this byplay back
and forth that you do, and we fell right back
into it. It's like you know, jazz musicians that just
know how each other moves, and we all can you know,
schnadle with each other, and they fell back right into
(12:37):
their musical connection and it was fun. That was the
most fun is to be able to, you know, do
ship with people who are on the same level as
you are and have the same frames of reference and
know how to lay out, know when to come in.
All of that.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
It's effortless, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
It is it is. And when we did the first
one and the second one, all the dialogue is improvised,
and that's comfortable for us. We enjoy doing that. I mean,
you know, people said, oh my god, the first film
you made and it was no script and it was improvise.
I said, yeah, because that's my training, and that's the
training of the guys I'm working with. We're all that's
(13:20):
what we do. It's like, like I say, it's like
jazz musicians. You pick up a bass, you pick up
the sacks, a guy plays piano, somebody's playing drums, and
you just fall in and start doing it. And it
was to me it was a lot easier to do
that than to do a scripted film where I had
to figure out camera angles and you know, is this
tracking is the continuity and all that stuff. This was
(13:43):
easy for me.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Do you remember the first point in your life that
music had an impact on you?
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, No, I mean I'm the first. I'm
the first generation that grew up on rock and roll,
and that was in the fifties, and you know it.
It's why it exploded, because young people connected immediately, going
back to Bill Haley and the comments or any of them,
but little Richard, Chuck Berry, you know, Fast Domina, I
(14:14):
don't you know, the Everly Brothers. I don't care who
you listen, Jerry Lee Lewis, all these people spoke to
us and we loved. I had stacks and stacks of
forty five's records that you played, and I right, like
in diner, I could tell you what was on the
flip side of a song, you know, And so that
(14:34):
that was the stuff that got to me right. And
then of course in the sixties there was another real
explosion that happened in Great Britain and also in the
West Coast and San Francisco and in Los Angeles, and
I was part of that scene too, So I you know,
I grew up on this stuff. And there's been a
(14:55):
lot of cross pollination between the improv world and the
rock world. And that's why people said, well, how could
you be so aware of what happens to rock musicians
and tour because first of all, those guys are musicians,
they've been on tours and stuff. But I hung out
with these people. I hung out with Janice Joplin, I
hung out with Mama cass Elliott. You know, these are
(15:17):
the people that you know, David Crosby from Crosby, Silson Nash,
and these are the people that we hung out with
and t it was just natural. Janice Choplin would come
on stage a number of times when I was working
at The Committee, which is an improv group from San Francisco.
So this was part of our world and and I'll
you know, I you know, to me, that was that's
(15:38):
my background, you know, first generation to grow up on
television and rock and roll.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
We'll be right back with more of the Taken a
Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Do you mind if we share favorite protests the songs?
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Mine is the version of Blowing in the Wind by
Jim Nabors.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Oh my god, they're talking about an episode that I
did of Gomer Pyle where I sang Blowing in the
Wind with Lee French who was also in the committee,
and Chris Ross who was also in the committee. The
three of us as hippies were singing Blowing in the
(16:27):
Wind with It's one of my my proudest moments in television.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
All right, I'm cheating. That was not my favorite protest song,
I know, I know what was it?
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Though?
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Mine was by phil Oaks and it was called Here's
to the State of Richard Nixon.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Right right. Phillips did some great protest songs, you know,
Country Jne, the Fish, I have won two? Three? Forward? Are
we fighting for? You know, don't give a damn? Next
up Vietnam. And you know one of my favorites is
for what It's Worth, which is, you know, the Buffalo
Springfield does something happening here? What it is and exactly clear?
(17:05):
That was to me is like an anthem.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
So were there new challenges in directing a monumentary in
today's comedy and media landscape versus back in the eighties.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Well, it's different. I mean, you know, I used the
sixteen millimeter camera. I had one sixteen millimeter camera and
that's all I had. Now I'm used, you know, with
the you know, I've had a couple of digital cameras
and so, you know, I had a lot of more
coverage that I could get, and I try to not
(17:38):
mirror what I'm you know, we set a certain standard
of documentary type entertainment and you see it in parks
and rec and have a elementary the office. Even Ricky
Gervai talks about how he took from Spinal Tap and
created the Office with that kind of documentary field. But
it is evolved, it's evolved with all these supposedly reality shows,
(18:02):
they're not reality at all. I would argue that Spinal
Tap is more reality than some of these reality shows.
So there's a tendency to try to mirror how they
do these documentary things now. But my gut feeling was
to Marty is not very much like Spinal Tap not
(18:23):
making a lot of growth. I'm thinking that Marty didn't
grow all that much either, and so I try to
keep it sort of in the vein of what he
did the first time.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
What is so incredible is so many of the storylines
when you really dig into them, in you know, Spinal Tap,
are actually you know, true to life. Extensions of the
rock and roll world.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Yes, I mean that was the That was the thing
that people were so stunned by. You know. There were
things that we took from experiences we had, There were
things we took from articles from the newspaper. One of
the things we had was an original the original, not
the original, but the one of the keyboard players we
have is a guy named Johnson Claire, which we had
(19:08):
in this twenty minute demo reel that I put together
to try to sell the film, and he had to
make a choice we were going to start shooting the
film or he was gonna he got a real gig
with a group called They were doing an album called
Obama Knock and it was Oh God, I can't Oh
(19:33):
you're ya Heap. That was the name of the band
'orya Heap. And he went and show. He said, that's
a real gig. So he went and did that. But
during the tour he came back and talked to us
one time about this weird booking they got in a
military base, and so he said, oh great, we'll put
that right in the film. So anything that would that
(19:54):
seemed interesting. Getting lost backstage was something that happened to Tom
Petty and the Heartbreakers. The whole idea of the backstage rider,
what's provided backstage. That's something we took out of an
article we read in Rolling Stone about Van Halen called
the Endless Party. And in their case they said no
brown m and ms. They didn't want any brown m
(20:15):
and ms backstage. So we had that whole thing. So
we took from what we were presented with.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
And you went out and did some research on bands
such as Judas Priest. I think the other one was
Saxon and.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Ye Harry spent some time with Saxon. We Wall went
to a concert with Judas Priest. The guys also went
and saw a C d C and another concert, and
we just took from what we I mean, the one
thing that I got from, you know, going to see
Judas Priest is I thought I was having a heart attack.
The sound was so loud and intense, and the drum
(20:54):
and the bass were so heavy that it would like
it was pounding on my chest. So I thought, okay,
that's the that you know, England's loudest band, Spinal.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Pet breaking the Low, Breaking the Low. Yeah, that's oh
my god. Now did some artists when the first spinal
Tap came out. They did not get the joke. Is
that correct, that's true?
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Uh, you know Ozzy, Ozzy Osbourne, God Rest his soul.
I mean, he was a little bit upset. He said,
this is not nice. They're they're making fun of us.
I mean, the you know, what are they doing, you know?
And Axel Rose, I mean, we got a story from Slash,
you know, played with guns and roses and he said.
Axel Rose was very upset because he thought, that's not
(21:40):
that's not the way we are. We have real music
and we're you know, we real were important. We should
you know, we shouldn't be talking of And I think
old Steven Tyler also from Aerosmith didn't like what we did.
But I think over the years they've come to understand it.
You know, it was fun. And like I said, we
grew up on rock and roll. We all love rock
(22:01):
and roll, and we're all satirists. So it's you try
to find the way that you can blend satire with
you know, and make make fun of the thing that
you love.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Yeah, Spinal TAP's always been about, you know, a poking
fun at fame and excess. What does the rock mockumentary
say about celebrity culture.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Now, well, I mean, you know, because of social media
and you know, TikTok and Instagram and all that stuff,
everybody's a star. I mean, everybody wants to be a star,
and they put themselves out there in some kind of
semi documentary form and some realistic cinema verite style to
(22:48):
connect with people. That's what they try to do. It
is one of the best ways to connect because it
feels real. It feels like you're you know, you're really
experiencing something and everybody's doing it. You know. I remember
we're seeing a documentary years ago called We Live in Public.
I don't know if you ever saw that, but it's
it was done by the guy who initially created before Facebook,
(23:16):
there was what was it called. It was called MySpace,
MySpace MySpace. He had created MySpace, and he talked he had,
you know, left that world, and he was talking. He says,
everybody says, you know, like you know, Marshall McCluin. You know,
everybody wants their fifteen minutes of fame. But we've come
(23:38):
to a point where everybody wants their fifteen minutes of
fame every day. You know, That's what we've evolved to.
And I think, you know, it's it's this documentary style
that lets us in on supposedly who we are, but
you never you don't really get to know who people are.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Are you fascinating? Did how cult movies like Spinal Tap
ultimately turned into not only cult movies.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
But into classics. It's shocking to me. It's stunning because
when we first came out, nobody people didn't get it.
They didn't know what we were doing. It's a classic
line you hear from the theater. You know, satires were
closes on Saturday night and we have just almost closed.
People thought it was a real band. They thought, why
(24:27):
would I make a movie about a band nobody's ever
heard of? And why wouldn't I do something about the
rolling stones of the Beatles or something. So they didn't
get it, and it took many, many years. I think
it was the you know, it was home entertainment, It
was the videotapes and CDs, and people started, you know,
catching wind of it. And then over the years, over
many years, it became this thing where the Library of
(24:50):
Congress puts it in the National Film Registry, and and
you know, it's in the Oxford English Dictionary goes to
eleven and all this stuff becomes part of the culture.
And there's no way in a million years that you'd
think that you'd have this kind of impact. There's just
no way. You're just making a film that you think
is funny and you know, you think we'll have a
(25:11):
few laughs and maybe somebody will like it. There's no
way you think it's going to be what it turned
out to be. What are your some of.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Your favorite cult classics?
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Well, I there's a lot that I mean, I like
a lot of you know, give me the give me
what you consider a cult classic and I'll tell you
because to me, if I like a film, I don't
think of it as cult classic. You know, I'm just
like I like a film. But what would you consider
a cult classic. I know you say Rocky Horror Show
and stuff like I'm not a big Rocky Horror Show fan.
(25:43):
But give me another example of a cult classic and
I'll tell you if I I'll mention.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
It because you referred to it earlier. Diner.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Oh yeah, I know. I love Diner. And it's funny
because Diner and Spinalfap came out the same year, and
I remember being on a plane with Barry Levinson is
a good friend, and we were talking about these films
that we had made and we were trying to get,
you know, get somebody to promote it and all this stuff,
and we had no idea that you know, to him,
(26:15):
it was a very personal film about growing up in Baltimore.
To me, it was this personal thing of this integration
between rock and roll and improvisation. So it was just
things that we thought, I like this. I don't know
if anybody else will like it, but yeah, Diner's great.
I love Diner. So I know.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
The theaters are important to you as a creator. The
fact that you know this COVID kind of obviously knocked
everybody off kilter. It knocked that business off. It's kilter.
Talk to those listening about for you, as a creator,
as an artist, how important it is to go to
(26:55):
the theater and see any movie, this movie in particular.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Well, I think that you know, when you're looking at
comedies or horror movies, horror thrillers, those you want to
share with people because it intensifies the experience. There's nothing
better than being with a group of people and laughing
at something. And that's infectious, and the same thing with
(27:19):
a with a you know, thriller or a horror movie.
You can't experience that at home. People watch it at home,
they put it on pause, they go to the bathroom,
they go get something to eat, and it's not that
same experience. I can tell you something that it really
bugs me, and that is when I was doing All
in the Family. This is back in the you know,
in the seventies. And by the way, a lot of
(27:40):
young people never even heard of All the Family. They
don't even know what it is. But for those who don't,
it was the number one show in America for five
years straight. Every single week was number one, and we
were a country of about two hundred million at the time,
and every single week, forty to forty five million piece
people watched the show. And they watched it at the
(28:04):
same time. They had to because there was no DVR,
there was no TVO, there was no video cassettes. You
had to watch it when it was on. That meant
that there was forty to forty five million people having
a shared experience and being able to talk about it.
And it had an impact on the way people you know,
(28:25):
have viewed it and the way they talked about it. Now,
we're a country of about three hundred and forty million people,
and if you have a show that's seen by ten
million people, that's considered a big hit, and they don't
even watch it at the same time they're streaming it.
They're watching I don't tell me what happened. I didn't
(28:46):
see that episode yet. I'm still on season two, whatever
it is, And so you don't have that communal, shared experience.
I think that's important. It's important for theater, and it's
important for for movies to have that. And you're right,
COVID had a big impact on it, and so did streaming.
(29:06):
Streaming has had a tremendous impact on it. So, you know,
I'm hoping people will have it. They'll enjoy it. I
know they'll have a better experience and they'll enjoy it
if they go that they go to the theater.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
So two more questions, Rob. First of all, how do
you want fans, both longtime followers and new audiences to
walk away after seeing the sequel.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
I want them to say, I had a great time,
and here's it's something interesting. We screened both. You know,
we screened the sequel for an audience recruited, you know,
people regularly. Half the audience had seen the first film,
the other half had never seen the first film, and
the reaction was exactly the same. The cards came back
(29:50):
and said exactly, they enjoyed it equally. And so hopefully
I'm making a film that stands on its own, even
if you haven't seen the first one. If you have
seen the there are some references you'll get that you
wouldn't get if you didn't. But I want, I feel
obligated to put something out there that's a piece of
entertainment that stands on its own. I read this book
(30:13):
by Frank Capra many years ago, where you know, in
the days when that's when you went, you went to
the theater, and he said, you're asking people to pay
money to sit in a darkened room with strangers, and
you're asking them to pay attention for two hours. You
(30:35):
better have something to show them. And so I'm hoping
that people come away saying, yeah, I had a great experience.
I liked the first one, I liked the second one,
and if you hadn't seen the first one, you'll still
like the second one.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
So inclosing, beyond spinal Tap, are there stories you're excited
about additionally that you're working on now that you can share.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
I have one story that I've been playing around with.
It's going to sound crazy, but I've been playing around
with it for over fifty years, about fifty five years
as it is, because it came out of a sketch
that I worked on when I was writing for the
Smothers Brothers. This was back in the sixties and sixty
(31:15):
eight sixty nine and I was writing. Steve Martin was
a writing partner with me. We were together and Carl Gottlieb,
who wrote Jaws. We wrote this sketch was a Christmas
sketch and Tom and Dick's mothers and brother they came
out and they said, you know, they say he's falling
in love. Is wonderful, wonderful. So they say, who are they?
(31:37):
Who are these people that say these things? They say this?
They said. So we had a thing where it was
an office and on the office door it said us
and you'll walk. You know, you go in there and
there's Tom and Dickett typewriters, manual typewriters typing out look
before you leap, and he rips it out. He goes
ding dingy hits a bell, you know, a messenger comes in.
(31:57):
He says, take it down. Hayes makes ding ding ding,
take it down. Absence makes the heart grow reader a
fonder fonder. Yeah, they take it down and they keep,
you know, giving it to the messenger. And then he says,
do unto others as you would have them doing to you.
And he starts to hit the bell, and the other
(32:18):
guy stops him and says, no, what He says, what
are you doing? Says we can't send that down? He
says why not? He says, remember the last guy we
sent that down with, Remember what happened to him. They're
not ready for it yet. And that was the end
of the sketch. And I always thought, what if there
was some kind of modern in this modern world that
(32:39):
message came down? What would happen? What would happen? And
so this is the basis of something I've been working
on for a while. I haven't gotten a script that
I like, But the trick is to find a way
to do it that's uh, that's real, that has humor
in it and also is emotional and has this philosophical
thing to it. So I'm gonna see if I can
(33:00):
pull that one off.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Well, if I'm fortunate enough to talk to you again,
I'll ask you about the famous fart choke that you
guys created.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Oh yeah, No, we were the first one. We were
the first one. Steve Martin and I wrote a sketch
for the Smothers Brothers where Pat Paulson, who was an
actor on the show, was he was the president of
the Acme Novelty Company, and he was demonstrating all these
little gadgets and gimmicks, and you know, there was you know,
the pucker gum and the dribbled glass and the thing
(33:31):
where your finger gets stuck in the thing. And then
at one point he sits down and you hear a
big like this, and he goes, oh gee, they slipped
a whoopee cushion in under me when I wasn't looking.
And he gets up and there was no whoopee cushion there.
So it was the you know, we're very proud of
the fact that we wrote the first fart joke that
(33:51):
was ever on national television.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
See the movie, Get the book. I'm grateful beyond belief,
Rob Reiner to speak with you on taking a walk.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Lynn Hoffman
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