That's Showbiz, Baby: Steven Kunes

To make it in Hollywood, you sometimes have to tell some half-truths and fudge your resume. People play a little fast and loose. But not so loose as to forge checks and scam friends. That's a little too loose, even by Tinseltown standards. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Saren Saren Saren, Wake Up, Wake Up Elizabeth. How are you.

Speaker 3 (00:09):
I'm doing pretty good. I was just taking a little
cat and I'm not sleeping well. But other than that,
I'm great. How about you?

Speaker 2 (00:14):
You're not sleeping well?

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Have you not seen the State of the World?

Speaker 4 (00:17):
Well?

Speaker 3 (00:17):
Yeah, I'm like, so I stay up reading news I
shouldn't and I'm like, oh, I'm gonna get to sleep. Dreams.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Oh, I bet you know it's ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
I do you love Law and Order SVU?

Speaker 2 (00:30):
I certainly?

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Do you also love Original Flavor?

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Law and Order?

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Right?

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Original recipe?

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Okay? The character Detective John Munch played by Richard Belzer,
A right. Do you know that he didn't obviously start
on Law and Order?

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah, he started in was it Homicide Life on the Streets?

Speaker 3 (00:47):
David Simon's show Before the Wire. So it turns out
he was in Homicide Life for the Streets, which means
that exists. He played Detective John Munch.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, and then he was on Law.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
And Order a special victims unit, and then he was
in the Law and Order Original Flavor. Sure, but those
aren't just the only shows he's been on.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
I know of one other.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
What's the other one?

Speaker 2 (01:05):
You know, the X Files.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
Yes, he was an episode of The X Files, The
Usual Suspects. Yeah, sorry, The Unusual Suspects was the episode.
Then he was also on another Law and Order show,
Trial by Jury. He was also in one episode of
the Wire. He was really he was also in Arrested
Development may he plays John much every one of these shows.

(01:27):
He also played John Munch detective John Munch on Arrested Development,
like yeah, like with gob Bluth and all that, right, yeah,
So and then you know, since he was on the Wire,
he was also I mean he's been in thirty Rock
playing detective John Munch. Yes, and also the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
I don't know if you know that one. Yeah, And
so essentially if you do the math, right, that means

(01:49):
that Law and Order franchises, Luther, the TV show Homicide,
the TV show X Files, TV show The Wire, and
the Arrested Development and thirty Rocket.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
How does Luthor was also in Luther.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
He also was in an episode of Luther. They mentioned
him on the phone like Wetective John Munch over New
York is gonna he doesn't make an appearance, but he
does have a he shows up in the story. So
these are all one enormous television universe.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yes, now it's and you can't back out of that.

Speaker 4 (02:17):
No.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
And then also if you do the math on that,
that means Idris Elvis is character of Luther and his
character of Stringer Belt in the Wire insists in the
same crime universe.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Well, you know doppelgangers there.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
I love that Detective John Restedlopment and X Files and
thirty Rock and just that's incredible. It's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
It's just the majesty of Munch, Like, how could you
resist using him? We got Maybe we'll put him in
the credits and he'll pull him into the Ridiculous crime universe.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
Whoa, then we share the same You're a genius, I know,
I really am.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
College. Do you know what else is ridiculous? I am
dB pages and I'll just leave it at that. This

(03:22):
is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers.
Heis and cons it's always ninety nine percent murder free
and one hundred percent ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
You damn right, I know I am, because you're a genius.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
I am a bringing genius. You recently talked about Field
of Dreams, the nineteen eighty nine movie Yes, starring Kevin Costner.

Speaker 3 (03:43):
Which came out two years before a point break.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Kevin Costner, I'm trying to not talk like a Californian.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
And lose the teas and everything.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, so it's not Costner, it's Costner.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
Actually, I think it's almost like a silent tea because
you hear him say it's Kevin Costner.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Does he's a Californier? Okay, you hat us do that
impromptu reading from the script.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
Ridiculous crime.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
It was a magical moment, to be sure. And so
the movie is based on the book, as you said,
Shoeless Show, great book by W. P. Kinsella.

Speaker 3 (04:12):
Yeah, it's like America's answer to magical realism. It's baseball
magical baseball realism.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Love magical realism. So in the book, the author JD.
Salinger plays a biga.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
Yes he does.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
And so a bit of background on background here. JD.
Salinger for those unfamiliar, influential American author best known for
his nineteen fifty one novel The Catcher in the rye
Yes and that follows sixteen year old Holden Coffield.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
Who didn't catch baseballs. He caught kids.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
He got kids in the rye over a few days.
It takes place over a few days after being kicked
out of prep school, wanders around New York City like
talks all about phoniness. Everything's phony in the adult world.
And so it's all about like alienation and innocence and identity.
And he's like all cynical guy, and he uses all
this slang total teenage angst and disillusionment. Holden Cowfield becomes

(05:04):
this iconic figure of rebellion. It was seen as like
a super edgy, you know book at.

Speaker 3 (05:08):
The like the book's version of rebel without a cause
of James Dean.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yes, yes, that was good. So there were some who
thought it was it.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Meanwhile, the beats are like challenging all sensibilities Ginsburg's working on.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
How Yeah, it was more of a mainstream ed genis.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
Yeah, but the book remains a staple of young adult literature,
even though it winds up on banned books not these
lists pretty often. So. Salinger was a World War Two
vet and he worked in counterintelligence in the war. Fought
in D Day. He landed at Utah Beach, did he, Yes,
he did not know that. So after Catcher and the
Rye became huge, he followed it up with a couple

(05:46):
other works, but nothing matched that first novel, and he
was overwhelmed by this. Yeah, and then there was like
some short stories, and but he got overwhelmed by this
massive success. So he moved to a ninety acre compound
in New Hampshire.

Speaker 3 (06:03):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah, total recluse. He withdrew from public life. He stopped
publishing new work after nineteen sixty five and then refused
all interviews after nineteen eighty. So in Shoelace, Joe Ray,
the main character, quote unquote, kidnaps Salinger from his home
in New Hampshire.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
That's a differencetwe in the movie in the book.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Right, And so the author Kinsella used Salinger because The
Catcher and the Rye had really deep meaning for him,
and he had noticed that his own last name, Kinsella
appeared in some of Salinger's work. So in the book,
Ray takes the reclusive author to a game at Fenway
Park in Boston, then goes out to the magical Iowa

(06:46):
Cornfield where baseball lives forever. Salinger guides ray on his
journey of faith and redemption. In the novel spoiler alert,
it's Sallenger who walks off into the cornfield with the
players at the end.

Speaker 3 (06:59):
Yeah, and then that means you don't get the classic
at the ball field and Fenway with the whole What
do you want? Oh? I want to be left alone
about No, what do you want? Oh?

Speaker 2 (07:09):
Dog gonna be right?

Speaker 3 (07:11):
James Earl Jones is killed me.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
Yeah. Well, when it came time to adapt the book
into a movie, there was a problem. It wasn't just
that Salinger was a recluse. He was also famously litigious.
Oh yeah, he was obsessed with protecting his intellectual property
and his privacy. He sued to stop a biographer from
using letters. We'll get to that later. He sued a

(07:35):
publisher to stop publication of previously unpublished works. So when
the novel's Shoeless Joe came out, he threatened to sue
about being included in the novel.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
I don't think he can.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
Well, he just he made all this noise. He never
followed tru with it. They get to adapting the book
for the screen, and everyone was worried that he would
actually file a lawsuit. On this one and come up
the works.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
Yeah, well, because then that's different because now you're portraying
his likeness in the book. It's more of his public
figure of his persona.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
Right, So once again Salinger makes his threats and they're like, ah,
So the producers changed Salinger to this fictionalized composite character,
as you said, played by James Earl Jones, Terrence vis Man,
And that was just to avoid legal action, that was
the only reason. And in the film, Terrence Man is
like a sixties counterculture writer who's brought out of his reclusive,

(08:22):
angry state by the magic of the field.

Speaker 3 (08:25):
So it's the same think if James Baldwin was JD. Salinger.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
Yes, so it's the same. You know, he plays that
same plot role, but it's you know, they can't use
the man himself. So now we've established that JD. Salinger
was both reclusive and litigious. Yes, his biggest lawsuit, as
I kind of talked about a little bit before, was
Salinger versus Random House, and that was in nineteen eighty seven.

(08:48):
So the case addressed whether a biographer could quote from
unpublished private letters without permission, okay, and the ruling strengthened
copyright protection for unpublished works and had this huge impact
on literary biography and archival research.

Speaker 3 (09:03):
Could just buy letters and then publish.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
Them, right, Well, so, in the early eighties, this British
literary critic Ian Hamilton, he was writing a biography of JD. Salinger,
and Hamilton don't forget like at nineteen eighty, Salinger's like,
no more interviews. So Hamilton asked Salinger to collaborate on
the project, but Salinger was like, no way, get out

(09:25):
of here. Hamilton's like, I'll just write it alone. So
he's doing his research. He gets access to Solander's unpublished
letters that were kept in university library archives, and so
although researchers were permitted to read the letters under controlled conditions,
Salinger retained the copyright in them.

Speaker 3 (09:44):
Gotcha.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Hamilton ignored that his manuscript included direct quotations from the letters,
close paraphrases that closely tracked Salinger's wording, and descriptions of
like the emotional tone and the personal content of the
correspondence and so. But like, at this point, though, like
it's hypothetical that Salinger has the copyright. How so he

(10:06):
hadn't actually put in the paperwork to attain it okay
for the letters, so random House they sent out uncorrected
proofs of the biography to various reviewers. One forwarded their
copy on to Salinger, and that's how Salinger found out
that his personal letters were in the libraries and accessible
to the public. He didn't know.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
Wow, that's got to be.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
So he couldn't claim copyright on it because he didn't
even know they were there. Yeah, he registered his copyright
in the letters, had his lawyer demand that everything in
the book that came from the unpublished letters be removed.
And so then Hamilton he makes all these revisions.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
Well, I have to imagine that Hamilton was kind of
inspired by like Norman Mahlers doing the thing with Marilyn
Monroe where he basically takes her diary, he turns it
into a book and then he just fabricates stuff and
makes up a whole thing. And that was a real
big hit just a couple of years prior. So I
think he's probably going, well, here's another icon from the fifties. Yeah,
I can do the same.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
Thing totally, totally, I very much see that. So he's
now pressed, I have to make these revisions. He changes
direct quotes, into paraphrases. Soalngers like that's not enough, still
too close, So he files suit to prevent publication. In
October of nineteen eighty six, Salinger sued both the author
and the publisher, Random House. He wanted damages and he

(11:28):
wanted an injunction against publication of the book. He said
they had violated copyright, breach a contract, unfair competition, like
he was just throwing everything.

Speaker 3 (11:36):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
The central legal question was whether Hamilton's use of the
quotations and the paraphrases from unpublished letters qualified as a
fair use under US copyright.

Speaker 3 (11:47):
That is the question.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah, So there are four statutory fair use factors, okay,
one purpose and character of the use. Two nature of
the copyrighted work, sure, three amounts and substantiality used, and
for effect on the potential market.

Speaker 3 (12:04):
Totally. I've had to go through all these before.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah. Well this is something that we actually think about
a lot on here and why we don't use popular music.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
Well yeah, and also that's why we can use documentary
stuff because if you add to it, if you change
it and make it a commentary and you're not just
going here it is right, then you can't do it.
So fair use allows you to use something as part
of a new work. It allows you to do something
where you're going to transmography its values. You have to
add to it, and you have to take it out
of context and provide new context.

Speaker 5 (12:31):
Right.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
We can't do that anyway with music.

Speaker 3 (12:33):
Obviously, you can't do that.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
Yeah. So the US District Court for the Southern District
of New York rejected all of Salinger's claims, and the
court said that while the Supreme Court had quote stressed
the tailoring of fair use analysis to the particular case,
it neither stated nor implied a categorical rule barring fair
use of unpublished works. Okay, and then it went on,

(12:55):
Hamilton's use of Salinger's copyrighted material is minimal and insubstantial.
It does not exploit or appropriate the literary value of
Salinger's letters. Yes, it does not diminish the commercial value
of Salader's letters for future publication. It does not impair
Salinger's control over first publication of his copyrighted letters or

(13:16):
interfere with his exercise of control over his artistic reputation.

Speaker 3 (13:20):
I love how much of law is based on exercise
of control.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
You right, exactly? So the court rejected it, but it
also issued a temporary restraining order pending an appeal.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
Okay, so they allowed him, like come back with a
better argument.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yeah, if you can, Yeah, if you can strengthen it up.
So they go to the US Court of Appeals Second Circuit,
and they ruled largely in Salinger's favor, so that court
emphasized an author's right to control first publication published. The
court found that Hamilton's close paraphrases captured the quote expressive
content of Salander's letters and that was not sufficiently transformative.

(13:58):
And then the court also concluded that the amount and
qualitative value of the material used weighed against fair use.
It's just too much.

Speaker 3 (14:06):
Yeah, that's it is the big issue. You can, like,
even with the music you can use. I think it's
like a one point five seconds, like a second and
a half of music. Yeah, just that people know what
you're referring to, right, But if you go and play
like a minute and a half, you're practically playing the song.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
You know, so they're like no, no, no, exactly.

Speaker 3 (14:19):
So that inclusive writing you usually can't do like large
swaths of a page. You have to do like maybe
a paragraph at most. And then even then you have
to introduce it and change your like you know what
it leads to it you have to make new connective
tissue exactly.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
So that rule, right, It led to significant revisions in
the manuscript. The biography was eventually published in its altered form,
with quotations removed, all these like generalizations made, and at
the time the decision was viewed as like a really
strong pro author ruling.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
Yeah, sounds like it made it.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
More difficult for biographers to quote unpublished materials. And then
but this like really concerned history marian's and literary scholars.
They start freaking out. I could see that, because, yeah,
so either way, the case becomes this leading precedent and
copyright law concerning unpublished materials.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
Maybe such a big name too.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
Yeah. And then, in response to concerns about what this
would do to scholarly pursuits back when Congress cared about
higher education and scholarly research and integrity, Congress amended the
Copyright Act in nineteen ninety two to clarify that the
unpublished status of a work does not itself bar a

(15:32):
finding of fair use. So unpublished status should be considered,
but is not just positive.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
Okay, that's that's fair.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yeah, so that's nineteen eighty six. Right, yeah, let's go
back to nineteen eighty two for a second.

Speaker 3 (15:45):
Please. I love nineteen that's when.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
That's when Salinger sued a guy named Stephen Cunis.

Speaker 3 (15:53):
Stephen, how do you spell that k.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
U n E s? So it looks like key, looks
like a Cunis, So, Salinger said, Cunis was trying to
impersonate him and sell written work as if he'd written
it different.

Speaker 6 (16:09):
Question.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
Here's, according to the lawsuit, Cunis quote offered for sale
to People Magazine a completely fictitious interview with JD. Salinger
and misrepresented it as quote a transcript of an actual interview.

Speaker 3 (16:24):
That's crazy.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
Here's how it went I can imagine. I know here's
how it went down. So Cunis submits this interview to
People magazine. It was, according to the Washington Post, quote
a poignant tale of a young writer's chance meeting with JD.
Salinger on a New York street. Salinger is quite taken
with the young man and invites him to New Hampshire,

(16:46):
where he gives a philosophical discourse in the manner of
a grown up Holden Coffield. Maybe this interview will help
you get published, Salinger tells the interviewer, just before bidding
him godspeed.

Speaker 3 (16:58):
It sounds a lot more like what you expect from
John Style.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
Yeah yeah, So Salander had other accusations. He said Cunis
forged a letter from Salinger to Cunis on Salinger's letterhead.

Speaker 3 (17:11):
How did he get the letter head?

Speaker 2 (17:12):
I don't know. In the fake letter, Salinger told Cunas
that the interview quote is just fine. I wouldn't change
a word, so Salainger tells the court quote. Within the
last several months, it has come to my attention that
one Stephen Cunis has been impersonating me through forged writings,
has signed my name to forged letters, has prepared and

(17:32):
circulated letters on false letterhead which he has claimed were
sent out by me, has offered for sale at least
one completely fictitious quote interview with me, which grossly misrepresents
both my character and my outlook on life, attributes opinions
to me that I do not hold, attempts to copy
my prose mannerisms, and altogether tries to pass off as

(17:54):
real an interview that never took place.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
So he faked the letter head he did identity that,
and then he also, like you know, basically shined himself off,
using Salander being like, oh, I love this kid.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
He's kind of amazing this guy.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
I want success for this guy.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
Salinger also wrote quote, I am appalled to think that
there are in circulation a number of holy false and
grotesquely inept pieces of writing attributed to me. I believe
this defendant expected no troublesome reaction from me to his
forgeries and deliberate misrepresentations. In fact, however, I find the

(18:31):
defendant's activities too corrupt and too destructively consequential to ignore.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
So that's, in my world, a big bright star for W. P.
Kinsella who's able to write so well. The Sounders like,
all right, that's that's pretty good.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
I'll let you go. Character.

Speaker 3 (18:46):
You know you're not going to pull my writing.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
You appreciate me, do you see me as this kid's.

Speaker 3 (18:51):
Like you're treating he's like basically training like a stepping
stone to get to a publishing career. He's like, I
don't want to go to prison to get a book deal.
I just rip off JD.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
Challengerskudas denies everything at far. His lawyer went so far
as to say, quote, a hoax may have been perpetrated
on both mister Cunis and mister Salad.

Speaker 3 (19:09):
Oh they're doubly victims.

Speaker 2 (19:10):
Someone's out to get both of them.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
Because they're both genius writers.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
Right, So more details emerge, Cunis and his lawyers shift gears.
They said that, you know what Cudas is a quote
young new writer. He's newly married. They said, like, you know,
his wife just had surgery and oh she's also pregnant.
And they're like, what does it have to do with anything.
I guess like he was in a tight spot and

(19:33):
needed the money, and.

Speaker 3 (19:34):
The lawyers like, look, I got to zealously defend this guy. Yeah,
I got to come up with something.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
Now, most of us would go out and get a job.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
With his pregnant wife.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah, maybe plan. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (19:43):
A couple of things.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
Not Steve, not Stephen Coonis. He faked an interview with
the most infamously lawsuit happy writer around. Yes, because like
this this was before the Random House case, but Salinger
had already been suing FH.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
Yeah, it's very clear.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
After some negotiations, Salader with drew his claims for damages
and legal fees. He Gotkonis to sign a statement promising
never to say the two had ever met or we're friends,
and Cunis also had to recall any documents he had
sent out quote which purport to be derived from JD. Salinger,
written by JD. Salinger, or transcribed from statements made by JD. Salinger.

Speaker 3 (20:20):
So it's the keep my name at your mouth cutte percent.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
Oh, and he had to file with the court the
name of every person, firm, or company to whom he
had addressed any communication relating to or purporting to be
derived from JD.

Speaker 3 (20:33):
Souder WHOA.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
So what we've seen here is the beginning of the
not so great career of Stephen Cunis.

Speaker 3 (20:39):
It goes on from here.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
Let's take a break. When we come back, we're going
to get to know him a little better, all right, Zaren, Stephen,

(21:06):
ste what you think you'll come to find that it's
almost impossible to believe anything this guy says.

Speaker 3 (21:15):
He does seem to fair no matter how.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
Much he swears to it. But people do. People believe him. So,
according to a self written author bio quote. Stephen Cunis
was born on September seventh, nineteen fifty six in Bucks County, Pennsylvania,
and attended New York University, where he received BA degrees
in Creative writing and comparative literature in nineteen seventy eight.

(21:37):
Is any of that true?

Speaker 3 (21:39):
I was just about ask you the same question.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
Thank you? The Pennsylvania part, Yeah, that's true. The rest
who knows? So his bio goes on. In nineteen eighty three,
at age twenty six, TV legend Norman Lear hired Cuonis
to write and develop half hour comedies for his company,
Embassy Television. This led to assignments in the areas of
one hour TV Movies of the Week, a five year

(22:03):
stint writing monologues for Johnny Carson, and eventually to motion pictures.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
Oh Johnny Gonna get him.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
So, as we learn from Annalise Rutger, you can put
a lot of made up stuff into IMDb and it
will go unnoticed for a long time, for a long time,
and others others will look at who is does anyone know?
Analiese Rutger. Others will look at IMDb and take it
as gospel, especially like journalists who aren't in the entertainment world,

(22:33):
looking for confirmation of what someone says, and.

Speaker 3 (22:36):
Also people who don't do the you need two sources thing.
You just find it once on the internet, good enough to.

Speaker 2 (22:42):
Get out of people. And I think in the entertainment
industry itself, people are more wary of Yes, yeah, not always,
not always. So let's go back to Norman Lear to refresh.
Lear was a screenwriter and producer who produced, wrote, created
more than one hundred TV show TV Powerhouse, Yeah, stuff

(23:03):
like All in the Family, Sanford and Son, Jefferson's One
Day at a Time, Good Times. He did sitcoms, but
they tackled social issues and political Maud. Maud was on
that list.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
Yeah, you're talking about tackling social issues. You got to
give a respect to be Arthur's first show.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
He Norman Lear was a genius, like truly a genius.

Speaker 3 (23:24):
And also both sides of the divide thought he was
making the comedy for them. So if you watch Archie Bunker,
people thought that they weren't making fun of Archie Bunker,
they were finally giving voice to the silent majority of America.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
Exactly so, as I said, Kunis tells people on podcasts
and other interviews to this day that he wrote to
Norman Lear when he was twenty six and he sent
along spec scripts that he'd written for Taxi and Mash
and Lear loved them. According to Steve, Lear was like,

(23:56):
you are amazing at dialogue.

Speaker 3 (23:57):
You're so good, better than I am.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
So Actually, according to Cunis, he said Cunis had quote
a real ear for dialogue that was what not the
other one, And he told him, quote, your big mistake
with Salinger is that you should have waited until he died.

Speaker 3 (24:13):
Oh yeah, that's the Norman Mayler play.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
Yes, exactly. So Lear thought Cunis was so good at
Dialogue that he wanted to fly Cunis out to LA
And we know that Lear wanted to give him a
two year writing contract.

Speaker 3 (24:27):
Two years.

Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yeah, So even his self created IMDV credits don't really
match up to what he boasts about. Like, I do
think he went to LA and landed some writing gigs,
but they didn't last more than an episode or so
for each show. And I think he worked on a
couple of Norman Lear pilots, and he wrote for one
episode of a show that lasted only a season, something

(24:50):
called Aka Pablo, starring Paul Rodriguez as a struggling standard.

Speaker 4 (24:55):
No.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
I think it was before our time, I was able
to firm that he did write for a TV movie
that Norman Lear did called Pop Okay.

Speaker 3 (25:06):
How many writers are on that?

Speaker 2 (25:08):
Not many? No, And it's I found this book that
like he had to go into internet archive and it's
like this crazy book that's a compendium of like every
sitcom and TV.

Speaker 3 (25:21):
No pop is that like pop? Worker's like a robot.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
Not to tell you relax, Rubby Toes on a mink
rugg Okay. Pop. It aired on NBC on August twenty ninth,
nineteen eighty four. Here's the cast. Charles Derning as p
Oliver Pendergrast, b Arthur as Roslind Gordon, Todd Graff as
Johnny Pendergrast, James Lashley as Russell Penda, by the way,

(25:47):
is incredible, Oh yeah, fran Dresher as Maggie Newton, Jane
Anderson as Dana McNeil, and Tonio Fargas as Frank Wilkie.
And Anthony Holland as Mark Alderman.

Speaker 3 (25:59):
If I'm not mistake, and Charles Derning is one of
the most awarded soldiers of World War Two.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
Really interesting.

Speaker 3 (26:05):
I did not know got some of the most metals.

Speaker 2 (26:07):
The guy you know, he was in a TV movie
called Pop.

Speaker 3 (26:10):
No but I do. I can do his dance from
the best Little Horouse in Texas when he's the governor
does stuff with his hat. I can do that. Good.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
That's good.

Speaker 3 (26:17):
I like that for you remember anything about ever hearing
about pop? You know, hearing references.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
It's a one off nineteen eighty four TV movie, Yeah
but still. The credits list Lear as the producer and
both Stephen Coonis and Norman Lear as the writers, and
it was directed by Bud Yorkin, who would later go
on to direct Arthur Two on the Rocks.

Speaker 3 (26:40):
You know me. I like the Arthur movies. I like
eighties entertainment. I go back. People are like before your birth.
I'm like I do.

Speaker 2 (26:47):
Here's the concept. Twenty years after deserting his family, a
lovable con artist named p Oliver Prendergast Pop for short,
returns to his estranged family, his wife, Roslyn, the published
sure of a magazine called Personality Plus, and his now
grown sons, Johnny and Russell. Oliver's effort to become a
father and husband to a family he really doesn't know

(27:09):
are depicted. Maggie, Dana, Frank, and Mark are employees. Of Roslin.

Speaker 3 (27:14):
This sounds like a Max Dugan return to Knockoff.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
Doesn't it, Roderick, Yeah, just on NBC Quickie.

Speaker 3 (27:23):
Yeah, a version.

Speaker 2 (27:24):
But how it wasn't an instant classic. I don't know.
Why don't we watch it every year on ourbor Day.

Speaker 3 (27:28):
I'm going with Stephen Cunis's a contribution, I think.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
So, So let's get back to the bio, because he
got a dialogue. He said he wrote monologues for Johnny
Carson for five years, and according to his self written
I am dB bio quote, during his last four years
on The Tonight Show, Cuonis was Johnny Carson's primary monologue
writer and wrote the final joke that Carson ever delivered.

Speaker 3 (27:53):
I do not believe him.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
No, Like that's like no. So. IMDb states that he
was a quote creative consultant on the show from nineteen
eighty nine to nineteen ninety one.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
Okay, so it'll be close to his last year, but not.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
Any of the writers, and he didn't get credit on
the final episode, which was in nineteen ninety two.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:14):
What I really love is the trivia section on his
IMDb page, and I shall read some to you. Wrote
the two hundredth episode of Love Boat tv Guide. The
TV Guide rank number eighty two among the one hundred
greatest episodes of all time.

Speaker 3 (28:32):
That's a lot of numbers, it is.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
Likes to tell strangers he's a taxidermist or an insurance underwriter.

Speaker 3 (28:38):
That's kind of like you that that's one hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (28:39):
What I do now. I'm like scared, here's one for you.
Writes his screenplays by hand on a yellow legal pad
you graduated from New York University in nineteen seventy eight.
Writes most of his screenplays with Dustin Hoffman in mind.

Speaker 3 (28:58):
Like just for all the parts.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
Favorite movie is Midnight Cowboy.

Speaker 3 (29:02):
That's an interesting choice.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
Likes to work with cinematographer John Seal Okay, I sure
want has been a Ham radio operator since age thirteen,
and then it gives his handle KQ six d F
formerly WA three m ZV.

Speaker 3 (29:18):
Sure, I don't know what that means. He always wanted
to though.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
Moved to Montecito, California, where he continues to write and
help aspiring writers through seminars and workshops.

Speaker 3 (29:28):
I was just about to see this, so I'm like,
you know, this guy has done seven.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
From January two thousand and seven, Carson present is an
adjunct assistant professor in the Creative Writing Program at New
York University. May twenty second, nineteen, New York University.

Speaker 3 (29:45):
Okay, that's being New York Film Academy NYU.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
Okay, his last four years on The Tonight Show, as
we said he was, he claims he was Johnny Carson's
primary monologue writer wrote the final joke. In May twentieth,
nineteen ninety two. Kun has sold an original screenplay entitled
First Comes Love to Westport Film Partners, headed by former
Warner Brothers Music president Stephen Craig Aristae, for one point

(30:10):
two million dollars. This was the highest amount ever paid
for an original screenplay at the time of its sale,
and made the front page of Daily Variety.

Speaker 3 (30:18):
Okay, now, Joe esterhass eat my short Marissa and I
he has the highest Yeah, you know, had a heck.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
Of a time running some of these down.

Speaker 3 (30:28):
I bet so.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
The variety archives for Daily Variety seem to have been
shuddered because I was like, I kept finding where you could.
I'm like, I'll pay yeah to go through their old
I'll give you credit. It doesn't exist anymore. But the
only mentions of that First Comes Love screenplay and Westport
Film Partners online are from Kuna's himself. Yeah, I couldn't

(30:51):
find a record of Westport Film Partners. And Stephen Craig
Aristae wasn't the president of Warner Brothers Music. He was
general manager, or at least he says, like he has
a super hazy online presence in work history, and he
was supposed to be moving into movies with that screenplay acquisition,
but his IMDb page only lists one project something will

(31:14):
get to later. But that involves Stephen coonis oh for real? Yeah,
and it's not a feature film. So then Marissa was
like super tempted to call NYU to see if he
really was an assistant, like an adjunct assistant professor at
the Creative Writing program. But instead she's like, I just
went through all their directories and schedules and came up

(31:34):
with nothing.

Speaker 3 (31:35):
Oh look at her.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
Yeah, So can't get anything by that woman. So, according
to the Santa Barbara Independent, Cunis mentioned his work on
to a lot of people on Harry Potter and The
Half Blood Prince, and he said his name didn't appear
in the credits because he was part of a larger
writing group.

Speaker 3 (31:54):
That does happen, but that's usually for like later punch
Up Dash. It's like, oh, you write for one character
or you at joke, So you had, mister, you had
some element that isn't there because somebody wants it.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
But well, he his his IMDb page is riddled with
credits that aren't really credits, so like he listed himself
there as uncredited creative consultant on movies like Legally Blonde,
Wag the Dog, Groundhog Day, Rainman, The Pelican bin Man,
Catch Me If you Can so great. He was interviewed

(32:26):
on a podcast called story Beat, a podcast for the
creative mind, and he said that he has that credit
on Catch Me if you Can because the producer asked
him to rewrite the script to make the main character
quote more likable.

Speaker 3 (32:40):
Yeah, there you go, that's what That's what a script
doctor does.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
Agreed to do it for free, which sounds you know,
and then when the script eventually got sold many years later,
it was totally rewritten. Yeah. Well, but there's like the
analyst Rutger of it all.

Speaker 3 (32:55):
Does he actually have a credit on that? Like if
I go watch the movie, well I see his name.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yeah, so he's out there telling tales about his Hollywood success,
and then he's also pulling some traditional ridiculous crimes. So
from that same Santa Barbara Independent article quote, Kunis has
been in and out of trouble since nineteen ninety nine,
with felony convictions of forgery, grand theft, and false use

(33:22):
of financial information. He was implicated for participating in a
Los Angeles caper during which thirteen victims lost a total
of three hundred and nineteen thousand dollars after fake credit
cards were made in their names.

Speaker 3 (33:35):
Oh yeah, so he's back to identity theft Zarin.

Speaker 2 (33:38):
That is conduct unbecoming of a sitcom writer.

Speaker 3 (33:41):
Quite frankly, Norman would not be happy now.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
He ran check fraud too, So in two thousand and one,
he stole two checks from a Santa Barbara man's mailbox.

Speaker 3 (33:51):
This's why he was in to catch me, if you can.
I was taking notes.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
He was totally taking notes. He got out his chemistry
set and used chemicals to erase the writing on hostolen chain,
then filled in his own stuff. The guy filed a
forgery report with the detectives, and when the cops tracked
the money down, Cunis had already used it. He made
car payments, he paid for a membership at the golf club.

Speaker 3 (34:15):
Right.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
So, while the Santa Barbara p D were investigating, they
learned that other municipalities were on the hunt for Cunas,
San Mateo and Palo Alto up in the Bay area.
Oh wow, thousand oaks in the South Line. I'm wondering,
but it was all like similar financial crimes. Then they
learned that he was under investigation in Princeton, New Jersey,

(34:37):
and East Levettown, Pennsylvania, too, closer to his old hometown.
So Cunis was eventually found guilty for the check washing incident.
He pleaded out got felony probation, but the probation didn't last.
He violated his probation by getting pinched on a different
forgery case and that got him two years eight months

(34:58):
in prison in November two thousand and seven. That wasn't
all he was up to. In two thousand and seven, Elizabeth,
he contacted the Santa Barbara Daily Sound newspaper and he
sold them an interview that he did oh No this
time with Jimmy Buffett ahead of a show that Buffett
was about to play at the Santa Barbara Bowl.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
He didn't wait for him to leave.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
He did it before so Buffett would see the interview
ran in the paper, and then the paper got a
call Hello Daily Sound. Yeah, I'm Jimmy Buffett's manager. He
has no idea who this Stephen Kunis guy is and
has never even had done an interview with him, never
met him. Like what, Gibbs. Yeah, They're like, yeah, what
gives you know what? Conduct unbecoming a sitcom writer? So

(35:41):
he does his time for forgery paper, she's a correction exactly.
He got out. He decided he wanted to make a comeback.
He'd written a play when he was inside.

Speaker 3 (35:51):
Of course.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
It was called Hopeless Romantic, not to be confused with
the incredible nineteen ninety nine Bouncing Souls album and song
of the same name.

Speaker 3 (35:59):
Thank you very legit.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
That's a great album. It's got bullying the jukebox and
Night on Earth.

Speaker 3 (36:03):
On it good classing.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
Now, this was some stupid play. I have no idea
what it was about. But in twenty ten he decided
to hold a reading of the play. He rented Center
Stage Theater in Santa Barbara for it. Uh huh. From
The Independent quote Terry Ball, executive director of center Stage
said Cunis wanted to give the knight's proceeds back to
the playhouse, which she agreed to, but Ball said Cunis

(36:29):
went around town falsely representing Center Stage at the time
it was about to celebrate its twentieth anniversary and trying
to raise money for it. So he goes into Helene
Schneider's office, you know who that is, Mayor of Santa
Barbara at the time, and he convinces her to save
the date. He wants her there not just to watch,

(36:50):
but also to read a proclamation commending center Stage's success
and his success such economy, because that was just as important.
He also wanted to.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
Wear a sash, says Mayor of.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
Santa He wanted her to present a check for fifteen
thousand dollars, big check that he said he had an
investor who wanted to give that to the theater, of course,
and she's like, all right, she shows up, she does
her mayoral duties, she spoke, she read the proclamation, She's like,
all right, where's the check, will hand it over. There's
no check, Like on with the show, just keep going.

Speaker 3 (37:22):
I forgot to make a check.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
So he made around seven hundred and fifty bucks at
the door that night. Most of it came from himself
because he bought up these huge blocks of tickets for
his friends. The theater never saw a dime. He's like,
I'll give it all back to you.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
They never saw her, of course, not imagine it's like one
hundred seat theater or something. So he's like judging eight
bucks or whatever.

Speaker 5 (37:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
He wrote checks to the actors and the stage folks
for their work. All the checks down, of course, and
it wasn't account was empty. It was because the routing
numbers on the checks were correct, but they connected to
an East Coast bank account that didn't exist. Oh wow,
fake everything fast.

Speaker 3 (37:59):
I thought. He was like that payment, No, it wasn't
even from a real thing, had fake routing.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
Yeah, so some of the people were able to track
him down.

Speaker 3 (38:07):
And take off.

Speaker 2 (38:09):
I think so, yeah wow, And then he was like
he scared up some cash for some of them, but
most went.

Speaker 3 (38:14):
When they showed up in his door pounding on the.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
Basically, and I feel like maybe Konis thought that this
was a way to get back into the good graces
of like the Hollywood set with a vanity production and recognition,
like at the expense of the Santa Barbara set.

Speaker 3 (38:28):
This is such the screenwriter has like workshops and they
tell you, you know, if you want to make it
in Holly, I'll tell you so.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
At the end of twenty ten, he gets busted again.
He was arrested for second degree commercial burglary. Wow, intend
to commit larceny and forgery for attempting to pass twelve
grand in bad checks at Montecito Bank Intrust.

Speaker 3 (38:50):
I can't believe he's trying to do.

Speaker 2 (38:52):
He got an enhancement on the charges thanks to the
prior felonies, and they should have also charged him with
what what conduct becoming a sitcom writer? So next the
next year he's at it again. March twenty eleven, he
gets arrested on a parole violation. And this is such
a good one. He is apparently swindling a friend of his.

Speaker 3 (39:14):
Always with the friends.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
It was a guy named Wally Roncietto, and he owned
a Santa Barbara restaurant called Cafe Buenos Aires. And Roncietto
had given him some footage of an Argentine tango violinist.
You know, as you do among friends and cunis is
like this would make for a great movie, like the
violinist life story. I don't know. Cunus is like, you

(39:38):
know what, I know a guy, good buddy of mine,
that guy producer, director Robert Semechis.

Speaker 3 (39:45):
Wow, He's like, you seen director.

Speaker 2 (39:47):
Of Romancing the Stone, Back to the Future trilogy, who
framed Roger Rabbit, Forrest Gump, contact castaway and his most
important work tales from the crypt Bordello of Blood. Okay,
okay people. So Ronchetto's blown away. Yes, he's like, I
can't believe it, and even more blown away when Cunis

(40:09):
forwards him an email from Zamechas and he's like, I'm
a Forrest Gump? Have you seen Bordello of Blood? I'm
all in. We are go. So Cunis then tells roncietto look.
We all we have to do is we each put
in two thousand dollars to secure a top shelf film editor,
because that's how you do it in the biz. When

(40:30):
you're working with Robert Zemechis, every little council film editor
you have to have four grand if you want a
good film editors walk in the door money. Yeah. So
Ronchetto cuts Cunus a check. Oh my god, but he's
starting to think something's off, so he contacts Robert Zemechis himself.
That's an amazing cold call to make. I don't know
Zamechas had never heard of Cunis, knew nothing about the project.

(40:53):
The forwarded email was fake, of course, and the two
thousand was now cozy in Cunus's bank account. Shatto calls
the cops.

Speaker 3 (41:01):
Cunus Is arrests answers or however he got.

Speaker 2 (41:04):
To my god, yeah, exactly. Kuus gets arrested, charged with
theft by false pretenses and resisting arrest. On that way,
Apparently there are other victims of the con, but they
didn't want their names publicly released.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
Yeah, it's kind of embarrassing.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
Let's take a break. When we come back from these
delightful and robust ads you're about to hear, you'll be
shocked to learn that Stephen Coonis just can't help himself.

Speaker 3 (41:29):
Boy can't stop.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
Zaren.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
I'm still hung up on him writing the last Johnny
Carson joke. I now want to go and see what
it was.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
I know, I thought that I was going to pull
up the last episode, but I kind of ran out
of time.

Speaker 3 (42:01):
That's all right, that's fine. I don't expect everything from you,
my little fixation.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
I wanted to know, like when you say he wrote
the monologues, like I just am not buying it.

Speaker 3 (42:13):
No, not at all.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
I mean it's like a Bruce Valanche type thing, but legit,
but legit. I would have met like he could. If
Bruce Valanche told me I wrote all of Johnny's monologues
for the last four years of his show and I
wrote the last joke, I'd be like, Bruce Valanche, You're
a madman and I love it.

Speaker 3 (42:30):
I mean that guy wrote most of the Oscars jokes
of our childhood.

Speaker 2 (42:32):
Yes, exactly.

Speaker 3 (42:33):
So it's like, okay, I believe him, and we've heard
of him. Yeah, everybody reference other comics.

Speaker 2 (42:37):
Reference because I use it. I use him as an insult.
When someone thinks they're being funny, you say, okay, Bruce Valanche,
and then they look at you and they say, I
don't know who you're doing.

Speaker 3 (42:47):
That's that's two inside baseball for me.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
So anyway, we would have heard this dude. Uh speaking
of dude, Steve Kunis so to April twenty eleven, he's
at it again. Santa Barbara is apparently just like lousy
with newspapers, which is how it should be.

Speaker 3 (43:04):
I know, I'm incredible the number. So far.

Speaker 2 (43:06):
We've heard about the Independent and the Sound. Now we're
going to talk about the Santa Barbara Paper News Hawk
n O O z H A w K wow. Right,
that's extreme. That's like heart, that's they mean it. They
really have a let's metal.

Speaker 3 (43:22):
They're about the news.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
They are let's have a frank discussion about it, shall
we please? So Kunis had been submitting essays to the
paper and they're running them, of course, but then an
eagle eyed reader pointed out that they didn't seem like
original pieces, and maybe that person saw the name and
knew something had to be up. Like Santa Barbara's a
good sized city, but it's also it's a small like

(43:44):
people know each other and they talk where it gets around.

Speaker 3 (43:46):
Gossip, and also there's like clicks, you know.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
Yeah, there's social strata and the group in which he's
moving that would spread like wildfire.

Speaker 3 (43:53):
So it's like NAPA, like you know, some people, people
are going to know other people and they're going to talk,
especially if something like this was just a using stories like.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
This bozo totally so News Hawk publisher Bill mcphaden launched
an investigation, and of course he got something plagiarism. So
at least two of the essays My Children the Experts
and Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover were copied,
in some cases verbatim from pieces that ran in Newsweek,

(44:21):
and by the same writer both times. Not bombak No,
best selling author and Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Anna Quinlan. Oh,
he just ripped off. Bill mcphaden found that none of
the references or bona fetus that Kunis cited for himself existed.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
He's got an ear for dialogue that I know he
really does.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
None of the other publications, none of the awards that
he said he won, none of the Hollywood credits all fake.
There's another Santa Barbara newspaper. It turns out, the Santa
Barbara News Press.

Speaker 3 (44:56):
Yes, isn't that the actual the.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
Actually the paper, Cuona's had columns that ran there and
in the Santa Barbara Independent. They were also ripped off
from Newsweek. CUDA's still had actual criminal charges pending when
he's doing this and not just conduct unbecoming a sitcom writer.
Oh man, he tried to make it go away by

(45:20):
going away. So yeah, he skipped his court dates that
were in August of twenty eleven, and he ran off
to New Jersey with his girlfriend. The state yeah, so
the judge issued a twenty thousand dollars bench warrant for
his arrest. Police in New Jersey got word that he
was there. I don't know how, and they arrested him
a month after he ran Wow. A month later, he

(45:41):
pleaded guilty for the whole Tango violinist movie con thing
and fakeful and the fake checks that he tried to
run through Montecito Bank and Trust. He gets sentenced to
five years, and he said, though, if you pay back
all your victims, we'll knock it down to four years.

Speaker 3 (45:58):
Okay, So I think we.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
Cannot be surprised that Cunis never paid anyone back.

Speaker 3 (46:03):
I am not surprised at.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
First, he told the court. Yeah, I paid Everybody's cool,
it's I'll just keep going. No, No, they're busy, don't
bother them. And it was so painful, don't bring it up. So,
according to the Independent quote, Cunis told his lawyer that
his Montesito Bank and Trust victims had been paid back,
saying one of his former bosses now deceased had put

(46:25):
seven thousand dollars in Cunis's account. The money was then
transferred back to the right customers, and that's why his
account showed a zero balance, Cunis said. Lear, His lawyer,
claims Cunis's story was mistakenly corroborated by a bank employee
who spoke to one of his law office pairalegals. It
turns out, explained the prosecutor, who followed up with the

(46:46):
branch's manager, the bank had actually zeroed out the account
as part of its internal collections procedure, knowing Cutis as
I do, the prosecutor told the court, I didn't take
his word for it. Bank account records show what looked
like a deposit, which CUIs apparently claimed was money given
by a former now deceased boss, but the banks of
the account was emptied so it could report a loss

(47:08):
from the forge check and sent it to collections SOW.
In May of twenty twelve, Stephen Kunis gets sentenced to
five years in county jail that day.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
Don't go over six wens.

Speaker 2 (47:20):
I didn't think so either, But you know, if you
go to prison lockups no good under California's prison realignment legislation.
Cunis opted for at home detention, which I did not
know was a thing. That choice.

Speaker 3 (47:32):
So he has like an ankle monitor and.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
They just so that's what he picked. You know, it
must be nice. Check your privilege, Steve.

Speaker 3 (47:39):
So this like under Jerry Brown, Like what are we
doing herewelve twelve? I think so. I think Jerry Brown
was like our governor.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
Then I don't recall Zarin. Close your eyes.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
Oh, I'm scared. You don't want to be in his
own prison.

Speaker 2 (47:59):
It's in August twenty twelve. The Dark Knight rises as
captivating theater audiences. Call Me Maybe by Carly ray Jepson
is a top of the shirts. The Badminton World Federation
has just charged eight women's doubles players from South Korea,
China and Indonesia with quote not using one's best efforts

(48:20):
to win a match conduct unbecoming a badminton player. You
are a clerk at a FedEx store in Santa Barbara, California.
Today is a slow one. You've finished arranging all the
forms on the counter and have replenished all the shipping boxes.
Now you just sit there, a radio playing softly in
the background. Your notepad in front of you. You are

(48:43):
a student at Santa Barbara City College. You're majoring in Film,
Television and Electronic Media Associate and Science for Transfer. You
intend to transfer to UCLA next year to continue your
studies and work toward a career in Hollywood. You ultimately
wanted to erect, but right now you're working on a screenplay. Well,
you want to be working on a screenplay. You just

(49:04):
don't have a solid idea right now. Your notepad is
full of vague notions, but you just aren't there yet.
A professor of yours told you that all you need
is one moment, one scene that sets it all off,
not necessarily the first scene in the movie, but the
heart of it what grabs people, and you'll be able
to build it out from there. You've got to think

(49:25):
of that one moment, that one thing that'll stick in
people's minds, that'll grow a rich story around it. The
door chimes as a man enters the shop. He's carrying
a canvas tote bag Writer's Guild of America West. It
says on it, he must be a screenwriter. Your spine
straightens as you sit higher in your stool, and he
walks across the store to your counter. He sets his

(49:47):
tote bag on the counter and looks you in the eyes.
He tells you that he needs to ship something. You
tell him that's what you're here for. He tells you
he'll need a box as he pulls a scrap of
paper with an address out of his pocket. You ask
what he shipp He looks both ways and then reaches
into his bag and pulls out an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet.
The strap has been cut. You tell him that you've

(50:09):
got a box that'll fit that, and you reach behind you,
pulling a flatten shipping box from a stack on a shelf.
He slides the paper over to you. Santa Barbara County
Sheriff's Office four four three four Kaye Real, Santa Barbara, California,
nine three one one zero. You ask about the sender's address.
He tells you just to use the store's address name
of sender. He looks at you, Stephen Kunis. He stammers

(50:33):
a bit and tells you that he found the monitor
on the ground at the beach. He just wanted to
get it back to the authorities. You ask how he
knows it's from the Sheriff's office. He pauses, says it's
the most logical owner. You ask, why aren't you just
dropping it off at the station. He tells you he's
late for a bus and he's got to get going.
No time to head all the way out to the

(50:54):
sheriff's office building. Okay, you say. You fill out the
shipping form, your pens scratching on the triplicate papers. The
man looks at your notepad. You quickly construct the box,
put the ankle monitor inside and seal it up. You
slap the shipping form on the outside and enter all
the addresses into the computer. It spits out a shipping label,
and you tell the man how much he owes. He

(51:15):
hands you cash as he puts the change into his wallet.
He looks again at the notepad and asks you what
you're working on? Screenplay. You tell him, ah, his eye's brightened.
Do you need help with that? No, you tell him,
I've got it, I've got the moment I need. He
looks at you a little quizzically and then nods. He
turns and leaves the store. You flip to a blank

(51:35):
page on your notepad and you begin to furiously write
interior shipping off this morning we see a man walk in.
He's got a tote bag over his shoulder and inside
is the ankle monitor. He's just cut off his leg
with a bowie knife. Clerk, Can I help you? Yes,
says Saren. Four months went by with Kunis on the run,

(51:57):
and one evening he was at the Palms Restaurant in Carpentia,
just twelve miles down the road from Santa Barbara, super close.
A lady saw him and recognized him. She called the
Sheriff's office. Next thing he knows he's doing two and
a half years at Wasco State Prison.

Speaker 3 (52:13):
Lady recognized him.

Speaker 2 (52:14):
Lady recognized him.

Speaker 3 (52:15):
I think it was from one of the theater things.
Probably I went to the worst show.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
So he got out in June of twenty fifteen. He
was supposed to report to his probation officer and he
did not.

Speaker 3 (52:28):
Shocking.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
That gets you a warrant. He had actually left Santa
Barbara County this time went back to Pennsylvania, where his
parents were still living. He refused to stay under the radar, though.
He came up with a concept for a show. No
he'd be the executive producer. It was called over my
Dead Body.

Speaker 3 (52:46):
Okay, this is not a play that got the theaters show.
This is a TV show.

Speaker 2 (52:50):
This is a TV show, and the premise is at
the host interviews famous dead people because they can't sue.
Voiceover actors play the dead celebrity.

Speaker 3 (53:00):
Of course, get the Mark Twain.

Speaker 2 (53:02):
Yes. So Kunas was promoting the show and the Bucks
County Courier Times reported on it.

Speaker 3 (53:09):
He's doing like public access TV.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
Well no, he's going around saying that it's going to
be on Netflix, okay, and that Bill Maher is going
to be the host.

Speaker 3 (53:19):
Oh wow.

Speaker 2 (53:20):
And he told people there would be all these like
a list celebrities coming on and they'd be filming in
the area, according to levittownnow dot com. Quote after publication,
the newspaper published that they discovered Kunis had lied about
the project. A correction noted a Netflix representative denied Cunis
was involved in any series they were producing. So now

(53:43):
that his name was out there and he was being
publicly called out on his shenanigans, the cops are onto him.
They arrested him in January of twenty sixteen. Quote while
picking up a package from a post office box location. Yeah,
so he gets extradited to California, he did his time again.
He had time to rethink things, and you know what

(54:03):
that means book Ted talk. Oh he he did a
TEDx talk in twenty twenty one. That's not a real test.
I no, it's like part of It's like they're kind
of like franchisee spinoff thing. He's in front of a
green screen and there's no audience, but it's to look

(54:24):
like he's on a stage, and then there's like fake
applause at the end. Wow, it is a little creepy.

Speaker 4 (54:28):
You know why?

Speaker 3 (54:29):
I think cringey? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
Yeah. In it, he shares that by his sixtieth birthday
in twenty sixteen, he was out of jail, but he
had no car, no credit card, no home, and only
four hundred and eighty three dollars in his bank account.
He wrote his own oh bit, and he was ready
to pack it in, but then a bolt of inspiration.
He had a conversation with a childhood friend and they

(54:51):
came up with an idea for a talk show where
they interview their fantasy guests, all of whom happened to
be dead, but they talked to them like they're alive, Okay,
over my dead body. So uh and that's what that
guy who he said was the Warner Music president. Yeah,
he's got a he's got a credit on this. That's
his only IMDb credit.

Speaker 3 (55:13):
So, uh, did that guy have like a hard time
drug problems?

Speaker 2 (55:18):
I think that maybe fabulous as well. I believe it
was on YouTube, not Netflix, and I think you can
buy episodes to watch on Amazon Prime. There's six episodes. Yeah,
it appears to also now be a podcast, and I
couldn't bring myself to listen. I'm just I'm so sorry.

(55:39):
There's some things like I would like implode from the cringing.
The guests include May West, Steve Jobs, the cast of
The Wizard of Oz, Mark Twain, Richard Nixon, Tupac. How
offensive do you think the Tupac is?

Speaker 3 (55:55):
Don't get me started. I was staying away from.

Speaker 2 (55:58):
Quotes Norman lear As saying about the show, quote, this
is the best idea for a TV series that I
can remember. It's absolutely hilarious.

Speaker 3 (56:07):
And this is I assume after normally passed. If he
passed like right around the twenty nineteen, twenty twelve.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
Yeah, I don't know, so who knows. I'm gonna guess
that he never said it either way. Yeah, Saren, what's
your ridiculous takeaway?

Speaker 3 (56:21):
I mean, like, when you're creative, right and you can
you have an air for dialogue. Yes, you would think
that he would come up with better cons. His cons
are so lazy and so like, I think you're a sucker.
So I'm going to lower the bar of what I
have to do to convince you, Like, is it him
is it his respect for his audience? I can't tell.

Speaker 2 (56:42):
I thought he would be far more magnetic in person,
and then I watched his ted talk.

Speaker 3 (56:48):
Yeah, just not No, I'm kind of like I imagine,
kind of awkward, kind of like one of those guys
where you're like, he doesn't talk to other people often.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
He's very he comes across as very sincere.

Speaker 3 (56:59):
Oh what's surprising and you and you.

Speaker 2 (57:03):
Get the sense like he's had a tough time, like
there all about reinventing yourself at the age of sixty, okay,
And but at the same time, it's like I feel
like he's not being honest with himself. That's part of
the weird and he's not honest as we see like
with everybody, and so I don't know what's going on
like with that, but yeah, I think that you.

Speaker 3 (57:24):
Kind of have to know people if you really want
to manipulate the way that he wants to. And he
seems like he doesn't take the time to really get
to know other.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
People well, and he seems to be trying to like
pass like you know, and also ran Hollywood Life on
by people who weren't involved in this, so like they
hear names and it goes you.

Speaker 3 (57:44):
Know, I met people I used to when in one
of the times I was in Hollywood. I uh, this
is weird, but like I had a sidecart and I
pretended I didn't because I needed work, and so I
would go and sit around with extras thinking I could
just like work real quick, and it worked fantastically, and
all the other extras hated me because I kept getting
like pushed to the front and they're like, oh, you

(58:05):
got screen time. And I felt so bad for so
many of them because the would sit there and just
obviously lie to me about things that I had even
taken part with, or I know you're lying, but they
would just so earnestly and they wanted It's like this
proximity to success or to fame, and I'm like, you
do realize that's why you're not having the proximity because
you think that you can just you think everybody lies

(58:26):
down here.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
I'm no, it's not like that, not like that, but
they do. And I think that is misleading to people
that people do not tell the truth in Hollywood. Sure,
and like deals go forward based on all these like
lies but easily proved right, that's where the lie exactly.
And so if you're not like in that expert level
of them, you just think, well, they lie.

Speaker 3 (58:48):
And also it's a lot of like lying by omission
as or lying by allowing you to create and fill
in the live for them. They don't give you all
the details. They kind of like hint at where.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
They were and lie exactly.

Speaker 3 (59:01):
A lot of like unfinished thoughts turn into lies and
they let you do the work for it. It's like
Hitchcock lying to you.

Speaker 2 (59:07):
If you're not savvy, you know you're not going to
see that you Well, we lie here.

Speaker 3 (59:12):
And also they don't get they don't know people, so
they don't get the idea that you can't lie to
someone if you don't understand them, not really, not successfully.
And they don't they think that people are paper thin.
I'm like, I don't know if that's a comment on you.

Speaker 2 (59:24):
What exactly.

Speaker 3 (59:28):
What's yours? Elizabeth?

Speaker 2 (59:29):
Mine is that uh, you know, just I don't think
people understand how embarrassed I get for them when they
do this.

Speaker 3 (59:41):
I do not think they understand it.

Speaker 2 (59:42):
No, No, I'm just embarrassed for him, and for that
I need to talk back. Yeah, Oh my god, I lo.

Speaker 6 (01:00:01):
Hi's Aaron Elizabeth Producery. My name's Naja. I'm a longtime listener,
first time caller. I've been here since the Avalonia diver
first episode came out, and I'm just really really grateful
for just all the content, all.

Speaker 5 (01:00:15):
The laughs, all the knowledge over the past couple of years,
and just keep being you guys, because there is so
many places in the world where we just don't have
laughter or spacer community.

Speaker 6 (01:00:26):
So it's Onnesday, thank you and say hi, and keep
doing what you're doing.

Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
Yes, thank you so much, amazing, thank you there for
so long. Thank you. Yes, I got it. You know,
when I hear things like this, like I remember when
we first started, I was like.

Speaker 3 (01:00:42):
Nost You're legitimately said that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
I honestly didn't think so. So this is you know
when people talk about how you know we can all
laugh together and you guys get to laugh with us,
and uh, it means a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:00:55):
It really means a lot, and it's absolutely truthful because
we are laughing right there with you, even though we're
not physically there with you. I think we're finding humor
in the same place completely.

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
And we see too from like a lot of the
notes that you guys forward on on Instagram and stuff,
but we all have to see love it. So yeah,
thank you for that. That was really sweet and that
you know we need. We need sweetness and laughter and happiness.
So let's make it for ourselves. Uh, that's it for today.
You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com.

(01:01:28):
We're also at Ridiculous Crime on Blue Sky and on Instagram.
We're on YouTube at Ridiculous Crime Pod. And you can
email us at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. And
I'm always going to close with it. Leave a talkback
on a free iHeart app reach out. We want to
hear you. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and

(01:01:52):
Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by the actual host. Inside
the Johnny Carson costume Dave Kusten, starring Annals as Judith
with uncredited assistants by Stephen Coonis. Research is by head
writer for Happy Days Marisa Brown and executive creative director
for laugh Tracks on Mister Belvidere Jabari Davis. The theme
song is by Ed McMahon, enthusiast Thomas Lee and doc

(01:02:15):
Severnson Truther Travis Dunton. Post wardrobe is provided by Botany
five hundred guest Haron, makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre.
Executive producers are author of the autobiography of Ja Jagabor
Ben Bollen and TV executive with an extensive and highly
classified IMDb page requiring a secret password, No.

Speaker 4 (01:02:35):
Breath, gidus clime, say It One More Timequeus Crime.

Speaker 1 (01:02:47):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts.
My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.