December 17, 2025 • 33 mins
We are all shocked and saddened by the loss of Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle.
Rest in Peace Rob and Michelle
On this replay episode of Takin’ A Walk – Music History on Foot, host Buzz Knight sits down with legendary filmmaker Rob Reiner for a revealing conversation about the untold story behind the iconic rock mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap. Reiner reflects on how the film transformed from a misunderstood box-office disappointment into a cultural phenomenon that redefined comedy for generations. He shares never-before-discussed details about the chaotic early production, the groundbreaking improvisational approach that shaped the film’s unforgettable humor, and the challenges of convincing audiences and studios to embrace a new kind of storytelling. Reiner also offers insight into the long-awaited sequel, the creative legacy of his father Carl Reiner, and the evolution of the mockumentary genre that he helped pioneer. Filled with candid reflections, behind-the-scenes revelations, and wisdom from a director who helped shape modern entertainment, this episode delivers a rare, intimate look at the making of a true cult classic.
If this episode of Takin’ a Walk – Music History on Foot struck a chord with you, we invite you to keep the journey going by exploring the many other stories, conversations, and musical pathways waiting in our episode library. Every installment of the podcast opens a new door into the world of music—whether it’s a deep dive into a legendary artist’s creative process, a walk through the overlooked corners of music history, or a compelling conversation with the people who shape the soundtrack of our lives. There’s an entire universe of rhythm, narrative, nostalgia, discovery, and behind-the-scenes insight spread across our past episodes, each one crafted to make your next walk, drive, workout, or moment of downtime more meaningful, more memorable, and more connected to the music you love. So don’t stop here, take a few extra steps and check out the rest of the Takin’ a Walk – Music History catalog. The music interviews waiting for you are as timeless, surprising, and inspiring as the songs that have carried you through your life. Keep listening and discover your next favorite episode.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm Buzzsnight and this is the Taking a Walk Podcast.
We are going to replay an episode with Rob Reiner. Now,
like you, we are shocked at the loss of Rob
and his wife Michelle. And it was a couple months back.
Rob was promoting the Spinal Tap reboot. It was amazing
(00:21):
clicking on the zoom and there he was, right before
my eyes, willing to talk about his past, his influences,
his father, what his father meant to him. He was heartwarming,
he was engaging. It was wonderful having him on. He
has such an incredible body of work that he has
(00:42):
left us that we are grateful for and I'm grateful
that he took the time to be on the Taking
a Walk Podcast. Here's a replay. Rest in peace, Rob Reiner.
Rob Reiner, welcome to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
So your life, you know, intersects everybody. So before we
dig into Spinal Tap too, 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 3 (01:15):
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 because I was little.
I think I was eight years old, and I went
(01:39):
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
(02:02):
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 (02:09):
Ah, that's the incredible. Now what did he think of
spinal tap?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
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.
(02:34):
And there would he had these big, you know, kind
of pompadour hairdoes and so he was always into that
kind of stuff. And you know, we this is a
long time ago, and uh I was I've said before,
but we you know, he was on television before we
owned a television and actually bought one so we could
(02:56):
watch him on television. Anyway, he loved satire. I mean,
he know, if you listen to the stuff he did
with the mel Brooks and the two thousand year Old
Man and a lot of this stuff saying, I know
he loved he loved Spinal Tap, 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
(03:17):
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
(03:40):
had 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
(04:01):
directed that were in the top ten. So and I
don't think it's ever happened.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
So I was very proud 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 Burghiy.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Marty de Burgh. 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 (04:31):
What would he say about this band's evolution over time?
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Well, I think you know, first of all, Marty's a
huge fan of Spinal Tap. I mean, he goes way
back to when he first saw them in Brantwich 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.
(04:56):
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
(05:18):
to a film that won a lot of Oscars, was
with Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman. It was called Kramer
Versus Kramer, 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,
(05:42):
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 (05:50):
Do you think when he evaluates though the band's growth
as artists, that he's seen them grow as artists.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
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 their charm. Now
they have grown age wise, and they are quite a
bit older. But if you look around, you know, you
(06:20):
see you see Paul McCartney's still out there doing it,
rolling stones. Mick Jagger's still running around the stage in
his eighties. You know, these bands want to keep going,
They 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
(06:40):
the Urn, which is all about 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 (06:53):
I love the book A fine line between clever and stupid.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
And between stupid and clever. Actually the line was from
the first film. Uh you know they that that was
a line that was my favorite line in the first
film was the there's a fine line between stupid and clever.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
I love the various takes from the artist. I don't
want to give it away, but I do want to
less if with your permission.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
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 3 (07:34):
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
(07:59):
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 you know, it's
Jimmy Fallon's drummer and eat you know, from the Roots.
(08:19):
They go to Chad Smith from the Red Hot Jelly Peppers,
and I also go to Lars Alert from from Metallica,
and they all they turn him 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
(08:39):
up with a new drummer. Who will see whether or
not that drummer survives it did go.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
To a friend of ours, Ed Begley Junior. Oh, yeah, yeah,
I know you have some history with him as John Stumpy.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Yeah, John Swompy Peeps. He was there drummer when they
were the Thames Men 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, in a short film that my daughter Romy
wrote and directed and acted in, and so it was funny.
(09:21):
Romy was trying 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 was knitted for him by Annette O'Toole, who was
married to Michael McKeon. So you know they had so
(09:44):
when we all got together, then Annette and Romi they
bond over knitting because Romi loves to knit too.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
So I asked that. I said, if if Stumpy had
been interviewed by Rob rein or, 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
(10:13):
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
(10:35):
HR these days.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
And Ed is so funny, you know, we're talking about him,
and I'm going to show you something. 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 (10:55):
He's the best for sure.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
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 3 (11:08):
Well, to me, that's the most fun for us is
that we had, first of all, the sequel. It's like
forty one years after the first one, so I mean
there's a 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
(11:31):
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
(11:52):
their musical connection and it was fun. That was the
most fun is to be able to, you know, do
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 (12:10):
It's effortless, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
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 improvised.
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
(12:35):
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 easy
(12:59):
for me.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Do you remember the first point in your life that
music had an impact on you?
Speaker 3 (13:05):
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'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
(13:29):
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
(13:50):
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
(14:10):
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
(14:32):
the people that you know, David Crosby from Crosby Silsan Nash,
and these are the people that we hung out with,
and so it was just natural. Janis Joplin 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
(14:54):
my background, you know, first generation to grow up on
television and rock and roll.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
We'll be right back with more of the Taking a
Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Do you mind if we share favorite protests songs?
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Sure, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Mine is the version of Blowing in the Wind by
Jim Nabors.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Oh my god, you're talking about an episode that I
did of Gomer Pyle where I sang Blown in the
Wind with Lee French who was also in the committee,
and Chris Ross, who was also in the committee. Of
the three of us as hippies were singing Blown in
(15:43):
the Wind with It's one of my proudest moments in television.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
All right, I'm cheating. That was not my favorite protest song.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
I know, I know what was it?
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Though?
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Mine was by phil Oaks and it was called Here's
to the State of Richard Nixon.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Phillips did some great protest ones, you know, Country Jone,
the Fish have one, two, three, for what are we
fighting for? You know, don't give a damn next stop Vietnam.
And you know one of my favorites is for what
It's Worth, which is you know the Buffalo Springfield, is
something happening in here? What it is? And exactly clear.
(16:21):
That was to me, is like an anthem.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
So were there new challenges in directing a monumentary in
today's comedy and media landscape versus back in the eighties.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
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
(16:54):
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 it 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,
(17:17):
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
(17:39):
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 (17:48):
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 3 (18:01):
Yes, I mean that was the That was the thing
that people were so stunned by.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
You know.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
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 in this twenty minute demo reel that I put
together to try to sell the film, and he had
(18:31):
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 Abamba Knock and it was oh God, I can't
oh yah Heap that was the name of the band,
(18:51):
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,
well time about this weird booking they got in a
military base, and so he said, oh great, we put
that right in the film. So anything that would that
seemed interesting. Getting lost backstage was something that happened to
(19:13):
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The whole idea of the
backstage writer, 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
they said no brown m and ms. They didn't want
any brown m and ms backstage. So we had that
whole thing. So we took from what we were presented with.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
And you went out and did some research on bands
such as Judas Priest. I think the other one was Saxon, and.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Well, yeah, Harry, Harry spent some time with Saxon. We
wall into a concert with Judas Priest. The guys also
went and saw a C. D. C At another concert,
and we just took from what we I mean, the
one thing that I got from, you know, going to
see Judus Priest is I thought I was having a
heart attack. The sound was so loud and intense, and
(20:09):
the drum 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 bands, final pet.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
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?
Speaker 3 (20:32):
That's true? 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,
(20:55):
that's not that's not the way we are. We have
real music and we're you know, we we really were important.
We should you know, we shouldn't be talking about 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.
(21:16):
We all love rock 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 (21:29):
Yeah, Spinal TAP's always been about, you know, a poking
fun at fame and excess. What does the Rock Rock
monumentary say about celebrity culture now?
Speaker 3 (21:43):
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 document to reform in some realistic cinema verite style
(22:04):
to 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 seeing a documentary years ago called We Live in Public.
I don't know if you ever saw that, but it's
(22:24):
it was done by the guy who initially created before Facebook,
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.
(22:45):
He says, everybody says, you know, like you know, Marshall McCluin.
You know, everybody wants their fifteen minutes of fame. But
we've come to a point where everybody wants their fifteen
minutes of fame every day. You know it. That's what
we've evolved to is. And I think, you know, it's
this documentary style that lets us in on supposedly who
(23:10):
we are, but you never you don't really get to
know who people are.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Are you fascinated how cult movies like Spinal Tap ultimately
turned into not only cult movies but into classics.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
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 would I make
a movie about a band nobody's ever heard of? And
(23:45):
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 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 Congress puts it in the
(24:07):
National Film Registry, 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 few laughs and maybe somebody will
(24:28):
like it. There's no way you think it's going to
be what it turned out to be.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
What are your some of your favorite cult classics?
Speaker 3 (24:39):
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.
(24:59):
But well, give me another example of a cold classic
and I'll tell you.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
If I'll mention it because you referred to it earlier. Diner.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Oh yeah, I know. I love Diner. And it's funny
because Diner and Spinal Flap 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,
(25:30):
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.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
So I know 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
(26:10):
go to the theater and see any movie this movie
in particular.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Well, I think that you know, if 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
(26:34):
with 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
(26:56):
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 people
(27:16):
watched the show. And they watched it at the 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
(27:37):
had an impact on the way people, you know, 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,
(27:58):
they're watching idea. Don't tell me what happened. I didn't
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 movies to have that. And you're right, COVID
(28:19):
had a big impact on it, and so did streaming.
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 (28:33):
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 3 (28:44):
I want them to say, I had a great time,
and here's it's something interesting. We screen 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 had never seen the first film, and the
reaction was exactly the same. The cards came back and
(29:05):
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 first one, 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
(29:28):
book 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.
(29:50):
You 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 (30:02):
So inclosing beyond spinal tap, are there stories you're excited
about additionally that you're working on now that you can share.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
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
(30:31):
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 brothers they came out
and they said, you know, they say he's falling in love.
Is wonderful, wonderful. So they say, who are they? Who
(30:53):
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 ding, He hits a bell, you know, a messenger
comes in. He says, take it down. Hayes makes waste
(31:16):
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 guy stops him and says, no,
(31:36):
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 message came down, what would happen? What
(31:57):
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 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 pull that one off.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
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 3 (32:23):
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 it 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 and
(32:46):
the thing 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
(33:06):
fart joke that was ever on national television.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
See the movie, Get the book. I'm grateful beyond belief
Rob Reiner to speak with you on Taking a Walk.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
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.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm Buzzsnight and this is the Taking a Walk Podcast.
We are going to replay an episode with Rob Reiner. Now,
like you, we are shocked at the loss of Rob
and his wife Michelle. And it was a couple months back.
Rob was promoting the Spinal Tap reboot. It was amazing
(00:21):
clicking on the zoom and there he was, right before
my eyes, willing to talk about his past, his influences,
his father, what his father meant to him. He was heartwarming,
he was engaging. It was wonderful having him on. He
has such an incredible body of work that he has
(00:42):
left us that we are grateful for and I'm grateful
that he took the time to be on the Taking
a Walk Podcast. Here's a replay. Rest in peace, Rob Reiner.
Rob Reiner, welcome to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
So your life, you know, intersects everybody. So before we
dig into Spinal Tap too, 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 3 (01:15):
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 because I was little.
I think I was eight years old, and I went
(01:39):
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
(02:02):
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 (02:09):
Ah, that's the incredible. Now what did he think of
spinal tap?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
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.
(02:34):
And there would he had these big, you know, kind
of pompadour hairdoes and so he was always into that
kind of stuff. And you know, we this is a
long time ago, and uh I was I've said before,
but we you know, he was on television before we
owned a television and actually bought one so we could
(02:56):
watch him on television. Anyway, he loved satire. I mean,
he know, if you listen to the stuff he did
with the mel Brooks and the two thousand year Old
Man and a lot of this stuff saying, I know
he loved he loved Spinal Tap, 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
(03:17):
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
(03:40):
had 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
(04:01):
directed that were in the top ten. So and I
don't think it's ever happened.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
So I was very proud 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 Burghiy.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Marty de Burgh. 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 (04:31):
What would he say about this band's evolution over time?
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Well, I think you know, first of all, Marty's a
huge fan of Spinal Tap. I mean, he goes way
back to when he first saw them in Brantwich 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.
(04:56):
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
(05:18):
to a film that won a lot of Oscars, was
with Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman. It was called Kramer
Versus Kramer, 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,
(05:42):
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 (05:50):
Do you think when he evaluates though the band's growth
as artists, that he's seen them grow as artists.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
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 their charm. Now
they have grown age wise, and they are quite a
bit older. But if you look around, you know, you
(06:20):
see you see Paul McCartney's still out there doing it,
rolling stones. Mick Jagger's still running around the stage in
his eighties. You know, these bands want to keep going,
They 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
(06:40):
the Urn, which is all about 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 (06:53):
I love the book A fine line between clever and stupid.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
And between stupid and clever. Actually the line was from
the first film. Uh you know they that that was
a line that was my favorite line in the first
film was the there's a fine line between stupid and clever.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
I love the various takes from the artist. I don't
want to give it away, but I do want to
less if with your permission.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
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 3 (07:34):
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
(07:59):
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 you know, it's
Jimmy Fallon's drummer and eat you know, from the Roots.
(08:19):
They go to Chad Smith from the Red Hot Jelly Peppers,
and I also go to Lars Alert from from Metallica,
and they all they turn him 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
(08:39):
up with a new drummer. Who will see whether or
not that drummer survives it did go.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
To a friend of ours, Ed Begley Junior. Oh, yeah, yeah,
I know you have some history with him as John Stumpy.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Yeah, John Swompy Peeps. He was there drummer when they
were the Thames Men 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, in a short film that my daughter Romy
wrote and directed and acted in, and so it was funny.
(09:21):
Romy was trying 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 was knitted for him by Annette O'Toole, who was
married to Michael McKeon. So you know they had so
(09:44):
when we all got together, then Annette and Romi they
bond over knitting because Romi loves to knit too.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
So I asked that. I said, if if Stumpy had
been interviewed by Rob rein or, 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
(10:13):
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
(10:35):
HR these days.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
And Ed is so funny, you know, we're talking about him,
and I'm going to show you something. 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 (10:55):
He's the best for sure.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
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 3 (11:08):
Well, to me, that's the most fun for us is
that we had, first of all, the sequel. It's like
forty one years after the first one, so I mean
there's a 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
(11:31):
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
(11:52):
their musical connection and it was fun. That was the
most fun is to be able to, you know, do
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 (12:10):
It's effortless, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
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 improvised.
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
(12:35):
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 easy
(12:59):
for me.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Do you remember the first point in your life that
music had an impact on you?
Speaker 3 (13:05):
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'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
(13:29):
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
(13:50):
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
(14:10):
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
(14:32):
the people that you know, David Crosby from Crosby Silsan Nash,
and these are the people that we hung out with,
and so it was just natural. Janis Joplin 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
(14:54):
my background, you know, first generation to grow up on
television and rock and roll.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
We'll be right back with more of the Taking a
Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Do you mind if we share favorite protests songs?
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Sure, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Mine is the version of Blowing in the Wind by
Jim Nabors.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Oh my god, you're talking about an episode that I
did of Gomer Pyle where I sang Blown in the
Wind with Lee French who was also in the committee,
and Chris Ross, who was also in the committee. Of
the three of us as hippies were singing Blown in
(15:43):
the Wind with It's one of my proudest moments in television.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
All right, I'm cheating. That was not my favorite protest song.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
I know, I know what was it?
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Though?
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Mine was by phil Oaks and it was called Here's
to the State of Richard Nixon.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Phillips did some great protest ones, you know, Country Jone,
the Fish have one, two, three, for what are we
fighting for? You know, don't give a damn next stop Vietnam.
And you know one of my favorites is for what
It's Worth, which is you know the Buffalo Springfield, is
something happening in here? What it is? And exactly clear.
(16:21):
That was to me, is like an anthem.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
So were there new challenges in directing a monumentary in
today's comedy and media landscape versus back in the eighties.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
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
(16:54):
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 it 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,
(17:17):
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
(17:39):
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 (17:48):
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 3 (18:01):
Yes, I mean that was the That was the thing
that people were so stunned by.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
You know.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
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 in this twenty minute demo reel that I put
together to try to sell the film, and he had
(18:31):
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 Abamba Knock and it was oh God, I can't
oh yah Heap that was the name of the band,
(18:51):
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,
well time about this weird booking they got in a
military base, and so he said, oh great, we put
that right in the film. So anything that would that
seemed interesting. Getting lost backstage was something that happened to
(19:13):
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The whole idea of the
backstage writer, 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
they said no brown m and ms. They didn't want
any brown m and ms backstage. So we had that
whole thing. So we took from what we were presented with.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
And you went out and did some research on bands
such as Judas Priest. I think the other one was Saxon, and.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Well, yeah, Harry, Harry spent some time with Saxon. We
wall into a concert with Judas Priest. The guys also
went and saw a C. D. C At another concert,
and we just took from what we I mean, the
one thing that I got from, you know, going to
see Judus Priest is I thought I was having a
heart attack. The sound was so loud and intense, and
(20:09):
the drum 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 bands, final pet.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
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?
Speaker 3 (20:32):
That's true? 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,
(20:55):
that's not that's not the way we are. We have
real music and we're you know, we we really were important.
We should you know, we shouldn't be talking about 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.
(21:16):
We all love rock 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 (21:29):
Yeah, Spinal TAP's always been about, you know, a poking
fun at fame and excess. What does the Rock Rock
monumentary say about celebrity culture now?
Speaker 3 (21:43):
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 document to reform in some realistic cinema verite style
(22:04):
to 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 seeing a documentary years ago called We Live in Public.
I don't know if you ever saw that, but it's
(22:24):
it was done by the guy who initially created before Facebook,
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.
(22:45):
He says, everybody says, you know, like you know, Marshall McCluin.
You know, everybody wants their fifteen minutes of fame. But
we've come to a point where everybody wants their fifteen
minutes of fame every day. You know it. That's what
we've evolved to is. And I think, you know, it's
this documentary style that lets us in on supposedly who
(23:10):
we are, but you never you don't really get to
know who people are.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Are you fascinated how cult movies like Spinal Tap ultimately
turned into not only cult movies but into classics.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
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 would I make
a movie about a band nobody's ever heard of? And
(23:45):
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 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 Congress puts it in the
(24:07):
National Film Registry, 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 few laughs and maybe somebody will
(24:28):
like it. There's no way you think it's going to
be what it turned out to be.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
What are your some of your favorite cult classics?
Speaker 3 (24:39):
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.
(24:59):
But well, give me another example of a cold classic
and I'll tell you.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
If I'll mention it because you referred to it earlier. Diner.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Oh yeah, I know. I love Diner. And it's funny
because Diner and Spinal Flap 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,
(25:30):
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.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
So I know 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
(26:10):
go to the theater and see any movie this movie
in particular.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Well, I think that you know, if 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
(26:34):
with 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
(26:56):
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 people
(27:16):
watched the show. And they watched it at the 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
(27:37):
had an impact on the way people, you know, 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,
(27:58):
they're watching idea. Don't tell me what happened. I didn't
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 movies to have that. And you're right, COVID
(28:19):
had a big impact on it, and so did streaming.
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 (28:33):
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 3 (28:44):
I want them to say, I had a great time,
and here's it's something interesting. We screen 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 had never seen the first film, and the
reaction was exactly the same. The cards came back and
(29:05):
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 first one, 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
(29:28):
book 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.
(29:50):
You 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 (30:02):
So inclosing beyond spinal tap, are there stories you're excited
about additionally that you're working on now that you can share.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
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
(30:31):
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 brothers they came out
and they said, you know, they say he's falling in love.
Is wonderful, wonderful. So they say, who are they? Who
(30:53):
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 ding, He hits a bell, you know, a messenger
comes in. He says, take it down. Hayes makes waste
(31:16):
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 guy stops him and says, no,
(31:36):
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 message came down, what would happen? What
(31:57):
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 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 pull that one off.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
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 3 (32:23):
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 it 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 and
(32:46):
the thing 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
(33:06):
fart joke that was ever on national television.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
See the movie, Get the book. I'm grateful beyond belief
Rob Reiner to speak with you on Taking a Walk.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
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.
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