When Harry Met Sally...: Everything You Didn't Know

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio. Hello everyone,
and welcome to Too Much Information, the show that brings
you the secret stories and little known facts behind your
favorite movies, music, TV shows, and more. We are your
high maintenance host of hilarious histories, your platonic pals of

(00:22):
pop culture particulars, your favorite sweet and salty duo just
brimming with sexual tension.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
No, my name is Jordan Roun Tug No no, no
request denied.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
I should have read this close. That's not what the
comments say. Nope, Well, today we are along. We are
talking about a movie that is near and dear to
me as a guy who spent the better part of
his life residing in the friend zone just hoping that
she would notice me. Oh, this is a movie that
always filled my sadly deluded heart with hope. We are

(00:55):
talking about When Harry Matt Sally, which turns thirty five
this year. This is a movie that examines the complexities
of love and relationships, or at least a specific kind
of relationship. Rich white cisgender city dwellers during an economic
boom time, the likes of which we will never see again.
But still good, still good. It follows the ups and

(01:16):
downs of Harry Burns and Sally Albright's relationship as they
navigate their individual romantic endeavors and personal growth over the
course of twelve years. Yes, some of the points are
a little cliche these days, and there are parts that
maybe didn't age very well, but it is beloved nonetheless
because it gave a semi realistic portrayal of modern relationships,

(01:37):
and also, more importantly, offered perhaps the most famous depiction
of the Battle of the sexes since Billy Jean King
took down Bobby Riggs on the tennis court. The movie's
iconic line men and women can't be friends because the
sex part always gets in the way is still debated
to this day. Yet the film screenwriter, the legendary Nora Ephron,
didn't see that as the focal point of the movie.
She said in two thousand and eight, I don't think

(01:59):
that the movie's about friendship at all. I think the
movie is about men and women and how they see everything,
including friendship and sex, from completely different vantage points. Now,
Higel and I can't be trusted to have a nuanced
discussion about relationships. So today we are thrilled to announce
guests we have guests. We've tidied the place up, we

(02:19):
have a new recording interface. This is so exciting. We
have podcasting Royalty, Brooks, Siffren and Reese, just Kid Moore,
Williams of Wonders, Even the Rich, one of the most
endlessly addictive biography podcasts on the Internet. Their recent season
on Prince Harry was directly responsible for getting me back
into the Crown, So thank you for that and all
the hours that I lost not doing come back to that.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Well, I'm just gonna hit up Netflix. I was just
listening to about them on the radio. There was like
a news thing about how they're doing so fucked it yeah,
and I was like, how are they doing so well?
When we all agreed we weren't gonna get subscriptions after
they stopped us from password sharing. But apparently I'm the
only one doing that.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
I think everybody caved. That's my guess is that everybody's
keeping it did it?

Speaker 3 (03:06):
And I just click on traveling.

Speaker 4 (03:07):
I refuse, I've never been penalized still, Like, I haven't
even gotten a pop up or anything. So I'm like,
I don't know what's happening, but I'm using mine. Well,
that's what we have it at this place and this
in a second place, so there's other people at different
places using it. So I don't know, we're just sliding
under the radar, you know, So don't say anything about it.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
But it's more than just a royal family. You have
epic dynastic family scandals, including the Kennedy's chap Equitic incident,
Drew Barrymore in her show business family, Patty Hurst's Spaghetti's
who we just talked about in the Studio fifty four
episode about the guy who got a zeo sliced off?
Oh there you go. Oh you just launched a spinoff series,

(03:48):
Even the Royals, which again is a must for any
Crown devotees. But you also wrapped a season of Even
the Rich with Snoop Dog and Martha Stewart, which I
did not see coming. How did you land the on that?

Speaker 4 (04:00):
You know, we didn't see it coming either. We don't
have any set.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
We never see anything coming and we just show it. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (04:07):
I mean, I was like, oh, okay, this is fun. Like,
I mean, who doesn't love Snoop and Martha and their friendship,
Like it's so wild. So it's a really fun season
because it kind of focuses on both of them separately
and then their friendship together at the end. So yeah,
it's I don't know how they decided on that, but
it's topical now.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
How I actually, my my first job was at VH
one where I think their show was. How did they
come together? Was it just a bunch of producers who
thought it would be a funny combination.

Speaker 4 (04:35):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (04:35):
I think he was just on her show. Yeah, and
they just had really really good chemistry. Yeah, and they're like,
we gotta we gotta ride this way passion. Yeah, yeah,
we don't have enough money, each of us on our own.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
I respect I respect Snoop for literally endorsing anything like
just whatever it is.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
He just stamps his name on it and collects the check.
And I like that.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
So I have to think they bonded over like a
mutual right, this is going to work? Yeah, you have
a towel line. I have a weed line.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yeah. You know that was the most surprising or endearing
thing that you learned about about their friendship or relationship?

Speaker 4 (05:18):
Well, I love I don't know if we learned this
during the season, but like, my favorite thing about them,
Your favorite story I've heard is during the roast, whatever
roast they were, You're right, yeah, and she like got
a contact high basically from Snoop or something and like
had told that story, and I'm like, I love that
so much. Like I just love the idea of Martha
Stewart being high, you know, it's just like.

Speaker 3 (05:40):
Classic She's so I don't know if you guys, like,
I don't know what your social media is like, but
like common spy CELB will periodically post. It's like this
Instagram account where they like post like when comments on things,
and I feel like at least once a month we
get like a Snoop Dogg comment on a Martha Stewart
post or vice versa. So like there was literally just

(06:01):
one today, just today where snow had like posted a
bunch of libras, which I'm a libra, so I loved it,
and Martha was like, don't forget the leos. We're pretty
cool too. But it's just like their friendship is so
fun and fresh and nobody saw coming, and we just
need more of that.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah, it doesn't feel stage managed in a way than
like a ton of these do.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
Like I actually can't.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
I like the idea that you know, I used to
work with page six and so, like, I'm familiar with publicists, so.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
I think we met working at People magazine together. So
yeah we yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
So we've been in that world. But yeah, I can't
imagine like a publicist running either of their instagrams and
like commenting on each other about if So it's a
great Those publicists deserve raises.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
Yeah right.

Speaker 4 (06:49):
I also feel like you get to a point in
your life and in your career where you're like, I
got it from here. I'll say what I want to say.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
Yeah, it's so established off.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Michael does our friendship field stage managed?
It feels podcast managed.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
That means I don't know. That was just a quip.
I didn't have anything behind that, just.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
Like our relationship. Oh, I was afraid of a junior
wolf couple bickering a dinner party. I'm sorry, I didn't
mean that. I'm sorry, thank you later, thank you, thank you.
Not in front of it, not in front of the guests.
I need some help with the potatoes now.

Speaker 4 (07:29):
I think you guys seem very authentic in your friendship.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
Oh, thank you.

Speaker 3 (07:33):
I assume you guys also have weekly sleepovers like we do, know.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
On different coasts. Oh yeah, well.

Speaker 3 (07:42):
There's cameras, there's loom.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Right, No, that would be such a terrible sleep. We
were in a band together and on tour we were
like the Bucket family, like head to foot in beds,
we all shared a bed, a couple of rooms, right.

Speaker 4 (07:56):
Until you guys like Charlie, we walk up factory the grandparents.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
Well, Brooke, I've been told that you are not a
big fan of When Harry Met Sally, and as somebody
who wants to be an hospitable host, that horrifies me.
But my favorite episodes are the ones where I'm torturing
Higel because I make him talk about something he hates.
What are your thoughts and when Harry met Sally or
what's your beef with when Harry met Sally?

Speaker 4 (08:20):
Thank you so much for asking, Jordan.

Speaker 3 (08:23):
We really need to give space for hating, you know, yes, yeah,
we need.

Speaker 4 (08:27):
I Okay, as a rom common general, it's fine, But
my biggest problem is that I don't feel the romantic
chemistry between the two leads. And that's a big problem
I think in around Yeah, that's.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
One of the important parts.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
It's funny because I just rewatched it, and it's funny because,
like I it's either like comedy has moved so far
on from Billy Crystal's whole deal that there's like it's
it's scanning as.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Undefined as well.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
I mean like there's a part, you know, like the
whole thing right the end after they like have their
you know, their their final New Year's Eve kiss, and
he just immediately starts riffing.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
It's like that's that seems so.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
Like on on I forget what he even is like
quipping about like old Lanzi.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
He's like on the lyrics. Oh yeah, yeah, well he's
like riffing on.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
The lyrics of old lang Sign And it's just like
that just seems so scans is so inauthentic. This like
you know, these this these decades later, and you know,
it's kind of like I think it's a real descendant
of like the Groucho Marx movies, where the whole thing
just grinds to a halt so that your big, more
key name comedian can just do his shtick.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
Williams. Yeah, that's fair.

Speaker 4 (09:36):
Yeah, that's very Robin.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
And then like yeah, I don't know, I mean, he's
it's funny because like watching it, I'm like, oh, I
see different versions of myself in each different version of
Billy Crystal, but like still throughout the movie, there's so
many things to dislike about him.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
Okay, well, well we'll get to that. About you, where
do you fall in this movie?

Speaker 3 (09:55):
Well, this is what's crazy. I'm like, well known as
a romcom officionado. I love rom coms more than several
articles about her. Yeah, but I had never seen this movie.
I knew about it, but I never watched it. So
I watched it for this. I don't like it, Okay,

(10:16):
I mean it's it's okay. I think we got some
iconic lines that I'd already known about obviously, but I,
you know, echoing what Brook said, I didn't. I didn't
feel like chemistry. Billy Crystal. I love him. I don't
think he's rom com lead material. I think he was.
One of my favorite movies that he's in is America's Sweethearts.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
Oh my God. And I think.

Speaker 3 (10:41):
He Yeah, I think he wrote it like he had
to do with its creation and everyone's googling. Okay, prove
me writ or wrong. He had he had it was
like his idea or something to make it happens. Chemistry, Yeah,
so he wrote it, co wrote it and I feel
like he is. He's so funny. I like whenever I

(11:04):
watch movies with people, I always like wikipedia them, and
he just like looking into him. He just seems like
such a wonderful person. He just doesn't give me like
rom Com lead. He gives me like rom Com best friend.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
They solved that in when Harry met Sally by giving
him the schlubbiest best friend, like a guy who, respectfully,
you cannot imagine in any universe pulling Kerry Fisher.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
So I want to get that out of the way. Yeah,
I just want to say I'm cost playing as Billy
Crystal right now. I wore my cable in that sweater
like you see in the movin Love It.

Speaker 4 (11:37):
It's a great sweater, it is.

Speaker 3 (11:39):
It looks so cozy. Wait where are you are You.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
In New Yors? I'm in New York Yeah, and Alex
here in LA. I'm in Berkeley Bay Area. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:48):
Okay, okay, okay.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
Y Well. I like this movie because I saw it
when I was young and stupid. That I think is crucial.
I was immature. Yeah, I was an immature young man
who was constantly falling in love with my female friends
and hoping they'd one day wake up and realize that
they felt the same about me and that we were
perfect together. And this worked out exactly zero times as anybody.

Speaker 3 (12:13):
Anybody, Sorry, I'm still falling in love with my friends
and they're like, who the fuck are you? So I
hear that, I get it.

Speaker 4 (12:22):
They're like, wow, you're really throwing the word friend around
a lot, lady.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (12:28):
Yeah, I'm trying to think. I don't think I've ever
been really in that situation where I'm like just pining
after a friend. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
Well, I love that for you. I'm glad, I'm very congratulations.

Speaker 4 (12:40):
Yeah, I'm always just swatting them away with a bat,
you know, like take it.

Speaker 3 (12:46):
I go.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
We've all shared.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
I think I kind of actually only in high school. Yeah,
and it was it was probably similar to yours, but.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
It was not I promise you about that. I wrote
play for this girl that.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
I didn't do that. Max didn't do that. My my
biggest simp move was the classic ask for their ask
for their locker combination, and I made chocolate covered strawberries
for her.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
I never heard that as a move. That's great, that
that's tending. I don't think you could do that in
today's climate, they'd be like, do you have a gun? Yeah?
Oh I thought you might. Like literally, they would.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
Analogy that's an unintentionally resonant uh piece of topical humor.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
Yeah, looks like.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
Not with global warming. That'll never work, never, never work.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
Chocolate covered straw in this economy. Well yeah, that's that's
the reasons. Well, yeah, that is cute though.

Speaker 4 (13:41):
That's a nice move.

Speaker 3 (13:44):
That's a nice move. Yeah. I used to put secret
admirer letters in their lockers.

Speaker 4 (13:48):
Okay, really like you'd slide it through the little yep.

Speaker 3 (13:52):
And it went terribly because the first time I heard
it that everyone knew it was me because I very
distincted writing. And then the peanut butter cup resid do
on the note, No, there was not. This was before
I was super into reces. But then another time I
was like, this is going to be great. I'm gonna

(14:13):
like send all these anonymous secret admirer letters with different
fonts and the names of the spot will spell out
my name. That's how they'll know it's me.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
And I stopped. I think on like the sea high concept.

Speaker 3 (14:27):
It is high concept, and that's a problem is I'm
always going after these dumb idiots.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
You gotta read out the I'm gonna be honest like you.

Speaker 3 (14:34):
It worked out really well.

Speaker 2 (14:35):
I was an English major. I think that one would
have gone right over my head. I'm sorry, I'm not I'm.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
Not a puzzle guy.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
Is that an acrostic or an anti crusus? What's the
what's the word play thing that we're talking about?

Speaker 3 (14:46):
Spelling exactly what you said and those things he published
in the paper.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
Yeah, it's a cipher.

Speaker 4 (14:54):
She was cutting letters out of magazines and they were like,
is she fin baby?

Speaker 3 (15:00):
Honestly, it's a fin line for me.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
Well, to make you all feel better. The young woman
I wrote the play for when I was like fifteen,
I was on a plane and there was a legitimate
engine problem and like one of the engines was smoking,
and I thought we were going to crash. I was
really scared. And you guys in the air, Yeah, we're
in the air, and there was an air sickness bag
in front of me, and I wrote a love note

(15:24):
to her thinking I don't know what I was thinking.
It was just panicked and I thought it would be
found on my body, right, Yeah, I don't know. And
so we landed obviously, and I was okay, and I
landed and I said, oh my god, yeah, this crazy flight,
and I, oh my god, I did this crazy thing.
I actually wrote to this goofy note on this airsickness bag.

(15:45):
And she was like, oh, well, I'd like to see that.
You know, why should you have to be dead to
tell me how you really feel about me? And so
I showed it to her and then it freaked her
out and she didn't speak to me for like a year.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
She's like, maybe you should have been dead then, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
It would have. That would have been preferable reading this.
Imagine like ninth grade.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
I imagine like an FTA investigator like sifting through the
wreckage and he finds your charred little hand clutching this
bag and just goes nerd. Yeah, putting it into a
plastic bag. Well, you guys have an idea of the
tenor of the show, now, yes.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
Yes, Well. I don't just love this movie solely because
it validates my most pathetic tendencies, of which I have many,
But Nora Efron's hilarious script broke new ground in the
old tried and true rom com area. Rather than having
a villain come between the two star cross lovers or
some other contrived misunderstanding between them. The only thing that

(16:41):
keeps Harry and Sally apart of their own insecurities in
the Roses, which I think makes it very realistic and
also moreover, it illustrates the significant role of timing plays
and relationships, positing the notion that two people must come
together at the right moment in their lives in order
to truly connect. And I think that's what makes When
Harry Met Sally one of the more relatable and realistic

(17:04):
wrong coms. Yeah, I just like for me too.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
I also really I'm so tired of like the grade
shot on digital like content slop and slurry, that we're
all just being forced onto it at every moment every
day that I just like, I see something that was
like shot on film and like on location and somebody
worked on the script. It doesn't read like it was
written by chat GPT or someone without health insurance, and
you're just like, this is just a work of.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
Art, you know, like the real.

Speaker 4 (17:34):
You know what, That's a really good point because like
a reason I always talk about how rom coms today
don't feel the way that romcoms used to feel, and
that might be a big part of it, honestly, Like
you may have nailed one of the bigger issues there.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
I think a lot of it also can come down
to the fact that, like the filtering system for those
casting in those things has like shifted to social media,
like you have TikTok influencers and like Instagram influencers, comedians
who were getting like shuffled into these roles, and like,
I'm sorry respectfully to her, but like Addison Ray doesn't
have like Addison comic chops that Meg Ryan does, and

(18:06):
no one like you know, get us started insert well,
I mean, like insert male figure like in that same
situation has not come up in the same like circles
that you know, Billy Crystal has. So there's just like
they're just not equipped to do any kind of actual
movie work.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
You know.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
So you see people who do it and you're like, Wow,
what a treat when things were actually made.

Speaker 1 (18:26):
Well, we used to be a proper.

Speaker 4 (18:28):
Country, Yeah right, we used to be a guy.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
I love your hot takes. I did not think I
get a rom com hot take out of you. I mean,
I'm a big Rob Reiner guy too.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
I think this is like part of his like Imperial
era too, when he was just knocking out of the
park at every at bat. You know, because this especially
this is like close to misery too, which is a
different kind of different kind of com.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah, yeah, a little bit. Yeah, We're going to have
so much fun on this. I can't wait. Let's dive
in from the Bazar, the film screenwriter played in Watergate,
and the Presidential Kid who played a bit part to
the time Tom Hanks and Molly Ringwold nearly played the
titular characters, and the long lost bummer ending the surprise

(19:12):
genesis of the famous deli scene, the struggle to come
up with the title, and the beloved British royal who
couldn't get enough of this film. Here's everything you didn't
know about when Harry Met Sally? All right, So, in
a sense, When Harry Met Sally's loosely based on a

(19:32):
true story. The characters of Harry and Sally are basically
the alter egos of director Rob Reiner and writer Nora Ephron.
By the mid eighties, Reiner was floundering and single theom
following his divorce from fellow seventies sitcom Royalty termed beloved
eighties director Penny Marshall and Shirley Big It's like, it's
kind of crazy how their paths diverged but remains parallel.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
Yeah, yeah, for sure, hell.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
Of a couple. Oh yeah. Ryner had just completed this
as spinal Tap and was pitching newly buzzy screenwriter Nora
Efron movie ideas over lunch at New York's Russian Tea
Room one day in nineteen eighty four. As she recalled,
his ideas were bad and she rejected them immediately, which
was quote very embarrassing because we hadn't even ordered lunch yet,

(20:19):
which is a perfect Nora Efron line. Yeah. Efron was
also newly single, as we'll discuss in a moment, and
the pair spent the rest of the meal discussing the
different ways that men and women view sex, love, and relationships. Gradually,
the bare bones of a movie took shape, as Ephron
remembered it. Ryaner summed up the plot as two people
become friends after the end of their first major relationship

(20:40):
in each of their lives, and they make a decision
not to have sex because it'll ruin the friendship, And
then they have sex and it ruins the friendship. Nora
agreed to write a script based loosely on Rhiner's dating experiences,
which Efron deemed horrifying but not surprising, which I take
to mean offensive and deeply misogynistic.

Speaker 3 (21:00):
Probably fair, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
Writer later told the AV Club, I'd been married for
ten years and I'd been single for ten years. And
during that time when I was single, I kept being
in and out of different relationships and they didn't go
so good, and I kept getting confused. How do you
make friendships if you have sex? Does that ruin the friendship?
All those questions that are brought up in the film.
I said, this has got to be the basis for

(21:23):
something here. So I went to Nora and I told
her about it, and she said, I like that idea,
and she started interviewing me. She was like a reporter,
and I told her all these stories of different things
I'd been through, and from these stories she crafted the
character of Harry Burns. And she would later say in
a DVD featurette for the twentieth anniversary of the movie,
he's basically Rob Ryaner. He's neurotic and in love with

(21:44):
his neuroses. Who among us is not in love with
their neurosis?

Speaker 4 (21:49):
I mean, you got to be you know, you got
to tolerate yourself somehow.

Speaker 1 (21:52):
Yeah. Oh, that's a very generous read on that. I
want to write that one down therapy. Yeah, I'm like, okay.
Many of the lines from the movie came directly from
their conversations. Ryaner like Harry had a tendency to overshare,
and Ephron like Sally call him out on that, telling him,

(22:13):
you know, you don't have to tell everybody everything that's
going on the moment it's going on. Uh okay. We
sort of talked about this top of the episode. Do
we think Harry is a likable character.

Speaker 4 (22:25):
I think he has likable some likable qualities. Yeah, you know,
I think he doesn't start off great, you know, but
I think that's also kind of I think his arc
as the years go on. You know, he's like this
young kid who's like driving a college girl. It's like,
you know, he's kind of a pain in the ass,
but then he starts to get more likable. I think
as time goes on, as he grows up.

Speaker 1 (22:47):
You know, I don't know what about Rob.

Speaker 4 (22:51):
I'll be honest, I don't know a lot about Rob Reiner.

Speaker 1 (22:54):
I've realized he looks like.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
David Crosby when he was young, and he yeah yeah,
and he made you know, a lot of good movies.
And more importantly for Jordan, who's like a big sitcom guy,
he was in All in the Family first.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
So okay, beathead, Yeah, I love this. One of Nora
Efron's slightly more endearing qualities that she commandeered for Sally
was I guess she was a very uh particular eater,
i'll say by her witnessed her ordering food in a
very precise way, and they decided to add it to

(23:28):
the script, and Laura even incorporated her own defensive line,
I just like it the way I like it, which fine, fair, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:37):
I gotta say, as having worked in the industry before
the hospitality industry, it makes you want to strangle her
like I was just about your house. Okay, come fine.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
That's the dividing line too, because I was just about
to ask Jordan, like, have you worked were you front
of house or back of house?

Speaker 1 (23:57):
About I was? I was a dishwasher, which I don't
know where that puts me in the what was that?
What was that face?

Speaker 2 (24:03):
No, I've said, you've done your time, but you're not
involved in this conversation.

Speaker 3 (24:08):
I'm just saying, okay, look, and I don't want to like,
I'm not coming for people that are like, oh, like
I have a gluten allergy or like I don't eat cheese,
and like is it possible to like get a side
salad instead of fries? But like when you're like I
want it at this temperature and I want that, and
it's like no, no, no, no, no, no, this is not
You're not the queen, like you're I'm making minimum wage.

(24:28):
Go make it at home.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
I did not love it, especially in like a roadside diner,
like where are they in that first stop?

Speaker 4 (24:35):
Like, come on, so Alex and Risha, how are your
tips really you and your dumb ass order?

Speaker 3 (24:45):
No, you could complain about it. You'll do it, but
you could complain.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
I was a line cook, so I was I was
allowed to curse them out when the order came through
the line, to the front of house person when they
came back in the kitchen, but they had to go
out and smile.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
And I didn't. Uh.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
In the Hershey country club actually, and in Delhi when
I was in college, oh my god, I.

Speaker 3 (25:05):
Worked in a country club too. I was a country
club very.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
Solidarity short amount of time.

Speaker 3 (25:10):
Yeah, that was rough. That's where you get a lot
of requests and it's like, just because you're paying twenty
five thousand dollars a year, I will cut you. Jesus
who knows what it is now it's obscene just to
play Goblin way more.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
Yeah, whatever, I think I would. I would forgive Nora
Efron for doing that, though, I mean when you have her,
forgive Nora Efron for anything, you know. Apparently she was
on a plane once and she ordered something in a
really particular way, and I guess the person taking an
order didn't recognize hers. Have you ever seen the movie
when Harry met Right? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (25:45):
God, remember I used to eat on planes.

Speaker 3 (25:47):
I didn't want a plane in Love to London.

Speaker 4 (25:49):
It was delightful, but like just general flights used to
have food, right, like just random flights, Like you didn't
have to be in first class, you didn't have to
be flying overseas.

Speaker 3 (26:00):
Now you just get peanuts if you're lucky.

Speaker 4 (26:02):
I know, it's like we used to do whatever we wanted.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
The only thing I eat on flights are edibles in adavan.

Speaker 3 (26:08):
Yeah, well it's I'm so scared to get higher to
be a first class for that. I'm like, it's worried
my brain will just explode. It won't be able to
process that, yep. And I'm like, I can't. I'm already
neurotic enough on the ground.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
Sometimes that's preferable.

Speaker 3 (26:23):
I'll be the next viral plane video of like going
instde and I.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
Don't need that, trust fingers, I don't need that.

Speaker 3 (26:30):
No, uncross your fingers.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
Podcaster goes on lizard person rant.

Speaker 4 (26:35):
Yeah, we got to get in the new Sumhow this
is it.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
The more nervous I am, the more I feel like
I need to be like one hundred and ten percent
on as opposed to doing what I probably should do
is just have something to take the edge off, because
like if I'm not on, then it'll get me. Yeah
you know yeah, as if that would be able to
be helpful, that's fair six miles.

Speaker 4 (26:57):
Up, especially at a higher elevation, like you're gonna feel
more high, So it's exactly fair.

Speaker 3 (27:03):
Like getting like I said, and like a mimosa. I'm like,
I had one mosa and I was like, oh, it
was like I can't, I can't.

Speaker 4 (27:11):
Be You're like whatever, a something happens and I have
to fly the plane.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
Yeah, I never drunk fly a plane. That's a rookie mistake.
And I could take it, couldn't. I could totally.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
Feel plane trauma.

Speaker 4 (27:24):
Yeah, think of the genius play you could write stoned
out of your mind on a flight though.

Speaker 3 (27:28):
Yeah, I've actually flown a plane, so I like flown.
So my dad was like a small plane planot small
plane pilot. That's impossible to say small plane pilot. And
I got a group of like years later and like
where you like you like tandem fly with like somebody.

(27:48):
So I'm like flying a plane and then the pilot's
like behind me. I was like, I don't. I would
rather fly a commercial jet. So I'm gonna see if
Southwest puts up one of those groupons and I can
do it for them.

Speaker 1 (27:58):
Yeah, did you.

Speaker 2 (27:59):
Get thoughts like as you're passing over anything in particular,
like this is my moment?

Speaker 3 (28:06):
Weirdly, it wasn't. It was more an interest of thought
of like this could be the end of us. All
that got my hands. But that was just like I
can't wait to be back in the crowd. And I
don't mind flying. I actually enjoy flying. But in the
small plane where you feel everything. I was like, I
can't believe my dad willingly did this for fun? Yeah,

(28:28):
can you do well?

Speaker 4 (28:29):
Also, person, do you have to be to agree to
be the pilot in that situation? Like, yeah, I'll hand
them this money hungry idiot who got a group on
and see if they.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Don't kill ups?

Speaker 3 (28:43):
Whoa Yeah, there was no like background check? What if?
I was like some cycle. I'm just thinking about this.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
What I was like against that pilot? Yes, yeah, which
honestly panic button that just like cuts off control of
the yoke or something.

Speaker 3 (28:59):
Oh yeah, like when you get like a sun drive.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, stunt gun. It was just like enough of this.

Speaker 3 (29:08):
And we all go down to counter.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
You probably signed it away in the group on at
this point. I mean, I just don't trust on any
of those things.

Speaker 3 (29:15):
Oh yeah, a time.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
This is a very Harry Burns thought. Here is Harry
Burns has he has He has a dark side. He
talks about his dark side. I think about death for hours.
Yeah exactly.

Speaker 4 (29:29):
Yeah, poor Jordan having to steer this conversation back on track.
I feel we should.

Speaker 3 (29:34):
See how wild we can get as even and final
way to bring it back challenge accepted.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
That is my goal every episode that is, Yeah, sometimes
I just see what's in the news.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
Well. An ingenious device that Efron uses in this movie
are the talking head segments with older couples sharing how
they met, which I thought was a cute touch. And
these scenes were taken pretty much verbatim from interviews that
she'd done with real life couples who were the film's
production company. And I love how at the very end
of the movie Harry and Sally have their talking moments.
Is just one of the many brilliant improvised performances by

(30:09):
Meg Ryan and really Crystal, which we'll talk about later.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
I do have to say that one couple where they're
just talking over each other, I was like gritting my
teeth through that because it's like, really, yeah, I don't
find that so cute.

Speaker 3 (30:24):
It felt like a trope, like a felt like it
felt like what you would expect of like a very
old couple. For some reason, I felt like they were
in New York City, they've lived there in like Brooklyn
for fifty years or something. Just felt very much like
I've seen this these two characters before.

Speaker 1 (30:41):
They should have had. Marty Scorsese's mom, well, my grandparents
were hearing impaired, and so they would have like conversations
that were like parallel. They each thought they were having
a conversation that wasn't actually occurring, and so I think
I was That's kind of how I saw it.

Speaker 4 (30:55):
That's like having a conversation at a club with someone
you just met.

Speaker 1 (30:59):
You can't hear each other.

Speaker 3 (31:00):
You're just like, yeah, that was me today with that
woman at the pool, at the in the locker room.
Who this is so unnecessary to bring up on this podcast.

Speaker 4 (31:08):
Bring I was telling you go around from this. Someone
stuck a finger and Reash's butt.

Speaker 3 (31:11):
Yeah, bring it back. Yeah, this old woman Jordan a
few weeks ago, she like put her finger in my
She was trying to point out a tear in my
bathing suit. And she's an older woman. But I had
a new bathing suit on and I was like, yeah,
I've got a new bathing suit on. And I was
having this conversation. She's like, Oh, I don't have my
hearing aids and I can't hear anything you're saying. I
was like, you could have said that five minutes ago.
I could be swimming right now knowing you're not listening

(31:33):
to anything I'm saying. Yeah, that was anyway worse bringing
that back. Yeah, that was the worst part.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
She's very oh yeah, actually does that.

Speaker 3 (31:48):
She's also the one that she was like the first
time I like interacted with her. Of course she's fully naked.
This is the locker room at the y and she's
telling me how I don't hate saying this word. She's like,
she's like, when you get older, you're a pussy. Just
drops and I unsolicited content like I did not doctor,
I did not ask her about it.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
Equations.

Speaker 3 (32:10):
I don't even know her name yet.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
Yeah, so had you seen them before? Like it was
this first time.

Speaker 3 (32:18):
I've seen her in like the ether because there's a
there's an aerobics class before I have my I do
my swimming, so all these older women come in as
I'm like changing and going out into the pool. So
it's like I see her through that, but I wouldn't
pick her out of a lineup. I could now, but
before I couldn't.

Speaker 2 (32:34):
Now which part of her her finger that was up
my butt commercial break break. It's good to know that
that that that weird trope of like of people like
old people getting that up in your in the locker
room transcends gender.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
Too, because yeah, oh yeh, that's never happened to me. Well,
I've been saying up for a long time. Not the
first people to tell me to spend more time, not
for them in.

Speaker 3 (33:01):
The locker room.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
Yeah, it's really just the locker room. That's what we're here.
I change in the bathroom stall like like a normal
but the repressed New England boy.

Speaker 3 (33:11):
I am see, I don't I am such a la
would I literally like, when I get out of the pool,
I take off my babysuit and I just walk neck
it all over the locker room. I'm like everyone else
is doing it, was shouldn't I? And it's great.

Speaker 1 (33:22):
I love it, But I also Catholic.

Speaker 3 (33:25):
I'm not gonna jump off a bridge. How are they
going to get to the bridge?

Speaker 4 (33:28):
Well, assuming lessons will come in handy.

Speaker 3 (33:30):
There aren't allowed to drive, so many of them talk
about they can't.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
Drive, which why is this?

Speaker 3 (33:35):
It's in North Hollywood. It's I go in the middle
of the day, which okay, Yeah, I liked it, so
that's like, and I love it. I love being around
older people. Actually, it's just a nice vibe and it's
like nice and break from all the idiots here at
all you would. Oh, that's gonna get me canceled. I
love Hollywood.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
Wait let me see, wait, wait, let me see if
I can, let me see if I can save this.
Speaking of non idiots.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (33:59):
And that's what we call.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
Talk about the amazing life and work of the legendary
Nora Ephron.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
How did I do? Jordan's I do? Okay, that's short
on time. Okay, okay, okay.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
She had literary and cinematic greatness in her blood. She
was born to parents, Henry and Phoebe Ephron, who wrote
and produced movies like There's No Business Like Show Business,
starring Marilyn Monroe, the film adaptation of Roger and Hammerstein's Carousel,
among many others. They named their daughter Nora after the
protagonist in Heinrich Ibsen's A Doll's House, which is kind
of a weird thing to do for your daughter, and,

(34:35):
as Jordan is contractually obligated to add at all times,
was the original working title of the Beatles White Album,
because it gets shoehorned into every single.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
I gotta have a Beatles fact. Yeah, I love it,
I love it, I love it.

Speaker 4 (34:49):
I'm a big Beatles fan.

Speaker 3 (34:51):
Beatles and I do.

Speaker 4 (34:53):
Yeah you ever heard no, where are you at on?
Chris Evans?

Speaker 1 (34:57):
Okay, this is really strange. His dad is my dad,
his neighbor. His dad is in Massachusetts.

Speaker 3 (35:02):
Wow, are you break up a marriage?

Speaker 1 (35:06):
Didn't they?

Speaker 3 (35:06):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (35:06):
They just got married.

Speaker 3 (35:07):
Yeah, and it's time for you to step up, Jordan,
go home and visit your dad, dad, and just be like,
you know, your son needs to be in love for real.
And I know just the person she swims. She's a podcaster,
and she's a podcaster.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
It's on a lake.

Speaker 4 (35:28):
She's got holes in her bathing suit. Crazy for a
new one? Okay, yeahs.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
Oh no, Yeah, speaking.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
Of easy access.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
Page, everyone worked at JFK's White House as an ooh
that has an unintended double meaning. Now I feel really
bad for nothing happened between her and JFK.

Speaker 1 (35:54):
I assume she.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
Applied to work at Newsweek in nineteen sixty two to
get started on her writing career, and and the folks
at Newsweek only offered her a job in the mailroom
because it was nineteen sixty two out of national media publication.
Not much has changed, I assume As a result, nor
Efron joined a class action lawsuit against the magazine suing
them for gender discrimination. This was eventually adopted into the

(36:17):
Amazon series Good Girl's Revolt. Efron later took a job
as a reporter at the New York Post, actually one
of my former employers, where she broke the news that
Bob Dylan had gotten married in nineteen sixty six, and
the reporting bit has further legs. In nineteen seventy six,
she married Carl Bernstein of Woodward and Bernstein. Yeah, all
the President's men, et cetera, nineteen seventies belt Way and

(36:41):
so forth. Nixon, Attica, Attica, It ended poorly.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
He cheated on.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
Her, oh, while she was was pregnant with their second son.
And who did he cheat on her? Cheat on her with?
You might ask, the daughter of then Britain Prime Minister
James Callahan. That'sn't even the rich esque story.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
A brand hed a British girl with an accent, just qualifying.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
Did she have an accent? I don't know.

Speaker 3 (37:15):
Is a prime minister she might have been.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
She might have been born here, maybe Jordan, talk about
accents for a while, talk about so it gets better
or worse, depending on how much of a fiend for
drama you are. We're quoting directly from Wikipedia here. For
many years, Nora Efrom was one of the very few
people who knew the identity of Deep Throat, the anonymous informer.

(37:39):
For articles written by her ex husband Carl Bernstein and
Bob Woodward uncovering the Watergate scandal, Efron read Bernstein's notes,
which referred to deep Throat as MF. Bernstein said it
stood for my friend, which it sure doesn't mean on
Twitter anymore, but Efron correctly guessed it stood for Mark Feldt,
the former Associate director of the FBI. After Ephron's marriage

(38:02):
with Bernstein ended, she would then go on to reveal
the identity of Deep Throat, not only to her son, Jacob,
but to anyone else who asked. She once said, I
would give speeches to five hundred people and someone would say,
do you know who deep Throat is? And I would
say it's Mark felt Wow. Clustmates of her son at
the Dalton School and Vassar werecalling, revealing to numerous people

(38:26):
via his mom the identity of the most famous government
informer in history. This revelation attracted little media attention, and
Efron said, no one apart from my son's believed me.

Speaker 3 (38:39):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (38:40):
I need someone like Nora to get a job at
Area fifty one.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
And just yeah, you said another of Jordan's fixations. You've
activated him. He's a sleeper agent.

Speaker 3 (38:49):
Oh, no, sleeper agent.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
I got sent by People magazine to cover the storming
of Area fifty one, which was and I went to
like the edge and saw all the like why trucks
up on the hill and everything. Did you see it was?
Were there? No?

Speaker 4 (39:05):
I got I wish, God, I wish I was not there.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
It was what I wrote, like a thirty five page
like amazing cultural history of Area fifty one. Yeah, it's
I think it. Somebody told me it was the longest
thing that People dot com has ever published.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
And I edited and I cut out so many days
before the other editor.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
Got to it.

Speaker 3 (39:23):
Still so long?

Speaker 1 (39:25):
Would I pay youl? Yeah? Beer pizza?

Speaker 2 (39:32):
Uh, this is a great PostScript. Though Nora is revenge
on Karl Bernstein was not yet over his affair inspired
her to write her novel Heartburn, which was then made
into a nineteen eighty six Mike Nichols film starring Jack
Nicholson and Meryl Streep. In the book, Efron wrote of
a fictional husband, clearly Bernstein who was quote capable of
having sex with a Venetian blind and then she wrote

(39:54):
that the character of Thelma, based on the woman who
had the affair with her husband, looked like a giraffe
with big feet. Bernstein threatened to sue over the movie
and film, but never did, and Nora spent her Latin
years as one half of screenwriting's biggest power couple. She
was married to Goodfellas and Casino writer Nick Poleggi from
nineteen eighty seven until her death in twenty twelve.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
Wow, she is.

Speaker 3 (40:17):
An inspiration more than I realized. Yeah, I know, I
this is the kind of that's so petty I aspire to.

Speaker 1 (40:26):
Oh, my god, that could bring down two governments, the
British government the American government.

Speaker 3 (40:31):
Yeah, god, I love it. Oh that's so inspiring, Choles.
I gotta get married real quick so I can pull
something like this off.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
My god, Yeah, I love it.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
As you meditate on that, we'll be right back with
more too much information after these messages.

Speaker 3 (40:56):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (41:03):
Well. Between first conceiving of the When Harry met Sally
I did with Rob Reiner and turning in the final draft,
Nora Efron spent over four years working on the script
for when Harry met Sally. While le Fron was You're
finding the script, ryaner busied himself directing back to back
classics stand By Me and Princess Bride, which are the
subject of two equally classic TMI episodes. Stand By Me

(41:24):
kills Me every time.

Speaker 3 (41:25):
I know stand By Me, I haven't seen it in
a very long time, But Princess by haven't always be
like I like watch it probably like once a year
at this point, and it's just such a n The
Sicilian is like my favorite part of the movie. I
just love it. I quote that all the time.

Speaker 2 (41:43):
Is that an amazing quote from I think It's My
Dinner with Andre with where Wallace Sean is. Like when
I was twenty five, all I used to think about
was art and music. Now I'm thirty five and all
I think about is money. I look, I'm the green
ch Action. I don't find stand By Me that I'm
not really into stand By Me. I don't know to corny.

Speaker 1 (42:03):
I wasn't part of it, did I wasn't part of
a cool and kids die?

Speaker 3 (42:07):
I mean, yeah, get cornier than that.

Speaker 4 (42:09):
Yeah that's pretty corny.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
I just I don't know a bunch of.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
Kids in like like golly, gee, golly, g golly, Whillakers
fifty kids like walking down at the fifties.

Speaker 1 (42:18):
Hate God, I sure do.

Speaker 2 (42:19):
I can't see through the Jordan's thing is fifties. My
thing is sixties, and to a lesser extent, the seventies.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
So I love them both. Really, your thing is not
the sixties. My thing is the sixties. Also, you can.

Speaker 3 (42:29):
Both have the sixties as your things.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
I don't you take the first half.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
Just watching those kids roll down the railroad tracks and
singing the Lollipop song just pisses me off.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
Ever, I just with them. It's about the death of innocence. Heigel.

Speaker 3 (42:48):
Yeahless time for that girl.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
Nobody made a movie about mine.

Speaker 3 (42:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
I had to write my own and perform in front
of my school for my crush. Moving on your crush,
did you did you reserve? Did you?

Speaker 3 (43:10):
No?

Speaker 1 (43:10):
No? No, no no no?

Speaker 3 (43:12):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (43:12):
Did you did you reserve the seat for her? And
she never showed up?

Speaker 1 (43:18):
Oh no, she showed up?

Speaker 3 (43:23):
Oh she?

Speaker 1 (43:23):
I didn't perform all right? Sorry, Speaking of well, a
better piece of writing was When Harry Met Sally. An
early version of Nora's script was called Scenes from a Friendship,
which is a riff On mar Burgin seminal scenes from
a marriage And I think that's a good title because
it reminds me of my favorite Billy Joel song, Scenes

(43:44):
from an Italian restaurant. Another early title was How They Met.
Nobody really liked this either. The production team really struggled
to come up with what they thought was a workable title.
In fact, they had such a hard time coming up
with a halfway d his name that Rob Ryder instituted
a title contest, promising to red the best pitch with

(44:06):
a case of champagne. Because choices for consideration were just friends, Harry,
this is Sally. It had to be you, boy meets
girl playing melancholy baby.

Speaker 3 (44:22):
Wait wait wait, blue Moon playing melancholy baby.

Speaker 2 (44:26):
I mean at least yeah that one just friends? Uh,
And it had to be you or all like Great
American songbooks, standard song.

Speaker 3 (44:33):
Yeah playing melancholy.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
Blue Moon too early, the dorky rock and roll on
the boo. That one that's not Americ, great American.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
Son was that? Wait? I didn't hear that? That one?

Speaker 3 (44:50):
Right? Well done? Oh that's blank you okay, melancholy baby?
And I was like, I did not.

Speaker 1 (44:56):
Know that's what men Memmo men right, got it? Yeah? Yeah?
The Words of Love was another title. Do we have?
What do we think of these? I assume big, big
thumbs down for all these.

Speaker 4 (45:14):
I think they should have had a contest to find
some chemistry in this movie. Maybe instead of worrying about
the stupid ass title.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
Got their asses, got them.

Speaker 3 (45:23):
I don't hate it rolling over in her grave right now?

Speaker 4 (45:28):
I mean, listen, I said what I said. I don't
hate it had to be you. I think that's a
fine title, but there's there's not enough. There's not enough
love and romance in this movie for that title. I
don't think.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
Speaking of casting, yes, okay, so damn alex is on it.
Chemistry and fire, thank you. One of the top picks
to play Harry initially was America's Sweetheart Tom Hanks, and
he would have just been coming off comedies like nineteen
eighty six is the Money Pit in nineteen eighty the Yates, bigs,
and reasons have been suggested why.

Speaker 3 (46:05):
Maybe I didn't see that one. I saw Big.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
Hard the sequel Big two A Good Day to Big,
Big Big. This is one of our favorite recurring bits,
is just making sequels with the same sequel format. Exact
same construction, BIG's Secret of the use BIG's Big back
in the habit. See we even the same order.

Speaker 3 (46:32):
Yesius, Have they reached out to you guys yet?

Speaker 2 (46:34):
Oh my god, I'm sure Big too Furious would be
Oh no, nope, nope, that's phrasing.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
No, we can't do that. Well. Do you know what's actually.

Speaker 2 (46:41):
Funny about about the Fast and Furious sequel is that
they that that was a Roger Corman movie from like
the fifties, like a cheapy exploitation one. And the reason
that they have to change the title every time is
because they only paid him to use the phrase the
Fast and the Furious. So if they keep using that
and call it Fast and Furious two or the Fast
and Furious three, they would have.

Speaker 1 (46:59):
To pay him over again.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
And rather than do that, they have decided to just
give everyone a different and dumb, increasingly dumber title construction.

Speaker 1 (47:09):
Yeah yeah right again. Yeah, come on, money they.

Speaker 3 (47:13):
Bring in, they can spring to pick a guy for.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
It's all got to go to digitally sweetened Vin Diesel's
whole thing.

Speaker 4 (47:22):
Yeah, it really does.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
So Tom Hanks? Oh yeah, so Tom Hanks, how do
we like Tom Hanks for that?

Speaker 4 (47:28):
I mean, I love Tom Hanks.

Speaker 3 (47:30):
This was before You've Got Mail, right, mm hmmm. I
thought they have good chemistry in that, so I think
he would have been great good.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
Chemistry and sleep with in Seattle too.

Speaker 3 (47:39):
Oh yeah, I like that one less.

Speaker 1 (47:40):
Oh yeah, I don't like when.

Speaker 3 (47:42):
They're far apart. I need like in personal chemistry. They
spend too much time not being together.

Speaker 4 (47:50):
But I I don't like Tom Hanks is like the
original Golden Retriever. And I don't think. I don't know
that he could be a I don't well, like this
is kind of an ass when you've got mail, Yeah,
a little.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
Bit, but he's a corporate dick. I just don't know
if I can see it.

Speaker 3 (48:08):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (48:09):
I just I don't know if I could see this.

Speaker 3 (48:11):
Could you see it better than Billy Crystal?

Speaker 4 (48:13):
No, not necessarily.

Speaker 1 (48:16):
I don't think it could sell hite, you know.

Speaker 3 (48:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
Yeah, Well, there's multiple reasons why he passed that have
been offered. Uh oh, hang on, they're come up for
me because I added an S to big because you
said something bad about Tom Hanks. Yeah, how dare you
the like we're on it yet? Neutralizing There's one theory
that Tom Hanks felt that the material for When Harry

(48:42):
Met Sally was too lightweight, which I don't think is
true because instead of making When Harry Met Sally, he
made Turner and Hooch, in which he started opposite a
French mastiff.

Speaker 3 (48:54):
I mean he also did toy story. How light hearted
he got, right, Yeah, played a dull which I love.

Speaker 4 (49:03):
That's yeah, but that neighbor kid was dark mind.

Speaker 3 (49:07):
That guy is in a four by five cell right now,
guarantee absolutely absolutely yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:14):
What is his Victorian England?

Speaker 2 (49:16):
Is that like the psychiatric measurements of a psychiatric cell?

Speaker 1 (49:21):
For sure? Four by five is like a dog crak.

Speaker 3 (49:24):
Yeah, that's what he deserves.

Speaker 1 (49:26):
That's blown out. Yeah, I'll be generous, Okay, thank you.
But the more realistic stop at Heigel, I love you. Uh.
The more realistic reason that Tom Hanks passed on this
role was apparently that he had just gotten divorced himself,

(49:50):
and he didn't connect with the deeply depressed, divorced Harry
because he felt liberated by his own divorce. This is
according to his current wife, Rita Wilson, who explos on
an episode of the Table for Two podcasts in twenty
twenty three. That Tom quote was happy not to be
married and could not really understand a person going through
a divorce that would feel anything other than like, I'm

(50:12):
so happy. That seems like a weirdly myopic view of divorce.

Speaker 3 (50:20):
I would really want to hear that from the actual
person who went through the divorce, not his new wife.

Speaker 1 (50:26):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 4 (50:27):
Gonna be like, yeah, loves marriage now.

Speaker 3 (50:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
But he did end up teaming up with Nora Ephron
on Seapless in Seattle a few years after when Harry
met Sally and You Got Mail. Yes classic. So once
Hank said no, Rob Ryaner looked to other big actors
working at the time. One of these was Albert Brooks.

(50:53):
Could Albert Brooks ever get it? I got to look
him up.

Speaker 3 (50:57):
I can't remember it.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
I don't think that's a possibility.

Speaker 3 (50:59):
I always mixed him and Albert.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
He's the bad guy.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
He's like the Oh well, Albert Brooks is like the
bad guy in Drive who spoiler alert kills Brian Kranston
in the garage.

Speaker 3 (51:10):
I was gonna watch that time.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
That was too much information. Finally, you've done. She got
us got our those words on this show like in context. Oh,
he's kind of quietly, soulful. He's got thet this sort
of schlubby. Can I put this in the chat? Can
I put this? Do you guys? You guys want to
google Albert Brooks.

Speaker 3 (51:29):
I'm looking at him right now.

Speaker 4 (51:31):
Oh yeah, okay, okay, yeah, he's got the little nebi
she kind of I need.

Speaker 3 (51:35):
To look at him. What year was this movie that
it cut out?

Speaker 1 (51:40):
That's good. That's a good point. That's a good point.
I'm gonna look to him just to be part of
the group.

Speaker 3 (51:43):
I'm gonna look to We've got to Okay, Oh god,
who did he just remind me of somebody?

Speaker 1 (51:52):
Gutenberg? Steve Steve Guttenberg. Yeah, we've been together too.

Speaker 3 (51:56):
You could join we have broo. Can I have a
group called the Curly Headed? And he could join it?

Speaker 1 (52:04):
Put my hat back on f O S or f
u c K f.

Speaker 3 (52:09):
U c K S curly headed fox, silver curly hair.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
You know?

Speaker 3 (52:17):
Okay, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
Well, Albert Brooks passed on the role because he thought
it was too much like a knockoff Woody Allen movie,
which I kind of see.

Speaker 3 (52:26):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
He also turned down roles in Big and Pretty Women.
So I'm just gonna say that maybe his taste just
sucks or he has bad managers. Other actors up for
consideration for the part of Harry Burns and When Harry
met Sally include Michael Keaton, Richard Dreyfuss, Harrison Ford, Jeff Bridges,
and Bill Murray. Huh, Harrison would.

Speaker 3 (52:49):
If Carrie Fisher was in it and Harrison Ford, that'd
be mind.

Speaker 4 (52:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I could see Michael Keaton.

Speaker 1 (52:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (53:00):
Capturing Michael Keaton would be really good actually, because he
does kind of have He's got comedy chops. He famously
had a guest spot on Frasier and I think he's
actually really funny and I feel like.

Speaker 1 (53:12):
Like mister in the series.

Speaker 3 (53:15):
Yeah, my god, I forgot about maybe already done Batman
or would this be before.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
Like the same year, same year? Yeah, yeah, eighty nine.

Speaker 3 (53:25):
And then a round com Wow that maybe.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
It's a good thing that didn't happen. He would have
been too powerful Batman and when Harry met Sally in
the same year.

Speaker 4 (53:34):
I mean Batman doesn't have any power, let's be honest.
He's just yeah, but like back in the day, he
doesn't have a superpower. Okay, he's the stupidest superhero.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
Alex absolutely I just our band was called the world's
greatest superhero after Batman. Heigel's a big Batman fan. He's
showing you his bat tattoo right now.

Speaker 3 (53:54):
Oh, I'm a family of Batman fans.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
But no, I mean I I just mean, like in
nineteen eighty nine, like this stranglehold that movie had on
pop culture. It was like this, and when Harry met
Sally like we would have we'd be having like the
conversation that we have about like I don't know, uh.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
Tom Hanks, that we will be having this about Michael Keaton.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
We'd be like, Yeah, Michael Keaton, biggest star in the world,
America's sweetheart. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I try to every day.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
Jordan, you gotta Jordan bud so well. Robert he said
that the film was self financed, so they could pretty
much cast whoever they wanted, and I got no seg
Rob Reiner was so despondent.

Speaker 3 (54:40):
What a dream to be able to self finance anything,
to be able to be like, I haven't left money,
but I'll just do whatever the I want with this movie.
It's impressive.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
Yeah, I could sell finance podcast.

Speaker 3 (54:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:55):
In fact, I am out well, I'm actually doing this
at my.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
Day job while I'm logged onto my day job, so
I'm technically stealing from one company to do it, which
makes me like Robin.

Speaker 1 (55:07):
Hood too nice.

Speaker 4 (55:09):
I love that, speaking of Rob Reiner, speaking of.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
Speaking of Robin Hood, Robinhood was so despondent.

Speaker 2 (55:18):
About never mind, it's gonna say something about the hot
foxes from the Disney one. But responding about to cast
he was hot, they should have cast the.

Speaker 1 (55:27):
Fox in when Harry met Sally was hot.

Speaker 3 (55:32):
God man, and he would have been a curly headed fox.
That was a birth of a lot of furries in
this country. Hey, on both sides, we all know it's true.
In fact, I talked to a furry who said that
was his like his for maid marry any sexual awakening.

Speaker 4 (55:48):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (55:50):
I was like, I mean I was into the fox,
but I was furry sexual awakening. He was like, that's
how I became a furry. This guy was picture of furry.
That's that's you're picturing him. I mean, he wasn't in
a costume at the time that this is a party.
But he was like, yeah, that was what.

Speaker 1 (56:03):
Was his first SONA for sona. Oh. I love that.
That's the officially.

Speaker 3 (56:08):
Appect don't know if he told us something furry, wow clever,
I want.

Speaker 1 (56:14):
To say, because he I hope it was a fox.

Speaker 3 (56:16):
No, I don't think it was a fox. I want
to say it was like maybe a Teddy bear or
like a bear. I don't know. I mean, he wasn't
in his costume or anything. And it was one of
those things where he says it and we're all like oh,
but then he like really gets into the details of
it and like the conventions he goes are there conventions?
I guess there has to be. It's a fascinating culture.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
Cool speak, yeah, segue Rob Reiner. Rob Reiner was so
despondent about who to cast that he briefly considered playing
the part of Harry Burns himself. Then his thoughts turned
to his best friend Billy Crystal. Actually, just like the
plot of the movie, mister Wright was there all along
masquerading as his friend. Crystal was actually very far down

(56:56):
the list, which is weird considering the Nora Efron based
parts of Harry and Sally's friendship in the movie. On
Rob Reiner's friendship with Billy Crystal that's so adorable that
they turned to bromance into one of the defining cinematic
cists relationships of all time. They would actually do the
cosa Blanca thing where they would watch Casa Blanca together,

(57:16):
and I guess back in the day you wouldn't call
it live tweeting. You would just call it having a
phone conversation. But they would live tweet it to one another.
Many of the scenes in which Harry talks to his
best friend Jess played by Bruno Kirby, took inspiration from
Billy and Robb's private chats about relationships gross The pair
had met in nineteen seventy five when Billy had a
guest spot on All in the Family, the sitcom that

(57:37):
launched Reiner to stardom. Billy Crystal was cast as the
best friend of Reiner's character, and they became best friends
irl shortly thereafter. Billy obviously knew that his buddy Rob
was looking for the male lead in his new movie,
and was slightly miffed that he hadn't been considered first,
to which I say, be more self aware of Billy
Crystal wrote in his memoir, I knew from agents and
managers that Rob had met with almost every male actor

(57:58):
my age except me. Rob can be forgiven at this point, though,
because Crystal was not a big on the he was
what generously a C lister. Yeah, and the last movie
that he'd been in was Prince's Bride, where he was
dressed up like a very old grandpa, very old warlock.
Yes right, famously one of the most sexually magnetic fantasy archetypes.

(58:22):
And Crystal was also said he was nervous about working
a Reiner said he was nervous that about working with
someone who he had an irl friendship with, and his
fears ironically echoed the central question of the movie. Rob
Reiner would say, the fear I had was what if
you worked with a friend and it doesn't work out?
Are we going to destroy a friendship? I had no
reservations about him playing the part. I just wanted to

(58:44):
make sure their close bond did make Billy Crystal the
ideal person to play Rob's alter ego. I'd like to
turn it over to our guests. If you, guys, were
a fantasy casting the story of your podcast and friendship
and eventual marriage to one another or from person or
possibly a furry who would you cast?

Speaker 4 (59:02):
Oh my god, why am I blanking? Where you should
you go? I? Have someone I can't think of her
name right now?

Speaker 3 (59:10):
Am I cat casting for like for brook and me
or just yourself?

Speaker 2 (59:15):
Well, actually you can cast yourself ahead your character and
your and.

Speaker 1 (59:21):
And the other. M hmm.

Speaker 3 (59:24):
This is a lot of pressure.

Speaker 1 (59:26):
And I know I mean cast Christopher Walking play, I'll
cast Jack Antonof to play. You all get it? Does
he act?

Speaker 2 (59:41):
No, it's just one of that one of our coworkers
that I looked like Jack Antonoff and it's kind of
haunted me ever since.

Speaker 3 (59:48):
Oh okay, I was like Taylor Swift's Jack Antonof, right,
I don't know he was.

Speaker 1 (59:53):
Now it's Margaret Qualley's Jack Antonoff.

Speaker 3 (59:54):
But yeah, right right, she's a no name, so I
can't use that as my reference unfortunately. Oh marsh, No,
nothing against Margaret Margaret is that her name?

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
Yeah, she's she's who she she's any McDowell's kid. She
looks just like any McDowell from Uh she's got the billowie.

Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
Yeah, long hair in the face.

Speaker 3 (01:00:18):
And Andy McDowell has like a series on Hallmark like
Where the Heart Is or Where the Heart Grows or something.
It keeps saying ads for it. That's really good.

Speaker 4 (01:00:26):
And Michael, okay, play us Jesus Christ. I would say
I got somebody, okay, Christian Bell and Maya Rudolph.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
Oh that's cute.

Speaker 3 (01:00:36):
I would watch that movie okay, okay.

Speaker 4 (01:00:41):
Or even maybe Amy Polar and They've got great.

Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
Yeah. I would go with either Amy Polar or Kristin Wig.

Speaker 1 (01:00:49):
Mm hmmm.

Speaker 3 (01:00:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
And Maya Rudolph.

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):
Yeah, yeah, I could. I could settle for Mile Ruda.

Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:00:58):
I was also thinking, weirdly Sandra Bullock.

Speaker 4 (01:01:02):
Oh, oh the heat.

Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
Just I was thinking of the heat.

Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
But like, obviously it's so.

Speaker 3 (01:01:11):
Started to watch it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
I love Sandy.

Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
She is America's sweetheart.

Speaker 4 (01:01:18):
She has and Chris Evans is at our house when
I met her.

Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
He's America's sweetheart.

Speaker 3 (01:01:24):
He's dead to me. He's also Captain America. Yeah, well
he's dead to me until Jordan talks to his dad
and the right. Yeah, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
This is not even an intentional segue. This is my
honest thought. I feel like Sandra Bullock would have been
a really good Sally in this.

Speaker 4 (01:01:41):
I was thinking that too.

Speaker 3 (01:01:42):
Actually, yeah, well, especially because I'm thinking of Sandra Bullock
back then. Yeah, so I'm thinking of like while you
were sleeping Sandy and I think she would be really
good in this role. Yeah, Sandy's good except for what's it?
The one movie she's not good in What about Steve

(01:02:02):
or something where she's the crossword puzzle creator with Bradley
Cooper's Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
Yeah, oh that like deeply offensive weird? Yeah that yeah,
and then yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:02:12):
She's good at everything she yeah, everything else, but yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
Well.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
Speaking of bestie's and friendship, the character of Marie Sally's
best friend of the movie is played by Carrie Fisher,
who is irl best friend with Reiner's ex Penny Marshall.
Could have made things onward.

Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
Do we think Carrie.

Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
Fisher she was in her script doctor phase? Do you
think she did any uncredited work on this?

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
Oh? Man, I ignra Fron would need that though, you
know that's true.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
That's true. I like to imagine a world where they
like fought it out, they like hashed it out in
the trailer.

Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
It got ugly anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
Billy Crystal was supposed to be playing a depressed single dude,
so to offset his on set camaraderie wordplay Thanks Jordan
with Rob Reiner, he deliberately avoided hanging out with the
cast and crew and spent most of his time alone
in a ho teil room to get into the isolated
mindset of a recent divorcee.

Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
It's just called acting. Billy. Try it, Billy Crystal. I
don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:03:09):
It's the perfect excuse if you're like, sorry, I am
you getting my craft perfected? Right?

Speaker 4 (01:03:15):
Yeah, you guys should try it sometime instead of partying.

Speaker 3 (01:03:17):
Give me room service and do not disturb door sign.

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
Billy Crystal has been married for fifty three years to
a woman named Janice Goldfinger, which sounds like something someone
would throw out an improv.

Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
Yeah, that definitely sounds like a fake name.

Speaker 1 (01:03:34):
He was taught at NYU by Marty Jordan. You verify
this for me?

Speaker 4 (01:03:41):
Yeah, I wrote it Marty McFly. Yeah, he time traveled
and taught him at NYU and.

Speaker 2 (01:03:45):
By Marty McFly and Marty nickname in quotes McFly.

Speaker 3 (01:03:49):
Scorsese, that's what you're talking about, got it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
My, that's my Marty. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:03:58):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
Jordan segue I tried with the Sandra Bullock and then
and then it didn't follow everyone really well. Sandra Bullock
was not on the short list to play Sally. Rob
Ryder's first choice was Susan Day of the Partridge Family
and La Law, which intristic.

Speaker 3 (01:04:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:21):
Yeah, I have a hard time picturing eighties. Yeah, Susan
Day after her on like the flower Bus. I can
kind of see it. Yeah, this is crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:04:33):
I just put Susan Day into Google Images and instead
of writing nineteen eighty nine, I just put nine to
eight nine, like a common type of that anyone would make.
And that changed my Google results from like Wikipedia and
eBay and all the normal image results that you come
up for nine to eight nine, the top one, two, three,
four results have suddenly become wiki feet.

Speaker 4 (01:04:53):
Oh you should look at mine. I have like a
rating on there. Oh my gosh, congratulations, thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (01:04:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:05:00):
I found that one day and I was like, wow,
I'm really making it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:04):
Finally, what a Susan Day has?

Speaker 3 (01:05:05):
Someone was like, do you know Brooke has a Wiki feet?

Speaker 4 (01:05:07):
And I was like, someone said that it was yeah,
I do remember that Susan.

Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
Day is close to five.

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
I regret to inform you she has like a looks
like a like a four point nine.

Speaker 1 (01:05:18):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:05:19):
Yeah, so is that if you just only want to
look at people's feet? Absolutely, just put nine eight nine.
I don't know a secret.

Speaker 2 (01:05:26):
I don't know let's see if it works with the
Market of Feet, if it works with Sandra Bullock.

Speaker 1 (01:05:34):
No, it doesn't, might just be on my phone, might
just speak. Yeah, I was in sad.

Speaker 2 (01:05:38):
I mean I have a couple of pictures saved, but
just yeah, uh it did not. So maybe that's just
a Susan Day thing everyone tried out at home. I
promise I'm not crazy.

Speaker 4 (01:05:47):
I personally, I will say to bring it back since
somebody has to clearly wrangle this in. I can't see
Susan Day playing Sally like.

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
I don't. I don't think that works for me at all.
Like looking at the point, how do you feel about
Elizabeth McGovern, Elizabeth Perkins, or Molly Ringwalls.

Speaker 4 (01:06:03):
I could see maybe Elizabeth McGovern of those three, but
you guys also have Elizabeth Shoe here, and I could
definitely see Elizabeth Shoe.

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
That was my like fantasy cast. Yeah, I feel like
that would fit it. Elizabeth McGovern is the.

Speaker 3 (01:06:19):
I cannot see Elizabeth McGovern.

Speaker 2 (01:06:21):
Yeah, maybe an eighty nine. She just looks like Carla Gagino.
To me, I literally thought they were the same woman,
which is.

Speaker 3 (01:06:30):
Gay.

Speaker 4 (01:06:30):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:06:32):
I also couldn't see Molly Ringwall. Now it's just because
she's so like entrenched in like pretty and pink sixteen
k women. Yeah, yeah, I can't. I cannot marry that.

Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
Well, we have no yea.

Speaker 4 (01:06:48):
The silence as we all google right.

Speaker 3 (01:06:53):
Translate for audio, it's perfect, just a bunch of silence.

Speaker 1 (01:07:01):
Do you guys want to listen to us breathe? While
we started the internet? Everyone, get really close up on
your mics. We're gonna pivot.

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
I'm pivoting this into ASMR. The feet thing didn't work out,
so now we're just doing live ASMR.

Speaker 4 (01:07:16):
We're gonna find a curve that loves this somewhere.

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
Time Watergate Factory. Yeah, ASMR list, speaking of perverts.

Speaker 2 (01:07:27):
Speaking of perverts, Rob Reiner was constantly getting petitioned by
Meg Ryan, who had fallen in love with the script.

Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
She would later say, I remember reading the script in
like forty minutes. It's a fast, funny, hilarious read and
there's a type of music to it. As Ryner would recall,
Meg Ryan was not a big name at the time,
with her biggest role to date being a bit part
in Top Gun. She'd auditioned to play the part of
Billy Crystal's girlfriend in nineteen eighty seven's Throw Mama from
the Train, which also co starred rob Ryiner, but she

(01:07:55):
didn't get the part. Great movie even so, she and
Billy had a great audition together, and presumably he encouraged
yin Or to consider casting her once she auditioned with Billy.
The chemistry, according to them, elected was obvious.

Speaker 3 (01:08:13):
I'd love to see those teaps me too, And I'd
love to get some toxicology reports on the people's that
look and said the chemistry is good. Yeah, that's what
I'm gonna use my time machine for.

Speaker 4 (01:08:27):
But then if two people kissing a movie and I
don't feel a tingle in my vagina, there's no chemistry.
I'm just gonna say it. Okay, someone has to say it.
It's the truth, that sensation.

Speaker 1 (01:08:38):
But you know you're brave enough. I wish we could
have full quotes for episodes.

Speaker 3 (01:08:44):
Got it about it?

Speaker 2 (01:08:45):
I'd like to dig in deeper to this chemistry thing.
One half of you is firmly anti that this pairing.
Do we have a rebuttal? Could you play Devil's advocate?
Or are you just both not feeling it at all?

Speaker 3 (01:08:57):
I can just like wonder he forcing us to fight,
I can say they're wondering. It was like, we want
you guys to disagree on things, and we're like, but
we know there's a.

Speaker 1 (01:09:05):
Couple of things we'll find out.

Speaker 4 (01:09:07):
I mean, there was like one, maybe one moment where
I was like, Okay, I feel a little bit of chemistry.
I think maybe it was like the New Year's Eve kiss.

Speaker 1 (01:09:15):
Okay, okay, seventeen a back exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:09:18):
I mean, that's as much as I can play Devil's
advocate of the chemistry.

Speaker 1 (01:09:24):
Well, Billy Crystal felt that chemistry. At least, as Billy
told The Entertainment Weekly in twenty nineteen, Meg came in
and we didn't even read a scene. We all knew
it was her. It was just one of those indefinable
things that when we started talking, we were them already,
you know. And Meg also proved to be very good
at improvising, which, as we'll discuss, was crucial to the
production of this movie. In order to take the role

(01:09:46):
of Sally, Meg Ryan was forced to drop out of
Steel Magnolia's with a role going to Julia Roberts. But
this was another sort of sliding door moment for two
rom com queens because Meg Ryan passed on the lead
role in Pretty Woman, which went to Julia Roberts. Okay,
I know we're not doing alternate casting anymore, and I
know we're on the clock, but Dolly Parton in When

(01:10:06):
Harry Met Sally interesting. I'm just saying, just chew on
that for a while and then sorry, got back ye sorry, No,
that's good. Julie Roberts also turned down the Meg Ryan
part and You've got mail, so it kind of oh
even yeah. One element of the production of When Harry
Met Sally that makes me sad is that Meg Ryan
would later say that it was kind of a boys

(01:10:28):
club and she initially felt the odd woman out due
to the tight knit friendship between Rob Ryder and Billy Crystal.
As she told the La Times, they were very conscientious
about making sure I felt okay because it was very
much like a prefab relationship that I'd come into. Usually
everyone comes in and negotiates their respective positions on a movie.
That didn't happen on this one. While one crew member

(01:10:50):
described the early days of filming is very, very awkward.
In the making of book, all have what she's having,
they also added that Ryan was quote pretty at home
with things by the end of productuction. She also formed
close friendships with Nora and Carrie Fisher, which lasted until
their deaths, which I think is lovely, except for the
death part.

Speaker 2 (01:11:10):
Speaking of death, no, I mean to say that, let's
get the elephant in the room out of the way.
There was a concern in during production about what you
charitably describe as the beauty discrepancy between Billy Crystal and
Meg Ryan, which Hollywood solved in the time honored way
of sticking some glasses on Meg.

Speaker 1 (01:11:32):
I gotta say the glasses work for me.

Speaker 2 (01:11:35):
Everyron supposedly said, well, we have to have glasses for
the character because Meg's a lot more attractive than Billy is,
and then proceeded to have her try on between two
and six hundred pairs of eyeglasses. And this occurred at
Starry Eyes Optical Service Optician to the Stars. I added

(01:11:57):
that question mark, it's a prop glass play, as I'm guessing,
I think, na. It was during this process that Meg
ultimately found a pair of vintage, one of a kind
Robert Laroche frames that she deemed suitable. Not only were
these big honkin' Sally Jesse Raphael frames valued at five
grand in eighty nine dollars or twelve grand today, but Meg,

(01:12:21):
a woman after my own heart, tried to steal them
before learning that they actually belonged to the shop's owner. Ultimately,
they made twenty some replicas for production. Jordan, while I
read this next part, you want to google and see
if there are any up for sale at Julian's or anything. Yes,
this movie, also in the casting department, features a first kid.

(01:12:42):
And no, I'm not talking about the movie that stars
some interchangeable brunette moppet from the nineteen nineties. And I
want to say Sindbad, I mean an illiteral offspring of
the president. A few people remember Sally's pre hairy boyfriend Joe,
described as a tall set surfboard of a man. He's

(01:13:02):
played by Stephen Ford, son of our equally forgettable president
Gerald Ford. Stephen was a male model before getting into politics.
Insert Zoolander quote. This casting is hilarious because Steve Ford
was originally cast to play an almost identical role, the
blandly attractive boyfriend that the heroin dates prior to winding

(01:13:22):
up with the leading man she was always supposed to
be with in Greece. He was cast to play Sandy's
boyfriend Tom before backing out due to supposedly stage fright.

Speaker 1 (01:13:33):
A coke addiction.

Speaker 2 (01:13:34):
I'd be yeah maybe. Thankfully he got his second chance
and when Harry met Sally. And would go on to
appear in films such as Our Beloved Armageddon, Blackhawk Down
and Transformers, A big fan of the Military Industrial Complex
and Michael Bay and he is the President's son, Yeah,
and he plays He plays a secret service agent in

(01:13:55):
Escape from New York from Old Johnny Carpenter. Steve Ford
is also involved in one of your favorite presidential stories
of all time in the Summer of nineteen which I
would now read in the instead of You. And in
the summer of nineteen seventy four, soon after his father
inherited the presidency from Richard Nixon, a then eighteen year
old Steve Ford and a friend took his stereo to
the White House roof and played led Zeppelin four technically

(01:14:20):
known as Untitled but or the Runes album so loud
it could be heard across Pennsylvania Avenue.

Speaker 1 (01:14:28):
Jordan.

Speaker 2 (01:14:29):
If you had access to the White House roof, which
song would you blast? Would it be something lame like
the Beach Boys, or would it be something bitchin like
led Zeppelin.

Speaker 1 (01:14:35):
I'd say, who's next, I'd say, God, yeah, we wouldn't
get fulled again, or Baba Oriley from the White House
would slap right.

Speaker 2 (01:14:43):
I would say war pigs by Black Sabbath, just for
the cognitive disstance, but actually kind of want to give
it to Kate Bush. We're gonna put on Hounds of Love,
side A and B, as she intended for the record
to be heard anyway. Post nine to eleven, the roof
was actually transformed into a sniper's nest, and access for

(01:15:06):
non security purposes became impossible. Steve Ford would later say,
I feel sorry for Obama and the Bush Girls. They
never got a chance to drag their stereos.

Speaker 1 (01:15:15):
Up to the roof. Well said Steve Well on the
topic of actors with famous parents, when Harry Matt Sally
has more than its fair share. At least five of
the film's cast members and creators came from show business families,
most well known, of course, as Carrie Fisher, whose parents
were Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher. Rob Reiner's father was

(01:15:35):
comedy legend Carl Reiner, and his mother, Estelle Reiner, had
been an accomplished jazz singer. Laura E. Fron's parents we mentioned,
Henry and Phoebe Fhron, were highly successful Hollywood screenwriters and producers.
Bruno Kirby had also followed in the footsteps of his
character actor dad Bruce Kirby. He'd had a bit part
as the storekeeper in Rob Reiner's Stand By Me and

(01:15:56):
Billy Crystal's father and uncle were both prominent in the
record industreet working closely with legends like Billie Holiday. Do
you know that I did not. Yeah, we're going to
take a quick break, but we'll be right back with
more too much information in just a moment. Hello, folks,

(01:16:20):
it's Jordan breaking the fourth wall for a change. I
got a level with you. We spend so much time
talking about feet and furries and ASMR and locker rooms
and plane crashes and Chris Evans and my pathetic love
life that our guests needed to step out for a
minute and attend to some business. Don't worry, they'll be
back by the end of the episode. But for now,

(01:16:41):
you're stuck with Heigel Nio. All Right, we're moving on
to the production principal photography for When Harry Met Sally
began on August twenty ninth, nineteen eighty eight, with a
budget of fourteen point five million, which is thirty six
million dollars today, pretty cheap, less than half of what

(01:17:04):
the other big comedy of nineteen eighty nine, Ghostbusters Too,
cost to produce. Rob Ryder and Nora Ephron wanted many
of the scenes to be set against some of New
York City's most beautiful locations to highlight the lead character's
complete lack of awareness. In other words, there was blind
to the love growing between them as they are to
the romance of their surroundings. That's fascinating, man.

Speaker 2 (01:17:24):
I love that, Like just consciously putting them in New
York's most beautiful locations and having them not address it
at all.

Speaker 1 (01:17:31):
Address it. Yeah, that's amazing, really galaxy brain stuff. Yeah.
I mean the perfect example of this is when Harry
moves into his new apartment. There are these huge bay
windows that overlook the Empire State Building, and it could
be viewed as either the greatest view in the world
or the loneliest. Shooting took place on location in various
New York City locales, including Central Park and the Low

(01:17:53):
Boat House, where Sally's Lunch with Marie and Alice was
filmed the Puck Building, which served us a location for
the two New York parties, and also Marie in Jess's wedding,
Giants Stadium, a loft and Soho which stood in for
Harry's apartment, and Katz's Delhi on the Lower East Side,
which we will talk more about in a moment. But
for all the location shooting, the most difficult scene was

(01:18:17):
pretty mundane, or at least appeared so on the screen.
It's the four way telephone call after Harry and Sally
first sleep with each other and call their friends played
by Carrie Fisher and Bruno Kirby, at exactly the same time.
Carrie and Bruno's characters are in bed together, so as
a three way split screen. Through the movie, Rob Reiner
uses split screen to show characters talking on the phone,

(01:18:37):
which is an old classic cinematic device inspired by the
nineteen fifty nine Rock Hutsondris Day romcom Pillow Talk. But
the scene when Harry met Sally was significantly more complicated
this three way split call, Rob Reiner told USA Today
in twenty nineteen, it's like doing a magic trick. No
one sees the trick because it doesn't look like anything,
but technical people have always asked me, how did you

(01:18:59):
do that shot? To get their conversation synchronized the two
sets of conversations, the crew used three cameras to film
the four actors on three different sets that were connected
by a real telephone line to get the timing just right. So,
in other words, you had Billy Crystal and Harry's bedroom set,
Meg Ryan and Sally's bedroom set, and Carrie Fishow and
Bruno Kirby in the middle in their bedroom set, all

(01:19:21):
talking on the phone for real, and it was all
one continuous take. So if one person screwed up even
a single line in the I think it was like
four pages of rapid fire dialogue, he had to start
all over again. And as a result, they spent an
entire day shooting sixty one takes of this scene until
they nailed it one earlier take. Rob Bryner estimates that

(01:19:42):
it would have been in the low fifties. Went perfectly,
but as the cast celebrated, a sound technician informed them
that birds wrestling in the studio rafters had ruined us.
So the birds were shoot out of the studio and
take fifty six seemed like it would have been fallowless,
with each character hanging up the phone in order, and
then Bruno Kirby blew the very last line of the scene,

(01:20:05):
resimber the hit. They all threw pillows at him or something,
and then they finally nailed it five takes later, for
take sixty one. This is Bruno.

Speaker 2 (01:20:13):
Why don't I like that guy? He was in Yeah,
Godfather and Part two, and he was in Good Morning Vietnam.

Speaker 1 (01:20:22):
He's the station manager, scrawny station manager that is out
to get Robin Williams. Uh oh. He's the limo driver
in spinal Tap. That's why. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
that you know.

Speaker 2 (01:20:34):
What that biography should be called? Yes I can if
Frank Sinatra says, it's okay. The telephone scene was obviously
meticulously scripted, but Ryner encouraged improvising on the set. Many
of the most beloved moments in the film were made
up on the fly. One of these little moments occurred
in the scene where we first meet Harry's he embarks
in a road trip with Sally at the beginning of
the movie. The bit where Harry eats grapes and spits

(01:20:55):
one of them directly into a closed window. Uh was
on the script bit Reiner said, I wanted to make
Harry a little bit rougher around the edges to start,
so we came up with this idea of him eating
the grapes. Billy said, I can just be spitting the
seeds out the window. That's what gave Harry a little
bit more abruptness. Billy and I came up with that
on the set as we were doing it. I found

(01:21:16):
it so disgusting how he just rolls down the winner
window with it still on there. Another scene that was
partially ad libbed is when Harry starts speaking in the
goofy voice at the Met Museum, Part product of Part
take of Your Pecan Pie and so forth.

Speaker 1 (01:21:28):
Always bothered me. Yeah, it's dumb.

Speaker 2 (01:21:30):
It's in one of those moments I was talking about
earlier where they were like, yeah, just give it to Crystal.

Speaker 1 (01:21:33):
Throw to Crystal. Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:21:35):
Midway through the scene, you can see Meg Ryan actually
breaking character with a laugh. She looks off camera to Rhiner, though,
who indicated that she should keep going, and she jumps
back into it. Spontaneity was so great that they left
the take in breaking all Meg Ryan also showed off
her improv skills during the Pictionary wind Loser draw scene,
when she's frantically trying to get everyone to guess the
phrase baby talk. According to Rhiner, he didn't direct Meg

(01:21:57):
I want to sketch. He just gave her the phrase
to draw and she went for it, which led to
the other actors spewing out hilarious non scripted guesses, including
Bruno Kirby's immortal baby fish mouth. That's a great lot
so they used to call me in college.

Speaker 1 (01:22:14):
But the Crowning achieved it. Of beg Ryan's improv skills
is the infamous Deli scene. The scene came out of
a conversation between Nora and Reiner, where he basically said, Okay,
I've told you all sorts of guy secrets. What about
the stuff that women do that men don't know about.
Her response was Sally's revelation. Writer's response was basically identical
to Harry's. He was so shocked to hear that women

(01:22:38):
fake it that he apparently called six different women at
his production company into his office and asked them to
confirm that this was a thing, a move that he
would later admit should have gotten him sued. And or canceled.
I don't like this, it's gross. Yeah. Yeah. Initially the
scene was just supposed to be a conversation about whether

(01:22:59):
or not women fake sexual pleasure, but during a readthrough,
Meg Ryan said, well, why don't I just do it?
And it was Billy Crystal's idea for the scene to
be set in a crowded restaurant. Rob Reiner wanted the
Carnegie Deli, but ultimately they went for Katz's Deli opened
since eighteen eighty eight, for reasons that I assume either
involved permits or Pastrami preference. In what I have to

(01:23:23):
imagine as an example of mansplaining that will be taught
in universities until the end of time, rob Ryder ended
up acting out exactly what he wanted Ryan to do.
Her first few takes an image that will never leave
my head in front of the entire casting crew. He
felt that her performance initially was quote very tepid. His

(01:23:45):
attempt to yielded around of applause from all the extras,
which famously included his own mother. Rob Reiner talked about
his big moment in an interview with The Daily Beast.
He said, I sat down opposite Billy and I acted
it out. I pounded the table again and again, going yes, yes, yes,
And when we were done, I turned to Billy and
I said, uh, oh, I just realized I had a

(01:24:07):
huge orgasm in front of my mother, A phrase I
never thought i'd say, this is Billy, I'm mortified.

Speaker 2 (01:24:16):
I was going to say, we should have talked about
this scene with the guests on, but I don't think
either of us would have survived it.

Speaker 1 (01:24:22):
Yeah. No, I'm kind of actually secretly glad that we're
doing this about them. Billy joked that it was like
being on a date with Sebastian Cabot, which is mean
but accurate. And then Meg Ryan sat down and did
the scene better than anyone could have done it. The
Revron noticed an interesting response to the scene when she
went to a test screening to this movie in Las Vegas, specifically,

(01:24:43):
the males in the audience, who, she said, remained silent.
They didn't get it, she said. The women did. However,
they laughed, and their laughter became infectious until one by
one the men joined in. Ephron wasn't sure whether the
women had in effect given the men permission to laugh,
or whether some of the men were quote being told
that something up on the screen was funny and they'd

(01:25:03):
better laugh or look stupid.

Speaker 2 (01:25:07):
She had a low opinion of us as a as
a sex Huh.

Speaker 1 (01:25:10):
I mean we haven't. We didn't do much to really
earn it from her. Did very true. Yeah. The scene
has obviously been enshrined in the pantheon of classic movie moments.
Katz's Deli is very proud of its place in Hollywood
history and has placed a sign marking the table where
Meg Ryan sat. They also staged and all have what
She's having contest where an enthusiastic participants can perform. They

(01:25:35):
want to see who can perform the best. The deli's
owner chooses five winners judged on points including enthusiasm and commitment,
and the prize package is worth one hundred and thirty
five dollars, including a T shirt, tote bag, pins, and
all the ingredients to make the sandwich that both Harry
and Sally are eating during the scene. The scene, sort

(01:25:56):
of predictably, has led to some awkward moments between Meg
Ryan and her children. Speaking to our former colleagues at
People Magazine, Ryan recall the time when then fiance John
Mellencamp decided it would be a good idea to let
their fourteen year old daughter watch the movie. Ryan said,
I'm walking around the house doing other stuff. I can
hear baby fish mouth, I hear the orgasm scene, and

(01:26:18):
then there's a silence from the room they're watching in
my daughter's fourteen and John goes, Meg, I'm not explaining this.
What a piece.

Speaker 2 (01:26:29):
I'm going out for a smoke. I'm gonna go into
my painting room. Honey, you handle this.

Speaker 1 (01:26:34):
He was the grumpiest man I've ever interviewed, by the way,
So I'm glad that story's out there. But at least
Meg Ryan didn't have to perform that scene in front
of her mother, which is what Rob Ryner had to
do when he was demonstrating. Higel tell us about Rob
Ryaner's mother a Stelle.

Speaker 2 (01:26:48):
His mother is Stelle, one of the most famous go
to answers in all of trivia history.

Speaker 1 (01:26:53):
I guarantee you if.

Speaker 2 (01:26:54):
You throw a you know what's the proverbial phrase, You
can't swing a cat in a room, a dead cat
in a room without hitting somebody who knows that. That's
Rob Bryner's mom. The classic I'll have what she's having line.
Rob originally called his mom and asked if she would
come in for one line that, for all he knew,
may have ended up on the cutting room floor. She replied,
I don't care, as long as I get to spend

(01:27:15):
the day with my son. I'll come and I'll have
a hot dog. And she nailed it in two takes.
I could have done it in one with I'll have
what she's having A Billy Crystal ad lib ranking thirty
three on the American Film Institute's list of top one
hundred movie quotations. Upon her death in two thousand and
eight at the age of ninety four, The New York
Times referred to Stelle Reiner in its obituary as the

(01:27:36):
woman who delivered one of the most memorably funny lines
in movie history. But this is not the only family
connection in the film. For Rob Reiner. There's a scene
where Harry and Sally are in new relationships. Harry has
begun dating a woman named Emily. Portraying Emily in the
scene is actually Ryner's twenty four year old daughter, Tracy.
Billy Crystal noted that the casting choice made things slightly

(01:27:56):
awkward because he knew her since she was a little girl,
Racy Ryan, We're going to play Betty spaghetti Horn in
her mom Penny Marshall's film A League of Their Own
and also the wife of astronaut Fred Hayes in Apollo thirteen.
And Rob Reiner himself lastly has a cameo in the film.
During the New Year's Eve party scene. His voice can
be heard off camera saying, Hey, everybody, ten seconds until

(01:28:18):
New Year.

Speaker 1 (01:28:19):
Hey, everybody, we're all gonna get latet. Yeah. Right.

Speaker 2 (01:28:23):
We mentioned earlier that Harry riffs about obnoxiously about what
old lang Zion actually means. It's Robert Burns, you createn,
It's Scottish. Years earlier, Rob Ryner had a similar line
of dogog when he was playing Mike Stivick in the
TV show All in the Family. For an added dose
of authenticity, the New Year's Eve scene where Harry professes
his love to Sally was reportedly filmed on an actual

(01:28:45):
New Year's Eve in New York City. Like he did
for so much of the movie, Billy Crystal improvised a
lot of the New Year's Eve confessional scene, including the
sweet line where he tells Sally, I love the way
your nose crinkles, and Also, when you realize you want
to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you
want the rest of your life to start as soon
as possible. Probably the other most iconic line from the

(01:29:06):
film great line in saying Yah'd lived that.

Speaker 1 (01:29:10):
Uh. Probably a little late to say spoiler alert, but
the film's happy ending very nearly didn't happen. Originally, the
movie was going to have Harry and Sally stay separated,
only to bump into each other five years later on
the street before walking off in separate directions, leaving viewers
to wonder whether or not they'd reunite romantically. And this
was largely due to the fact that, originally, you remember,

(01:29:31):
the characters were based on Rob Reiner and Nora Ephron,
who apparently were not a love match. Nora later said
in a DVD featurette, those types of people don't get together,
which is a revelation that kind of crushed me. Test audiences, however,
were not fans of this more truthful ending. Ryder decided
to give the characters a happy ending after he had

(01:29:53):
one for himself. While he was making When Harry met Sally,
he met his future wife, photographer Michelle Singer. He later
said I fell in love, and I said, I see
how this works. The two were originally introduced by the
film cinematographer and Future Men and Black director Barry Somnenfeld.
Ryner apparently had heard that Michelle Pfeiffer was getting divorced

(01:30:14):
and jokingly, I Hope told somon Feld that he was
going to call Pfeiffer, presumably trying to save Rob Ryder
from a brutal rejection. Sonefeld responded, You're not gonna call her.
You're going to marry my friend Michelle Singer, and that's
exactly what he did. They were introduced soon after, and
they were married in nineteen eighty nine, the year when
Harry Met Sally was released, and they're still together today.

(01:30:37):
They have three children and by my count, five grandchildren.
So they got their happy ending, and so did Harry
and Sally, who ended the movie on the couch talking
about their origin story. Like all the other couples we've
seen thus far in the movie.

Speaker 2 (01:30:51):
In my ending, the final date card comes up to
the film September eleventh, two thousand and one.

Speaker 1 (01:31:01):
Sorry, well, there's no real good spot to put this in,
especially after what Heigel just said, But the movie gets
so much of his New York loungey wooty Allen knockoff
feel from the piano standards played by mister Harry Connick Junior.

Speaker 2 (01:31:16):
Babies and gentlemen, Mister Harry Connick Junior one of.

Speaker 1 (01:31:20):
The happiest people have ever interviewed, and he won his
first ever Grammy for Best Jazz Male Vocal Performance for
this soundtrack, catapulting the twenty two year old into the limelight.
The album went double platinum in the US and hit
number one on the Billboard Traditional Jazz Charts. I don't
have much to say that's interesting about Harry Connick Jr.
Except for the fact that he's a piano prodigy, which

(01:31:41):
is interesting. And also his dad was the DA of
New Orleans for thirty years, which is kind of badass.
It's kind of bad.

Speaker 2 (01:31:50):
But also in No Orleans is like one of the
most corrupt places of the past fifty years. Like their
major scandal the ninety was the fact that their narcotics
department of the NPD was running a narcotics ring. But no,
I'm just contractly obligated. Every time Harry comes up to
mention that clip of him. Have you seen the clip

(01:32:11):
of him? Where he turns the crowd around on the beat.

Speaker 1 (01:32:14):
It's pretty amazing. Everyone should go google this.

Speaker 2 (01:32:17):
There's a you know, the whole thing about white people
not being able to clap on the two and the
four of the back beat. They just always no matter
how the song starts, they end up clapping on the
wrong beat. So Harry's solution he's taking an unaccompanied piano solo,
is he throws in an extra beat and I think,
I mean he's playing eighth notes right, so he literally
just yeah, I mean, he just throws in like a

(01:32:41):
little he plays one bar five four is what I
mean to say, instead of the four four that he's
playing in And this has the effect of successfully flipping
the crowd's wrong beat back around to two and four.
And it's really without them even realizing it. You kind
of hear them, like you kind of watch and hear
them go way eight.

Speaker 1 (01:33:00):
Something feels better now.

Speaker 2 (01:33:02):
But it's like it's one of the most incredible pieces
of like musical live music, like magic that you'll ever see.
I implore everyone to go check it out. It's amazing.
So Harry gets a pass in my book.

Speaker 1 (01:33:13):
Well, both Rob Reiner and Billy Crystal had low hopes
for the movie, but it was released on July fourteenth,
nineteen eighty nine. It was competing against summer blockbusters like
Your Beloved Batman and Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade,
My Beloved Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, so they
figured that this relatively small comedy was going to get crushed.
Afron later explained that the studio was afraid of it because, quote,

(01:33:35):
it has no safety net. It entirely depends on you're
caring about these two people. There's no real plot, and
as a way to combat the competition and also the
huge marketing budgets of their competition, the studio released the
film in just a few theaters in its first week
about ninety in an effort to allow positive word of
mouth to spread. This tactic paid off when when Harry

(01:33:56):
met Sally raked in nearly ninety three million dollars at
the box off, making it the eleventh highest grossing movie
of the year. Ryner later told People magazine, you'd never know.
You make a movie and hopefully you like it, and
hopefully other people do too. You have no idea if
it'll stand the test of time, and it's kind of
cool that it did, but in keeping with a TMI tradition,

(01:34:17):
When Harry Met Sally is another beloved classic that was
trashed by the critics upon its release. Writing in The
New York Times, Karen James called it quote an often funny,
but amazingly hollow film that quote romanticized lives of intelligent, successful,
neurotic New Yorkers. She went on to dismiss it as
a Witty Allen ripoff, citing everything from its white on

(01:34:37):
black credits to its classic jazz influence score to his
obsessive conversations about love, sex, and death. When Harry Met
Sally's the most blatant bow from one director to another
since Witty Allen imitated Igmar Bergmann in Interiors. The review reads.
Rog Reebert was more muted, calling it most conventional in
terms of structure and the way it fulfills her expectation.

(01:35:01):
So the critics didn't really like When Harry Met Sally.
But you know who did one of my favorite royals,
the Archduke Franz Ferdinand did Duke's Countess Royalty.

Speaker 2 (01:35:14):
Yeah, because wasn't Philip Wasn't wasn't the crypt keeper uh
old Scratch?

Speaker 1 (01:35:19):
He married into it. Wasn't he the Duke of Edinburgh
or something? Yeah, but I kind of him is having
married into it. You know, sure, God, he's in hell.
Got he's in hell. There's no I hope he's in hell.

Speaker 2 (01:35:34):
Uh, yes, Jordan, that's correct. Princess Diana. Uh she you
say Princess Diana. I can literally hear the bile rising
in your throat.

Speaker 1 (01:35:47):
I say it. I like Princess Diana.

Speaker 2 (01:35:50):
If she was the pizzels she was, Yes, she was
the people's princess. And she threw a giant, as they
would say, spanner to the works, a wobbler. A wobbler's
a fit though, right, like a tantrum. Threw a wobbley.

Speaker 1 (01:36:07):
Oh, I didn't know that. I thought that was just
like anything that doesn't go according to plan. Now I
think throw a spanner into the works? Is it because
the tool that doctor who has and is called like
the interdimensional spanner or something. So it's a wrench. It's
a British word for a wrench, right.

Speaker 2 (01:36:23):
Yeah, So she threw a spanner into the work. Look,
anything that makes the actual royals unhappy, I'm one hundred
percent on board for so good for good for Princess
Die Less. Good for her was that she was seated
next to Billy Crystal at the UK premiere of the film,
and God, can you imagine being a statuesque royal seated
next to the most thirstily always be closing comic. How

(01:36:48):
much do you think he was just riffing to her
about like Yorkshire pudding or something that time.

Speaker 1 (01:36:54):
She was so tall, she was like five foot She's
like my heights, she's like five to eleven. Yeah, yeah, sure,
I'm sure that did it for him.

Speaker 2 (01:37:02):
Uh as Billy Crystal, We're just fucking wailing on Billy Crystal.

Speaker 1 (01:37:07):
It's like the Simpsons gift, like, leave him alone. He's dead, already.

Speaker 2 (01:37:12):
Flogging his corpse. As he recalled in his book, I'll
have what she's having. When the orgasm scene starts, Diana
was laughing so hard, just belching it out. She had
the kind of laugh where if you were on a date,
you'd never want to see her again. Then she grabbed
my hand and said, so naughty. Yeah, all right, buddy,

(01:37:33):
dial it back. You think that's true?

Speaker 1 (01:37:38):
No, so naughty's a little on the nose, it's a
little awest some.

Speaker 2 (01:37:41):
Powers, Yeah, grabbing his hand like there weren't like seven
British snipers like sas guys in the back of the
theater waiting for her to take her out if she
did something that so bold. Reiner Rob Ryner, who was
nervous about how Princess Di would take the scene, remembered
her leaning over to Billy and whispering, I'd laughing a
lot more, but I know everyone's watching me, which backs

(01:38:03):
up exactly what I just said. According to Ryer, she
had a copy of the film sent to Kensington Palace
so she could watch it with her friends. In addition
to getting the Royal Seal of Approval, when Harry met
Sally got something that's even more rare for a rom
com Oscar recognition. Nora Efron received an Oscar Nod for
Best Writing, but the trophy ultimately went to Dead Poet Society.

Speaker 1 (01:38:25):
Yeah that scans.

Speaker 3 (01:38:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:38:27):
A sweeter tribute.

Speaker 2 (01:38:27):
Would come almost thirty years later, though, from Meg Ryan's
son Jack the twenty something revealed on a panel in
twenty eighteen that he had recently watched when Harry met
Sally for the first time. He explained the delay by saying, guys,
when your mother has one of the most famous orgasm
scenes of all time.

Speaker 1 (01:38:42):
You do not jump on the film.

Speaker 2 (01:38:43):
Okay, I saw it because I was filming a rom
com and that's like the rom com. I watched it,
and then afterwards I cried for so long because I
was so proud of her. And I immediately called her
and I'm like, I'm so sorry I missed this movie.
She's like, I've only seen it one time.

Speaker 1 (01:38:57):
Anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:38:58):
That's my favorite of hers. And most importantly, in twenty
twenty two, when Harry mitt Sally was selected for preservation
in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress,
I made sure to add that for you. Thank you,
thank you. You know, it's deeply important to me.

Speaker 1 (01:39:13):
I love when famous actors admit that they have not
seen one of the most iconic movies, either at all
or since the premiere. I feel like it happens a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:39:23):
I feel like most actors have been through filmed so
many movies that they thought were good based on their
scenes or there or the script, and then have been
burned by finding out what a piece of dog it
was in the final product. That it's quite understandable they
would shy away from it.

Speaker 1 (01:39:38):
That's that's true. Yeah, Well, was there that Gwyneth Paltrow
clip that went viral a couple of years ago where
she was like, wait, I was in like one of
the Marvel movies and she was I think she was
either doing a podcast or I think her.

Speaker 2 (01:39:48):
Daughter or someone else reminded her like you were in
Iron Man three something.

Speaker 1 (01:39:53):
Wasn't it, Like what do you mean? It's like, no, yeah,
you were love that and hate that two things gonna
meet you at the same time. I'm learning to hold
tension and hold space for conflicting emotions. When Harry met
Sally was later adopted into a stage show that premiered
in London's West End in two thousand and four. Harry

(01:40:15):
and Sally were played respectably by Luke Perry Rip and
Alison Hannigan, the latter of whom kind of makes sense
to me because of how I met your mother. That
whole connection that kind of makes sense. The actors were
later replaced by Michael Lanz, who I was not familiar
with until I looked him up and I realized that
he played Kevin Arnold's rival for the hand of Winnie

(01:40:36):
Cooper on The Wonder Years And therefore you hate him, yeah,
basically and Molly Ringwald, who was also an early pick
to play Sally in the movie. So the order of
the universe, according to Rob Reiner, has been restored. Good
and all was well So I mean my vitamin C supplements,

(01:40:58):
Oh good.

Speaker 2 (01:41:00):
Good, No, when Harry met Sally with a launching pad
for Meg Ryan as a rom com queen, she would
go on to star and three more projects penned by
Nora Efron nineteen ninety three, Sleepless in Seattle nineteen ninety eights,
You've Got Mail, and a third film that doesn't exist

(01:41:20):
two thousands hanging up.

Speaker 1 (01:41:22):
Two out of three ain't bad, Meg, Nora. I think
it was Walter Mathow's last movie. That's the only reason
why it holds any space for me. Depressing Wait, yes,
Nora Fron movie. Oh no, that was Walter Landau's last movie.
Was Edward martin Landau. Martin Landau. But I get it.
Kind of tall, lanky, weird face. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.

(01:41:47):
We regret back there, but I understand too much information
regrets the air.

Speaker 2 (01:41:54):
Fittingly, it was the scene shot when Harry and Sally
run into each other in the Shakespeare and Co. Bookstore
that actually inspired Nora Efron to write, You've got mail.
Inspiration struck her when the location of that bookstore chain
is it a chain or just the look.

Speaker 1 (01:42:08):
Uh local chain. There's like a couple of them. I
think it's one of friends too. Actually, you didn't need
to know that so now.

Speaker 2 (01:42:17):
Inspiration struck Nora when the Shakespeare in Co location from
a film closed down shortly after Barnes and Noble opened
up nearby, which became the subplot of the movie When
Harry met saliol So teasday future Rob Ryner project, Harry
can be seen reading Stephen King's Misery, which Reiner would
make the following year, starring James Kahn and Kathy Bates.
As I said earlier, a very different kind of rom com.

Speaker 1 (01:42:40):
I can't tell, well, I can't tell if it was
just a visual joke because Harry's reading it alone. The
paperwork must have been in place for that. Come on,
it's Stephen King. But it's a good bit because he's
alone in his apartment and he's newly divorced, and he's
just reading a giant book that says misery on it.
It's pretty good. Two things get with you at the
same time.

Speaker 2 (01:43:00):
Too much information, Two things can be true. At the
same time, Ryner also included a conspicuously placed copy of
VHS copy of When Harry Met Sally during a scene
in Misery set in a video rental store, which is
very funny.

Speaker 1 (01:43:16):
Well mercifully. Rob Ryder never wanted to revisit When Harry
Met Sally, and nor did Nora Ephron or Billy Crystal
or Meg Ryan. Billy Crystal later told Variety, as we
get older, what would the movie be about when Harry
left Sally, when Sally got sick?

Speaker 2 (01:43:32):
Oh yeah, I know, I know, I know.

Speaker 1 (01:43:36):
Just let them be happy and where everybody wants them
to be, for all of us who believe in happily
ever after, that's where they are. They're in hell. Rob
Ryiner weighed in on the thirtieth anniversary of the film
in twenty nineteen, when speaking on a panel at the
Turner Classic Movies Classic Film Festival. He said that the

(01:43:57):
pair were indeed still together. That doesn't mean they have
had tremendous ups and downs or a bit on the
verge of divorce and got back together, just like any relationship.
But I do think they're still together. And finally, I
guess this leads us to the central question of the film,
can men and women just be friends? The two leads
more or less took the point of view of their characters.

(01:44:18):
Meg Ryan gave her opinion to USA Today, Yes, men
and women can just be friends. I have a lot
of platonic male friends, and sex doesn't get in the way.
Billy Crystal, on the other hand, said, I'm a little
more optimistic than Harry, but I think it's difficult. Men
basically act like stray dogs in front of a supermarket.
I do platonic female friends, but not best best friends.

Speaker 2 (01:44:40):
Hmmmm, I'm going to google. Do you think he's talking
about Rob Renner?

Speaker 1 (01:44:43):
Oh yeah, I think they're still tight Billy Crystal friends.
You're gonna get a guest appearance on Friends.

Speaker 2 (01:44:54):
Uh yeah, that's true, Billy Yeah. Oh well, Robin Williams
apparently Billy Crystal women friends. No, that's just that's just clips.
Is Billy Crystal.

Speaker 1 (01:45:14):
A good person? Friends with a woman? Still nothing? Still nothing?

Speaker 2 (01:45:23):
If you were a loved one, identify as female and
our friends with Billy Crystal, please get in touch by
Twitter and we'll.

Speaker 1 (01:45:31):
Venmo you five bucks.

Speaker 2 (01:45:34):
Actually, I already transferred my bank at my Venmo balance
this week, Jordan, that's on you, buddy, all right, I
got you.

Speaker 1 (01:45:41):
Well. Before we wrap it up today, we got to
give the final word to our guests and hear their
thoughts on a When Harry Met Sally sequel. Okay, picture
me as a sleazy executive. You guys are pitching When
Harry Met Sally two? Meat harder.

Speaker 3 (01:45:58):
What do you got who to play emmy? A T
or E E E T.

Speaker 1 (01:46:02):
I don't know that it's up to you or the creatives.
I'm just the money man.

Speaker 3 (01:46:06):
Okay, what are you? What do you want from us
to tell you what it's going to be about?

Speaker 1 (01:46:09):
An outline? A pitch? Pitch me impress, wow me right.

Speaker 3 (01:46:15):
Me.

Speaker 4 (01:46:16):
No one had to do that for the first film,
so why do we have to do that for the second.

Speaker 1 (01:46:19):
The patriarchy, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:46:21):
They got to make it themselves. Uh, I don't know.
They they're broken up. They're both separated.

Speaker 4 (01:46:31):
They been separated, an alter for like ten years or something.
Was it wasn't there what you said? An alternate ending?

Speaker 3 (01:46:39):
What was that?

Speaker 4 (01:46:39):
Wasn't it like something where.

Speaker 1 (01:46:40):
They like the original ending was gonna be that they
break up and then they meet on the street and
then they they literally go in opposite a breakup.

Speaker 3 (01:46:48):
That's literally the end of the day.

Speaker 1 (01:46:50):
I thought you were talking about this and Vince Vaughan,
which was.

Speaker 3 (01:46:53):
An alternate ending from the original one that they had.

Speaker 1 (01:46:56):
Oh, they were going to get together, and the original.

Speaker 3 (01:46:59):
One was they were The original one was they were
both like with other people, and I think of the
actual ending, only one of them was or Sea. Yeah,
so in the original one they were both with people,
and apparently focus groups were like never but they tolerated
them just running into each other on the street.

Speaker 2 (01:47:17):
They should have done the ending from Meet Joe Black,
where they look at each other a couple of times
and they miss each other and then he walks out
in the street and gets bounced around by a taxi cab.

Speaker 3 (01:47:24):
That's truly ed.

Speaker 2 (01:47:27):
Yeah, is that the ending you had, buddy? Come on,
you're on Twitter. You had to have seen that.

Speaker 1 (01:47:32):
Yeah, I've seen it. I didn't know that was the ending.

Speaker 3 (01:47:34):
Yeah, Well for him just almost wasn't there, just like
a little bit after, because it was like, now he's dead.
That was a lot, you know what.

Speaker 2 (01:47:43):
Actually, the only reason that's on my mind is because
I saw the part of him doing the Jamaican accent
from from that movie.

Speaker 3 (01:47:51):
Little Kidding.

Speaker 1 (01:47:54):
Yeah, Jordan, Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:47:56):
Okay, okay, so okay, so exactly, we have thirty seconds
in the elevator. Here's what it's gonna be. You gotta
green light it. They broke up. It's been ten years, okay,
and they both have lived their lives and they run
into each other in New York City of course.

Speaker 4 (01:48:14):
Okay. They both have kids from donors. They and their
kids are dating.

Speaker 1 (01:48:28):
This is their friends.

Speaker 4 (01:48:32):
I don't know, Okay, I wasn't prepared.

Speaker 1 (01:48:35):
I mean, their kids are like thirty. Now, there you go.

Speaker 3 (01:48:39):
They met in a support So it's when Harry's kids
meet Sally's kids. That's the title. It really rolls off
the tongue.

Speaker 1 (01:48:46):
Cheaper by this. Sally Nope, okay, okay.

Speaker 3 (01:48:52):
Harry and Sally's kids are all right, Sally less in Seattle.

Speaker 1 (01:48:58):
Yeah, there you go. I think I'd like to petition
one of them dies. Who one of the kids.

Speaker 3 (01:49:04):
Turns out they had a twin. Wait, no, one of
Sally or Harry dies. One of them they had a
twin they didn't know about.

Speaker 2 (01:49:09):
Probably Harry, like statistically, because he's the man, right, how
it works Statistically, men die way earlier.

Speaker 4 (01:49:16):
Oh I thought even men are more likely to have
a twin.

Speaker 1 (01:49:20):
I can't back that up.

Speaker 3 (01:49:24):
That would be insane.

Speaker 2 (01:49:25):
Is it like a Weekend Bernie's situation where they have
to like pretend that they're together to get like the
inheritance or something. Is it like a kind of con
comedy angle here, or it's just that she then falls
in love with a twin.

Speaker 4 (01:49:36):
Or does she fall and his friends are holding him
up pretending like he's real, just.

Speaker 1 (01:49:42):
Like Weekended Harry's har.

Speaker 3 (01:49:45):
Yeah, Actually, okay, race everything I've just said, Okay, don't
spend ten years, fifteen years whatever. They have no children,
they've broken up, and it's they're at a new they
happen to see each.

Speaker 4 (01:49:56):
Other at a New Year's Eve party, oh another and
they're like, okay.

Speaker 3 (01:49:59):
Yeah, because you've got to tie it somehow to the first.
And then it's just kind of like, okay, are we've
like kind of lived our lives. We're in like later stages.
It's like that, what's that stupid movie that I hate
to turn it off? It was so bad. No, I
love that movie. That's how Molly in it.

Speaker 1 (01:50:17):
It does.

Speaker 3 (01:50:18):
Smallville supermand it's i can't remember, but it's a uh,
it's some Jack Nicholson's.

Speaker 2 (01:50:25):
In it, the sweetest thing.

Speaker 1 (01:50:28):
Something, Something's gonna get, Something's gonna give it.

Speaker 3 (01:50:31):
Yeah, no matter as good as it gets. Where it's like,
is that the one Dinana.

Speaker 1 (01:50:34):
Keaton I think Something's gotta give is with Doan Kings.
I guess when he is sorry.

Speaker 4 (01:50:38):
We've reached my floor, so I don't have ti to
hear this anymore.

Speaker 3 (01:50:47):
Yeah, this pitch is exactly how my pitch is normally. Okay,
I'm not pitching it anymore. This idea is gold. I'm
gonna take it any Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:51:00):
A show that we wanted to pitch, which was just
every episode as we take a movie and spend the
entire episode just spitballing sequels, and I really I do
want to do that. We should do this.

Speaker 4 (01:51:10):
This has proved anything, It's that it's great.

Speaker 2 (01:51:14):
Yeah, yeah, I mean in mind, I think I think
Sally Goes is putting witness protection because of her role
in Watergate.

Speaker 1 (01:51:20):
Comes out and Harry has Remember he.

Speaker 2 (01:51:24):
Was an attorney, so he's now transitioned into doing uh
because he was consulting I think for the no business consultant. Anyway,
he's transitioned into working with the government now, and he
actually finds Hair Sally's cover. And then Chris Evans and
Sandra Bullock come in as opposing agents from Russia and
the Secret Service or another government wing, and they are

(01:51:47):
both trying to find Sally first, and Harry is in
there too, and Addison Ray is in there and she's yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:51:58):
Yeah, And who else is hot right now?

Speaker 3 (01:52:00):
Now?

Speaker 1 (01:52:01):
Uh? Sally Cross with mister and missus Smith. No, because
now you're making it plausible, and I just want to
make it weird.

Speaker 4 (01:52:10):
Yeah, like maybe she's like Sally's on the run and
Harry's like, I got a helper.

Speaker 3 (01:52:14):
We used to be in love.

Speaker 1 (01:52:15):
And when Thelma met Louise and Harry.

Speaker 4 (01:52:19):
Was there too, and he stopped the car from going
off the cliff.

Speaker 3 (01:52:23):
Audiences love long titles.

Speaker 1 (01:52:25):
They do. Plays Melancholy Baby.

Speaker 3 (01:52:28):
I hear about them.

Speaker 2 (01:52:30):
When Harry met Sally again and they're old. Plays melancholy Baby.

Speaker 1 (01:52:34):
That's that's my title, okayutes five minutes? Final thoughts should
we do it?

Speaker 4 (01:52:40):
Final thoughts for you guys like Jerry Springer.

Speaker 1 (01:52:43):
Jerry Springer, Jerry Springer, Final thoughts.

Speaker 4 (01:52:46):
You know, in a world without chemistry, right, he died.

Speaker 1 (01:52:51):
He did die. Oh yeah, we did an episode on him.
You know, he was a mayor of Cincinnati for a
brief til he lived a life just in pie. Wait
is he can you? I don't know. We did this.
We we did this. We did this The Death of

(01:53:12):
the Boomer Dream.

Speaker 2 (01:53:13):
Yeah, we did this whole episode about how on him,
and I I kind of thought that, like, you know,
he was like more or less like an idealistic young
guy who then became like the most parasitic, lowest common denominator,
feeding the worst impulses of the country, like TV jerk
for just like.

Speaker 1 (01:53:29):
Miles, sitting on piles and piles of his money. So
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:53:34):
Final thoughts anyway, all right, Yeah, final thought is, thank
god Jerry's dead did not have to hear this.

Speaker 1 (01:53:41):
I'll say to his face, like I did up his grain.
Got a board in the Connecticut.

Speaker 3 (01:53:49):
Have Harry and Sally animate his corps so I can
tell him you just like the Jerry met Sally.

Speaker 4 (01:53:57):
Do we need final thoughts after that?

Speaker 1 (01:53:59):
Oh? Well, that that's our pitch. This is okay.

Speaker 3 (01:54:03):
I do have a legitimate final thought. Okay, as much
as I was not into the lack of chemistry. I
will say this movie gives you like some of the
classic rom com tropes that we like crave, like the
scene which I think was on the cover if I
remember seeing the DVD and Blockbuster with like the leaves,

(01:54:25):
the Beautiful fall Leaves, and like New York City. I'm sorry,
New York City is a character.

Speaker 1 (01:54:31):
It is the main character.

Speaker 3 (01:54:32):
It's one of the lead character. It should be credited,
it should be starring New York City.

Speaker 4 (01:54:41):
I don't see New York City and hear a little
bit of New Jazz. I'm not in Okay, I'm out
getting out of here.

Speaker 3 (01:54:48):
This it's not a roma.

Speaker 2 (01:54:50):
Yeah, well, you guys are both writers. Like do you
actually like like the repartee in this movie? Do you
think it qualifies as like a classic of the genre, yeah,
said said.

Speaker 3 (01:55:02):
Think back to it. Yeah. I also, I will say, like,
I think one of the things that kind of holds
me back from loving this movie is that they spend
so little time being attracted to each other, Like so
much of it is just thumbing friends, which I understand
is like the premise, but like comes it's like guy
meets girl. The whole movie is like them like trying

(01:55:22):
to figure out how to be in a relationship or whatever,
and so I think that kind of threw me off.
But I think, I mean, Billy Crystal has that kind
of like kind of like Vince Vannie of like this
always has like something to say, like I feel like
he's Vince Bond before Vince von was around.

Speaker 4 (01:55:37):
But yes, yeah, there's not enough tension in the build up.

Speaker 2 (01:55:41):
I think, yeah, yeah, I would actually agree with that.
There's no there's just no heat in there. You don't
see them like making eyes at each other or kind
of like elevatorizing each.

Speaker 4 (01:55:50):
Other game night, the game night scene, there's like a
little bit of that, like they're like I always brings.

Speaker 3 (01:55:55):
It out in the breakup they had a game.

Speaker 4 (01:55:59):
Yeah, wow, Okay, we solved that breakup is just a rip.

Speaker 1 (01:56:05):
Off now it is.

Speaker 3 (01:56:07):
It really is just copy and paste in the script.

Speaker 1 (01:56:10):
Yeah, well that's our final thought. Yeah. Perfect, you guys.
I'm so sorry, Thank you guys both.

Speaker 2 (01:56:18):
This has been so much fun on this has been
well folks. Thank you for listening to too much information.
Special guest edition with Brooke Siffern and Arisha Skidmore Williams
of podcast Even the Rich.

Speaker 1 (01:56:31):
Be sure to check it out and.

Speaker 2 (01:56:35):
Plays melancholy for baby, I'm really still Harry Connock Jr.
Ladies and gentlemen, Harry Connick Journey to play us out, and.

Speaker 1 (01:56:50):
My name is Harry Connick Jr. We'll get you next time.
Too Much Information was a production of iHeartRadio. The show's
executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtog. The show's
supervising producer is Michael Alder June.

Speaker 2 (01:57:07):
The show was researched, written, and hosted by Jordan Runtog
and Alex Heigel.

Speaker 1 (01:57:11):
With original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra.
If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave
us a review. For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows,

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