July 18, 2025 • 25 mins
Writer and Director of 'Airplane' and 'Top Secret' David Zucker joins the show. Is Colbert’s ouster really a ‘financial decision?’
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listenings KFI AM six forty the bill Handles show
on demand on the iHeartRadio f KFI AM six forty
bill Handle Here on a Friday, July eighteenth, we are
not going to do Foody Friday Day because Neil and
on vacation and so that will it won't happen next
(00:23):
week either because I think Neil has gone all of
next week and no ask Handle Anything segment either because
we simply didn't get it together, because we are so
organized here on the show and we have a huge
reputation for that. Coming up this Sunday is going to
be a fun event at the Fine Arts Theater in
Beverly Hills starting at two o'clock, and there'll be a gentleman.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
There by the name of David Zucker.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Now you may not know his name right off the bat,
but when I talk, I tell you about the movies
that he and his brother have done well, Airplane, Naked Gun,
Top Secret, and on Sundays the double feature of Airplane
and Top Secret, and Jerry and David will be there
and it's four hours of fun movies. So David, thanks
(01:10):
for joining us. Always fun. Hi.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Yeah, you forgot to mention basketball.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Oh and basically that's right, that too.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
I mean, I am so I'm so fascinated by the
stuff that you do. I mean, it is crazy, off
the wall, insane stuff, and it's just everybody who's seen
those movies. I mean, I just I have to hold
my gut in I so hard, but conservatively when well,
it's true, but when you're going to studio the suits,
(01:42):
how do you get something like this sold and get
the money for this?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Oh well it was I guess it was easier forty
years ago. Now I can't get in the door. So
I mean, as you can see, you know they're doing that.
There's a naked gun coming out that I have nothing
to do with it. We wrote a script, wrote a
script with Pat Proft, and so they just rejected it
and somebody else swooped in and took over the franchise.
(02:09):
So it's that's that's Hollywood. Well how did you how
do you not?
Speaker 2 (02:14):
How did you not own the franchise that was your film?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Oh well, you know you have to when you make
these deals. They take everything. I think I even leased
my grandmother for a month to them. And it's so
egregious the way that the studios do things, but they
take all rights in perpetuity in all universes, and you know,
just in case anything is discovered on Mars, they will
(02:39):
be able to you know, put that franchise with you know,
with probably a bad sequel on Mars.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
So that that's part of the filmmaking process. So when
you go hat in hand and beg for money to
make a film, part of it is you give up
every right to everything subsequent to that film.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Right, it was easy. You know, we begged on Airplane
and then after that, uh, you know, we went in
Jerry and Jim and I went in to Paramount and pitch, well,
we'd like to do a movie franchise out of a
failed television series and that was Police Squad. And the
guy says, oh, okay, sure, yeah, go ahead do it.
(03:22):
That's a good idea. That that was the studios. Then
now you know, it's pretty much only franchises remakes big
stars Tom Cruise movies, and I love Tom Cruise movies
by the way, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Mission Predictable, all of those films.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
I really enjoy going to see Tom Cruise movies. You know,
if you want to laugh, watch Impractical Jokers or Self Park.
You know, those guys are original, and they're they're doing
funny stuff and they're not doing uh, you know, they're
not doing sequels and remakes. So I just like anything original,
How long are you going to take it? Go ahead,
(04:03):
go ahead? Even if I want a movie opening, there's
a movie opening I think August first, called The Short Game,
which is, you know, just an original movie. It's not
a haha comedy. But you know, I'd also recommend Freaky
of Friday, which is opening August first. I mean, there's
(04:23):
there are good movies out there.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
But the problem is you're dealing with the studios.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Also when I talk to talk about budgets, because I
remember the first one hundred million dollar budget.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
When I read about.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
It, I go, how can you possibly spend that much
money on a film?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
I mean, how do you just do it?
Speaker 1 (04:42):
And of course today one hundred million dollar movie is
sort of middle of the road, you know, Yeah, so.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
We did, we did. We did Airplane for three point
two million, and then Naked Gun was fourteen million, and
then as they went on they were a little more,
but they were they weren't more than twenty or twenty five.
So you know, the budgets now are are crazy, Yeah,
one of them.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
You know, we're interrupting each other.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Yeah, but but Bill, I want you to know that
I'm more important.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Okay, Yeah, well for buy a long shot. Yeah, you
didn't even have to say thank it.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
But you know, we we you know, we we just
we don't like to spend a lot of money. You know.
Part of doing spoof is not doing not having a
big start, you know, not spending a lot of money.
And we have these rules. So you know, we we
over the course of all our years of doing movies
and kind of we invented this kind of spoof, this
(05:40):
particular genre that we did, and we were able to
do it well. We we evolved fifteen rules and one
of the rules it's called technical bizzazz, and basically it's
don't spend a lot of money on it. So big budget,
big star spoofs are kind of counterproductive.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, you would think you can't. Yeah, you can't do that.
I mean that's impossible. You need you need a action film.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
David Zucker, who he with his brother created films Airplane,
Naked Gun, and.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Just a whole slew of others, is with us.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Basically spoof for movies and on Sunday, Jerry and David
are going to be at the Fine Arts Theater in
Beverly Hills at two o'clock and it's a double feature
and he's going to be four hours of film and
them talking. So David, back we go and talking about
for example, airplane. Let's start with you and your brother,
how did you get into this business and film business?
(06:38):
And who comes up with those crazy ideas that to
this day, for example, the Leslie Nielsen fart scene in
the in the restroom, My god, that's one of the
funniest things I've ever to this day.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
I laughed that just thinking about it.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
You know, we like to come up with these ideas
that we actually have a label for them, uh, and
we call them driving instructors. Because in The Naked Gun,
if you remember, there was a scene where Leslie Nielsen
is chasing eye jumps in a car and it's this
girl taking driving lessons from John Houseman. And so if
you if you can think of a great situation like that,
(07:18):
then the jokes kind of write themselves. And that's really
what happened in that scene where Leslie, uh, you know,
had the radio mic on and he's peeing in the back,
and you know, a lot of those a lot of
those jokes, and we don't remember who came up with him.
But you know, we all sit in the room, you know,
Jerry and I and my our partner Jim Abrams and
(07:40):
Pat Proft, who we've been writing with forever, and you know,
when Leslie Nielsen died, they came they started quoting all
these great Leslie Nielsen lines, like like a midget at
a year and I'll have to stand my toes and
you know, and all those lines were written by Pat Proft,
who just comes up. I don't know how he comes
(08:02):
up with those. But otherwise, other than that, we don't
remember who wrote what. And you know, we started out
just you know, with a small theater we had. It
was called Kentucky Fried Theater and we ran it on
Pico Boulevard in West LA and we did that for
five years before we did Kentucky Fried movie. And like
(08:24):
our first and we had no publicity budget, so we
called our first show My Nose. It's just so our
weekly La Times calendar listing would read My Nose runs continuously,
and you know, and that was you know, that pretty
much passed for humor in the in the early seventies,
so we just had so much fun with it. And
(08:44):
then we got into movies.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Let me ask this, when you write a film, and
particularly when you're talking about humor, humor can fall flat.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
That's difficult to do.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Because drama it's good, it's bad, but you don't make
a complete ass out of yourself. Humor, if it isn't funny,
it gets to be terrible.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Do you know what's gonna work and what's not gonna
work when you write a.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Movie, we well, we we do it. I mean, nobody
bats a thousand and we know pretty well what's going
to work because we had this experience in the theater,
you know, being close to audiences, and then what happens
with it's your best guess, and we use these rules
that we we have about doing our brand of spoof comedy,
(09:31):
and uh, you know, we come out with a movie
that's about one hundred minutes long and we preview it
and not everything works. So you know, we don't know everything,
and the audience tells us, you know what, what's funny,
and sometimes things just completely fall flat. But generally, you know,
hopefully you know, we've done a good enough job so
(09:53):
that you know, we come out with eighty minutes of
a great movie and then but there's a lot more
to it, Like you need a good story. The movie
has to be grounded in reality, all these rules. In fact,
I'm doing an online course in you know, doing this
kind of spoof comedy. It's called Mastercrash dot com And
(10:15):
in it I'm describing I just really say, you know,
how the sausage is made, and it really is a
pretty pretty interesting look behind the scenes as to how
we do it. And there is a trick to it.
You can't just you can't just see it. It looks
easy and like, you know, the guy, the guy my
(10:35):
dry cleaner is a big fan of naked gun and
airplane and top secret. But he can't do it. So
a lot of people think that they can. But it's
it's not just a bunch of puns. That's all I
can say.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Yeah, and you're you're probably not very good at dry cleaning,
so I can see how No, I.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Say, he's an expert at that, like some producers are
good at you know, animated show every week, and that's fine,
that's I admire that.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
I had an airplane, Yeah, an airplane. Let me let
me ask this because only on a couple of minutes left.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Leslie Nielsen was a pretty serious actor before Airplane.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Wasn't he?
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (11:17):
And how did you yeah, how did you know he
was going to be this funny? Why did you choose him?
Because this is just straight comedy.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Yeah, because we saw the Poseidon Adventure, We saw you know,
a dozen of his television movies and and bit parts
that he would do, and he appeared to have no
sense of humor at all, and so that's why we
cast him because we thought he and also Robert Stack
seemed like he had no sense of humor. All these guys,
(11:49):
it turns out they're regular humans. They laughed. Leslie had
a wonderful sense of humor. So did Graves and Bridges
and Stack and you know, just but they loved making
fun of themselves. And also they weren't you know, the
thing is, they weren't Oscar quality actors. They were you know,
journeymen actors. They were in B movies, and so you
(12:14):
that's part of what goes into casting. So they were
cheaping and they were cheap, Yes, no, they were cheap. Yeah, yeah,
they were cheap to get right, So is oj.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Yeah, Well, so yeah, I know that was hilarious.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, that is hey, and there's big names that you
did get to do the cameos. I'm assumed that after
your first movies there was no problem getting these people
just to show up on those filies. It maybe even
work for scale.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
That's right. You know, somebody wants to ask me just recently,
how did you get josh A Gabor, And you know,
I just kind of said, well, our agent called up
her agent, and everybody wants to be in a movie,
and you can really get anybody. I mean, so I
worked with James Earl Jones, and I worked, you know,
(13:04):
with a lot of great people, and they were all
nice people. I don't think I ever worked with anybody
that I didn't like. So yeah, like, you know, Mike
Michael Mapson had had a reputation as being a tough guy,
and somebody said, oh, he's going to eat you up alive.
And he came into the first table reading and I
never stopped insulting him, telling him what a terrible actor
(13:25):
he was, and he loved it. And so that's that's
what was our relationship. I love. There's just a way,
there's a way to deal with everybody. So I hope
I've dealt with you the right way.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Yeah, you have, and me You've given me some inside
baseball and some of the stuff.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
It's just fine.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
I mean the stuff that you did is some of
that is the funniest stuff I've ever seen in my
entire life, and I've been around for a while. Okay,
real quickly, you are. Let me let tell people where
you are going. You and your brother are going to
be at the Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills at
two o'clock. It's a double feature. It's airplane and top secret,
(14:01):
and you're gonna be there to answer questions and just.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Make complete as yourself.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Yeah. Any if anybody brings a book, We wrote a
book called Shirley. You can't be serious. That the true
story of airplane. We'll be glad to sign those books
for people love it, you know, yeah, because we're desperate
for attention.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Good for you, all right, Yeah, like you haven't gotten enough, David,
Thank you much. You'll catch you over the weekend on Sunday.
All right, Thanks a love, David Zucker, very very very
funny man, to say the least. Tonight, Dodgers return to
Dodger Stadium take on the Brewers with the first pitch
at seven. Listen to all Dodger games on A M
five seventy l A Sports stream all Dodger games and
(14:42):
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(15:05):
just was eating a very spicy something, going to eat Zelman's,
and it just got to me. We have a story
that is just breaking right now. Amy, you're covering it.
Share with us what's going on.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
So, there's been an explosion at an LA County Sheriff's
training center in East LA. The Sheriff's Department has confirmed
that three deputies have been killed. It happened this morning
around seven thirty at the Biscaloose Center, which is on
Eastern in East LA. The Sheriff's Department and Explosive Unit
(15:36):
is at that location. That's there where they're headquartered. They
do training there. It's not clear if maybe an explosion
happened during any training. It appears that something exploded next
to a bomb squad vehicle again just before seven thirty.
The training center's being cleared out, being evacuated. There are
people there, but we've seen a steady stream of cars
(15:58):
leaving the scene. It's not clear if there's any additional threat.
LA Fire is on the scene again. Three deputies have
been killed in an explosion at an LA Kenny Sheriff's
training center in East LA. And we'll bring you more information.
We're gonna have more with Michael Monks coming up at
the top of the hour with the latest on that.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Big news clearly, so we'll be covering that. Sorry about
the spicy thing that I ate. Wow, boy, it really
hit me. Okay, Stephen Colbert is done. His show Late
Night with Stephen Colbert has been ended or will in
next May when his contract is up. And CBS has
(16:40):
said this was just a financial decision.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Well, this is a story of politics, money, reputation, sales, finances,
I mean, all of it. So let's talk about CBS.
We start with I want to give you a little
history about CBS. CBS was started by a guy the
name of William S. Paley who actually his father was
(17:08):
a cigar maker and was pretty successful and had bought
this little tiny network as one of the business he
bought and turned it over to William Paley, and he
created CBS out of it with the radio and then
went into television.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Just an extraordinary career.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
CBS when I was a kid, was the premier network
by a long shot.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
It was not even close. Its news division.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Walter Cronkite and the reporters Roger Mudd and Dan Rather
all involved with CBS.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Edward R.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Murrow in England during World War Two when he was
broadcasting from London. CBS, I mean this was a news organization,
a company that well, Walter Cronkite was the most trusted
man in America and he was a new he was
a news anchor at CBS. And I'll tell you when
(18:04):
CBS hit its heyday in terms of its reputation as
a news organization in a network, it.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Was nineteen sixty two.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
It reached its height when it brought out the Beverly Hillbillies.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Maybe that told us there was something going on.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Now the company CBS, owned by Paramount is saying not
because of ratings, not because we have any problem with
Stephen Colbert. It's a financial decision, that's it. Now, when
it comes to late night personalities, they rotate through, but
it always is because of ratings, not this one. Colbert
(18:46):
has consistently led competitors in his time slot, and so
this is something rather unusual. Now, one of the things
that CBS is saying is linear television.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
It's on its way down. That's true. But you don't
see the late shows. You don't see the.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Other nighttime shows being canceled, only this one. So how
much of this is actually politics? Keep in mind, CBS
extraordinary corporation has gone from the CBS of your Walter
Cronkite was on sixty Minutes, was created as CBS. I
(19:24):
mean some really high end stuff, and it has gone well,
let's just say there's some real doubts going on. Let's
start with the twenty sixteen that's sort of when trouble
may have started. That was the year that Trump was
elected and the year that summer Sumner Redstone, who owned CBS,
(19:47):
gave control to his daughter, Sherry Redstone, and all of
a sudden, you have a company that.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Is enormous paramount.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
And so Shery Redstone makes it over in twenty twenty three,
and she starts looking for a buyer for the entire
company and does strike a deal in twenty twenty four
with sky Dance. The problem is that merger requires federal approval.
So the other chapter here is during the twenty twenty
four presidential campaign, sixty minutes interviewed Kamala Harris.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
We know this story.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Trump sues CBS personally alleging the network improperly edited her
interview to his well, I guess, eventual political demise or
somehow harming him.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
He won the race.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Anywhere Excerpts off that interviewed aired on different CBS shows.
So Trump sues for twenty billion dollars, and every First
Amendment lawyer out there said, this is ludicrous. This case
has no merit. The everybody edits every interview. You take
(21:02):
a three to five minute interview that's out of a
twenty minute or half an hour or two hour sit down,
and pieces are edited. And what Trump says that CBS
purposely edited her interview to make her look good and
therefore attack the president's presidential campaign.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Okay, go figure ridiculous lawsuit, all right.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
The problem is he wins the November presidential he is
which gives him a role in approving that proposed sky
Dance Paramount merger. And during his first term he had
no problem. He already demonstrated his willingness to use his
power to punish political opponents in the media. I mean
he talked about mainstream media as liars, the crooked media.
(21:54):
I mean saw press conferences or rallies that were covered
obviously by media, and he would point to the media
part of it at the back of the auditorium he
or the back of the event, and go, this is
fake news. This is what these do. This is they
lie about us in this campaign. And people would turn
(22:15):
around in bow like crazy. So what does CBS do
like caves? It caves, And what it does is payoff
Trump now not very much money, sixteen million dollars to
settle the lawsuit and not directly. It's to pay legal
(22:36):
fees to contribute to his future presidential library. And Trumps
said the deal also includes quote advertising for public service
announcements that boost his approved causes. Paramount denies all this.
This has nothing to do with our sale to Skydance.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Nothing. The two are completely separate.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
The president as when he was screaming and suing CBS
and was going to stop. We had news that he
did not like that merger. All of a sudden he
seems favorably disposed towards the merger, and last month he
spoke very highly of sky Dance had David Ellison, who
(23:23):
was the son of Larry Ellison, who has this little
company called Oracle, and Trump and Larry Ellison are pals.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Now, this is not out of the blue. Look at
the universities that have caved.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Look at what's going on Columbia University, Yale. The only
one that's really standing up is Harvard. And the threat
is if Harvard doesn't change its wokeness, its DEI programs,
Trump is going to remove its accreditation. Harvard is not
(24:03):
going to be an accredited college or university.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
It's not caving. The point is, do we really believe.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
I don't that there's no connection between CBS caving and
giving Trump and his organization his proposed Presidential Library sixteen
million dollars, the merger going through.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
And who was one of.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
The biggest detractors, the biggest attackers of Donald Trump since
his first go round, Stephen Colbert.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Oh, what a coincidence?
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Colbert every night would rip into Donald Trump and somehow none.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Of these pieces are connected at all. Okay, that's what
they're saying. Let's say it. We're done, guys. Monday, I
gonna do.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
The Alcatraz story because it's a real good one. Yesterday
the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, took a little tour through Alcatraz.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
By the way, no one knew about it.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
She just sort of shows up and goes through the
tourist stuff. You ever, I don't know if you've ever
been to Alcatraz as a tourist. It is really fascinating stuff.
All Right, Gary and Shannon up next, and then tomorrow
morning eight to eleven o'clock its Handle on the Law.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Have a good weekend.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
This is KFI AM six point forty. You've been listening
to the Bill Handle Show. Catch my show Monday through
Friday six am to nine am, and anytime on demand
on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listenings KFI AM six forty the bill Handles show
on demand on the iHeartRadio f KFI AM six forty
bill Handle Here on a Friday, July eighteenth, we are
not going to do Foody Friday Day because Neil and
on vacation and so that will it won't happen next
(00:23):
week either because I think Neil has gone all of
next week and no ask Handle Anything segment either because
we simply didn't get it together, because we are so
organized here on the show and we have a huge
reputation for that. Coming up this Sunday is going to
be a fun event at the Fine Arts Theater in
Beverly Hills starting at two o'clock, and there'll be a gentleman.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
There by the name of David Zucker.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Now you may not know his name right off the bat,
but when I talk, I tell you about the movies
that he and his brother have done well, Airplane, Naked Gun,
Top Secret, and on Sundays the double feature of Airplane
and Top Secret, and Jerry and David will be there
and it's four hours of fun movies. So David, thanks
(01:10):
for joining us. Always fun. Hi.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Yeah, you forgot to mention basketball.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Oh and basically that's right, that too.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
I mean, I am so I'm so fascinated by the
stuff that you do. I mean, it is crazy, off
the wall, insane stuff, and it's just everybody who's seen
those movies. I mean, I just I have to hold
my gut in I so hard, but conservatively when well,
it's true, but when you're going to studio the suits,
(01:42):
how do you get something like this sold and get
the money for this?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Oh well it was I guess it was easier forty
years ago. Now I can't get in the door. So
I mean, as you can see, you know they're doing that.
There's a naked gun coming out that I have nothing
to do with it. We wrote a script, wrote a
script with Pat Proft, and so they just rejected it
and somebody else swooped in and took over the franchise.
(02:09):
So it's that's that's Hollywood. Well how did you how
do you not?
Speaker 2 (02:14):
How did you not own the franchise that was your film?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Oh well, you know you have to when you make
these deals. They take everything. I think I even leased
my grandmother for a month to them. And it's so
egregious the way that the studios do things, but they
take all rights in perpetuity in all universes, and you know,
just in case anything is discovered on Mars, they will
(02:39):
be able to you know, put that franchise with you know,
with probably a bad sequel on Mars.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
So that that's part of the filmmaking process. So when
you go hat in hand and beg for money to
make a film, part of it is you give up
every right to everything subsequent to that film.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Right, it was easy. You know, we begged on Airplane
and then after that, uh, you know, we went in
Jerry and Jim and I went in to Paramount and pitch, well,
we'd like to do a movie franchise out of a
failed television series and that was Police Squad. And the
guy says, oh, okay, sure, yeah, go ahead do it.
(03:22):
That's a good idea. That that was the studios. Then
now you know, it's pretty much only franchises remakes big
stars Tom Cruise movies, and I love Tom Cruise movies
by the way, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Mission Predictable, all of those films.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
I really enjoy going to see Tom Cruise movies. You know,
if you want to laugh, watch Impractical Jokers or Self Park.
You know, those guys are original, and they're they're doing
funny stuff and they're not doing uh, you know, they're
not doing sequels and remakes. So I just like anything original,
How long are you going to take it? Go ahead,
(04:03):
go ahead? Even if I want a movie opening, there's
a movie opening I think August first, called The Short Game,
which is, you know, just an original movie. It's not
a haha comedy. But you know, I'd also recommend Freaky
of Friday, which is opening August first. I mean, there's
(04:23):
there are good movies out there.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
But the problem is you're dealing with the studios.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Also when I talk to talk about budgets, because I
remember the first one hundred million dollar budget.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
When I read about.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
It, I go, how can you possibly spend that much
money on a film?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
I mean, how do you just do it?
Speaker 1 (04:42):
And of course today one hundred million dollar movie is
sort of middle of the road, you know, Yeah, so.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
We did, we did. We did Airplane for three point
two million, and then Naked Gun was fourteen million, and
then as they went on they were a little more,
but they were they weren't more than twenty or twenty five.
So you know, the budgets now are are crazy, Yeah,
one of them.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
You know, we're interrupting each other.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Yeah, but but Bill, I want you to know that
I'm more important.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Okay, Yeah, well for buy a long shot. Yeah, you
didn't even have to say thank it.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
But you know, we we you know, we we just
we don't like to spend a lot of money. You know.
Part of doing spoof is not doing not having a
big start, you know, not spending a lot of money.
And we have these rules. So you know, we we
over the course of all our years of doing movies
and kind of we invented this kind of spoof, this
(05:40):
particular genre that we did, and we were able to
do it well. We we evolved fifteen rules and one
of the rules it's called technical bizzazz, and basically it's
don't spend a lot of money on it. So big budget,
big star spoofs are kind of counterproductive.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, you would think you can't. Yeah, you can't do that.
I mean that's impossible. You need you need a action film.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
David Zucker, who he with his brother created films Airplane,
Naked Gun, and.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Just a whole slew of others, is with us.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Basically spoof for movies and on Sunday, Jerry and David
are going to be at the Fine Arts Theater in
Beverly Hills at two o'clock and it's a double feature
and he's going to be four hours of film and
them talking. So David, back we go and talking about
for example, airplane. Let's start with you and your brother,
how did you get into this business and film business?
(06:38):
And who comes up with those crazy ideas that to
this day, for example, the Leslie Nielsen fart scene in
the in the restroom, My god, that's one of the
funniest things I've ever to this day.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
I laughed that just thinking about it.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
You know, we like to come up with these ideas
that we actually have a label for them, uh, and
we call them driving instructors. Because in The Naked Gun,
if you remember, there was a scene where Leslie Nielsen
is chasing eye jumps in a car and it's this
girl taking driving lessons from John Houseman. And so if
you if you can think of a great situation like that,
(07:18):
then the jokes kind of write themselves. And that's really
what happened in that scene where Leslie, uh, you know,
had the radio mic on and he's peeing in the back,
and you know, a lot of those a lot of
those jokes, and we don't remember who came up with him.
But you know, we all sit in the room, you know,
Jerry and I and my our partner Jim Abrams and
(07:40):
Pat Proft, who we've been writing with forever, and you know,
when Leslie Nielsen died, they came they started quoting all
these great Leslie Nielsen lines, like like a midget at
a year and I'll have to stand my toes and
you know, and all those lines were written by Pat Proft,
who just comes up. I don't know how he comes
(08:02):
up with those. But otherwise, other than that, we don't
remember who wrote what. And you know, we started out
just you know, with a small theater we had. It
was called Kentucky Fried Theater and we ran it on
Pico Boulevard in West LA and we did that for
five years before we did Kentucky Fried movie. And like
(08:24):
our first and we had no publicity budget, so we
called our first show My Nose. It's just so our
weekly La Times calendar listing would read My Nose runs continuously,
and you know, and that was you know, that pretty
much passed for humor in the in the early seventies,
so we just had so much fun with it. And
(08:44):
then we got into movies.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Let me ask this, when you write a film, and
particularly when you're talking about humor, humor can fall flat.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
That's difficult to do.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Because drama it's good, it's bad, but you don't make
a complete ass out of yourself. Humor, if it isn't funny,
it gets to be terrible.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Do you know what's gonna work and what's not gonna
work when you write a.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Movie, we well, we we do it. I mean, nobody
bats a thousand and we know pretty well what's going
to work because we had this experience in the theater,
you know, being close to audiences, and then what happens
with it's your best guess, and we use these rules
that we we have about doing our brand of spoof comedy,
(09:31):
and uh, you know, we come out with a movie
that's about one hundred minutes long and we preview it
and not everything works. So you know, we don't know everything,
and the audience tells us, you know what, what's funny,
and sometimes things just completely fall flat. But generally, you know,
hopefully you know, we've done a good enough job so
(09:53):
that you know, we come out with eighty minutes of
a great movie and then but there's a lot more
to it, Like you need a good story. The movie
has to be grounded in reality, all these rules. In fact,
I'm doing an online course in you know, doing this
kind of spoof comedy. It's called Mastercrash dot com And
(10:15):
in it I'm describing I just really say, you know,
how the sausage is made, and it really is a
pretty pretty interesting look behind the scenes as to how
we do it. And there is a trick to it.
You can't just you can't just see it. It looks
easy and like, you know, the guy, the guy my
(10:35):
dry cleaner is a big fan of naked gun and
airplane and top secret. But he can't do it. So
a lot of people think that they can. But it's
it's not just a bunch of puns. That's all I
can say.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Yeah, and you're you're probably not very good at dry cleaning,
so I can see how No, I.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Say, he's an expert at that, like some producers are
good at you know, animated show every week, and that's fine,
that's I admire that.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
I had an airplane, Yeah, an airplane. Let me let
me ask this because only on a couple of minutes left.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Leslie Nielsen was a pretty serious actor before Airplane.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Wasn't he?
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (11:17):
And how did you yeah, how did you know he
was going to be this funny? Why did you choose him?
Because this is just straight comedy.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Yeah, because we saw the Poseidon Adventure, We saw you know,
a dozen of his television movies and and bit parts
that he would do, and he appeared to have no
sense of humor at all, and so that's why we
cast him because we thought he and also Robert Stack
seemed like he had no sense of humor. All these guys,
(11:49):
it turns out they're regular humans. They laughed. Leslie had
a wonderful sense of humor. So did Graves and Bridges
and Stack and you know, just but they loved making
fun of themselves. And also they weren't you know, the
thing is, they weren't Oscar quality actors. They were you know,
journeymen actors. They were in B movies, and so you
(12:14):
that's part of what goes into casting. So they were
cheaping and they were cheap, Yes, no, they were cheap. Yeah, yeah,
they were cheap to get right, So is oj.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Yeah, Well, so yeah, I know that was hilarious.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, that is hey, and there's big names that you
did get to do the cameos. I'm assumed that after
your first movies there was no problem getting these people
just to show up on those filies. It maybe even
work for scale.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
That's right. You know, somebody wants to ask me just recently,
how did you get josh A Gabor, And you know,
I just kind of said, well, our agent called up
her agent, and everybody wants to be in a movie,
and you can really get anybody. I mean, so I
worked with James Earl Jones, and I worked, you know,
(13:04):
with a lot of great people, and they were all
nice people. I don't think I ever worked with anybody
that I didn't like. So yeah, like, you know, Mike
Michael Mapson had had a reputation as being a tough guy,
and somebody said, oh, he's going to eat you up alive.
And he came into the first table reading and I
never stopped insulting him, telling him what a terrible actor
(13:25):
he was, and he loved it. And so that's that's
what was our relationship. I love. There's just a way,
there's a way to deal with everybody. So I hope
I've dealt with you the right way.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Yeah, you have, and me You've given me some inside
baseball and some of the stuff.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
It's just fine.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
I mean the stuff that you did is some of
that is the funniest stuff I've ever seen in my
entire life, and I've been around for a while. Okay,
real quickly, you are. Let me let tell people where
you are going. You and your brother are going to
be at the Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills at
two o'clock. It's a double feature. It's airplane and top secret,
(14:01):
and you're gonna be there to answer questions and just.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Make complete as yourself.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Yeah. Any if anybody brings a book, We wrote a
book called Shirley. You can't be serious. That the true
story of airplane. We'll be glad to sign those books
for people love it, you know, yeah, because we're desperate
for attention.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Good for you, all right, Yeah, like you haven't gotten enough, David,
Thank you much. You'll catch you over the weekend on Sunday.
All right, Thanks a love, David Zucker, very very very
funny man, to say the least. Tonight, Dodgers return to
Dodger Stadium take on the Brewers with the first pitch
at seven. Listen to all Dodger games on A M
five seventy l A Sports stream all Dodger games and
(14:42):
HD on the iHeartRadio app. The keyword AM five seventy
l A Sports brought to you by Navian High Efficiency
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E n I n C Navian Inc. For Wow, I
(15:05):
just was eating a very spicy something, going to eat Zelman's,
and it just got to me. We have a story
that is just breaking right now. Amy, you're covering it.
Share with us what's going on.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
So, there's been an explosion at an LA County Sheriff's
training center in East LA. The Sheriff's Department has confirmed
that three deputies have been killed. It happened this morning
around seven thirty at the Biscaloose Center, which is on
Eastern in East LA. The Sheriff's Department and Explosive Unit
(15:36):
is at that location. That's there where they're headquartered. They
do training there. It's not clear if maybe an explosion
happened during any training. It appears that something exploded next
to a bomb squad vehicle again just before seven thirty.
The training center's being cleared out, being evacuated. There are
people there, but we've seen a steady stream of cars
(15:58):
leaving the scene. It's not clear if there's any additional threat.
LA Fire is on the scene again. Three deputies have
been killed in an explosion at an LA Kenny Sheriff's
training center in East LA. And we'll bring you more information.
We're gonna have more with Michael Monks coming up at
the top of the hour with the latest on that.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Big news clearly, so we'll be covering that. Sorry about
the spicy thing that I ate. Wow, boy, it really
hit me. Okay, Stephen Colbert is done. His show Late
Night with Stephen Colbert has been ended or will in
next May when his contract is up. And CBS has
(16:40):
said this was just a financial decision.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Well, this is a story of politics, money, reputation, sales, finances,
I mean, all of it. So let's talk about CBS.
We start with I want to give you a little
history about CBS. CBS was started by a guy the
name of William S. Paley who actually his father was
(17:08):
a cigar maker and was pretty successful and had bought
this little tiny network as one of the business he
bought and turned it over to William Paley, and he
created CBS out of it with the radio and then
went into television.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Just an extraordinary career.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
CBS when I was a kid, was the premier network
by a long shot.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
It was not even close. Its news division.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Walter Cronkite and the reporters Roger Mudd and Dan Rather
all involved with CBS.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Edward R.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Murrow in England during World War Two when he was
broadcasting from London. CBS, I mean this was a news organization,
a company that well, Walter Cronkite was the most trusted
man in America and he was a new he was
a news anchor at CBS. And I'll tell you when
(18:04):
CBS hit its heyday in terms of its reputation as
a news organization in a network, it.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Was nineteen sixty two.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
It reached its height when it brought out the Beverly Hillbillies.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Maybe that told us there was something going on.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Now the company CBS, owned by Paramount is saying not
because of ratings, not because we have any problem with
Stephen Colbert. It's a financial decision, that's it. Now, when
it comes to late night personalities, they rotate through, but
it always is because of ratings, not this one. Colbert
(18:46):
has consistently led competitors in his time slot, and so
this is something rather unusual. Now, one of the things
that CBS is saying is linear television.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
It's on its way down. That's true. But you don't
see the late shows. You don't see the.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Other nighttime shows being canceled, only this one. So how
much of this is actually politics? Keep in mind, CBS
extraordinary corporation has gone from the CBS of your Walter
Cronkite was on sixty Minutes, was created as CBS. I
(19:24):
mean some really high end stuff, and it has gone well,
let's just say there's some real doubts going on. Let's
start with the twenty sixteen that's sort of when trouble
may have started. That was the year that Trump was
elected and the year that summer Sumner Redstone, who owned CBS,
(19:47):
gave control to his daughter, Sherry Redstone, and all of
a sudden, you have a company that.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Is enormous paramount.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
And so Shery Redstone makes it over in twenty twenty three,
and she starts looking for a buyer for the entire
company and does strike a deal in twenty twenty four
with sky Dance. The problem is that merger requires federal approval.
So the other chapter here is during the twenty twenty
four presidential campaign, sixty minutes interviewed Kamala Harris.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
We know this story.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Trump sues CBS personally alleging the network improperly edited her
interview to his well, I guess, eventual political demise or
somehow harming him.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
He won the race.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Anywhere Excerpts off that interviewed aired on different CBS shows.
So Trump sues for twenty billion dollars, and every First
Amendment lawyer out there said, this is ludicrous. This case
has no merit. The everybody edits every interview. You take
(21:02):
a three to five minute interview that's out of a
twenty minute or half an hour or two hour sit down,
and pieces are edited. And what Trump says that CBS
purposely edited her interview to make her look good and
therefore attack the president's presidential campaign.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Okay, go figure ridiculous lawsuit, all right.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
The problem is he wins the November presidential he is
which gives him a role in approving that proposed sky
Dance Paramount merger. And during his first term he had
no problem. He already demonstrated his willingness to use his
power to punish political opponents in the media. I mean
he talked about mainstream media as liars, the crooked media.
(21:54):
I mean saw press conferences or rallies that were covered
obviously by media, and he would point to the media
part of it at the back of the auditorium he
or the back of the event, and go, this is
fake news. This is what these do. This is they
lie about us in this campaign. And people would turn
(22:15):
around in bow like crazy. So what does CBS do
like caves? It caves, And what it does is payoff
Trump now not very much money, sixteen million dollars to
settle the lawsuit and not directly. It's to pay legal
(22:36):
fees to contribute to his future presidential library. And Trumps
said the deal also includes quote advertising for public service
announcements that boost his approved causes. Paramount denies all this.
This has nothing to do with our sale to Skydance.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Nothing. The two are completely separate.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
The president as when he was screaming and suing CBS
and was going to stop. We had news that he
did not like that merger. All of a sudden he
seems favorably disposed towards the merger, and last month he
spoke very highly of sky Dance had David Ellison, who
(23:23):
was the son of Larry Ellison, who has this little
company called Oracle, and Trump and Larry Ellison are pals.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Now, this is not out of the blue. Look at
the universities that have caved.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Look at what's going on Columbia University, Yale. The only
one that's really standing up is Harvard. And the threat
is if Harvard doesn't change its wokeness, its DEI programs,
Trump is going to remove its accreditation. Harvard is not
(24:03):
going to be an accredited college or university.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
It's not caving. The point is, do we really believe.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
I don't that there's no connection between CBS caving and
giving Trump and his organization his proposed Presidential Library sixteen
million dollars, the merger going through.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
And who was one of.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
The biggest detractors, the biggest attackers of Donald Trump since
his first go round, Stephen Colbert.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Oh, what a coincidence?
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Colbert every night would rip into Donald Trump and somehow none.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Of these pieces are connected at all. Okay, that's what
they're saying. Let's say it. We're done, guys. Monday, I
gonna do.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
The Alcatraz story because it's a real good one. Yesterday
the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, took a little tour through Alcatraz.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
By the way, no one knew about it.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
She just sort of shows up and goes through the
tourist stuff. You ever, I don't know if you've ever
been to Alcatraz as a tourist. It is really fascinating stuff.
All Right, Gary and Shannon up next, and then tomorrow
morning eight to eleven o'clock its Handle on the Law.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Have a good weekend.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
This is KFI AM six point forty. You've been listening
to the Bill Handle Show. Catch my show Monday through
Friday six am to nine am, and anytime on demand
on the iHeartRadio app.
The Bill Handel Show News
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