Episode 1: Oh! Heavenly Dog (1980)

Mark Begley (Wake Up Heavy), Chris Stachiw (The Kulturecast), and Mike White (The Projection Booth) host the Chasing Chevy Chase Podcast! Join us on an exciting journey through the illustrious career of this comedy icon as we explore his groundbreaking roles, behind-the-scenes stories, and timeless contributions to the world of entertainment.

On our official first episode we're discussing Joe Camp and his Benji Empire which includes the film Oh! Heavenly Dog (1980) in which Chevy plays a private dick who is killed on a case and gets sent back to Earth not as Warren Beatty but Benji the dog.  He tries to solve the case of his own murder and continue wooing Jane Seymour. 

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Weir in. Hello everyone, I'mwelcome to the Chasing Chevy Podcast, a

(00:46):
podcast where we chase down Chevy Chaseand ask him questions and he doesn't respond.
No, that's not what we're doingon the show. We're gonna be
talking about the films of Chevy Chasethat we are contending are his vehicle films.
No, not the movies where he'sin cars, but the movies where
he is the star. I amjoined by not well, who am I?
Who am I? You ask?This is not ranking on bass.
I am the host of the CultureCast, Chris Stashue, and I'm joined

(01:08):
by my two good friends all theway from the projection booth. You have
heard him when we talked about foulplay on Mark Begley's Wake Up Heavy.
Who's also here, Mike White,What a weird introduction? Yes, yes
it is, yeah, no sense? Yeah? And also Mark Begley from
Wake Up Heavy is here stamps withanimals? Yes, I believe we do.

(01:32):
And on this episode of the ChasingChevy Podcast, we're kicking it off
by taking a look at a filmthat everybody remembers and it's and remembers so
fondly and oh don't you remember thefirst time you watched Oh Heavenly Dog.
I sure don't nep. That's right. On this episode, we're kicking off
our show with a look at nineteeneighties fantasy comedy film comedy question mark Oh

(01:52):
Heavenly Dog. It's not a talkingcat. There's no question marking there,
it's just oh exclaimed, haven't lived? Oh? I know. I did
the line reading intentionally incorrect, hopingone of you would come to it's not
there's no marks, And now I'vefell into your trap. You made the
classic thunder. How folly is you? That's right. The film is directed

(02:17):
by Joe Camp, written by RodBrowning and Joe Camp, and its stars
Chevy Chase, Jane Seymour and Everybody'sfavorite dog from the eighties and seventies.
I guess at least, Mike,I know, Mike, you're a fan
of the the Benji films, andChevy Chase plays character named Benjamin, who

(02:38):
is a private detective who is hiredfor a job that is not what it
seems, only to be murdered andcomes back to life as a dog that
that happens to keep running into JaneSeymour, at least before he dies,
but after he dies, he becomesattached to the hip by Jane Seymour's author
character, who is now investigating themurder of chevy Chase and the and that

(03:00):
chevy Chase was hired to protect,who turns out to be a parlem budding
parliamentarian's girl. For it, therewill be spoilers this movie, however.
It's from nineteen eighty so it's beena while, and it's also on YouTube
if you want to watch it inits entirety, which may be the easiest
place to find this movie, becausethis is not a movie that is easy
to find on top of everything else. So Mark, I'll kick it to

(03:23):
you. First first time watching thismovie? What did you think? When
was the first time? If itwasn't this, No, it was,
it was, And I was wonderingbefore watching it. I'm like, wait
a minute, did I watch this? I was looking at the pictures on
IMDb and it sort of looked familiar. Some of the Jane Seymour shots were
ringing a bell and sat down towatch it last night and I was like,

(03:44):
nope, I've never seen this.So it was a first time watch
and possibly last time watch. OhI didn't quite enjoy it as much as
I was hoping. Unfortunately, youseem really disappointed that you didn't like it,
like I see. Yeah, yeah, you seem a little disappointed that
you didn't enjoy it. I was, Yeah, I don't know. Something

(04:05):
about his inner monologue the whole timejust did not work for me. Oh,
I think it's pretty obvious what's wrongwith the inner monologue. But I'm
sure we'll get to it. Mike, what about you? What did you
think of? Oh, Heavenly Dog? This is not my first time seeing
this. I grew up on theBenchi movies. So the first Benching movie

(04:25):
came out when I was two yearsold, and so Benji has pretty much
been a part of my life sinceI was growing up. So I think
I remember. I think they showedthis to us in school. I mean
it feels like they wheeled in notthe projector, but like the VCR,
because I remember we watched some weirdshit when I was in elementary school,

(04:46):
like Escape from Which Mountain and Returnto Which Mountain? And I want to
say, even though there are afew expletives in this, I mean this
was the nineteen seventies, we wereokay, you know, having shit in
our PG or G did movie andthis one I think is a PG,
right all those years ago, sobecause it's pretty adult for that was one

(05:10):
of the things that took me bysurprise. I was like, Oh,
this isn't like a Binge movie rightright, they're playing to an older audience
here, but you that was andhad tits in it, like it's yeah,
I mean Jaws was PG. Imean this this fits as a PG.
And yeah, this is before Reagantook office, so I guess we're

(05:32):
still okay without having the Nanny State. So yeah, I I don't know
how many times I've watched this,but watching it again yesterday for the show,
I was just like, oh,yeah, all of this is very
familiar to me. I think Iremembered even who the murderer was. But
this is the Omar Shariff appearance thatI grew up with. Even more than

(05:57):
top Secret. This was the thefirst time I think I saw Jane Seymour,
even before I saw her as Dominoin Live and Let Die and Doctor
Quinn Medicine Woman. I mean,this was it for me. This was
a big deal. Movie came outI guess when I was eight years old,
and yeah, I remember watching itquite a bit and Benji just being

(06:19):
a major celeb back then, andI didn't realize like this whole thing of
Joe Camp being the Benji director butalso working on some other things as well.
But and then even his son isnow in the Benji business. There
was a twenty eighteen Benji film thathis son directed, Brandon, And I

(06:42):
mean, obviously it's not the sameBenji. I think even the Benji that
was in the first Benji film innineteen seventy four isn't the same Benji as
this. But yeah, and Ifor some reason, I always had it
in my head like, oh,well, Benji is a French star Benji
and Jean and uh, he wasa huge phenomenon in France. No,

(07:05):
that's not the case. He's instead, he's what He's got two trainers in
one of them. He's just gotthis huge mustache, big fat guy.
Where's a captain's hat around and thesecrazy red pants and just yeah, to
watch the background on Benji, becausethere was a TV special made around both

(07:27):
this and the he did a MarineLand special as well, So watching that
hosted by Adam Rich, who Istill dislike to this, I don't know
what it was about Adam Rich.Maybe it was his haircut, I don't
know, but yeah, that wasa little turd on eight is enough.
It was a little turret. Hekind of reminds me of like a Cousin

(07:49):
Oliver type of kid, which islike, get this guy out of here.
Wasn't even on Battlestar Galactica. Sothat we're changing this from the Chevy
Chase cast to the eye Adam Rich. Isn't ironic that Adam Rich's final role
was in Dicky Roberts Former Child Star. That's a real that's real. It

(08:11):
is real. I can't remember ifI ever saw that movie, but I
think about it. Hey, anyany movie that is considered David Spade vehicle
can only be one of two thingsbad or really bad. Well, I
do like some Joe Dirt, atleast the original, not the deer tay
you mean, So, I guesswe kinda we didn't see we jumped the

(08:35):
gun a little bit. But ifyou listen to our foul play episode over
on Mark show Wake Up Heavy,you probably have a better idea of us
as as Chevy Chase fans are wherewe come in at it. But I
would say the three of us considerourselves fans of chevy Chase, right,
all from maybe different angles or approachesor things that got us into chevy Chase.

(08:56):
Mike, would this be the thingthe first? Like chevy Chase,
this us had been the first chevyChase thing you ever saw, right?
I mean I might have seen foulPlay before this, but yeah, this
was probably the one that really gotme in there. I mean, I
remember watching a little SNL in themid seventies, but it was probably later

(09:16):
seventies, probably like around the timeof foul Play, So I don't even
know if he was still on SNLat that time. What about you,
Mark? It would have been becauseof SNL, even though I didn't really
watch it. It was such aphenomenon that a lot of kids, you
know, got wrapped up and stufflike Coneheads and land Shark and King Tut

(09:37):
and all that stuff that just permeatedpopular cultures. So I know that I
was into all of these guys andwanted to see the movies that they were
in, and this one just passedme by. But chevy Chase is the
one person that I have had asigned picture of I wrote to him.

(09:58):
I don't know how or where Isent my request, but I think I
did him and Steve Martin and acouple of those other Saturday Night Live guys,
and I'm pretty sure he's the onlyone that or his assistant sent me
a signed headshot of Chivvy Chase.Wow. No, I think it ended

(10:18):
up. I think it was inthat Saturday Night Live book. I don't
know if you remember this mic,but for my show Cambridge and was Sean,
it did an episode on my SaturdayLive Obsession and I had I had
a book when I was a kid, and I've been trying to track it
down for years and finally found itonline on the Internet archive and my made
a PDF of it for me,and then I ended up buying it on

(10:41):
eBay anyway, but I think Ihad it stored in that book, and
that book is long the one Ihad as a kid is long gone.
So yeah, I was a fanof his just because of Saturday A Live,
and I was I'm a little bitolder than you, Mike, but
I never really watched it because itwas on so late and it was kind
of adult and you know, withcast things. Every once in a while,
if my parents went out later,something that we had a babysitter,

(11:05):
and so I mean he was onlyin the first season and maybe the first
six or so episodes of the secondseason, so I probably didn't. And
that was seventy five seventy six,so I would have been like six and
seven years old, So I don'tthink I even saw him on Sora Alive
until years later when you boil downhis presence on Saturday Night Live. It
is shocking how much of an impacthe made with as little time as he

(11:30):
was on the show. But Ithink that speaks to Chevy Chase. I
mean again, we've we talked onthe foul Play episode a little bit about
him and his whatever's Like, Imean again, like guy's never been accused
of any of the really bad stuffin Hollywood, thankfully. I mean,
I don't think we'd be doing anentire show about somebody who had like hundreds
of allegations against them of any sortof really upsetting type. But it's just

(11:50):
the usual, like just you know, creative and personality and ego things getting
in the way. So you know, again we kind of already mentioned it,
but like he made such an impactwith such a little amount of time.
I mean, the first thing Isaw him in was Fletch. That
made it a huge impact on mepersonally. And it's not that I went
and tracked down all the other movieshe was in because of Fletch, but

(12:11):
I just rewatched Fletch a lot.I just rewatched that one movie and then
the sequel, so that was myentry point. And I watched Fletch on
dives of all things, I rememberowning it on DiveX, that in the
sequel, and that being one ofthose DiveX movies that was actually purchased so
that it could be rewatched over andover again, because that was the whole

(12:33):
scam slash gimmick with those things wasoh, pay us ten bucks and you
can watch the thing you bought again. Okay, I don't know, like
in this day and age with allthe stuff in people's houses that has to
have subscriptions anyways, Like now itkind of makes sense. But then it
was like, Okay, this isweird. I had never seen this,

(12:54):
though I had seen it come upa couple times as like a thing that
I was going to watch or shouldwatch, or had thought about it.
I know, we'd talked about itbefore, like it had come up like
oh, Heavenly Dog a couple times, like we had just talked about it
in passing, So it's weird tofinally be watching it. Uh. That
being said, I kind of amin the middle, like I could see,

(13:18):
Mike, why if you saw thisat the right age, it would
be not like something fun, butsomething that has like a level level of
memorability to it, because there aresome things that are mildly memorable. The
dog parts, the parts in Heaven, I think are kind of interesting.
Star Wars, Star Wars Heaven,Oh my yeah, that was hilarious.

(13:39):
Yeah. When my wife and Iwere watching it, I was like,
oh, look, this movie cameout just a little bit around the time
of Star Wars, didn't it.I didn't even have to know that this
movie came out in eighty When theymake that Star Wars, everything was like,
man, this was such a thing, but it I don't know.
It's also weird to now be livingin a time where like Star Wars is
still a fucking thing, because innineteen eighty I don't think if you would

(14:00):
them like, oh, by theway, we're still burdened with Star Wars
in twenty twenty three, Like yeah, right, you are so found I
found the movie to have its charms, but Chevy Chase is ultimately the reason
this movie doesn't work because all ofthat fucking narration is just like, dude,

(14:20):
where is the effort? What areyou doing? Like, uh,
it's pretty bad. I'm a dognow? Like what in it? Oh,
it's weird, like there's it's obviousthat he went back in and re
recorded it, which is the case, but it just doesn't seem like his
heart was in it in some ofthose line readings. Harry Harrison Ford in

(14:43):
in Blade Runner. Yeah yeah,yeah, Harrison Ford and Blade Runner is
like Shakespeare compared to this. Yeah, this is I mean this, this
actively impedes my ability to enjoy themovie because it's like, Chevy, if
I'm expected to take you as thedog at the moment, make it seem

(15:03):
like it you're oh, I'm adog now? Yup? All right?
What am I doing? Oh?I'm looking at something. Okay, let
me do the line reading. Ohno, watch out, don't hurt me.
Like it's just like there's no emotion. It's like he read it the
way it was written on the pageand he wasn't watching the movie, which
I know was that's how they didthis. They synced it up with the

(15:24):
movie, like he is watching themovie doing the line readings, and it's
just like, man, we're I'mnot saying it would have fixed anything or
everything, but it would have fixedthe latter two thirds of the movie not
working or being funny or I havingI don't know. It's so weird how
bad the line readings are. Itreally gets in the way of my ability

(15:46):
to enjoy parts of I had noreal problems with the line readings it.
I don't know why they assumed thatthey could record the voice over first and
then do the Benji parks, becauseyou don't know exactly how that stuff is
going to go. It's not likethe animation where you can draw to the

(16:06):
voice. The dog won't do thingsto the voice. I mean, the
stuff that Benji is doing here,I think is pretty dark, incredible.
And then yeah, I was gladwatching behind the scenes and seeing things like
him getting kicked out of the hotelor the cartman building brittle down the fucking
stairs. Yeah, but I'm like, oh, okay, so there's one

(16:27):
trainer who's in the lobby calling.There's another trainer who's in this window up
here, and there. It's reallykind of schizophrenic because one's calling, so
Benji looks over here. The otherone calls, so he looks up there
and then back and forth. Sohe's like, you know, contemplating how
he's going to get into this buildingand then looking up at her window,

(16:48):
at the dead woman's window. It'slike, oh, okay, well that's
kind of cool. Before we getto the weird gay parts with Ellen ohs
I love gay characters in the seventiesand eighties. Man, It's like,
it's like, you couldn't exist inreal life, but hey, movies exist,
thank god. It's so weird,like his part just feels so abridged,

(17:11):
and that he died off screen insomeplace, got run over by a
car. Yeah. Yeah. I'mlike, oh my god, why was
this character that you just introduced duringthis one scene? Why did he come
back? Because he adds nothing tothe narrative whatsoever other than saying, oh,
it's the one with the porcelain bird. And I'm like, how do

(17:33):
you even know who this woman is? Because I don't know when you died
in comparison to the Chevy Chase characterto Benjamin, so this is bizarre.
So I don't mean to poke holesin this well thought out narrative or anything,
but it was just a little oddfor me, And it was almost
as odd as her coming back JaneSeymour coming back as a cat at the

(17:55):
very movie, and me just thinkingthis is not Ghostbuster. Yeah, these
are not cats and dogs sleeping together. This is this is a whole other
thing. You ever see an elephantmake love to a pop belly pig?
Are you telling me that in thismovie that they didn't think out the idea
of inner species erotica? I thinkit's called slash fiction. Oh okay.

(18:19):
My daughter and I kind of lookedat each other, like, how is
this supposed to work? Well?I guess it would have been funnier if
he had come back as a ratin terms of logistics. Yeah, yeah.
I did want to point out also, is like, is this a
Benji like origin story? Because atthe end of the movie, he goes,

(18:40):
my friends call me Benji, andit's like, okay, so that's
the dog's name that everybody knows.This dog actor by is Benji. So
are we to believe that every Benjimovie is now it's just Chevy Chase's Benji
and that's why Benji can do humanthings is because it's a human soul trapped
in Benji's by I'm just asking,as they say, I'm just asking questions.

(19:03):
I mean, he says it inthe end, like it's unnecessary for
him to go on Benji at theend. It's like whoa movie. Hold
on a second, I thought itwas first saying what do I call you?
Do I call you bj? Andhe's like, no, because that
sense from blowjob? I don't nameanything known by that. Yeah, so

(19:25):
maybe my real name is Benjamin.And she's like, well, you don't
seem like a Benjamin. How abouta Benji? And I think he says
no to that. Oh, hesays, my friends used to call me
Benji. Okay, Yeah, sothat's what I'm saying, Like, is
it a Benji origin story? Likeyou're I don't think. I don't think
they're trying to ret kon the entireBenji thing. Since the first one had

(19:45):
come out like what six years priorto that, they'd already had like quite
a few things in between. Uhyeah, I don't think we're supposed to
consider every subsequent movie to be ChevyChase inside of Benji. I mean,
I like to I think is Idon't know true, that's true. I
mean, what was that line aboutoutside of a dog, a book is

(20:08):
a man's best friend, but insideof a dog it's way too dark to
read. Yeah, you know,all all of the kind of the weird
is Chevy all of that aside,Like I can I feel like, yes,
the stuff with Chevy Chase is notgreat. But I think to your
point, Mike, like obviously ifyou view this as a Benji move,

(20:32):
I think the Benji stuff is fine. It's just this is a weird way
to get to Benji solves a murder, right, because like, you could
have done this any other way,any multitude of ways, including Benji just
being your dog sidekick that helps youbut doesn't isn't have a human soul in
it, isn't speaking English while you'reagain like speaking English to other animals,

(20:56):
and there's a there's an hierarchical Evaninvolved. You could have just had MGB
somebody's dog that they keep with themlike it, I don't know, like
to get to this point, thewitness to the murderer and well he could
have been that gal's pet and doesn'tsee the murder but how you know,
has to help Chevy. Maybe hejust didn't want to be in the movie,

(21:18):
you know, like, oh Ionly have to shoot a couple of
days. Great, Oh yeah,well that's sit in the studio the rest
of the time. Well yeah,because he had three movies that all came
out in nineteen maybe because this cameout what two weeks or two months?
I think it was two weeks beforeCamby Shack And I wonder how it doesn't
feel like a nineteen eighty movie tome. It feels a little like it

(21:40):
may have been shot a couple ofyears earlier or something. I don't know.
Well, the shitty quality of thevideo does not help either. Oh
yeah, that plus plus all thesets. When he first goes up to
his office, I was like,man, that looks like a TV set.
Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah.I don't think they had a whole
lot of money. Yeah. Inthe other Beni movies, is their narration?

(22:02):
Is there an inner monologue? No? Which makes it really painful because
I tried to watch the first Benjimovie again yesterday, and it's so Benji
has a theme song. Charlie richsings this theme song, and that theme
song just keeps playing over and overand over again as you watch. I
mean, Benji's adorable and he's watchinghim do all this stuff, and he

(22:25):
goes around. He visits like thisfamily where it's this maid and these two
kids, but then they also visitsUncle Joe from Petticoat Junction, which I
didn't realize that Benji had been onPetticoat Junction, and then he also there's
like a few other people, andthen it becomes like this whole kidnapping plot
and stuff, and no, hedoesn't say anything, and there's no v

(22:47):
LEAs over narration, so you're justlike bop like over and over and over
again as you watch Benji just doingstuff, and I'm like, I can't
take this anymore. I can't takethe music, just over and over.
And then I watched that making upthing that Benji worked thing, and at
one point they start playing that song. I'm like, oh my god,
I had flashbous. So it soundslike you wanted the chevy Chase narration.

(23:12):
You wanted Chevy Chase in those helpsIt helps, Yeah, it definitely does.
And he adds a couple little thingsin there. I didn't mind this
one nearly as much as you guyschuckles. I didn't. Again, I
don't think I disliked it. Ijust think it's weird for the star quality

(23:33):
and caliber of chevy Chase, Likethis is not This is not the time
that I would have expected him tobe phoning it in. I guess is
more kind of my thinking, likemaybe if this movie had come out,
like because obviously know how much ofresearch y'all did into movies where people get
reincarnated as dogs. Oh yeah,but I'm a big body swap fan,

(23:55):
so yeah, this might have beenthe origin. There's one in two thousand
and three starring Gary Busey where heis quiggly, and it's like, I
know that these kinds of movies havebeen coming out and that this kind of
movie is popular. So it's notlike, oh, Chevy Chase is making
this movie in two thousand and fourand it's a lark. He's being asked

(24:18):
to do this in nineteen eighty orseventy nine, So it's surprising that he's
phoning it in only because this doesn'tfeel like the time to phone it in.
If he was gonna phone it in, I would expect he would be
phoning it in as he's part ofthe Gary Busey Dog Christian Movie, which
is all of the it's like aChristian dog movie on top of everything else.
At the end, the dog ischriscal Oz Rockins, yeah, and

(24:41):
Oz Perkins is in that movie.Fucking fucking bizarre. They just covered that
on god Awful Movies and I hadnever heard of it before, and I
was like, what is this aprequel to Quickly down Under? But no,
I was like, no, it'sa fucking Heavenly dog rip off.
Yeah, but that's it was onRed Letter Media. That's I know about
it. Uh, best of theWorst or something like that. Oh,

(25:03):
but that's just that's just my againfeelings, just like immediate feelings on all
this is like why was he phoningit in here? Because this is not
like he he's a big star rightnow. This is the moment where his
star power matters, and it's goingto as we do this show, it's
gonna peek at some point and thenwe're gonna have a very long and drawn

(25:23):
out time of just like movies wherewe're like, Okay, they're still casting
Chevy Chase because he's Chevy Chase,but that doesn't hold a lot of water
anymore in terms of like drawing anaudience in right now though not the case
like this movie has made the wayit is because of a movie like foul
Play. No, Like, oh, he's a detective. He was a

(25:44):
cop in that movie. Like they'rethey're literally just looking at something like foul
Play and going that was successful.How can we do that? And it's
like, well, I get youtried, but man, like where was
chevy Chase in all of this?Like why was his head not in it?
That's that's what I wonder, becauseagain, I don't think the plot
and setup of the movie isn't interesting. It's more interesting than it is.

(26:04):
Just kind of wrote, Well,my thought as I was watching it for
the hour and forty three minutes runtime, was you left Saturday Night Live
for this because that was always readingthat book that I have and just you
know, interviews that I've heard overthe years and his kind of beef with

(26:25):
John Belushi and how they were tryingto be you know, the guy and
this was a springboard to other things. And I don't think chevy Chase ever
feels like he's getting the commendations thathe should. And you know, he
was like always listed as head writeror whatever on those early Sarah Live episodes

(26:48):
and left pretty quickly from the showand to do movies, to be a
movie starting that was the goal.And I'm like, yeah, this is
the second thing after foul Play,you know, right on the heels of
of course Caddy Shack and seems likeOld Times both come out the same year
too. But I don't know.That's I missed a lot of the movie
because that's all I kept thinking of, is this is why you left Center.

(27:10):
It was to do this really badnarration for a dog movie. I
don't know. And that's the otherthing that I was wondering while watching this
movie. Would it have been betterif it had been Because I'm not saying
the movie is not funny. Imean again, I don't know how much
of a comedy it ends up being, or in terms of being a film
that tries to elicit some humorous reaction, I didn't find it to be that

(27:33):
funny either, So I was actuallywondering, like, why even cast someone
like Chevy Chase, Like why notcast a different actor? And then I
think the tone may have also beendifferent. It's not that Jane seymour Is
feels like she's in a different movie. But it does feel like there are
two, if not three movies kindof going on within this movie, because
the tone of the Heaven parts isso comedic, and then when he's running

(27:59):
around as the dog, nothing thathe's doing is overtly comedic. But yet
those monologues or you know, thenarration is meant to add those comedic bits,
but because they fail, so Iguess obviously because again, like chevy
Chase has just seemed so disinterested.It's like, well, I would like
to just see this movie if itweren't a comedy, then like just make

(28:19):
it more of like a thriller,like more of a foul play. I
think the thing that I was mostsurprised by in Foul Play was how much
of a noir movie it ended upbeing while still having those comedy bits.
I guess I was kind of assumingthis movie was gonna be more of a
noir movie, and it kind ofwants to be at times, like it
really is trying to be more ofa detective movie than anything else. I

(28:45):
think if it had been that,it might have worked better, even even
with chevy Chase doing kind of isstilted delivery. If it had just not
tried to be funny. They werelike, don't be funny, like,
just just do the foul play thinglike be aloof that. That would work
better. I would have I wouldhave thought it would have worked better for
this movie at least because again it'skind of like foul play with a dog

(29:06):
dog Resurrection egg. Oh, likeyou do explain to me how he runs
into her my happenstance in Paris.I was really confused by all. I
guess that's where the dog that's aboutto get hit by a garbage truck is.
Why Paris though, why why shewas in He ran into her previously

(29:29):
in London and she said she wasgoing to Paris? Did she Okay,
I'm thinking yes, but then likebut leaving? But it also she says
she works for Time magazine, Andthen it feels like she's going to see
that the one really super ultra Britishactor Robert Morley is that the thing.
Yeah, it feels like she's goingto see him there, But at the

(29:52):
same time, I think we seehim back in London later on, I
don't know think. And then alsoshe drives but we don't see her car
on the faery because we had thechunnel at this point, and that made
it look like it's just a longcountry drive between Paris and London. I
was like, where's the faery.Well, they had to use the Elton

(30:14):
John song enough times to my Godthat you mentioned that beingji thing, and
I was thinking, Yeah, theyplayed the hell out of those Elton John
and that one Paul McCartney and Wingsong. It's like, we paid for
these things, We're gonna fucking usethem the whole time. The gag when
he goes to heaven and I'm tryingto remember the name of the actor who's

(30:37):
there to help him out, hejust keeps using all of these acronyms,
and I'm like, Okay, thiswas funny for like five seconds, and
then it just keeps going on fromthere. And the thing though that I
did like about Heaven, well,I like two things. I liked Horny
Sally Kellerman, Yeah, the clerkwith the Princess Leiah buns, so I

(30:57):
guess we're doing even more Star Warsup here. And then I loved having
Lorenzo Music being the voiceover narrator ofthe loudspeaker system, which I thought was
fantastic, which is ironic also becauseLorenzo Music for so many years was the
voice of Garfield before that thief BillMurray came in and stole his valor.

(31:18):
And well, now Chris Pratt iscoming in and stealing everyone's valor because Chris
Pratt is now the voice of Garfield. Chris Pratt voice Chris Pratt. Yes,
just like he did with Mario.I hate mondays, Chris, thanks
for that line reading You're higher Azanadelicious. Uh. Susan Kellerman is is

(31:40):
billed as German clerk, which II which, I'm sure. Yeah,
the the bun thing speaking of Elvira, Susan Kellerman obviously she's She's fun in
this movie. I was wondering ifshe would ever come back, but no,
I kept hoping. She was justsaying a worn dog. I was
like needed to finish their little Yeah, and I liked how she put him

(32:04):
in a body that was going tolike he had to get out of it
by a certain time, so thenwe've got a ticking clock. But really
it's because she wants him to comeback up to heaven so they can stoop.
Yeah, that was great. Shelikes the way he says bastard yes,
it really turns it around. Yeahyeah, yeah, well, and
like again, like I feel like, you know, obviously, if none
of that had been in the movie, like what would have been I guess

(32:29):
like the draw of this movie wouldhave just been a Benji movie. And
I guess I'm sitting here thinking likewhy wasn't that enough? Because it had
been enough up until this point.I mean, they took a pretty substantial
break in between this movie and thenext Benji movie. It was like seven
years in between this movie and thenext Benji movie. So well, it
was all TV specials after that.Because I said he did that Marine World

(32:51):
one. I think there was likea phenomenon of Benji movie that was like
a documentary. Yeah, there werehe was still working, but just yeah,
not theatrically. There was also anineteen eighty three TV series called Benji,
Zachs and the Alien Prints, whichI never saw, but yeah,
I think they picked back up withBenji The Hunted in eighty seven. To

(33:14):
your point, So like again,like it's not like Benji wasn't popular,
it's just why inject this weird fantasyangle because this was not a thing that's
part of Benji's movies. And notlike there's some sort of Benji cannon.
But the Benji movies are just dogmovies. They're just movies with a dog.
There's no supernatural angle or anything.So it just again, if you're

(33:35):
gonna do it, fine, Ijust it just doesn't seem very well thought
out. And yeah, the wholething with the acronyms is just like man
who thought this was funny? Sittingaround that writer's room, everybody chuckling,
and it's like, man, that'snot gonna translate really well on screen.
You got it felt like a badmel Brooks. Yeah, bit, it
felt like a bad bit whoever.I came for a half, But the

(33:59):
whole like kind of Star Wars parodyangle of it. When that he turned
on that miniature lightsaber and that soundcame on, my daughter was we were
just looked at each other like,what the hell we're going there? I
guess we're going there? Okay.Yeah, And not only does it go
there, it goes there and likeChevy Chase acknowledges that it's a Star Wars

(34:20):
thing, like that's the thing ontop of everything else, because he's like
he like reacts to it in away that he knows what that is because
he's seen Star Wars that that isthe only way I can take that,
and so that is it's so bizarre. But again, like just back to
the idea of like Star Wars hasbeen with us for so fucking long at
this point, like where we arenow. But yeah, it's like,

(34:42):
oh my god. Right, evenin eighty they were having to contend with
this fucking burgeoning pop culture mega lifthI mean now, I mean, now,
it is what it is. Butthen it's like, Okay, Lightsabers,
that's what everybody knows. It's morethe noise than anything. I feel
like it's not even the visuals ofthe lightsaber. It's that noise that's so
iconic that they just they haven't wiggledthe thing around a couple of times.

(35:02):
All right, well we've paid lucasfilmperfect. I wanted to see when what
time of the year this was releasedbecause Empire was coming out this year.
So that's true. Person, theywere going off of a new hope you
love Lightsabers and Empire strikes back,you'll love them and Benji and oh Heavenly
dog No. Another thing that wasconfusing to me was her immediate jump onto

(35:30):
this story. Yeah yeah, andit sounds like she had been writing a
book for a while, but thenthe story enters into it. That's what
was confusing to me. I'm like, was she what was she researching prior
to this because it seemed like shewas doing something else and then this pops
up, and now I'm writing anovel about a novel? Why would you

(35:52):
write a novel about the I justwas like, what do we are?
We just getting her into the Imean, she's a report, so can't
it just be an article about this? Why is it a book? I
don't know. It just seemed goofyto me. Yeah. Yeah. And
then the the Scotland Yard will nothelp her out because she wrote a book

(36:15):
about Scotland Yard and was making funof them. Yeah was that her book?
I thought it was the Old BritishGuy's book. Oh yeah, I
got confused. I got confused bya lot of things. I kind of
sorry, because he does come back. Yeah, I know, he holds
up the book, so I assumedit was his, But maybe it was
hers and he's her publisher or something. I don't know. I got lost
a lot. I'm just kind ofzoned out after a while marking the galaxy

(36:40):
that may that might be a recurringtheme. As I'm looking at the list
of Chevy Chase movies that we're doing, I'm like, yeah, this this
might happen on occasion where I justkind of started looking at the ceiling and
stuff, which will make for areally interesting podcast. Yeah. Yeah,
it's going to be a raid series. This is like Richard all over again.

(37:04):
Man, I'm really not excited bythe end of this marks and be
like, I really wish I hadenjoyed those movies earlyer. I know there's
a lot of good stuff coming uptoo, so it's gonna be up and
down. Well that's the thing though, Like in terms of this being a
Chevy Chase movie, I think itreally fails on because again, like to
Hugh to his star power in seventynine to eighty, this motherfucker's gotta be

(37:29):
on screen. Keep him on screen. Well, what's part of his stick
is physical comedy? Oh yeah,It's like I don't It's like, it's
like beyond me why they were doingthis with him in eighty because again,
yes, he is, you know, a pithy dickhead and that's the character.
But they don't even know, howdo you do that with a dog

(37:50):
anyways? Like the dog the humansare responding to the dog. The Honestly,
the way to do this movie wouldhave been the dog talks and the
humans could hear him, Like,wouldn't that have been check you can hear
him or he's the only one thatcan hear him or something, Yeah,
Like I don't know, like theidea that you have Chevy Chase and the
first thing you do is kill himin like the first five minutes of the

(38:12):
movie, and then he's not onscreen and it's just like his voice from
beyond the Grave. And then heshows up twice in the movie and it
takes me out of the movie completely. When it's all of a sudden Chevy
Chase after an hour of it notbeing Chevy Chase, I was like,
oh, Mike, wait, Iforgot that you were in this movie,
Like I genuinely don't even remember whatyou look like in this movie anymore.

(38:32):
And then he shows up, youknow, kind of once about two thirds
of the way through the movie,and then right there at the end again
I'm like, oh, right,chevy Chase is also in this movie.
It would have been nice if hehad been on screen. I'm not saying
it would have fixed everything, butit should have been Chevy Chase as the
detective and Jane Seymour as the voiceof Benji, right Like. I don't
know if that would have a canBut then you have the beautiful and talented

(38:55):
Jane Seymour having to do the samebullshit that Chevy Chase is doing. I
am a dog. Now, shemight have been more committed to the line
readings, though she might have been. She was. She did a pretty
decent job there at the end whenshe was doing the line readings as a
cat. Yeah, it's true.The cat wasn't committed though. The cat

(39:15):
just like I mean between the beansand everything, I know, right,
Yeah, and she's allegedly having conversationlike no, that cat. When cats
are doing that, they're just thinkingabout that thing ethic. I don't want
to say that they can't have multipleinner monologues, but I think that they
really spend a lot of time andconcentration on that. You can't trained cats,

(39:37):
folks, Clearly, they do whateverthe fuck they please. Yeah,
I think there are people that thinkthat they're trained cats, But I think
that cats have trained that. Ohthat's true. That's true. In this
household, it's their world and we'rejust living it exactly. I know we
kind of mentioned the Alan Sues character, but yeah, the last the last

(40:00):
line of the film or last creditof the film, Yeah, exactly when
you get that voiceover of them inthe car when sus picks him up and
man, he's like, oh hey, you know, it's like, oh,
I was just reaching for the gearshift. I was like, really,
what can I do? That's yeah, if his voice wasn't enough,

(40:27):
apparently they have to have him gofor Chevy Chase's Craig shaft. So and
then yeah, he comes back andit's like what why? Yeah, I
mean even if he had stayed humanand he became the sidekick and okay with
that right, Yeah, anything wouldhave been better than making the guy who's
on your poster the only like record. I mean, Jane Seymore is recognizable,

(40:50):
but Chevy Chase like face front andcenter and you're like, oh,
but he's going to be the dogboy. I just want to know whose
decision that was, because yeah,like any any of these auxiliary, secondary
tertiary characters being animals would have beenfine have Chevy Chase interacting with all animals
the entire movie. Just don't makehim an animal, because that just he

(41:14):
could have had animal helpers, youknow, a cat that was in the
window of the apartment and getting hisinformation while Jane Seymour is trying to get
her information from the humans and himnot being able to express that to her,
you know, verbally. But theysort of attempted a few times with

(41:37):
him finding clues, and the wholebit with finding that phone number in the
like rolodex and stuff like that waspretty interesting. The mystery itself isn't bad
at all, right, As Isay, like the noir aspects of this
movie actually kind of work with thestuff with Omar Sharif. He's pretty I'm

(41:57):
menacing in this movie. I mean, it's o marsh when he grabs that
dog, when he grabs Angie batof the arm, I am just that
noise of a dog yelping just setsme on edge. Man. Yep,
yep. Same those few times whereI'll like pick up one of my dog's
tests and like my finger might gobetween a rib or something that she'll yelp,

(42:19):
I'm just like, oh my god, I feel terrible. I feel
awful. The god, yes,just think what the monologue is saying about
you. Oh, this guy againcalled some choice words just like that.
But you have to have like dickjokes in the movie quite a few times,

(42:39):
because he has to like check outhis own junk at one point and
make several comments about it, whichis odd because it's a female dog,
isn't it. Yeah? Oh boy, Well because this is like you mentioned,
like, this isn't not ben Benjon, this is Benji Jon. This

(42:59):
is Benjie's daughter, right, Ithink so? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
because it's pretty great. You cango into on the Plex server,
you can you know, go underthe original Benji and see the dog actor
but there's no picture unfortunately. Andthen he click on that and shows you
all the movies that that dog wasin, and then you go back to
Oh Heavenly Dog and it's a differentdog actor than you go into those movies.

(43:22):
I'm like, this is pretty great. The Deep Dive, the Benji
rabbit hole. Yes, yes,luckily Benji didn't get me tooed. Yeah,
so I heard there are a lotof legs that Benji tried to hump
the original Benjie. Yeah, itwas the seventies. It was a different
time. Yeah, come on,Benji defends himself live on podcast. Yeah.

(43:44):
I can't wait for the Benji apologywhen he goes on to Mark barn
that's want to apologize for my conductwith the voice of Chevy Chase. Mind
you yo, the dog opens itsmouth and it's just the voice of Chevy
Chase. I don't mind like dogor animal centric movies. I and I

(44:04):
know that again that like that thatyou know, the old joke in Hollywood
is still work with animals and don'twork with kids. And you know,
I am of the mindset for themost part that when kids are in movies,
boy, they tend to be precociouslittle shits and get in the way
and draw attention to themselves. Butwhen animals are in movies, it seems
like with this, it's like thisis like the fucking centric focus of the

(44:28):
movie. Is the like it?Like a lot of times I go did
the dog die? In a horrormovie? Is is the common question?
Or does the dog die? Butwhen it's like the dog and it's an
animal centric movie, I don't havea problem with it. It's just they
all feel unless there's like a supernaturalor paranormal angle, they all are very
like, same me. They allall most animal movies like of a of

(44:51):
a certain ilk, and I mean, obviously we're living in a post air
Bud world where Disney has driven thegenre into the ground and then some.
But I don't mind the idea oflike an animal centric movie. I mean,
Strays came out this year, whichwas actually a lot of fun.
I don't know if either one ofyou saw that, but like it was
a fun mean, it's a funcomedy with dogs voiced by voiced by actors

(45:13):
and guess what, they all putin a hell of a performance and it's
an actually somewhat fun movie. It'sjust I was just thinking to myself,
like, how do you fix thismovie? And it's like I don't think
he can without just like really doingsomething completely different from what this movie is,
which is not the kind of funlark that the movie is attempting to
be. I don't know how muchof a lark your movie can be.

(45:34):
A Jane Seamer is just getting murderedin the final real It's like, unceremoniously
on top of everything else. Itis strange when she gets murdered. It's
it's even strange when he gets murderedand I'm just like, yeah, oh,
he's got to get out of thissomehow, because he's you know,
in the apartment, finds the corpse, we have the killer with the knife

(45:54):
coming at him, and I'm justlike, well, how's he going to
get out of this? He doesn'tand I'm like, oh, oh,
oh, yeah, I forgot heYeah. I was surprised by I mean,
I knew they happened, but itis still surprising to see him go.
And then I'm like, well,how are they going to reconcile this
at the end? Is he goingto get to come back through some loophole?

(46:15):
And no, they went the otherway and said, okay, she's
going to come back as the wrongspecies. Yeah, is that part of
the gag at the end? Likehe's forever doomed to like now the woman
that he loves is it? Can'tlike is that part? I don't know?
I don't know. They don't theylike, don't hang a lantern on
it. So I was like,is the movie being that clever or am

(46:37):
I just giving it too much credit? Like because too much credit? Right?
You would feel like you would feellike the movie would have like mentioned
at some point like in those likelast couple of lines like, oh shit,
we still can't you know, itwould be weird if we did,
so we can't, Like they don'teven say that. And again, this
is a movie where there are dogdick jokes, so they're not above making

(46:57):
those jokes, right, Yeah,And he gets hot in the tub with
her on two occasions at least thatwe see, or one's off screen,
but it's implied that he jumps inearlier and then he's in there with her
later. So yeah, he reallyis the best part of this movie.
Jane Seymour, like you mentioned herand Levin Let Die, Mike like,
she's she's great here, she's adorable. She I don't know, she's I

(47:20):
like her every time I've seen herin anything. I've not searched her out
as an actress, but she's greathere. She's she's great in wedding crashers,
she is, which she is.She's amazing, She's great and live
and let die. I mean,you know, we'll be covering that in
the in the near future. Butshe's she's fantastic. She she is just

(47:43):
I think as cute as Goldiehn iskind of rambunctious in foul play, like
she plays kind of she plays thatboil to Chevy Chase that you would wish
he would have been on screen toact against that. Yeah, it's like
that's the problem here. It's likeI kind of just wish this had been
found play just with the two ofthem, with no dog angle at all.

(48:04):
Like it really is two separate movies, And if it had been two
separate movies, I think they bothcould have worked separated from this movie trying
to like mash not disparate genres together, but two very disparate ideas. I
really would have been okay had wehad more of them at the beginning,
had they had a dinner date andjust got to know each other a little
bit more, and then had shemade the connection. This really feels like

(48:29):
Benjamin the guy went out with andgot murdered accidentally and then known about his
death and like made comments about hisdeath because it was that a whole lot
there. As far as what tiesthese two things together, It's like it
all happens off screen. That wasone of the confusing things for me,
Like I expect her to figure thisout, but how would she She bumped

(48:51):
into him on the street one time, what literally one time, if they
had had that dinner and maybe heeven mentioned, you know, got this
case this morning, I need tocheck out of whatever that gal's name was.
It gets murdered, and then,you know, then it would be
odd that she keeps pumping into himin these spots where that gal is,

(49:13):
where omarsh Reef is, where thePrime Minister to Be is, Then it
would kind of unravel maybe in herhead. And I mean she eventually figures
it out, but it takes alot longer to get there and is a
little more far fetched than it couldhave been. Well, when when at
the end of the movie, whichshe's like, now I want to introduce
myself properly to you, and it'slike, fuck, like you went to

(49:36):
heaven and figured this shit out alloff screen. Also, like everything has
been told in an off screen mechanicin this movie, Like every mechanism to
tell us the story we have beendeprived of because the movie doesn't have the
confidence to show it to us.Until they do. They show us stuff
weird things in heaven, but thenthey like refuse to go back to it.

(49:59):
They're just like, all right,you I seen it once. That's
good enough. Now you're gonna seeChevy Chase on all fours twice in this
movie on Earth. It's like thisjust is I don't know, like pick
one or the other. You can'tdo both. And then at the end,
yeah, Jane Seymour just okay,I guess she learns all of this
off screen, just like Chevy Chasedid. Okay, sure, yeah,

(50:19):
I kind of wish we had moreof the Heaven stuff, just to see
the kind of the mechanics of it. I mean, that's like the most
interesting part of a lot of movieswhere they do this, like at Defending
Your Life or even for God's sakes, RIPD. Like the office stuff and
the politics and what's going on thereis so much more interesting than the mystery

(50:42):
and RIPD. And plus you getto see Mary oh god, I can't
remember her name with these amazing gogo boots in that movie. No,
I assume that this was going tobe a riff on Heaven Can Wait and
or Here Comes Mister Jordan in away, which I guess it's the same
basic idea of beer, but itwasn't more of a you're we made a

(51:05):
mistake, You're not supposed to behere thing it's like, this is what
happens is you get re you know, it's a reser, resurrection. What's
the word you come back? Yeah, resurrection, life after death, reincarnation,
thank you, Yeah, I gotit. Yeah. There were a
couple of movies that were listed onthe IMDb as far as like oh,
if you you know to continue lookingdown this like see also so they had

(51:29):
things like Luke, which was aguy coming back, which oddly was written
of the Book of that was writtenin seventy seven, and then it's not
made until moving until ninety five,and it's Matthew Modine coming back. Chris
already mentioned quickly, I don't knowhow this ties into a dog's purpose.

(51:49):
After I saw some of the newstuff on that, I didn't want to
see the movie. But it alsothey mentioned this movie from nineteen fifty one
called You Never Can Tell where it'sit's more about a dog that wins a
million or doesn't win it gets amillion dollars, is inherent inherits a million
dollars and has to be taken careof by I don't know Peggy dow and

(52:15):
Charles Drake, and I know DickPowells in that movie too. As soon
as I saw that, Dick owlsand I was like, okay, yeah,
let's do this. But I guesshe the dog is poisoned and comes
back as Dick Powell. So it'slike a reversal of O Heavenly Dog.
Yeah, like I would like tosee this. You have all the ones

(52:35):
of people coming back as people aswell? Where right, it's the one
where was it Chris Rock? Yeah? Yeah, well and he did a
remake of Heaven Heaven Can Wait aswell. Okay, yeah, yeah,
so that's what I'm thinking of.But it's that one where he dies and
is one where he's Denzel? Isthere a Chris Rock is Denzel movie?
Or am I? I think you'remixing up Preacher's Wife with uh with Having

(53:00):
Can Wait? Then they were outaround the same time. Wait, what's
the movie with Bob Hoskins and CriticalCondition? Wait? Is a racist with
the Denzel's heart? Right? Right? Yeah? Or is that just heart
Beat? Heart Beat? Oh geez? Yeah? Do you remember when that
came out? No, not heartbeats the let's not get into that.

(53:22):
No, no, we'll save thatone for a five hour Projection Booth special
with Alan Arkish and Bernadette Wow.Yeah. Nice. See if Alan Kish
wants to talk about that one,you might be able to get Andy Kaufman.
I mean, he is alive,so there is that there is that
it's gott to track him down.Yes, I don't know. I'm just

(53:44):
thinking about movies with dogs in himthat are better than this one. Condition
is the name of that movie fromnineteen ninety. Yeah, which means it
was way before that Chris Rock movie. Because back in nineteen ninety Chris Rock
was starring as the crackhead and I'mgoing to get you sucka Yeah, can
I have one chicken wing or whatever? Fifty one rib was? Yeah?

(54:07):
Yeah, Jesus Christ, how abouthow about a drink? Uh? What
is it? My cups cost morethan Yeah? That's right, man,
That's that's what this movie needed.Just Bernie Mack as the voice of the
dog that was would have fixed it. That that would have fixed everything.

(54:28):
Anything. I don't I yeah,I don't think anything can fix this movie
the way that it is, becauseit's just too disparate of things. But
you know, if you want todo a movie where you've got Jane Seymour
and Chevy Chase being pursued by avillainous omarsharief around London. I'm game for
that. Uh. And that's theother thing, you know, we're just
thinking about this against foul Play.Foul Play takes place in San Francisco.

(54:52):
They use the scenery and the settingrather well, this could have been fucking
set anywhere. I know that it'sin London, but the fact that it's
in London seems kind of just youknow, not anything that anybody really has
anything to say about. It's justit's set in London, right, Okay,
so what like there there are opportunitiesto do something with that as well,

(55:13):
for easy comedy, and they don'teven do that. It's it's surprising
when they couldn't even get the dogto London because of the health restrictions and
stuff. So all the stuff withBenji is not shot in London. It's
mostly like back lot or what theyalso shot in Paris and the US I
imagined. So it's it's said atthe end credits Montreal. I think they

(55:37):
used a lot of the exteriors therebecause yeah, I want to say one
and this is IMDb, so takeover the grain of salt. But it's
said that none of it was filmedin the States, so even I guess
even the sets and things were filmedelsewhere, probably either Montreal or London,
which I found odd because I'm thinking, BINGI seems to be an all America

(56:00):
thing, right, Why is whyis this said in London? He's American?
Yeah, Chase God, Yeah,it's just it's it's it like the
moment you think about this movie twoseconds longer than it wants to, it
starts making like it starts being evenmore infuriating that that's what this is because
they well, you have all thesethings, you'd spend all this time,

(56:20):
and you do nothing with it,like nothing at all. It seems like
it's one of those this is anexisting script that you know, we didn't
have Chevy Chase in mind, wemaybe didn't even have Benji in mind,
and they somehow get inserted in thiswhole thing. It could have been a
British first type of deal with adetective coming back, probably would have been

(56:45):
more enjoyable with a you know,I can't think of a big British star
at the time, you know,commedianly star who yeah doing the voice and
anybody Yeah, I don't know.It seems like they're kind of wedged into
this just because Benji's the thing andChevy Chase is becoming a thing, so
let's get those guys. But it'swritten by Joe Camp, who was the

(57:07):
Beingji guy, so that probably isn'teven right, but it feels that way
well, Joe Camp and Rod Browning, which kind of lends to me what
you're talking about as far as maybethis wasn't always that right, It hasn't
right. Yeah, he hasn't beencredited for anything in a long time,
but he was, you know,breaking a lot of stuff in the seventies,

(57:30):
including some Yeah, Mary Hartman,Mary Hartman, which is one of
the most bizarro things in the worldto me. One of these days,
Chris, we should. I mean, it's like a thousand episodes, so
we're not going to do a TVshow, all right, We're not going
to do a podcast on it.Yeah. Did it really go that long?
Yeah, Man's it was. Yeah, really it was five nights a

(57:51):
week for a long time. Yeah. Oh, man, I didn't realize
that. Yeah, I remember catchingsome of it when I was a kid.
It came up and we talked aboutPrisoner and yeah, it's three hundred
and twenty five episodes. Okay,I'm sorry, but that's right. I
mean, I mean three hundred andtwenty five episodes is a lot, Like

(58:12):
that's three Is that three times morethan Barney Miller? I think so we're
two times more than Barney Miller andthat's still pretty lot. Yeah. Yeah,
the Trippy Show, yes it is. Yeah, there's there's nothing.
Yeah, I don't the Joe Joecamp and Rod Browning, like I don't
know, like maybe stick to towriting movies that are more Benji centric,

(58:32):
I guess, or like don't don'tmake them. The other Benji movies are
are less human centric than this,right, I'm assuming they're more focused on
the dog, right like the dog? Okay, that I don't know,
Like Chevy Chase and the dog aresidelined in their own movie, Like this
is a Jane Seymour movie. Frankly, Like if if you were to ask
me who is the star of thismovie, I would say it's Jane Seymour,

(58:52):
Like she needs to be the oneon the poster. Jevy Chase and
the dog need to be kind ofsmaller on the poster than her. Has
she been able to take this wholething over? I would have been okay
with that, because yeah, Ithink she does a great job. Yeah,
which is unfortunate that her performance isin this movie, because yeah,
it's just everything else is just soclearly meant to be like a Chevy Chase

(59:15):
and Dog thing, and it's like, eh, you do know that this
is like the least interesting part ofthem, to the point where chevy Chase
claims, at least in his inhis autobiography from the nineties, that he's
never watched this movie. I mean, mind you, that was ninety one,
ninety two when his I guess Iunderstand why you've never watched this movie,
but you also directly contributed to thismovie not being good. Like you,

(59:37):
you contributed to the problematic quality ofthis movie. So it's I don't
know, it's always weird when Iwhen I read something like that and it's
like, but you, like youactively contributed to that being a problem.
So I kind of get why youdidn't watch it, but also, like
you, you are the reason thismovie. You are part of the reason
this movie was not successful. Yeah, doesn't surprise me, though hearing that

(59:58):
doesn't sum me coming from him.Yeah, he's the kind of guy that
likes to shoot himself in his ownfoot. Yeah. Well, it's like
he came out in the movie was, you know, in theaters, and
said, don't go see this movie. It's a piece of shit at least.
But yeah, he's doing press pressconferences with Benji at the time.
Yeah he honestly, I'm sure heloved that. Well, yeah, miserable

(01:00:19):
during that whole experience. Second toa dog. He's got the trainer in
the back of the press conference who'sgiven Benji hughes so that it can be
like, well, what do youthink, Benji? And then the guy
gives a queu in Benji Bark's righton command. It's like okay, you
know, and like, yeah,Benji was probably out acting Chevy Chase at
this point. What do you thinkabout this mid level talent Chevy Chase?
Benji got him? Oh, Ican't believe he said that, ring to

(01:00:45):
his face. Well he's sitting therein the same room. I snap.
Yeah, God boy, did theymake reference to this movie and Strays By
the way, I'm just thinking aboutthat. I wish they I wish that
this movie was half as funny asStrays is, and then then it might

(01:01:07):
have had some redeeming quality. Isa movie worth returning to. I don't
even know how you would watch thismovie in twenty twenty three. It's on
YouTube and its entirety, but itis not a I don't think it's ever
been released by anybody. I dounderstand a Blu ray. Not there's no
Blu ray of this movie. Idon't think, not that, not again,
not that I saw, so Icould be wrong. There's the DVD,

(01:01:32):
but it's like thirty bucks on Amazon, and I am not paying thirty
dollars for this movie on Oh,I didn't realize this. This was released
as a three pack multiple times.It looks like yes, with once with
Far from Home and Rusty the GreatRescue, and another one with Because of
the Wind Dixie and also Far fromHome. So they seem to like to

(01:01:55):
repackage this and release it on DVD. Well and it you know, if
you see it on Amazon, likethe box are for the movie, it
definitely smacks of this is a thingthat you would find in the dollar bin
at Walmart that they're trying to convinceyou is something that it's not, which
is a movie that has Chevy chasing. It's like the DVD for Amazes and

(01:02:20):
Monsters. It's like it has TomHanks on the box ar, but he's
in it for five minutes. Ifthat like, And the boxar for this
movie on Amazon looks the same.It's like chevy Chase and a dog looking
at each other. It's like,neither one of these things are used very
well in this movie. But hey, you like dogs or chevy Chase,
you might accidentally be bought this bysomeone who loves you. This will be

(01:02:42):
the first title on our new boutiquelabel, Guys, Here we Go.
Oh my god, there it is. There, it is. Yeah,
you're right where the media comes from. That's the physical media that we're relating
this. You imagine that if wejust are releasing movies that we don't like.
We really didn't like this movie,but we'd like the opportunity to re

(01:03:04):
release it for you to see ifother people like it more than us or
dislike it just as much as wedo. I do want to say that
the version of Benji at Work that'sout on YouTube looks way better than O
Heavenly Dog, and it's out therein its entirety, and it's such a
time capsule of here's what nineteen eightylooked like on television. Unfortunately there's no

(01:03:24):
commercials to it. I kind ofwould have liked that. But having Adam
Rich actively narrating and participating in thisand then seeing that crazy trainer with that
amazing mustache, Yeah it's I founda lot of entertainment in that. So
go watch that. I'll go backand watch it now. Yeah, Yeah,

(01:03:45):
you'll have a good time, eventhough it's Adam Rich. Fuck that
guy. Yeah. I don't thinkif you watched this movie you would walk
away saying Benji movies were successful andpopular and Chevy Chase movies were successful and
popular, because neither of those thingsare very well represented here. But to
your point, like, clearly thereare Benji movies that people did like because
we got to this point three moviesin that Benji and chevy Chase are being

(01:04:08):
paired together, and chevy Chase waspopular enough that they I mean, we're
just about at the top here ofthe things we're gonna be talking about with
Chevy Chase. So clearly there wasa quality here that we just were not
able to see translated into a moviewritten by these two people. But yeah,
if I had watched this in eightyit would have been like, so,
why are either of these things inthis movie? Like why is chevy

(01:04:30):
Chase in this movie? Why isBenji in this movie? If I knew
nothing about either, I would notthink that they were the popular things going
into the movie. Let's just putit that way. It is remarkable to
look back and be like, ChevyChase was a thing. No, I'm
just kidding that, Oh wow,Benji was a thing. Yeah, I
would just be like, oh yeah, that was a really big thing for

(01:04:51):
a long time. Yeah, yeahnot. I mean again, we don't
have that now, but we dohave just like a glut of and cat
movies that come out every year thatare just on streaming. So I don't
know how many Airbud movies there areat this point, but there are a
lot, and almost all of themhave been direct to video, so well

(01:05:11):
it makes sense, man, Imean Airbud. I don't remember. I
think there's one film from Montreal thatfinally took the title. But Airbud was
like the largest gross grossing Canadian moviefor years and years. I believe it.
I mean I believe it, likethat was that was That movie was
like a three million dollar movie andI think it made like thirty million dollars

(01:05:33):
and then just like every fucking sequelthat you can think of with air Buddies
and snow Buddies and oh yeah,oh my god, I'm still waiting.
I'm still waiting. I've talked aboutit for years now. If I ever
get the opportunity, I'm gonna makea movie where it chimp plays golf and
it's just gonna be called Chimp Shot. Okay, I'm gonna do it one

(01:05:54):
of these days. You know,that'll be our VT label. Maybe get
Matt LeBlanc to come back from whenhe played baseball with a chimpanzee and head
and oh there was also m VPMost Valuable Primates. Oh that's what it
is? Yeah, not ed,I guess it isn't. Okay, Okay,
that's what yeah? God? Andbe most Oh yeah no. I

(01:06:15):
watched a whole series of those foran article I wrote all about like chimps
and films, and just during thislike one little window of time which was
always like what what do we do? Like when there are weird trends like
that? Like yeah, you know, you guys have talked about body swap
movies on the culture cast. Iknow that, and like I said before,
I love a good body swap movie, you know, and I watched

(01:06:38):
all of those, like eighteen again. Yeah, the father likes having like
Vietnam style flash right, oh,dream a little dream dream. Yeah,
but there was a different where itwas adults. It was because it was

(01:07:00):
the Fred Savage and Judge Judge reineHold, Judged reine Hold. There was
the Kirk Cameron and uh and thenthere yeah, and then of course there
was the George Burns and The Kid. But it felt like there's one other
around there, and it's just likeall of these movies coming out within like
a three year period was really bizarre, and I'm just like, why why

(01:07:21):
that? What was the what wasthe pop culture zeitgeist? Yeah? What
was driving that? Was it justlike going back and changing things from your
past? I mean, were weliving in a period of regret the springboard
for all those Yeah, I believe. And what was no those came before

(01:07:42):
big Oh okay, sure, yeah, and that's no. No, it
was kind of like well, evenBruce Willis did one. I think it
was just called The Kid, butI think that was a little bit later.
Oh yeah, it was like aFreaky Friday. I think I was
the generations didn't understand each other,so they had to take each other's place.
Says there was a movie just recentlywhere like a chick wakes up as

(01:08:03):
her older self as Diane Keaton.And there's also that thirteen going on going
on thirty? Yeah, yeah,Freaky Friday. I mean, isn't thirteen
going on thirty Matthew Matthew Perry movieor no, what's the Matthew Perry movie?
Because he was in one with ZachEvrot where he's where he like d
ages it becomes Zach e These arelike these are Yeah, isn't O Heavenly

(01:08:29):
Dog a body swap movie? Tech? It basically is, yeah, yeah,
this might be the worst one,Begley, that I've seen in terms
of the things that we've like watchedtogether and or have seen. I don't
know why I watched all of them. I don't know either. You really
back when I was gung ho aboutdoing all the background stuff and you were

(01:08:49):
conditioned. You were conditioned well bythe projection booth is what it is.
I think there was a Brian I'mtoo old for this. Ryan Reynolds swaps
with Bateman Bateman, Jason Bateman.Yeah, yeah the Swaps. Isn't that
movie just called the Swap? Ithink yeah, I think you're right.
Yeah yeah. Freaky Friday was that. Then there was the one with Vince

(01:09:11):
Vaughan Freaky yeah, just freaky yeah, yeah. I like that one.
That was Yeah, that was agood one. That these movies come out
like, yeah, it's weird.They come out like once every couple of
years, but rarely is it justlike oh Weekend A lot the late eighties
were really that that time for like, hey there's a lot of really big
personalities, let's pair them together.It was called The Change Up. That's

(01:09:32):
the one I was thinking of changeup with. That's the one with Bateman
and Bryan Reynolds is yeah, yeah, yes, as opposed to uh uh
boor Judge Ryan Hold and this kidwith that crazy statue over if you can

(01:09:53):
only be me for one day?I like Dudley, was it? Dudley
Moore? Dudley Moore? Yeah,god they more who thought that was?
I still Dudley Moore and Kirk Cameron. What a pairing, What a pairing?
If they could only know the futureof those two people. Oh boy
god. Yeah. That the onewith Sean Aston, it is yeah.

(01:10:14):
I think I watched most of themwith my daughter. I'm like, they're
sam wise. It's the only yeah, the only thing I can enjoy out
of this movie. Theis yeah,these did this movie. I think is
is part of that conversation. ButI think I think we've clearly established that
it is not. I wouldn't evensay it's a lesser, it's just what
is even the point? Like,I don't know, I wish, I

(01:10:36):
wish this could have been. We'restill waiting for one of those movies that
we find where it's like, oh, everybody was wrong about this movie.
Nope, Yeah, that's what Iwas hoping. When I read the reviews,
I'm like, oh, this isa stinker apparently. I mean,
I will go to my graves stillenjoying this movie. But you know,
I'm glad that you guys weren't justlike you're wrong for liking this. So

(01:10:58):
that's cool. I understand that.Yeah. Yeah, I have a lot
of movies. Murder by Death isone of them that a lot of takes
the task. That's wonderful. Ilove that, I know. But you
know, fake pinkies, fucking hothot takes. Man, there was a
I believe someone that we may bemutual friends with on Facebook had a hot
take that Murdered by Death is betterthan Clues, So I don't think you're

(01:11:19):
alone in liking Murder by Death.I agree with that statement. So I've
seen Murder by Death probably dozens oftimes. I've seen Clue once, but
I enjoyed it when I saw it. But say, I didn't fall into
that Clue camp of it's the bestmovie ever. I don't. I don't

(01:11:39):
not see why you enjoy this movie, Mike. And if I had seen
this movie at the right time,I probably would have. I mean,
I don't think it's purely nostalgia driven, given that we're watching it now and
having a conversation about it now.But I get it, like I can
understand because when I was watching withmy wife, she was like, oh,
I've seen parts of this before,and she had seen parts of it
because she grew up in like avery dog centric household and like her mom

(01:12:02):
and her would go to like dogshows together because they would show dogs,
and so her mom would just puton movies with dogs for her apparently,
and she was like, Oh,you'll like this movie. It has a
dog in it, and my wifesaid she was bored by the first thirty
minutes, which I understand given youknow, again, the dog doesn't show
up for thirty minutes, so youknow, I get it. But yeah,

(01:12:24):
I think, and this is theother thing we really haven't mentioned.
I think to round us out,did this movie have to be an hour
and forty five minutes? That forme might be the biggest uffront is that
what couldn't you get said in likean hour twenty five because that's really all
you needed. You didn't need anadditional thirty minutes here if you're not going

(01:12:45):
to give us more. If ithad been an hour and forty five minutes
and there had been an eight solidhalf an hour of Chevy Chase and Jane
Seymour, cool, why not makethem a married couple and then it makes
sense that the dog can come back. She'd be like, oh, you've
answered my prayers. And then shedies at the end, and then it
makes sense because he's dead. No, just two minutes of Chevy Chase and

(01:13:08):
Jane Seymour, what what? That'sright? It would have made sense too,
as far as having him being England, like, oh, I came
over here for you, my love, because you're working for this magazine over
here, and this is great,and I'm starting I can do my private
investigations wherever. Right, people arealways going to need a dicko. I

(01:13:33):
just wrote a better joke for thiswhole fucking movie. The gallery scene was
like, I'm like, can weYeah? You know that was a good
fifteen minutes painful. Yeah, itcould have been gone. It's just shocking.
It's shocking to me how long thismovie is, because like it's ultimately
like, like we mentioned all theway at the top, like is it

(01:13:55):
a kid's movie? Is it acomedy? It's kind of weirdly all of
these things. And I don't knowabout y'all, but we all know that,
especially younger kids have a hey,the ability to pay attention to a
two hour long movie, right,just kidding, that's not an easy it's
not an easy ask. I'm nottrying to be, you know, derogatory
towards kids. It's just I don'tthink any kid is gonna sit through an

(01:14:16):
hour and forty lons Benji movie.Like there's a reason those other Benji movies
probably open with Benji immediately running aroundand doing Benji things, and close with
Benji doing Benji things like it's there'snot Chevy Chasin. Elton John, like
this just happens to be a Benjimovie. But boy, Sir Elton John,
if it had been a Benji movie, I think everybody who went to

(01:14:40):
see it for Benji would have beena lot more satisfied than they probably were
with this. All the fans ofBenji who were disappointed by this be at
the time, I'm sure the messageboards were totally lining up. Yes,
we're not my Benji on the line. Now we've got Mike from Detroit.
Tell us your thoughts on Benji.I don't like this movie because there's not

(01:15:00):
enough Benji. If I buy aticket for a Benji movie, I want
to see Benji right off the bat. Where's the Charlie Rich song? I
like that music? Yeah, Iagree onto our next color. Yeah,
I'm not. I'm not sure thatthis was the right movie to start this

(01:15:23):
podcast off with, but I thinkit sets the tone for where we will
probably end up with Chevy Chase,which is it's gonna be up and down
man. Yeah, yeah, I'vegot two ups coming up, I believe.
Yeah, that's right. So onthe next episode of Blue Chasing,
Chevy podcast. We're talking about oneof the movies. I guess, uh

(01:15:44):
yeah, he's probably I don't knowif he's known for, but it's definitely
a way. Yeah, his involvementis much appreciated, and he ends up
stealing the show. We're talking aboutyet another movie from nineteen eighty. You
may have heard of it. It'scalled Caddy Shack. Can you imagine we're
doing an episode on Caddy Shack?Excited while Does this mean I finally get
to watch a sequel? Oh?Yeah, yeah, yeah it's in there.

(01:16:05):
It's in this time period that we'redoing fifteen episodes from now. Yeah,
excellent. I can't wait. So, Chris, just so people kind
of get where we're coming from here, you mentioned like star vehicles, but
there's sort of a cut off pointhere, so we're going according to your
list. We started with this andthe last movie is on Biggest Vacation okay,

(01:16:31):
and it was Cops and Robertson's allright, where's Vegas? Fake?
Oh? There it is? Yeah, okay, yes, and there's some
we might get to ninety seven okay, And there are some other movies past
that that are possible bonuses given thatthey're just they they kind of have some
possible uh not, I don't know, relevancy, but they're kind of like

(01:16:53):
throwbacks to certain things that we'll talkabout while we're doing this, because,
like Mark mentioned, we're going tohave some pretty high ups. We're gonna
be covered. I mean, we'regonna cover a lot of the We're covering
all the big stuff, which Idon't think for us as any surprise,
but I think for at least thethree of us, like we tend to
not watch everything that is super duperpopular because everybody else has already had these

(01:17:14):
conversations about it. But to Mark'spoint, yeah, we're gonna start in
eighty with O Heavenly Dog, willend in ninety seven with Vegas Vacation and
everything in between. For the mostpart, as long as Chevy Chase is
the lead or ISP Build Top Build, we're gonna be covering those movies.
So use your research brain to figureout what those are, because I'm not
gonna mention twenty movies right now,boy. And so that means in three

(01:17:38):
months we get to talk about Underthe Rainbow. I know a movie I've
still never seen me either, I'mkind of and it's one of the ones
I'm excited about. Actually, well, I grew up on that movie too,
So Jemmy Chase was in your lifevery early on Mike early and often.
Yes, yeah, yeah, Iwas surprised. I go through the

(01:18:00):
list and I'm like, oh,yeah, I actually saw that one in
the theater. I've never seen thatone. This one I've seen a bunch,
you know. It's it's all overthe place with him. Yeah,
and again like you in the theater. It's it's one of those things where
like these are some really big moviesthat have a lot of lasting power,
especially like Vegas Vacation, European Vacation, Christmas Vacation, Caddy Shack, Caddy

(01:18:24):
Shack. I consider that one ofhis most popular films, Caddy Shack.
Everybody I know loves Caddy Shacks.Yeah, I mean seriously, Yeah,
if you bring up comedies, it'slike Caddy Shack. Yeah, it's my
age group for one thing. Butit's you know, yeah, you want
to I had a couple of stumblesmaybe before, but then after Caddy Shack,

(01:18:45):
it's like, oh, this guy'sgoing to go somewhere. He had
a stumple stumbles, he had somestumbles. This this this and the maybe
the tunnel Vision and groove Tube orwhatever. But yeah, because sel play
is solid, so yeah, ohyeah. So speaking of foul play,
Begley, where can people find thatdiscussion that we did and the things that

(01:19:08):
you work on? You can findthat at wakeuphavy dot com or Weirdingwaymedia dot
com, amongst many other shows.And you can find me at Wake Up
Heavy on social media Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, letterbox if you want to
see when I'm watching link tree,et cetera. What about you, Benjifan

(01:19:30):
number one, Mike White, Iwas just handed this brief that says that
everything I can do, everything Ido is available at Weirdingwaymedia dot com.
I am proud to be a memberof this illustrious distribution and media group.
Thank you. You will find yourwife and daughter at exit thirty three.

(01:19:55):
Okay, all right, we're supposedto read that? Yeah, sorry what
I said? How would happen ifyou read that second part of the air?
Oh shit? Oh my goodness?And what about you, Chris?
Well, when I'm not apparently holdingMike's family hostage, you can find me

(01:20:15):
and my associated works over at FBIdot gov. No, you can find
them at Weirdingwaymedia dot com where Ido a weekly movie podcast called The Culture
Cast, and a whole raft ofother monthly and biweekly things. But you
know, there's other people's voices atWeirdingway Media too, like Susan Lambert HadAM
who does Eighties TV Ladies. It'sEmily and Travia and Christine make Peace who

(01:20:40):
do the Feminine Critique, and SierraZorn and Alicia Watson who do Twisted and
Uncorked. So yeah, three otherpodcasts that have, you know, more
to say about more things than wedo about Chevy Chase movies. Clearly because
this episode is now over. Ifyou want to hear more of us,
Weirdingwaymedia dot Com is where you canfind those and this show. And yeah,

(01:21:01):
we'll be coming back to you everymonth to bring more Chevy Chase centric
content here on the Chasing Chevy podcast. We're fans of Chevy Chase and you're not