Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, bussheads, Welcome to the Seventies Buzz Podcast. I'm Curtis Tucker.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
And I'm Todd Wheeler, bringing you our memories or lack thereof,
of growing up in the seventies.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
We are not a history podcast. We just want you
guys to know that sometimes we get things wrong, and
if you listen to us long enough, you're going to
be screaming at your device trying to give us the
right answers.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Listen up as we recount growing up in the Midwest
and our unique experience. Go to seventies Buzz dot com
from war Info and leave us your thoughts.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Let us know if you guys have any show ideas,
if you'd like us to get you on as an advertiser,
and don't forget please leave us reviews on your favorite
podcasting apps.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Don't confuse me. I don't need confuse me anymore. Okay,
music playing Bulco buncle buckle, buckle, buckle buck a bugle
b look a bulcome bugle.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
You have done along with that?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Who what what?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Dude? I want to offer number to take? What is that?
What is that over there?
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Dude?
Speaker 2 (01:38):
The soundtrack is half a movie. Alright, girl. The Swimmer's dead.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Now you have now busted Dave's ear drums.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Sorry Dave. So everybody's wondering we're doing Jaws.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
We're doing Jaws. You guys hit us up at five
eight oh five for one three eight oh five. We're
bothsabusedmedia dot com. We're gonna jump right into it. That music,
think about think about the music to that movie and
Star Wars. How iconic, how recognizable? Is there a decade
(02:30):
and in the history of man that has any more
iconic oh eight soundtracks than in the seventies? No, And
why would the music from the movies be the best
in the seventies, mister Wheler.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Because that was the greatest thing water Mine you see was?
But no, seriously, I mean, yeah, it's almost all John Williams.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yeah, I think he was Close Encounters. I think, yeah,
quite a few of them out there.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
So Star Wars he is Star Wars dude.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, good, good, good stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Uh So we went to Universal when we were at
Disney a couple of months ago, and I bought one
T shirt at No actually I bought two T shirts
at Universal and I got one.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
I'm on, let's just say is that the one you're wearing.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
No, that's my Jaws fiftieth anniversary. So so we were
looking for what episode could we do because you're in
Austin right now, in Austin as we speak, and so
we thought, well, we need an episode, We need some
episodes that we can record four episodes in one night.
And I was looking back, I thought, well, you know,
(03:49):
we haven't done Jaws fiftieth anniversary any justice, because we've
already done a Jaws episode. But when you look back,
think how iconic Jaws is that it was our what
third third episode? Our third I mean, and our first
episode was Green Stamps, which I think we just did
because it was just something that I kept thinking about
(04:10):
that would be kind of fun to talk about. So really,
Jaws was like, in my mind, almost our second, Like,
you know, let's think about it. What are some of
the most iconic things from the seventies, Well, Jaws, But
that was eight freaking years ago. So Jaws was released
(04:31):
fifty years ago. We did our podcast episode eight years ago.
So we thought we would do a little refresher on Jaws,
especially since they've just come out with the fiftieth anniversary documentary.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yes, I mean there's several documentaries, but they say this
is the definitive. It's actually in the line the title,
the definitive.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah. If you want to know any fun facts behind
the scene, any of that stuff. High if you'd like
Jaws remotely in the least, you got to see the documentary.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah. Oh, Spielberg's in it a bunch and he explains
a bunch as he does, as well as everybody else.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
I mean they interview pretty much everybody that's still alive. Yeah,
and you find out. What I thought was super interesting
was there's like five actors I don't know somewhere around
there in the whole movie eight and then everybody else,
even people that had lines, are people from the island
that actually lived there.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Farah Faucet was our second episode.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Oh that's too funny. I watched are we doing? We're
doing seventies buzz right.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah, So, I.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Don't know, a TikTok video or something popped up with
Joaquin Phoenix when he was on David Letterman and it
was the night that he went on. He had the
beard and the sunglasses and he acted real weird and
said he was going to quit acting, and Dave was like,
thanks for me you know, it was just making fun
(06:13):
of him because he was acting so weird. Well, come
to find out he had Joaquin had told him that
he was going to do that, that he was going
to come on and act weird in character. So David
knew it was coming and was just hammering him because
he knew he wasn't going to come back with anything.
(06:35):
And I think he was trying to make him laugh
and he couldn't get him to laugh, although he smiled
a couple of times, So it was the whole thing
was stage. But anyway, at some point during the interview,
Dave says, oh, at the end of the interview, Joaquin
leaves and he's talking to somebody else and he says,
I guess I need to forgive Farah or sorry Sarah,
(07:00):
because you know, Farah had been on his show and
had acted really bizarre in her interview. So I thought,
boy's been years since I've seen that. So last night,
funny that you mentioned that. Last night, I watched the
whole Farah David Letterman interview.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
There's more than one, I'm sure, or was there.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
No, she had never been on his show before, and
I don't know that she was ever on it. Again
after that, and it wasn't as bizarre as I remembered it.
If you just kind of watch it. She was on something,
but I don't think she was like she wasn't like
drunk or you know, superstone. I think she was just
(07:42):
on something. And so she's just real. She's just and
I don't know what she was like in real life.
I don't know if she was like a scattered blonde
in real life and that was just her personality. But
when you really watch it, she wasn't as bizarre as
they d it out to be. But anyway, that's funny
(08:02):
you bring up Parah. But I'll watch that whole interview.
So if you want to see kind of a weird interview,
watch the Farah David Letterman interview.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
H was that in the seventies, No, was like in
the nineties. Oh I think, okay, yeah, there was that
weird period.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Yeah, she got a little strange. See yeah. So anyway,
so anyway, yeah, so we have not done talked about
Jaws really, I guess, you know, we did some top
ten lists and stuff we've talked about a little bit.
But anyway, a little refresher on Jaw since it has
been eight years since we did the first episode. Yeah,
(08:41):
oh and what I can't remember what the website was.
Somebody came out with a list of fifty facts because
it's the fiftieth anniversary.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Oh, there's a bunch of them.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, whatever did you go? Not go to that website?
I may have okay anyway, there so there's a I
wish I had it in front of you, but I don't.
There's a website out there. You can just type it in.
You'll find it that has fifty and you're probably gonna
get all these fifty facts if you watched the documentary.
But that's kind of what I'm going off of.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
I did see one, uh one of the one of
those lists, and there was one line. There was one
thing that they said, and they said it incorrectly because
I heard the correct version come out of Spielberg's mouth
on that documentary. Yeah, it's it's it's the iconic line,
oh about.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
A bigger boat.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah, and Spielberg says, I told him when he's after
he's chumming the water and you know, he sees the
shark and he goes walk to the cabin backwards staring
at what you were looking at and say you're going
to need a bigger boat. Well, in one of those
(09:54):
website lists, somebody said it was somebody else that told
said that he had lib that. Well, he didn't have
lived that. Spielberg said that he told him to do
it Anywow.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Yeah, a very very iconic line. So within the last month,
I've watched the documentary and of course I don't know why,
but it came on this weekend. So I watched Jaws again.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
I tried to find Jaws. I didn't want to pay
for it.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Had dude, it was on. Well, it's Shark Week. It
was even on. Oh, it was on all weekend because
it's coming up Shark Week. I guess this is a
Shark week. And I was like, well, why didn't they
wait till Shark Week. It was like before Shark Week
started that they showed it. So it'll probably be on
again this week. I would guess, since it's a shark
I think this is Shark Week.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
I don't get I don't understand shark.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
If not, it's it's just a jaw Jaws. I mean,
had there not been a Jaws, there would not be
a Shark Week.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I could give you exact.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Uh. Yeah, So anyway, Uh, I mean a lot of
these you guys probably know, and if you saw the
documentary you gonna know. But yeah, the mechanical shark, which
didn't work most of the time, was named Bruce, and
Bruce Raymer was the lawyer that it was Steven Spielberg's
(11:15):
lawyer that it was named after. And I guess there
was three Bruce's, and I guess one of them. I
read an article. I saw an article they so of course,
when you're doing this stuff at the time, it doesn't
seem as iconic when you're doing it as it does
fifty years later. So I guess they just kind of
(11:35):
let the sharks go and some guy, some guy found
one of them in like a backlot of the studio
and he had he redid it and now it's like
in some huge museum from the hanging from the ceiling. Yeah,
this was that in the show. Was that in the documentary?
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Okay, yes, yeah, So.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Anyway, Yeah, they had one that would swim and turn left,
one that's swim and turned right, and then one to
move forward, two things I couldn't figure out, and it
took me a while to figure it out. So they
used pneumatics to open the jaw, not hydraulics. They used
pneumatics because they didn't want hydraulic food leaking into the ocean.
(12:17):
And I couldn't figure out how the damn thing moved.
And then what did they use for the skin? I mean,
it looked pretty damn real. Yeah, well they used I
found they used flexible. It was fiberglass, but they used
flexible paint over the moving parts. And most of the
(12:43):
time the shark was dragged by a boat, you couldn't
see it that the dragged thing. He was underwater. So,
but I mean for nineteen seventy four is when they
filmed this, that was pretty damn good.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Well, and when they told them to build the shark,
they weren't thinking about saltwater versus fresh water. So the
saltwater really screwed up a lot of the mechanicals.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah, especially because in the water so much. Yeah, and
you don't see the sharkdet often.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yeah, And I think you know from the interviews. Part
of that was once once they got to filming, Spielberg
realized you didn't need to see it was almost better
not to see the shark.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Yeah, it builds suspends.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
It was kind of like, hey, this is kind of cool.
We don't really need to show.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
The shark as much, right, No.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
No, I've seen some people really really like hone in
and just really study Jaws. And there's like the beach
scene where the little boy gets eaten by the shark.
If you watch that, it's interesting because you'll watch it
and like the boy, I think it's in like a
yellow pair of shorts, and then there's like a yellow
(13:56):
floaty and then there's like somebody in a yellow hat,
and it's like Spielberg even the detail there. He used
repetitive colors, but he spaced them, you know, along the beach,
so and so you can like look at it and
you're like when somebody points it out all of a sudden,
you're like, oh, yeah, it is the same yellow here
(14:17):
and there and there. And I don't know, he put
a lot of a lot more thought into the movie
than what we really realize. But I think that's why
you can watch it today and it feels like it
was put out today. It doesn't feel like an old movie. No.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
I actually I don't remember the last time I saw it.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
It's been oh gosh, I bet I've seen it four
times this year.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Really.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Oh yeah, every time it comes it's like Twisters or
Jurassic Park. The originally, if it's on, I don't even
flip the channel. I mean, it just saves me from
having to go watch something else. I just watch it
again and it comes on quite a bit.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
So well, I could have paid three bucks and rented it.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
No, it's on free somewhere.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
I looked.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
I'm pretty sure I can't. I wonder where I watched
it because I watched this.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yeah. Yeah, remember I don't have YouTube TV anymore.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Or oh that's true. Yeah, I think it might have been.
It was on YouTube TV.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
I think now that I'm gonna I'm gonna have to
break down a buy it.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Yeah. Johns nominated for four Oscars, one three, Best Sound,
Best Score, Best Edit Team.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
It's Spielberg didn't even get nominated. I know.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
But he was so young and so unknown.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
He wasn't No, he was not unknown.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
He'd only been known since American Graffiti. I mean really, I.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Mean he did duel, he did Sugarland Express.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Duel, but those were like big, I mean he.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Was I want to watch Sugarland Express. It's supposed to
be really good.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen it.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
I haven't. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
I mean, I can see why he didn't.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Win, but he wasn't even nominated.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Well, I mean, and I don't see why he wasn't nominated.
I mean, I don't know. I think in yeah, that's Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
I mean, well, well, yeah, they.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Kind of want you to build up a reputation and
then you gotta get really weird to win that. You
can't can't just stick with the typical stuff.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Yeah, I mean it got nominated for Best Picture. Yeah,
but you know Cuckoo's Nest one there. Yeah, that had
been hard to beat Cucku's Nest.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Oh, yeah, have we ever We've never ye Oh, that's
there's an episode right there.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yeah, cuckoo Google. Did you get so when you were
watching the documentary and they were talking about Benchley writing
the novel, did you catch there was a little bitty
blur by caught today where they're talking about the dynamics
of the characters and all this stuff, and they said
(16:57):
it said something to the effect of and the affair
between Hooper and Ellen Brody.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Yeah, in the book they have an affair.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
I was like, what what?
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, in the book so I never read
the book. J read the book. No, I never read
the book, but I knew for some reason, I knew.
I think maybe from the first time.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
We did this or something a totally different movie.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Oh yeah, there was a couple of things that they
completely changed. But oh yeah that was and I think
some people were upset that they didn't have But yeah,
I'm glad they didn't have an affair.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Yeah, I mean, when would you have time to stuck
it in there? It was two hours and six minutes.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Already, and that may have been who know, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
You got to cut something out. Let's cut the affair out. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
So did you see that there's a night scene and
Royce Schreider Schreider is you know, he's in frame. You
see that the meteor go behind him.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Yeah, yeah, I caught that the detail I think twice,
I think the place in the movie they're out on
the boat in one.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Yeah, it's like, is that real?
Speaker 1 (18:04):
I don't think they're real, because I noticed. I always
noticed that for some reason, and I'm like that it's
it's cool. I don't think it's real, but it's cool
that they thought. Again, that's just a little detail. That
they thought, Hey, put a shooting star you know in
that scene, you know, And I bet, I bet eighty
(18:25):
percent of people have no clue. I know there's at
least two I think in the movie. But yeah, no,
I knew that. I saw those. I had seen those before.
There are six shark victims in the movie, including implied
a dog, a dog. I'm trying to think.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Of where I remember a dog being eight.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
It says it was implied.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Oh implied. Oh okay, yeah, because they weren't good. You
couldn't you couldn't film a dog. What the heck was
a dog doing out in the ocean.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Well, I'm trying to think of which dog they employed.
I don't know. This is one of the facts from
that website. Spielberg was only twenty eight when Johns was released.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Writer Peter Benchley plays a TV reporter in one movie scene.
I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Yeah. Well, Spielberg does a cameo too. He's playing the
clarinet in the marching band at the fourth of Julybrary.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Oh yeah, because I'm an extra in movies, I always
for some reason, It's one of my favorite movies to
watch extras in, because like everybody in the movie almost
is an.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Extra, all but eight of them.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
And it's so it's fun to kind of watch. And
what was that Bad Hat Harry and Jaws? Yeah, so
when the old guy comes up to him on the
beach and he's wearing like a weird old sailor's hat
(20:01):
or something.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Oh, you talk, is that the character that Quent was
taken from?
Speaker 1 (20:07):
No, this is just an old random guy. And he
says bad Hat Harry. And I'm trying to think. Oh,
somebody named their company bad Hat Harry.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Oh, he was saying bad Hat Harry.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Yeah, he's not bad Hat Harry. No, it was like
bad Hat Harry.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
It is a cool name.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Actually, and somebody took that name and I can't remember
who it was. And that's the name of their company. Wow,
be dark. Anyway, there's another little bit of a fact. Bentuley,
originally hired to write the screenplay, and Spielberg publicly sniped
at each other in the months leading up to the release.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Bad Had Harry is a production company.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Who's does it say? Seemed like it's somebody kind of famous.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Brian Singer. Actually, I got a text. I got a
video text from Brian Sinker.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Oh, that's right. That's right because when you Yeah, because
when you told me about him, and I looked his
company up and I thought, well, that's an unusual name,
and then I found out that that was a line
from Jaws.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, that's too funny.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I got a signed DVD from him too.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
There you go, it's all it all goes full circle.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Jaws was filmed mostly on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, except
for I think they had the scene where the head
comes out of the boat. They did in a swimming pool.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Swimming pool up think of the other Burma yeah, Burma Fields.
And they did do some stuff in the the lot
of the studio.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Yeah, but most most of it of it.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
And that's why it was so cool because and that's
what made it so hard to film, and that's why
they went over budget. That's why they took too much time.
Is all that filming on the open ocean had to
be just horrendous. I mean they Spielberg says, it wasn't
a fun movie to make.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Oh yeah, I wonder how often everybody got sick in
the beginning, because being on those boats you get a
little cesick.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Heck, yeah, you do.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Here was another difference between the book and the movie.
In the original novel, the Mafia puts pressure on the
mayor to keep the beaches open. See that would have
been super weird. Yeah that in the movie. Yeah, but
yeah so And I don't even think. I don't think
they realized how much motion was going to be in
(22:41):
the ocean. And I noticed when I watch it now
after knowing. A lot of that is if you it
would be hard to watch on a big screen close up,
because there's a lot of movement in some of the
scenes where if you're not paying close attention, you don't
really notice it. But if you're paying close attention and
(23:02):
it's a big screen, it could make you a little
woozy if you watch it too long. Jaws opened simultaneously
on more than four hundred and fifty screens in North America.
Do you remember seeing it at the movie theater? See,
I don't either.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
See we talked about this eight years ago.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
And I know we did. I know I saw it
at the chi Jeff Owens because of the fiftieth anniversary.
He just did I think a blog post or a
podcast episode, and he wanted people to ride in their
memory of when they first saw Jaws, and he remembers
seeing it at I think it was the Chief at
(23:44):
the time, not the cinema twin. I think it was
a Chief, So if he saw it there, it had
to have been at the Chief when I saw it.
But I just but I don't remember.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
I just remember it was always on, it was always there.
It's always it was always around.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, I mean, I know I saw it Jaws at
the theater. I just I guess it just was one
of those I just don't have that timestamp for some reason. Yeah,
but yeah, four hundred and fifty screens I get. I
guess in the seventies, that was probably pretty good, you know.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Besides the music, one of my favorite things about the
movie was Roy Scheider's facial expressions. He's got you watch
these you watch the documentary and you watch clips and stuff.
He's always doing these these little yeah his eyes. Yeah yeah.
(24:35):
And the dynamic between those three actors that was pretty old.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Yeah. Yeah, and I guess, uh yeah, Quint and Hooper
in real life, I don't think they liked each other
yeah at all, So, which which was great.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
For the movie, right, Yeah, played well into the the
uh the or the field.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Yeah. Murray Hamilton, who played the sleazy mayor of Amity,
was chosen partly for his resemblance to Richard Dixon. Ouch
two thousand and one, Jaws was declared culturally, historically and
aesthetically significant by the National Film Registry of the Library
(25:25):
of Congress, and if there was ever going to be
a movie to do that, that would be one of them.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Yeah. What's kind of like Duel. I mean you've seen Duel, right,
uh huh. I mean he says in the documentary that
the studio wanted him to do like you know how
they do this stupid stuff with the you know, the
car is not really.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Moving and oh yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
He's like, no, I can't do that. No, And that's
what makes Duel so cool. I mean, just just the
cinematography on that. I don't I can't remember any music
being cool from Duel.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
But yeah, that's what's kind of weird about filmmaking is
back in the day they use those screens like if
he's you know, driving his car, there's like screens going
by or you know, it's fake, he's not really driving.
And Spielberg was like, no, let's keep everything real. So
they go through the years of everything's real and now
(26:22):
we're back to I was watching a deal on the
making of Superman where they've got this animatronic Superman and
a big screen and it's how he's flying over the mountains,
you know. So it's kind of it's kind of like
it's gone full circle. I mean, but the ability, the
way to the computers and cameras now make it look real,
(26:44):
whereas back in the day, you know, when Batman and
Robin were climbing up the side of the building.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
You can see the strings pulling their capes like gravity. Yeah.
I remember when Superman came out in sey eight. You know,
there's one of the one of the commercials was you
will Believe a Man Can Fly. And I remember seventy
eight going.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Dang, yeah yeah. I kind of remember saying, yeah, you
gotta go see that because it really looks like a
dude's flying.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Yeah. Nowadays people to see kids that see movies today,
I mean, it just all looks real.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Crazy.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
And the trailer. I watched the trailer well ago, and
and you know it's I think it's like a minute
long whatever. And at the very end of the trailer,
you know, the guy's talking. He's got this reals, you know,
he says, see it before you go swimming.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Oh, I think it changed. That movie changed a lot
of swimming habits.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Yeah, for quite a while, quite a while. And then
a bunch of people went nuts hunting sharks. Yeah, yeah,
which kind of backfired. But you know, because they would
kill them. They would catch them, cut their fins off,
and throw them back in the water to die, to drown.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah, you know that's not fun.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
No.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Charleston Heston, Charles Charles Ton Heston lobbied hard for the
role of Brody, which is kind of interesting.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
He could pull Brodie off.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Oh yeah, I could definitely see that. Three Jaws sequels
and now there's like fifty thousand Jaws Jaw knockoff movies. Yeah,
I think there was. There was one on when we
were at the hotel. It seems like it had some
famous had like three famous actors in it. They're like
(28:46):
these super sharks that they had in this cage. I
can't even think of what it was called.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Lasers on their head.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
I don't know. It was weird. It was when Sharknado,
was it, No, Sharnado? I can't remember what it was.
Jaws was based on an actual nineteen sixteen incident on
the Jersey Shore. A rogue shark killed four bathers, two
of them in an estuary. There is a similar scene
(29:16):
in the movie.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Huh interesting. You know it's originally planned to be released
for Christmas and seventy four, but because you know, they
didn't get it done by then, you don't.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Want Jaws to being a Christmas movie.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Yeah, and we got to mention it was the first
blockbuster too. Yeah, yeah, it started the whole summer blockbuster thing.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Uh did you do.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
With a budget of nine million? It's made four hundred
and seventy eight million. And in today's money, that's like
I think it. I think it's a billion in today's money.
Well cool, yeah, and I guess it's still making money.
I don't know. I'd like to go see it at
the movie.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that'd be kind of cool. Or
even the drive in.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Yeah, we don't even have a drive in. So was
buddy George and another filmmaker. Spielberg invites him over to
check out the the machine that Bruce how it works,
And so they were goofing around and George Lucas stuck
his head in the mouth and Spielberger or the other
(30:28):
guy hit ale evert that chopped down on him stuck.
He got stuck, so they had to force it open
to get him out, and then they took off front
of because they thought they broke it. He could have
killed the act.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
I was gonna say, yeah, you could. Yeah, I wouldn't
be sticking my head in there.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Well, those teeth weren't real well, but still they should
have took a picture of that.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Yeah. The shock moment when Ben Gardner's disfigured head pops
out of the boat. Yeah, was an eleventh hour edition.
After test greeting, Spielberg decided the movie needed one more
big scream.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
That's probably the scariest part of the movie.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
It is probably the most bizarre part of the movie,
that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
The shark lost his head yep, where the guys head?
And God, I'm gonna eat that.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Universal spent one point eight million dollars promoting the movie,
which they did a good job. First shown on television
in nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
That's probably why I saw it first.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Actually, oh really, you don't think you saw it at
the movie the I.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Don't remember going to the movie theater and seeing it.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Yeah, but see, there's a lot of movies. I don't
remember going to the movie theater, but I did.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Yeah, so, but I remember going seeing Herbie, but I
can't remember going seeing Jaws of the movie.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
I don't know that I did.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I did. I just don't remember.
I can't imagine. So I wonder, uh, showing it on
TV in seventy nine one, if that was like on
regular TV or like Hbahbo, probably because I'd hate to
watch Jaws for the first time with commercials? Can you imagine?
(32:17):
I mean, now you know now when I watch it,
of course there seems like there's always commercials.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
But I bet it was. It had to be HBO
in seventy nine, could have been could have been skinn Imax.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
According to this one of the fifty Facts, it says
you're gonna need a bigger boat was an improvised line.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Somebody needs to well, it's improvised by Spielberg. It wasn't
in this. It wasn't in the script. But some people
say Roy did it or Roy made it up. But
if you watch the video, if you watch the documentary,
you see Spielberg told him.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Saying, yeah, which means it's not really improvised.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
I mean, well, I think I think they mean improvise
because it wasn't in the script.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Yeah, but if the director tells you to say it,
then yeah. Reduced beach going and increased shirk sightings and
seventy five were both attributed to Jaws in the original
novel Oh, I Didn't Know That and the original novel
Hooper Dies.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Benchley followed up with a Monster Shark with a Monster
Eel the Deep nineteen seventy six and Monster Squid Beast
nineteen ninety one. It's like he would write books about
big water monsters and some big, big movies out of them,
and it's a chain. That's quite a yeah, quite a
little Quin's boat is the Orca. A Jaws movie ripoff
(33:45):
called Orca about a killer whale, came out in nineteen
seventy seven.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
That wasn't a bad movie either, if I remember.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
It was Okay, movie rights for Jaws was purchased for
one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars. That was a
pretty good deal.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Yeah, so that's what Bentley got paid. Bnchley got paid well,
I would think surely he had like I would think
he ended up getting more than that, but surely he
had something on the back end.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
And yeah, just just to I guess to have the
movie rights, he had to pony up that just so
another studio I guess didn't get it. Anyway, there's fifty
of these things you can get online, search them and
find them all. Yeah. So anyway, cool, one of the
(34:38):
most iconic movies, not just of the seventies but of
all time.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Yeah, it's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
I got a question for you, for me, for the well,
for the buzzheads out there. Yeah, is there somebody out
there that listens to the seventies buzz podcast that has
never seen Job? If you've never seen Jaws, hit us
up at five eighth five for one three EIGHTHO five
or buzz at buzzimedia dot com. So we were talking
(35:09):
earlier at dinner tonight. There's a lot of videos now,
and my favorite are the ones where they get somebody
that's never heard Boston and they they video them. That's
what we need to do. If there's somebody out there
that has never seen Jaws, we need to somehow set
up a camera and film you watching Jaws. For the
(35:33):
first time, and then we can take clips of it
or something and we can make a million two bazillion
viewed TikTok out of it for the seventies. Buzz there
you go, and we'll share money with you. Absolutely, but
that'd be cool to put it on our Facebook page
and the group page. And yeah. So if there's somebody
out there that has never seen Jaws.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
You just reminded me. I got to play something for
you after this.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Let us know.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Oh yeah, I can't play it on there.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Okay, now we doing on time over there, you can Okay,
uh you guys again, hit us up five eight oh five,
four one, three oh five. Let us know. Did you
go to the movie theater to see Jaws or did
you see it on television or what do you remember
about Jaws? Buzz buzzmedia dot com is the email We're
gonna get out of here.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Cheer
Hey, bussheads, Welcome to the Seventies Buzz Podcast. I'm Curtis Tucker.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
And I'm Todd Wheeler, bringing you our memories or lack thereof,
of growing up in the seventies.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
We are not a history podcast. We just want you
guys to know that sometimes we get things wrong, and
if you listen to us long enough, you're going to
be screaming at your device trying to give us the
right answers.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Listen up as we recount growing up in the Midwest
and our unique experience. Go to seventies Buzz dot com
from war Info and leave us your thoughts.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Let us know if you guys have any show ideas,
if you'd like us to get you on as an advertiser,
and don't forget please leave us reviews on your favorite
podcasting apps.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Don't confuse me. I don't need confuse me anymore. Okay,
music playing Bulco buncle buckle, buckle, buckle buck a bugle
b look a bulcome bugle.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
You have done along with that?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Who what what?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Dude? I want to offer number to take? What is that?
What is that over there?
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Dude?
Speaker 2 (01:38):
The soundtrack is half a movie. Alright, girl. The Swimmer's dead.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Now you have now busted Dave's ear drums.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Sorry Dave. So everybody's wondering we're doing Jaws.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
We're doing Jaws. You guys hit us up at five
eight oh five for one three eight oh five. We're
bothsabusedmedia dot com. We're gonna jump right into it. That music,
think about think about the music to that movie and
Star Wars. How iconic, how recognizable? Is there a decade
(02:30):
and in the history of man that has any more
iconic oh eight soundtracks than in the seventies? No, And
why would the music from the movies be the best
in the seventies, mister Wheler.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Because that was the greatest thing water Mine you see was?
But no, seriously, I mean, yeah, it's almost all John Williams.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yeah, I think he was Close Encounters. I think, yeah,
quite a few of them out there.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
So Star Wars he is Star Wars dude.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, good, good, good stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Uh So we went to Universal when we were at
Disney a couple of months ago, and I bought one
T shirt at No actually I bought two T shirts
at Universal and I got one.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
I'm on, let's just say is that the one you're wearing.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
No, that's my Jaws fiftieth anniversary. So so we were
looking for what episode could we do because you're in
Austin right now, in Austin as we speak, and so
we thought, well, we need an episode, We need some
episodes that we can record four episodes in one night.
And I was looking back, I thought, well, you know,
(03:49):
we haven't done Jaws fiftieth anniversary any justice, because we've
already done a Jaws episode. But when you look back,
think how iconic Jaws is that it was our what
third third episode? Our third I mean, and our first
episode was Green Stamps, which I think we just did
because it was just something that I kept thinking about
(04:10):
that would be kind of fun to talk about. So really,
Jaws was like, in my mind, almost our second, Like,
you know, let's think about it. What are some of
the most iconic things from the seventies, Well, Jaws, But
that was eight freaking years ago. So Jaws was released
(04:31):
fifty years ago. We did our podcast episode eight years ago.
So we thought we would do a little refresher on Jaws,
especially since they've just come out with the fiftieth anniversary documentary.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yes, I mean there's several documentaries, but they say this
is the definitive. It's actually in the line the title,
the definitive.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah. If you want to know any fun facts behind
the scene, any of that stuff. High if you'd like
Jaws remotely in the least, you got to see the documentary.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah. Oh, Spielberg's in it a bunch and he explains
a bunch as he does, as well as everybody else.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
I mean they interview pretty much everybody that's still alive. Yeah,
and you find out. What I thought was super interesting
was there's like five actors I don't know somewhere around
there in the whole movie eight and then everybody else,
even people that had lines, are people from the island
that actually lived there.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Farah Faucet was our second episode.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Oh that's too funny. I watched are we doing? We're
doing seventies buzz right.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah, So, I.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Don't know, a TikTok video or something popped up with
Joaquin Phoenix when he was on David Letterman and it
was the night that he went on. He had the
beard and the sunglasses and he acted real weird and
said he was going to quit acting, and Dave was like,
thanks for me you know, it was just making fun
(06:13):
of him because he was acting so weird. Well, come
to find out he had Joaquin had told him that
he was going to do that, that he was going
to come on and act weird in character. So David
knew it was coming and was just hammering him because
he knew he wasn't going to come back with anything.
(06:35):
And I think he was trying to make him laugh
and he couldn't get him to laugh, although he smiled
a couple of times, So it was the whole thing
was stage. But anyway, at some point during the interview,
Dave says, oh, at the end of the interview, Joaquin
leaves and he's talking to somebody else and he says,
I guess I need to forgive Farah or sorry Sarah,
(07:00):
because you know, Farah had been on his show and
had acted really bizarre in her interview. So I thought,
boy's been years since I've seen that. So last night,
funny that you mentioned that. Last night, I watched the
whole Farah David Letterman interview.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
There's more than one, I'm sure, or was there.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
No, she had never been on his show before, and
I don't know that she was ever on it. Again
after that, and it wasn't as bizarre as I remembered it.
If you just kind of watch it. She was on something,
but I don't think she was like she wasn't like
drunk or you know, superstone. I think she was just
(07:42):
on something. And so she's just real. She's just and
I don't know what she was like in real life.
I don't know if she was like a scattered blonde
in real life and that was just her personality. But
when you really watch it, she wasn't as bizarre as
they d it out to be. But anyway, that's funny
(08:02):
you bring up Parah. But I'll watch that whole interview.
So if you want to see kind of a weird interview,
watch the Farah David Letterman interview.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
H was that in the seventies, No, was like in
the nineties. Oh I think, okay, yeah, there was that
weird period.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Yeah, she got a little strange. See yeah. So anyway,
so anyway, yeah, so we have not done talked about
Jaws really, I guess, you know, we did some top
ten lists and stuff we've talked about a little bit.
But anyway, a little refresher on Jaw since it has
been eight years since we did the first episode. Yeah,
(08:41):
oh and what I can't remember what the website was.
Somebody came out with a list of fifty facts because
it's the fiftieth anniversary.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Oh, there's a bunch of them.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, whatever did you go? Not go to that website?
I may have okay anyway, there so there's a I
wish I had it in front of you, but I don't.
There's a website out there. You can just type it in.
You'll find it that has fifty and you're probably gonna
get all these fifty facts if you watched the documentary.
But that's kind of what I'm going off of.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
I did see one, uh one of the one of
those lists, and there was one line. There was one
thing that they said, and they said it incorrectly because
I heard the correct version come out of Spielberg's mouth
on that documentary. Yeah, it's it's it's the iconic line,
oh about.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
A bigger boat.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah, and Spielberg says, I told him when he's after
he's chumming the water and you know, he sees the
shark and he goes walk to the cabin backwards staring
at what you were looking at and say you're going
to need a bigger boat. Well, in one of those
(09:54):
website lists, somebody said it was somebody else that told
said that he had lib that. Well, he didn't have
lived that. Spielberg said that he told him to do
it Anywow.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Yeah, a very very iconic line. So within the last month,
I've watched the documentary and of course I don't know why,
but it came on this weekend. So I watched Jaws again.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
I tried to find Jaws. I didn't want to pay
for it.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Had dude, it was on. Well, it's Shark Week. It
was even on. Oh, it was on all weekend because
it's coming up Shark Week. I guess this is a
Shark week. And I was like, well, why didn't they
wait till Shark Week. It was like before Shark Week
started that they showed it. So it'll probably be on
again this week. I would guess, since it's a shark
I think this is Shark Week.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
I don't get I don't understand shark.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
If not, it's it's just a jaw Jaws. I mean,
had there not been a Jaws, there would not be
a Shark Week.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I could give you exact.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Uh. Yeah, So anyway, Uh, I mean a lot of
these you guys probably know, and if you saw the
documentary you gonna know. But yeah, the mechanical shark, which
didn't work most of the time, was named Bruce, and
Bruce Raymer was the lawyer that it was Steven Spielberg's
(11:15):
lawyer that it was named after. And I guess there
was three Bruce's, and I guess one of them. I
read an article. I saw an article they so of course,
when you're doing this stuff at the time, it doesn't
seem as iconic when you're doing it as it does
fifty years later. So I guess they just kind of
(11:35):
let the sharks go and some guy, some guy found
one of them in like a backlot of the studio
and he had he redid it and now it's like
in some huge museum from the hanging from the ceiling. Yeah,
this was that in the show. Was that in the documentary?
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Okay, yes, yeah, So.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Anyway, Yeah, they had one that would swim and turn left,
one that's swim and turned right, and then one to
move forward, two things I couldn't figure out, and it
took me a while to figure it out. So they
used pneumatics to open the jaw, not hydraulics. They used
pneumatics because they didn't want hydraulic food leaking into the ocean.
(12:17):
And I couldn't figure out how the damn thing moved.
And then what did they use for the skin? I mean,
it looked pretty damn real. Yeah, well they used I
found they used flexible. It was fiberglass, but they used
flexible paint over the moving parts. And most of the
(12:43):
time the shark was dragged by a boat, you couldn't
see it that the dragged thing. He was underwater. So,
but I mean for nineteen seventy four is when they
filmed this, that was pretty damn good.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Well, and when they told them to build the shark,
they weren't thinking about saltwater versus fresh water. So the
saltwater really screwed up a lot of the mechanicals.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah, especially because in the water so much. Yeah, and
you don't see the sharkdet often.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yeah, And I think you know from the interviews. Part
of that was once once they got to filming, Spielberg
realized you didn't need to see it was almost better
not to see the shark.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Yeah, it builds suspends.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
It was kind of like, hey, this is kind of cool.
We don't really need to show.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
The shark as much, right, No.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
No, I've seen some people really really like hone in
and just really study Jaws. And there's like the beach
scene where the little boy gets eaten by the shark.
If you watch that, it's interesting because you'll watch it
and like the boy, I think it's in like a
yellow pair of shorts, and then there's like a yellow
(13:56):
floaty and then there's like somebody in a yellow hat,
and it's like Spielberg even the detail there. He used
repetitive colors, but he spaced them, you know, along the beach,
so and so you can like look at it and
you're like when somebody points it out all of a sudden,
you're like, oh, yeah, it is the same yellow here
(14:17):
and there and there. And I don't know, he put
a lot of a lot more thought into the movie
than what we really realize. But I think that's why
you can watch it today and it feels like it
was put out today. It doesn't feel like an old movie. No.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
I actually I don't remember the last time I saw it.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
It's been oh gosh, I bet I've seen it four
times this year.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Really.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Oh yeah, every time it comes it's like Twisters or
Jurassic Park. The originally, if it's on, I don't even
flip the channel. I mean, it just saves me from
having to go watch something else. I just watch it
again and it comes on quite a bit.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
So well, I could have paid three bucks and rented it.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
No, it's on free somewhere.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
I looked.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
I'm pretty sure I can't. I wonder where I watched
it because I watched this.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yeah. Yeah, remember I don't have YouTube TV anymore.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Or oh that's true. Yeah, I think it might have been.
It was on YouTube TV.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
I think now that I'm gonna I'm gonna have to
break down a buy it.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Yeah. Johns nominated for four Oscars, one three, Best Sound,
Best Score, Best Edit Team.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
It's Spielberg didn't even get nominated. I know.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
But he was so young and so unknown.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
He wasn't No, he was not unknown.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
He'd only been known since American Graffiti. I mean really, I.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Mean he did duel, he did Sugarland Express.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Duel, but those were like big, I mean he.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Was I want to watch Sugarland Express. It's supposed to
be really good.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen it.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
I haven't. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
I mean, I can see why he didn't.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Win, but he wasn't even nominated.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Well, I mean, and I don't see why he wasn't nominated.
I mean, I don't know. I think in yeah, that's Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
I mean, well, well, yeah, they.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Kind of want you to build up a reputation and
then you gotta get really weird to win that. You
can't can't just stick with the typical stuff.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Yeah, I mean it got nominated for Best Picture. Yeah,
but you know Cuckoo's Nest one there. Yeah, that had
been hard to beat Cucku's Nest.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Oh, yeah, have we ever We've never ye Oh, that's
there's an episode right there.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yeah, cuckoo Google. Did you get so when you were
watching the documentary and they were talking about Benchley writing
the novel, did you catch there was a little bitty
blur by caught today where they're talking about the dynamics
of the characters and all this stuff, and they said
(16:57):
it said something to the effect of and the affair
between Hooper and Ellen Brody.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Yeah, in the book they have an affair.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
I was like, what what?
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, in the book so I never read
the book. J read the book. No, I never read
the book, but I knew for some reason, I knew.
I think maybe from the first time.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
We did this or something a totally different movie.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Oh yeah, there was a couple of things that they
completely changed. But oh yeah that was and I think
some people were upset that they didn't have But yeah,
I'm glad they didn't have an affair.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Yeah, I mean, when would you have time to stuck
it in there? It was two hours and six minutes.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Already, and that may have been who know, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
You got to cut something out. Let's cut the affair out. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
So did you see that there's a night scene and
Royce Schreider Schreider is you know, he's in frame. You
see that the meteor go behind him.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Yeah, yeah, I caught that the detail I think twice,
I think the place in the movie they're out on
the boat in one.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Yeah, it's like, is that real?
Speaker 1 (18:04):
I don't think they're real, because I noticed. I always
noticed that for some reason, and I'm like that it's
it's cool. I don't think it's real, but it's cool
that they thought. Again, that's just a little detail. That
they thought, Hey, put a shooting star you know in
that scene, you know, And I bet, I bet eighty
(18:25):
percent of people have no clue. I know there's at
least two I think in the movie. But yeah, no,
I knew that. I saw those. I had seen those before.
There are six shark victims in the movie, including implied
a dog, a dog. I'm trying to think.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Of where I remember a dog being eight.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
It says it was implied.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Oh implied. Oh okay, yeah, because they weren't good. You
couldn't you couldn't film a dog. What the heck was
a dog doing out in the ocean.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Well, I'm trying to think of which dog they employed.
I don't know. This is one of the facts from
that website. Spielberg was only twenty eight when Johns was released.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Writer Peter Benchley plays a TV reporter in one movie scene.
I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Yeah. Well, Spielberg does a cameo too. He's playing the
clarinet in the marching band at the fourth of Julybrary.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Oh yeah, because I'm an extra in movies, I always
for some reason, It's one of my favorite movies to
watch extras in, because like everybody in the movie almost
is an.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Extra, all but eight of them.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
And it's so it's fun to kind of watch. And
what was that Bad Hat Harry and Jaws? Yeah, so
when the old guy comes up to him on the
beach and he's wearing like a weird old sailor's hat
(20:01):
or something.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Oh, you talk, is that the character that Quent was
taken from?
Speaker 1 (20:07):
No, this is just an old random guy. And he
says bad Hat Harry. And I'm trying to think. Oh,
somebody named their company bad Hat Harry.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Oh, he was saying bad Hat Harry.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Yeah, he's not bad Hat Harry. No, it was like
bad Hat Harry.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
It is a cool name.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Actually, and somebody took that name and I can't remember
who it was. And that's the name of their company. Wow,
be dark. Anyway, there's another little bit of a fact. Bentuley,
originally hired to write the screenplay, and Spielberg publicly sniped
at each other in the months leading up to the release.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Bad Had Harry is a production company.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Who's does it say? Seemed like it's somebody kind of famous.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Brian Singer. Actually, I got a text. I got a
video text from Brian Sinker.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Oh, that's right. That's right because when you Yeah, because
when you told me about him, and I looked his
company up and I thought, well, that's an unusual name,
and then I found out that that was a line
from Jaws.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, that's too funny.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I got a signed DVD from him too.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
There you go, it's all it all goes full circle.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Jaws was filmed mostly on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, except
for I think they had the scene where the head
comes out of the boat. They did in a swimming pool.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Swimming pool up think of the other Burma yeah, Burma Fields.
And they did do some stuff in the the lot
of the studio.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Yeah, but most most of it of it.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
And that's why it was so cool because and that's
what made it so hard to film, and that's why
they went over budget. That's why they took too much time.
Is all that filming on the open ocean had to
be just horrendous. I mean they Spielberg says, it wasn't
a fun movie to make.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Oh yeah, I wonder how often everybody got sick in
the beginning, because being on those boats you get a
little cesick.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Heck, yeah, you do.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Here was another difference between the book and the movie.
In the original novel, the Mafia puts pressure on the
mayor to keep the beaches open. See that would have
been super weird. Yeah that in the movie. Yeah, but
yeah so And I don't even think. I don't think
they realized how much motion was going to be in
(22:41):
the ocean. And I noticed when I watch it now
after knowing. A lot of that is if you it
would be hard to watch on a big screen close up,
because there's a lot of movement in some of the
scenes where if you're not paying close attention, you don't
really notice it. But if you're paying close attention and
(23:02):
it's a big screen, it could make you a little
woozy if you watch it too long. Jaws opened simultaneously
on more than four hundred and fifty screens in North America.
Do you remember seeing it at the movie theater? See,
I don't either.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
See we talked about this eight years ago.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
And I know we did. I know I saw it
at the chi Jeff Owens because of the fiftieth anniversary.
He just did I think a blog post or a
podcast episode, and he wanted people to ride in their
memory of when they first saw Jaws, and he remembers
seeing it at I think it was the Chief at
(23:44):
the time, not the cinema twin. I think it was
a Chief, So if he saw it there, it had
to have been at the Chief when I saw it.
But I just but I don't remember.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
I just remember it was always on, it was always there.
It's always it was always around.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, I mean, I know I saw it Jaws at
the theater. I just I guess it just was one
of those I just don't have that timestamp for some reason. Yeah,
but yeah, four hundred and fifty screens I get. I
guess in the seventies, that was probably pretty good, you know.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Besides the music, one of my favorite things about the
movie was Roy Scheider's facial expressions. He's got you watch
these you watch the documentary and you watch clips and stuff.
He's always doing these these little yeah his eyes. Yeah yeah.
(24:35):
And the dynamic between those three actors that was pretty old.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Yeah. Yeah, and I guess, uh yeah, Quint and Hooper
in real life, I don't think they liked each other
yeah at all, So, which which was great.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
For the movie, right, Yeah, played well into the the
uh the or the field.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Yeah. Murray Hamilton, who played the sleazy mayor of Amity,
was chosen partly for his resemblance to Richard Dixon. Ouch
two thousand and one, Jaws was declared culturally, historically and
aesthetically significant by the National Film Registry of the Library
(25:25):
of Congress, and if there was ever going to be
a movie to do that, that would be one of them.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Yeah. What's kind of like Duel. I mean you've seen Duel, right,
uh huh. I mean he says in the documentary that
the studio wanted him to do like you know how
they do this stupid stuff with the you know, the
car is not really.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Moving and oh yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
He's like, no, I can't do that. No, And that's
what makes Duel so cool. I mean, just just the
cinematography on that. I don't I can't remember any music
being cool from Duel.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
But yeah, that's what's kind of weird about filmmaking is
back in the day they use those screens like if
he's you know, driving his car, there's like screens going
by or you know, it's fake, he's not really driving.
And Spielberg was like, no, let's keep everything real. So
they go through the years of everything's real and now
(26:22):
we're back to I was watching a deal on the
making of Superman where they've got this animatronic Superman and
a big screen and it's how he's flying over the mountains,
you know. So it's kind of it's kind of like
it's gone full circle. I mean, but the ability, the
way to the computers and cameras now make it look real,
(26:44):
whereas back in the day, you know, when Batman and
Robin were climbing up the side of the building.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
You can see the strings pulling their capes like gravity. Yeah.
I remember when Superman came out in sey eight. You know,
there's one of the one of the commercials was you
will Believe a Man Can Fly. And I remember seventy
eight going.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Dang, yeah yeah. I kind of remember saying, yeah, you
gotta go see that because it really looks like a
dude's flying.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Yeah. Nowadays people to see kids that see movies today,
I mean, it just all looks real.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Crazy.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
And the trailer. I watched the trailer well ago, and
and you know it's I think it's like a minute
long whatever. And at the very end of the trailer,
you know, the guy's talking. He's got this reals, you know,
he says, see it before you go swimming.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Oh, I think it changed. That movie changed a lot
of swimming habits.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Yeah, for quite a while, quite a while. And then
a bunch of people went nuts hunting sharks. Yeah, yeah,
which kind of backfired. But you know, because they would
kill them. They would catch them, cut their fins off,
and throw them back in the water to die, to drown.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah, you know that's not fun.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
No.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Charleston Heston, Charles Charles Ton Heston lobbied hard for the
role of Brody, which is kind of interesting.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
He could pull Brodie off.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Oh yeah, I could definitely see that. Three Jaws sequels
and now there's like fifty thousand Jaws Jaw knockoff movies. Yeah,
I think there was. There was one on when we
were at the hotel. It seems like it had some
famous had like three famous actors in it. They're like
(28:46):
these super sharks that they had in this cage. I
can't even think of what it was called.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Lasers on their head.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
I don't know. It was weird. It was when Sharknado,
was it, No, Sharnado? I can't remember what it was.
Jaws was based on an actual nineteen sixteen incident on
the Jersey Shore. A rogue shark killed four bathers, two
of them in an estuary. There is a similar scene
(29:16):
in the movie.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Huh interesting. You know it's originally planned to be released
for Christmas and seventy four, but because you know, they
didn't get it done by then, you don't.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Want Jaws to being a Christmas movie.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Yeah, and we got to mention it was the first
blockbuster too. Yeah, yeah, it started the whole summer blockbuster thing.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Uh did you do.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
With a budget of nine million? It's made four hundred
and seventy eight million. And in today's money, that's like
I think it. I think it's a billion in today's money.
Well cool, yeah, and I guess it's still making money.
I don't know. I'd like to go see it at
the movie.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that'd be kind of cool. Or
even the drive in.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Yeah, we don't even have a drive in. So was
buddy George and another filmmaker. Spielberg invites him over to
check out the the machine that Bruce how it works,
And so they were goofing around and George Lucas stuck
his head in the mouth and Spielberger or the other
(30:28):
guy hit ale evert that chopped down on him stuck.
He got stuck, so they had to force it open
to get him out, and then they took off front
of because they thought they broke it. He could have
killed the act.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
I was gonna say, yeah, you could. Yeah, I wouldn't
be sticking my head in there.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Well, those teeth weren't real well, but still they should
have took a picture of that.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Yeah. The shock moment when Ben Gardner's disfigured head pops
out of the boat. Yeah, was an eleventh hour edition.
After test greeting, Spielberg decided the movie needed one more
big scream.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
That's probably the scariest part of the movie.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
It is probably the most bizarre part of the movie,
that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
The shark lost his head yep, where the guys head?
And God, I'm gonna eat that.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Universal spent one point eight million dollars promoting the movie,
which they did a good job. First shown on television
in nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
That's probably why I saw it first.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Actually, oh really, you don't think you saw it at
the movie the I.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Don't remember going to the movie theater and seeing it.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Yeah, but see, there's a lot of movies. I don't
remember going to the movie theater, but I did.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Yeah, so, but I remember going seeing Herbie, but I
can't remember going seeing Jaws of the movie.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
I don't know that I did.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I did. I just don't remember.
I can't imagine. So I wonder, uh, showing it on
TV in seventy nine one, if that was like on
regular TV or like Hbahbo, probably because I'd hate to
watch Jaws for the first time with commercials? Can you imagine?
(32:17):
I mean, now you know now when I watch it,
of course there seems like there's always commercials.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
But I bet it was. It had to be HBO
in seventy nine, could have been could have been skinn Imax.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
According to this one of the fifty Facts, it says
you're gonna need a bigger boat was an improvised line.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Somebody needs to well, it's improvised by Spielberg. It wasn't
in this. It wasn't in the script. But some people
say Roy did it or Roy made it up. But
if you watch the video, if you watch the documentary,
you see Spielberg told him.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Saying, yeah, which means it's not really improvised.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
I mean, well, I think I think they mean improvise
because it wasn't in the script.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Yeah, but if the director tells you to say it,
then yeah. Reduced beach going and increased shirk sightings and
seventy five were both attributed to Jaws in the original
novel Oh, I Didn't Know That and the original novel
Hooper Dies.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Benchley followed up with a Monster Shark with a Monster
Eel the Deep nineteen seventy six and Monster Squid Beast
nineteen ninety one. It's like he would write books about
big water monsters and some big, big movies out of them,
and it's a chain. That's quite a yeah, quite a
little Quin's boat is the Orca. A Jaws movie ripoff
(33:45):
called Orca about a killer whale, came out in nineteen
seventy seven.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
That wasn't a bad movie either, if I remember.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
It was Okay, movie rights for Jaws was purchased for
one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars. That was a
pretty good deal.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Yeah, so that's what Bentley got paid. Bnchley got paid well,
I would think surely he had like I would think
he ended up getting more than that, but surely he
had something on the back end.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
And yeah, just just to I guess to have the
movie rights, he had to pony up that just so
another studio I guess didn't get it. Anyway, there's fifty
of these things you can get online, search them and
find them all. Yeah. So anyway, cool, one of the
(34:38):
most iconic movies, not just of the seventies but of
all time.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Yeah, it's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
I got a question for you, for me, for the well,
for the buzzheads out there. Yeah, is there somebody out
there that listens to the seventies buzz podcast that has
never seen Job? If you've never seen Jaws, hit us
up at five eighth five for one three EIGHTHO five
or buzz at buzzimedia dot com. So we were talking
(35:09):
earlier at dinner tonight. There's a lot of videos now,
and my favorite are the ones where they get somebody
that's never heard Boston and they they video them. That's
what we need to do. If there's somebody out there
that has never seen Jaws, we need to somehow set
up a camera and film you watching Jaws. For the
(35:33):
first time, and then we can take clips of it
or something and we can make a million two bazillion
viewed TikTok out of it for the seventies. Buzz there
you go, and we'll share money with you. Absolutely, but
that'd be cool to put it on our Facebook page
and the group page. And yeah. So if there's somebody
out there that has never seen Jaws.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
You just reminded me. I got to play something for
you after this.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Let us know.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Oh yeah, I can't play it on there.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Okay, now we doing on time over there, you can Okay,
uh you guys again, hit us up five eight oh five,
four one, three oh five. Let us know. Did you
go to the movie theater to see Jaws or did
you see it on television or what do you remember
about Jaws? Buzz buzzmedia dot com is the email We're
gonna get out of here.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Cheer
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