CCCP: Oh! Heavenly Dog (1980)

WUH is happy to offer the premiere episode of the Chasing Chevy Chase Podcast. Head over to Weirding Way Media or wherever you listen to podcasts to subscribe. 

"Welcome to the 1980s and the wild world of Chevy Chase. On our official first episode we're discussing Joe Camp and his Benji Empire which includes the film Oh! Heavenly Dog in which Chevy plays a private dick whose 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."

Our Foul Play episode: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/s7e2-she-was-one-tough-old-mama-foul-play-1978--57411265

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Hello, wake Up Heavy listeners,and welcome to a special preview episode of
our new show over on weirding WayMedia, The Chasing Chevy Chase Podcast,
a podcast where Christashue, Mike White, and myself discuss the feature films of
Chevy Chase from nineteen eighties Oh HeavenlyDog through nineteen ninety seven's Vegas Vacation.

(00:32):
There will be a few special episodesthrown in of minor work from Chase,
like Dirty Work, the Vacation Sequel, Funny Money, et cetera. You
will get all the hits like CaddieShack, National Lampoon's Vacation Fletch, and
Memoirs of an Invisible Man. Sojoin us monthly from April twenty twenty four

(00:56):
all the way through April twenty twentysix. And if you would like to
listen to the impetus of this newshow, check out the foul Play episode
on Wake Up Heavy, which Ihave linked in the description for this episode.
Don't forget to find the Chasing ChevyChase Podcast over at wargowaymedia dot com

(01:18):
or wherever you've listened to your podcasts. Without further ado, here's the first
episode. Hello everyone, and Welcometo the Chasing Chevy Podcast, the podcast

(01:57):
where we chase down Chevy Chase.It at ask him questions and he doesn't
respond. No, that's out we'redoing. On the show, we're gonna
be talking about the films of ChevyChase that we are contending are his vehicle
films? No, not the movieswhere he's in cars, but the movies
where he is the star. Iam joined by not well, who am
I? Who am I? Youask? This is not ranking on bass.
I am the host of the CultureCast, Chris Stashue, and I'm

(02:20):
joined by my two good friends allthe way from the projection booth. You
have heard him when we talked aboutfoul play on Mark Begley's Wake Up Heavy.
Who's also here, Mike White?What a weird introduction? Yes,
yes it is? Yeah, yeah. And also Mark Begley from Wake Up
Heavy is here? Stamps with animals? Yes, I believe we do.

(02:43):
And on this episode of the ChasingChevy Podcast, we're kicking it off by
taking a look at a film thateverybody remembers and it's and remembers so fondly
and oh don't you remember the firsttime you watched Oh, heavenly Doug.
I sure don't nep. That's right. On this episode, we're kicking off
our show with a look at nineteeneighties fan to see comedy film comedy question
mark, Oh, heavenly dog.It's not a talking cat. There's no

(03:07):
question markt in there. It's justoh exclamation mark, heaved dog. Oh.
I know. I did the linereading intentionally incorrect, hoping one of
you would come to it's not.There's no question marks, And now I
fell into your trap. You madethe classic blunder. How folly is you?

(03:28):
That's right. The film is directedby Joe Camp, written by Rod
Browning and Joe Camp, and itstars Chevy Chase, Jane Seymour, and
everybody's favorite dog from the eighties andseventies. I guess, uh, at
least, Mike. I know,Mike, you're a fan of the the
Benji films, and Chevy Chase playscharacter named Benjamin, who is a private

(03:49):
detective who is hired for a jobthat is not what it seems, only
to be murdered and comes back tolife as a dog that that happens to
keep running into Jane Seymour, atleast before he dies, but after he
dies, he becomes attached to thehip by Jane Seymour's author character, who
is now investigating the murder of chevyChase and the woman that chevy Chase was

(04:12):
hired to protect, who turns outto be a parlem budding parliamentarian's girl.
For it, there will be spoilersthis movie, however, It's from nineteen
eighty so it's been a while,and it's also on YouTube if you want
to watch it in its entirety,which may be the easiest place to find
this movie, because this is nota movie that is easy to find on
top of everything else. So Mark, I'll kick it to you. First

(04:35):
first time watching this movie? Whatdid you think? When was the first
time? If it wasn't this,No, it was, it was,
And I was wondering before watching it. I'm like, wait a minute,
did I watch this? I waslooking at the pictures on IMDb and it
sort of looked familiar some of theJane Seymour shots, maring and a Bell
and sat down to watch it lastnight and I was like, nope,

(04:56):
I've never seen this. So itwas a first time watch and possibly last
time watch. Oh I didn't quiteenjoy it. As much as I was
hoping. Unfortunately, you seem reallydisappointed 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 about his

(05:17):
inner monologue the whole time just didnot work for me. Oh, I
think it's pretty obvious what's wrong withthe inner monologue. But I'm sure we'll
get to it. Mike, whatabout you? What did you think of
Oh Heavenly Dog? Uh, thisis not my first time seeing this.
I grew up on the Benchi movie. So the first Benchi movie came out
when I was two years old,and so Benji's pretty much been a part

(05:41):
of my life since I was growingup. So I think I remember.
I think they showed this to usin school. I mean it feels like
they wheeled in not the projector,but like the VCR, because I remember
we watched some weird shit when Iwas in elementary school, like Escape from
Which My Mountain and Return to WhichMountain? And I want to say,

(06:02):
even though there are a few expletivesin this, I mean this was the
nineteen seventies. We were okay,you know, having shit in our PG
or g Ridgid movie and this one, I think it is a PG,
right all those years ago, sobecause it's pretty adult for that was one
of the things that took me bysurprise. I was like, oh,

(06:24):
this isn't like a Binge movie rightright, they're playing to an older audience
here, but you that was PGand had tits in it, like it's
yeah, yeah, I mean Jawswas PG. I mean this this fits
as a PG. And yeah,this is before Reagan took office, so
I guess we're still okay without havingthe Nanny State. So yeah, I

(06:48):
don't know how many times I've watchedthis, but watching it again yesterday for
the show, I was just like, oh, yeah, all of this
is very familiar to me. Ithink I remembered even who the murderer was,
but this is the Omar Shariff appearancethat I grew up with. Even
more than top Secret. This wasthe first time I think I saw Jane

(07:14):
Seymour, even before I saw heras Domino in Live and Let Die and
Doctor Quinn Medicine Woman. I mean, this was it for me. This
was a big deal movie came out, I guess when I was eight years
old and yeah, I remember watchingit quite a bit and Benji just being
a major celeb back then, andI didn't realize like this whole thing of

(07:38):
Joe Camp being the Benji director butalso working on some other things as well.
But and then is even his sonis now in the Benji business.
There was a twenty eighteen Benji filmthat his son directed, Brandon, And
I mean, obviously it's not thesame Benji. I think even the Benji
that was in the first Benji filmin nineteen seventy four isn't the same Benji

(08:01):
as this. But yeah, andI for some reason, I always had
it in my head like, oh, well, Benji is a French star,
Benj Benjon and he was a hugephenomenon in France. No, that's
not the case. He's instead,he's what He's got two trainers in one

(08:22):
of them. He's just got thishuge mustache, big fat guy. Where's
a captain's hat around and these crazyred pants and just yeah, to watch
the background on Benji, because therewas a TV special made around both this
and the he did a Marine Landspecial as well, So watching that hosted

(08:46):
by Adam Rich, who I stilldislike to this, I don't know what
it was about Adam rich Maybe washis haircut. I don't know, but
yeah, I think a little turdon eight is enough. He was at
He kind of reminds me of likea Cousin Oliver type of kid. You're
just like, get this guy outof here. Wasn't even on Battlestar Galactica
that we're changing this from the ChevyChase cast to the I Hate Adam rich

(09:11):
cast. Isn't ironic that Adam Richard'sfinal role was in Dicky Roberts Former Child
Star. That's a real that's real. It is real. I can't remember
if I ever saw that movie,but I think, hey, any any
movie that is considered David Spade vehiclecan only be one of two things bad

(09:35):
or really bad. Well, Ido like some Joe Dirt, at least
the original, not the deer Tayyou mean, so, I guess we
kind of we didn't see we jumpedthe gun a little bit. But if
you listen to our foul play episodeover on Mark show Wake Up Heavy,
you probably have a better idea ofus as as Chevy Chase fans or where

(09:56):
we come in at it. ButI would say the three of us consider
ourselves ends of chevy Chase, right, all from maybe different angles or approaches
or things that got us into chevyChase. Mike, would this be the
thing the first? Like chevy Chase? This must have been the first chevy
Chase thing you ever saw, right, I mean I might have seen foul
Play before this, but yeah,this was probably the one that really got

(10:18):
me in there. I mean,I remember watching a little SNL in the
mid seventies, but it was probablylater seventies, probably like around the time
of foul Play, So I don'teven know if he was still on SNL
at that time. What about you, Mark? It would have been because
of SNL, even though I didn'treally watch it. It was such a

(10:39):
phenomenon that a lot of kids,you know, got wrapped up and stuff
like Coneheads and land Shark and KingTut and all that stuff that just permeated
popular cultures. So I know thatI was into all of these guys and
wanted to see the movies that theywere in, and this one just passed

(11:01):
me by. But chevy Chase isthe one person that I have had a
signed picture of I wrote to him. I don't know how or where I
sent my request, but I thinkI did him and Steve Martin and a
couple of those other Saturday Night Liveguys, and I'm pretty sure he's the
only one that or his assistant sentme a signed headshot of Chivy Chase.

(11:26):
Wow, do you still have noI think it ended up. I think
it was in that Saturday Night Livebook. I don't know if you remember
this mic, but for my showCambridge and was Sean it did an episode
on my Saturday Live Obsession and Ihad I had a book when I was
a kid, and I've been tryingto track it down for years and finally
found that online on the Internet archiveand my made a PDF of it for

(11:50):
me, and then I ended upbuying it on eBay. Anyway, but
I think I had its stored inthat book, and that book is long
the one I had as a kidis long gone. Yeah. I was
a fan of his just because ofSata at Live and I was I'm a
little bit older than you, Mike, but I never really watched it because
it was on so late and itwas kind of adult, and you know,
would catch things every once in awhile if my parents went out later,

(12:13):
something that we had a babysitter,and so I mean he was only
in the first season and maybe thefirst six or so episodes of the second
season, so I probably didn't.And that was seventy five seventy six,
so I would have been like sixand seven years old, So I don't
think I even saw him on SarahAlive until years later when you boil down
his presence on Saturday Night Live.It is shocking how much of an impact

(12:39):
he made with as little time ashe was on the show. But I
think that speaks to Chevy Chase.I mean again, we've we talked on
the foul Play episode a little bitabout him and his whatever's Like, I
mean again, like guy's never beenaccused of any of the really bad stuff
in Hollywood, thankfully. I mean, I don't think we'd be doing an
entire show about somebody who had likehundreds of allegations against them of any sort
of really upsetting type. But it'sjust the usual, like just you know,

(13:03):
creative and personality and ego things gettingin the way. So you know,
again we kind of already mentioned it, but like he made such an
impact with such a little amount oftime. I mean, the first thing
I saw him in was Fletch.That made it a huge impact on me
personally. And it's not that Iwent and tracked down all the other movies
he was in because of Fletch,but I just rewatched Fletch a lot.

(13:26):
I just I just rewatched that onemovie and then the sequel, so that
was my entry point. And Iwatched Fletch on DiveX. Of all things,
I remember owning it on DiveX,that in the sequel, and that
being one of those DiveX movies thatwas actually purchased so that it could be
rewatched over and over again, becausethat was the whole scam slash gimmick with

(13:46):
those things was oh, pay usten bucks and you can watch the thing
you bought again. Okay, Idon't know, like in this day and
age with all the stuff in people'shouses that has to have subscriptions anyways,
Like now it kind of makes sense. But then it was like, Okay,
this is weird. I had neverseen this though I had. I
had seen it come up a coupleof times as like a thing that I

(14:09):
was going to watch or should watch, or had thought about it. I
know, we'd talked about it before, 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,
Mike, why if you saw thisat the right age, it would

(14:33):
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 HeavenI think are kind of interesting. Star
Wars, Star Wars Heaven, Ohmy yeah, that was h Yeah.
When my wife and I were watchingit, I was like, oh,
look, this movie came out justa little bit around the time of Star

(14:56):
Wars, didn't it. I didn'teven have to know that this movie came
eighty When they make that Star Wars, everything was like, man, this
was such a thing. But Idon't know. It's also weird to now
be living in a time where likeStar Wars is still a fucking thing,
because in nineteen eighty I don't thinkif you had told them like, oh,
by the way, we're still burdenedwith Star Wars in twenty twenty three,
they're like, yeah, right,you are. So I found the

(15:20):
movie to have its charms, butChevy Chase is ultimately the reason this movie
doesn't work because all of that fuckingnarration is just like, dude, where
is the effort? What are youdoing? Like, uh, it's pretty
bad. I'm a dog now?Like what in it? Oh, it's

(15:41):
weird, like there's it's obvious thathe went back in and re recorded it,
which is the case, but itjust doesn't seem like his heart was
in it in some of those linereadings. Harry Harrison Ford in Blade Runner
Yeah yeah yea Irrison Ford laid Runneris like Shakespeare compared to this. Yeah,

(16:03):
this is I mean this this activelyimpedes my ability to enjoy the movie
because it's like, Chevy, ifI'm expected to take you as the dog
at the moment, make it seemlike it you're Oh I'm a dog now,
yep? All right? What amI doing? Oh I'm looking at
something. Okay, let me dothe line reading Oh no, watch out,

(16:25):
don't hurt me. Like it's justlike there's no emotion. It's like
he read it the way it waswritten on the page and he wasn't watching
the movie, which I know wasthat's how they did this. They synced
it up with the movie, likehe is watching the movie doing the line
readings, and it's just like,man, we're I'm not saying it would
have fixed anything or everything, butit would have fixed the latter two thirds

(16:48):
of the movie not working or beingfunny or I having I don't know.
It's so weird how bad the linereadings are. It really gets in the
way of my ability to enjoy partsof it. I had to real problems
with the line readings. I don'tknow why they assumed that they could record
the voice over first and then dothe Benji parks, because you don't know

(17:11):
exactly how that stuff is going togo. It's not like the animation where
you can draw to the voice.The dog won't do things to the voice.
I mean, the stuff that Benjiis doing here, I think is
pretty dark, incredible. And thenyeah, I was glad watching behind the
scenes and seeing things like him gettingkicked out of the hotel or the apartment

(17:32):
building brutal down the fucking stairs.Yeah, but I'm like, oh,
okay, so there's one trainer who'sin the lobby calling. There's another trainer
who's in this window up here andthere. It's really kind of schizophrenic because
one's calling, so Benji looks overhere. The other one calls, so
he looks up there and then backand forth. So he's like, you
know, contemplating how he's going toget into this building and then looking up

(17:57):
at her window, the dead woman'swindow. It's like, oh, okay,
well that's kind of cool. Beforewe get through the weird gay parts
with Ellen ohs I love gay charactersin the seventies and eighties. Man,
It's like it's like, you couldn'texist in real life, but hey,
movies exist. Thank god. It'sso weird, like his part just feels

(18:22):
so abridged, and that he diedoff screen in someplace, got run over
by a car. Yeah yeah.I'm like, oh my god, why
was this character that you just introducedduring this one scene? Why did he
come back? Because he adds nothingto the narrative whatsoever other than saying,
oh, it's the one with theporcelain bird. And I'm like, how

(18:45):
do you even know who this womanis? Because I don't know when you
died in comparison to the Chevy Chasecharacter to Benjamin, so this is bizarre.
So I don't mean to poke holesin this well thought out narrative or
anything, but it was just alittle odd for me, And it was
almost as odd as her coming backJane Seymour coming back as a cat at

(19:06):
the very movie, and me justthinking this is not Ghostbusters. Yeah,
these are not cats and dogs sleepingtogether. This is this is a whole
other thing. You ever see anelephant make 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? Ithink it's called slash fiction. Oh okay.

(19:32):
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 arat in terms of logistics. Yeah,
yeah, I did want to pointout it also is like, is this
a Benji like origin story? Becauseat the end of the movie, he
goes, my friends call me Benji, and it's like, okay, so

(19:53):
that's the dog's name that everybody knows. This dog actor by is ben 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 body. I'm justasking, as they say, I'm just
asking questions. I mean, hesays it in the end, like it's

(20:17):
unnecessary for him to go I'm Benji. At the end, it's like whoa
movie. Hold on a second,I thought it was Herst saying what do
I call you? Do I callyou bj? And he's like no,
because that sense from blowjob? Idon't name anything known by that. Yeah,
so maybe my real name is Benjamin. And she's like, well,

(20:38):
you don't seem like a Benjamin.How about a Benji? And I think
he says no to that. Oh, he says, my friends used to
call me Benji. Okay, Yeah, so that's what I'm saying, Like,
is it a Benji origin story?Like you're I don't think. I
don't think they're trying to ret Khanthe entire Benji thing, since the first
one had come out, like whatsix years prior to that, had already

(21:00):
had like quite a few things inbetween. Yeah, I don't think we're
supposed to consider every subsequent movie tobe Chevy Chase inside of Benji. I
mean, i'd like to I thinkis I don't know true, that's true.
I mean, what was that lineabout outside of a dog, a
book is a man's best friend,but inside of a dog it's way too

(21:22):
dark to read. Yeah, youknow, all all of the kind of
the weird is Chevy all of thataside? Like again, I feel like,
yes, the stuff with Chevy Chaseis not great, but I think
to your point, Mike, likeobviously if you view this as a Benji
movie, I think the Benji stuffis fine. It's just this is a

(21:47):
weird way to get to Benji solvesa murder, right, because like,
you could have done this any otherway, any multitude of ways, including
Benji just being your dog sidekick thathelps you but doesn't isn't have a human
soul in it, isn't speaking Englishwhile you're again like speaking English to other
animals, and there's a there's anhierarchical evan involved. You could have just

(22:10):
had Benji b somebody's dog that theykeep with them like it, I don't
know, like to get to thispoint, the witness to the murderer and
well he could have been that gal'spet and doesn't see the murder, But
how you know, has to helpChevy. Maybe he just didn't want to
be in the movie, you know, like, oh I only have to
shoot a couple of days. Great, Oh yeah, well that's sit in

(22:33):
the studio the rest of the time. Well yeah, because he had three
movies that all came out in nineteenmaybe because this came out what two weeks
or two months? I think itwas two weeks before Camby Shack And I
wonder how it doesn't feel like anineteen eighty movie to me. It feels
a little like it may have beenshot a couple of years earlier or something.
I don't know. Well, theshitty quality of the video does not

(22:56):
help either. Well, yeah,I got plus plus all all the sets.
When he first goes up to hisoffice, I was like, man,
that looks like a TV set.Yeah, oh yeah, yeah.
I don't think they had a wholelot of money. Yeah. In the
other BINGI movies, is their narration? Is there an inner monologue? No?
Which makes it really painful because Itried to watch the first Benji movie

(23:19):
again yesterday and it's so Benji hasa theme song. Charlie rich sings this
theme song and that theme song justkeeps playing over and over and over again
as you watch. I mean,Benji's adorable and he's watching him do all
this stuff, and he goes around. He visits like this family where it's

(23:40):
this maid and these two kids,but then they also visits Uncle Joe from
Petticoat Junction, which I didn't realizethat Benji had been on Petticoat Junction,
and then he also there's like afew other people, and then it becomes
like this whole kidnapping plot and stuff, and no, he doesn't say anything,
and there's no what LEAs over narration. So you're just like, like

(24:03):
over and over and over again asyou watch Benji just doing stuff, and
I'm like, I can't take thisanymore. I can't take the music,
just over and over. And thenI watched that making up thing that Benji
at worked thing, and at onepoint they start playing that song. I'm
like, oh my god, Ihad flashbows. So it sounds like you
wanted the Chevy Chase narration. Youwanted Chevy Chase in those It helps,

(24:26):
it helps, Yeah, it definitelydoes. And he adds a couple little
things in there. I didn't mindthis one nearly as much as you guys
chuckles. I didn't. Again,I don't think I disliked it. I
just think it's weird for the starquality and caliber of Chevy Chase, Like

(24:48):
this is not This is not thetime that I would have expected him to
be phoning it in. I guessit is more kind of my thinking,
like maybe if this movie had comeout, like because obviously know how much
of research y'all did into movies wherepeople get reincarnated as dogs. Oh yeah,
but I'm a big body swap fan, so yeah, this might have
been the origin. There's one intwo thousand and three starring Gary Busey where

(25:14):
he is quiggly, and it's like, I know that these kinds of movies
have been coming out and that thiskind of movie is popular. So it's
not like, oh, Chevy Chaseis making this movie in two thousand and
four and it's a lark. He'sbeing asked to do this in nineteen eighty
or seventy nine, so it's surprisingthat he's phoning it in only because this
doesn't feel like the time to phoneit in. If he was gonna phone

(25:37):
it in, I would expect hewould be phoning it in as he's part
of the Gary Busey Dog Christian movie, which is all of the it's like
a Christian dog movie on top ofeverything else. At the end, the
dog is Chruscalz Rockins. Yeah,and Oz Perkins is in that movie.
Fucking fucking bizarre. They just coveredthat on god Awful Movies and I had

(25:59):
never heard of a before, andI was like, what is this a
prequel to Quickly down Under? Butno, I was like, no,
it's a fucking Heavenly dog rip off. Yeah, but that's Uh, it
was on Red Letter Media. That'show I know about it. Uh,
best of the Worst or something likethat. Oh, but that's just that's
just my again feelings, just likeimmediate feelings on all this is like why

(26:19):
was he phoning it in here?Because this is not like he he's a
big star right now. This isthe moment where his star power matters,
and it's going to as we dothis show, it's gonna peak at some
point and then we're gonna have avery long and drawn out time of just
like movies where we're like, okay, they're still casting Chevy Chase because he's

(26:41):
Chevy Chase. But that doesn't holda lot of water anymore in terms of
like drawing an audience in right now, though not the case like this movie
is made the way it is becauseof a movie like foul Play. No,
like, oh, he's a detective. He was a cop in that
movie. Like they're they're literally justlooking at something like foul Play and going
that was successful. How can wedo that? And it's like, well,

(27:03):
I get you tried, but man, like where was Chevy Chase in
all of this? Like why washis head not in it? That's that's
what I wonder, because again,I don't think the plot and setup of
the movie isn't interesting. It's moreinteresting than it is. Just kind of
wrote, Well, my thought asI was watching it for the hour and
forty three minutes run time, wasyou left Saturday Night Live for this,

(27:27):
because that was always reading that bookthat I have, and just you know,
interviews that I've heard over the yearsand his kind of beef with John
Belushi and how they were trying tobe you know, the guy and this
was a springboard to other things.And I don't think chevy Chase ever feels

(27:48):
like he's getting the commendations that heshould and you know, he was like
always listed as head writer or whateveron those early Sarah Live episodes and left
pretty quickly from the show and todo movies, to be a movie starving
that was the goal. And I'mlike, yeah, this is the second

(28:08):
thing after foul Play, you know, right on the heels of of course,
Caddy Shack and seems like Old Timesboth come out the same year too.
But I don't know's I missed alot of the movie because that's all
I kept thinking of, is thisis why you left Center It was to
do this really bad narration for adog movie. I don't know. And
that's the other thing that I waswondering while watching this movie. Would it

(28:30):
have been better if it had beenBecause I'm not saying the movie is not
funny. I mean again, Idon't know how much of a comedy it
ends up being, or in termsof being a film that tries to elicit
some humorous reaction, I didn't findit to be that funny either, So
I was actually wondering, like whyeven cast someone like Chevy Chase, Like
why not cast a different actor?And then I think the tone may have

(28:53):
also been different. It's not thatJane seymour Is feels like she's in a
different movie. But it does feellike there were two, if not three
movies kind of going on within thismovie, because the tone of the Heaven
parts is so comedic, and thenwhen he's running around as the dog,
nothing that he's doing is overtly comedic. But yet those monologues or you know,

(29:17):
the narration is meant to add thosecomedic bits, but because they fail,
so I guess obviously because again,like chevy Chase has just seemed so
disinterested. It's like, well,I would like to just see this movie.
If it weren't a comedy, thenlike just make it more of like
a thriller, like more of afoul play. I think the thing that
I was most surprised by in FoulPlay was how much of a noir movie

(29:38):
it ended up being while still havingthose comedy bits. I guess I was
kind of assuming this movie was goingto be more of a noir movie,
and it kind of wants to beat times, like it really is trying
to be more of a detective moviethan anything else. I think if it
had been that, it might haveworked better, even with chevy Chase doing

(30:00):
kind of his stilted delivery. Ifit had just not tried to be funny,
they were like, don't be funny, Like just just do the foul
play thing like be aloof that.That would work better. I would have
I would have thought it would haveworked better for this movie at least because
again it's kind of like foul playwith a dog resurrection egg. Oh,
like you do explain to me howhe runs into her my happenstance in Paris.

(30:25):
I was really confused by all.I guess that's where the dog that's
about to get hit by a garbagetruck is right. Why Paris, though,
why why she was in he raninto her? Previously in London she
said she was going to Paris.Did she Okay, I'm thinking yes,
But then like but all she couldleaving. But it also she said she

(30:48):
works for Time magazine, and thenit feels like she's going to see that
the one really super ultra British actorRobert Morley is Yeah, it feels like
she's going to see him there.But at the same time, I think
we see him back in London lateron, I don't know think. And

(31:08):
then also she drives but we don'tsee her car on the ferry because we
have the chunnel at this point,and it made it look like it's just
a long country drive between Paris andLondon. I was like, where's the
faerry. Well, they had touse the Elton John song enough times to
my God that you mentioned that beingjithing, and I was thinking, Yeah,

(31:33):
they played the hell out of thoseElton John and that one Paul McCartney
and Wing song. It's like,we paid for these things, We're gonna
fucking use them the whole time.The gag when he goes to heaven and
I'm trying to remember the name ofthe actor who's there to help him out,
he just keeps using all of theseacronyms, and I'm like, Okay,

(31:53):
this was funny for like five seconds, and then it just keeps going
on from there. And the thingthough, that I did like about Heaven.
While I like two things. Iliked Horny Sally Kellerman, Yes Clerk
with the Princess Leah buns, soI guess we're doing even more Star Wars
up here. And then I lovedhaving Lorenzo Music being the voiceover narrator of

(32:15):
the loudspeaker system, which I thoughtwas fantastic, which is ironic also because
Lorenzo Music for so many years wasthe voice of Garfield before that thief Bill
Murray came in and stole his valor, and well, now Chris Pratt is
coming in and stealing everyone's valor becauseChris Pratt is not the voice of Garfield.

(32:36):
Chris Pratt voice Chris Pratt. Yes, just like he did with Mario.
I hate mondays, Chris. Thanksfor that line reading You're higher a
Zanya delicious. Uh. Susan Kellermanis is billed as German clerk, which
I I which, I'm sure.Yeah, the the bun thing. Speaking

(32:58):
of Elvira, Susan Kellerman obviously,she's she's fun in this movie. I
was wondering if she would ever comeback, but no, I kept hoping.
Yeah, she was just a worndog. I was like, they
needed to finish their little ye andI liked how she put them in a
body that was going to like hehad to get out of it by a

(33:19):
certain time, so then we've gota ticking clock. But really it's because
she wants him to come back upto heaven so they can stoop. Yeah,
that was great. She likes theway he says bastard. Yes,
it really turns it around. Yeahyeah, yeah, well and like again,
like I feel like, you know, obviously, if if none of
that had been in the movie,like what would have been I guess like

(33:39):
the draw of this movie would havejust been a Benngji movie. And I
guess I'm sitting here thinking like whywasn't that enough? Because it had been
enough up until this point. Imean, they took a pretty substantial break
in between this movie and the nextBenji movie. It was like seven years
in between this movie and the nextBenji movie. So well, it was
all TV specials after that. BecauseI said he did that Marine World one.

(34:01):
I think there was like a phenomenonof Benji movie that was like a
documentary. Yeah there were he wasstill working, but just yeah, not
theatrically. There was also a nineteeneighty three TV series called Benji, Zachs
and the Alien Prints, which Inever saw, but yeah, I think

(34:22):
they picked back up with Benji theHunted in eighty seven. To your point,
So like again, like it's notlike Benji wasn't popular, it's just
why inject this weird fantasy angle becausethis was not a thing that's part of
Benji's movies, and not like there'ssome sort of Benji cannon. But the
Benji movies are just dog movies.They're just movies with a dog. There's
no supernatural angle or anything. Soit just again, if you're gonna do

(34:46):
it, fine, I just itjust doesn't seem very well thought out.
And yeah, the whole thing withthe acronyms is just like man who thought
this was funny? Sitting around thatwriter's room, everybody chuckling, and it's
like, man, that's not translatereally well on screen? You got it
felt like a bad mel Brooks.Yeah, bit, it felt like a

(35:07):
bad bit whoever. I came fora half, But the whole like kind
of Star Wars parody angle of it. When that he turned on that miniature
lightsaber and that sound came on,my daughter was like we were just looked
at each other like, what thehell we're going there? I guess we're
going there? Okay, Yeah,And not only does it go there,
it goes there and like Chevy Chaseacknowledges that it's a Star Wars thing,

(35:30):
like that's the thing on top ofeverything else, because he's like he like
reacts to it in a way thathe knows what that is because he's seen
Star Wars. That that is theonly 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 has beenwith us for so fucking long at this
point, like where we are now. But yeah, it's like, oh

(35:52):
my god. Right, even ineighty they were having to contend with this
fucking burgeoning pop culture mega lift.I mean now, I mean now it
is what it is. But thenit's like, okay, Lightsabers, that's
what everybody knows. It's more thenoise than anything. I feel like,
it's not even the visuals of thelightsaber. It's that noise that's so iconic
that they just were they haven't wiggledthe thing around a couple of times.

(36:14):
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. They were goingoff of a new hope you love Lightsabers
and Empire strikes back, you'll lovethem and Benji and oh Heavenly dog.
No. Another thing that was confusingto me, was her immediate jump onto

(36:40):
this story? Yeah? Yeah,And it sounds like she had been writing
a book for a while, butthen the story enters into it. That's
what was confusing to me. I'mlike, was she what was she researching
prior to this because it seemed likeshe was doing something else and then this
pops up, and now I'm writinga novel about a novel? Why would

(37:04):
you write a novel about it?I just was like, what do we
are? We just getting her intothe I mean, she's a reporter,
so can't it just be an articleabout this. Why is it a book?
I don't know. It just seemedcoofy to me. Yeah. Yeah.
And then the the Scotland Yard willnot help her out because she wrote

(37:25):
a book about Scotland Yard and wasmaking fun of them. Yeah was that
her book? I thought it wasthe old British Guy's book. Oh yeah,
I got confused. I got confusedby a lot of things. I
kind of sorry, because he doescome back. Yeah, I know,
he holds up the book, soI assumed it was his, but maybe
it was hers and he's her publisheror something. I don't know. I
got lost a lot. I'm justkind of zoned out after a while,

(37:51):
Mark in the Galaxy that that mightbe a recurring theme. As I'm looking
at the list of Chevy Chase moviesthat we're doing on im like, yeah,
this this might happen on occasion wherehe just kind of start looking at
the ceiling and stuff, which willmake for a really interesting podcast. Yeah.
Yeah, right, it's gonna bea great series. This is like

(38:14):
Richard all over again. Man,I'm really not excited by the end of
this, Mark and be like,I really wish I had enjoyed those movies
early. I know there's a lotof good stuff coming up too, so
it's gonna be up and down.Well that's the thing though, Like in
terms of this being a Chevy Chasemovie, I think it really fails on
because again, like to Hugh tohis star power in seventy nine to eighty,

(38:38):
this motherfucker's got to be on screen. Keep him on screen. Well,
what's part of his stick is physicalcomedy? Oh yeah, It's like
I don't It's like it's like beyondme why they were doing this 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 though, how

(39:00):
do you do that with the doganyways? Like the dog the humans are
responding to the dog. The Honestly, the way to do this movie would
have been the dog talks and thehumans can hear him, Like, wouldn't
that have been check you can hearhim or he's the only one that can
hear him or something. Yeah,Like I don't know, like the idea
that you have Chevy Chase and thefirst thing you do is kill him in

(39:22):
like the first five minutes of themovie, and then he's not on screen
and it's just like his voice frombeyond the Grave. And then he shows
up twice in the movie and ittakes me out of the movie completely.
When it's all of a sudden ChevyChase after an hour of it not being
chevy Chase, I was like,oh, Mike, wait, I forgot
that you were in this movie,Like, I genuinely don't even remember what

(39:43):
you look like in this movie anymore. And then he shows up, you
know, kind of once about twothirds of the way through the movie,
and then right there at the endagain I'm like, oh, right,
chevy Chase is also in this movie. It would have been nice if he
had been on screen. I'm notsaying it would have fixed everything, but
it should have been Chevy Chase asthe detective and Chase Seymour as the voice
of Benji, right Like. Idon't know if that would have a can

(40:04):
But then you have the beautiful andtalented Jane Seymour having to do the same
bullshit that Jevy Chase is doing.But I am a dog. Now,
she might have been more committed tothe line readings. Though she might have
been. She was. She dida pretty decent job there at the end
when she was doing the line readingsas a cat. Yeah, it's true.
The cat wasn't committed though. Thecats just like, I mean,

(40:28):
looking between the beans and everything,I know, right Yeah, And she's
allegedly having conversation like, no,that cat, what cats are doing that?
They're just thinking about that thing?I think. I don't want to
say that they can't have multiple innermonologues, but I think that they really
spend a lot of time and concentrationon that. You can't trained cats,

(40:50):
folks, Clearly they do whatever thefuck they please. Yeah, I think
there are people that think that they'retrained cats. But I think that cats
have trained that Oh that's true household. It's their world and we're just living
it exactly. I know we kindof mentioned the Alan Sues character, but
uh yeah, the last line ofthe film or last credit of the film,

(41:15):
Yeah, my feelings exactly. Moviewhen you get that voiceover of them
in the car when Sus picks themup, and man, he's like,
oh hey, you know, it'slike, oh, I was just reaching
for the gear shift. I waslike, really, what can I do
that? He's yeah, if hisvoice wasn't enough, apparently they have to

(41:38):
have him go for Chevy Chase's Craigshaft. So and then yeah he comes
back and it's like what why?Yeah, I mean even if he had
stayed human and he became the sidekickand okay with that, right, Yeah,
anything would have been better than makingthe guy who's on your poster the

(41:59):
only like, I mean, JaneSeymour is recognizable, but Chevy Chase like
face front and center, and like, oh but he's going to be the
dog boy boy. I just wantto know whose decision that was, because
yeah, like any any of theseauxiliary secondary tertiary characters being animals would have
been fine, have Chevy Chase interactingwith all animals the entire movie. Just

(42:22):
don't make him an animal, becausethat just he could have had animal helpers,
you know, a cat that wasin the window of the apartment and
getting his information while Jane Seymour istrying to get her information from the humans
and him not being able to expressthat to her, you know, verbally.

(42:44):
But they sort of attempted a fewtimes with him finding clues, and
the whole bit with finding that phonenumber in the like rolodex and stuff like
that was pretty interesting. The mysteryitself isn't bad at all, right,
As I say, like the noiraspects of this movie actually kind of work,
Like the stuff with Omar Sharif.He's pretty I'm not menacing in this

(43:08):
movie. I mean when he grabsthat dog, when he grabs Ajie bat
of the arm, I am justthat noise of a dog yelping just sets
me on edge. Man. Yep, yep. Same those few times where
I'll like pick up one of mydog's tests and like my finger might go
between a rib or something that she'llyelp, I'm just like, oh my

(43:30):
god, I feel terrible. Ifeel awful. Step on their God.
Yes, just think what the monologueis saying about you. Oh, this
guy again called some some choice wordsjust like that. But you have to
have like dick jokes in the moviequite a few times, because he has

(43:52):
to like check out his own junkat one point and make several comments about
it, which is odd because it'sa female dog. Yeah, oh boy,
Well because this is like you mentioned, like, this is in not
ben Benjon, this is Benji Jon. This is Benji's daughter, right,

(44:12):
I think so, yeah, yeah, yeah, because it's pretty great.
You can go into U on thePlex server. You can you know,
go under the original Benji and seethe dog actor but there's no picture unfortunately.
And then he click on that andshows you all the movies that that
dog was in, and then yougo back to O Heavenly Dog and it's
a different dog actor than you gointo those movies. I'm like, this

(44:34):
is pretty great. The Deep Dive, the Benjie rabbit Hole. Yes,
yes, luckily Benji didn't get metoo. So I heard there are a
lot of legs that Benji tried tohump the original Benji. Yeah, it
was the seventies. It was adifferent time. Yeah, come on,
Benji defends himself live on podcast.Yeah, I can't wait for the Benji

(44:57):
apology when he goes on to Markbarn It's whant to apologize for my conduct
with the voice of Chevy Chase.Mind you, the dog opens its mouth
and it's just the voice of ChevyChase. I don't mind like dog or
animal centric movies. I and Iknow that again that like that that you
know, the old joke in Hollywoodis still work with animals and don't work

(45:20):
with kids. And you know,I am of the mindset for the most
part that when kids are in movies, boy they tend to be precocious little
shits and get in the way anddraw attention to themselves. But when animals
are in movies, it seems likewith this, it's like this is like
the fucking centric focus of the movieis the like it like a lot of

(45:42):
times I go, did the dogdie in a horror movie? Is the
common question? Or does the dogdie? But when it's like the dog
and it's an animal centric movie,I don't have a problem with it.
It's just they all feel unless there'slike a supernatural or paranormal angle, they
all are very like, same me. They all all most animal movies like
of a of a certain ilk,And I mean, obviously we're living in

(46:04):
a post air Bud world where Disneyhas driven the genre into the ground and
then some. But I don't mindthe idea of like an animal centric movie.
I mean, Strays came out thisyear, which was actually a lot
of fun. I don't know ifeither one of you saw that, but
like, it was a fun Itwas a fun comedy with dogs voiced by
voiced by actors and guess what,they all put in a hell of a

(46:25):
performance and it's an actually somewhat funmovie. It's just I was just thinking
to myself, like, how doyou fix this movie? And it's like
I don't think he can without justlike really doing something completely different from what
this movie is, which is notthe kind of fun lark that the movie
is attempting to be. I don'tknow how much of a lark your movie
can be. A Jane Seamer isjust getting murdered in the final real It's

(46:47):
like, unceremoniously on top of everythingelse. It is strange when she gets
murdered. It's it's even strange whenhe gets murdered. And I'm just like,
yeah, oh, he's got toget out of this how because he's
you know, in the apartment,finds the corpse, we have the killer
with the knife coming at him,and I'm just like, oh, how's
he going to get out of this? He doesn't, and I'm like,

(47:10):
oh, oh, oh, yeah, I forgot. He tells, Yeah.
I was surprised by I mean,I knew they happened, but it
is still surprising to see him go. And then I'm like, well,
how are they going to reconcile thisat the end? Is he going to
get to come back through some loophole? And no, they went the other
way and said, Okay, she'sgoing to come back as the wrong species?

(47:32):
Yeah, is that part of thegag at the end? Like he's
forever doomed to like now the womanthat he loves is it? Can't like
is that part? I don't know? I don't know. They don't they
like, don't hang a lantern onit. So I was like, is
the movie being that clever or amI just giving it too much credit?
Like because too much credit? Right? You would feel like you would feel

(47:53):
like the movie would have like mentionedat some point like in those like last
couple of lines like, oh shit, we still can't. You know,
it would be weird if we did, so we can't, Like they don't
even say that. And again,this is a movie where there are dog
dick jokes, so they're not abovemaking those jokes, right, Yeah,
And he gets hops in the tubwith her on two occasions at least that

(48:14):
we see, or one's off screen, but it's implied that he jumps in
earlier and then he's in there withher later. So yeah, he really
is the best part of this moviethough. Jane Seymour, like you mentioned
her in Levin Let Die, Mike, like, she's she's great here,
she's adorable, she's I don't know, she's I like her every time I've
seen her in anything. I've notsearched her out as an actress, but

(48:35):
she's great here. She's she's greatin wedding crashers, she is, which
she is, She's amazing, She'sgreat and live and Let Die. I
mean, you know, we'll becovering that in the in the near future.
But she's she's fantastic. She sheis just I think as cute as
Goldie Hawn is kind of rambunctious infoul play, like she plays kind of

(49:00):
she plays that boil to Chevy Chasethat you would wish he would have been
on screen to act against that.Yeah, it's like that's the problem here.
It's like I kind of just wishthis had been foul play just with
the two of them, with nodog angle at all. Like it really
is two separate movies, And ifit had been two separate movies, I
think they both could have worked separatedfrom this movie trying to like mash not

(49:23):
disparate genres together, but two verydisparate ideas. I really would have been
okay had we had more of themat the beginning, had they had a
dinner date and just got to knoweach other a little bit more, and
then had she made the connection.This really feels like Benjamin the guy went
out with who got murdered accidentally andthen known about his death and like made

(49:46):
comments about his death. Because isthat a whole lot there as far as
what ties these two things together,It's like it all happens off screen.
That was one of the confusing thingsfor me, Like I expect her to
figure this out, but how wouldshe She bumped into him on the street
one time, what literally one time, if they had had that dinner and

(50:08):
maybe he even mentioned, you know, oh, I got this case this
morning, I need to check outof whatever that gal's name was that gets
murdered, and then you know,then it would be odd that she keeps
humping into him in these spots wherethat gal is, where omarsh Reef is,
where the Prime Minister to Be is, Then it would kind of unravel

(50:30):
maybe in her head. And Imean she eventually figures it out, but
it takes a lot longer to getthere and is a little more far fetched
than it could have been. Well, when when at the end of the
movie, which she's like, nowI want to introduce myself properly to you,
and it's like, fuck, likeyou went to heaven and figured this
shit out all off screen. Also, like everything has been told in an

(50:52):
off screen mechanic in this movie,Like every mechanism to tell us the story
we have been deprived of because themovie doesn't have the confidence to show it
to us. Until they do.They show us stuff weird things in heaven,
but then they like refuse to goback to it. They're just like,
all right, you've seen it once. That's good. Enough. Now

(51:13):
you're gonna see Chevy Chase on allfours twice in this movie on Earth,
it's like, well, this justis I don't know, like pick one
or the other. You can't doboth. And then at the end,
yeah, Jane Seymour just okay,I guess she learns all of this off
screen, just like Chevy Chase did. Okay, sure, yeah, I
kind of wish we had more ofthe Heaven stuff, just to see the

(51:35):
kind of the mechanics of it.I mean, that's like the most interesting
part of a lot of movies wherethey do this, like a Defending your
Life or even for God's sakes RIPD. Like the office stuff and the politics
and what's going on there is somuch more interesting than the mystery and RIPD.
And plus you get to see Maryoh god, I can't remember her

(51:58):
name with these amazing go go bootsin that movie. No, I assume
that this was going to be ariff on Heaven Can Wait and or Here
Comes Mister Jordan in a way,which I guess it's the same basic idea
beer, but it wasn't more ofa you're we made a mistake. You're
not supposed to be here thing.It's like, this is what happens is

(52:20):
you get re you know it's areser, resurrection. What's the word you
come back? Yeah, resurrection,life after death, reincarnation, thank you,
Yeah, I got it. Yeah. There were a couple of movies
that were listed on the IMDb asfar as like oh, if you you
know to continue looking down this likesee also so they had things like Luke,

(52:40):
which was a guy coming back,which oddly was written of the Book
of that was written in seventy seven, and then it's not made until Moving
until ninety five, and it's MatthewModine coming back. Chriss already mentioned quickly,
I don't know how this ties intoa dog's purpose. After I saw

(53:00):
some of the new stuff on that, I didn't want to see the movie.
But it also they mentioned this moviefrom nineteen fifty one called You Never
Can Tell where it's it's more abouta dog that wins a million or doesn't
win it gets a million dollars,is inherent inherits a million dollars and has

(53:21):
to be taken care of by Idon't know, Haggy Dow and Charles Drake,
and I know Dick Powell's in thatmovie too. As soon as I
saw that, Dick owels and Iwas like, okay, yeah, let's
do this. But I guess hethe dog is poisoned and comes back as
Dick Powell. So it's like areversal of O Heavenly Dog. Yeah,

(53:43):
like I would like to see this. You have all the ones of people
coming back as people as well?Where right it was the one? Where
was it Chris Rock? Yeah?Yeah, Well and he did a remake
of Heaven Can Wait as well.Okay, yeah, yeah, so that's
what I'm But it's that there onewhere he dies and he is one where
he's Denzel. Is there a ChrisRock is Denzel movie? Am? I?

(54:07):
I think you're mixing up Preacher's Wifewith uh with Heaven Can Wait?
Then they were out around the sametime. Wait, what's the what's the
movie with Bob Hoskins and Critical ConditionWall? He 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

(54:29):
out? No, not heart beatsthe thing. Let's not get into that.
No, No, we'll save thatone for a five hour Projection Booth
special with Alan Arkish and Bernadette.Wow. Yeah, nice. See if
a wants to talk about that one, you might be able to get Andy
Kaufman. I mean, he isalive, so there is that. There

(54:51):
is that it's got to track himdown. Yes, I don't know.
I'm just thinking about movies with dogsin him that are better than this.
One condition is the name of thatmovie from nineteen ninety. Yeah, which
means it was way before that ChrisRock movie. Because back in nineteen ninety
Chris Rock was starring as the crackheadand I'm going to get you, sucker.
Yeah. Can I have one chickenwing or whatever? Fifty cents one

(55:15):
rib? One rib that was hungry? Yeah yeah, Jesus Christ. Oh
how about how about a drink?What is it? My cups cost more
than Yeah, that's right man,That's that's what this movie needed. Just
Bernie Mack as the voice of thedog. Oh, that was what have

(55:37):
fixed it. That that would havefixed everything. Anything. I don't Yeah,
I don't think anything can fix thismovie the way that it is because
it's just too disparate of things.But you know, if you want to
do a movie where you've got JaneSeymour and Chevy Chase being pursued by a
villainous omarsharife around London. I'm gamefor that. And that's the other thing,

(55:57):
you know, we're just thinking aboutthis against foul Play. Foul Play
takes place in San Francisco. Theyuse the scenery and the setting rather well,
this could have been fucking set anywhere. I know that it's in London,
but the fact that it's in Londonseems kind of just you know,
not anything that anybody really has anythingto say about. It's just it's set
in London, right, Okay,so what like there there are opportunities to

(56:22):
do something with that as well,for easy comedy, and they don't even
do that. It's it's surprising whenthey couldn't even get the dog to London
because of the health restrictions and stuff. So all the stuff with Benji is
not shot in London. It's mostlylike back lot or what they also shot
in Paris and the US, Iimagine. So it's it's said at the

(56:45):
end credits Montreal they used a lotof the exteriors therapist. Yeah, I
want to say one and is IMDbso take over the grain of salt.
But it's said that none of itwas filmed in the States, so even
I guess even the sets and thingswere filmed elsewhere, probably either Montreal or

(57:06):
London, which I found odd becauseI'm thinking BINGI seems to be an all
American thing, right, is whyis this set in London? He's American?
Yeah, Chase, God, Yeah. It's just it's like the moment
you think about this movie two secondslonger than it wants to, it starts
making like it starts being even moreinfuriating that that's what this is, because

(57:28):
they well, you have all thesethings, you spend all this time,
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 Chivy Chase in mind, wemaybe didn't even have Bingi in mind,
and they somehow get inserted in thiswhole thing. It could have been a

(57:51):
British first type of deal with adetective coming back. Probably would have been
more enjoyable with a you know,I can't think of a big British star
at the time, you know,commeding cly Star who yeah doing the voice
and Anyboddy Yeah, I don't know. It seems like they're kind of wedged
into this just because Bingji's a thingand Chevy Chase is becoming a thing,

(58:14):
so let's get those guys. Butit's written by Joe Camp who was the
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

(58:34):
written right. Yeah, he hasn'tbeen credited for anything in a long time,
but he was, you know,breaking a lot of stuff in the
seventies, including some Yeah, MaryHartman, Mary Hartman, which is one
of the most bizarro things in theworld to me, One of these days,
Chris, we should. I mean, it's like a thousand episodes,
so we're not going to do aTV show, all right, We're not
gonna do a podcast on it.Yeah. Did it really go that long?

(58:57):
Yeah? Man, it'sodes yeah,yeah, really it was five nights
a 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 aboutthe prisoner and yeah, it's three
hundred and twenty five episodes. Okay, I'm sorry, that's right. I
mean, I mean three hundred andtwenty five episodes is a lot, Like

(59:22):
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,

(59:44):
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 thedog? 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 you were to ask
me who is the star of thismovie, I would say it's Jane Seymour,

(01:00:04):
Like she needs to be the oneon the poster. Chevy Chase and
the dog need to be kind ofsmaller on the poster than her, even
has she been able to take thiswhole thing, over. I would have
been okay with that, because yeah, I think she does a great job.
Yeah, which is unfortunate that herperformance is in this movie, because
yeah, it's just everything else isjust so clearly meant to be like a

(01:00:27):
Chevy Chase and Dog thing, andit's like, eh, you do know
that this is like the least interestingpart of them, to the point where
chevy Chase claims, at least inhis in his autobiography from the nineties,
that he's never watched this movie.I mean, mind you, that was
ninety one ninety two when his Iguess I understand why you've never watched this
movie, But you also directly contributedto this movie not being good. Like

(01:00:49):
you, you contributed to the problematicquality of this movie. So it's I
don't know, it's always weird whenI when I read something like that and
it's like, but you, likeyou actively contributed to that being a problem.
So I kind of get why youdidn't watch it, But also,
like you, you are the reasonthis movie. You are part of the
reason this movie was not successful.Yeah, doesn't surprise me though hearing that
doesn't coming from him. Yeah,he's the kind of guy that likes to

(01:01:13):
shoot himself in his own foot.Yeah. Well, it's like he came
out in the movie was, youknow, in theaters and said, don't
go see this movie. It's apiece of shit at least. But yeah,
he's doing press press conferences with Benjiat the time. Yeah, he
honestly, I'm sure he loved that. Well, yeah, he seemed miserable
during that whole experience. Second allto a dog. He's got the trainer

(01:01:34):
in the back of the press conferencewho's given Benji hughes so that it can
be like, well, what doyou think, Benji, And then the
guy gives a Q in Benji Bark'sright on command. It's like okay,
you know, and like, yeah, Benji was probably out acting Chevy Chase
at this point. What do youthink about this mid level talent Chevy Chase?
Benji got him? Oh, Ican't believe he said that, ring

(01:01:57):
to his face. Well he's andthey're in the same room, I think,
snap. Yeah, god boy,did they make reference to this movie
and Strays By the way, I'mjust thinking about that. I wish they
I I wish that that this moviewas half as funny as Strays is.
And then then it might have hadsome redeeming quality. Is a movie worth

(01:02:22):
returning to? I don't even knowhow you would watch this movie in twenty
twenty three. It's on YouTube andits entirety, but it is not a
I don't think it's ever been releasedby anybody. I don't unders that a
Blu ray, not that there's noBlu ray in this movie. I don't
think not that, not again,not that I saw, so I could
be wrong. There's the DVD,but it's like thirty bucks on Amazon,

(01:02:45):
and I am not paying thirty dollarsfor this movie on Oh. I didn't
realize this. This was released asa three pack multiple times. It looks
like yes with once We're Far fromHome and Rusty the Rescue and another one
with because of the Wind Dixie andalso far from Home. So they seem

(01:03:07):
to like to repackage this and releaseit on DVD. Well, and it
you know, if you see iton Amazon, like the box are for
the movie, it definitely smacks ofthis is a thing that you would find
in the dollar bin at Walmart thatthey're trying to convince you is something that
it's not. Which is a moviethat has Chevy chasing it's like the DVD

(01:03:30):
for Amazes and Monsters. It's likeit has Tom Hanks on the box ar,
but he's in it for five minutes. If that like, And the
boxar for this movie on Amazon looksthe 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 bebought this by someone who loves you.

(01:03:52):
Yeah. This will be the firsttitle on our new boutique label, Guys,
Here we Go. Oh my god, there it is there. It
is, yep, there right wherethe media comes from. That's the physical
media that we're releasing. Is weimagine that if we just are releasing movies
that we don't like. We reallydidn't like this movie, but we'd like

(01:04:14):
the opportunity to re release it foryou to see if other people like it
more than us or dislike it justas much as we do. I do
want to say that the version ofBenji at Work that's out on YouTube looks
way better than O Heavenly Dog,And it's out there in its entirety,
and it's such a time capsule ofhere's what nineteen eighty look like on television.

(01:04:34):
Unfortunately there's no commercials to it.I kind of would have liked that.
But having Adam Rich actively narrating andparticipating in this and then seeing that
crazy trainer with that amazing mustache,yeah it's I found a lot of entertainment
in that. So go watch that. We all go back and watch it

(01:04:55):
now. Yeah, yeah, you'llhave a good time, even though it's
Adam Rich. Fuck that guy.Yeah, I don't think if you watched
this movie you would walk away sayingBenji movies were successful and popular and Chevy
Chase movies were successful and popular,because neither of those things are very well
represented here. But to your point, like, clearly there are Benji movies
that people did like because we gotto this point three movies in that Benji

(01:05:17):
and chevy Chase are being paired together, and chevy Chase was popular enough that
they I mean, we're just aboutat the top here of the things we're
gonna be talking about with Chevy Chase. So clearly there was a quality here
that we just were not able tosee translated into a movie written by these
two people. But yeah, ifI had watched this in eighty it would

(01:05:38):
have been like, so, whyare either of these things in this movie?
Like why is chevy Chase in thismovie? Why is Benji in this
movie? If I knew nothing abouteither, I would not think that they
were the popular things going into themovie. Let's just put it in that
way. It is remarkable to lookback and be like, chevy Chase was
a thing. No, I'm justkidding that, Wow, Benji was a

(01:05:59):
thing. I would just be like, oh, yeah, that was a
really big thing for a long time. Yeah yeah, not uh. I
mean again, we don't have thatnow, but we do have just like
a glut of dog and cat moviesthat come out every year that are just
on streaming. So I don't knowhow many Airbud movies there are at this
point, but there are a lot, and almost all of them have been

(01:06:19):
direct to videos, so well,it makes sense, man, I mean
Airbud. I don't remember. Ithink there's one film from Montreal that finally
took the title, but Airbud waslike the largest gross grossing Canadian movie for
years and years. I believe it. I mean I believe it, like
that was that was that movie waslike a three million dollar movie, and

(01:06:43):
I think it made like thirty milliondollars and then just like every fucking sequel
that you can think of with Airbuddiesand snow Buddies and oh yeah, oh
my god, I'm still waiting.I'm still waiting. I've talked about it
for years now. If I everget the opportunity, I'm gonna make a
movie where it chimp plays golf andit's just gonna be called Chimp Shot.
Okay, I'm gonna do it oneof these days. You know, that'll

(01:07:06):
be our VT label. Maybe getmatt LeBlanc to come back from when he
played baseball with a chimpanzee and headand oh there was also MVP Most Valuable
Primates. Oh that's what it is? Yeah, not ed, I guessed
it isn't. Okay, Okay,that's what yeah god, and be most

(01:07:26):
Oh yeah no. I watched awhole series of those for an article I
wrote all about like chimps and films, and just during this like one little
window of time which was always likewhat what do we do like when there
are weird trends like that? Likeyeah, you know, you guys have
talked about body swap movies on theculture cast. I know that, And
like I said before, I lovea good body swap movie, you know,

(01:07:48):
and I watch all of those likeeighteen again, yeah, the The
The Father, like nom Style Flashright, oh, dream a little Dream
Dream. Yeah, But there wasa different where it was adults. It

(01:08:10):
was because there was a Fred Savageand Judge Judge reine Hold, Judge reine
Hold. There was the Kirk Cameronand uh and then there yeah, and
then of course there was the GeorgeBurns and The Kid. But it felt
like there's one other around there,and it's just like all of these movies
coming out within like a three yearperiod was really bizarre, and I'm just

(01:08:31):
like, why why that? Whatwas the what was the pop culture zeitgeist?
Yeah? What was driving that?Was it just like going back and
changing things from your past? Imean, were we living in a period
of regret the springboard for all thosebelieve and what was No those came before

(01:08:53):
big okay, sure, yeah,and that's no. No, it was
kind of like well, even BruceWillis did one. I think it was
just called The Kid, but Ithink that was a little bit later.
Oh yeah, it was like afreaky Friday. I think I was the
generations didn't understand each other, sothey had to take each other's places.
There was a movie just recently wherelike a chick wakes up as her older

(01:09:15):
self as Diane Keaton. And there'salso that thirteen going on going on thirty?
Yeah, yeah, Freaky Friday.I mean, uh, wasn'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 Evro. Theseare like these are yeah seventeen again.

(01:09:39):
Isn't O Heavenly Dog a body swapmovie? Tech? It basically is yeah,
yeah, this might be the worstone 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 really, back
when I was gung ho about doingall the back brown stuff, and you

(01:10:00):
were conditioned, you were conditioned wellby the projection booth is what it is.
I think there was a Brian I'mtoo old for this. Ryan Reynolds
swaps with Bateman, Bateman, JasonBateman. Yeah, yeah The Swaps.
Isn't that movie just called The Swap? I think yeah, I think you're
right. Yeah yeah. Freaky Fridaywas that. Then there was the one

(01:10:21):
with Vince Vaughan Freaky Freaky yeah,just freaky yeah, Yeah, I like
that one. That was Yeah,that was a good one. That these
movies come out like, yeah,it's weird. They come out like once
every couple of years, but rarelyis it just like oh Weekend A lot
the late eighties were really that thattime for like, hey there's a lot
of really big personalities, let's pairthem together. It was called The Change

(01:10:44):
Up. That's the one I wasthinking of change Up with. That's the
one with Bateman and Ryan Reynolds.Yeah, yeahs yes, as opposed to
uh uh uh boor Judge, RyanHold and kid with that crazy statue if
you could only be me for oneday? I like Dudley, was it?

(01:11:08):
Dudley Moore, Dudley Moore, KirkCameron? Yeah, God, Dudley
Moore? Who thought that was?I still Dudley Moore and Kirk Cameron.
What a pairing, What a pairing? If they could only know the future
of those two people. Oh boygod, yeah, is that the one
with Sean Aston? It is?Yeah, I think I watched most of
them with my daughter. I'm like, they're Samwise, It's the only the

(01:11:30):
only thing I can enjoy out ofthis movie. Wise, Yeah, these
did this movie. I think ispart of that conversation. But I think
I think we've clearly established that itis not. I wouldn't even say it's
a lesser, it's just what iseven the point? Like, I don't
know, I wish, I wishthis could have been. We're still waiting
for one of those movies that wefind where it's like, oh, everybody

(01:11:51):
was wrong about this movie. No, yeah, that's what I was hoping.
When I read the reviews, I'mlike, oh, this is a
stinker apparently. I mean, Iwill go to my graves still enjoying this
movie. But yeah, I'm gladthat you guys weren't just like you're wrong
for liking this. So that's cool. I understand that. Yeah, yeah,

(01:12:13):
I have a lot of movies.Murder by Death is one of them
that a lot will come on.That's wonderful. I love that, I
know, But you know, fakepinkys fucking hot hot takes man. There
was a I believe someone that wemay be mutual friends with on Facebook had
a hot take that Murdered by Deathis better than Clues. So I don't
think you're alone in liking Murder byDeath. I agree with that statement.

(01:12:36):
So I've seen Murder by Death probablydozens of times. I've seen Clue once,
but I enjoyed it when I sawit. But say, I didn't
fall into that Clue camp of what'sthe best movie ever? I don't.
I don't not see why you enjoythis movie, Mike. And if I
had seen this movie at the righttime, I probably would have. I
mean, I don't think it's purelynostalgia driven, given that we're watching it

(01:12:59):
now and having a conversation about itnow. But I get it, like
I can understand because when I waswatching with my wife, she was like,
oh, I've seen parts of thisbefore. And she had seen parts
of it because she grew up inlike a very dog centric household and like
her mom and her would go tolike dog shows together because they would show
dogs, and so her mom wouldjust put on movies with dogs for her

(01:13:19):
apparently, and she was like,oh, you'll like this movie. It
has a dog in it, andmy wife said she was bored by the
first thirty minutes, which I understandgiven you know, again, the dog
doesn't show up for thirty minutes,so you know, I get it.
But yeah, I think, andthis is the other thing we really haven't
mentioned. I think to round usout, did this movie have to be

(01:13:41):
an hour and forty five minutes?That for me might be the biggest affront,
is that what couldn't you get saidin like an hour twenty five because
that's really all you needed. Youdidn't need an additional thirty minutes here if
you're not going to give us more. If it had been an hour and
forty five minutes and they were beena solid half an hour of Chevy Chase

(01:14:01):
and Jane Seymour, cool, whynot make them a married couple and then
it makes sense that the dog cancome back. She'd be like, oh,
you've answered my prayers. And thenshe dies at the end, and
then it makes sense because he's dead. No, just two minutes of Chevy
Chase and Jane Seymour, what what? That's right? It would have made

(01:14:23):
sense too as far as having himbeing England, like, oh, I
came over here for you, mylove, 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, peopleare always going to need a dick.

(01:14:45):
I just wrote a better joke forthis whole fucking movie. The gallery scene
was like, I'm like, canwe Yeah, you know that was a
good fifteen minutes painful. Yeah,it could have been gone. It's just
shock. It's shocked to me howlong this movie is, because like it's
ultimately like, like we mentioned allthe way at the top, like is
it a kid's movie? Is ita comedy? It's kind of weirdly all

(01:15:10):
of these things. And I don'tknow about y'all, but we all know
that, especially younger kids have ahey, 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'mnot trying to be, you know,
derogatory towards kids. It's just Idon't think any kid is gonna sit through
an hour and forty longs Benji movie. Like there's a reason those other Benji

(01:15:31):
movies probably open with Benji immediately runningaround and 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
see it for Benji would have beena lot more satisfied than they probably were

(01:15:55):
with this. All the fans ofBenji who were disappointed by this at the
time, I'm sure the message boardswere just 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
enough Benji. If I buy aticket for a Benji movie, I want

(01:16:15):
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
podcast off with, but I thinkit sets the tone for where we will

(01:16:39):
probably end up with Chevy Chase,which is it's gonna be up and down
man. Yeah, yeah, we'vegot two ups coming up, I believe.
Yeah, that's right. So onthe next episode of Blue Chasing Chevy
podcast. We're talking about one ofthe movies. I guess, uh yeah,
he's probably I don't know if he'sknown for, but it's definitely a
way. Yeah, his involvement ismuch appreciated, and he ends up stealing

(01:17:02):
the show. We're talking about yetanother movie from nineteen eighty. You may
have heard of it. It's calledCaddy Shack. Can you imagine we're doing
an episode on Caddy Shack? I'mexcited? Wile Does this mean I finally
get to watch a sequel? Ohyeah, oh yeah, yeah it's in
there. It's in this time periodthat we're doing fifteen episodes from now.
Excellent. I can't wait. SoChris, just so people kind of get

(01:17:27):
where we're coming from here, youmentioned like star vehicles, but there's sort
of a cut off point here,so we're going according to your list.
We started with this and the lastmovie is one biggest vacation okay, and
it was Cops and Robertson's all right, where's Vegas? Fake? Oh?
There it is? Yeah, okay, yes, and there's some we might

(01:17:48):
get to ninety seven okay, andthere are some other movies past that that
are possible bonuses given that they're justthey kind of have some possible uh not,
I don't know, relevancy, butthey're kind of like throwbacks to certain
things that we'll talk about while we'redoing this, because, like Mark mentioned,

(01:18:09):
we're gonna have some pretty high ups. We're gonna be covered. I
mean, we're gonna cover a lotof the We're covering all the big stuff,
which I don't think for us asany surprise, but I think for
at least the three of us,like we tend to not watch everything that
is super duper popular because everybody elsehas already had these conversations about it.
But to Mark's point, yeah,we're gonna start in eighty with O Heavenly

(01:18:30):
Dog, will end in ninety sevenwith Vegas Vacation and everything in between.
For the most part, as longas Chevy Chase is the lead or ISP
Build Top Build, we're gonna becovering those movies. So use your research
brain to figure out what those are, because I'm not gonna mention twenty movies
right now, boy. And sothat means in three months we get to
talk about Under the Rainbow. Iknow, a movie I've still never seen

(01:18:55):
me either, I'm kind of andit's one of the ones I'm excited about.
Actually, Oh, I grew upon that movie too, So Jimmy
Chase was in your life very earlyon Mike early and often. Yes,
yeah, yeah, I was surprised. I go through the list and I'm
like, oh, yeah, Iactually saw that one in the theater.
I've never seen that one. Thisone, I've seen a bunch, you

(01:19:17):
know. It's it's all over theplace with him. Yeah, and again
like you in the theater. It'sit's one of those things where like these
are some really big movies that havea lot of lasting power, especially like
Vegas Vacation, European Vacation, ChristmasVacation, Caddy Shack, Caddy Shack.
I consider that one of his mostpopular films, Caddy Shack. Everybody I

(01:19:42):
know loves Caddy Shacks. Yeah,I mean seriously, Yeah, if you
bring up comedies, it's like CaddyShack. Yeah, it's my age group
for one thing. But it's youknow, yeah, you want to I
had a couple of stumbles maybe before, but then after Caddy Shack, it's
like, oh, this guy's goingto go somewhere. He had a couple
of stumbles. He had some stumblesthis, this, this and the maybe

(01:20:06):
the tunnel Vision and groove Tube orwhatever. But yeah, because style play
is solid, so yeah, ohyeah. So speaking of foul play,
Begley, where can people find thatdiscussion that we did and the things that
you work on? You can findthat at wakeupheavy dot com or Weirdingwaymedia dot
com, amongst many other shows.And you can find me at wake Up

(01:20:30):
Heavy on social media Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, letterboxed if you want to
see when I'm watching link tree,et cetera. What about you, Benjifan
number one, Mike White, Iwas just handed this brief that says that
everything I can do, everything Ido is available at Weirdingwaymedia dot com.

(01:20:50):
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.
Okay, all right, were's supposedto read that? Yeah? Sorry,

(01:21:11):
you know what I said? Thatwould happen if you read that second part
of the air. Oh shit,Oh my goodness. And what about you,
Chris Well, when I'm not apparentlyholding Mike's family hostage, you can
find me and my associated works overat FBI dot gov. No, you

(01:21:31):
can find them at Weirdingwaymedia dot com, where I do a weekly movie podcast
called The Culture Cast, and awhole raft of other monthly and biweekly things.
But you know, there's other people'svoices at Weirdingway Media too, like
Susan Lambert HadAM who does eighties TVladies It's Family, and Travia and Christine
Makepeace who do the Feminine Critique,and Sierra Zorn and Alicia Watson who do

(01:21:56):
Twisted and Uncorked. So yeah,three other podcasts that have, uh,
you know, more to say aboutmore things than we do about Chevy Chase
movies. Clearly because this episode isnow over. If you want to hear
more of us, Weirdingwaymedia dot comis where you can find those shows and
this show, and yeah, we'llbe coming back to you every month to
bring more Chevy Chase centric content hereon the Chasing Chevy podcast. We're fans

(01:22:21):
of Chevy Chase and you're not