Ben Russell and The King Of Comedy

Good day. My name's Peter Hell. Are you welcome to You ain't seen nothing yet.

In the movie Podcast, we're our chat to a movie lover about a classic or beloved movie they haven't quite got around to watching until now. And today's guest comedian writer actor Ben Russell.

The first rule of fake club is you do not talk about fake club.

Now.

It was you afraid up, you broke my heart.

I admire your luck, mister Bond, James.

Bond, Me haven't any right now?

Don't see nothing here.

Harold Sun calls today's guest Ben Russell one of our most brilliant comic talents, and I wholeheartedly agree. Ben has created work for himself and his mates, a true collaborator, an ideas man who has created plays such as The Tokyo Hotel, No Show and restaurant Fuckheads, which I must say I have not seen but I really really want to.

Sydney, Adelaide.

He does that alongside his wife, comedian writer, the wonderful Maggie.

Look.

The thing I'm really excited that Ben is doing right now is a little project called Time to Die. I've

Hello, my name is Ben Russell. My three favorite films Blazing Saddles. Well, my name is Jim, but most people call me Jim Godfather too. My offer is this Nothing and Wayne's World.

I'm going to be Frank Okay, can I still be Garth?

And Up until this morning, I had never seen the King of Comedy.

Now you come on, Jerry, and you do your monologue, and then when the time comes, this is how I see you introducing me.

You could say something like this.

Will you please give your warmest welcome to the newest King of Comedy, Rupert Hopkin.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Lucid Pupkin. I was warning fift the new Jersey, which was is there anyone nearful?

It's the age old question. Are they laughing with me? Or are they laughing at me. Robert de Niro superbly named Rupert Pupkin, a budding comedian who, instead of treading the boards in late night stand up clubs, wants an express ticket to stardom in his science, his legendary late night host Jerry Langford, play by the legendary comic actor Jerry Lewis in a possibly career best performance. Rubert's admiration for Langford goes far beyond autograph hunting and watching him

Oh?

All the time? Yeah, one hundred. Get me on there, bro.

I'm so excited to talk about this film. I'm so glad I'm doing it with you. This guy's a few films that you hadn't seen. I mean he arrived on this film for a couple of reasons, but had this film like hung over your head as something you know, you were a little bit embarrassed you hadn't seen.

Yeah, yeah, I mean it's kind of gotten this great cult status now and rightly so. And I had a couple of friends with like, you've got to see this film. It's really great. And then of course when Joker came out, people would compare it to that, and I didn't know. I didn't have any frame of reference, so it was always kind of me going, I really should see this film and just kind of putting it off, and it's just been in my pile of shame for so long.

It is extraordinary once you see.

I mean i'd seen The King of Comedy and watching Joker when it was released, which I really enjoyed. Still, but I don't think I've seen a movie that's worn its its reference points or its inspiration on its sleeve more than Joker did to the King of Comedy. And I think Taxi Drivers in that in there as well, possibly Network as well, but I think certainly King of Comedy.

Yeah, Joker. I didn't realize it was like watching. You know, when you watch the Simpsons and then you watch the movie that the Simpsons paid homage to, you're like, oh, oh wow, I thought that they were just making this up. But that's Cape fear.

Top Phillips to who made Joker, has not backed away from that. He's been very open and honest about inspiration for It's to the point where Robert de Niro, if you if you're trying to get away with something, you don't cast Robert de Niro in Joker.

Yeah, that's right.

And a Jerry Lewis role.

Yeah, exactly. I think that that was probably the right decision. I mean a because de Nero was great in that role, but also it does it just kind of comes out and goes listen. This is almost a it's almost a spiritual sequel somehow, or it's a companion piece to King of Comedy. It's like you know, maybe he is. That's Rupert pupkin. It's the continuation of that character is a joker.

Well that's a thought. Did you you watch it this morning? How did you watch it? You watch it by yourself? Did you watch it?

I watched it by myself. Yes, yes, on the streaming service.

On the streaming service, yes, yes, excellent. Okay.

It is like I said, it was a flop on release it. It has gained a real cult following lots of people. I know Steve Carrell kind of credited as you know, inspiration behind his Fox Catcher performance. So there's a lot to talk about, a lot about the performances, the themes comedy, and you are a great person to talk about all those things. We'll get to those things very soon. Let's talk about your three favorite films. Yes,

Films mel Brooks. To me, I mean, that's just one of his films. I could literally pick any year any you know, ten, ten or twenty others of his that I could put in there. Quite easily. I just love mel Brooks. He's he's kind of a If I were to pick have an idol, it would be mel Brooks, which is weird in this day and age to have someone like like that. But I just I love him. I love everything he does. I love his comedy, and it's sort of been a guiding light from me in

You'd struggle to get it maze.

Yeah, but it's so good. And I love anything that Gene Wilder's in. Yeah, he's another sort of idol of mine. And it's just it's just such an amazing film. It's so funny, it's so stupid.

Yeah, And I feel like, you know, and obviously there's another film we'll get to which you know, lives in that the silly, stupid world. But I feel like comedy can take itself too serious. Yes, you know, and I don't think you're in that camp.

Definitely not.

Check out Hug the Sun and and many other things. I do find it refreshing, and I love that there's genres of comedy that whatever you're looking for, you can find it. If you want to go and learn something about the world and deep dive into that person's soul, you can do that, of course, and that can be extremely fun and funny and wonderful. But I think silliness is underrated.

Oh I love silliness. I love venal humor. I just it's just so good. I remember just I did a presentation in class I think in like year eight about Blazing Saddles and I did the I showed the fart scene, the campfire camp campfire bean scene, and just talking about mel Brooks and how he was my idol at that time as well. It's just so inane and dumb, but it also is kind of saying something, but it doesn't

Most things, if you think about in comedy, once they've been formed in somebody's mind and then put on the stage or put on a screen, they're saying something, Yeah, but look, you're right, something's hard on the sleeve and where I'm telling you what the point is. But sometimes it's something as similar as a fart scene, or whether it be that scene or another scene, it's still saying something about the human condition. I'm not talking about necessarily

It's the ultimate form of humor.

And I say, well, because you know, as an adult it's not supposed to happen, you know, And it's how what worst situation can you find yourself in as an adult? There's no situation when an adult shits their pants where this is okay, Yeah, I can deal with this. In fact, I'll deal with it later.

Whenever you ship your pants as an adult, you know it's going to be a good story later.

But you have to like Andy Dofrain in the Shawshank redamnse You've got to crawl through a tuddle of shit, yea side, and then you can bounce at the rain and rain down on.

You cleanse yourself. Of course, only once you're cleansed can you tell the story and be the hero in it.

I remember, I remember when the first time I heard the term sharted was actually in a film. Wasn't a great film. We had enough laughs in it though. Along along came Polly, ben Stiller and the late great Philips, my double ganger, and he comes up to Ben Still at a party where I think he's just bumped into Jennifer and Aniston, and he says, have to go, And he says why he guys because I.

Was shut And it is.

It is fucking beautiful. It's hilarious. And I still think it's it's saying something. It is saying something about manners, about about the expectations of how we are supposed to present ourselves.

And these bowels.

Yeah, well, I think it's in our net. It's the human brain works. By connecting things, we connect arts, we create patterns. So you're going to find meaning in something to you. And I think that that's far more powerful for the viewer to find meaning in it for themselves, not to be not to be like, hey, this is the message, which is fine, go for it. But I prefer just that discovery and sort of thinking about it and tearing it apart and sort of examining on my own.

And also what is meaning me? It is the analytical part of it.

But also I did not expect this existential.

But when when? When?

When you're watching If I'm watching that shouting scene and I'm thinking that happened to me once, Yeah, like.

That takes me back.

I could take me back to a moment, so that means something to me that nobody else knows about.

Two comedians pull apart the existential quandary of shitting yourself.

I feel this could be a whole new podcast.

In fact, I have seriously considered doing a podcast called I Shot Myself and this Listen to your Pants Story.

It's always good stories, always good stories.

Would be like a regular guest at least two or three times a series. I've actually spoken the bill about it and mainly women go would you listen to a podcast about this? And my straight rate's pretty low. I think I'm only about two out of about six have sent Well.

You've got to hit right here.

Yeah, yeah, thank you, Ben Russell. And that's why you hear that we're not talk. Wanted to pitch that podcast to you. Let's stick in that area with Wayne's World. That again, a movie that's come up a lot with my particularly comedic guests, lives in the same world of Silliness. I kind of full confession. I like Blazing Saddles a lot. Wayne's Well, it took a while for me. I'm not I was never big as much as I'm talking about

For some reason, it took me.

A while to embrace those big American sureties.

Yeah yeah, well, I mean Plans trends. Steve Martin is an all timer. You know how I love that line in Plans Trades, how about you follow you one to the toilet and watch you take a leak. I just love that. For some reason, I get punched in the face.

It's one of the most credible movies ever. But Wayne's well, I mean, it's so you kind of I had no idea that OHEMI Repsy wasn't even a massive hit in the Yeah States until Wayne's World.

Made it get number one on the charts again. Yeah, you know, yeah, it's just a great film. It's it's something of my childhood again. I'm just I tried to think of with top three sort of the biggest impacts that films have had on me. Yep, and Wayne's World definitely had that. You know, me and my brother would just quote this film at nauseum. I could quote any part of it. Still, Yeah, did a great garth He excuse me? Are they to get bay?

Now?

We're looking down and Wain's basement, Only that's not Wayne's basement. Dana Carvey is one of my favorites.

That is very good.

I'm I'm not surprised, to be honest, if you pull that off, But that is a Dana Carvey.

Here's a funny one.

In Australia like this, like as op as being household name, my mind became a household name is and Dana Carvey came a people who love this movie became fan because outside this world, well that he's done so much stuff over in the Cyah. I feel like he's got He's got lost in this movie a little bit as far as a reference point.

Yeah, Yeah, it's weird. He's not as much sort of a cultural icon as he is over in the States, and that's changing. I think people are discovering him, you know now. But I mean he's always been there. He's kind of always been there. He's kind of his stolewart comedy sort of force. I would say, I have an American My family are all Americans, so we were sort of bred on SNL, namely like the first cast that John Belushi and all those guys, and then that just

And we are grateful for it.

Then Changing Pace possibly my well, my favorite movie of all time. I say that Godfather's parts one and two, but I have said Godfather Part two is my favorite out of the two.

We just did part three recently. I listened to the trilogy. Yeah, before we.

Get onto two, are you of the opinion that three is not as bad as people?

I believe I have to I have to confess I've not been able to watch the full thing. I've been trying to watch the re release yep, and I just haven't made it through. I think I'm trepidacious. I put off watching it because I didn't want it, because I've heard such bad things about it. I didn't want to spoil the sort of myth that it was in my mind the Godfather, and why.

Because Luke and I could have easily have stopped this doing Godfather Part one and Part two. But I thought, well, I really do not believe the Part three is anywhere near as bad as people. Actually, no, I've said before or that it's just not in the conversation as the best film ever like it's previous as are. Yeah, and I think that's an unfair bar to be judged against.

I think the same reason I haven't watched all of the Death of Michael Corley only the re release is probably the same reason that sort of kept me back from watching a lot of I've had a renaissance for seventies and eighties films recently where I've been able to sit down and just watch them and love them. I think prior to that, I have kind of put it off because they're different paced. It was a different pace

And I had the opportunity to chat with Miles Taller about the Offer, which is about the making of Godfather Part one, and we spoke about that that there's a scene, that great scene where Salotso and McCluskey and remark the assassination and and and there's a scene where they sit down and the waiter comes to the table and we wait for him to uncork the wine. He actually with a corkscrew, and then he paus three glasses of wine

No, there'll be dialogue over that, yeah, and that there will be very much a background.

Yeah, although decided on the day, actually opportunity.

You just have the way that you'll pull the wine. Yeah, yeah, and through the scene a bit quicker.

There's something that I kind of miss about that just letting just watching these characters that we love and you know, just absolutely a doore just enact every day things. It makes them instantly more relatable and you go, oh, you know, you sort of make a connection. That's how they watch someone open a bottle of wine. That kind of humanizes them so much more so it gives a little bit more of a layer of depth to these characters without you even realizing.

Yeah, just be in their world. Yeah for a little while, soak it in. You know, you're at a little Taian restaurant and some it's about to go down, you know.

Yeah. And so I recently sort of had a got I got into it by watching Sorcerer, which I don't know if you've seen, but it's an amazing film, very like two films, really slow paced, but then bam, I would recommend it. It's the same guy that directed The Exorcist. And then from there I went into the French Connection, and then from it just the there's another one with Gene.

A did you do Missive Burning?

I haven't seen Mississippi Burning yet. I didn't get that.

I'm still that is that is going a few years and down the track.

Yeah, I'm still in like the seventies. So and I watched French Connection two.

Well, well, we did the French Connection with Justin Hamilton and it's got the obviously how much the first time. I'd seen bits of it I think before, but I hadn't much the whole thing. So it was it was amazing. It's just an amazing film. But we did not get to the second month. That's why way I thought, we don't need to come back and do French Connection Part two.

It doesn't really makes sense the setup, but it's actually a good film, right, Yeah, remarkably it's a it's an amazing sequel. Okay, yeah, I would say just as good as it's got qualities that are just as good as the original French Connection.

And I I feel like when the films as good as the French Connection, even if you've heard and the same. Is my point of that Godfather Part three to get back to that is when if you make a great film and they do it so you almost owe them the right to check it out.

Yeah, exactly, you know, and I know you know of that you've seen elements from the French Connection without even seeing the French Connection, that the chase and every and the staircase and things like that. It's the same with Godfather three. You know. I think when I think I'm out, they pull me back in. I know that quote, and I haven't seen to that part in the film, so.

Probably outside of an offer you can't refuse. It's one of the most quotable Godfather line.

I think, Yeah, yeah, maybe go to the mattresses, to the mattresses.

And leave the gun and take the canol. Yes, but why too? Why does two rise above one? For you?

For me, it's I mean, it's Robert de Niro's performance for me again. You want that lived in world, that real world. It takes all the the flashback sequences, I think, just lifted up in the way that they kind of compliment and foreshadow things in the present day. And it's and Robert de Niro's and and what is her name his Bruno Bruno, Bruno Kirby. I love Bruno Kirby. Everything that Bruno Kirby is in. I'm like, yes, give it, good morning, sir. In my heart, I know I'm funny.

Oh my god, I cannot wait.

I think it's a film you don't you don't get it doesn't get spoken about that much. And I think it really there's Robert Williams like return to kind of you know, and and becoming Robber Williams again.

Yeah.

Yeah, I didn't even think about that.

Yeah, because he was like I remember when he had been casting oh the guy from Mocam India.

Yeah, and then it was.

My dad thought it would be really funny because I we got the soundtrack to it, and I memorized everything, and I love to watch the film. And he would love to team me to a dinner party or to a restaurant with friends and just go bed go and I would quote and do impressions of Robin Williams in Good Morning Nam. I could probably still crank some out.

Wow, feel free and if you do, and.

If you do, hey, it's rock and roll. What's it's all six hundred? What's the oil stand for?

Oh?

My God?

Is Early?

Speaking of Early?

I love it, but so to god Father Sue den hero Krbier in that.

Yeah, so that whole. I mean.

What I love about that is house seamlessly. You know sometimes when you're watching a movie and there's it's told over two or maybe three different timelines, and you look bit when it cuts back from one to the other time one you're little bit disappointed. You're like, I'll go back to Yeah, I don't want to come out of that world. And I felt like that movie I was happy in both worlds.

Yeah, exactly. And I love that it has an intermission and somebody to just get up and stretch your legs. And it's just one of the most I think, perfect films. It's similar to King of Comedy. It's at first you go, oh, this is going to be a long, slow film, and it does take its time, but you're you're glued to the screen and all of a sudden you're like, oh, we're nearly over. This is amazing. I think that's a That's how I know that a film is amazing, even

And for me, even more so, I think than the Nero so amazing in it is John Kazzal. Yeah, that's fraid O like him getting more to do and more entrench with the story is just so heartbreak and what you know, I mean, I gotta mention every time I mentioned John Gazzale he was five and five. We made five perfect films. I don't think anyone has done that. He had a one hundred percent strike right sadly died of cancer early, so we only had five films.

The conversation that The Hunter.

A conversation that's I couldn't think of it. But that's one of the other films I watched.

What a Run extraordinary. It just like the best. So that's that's what I love about it as well. All right, let's let's move on because there's a there's a movie that doesn't have the running time of God by the Part too, But bloody hell, there's a lot to talk about. Nineteen eighty twos The King of Comedy, directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Paul de Zimmerman, starting Robb withiniro Jerry Lewis, Sandra Bernard, and quite a few others.

Ben Russell, did you enjoy it?

I loved it.

This is there's one film where I was excited because I thought, one, I'm pretty sure you're going to love it.

Yeah, and I was excited.

I was excited coming Sometimes I'm nervous about what my guess is gonna think about the film, and then I thought, one, you're gonna love it, and then we're just going to talk about it because there's so much to talk about.

Yeah, what do you want to start?

It's just a wonderful kind of It's funny, but it's it doesn't ever try to be funny. It just sort of presents these things and this situation. It's an exploration of that delusion and fame and celebrity, and it's uh and every single member of the cast gives possibly the best performance of their career.

I would say said, it's his favorite performance that Denniera gave under his direction.

Yeah, and I would say, so I haven't seen. I was surprised because I hadn't seen Diannera do that range. Yeah, he does that sort of light and almost goofy, and it's verging on goofy. It never goes into goofy. But it's this kind of desperate, but not in a Travis bickele desperation. It's kind of isolated, but it's not in that it's separate from those two that that other character completely different sort of take and approach to it.

Yeah, I mean there's absolute similarities with Travis bickel and I think in Jake Lamota en Raging Ball, but the older Jake Lamota, but completely different performance.

You're absolutely right. I saw.

I saw the influence in this performance that it had on even Ricky Gervais, which I never when I watched it, probably when I watched it last time, you obviously hadn't even come out. But here's a little nuance. It's the little you know, the watching and and and the responsing responses and and the it was just it was just so much to love about his performance.

It elicits the same like cringiness that you're like some of it's hard to watch such awkward, awkward scenes between Rupert and the rest of the world, who's kind of just lying his way through and just in his own caught up in his own world. But yes, that's a great observation that it's like Gervais, because I was thinking the same thing when I was watching. This is kind of the beginnings of that that awkward cringe comedy thing that The Office kind of made popular.

Did you like Rupert?

I did.

It's funny, isn't it?

And so did, even though there are things about him that you know, I don't like. I don't like that he's trying to take a short cut yeah, like we all worked hard to get where we are and going yeah, and to kind of think.

He's never done he never Actually it's he's a stand up comedian, but he never has done a gig.

Gig.

People are going, Okay, just do a gig, and he's like.

No, song are you talking to Jerry?

I love that. I love the fact that he's never done a gig ever, and he's like, get me on the show.

Because there was a part of me at one point going, oh, I'm surprised I didn't show him doing a gig, Like, what does he feel like they made the right call? And I love the fact he's so delusional that he just because also, as people who perform live, you know, that's where that's where you cut your teeth, you know, you know, and you get better and better, and it takes a long time to get.

Good, and then you know, a lot a long long time to get great, and only a very small percentage of people get great, you know. So just to think that.

This guy can watch a TV show that has all lots of tricks and you know, we know about the tricks of audiences and we're going to load you with sugar, and there's Q cars when they laugh, and there's signs, you know, and he maybe not really taking that in. He just thinks that, Wow, I just want this. I just want to make people laugh. I don't really care how I do it or any substance behind it. I just want what I'm seeing right now.

Yeah, and I think that's what the movie does so well. Is that kind of made me think about how you know, you know, as an American, you're told her you're special, Hey, you're special. It's a manifest destiny. Everyone's just a billionaire that's been slightly inconvenienced. But things will get back back on track, you know. And it very much is about that, Like he you've been told you're special, but not everyone can be special, you know what I mean, Like not

But I think we also like him because he well, when he's polite, you know that he does go but he's very polite, which is important, I think. And then but he's also persistent, and you respect people who are persistent, so you kind of you kind of you know, I forget the idea that Okay, he's not.

He's not actually working at his.

Crimes, but he is driven.

That he's driven, and we admire that, you know.

And I think it's so nicely done that the the producers they're actually really like if if you walk into channel ten or seven or nine of the VC, like, that's as nice as they will treat you.

Yeah, and the lady, I forget her name, but she's really polite.

Yeah, super polite super professional. I think that they give him so much time of day. I'd be like, I.

Give him too much.

Job. Man. If I could go in there, you know, and just go here's a tape, and they'd be like, thank you so much, we'll have a listen to it. And then you come back to the saying and we listen to it, I would never these days, you wouldn't even expect you'd be like, thanks very much, we'll listen to it. All right, they're never going to listen to that, Yeah, But the fact that they do, and they're just so they give him so much, and yet it's never enough because he you know, he's on this mission.

That scene where they're outside when he gets in the cars, I gets to the car, that kind of one of the early scenes. He rescues him from the MiB but in a way and he and he makes the point, you know, I put myself on the line for you.

You can you take some time with me.

And then they get out at Jerry's apartment and he just it's just like just when Jerry thinks it's over, it's just like he turns his backside to walking.

Jerry. One more thing that's so good.

It is but the balls to do that, and it's balls, but it's also being completely lacking of any self awareness.

Yeah, and out of manners.

Yeah, he he's just oblivious to everyone else.

And it's it's actually good that it goes.

He does that so many times because it really tells the audience this guy cannot read the room.

Yeah, it's so it's and it's such a great performance from de Niro. He plays this. I don't think I've seen him in a role like.

I've wrote it note very similar going. I don't think I've seen de Niro play this small. Yeah, like he's like and he's just usually there's a even though it goes to a pretty dark space. Yeah, he doesn't get he doesn't go into that Travis people nice at all.

I think it helps. It was a great decision that it's a toy gun that they hold him up with as well, so it's like steaks, but no one's going to really die. He's doing something that's horrible. Yeah, but it kidnaps someone. But at the same time, you're like, it's kind of goofball, and but not in a goofball, so it never verges over into sort of dumb goofball. The territory, and Sandra Burnhard is so good in it. She's so good, she's so great in that.

I laughed a lot. I'm very rare.

I'm not sure if you're a big laugh out loud if you're watching TV by yourself for a film, but I laughed out loud at I think it's the first flashback scene that we see where all of a sudden you're seeing you see Ruber Pumpkin.

And I also love that Ruber Pumpkin.

I love that Miss Pannouncey's ain't quite so good in many variations.

It always spells it p U p k and I have to do that.

And I love I love that lad where all of a sudden you see Rupert and Jerry at dinner together and it's even before you realize pretty quickly it's some kind of your scene. But it is so good and it made me the performance on both actors. Let's have listened to this flashback where it seems like Jerry Langford is asking Rupert for it for a favor.

That's enough.

I really wish you would think about it again, Okay, starting starting up pay It's not that big a deal to think. I mean, I am to just think.

I'm thinking, always telling me to think.

That's all I do is about how can I not think about it?

I mean, I've been sitting here at lunch, which I knew was the reason you invited me from the first place, and all I'm sitting here and eating for is to get guilty with you.

Right, I'm asking you to take over the show for six weeks.

I'll give you anything, but don't ask you for six weeks. I can't take over the show for six weeks. I can't even take over my own life for six weeks. And you're asking me to do something that's impossible. It's impossible. Don't you wad down there so late? It's impossible.

I'm what do you want? Tears to come out of my eyes?

Got to be it's got to be a way you can work it up. It's just six weeks.

Think, Yeah, what's your name? Del Delorious?

That was my father. I love, I love those little jokes that he does the confidence.

Yes.

By the way, a little fun fact, that was Martin Scorsese's daughter who approached the table and Martin Scorsese's mother playing the voice.

And Scorsese isn't it as the director for the TV show.

I think his dad might even been there, yeah, right, at some point. So yeah.

I love that when it cut from the fantasy seas him in his base at home.

I love how there's no there's no filter, there's no nothing to sort of, there's nothing, there's no usual cues that we have, you know, when there is a flashback or it is imagined, it's just the same as real, real life. And I think that that is so subtle and wonderful that to Rupert there is no real boundary. The reality and the dream and the fantasy are the same thing.

How funny is it that in his fantasy he's not just like getting along, you know, being friends with Jerry langor but Jerry Lanthorn's busting his ball, ye begging him. I can't, I can't take over it for six weeks?

Why not? What are you doing?

That's the only real cue that we have is this kind of child almost childlike view of the world that Rupert has in the dialogue that he's imagining why I can't do it? No, it's such a like a kid playing imaginary games dialogue. And that's the first like when you're like, oh, this is what nah.

Nah, nah, and it's it's so.

And it's the first clue that he's after something more than just a shot at stardom in a way or to make people laugh. There's something more underlying that we do get to later on. Jerry Lewis as Jerry Langford. They approached Johnny Carson based on Johnny Carson, he said, no, they approached a rat pack. I think each member of the rat pack had a crack at it. They eventually got to Jerry Lewis.

He's so good.

He's really good in it. It makes me wonder why he didn't do more dramatic roles because I don't really like his comedy.

Well no is.

I mean he's common. He has probably aged the worst out of yeah, like not even out of being you know, I'm not talking the cancel thing, just as just that it's a bit too over the top and without any real purpose.

Sometimes.

Yeah, it feels to me like a you know, those years of transition where you had silent film actors or theater actors do film, you know, the talkies, and it was over acting. It was it's kind of a bit yeah, I just I just can't stand it, to be honest. But in this, I was like, he's amazing at it, Yeah, because he is just playing himself.

Well that's that's.

What has often been remarked, and he, to be honest, it kind of rejected praise for it. It's kind of saying I basically was playing myself. And it's weird that he wouldn't accept a lot of that praise because, yes, he might be playing versions of himself, but a lot.

Of actors do.

But he was very disciplined not to try to milk laughs that weren't there. Yeah, out of Ego's sake.

I think you get a glimpse into an artist that wanted more, you know, out of his career, who felt obviously that he was pigeonholders comedy, but like so many comedians, is an amazing dramatic actor. And I would have loved for him to get a little bit more of a chance because I think he could have been in the same league as someone, you know, Robin Williams's type.

I highly recommended a movie called Funny Bones that he's in his dramatic Yeah, roll of a Platte.

I love Oliver Platt.

He's great and yeah, English made film, and but I think set both in Blackpool, I think in England and the Vegas, like Jerry Lewis plays his the Dad and he's a Vegas legend and his son's trying to get into.

Yeah cool, he's not that good A young Oliver Platt.

Yeah yeah, it's from my late nineties. Oh hello, yeah really yeah. I'm not sure if it would pass the muster to make it on this podcast, but I'm very happy to talk about anytime somebody wants to put it in their top throw.

Just another thing that I loved about it his performance. It's some of it's improvised, especially in the house. Yes, he just improvised. That's him again. Why he was saying that it's just me when he's sort of explaining to Rupert that he's just another person.

Let's just a person. Let's have a listen to that. Saying this is a.

Sorry, I'll beat you to it today.

Absolutely me. You bought this one in yourself. Is the magic of podcasts. There's been so much talking about the magic of movies over the years. Movie magic. This is a podcast, podcast magic. This is if I said the words Jerry's plea, it'll start up right about now.

I'm sure we can understand doing the kind of show I'm doing. It's mine, Bob. There's so much stuff that comes down you can't keep your head cleared. And if that's the case, I'm wrong. You're right, I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, I apologize. I'm just a human being. With all of the foibles and all of the traps to show. The pressure, the groupies, the autograph hours, the crew, the incompetence those behind the scenes. You think of your friends and you're not too sure if you're going to be

That's easy for you to say, Jerry, but I mean it.

I mean I'll go to the office and tell them more. It's a gag. They'll understand that if I tell them it's a gag. They're going to buy it, and then we'll put the table on and we'll list sit down, Sit down.

You heard what he said?

Yeah, right, all of a sudden with a gun on me, he wants to make up and be friends.

What happens when he whilst out the door.

It's a beautiful monologuecause it does feel like it comes from a real place, and it's.

Not it's almost not.

It's not perfect, like it's kind of like you're not exactly sure you thought, like I can get a sense of what he's saying with that, like reading that on a piece of paper, I will be going, well, that seems a bit of mumbo jumper.

Really, but it actually kind of works for a man.

I think he's playing a man in a pretty desperate situation who's trying to remain calm, and this is this is the best monologue he could come up with trying to deliver a monologue.

I think it's it is a real wonderfully naturalistic, authentic, yeah, piece of dialogue and I'd love to watch. And that was one of my favorite parts of the film, is him kind of trying to explain to this guy who doesn't get that other people exist that he exists and he's just the same. Yeah, it was beautiful and a lot of that scene, a lot of the scenes with Sandra Bernhard are improvised, yeah, because she was a comic experience and so she it was says. He just was like, just make it up. It's fine.

It took a long time to cast that role, and then somebody finally said you should check her out, and yeah, so they got and yeah, you're right. A lot of improvisation went on that you probably know what I'm about to say. But Jerry Lewis came up the idea, you know, when he finally gets out and he leaves and he slaps her and he wanted to like push her onto like a glass coffee table with her like smashed through it.

Let's just keep it.

But it's funny that he was just like maybe in preveduction going to go Hey, Sandra Bernarda said she wouldn't have been up for it if it could be done, yeah, you know, like if it was an organized thing and it's safe, and I wasn't going to break a cosick on the spur of a moment. Even even Matin Scorsese

Yeah, and you don't know that they know each other until way into the film when he's thrown out of the office and she's there and like hey, you know, and he's like, don't even talk to me.

The whole. They didn't throw me out, they walked me out.

Yeah, yeah, I love that.

It's so good.

And there, and her character has a little bit of like who is she? You know, it's one of these little touches with characters has not explained. You don't have any exposition, We don't have a prequel involved in exploring the background of that character. You just she's come from money somehow, Like her place is beautiful and she has a bunch of money, and you're just like, who is she?

Well, it's just it's just these filmmakers, you know, the new Hollywood, who just know the things that we need to know. M you know, like even the fact that Rupert goes from being a polite even though obviously has no idea about boundaries, but he's very polite and mild mannered, and he gets kicked out of the country house and then all of a sudden he's a gunpoint, I know. And it's just build up with Travis Pickle, you see

There's none of that.

Yeah, well, I think it still works with Travis. I mean, it's an exploration of that sort of psychosis, the same thing, but it's two different paths to get there. I think for Rupert's, his is a much more sustained attack on his psyche that he's obviously had, you know, been doing since birth, you know, and it's with whereas Travis is kind of anger and frustration in the world and how

Yeah.

Yeah, So I think Marsha serves as this beautiful companion to him. And also she's coming from a different point of view in a way that she's for money. She doesn't want to be on TV necessarily. She once she just wants him. She just loves him, She loves him so much. Yeah, I think Scorsese referred to her as a sexual terrorist in those scenes, which is actually she's.

A sexual terrorists.

Yeah, exactly, Like when I mean, how good is the taping up? Like how comical?

It's so good.

It's like he's like an igloo like usually the sea, you know, people wrapped up with a phone called or they have literally masked him up to his from his feet to his.

Neck, and they never play anything any of the All the comedy that is in there is never played as comedy. And that's what's another similarity between that and The Office is that it's just these things that they present to you that are kind of in conflict with what it should be.

Yeah, there's no scene of Rupert finishing the last final bit of this close up with the sticky tape and then standing back to appreciate his work and reveal to the audience that Jerry's in like a beehive.

It's just so funny. I love that shut down when he's starting to tape him up. He's just such a pathetic little character. Yeah, of Rupert that he has all this power now he doesn't know what he loves it.

With that fantasy scene where he's in Jerry's office and he said you got it.

Even if you're try to get rid of it, you couldn't get rid of it, you know.

And he's like, what about the new gags? They strong enough you get out of here? Of course they're strong enough. They were stronger than the would hurt or you know, whatever it is. But the shot Jerry's is at his desk, and the shot of Rupert he looks like a small boy in a little you know, kindergarten chair.

Yeah, with his little suit. That must just been just a fraction too small, Yeah that they give him.

It's just yeah, I didn't notice it, but I've read about that.

He's show an interview with scars Asian DeNiro where de Niro kind of shade his mustache.

Show it was one so I was a little bit shorter than the other.

There's nothing worse than that. There's no coming back from that once you realize you made me come like did I do that? Now? That's a great fear of any mustachioed gentleman.

Which you are.

And because you can't necessarily fix the other side, you eat one show gets to fix the other side because you can't keep doing it otherwise you get yourself.

It's a very tricky.

Yeah, you don't want that.

So let's talk about the when they go to the house break in, because off the back of that fantasy secret, I think he says he come to the house, come to the house.

I go to the house with Rita. I mean, actually, let's talk about Rita.

She's so good.

She's so good.

Diane Diane Abbott, who was married to Hero at the time. Really yeah, wow, And there's.

So many great stories with this film. Yeah, it's such a legendary kind of mythologized film now and then there's so many awesome stories like that that I didn't even read in the im D drivia page. I didn't even I didn't see that when I did when I saw it. So, yeah, that's cool. She's great in it.

Well, she's great.

And let's have a listen to when they're on their their date and Rupert as we've all done, I'm sure then we've got out in the autograph book and asked her to have a look at a look at it.

Listen, listen, don't tell anyone here, but you're looking at the new king of comedy.

Why not?

Why not?

A guy can get anything he wants as long as he pays the price.

What's so funny about that?

I mean, crazier things have happened.

You don't understand what a shot on Langford means. That's coast to coast, national TV, a bigger audience than the greatest comedians used to play, doing a whole lifetime, a shot at a free ticket in a comedy circuit, A comedy show of my own.

The Rupert Pupkins Show.

Everything and all that leads in one direction, reading Hollywood, a beach house in Malibu, right.

On the ocean, and we'll keep a suite at the Sherry.

Everybody stays there when they make it big way up top, so we can.

Look down at everybody and yell, hey, tough luck, suckers, Better luck next time.

Come on.

What do you say?

It sounds wonderful, rup and I a wish you the best of luck, you know, But it's getting late and I'm a working girl.

I gotta go home.

I don't get you here.

I am offering you a way out Rita.

Every king needs a queen. I want you to be mine. Yeah, it's I was kind of.

He's already presented the autograph book, and that's him presenting his Caisugus.

It's kind of he's almost.

Laying at the movie in a way, like this whole idea of he's more obsessed with all the trimmings that come being on TV and being famous and not really thinking about the work or the craft or the feeling it will give him to make people laugh and then how to write a joke.

There's no thought at all in the film, and we never see it at all as to the how he plans to get there. It's all just I'm going to do this. I'm going to be a big thing. It's just a hollow it's hollow ambition, yeah, with nothing to really present for it. And this is a great, this is hard to watch scene because she like he's like, oh oh this is well, what's so pathetic?

It's so pathetic.

And what's interesting about that relationship though, is that because the film's obviously a comment on fame and fandom, but it's not just seen from Rupert and Marsha's eyes. I think there's a lot to be read into how Reader plays with Rupert, like she she does kind of like hearing about these famous people to a degree, and later on when she sees him on the t you know on the TV show.

She kind of likes that, you know, she despite and you know, she likes the.

Idea of going to She's really really excited to be at the country House. You know, she takes him upstairs to get it on and she's very happy to be there. Like I'm sure she seems like a pretty smart woman. I'm sure she's ignoring some red flags that are probably going off in total.

She is kind of she's us. She's like the audience, we kind of know that something's not right with him, but we're still kind of rooting for him. We still kind of like him, and we're complicit in this.

The country House, I mean, the performance of the butler, Kim Channelly's name is like it's Japanese butler, and he improvised a lot of his lines. Even when Jerry comes back and playing golf and the door.

That was such a great moment.

So you know what if you watched it and you didn't know that the door, he couldn't open the door, and then so it's kind of stuck. And then Jerry finally comes in and they just kept it going and he improvised most of his lines, and it's just what he's just on the phone saying I'm scared.

Everything's gone wrong. He's touching everything.

Yeah. Yeah, it's such a funny. I love that. That whole the guest House yeah sequence. I thought that was such a great part of the show.

Love The character name is John O by the way, which is unexpected touch.

Yeah.

But when they leave and he comes back, he opens the door and he says, you did well.

It's so good. It's such a nice little touch and not overplayed. It's just really really spot on.

If a pupkin is out there today in twenty twenty two, how has the landscape changed, do you think?

With social media? You know, like what how would he? Would he have a podcast? Would he have.

He'd have a podcast, he'd have a TikTok, he'd have it all.

That's why would that be enough to serve his desire? Like we would would We're getting five hundred looks yeah on TikTok.

I'm sure how they measure it.

I imagine him would be one of those like YouTubers that do crazy things yeah and are super annoying.

Yeah.

Two people and with no their psychopaths out. You can go on YouTube and see any of them.

Exit so package reveals.

Yeah, just any anything, Yeah, just you know pranks, you know those awful doing pranks in the hood. It'd be one of those guys. We're doing pranks in the hood, We're punching down, you know, making pranking homeless people or something like that.

That's what he.

Would be doing. But going to a going to a forest in.

Japan, oh god, and then finally getting into boxing all yeah, exactly. But what would satisfy him? Do you think now? Like back in nineten eighty two, you were basically it was basically get on TV or radio and that was tonight I was the mecca. But what I wonder what would satisfy him now? Would it be getting five hundred followers on Instagram? Would that be enough for him to feel like he's been seen and heard?

Yeah?

Well, I think and this we kind of see from in the ending. I don't think he can be I don't think, especially now when there's so much going on in so many different ways to get likes and get that dopamine hit. I don't think that he would be. Ever, I think his appetite is unfillable.

So yeah, because it comes from a deep seed of place and let's have let's have a listen now to the wedding fantasy sequence where you recently married. I believe your wedding went way smoother, yes, than this, but I'll ask you afterwards. I have a question whether if there was any apologies giving in your service. So let's have listened to the wedding of Rupert and Rita given by Rubert's ex high school.

Principal, dearly beloved.

When Rupert here was a student at Clifton High School, none of us, myself, his teachers, his classmates drank that he would amount to a hell of bees. But we were wrong, and you, Rupert, you were right. And that's why tonight, before the entire nation, we like to apologize to you personally and to beg your forgiveness for for all the things we did to you. And we'd like to thank you personally all of us for the meaning you've given our lives. Please accept our warmest wishes Reader

This work commercial. So good.

It's that that child like kind of naivete innocence of Rupert coming through you know, that fantasy that your principle is going to come and apologize for all the things they did to you.

Such a principle, and you've got his kind of hero that he wants to be. Jerry Lanford looking in the back every shoulder, looking quite proudly for the look of yeah, maybe I was wrong about this guy. And and you know all these things that he's saying, you know it's true. We do I owe this guy in apology.

Yeah, I think it's it reinforces towards it. When you finally see him do his monologue. He talks a lot about his childhood and he's definitely in this kind of arrested development. He's not been able to he's still imagining and he's got dreams of becoming an astronaut and he's never been able to move past that, so he's never been able to really develop into an adults. It's cool. It's a really great writing. Yeah, amazing writing.

It's beautiful writing.

I've just scopped down a couple of notes along the way that I just forgot we've kind of mentioned these things. But I do want of one of the really funny the times we had big laughs where things he would say things like when he's getting kicked out of a reception from the security guard and yeah, he's already asked in the leaves so many times and he's you know, they finally get him out, and just at the end of the scene he says, in other words, you want

After I can take a could be the.

Funniest line in the midom Yeah, that is very good.

There's a scene also just when Jerry is walking down the street. I was just about to say yelling at somebody says at the phone box, yeah, you take this one.

It was apparently a carson that it happened a carson, didn't or something to Jerry? Yeah right, yeah where this woman? I hope you get cancer?

Yeah you want to?

Can you say something to my son in law?

You say something? And it happened that it's happened to me before. Not how that ended. But people come up and say, oh, I've got somebody on the phone, can you say hi to them? And you know I usually oblige. But the idea that if I had to say if I had said no, they turned to quick and I hope you get cancer.

I know, just that anger, just the sort of entitlement that I think people have to this person is very interesting and it was a good from Jerry. I think that's why they kept his name his first name, is so they could actually film him walking down the street and all that stuff with the construction workers going Jerry, Yeah, you know that's all that. They're not actors. The only people that were actors were the phone booth lady.

Yes, I believe in that. Yeah, and the Clash in one of the scenes, yes as.

Well, making fun of Sandra Bernhard.

Was that great scene where where you know, he's at the phone box and I think even some of the one or the members of Clash might be that scene as well. And and he's saying he's calling, saying, I'm just calling from my office, like he's in the middle of it in New York. It's the only phone that's working people, Yeah, hassling in the get off, Yes, he's in his office.

There's just so many good moments, Like in the film, it's scattered with these amazing little moments that you you empathize with. Rupert. I like, I see, I see something in myself, that kind of delusion that I think all entertainment people in entertainment have to have.

I think it's a really good thing to talk about, Like, let's not ignore the fact that we work in entertainment.

And what was your like thoughts on fame growing up?

And I mean I remember thinking I want to be a comedian and I want to know maybe one day make a film and working television. And I've always said it was always about the work and it still is. I love writing jokes, I love creating. But I mean we're growing up thinking I wouldn't it be nice, though, to be able to have people recognize you and oh yeah and ask for your autograph?

Yeah?

As a kid, you were like oscars, you.

Know, actor. I imagine going to the excuse me, sir?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have that naivety that it's all good and as all this, you know, people love you and things like that.

Yeah, you never thought.

I think more people think aware of it now on the downside of fame, particularly with the birth of social media more recently, that people are more understanding of it. But I think back then, when I was growing up, I mean, everyone on TV was living perfect lives. So it's not just about oh, well you get to Yeah, it's money and it's it's a choicing partner and respect and love. And I've always kind of rallied against the idea that all comedians are kind of searching for love

No, I kind of I get it. Yes, I do.

I do crave love, even though I've come with perfect childhood, loving parents, So I don't know exactly where it comes from. But I'd be lying if I said I don't crave as much love as I could possibly get and respect in a way, you know, like it means a lot to me that peers respect me and that you know that what I'm doing is of a you know, is of a certain standard, you know, and it's not unimportant.

I think I've got a pretty good.

Balance where I'm at of what is you know, getting that balance right? Yeah, So you can't play you can't always be going for respect, you know, like, even though you have your own ways of you judging either a joke in the moment or a career choice.

You can't keep You can't always just do things and be like, oh, will this will other comedians, you know, respect this or not. You know, you're afraid of what others might think. You just have to There comes the point where you just have to jump.

Yeah.

Absolutely. And you always say you can't always play to the back of the room. There used to be comedians always taking in the back of certain rooms. And you know, and I've seen some comedian who would just basically do jokes to make them laugh and yeah, the audience again, this is okay, I guess, but yeah, so but yeah, so growing up, when did you kind of start putting a career in comedy together?

What what did it in your mind? Did it look like?

I don't know it. That's a very good question, A deep question, Peek. I just hate to talk about movies, talking about exit the meaning of life on these podcasts. Yeah, I just wanted to. I was because I'm originally an actor, so I came from theater. I did a lot of theater in the grew up in Perth to American parents. Long story there, how they.

Got there, By the way, I haven't seen a restaurant I mentioned it in the I haven't seen it, but I really want to.

Restaurant. Fuck is what a great title.

Yeah, I was a shadow with Xavier Michael. It is very beautiful, beautiful man. But yeah, I think it was just I wanted to My idols were mel Brooks, Geene Wilder, you know, Ron Williams. I wanted to be an actor. I loved acting, I loved showing off. I got into it in a high school and kind of kept going with it, and then comedy just kind of happened accidentally. Really I was I didn't realize at the time, but

Yeah, I mean I've always felt when I was traveling around early I always thought Sydney was the one city where it felt more of a sport still like it felt like people were still keen for a heckle, And I always got asked a lot about heckling when I was talking to people in Sydney.

It wasn't still a big thing.

Yeah, I felt like, you're right, it was going out of vogue, and that I think now it's almost completely out.

Yeah, people don't like it, No, I think the I think that everyone's got the memo.

Well, I think because prices have gone up so much, it's not Yes, we've paid for this.

That's ite a recession looming. I didn't pay to see you.

He's not adding a minute to the show because he's handling a little shit.

And I think that's it very much so that people pay their money and they want to see the show and let the comedian entertain us. Please let them do their job. So I think that's absolutely the answer. That's the why that's gone out of a What did.

You think of Rupert's stand up? You have a little listen. You mentioned it before. It gets great insight into his history. It's down in time of really, I think, really dive into his backstory. But let's have a little listen of some of Robert Pupkins's debut on The Jerry Langford Show.

But like everyone else, I grew up at large part thanks to my mother. If she were only here today, I'd say, hey, Mom, what are you doing here?

You've been dead for nine years.

Oh but seriously, you should have seen my mother.

She was wonderful, one beautiful, intelligent alcoholic. We used to drink milk together after school.

Mine was a marginized was long. Once you're up for speeding.

The Clark are doing fifty, all right, But in our garage.

I mean, I couldn't find out old. I don't know who wrote it. I did did pause him and write it and get a comic in to kind of write those lines.

I mean, was it better than you thought?

Or I thought there was really well done in the fact that it's stylized, you know, you know, they chose a style that was very much around in that time, in that era, and yeah, they kind of put it whacked a genre on it, yes, And it's always easier to build something when you've gone, oh, we're this is the genre. So I think that that really helped it and sort of protected it from if they had actually just tried to do like a Dan Carlon, you know,

Yeah, it's a really good point, and I like that they don't tell us I mean even I mean, you can get to the end.

Now. Did this performance even happen.

To take place? Yeah?

I mean I think that it did because they do watch it at the bar, but that could still be. Yeah, but showing this off to read it. But if he's showing it off, then I don't think the FBI agents are there. So no, I'm taking the performance did happen?

I would agree with you.

It's what happens next? I think that. Yeahs up for debait. So let's let's have a listen to the reaction.

Spoilers, Yes, spoilers if you haven't seen a film made in nineteen eighty two.

Yeah, and you're an o and a half into this podcast, but let's have it. Listen to Rubert's fate.

And what has to rank is the most bizarre debut in recent times.

A self style committee named Rupert Pupkin appeared on The Jerry Langford Show last night Hopkin on the air.

There is no doubt that the incident has made the name Rupert Pupkin a household.

Word officials estimate that Rupert Pupkin's performance has been viewed by a record eighty seven million American household.

Rupert Pupkin, the kidnapping King of comedy, was sentenced today to six years imprisonment at the government's minimum security facility in Allenwood, Pennsylvania, for his part and the abduction of talk show hosts Jerry Lanks.

Conference anniversary of his appearance on The Jerry Langford Show, Rupert Pupkins told the gathering of reporters that he still considers Jerry Langford his friend and mentor. He reported that he had and spending his time writing his memoirs, which had been purchased by a leading New York publishing house for in excess of one million dollars.

Rupert Pupkin was released today from Allenwood after serving two years and nine months of a six year sentence. Hundreds were there to greet the thirty seven year old comedian and author, among them his new agent and manager, David Ball, who announced that King for a Knight, Pupkins's best selling autobiography, would be appearing next September as a major motion picture.

He said he had used his day at Adamwood to sharpen his material. He said that he and his people were weighing a number of attractive offers and that he looked forward to resuming his show business career.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, the man we've all been waiting for and waiting for, would you welcome home please, Television's brightest you star, the legendary, inspirational, the one and only King of comedy, Ladies and Gentlemen, Rupert Pupkin.

So did all of that happen?

Yeah? I don't know. I think from a if you're thinking of it from the screenwriter's perspective, and what I think that they're trying to say is, yeah, there's people with that hollow kind of ambition with that just say that they're good and they're the king of comedy. And I think that they're trying to say that that actually pays off in the end. And that you know, I'm sure that you know, throughout your career, Microe, you've sort of come into these people that you know along the way.

I agree, and I and I hope it didn't happen. I just be being a comedian like yourself, who I've driven out. You know, many years ago, you drove kilometers to get a ten minute spot somewhere, and and I can't see this idea of cheating your way into comedy

Is in his voice.

Yeah, and it's so over they're over the top, inspiring, legendary. You know, it's just are you really yeah? Are you really that if you've done what he did?

Right?

Yeah?

Thinking talking hearing you talk about it is because the language that is used in that in the epilogue is very similar to the language that is used in his fantasies. Yeah, he's kind of, you know, very grandiose and very childlike in a way.

Yes, And even when they indulge in all kinds of hyperbole when they're bringing ou famous talk show hosts, it just.

Feels even you've actually sold me.

And there's one more element that, for the first time we've seen weed these patent suits the whole way through, and in this sequence for the first time, he's wearing a one colored suit which is orange in prison.

Yes, orange orange.

Huh.

What I would have loved like I love the wee can debate this like I don't necessarily but in a way what I would what I would love, I wouldn't have mind and I might open ended ambiguous endings. But yeah, and I think this is great. That's part of me that I wonder even if I wonder if Scorsese had considered, you know, ending on a him a shot of him lying back in his cell.

Yeah, and he jumps it.

Now, I still haven't heard Scores address this. I'm he must have been asked about it, but I just I don't know there's parliament that would actually love to know. Now's I've spoken about it before, I've speaking about it again.

Now I just want to know.

Yeah, it's it's definitely. I love an open end like that. It's to me, it's a It's the best kind of ambiguous ending because it it gives you an answer. It says, this is an answer. But whether you trust the narrator or not, that's yes, that's another question. The narrator has already been demonstrated to not be to kind of tell

And he doesn't start his myn like where we where we finish off that clip, it's Ryvert Pumpkin, and then he just nods and smiles and this Ryvert Pumpkin and he says it like three or four times, I think, and the audience just keeps clapping. I can imagine him lying back in his cell, just listening to it, and he's not even going into the routine.

He's just enjoying it because he doesn't say anything because he doesn't He hasn't written anything, He hasn't got a second routine, he doesn't have a second routine. I think you've blown this wide open, to be honest, That's.

Why they call me the King of podcasts. Before we get into some fun facts, I mentioned it in the intro, But let's have a good chat about this wonderful, extraordinary new project you're working on and involved with. I've known about this for a little while. Those who are comedy nerds may already know about it. Time to Die is an extraordinary idea by our friend Tom Whitty that you're hosting. It'll be on tendplay very soon, and tell us the idea.

So two comedians are tasked with writing material for the other comedian. So we give them very loud to it's like three to four minutes, and they have to write for the other comedian. And it goes because comedians are all evil inherently, it goes about it the way that you expect it is.

It is.

It's cringey in that in that glorious possible way that you are. You are, but you are watching, and it is laugh out funny. You are watching. And in the pilot, which is I said in ten plays soon, you've got Tom Cashman and Sonya Deio, who are both.

Hilarious, Yeah, amazing comedians.

Amazing comedians, and good on them for taking the bullet and going, yeah, I'll jump into these scary waters. And they have to perform these in front of like unsuspecting live comedy room. So they've just seen Tom Gleason, you know, and then they walk on and they got to follow that and then kind of and deliver this ship house routine. Oh yeah, and not wink. Yeah, there's none wink wink going on.

No, No, the audience is unsuspecting. So, yes, there are cameras in the room, but they just think that, I mean they're cameras. Sometimes people film their sets, so you don't know who those cameras are for. And then we so we filmed the audience reactions and we also film vox pops outside afterwards. Oh so good, and it's it's really exciting. It was exciting to be there and watch it live because it's on purpose, but the audience don't know it's on purpose. And so for the comedian, it

And one of the worst things as a comedian to do the thing you fear the most before every gig, is dying.

But at the same time it's kind of you're kind of also protected because it's not your material. Yes, but yes, that's what kills me is when you go, I'm going to write this new joke. Yeah, here we go. I think it's funny.

Do it.

No, you dies and you go, oh this is heartbreaking. Yes, this is brutal. Yeah, but here comedy. You know you don't. It's it's awful to watch in the best possible way, but also their protector because it's on purpose. It's kind of like how when you got the COVID vaccine, you felt like you had like you had like little simulation, a simulation of you know, the side effects. It's kind of like that for death. For dying on stage, you get to have the simulated side effects of death.

Is it is so much fun. I can't wait for people to see it on template.

We will also give it a shout out when it's finally on it. It's we're expecting it the next week or two, yeah, to be rolled out.

So check us out on the socials. Time to Die au on the tweets.

And where do they find you on the on the socials.

On the tweets, on Ben Russell's with an S and I am on the instagrams and the twitch. Yeah, I do the streams. The streams, Peter, It's a brave new world out there.

Where do they find you on the twitch?

Bond member there you go?

Yeah, because yeah, I watch your mobile.

It is oh four, we'll be.

So check all those things. Zat follow band. Very funny man, very journalus to come and join us today. This movie comes with homework. I really do appreciate it. Some fun facts before we go. We've got to mention a few. As we went along. DeNiro was unsure and was nervous about the casting of Jerry Lewis, and he spoke of Martin Scorsese and he said, I'm really I'm not sure about this. Is he going to be he gatistical? Is he going to try to go for laughs? And was

Yeah, it's weird this kind of film, Jerry.

I think because Scot says is quoted to say that he thinks that Rupert is more violent than Travis Bickle, Right, Yeah, in a way in in sort of his action, maybe not in the literal violence, but in the kind of the way that he lives and is I think, And that's interesting to sort of think about mullover.

I guess, yeah, well, I mean Chelvis Bickle ends up going in and saving Yeah, Jodie Foster, you know, he is is violence, but he basically takes out a pimp. And and I wonder when this was released in ninet eighty two, people coming off of main streets and taxi driver and raging bull, and people may have expected something like that. They got something like it in a way, but it was also completely different.

Yeah, I'm curious to sort of know the reasons why it flopped. Because it was a flop. It did not make back its money.

He says he was ready to go out of New Year's Even Entertainment and antas on, which I think had just started, and they did the thing that the flop of the year.

Yes, it's so weird comedy, it's so I mean, I can understand. One of my other favorite movies is Sorcerer by William Friedkin earlier on the podcast, that didn't do well because it released on the same weekend as Star Wars. Oh that's so you can see why that didn't work. But for this, I wonder why, you know, whether it's like people expected something different.

Or Yeah, I think some as you said, that Hollywood was going through a bit of a change and the darker films weren't necessarily what people wanted.

I think it's one of Scors's lighter films.

It is a comedy.

I mean, I think that's a joyous thing to watch in moments. It does you know, it makes you think, and it makes you feel different things, and and it's uncomfortable.

Yeah.

I mean we haven't mentioned a scene where you seen down with the cobble cutouts of Oh Jerry and Eliza Manlly. I mean just slapping on his knee, get.

Out of here, give him a kiss. Yeah.

DeNiro, famous researcher, hung out with a super fan called Vinnie Gonzali's aka Fat Vinnie, who was a massive kiss fan, and they actually kind of got along quite well. He was a massive like autograph hunter, so he kind of you know, followed him around for that and you know, learnt off him. DeNiro then off hi him a job as his driver. Well, the movie was shooting, but Vinnie Fat Vinnie turned it down because kiss this gone on to it.

You can't falter man with principles.

Fat Vinnie.

He knows what he likes and it's not dinner it's kiss.

Scene and Ace Paul.

That's a great story.

Scor says he was in quite ill health. I know when he was making this movie. Was a tough shoot for him. Jerry Lewis that scene when we spoke about the I hope you have cancer? He directed that sen mart school sage. He said, that's your idea. Why don't you why don't you shoot?

Cool?

He said it was.

He was amazing at his timing, like he's almost like one two three bang one two three bang one two bang, like just he just had a rhythm of a you know, a comedian, I guess, but almost always like a dancer as well.

Was he he was a music music man? Yeah, he did all that stuff with Dean Martin.

Yeah yeah, so yeah, absolutely.

And that's you know, I think that that I'm a big believer in that. Mel Brooks again going back to my is he's he was a drummer first, So I think rhythm, Yeah, finding your own rhythm and where that sits in your own voice. But yeah, rhythm and comedy and pretty much everything is so vital. Absolutely, and you can definitely see that, like, you know, think what I might like or don't like about Jerry Lewis. You can't deny that he is one of the masters of his field.

Yes he does, he does. Milo's foreman was almost going to direct this. It was with him, like in the mid seventies. Paus him and had written it. De Niro had seen it. I had liked it. I think took it the score say. He said, no, he didn't quite get it. And it took him a while, and he said, it took me about another five years I think, until he had experienced even more fame and he understood the nature of fame a bit more, and then the movie

It's I love how patient he is in this.

It's so patient, and he's he's dropping the cards. They're upside down, they're back to front. Let's have a listen this. It's a great way by Jerry Lewis is again not trying to go, just letting the script do the work, and his performances is just perfect.

I have a gun.

At my head.

If a man who identifies himself as.

The King.

Cards upside down is not allowed to be the first guest on You've got a blank card. I'm reading from two cars. It's tonight's show. You will never see me.

Go back.

Alive again. It's not drammatically correct, but I think you have the idea.

They passed on to that. It's just it's just beautiful. Oh.

I forgot one little bit of extra trivia is that both de Niro and Scussez you said that this was the most kind of emotionally taxing yes movie. Yeah, and they wouldn't work together for a little while after this because it was so exhausting for them.

Yeah, which is extraordinary considering their previous films. Yeah, you think about it or raging bull main streets, and this is the one that broke them.

I know, it's fascinating. I mean, to its credit, I genuinely do think that this is probably Robert de Niro's best performance in terms of dynamics.

I wrote these most unique creations.

Yeah, yes, I feel like some of these other characters bleed into each other. Sometimes I feel like I can't quite think of another role where he's he's like this.

Yeah, it's like. The one that comes to mind is Jessica Chastain in Tammy Fay.

Yep.

She plays something that's so out of ordinary for her because usually she plays a very monotone character. Yeah, it's very close to her, you know whatever. But she plays something so wild and outside of your sphere of expectation of that actor and who they are. I think that I'm most impressed when actors do that, because you're like, you're playing against TI, you're playing you're taking something that's

Everyone's at the top of their game in this movie, including that is what was mentioned. Final thing that that shot in the limo that the opening sequence shot off the hand Sandra Bernard's hand on the limo window and you to see DeNiro's face kind of through it. Because I think there's a whole prison thing going on in this film too, like that that they're both kind of in prison. Like Jerry Lewis's character is in prison, meals by himself. He's in his own prison.

He's always by, he can't really go outside. He's isolated the same as man. We're really taking this party. Yeah, it's that's cool. They're both isolated people.

Yes, Jerry has no friends. Yeah, he doesn't have a girlfriend or a wife or a mistress.

He's alone at his holiday house. Yeah, playing golf by himself.

John Age is one of his best mate.

Yeah. Oh that's yeah.

There we go, Ben Russell, this movie comes with homework. Thank you so much for watching it, mate.

It was absolutely a joy to watch it. I loved it.

Well mate, well time to die. Check it out and we'll catch you soon.

And I also love being on this podcast. Thank you so much for having me.

Is there anyone new? Well that was great fun.

I really enjoy hanging out with Ben Russell and what a great movie. I knew he was going to love it, and because they had or he has time to die, his new comedy venture on tenplay starting soon. I thought, what a great combination. So, yeah, what a movie, What an absolute movie. Derek Meyer is from Casway Studios dot com. Are you you are the King of Podcasts? They say, have you seen The King of Comedy?

I saw it years and years ago, Yeah, and I was I found it very uncomfortable. Yeah, and that comparison with the taxi driver was sort of in in my head at the time.

Yeah, so it wasn't as disturbing as that.

But I do have an an innate fear of doing comedy. I've always assumed that this would be a horrific film for a comedian, right, but until today, he's kind of opened my eyes to the fact that it isn't. It's a horrific film for someone whose teacher said, h you should be a comedian, but you know that you just can't.

You haven't got the.

Yeah, I think with a comedian watching it, you kind of you know if you have been able to make a living out of being a comedian. I mean, you kind of relieve you're going to go Thank God when I because when you start out from a journey always, so when you start out doing comedy, we all started

You just don't know, and it's that is scary.

It's a scary, scary moment, and there's more scary moments to follow, potentially even scarier. So the fact that the fact that Rupert hasn't even tried to do any of that, I don't know. He kind of like you're not looking at him, like he is a comedian in a way.

Too far away from the real situation.

He's like a comedy fan. He's a comedy fan. He's not a comedian. He's a comedy fan. And there are there are people who will look at comedians and say I could do that, because the trick of comedy is to make it look effortless and to make it look easy. I think actually Jerry makes that point in the movie. You're not supposed to see the work that goes with it. Yeah, I though it's a wonderful film. A wonderful film. Highly suggests you are spooking it to your friends. We love

Yes, yeah, well you got is. It's just a web based thing. So you find the website. It's actually speakpipe dot com forward slash y a s.

And why he hasn't he seen nothing yet?

I ain't seen nothing yet. And so you just you just press the button and go for it. Do it from your phone or your computer or whatever it is. And we've got one. We've got a good run today from Amy.

Hey, hey, Derek, thanks so much for the podcast. It's been such a joy to listen to. Just a really positive and fun chat about movies every week, and I've actually watched some great new films that I would never have seen just to keep up with the podcast. So that's awesome. I am a huge Tarantino fan, and I don't think correct me if I'm wrong that we've done

Thank you, Amy, and fantastic suggestions.

I'm surprised we haven't done more Tarantina or will correct you, Amy, because you are slightly wrong. We have done one Tarantino movie. In fact, it was his latest movie, Once upon a Time in Hollywood. We did that with Phil Lloyd, my costar in How to Stay Married. Yeah, I'm surprised we haven't done Reservoir Dogs to pulp fiction. I think because most movie fans have seen or you know, Tarantana is one of those directors that if he's got a movie

His audience is growing and growing.

His name is Daniel Connell and he's had a fantastic last couple of Melburn International Comedy Festivals. He's touring the country very soon with his show Gutless wonder. He's just got off the Melbourne International Comedy Festival road show where he killed them, killed them, slayed them. And he's a very funny guy. He's written on the project before, so I've gotten no Dan over the years and very funny, very dry. Check him out online if you like, you want to go the sense of who Dan is. Comedy

It, Derek?

Yes, it was an amusing moment.

We didn't quite know what to do.

What happened was we were supposed to do Lost in Translation, the Bill Murray Scull your Hansome classic from two thousand and three and directed by Sophia Coppola, which I thought was nice coming off Got Father three from a couple of weeks ago. And Dan arrived and I explained just how the start the show by naming your three of films, and then to say, up until today you hadn't seen Lost in Translation and he had. He's kind of face went a bit white, and I said, what's wrong? And

And so we leave Old Pete, save fan Salt, and to our friends of the radio audience, we've been a pleasant good night