Crocodile Dundee In Los Angeles w/ Eddie Pepitone & Matthew Berry (Classic)

21:12Jason Mantzoukas:It is a giant studio, and they were like a micro-budget thing, but I didn't understand. Also, why did they have to keep on making sequels to unsuccessful movies? I think to keep going back to Yugoslavia. Couldn't they just make another movie in Yugoslavia? I don't know. But by the way, how he... you know, tornado chasers too. Sorry. Yeah, I know. Oh, by the way, when he does his like Pee Wee Herman running through the sets, the sets are so cheapo. Yeah. I mean, they are terrible. Really bad. They're really, like they're, they're cartoon bad. But another horrible thing is when he finally does get the bad guys, you know, he beats the bad guys at the end with animals.

21:53Oh yeah. And I noticed that a couple of the animals look sickly. I don't know if you did, but I'm a big animal lover and the lion I hate him a lot of people don't care about him a lot of people eat them a lot of people eat them are you a vegetarian Eddie Bumatone? I'm a vegan I am fascinated for how long? for about a year now but it's a big deal for me and a consciousness that has totally gotten into my life and one of the lions the second one who came out

22:28Jason Mantzoukas:Looked very sickly. I was like, this is not a badass lion. This looks like a lion in captivity that's not doing well. Yeah. Well, the lion keeps... It was just another... The lion doesn't roar or anything. She just keeps moving her head. Yeah, they look pained. Moving her head very oddly. As a vegan, I was looking at that. Like, probably trying to shake off whatever anesthetic they've given her. Yes. Just, like, shaking her head like, why am I so groggy? Yes. I'm a lion. I mean, and also just the fact that the whole movie is based on the concept that when they're not shooting the scenes with the lions, that they stay on set in cages in the stages.

23:05Jason Mantzoukas:Oh, yeah, yeah. They're just in cages on the stages. That's what we're to presume. Like, all right, we're going to lock up the studio for the night, put the lions in the cage that they live in in this studio where there's nobody looking after them. And there's also that thing where Paul Hogan becomes the animal trainer on the set, and he's given that job so freely. Oh my god, how about when he's an extra in that movie with Paul Rodriguez? Yeah, Paul Rodriguez. And they're walking down, their background, they're just walking down the street and the main guy is running towards them. Yes. And Paul Hogan clotheslines him.

23:40And then Paul Rodriguez goes, oh, he tripped. He was just helping him up. He tripped. We were just trying to catch him. And the guy who he clotheslined high fives Paul Hogan. He's like, thanks, man. That made no sense. That made no sense. Paul Hogan very clearly on film clotheslines this guy.

23:56Jason Mantzoukas:And by the way, that's another example of Paul Hogan being really dumb. He gets that he's in a movie. He gets that he's an extra in a movie. But yet he, oh yeah, but yet he is, but yet he hurts this guy. So that's a lot. Today's podcast is brought to you by our friends over at Squarespace. You know, I love Squarespace because with Squarespace, everything that you need to succeed online is in one spot. From claiming your domain to building a beautiful website, promoting your work and taking payments. It's all there, whether you're just starting out or ready to grow. Easily create a standout site using designer templates or AI with drag and drop editing.

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26:46Jason Mantzoukas:Today's podcast is obviously about Crocodile Dundee 3, Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles. And we felt that we would be remiss if we did not have someone from this movie. And we have the writer of this movie, Matthew Barry, who you know from ESPN. He has a brand new book called Fantasy Life. It is available right now. You can go to fantasylifethebook.com to pick up the book. Please welcome Matthew Barry. How are you, Matthew? I'm good. I cannot tell you how excited I am to be talking about this movie. I am blown away because let's first get this out. Crocodile Dundee came out in 1986. Crocodile Dundee 3 came out 15 years later.

27:29Jason Mantzoukas:Now, when you were approached with this project, because I imagine this was not a spec script,

27:38Jason Mantzoukas:Were you surprised that this is something that people were interested in? How did you get involved in the Crocodile Dundee franchise 15 years later? Well, of course. Of course. My writing partner and I were busy working on our Gremlins 4 spec when they called up. But, yeah, you know, it's interesting. So I was a sitcom writer, and I'd written on a bunch of sitcoms. My writing partner and I were just gotten off. A sitcom had just been canceled. We were on Union Square, which was another – if you ever do a sitcom version of how did this get made, I'll tell you about Union Square. So anyway, the show, of course, gets canceled.

28:12So our agent calls us. We had been talking about getting into movies, but we hadn't even written a spec or anything yet. And our agent calls us, and he says, you guys want to get into movies, right? Yes. He says, well, you know who Paul Hogan is? Of course. Have you ever seen Crocodile Dundee? Of course. Wait, if you know who Paul Hogan is, you've seen Crocodile Dundee. Of course. That's true. How else do you know who he is? Well, I'm a fan of his other work. Right, sir. He was in Showa. I haven't seen the Croc movies, but Flipper. I loved him in Flipper. Right, of course. So he says, you know, he's like, well, I'm one of the agents in charge.

28:43Paul Hogan is a client at the agency, wants to do a third installment of the franchise. I'm one of the agents in charge of putting writers in a room to pitch him ideas for the movie. If you want, I'll throw you in a room with him and you can, you know, get some practice. And my writing partner, I like, you know, screw it. Let's meet Paul Hogan. That'll be a funny story.

29:01Jason Mantzoukas:Yeah, of course. This is sort of a back story here. Paul Hogan owns like 60 % of the movie. Oh, wow. Paul Hogan was a TV star. He had a variety show in Australia. So he was a TV star, and with a couple of writers from the variety show, he wrote the first one and cobbled together like$5 million from investors to make the first movie. Made on a shoestring budget, and he owned it. So he owned like 60 % of it, and then he went around piecemeal to all the different countries and just sold the distribution rights. Wow. Whoa. I mean, he made billions. So, yeah, he's a rich, rich dude. Yeah. Wow. And now, yeah, but it is still 14 years later, though, you're going into pitch.

29:41Jason Mantzoukas:It's a little, I mean, were you a little bit struck by that? Like, why now? I mean, because it is, it's a long gap. I honestly think he just, he wanted to be a star again. And frankly, I think he wanted his wife to do something. Oh, right. Because he's married to. He's never worked again. Oh, that's his wife? Yes. No. Yes, that's his wife. No. He's a lot younger. No. Dude, are you okay? Because, okay, Matthew, the one thing I was going to say is they didn't seem to have one ounce of pressure. Those were the stiffest scenes. Oh, yes. By the way, I am genuinely shocked. Not only is this his wife, but he had a very, very public divorce in Australia, like in the tabloids and everything.

30:24Jason Mantzoukas:With this woman? Because he cheated on his wife with Linda Kozlowski or whatever her name is. Correct. No, his other wife with this woman, you mean? Linda, the one in the movie, yes. He cheated on his – With his mistress. Yeah. So this is a guy – he went through fire to have this love, this love that could not be contained. Please tell me that's their real son. We never – it's weird. In writing the movie – I mean, we're jumping all over the place, but just as you talk about it. So there were a couple of times where we had – he had a house in Santa Barbara. And when we would go up and pitch him various things from movies or go over things with him, we never met her.

30:58She was always around. But, like, it was just weird. You know, we would go to this guy's house. There were, like, two or three days where we spent, like, the entire day with him, pitching him ideas. And he'd say yes to some stuff and no to some stuff. I want you to stay out of the picture, sweetheart. Make yourself busy in the kitchen. Now you know why we asked Eddie Pepperton to be on this podcast. A flawless gnome the world over for this. Well, I was just in Melbourne, so I have the accent. Flawless Paul Hogan impression. So, I mean, it really felt, it honestly felt like they were the only two rules that we had.

31:31The only two, you know, we were told to go pitch, and we were like, it had to take place present day. Got it. Which means, you know, we couldn't, like, go back in time and, like, do it, like, you know, two years after. It had to take place present day, and she had to be in it. Everything else was up for grabs. Okay. So we go in, and we re-watched the first two movies. And you know what? What we realize is they're very simple movies, obviously. It's just him reacting to stuff. Like, that's the whole movie, right? Yeah. And he's funniest, but he's reacting to stuff. So we're like, and we don't want this job.

32:03We don't think we're getting it. So we basically, the premise we come up with is this. We come up with it in maybe half a day. we're just like we go in and we say like look you did New York in the first two movies you've never done LA let's say you're living in Australia you're still with Linda but let's say you've never been married but you've got a little kid so he's a little croc because the other thing I don't know if you guys remember when this movie came out but basically something about Mary was the big movie at least at the time we were pitching it something about Mary was the big movie in Hollywood and all the things that were getting sold and made were like these raunchy R-rated comedies.

32:41Jason Mantzoukas:Right. Really sort of over-the-top, Fairly Brother-type movies, and we were like, there's no way this movie can compete with that. So the only shot it has is to try to go the other way and just be like super family and friendly and, you know, sweet that the people that enjoyed the first one could take their kids to. Sure. So it's like made for me. Yes. Exactly. We pitch them that simple story of like, hey, you go to L.A., you go to L.A., there's some bad guys, you get a job at the studio because you can talk to the animals. Your wife gets a job at, like, you know, Newsday in L.A. And, you know, basically you're going to show your – because your kid's never been to America, so you're going to show him around.

33:18It's the blind leading the blind because you're telling them you know America, but obviously you don't. I said it – and it's mostly – there's going to be some bad guys at the studio. You saved the day. But most of the movie is you walking around L.A. Which everybody does. Everybody does walks around L.A.

33:34Jason Mantzoukas:It is funny the amount of times that they drive past and then are back out in front of Hollywood Boulevard. They're always going down Hollywood Boulevard and it seems like they've driven away. And then they're walking around the corner and they're at the Guinness Book of World Records Museum. Right. Exactly. So you're basically taking the formula. I think they have two days to shoot in L.A. or something like that. Oh, wow. We just said that. We said that's the movie and then you end with a wedding because everybody loves a wedding. The L.A. montage was electric, by the way. It made me want to go out on the streets.

34:05I just wanted to tell you that. Of course. You couldn't believe you had it all available to you.

34:10Jason Mantzoukas:So now all three of you are listed as writers. Did he get in the mix and write, or was he just supervising you? No, he's not listed as a writer. That's part of the whole dispute. So anyway, just to put a bow on this. So basically, so we give him that pitch, and it's like that's simple. It's just super simple. Like you go to L.A., blah, blah, blah. There's bad guys there. You walk around L.A. It's Crocodile Dundee. We'll make it funny. You know, how tough is it? And he's like, you guys are the only ones who get me. Oh, my God. It's like the producers. Are you kidding me? We have no thoughts that we're ever getting this job.

34:42We're literally going in because we think it'll be a funny story to tell. Hey, we met Paul Pogan and it was practiced to pitch to a movie star or something like that. And apparently everyone else, every other writer he met with pitched him like, Crocodile Indy saves the universe from a nuclear explosion. Croc 3 in space, all these crazy, terrible ideas. And we were the only ones that said, Croc 3 in space is terrible? We'll put you in situations and react to them. I do want to see Croc 3 in space, by the way.

35:11Jason Mantzoukas:By the way, that would be great. I will pay you$500 to write that. That would be the sequel to Sharknado. That would be amazing. All right, so yeah, so now you're trapped. You're in. Yeah, well, I mean, they basically, so he wants to, It becomes one of these things where he wants to co-write it with us. And so because Paul's writing quote is so insanely high, people don't realize that Paul Hogan actually got an Academy Award nomination for writing for the first movie. Paul Hogan got an Academy Award for writing the first movie. For Crocodile Dundee won? Yep. Yep. It did not win. It was nominated.

35:51Him and the two other guys that wrote the first movie. I don't know who contributed what to that. June Love.

35:56Jason Mantzoukas:Paul Hogan is an Academy Award nominee for the screenplay of Crocodile Duny in Los Angeles, along with me. Thank you very much. We got screwed. I thought we should have won. Who did you lose to in that year's Razzies? We lost to just a random story. I wanted to. I made my I was we were my writing partner and I were represented at Endeavor at the time. Right. And we literally asked our agent, you know how in the trades back then you'd see all these big ads, you know, CAA congratulates its client, or William Morris congratulates its client, so-and-so on his Academy Award nomination. And we were like, hey, Endeavor, we want you to take on an ad.

36:37Like, you know, Endeavor congratulates Matthew Barry and Eric Abrams on their Razzie nomination. Because I thought that would have been hilarious. That's amazing. They would not do it. They would not do it. Cowards. We lost to Planet of the Apes for worst remake or sequel. Yes. Mark Wahlberg, Planet of the Apes. He deserved it. So anyway, so yeah, but because Paul's writing quote was so high, what Paramount was going to pay us to do this movie was insane amount of money for first-time movie writers. Yeah. So we were like... You must have been happy about that. Yeah. Well, exactly. Like, if you're going to sell out, sell out big.

37:14Yeah. Really? Kids out there. But at that point, I mean, you've got those Union Square dollars. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. The sweet, sweet square dollars. Yeah, so I mean, listen, so we did it. Listen, bought me a house. God bless Crocs for that.

37:29Jason Mantzoukas:Sure. So now you're signed up. You got a lot of money.

37:35Jason Mantzoukas:You're off to do this movie. So now what is this process like as you embark on the action? Right. So the plan was for us to, quote, write it together. But the last thing my writing partner and I want to do is sit in front of a computer screen with Paul Hogan for three months, right? And we know he doesn't want to do that either. So we say to him, we say, look, let us write the first draft. We'll run everything by you and everything like that. We'll write the first draft, and then we'll hand it to you, and you can take your pass at it, and we'll go from there. So we go off and we write our script, and, you know, we pitch him a bunch of stuff and some stuff he likes and some stuff he doesn't, and he gave us notes and whatever.

38:16Jason Mantzoukas:Give me an example. Give me an example. Do you remember something that he liked, something he didn't like? Do you remember anything that you're like, oh, I wish we would have gotten that in like that? Do you remember anything like that? Yeah, I mean, yes. I mean, here's one thing that we pitched that he didn't like that I thought would be funny and that I thought was a very kind of crocodile Dundee type thing. Right. I mean, remember, it's all sort of gentle humor, right? Sure. It's all sort of observational gentle humor that he's reacting. He's a guy from the outback. But, like, you know how, like, when you're in L.A., everyone valets.

38:44Right. No matter where you valet, you can't just find any parking. And when you get a valet ticket, it says, read this. You know, it's all the disclaimer stuff on the ticket. That's funny, yeah. So we thought it would be funny if Paul Hogan actually reads it. But, like, you know, there's a long line of cars and everything like that, and he gets there, you know, of course everyone just takes the ticket and walks off and they go. But, you know, it literally says, read this, it limits your liability. And so he won't give the keys until he's read the whole thing and he's considering it. And people are honking and everyone's going nuts.

39:19And he's just, hold on. I'm thinking about this, you know. And so, yeah, it was the whole thing that he just doesn't understand. A funny piece. No, I think he was right to deny that. There is still a valet joke in this. There is still a valet joke where he attacks the valet, yeah. Right. And that's what it turned into.

39:41Jason Mantzoukas:He's a – sometimes – we were talking about this. Sometimes Croc is violent. Sometimes he's very much a pacifist. And sometimes he's very much aware of things and sometimes he's very much unaware of things. Like was there – like did he have rules for the Croc character? Like because he goes to punch that valet real quick. But then you see that he seems like he's a pacifist most of the time. There were no rules. I think it was just whatever worked for Paul. All right. He never, I mean, he would say sometimes like, ah, I wouldn't do that. Got it. But he never seemed to really say like, oh, Crocodile Dundee does A, but he doesn't do B.

40:17He never sat down. Right. It was all sort of in his mind.

40:21Jason Mantzoukas:He didn't have the Crocodile Dundee Bible that he passed off. No, we didn't get that. We didn't get the secret handpicked. He wasn't that detailed. One thing about summer is that everything should just feel easy. It's the season for comfortable, go anywhere pieces that make getting dressed simple. That's what I love about Quince because they are gonna give you the essentials that you're gonna live in all summer long. Now, Quince's 100 % European linen pants and shirts are breathable, easy to throw on, and the summer upgrade that your rotation needs. I mean, their tees are soft enough to live in all day and lightweight cotton sweaters are exactly what you want when summer nights cool down.

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43:36Jason Mantzoukas:Right now, Babbel is offering listeners up to 60 % off. Go to babbel.com slash bonkers. That's babbel, B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash bonkers for up to 60 % off. Rules and restrictions may apply. So you write the first draft, and then what happens here? So we write the, whatever, we write the first draft based on, you know, his notes or anything like that. And so basically he then rewrites pretty much the entire script. He throws a couple of new things in there. But generally, this is the example I give. So let's say we're doing a scene like, we wrote a scene like sort of like Interior Podcast Studio.

44:18Matthew's talking to Paul Scheer. Matthew Barry is talking to Paul Scheer about his movie. Okay? Yes. You know, Paul, Matthew, welcome to the show. And he would rewrite that. This movie is amazing. In a TV studio. You know, Nick Kroll is interviewing Eric Abrams.

44:37Jason Mantzoukas:Oh, wow. So he was just going through and just changing names so he can get credit. So he was trying to steal writer's credit from you, essentially. Correct. I mean, so there's not one word that's the same. So like, you know, interior TV studio, two different guys, and they're talking about his book. And so, yeah, it's like a college kid. you know, changing his term paper, you know, from Wikipedia or something. Oh, man. That's really, that's like really low-blown. So he could justify his writing it, huh? Right, exactly. And just everything was just sort of like a worse version of what we had. You know what I mean?

45:10It's just like every punchline was just like not nearly as sharp. It wasn't as funny. It was just more obvious. Here you go. Here you go. I think it's all fixed. You know, I think there was something like, I think, we at least tried, I don't know, we're starting with a 16-year-old sequel, right? Right. It's Croc 3. But we at least tried to make it at least semi-smart sort of thing. Sure. I think the gay bar scene that we had was he goes into the gay bar, has a drink, and has a great time. Got it. I think that would have been funny. but had no idea that they're gay. Like, we didn't want to make fun of, like, we thought it would be funnier if he's just like, I met the greatest group of guys.

45:55I think that would have been funny. Like, he just had no concept of what was going on in the scene. We thought that was true of the character. Yes, I think you're right. I think Croc, I think Croc works best when he's sort of joyfully innocent. Yeah, where he's like truly a fish out of water. Right, right. And has sort of this, in the first movie, he has like a super positive outlook, you know, on everything. And it's literally like, and, you know, jokes aside, the most, you know, obviously the most famous scene, it's not even a threatening, like, you know, it's like, that's not a nice. This is a nice.

46:28Right, right. It's not even, it's not like a, it's not an angry thing. It's a bragging thing. Right, right. It's just pushing it aside. By the way, Matthew, you know, in our very cynical world, I think we need Croc 4. Can I tell you something hilarious? Yeah. Our agent, we actually had a great agent on this particular deal. So our agent, we actually have a contract when we agreed to do it. If there is a Croc 4, he has to offer it to us first. Amazing. We still have the rights of first refusal on Croc 4.

46:58Jason Mantzoukas:Well, you know, Matthew, you might be getting that because I'm looking at this article on IMDb that says that his money manager stole$34 million from him. What? No. Yes. I saw that. He's having some tax problems, too. You know what's amazing is that$34 million probably doesn't mean that much to him. Wow. He's literally that wealthy. Wow. That is mind-boggling. Which is why the guy could steal it. Which is why the guy could steal it. Well, I mean, it says here that, yeah, he allegedly helped him hide money in a Swiss account in order to avoid taxes. Oh, jeez. And he made off with$34 million of it.

47:29Jason Mantzoukas:And Australia has a warrant out for Philip Eagleshaw, who is behind this country's largest tax evasion scheme. Crikey. There's the plot. There is the plot. Oh, there you go. Croc in Switzerland. Rock in Switzerland. That's amazing. Can I ask you, Matt, can I ask you about the spider in the hat scene? Yes, we were curious about the spider in the hat scene.

47:56It's been a long time. I should have watched it again in anticipation of this podcast. How dare you? I haven't.

48:01Jason Mantzoukas:Well, he sees a spider in the room. Like a tarantula. A tarantula. In his kitchen. And he seems very scared by it, and he doesn't want to show his wife that it's there. And he kind of scoops it up in his hat. But we don't know why. I think what was confusing to us is it almost seemed like the intention that was coming across was like, oh, the reaction on his face was one of, oh, one of my friends is here and he's not supposed to be here. Or he felt guilt or something that the spider was there. Do you remember the spider? Do you remember anything about that? This might have been a Paul Hogan special.

48:37Jason Mantzoukas:We didn't do that. That was all Mr. Hogan's genius. Okay. So, let's do that. There is a number of scenes in this movie where a deadly animal is present. Paul Hogan is safe. Somebody else is in harm's way, and he does not warn them. Because there's also the scene where the big giant Jaws croc eats Paul Hogan's boat. He gets up in a tree, and then his buddy comes along. Jacko. Jacko comes along in a tiny little canoe, and is like, what are you doing up in the tree? And Paul Hogan's like, oh, don't worry about it. And then it doesn't warn him. isn't like there's a gigantic croc and the croc eats jaco's boat jaco easily could have gotten eaten in that scene was there any effort yeah go ahead and you would have i was just gonna say you would think in the australian outback because that's where jacko lives that he's aware of this yeah well now now you alluded to the fact that he's kind of a jerk so when did the jerk side pop out besides when the jerk side comes out so okay so we turn in the we turn in the movie he rewrites it the way he does where he just basically makes everything like much more obvious and much more dull and, you know, and whatever, whatever, whatever.

49:44It's all fixed now. It's never going to be a great movie, but we were trying to make it at least slightly clever. Right. Right.

49:49Jason Mantzoukas:And were you writing, and just to give you a little bit, were you writing to cameos too? Because I know like Mike Tyson's in this movie and George Hamilton. George Hamilton. Were you guys, was that a mandate in here too? Or that just was like a, okay, great. Yes. That looked like a mandate. But it was a mandate to write cameos, but, you know, it was always like generic because they're like, I will see who we can get. We actually wrote in half. Oh, that makes sense. At one point, he gets basically a half lookalike or something like that. Right, right, right. But yes, so that was one of the ideas.

50:20I think that was one of the pitches is that he would run into celebrities and not who any of them were. That was an L.A. thing, that he would run into celebrities. Just like doing normal celebrity stuff like Mike Tyson, everybody always knows, is always meditating in a park in Beverly Hills. Right, by himself. Exactly. Everybody knows that.

51:08Mikey, Mike, you got to be kidding me, right? Okay. Hold your legs like in a Buddha position. Grab your ankles to save yourself from some discomfort. And we're going to take it easy. Close the eyes. Relax. Inhale to positivity. Exhale to negativity. Inhale to positivity. Exhale to negativity.

51:34Jason Mantzoukas:And the Mal Gibson, Mal Gibson stuff, which I actually, I did like. I mean, that to me was like a perfect example of like a Croc one. Yeah, Tom Cruise, what does he look like? Yeah, I like those jokes. Is it true Mel Gibson doesn't like the Jews? Right, that was in the first draft. So now you hand in the script, it's watered down, and now he becomes a jerk. Right, because whatever, it's fine. So he does it, but basically he then takes our name off the script. Wow. So we need to have, so he turns it in, and he wants sole writing credit. Wow. Again, this is a guy who is, this is Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles, Croc 3, produced by Paul Hogan, based on characters created by Paul Hogan, starring Paul Hogan.

52:22He's in every frame of the movie, Paul Hogan. Yeah. But he still needs sole writing credit. Wow. And it would have been fine with us. It's not like we were proud of it. Right. The problem was is that because of the contract we'd signed, and anyone listening that's a member of the Writers Guild, to get residuals and certain contractual bonuses, we needed to have writing credit. We were going to get a bonus if it got made and we had writing credit, or at least partial writing credit. So we needed to have writing credit because the whole reason we wrote the damn thing was for money. It was a pure money cake, obviously.

52:54So once Paul Hogan basically said, I want sole writing credit, the line was drawn in the sand, and it was either us or him for writing credit.

53:01Jason Mantzoukas:Oh, man. So you had to go against him and fight him for? You had to arbitrate against him. Did you have to go, like, sit there and arbitration with him, or you went separate? Yeah. That's not a pen. This is a pen. Right. That's not a first drop. This is a first drop. Right. So, right. And we go and we go, we turn in our draft to the Writers Guild and we have to make our presentation to a three-person board. He does the same thing. He turns in his draft to the second version of the script. And then they look at the final shooting script. And because he's a producer on the movie, he needed to have created 50 percent of the movie.

53:39Like that's sort of the Writers Guild, at least at the time. Yeah. That's the rule. And basically, he loses. He loses three to nothing. They both fraud. Wow. Amazing. So he then appeals the decision, which is allowed. The appeal goes through. He loses three to nothing again.

53:55Jason Mantzoukas:He could have just shut his mouth and shared screenwriting credit and made more money. He never would have fought it. We turned it in, actually. The first draft of the script that we turned in had all three of our names written by the three of us. So he just was trying to get more money. That's crazy. And I don't even think it was money. I think it's literally ego. I think the whole reason you ask why he wanted to be a star again. He wanted to be in a universe where, hey, we're making another Croc movie. He's the big star. He's got the big trailer. It's all about him. It's kind of like Sylvester Stallone.

54:28Jason Mantzoukas:His name is on every movie as a writer. I'm looking at Paul Hogan's IMDb page, and he wrote Lightning Jack, Almost an Angel. He's listed as a writer on every one of his movies. Right. So that's sort of his thing or whatever. So now he's lost 9 to nothing. I think he's lost the appeal. He's lost the appeal of the appeal. So we're like, okay. So then he starts threatening to sue the Writers Guild. And he starts doing all the press. Whoa. Whoa. And he's basically, he's trashing us in public. Like if you search for Paul, if you Google like Paul Hogan sues Writers Guild or Paul Hogan, you know, Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles, WGA or anything like that, you'll see he talks about wanting to sue the Writers Guild for writing credit.

55:11and that he really wrote it and that these two guys, Matthew Baird and Eric Abrams, don't deserve credit and everything like that. So now we're in this really public battle about this movie that we're not real proud of. Like, you don't want to screen credit for the movie. But it's one of those things that's like, you know, maybe you date somebody that you're not real proud of. You're at a place and you're like, look, I need some companionship, but I really don't want to publicize this too much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sort of thing. Sort of that. We've all been in relationships like that, right? Sure, sure, sure.

55:47Yeah, yeah, where we're dating a horrible person that we want our friends to not know about, and we want to keep them secret. Yeah. So we tell everybody we don't know them. Right. Correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is the thing. Like, we didn't want, like, we didn't want the world to know that we're the Croc 3 writers. Yeah, right, of course. Yes. We just, we wanted screen credit for, so we could make the money. Yeah, go off that house. So now we're in a big public dispute where we literally have to get up and fight very publicly. yes, we wrote the movie, not Paul. You know what I mean? Like, we can't sit there and say we didn't write.

56:16You know what I mean? Like, it's this horrible, awkward thing where we have to very publicly say, like, no, we're the writers of this horrible, shitty movie. You know what I mean? And we're fighting to be the writers. Right, exactly. We are fighting to get credit for this terrible movie. Right. Oh, that's the hilarious thing, too, is when the poster first came out, when it said written by, it said pending.

56:42initially that's awesome my god a lot of people are like who's pending and then

56:49Jason Mantzoukas:i want to read more from this yeah like directed by alan smithy he's like it's like a fake name that they put when they don't know did you guys ever have a face off at all like did you yeah we um sort of i mean you know we went to the we went to the premiere and you know they were like contractually obligated to give us like four tickets to each for the premiere and like they're the last two seats like the rest of the cast and the director and everything they're all like front and center we were literally in the last row in the back corner like you go to the premiere like they wouldn't let us rock walk the red carpet then it's just you know it's just a horrible horrible experience because we're just treated like pariahs and you know the guy that was sort of hand that was whoever was the lowest person at paramount got stuck with handling us he's just It's like, yeah, sorry, Paul Hogan said, you know, you guys can't be anywhere near him.

57:36And, you know, like, really? Because we want, I don't know, you know. So it's just a horrible experience from start to finish. He was just, he was such a terrible human being to us. And he was such a liar because you wrote the damn thing. So he was living this lie. And he knew that he was living a lie. Oh, yeah, Christ. So do you come face to face with him? At one point we ran into him after the movie. like we sort of like we were exiting at the same time he was or something like that and we're like and I think I said something I was like hey I was like I literally said hey Paul gosh the movie turned out swell like I said something really like that and he just he just looked at me and he didn't say anything he just he walked on wow you know what a dick yeah now do your children play with his children these days or yes Yes.

58:29Yes. We have great friends. We have some great, great friends. I'm working on clock four now. Your children have like a Romeo and Juliet, like star-crossed lovers scenario happening. No. Yeah.

58:39Jason Mantzoukas:But then this is basically what took you from the world of writing TV and film into writing a very successful fantasy football column and giving you all your success now. And you can read about this story and even more in your new book, Fantasy Life, which you can get at fantasylifethebook.com. But this is an amazing story and good to get some insight on what this is. So for our last question, Hilo, one thing you're proud of, one thing you're embarrassed by. One thing I'm proud of, it's a very small moment. It's a very small moment at the beginning of the movie. He gets in the limo and the driver hands him a headshot.

59:21He thinks somehow that they're important and hands him a headshot. And Paul Hogan takes out his wallet and hands him a picture of him and his kid. thinking this is what you do in L.A. I liked that, too.

59:30Jason Mantzoukas:I did like that joke, too, yeah. I liked that, too. So, yeah, I thought that was a small moment, and I thought that was very true to the character, and I thought that was kind of funny. So that's one thing that sort of survived as we wrote it. In terms of what we're embarrassed by, pretty much the rest of the movie. I was hoping you'd say that. Hey, we're pitching family comedy. That's what we're trying to do. We're literally saying, like, there's not going to be any, like, you know, pee-pee or poo-poo jokes. This is a movie you can take your six-year-old to. not worry about something about mary was the right thing so we say so we're saying this and like and the whole thing is building towards a wedding he's actually going to make an honest woman yeah of uh sue that's the name of the character of linda's character i think and so um and so he says ah he says what about something where you know uh he says i think the teacher's probably got the hots for me or something like that likes my you know charm like all right fine so we like we we We do that.

1:00:26He tells us basically to write a woman hitting on him. Sure. So we're like, okay, fine. So we do that. And we do that. And we've actually said, well, like, someone should hit on you, but let's do it at the gay bar. And you're not aware that he's hitting on you at all. Really funny, yeah. He's like, no way. Yeah. Again, this is whatever. This is however long was the movie out, like 15 years ago. Sure. I mean, this is what sounds old, like kind of old stale jokes now, was at least slightly fresh back then.

1:00:54Jason Mantzoukas:Yeah. 11 years ago, it was good. Right. So anyway, so he didn't want to do that, but he wanted the teacher to hit on him. So we're like, fine. Find the teacher. So we write that. We write that scene. And then we take long, silkwood showers after it. But whatever. We write the scene. And then the movie comes out, and we see it. And not only has the teacher hitting on him, but do you remember the rollerblader? Yeah, that's what we were just talking about. Right. And we're just like, good job. How many women are hitting on this 50-year-old dude? She is not only hitting on him, but she stops short, like rollerblading on Venice Beach Boulevard there to throw herself at him and then have a mini monologue to herself where she's like, I mean, what am I doing just talking to a cowboy on the side of the street?

1:01:43I'm sure he's gay. Not my experience out here. It's cold, distant eyes. Yeah. Oh, this is too good. I finally bump into a cute cowboy. He's a little more Robert Redford's vintage than Brad Pitt's, but that's okay, because he's got a mansion in Beverly Hills, and plus he's got custody of his kid. That means he'd be a good dad to my Cindy, and this is... Oh, there's a cat tray. There's nothing this good ever happens to me. I mean, you're not available. You're gay, right? Um, most of the time, pretty happy. Yeah? Of course! Cute cowboy, Venice Beach, happy to be gay. What was I thinking? Boy, she was in Shadowbox.

1:02:23Yeah, mate. An American woman. She's got a nice ass. Yeah. If you want to ask me what's the most embarrassing scene, like for me, it's that. Yeah, that is a big one. Well, because it's so out of place in the movie, it makes no sense. No one talks like that. It's not real at all. It's not based in any sort of thing. It's entirely about his ego.

1:02:47Jason Mantzoukas:It's so amazing. That scene is entirely about his ego, which is sort of emblematic of the whole movie. Well, Matthew, this is awesome to hear from your firsthand account about this movie. Thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, you were great. Thank you. Yeah, you could check out his book, Fantasy Life. You can get it at fantasylifethebook.com. Matthew Barry, thanks so much for joining us. Paul, fun as always. Thanks, guys. Bye. Bye. Big thanks to Matthew Barry for actually telling us how Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles got made. Unfortunately, Eddie Pepitone and June had to leave. So, Jason, it's you and I right now.

1:03:20Jason Mantzoukas:Here we go. So, obviously, we had an opinion about this movie, but there are some people who had a different opinion. So, it's now time for Second Opinions. These are five-star reviews culled from Amazon. I feel like Second Opinions needs its own theme show music. We used to have horns. I like that. Somebody make that into a track, and we will play that every single time. Until we hate it, which will be three episodes from now. But it will be a glorious three episodes. All right. This is actually a great treasure trove of Amazon reviews here. This is from GoBirds2, who, if you look in the five-star reviews at Amazon, posted the same review at least five times.

1:04:07Just with the nouns changed to other places or always for this movie?

1:04:11Jason Mantzoukas:Always for this movie. Same review for this movie. Got it. So here it goes. You might say that Paul Hogan has his own brand of sophisticated humor. Sophisticated may sound like an odd word to describe his Outback brand of slapstick, but it really is. Crocodile Dundee is a slick character that you don't know that you're really being put on or not. I think we're all getting tired of the fast-paced, slam-bang, rapid-fire, so-called sophisticated humor. This film is a welcome return to good old-fashioned, homespun, grassroots comedy. There's so many things to unpack in this. Sophisticated is not a word that you want to— No, not at all.

1:04:55Jason Mantzoukas:And I guess they're hypothesizing that this is like a Borat kind of character. Is he or is he not this character? Not that either. It's not Borat style. And we are all getting tired of that fast-paced rapid-fire comedy. Aren't we all? I'm so tired of laughs coming quickly at me. Slow it down. Slow it down. Slow it down. One laugh per every 15 minutes. That's the thing in this movie. They're in Los Angeles, California, and they walk everywhere. They're walking the equivalent of 25 miles a day. It's crazy. And again, like I said, they never get too far away from Hollywood. No, never. They're just walking in a constant circle.

1:05:34Jason Mantzoukas:They went. It was the only thing that was interesting to me. And there's, again, a side of a bad movie when you're watching a city that you live in. You go, oh, that's interesting. That's what that looked like back then. That's what that looked like. But it is old timey. There is an old timey element to him picking his kid up from school and then them walking home like Andy Griffith style. I get what that person is saying, even though that person is a fucking idiot. Well, listen to what Liz has to say. Liz says, oh, Liz, don't get me started with fucking Liz, dude. Liz loves it. She goes, this is a great movie.

1:06:03Jason Mantzoukas:I like the first one, but this is much better. It is very funny. I'm a comedy freak, and I love funny movies, and this is definitely funny. The DVD is better, so rent it today because I'm sure you'll come back and buy it. The DVD is better? Five stars. I don't know how the DVD is. Maybe the extras. Maybe just the process of going to the theater is a pain. So maybe it's just the extra features were like unstoppable on this. Well, this is the one that I think, oh man, these are, oh man. Okay, I don't know which one. This one is a genuine note here. The writing on Dundee, LA was excellent with some very funny material.

1:06:47Jason Mantzoukas:One minor flaw in light of its family movie class would be to change the unwed status of the couple to some sort of aboriginal outback type of hookup, maybe with flashbacks to some kind of ceremony before the child was born and use that as the film's beginning marriage status. And then they could have ended it with a traditional Western marriage. That way they wouldn't look like the standard Hollywood shack-up type of situation. So common in liberal Hollywood scripts. Wait a second. Five stars. Obviously five stars. Obviously five stars. So even with that, this person's love for the movie was undeterred.

1:07:24Jason Mantzoukas:Yes. I mean, because the liberal nature of this film, I mean, that's the thing I don't get. The couple getting married at the end, that's a liberal agenda? No, the liberal agenda is that it's okay to have a child out of wedlock. Okay, got it. The agenda is that being married to have a family isn't important until the end of the movie. Like, what he wants is for them to have some sort of marriage, even if it's like an aboriginal. What this fucking asshole is saying is, like, give them a pretend wedding like the pretend people in the Outback, which is, by the way, a real wedding, you fucking asshole.

1:08:02Right, you dummy. And then give them a real wedding at the end. Like, what is wrong with people?

1:08:09Jason Mantzoukas:Five stars. Five stars. And here is my favorite one here, the final one. One thing that makes this such a great comedy is it doesn't have the feel of trying to be funny. It's not burdened by that need to be funny. There are some movies where the humor doesn't seem that funny to me, which is kind of embarrassing. What? But in this, every single joke got a laugh out of me. There's even an inside joke where she goes, which I understand. And I don't even live in L.A., where the news broadcaster says one-fourth of an inch of rain was a downpour because the rainfall is so infrequent. Plus, the comedy is never sleazy or degrading.

1:08:51Jason Mantzoukas:Such an inside joke. I know. It's such an inside. And he goes, I've seen quite a lot of movies, and I would put this among my top five comedies. Wow. Next to – are you ready with these? Here we go. All right. This is the best part of the whole review. Top five comedies for who? Who is this person? Her name is a customer. The Disney movie Blackbeard's Ghost. Yep. Jean Arthur's The Devil and Mrs. Jones. Of course. Danny Kaye's The Court Jester. Oh, boy. And Dick Van Dyke's Never a Dull Moment. Okay, this person is in easily in his or her mid-70s. But Crocodile Dundee 3 gets put into that pantheon.

1:09:33Jason Mantzoukas:That's crazy. My favorites, Paul Hogan, Danny Kaye, Dick Van Dyke. And the Disney movie Blackbeard's Ghost. Oh, my God. And I like Ron Jeremy's pornographies. So those are the five-star reviews from Amazon. We'll close it up. As you may or may not realize, our guests, everyone had to leave one by one. So it's just Jason and I in here. But I do want to tell you that Eddie Pepitone is a hilarious, funny stand-up. And this documentary that he did about himself is awesome. You go to TheBitterBuddha.com. You can get the documentary. It's on iTunes. For anyone interested in the world of alternative comedy, it is a must.

1:10:20Jason Mantzoukas:I say this not only as a fan of Eddie, but this is a true statement. This documentary is very good. You can follow him on Twitter at EddiePepitone and go to EddiePepitone.com. For me, you can check out the Archerio Paul show. We have seven new episodes up. You can check those out. Just type in Archerio Paul. It's spelled just like it sounds. Archerio Paul. Just like it sounds. Archerio Paul. And you can also watch NTSF SDSUV every Thursday night. And one final plug is that June is in that as well. And Hell Baby is on VOD right now, which is on iTunes. I hope you guys like that. Jason, do you want to plug anything?

1:11:00I wrote on Children's Hospital this season, so watch that.

1:11:03Jason Mantzoukas:Very funny. Children's Hospital. Very funny show. And then, I don't know. Yeah. You can always follow me at Twitter. Just kidding. I'm not on Twitter. You were on Twitter, though, for a brief— For 30 minutes last week, I was on Twitter. So people can look up Zooks230. That's what it was, yeah. And they can follow your tweets. They will never come back. No, no. That account was immediately deleted. Oh, was it? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I don't know if you can find—can you find old tweets? Is that a thing? You probably can find it somewhere. Yeah, yeah. It's very boring what I was doing. But I was on Twitter for 30 minutes for John Daly's 2.30 show, whatever that's called.

1:11:40How did you like it? You know what? It was for half an hour, and a large portion of that was me trying to figure it out. A lot of it was me asking questions like, now, how do I do this? But within 20 minutes, I had over 400 followers. Wow. Which was hilarious.

1:11:57Jason Mantzoukas:That is pretty impressive, and you just got rid of them instantly. Yeah, yeah, then I rejected them. So you can try to find that. You can actually watch Jason doing that live. The 230 PST podcast is actually a video podcast. It's on the Video Podcast Network. So you can see Jason on Twitter. For all of you asking, you can see him on Twitter, even though it doesn't exist anymore. And again, Fantasy Life by Matthew Barry. You can go get that. And a big thanks to everyone that helps run this show. Our engineer, Brett, thank you so much for doing this. and this is a complicated one today, our researcher, Nathan Kiley, and, of course, our new clip puller, Averill Halley.

1:12:36Jason Mantzoukas:Thank you guys for listening.

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