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Speaker 1: Too much information is a production of I heart radio.

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Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to too much information, the show

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Speaker 1: that brings you the secret histories and little known, fascinating

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Speaker 1: facts and figures behind your favorite TV shows, music, movies

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Speaker 1: and more. We are your electric Light Orchestra of Ephemera.

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Speaker 1: I'm Alex Hegel and I'm Jordan. Run Talk. Yeah, you

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Speaker 1: like that one bit Jordan's. We're kicking off Olivia Newton

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Speaker 1: John Week here at t M. I a thing that

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Speaker 1: we didn't know. Yeah, Oh yeah, points. This guy pours

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Speaker 1: one out. What should I pour out for her? Foster's

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Speaker 1: I mean, I'd say champagne, because she deserves it. I

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Speaker 1: Love Olivia John, I know you do, Buddy. Well, does

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Speaker 1: your love with stand Santa Do? We'll see. I only

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Speaker 1: ever knew about this film from like Coffee Table Books

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Speaker 1: My parents got me about twentieth century American pop culture

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Speaker 1: and vh one's buzzfeedlistical presaging, full court press. Of I

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Speaker 1: love the seventies, eighties and Nineties Talking Heads Extravaganza hosted

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Speaker 1: by how sparks, sparks, whither how sparks? Yeah, this was

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Speaker 1: one of the first movies that low showed to me

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Speaker 1: really yeah, yeah, you're now wife. This was one of

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Speaker 1: your first dates. Yeah, yeah, I think we. I think

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Speaker 1: she actually made me double feature this and sergeant. No,

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Speaker 1: I didn't watch sergeant peppers with her. She tried to

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Speaker 1: make me and I said no, I put my foot down.

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Speaker 1: The last relationships, I'm told. Yeah, Um, it's exactly as

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Speaker 1: bizarre as everyone says it is. I don't know, you

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Speaker 1: didn't even watch it. No, I started to blow up

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Speaker 1: your spotif on the that's that's okay. You know, I

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Speaker 1: just I delayed in watching this for a long time

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Speaker 1: because I felt it besmirched the good name of my

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Speaker 1: beloved of living, Newton John. and honestly, yeah, this movie

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Speaker 1: feels like the result of someone going into a cocaine

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Speaker 1: induced fugue state. I mean to me, someone who loved

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Speaker 1: like bright, frothy, colorful rock and roll nostalgia. That was,

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Speaker 1: you know, grease, the perfect example. I felt like Xanda

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Speaker 1: do was kind of the contemporary world intruding into my

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Speaker 1: fifties fantasy, and I never really was into like fantastical

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Speaker 1: sci fi stuff anyway, and the visuals of Zanda do,

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Speaker 1: I just I never liked it. It looked like a

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Speaker 1: cross between a workout tape and like an early nineties

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Speaker 1: animated Japanese adventure series like sailor moon or something, which

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Speaker 1: just was never anything I was into. Um, I. The

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Speaker 1: SPANDEX leg warmers and the neon that we all associate

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Speaker 1: with like a certain look in the early eighties can

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Speaker 1: really be attributed to Zanna do and honestly I'm just

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Speaker 1: turned off by the aesthetic. Um, yeah, the neon in

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Speaker 1: the sense it just registers, is really cold to me,

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Speaker 1: whereas Greece was very warm. I mean, we've got we're

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Speaker 1: following this up with grease very soon, which y'all wax

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Speaker 1: poetic about that. But yes, I have come to a

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Speaker 1: appreciate Zanna do for the camp absurdity and also for

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Speaker 1: the soundtrack by Jeff Lynn and the Electric Light Orchestra,

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Speaker 1: which you correctly identified as a favorite of mine. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: if I'm completely honest, I've really only ever seen highlight

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Speaker 1: clips from this and you know, there are undoubtedly great

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Speaker 1: moments which we'll talk about. Uh, it sounds like everyone's

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Speaker 1: in agreement that the script for this is unsalvageably bad.

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Speaker 1: It's just so funny that people are just like, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's bad, like no one involved. I don't think anyone is. Maybe,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe I a super fans. There are

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Speaker 1: definitely I know they're super fans, but I don't think

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Speaker 1: anybody involved in the making of it is still like

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Speaker 1: towing the like. It's still like the good soldier, that's

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Speaker 1: like I made a good movie. Like I think everyone

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Speaker 1: involved was like, yeah, that one didn't really pan out.

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Speaker 1: But I mean, on the other hand, I do have

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Speaker 1: to give props for just how crazy it is, combining

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Speaker 1: Greek mythology, swing music, Lidia Newton, John Roller, skating, disco

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Speaker 1: and Gene Kelly. I mean it it definitely sound psychotic

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Speaker 1: enough for me to want to get mixed up in,

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Speaker 1: but it's been compared to a cinematic Frankenstein. They sought

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Speaker 1: to create something beautiful by bashing together a bunch of

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Speaker 1: disparate elements, hoping to reanimate the big, splashy nineteen forties musical,

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Speaker 1: but instead they made a monster. They were so preoccupied

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Speaker 1: with the fact that they could they didn't stop to

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Speaker 1: think about whether or not they should. Well, from the

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Speaker 1: film's important role in the establishment of the razzie awards

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Speaker 1: to the boggling array of past and future Hollywood royalty

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Speaker 1: involved to the bid ter fight over the film's soundtrack.

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Speaker 1: Here's everything you didn't know about Zeni. Do you know

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Speaker 1: we never recall the plot points of anything that we

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Speaker 1: do here because we assume a degree of listener familiarity

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Speaker 1: with what we're covering. But I gotta do broad strokes

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Speaker 1: here because, as you said, it scans like a cocaine

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Speaker 1: induced fugue state of its time. Um Sonny Malone own

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Speaker 1: U is a struggling artist in Los Angeles who rips

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Speaker 1: up and discards a sketch which then collides with a

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Speaker 1: mural of the nine sister muses of Greek myth brings

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Speaker 1: them to life, one of whom roller skates through L

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Speaker 1: A and has a meat cute with him. Um, he

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Speaker 1: has a job. Hold on, Buddy. He has a job

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Speaker 1: painting album covers at a record store, fextimiles of them

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Speaker 1: for displays and sees the image of the woman he

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Speaker 1: has just met in the art that he has tasked

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Speaker 1: with reproducing and somehow tracks her down to a Hobo

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Speaker 1: shag shack across town, which we'll talk about the Pan

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Speaker 1: Pacific Auditorium, and this is Terpsichor, known affectionately as Kira,

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Speaker 1: and that's Newton John Not terps. That's the University of

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Speaker 1: Maryland football team or basketball team, something sunny. Makes Friends

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Speaker 1: with Danny McGuire, a construction mogul who used to lead

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Speaker 1: a big band orchestra, you know that old trope. His

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Speaker 1: heart was broken in the nineteen forties by a woman

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Speaker 1: who looked like Kira and he was left creatively bereft

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Speaker 1: as a result. Kira pushes the pair of them to

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Speaker 1: open a nightclub called Zena Do, and her and Sonny's

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Speaker 1: Romance Continues Apace. Just before the club's opening, Kira confesses

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Speaker 1: that she is one of the nine muses of Olympus,

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Speaker 1: sent to Earth to inspire the creation of this club.

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Speaker 1: She has to return to Olympus. Sonny is upset because

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Speaker 1: they're in love, et CETERA. Sonny somehow roller skates through

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Speaker 1: a mural into Mount Olympus and pleads with Zeus to

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Speaker 1: let Kira return to Earth. He is sent back to Earth, but,

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Speaker 1: nagged by both Kira and his wife, Zeus ultimately allows

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Speaker 1: Kira to return to Earth to be with Sonny for quote,

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Speaker 1: maybe a moment, maybe forever. It was the classic Um.

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Speaker 1: Is it like theat where you don't know, like what

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Speaker 1: the length of time is if she was gone. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it's like the Oh henry shorts, now the Lady of

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Speaker 1: the tiger. What am I doing here? Let me get

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Speaker 1: through the damn plot summary. Run Talk Karen. The muses

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Speaker 1: perform at the ZANTA Dou grand opening before leaving Earth

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Speaker 1: once again, Sonny is bummed, but then spots a waitress

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Speaker 1: who looks like Kira and begins to chat her up.

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Speaker 1: And seen. befitting its entire Bizarre Mien, Zanna Dou emerged

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Speaker 1: from the combined creative efforts of two unlikely Hollywood players,

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Speaker 1: Larry Gordon and Joel Silver. Two years later, silver would

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Speaker 1: rocket to fame with the enormously successful forty eight hours,

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Speaker 1: while the two of them would go on to make

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Speaker 1: Predator and die hard together, which is such a hilarious

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Speaker 1: trio of films coming off of Santa D so how

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Speaker 1: the Hell did this happen? Well, according to the extensive

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Speaker 1: press pack that accompanied Zantado's original release, Gordon said that

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Speaker 1: silver quote wanted to make an old fashioned musical. There's

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Speaker 1: an article from entertainment weekly in two thousand seven that

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Speaker 1: has making up with some of these quotes silver was, quote,

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Speaker 1: hell bent on producing a disco fied remake of the

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Speaker 1: seven Rita Hayworth vehicle down to earth, once claiming, and

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Speaker 1: I have seen this quote repeated in multiple places, he

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Speaker 1: was prepared to stab myself in the back to get

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Speaker 1: it off the ground. What's that mean? He's a weird guy. Uh,

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Speaker 1: if you consider Sanna do a proper remake of down

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Speaker 1: to Earth, it makes the chronology here even more confusing,

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Speaker 1: because down to earth was a sequel to here comes

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Speaker 1: Mr Jordan's, which is also concerned with heavenly bean's meddling

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Speaker 1: with mortals, and two actors from Mr Jordan reprised their roles.

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Speaker 1: And Down to Earth here comes Mr Jordan has been

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Speaker 1: remade twice, once in v Heaven Can Wait, starring Warren Batty,

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Speaker 1: and again in two thousand one as down to Earth,

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Speaker 1: starring Chris Rock. All of those films are adaptations of

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Speaker 1: the play heaven can wait. So that makes Sanna do

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Speaker 1: a remake of a sequel to a movie adaptation of

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Speaker 1: a play. Oh No, I've Gone Cross side everything you've

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Speaker 1: said in the last five minutes, from you're recounting the

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Speaker 1: plot of this movie to its origins, as whatever you

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Speaker 1: just said, the remake, of a sequel, of an adaptation

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Speaker 1: of a play. I have I have no I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: have to listen to this at half speed, and advised

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Speaker 1: listeners to do the same. It gets easier from here,

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Speaker 1: but this just does it the you have to understand

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Speaker 1: that Joel loves musicals. Larry Gordon told entertainment weekly I

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Speaker 1: think when he came to l a he was more

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Speaker 1: familiar with musicals than action films. So even though this

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Speaker 1: film arrives at the down of the eighties, Hollywood is

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Speaker 1: still very much in the thrall of the roller skating

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Speaker 1: and disco era and also the wonderfully uniquely American combination

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Speaker 1: of the two known as the Roller Disco, which is

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Speaker 1: roller skating to disco or disco dancing on roller skates.

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Speaker 1: Glasses half full, half empty. Potato, potato, tomato, tomato. Choose

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Speaker 1: your poison. It's all bad. The year before Xanadude came out,

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Speaker 1: in nine, there was the movie Roller Boogie, which is

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Speaker 1: also a Roller Skating Music, starring Linda Blair of the

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Speaker 1: exorcist fame, and there was also a movie called Skatetown USA,

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Speaker 1: which you mistakenly put as Roller Boogie again, Rookie Uh,

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Speaker 1: starring Scott Bao of Joni loves choccy and happy days

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Speaker 1: fame uh, and many others, including Patrick swayze and his

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Speaker 1: first film role. So there's a whole little mini genre

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Speaker 1: evolving at the end of the seventies, the roller disco

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Speaker 1: exploitation flick Um. And if you want a real whiplash

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Speaker 1: of context, you know that Larry Gordon also produced ninety nine,

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Speaker 1: the Warriors, which was also starring the male lead in Xanadu,

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Speaker 1: whose name I never remember, Michael Beck. It's so funny

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Speaker 1: he went from warriors to this, because warriors is just

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Speaker 1: like this icon of like Grimy New York City taxi

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Speaker 1: driver era x gag exploitation. It's got, you know, the

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Speaker 1: warriors come out and play bid. It's got all the

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Speaker 1: color aerful gangs, like the abandoned stuff in the city

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Speaker 1: and like. But there was an aura of real danger

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Speaker 1: around this movie. I mean it was made off of

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Speaker 1: soul urice book, I want to say. And then they

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Speaker 1: were so petrified that this film was going to cause

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Speaker 1: upsurge and gang violence that they were like squashing it

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Speaker 1: because the poster, if I'm remembering correctly, like the tagline

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Speaker 1: for this movie was like New York Street gangs outnumbered

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Speaker 1: the NYPD ten to one. It's just it's why again,

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Speaker 1: just so wild to me. I mean again, like Joel

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Speaker 1: Silver going from Zannah Dude to Predator in like five years.

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Speaker 1: Hollywood's weird. Well, Olivia and John went from Greece, which

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Speaker 1: is where she became a global icon, to Zanna do

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Speaker 1: and she actually suggested. A fellow Australian, a young Mel Gibson,

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Speaker 1: stars the male lead in this movie of Car. It's

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Speaker 1: types of car. A Jewish name got that? Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's really it's up for debate whether or not Mel

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Speaker 1: Gibson would have been an improvement over this Michael Beck Guy,

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Speaker 1: who the BBC referred to in a stunning insult as

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Speaker 1: a Jim Morrison Mannequin that's broken out of Madame Tussau's

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Speaker 1: Wax Museum to pursue the acting dream truly all times.

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Speaker 1: That was a great piece. We'll quote more of it

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Speaker 1: later on. Apparently Andy Gibb another Australian, was actually initially

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Speaker 1: cast as the male lead and Zanna do it first,

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Speaker 1: but he dropped. Heard I've heard it either variously pinned

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Speaker 1: on his cocaine addiction or sergeant peppers. I mean both

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Speaker 1: are yeah, yeah, exactly. Um. John Travolta was also offered

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Speaker 1: the role, but he turned it down to do urban cowboy, which,

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Speaker 1: to quote Indiana Jones once more, he chose. Well, okay,

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Speaker 1: I mean both were poor options, but I guess I

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Speaker 1: don't know. Coming for John, teaming with Olivia, Newton John

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Speaker 1: Right after Greece for another musical. He could have minted

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Speaker 1: money like that might have been the thing to save,

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Speaker 1: but he went with urban cowboy, beginning his slow slide too,

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Speaker 1: as close to obscurity as a John Trouble they could

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Speaker 1: get until Quentin Tarantina rescued him. I've also seen that

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Speaker 1: Peter Frampton was another living in John Choice, but he

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Speaker 1: was also tainted by his appearance in the God Awful

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Speaker 1: Sergeant Pepper's Jukebox Movie, Uh, starring who was in that?

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Speaker 1: The bags Arra's right Erosmith were in that, Alice Cooper,

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Speaker 1: I think. I think so. Yeah, I'm starting to blend

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Speaker 1: it with the Tommy Ken Russell Movie. Oh Yeah, Elton

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Speaker 1: John and UH Clapton and cocaine, Tina Turner. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: for all these fantasy castings, somebody who did wind up

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Speaker 1: in Zanna do. That as a pretty cool backstory, is

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Speaker 1: Sandal Bergman who, to me he was most famous for

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Speaker 1: playing the warrior Valeria in Conan, the barbarian, just after

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Speaker 1: Zanna do in two. It was her springboard. She's one

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Speaker 1: of the night. Yeah, she's one of the muses. Anyway, apparently,

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Speaker 1: Brian and Grazer, uh, he's Beautiful Mind Guy. Right, he's

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Speaker 1: done like a lot of one of the biggest producers

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Speaker 1: in Hollywood history. He wanted to he he was, I guess,

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Speaker 1: a Venice Beach Guy and wanted to make a roller

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Speaker 1: skating picture. Uh, and he bugged his buddy, who's one

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Speaker 1: of the like seventeen screenwriters on this film, and guy

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Speaker 1: named Mark Reid Rubel, to write a treatment which they

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Speaker 1: they took to silver and Gordon. I think silver at

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Speaker 1: the time was Larry Gordon's assistant. The character of Sonny

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Speaker 1: is apparently based on Brian Grazer, which is hilarious. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: as we mentioned, Michael Beck is something of a nothing burger,

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Speaker 1: so I don't know how much of the essence to

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Speaker 1: Grazer UH comes through. Uh. They took it to warner brothers,

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Speaker 1: who passed, and Gordon wrote later. Maybe Warner Brothers was

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Speaker 1: right to do so. A musical fantasy was chancey and

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Speaker 1: at that time we didn't have Olivia or Gene Kelly,

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Speaker 1: the eventual stars, but Joel and I still believed in

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Speaker 1: the pro in the project. Ruble made the title Zanna do.

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Speaker 1: Not from the Collor Ridge Poem Collar Yes, not from

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Speaker 1: the college poem, but from the Citizen Kane reference to

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Speaker 1: the college poem, which is uh Kane's mansion. Is Charles

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Speaker 1: Foster Kane overson wells's character. Charles Foster caine builds a mansion, costly, overblown,

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Speaker 1: great metaphor for Zanna do, and he calls it Zanna

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Speaker 1: do after the Holly Ridge Poem Kubla Khan, a rich

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Speaker 1: text for a roller disco movie. I might add. The

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Speaker 1: BBC wrote a great piece in called Zanna do, rethinking

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Speaker 1: of misunderstood masterpiece, and it includes this great line referencing

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Speaker 1: citizen Kane. Cane's Zanna do is a costly nightmare with

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Speaker 1: plenty of ambition and high concept thinking, but an empty

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Speaker 1: void were the soul and care arcter should be, just

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Speaker 1: like the infamous rollers movie fantasia that shares its name amazing.

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Speaker 1: That's the same piece. To call the lead a wax work,

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Speaker 1: Jim Morrison, that wandered out amount of tussas to try

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Speaker 1: standard acting. So yeah, that that writer some bangs, in

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Speaker 1: the parlance of the time. UH silver moves over to

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Speaker 1: universal pictures at that point and he takes the project

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Speaker 1: with him and then when universal picks it up, they're like, okay,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna pick up your picture, but we're gonna rewrite it. Sorry.

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Speaker 1: So that's the first knife, that's the first incision to

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Speaker 1: this film, and there's something that comes up again and

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Speaker 1: again when you hear about the making this movie. It

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Speaker 1: was originally supposed to be a low budget, no star movie,

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Speaker 1: basically half a notch above a quickie exploitation flick, and

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Speaker 1: then all of a sudden Living Newton John, the biggest

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Speaker 1: female star in the world at that time because of Greece,

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Speaker 1: became interested and it just sort of took off and

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Speaker 1: they snagged gene Kelly, the icon of movie musicals, and

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Speaker 1: in this context just the bizarre stylistic mishmash makes a

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Speaker 1: lot more sense, because this whole movie just kind of

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Speaker 1: grew up and around the producers and they started throwing

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Speaker 1: everything they had into the mix because they had these stars, everything, apparently,

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Speaker 1: except the script. It's like the emperor has no clothes right.

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Speaker 1: Like there they get some point. You would have thought

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Speaker 1: there would have been an adult in the room to

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Speaker 1: look around and go like, let's play on this, guys,

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Speaker 1: what are we doing? And they're like no, we have

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Speaker 1: gene Kelly and Olivia Newton John, like just keeps, just

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Speaker 1: just roll, stretch, stretch vamp. We'll fix it in post Um.

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Speaker 1: I'm just really proud of this heading. I called it

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Speaker 1: much ado about xena Um. The film made it to

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Speaker 1: production without a proper script, which does show h Robert Greenwald,

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Speaker 1: who is the director. He got a forty page outline

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Speaker 1: and he says when I got the forty pages I thought, well,

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Speaker 1: this is strange. Maybe there's a plan here that I'm

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Speaker 1: not aware of. Maybe there's another version of the script someplace.

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Speaker 1: For sure the script will be improved. Unfortunately, that never happened.

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Speaker 1: Yet even the people intimately involved with this movie have

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Speaker 1: nothing nice to say about it. The outline that he

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Speaker 1: saw never turned into a real script. I believe Oliva

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Speaker 1: Newton John signed on after reading an even shorter outline.

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Speaker 1: I have read that her. The one she signed on

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Speaker 1: was twenty pages. So an outline of between pages was

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Speaker 1: all it took. Michael Beck was talking to USA Today

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Speaker 1: and he said half a dozen writers were hired and

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Speaker 1: fired and brought into so called fixed the script. So

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Speaker 1: it was difficult from an acting point of view, and

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Speaker 1: I was a fairly young actor. Then I would get

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Speaker 1: revisions that had nothing to do with the story I

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Speaker 1: thought I was filming and I would go well, what

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Speaker 1: am I supposed to be doing now, which is, to

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Speaker 1: be fair, kind of his stick. He's also like a

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Speaker 1: cardboard man and the warriors. He just looks really good

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Speaker 1: in the leather vest. Anyway, I just love that thing

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Speaker 1: out Robert Greenwald to direct this, because pretty much everything

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Speaker 1: else on his resume are these super left wing documentaries

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Speaker 1: where he like does expose s on the Koch Brothers

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Speaker 1: or Walmart or the war in Iraq and Rupert Murdoch.

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Speaker 1: He even did a movie with Vincent and Afrio as

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Speaker 1: the sixties radical Abby Hoffman called steal this movie. Um,

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Speaker 1: I have to wonder if Xanadu scarred him, just kind

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Speaker 1: of ruining Hollywood decadence forum for life, one of the

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Speaker 1: just top tier anecdotes from the making of this movie

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Speaker 1: which you've been unable to confirm, but I choose to

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Speaker 1: believe it. It was a rumor that was printed in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen seventy nine issue of Premier magazine and said

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Speaker 1: that Joel Silver the producer, locked writers in a room

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Speaker 1: at one point until they came up with pages. According

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Speaker 1: to IMDB, one writer who's locked in a closet for

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Speaker 1: three days and Silper said the son of a bitch

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Speaker 1: wouldn't deliver, so I locked him in. I love that.

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Speaker 1: It's one of those things I want to I don't

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Speaker 1: want to. Somebody says it's not true, I won't. I

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Speaker 1: just won't believe them. Um Gordon says, in going back

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Speaker 1: to Zannado, the documentary accompanying the film's release, that they

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Speaker 1: poached green rolled from a competing roller disco movie in

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Speaker 1: development to sandbag that production the cutthroat world of also

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Speaker 1: greenwold's dad was a Broadway choreographer named Michael Kidd Um,

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Speaker 1: but that's a big deal, like in the birdcage when

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Speaker 1: Robin Williams is doing the famous like Michael Martha Graham,

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Speaker 1: but keep it inside. Yeah, and uh, I guess he

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Speaker 1: was sadly going through divorce at the time. He told

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Speaker 1: the L A times in two thousand two that it

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Speaker 1: was a time in my own life when retreating into

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Speaker 1: a fantasy world was a highly desirable and necessary thing

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Speaker 1: for me. I will say that there's a making of

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Speaker 1: documentary for this. That a contemporaneous one, and it is

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Speaker 1: the Batan death march of behind the scenes documentary. Everyone

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Speaker 1: in here looks like the bizarre middle ground of being

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Speaker 1: like coked out of their Gourd and also desperately unhappy.

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Speaker 1: Those are not mutually exclusive things. Well, that's true, but

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Speaker 1: like there's like like Greenwald is like talking, he looks

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Speaker 1: like Marty Scorsese. He's like he's got this like rapid

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Speaker 1: fire like kind of pattern thing, but he also has

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Speaker 1: this like thousand yards stare or just like what have

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Speaker 1: I done that he must know. Yeah, it must have

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Speaker 1: been like oppenheimer watching the atom bomb for the first time,

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Speaker 1: like I have become death destroyer of worlds, careers, destroy careers. Yeah, Um, Oh, yeah.

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Speaker 1: So this is really funny because these two films are

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Speaker 1: kind of the two roads diverged in a wood Um Olivia.

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Speaker 1: Newton John turned down the village people musical biopic. Can't

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Speaker 1: stop the music to be in Xanadud so either. I

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Speaker 1: guess it's not diverged. I mean either. Yeah, I was

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Speaker 1: gonna say either one would have. Yeah, can't up. The

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Speaker 1: music was the brandchild of Grease producer Alan Carr so

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Speaker 1: that must have felt like a big betrayal for him.

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Speaker 1: I think it was. I think it soured their relationship

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Speaker 1: for a while. I read that she also apparently turned

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Speaker 1: down a bit, I would imagine, a bit, part in

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Speaker 1: the Blues Brothers. I don't know what she would have

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Speaker 1: been in that, but probably the Carrie Fisher role. Right,

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Speaker 1: like that's the only problem female role in there, which

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Speaker 1: is weird because they were looking at Carrie Fisher to

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Speaker 1: be sandy and Greece initially holy. But at least she

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Speaker 1: met her husband of eleven years, Matt Latanzi, on Zanna

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Speaker 1: do it was. Yeah, he was the guy who played

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Speaker 1: the young version of Gene Kelly's character, right. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: he's super cheated on her with I think they're nanny. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: didn't end well. Uh. But, expounding on the film and

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Speaker 1: her autobiography, don't stop believing Olivia wrote. It did sound fresh,

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Speaker 1: entertaining and intriguing. I also like that Zanna do would

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Speaker 1: take audiences into a mesmerizing fantasy world, and I appreciated

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Speaker 1: that there was no violence in it. More than anything,

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Speaker 1: I identified with the message about dreams coming true. Ah,

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Speaker 1: sweet girl, she she's wonderful, just such an adorable hippie.

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Speaker 1: I guess when she and her husband Split, it was

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Speaker 1: supposedly because friends close to them sighted the disparity between

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Speaker 1: her spiritual interests and his more earthly ones. As a

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Speaker 1: key fast, which sounds like you have him, isn't for cheating.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, I guess she got tired of all the

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Speaker 1: show bizz stuff in the late eighties, probably as a

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Speaker 1: result of the stalker that we'll talk about later in

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Speaker 1: this episode. She moved to like Australia and like lived

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Speaker 1: on a farm and, yeah, she's so great. We're going

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Speaker 1: to take a quick break, but we'll be right back

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Speaker 1: with more, too much information in just a moment. Getting

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Speaker 1: Gene Kelly to appear in what would become his final film.

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Speaker 1: I think he plays like a I think he starts

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Speaker 1: as himself in something from the nineties, but this was,

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Speaker 1: for all intents and purposes, his last dramatic role. A

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Speaker 1: little more difficult. Greenwald at the INN making of I

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Speaker 1: was talking about, he says, number one, gene doesn't have

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Speaker 1: to work. Number two, yeah, number two. He's very particular.

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Speaker 1: So when we talked about doing a musical, it was

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Speaker 1: a very tough thing. Uh. The often repeated stipulation that

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Speaker 1: Kelly had upon accepting this role was that he wouldn't

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Speaker 1: touch one toe. You know, this is also not long

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Speaker 1: after he lost his wife, Gene Coyn in UH and

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Speaker 1: so he was a single father at this time and

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Speaker 1: the film was shooting close to his house, in the

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Speaker 1: time honored tradition of movie stars taking roles that are

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Speaker 1: geographically convenient for them, moving the mountain to him. Kenny Ortega,

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Speaker 1: one of the film's choreographers. Oh, I love this story. God,

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Speaker 1: this is a good one. I forgot where we were. UH,

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Speaker 1: Kenny Ortega, one of the film's cooreer. I blacked out.

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Speaker 1: One of the film's choreographers. Were called that. He got

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Speaker 1: a call after he had gotten the Gig to the

421
00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:14,520
Speaker 1: effect of you need to come down to the studio.

422
00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:18,240
Speaker 1: You're meeting Gene Kelly. He's not gonna Dance in the movie,

423
00:25:18,320 --> 00:25:21,200
Speaker 1: but he won't do the movie if he doesn't like you.

424
00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:25,919
Speaker 1: And when they met, and I guess Jean took him

425
00:25:25,920 --> 00:25:28,960
Speaker 1: into a side room, just him and Kenny Ortega, and

426
00:25:29,119 --> 00:25:32,160
Speaker 1: locked the door, leaving the producers outside, which I love.

427
00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:35,520
Speaker 1: So it's just man, the man, Gene Kelly and Kenny Ortega.

428
00:25:35,880 --> 00:25:38,080
Speaker 1: Jeane's gonna do a little soft shoe on your kneecaps,

429
00:25:40,160 --> 00:25:42,760
Speaker 1: I guess. Gene Kelly told him if I were to dance,

430
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:45,320
Speaker 1: and I'm not saying I'm going to dance, but if

431
00:25:45,359 --> 00:25:47,520
Speaker 1: I were to dance, what would you have me do?

432
00:25:48,119 --> 00:25:49,879
Speaker 1: And Kenny says he said, well, why don't we just

433
00:25:49,920 --> 00:25:52,040
Speaker 1: start with some of these steps that you've already done,

434
00:25:52,240 --> 00:25:55,320
Speaker 1: which to me are classic and timeless, because I guess

435
00:25:55,400 --> 00:26:00,040
Speaker 1: Kenny Ortega grew up like watching, like hero, learning to

436
00:26:00,280 --> 00:26:03,159
Speaker 1: dance from the gene Kelly movies and Um, so he

437
00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:05,440
Speaker 1: starts get doing some of these old moves and Gene

438
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:08,440
Speaker 1: Kelly says, oh, that's the old Nora Bays and that's

439
00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:11,760
Speaker 1: gaming his old movies. Yeah, he's like, that's not right.

440
00:26:11,840 --> 00:26:14,800
Speaker 1: It's this way. And they're just dancing together in a locked,

441
00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:18,720
Speaker 1: windowless room. Oh that's so. I mean, can you ever tell?

442
00:26:18,760 --> 00:26:21,000
Speaker 1: It must have been freed, because I watched some interview

443
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:22,359
Speaker 1: with him and he was saying like yeah, I didn't

444
00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:25,200
Speaker 1: prep anything, like I didn't think Jeane is gonna Dance,

445
00:26:25,280 --> 00:26:27,920
Speaker 1: so like, I didn't. He was just going off his pure,

446
00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:32,040
Speaker 1: like childhood passion form and recalling these movies that inspired

447
00:26:32,080 --> 00:26:34,040
Speaker 1: him to want to do this. So that's so cool, man.

448
00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:36,720
Speaker 1: That's like if I got to like play Bass with

449
00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:40,840
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney on the fly and just remembered his early

450
00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:42,560
Speaker 1: Beatles songs, not because I knew I was going to

451
00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:44,440
Speaker 1: see him, but because that was the stuff that made

452
00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:46,520
Speaker 1: me want to make music. That's that's so cool. I

453
00:26:46,600 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 1: love that. This whole story is so cute. They were

454
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:52,840
Speaker 1: going for like half an hour just dancing together, breaking

455
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:56,520
Speaker 1: a sweat, and then suddenly gene Kelly stops, opens the door,

456
00:26:56,840 --> 00:26:59,240
Speaker 1: goes to the producers who were just waiting breathlessly in

457
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:03,000
Speaker 1: the hall, and only announces I'll do the picture. I

458
00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:06,800
Speaker 1: love that. Yeah, Ortega was talking to NPR in. He

459
00:27:06,840 --> 00:27:09,400
Speaker 1: said Jean mentored me and when the movie was over

460
00:27:09,440 --> 00:27:12,440
Speaker 1: he continued to. He would invite me to his home

461
00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:14,240
Speaker 1: and we would look at his films together and he

462
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:16,840
Speaker 1: would talk to me about how he designed choreography for

463
00:27:16,840 --> 00:27:20,320
Speaker 1: the camera, which was the greatest education I had received

464
00:27:20,440 --> 00:27:23,439
Speaker 1: up until that point. He even, I don't know if

465
00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:26,280
Speaker 1: he gave him or let him use, his viewfinder from

466
00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:28,760
Speaker 1: singing in the rain. That was like engraved with Jean's

467
00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:31,200
Speaker 1: name on it, and I guess they sat and watched

468
00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:33,560
Speaker 1: all of his old movies and broke them down together.

469
00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:36,680
Speaker 1: I just I love this so much. Yeah, or taking

470
00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:39,440
Speaker 1: is a big name as far as Hollywood choreography goes.

471
00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:42,520
Speaker 1: He got the GIG through the being a choreographer for

472
00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:44,960
Speaker 1: the San Francisco band the tubes, who will talk about

473
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:47,880
Speaker 1: in a second. He also worked with share Bett Midler,

474
00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:53,760
Speaker 1: Ethel Merman and kiss, who I I no way this

475
00:27:53,800 --> 00:27:56,439
Speaker 1: is possible, but I imagine Ethel Merman and kiss in

476
00:27:56,440 --> 00:28:00,600
Speaker 1: a room together just gacked out of their boards dancing.

477
00:28:01,560 --> 00:28:04,240
Speaker 1: It's a huge deal. Yeah, he did the dance scenes

478
00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:07,119
Speaker 1: from dirty dancing and all the high school musical movies

479
00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:11,119
Speaker 1: and Hocus pocus and newses, and he also did the

480
00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:14,280
Speaker 1: choreography for the final Michael Jackson tour. That never happened.

481
00:28:14,320 --> 00:28:17,240
Speaker 1: This is it. What are the tubes doing here? I

482
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:20,760
Speaker 1: guess we'll get to this, my friend, don't put the

483
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:22,960
Speaker 1: cart ahead of it. Don't put the skate ahead of

484
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:26,080
Speaker 1: the disco. Um. There were a few nons to Kelly's

485
00:28:26,119 --> 00:28:29,160
Speaker 1: career in Xanadu. The name of his character, Danny McGuire,

486
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 1: is directly lifted from the character that he plays in

487
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:34,720
Speaker 1: the film cover girl, which, like down to Earth, also

488
00:28:34,800 --> 00:28:38,640
Speaker 1: starred reading Hayworth. Kelly, despite all of his protestations, ended

489
00:28:38,680 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 1: up choreographing his dance number with Newton John, and it's

490
00:28:42,240 --> 00:28:45,160
Speaker 1: basically a cover version of the routine he did with

491
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:49,120
Speaker 1: Judy Garland in uh two. For me and my Gal

492
00:28:49,720 --> 00:28:53,680
Speaker 1: I think there were also elements of anchors away, which

493
00:28:53,680 --> 00:28:55,920
Speaker 1: is the one where he's dancing with a cartoon mouse.

494
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:58,320
Speaker 1: I think he's a little of that too. He's a

495
00:28:58,400 --> 00:29:01,400
Speaker 1: retired widow. Word, dude. He's he's gonna just go back

496
00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:05,240
Speaker 1: into the well for you don't you're not getting. You're

497
00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:09,400
Speaker 1: not getting new gene for a roller disco picture. He

498
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:12,640
Speaker 1: must have been pushing seventy. Yeah, he was pushing seventy.

499
00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:18,240
Speaker 1: He was like sixty eight years old, still still feather yeah, Um,

500
00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:21,040
Speaker 1: and this that may have been because the dance scene

501
00:29:21,080 --> 00:29:23,440
Speaker 1: was a last minute picture. The film was done and

502
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:25,960
Speaker 1: then when they started like, I guess, putting the press

503
00:29:26,000 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 1: materials for it together. People were like, Oh, well, do

504
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:31,360
Speaker 1: gene Kelly and Olivia Newton John Danced together, and they

505
00:29:31,360 --> 00:29:33,200
Speaker 1: were all they like all looked at each other and

506
00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:36,840
Speaker 1: we're like wait, we forgot. We got we got disco,

507
00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:40,720
Speaker 1: we got gene Kelly, we got Greek mythology, we got

508
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:43,240
Speaker 1: we got this abandoned like theater in the middle of

509
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:46,160
Speaker 1: L A. Oh, we forgot. We've got that. They were

510
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:50,800
Speaker 1: supposed to dance together. Yeah, so Kelly's contract was complete

511
00:29:51,120 --> 00:29:54,560
Speaker 1: and he was dead set against returning, but he agreed

512
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:56,680
Speaker 1: on the condition that he would get to direct this

513
00:29:56,760 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 1: scene and that it would be shot on a closed

514
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:04,000
Speaker 1: set with only himself, Olivia Newton John, Kenny Ortega and

515
00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:06,400
Speaker 1: the technical crew, like, you know, the DP and sound

516
00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:10,640
Speaker 1: guy and so forth. Director Robert Greenwald was explicitly banned.

517
00:30:12,840 --> 00:30:16,160
Speaker 1: In interview, Gene Kelly gave in. He basically played it

518
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 1: like he didn't want to disappoint Olivia. He said I

519
00:30:18,800 --> 00:30:20,760
Speaker 1: had already decided, about a year and a half before

520
00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:23,160
Speaker 1: I did Zanderdo, that I was through with dancing. But

521
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:25,960
Speaker 1: several journalists told me that Olivia Newton John kept saying

522
00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 1: how sad she was she wouldn't get a chance to

523
00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:30,440
Speaker 1: dance with me, so I finally said, all right, throw

524
00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:33,920
Speaker 1: in a number, but I'm through with dancing. Uh. One

525
00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:36,760
Speaker 1: of the performers in this film tells the story of

526
00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:39,880
Speaker 1: the scene where Gene Kelly is the roller skate through

527
00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:42,840
Speaker 1: a line of jugglers tossing pins back and forth behind

528
00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:46,360
Speaker 1: him as he goes. And, as is often the case

529
00:30:46,400 --> 00:30:48,440
Speaker 1: in any situation where a bunch of people need to

530
00:30:48,440 --> 00:30:52,640
Speaker 1: perform something perfectly in order, someone would always screw it up.

531
00:30:53,040 --> 00:30:56,320
Speaker 1: So they, which is all these like twenty year old jugglers,

532
00:30:56,320 --> 00:30:58,840
Speaker 1: would be like sorry, Jean, can you get back on

533
00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:01,680
Speaker 1: your marks? Sorry. I just love imagining a surly gene

534
00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:05,920
Speaker 1: Kelly on roller skates surrounded by clowns juggling pins. It

535
00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:10,200
Speaker 1: was like a Proto breakdancing crew in this chain breakers,

536
00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:12,080
Speaker 1: something like that. I just loved him being like what

537
00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:14,520
Speaker 1: the hell are you kids doing? She tended to be robots,

538
00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:17,760
Speaker 1: and they're like take thirty six GEEN, get back on

539
00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:20,800
Speaker 1: the damn skates. I guess he was also really pissed

540
00:31:20,800 --> 00:31:23,560
Speaker 1: that they didn't show his legs to prove he was skating.

541
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:26,120
Speaker 1: And the roller skating scenes they're all like tight shots

542
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:28,800
Speaker 1: from his chest up, and he did all like he

543
00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:30,840
Speaker 1: was a really good skater. I mean skating since he

544
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:33,200
Speaker 1: was a kid, and I don't know anytime that you

545
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:37,400
Speaker 1: don't show gene Kelly's footwork seem like a big miss.

546
00:31:37,880 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 1: So maybe that's why Jeane Kelly banned the director from

547
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:45,080
Speaker 1: the set. Um there's a similar scene where there's some

548
00:31:45,240 --> 00:31:48,880
Speaker 1: tight rope walkers walking and they were genuinely really far

549
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:51,320
Speaker 1: off the ground, but they shot the scenes so that

550
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:53,600
Speaker 1: you just like at the bottom of the frame you

551
00:31:53,640 --> 00:31:55,800
Speaker 1: see the edge of the rope. So like for all

552
00:31:55,920 --> 00:31:58,200
Speaker 1: you know, the rope is like six inches off the

553
00:31:58,280 --> 00:32:00,760
Speaker 1: ground and all the type rope walkers when they saw

554
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:03,760
Speaker 1: the finished movie, we're like Wow, I wish we didn't

555
00:32:03,800 --> 00:32:06,920
Speaker 1: have to do that because I was really stressed about

556
00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:09,680
Speaker 1: made doing that eight feet off the ground or whatever

557
00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:15,360
Speaker 1: it was. Yeah, you know, this was his first theatrical

558
00:32:15,480 --> 00:32:17,600
Speaker 1: I think, Green Bald. Yeah. Well, again it gets back

559
00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:20,680
Speaker 1: to like this was supposed to be a nothing movie. Yeah,

560
00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:24,440
Speaker 1: he got Emmy noms for basically the movie Munich, but

561
00:32:24,480 --> 00:32:28,000
Speaker 1: he did a documentary about Munich, about the massacre. Uh,

562
00:32:28,120 --> 00:32:31,000
Speaker 1: that was seventy seven. So he went from doing a

563
00:32:31,080 --> 00:32:34,400
Speaker 1: movie about the Munich Olympics massacre to a roller skating

564
00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:40,520
Speaker 1: picture where Gene Kelly hated his guts. Holly Weird. Kelly

565
00:32:40,560 --> 00:32:43,680
Speaker 1: did not like Santa Do. Sadly, he wrote in his autobiography.

566
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 1: I have to admit it is a terrible movie, but

567
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:48,640
Speaker 1: I must say it was fun working with Olivia. For

568
00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:51,560
Speaker 1: that reason alone I don't regret the experience. It's the

569
00:32:51,640 --> 00:32:53,880
Speaker 1: last time you'll see me dancing in the movie. So

570
00:32:53,920 --> 00:32:56,680
Speaker 1: in that respect I guess Santa do occupies a special

571
00:32:56,720 --> 00:33:00,040
Speaker 1: place in my career, but only in that respect. I

572
00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:04,400
Speaker 1: hastened to add. Oh, I love the fact that he

573
00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:09,760
Speaker 1: lived into so he had enough time to like absorb

574
00:33:10,240 --> 00:33:15,520
Speaker 1: how much of a disaster this was. Um Kenny Ortaga

575
00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:17,960
Speaker 1: worked mostly with Geene Kelly, but there was a choreographer

576
00:33:18,040 --> 00:33:21,880
Speaker 1: named Jerry Trent who worked mostly with Olivia. Um. Originally

577
00:33:21,880 --> 00:33:24,600
Speaker 1: he was hired on a five week assignment to just

578
00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:27,120
Speaker 1: teach her how to do some steps. He ended up

579
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:32,040
Speaker 1: choreographing six of the film's numbers, including suddenly uh, the

580
00:33:32,120 --> 00:33:35,200
Speaker 1: number in which Olivia and John fell and broke her cock. Six,

581
00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:38,560
Speaker 1: she says. They put me in an ice donut in

582
00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:41,920
Speaker 1: between takes, which I presume she means like an inner

583
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:44,640
Speaker 1: tube filled with ice that they would like let her

584
00:33:44,720 --> 00:33:50,800
Speaker 1: sit in. That's damn. That's a tragic mental image. Uh Yeah,

585
00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:53,840
Speaker 1: she refused a stunt double for the rest of the movie.

586
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:57,720
Speaker 1: She's a good soldier and John Literally busted her ass

587
00:33:57,800 --> 00:34:01,600
Speaker 1: for this movie that got universally pans. It's just heartbreaking,

588
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:05,000
Speaker 1: but at least she got to dance with Gene Kelly. Uh.

589
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:08,200
Speaker 1: In a interview with the daily Harold Olivia said that

590
00:34:08,239 --> 00:34:10,480
Speaker 1: she understood what an honor of that was. She said

591
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:13,480
Speaker 1: he was lovely. I still can't believe I danced with

592
00:34:13,560 --> 00:34:15,840
Speaker 1: Gene Kelly. How lucky I am that I've been in

593
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:18,680
Speaker 1: movies where I've danced with two of the greatest dancers

594
00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:22,239
Speaker 1: of all time, Gene Kelly and John Travolta. I never

595
00:34:22,280 --> 00:34:24,400
Speaker 1: would have thought that because I had two left feet

596
00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:30,960
Speaker 1: growing up. AH, sweet girl. Um another heading. I'm proud of. Zeusicle.

597
00:34:31,160 --> 00:34:36,640
Speaker 1: The Musical Electric Light Orchestra came in and Jeff Lynn.

598
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:39,000
Speaker 1: Is that? Are they an actual band, or is it

599
00:34:39,040 --> 00:34:41,839
Speaker 1: just like jobbers that came in to Support Jeff Lynn?

600
00:34:42,400 --> 00:34:44,520
Speaker 1: You would know this. I you know what I don't know?

601
00:34:44,640 --> 00:34:47,280
Speaker 1: I would imagine it's mostly just the Jeff Lynn show.

602
00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:50,680
Speaker 1: All Right, UH E. L O and Jeff Lynn came

603
00:34:50,680 --> 00:34:53,080
Speaker 1: in at the behest of Joel Silver. The band was

604
00:34:53,080 --> 00:34:57,279
Speaker 1: writing high on discovery, which debuted at number one on

605
00:34:57,360 --> 00:35:00,520
Speaker 1: the UK charts and stayed there for five weeks. Is

606
00:35:00,560 --> 00:35:03,400
Speaker 1: that Mr Blues Guy? I don't know about L O.

607
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:05,759
Speaker 1: I think Mr BUSCO was earlier. I think that was

608
00:35:06,520 --> 00:35:09,080
Speaker 1: they did evil woman. Yeah, I mean my main thing

609
00:35:09,080 --> 00:35:10,880
Speaker 1: about Jeff Lynn was that not only was he in

610
00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:15,440
Speaker 1: the traveling wilberries, but he produced the closest thing we

611
00:35:15,520 --> 00:35:18,520
Speaker 1: ever had to a Beatles Reunion, when Paul Georgia Ringo

612
00:35:18,960 --> 00:35:23,480
Speaker 1: finished off two of John's Demos for the Beatles Anthology.

613
00:35:23,520 --> 00:35:26,280
Speaker 1: So that's I don't know why they didn't get George Martin.

614
00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:28,080
Speaker 1: It might of just I think George Martin was losing

615
00:35:28,120 --> 00:35:29,839
Speaker 1: his hearing at that time, so that might be why

616
00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:32,600
Speaker 1: they didn't get him. Probably too many cooks to Jeff

617
00:35:32,680 --> 00:35:38,200
Speaker 1: Lynn doesn't really seem like a team player. All due respect. Anyway,

618
00:35:38,239 --> 00:35:40,520
Speaker 1: he said he took this gig solely because of a

619
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:45,359
Speaker 1: living Newton John. Well, yeah, I took it because I thought, well,

620
00:35:45,480 --> 00:35:47,960
Speaker 1: I like Olivia, she's Great. It would be nice to

621
00:35:48,040 --> 00:35:51,319
Speaker 1: meet her, but he seemed to regret it immediately. In

622
00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:55,440
Speaker 1: the aforementioned making of documentary there is an extremely awkward

623
00:35:55,440 --> 00:35:58,439
Speaker 1: clip of him sitting there with sunglasses and I think

624
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:01,719
Speaker 1: the bucket had on. He's sitting next to Liva Newton,

625
00:36:01,800 --> 00:36:04,440
Speaker 1: John and the guy that wrote all of the songs

626
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:08,279
Speaker 1: for her half of the soundtrack, her producer and Co writer,

627
00:36:08,400 --> 00:36:12,319
Speaker 1: John Ferrar, and the interviewer goes what do you think

628
00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:14,920
Speaker 1: of John to Jeff and he says I don't know,

629
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:18,040
Speaker 1: I'm still trying to work it out, and all three

630
00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:20,280
Speaker 1: of them laugh like it's a scene from the office.

631
00:36:20,480 --> 00:36:24,759
Speaker 1: It's ridiculous. Um, there was all kinds of drama going

632
00:36:24,760 --> 00:36:27,080
Speaker 1: on behind the scenes with his stuff. Lynne was supposed

633
00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:31,240
Speaker 1: to contribute both songs and the film's score, and Greenwald

634
00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:34,439
Speaker 1: at some point, I guess, scrapped Lynn's score and asked

635
00:36:34,440 --> 00:36:38,040
Speaker 1: the composer named Barry Divorson, which sounds like a Battlestar

636
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:44,200
Speaker 1: galactica character. That's amazing, to contribute one. Um. And then

637
00:36:44,239 --> 00:36:46,640
Speaker 1: I guess this whole thing was such a you know,

638
00:36:46,800 --> 00:36:52,080
Speaker 1: Babytown frolics that Lynn submitted demos and was like, okay,

639
00:36:52,120 --> 00:36:56,200
Speaker 1: I'm gonna Finish these later and production took the demos

640
00:36:56,400 --> 00:36:59,400
Speaker 1: and just cut all the scenes of the movie to

641
00:36:59,600 --> 00:37:03,319
Speaker 1: those demos. So rather than green lighting the songs based

642
00:37:03,320 --> 00:37:05,799
Speaker 1: on the Demos then waiting for the finished version of

643
00:37:05,880 --> 00:37:10,160
Speaker 1: these tracks to choreographed the movie too, they just did

644
00:37:10,160 --> 00:37:12,440
Speaker 1: it to the rough version of these songs. So then

645
00:37:12,480 --> 00:37:14,080
Speaker 1: they had to do the final version of all of

646
00:37:14,120 --> 00:37:18,480
Speaker 1: these songs for the soundtrack and it caused all these problems.

647
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:22,560
Speaker 1: The Drummer, Bev Bevan. There's no way that's that guy's name.

648
00:37:22,719 --> 00:37:27,760
Speaker 1: That's that's a Typo. I think that is actually Bev Bevan.

649
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:34,160
Speaker 1: God the English. Uh, he told Martin Kinch. When we

650
00:37:34,200 --> 00:37:36,480
Speaker 1: came to record it for real, we had to keep

651
00:37:36,640 --> 00:37:38,960
Speaker 1: in time with the demo and the demo was not

652
00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:41,320
Speaker 1: in time, so it was a bit of a nightmare

653
00:37:41,360 --> 00:37:44,279
Speaker 1: to actually record the thing. We were at music land

654
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:47,400
Speaker 1: studios in Munich and it became a very frustrating experience

655
00:37:47,440 --> 00:37:49,480
Speaker 1: which should have taken a couple of hours took about

656
00:37:49,600 --> 00:37:53,879
Speaker 1: three or four days. Good Lord and Jeff Lynn's deal

657
00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 1: mandated that if the film didn't include all of the

658
00:37:56,680 --> 00:38:04,000
Speaker 1: songs he submitted, they couldn't use any of them. So right, yeah,

659
00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:05,480
Speaker 1: I mean is that a normal thing? Like, I don't

660
00:38:05,680 --> 00:38:07,680
Speaker 1: even understand. Is that just to give you all the

661
00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:11,640
Speaker 1: power you must be? Yeah, UH, so production had to

662
00:38:11,640 --> 00:38:13,880
Speaker 1: make space for the song. Don't walk away at the

663
00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:16,920
Speaker 1: very last minute in order to not have to start

664
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:20,759
Speaker 1: all over again. Jeff Lyn later told rolling stone I

665
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:23,279
Speaker 1: wrote half the songs, though I've never seen the thing.

666
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:26,760
Speaker 1: Referring to the movie. I don't suppose anyone else has either.

667
00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:29,239
Speaker 1: It was supposed to be really bad. I don't think

668
00:38:29,239 --> 00:38:33,279
Speaker 1: I'll ever see the movie after reading the reviews. And

669
00:38:33,560 --> 00:38:37,240
Speaker 1: he even blamed Zena do for stalling yellow's career, saying

670
00:38:37,239 --> 00:38:40,960
Speaker 1: that radio stations wouldn't play the band's follow up to discovery,

671
00:38:41,160 --> 00:38:43,840
Speaker 1: which again was a huge album, because of the taint

672
00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:46,920
Speaker 1: of that movie. UH, he said it's because of that film.

673
00:38:47,040 --> 00:38:50,879
Speaker 1: He's talking to the L A times rock radio programmers

674
00:38:50,880 --> 00:38:52,640
Speaker 1: were saying we don't want to touch them after that

675
00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:55,319
Speaker 1: bloody film. It's because the film was so bad and

676
00:38:55,360 --> 00:39:01,560
Speaker 1: it's a failure and we're associated with it. WHO's like? Who?

677
00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:04,200
Speaker 1: What are all the careers that this movie is tanks

678
00:39:04,360 --> 00:39:07,239
Speaker 1: living in John's for quite some time. It's Michael Beck,

679
00:39:07,280 --> 00:39:13,080
Speaker 1: Guy Yell O, movie again, Robert Greenwald, Robert Greenwald, trail

680
00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:18,160
Speaker 1: of blood, of moved on to left wing expose documentaries.

681
00:39:18,360 --> 00:39:22,759
Speaker 1: Oh my God, poor guy. Yeah, anyway, the band playing

682
00:39:22,800 --> 00:39:28,200
Speaker 1: that bizarre forties big band, eighties rock and roll scene,

683
00:39:28,360 --> 00:39:32,399
Speaker 1: San Francisco Proto punk band, the tubes, mentioned earlier, best

684
00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:36,879
Speaker 1: known for a hit called White punks on dope, which

685
00:39:36,920 --> 00:39:40,440
Speaker 1: I believe was like a sort of scathing critique of Um,

686
00:39:40,480 --> 00:39:43,680
Speaker 1: like white hipster culture on sort of the drug scene

687
00:39:43,680 --> 00:39:46,520
Speaker 1: in San Francisco. And they were brought on board by Ortega.

688
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:50,480
Speaker 1: They were really a fascinating band. They were kind of like, Um,

689
00:39:50,520 --> 00:39:54,279
Speaker 1: really like multi media experience. They had choreoslography. Yeah, I

690
00:39:54,360 --> 00:39:56,759
Speaker 1: was just about say, yeah, they have like choreography, they

691
00:39:56,760 --> 00:40:00,520
Speaker 1: had visual aspects, they had coordinated costumes. Take it. Work

692
00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:03,080
Speaker 1: with him for like a dozen years. Uh. They have

693
00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:06,040
Speaker 1: never once performed this song live, at least as of

694
00:40:07,600 --> 00:40:13,040
Speaker 1: uh again, another person shoveling dirt on the coffin. UH,

695
00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:16,400
Speaker 1: Michael Cotton, who played keyboards for them. Totally Entertainment Weekly.

696
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:19,719
Speaker 1: The film was a disaster. I wasn't surprised how bad

697
00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:22,560
Speaker 1: the reviews were because I mostly agreed it was a

698
00:40:22,560 --> 00:40:28,080
Speaker 1: train wreck, a big giant colorful train wreck. On the

699
00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:31,000
Speaker 1: flip side, the story behind the song suddenly is actually

700
00:40:31,040 --> 00:40:33,440
Speaker 1: kind of sweet. It's obsensively Sung in the movie by

701
00:40:33,480 --> 00:40:36,800
Speaker 1: Michael Beck, but that guy is, despite his resemblance that

702
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:40,520
Speaker 1: Jim Morrison, is not a singer. So Olivia and John

703
00:40:40,560 --> 00:40:43,440
Speaker 1: brought in Sir Cliff Richard to sing the duet with

704
00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:47,120
Speaker 1: her as a way of paying it back. Cliff Richard was, uh,

705
00:40:47,440 --> 00:40:50,680
Speaker 1: he's a huge star in the UK and the fifties

706
00:40:50,719 --> 00:40:54,480
Speaker 1: he was kind of like positioned as England's answer to Elvis.

707
00:40:54,520 --> 00:40:57,240
Speaker 1: He was this kind of teen idol figure and then

708
00:40:57,440 --> 00:41:02,520
Speaker 1: he transitioned into all around adult entertainer mode and uh,

709
00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:04,640
Speaker 1: I don't even know what the American equivalent would be.

710
00:41:04,680 --> 00:41:07,399
Speaker 1: But Olivia and John got to start singing for him

711
00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:10,520
Speaker 1: on his British TV series in the sixties and she

712
00:41:10,600 --> 00:41:12,680
Speaker 1: later said after clip had been so wonderful to me

713
00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:15,440
Speaker 1: earlier in my career by introducing me to English audiences,

714
00:41:15,680 --> 00:41:18,480
Speaker 1: I had the opportunity to return the favor, which is wonderful,

715
00:41:18,560 --> 00:41:21,040
Speaker 1: and she wrote the center onto biography. So that was

716
00:41:21,080 --> 00:41:25,840
Speaker 1: sweet and you know, torture Genesis, but hard to argue

717
00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:29,400
Speaker 1: with results. Um. The soundtrack was a huge hit. It

718
00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:32,319
Speaker 1: was the fifth most popular soundtrack of the year. There's

719
00:41:32,320 --> 00:41:35,919
Speaker 1: some great tracks on it, magic and Zanna Dou we're

720
00:41:35,920 --> 00:41:38,120
Speaker 1: both number one hits in the US and the UK,

721
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:41,040
Speaker 1: and in one of John Lennon's last interviews before his death,

722
00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:44,840
Speaker 1: he identified magic as one of his favorite songs of

723
00:41:44,880 --> 00:41:49,640
Speaker 1: the moment, which I'm sure it's just a dagger in

724
00:41:49,719 --> 00:41:55,040
Speaker 1: your heart. I'm gonna see you. The other one he

725
00:41:55,080 --> 00:42:02,440
Speaker 1: mentioned was L Ow Song. It was also from Santa Do.

726
00:42:02,920 --> 00:42:08,520
Speaker 1: What the it was really into the B fifty two

727
00:42:08,520 --> 00:42:11,160
Speaker 1: is too, because he thought that was like Yoko's sound

728
00:42:11,680 --> 00:42:14,120
Speaker 1: and suddenly, like the stuff that Yoko really wanted to do,

729
00:42:14,280 --> 00:42:18,360
Speaker 1: the kind of like you know, yodeling type sound, was

730
00:42:18,400 --> 00:42:20,879
Speaker 1: now becoming mainstream and that was one of the things

731
00:42:20,880 --> 00:42:23,160
Speaker 1: that made him feel like he was ready to come

732
00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:25,600
Speaker 1: back into the recording business after taking a bunch of

733
00:42:25,719 --> 00:42:30,399
Speaker 1: years off to raise his son. Yeah, Newsweek. Well, quite

734
00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:35,600
Speaker 1: a thing that. As you meditate on that, we'll be

735
00:42:35,719 --> 00:42:38,760
Speaker 1: right back with more, too much information, after these messages.

736
00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:55,399
Speaker 1: Santa do has to well, aside from Venice, has two

737
00:42:55,480 --> 00:42:58,160
Speaker 1: historic shooting locations from l a that are featured prominently

738
00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:02,080
Speaker 1: uh the shopping montage. The Gene Kelly outfit montage is

739
00:43:02,120 --> 00:43:07,720
Speaker 1: the FIORUCI Boutique in Beverly Hills. That Boutique was Beverly

740
00:43:07,800 --> 00:43:10,799
Speaker 1: Hills first movie theater, the beverly. I didn't know that.

741
00:43:11,200 --> 00:43:13,680
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know anything about fashion. UH, fiorgi

742
00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:19,520
Speaker 1: popularized camouflage prints in the eighties before Um inventing stretched

743
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:22,680
Speaker 1: jeans and, I guess, with them, you know, skin tight

744
00:43:22,800 --> 00:43:26,000
Speaker 1: denim in the eighties. Anyway, that the theater of the

745
00:43:26,040 --> 00:43:29,440
Speaker 1: beverly became a clothing boutique in which was something of

746
00:43:29,480 --> 00:43:32,560
Speaker 1: a new wave Mecca in L A. Clouds no me

747
00:43:32,880 --> 00:43:38,960
Speaker 1: worked there along with Madonna's brother for Christopher, just Christopher.

748
00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:42,640
Speaker 1: It's just just Christopher. Are they still feuding? I hope so.

749
00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:47,040
Speaker 1: I don't know. Gives it? Ah, they were one of

750
00:43:47,040 --> 00:43:50,120
Speaker 1: the first places to sell Betsy Johnson stuff and Keith

751
00:43:50,120 --> 00:43:54,040
Speaker 1: herring's art, and Andy Warhol Launched Interview magazine with a

752
00:43:54,080 --> 00:43:59,759
Speaker 1: party there. Eventually it became a bank before and the

753
00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:01,960
Speaker 1: well before it was wiped off the face of the

754
00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:06,560
Speaker 1: earth altogether for a luxury hotel, because that is Los Angeles.

755
00:44:06,840 --> 00:44:09,000
Speaker 1: That all over the world. Number that they shot there

756
00:44:09,120 --> 00:44:11,600
Speaker 1: is great. That song whips. I love that song. I

757
00:44:11,640 --> 00:44:13,839
Speaker 1: remember one of the only times I ever like tried

758
00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:15,719
Speaker 1: the roller skate of my adult life. It was at

759
00:44:15,719 --> 00:44:19,880
Speaker 1: one of the track Roller Disco Nights and the first song,

760
00:44:19,920 --> 00:44:22,600
Speaker 1: as I'm out there like bandby on the ice trying

761
00:44:22,640 --> 00:44:26,240
Speaker 1: to move, was that song. And they're all these fantastically

762
00:44:26,320 --> 00:44:32,440
Speaker 1: dressed people in like Shimmery gold, Lamy spandex flying past

763
00:44:32,520 --> 00:44:35,239
Speaker 1: me as I'm like holding on for dear life to

764
00:44:35,280 --> 00:44:37,560
Speaker 1: the wall, and that song was playing. I love that

765
00:44:37,640 --> 00:44:41,040
Speaker 1: song so much. Do you know what the singer Brenda Lee,

766
00:44:41,120 --> 00:44:44,640
Speaker 1: you know, of rocking around the Christmas tree and, I'm sorry, fame?

767
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:47,400
Speaker 1: She was a cameo in that musical number that they

768
00:44:47,440 --> 00:44:49,840
Speaker 1: shot there. I guess she was just at the studio

769
00:44:49,880 --> 00:44:51,560
Speaker 1: that they had to tape something else and walked by.

770
00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:55,400
Speaker 1: Did it also tank her career? I think she. Well,

771
00:44:55,600 --> 00:44:59,840
Speaker 1: I name a song she did after this. As we

772
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:05,399
Speaker 1: enngtioned earlier, the Hobo Sanctuary, the Pan Pacific Auditorium, all

773
00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:11,520
Speaker 1: the exterior shots of Zanna do, what beautiful, beautiful building,

774
00:45:11,760 --> 00:45:15,680
Speaker 1: Um but incredible. Notably, only exterior shots of that are

775
00:45:15,800 --> 00:45:18,720
Speaker 1: are used. In fact, Um Sonny says at one point

776
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:21,719
Speaker 1: what a dump and he also says they used to

777
00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:25,080
Speaker 1: hold wrestling matches here, and they did. Uh. The Pan

778
00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:29,120
Speaker 1: Pacific Auditorium was built by promoters named Philip and Cliff Henderson,

779
00:45:30,239 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 1: the latter of whom's wikipedia page delightfully notes that he

780
00:45:33,600 --> 00:45:38,840
Speaker 1: was a member of the quiet birdman, a male only

781
00:45:39,040 --> 00:45:45,080
Speaker 1: aviators social club. Draw your own conclusions, folks. The building

782
00:45:45,120 --> 00:45:49,759
Speaker 1: was designed by Los Angeles Architects Wordman and Beckett, who

783
00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:54,000
Speaker 1: I was unable to find anything else from. Um, I

784
00:45:54,040 --> 00:45:57,759
Speaker 1: don't know, but it was historically important. It was an

785
00:45:57,800 --> 00:46:03,960
Speaker 1: early example of the streamline darn style, which was architectural nerds,

786
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:06,680
Speaker 1: I think, getting their first shout out. No, we did

787
00:46:06,719 --> 00:46:08,800
Speaker 1: the whole deep dive on the we did the building

788
00:46:08,840 --> 00:46:10,799
Speaker 1: in Roral Tenem bombs, I was gonna say the first

789
00:46:10,880 --> 00:46:14,360
Speaker 1: architecture moment in t m I. Anyway, the streamline mdern

790
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:18,919
Speaker 1: style was in the thirties. America was trying to get

791
00:46:18,920 --> 00:46:22,960
Speaker 1: back at Europe, as we always are for art deco,

792
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:26,480
Speaker 1: so this was our rejoinder to art deco. Yeah, Disney

793
00:46:26,480 --> 00:46:30,280
Speaker 1: heads will know the Pan Pacific Auditorium as the entrance

794
00:46:30,320 --> 00:46:33,000
Speaker 1: to the MGM Theme Park. Disney modeled like the whole

795
00:46:33,160 --> 00:46:37,480
Speaker 1: ticket turnstyle area after this. It's very distinctive looking building. Yeah,

796
00:46:37,640 --> 00:46:40,960
Speaker 1: and the auditorium was open. It was L A's main

797
00:46:41,080 --> 00:46:44,160
Speaker 1: indoor venue for decades. A lot of names passed through there.

798
00:46:44,200 --> 00:46:49,200
Speaker 1: The Ice Capades, the Harlem Globe Trotters, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon,

799
00:46:49,719 --> 00:46:54,040
Speaker 1: Elvis Pressley. Sadly, The Los Angeles Convention Center opened in

800
00:46:55,200 --> 00:46:59,320
Speaker 1: one which was the death knell of the Pan Pacific Auditorium.

801
00:46:59,320 --> 00:47:04,319
Speaker 1: It closed in two UH, and quit. They just did

802
00:47:04,520 --> 00:47:08,000
Speaker 1: nothing with it. They literally just left it open and

803
00:47:08,160 --> 00:47:12,240
Speaker 1: people were squatting in there and, you know, lighting fires.

804
00:47:12,280 --> 00:47:16,640
Speaker 1: And Anyway, there's an l a district supervisor who wanted

805
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:19,800
Speaker 1: to have the city by the property from the current

806
00:47:19,840 --> 00:47:22,400
Speaker 1: owner and turned it into a park and l a

807
00:47:22,560 --> 00:47:27,279
Speaker 1: was like no, so they just shoddily padlocked it and

808
00:47:27,640 --> 00:47:31,440
Speaker 1: the unhoused population of l a moved in and uh,

809
00:47:31,480 --> 00:47:36,720
Speaker 1: it just kept catching on fire. Basically nature took its course. Um,

810
00:47:36,760 --> 00:47:39,560
Speaker 1: there were some fourth of July fireworks that went awry

811
00:47:39,680 --> 00:47:41,640
Speaker 1: and damaged part of the building and then a series

812
00:47:41,680 --> 00:47:44,399
Speaker 1: of smaller fires charred a lot of it and then

813
00:47:44,480 --> 00:47:47,840
Speaker 1: finally in nine, almost a decade after it appeared in

814
00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:51,319
Speaker 1: Santa Do, a fire allegedly set by a man living

815
00:47:51,360 --> 00:47:54,359
Speaker 1: in the building, burned out of control and engulfed the

816
00:47:54,600 --> 00:47:58,040
Speaker 1: entire thing. The wooden structure went up in what the

817
00:47:58,080 --> 00:48:01,520
Speaker 1: papers dubbed a spectacular fire that could be seen all

818
00:48:01,560 --> 00:48:05,080
Speaker 1: throughout the L A basin. Uh. The man was arrested

819
00:48:05,120 --> 00:48:09,000
Speaker 1: but released for lack of evidence, and thus ends the

820
00:48:09,160 --> 00:48:14,759
Speaker 1: sad story of the Pan Pacific Auditorium. Perhaps because of

821
00:48:14,960 --> 00:48:17,440
Speaker 1: all of what we just mentioned, city officials would not

822
00:48:17,520 --> 00:48:21,360
Speaker 1: grant the filmmaker's permission to shoot inside. Like do not

823
00:48:21,560 --> 00:48:25,480
Speaker 1: go in there, uh, and instead a costly set with

824
00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:29,800
Speaker 1: mirrored walls, rising floors and waterfalls was built on stage

825
00:48:29,840 --> 00:48:34,560
Speaker 1: four at Hollywood general studios to replicate the Interior. According

826
00:48:34,600 --> 00:48:40,120
Speaker 1: to a November article in international photographer, that was a

827
00:48:40,280 --> 00:48:44,360
Speaker 1: two story, hundred and sixty three by ninety foot set.

828
00:48:44,520 --> 00:48:47,040
Speaker 1: At the time it was the largest ever designed by

829
00:48:47,040 --> 00:48:49,279
Speaker 1: a guy named John Corso, who did the sets where

830
00:48:49,280 --> 00:48:54,279
Speaker 1: coal miner's daughter Storry, my beloved leave on helm. They

831
00:48:54,320 --> 00:48:58,800
Speaker 1: started making that in September nine, continued for three months,

832
00:48:59,520 --> 00:49:04,720
Speaker 1: costum million dollars, and that finale that you mentioned earlier

833
00:49:05,200 --> 00:49:08,640
Speaker 1: took two weeks to film featured two hundred and thirty

834
00:49:08,719 --> 00:49:14,680
Speaker 1: seven performers, including the aforementioned tightrope walkers, jugglers, roller skaters

835
00:49:14,760 --> 00:49:21,800
Speaker 1: and dancers. Uh, moving right along. The extremely visual effects

836
00:49:21,880 --> 00:49:27,000
Speaker 1: for this film. Uh, we're handled by she got named

837
00:49:27,160 --> 00:49:30,480
Speaker 1: Richard Greenberg. But the bigger vfx story in the film

838
00:49:30,600 --> 00:49:35,000
Speaker 1: is Don Louth. As we mentioned earlier, the animated sequence

839
00:49:35,040 --> 00:49:38,000
Speaker 1: for don't walk away was added to the film at

840
00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:40,360
Speaker 1: the last minute because Jeff Lynn was being a big

841
00:49:40,400 --> 00:49:43,719
Speaker 1: wet asked baby and refused to allow any of his

842
00:49:43,800 --> 00:49:46,400
Speaker 1: songs to appear unless all of the songs that he

843
00:49:46,440 --> 00:49:49,640
Speaker 1: wrote for the film appear. So the simplest and quickest

844
00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:53,000
Speaker 1: solution was to insert an animated sequence. Does Not seem

845
00:49:53,120 --> 00:49:57,800
Speaker 1: like the quickest story. Well, you know what's really interesting

846
00:49:57,800 --> 00:49:59,239
Speaker 1: to me about this is this is right around the

847
00:49:59,239 --> 00:50:02,360
Speaker 1: time that photoscoping was just coming into food and you

848
00:50:02,400 --> 00:50:05,400
Speaker 1: can actually see one of the earliest examples of rotoscoping

849
00:50:05,520 --> 00:50:09,000
Speaker 1: is Um, of all things, that Tom wait's music video. Yeah,

850
00:50:09,000 --> 00:50:11,880
Speaker 1: if you looked this up, rotoscoping, for the for non dorks,

851
00:50:12,080 --> 00:50:15,320
Speaker 1: is when you Um, you actually paint or animate directly

852
00:50:15,400 --> 00:50:20,440
Speaker 1: over the film cells. As I repeat constantly and without prompting,

853
00:50:21,160 --> 00:50:24,279
Speaker 1: he was the technology utilized by Martin Scorsese in the

854
00:50:24,360 --> 00:50:27,880
Speaker 1: last waltz to paint out Neil Young's visible coke booger.

855
00:50:28,880 --> 00:50:32,480
Speaker 1: Uh that appears all throughout, helpless and an uncredited cameo,

856
00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:36,439
Speaker 1: the coke booger Um. Anyway. Yeah, I don't know why

857
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:41,239
Speaker 1: they didn't rotoscope it, but anyway, so bluth had. I

858
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:45,080
Speaker 1: love this. Don bluth retired from his first job at

859
00:50:45,120 --> 00:50:48,480
Speaker 1: Disney to work on a Church of Latter Day Saints

860
00:50:48,520 --> 00:50:54,520
Speaker 1: Mission in Argentina for two years. Anyway, he's at Disney icon.

861
00:50:54,600 --> 00:50:55,960
Speaker 1: He worked with the what do they call him? The

862
00:50:56,040 --> 00:50:58,640
Speaker 1: nine old men, the nine great old men or whatever,

863
00:50:58,840 --> 00:51:02,960
Speaker 1: like the big I've never heard that. I think they

864
00:51:02,960 --> 00:51:05,399
Speaker 1: call him the grand old man or something like that.

865
00:51:05,520 --> 00:51:08,200
Speaker 1: It's like the first crew of like Disney animators. He

866
00:51:08,239 --> 00:51:10,640
Speaker 1: worked on Robin Hood, we need, the Pooh and tiger,

867
00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:13,799
Speaker 1: to the rescuers, Pete, Dragon, Fox and the Hound. And

868
00:51:13,840 --> 00:51:17,800
Speaker 1: then he resigned from Disney in ninety nine, at forty two,

869
00:51:17,960 --> 00:51:23,240
Speaker 1: to start his own animation studio and, crucially, took ten

870
00:51:23,440 --> 00:51:26,200
Speaker 1: other Disney people with him, which did not endear him

871
00:51:26,239 --> 00:51:28,400
Speaker 1: to Disney. But he was hard up for work when

872
00:51:28,440 --> 00:51:30,480
Speaker 1: he's launching his new company, so he took on a

873
00:51:30,600 --> 00:51:33,840
Speaker 1: job working the ZANTI due production wind up being his

874
00:51:33,960 --> 00:51:38,000
Speaker 1: first mainstream work post Disney. DOUB BLUTH was given twelve

875
00:51:38,040 --> 00:51:41,040
Speaker 1: weeks to complete two minutes and seven seconds of full

876
00:51:41,080 --> 00:51:46,920
Speaker 1: animation totaling three thousand images. That is for non animation

877
00:51:46,960 --> 00:51:50,720
Speaker 1: dorks as not a lot of time. But Blues Animation

878
00:51:50,800 --> 00:51:54,120
Speaker 1: Studio was also two months into their first animated feature

879
00:51:54,160 --> 00:51:58,000
Speaker 1: in two is the secret of Nim so bluth did

880
00:51:58,239 --> 00:52:01,200
Speaker 1: much of the work himself. Is All of his employees

881
00:52:01,239 --> 00:52:05,200
Speaker 1: were busy working on their actual movie. And in a

882
00:52:05,239 --> 00:52:09,000
Speaker 1: two thousand eight documentary, Don Bluth recalled his conversation with someone,

883
00:52:09,800 --> 00:52:13,360
Speaker 1: we assume Joel Silver, some producer working for Zanna. Do

884
00:52:13,960 --> 00:52:15,799
Speaker 1: this is Dun blue saying I told him we were

885
00:52:15,840 --> 00:52:18,439
Speaker 1: really busy and I couldn't do it. He said, yeah,

886
00:52:18,480 --> 00:52:20,279
Speaker 1: you can, and I'll pay you this much money and

887
00:52:20,360 --> 00:52:24,600
Speaker 1: more money whatever. Just do it. Don Blue is, uh,

888
00:52:24,960 --> 00:52:28,800
Speaker 1: just a gem. All of his interviews are hilarious. Asked

889
00:52:28,800 --> 00:52:30,600
Speaker 1: about his work on the film at one point later

890
00:52:30,640 --> 00:52:33,560
Speaker 1: in the eighties, he told the interviewer no one could

891
00:52:33,560 --> 00:52:41,799
Speaker 1: possibly be interested in hearing anything about that film. That's amazing. Um, yeah, man,

892
00:52:41,960 --> 00:52:45,720
Speaker 1: I mean this is just spectacularly bad. Timing with this movie,

893
00:52:45,840 --> 00:52:51,160
Speaker 1: greenlit in the late Seventies. Production, as we mentioned, once

894
00:52:51,200 --> 00:52:53,799
Speaker 1: it got Olivia and Geane on and the whole thing

895
00:52:53,840 --> 00:52:57,480
Speaker 1: sort of snowball really straddled the time period during which

896
00:52:57,520 --> 00:53:01,680
Speaker 1: America turned on disco. It was released in August of

897
00:53:02,280 --> 00:53:08,560
Speaker 1: eighty and the infamous disco demolition night at Chicago's Comiskey Park, which, again,

898
00:53:08,640 --> 00:53:10,640
Speaker 1: for those of you who are not for those of

899
00:53:10,680 --> 00:53:13,919
Speaker 1: you who have had sex um, that is when they

900
00:53:14,040 --> 00:53:17,759
Speaker 1: trucked like a boatload of disco records onto the field

901
00:53:17,960 --> 00:53:20,480
Speaker 1: and ran them over with a steamroller. Didn't it like

902
00:53:20,520 --> 00:53:22,719
Speaker 1: turn into like a mini riot? People are just like

903
00:53:23,400 --> 00:53:28,959
Speaker 1: in the field, like smoke bombs and stuff. I think. Yeah.

904
00:53:29,080 --> 00:53:32,600
Speaker 1: So that was in July sevente so a year earlier. Meanwhile,

905
00:53:33,040 --> 00:53:35,799
Speaker 1: can't stop the music which started the village people and,

906
00:53:35,840 --> 00:53:37,440
Speaker 1: as you remember, was the film that a living in

907
00:53:37,680 --> 00:53:40,640
Speaker 1: John turned down in favor of Santa due, had come

908
00:53:40,640 --> 00:53:45,520
Speaker 1: out in June, two months earlier, and flopped. which all

909
00:53:45,520 --> 00:53:47,160
Speaker 1: of which means the writing was on the wall for

910
00:53:47,200 --> 00:53:49,760
Speaker 1: this movie even before it came out. And it's bizarre,

911
00:53:49,840 --> 00:53:53,879
Speaker 1: considering what happened with this movie, there's so much promotional

912
00:53:53,920 --> 00:53:59,080
Speaker 1: material around this the original press packets are like huge

913
00:53:59,640 --> 00:54:02,840
Speaker 1: laugh ish her Britz, who is like the sort of

914
00:54:03,040 --> 00:54:06,680
Speaker 1: arty porn photographer, and this documentary I just mentioned. So

915
00:54:06,840 --> 00:54:09,319
Speaker 1: there's all of this promotional material finning, there's this big

916
00:54:09,360 --> 00:54:12,760
Speaker 1: press push and the retail tie ins. They made clothes

917
00:54:12,800 --> 00:54:16,080
Speaker 1: tied to it. But Um, they dropped in August, which

918
00:54:16,120 --> 00:54:17,959
Speaker 1: was like a dumping ground at that point, and only

919
00:54:18,000 --> 00:54:23,719
Speaker 1: opened it in two hundred theaters, which is, you know, nothing. Um,

920
00:54:23,760 --> 00:54:28,360
Speaker 1: the other films that opened against were raised, the titanic, uh,

921
00:54:28,360 --> 00:54:32,200
Speaker 1: smokey and the bandit too, and Peter Seller's last movie,

922
00:54:32,560 --> 00:54:36,719
Speaker 1: the fiendish plot of Dr Fu Manchu. These are all

923
00:54:37,880 --> 00:54:41,600
Speaker 1: enormous box office bombs, and all deservedly so. They're all

924
00:54:41,719 --> 00:54:45,480
Speaker 1: terrible movies. Yeah, they also, I guess, canceled press screenings

925
00:54:45,520 --> 00:54:48,000
Speaker 1: for this. I guess after the first few the writing was,

926
00:54:48,120 --> 00:54:50,120
Speaker 1: as you said, it's kind of on the wall like, Oh,

927
00:54:50,200 --> 00:54:54,279
Speaker 1: this isn't Kinda go well, let's let's let's tamp it

928
00:54:54,320 --> 00:54:58,080
Speaker 1: down a little bit. Well, the reviews, Oh boy, just

929
00:54:58,200 --> 00:55:02,320
Speaker 1: the whole sidebar and reviews variety did not mince words,

930
00:55:02,440 --> 00:55:06,480
Speaker 1: calling it truly stupendously bad. Roger Ebert said it was

931
00:55:06,600 --> 00:55:10,920
Speaker 1: mushy and limp, and perhaps the most famous review was esquires,

932
00:55:10,960 --> 00:55:14,879
Speaker 1: which equipped, in a word, Zenna don't that's good, that's

933
00:55:14,920 --> 00:55:17,840
Speaker 1: medium funny. That's not bad funny. There was another that

934
00:55:17,920 --> 00:55:20,000
Speaker 1: said where else can you have a living Newton John

935
00:55:20,000 --> 00:55:23,000
Speaker 1: as a roller skating light bulb with rags around their ankles?

936
00:55:24,320 --> 00:55:27,920
Speaker 1: That's pretty good. One of the studio executives called the director,

937
00:55:28,000 --> 00:55:30,720
Speaker 1: Robert Greenwald, and said they love it in St Louis.

938
00:55:31,480 --> 00:55:34,280
Speaker 1: What he didn't say was that they hated it everywhere else.

939
00:55:34,960 --> 00:55:39,839
Speaker 1: It's playing well in Peoria. I guess the film made

940
00:55:39,880 --> 00:55:43,440
Speaker 1: its money bag. I mean, yeah, well, you know they

941
00:55:43,440 --> 00:55:46,880
Speaker 1: always lie about this, Greenwald said. He told E W

942
00:55:47,160 --> 00:55:49,960
Speaker 1: is made between nine and thirteen million. It's a budget

943
00:55:49,960 --> 00:55:53,280
Speaker 1: and gross twenty two million domestically, but they never include

944
00:55:53,320 --> 00:55:55,960
Speaker 1: marketing and that. So I assume it was closer to

945
00:55:56,000 --> 00:55:59,960
Speaker 1: twenty mile all told. But you know, still made its

946
00:56:00,000 --> 00:56:02,520
Speaker 1: money bag. At least didn't lose money. But now we

947
00:56:02,560 --> 00:56:05,200
Speaker 1: come to one of the more lasting legacies of the film,

948
00:56:05,600 --> 00:56:11,280
Speaker 1: the Golden Raspberry Awards, an awards show dedicated to bad movies,

949
00:56:11,400 --> 00:56:15,960
Speaker 1: colloquially known as the RAZZIES. Hollywood publicist by the name

950
00:56:16,080 --> 00:56:19,760
Speaker 1: John J B Wilson, whose job involved cutting trailers for movies,

951
00:56:20,239 --> 00:56:23,560
Speaker 1: saw a ninety nine these two movies, man, they just

952
00:56:23,640 --> 00:56:27,839
Speaker 1: keep coming up together. UH, saw a nine nine cent

953
00:56:28,000 --> 00:56:31,680
Speaker 1: double feature of the aforementioned village people musical biopic can't

954
00:56:31,680 --> 00:56:35,439
Speaker 1: stop the music, and Zanna do. And UH. That year

955
00:56:35,480 --> 00:56:38,719
Speaker 1: he turned his annual Academy Awards potluck dinner into an

956
00:56:38,719 --> 00:56:42,040
Speaker 1: informal ballot party for the worst films of the year.

957
00:56:42,400 --> 00:56:45,720
Speaker 1: He hated both those movies so much it was double feature.

958
00:56:45,960 --> 00:56:52,120
Speaker 1: He tried to get his money back and failed. Apex Petty,

959
00:56:52,719 --> 00:56:55,759
Speaker 1: can't stop the music one. Incidentally, Zanna do couldn't even

960
00:56:55,760 --> 00:57:01,360
Speaker 1: win at the RAZZIES and Brookshields. In the a gross

961
00:57:01,360 --> 00:57:05,960
Speaker 1: and weird teenager like nature smut movie the Blue Lagoon,

962
00:57:07,440 --> 00:57:10,560
Speaker 1: she beat Olivia and John for worst actress, directed by

963
00:57:10,640 --> 00:57:14,400
Speaker 1: the director of Greece, Randall Kleiser. I believe I have

964
00:57:14,520 --> 00:57:19,600
Speaker 1: a bitch. By the fourth annual Golden Raspberry Awards, CNN

965
00:57:19,840 --> 00:57:23,800
Speaker 1: and other major wire services were covering this and Wilson

966
00:57:23,880 --> 00:57:26,520
Speaker 1: had his, arguably his bigger stroke of genius than even

967
00:57:26,600 --> 00:57:30,480
Speaker 1: having the awards show period, because he scheduled them the

968
00:57:30,640 --> 00:57:34,560
Speaker 1: night before the Oscars, because he reasoned that you couldn't

969
00:57:34,560 --> 00:57:36,360
Speaker 1: get any coverage the night of the Oscars, but the

970
00:57:36,440 --> 00:57:40,840
Speaker 1: night before the Oscars all the journalists and personnel would

971
00:57:40,840 --> 00:57:44,080
Speaker 1: be in town and, in theory, have nothing better to do.

972
00:57:44,800 --> 00:57:47,600
Speaker 1: And they've become kind of a beloved industry joke. I

973
00:57:47,600 --> 00:57:51,840
Speaker 1: mean the big famous examples. Halle Berry accepting her Razzie

974
00:57:51,840 --> 00:57:56,640
Speaker 1: for catwoman with her Oscar for monsters ball in her

975
00:57:56,680 --> 00:58:00,480
Speaker 1: other hand. Um, a number of people have scepted their

976
00:58:00,560 --> 00:58:03,680
Speaker 1: razzies as a kind of like, sort of you. You You,

977
00:58:04,400 --> 00:58:07,360
Speaker 1: Um friend of the pod Alan Mankin won for one

978
00:58:07,360 --> 00:58:10,840
Speaker 1: of his songs from news ees and, uh, the same

979
00:58:10,880 --> 00:58:15,400
Speaker 1: weekend he won two Oscars for Aladdin and he then

980
00:58:15,720 --> 00:58:18,600
Speaker 1: made a show of formerly accepting his razzie like almost

981
00:58:18,640 --> 00:58:22,800
Speaker 1: thirty years later. News is what's wrong with newsies? This

982
00:58:22,880 --> 00:58:28,440
Speaker 1: is gonna soundstrack, Buddy. You know what people think of

983
00:58:28,520 --> 00:58:33,000
Speaker 1: newsi loves newsies. Are you talking about? People love Newsies,

984
00:58:34,280 --> 00:58:44,240
Speaker 1: not critically, people love it. Uh. Paul Verhoeven, I think,

985
00:58:44,400 --> 00:58:46,440
Speaker 1: was one of the first people to accept his for

986
00:58:46,560 --> 00:58:51,480
Speaker 1: worst picture and worst director for show girls classic. He

987
00:58:51,560 --> 00:58:57,560
Speaker 1: was given two standing ovations for his accept his speech,

988
00:58:58,080 --> 00:58:59,920
Speaker 1: in which he said he had been driven out of

989
00:59:00,040 --> 00:59:03,960
Speaker 1: the Netherlands for being, quote, sick and perverted and disgusting.

990
00:59:05,080 --> 00:59:08,920
Speaker 1: Ben Affleck was surprised with his during a two thousand

991
00:59:09,000 --> 00:59:11,600
Speaker 1: four appearance and Larry King Live, and he proceeded to

992
00:59:11,720 --> 00:59:14,280
Speaker 1: rip the thing apart with his bare hands, commenting on

993
00:59:14,320 --> 00:59:18,360
Speaker 1: how cheap it was by it. I didn't know he's

994
00:59:18,400 --> 00:59:21,920
Speaker 1: surprised by it. I spring that on him. Oh, Larry

995
00:59:22,160 --> 00:59:27,400
Speaker 1: Larry King, that is cold. Got Your Journalism, Baby. Um

996
00:59:27,560 --> 00:59:30,480
Speaker 1: The resis, I guess, somehow wound up with their hands

997
00:59:30,520 --> 00:59:36,120
Speaker 1: back on the shredded trophy and uh, auctioned in onto ebay.

998
00:59:37,040 --> 00:59:39,480
Speaker 1: They've made a big log line about how these statues

999
00:59:39,560 --> 00:59:42,160
Speaker 1: only cost them like four ninety five to put together,

1000
00:59:42,240 --> 00:59:45,640
Speaker 1: and the thing fetched nearly a grand at onto Ebay,

1001
00:59:45,800 --> 00:59:49,640
Speaker 1: and they put the proceeds towards renting las famed Ivar

1002
00:59:49,800 --> 00:59:54,920
Speaker 1: Theater for next year's Resi awards. I mean now, I

1003
00:59:54,920 --> 00:59:57,600
Speaker 1: I want a piece of that. Now. Let's see, let's

1004
00:59:57,600 --> 00:59:59,880
Speaker 1: see you read this next part. I'll Google, I'll see

1005
00:59:59,880 --> 01:00:04,560
Speaker 1: what Sonny Bay Zanta Dow was also honored, slash disgraced

1006
01:00:04,600 --> 01:00:09,120
Speaker 1: at the now defunct stinkers movie awards for quote, least

1007
01:00:09,120 --> 01:00:13,600
Speaker 1: special special effects. And Yeah, these sets are literally made

1008
01:00:13,600 --> 01:00:17,640
Speaker 1: out of cardboard in some cases. And, as one retrospective

1009
01:00:17,640 --> 01:00:20,200
Speaker 1: critic noted, this was the year that the empire strikes

1010
01:00:20,240 --> 01:00:22,360
Speaker 1: back was made, so it wasn't a case of like

1011
01:00:22,440 --> 01:00:27,880
Speaker 1: lacking technology. I mean Zanta do, looking back at the

1012
01:00:27,960 --> 01:00:32,160
Speaker 1: trail of bodies in its way, has really been held

1013
01:00:32,200 --> 01:00:35,560
Speaker 1: responsible for killing off live action musicals for the next

1014
01:00:35,600 --> 01:00:38,760
Speaker 1: two decades, really, until Malone Rouge in two thousand one.

1015
01:00:38,960 --> 01:00:42,680
Speaker 1: The film did essentially kill off both Michael Beck and

1016
01:00:43,160 --> 01:00:46,800
Speaker 1: Olivia Newton John's film careers. Hers limped along for longer

1017
01:00:46,800 --> 01:00:51,200
Speaker 1: than he did. It was really her three much bally

1018
01:00:51,280 --> 01:00:54,600
Speaker 1: hood reunion with John Travolta, a little flop of a

1019
01:00:54,640 --> 01:00:57,840
Speaker 1: picture called two of a kind. Do you know too?

1020
01:00:57,840 --> 01:01:02,320
Speaker 1: Of A kind Jordan's. But you do know is that

1021
01:01:02,400 --> 01:01:05,040
Speaker 1: the baby movie where they talk. Let's look, he's talking. Oh,

1022
01:01:05,080 --> 01:01:08,720
Speaker 1: that's luck, he's talking now. Hell is two of a kind,

1023
01:01:09,280 --> 01:01:15,040
Speaker 1: romantic fantasy, crime, comedy drama film. Jesus Christ, that's too

1024
01:01:15,080 --> 01:01:19,640
Speaker 1: many hyphens. Travolta plays a cash strapped inventor, while Newton

1025
01:01:19,680 --> 01:01:22,640
Speaker 1: John Plays the bank teller whom he attempts to rob.

1026
01:01:22,960 --> 01:01:26,120
Speaker 1: They must come to show compassion for one another in

1027
01:01:26,240 --> 01:01:31,360
Speaker 1: order to delay God's judgment upon the Earth. What Co

1028
01:01:31,560 --> 01:01:37,520
Speaker 1: starring Scatman crumblers as an angel God voiced by Gene Hackman,

1029
01:01:38,080 --> 01:01:43,080
Speaker 1: the devil voiced by Oliver Reed. What the is this movie? Wow,

1030
01:01:46,840 --> 01:01:49,600
Speaker 1: Janet Maslin of New York Times asked. Can It really

1031
01:01:49,680 --> 01:01:52,480
Speaker 1: been that difficult to find a passable screen vehicle for

1032
01:01:52,560 --> 01:01:56,160
Speaker 1: John Travolta in Olivia? Newton Shawn, any old romantic fluff

1033
01:01:56,200 --> 01:01:58,920
Speaker 1: should have sufficed, and yet something as horrible as two

1034
01:01:58,960 --> 01:02:01,240
Speaker 1: of a kind has been yeller made for its stars.

1035
01:02:01,520 --> 01:02:04,320
Speaker 1: The results were so disastrous that absolutely no one has

1036
01:02:04,360 --> 01:02:07,320
Speaker 1: shown off to good advantage, with the possible exception of

1037
01:02:07,360 --> 01:02:13,440
Speaker 1: the hairdressers involved. Ah Wow, I I kind of want

1038
01:02:13,440 --> 01:02:19,480
Speaker 1: to watch this. Um Olivia did not need the work, though,

1039
01:02:19,520 --> 01:02:24,480
Speaker 1: because physical came out and sort of washed the taste

1040
01:02:24,520 --> 01:02:28,080
Speaker 1: of Xanadu out of the public's mouth. Michael Beck apparently

1041
01:02:28,080 --> 01:02:31,480
Speaker 1: rebounded into voice over work, including audiobook narration. You can

1042
01:02:31,520 --> 01:02:35,360
Speaker 1: hear him as the Voice of Bill Clinton's autobiography. That's

1043
01:02:35,360 --> 01:02:45,480
Speaker 1: the thing you're you're interested in. Okay, yeah, alright, you, yeah.

1044
01:02:45,680 --> 01:02:48,400
Speaker 1: Is this the darkest this show has gotten? Oh No,

1045
01:02:49,240 --> 01:02:52,400
Speaker 1: but it's up there. The Vietnam Ghost thing. Yeah, that

1046
01:02:52,480 --> 01:02:55,000
Speaker 1: was high on the list. Alright, alright, this is maybe

1047
01:02:55,000 --> 01:02:59,560
Speaker 1: this isn't. This is just pressed the skip thirty seconds

1048
01:02:59,640 --> 01:03:02,600
Speaker 1: thing if you don't want to hear some really um

1049
01:03:02,720 --> 01:03:05,560
Speaker 1: a man named Michael Owen Perry was living in a

1050
01:03:05,600 --> 01:03:09,360
Speaker 1: trailer behind his parents house in Louisiana after escaping a

1051
01:03:09,400 --> 01:03:12,640
Speaker 1: mental institution in the early eighties and after watching Xanadu,

1052
01:03:12,760 --> 01:03:15,320
Speaker 1: he came to the conclusion that live in Newton John

1053
01:03:15,440 --> 01:03:20,160
Speaker 1: was actually a Greek goddess and communicating with him through

1054
01:03:20,200 --> 01:03:23,160
Speaker 1: her eyes on camera. That like she was sending a

1055
01:03:23,280 --> 01:03:27,120
Speaker 1: messages through just eye movements. That's that freaks me out.

1056
01:03:27,720 --> 01:03:31,720
Speaker 1: She doesnt have beautiful eyes. Yes, he wrote her multiple letters,

1057
01:03:31,960 --> 01:03:34,560
Speaker 1: one of which read, in part I heard voices, and

1058
01:03:34,600 --> 01:03:36,880
Speaker 1: the voices said to me that you were a muse

1059
01:03:37,000 --> 01:03:41,520
Speaker 1: and trapped under Lake Arthur. Two, he sent her a

1060
01:03:41,520 --> 01:03:45,360
Speaker 1: package that included multiple photographs of her, press photographs he

1061
01:03:45,400 --> 01:03:48,760
Speaker 1: wasn't actually physically near her, one of which had the

1062
01:03:48,880 --> 01:03:51,880
Speaker 1: eyes scratched out for some reason. That freaks me out

1063
01:03:51,920 --> 01:03:55,800
Speaker 1: the most. I really don't mean that. I maybe Google this,

1064
01:03:55,880 --> 01:04:00,360
Speaker 1: but I think that is a pretty common like parinoid

1065
01:04:00,400 --> 01:04:05,919
Speaker 1: schizophrenic behavior, delusion like focusing it on the eyes. Um,

1066
01:04:06,040 --> 01:04:10,560
Speaker 1: go ahead, take take it away Jordan's. In July three,

1067
01:04:10,760 --> 01:04:14,280
Speaker 1: Perry went on a shooting spree, killing two of his cousins,

1068
01:04:14,320 --> 01:04:16,880
Speaker 1: a two year old nephew and his parents, before heading

1069
01:04:16,880 --> 01:04:20,760
Speaker 1: to Washington d C. Living Newton John's name was included

1070
01:04:20,800 --> 01:04:23,800
Speaker 1: on a list found at his parents House that also

1071
01:04:23,840 --> 01:04:28,600
Speaker 1: included Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. For some reason. Uh,

1072
01:04:28,600 --> 01:04:31,880
Speaker 1: this man, Perry, was arrested in Washington D C, where

1073
01:04:31,920 --> 01:04:37,000
Speaker 1: they believe he traveled in order to assassinate Sandra Day O'Connor.

1074
01:04:37,040 --> 01:04:40,640
Speaker 1: I assume the whole thing scared of Living Newton John

1075
01:04:40,720 --> 01:04:44,800
Speaker 1: Enough that she left the country. Yeah, uh, this is

1076
01:04:44,960 --> 01:04:46,880
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't like dwelling on this, but it

1077
01:04:47,000 --> 01:04:50,480
Speaker 1: is fascinating. His case actually became a legal precedent in

1078
01:04:50,520 --> 01:04:53,640
Speaker 1: prisoners rights. He was convicted and sentenced to death, but

1079
01:04:53,720 --> 01:04:57,240
Speaker 1: the trial court found that his competence to be executed

1080
01:04:57,280 --> 01:05:01,000
Speaker 1: depended on his being medicated, essentially being forced to take

1081
01:05:01,120 --> 01:05:06,840
Speaker 1: his medication, which I think was how doll really strong antipsychotics,

1082
01:05:07,280 --> 01:05:09,280
Speaker 1: and that he had to be medicated in order to

1083
01:05:09,360 --> 01:05:12,560
Speaker 1: be mentally competent enough to be executed. And this was

1084
01:05:12,640 --> 01:05:15,520
Speaker 1: overturned and is now like a widely cited case. That

1085
01:05:15,640 --> 01:05:21,680
Speaker 1: because mental health medication is not, like, I guess, not

1086
01:05:21,880 --> 01:05:24,560
Speaker 1: covered under the some of the definitions of the hippocratic

1087
01:05:24,600 --> 01:05:28,200
Speaker 1: oath in terms of prisoner rights. You can't force someone

1088
01:05:28,240 --> 01:05:32,520
Speaker 1: to take medication to make them be mentally competent enough

1089
01:05:32,600 --> 01:05:35,200
Speaker 1: to be executed. And then again this guy's name comes

1090
01:05:35,280 --> 01:05:40,200
Speaker 1: up in because apparently in Angola prison, which is like

1091
01:05:40,320 --> 01:05:43,760
Speaker 1: one of the famously worst prisons in the country, he

1092
01:05:43,880 --> 01:05:46,640
Speaker 1: sued the state of Louisiana with a few other prisoners,

1093
01:05:46,640 --> 01:05:50,000
Speaker 1: alleging that they had been in long term solitary confinement,

1094
01:05:50,080 --> 01:05:56,600
Speaker 1: in his case for over twenty years. Ah, that's a

1095
01:05:56,680 --> 01:05:59,680
Speaker 1: long damn time to be in whatever. Man, let's not

1096
01:05:59,680 --> 01:06:02,800
Speaker 1: get an of the politics. It's just wild that Zanna

1097
01:06:02,880 --> 01:06:08,280
Speaker 1: do has took us here multiple yeah, exactly, the road

1098
01:06:08,360 --> 01:06:12,160
Speaker 1: to hell is paved with Santa Do. In Happier News, uh,

1099
01:06:12,280 --> 01:06:14,080
Speaker 1: Zanta Dou has gone on to become a cult hit,

1100
01:06:14,120 --> 01:06:18,080
Speaker 1: particularly within the gay community. Um Douglas Carter Bean, who

1101
01:06:18,400 --> 01:06:21,440
Speaker 1: wrote the Broadway musical based on the film, told E

1102
01:06:21,720 --> 01:06:23,640
Speaker 1: W in a quote I will take to my grave.

1103
01:06:24,240 --> 01:06:27,720
Speaker 1: Gay Men, Never Missing Joel Silver Film. He's the Judy

1104
01:06:27,760 --> 01:06:34,040
Speaker 1: Garland of our generation. U Um. The film's relatively diverse casting,

1105
01:06:34,240 --> 01:06:37,840
Speaker 1: albeit in the background and in non speaking roles, was

1106
01:06:37,880 --> 01:06:40,440
Speaker 1: embraced by young fans who saw themselves in it, and

1107
01:06:40,440 --> 01:06:44,840
Speaker 1: that's a legion of fans Zanna dudes, Zannah dames and

1108
01:06:45,120 --> 01:06:49,840
Speaker 1: Muse heads were born. Uh. There's rocky horror and like

1109
01:06:50,040 --> 01:06:53,480
Speaker 1: sing along of screenings. That happened to this. There was

1110
01:06:53,520 --> 01:06:56,640
Speaker 1: a stage parody of this film called Zanna do live

1111
01:06:56,840 --> 01:06:59,920
Speaker 1: that ran in Los Angeles in two thousand one. Uh.

1112
01:07:00,000 --> 01:07:02,920
Speaker 1: The director of that was a woman named Annie Dorson,

1113
01:07:03,080 --> 01:07:06,720
Speaker 1: who called this the film The queerest movie that's not

1114
01:07:06,800 --> 01:07:10,640
Speaker 1: actually about being gay. And then an assistant at paramount

1115
01:07:10,680 --> 01:07:14,000
Speaker 1: by the name of Robert Aaron's saw that production and

1116
01:07:14,080 --> 01:07:18,000
Speaker 1: was sufficiently moved to quit his job and set off

1117
01:07:18,000 --> 01:07:21,240
Speaker 1: on what would become a five year quest to adapt

1118
01:07:21,360 --> 01:07:24,880
Speaker 1: Zanna do as a musical. This was not easy. Locking

1119
01:07:24,920 --> 01:07:27,240
Speaker 1: down the rights alone took several years because there were

1120
01:07:27,280 --> 01:07:30,640
Speaker 1: multiple people who owned the film, as was getting the

1121
01:07:30,680 --> 01:07:34,320
Speaker 1: thing funded and cast. He told entertainment weekly as soon

1122
01:07:34,320 --> 01:07:36,720
Speaker 1: as you say Zanna do, they either get it right

1123
01:07:36,720 --> 01:07:39,040
Speaker 1: away or they looked down on you and then they

1124
01:07:39,080 --> 01:07:44,200
Speaker 1: call the police. Being wrote one of my favorite cult

1125
01:07:44,240 --> 01:07:48,479
Speaker 1: movies too. Wong Foo. Thanks for everything, Comma Julie Newmar AH.

1126
01:07:48,520 --> 01:07:53,560
Speaker 1: He passed quickly, many times, in his words, before this

1127
01:07:53,640 --> 01:07:57,440
Speaker 1: Guy Arn promised him complete creative control. He kept the

1128
01:07:57,440 --> 01:08:00,520
Speaker 1: big musical numbers and the basic plot, but jettison almost

1129
01:08:00,520 --> 01:08:03,160
Speaker 1: everything else, saying it has a great score but the

1130
01:08:03,240 --> 01:08:07,560
Speaker 1: dialogue is bad and the plotting is abandoned. The first

1131
01:08:07,600 --> 01:08:09,680
Speaker 1: time I saw it I thought that they had misplaced

1132
01:08:09,720 --> 01:08:14,400
Speaker 1: a real my version has quaint little additions, like character development.

1133
01:08:15,920 --> 01:08:19,280
Speaker 1: So caddy, there are actually just five lines from the

1134
01:08:19,280 --> 01:08:22,400
Speaker 1: movie that are in the play. The production opened in

1135
01:08:22,479 --> 01:08:25,120
Speaker 1: July two seven. It ran for a little over a year,

1136
01:08:25,400 --> 01:08:28,479
Speaker 1: five or thirteen performances, including a guest run with Whoopie

1137
01:08:28,520 --> 01:08:32,559
Speaker 1: Goldberg as a muse. It was nominated for four tonys,

1138
01:08:32,680 --> 01:08:34,960
Speaker 1: but it wouldn't be a Zanta do adaptation if it

1139
01:08:35,000 --> 01:08:40,599
Speaker 1: didn't lose all four, which it which it did. That's

1140
01:08:40,600 --> 01:08:44,400
Speaker 1: thirteen pages on Zanta tube. There's a great quote from

1141
01:08:44,400 --> 01:08:47,320
Speaker 1: this L A times article. Two thousand to this guy,

1142
01:08:47,400 --> 01:08:51,720
Speaker 1: Ken Anderson, who was so inspired by a Zantity to

1143
01:08:51,800 --> 01:08:55,880
Speaker 1: quit film school and become a dance and fitness instructor

1144
01:08:55,960 --> 01:08:59,599
Speaker 1: in Santa Monica, he told the paper. I remember there

1145
01:08:59,640 --> 01:09:01,479
Speaker 1: was this feeling that the eighties were going to be

1146
01:09:01,600 --> 01:09:04,840
Speaker 1: very different from the seventies. Zanna Dou had the feeling

1147
01:09:04,880 --> 01:09:06,879
Speaker 1: that they were going to be all these different races

1148
01:09:06,880 --> 01:09:10,280
Speaker 1: and generations and music's mixing together and that it was

1149
01:09:10,320 --> 01:09:13,879
Speaker 1: going to be something different. And now it seems very naive,

1150
01:09:14,240 --> 01:09:17,240
Speaker 1: but there really was something euphoric about it. I love

1151
01:09:17,280 --> 01:09:20,000
Speaker 1: this guy. He, in a documentary about Zanna Dowee, talks

1152
01:09:20,000 --> 01:09:22,519
Speaker 1: about how this film changed the course of his life

1153
01:09:22,920 --> 01:09:25,120
Speaker 1: and he waxed his poetic about it in this really

1154
01:09:25,120 --> 01:09:27,880
Speaker 1: beautiful way. And then he adds, I wish it was

1155
01:09:27,920 --> 01:09:33,040
Speaker 1: a more profound film that did that for me. Hey, buddy,

1156
01:09:33,439 --> 01:09:35,760
Speaker 1: I get it. Big Trouble, little China is one of

1157
01:09:35,800 --> 01:09:39,519
Speaker 1: my favorites. Like, come on, I don't know what this

1158
01:09:39,600 --> 01:09:42,599
Speaker 1: means on a spiritual level, but Living Newton John passed

1159
01:09:42,600 --> 01:09:45,920
Speaker 1: away on the forty two anniversary of Zannadu's release, on

1160
01:09:46,160 --> 01:09:53,040
Speaker 1: August eight. Um, Jamie can get anumerologist in here. She's

1161
01:09:53,120 --> 01:10:04,719
Speaker 1: roller dancing with Gene Kelly. Now, yeah, well said, well folks, yeah,

1162
01:10:06,400 --> 01:10:10,360
Speaker 1: but I actually was touched by that. You got me

1163
01:10:10,439 --> 01:10:13,040
Speaker 1: to you got me to break. Uh, this has been

1164
01:10:13,080 --> 01:10:16,559
Speaker 1: too much information. Ah, I'm Alex Hegel and I'm Jordan runtug.

1165
01:10:16,640 --> 01:10:23,640
Speaker 1: We'll catch you next time on Olivia, Newton John. Week

1166
01:10:24,160 --> 01:10:26,679
Speaker 1: too much information. Was a production of I heart radio.

1167
01:10:26,920 --> 01:10:30,160
Speaker 1: The show's executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan run talk.

1168
01:10:30,320 --> 01:10:33,560
Speaker 1: The supervising producer is Mike John's. The show was researched,

1169
01:10:33,680 --> 01:10:36,760
Speaker 1: written and hosted by Jordan Runtalg and Alex Hegel, with

1170
01:10:36,840 --> 01:10:39,799
Speaker 1: original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost funk orchestra.

1171
01:10:40,320 --> 01:10:42,320
Speaker 1: If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave

1172
01:10:42,400 --> 01:10:44,920
Speaker 1: us a review. For more podcasts and I heart radio,

1173
01:10:45,040 --> 01:10:48,040
Speaker 1: visit the I heart radio APP apple podcast or wherever

1174
01:10:48,120 --> 01:10:49,400
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.