Zoolander: Everything You Didn't Know

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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show that brings you the secret histories and little known facts behind your favorite movies, music, TV shows, and more. We are your male models of Bnusia, your co hosts of Cool Story Hansles, your superintendence of So Hot Right now, you're Billie's Ays of BS Trivia.

00:00:27
Speaker 1: We're cool dudes. We're trying to help you out. My name is Jordan Runtug. What else could you have fit in there? As way of reference? I got Yeah, that's all I got. Oh, and I'm Alex Heigler. Oh Merman. Oh that's good, that's good. Yeah, okay, all right, all right, sorry, take that whole thing again, the whole thing.

00:00:53
Speaker 2: Well, folks, Today we are talking about one of the most beloved comedies of the early aughts. A film a ton of generation important facial expressions like blue steel and magnum, A film that dared to.

00:01:03
Speaker 1: Ask the question why male models.

00:01:06
Speaker 2: A film that showed us that sometimes all you need to sort through important issues is say with me, Heigel orange Mochao. You didn't say it, you mouthed it, which doesn't work on audio.

00:01:22
Speaker 1: Well, folks.

00:01:22
Speaker 2: Of course, we are talking about Zoolander, a film that follows the ups and downs of two ridiculously handsome men just like us.

00:01:29
Speaker 1: I can't lie.

00:01:32
Speaker 2: This is one of the movies that I just sort of absorbed through osmosis as a kid, and you know, I watched bits and pieces of it at parties or sleepovers, and I heard lines from it repeated ad nauseum in school, and you know, I think I just sort of lumped it in with all those other kind of similar comedies from that era that were just sort of silly. But somehow a disproportionate number of people in my life never grew out of quoting this movie. And I'm talking about like some serious snobs I know, and clearly so many people have a real spot for this movie, which makes me really happy, and that made me decide to revisit it recently, and you know, I was won over by its charms.

00:02:06
Speaker 1: Some twenty plus years later.

00:02:09
Speaker 2: Now, we've had this topic requested on many occasions, but I'm setting this one out to a very very dear friend. I don't want to embarrass him, so I will just call whom sir duke.

00:02:18
Speaker 1: He knows who he is.

00:02:19
Speaker 2: He and his beautiful, talented and kind wife just became parents, and so I hope this keeps some company during the insane hours I'm sure they're keeping.

00:02:28
Speaker 1: And also I'm a jerk.

00:02:29
Speaker 2: I haven't gotten a baby present yet, so I'll do better than this episode soon. Not only see a new father, he's also a musician, so his hours are extra crazy in addition to raising a newborn. And while I'm on the subject, folks, if you're in the New England area and are in need of a band for your wedding or event, please look no further than Legends of Summer. I can say from personal experience they are the best around. Google them, check them out. They are amazing. Not that they need the plug. I'm sure they've booked well into next year, but anyway, this one's for Duke. Back to Zoolander, Heigel, what do you think of this movie?

00:03:01
Speaker 1: It's great. You know, I'm not really sure where Stiller stands in kind of like the modern comedy can because he's made some like anues, but also some bad ones. Yeah, and I think Zoolander two kind of erased a lot of the goodwill for this movie. But I have a lot of respect for him as like a director, and we were talking about this before we started taping, but I you know, Tropic Thunder came out when we were in college, and it was also the last ero when I was buying physical media and had a lot of free time. So what we watched all of the bonus like deleting content and blooper reels for that movie in like at one sitting, and I was just blown away by the discipline that he has in like riffing and doing these again and take after take of riffing, and then you know, as and as a director. So I really I like him a lot. And I don't know if he's like the kind of I don't know, people called bro comedy, like the kind of like more wedding crashers, old school Anchorman's sensibility. I don't know if that kind of passed him by, but yeah, because that was what I always lumped this movie into. And then his sensibilities are very very he comes from. I mean, you know, his dad and mom are like old school like borsched belt, fifties TV stand up comics like that's I think his style of humor more than like haha, pooh splatter everywhere you.

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Speaker 2: Know, it reminds me a lot of another comedy aut Jerry Lewis. I mean, in that level of like the stuff that's on the screen is so ridiculous and absurd, but as soon as he gets like behind the camera, he is so deafly serious that it's very scary. I think you compared him in these special Features when we're talking earlier to Hannibal Lecter just face falling.

00:04:45
Speaker 1: It's in the scene where he's talking with he's doing Robert Downey, and Robert Downey is obviously the part of that film that his aged the least well is the blackface bit, but it's in the whole like I'm a dude disguised as a dude playing another dude like scene and there's like a half hour of them just griffing, take after take after take of just them face to face with each other, and it's just still are like they go through a take and Robert Downey Junior is like staying character and staying loose in between takes, and Ben Stiller's face just goes blank and he's like, yeah, that was good, all right, Let's do another. And it's just like that is a little scary, but boy, does he get results except for Zulander. Two.

00:05:27
Speaker 2: Well, I was watching the Conan O'Brien episode of Inside the Actors Studio, which is hilarious that that exists, and he's talking about how comedians react differently to jokes than anybody else, you know, whereas a normal person would laugh, comedians are like, you know, puts fingers to chin.

00:05:46
Speaker 1: Hmm.

00:05:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's funny. That's that's the funniest thing I've ever heard. And it's like it's very it's scientific almost.

00:05:54
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:05:54
Speaker 2: And the one fact that I wasn't able to shoehorn in here, I'm glad you open up a great spot for it. Apparently the earth to you know, Earth to whoever bits that Zulander does with his with his roommates, I think it's his roommates. That was supposed to go on for like an interminable amount of time, like four or five minutes of screen time, like something insane, And an early cut of the movie had that because Ben Stiller just thought it was the funniest thing in the world to just push that as far as it could go. And there's that great comedy rule where it's like something's funny and then you do it. Again and again again something funny and then you keep doing it and it gets funny again, and yeah, they didn't really work with that, so with the test audiences they cut that.

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Speaker 1: M Yeah, so that was that fact.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, the whole notion of comedy being this scientific study is really interesting to me.

00:06:46
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, for you, I imagine well.

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Speaker 2: Well, from the VH one sketch that led to its creation, to the pop punk nineties band that nearly provided the soundtrack to The Gasoline Fight, to the legendary American author who sued the production for plagiarism, to the controversial actor who nearly played the villainous Mugatu. Here is everything you didn't know about Zoolander.

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Speaker 1: Wow, what you said. It's really one of the old time ridiculous character names. It is. I never stopped laughing speaking of Anchorman, I just I keel over. Every time Vince Vaughn's character is introduced in Will farra Go's Hello wes Man t What something about funny sounding names just activates the eleven year old in me.

00:07:37
Speaker 2: Well, we'll talk about where that name came from. The character of Derek Zulander predates the movie.

00:07:42
Speaker 1: By a good five years. He made his debut in a sketch for the nineteen ninety six VH.

00:07:46
Speaker 2: One Fashion Awards, and Ben Still wrote the character with his writing partner Drake Sather as a continuation of a Beverly Hills nine oh two one oh parody he'd done a few years earlier on the short lived Fox sketch series The Ben's Show, which is co created with Judd Apatow.

00:08:02
Speaker 1: I forgot he was involved with that.

00:08:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, heavyweights too ride, Oh, heavyweights rules.

00:08:08
Speaker 1: From away from that era. Yeah.

00:08:11
Speaker 2: So the bones of Zulander, the character is, in Ben Stiller's words, a Loop Perry type parody, which is funny.

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Speaker 1: I don't really see that. I guess. I don't know. I don't don't know that. Well, yeah, Perry's like kind of non acting handsomeness. Yeah, scowling, pouting. Yeah, okay, I guess.

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Speaker 2: But the name Zulander was borrowed from real life male models Johnny Xander, which is a great name, and Mark Vanderlou another great name. Uh see, you take the Z from Xander, the ooh and Ander from Vanderlou and you get Zuelander.

00:08:49
Speaker 1: I need a video there? Do you explain this for like another ten minutes? Of taping, like how those names were combined phonetically the goal.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, so Zoolander first appears while being interviewed for the nineteen ninety six VH one Fashion Awards, and the bit was so successful.

00:09:10
Speaker 1: It was just like a little sketch.

00:09:11
Speaker 2: But it was so successful that they brought him back the following year in nineteen ninety seven for another sketch in which he pitches the Derek Zulander Male Modeling School.

00:09:19
Speaker 1: Which did you've watch that? It's on YouTube.

00:09:21
Speaker 2: You can see both these sketches and it's really funny.

00:09:23
Speaker 1: No, I didn't actually watch this one. Yeah, it's really really funny.

00:09:26
Speaker 2: Material for both of these sketches were ultimately used in the final movie, but I think there's some stuff that didn't make the cut, so it's worth watching if you're a fan.

00:09:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are some great lines in that.

00:09:38
Speaker 2: The Aborigines have a saying that taking a picture steals your soul. Well, let me ask you a question, how many Aborigines do you see modeling?

00:09:45
Speaker 1: Not many? Did that make it in.

00:09:47
Speaker 2: The final movie? I forget, I don't know. I spent hours working on my walk. If I'm walking for ARMANI or hugo. I'm thinking I better not trip. I have a little bit of trouble with turns because I'm left hand and they haven't built a left handed runway. That's great, that's great. I've walked over a thousand runways in my career. If you put all the runways of walkdown end to end, it would be so long then I couldn't even walk down it without getting tired. I think the only thing that's good about it is that there are any turns. That's giving me nothing, giving me nothing bark like a seal.

00:10:26
Speaker 1: Now.

00:10:27
Speaker 2: In these early sketches, zoo Lander demonstrates the look that he calls the Ferrari, which is when he made his bread and butter on, he says, and he also demonstrates his iconic blue steel look, which he says he saves for softer catalog work, and it's so over the top and hilarious you'd be forgiven for assuming that it was a well owned bit of comedic business. In fact, the look is just part of Ben Steeler's daily mirror routine. He says that he had no idea that this look was funny until his girlfriend at the time later wife Christine Taylor, pointed it out to him. He later said it came from looking in the mirror when I was brushing my hair or whatever. My wife would say, why are you making that face? Why are you doing that? Have us blue Steele was born.

00:11:11
Speaker 1: Well.

00:11:12
Speaker 2: The idea to expand the VH one sketch into a feature length film came about following the world beating success of Mike Myers Austin Powers International Man of Mystery, and it's nineteen ninety nine sequel, The spuy Who Shagged Me. Ben Stiller explained the influence of the movie an interview with Esquire, saying that he Mike Myers was taking these very broad characters and making movies that were incredibly funny and somehow worked in the long form. See a lot of similarities speaking of like comedians who are so goofy on screen and then kind of like taciturn and scientific and calculating off screen. I can see a lot of similarities between Ben Stiller and Mike Myers.

00:11:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, one too.

00:11:49
Speaker 2: If you watch him in interviews, especially when he's talking about comedies, Steve Martin, he is like so drive had some friends who've interviewed him, and they've been real comedy fans thinking that he was going to be this witty not quite laugh a minute, but like, you know, kind of warm.

00:12:04
Speaker 1: Ye's like really stoic. It's so interesting to me.

00:12:09
Speaker 2: But anyway, Ben Stiller and his writing partner Drake Sather flush out this story about high ranking fashion people, the evil designer Jacobin Magatu Jacobim how do you say that? Jacobin Jacobiem Jacobiam Jacobim Mugatu played by Will Ferrell, and Derek Zulader's agent Mariy Baalstein played by Jerry Stiller, who will get to brainwashing Zuolander in an attempt to assassinate the Prime Minister of Malaysia to prevent the Prime Minister from passing progressive labor laws that would harm their businesses. It rights itself, but given the association with the VH one Fashion Award Shows, it should probably come as no surprise to know that VH one signed on to produce the movie, making it the first major theatrical film that they ever got behind. But Ben was kind of worried about how the fashion world and especially the male models he knew, would receive the movie. He said it was his home that it would be greeted with good humor. He told Hollywood dot Com, I have to say I think male models will understand the movie. The male models are incredibly good looking, incredibly nice young men who've had a really good sense of humor about this. Mark vanderlou and Jason Lewis, they know all about it, and I've met them and did some research that hung out with some of them. And Mark Vanderlou has a guest spot in the nineteen ninety seven Zulander Skits, so clearly he's into it. But apparently the film wasn't well received when it was released in the hot coature capital of France. Ben Stiller later said, I went to France to do some press for the movie, and all the French people were going, why is this an attack on the fashion industry? Why do you think the fashion industry is evil? But as we'll get to almost no one was fond of this movie when it was first released. So the basic plot of Zulander was in place, but Ben Stiller and his writing partner Drake Sather.

00:13:50
Speaker 1: I think that's how he says that they.

00:13:52
Speaker 2: Really struggled when coming up with Zulander's backstory, and they toyed with all sorts of ideas for his family history. Early versions of the script had in growing up in New Jersey with a twin brother who worked as a Bruce Springsteen impersonator. Medium funny, kind of seems like a wedding singer type bit. Another version had Zulander growing up in the shadow of Mount Rushmore This is great, which served as his inspiration to become a chiseled male model because all the presidents are chiseling the rocks. Great John relatively speaking, Yeah, it's great. That's really good. But ultimately they went with the story about Zuelander coming from a Pennsylvania coal mining town.

00:14:32
Speaker 1: You can do the cough, do the cough. I think I think I'm getting the black lunker pop walking as that as as his dad man was John Voy doing his best like he's doing a total Christopher Walking impression, very deer hunter. Yeah, it's great.

00:14:52
Speaker 2: Vince Vaughan also has a cameo as Derek Zulander's brother Luke and I love this. They were gonna give him lines, but then when he got on of the set, they all decided it'd be way funnier if they got this big star to just stand mute in the background for his cameo, so that's what they did, no lines, And for the exterior shot of the bar where zou Lander has a fight with his dad, Ben Stiller, I don't know why his directorial vision. I guess he really wanted to get his own chocolate labrador, Kalua to run out in front of the bar for the exterior shot, and Christine Taylor later said, I was a little worried because our dog is in no way, shape or form trained for the movies. But Ben and I stood off camera and called her back and forth, and she was so obedient. It was the most well behaved she's ever been, and we were so proud. I love how what a family affair this movie was. We'll talk more about that in a minute.

00:15:41
Speaker 1: Well, so now we've got to go down the casting roll call, starting with of course, Hansel Zulander's nemesis turned friend. That part was written with Owen Wilson specifically in mind, but at one point it looked like Wilson had been booked for another movie and was unavailable, so they held auditions and the only person Stiller even can was Jake Jillenhall. That's nuts. It's really funny. Because Jillen Hall would have been coming off like Donnie Darko or bubble Boy. I'm not quite sure that I forgot about bubble Boy. According to Stiller, Jillen Hall did a wide eyed version of Hansel that was really funny. So yeah, he's probably given him the Donnie Darko on Thousand Yards. Stare, Oh my god, you're right, Okay, I kind of see that. I guess a different movie though. Yeah. But ultimately Owen was able to make it work, which was crucial despite being busy filming behind enemy lines with Gene Hackman. He goes back to the well of co stars. I like that. You know they were Roll ten and bombs together. Stiller was in World TENE Bombs, so he missed the first half of filming, and so as a result, the climax where Zulander takes down Magatu with his new look was filmed in I can't believe I read that sentence out loud was filmed in two parts, with Ben Siller New York and with Owen in l A And there's a Wes Anderson easter egg in the movie for the scene when Derek and Hansel trying and infiltrate Mary's office. Hansel's jumpsuit has a Kumar name tag, which is a relax too. Yeah, Kumar Plana, the Wes Anderson regular who plays Pagoda in Royal ten and bombs who stabs Royal.

00:17:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm on Oa Wilson's IMDb. Now, I don't remember there ever being a period where he was like a in any way being positioned as a semi serious action star.

00:17:29
Speaker 1: Was was behind Ivy Lines the only one maybe, but he was in like a lot of big budget kind of mainstream stuff because he was in Anaconda, which is like a you know, horror kind of thriller action thing. Also with John Voyd. Actually, as a matter of fact, while we're drawing actions, John Boyd John Voyd doing the absolute most insane pan South American accent in in in Anaconda. We watched it last year. He has this line reading where he goes, did Jungle can Kill You? On a thousand with It's like he sounds like he's doing like Tony Montana by way of Don Corleone. And then he did what else did Owan Wilson do? Haunting? The Haunting. The Haunting was like another horror thriller thing, So there was a time when he was kind of getting slotted into like big budget kind of you know, thriller stuff, but he also was writing all of the Wes Anderson stuff. Man Owen Wilson rules. I like that for him. Ben Stiller said, Owen was the most important casting to me in the movie because I think he's one of the funniest people around, and the part was written for him. I don't think the movie could have been made if he couldn't do it. He's a friend of mine and we worked together a number of times. We love working together. I think he's such an important part of the movie because making a movie like this, where it's based on a short film a sketch originally, you figure out ways to make it work in a longer format and you have to introduce new elements. I think the best thing about his character is that he's real and goofy. The relationship with Derek and Hansel is really important and a real thing. He's just a uniquely funny guy. There's no other person like Owen, agreed. Owen improvised a great deal of his role, including the stuff about Sting being a major inspiration, which is so hilarious and so specific. About him being the type of guy who just wants to know what bark is made out of and so forth. But Stiller did get quite the array of stunt doubles to help Owen with some of the more should we say niche aspects of his role. He had a breakdancwer double, a scooter riding double, and a yo yo double. And this is great. That yo yo double a real a real g is as inasmuch as any professional yo yoist what he is it a yo yo player, a yo yo y yoi yoo colection on the on the second yo so yoyoist. Steve Brown was named a National yo Yo Master the same year that the movie was released. Make of that what you will, and sadly, to many women everywhere, the hair is a wig. Hansel's hair is not Owen's. The one thing he couldn't do they couldn't get him a double for was the walk off scene, which unfortunately had him petrified, which I find adorable. Owen said that shooting in front of large audiences makes him nervous, and he didn't feel comfortable even doing the very bare minimum amount of dancing that he's required for that scene, so he told the av club. To go out and have to do both those things standing in front of a lot of people was a little bit nerve racking. The walk off scene took four days to shoot and required the help of an outside choreographer, and it was the hardest to edit because of the sheer amount of ridiculous footage from Stiller and Wilson. And Ben Stiller didn't help himself by waiting until the last minute to edit this and eventually settled on the split screen technique, and apparently they he arrived on that after seeing an early trailer cut for the film and it was like, that's the convention that I would like to use for this. And of course now we come to the Bowie element. That walk off scene is of course immortal for being judged by David Bowie. It's probably didn't help Owen Wilson's nerves. Well yeah, yeah, I mean, how could you, uh, how could you do anything with it in front of David Bowie breathe. Ben Stiller had written Bowie into the script as that judge because he had the Bowie song fashion in mind when he was writing the scene, but he had no idea whether or not Bowie would even consent to being in the movie. But thankfully Bowie has a great sense of humor, And well, why didn't you read this part about his his bond with Ricky Gervais.

00:21:57
Speaker 2: Yes, I actually I stole this from a podcast I did on the Life of David Bowie, so people who have listened to that know this story. But yeah, David Bowie again, as you said, an incredible sense of humor, and he loved The Office like so many he was a big fan of Ricky Gervay's BBC original version of the Office, and you loved it so much that David Bowie sent Ricky his version of a fan email which read I watched, I laughed, what do I do now?

00:22:26
Speaker 1: dB?

00:22:28
Speaker 2: And Ricky Gervais was a David Bowie super fan. I mean, I just I love it when people grow up and become famous and they retain their fandom, and then they get to meet their fans and they turn into like teenagers all over again.

00:22:41
Speaker 1: I love that.

00:22:42
Speaker 2: So Ricky Gervays was thrilled that his hero, you know, acknowledged him and actually liked his art, which I just find so cute. And the really weird thing was, apparently, according to Ricky at least the day that he received this email from Bowie, he'd just gotten back from I guess he'd lost or scratched his CDCs of a Laddin, saying, so we just got home from buying a new one, which I find really weird and cute. So anyway, as the friendship solidified, Ricky eventually plucked up the courage to ask Bowie if.

00:23:12
Speaker 1: He wanted to be in his new series extras in two thousand and six two thousand and seven.

00:23:16
Speaker 2: So perverting his hero worship, he cast Bowie as himself, but an especially mean version of himself, and he meets Ricky's character who's this hapless d lister, and in Bowie's inspired to write a song on the spot about him, called Stupid Little Fat Man. And Ricky wrote the lyrics himself, and he sent them to Bowie and asked him to put his own tune to it. And the request was something retro, you know, like Life on Mars, and Bowie replied sarcastically, Oh yeah, sure, I'll just whip up a quick Life on Mars for you, huh. And Ricky of course appreciated the absurdity of the suggestion, and they both burst into laughter.

00:23:52
Speaker 1: But yeah. The scene is to me one of my favorite moments in Bowie's career, non music category. As they lead, you know, as he leads this pub through choruses of little fat Man, of the pug nosed face.

00:24:06
Speaker 2: Well, Ricky Gervai's character looks on mortified. It's so good. Check it out. It's extras sname of the show.

00:24:12
Speaker 1: But fatty little fat.

00:24:13
Speaker 3: Man, No one's bloody laughing the clown that no one laughs.

00:24:19
Speaker 1: They all just wish he died.

00:24:23
Speaker 3: He sold his soul for a short and fame catch phrasing Wigan. The jokes are name, He's got no style, he's got no grace. He's banana facile. He's a fat ways of space. Yeah yeah, everybody's singing that last line one two three, He's banana facade. He's a fat waist of space. See his pub no space pop okay se.

00:25:00
Speaker 1: Great piano playing. I was gonna say, yeah, it's like really anyway, So I love that.

00:25:04
Speaker 2: I love that and also David Bowie. He reprised the song on stage in May of two thousand and seven, when David introduced Ricky Gervais at Madison Square Garden for his American stand up debut, which technically is Bowie's last ever musical performance. Oh God, or a public performance, I should say, many fans conveniently forget this. They think that it was a year earlier at some other fashion event. Actually, I think it might have even been a VH one fashion event where he did he duetit with Alicia Keys on changes, I believe. But technically the last song that he ever sang in public was a stupid little Fat Man with the pug nose face for Ricky Gervais, which.

00:25:43
Speaker 1: Would you say is lovely? Would you say that? There's not a lot of people know that? Not a lot of people know that?

00:25:51
Speaker 2: Can you?

00:25:52
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know if I ever heard your Michael Kaine. It's just a bit from the Trip, that's the only that's just like the I still kick it over A goodyearse Sean Connery was. I was listening back to arm again the other day. I'm just very impressed with it. Oh, I love you know. The other one I love doing is Dragonheart, the Dragon movie. I am the lashed one. Ah. He rings some real pathos out of that movie, yea, because he's talking about yeah, but it's not good. I am the lash one um. Anyway, as Ben Stiller told Hollywood dot Com, David Bowie, literally, we just came up with the idea of who would be funny to judge this walk off Bowie with his song fashion personified that we put it in the script and sent it to him and he actually said, yes, that was one of those out of the blue things. Bowie himself had this to say about it. It was just too funny a script to walk past. An absolute hoot, which is a very Bowe sentiment. I'm working on a Bowie one, but it's actually all from It's actually all of that video I sent you of him doing with Brian, you know in the studio. Oh the cartoon. Yeah, that lives in my head forever. I rivetaally depressing piece of music, Brian. I don't like the concords. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Jermaine does a really good one. While live tweeting about the movie, Ben admitted that everyone on the set was in shock that Bowie was there to do this cameo, and he made such an impression that they went out of their way to dedicate some words to him. At the premiere of the Sadly Woefully misbegotten sequel, Zulander two in February of twenty sixteen, just a month after Bowie died.

00:27:35
Speaker 2: I think that's the last time we will mention Zoo Learner too in this episode.

00:27:41
Speaker 1: As you meditate on that, we'll be right back with more too much information after these messages. Well, let's get on to green er pastors here. David Ducovney, Yeah, speaking of Gene Hackman an Enemy of the State, as we so often do.

00:28:05
Speaker 2: The look of former hand model JP Pruitt played by David du Cooveney, was based on Jane's look in Enemy of the State. Apparently hence the bald cap again. Ohen Wilson loves paying tribute to his former co stars. I guess this is one of my favorite scenes in Zulander because it features the immortal but Why Male Models bit, where Zulander asks why male models are being approached to become assassins to tick out the Prime Minister of Malaysia and the first time he asked the question. David du Coveny's character be gives him a long involved answer, to which Soulander considers before responding, but why male Models?

00:28:45
Speaker 1: It's one of the great all time ad Moobs. Yeah, this exchange was apparently not in the script. Again, you can almost tell it's way too funny to be something that was ever written down it. Ben Stiller legitimately forgot his line, and so he just asked the question again, and David Ducoveney just riffed with them, and it was so funny that they kept it in. Stiller explained the entire story and I read at am, so I literally was listening with David Ducoveney said, and I honestly forgot. I hadn't followed what he was saying.

00:29:15
Speaker 2: I said it again, and I got my lines wrong, and David, it was a very funny guy improvised, are you serious?

00:29:20
Speaker 1: I just explained that, did you know that David Ducoveney.

00:29:25
Speaker 2: Went to a private school in Manhattan where he was a classmate of JFK juniors?

00:29:30
Speaker 1: I didn't. I wonder how long it's going to take for him to get into roped into QAnon.

00:29:34
Speaker 2: I was just thinking that, Yeah, do you remember the song? It might have just been a local Boston musician. I'm not sure, but I remember it was played a lot on like the independent radio stations near me growing up. A song called David du Coveney, Why don't You Love Me? It was like released at the height of X Files mania. No. Yeah, it was just this like woman's like like a fan song to David du Coveney, but it was actually like pretty catchy. I'm trying to remember who sang it breeze something, but yeah, it's a in the chorus is David the Coveny, Why don't you love Me? I'm gonna kill Scully. Oh, speaking of Jody Foster, what were we talking about that or was that before the Yeah, that was before the tape is rolling. Oh, and now we head over to Will Ferrell as Jackobam. Mugatu mcgatty's name was originally gonna be mcquicken, supposedly a reference to the late British designer Alexander McQueen, but that was later changed to Mugatu, which is apparently a reference to an albino ape like creature from the original Star Trek series, because Ben Stiller is a massive trekky and loves the sprinkle in Star Trek references in news movies whenever he can. It's also a rumored that Mugatu or Will Ferrell I should say ad libbed I'll be a Monkey's uncle at the end of the movie h as sort of a nod to the monster that gave him his name. Will Ferrell also add lib to the crazy pills line and the breakdance fighting.

00:30:59
Speaker 1: Line, another incredibly quoted bit. Yeah, I love how Will Ferrell screams.

00:31:06
Speaker 2: I love how it's like just in the realm of losing control vocally.

00:31:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, he really hasn't pitched perfectly. I watched the VMA's Thing with No the move MTV Movie Awards Matrix bit where he's the architect at the end. It's so cool.

00:31:27
Speaker 2: Yes, concordedly, Oh my god, I forgot about that. I probably haven't seen that since it was on.

00:31:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's good. Holds up. Yeah, you haven't answered my question. Yes, I did you see when you haven't answered, I'm trying. You just need to let me talk. Why am I here? Would you shut up? You won't let it?

00:31:49
Speaker 2: No, you won't let it.

00:31:51
Speaker 1: I'm the one who talks. Okay, now shut yours open? You haven't you want to see me get out of this chair. There, go open your yeah, or one more time, and I'm gonna architect a world of pain all over your candy ass here go concordingly, I apologize. I don't usually like to use my big voice. Will Fill.

00:32:15
Speaker 2: He plays this role so well it was shocked to learn that it wasn't originally written for him. The part of my Gutsu was actually written very specifically, according to Ben Stiller, for Andy Dick, who had to drop.

00:32:27
Speaker 1: Out for scheduling reasons. Is that what they call it? When he's like, Wow, never mind.

00:32:35
Speaker 2: I think he's making a pilot when he when he's never mind, yeah, no, no good, No good comes of Andy Dick references, but he does still have a cameo as Zulander's extremely unattractive massuse Olda, and Ben Stiller says on the commentary track that he's actually really unhappy with Olga's makeup in the movie because it's so thick that you can barely tell it's Andy Dick, and it ruins the joke.

00:32:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think I picked up on that.

00:33:01
Speaker 2: Actually, no, I didn't either, So I actually I forget why Andy Dick couldn't do the movie. I think he was doing a pilot or something. So the role went to Will Ferrell, making it one of his first major roles. It was two years before his roles in Old School in Elf, which were both in two thousand and three, and perhaps because of this, he was a little more willing to cave to some of the physical demands of this role. His absurd hair in Zoolander is real. Will Ferrell had his hair dyed platinum three times, which has to hurt, and it also forced him to wear a wig for half a season of SNL to cover it up. And they were also going to make him wear pants that had a big M cutout of the butt, but as costume designer David c. Robinson later told MTV, we never actually got around to that, however, and they also crammed him into corsets, which Will Ferrell later said really really hurt. And speaking of unfortunate fashion choices, we have to talk about Mugatu's deeply offensive derelicte collection, which, in the world of the film takes inspiration from the fashion of quote the very homeless, the vagrants, the crackhors that make this wonderful city so unique and uh, those.

00:34:12
Speaker 1: Are one of the throwaway lines that makes me laugh. You can dere leaked footballs. In the world of the movie.

00:34:23
Speaker 2: This runway scene takes place in a subway tunnel, but it was actually shot in a band in the power plant in Long Island City. And this just seems too insane to be real, But there apparently was something similar to dere leaked in real life.

00:34:40
Speaker 1: The British designer John Galliano used.

00:34:43
Speaker 2: Clothing worn by the unhoused as an inspiration for his fashion line in two thousand, described as a quote hobo chic. Look, yeah, Galliana's a piece of Does he do other things? I mean, I guess that's the only thing you need to do to be considered a not very.

00:35:01
Speaker 1: Well, but it's so funny that you would ask about that. In December twenty ten, he was taped drunk in Paris yelling I love Hitler. Oh my, people like you would be dead to a group of Jewish women, Your mothers, your forefathers would all be ghast. Well that's pretty unambiguous. Yeah, wow, yeahow. He was a fine six thousand euro in September of twenty eleven.

00:35:35
Speaker 2: S Okay, so so he sucks, I guess the scans.

00:35:40
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, let's talk about somebody who doesn't suck. Though.

00:35:43
Speaker 2: One of the models who is used in the deare Lick Day scene is actually a real life New York character known as Radio Man.

00:35:52
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of Radio Man? I have, actually, Yeah.

00:35:55
Speaker 2: His true name is Craig Castaldough and he's known as Radio Man due to the fact that he wears a radio around his neck pretty much at all times, and at one point he was homeless in New York City before becoming a semi famous cameo star. He's appeared in over one hundred movies and TV shows, and I guess his first cameo occurred when he was asked to move when a movie was shooting and he refused to, so he just was in the movie, and then he just started visiting movie sets kind of as a profession.

00:36:25
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty nine.

00:36:26
Speaker 2: It started with Terry Gilliams The Fisher King with Robin Williams, and I think Rob Williams often made it a point on all of his film shoots to hire the unhoused in the area where they were shooting.

00:36:37
Speaker 1: To kick some money their way.

00:36:40
Speaker 2: So I think that started with The Fisher King because I think Robin Williams character is I think he lives on the streets.

00:36:46
Speaker 1: I haven't seen that movie in a while. Movie's great, Yeah, I think that's actually how I found out about radio Man was reading about Fisher King.

00:36:52
Speaker 2: Fisher King, Yeah, and I guess radio Man was able to locate film sets in New York with the help of teamsters. Who are the guys that, actually, what do the hemeter have to do with film shoots in New York?

00:37:02
Speaker 1: I'm not sure they're like the they're the truck shoppers. Yeah, yeah, oh good.

00:37:08
Speaker 2: And also by finding no parking signs that indicate an upcoming shoot, and he would just show up and they'd stick him in the background.

00:37:15
Speaker 1: In the nineties, he was arrested.

00:37:17
Speaker 2: And had a six month evaluation at a psychiatric hospital, but he was released and continued to visit film sets and made a decent living doing so. As of two thousand and four, he was living in Brooklyn and earned money from not only his acting roles but selling autographs as well. He had parts in Thirty Rock, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The Departed, Shutter Island Romance, and Cigarettes Elf, Two Weeks Notice, Glitter Keeping, The Faith, Godzilla, Ransom, Big Daddy, Mister Deed's, The Secret Life of Alter Midty, The Other Woman, and the Born Trilogy. Good for It Yeah, and He said that Robin Williams was reportedly his favorite celebrity because he's everybody's favorite celebrity, and.

00:37:58
Speaker 1: That Martin Score says he is his favorite.

00:38:00
Speaker 2: Director to work with of all the directors he's worked with.

00:38:04
Speaker 1: He's got good standards. He's got yes, he does.

00:38:07
Speaker 2: And there's a documentary that came out about him a few years back which features a truly bonker's array of talent. Tom Hanks, Robie Williams, Meryl Street, George Clooney, Josh Brolin, Johnny Depp, Matt Damon, Ricky Gervais, James Gandolfini, Robert Downey Jr. Jude Law, Whoopi Goldberg, Helen Mirren, Tilla Swinton, Alfred Molina, Ron Howard, Schila Buff and Tina Fey are all.

00:38:28
Speaker 1: In it singing his praises.

00:38:30
Speaker 2: And Woopy Goldberg once took him to the Oscars as her date. So that is a happy ending there for radio Man. I love that right, Yeah, cool story. I need to watch that talk it seems cool.

00:38:41
Speaker 1: So that is good. I'm like John Gulliana all time segue, so that is good. Unlike John Gulliana.

00:38:53
Speaker 2: And speaking of bad people, we have to talk about Mugatu snide hench person Katinka played by Mila Joe's Jovica Mila, I can't.

00:39:04
Speaker 1: Say it, Jovovic Vila Djoviovic. Maybe it's a soft jay, is it? I don't know. She's Yugoslavian, she's Russian.

00:39:14
Speaker 2: I believe she's Russian because to prepare for her role, she studied her mother's Russian accent, and she also made a very interesting choice for her facial expressions. She later said, I was always very into her, her character looking like she had just smelled something bad.

00:39:30
Speaker 1: Oh, she was born in Kiev. You know. Her middle name is Bogdanova, bog Dun, bog Bogdan, Bogdan Bogdan't know. So those are the bad guys.

00:39:53
Speaker 2: Let's talk about perhaps the only good person in this movie, Matilda, a Time magazine reporter trying in vain to unravel this tangled plot against the Malaysian Prime Minister.

00:40:03
Speaker 1: What kind of kickback was Ben Sillar getting from Time? Because he makes in Secret Life of Walter Mitty. He's uh, he's working at the Time Photo Archives or Life for It's like filmed at the Time Life Building in Midtown. Interesting.

00:40:19
Speaker 2: Well, Walter Mitty that was written I think by James Thurber, who I think or maybe he was a New Yorker cartoonist actually is Thurber. Uh so maybe that was a tribute to like the original career of Thurber. But I forget where James. It was a New Yorker. Yeah, all the pen in ink stuff. Oh, I don't know.

00:40:41
Speaker 1: It's a big loose fan. I guess the big Academy loose fan.

00:40:48
Speaker 2: But yes, the character Matilda, she writes a scathing article about Zulander, but eventually warms up to him and they wind up together. And the character Matilda, of course is played appropriately enough. But act was Christine Taylor who was Slash is married to Ben Stiller, and they like splitting up and then they got back together during COVID. They like this cruse beck in with one another and then they worked it out.

00:41:09
Speaker 1: That's good. She's a very pretty she's a pretty lady.

00:41:13
Speaker 2: I always think of her as the woman from Hey Dude on Nickelodeon.

00:41:17
Speaker 1: I think of her as the mean girl in the Craft who they curse and her hair falls out.

00:41:22
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and and of course Marcia Marcia Brady, Yes, yes, there's no end to her rich acting history.

00:41:35
Speaker 1: But yeah. Christine Taylor and Ben Stiller.

00:41:37
Speaker 2: They met on the set of a TV show that never ended up happening called heat Vision, and got married in two thousand and Christine Taylor she said she likes to call Matilda the straight man in this movie. It's filled with so many over the top funny characters, and Matilda brings a sense of reality to the world. You need to have somebody who's a bit of an anchor, a voice of reason for the for the audience, and Christine Taylor she does a great job in this role. And she initially planned to skip the auditions because I guess You'd auditioned for the lead part in the Ben Stiller movie Meet the Parents the year before and didn't get the part.

00:42:13
Speaker 1: I think it went to Terry Polo.

00:42:14
Speaker 2: I think yeah, And so she decided it would make things maybe a little less awkward at home if she didn't try out for any more of her husband's movies. So he'd been looking at people like Sarah Jessica Parker and Kate Hudson for the role of Matilda, but for whatever reason, it didn't work out with either of them, and then he asked his wife in what I think to be kind of an ungallant way. Christine later said, I remember getting a call from Ben one day saying, so what do you think about playing Matilda Paramount?

00:42:41
Speaker 1: The studio maker who's making the.

00:42:42
Speaker 2: Movie loves you, and you did the Brady Bunch movie for Paramount and they would love you to do it. And still, like you said earlier, he gave this kind of oddly clinical or maybe he's just trying to be professional account of their professional relationship. To The Daily Bruin, he said, working with my wife was great.

00:42:59
Speaker 1: I love my life. That's good.

00:43:01
Speaker 2: It was really helpful for me, and I trust her sense of humor, and she's really smart. When you're acting and directing, you miss having a director, so I would go back to her a lot of times for feedback.

00:43:10
Speaker 1: That makes sense, thankfully.

00:43:12
Speaker 2: Christine said she had a really good time on the set with her husband, leading them to work together again on Dodgeball Tropic Thunder, and.

00:43:20
Speaker 1: I said, I was gonna mention this anymore Zoolander to.

00:43:24
Speaker 2: Speaking of Ben and Christine's relationship, justin Throw probably wouldn't have had a role in Zoolander without it. He was a friend of a couple and he attended their wedding in two thousand when he breaked danced, Broke danced, Tense.

00:43:36
Speaker 1: Of Breakdancing, Breakdan Broake danced, Broke Dance, Brokedance Dance Mountain Too Easy. Anyway, we're hitting with new highs of idiocy on this on this episode. But what do you want? I mean, we're not doing this.

00:44:01
Speaker 2: Justin throw with the Ben Steeler and Christine Taylor's wedding dance funny in a way that we can't bring ourselves to physically say.

00:44:09
Speaker 1: And I thought it was so funny that Ben asked him to appear.

00:44:11
Speaker 2: In Zuland there was the evil DJ you know who break dances in the movie Throw his appearance in this movie. It is apparently inspired by Gary Oldman's character and true romance.

00:44:21
Speaker 1: Did you know that? Oh yeah, yeahs as the drug dealer, Ye, Darryl Spivey or something. His name is with the dread box, Yeah yeah, yeah, oh man, all time Oldman.

00:44:37
Speaker 2: So, in case you haven't gathered so far, as Zulander is very much a family affair packed with close Stiller Slash Taylor associates, including Ben's own.

00:44:47
Speaker 1: Parents and Ben Stiller.

00:44:48
Speaker 2: He originally intended on playing the role of Derek Zulander's manager, Mary Balstein himself, Who's I guess a character based on the do it guy from his sketch show that ring any bells?

00:44:59
Speaker 1: You can do it? No, No, that's from that's from no no, no, yeah, oh do it? Do it? Yeah? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

00:45:07
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm sure I say, maybe you might have been the one who sent this to me. The Ben Stiller doing Bruce Bringsteen counting, Oh yeah, what I.

00:45:18
Speaker 1: Get up to? I need to rewatch the Ben Stiller sket shot. I don't really know from like that era? Oh man.

00:45:30
Speaker 2: So anyway, that character is what Marty Balstein's based on, and Ben was going to play it himself, but it quickly became obvious that he had enough to do between writing and directing and starring in the movie. So he does what all overwhelms people. Do yes, his dad for help? His dad, of course, the legendary Jerry Stiller created some awkward but apparently funny moments with his daughter in law on the set, as she recalled being able to have a scene with my father in law where he's looking at my chest saying, with a push up brawl, you could have a nice rack of lamb going there was funny. We were just laughing NonStop. Weird, and then Ben Stiller's mother, Jerry Stiller's comedy double act partner and Mara plays a protester at the Fashion Awards.

00:46:18
Speaker 1: I think at the beginning of the movie.

00:46:20
Speaker 2: Ben Stiller's sister Amy plays a hanger on at Hansel's apartment, and his brother in law is the director of the commercial that closes the film. And then of course come the cameos. So many cameos in this movie. We talked about Bowie playing himself as the judge of the walk off. And also of course there's Billy Zayn that's Derek's Franton.

00:46:42
Speaker 1: Cool dude, he's trying to help you.

00:46:45
Speaker 2: Mark Ronson is the DJ at the funeral for zuland New's roommates, which is so weird because he at that point, it was like long before he did any production work. I think he was just like a hot New York club djsut.

00:46:59
Speaker 1: So hot right now. So there it is nice.

00:47:05
Speaker 2: Uh is Comedian Godfrey and Taj Crown. They are Janitor's disguises for Derek and Hansel, respectively, and they're also bit parts by Lance bass Tyson Beckford, Victoria Beckham, Emma Bunton, Stephen dor Fred Durst, tom Ford, Cuba Gooding, Junior, Tommy Hillfinger, Paris Hilton, Heidi Klum, Lenny Kravitz, Carlagerfell, Little Kim, James Morris and Natalie Portman, Gavin Rossdale, well knowna riter, Gary Shanling, Christian Slater, Gwen Stefani, Donald Trump, Malania Trump, Donald Tellaversace, Sandra Bernhard, and Jennifer Coolidge as.

00:47:39
Speaker 1: A small part as well. And I'm sure there are more. I'm forgetting. Hmm, that's packed.

00:47:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty I would love some kind of list of most cameos in a movie.

00:47:49
Speaker 1: That's gotta be up there. Oh, it's a mad, mad, mad mad mad World. That's a good pick. The Loved One. What's that? Oh?

00:47:57
Speaker 2: That was totally a thing in the mid sixties where they would have these like terrible movies that they would try to save by just like having every actor in Hollywood have like four lines in it. It's a mad, mad, mad mad mad World. Spencer, Tracy Milton, Burrell, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, Dick Sewn, Phil Silvers, Jonathan Winters, every comedian, Jimmy Duranty. I mean, that's a classic. That's a good movie, Stanley Kramer movie. But yeah, I don't know the Loved One. Robert Morris, Jonathan Winters, Jonathan Gilgood, Liberaci, Milton Burrell, Robert Morley, Robert Morris, all Bert Cooper, r P, Roddy McDowell, Tap Hunter, James Coburn, Paul Williams, the Paul Williams.

00:48:39
Speaker 1: Well Sir Williams. Wow, it's so Stiller. Challenge accepted for Zoolander three.

00:48:50
Speaker 2: So that is the cast run James, Sorry, still doing the episode.

00:48:56
Speaker 1: Still still still here, Still here. That's out loud, well true to its roots. The opening scene where Derek loses his Model of the Year title was shot during the two thousand VH one Vogue Fashion Awards during the commercial breaks. I love that and making it possible that most of the audience was completely unaware of what was going on. The sequence with the PETA paint throwers before the show was shot separately in Los Angeles. And again, that's Ben Stiller's mom as the main protester. He cast her because he thought she would make quote the perfect Upper West Side protester and of course, in a movie about male models, it was crucial for them to nail the fashions. According to Ben Stiller, it was actually really tough to make the clothing funny because the hote cooteur world was already so over the top and ridiculous. See John Galliano's actual clothing line inspired by The Homeless. Stiller said, you can't outdo the fashion world. You look at some coutur shows and they're really out there, so you can't get bigger than what's already there. It was a question of matching that and to have a real sense of humor in the outfits. Derek's specific style was more of an old school model with suits and collar shirts like an early nineties feel. Hansel was much more about the crunchry, granola, extreme sports, grunge model stuff. Robin Standaffer and David c Robinson, the costume designers, worked closely together to make sure the clothes would really pop. David c Robinson had a hard time with this. He was brought into production late in the game after his predecessor was fired, and he had just five weeks on the job to bring everything together. He told MTV in twenty twenty one, there was a push to act fast and it was fun. I actually tried to take the fashion aspect of it very seriously. My first approach. The first thing I pitched to Ben was having each scene be a different editorial style. There was Helmet Newton for the funeral, Mario Testino for Hansel's loft. It gave every scene this particular look, very low angle, black and whites. That's still there. But then Ben was like, no, no, no. At this point in nineteen ninety nine, teenagers did not read these fashion magazines and didn't have that kind of awareness of fashion to really make a Helmet Newton joke. Land, Yeah, that scans, but he wanted the jokes. So Ben stillar one of the jokes in humor to be contextual, like you would laugh at the whether or not you knew anything about fashion. So he went back to the drawing board and for the funeral, the joke there is how clueless Derek is at the entire situation. So the idea of putting him in all white at the funeral, or the python suit with matching luggage set at the coal mine, those were the jokes because they were not dependent on insider knowledge of fashion. He continued, I think that's why the movie survived. If we tied the fashion moments or ideas of nineteen ninety nine, it would have just looked dated. But the jokes are not really about that. They're about the character and how clueless he is. Apparently the stuff for the dere leaked fashion show took a lot of effort. Robinson said. We collected garbage for weeks. We went picking through our track, saying, oh, look at this, it would be perfect. I went to the flea markets on weekends and got beautiful pieces of antique garbage, like an old doll from the thirties, which we pinned to one of the coats. There were a few flashes of beauty among the old rappers and cigarette butts, beautiful pieces of antique garbage. That's sophomore record coming out next year. Hog Waste Lagoon. You love Hog Waste Lagoon. It's a great, great out entitle. It really is the new cellar door, the production darker reference. I'm glad we brought that back. The production team Comedy Works and Threes. The production team really went the extra mile when they were making this movie. It's apparent when assembling, for example, Hansel's soil room, which was a particular challenge since his loft was on the fifth floor. They took a mini Baco and a freight elevator to move the requisite amount of soil to complete the look of the soil room. It just sounds obscene, It really does. Uh. But again it goes back to the level of perfectionism that Stiller puts in everything he For example, he is still haunted by the fact that Derek's tiny phone isn't small enough, and he was also very nervous that he's line the center for ants, another one of the iconic lines of this movie, wouldn't Land. He told Will Ferrell, We've just got to commit to it and hope it works because it's such a stupid joke. And then there's Derek in Matilda's Baby at the end of the movie with the tremendous hair that is not the baby's real hair, that is the baby's real hair, and not a baby to pay although there was cellar baby to pay? Is there was a cellar for sale? Baby too pay? Never worn? That's that's a great short night. The blue steel look that the baby pulls out though, is g I sadly, we don't we that's there's union rules against that.

00:54:05
Speaker 2: Uh.

00:54:05
Speaker 1: The body part that is not real is uh, Derek Zulander's boner in the massage scene. That was a remote control Dowel manipulated by an FX crew member with a joystick from under the massage table.

00:54:23
Speaker 2: Dow manipulated by a special effects crew member with a joystick from on the massage table in your pocket or.

00:54:31
Speaker 4: That We're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right back with more too much information in just a moment.

00:54:53
Speaker 1: Another exacting detail that's Stiller labored over in this movie was the right color of the gas in the gasol fight. He was reportedly not happy with how it turned out. He thought it was too yellow.

00:55:05
Speaker 2: Which I can see if he rewatched that scene. I mean, gas is a hard because it's got that weird rainbowy shimmer thing. But yeah, it doesn't it doesn't look good.

00:55:14
Speaker 1: So you're with him. I'm with him on that.

00:55:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, it looks like some kind of like high Sea or kool aid or something.

00:55:20
Speaker 1: Well. Uh, the freak gasoline fight was a show piece of the movie, a set piece if you will, through every phase of the script. But the inclusion of whams wake me up Before You Go Go was a happy accident. Originally they were going to hire some forty one. Whither some forty one didn't the lead singer like almost die Yeah, okay, yeah yeah Derek Derek with Derek Whibley bhibably. Yeah. I interviewed him. He was a nice guy, did you. Oh wow, yeah for people yeah yeah yeah yeah. It was this like when he was like when they were coming yeah yeah, they were relaunching it. Yeah, sweet guy. You know, I don't like his band storm it through the party, Like, my name is el Nina what I was hanging out drinking in the back of an ol Camino as a kid. It was a skid. No one knew my name, crash my own house party because nobody came. It's the rap first from from the first one fatt.

00:56:24
Speaker 2: I once lost fifty bucks because I was so certain that was a Blink one eight song. Oh I had I paid that too.

00:56:32
Speaker 1: It was one of those like they demand I pay up. Yeah. Wow. That haunts you, it does, it does anyway. So they were going to hire some forty one to write a new song to go into that scene, and they stuck in wake Me Up before You Go Go as a placeholder, and then when some forty one saw a rough cut, they insisted that the song stay.

00:56:53
Speaker 2: Which I kind of called BS on that because I don't understand why they would turn down a boatload of money. Although into that one, that's probably when they were still living high on the hog, so maybe they felt inclined to make an artistic call. But there are just way too instances of that occurring in pop culture, whom people are like, oh, yeah, we were gonna be hired to do this, but then we said no, it's great as it is and turned down a ton of money. I feel like there's alistical on that, although I can't think of any other examples at this moment.

00:57:23
Speaker 1: Right I posit. I posit this thing. I have no support for it. I know it emotionally, I don't know it intellectually. I do wonder where it falls apart. Sometimes I guess it's I mean, we talked about Whinney I Will Always Love You thing when when they were gonna have Patti label sing it, and then before she said, before I could say yes for real, it went to Whitney. So I guess it's just a matter of like, they probably cast a wide net and it's whoever says yes for the least amount of money is the person who ends up going with it, and then it's up to the band to save face afterwards by saying, oh, yeah, we turned that down anyway. Just that's my pet theory.

00:57:58
Speaker 2: That's a good Oh yeah, everybody went we seem like art first punks and uh and Ben Stiller has a great idea that we thought was couldn't be beat. Yeah, all right, are you an art first punk? I think you are.

00:58:18
Speaker 1: I'm a fart first punk. Speaking of liquo, See it doesn't you're scraping the bottom of the barrel because you're sleep deprived. I'm scraping in the bottom of the barrel because that's my natural habitat baby anyway, uh Ri I p Rufus Brint and Mikus uh a young Alexander scarsguard one of his first film roles. According to the costume designer David Robinson, the explosions in that scene were not c g I or even done on a backlot. He told MTV. We freaking up a gas station in Soho. I don't think I'll ever be able to do that again. I remember when we did it. Carl arms went off for three blocks. It was quite an explosion. But it was Ben's idea to have them wear bright colors and all different colors. You wanted it to feel like a Pepsi commercial with everyone having a great time, like a Mento's commercial gone wrong. There aren't a ton of like wild behind the scene stories from the production of Zulander, unless you count actually blowing up a gas station and so. But there is a long, long lost ending, an unhappy one in which Zulander dies. Ben still Are told Esquire he has to shoot the blue Steel or Magnum look at a train to stop it and thera and it doesn't work. The train plows and kills him basically phrasing like the train. You're looking for me for a response, like the train. That's like the train plowd and then killed him because you couldn't withstand being by a train. Uh. The train plows and kills him basically, and then he goes up to Heaven. The studio put a stop to it for creative and practical reasons. Firstly, they didn't think that it was funny and wanted a feel good ending to the movie, and also building a whole Heaven set would have been prohibitively expensive blowing up a gas station, and so it's funny.

01:00:25
Speaker 3: Yeah.

01:00:26
Speaker 1: Also, a heaven set isn't expensive. There's that famous scene from Exorcist three where George C. Scott wonders through heaven and it has Fabio and Samuel L. Jackson you're kidding me, I am not, and Charles Bark No. Patrick Ewing I think is in there too. It's his famous scene from the like.

01:00:45
Speaker 2: The Angel, the Lennon Sisters is the Angels? Larry King is himself said what, yeah, is this?

01:00:53
Speaker 1: Larry King is in Larry King is in a diner scene, I think, or maybe he is in the heaven scene. Wow.

01:00:58
Speaker 2: Is this supposed to be funny? Patrick Ewing, Angel of Death? Yeah, uh no, it's very it's very weird anyway, call that though, had they killed him off, they would not have done this terrible sequel. We vowed to stop mentioning. In the draft of the script, there was an ending that would have taken place on Mount Rushmore, hearkening back to Derek's early backstory that.

01:01:20
Speaker 1: He grew up near the mountain. Why he wanted such a chie face. Several sequences were going to take place in or around Mount Rushmore, like David Ducovney's hand Model intervention, but this plot was scrapped in favor of the darre Leek show. Was that which Hitchcock movie takes place on Mount Rushmore? I don't know? North by northwest? Is it really? Yeah? Is not the whole thing, but the climax is on Rushmore. They almost ditched a bit about Zulander not being able to turn left, which was apparently a huge plot point in an early version. But it was funny. Hey, that is it is, especially like you did the little throway gags where he turns the long way. That was trimmed down in favor of beefing up the magnum face magnum face plot point instead magnum face. That's the magnum face. Go on, yeh, start for.

01:02:11
Speaker 2: You for a magnum face. Of course we go to censorship dramas. Yes, uh Zulander had a surprising amount of controversy for a movie that like isn't well. I guess it does have a major plot point, is killing a major head of government, So maybe that that's probably explains that some of it. But the uh MP double A, the organization responsible for assigning Movie Ratings initially wanted to give Zulander an R rating due to the orgy scene in hanssel Soil Room and ben Stiller. He recut the scene five different times, but still the NPAA refused to budge, so Stiller, much like Harrison Ford did for his beloved large plane movie Air Force One, made a personal appeal to the mp double a's twelve member board, and according to Christine Taylor, he apparently said words to the effect of listen, would I ever put my wife in anything that would be questionable? Not that great argument, but I guess he successfully argued that the scene, the orgy scene, was quote more silly than sexy, and he promised to remove a goat from the scene. That was sometimes that's all it takes. Yeah, not the finished dwarfs were fine, but the goat no.

01:03:27
Speaker 1: But he did and he.

01:03:28
Speaker 2: Got his desired PG thirteen rating. But ben Stiller would not get off so lightly in the country of Malaysia. Again, considering the plot centers around Zulander being brainwashed into murdering the Prime Minister of Malaysia, it's perhaps unsurprising that the movie was banned in that country, with the Censorship Board claiming that it was quote definitely unsuitable for public consumption. Still a respond to the controversy at the time by saying, I'm not an expert on the Malaysian sense of humor, but the film represents the Prime Minister as a heroic figure.

01:04:00
Speaker 1: I would think it was a good thing. The bad guys are the fashion designers, all right.

01:04:04
Speaker 2: Hilariously, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson met the actual Malaysian Prime Minister in twenty twelve. I had no idea why, but the event occurred without incident.

01:04:15
Speaker 1: Okay.

01:04:16
Speaker 2: This movie is also banned in Singapore due to some kind of diplomatic political ties with Malaysia. I'm not totally sure why, and I guess they were also offended by the film's peyote scene as well, and so it was banned there until two thousand and six, and when it was eventually released there, all references to the country of Malaysia were changed to Micronesia, the subregion which Hansel mistakes from Malaysia at one point during the movie. In the Western version, I should say, another element of the film that was censored, if you can really call it, that was the World Trade Center Zulander was released just a few weeks after the nine to eleven attacks, and so ben Stiller opted to digitally alter a shot of the Manhattan Skyline to remove the Twin Towers from it. In a letter to The New York Times, ben Stiller explained that he wanted Zulander to serve as escapist entertainment and not a reminder of the then recent tragedy. One element of Zoolander that hasn't been digitally removed is Donald Trump. He's one of the people being interviewed at the Fashion Awars and the star studded montage that opens the movie, and over the years some have called for Trumps segment to be cut from the film.

01:05:24
Speaker 1: But ben Stiller has refused.

01:05:26
Speaker 2: As he explained to movie Web quote at the end of the day, that was a time when that existed, and that happened. There are so many movies back then that had a silly cameo from Donald Trump. He represented a certain thing, or in the case of Home Alone too, that thing was ego. Wasn't it true that he refused to let the production shoot at the Plaza unless they gave him a cameo None that wouldn't strives me? I think it was, which just that's not how cameos work, Like the rules of cameos that you have to be approached.

01:05:55
Speaker 1: It's not. You can't like demand that you're put into a movie. It's not a cameo. Then it's a fire. Why are you looking for logic in the chambers of Donald Trump's withered heart? That's my favorite line from a Oh Brother, We're without It's a fool who looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart?

01:06:10
Speaker 2: Peat sorry continue Weirdly, Zulanda resulted in threats of legal action after its release from none other than author Brett Easton Ellis. In addition to writing American Psycho, he also published a satirical novel in nineteen ninety eight called Glamorama, about a plot concocted by international terrorists who recruit from within the fashion industry, and he reportedly sued the producers of Zulander for plagiarism in two thousand and five, and the case was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. He was asked about it in a two thousand and nine interview with the BBC, but said he was unable to discuss the topic due to the settlement, So that is all fine.

01:06:51
Speaker 1: Brett Easton Ellis sucks, Yeah, he does. Suit. Mary Heron made a way better movie than your than your novel, you Bennington Herb. Yes, I would defeat him in any contest of physical strength with one hand and one leg tied behind my back. I would bully Brett Easton Ellis, shove him in a locker.

01:07:13
Speaker 2: How old is he? How he's older than I thought? It's almost sixty though.

01:07:18
Speaker 1: Who's the other guy who did Bright Lights, Bright City? That whole like late eighties? He didn't do. No, he didn't do you're thinking of lesson zero? Bright Lights, Big City? Is j mckeerney, famous for being written entirely in the second person tense. Oh yeah.

01:07:33
Speaker 2: Zuolander was released on September twenty eighth, which, as we said earlier, was unfortunately close to nine to eleven. In fact, when news footage of the nine to eleven World Trade Center attacks first broke on the TV station WNYW, and it interrupted a trailer for Zulander metaphor, so, as you might imagine, do.

01:07:55
Speaker 1: You ever see Don't be a Menace? Oh? My god, no, but I I know it. There's there's a recurring bit where every time someone lapses into like like an overly belabored like boys in the Hood, like emotional speech about getting out of the ghetto or something, or some kind of like sociopolitical commentary, one of the Wavens pops in as a mailman. He just like leans his head into the frame and just goes message. And that's what I think of whenever I think it's some on the nose political commentary. Tim going message.

01:08:29
Speaker 2: Well, as you might imagine, people weren't really in the mood for a silly comedy in the wake of a national tragedy, and that hurt box office numbers.

01:08:37
Speaker 1: And another thing that Donnie Darko has in common from this movie also hurt by nine to eleven. Here's a quest, here's a serious question, Jordan, if I let me get serious with you for a second. Let me let's a good down to brass text here. What was the window after which it became okay to laugh again?

01:08:55
Speaker 2: I would say, I'm actually am basing this on like pop culture memories of the time. I would say, like around like late October, I feel like after the big concert for New York TV special, I feel like that kind of was like, yeah, the big media event that attempted to offer some form of closure before getting back to normalcy again. I'm I'm making this up, but that's just my sense looking back on it.

01:09:23
Speaker 1: Well, the highest grossing film of two thousand and two, or the highest grossing comedy, was my big Fact Greek Wedding I came followed May right, followed shortly April nineteenth of two thousand and two, followed shortly by Austin Powers in Gold Member.

01:09:39
Speaker 2: So oh, these are two thousand and two comedies.

01:09:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm thinking about like what what like cinematically two thousand and one would have been something from earlier in the year, probably Rush Hour two, Oh well, Shrek may oh oh yeah, but let's see past release date. Yeah, Zulander came out September twenty eighth, was in fifty six fifty six of the year. Oh wow, Corky Romano came out October twelfth.

01:10:07
Speaker 2: Honestly, that was a big reason that I didn't really like Zeelander initially was that he reminded me.

01:10:13
Speaker 1: Of a quartery quirk.

01:10:15
Speaker 2: I hate Chris Caatan and I hate Mango, and I hate all of his characters, and so ben still are in this kind of seemed like it would have been a Chris Catan character.

01:10:23
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just oh, Monsters, Inc. Came out November two, it's that old holy shit. Yeah. Shallow How came out November ninth. I would say those were probably the signals that it was okay to begin the healing. It was Shallow How and Monsters.

01:10:40
Speaker 2: A nation turns. It's nice to shallow How. Wow, God, bless you please, this is fair. Rely, this is instructive world. Ten and Bombs was December, December fourteenth. I'm trying to think there were no other big comedies that came out well. Christine Taylor later said it was such a hard time with comedy right after nine to eleven. Laughing might have been a remedy in the moment, but the truth of the matter is people weren't ready and Zulander went on to make only fifteen million over the course of its opening weekend, which was half the production budget. Ain't great and the timing, in addition to hurting box office numbers, also made reviewers a little wary of the movie. You know, it was a New York based film that dealt with terrorism. The Washington Post described it as a quote one joke movie, while Time Out wrote that it was quote a vanity comedy that fails at every level.

01:11:36
Speaker 1: Ooh, and Roger.

01:11:37
Speaker 2: Reebert, as is his wont was especially hostile. He gave the film one star out of four and opened his review by saying that zuland Er was evidence of quote why the United States is so hated in some parts of the world, and it was also especially horrified by the insensitive portrayal of child labor.

01:11:56
Speaker 1: Yeah.

01:11:56
Speaker 2: Though he also admitted in his review that Zulander just might need the victim of Ben timing, which is probably more closer to the truth. Years later, Ben Stiller claimed to the Huffington Post that he actually met up with Roger Ebert, who quote apologized for going overboard in his review and admitted that he'd grown fond of Zulander in later years.

01:12:15
Speaker 1: And that's not all.

01:12:16
Speaker 2: Art House director Terrence Malick of all people, count Zulander as one of his favorite films and included it in a season of films that he presented to the Philbrook Museum of the Arts in Tulsa.

01:12:29
Speaker 1: Anything of that, I didn't have Terrence Mallick as the biggest fan of this, yeah, Dune, Sorry, I guess.

01:12:35
Speaker 2: Like I say on top of the episode, some of the biggest snobs I know quit this movie all the time.

01:12:41
Speaker 1: They love this movie. It's interesting.

01:12:44
Speaker 2: But like so many movies we've talked about on the show, Zolander bombed for its theatrical release, but then turned it around in home video became a cult favorite. As Ben Stiller told Esquire, people saw it on DVD or cable or satellite, and it became this like rare piece of vinyl. Almost people discovered it and really enjoyed it at home. That's part of the reason I think it's such a beloved movie, because everyone has a personal connection to it. I don't know about the rare vinyl analogy, but and that's all I gotta say about Zulanda. What do you think, Idle?

01:13:17
Speaker 1: You know, I admire its purity, man, I mean, you know it's I use that line way too much, but it really is. It knows what it is, yes, right, It's not making pretensions or trying to hit above its station. You know, it's just a great, low stake, silly comedy that history has proven correct. You know, no notes, as I rarely say, that's true. Yeah, did I have something to go out on as Donnie Darko once it. Oh boy, just trying to make that work. Nope, nothing. Thanks for listen, folks, This has been too much information. I'm Alex Heigel and I'm Jordan Runtagg. We'll catch you next time. Too Much Information was a production of iHeartRadio. The show's executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtogg. The show's supervising producer is Michael Alder June. The show was researched, written and hosted by Jordan Runtgg and Alex Heigel.

01:14:24
Speaker 2: With original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra.

01:14:28
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01:14:31
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