Trading Places (1983) vs. Coming to America (1988)

<v Speaker 1>All right, let's do this. Oh don't you, Let's do it. Okay, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>here we are.
<v Speaker 2>We are here for our Eddie Murphy John Landis duo,
<v Speaker 2>the Trading Places versus coming to America looking good, Jason.
<v Speaker 1>Feeling good.
<v Speaker 3>D Let's do this, all right. Remember to follow us
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<v Speaker 3>with us. Tell us how we're doing, tell us what
<v Speaker 3>you agree with, tell us what you disagree with, tell
<v Speaker 3>us where we're way off.
<v Speaker 1>You know.
<v Speaker 2>I we had somebody say something once and it made
<v Speaker 2>me think of my history professor in high school. He
<v Speaker 2>started the whole class first day o' clocks. He's like,
<v Speaker 2>I might tell you something that's not accurate, but you
<v Speaker 2>have to figure that out. I was like, Wow, Okay,
<v Speaker 2>we researched these things. We're not expert. It's in anything
<v Speaker 2>that we do anything that we're talking about, but we
<v Speaker 2>do research them.
<v Speaker 1>We do. Yeah. So but if we get something wrong,
<v Speaker 1>call us out. We like it.
<v Speaker 3>That's right, let's hear from it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah for sure.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So we're going to talk about Eddie Murphy, who
<v Speaker 2>I was listening to Delirious on the way over here today,
<v Speaker 2>and my gosh, the man is so freaking funny.
<v Speaker 1>I wish he would do stand up some more. It's
<v Speaker 1>been I think.
<v Speaker 3>It's been almost thirty years.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I think it.
<v Speaker 2>Raw was the last actual stand up he did, right,
<v Speaker 2>and it was only three big show stand up things
<v Speaker 2>that he did. The first Eddie Murphy, then Delirious and
<v Speaker 2>then Raw Wow. But he that's where he got his start.
<v Speaker 2>You know, he started off in stand up. He was
<v Speaker 2>the kid who didn't want to go outside and play.
<v Speaker 2>He wants to stay in and watch TV, which is
<v Speaker 2>kind of me too. He started doing stand up when
<v Speaker 2>he was fifteen years old. It's incredible, my son is fifteen. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>to imagine them up on stage. Although Brock I could.
<v Speaker 1>Actually see him up on stage delivered.
<v Speaker 3>Some prist's right, yeah, get it together, man. He started working.
<v Speaker 2>He's so he starts that and then somebody says, hey,
<v Speaker 2>you know, they're they're looking for a black guy over
<v Speaker 2>Saturday Night Live. You should give audition for that, and
<v Speaker 2>he's he didn't even I mean he didn't really watch
<v Speaker 2>Saturday Night Live that much and just thought it was whatever, right,
<v Speaker 2>But then he thought, oh, maybe it'll be good for
<v Speaker 2>my stand up for him. Yeah, get me out there
<v Speaker 2>and I'll get some better, get some better stand up gigs.
<v Speaker 2>And then, as it turned out, it was opened a
<v Speaker 2>whole lot more doors.
<v Speaker 3>When he was on Saturday Night Live, it was clear
<v Speaker 3>right away that this guy is going to be a star.
<v Speaker 1>Absolutely well.
<v Speaker 2>And I mean I can understand his reaction to Saturday
<v Speaker 2>Night Live at that point because Lauren Michaels had left
<v Speaker 2>the show and Saturday Night Live sucked, right, I mean,
<v Speaker 2>this is the early eighties and they were awful.
<v Speaker 3>Well, they had lost chevy Chase, they had lost all
<v Speaker 3>these people had left.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And so when he comes in to do the audition,
<v Speaker 2>he does. The audition is an old bit from the
<v Speaker 2>seventies with Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor where they do
<v Speaker 2>the word association game, and you know, we're a family
<v Speaker 2>friendly podcast.
<v Speaker 1>So he can't do it.
<v Speaker 2>But chevy Chase is using these racial slurs and Richard
<v Speaker 2>Pryor is supposed to respond with, you know, the word response,
<v Speaker 2>and all he could do is say.
<v Speaker 3>Honky, Honky and Deadny.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, he throws out the end word Richard bribbly like
<v Speaker 1>did Honky.
<v Speaker 2>And so Eddie does that with Joe Piscopo is his
<v Speaker 2>audition piece, and he just he knew the bit because
<v Speaker 2>he loved Richard Pryor. And of course he nailed it
<v Speaker 2>and he saved the show. I mean, yeah, he really
<v Speaker 2>wasn't for him. I don't know that Saturday Night Live
<v Speaker 2>would still be a thing.
<v Speaker 3>It definitely got that boost it needed at that early
<v Speaker 3>stage when it could have died.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, right, it was the reason people started watching
<v Speaker 2>it again.
<v Speaker 1>So cose.
<v Speaker 3>So we're going to talk about Trading Places from nineteen
<v Speaker 3>eighty three, yes, which is an Eddie Murphy dan Aykroyd movie,
<v Speaker 3>right and Coming to America, which came out in July
<v Speaker 3>fourth of nineteen eighty eight.
<v Speaker 1>Yep.
<v Speaker 3>This is interesting because Trading Places is Eddie Murphy's second movie.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, his first movie was forty eight Hours with Nick Nolty.
<v Speaker 2>He had gotten that piece because his agent was dating
<v Speaker 2>the guy who was going to make the movie.
<v Speaker 1>Wow. Yeah. So the rumor was that they.
<v Speaker 2>Had just seen him on Saturday Night Live and got
<v Speaker 2>him from that, but it was actually like he had
<v Speaker 2>a really inside.
<v Speaker 3>Nice deal on that one. You know, the scene that
<v Speaker 3>stands out in forty eight hours to me, Eddie Murphy wise,
<v Speaker 3>if you'll remember, he takes the cops badge. Eddie Murphy
<v Speaker 3>is a con, you know, they get him out of
<v Speaker 3>jail for this, right, and he goes and he said,
<v Speaker 3>I'm going to take care of this problem. He takes
<v Speaker 3>the badge, gets his cowboy hat and goes into a
<v Speaker 3>honky tonk.
<v Speaker 2>You start running a respectable business and I don't have
<v Speaker 2>to come in here and hassle you every night.
<v Speaker 1>Oh my god.
<v Speaker 3>And that scene is unbelievable.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, at the point that at the point that that
<v Speaker 2>scene finishes up, like people in the audience were standing
<v Speaker 2>up and cheering because it was it was a straight
<v Speaker 2>I mean it was not. It was still funny. You
<v Speaker 2>can't be Eddie Murphy in the early eighties and not
<v Speaker 2>be funny, right, But that was more of a straight
<v Speaker 2>piece for him, right, straight acting.
<v Speaker 3>You know who wrote that scene, our friend Steven Desusa.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, right, from Diehard.
<v Speaker 3>He wrote Diehard that's right.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean a thousand movies, but yeah, that's right.
<v Speaker 1>But yeah, that's our of course favorite of his movies.
<v Speaker 3>We can get into that a little bit later. Oh sure, yeah, okay,
<v Speaker 3>So so Trading Places have released June eighth, nineteen eighty three.
<v Speaker 3>Just take those all, all right? So okay, so Curt,
<v Speaker 3>event's right for me, just kind of a little fashion thing.
<v Speaker 3>Swatch introduces their first watches.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, I love I had a Swatch for years.
<v Speaker 3>Years.
<v Speaker 1>Really, I'm still wearing Swatches into the nineties.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, you want to hear my watch story. I bought
<v Speaker 3>with my own money what I thought was a really
<v Speaker 3>cool Swatchwatcheah, I didn't really know. My friends are like, hey,
<v Speaker 3>Swatch is the way to go. I go to the store,
<v Speaker 3>buy a Swatch. I like it looks cool, bring it
<v Speaker 3>to school the next day, Hey, guys, check out my Swatch.
<v Speaker 3>They're like, why'd you buy a girl's one? Like, what
<v Speaker 3>are you talking about? The little ones where girls? The
<v Speaker 3>big ones were boys? You only do the plot overview
<v Speaker 3>of Trading Places therefore, all right. So Lewis Winthorpe the
<v Speaker 3>third is a successful commodity broker in Philadelphia. He's got
<v Speaker 3>a great job, beautiful fiance in a wonderful home that
<v Speaker 3>includes a butler, Coleman Billy Ray Valentine is a con
<v Speaker 3>man and a hustler who pretends to be a legless
<v Speaker 3>Vietnam vett, begging and you know, bugging people for money.
<v Speaker 3>Win Thorpe's employers, the Duke Brothers, make a bet that
<v Speaker 3>if they switched and took Billy Ray Valentine from the streets,
<v Speaker 3>put him in a job, and if they somehow disgraced Winthorpe,
<v Speaker 3>he would turn to a life of crap. And so
<v Speaker 3>they make this bet, and they set it up in
<v Speaker 3>such a way that they bring Billy Ray in for
<v Speaker 3>his job, and they cast out Winthorpe to the streets,
<v Speaker 3>and some hilarity ensues, but Winthorpe and Valentine figure this out.
<v Speaker 3>They join up and they're going to take down the
<v Speaker 3>Duke brothers with the help of Ophelia played by Jamie
<v Speaker 3>Lee Curtis, who is the coggar with the heart of gold,
<v Speaker 3>and they're going to take down the Duke brothers.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So nineteen eighty eight, that year I can remember
<v Speaker 2>so clearly.
<v Speaker 1>We went.
<v Speaker 2>We were so excited because Mike Tyson was free defining
<v Speaker 2>what it meant to be a boxer.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, he was just unbeatable.
<v Speaker 2>Oh my gosh, and I played plenty of hours Mike
<v Speaker 2>Tyson's punch.
<v Speaker 1>Out on my name.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, but we went to we had a big event.
<v Speaker 2>It was I think maybe pay per view was coming
<v Speaker 2>out the first time, or maybe this was on HBO
<v Speaker 2>and we didn't get it at the time. But he
<v Speaker 2>had a fight with Michael Spinks. And I can remember
<v Speaker 2>going there where it's a big party. There are several people.
<v Speaker 2>There were all guys ready to go that I'm going
<v Speaker 2>with my dad, you know, and the fight's about to start.
<v Speaker 2>I'm thinking, okay, I'm gonna go grab a coke real quick.
<v Speaker 2>I grab a coke, I see some chips. I come
<v Speaker 2>back in and the fight is over. He had knocked
<v Speaker 2>Michael Spinks out in ninety one seconds.
<v Speaker 3>I remember that too. That was amazing. This is the
<v Speaker 3>time with Mike Tyson. I mean, this was a huge match.
<v Speaker 3>I mean I thought, yeah at the time, man, these
<v Speaker 3>are two big boys gonna duke it out.
<v Speaker 1>Yep.
<v Speaker 3>Turns out there's only one big boy. Yeah, and he
<v Speaker 3>was big and bad.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, he was all right.
<v Speaker 3>So I don't know if you know this, d but
<v Speaker 3>on Christmas Eve it was nineteen eighty eight. Yeah, terrorists
<v Speaker 3>take over the knock Tommy Plaza Tower.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, I was. I was gut wrenched at that. I
<v Speaker 1>was watching the news. Just kidding.
<v Speaker 3>Shots fire.
<v Speaker 1>Okay.
<v Speaker 2>So the other movie that we're going to talk is
<v Speaker 2>Eddie Murphy's second movie with John Landis.
<v Speaker 1>We talk about big stars of the eighties. Eddie Murphy
<v Speaker 1>was one, but John Landis was also one of With
<v Speaker 1>that question, you.
<v Speaker 2>Had five directors that were killing the eighties, He's got
<v Speaker 2>to be on that list, right, So they do the
<v Speaker 2>second movie together. The premise I'll do the loot outline
<v Speaker 2>for coming to America, a wealthy African nation of Zamunda,
<v Speaker 2>the crown princh a Keen Joffer grows weary of his
<v Speaker 2>pampered lifestyle.
<v Speaker 3>Why bus and.
<v Speaker 1>He wakes up on his twenty first birthday. I tell you,
<v Speaker 1>I want to.
<v Speaker 2>Get I know I'm supposed to be running through the
<v Speaker 2>plot here, but I want to get the music. I
<v Speaker 2>don't need the band. I don't need the orchestra, you know,
<v Speaker 2>because that'd be a little expensive. But that music, if
<v Speaker 2>I could just wake up to that music every morning,
<v Speaker 2>every day, would be better.
<v Speaker 3>Good morning, your highness.
<v Speaker 1>So it's his twenty first birthday.
<v Speaker 2>It's the day he is supposed to meet his bride
<v Speaker 2>to be, who he's never met before, but this is
<v Speaker 2>an arranged marriage, and despite the fact that he lives
<v Speaker 2>without any want in the world that goes unmet, he
<v Speaker 2>is unhappy that he has to marry this woman who
<v Speaker 2>he has never met, and then after meeting her, though
<v Speaker 2>she is beautiful, she is completely complicit to every whim
<v Speaker 2>that he wants. So he decides to go find himself
<v Speaker 2>a bride in a place where people don't know who
<v Speaker 2>he is.
<v Speaker 1>And where to go to do that is America.
<v Speaker 3>Where better than.
<v Speaker 2>Queen's Queens, And so he and his best friend Simmy
<v Speaker 2>go to Queen's. They pose as poor African students. They
<v Speaker 2>get a job at the local knockoff off of McDonald's
<v Speaker 2>called McDowell's. Because Prince Akim has grown enamored with the
<v Speaker 2>McDowell's owner's daughter, Lisa. Hilarity ensues. Ultimately the King comes
<v Speaker 2>and tries to put an end to this crazy idea
<v Speaker 2>that he would marry some American girl, and ultimately they
<v Speaker 2>are reunited at.
<v Speaker 1>The end of the movie.
<v Speaker 3>Great, great movie. Two great movies, very very enjoyable movies.
<v Speaker 3>The budget, let's just talk about that they were both
<v Speaker 3>big hits, right okay. Trading Places was the fourth highest
<v Speaker 3>grossing film in nineteen eighty three, behind Return of the
<v Speaker 3>Jedi Flash Dance in terms of a dermitt So it's
<v Speaker 3>a big, big movie. The budget was twenty eight million
<v Speaker 3>and it made ninety million. Similarly, Coming to America a
<v Speaker 3>big hit from nineteen eighty eight. The budget was thirty
<v Speaker 3>nine million and it made worldwide two hundred and eighty
<v Speaker 3>eight million plus. Huge, huge movie for ready money.
<v Speaker 2>We want to go through the actors actresses. Yeah, let's
<v Speaker 2>start talking about the actors. Obviously, Eddie Murphy is in
<v Speaker 2>both of these movies.
<v Speaker 3>Eddie Murphy for a moment. He made forty eight Hours, Yep,
<v Speaker 3>he made Trading Places. He made Coming to America. Our
<v Speaker 3>younger viewers and listeners may recognize his voice from Shrek, right,
<v Speaker 3>he plays Donkey and Shrek. I like that bold.
<v Speaker 1>That is a ninth bold.
<v Speaker 3>He was in The Nutty Professor Norbit, The Adventures of
<v Speaker 3>Pluto Nash. Have you ever seen that?
<v Speaker 1>I have not seen that one.
<v Speaker 2>I can tell you that he received the Golden Globe
<v Speaker 2>nomination for his work on forty eight Hours, Beverly Hills
<v Speaker 2>Cop Trading places a nutty Professor and for Dolomite. He
<v Speaker 2>ultimately won the Golden Globe for dream Girls.
<v Speaker 3>Dream Girls, right, you know, the only movie that he
<v Speaker 3>turned down that turned out to be a hit that
<v Speaker 3>he regrets not taking the role. I thought this was
<v Speaker 3>really interesting.
<v Speaker 1>Who Framed Roger Rabbit track? He never even knew that. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>The guy who went on to do Shrek had proposed
<v Speaker 2>it to him before and said, hey, you should do
<v Speaker 2>this movie. He's like, hey, cartoons, I don't want to
<v Speaker 2>do that, right, And when Who Framed Roger Rabbit became
<v Speaker 2>the success that it did, he was like, oh, I'm not.
<v Speaker 1>Going to refuse one of those offers again.
<v Speaker 3>And that's how he got Donkey Nice and Roger Rabbit
<v Speaker 3>came out summer of eighty eight as well. All Right,
<v Speaker 3>Dan Ackroyd, who you'll remember from Saturday Night Live, right,
<v Speaker 3>Blues Brothers, yep, Ghostbusters, YEP, Spies Like Us with John Landis.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, another eighties icon.
<v Speaker 3>He was in Conheads, Yeah, in one of the worst
<v Speaker 3>movies in the nineteen eighties, maybe the worst movie of
<v Speaker 3>the nineteen eighties, Ishtar, I don't see this star. He
<v Speaker 3>was in Caddyshack too.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, I don't think I hated Caddy Shack too.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, it was terrible with the guy from the Jerk
<v Speaker 2>in it, right, Jackie Mason, Thank you, Jackie Mason.
<v Speaker 3>It wasn't good. It was awful, all right. And Dankward.
<v Speaker 3>So dan Akward was in maybe the worst movie the
<v Speaker 3>nineteen eighties. He was also in maybe the worst movie
<v Speaker 3>in the nineteen nineties called Nothing but Trouble. No.
<v Speaker 1>I liked that one too.
<v Speaker 3>Oh my god, No, that's hilarious.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, right, No, that's a great one.
<v Speaker 2>Debby Moore and Chevy Chack was and he plays the judge,
<v Speaker 2>doesn't he doesn't.
<v Speaker 3>Do the judge.
<v Speaker 1>Oh my gosh. It's a lot. That's awesome, like that movie.
<v Speaker 3>Last time you saw that you were five? Come on,
<v Speaker 3>all right? Also starring this is really cool Donna Michi
<v Speaker 3>and Ralph Bellamy.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Duke brothers. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Don Imichi hadn't done a movie in thirteen years. Thirteen years. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>here's some interesting thing about this one. You know, when
<v Speaker 2>he started, he didn't know who these guys were. They
<v Speaker 2>didn't know who he was. But he comes in and
<v Speaker 2>I mean, the eighties are very different than the movies
<v Speaker 2>that Dono Miichi was making. I mean, you've, especially with
<v Speaker 2>John Landis, You're gonna have lots of F bombs. You're
<v Speaker 2>gonna have lots of movies.
<v Speaker 1>It's just the way that John did his movies right, right.
<v Speaker 2>And so Donamichi's got two like big you know, drops
<v Speaker 2>the F on f him about his brother. And then
<v Speaker 2>I mean in the bathroom I was when rewatching, I.
<v Speaker 1>Was like, whoa, oh, he just dropped.
<v Speaker 3>The N bomb there, big gosh, that's right.
<v Speaker 2>And so he was he was adamantly I mean he's conservative,
<v Speaker 2>religious guy. He was adamantly opposed. I'm not doing that.
<v Speaker 2>And they're like, you've you've got to do it. I mean,
<v Speaker 2>it's just part of the role. And he was like, Okay,
<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it once and
<v Speaker 2>you better get it on the first take. And he
<v Speaker 2>went before this, before the filming, before the scenes started,
<v Speaker 2>he went early to go apologize to everybody about what
<v Speaker 2>was about to happen.
<v Speaker 1>But he didn't hold any punches on it. Man, he
<v Speaker 1>delivers it hard.
<v Speaker 3>He does.
<v Speaker 1>He just like, holy smokes.
<v Speaker 3>I love that about him, the fact that he's so
<v Speaker 3>gentlemanly to show up and he apologizes to all the
<v Speaker 3>cast and crew. All Right, everyone, guess what I'm getting
<v Speaker 3>ready to drop a major f bar and I'm very
<v Speaker 3>sorry about that.
<v Speaker 2>I realized that you've been listening to Eddie Murphy.
<v Speaker 3>All right everyone. I know that there are young people
<v Speaker 3>who like to cuss, but that is.
<v Speaker 2>Not me, so DONOMICI then you know this is this
<v Speaker 2>is kind of a comeback role for him.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>The next movie that he did was Cocoon and he
<v Speaker 2>won the Best Supporting Actor oscar from them, so cool.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah for him.
<v Speaker 3>You know, Ralph Bellmy kind of got a boost off
<v Speaker 3>of this too. He ended up doing Pretty Woman. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>you know he's not related to Bill Bellamy.
<v Speaker 1>They sted to clean that up for Okay, So here's
<v Speaker 1>that secret thing I was gonna throw.
<v Speaker 2>And if you have any idea who Bill Bellamy is,
<v Speaker 2>which you should tell me, post a picture of Bill
<v Speaker 2>Bellamy on our Twitter feed, say at Tuley podcast on Twitter,
<v Speaker 2>post a picture of him, or if you're into Facebook,
<v Speaker 2>post a picture of Bill Bellamy on Facebook and we'll
<v Speaker 2>give you a shout out.
<v Speaker 3>I want to run. That dude has gone away. I
<v Speaker 3>don't know what he's doing.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know either. He was a big thing there
<v Speaker 1>for five minutes.
<v Speaker 3>Ye, all right. And also in treading places, you have
<v Speaker 3>Jamie Lee Curtis.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, so you know dan Aykroyd.
<v Speaker 2>They were hesitant about having him come in and do
<v Speaker 2>the show because they weren't sure whether he could be
<v Speaker 2>funny without John Belushi.
<v Speaker 3>That's right, that's right.
<v Speaker 2>And they were also hesitant about Jamie Lee Curtis because
<v Speaker 2>they didn't know that she could be funny at all.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, because the only thing that she.
<v Speaker 2>Had really done at that point were the horror flick
<v Speaker 2>she was like screenplaying.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, she'd have done Halloween, she had done and Promni
<v Speaker 3>and The Fog and some of these horror movies. So
<v Speaker 3>they didn't know if she could be funny.
<v Speaker 1>Right.
<v Speaker 3>One thing they did know though, yeah, she was beautiful.
<v Speaker 2>Oh my gosh. Okay, So here's the story. You know,
<v Speaker 2>you've told your Booby story from Airplane. I'm gonna go
<v Speaker 2>ahead and tell this story now. So this movie came
<v Speaker 2>out in nineteen eighty three, the summer of nineteen eighty three. Yes,
<v Speaker 2>my birthday is in October. I was still seven years
<v Speaker 2>old in nineteen when this movie came out. Okay, we're
<v Speaker 2>in California and this is where This is where I
<v Speaker 2>found out that what rated R really meant. Okay, so
<v Speaker 2>I had, you know, at that point, at seven years old,
<v Speaker 2>I know, I had asked to see the other John
<v Speaker 2>Landis big hit American were Wolf in London.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and my dad was like, now you can'cy is
<v Speaker 1>rated R. And I said what does that mean? He said,
<v Speaker 1>it's too scary.
<v Speaker 2>You can't see it because it's too scary, right, didn't
<v Speaker 2>mention the porn scene. So and so we you know,
<v Speaker 2>we're in California, were visiting my cousins. My brother and
<v Speaker 2>my cousins are all fifteen years old. I'm seven. That
<v Speaker 2>parents are about to go out and they're going to
<v Speaker 2>go see Doctor Detroit Detroit. Yes, that has dan ekrot
<v Speaker 2>in it, which was a big bomb for him. Fortunately, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>fortunately these movies came out at the same time or
<v Speaker 2>he might have been shot. But the they're gonna go
<v Speaker 2>see it, and I was like, oh, I want to go,
<v Speaker 2>and you can't go.
<v Speaker 1>It's it's rated R. And I was like, I won't
<v Speaker 1>be scared.
<v Speaker 3>Right, don't look scary at all.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure how this movie is scary,
<v Speaker 1>but okay.
<v Speaker 2>And so then a couple days later, my cousins, my
<v Speaker 2>brother and I go to the big Multiplex theater in
<v Speaker 2>California and we buy tickets for Snow White, and then
<v Speaker 2>we proceed to go in and watch trading places when
<v Speaker 2>National Lampoon vacation when and risky business. Okay, like I
<v Speaker 2>got no parents put their hand over my eyes, nobody's
<v Speaker 2>saying don't look. And so all of a sudden, in
<v Speaker 2>one day, I am exposed to Jamie Lee Curtis's boobies,
<v Speaker 2>Rebecca de Mornay's boobies, and Beverly DeAngelo's bootpies.
<v Speaker 1>And it was quite a day for me.
<v Speaker 3>That's a glorious day.
<v Speaker 1>Oh my gosh.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, those are three big time girls from the from
<v Speaker 3>the eighties. Man, I was a changed kid. Wow, that's awesome,
<v Speaker 3>all right. So switch over to coming to America. Okay,
<v Speaker 3>sounds good, all right. So we covered Eddie Murphy. The
<v Speaker 3>co star with him was our Sendil Hall right, who
<v Speaker 3>really hadn't done a whole lot.
<v Speaker 2>He had been in a little bit of John Landis's
<v Speaker 2>movie Amazon, Women from the Moon.
<v Speaker 1>Have you seen that?
<v Speaker 3>I love this movie and I haven't seen it a
<v Speaker 3>long time, but I know that it's like a it's
<v Speaker 3>like a Kentucky Fried movie, right, it's different skits, and
<v Speaker 3>his skit opens the movie Our Senior Hall doays and
<v Speaker 3>it's hilarious.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So he and Eddie Murphy come to meet in
<v Speaker 2>kind of a weird way. I haven't gotten a good
<v Speaker 2>story on this, but it's kind of the way Eddie
<v Speaker 2>tells it is he's slipped through the channels and he
<v Speaker 2>sees himself and he's like, well, I can't remember doing that.
<v Speaker 2>And he goes back and it's like, oh, that's not me.
<v Speaker 2>That's our Senial Hall and in our Cennial Hall. Not
<v Speaker 2>having done anything. It's really surprising how big his part
<v Speaker 2>was in this movie. I mean, he's he is the
<v Speaker 2>other star of the movie.
<v Speaker 3>All without a doubt. And John Mannison actually commented that
<v Speaker 3>the studio had known how large this part was, that
<v Speaker 3>they never would have gone for our Sant Hall.
<v Speaker 2>And so both he and Eddie have this thing where
<v Speaker 2>they play multiple parts in the movie, okay, And so
<v Speaker 2>that actually was a way that Eddie got the studio
<v Speaker 2>to buy in on his script, was Hey, I'm going
<v Speaker 2>to play these multiple parts. He had done all of
<v Speaker 2>these characters when he was on Saturday Night Live, but
<v Speaker 2>all of his movies up until that point had just
<v Speaker 2>been like him playing one character and that was it.
<v Speaker 2>And so he does all these parts, and he and
<v Speaker 2>Landis are tossing around ideas for different parts, and they
<v Speaker 2>come up with the old Jewish Man saw. John Landis
<v Speaker 2>tells it like this, he said, back in the early
<v Speaker 2>nineteen hundreds, the a lot of Jews did get their
<v Speaker 2>famous by doing blackface. So this would be like the
<v Speaker 2>of that that you are going to go and play
<v Speaker 2>this old Jewish man. Eddie Murphy's like, yeah, except look
<v Speaker 2>at me, you know how how am I gonna be.
<v Speaker 1>A white man?
<v Speaker 3>Right?
<v Speaker 2>And so at that point, John Landis says, well, I
<v Speaker 2>know Rick Baker, Rick Baker. So here's here's a little
<v Speaker 2>history on John Landis and Rick Baker. John Landis was
<v Speaker 2>the first one to use Rick Baker and anything at all.
<v Speaker 2>And if for those of you listening who don't know,
<v Speaker 2>Rick Baker is the guy who did all of the makeup.
<v Speaker 1>For American We'reworth in London for the Star Wars movies.
<v Speaker 2>For I mean, he's the Michael Jordan of Yeah, he
<v Speaker 2>he dominated. So John Landis had had worked on Planet
<v Speaker 2>of the Ape stuff first go around back in the sixties,
<v Speaker 2>had worked on it and went to the guy who
<v Speaker 2>had done the stuff for that for this idea he
<v Speaker 2>had for a movie called Schluck. Schlock was supposed to
<v Speaker 2>be like a parody almost of this movie called trog
<v Speaker 2>which had come out a little while which was short
<v Speaker 2>for Charcolade and which was absolutely terrible. And he wanted
<v Speaker 2>an actual bad ape costume to wear. And so he
<v Speaker 2>goes to his friend who had done playing of the
<v Speaker 2>apes and they're like, yeah, I can do one of
<v Speaker 2>those for one hundred thousand dollars for you. Well, okay,
<v Speaker 2>the budget for the movie sixty thousand dollars. I don't right,
<v Speaker 2>And they're like, oh okay. We go to Don Pope
<v Speaker 2>and so he gets here's another big name and he
<v Speaker 2>goes to him and he's like, oh, yeah, I could
<v Speaker 2>do it for you for only eighty thousand dollars. I think, okay,
<v Speaker 2>I guess I don't know what to do. I'm going
<v Speaker 2>to have to figure this out on my own. But
<v Speaker 2>as he's walking out the door, the Don Pope Junior
<v Speaker 2>comes to him, hands him a card and said, Hey,
<v Speaker 2>this kid was in just a little while ago.
<v Speaker 1>He's really good.
<v Speaker 2>Give him a try, and he has this card, It's
<v Speaker 2>Rick Baker's business card, and it says Rick Baker Monster Maker.
<v Speaker 1>I love it.
<v Speaker 3>Man, that's so cool.
<v Speaker 2>So he's so he calls Rick Baker up to come
<v Speaker 2>do the makeup for Coming to America. And you know,
<v Speaker 2>obviously Eddie Murphy plays several characters, but the one with
<v Speaker 2>the most detailed makeup is Saul, this old man and
<v Speaker 2>this old white Jewish man.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, so Eddie can do the voice, right, And
<v Speaker 2>so the thing is, can we sell a look?
<v Speaker 1>And Rick Baker actually models him after his father in.
<v Speaker 3>Law, who is a double in the movie. You can
<v Speaker 3>actually see him.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, on the scenes where Eddie Murphy is the barber,
<v Speaker 2>you still have Saul. You see behind his shoulder. You
<v Speaker 2>can tell it's not the same guy. Well, it's the
<v Speaker 2>guy that they modeled Saul after. Y.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, all right, So other people in coming to America
<v Speaker 3>James Earl Jones, who you may recognize as the voice
<v Speaker 3>of Darth Vader, Yes, who actually has a line in
<v Speaker 3>the movie. Yeah, I'll deal with him myself.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's a throwback to leave them to me. I
<v Speaker 1>will be with them myself.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, yeah, I love it. He was in ConA and
<v Speaker 3>the Barbarian and the Sandlot. I mean, he's been tons
<v Speaker 3>of things, but really he's known because he has.
<v Speaker 2>This great voice, right well, yeah, I mean he's a
<v Speaker 2>fantastic actor all around, but everybody knows that voice. It's
<v Speaker 2>unmistakable for sure. His dad was actually in Trading Places,
<v Speaker 2>Robert Earl Jones. Yeah, he wants He has a small
<v Speaker 2>role as one of the attendants in Trading Places.
<v Speaker 3>So James Earl Jones. Then you have John Amos, who
<v Speaker 3>is well known for his role in Good Times, right yeah,
<v Speaker 3>TV show from the seventies.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and then also really well known for his role
<v Speaker 1>in Roots.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, he plays adult.
<v Speaker 1>You're right, which comes up in the movie of course.
<v Speaker 3>Good duh, Yeah, it's good.
<v Speaker 2>You know.
<v Speaker 3>That's right. He's one of the bad guys in Diehard too.
<v Speaker 2>Oh wow, Yeah, that's right. He was one of the
<v Speaker 2>army guys I Thart. He's the leader of the Cuts
<v Speaker 2>Rebels Special Forces.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Interestingly with John Amos, he had done a bunch
<v Speaker 1>of stuff.
<v Speaker 2>He was Golden Gloves boxer, he was a football player,
<v Speaker 2>had played for the Canadian League and eventually got dismissed
<v Speaker 2>from that. And he's kind of figuring out what to do,
<v Speaker 2>but has an agent and they say, hey, you want
<v Speaker 2>to go do a singing McDonnell's commercial and he's like, sure, whatever, yeah, really,
<v Speaker 2>So he does does this singing dancing, get your Get
<v Speaker 2>a Mob, get a Bucket commercial with Potzy before he's
<v Speaker 2>Potsy Happy Days and it ends up being one of
<v Speaker 2>the best McDonald's commercials ever.
<v Speaker 1>And then of course, you know, he goes on to
<v Speaker 1>own his own a Dallas.
<v Speaker 3>That's so awesome. A year or two, I make assistant
<v Speaker 3>manager and that's where the big bucks start rolling in.
<v Speaker 3>All right. Both of these were directed by John Landis,
<v Speaker 3>who is well known for We touched on this briefly,
<v Speaker 3>but Schluck, Blues Brothers, Animal House, Spies Like Us, Three Amigos,
<v Speaker 3>the Thriller video, which if you'll go back to episode one,
<v Speaker 3>we talked at length about the Thriller video, and then
<v Speaker 3>American wirel from London, and then we need to talk
<v Speaker 3>a little bit about the Twilight Zone movie.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, so just before Trading Places happened, John Landis was
<v Speaker 2>one of a handful of directors that was involved with
<v Speaker 2>the Twilight Zone movie.
<v Speaker 1>His segment was a segment.
<v Speaker 2>With Vic Morrow or Vic Morrow is this racist, bigot
<v Speaker 2>who goes to different places and is in the body
<v Speaker 2>of the people that he's got prejudices against.
<v Speaker 1>But in the production of the movie.
<v Speaker 2>There's an accident that occurs and Vic Morrow and two
<v Speaker 2>child actors are killed by a helicopter that crashes after
<v Speaker 2>an explosion.
<v Speaker 1>Kills them both or kills all three of them, sorry.
<v Speaker 3>Not just kills them, but horribly heascitates them.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's true.
<v Speaker 2>So at that point, I mean, he's dealing with that
<v Speaker 2>while he's making some of the best movies anybody see.
<v Speaker 1>This is kind of crazy.
<v Speaker 2>He doesn't end up doing the trial on it until
<v Speaker 2>later on, like nineteen eighty seven, I think, is when
<v Speaker 2>the trial happens.
<v Speaker 1>And so I can't.
<v Speaker 2>Imagine going through the experience itself, let alone going for
<v Speaker 2>years as you're waiting, and then we're talking about not
<v Speaker 2>a civil suit, we're talking about criminal action. Like he
<v Speaker 2>and a few of the other people who were involved
<v Speaker 2>were charged with manslaughter, and.
<v Speaker 3>So as a he was really close to going to jail.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Well yeah, that had been a long prison term.
<v Speaker 2>And as it turns out, Eddie says, this is the
<v Speaker 2>reason that we didn't get along.
<v Speaker 1>I'm coming to America.
<v Speaker 2>Now, John Landis gives a different reason why they didn't
<v Speaker 2>get along, but Eddie says, you know, he was mad
<v Speaker 2>because I didn't I wasn't there in supporting him during
<v Speaker 2>his trial, and so he tries to, you know, treat
<v Speaker 2>me like a little kid, like I was back in
<v Speaker 2>trading places, and I'm not a little kid anymore. And
<v Speaker 2>so eventually, like comes down to John land Is saying
<v Speaker 2>something and Eddie kind of angrily but playfully puts him
<v Speaker 2>in a chokehold.
<v Speaker 1>And then when John.
<v Speaker 2>Landis tries to playfully you know, grab his crotch, Eddie
<v Speaker 2>tightens and cuts off his air and he runs off.
<v Speaker 3>It escalated really quick, right, Yeah, it was.
<v Speaker 1>It was bad and it turned ugly.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah yeah, I mean they were not happy with each
<v Speaker 2>other as human beings. After the show, they're both very
<v Speaker 2>happy with the movie obviously, but Landis, on the flip
<v Speaker 2>side of that, said, yeah, he went from being this
<v Speaker 2>you know, super kid to this pig headed jerk.
<v Speaker 1>Ahole is the word that he used.
<v Speaker 2>It just wasn't fun to work with him anymore. But
<v Speaker 2>eventually they reconciled. They did reconcile. But here's the interesting
<v Speaker 2>thing to me.
<v Speaker 3>In nineteen ninety, Playboy magazine interviewed Eddie Murphy. Yeah, and
<v Speaker 3>his quote was, this is how harsh this is. Bick
<v Speaker 3>Morrow has a better shot of working with John Landis
<v Speaker 3>than I do.
<v Speaker 1>Ouch, that's rough.
<v Speaker 3>And then Beverly Hills Cop three comes out in ninety four,
<v Speaker 3>so yeah, they buried the hatchet apparently, But yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe it's unfortunate if you've seen Beverly Hills Top three
<v Speaker 1>not good. Yeah. Interesting.
<v Speaker 2>You know we talk about John landisbying this huge rock
<v Speaker 2>star of the eighties. You know, he's got several hits before,
<v Speaker 2>but Trading Place was a huge hit to catapult his career.
<v Speaker 2>Does a bunch of great movies, then does Coming to America.
<v Speaker 1>And then none of anything that he's done after that.
<v Speaker 1>Have I thought it's good?
<v Speaker 3>Nothing?
<v Speaker 1>Right?
<v Speaker 3>So composers real quick. Trading Places has Elmer Bernstein, our
<v Speaker 3>big buddy, Elmer Bernstein.
<v Speaker 1>Olmer Bernstein, Kevin Bacon game, that's exactly right. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>So Olmer Bernstein had done all of these great movies
<v Speaker 2>back in the sixties and had been out of it
<v Speaker 2>for a while, and then John Landis brings it back
<v Speaker 2>in with Animal House, and then he starts doing all
<v Speaker 2>of these other great movies again, including Ghostbusters.
<v Speaker 3>Kay Shack, Spies like Us To Kill a Mockingbird Ten Commandments. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>he's all over, all over the place.
<v Speaker 1>Yep.
<v Speaker 2>So the movie Trading Places starts off with this music
<v Speaker 2>from the Marriage of Figure Out, Yes, which is fantastic
<v Speaker 2>because it not only does it kind of set the stage,
<v Speaker 2>it's kind of the you know, masterpiece theater type of
<v Speaker 2>sound where you're seeing the regal dan Aykroyd getting ready
<v Speaker 2>and then his butler who's played by Elliott right who.
<v Speaker 1>You'll remember from and there's a lost start now the throwback.
<v Speaker 2>Who by the way, on this one, and the scenes
<v Speaker 2>that he's in he's always funny, like he's just quietly funny.
<v Speaker 2>And the second a director on this thing, you know,
<v Speaker 2>they would do a take where he would have to
<v Speaker 2>walk through a door and he said, every single time
<v Speaker 2>he would do something different. He had some other business,
<v Speaker 2>some other thing that he was doing different, and it
<v Speaker 2>was funny every single time. So he goes to him
<v Speaker 2>after the takes and he's he says, mister Elliott, you know,
<v Speaker 2>how are you funny? Over and over with different stuff
<v Speaker 2>every time? And he says, my boy, when you have
<v Speaker 2>parts as small as these, you learn to make something
<v Speaker 2>out of them.
<v Speaker 3>That's awesome. He's great, he's great, he's great. It is
<v Speaker 3>Marcus Brody and Raiders.
<v Speaker 2>So I've completely derailed the conversation about the soundtrack.
<v Speaker 3>No, it's fun, it's fun. Coming to America's composer is
<v Speaker 3>a guy named Nile Rodgers. Is that ring a bell
<v Speaker 3>with you? No? So he's you may recognize his face.
<v Speaker 3>He's kind of a familiar, familiar looking person. Right, But
<v Speaker 3>if you listen to eighties music at all, yeah, you
<v Speaker 3>know who this guy is.
<v Speaker 1>Okay.
<v Speaker 3>He did the Reflex by Derandrean. Oh wow, yeah, like
<v Speaker 3>produced it?
<v Speaker 1>Right.
<v Speaker 3>He produced Let's Dance by David Bowie.
<v Speaker 1>Okay.
<v Speaker 3>He was in the the pop band Chic and their
<v Speaker 3>song good Times Good Times. And he produced Madonna's first
<v Speaker 3>album Lucky Star Borderline Holiday. And he does a fantastic
<v Speaker 3>job with his soundtrack. They wanted a somebody who could
<v Speaker 3>do the African style music, which he does kind of
<v Speaker 3>long the Lions Sleep Tonight in the opening credits, which
<v Speaker 3>is great.
<v Speaker 1>Right.
<v Speaker 2>It's by the group Lady Smith Black Mambazo, who you
<v Speaker 2>will remember if you listen to any of the Paul
<v Speaker 2>Simon songs from that era. Grace Land. Yeah, yeah, they're
<v Speaker 2>they're a great musical group. And I noticed I don't
<v Speaker 2>know if this is right. I haven't researched at all,
<v Speaker 2>but as you're listening to that opening, the opening version
<v Speaker 2>of The Lion Sleeps Tonight, there's a little part where
<v Speaker 2>it sounds like they've inserted one of Eddie's laughs in there.
<v Speaker 2>I will play it for you here. Okay, that's Eddie's laugh,
<v Speaker 2>I really do. And I think a little bit later
<v Speaker 2>on you hear Arsenior Hall's laugh as well.
<v Speaker 1>But anyway, all right, cool. So on the.
<v Speaker 2>Soundtrack side of things, you've got Ladysmith Black Mumbazo singing Moombe.
<v Speaker 2>I'm sorry, I don't know it's The Lions Leaves Tonight.
<v Speaker 2>But then you've got other songs that come throughout, a
<v Speaker 2>few of them sang by Eddie Murphy.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, Oh the Greatest Love of All that's yeah, rand it.
<v Speaker 1>I believe you children, Okay.
<v Speaker 2>And we can't leave the actors and actresses in coming
<v Speaker 2>to America without mentioning Match Sinclair. She was the queen,
<v Speaker 2>of course, and then interestingly later on she is again
<v Speaker 2>the queen, but the Lion Queen to The Lion King
<v Speaker 2>because she again is with James Earl Jones.
<v Speaker 1>In the movie The Lion King.
<v Speaker 2>She plays the voice of Saribi, who is Simba's mom.
<v Speaker 1>Simba's mom. But what's the name of James Earl Jones.
<v Speaker 3>Is Mufassa Mufassa, Yes, so it's Mufasa Seribi.
<v Speaker 2>And then also she plays the wife of Kuntikine in Roots.
<v Speaker 1>Wow. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>And then James Earl Jones was not in the original Roots,
<v Speaker 2>but was in the second version of Roots a couple
<v Speaker 2>of years later. I can't remember what the subtitle was,
<v Speaker 2>but he was in Roots, you know, part two.
<v Speaker 3>Rood Harder right, Roots with a Vengeance. I do think
<v Speaker 3>it's interesting as we were diving into these movies that
<v Speaker 3>we find out how many movies are sort of related, right,
<v Speaker 3>Trading Places and Coming to America. We would say they're brothers.
<v Speaker 3>I mean they are Eddie Murphy and John Landis their brothers.
<v Speaker 1>Right yeah.
<v Speaker 3>But of cousins to these movies, are you know, the
<v Speaker 3>Blues Brothers or Roots, the Roots the Nutty Professor right right.
<v Speaker 3>I do want to mention Sherry Headley plays Lisa from
<v Speaker 3>Coming to America. Yes, and she does a great job.
<v Speaker 3>She's just a sweetheart and has a great smile. She's
<v Speaker 3>very sort of regal, even though she lives in Queen's right.
<v Speaker 3>You know who finished second for the part of Lisa.
<v Speaker 3>Tell me Vanessa Williams.
<v Speaker 2>Vanessa Williams, who was the singer.
<v Speaker 3>She's a singer, a very successful singer.
<v Speaker 2>She was the one who was stripped of her crown
<v Speaker 2>for Miss Amaricas in America for this penthouse spread. Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>for sure. Yeah, that was an interesting bit there for
<v Speaker 2>the eighties.
<v Speaker 1>I remember that.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, let's dive in. I got some tidbits that I
<v Speaker 3>want to bounce off you. Okay, So Trading Places was
<v Speaker 3>originally to star Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor.
<v Speaker 1>Right, they had done Stircray, which was a huge hit
<v Speaker 1>in nineteen eighty.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and it was originally supposed to be called Black
<v Speaker 3>and White.
<v Speaker 1>It's not very creative.
<v Speaker 3>That name's terrible. Yeah, but Richard Pryor had to back out.
<v Speaker 3>Did you hear why he had to back out? I
<v Speaker 3>heard it had something to do with him setting himself
<v Speaker 3>on fire. He set himself on fire after freebasing cocaine. Oh,
<v Speaker 3>he was freebasing cocaine and went into this dragon deuced psychosis,
<v Speaker 3>poured rum all over himself.
<v Speaker 1>And I'll tell you how many times I've done the same.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, who hasn't done that? Oh man?
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, when when Richard Pryor was out, I mean
<v Speaker 2>he was, he didn't. He didn't like only a thirty
<v Speaker 2>percent shot of making it through that.
<v Speaker 3>They didn't know if he was going to live.
<v Speaker 1>He was a little twitchy after that. I could too,
<v Speaker 1>I can remember.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, I don't know if it was the freebasing,
<v Speaker 2>the cocaine or the being on fire, but he wasn't
<v Speaker 2>the same guy after that.
<v Speaker 3>No, But he actually references that in one of his
<v Speaker 3>comedy stand up routines, which oh yeah, make fun of yourself,
<v Speaker 3>and people laughed and they kind of endeared him to him.
<v Speaker 2>It's one of my favorite lines from Scrooge, where Bill
<v Speaker 2>Murray thinks that the waiter is on fire and he's
<v Speaker 2>not actually on fire, and everybody else is confused, and
<v Speaker 2>he grabs the bucket of water and throws it on
<v Speaker 2>the waiter and the waiters looking at him like what,
<v Speaker 2>and he goes, I'm sorry, I thought you were Richard Pryor.
<v Speaker 3>Oh man, that's awesome. There is a restaurant in Philadelphia
<v Speaker 3>in a Weston hotel called Winthorpe and Valentine fantastic after
<v Speaker 3>the movie. How cool is that?
<v Speaker 2>So I'm sure you're getting to the you're talking about
<v Speaker 2>them being brothers. These two movies, you of course have
<v Speaker 2>the connection that happens Eddie Murphy, in frustration with Simmy
<v Speaker 2>making the crap whole apartment look nice, he grabs his
<v Speaker 2>money and takes it away from him and sticks it
<v Speaker 2>in a McDowell's bag. And then as he and Lisa
<v Speaker 2>are walking, you know, romantically together, he hands the bag
<v Speaker 2>full of money to a couple of bums. Well, a
<v Speaker 2>couple of bums turn out to be the Duke brothers.
<v Speaker 3>I love that scene. That is my favorite scene in
<v Speaker 3>coming to America. I partially because I love trading places
<v Speaker 3>so much. But yeah, Donomichi's like, Randolph, leave me alone,
<v Speaker 3>Mortimer Randolph, and there he says, we're back, Yeah, thank you.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So I'm gonna again, I'm gonna derail this. So
<v Speaker 2>this is you know, people talk about movies that are
<v Speaker 2>important in black history, and this movie just doesn't.
<v Speaker 1>Come up, but it should. I mean, this is a
<v Speaker 1>movie that there are only three speaking.
<v Speaker 2>Parts for white actors. He's talking about coming to America.
<v Speaker 2>I'm talking about coming to America.
<v Speaker 1>Only three speaking parts in this movie.
<v Speaker 2>One is Randolph Duke, the other one is Mortimer Duke,
<v Speaker 2>and those parts are obviously pretty small. And the other
<v Speaker 2>one is Louis Anderson, who is hysterical.
<v Speaker 1>In this movie, but he's also not gonna.
<v Speaker 3>Wash let us now. Yes, pretty soon, I'll be on fries.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, a couple of years, I'll make assistant manager. That's
<v Speaker 1>when the big books start.
<v Speaker 3>When they were preparing for this movie, and I think
<v Speaker 3>they were in costumes. They're hanging out together anyway. Ralph
<v Speaker 3>Bellamy who had done ninety nine films, Don Amichi had
<v Speaker 3>done forty nine films.
<v Speaker 1>This is trading Places.
<v Speaker 3>I'm sorry, we're back on trade place.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, trading Places. Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>And Eddie Murphy joked that between the three of them,
<v Speaker 3>they had made one hundred and fifty films. One more
<v Speaker 3>thing on trading places before we kind of bounce around.
<v Speaker 3>This movie is more than likely based on what's known
<v Speaker 3>as Silver Thursday. I don't know if you're familiar with this,
<v Speaker 3>but March twenty seventh, nineteen eighty, The Hunt brothers from
<v Speaker 3>Texas tried unsuccessfully to corner the market in Silver Oh, Okay.
<v Speaker 3>And when the time came and they were they had
<v Speaker 3>to come up with one hundred million bucks, they didn't have.
<v Speaker 2>It right, kicked off the market. So that's the end
<v Speaker 2>scene of trading places. And so obviously, you know, this
<v Speaker 2>movie is based on a couple of old storylines. The Pigmlion,
<v Speaker 2>my Fair Lady storyline, you take somebody from the gutter.
<v Speaker 2>The Cinderella story, you take somebody from the gutter and
<v Speaker 2>you pass them off as a sophisticated elite type of persons.
<v Speaker 2>Done in that one, and that it's also based on
<v Speaker 2>the Mark Twain the Prince and the Popper, whereas the
<v Speaker 2>Prince trades place with the Popper and the Popper takes
<v Speaker 2>over as Prince, and it's that whole same storyline, even a.
<v Speaker 1>Line in the movie.
<v Speaker 2>It's very original, but you know, they do an entirely
<v Speaker 2>different thing with it.
<v Speaker 3>The same story is covered in The Three Stooges. If
<v Speaker 3>you've ever seen Hoi POLOI.
<v Speaker 1>Hoi POLOI.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, starts out with a couple of rich guys talking
<v Speaker 2>about how they can take people from the gutter and
<v Speaker 2>pass them off as rich people.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, they turn the stooges into gentlemen or try.
<v Speaker 2>Actually, yes, let's talk real quick before we get into
<v Speaker 2>the plots, you know, get into the details of the movie.
<v Speaker 2>There are a couple of actors that appear in these
<v Speaker 2>movies in very small, non speaking or one or two
<v Speaker 2>line parts in trading places. You get gian Carlo Esposito,
<v Speaker 2>who if you've seen Breaking Bad, he was the guy
<v Speaker 2>from Breaking the bad guy from Breaking Bad. If you've
<v Speaker 2>seen The Mandalorian, he's the guy who shows up at
<v Speaker 2>the end, who's kind of dressed like Darth Vader, who's
<v Speaker 2>the bad guy there.
<v Speaker 1>There's been a ton of Spike Lee movies.
<v Speaker 2>Do the Right Thing is all over the place now,
<v Speaker 2>but this was like his first major movie role. But
<v Speaker 2>he's just a guy standing on the leaning against the
<v Speaker 2>bars in the jail cell. And then also in that
<v Speaker 2>same scene, next to Eddie Murphy is the guy they
<v Speaker 2>called do Rag Lenny lay by Clint Smith, who's friend
<v Speaker 2>of Eddie Murphy's.
<v Speaker 1>He'd been in a couple of Saturday Night Lives really okay.
<v Speaker 2>And then Clint Smith, of course also appears as the
<v Speaker 2>third barber in coming to America.
<v Speaker 1>Who's that Boy's good?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah? Good and terrible. Yeah. That scene in the jail
<v Speaker 3>cell is hilarious though, because Eddie Murphy's blowing all this
<v Speaker 3>bs to a few guys who are listening to him,
<v Speaker 3>and the couple of big guys like, hey man, you've
<v Speaker 3>been in all these fights. How come you don't look
<v Speaker 3>messed up? Mandy man brus on the inside, so we
<v Speaker 3>don't show our weaknesses. But you too dumb?
<v Speaker 1>Remember, yeah? Yeah, finished that line? Family friendly.
<v Speaker 3>Family friendly scene is so funny. And then Clint's bed bags,
<v Speaker 3>Yeah you do dumb?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah? Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>You know who was originally supposed to be the King
<v Speaker 3>in Coming to America? No, I don't know. I'm trying.
<v Speaker 3>I'm bouncing all over them that they wanted Sidney Potier
<v Speaker 3>to be the king.
<v Speaker 2>Oh I didn't know that, And that would have been wrong.
<v Speaker 2>That would have been he's too serious. Like James Earl
<v Speaker 2>Jones can pull off the comedy somehow, but I've never
<v Speaker 2>seen Sidney Pottier be funny.
<v Speaker 3>In my life. Sidney Pottier definitely could do the regal,
<v Speaker 3>but not the funny.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and James Earl Jones actually wanted the part of McDowell,
<v Speaker 2>John McLean McDowell. He wanted John Amos part. So here's
<v Speaker 2>an interesting bit. We're just gonna we're all the scattershot shouted,
<v Speaker 2>let's do it. So the interesting bit about McDowell's is,
<v Speaker 2>you know, they went to McDonald's to say, hey, you know,
<v Speaker 2>is it okay if we do this for the movie,
<v Speaker 2>because they didn't want to get sued, of course, and
<v Speaker 2>so McDonald's actually said, yeah, I think this is a
<v Speaker 2>good idea. Yeah they were. They were like, yeah, go
<v Speaker 2>for it, you can do it. We actually want you
<v Speaker 2>to kind of emphasize how hard we're going to be
<v Speaker 2>on anybody who tries to steal our trademark ideas.
<v Speaker 1>So that was kind of a theme of the show.
<v Speaker 2>But then the corporate office forgot to tell the local
<v Speaker 2>franchise ee. And so when they show up to the
<v Speaker 2>you know, the old Wendy's that's getting renovated to make
<v Speaker 2>it into a mcdonell's, the local franchisee shows up with
<v Speaker 2>his lawyer and they're taking pictures just like the guy
<v Speaker 2>in the movie, and we're gonna sue your zack off.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. Yeah, they got the Golden Arches minus the Golden arcs.
<v Speaker 1>See they got the big mac, I.
<v Speaker 3>Got the big make. We both got two all beef patties,
<v Speaker 3>special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, and onions. But they use
<v Speaker 3>a sesame seed punt. My buns have no seats.
<v Speaker 1>Our bunds have no seats.
<v Speaker 2>But as he delivers that line, which is already funny,
<v Speaker 2>he smacks the door to Louis Anderson, who spills the
<v Speaker 2>coke all over the floor.
<v Speaker 1>It's hysterical.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, that is super funny. On coming to America. We're
<v Speaker 3>bouncing back now, but.
<v Speaker 1>We're still on coming to America.
<v Speaker 3>To America. The dance scene at the beginning during the wedding, Yes, okay,
<v Speaker 3>you have this big, magnificent thing the wedding. Here comes here.
<v Speaker 3>She's your queen, right that has this big dance routine.
<v Speaker 3>You know that was choreographed by I Do Paula Abdul,
<v Speaker 3>who had yet become the big name that she was
<v Speaker 3>in the later part of the eighties.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah she was. She had not released Straight Up.
<v Speaker 3>Straight Up came out after coming to America in eighty eight.
<v Speaker 1>Right, and you know who plays a prominent part in
<v Speaker 1>the straight Up video.
<v Speaker 3>Our City Hall, otherwise known as semi.
<v Speaker 2>Right man, and what a what a career launch. Did
<v Speaker 2>you watch The Arsenial Hall Show when you're a kid?
<v Speaker 2>I watched it all the way. Yeah, I watched that
<v Speaker 2>all the time. I mean that part alone is iconic.
<v Speaker 3>Right, It was a big, big deal in the early nineties. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>there is an interesting Arsenio Hall clip. I'm gonna bring
<v Speaker 3>us down for just a second. Jim Henson was on
<v Speaker 3>The Arsenio Hall Show, interviewed by Arsenial Hall, and he
<v Speaker 3>wasn't feeling good and talking about his career and talking
<v Speaker 3>about some things. But he was on the show and hey,
<v Speaker 3>I'm here, I'm doing You're feeling a little sick. It's like,
<v Speaker 3>I'm all right. Two days later dead and he had
<v Speaker 3>pneumonia or whatever.
<v Speaker 2>It was, and such a loss. Jim Henson was such
<v Speaker 2>a critical part of our childhood. So you did all
<v Speaker 2>these things. And you know, frank Oz was a big
<v Speaker 2>part of the Jim Henson line.
<v Speaker 3>Absolutely.
<v Speaker 1>He did the voice for his piggy.
<v Speaker 3>Fozzie Bear, He did Sam the Eagle, Yeah, he did Yoda.
<v Speaker 2>And frank Oz of course, is also a big player
<v Speaker 2>in all of John Landis movies. Yes, well almost all.
<v Speaker 2>He's not in coming to America. But if you get
<v Speaker 2>the scene where they just arrive in America and they're
<v Speaker 2>still in the airport, there's an announcement that comes over
<v Speaker 2>the PA system, Frank Oskowitz, please go to the white
<v Speaker 2>courtesy phone. That happens, and that's actually Frank Oz's real name.
<v Speaker 2>John Land has still found a way to put him.
<v Speaker 3>That's really cool. And he's the cop in Trading Places.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and the cop and Blues Brothers too. There's another connection.
<v Speaker 2>He's the cop at the beginning of Blues Brothers when
<v Speaker 2>Jake Blues is getting out of prison and he hands
<v Speaker 2>them all.
<v Speaker 1>Of his stuff. By the way, another connection.
<v Speaker 2>The number that Dan Aykroyd holds up whenever he's getting
<v Speaker 2>his mugshots done is the same number that John Belushi
<v Speaker 2>had as his prison number in Blues Brothers.
<v Speaker 3>That's really cool. Yeah, okay, you mentioned the Muppets. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>and Frank Oz is in trading Places. Let's put back
<v Speaker 3>to trading place.
<v Speaker 1>Trading Places.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, he's back to trading place.
<v Speaker 1>He's the police officer there.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. So he's the one who's like he plants the
<v Speaker 3>He's like, this is angel dust, right, PCB. You know
<v Speaker 3>what the stuff does to kids. So he's the cop
<v Speaker 3>that's sort of in collusion with Clarence Peakes. But do
<v Speaker 3>you know who the trader is for the Duke brothers
<v Speaker 3>when they send him in and say go buy orange juice? Wilson, Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>Wilson by.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, No, I don't just get in there.
<v Speaker 3>Let us worry about that. You know that is His
<v Speaker 3>name is Richard Hunt. He did the voice of Scooter
<v Speaker 3>from the Muppet movie of the Muppets Janice.
<v Speaker 1>Oh ye, Jannas is so cool.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, guys, I told him mom, if I want to
<v Speaker 3>run around the beach naked. H He did Beaker and
<v Speaker 3>he did Statler, so he was a very prominent muppeteer.
<v Speaker 3>So pretty cool connection there.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, someday will find the Lorraine the Long.
<v Speaker 2>So join us next week for part two of the debate.
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<v Speaker 2>You Can't Be Serious podcasts.
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