Trading Places ('83) or Coming to America ('88): Which Eddie Murphy and John Landis movie is the Best?!

<v Speaker 1>Hello everybody, and welcome to the Surely Can't Be Serious podcast,
<v Speaker 1>discussing and debating the iconic and the forgotten of eighties
<v Speaker 1>and nineties pop culture with your co hosts James D.
<v Speaker 1>Graves and Jason Colban.
<v Speaker 2>All right, let's do this, don't you. Let's do it? Okay, Okay,
<v Speaker 2>here we are.
<v Speaker 3>We are here for our Eddie Murphy, John Landis duo,
<v Speaker 3>the Trading Places versus coming to America.
<v Speaker 4>Looking good, Jason feeling good.
<v Speaker 2>D Let's do this, all right? Remember to follow us
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<v Speaker 2>you agree with, tell us what you disagree with, tell
<v Speaker 2>us where we're way off.
<v Speaker 4>You know.
<v Speaker 3>I we had somebody say something once and it made
<v Speaker 3>me think of my history professor in high school. He
<v Speaker 3>started the whole class first day of class. He's like,
<v Speaker 3>I might tell you something that's not accurate, but you
<v Speaker 3>have to figure that out. I was like, wow, Okay,
<v Speaker 3>we researched these things. We're not experts in anything that
<v Speaker 3>we do, anything that we're talking about, but we do
<v Speaker 3>research them.
<v Speaker 4>We do. Yeah. So but if we get something wrong,
<v Speaker 4>call us out.
<v Speaker 2>We like it, that's right, let's hear from you.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah for sure.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, So we're going to talk about Eddie Murphy who
<v Speaker 3>I was listening to Delirious on the way over here today,
<v Speaker 3>and my gosh, the man is so freaking funny.
<v Speaker 4>I wish he would do stand up some more. It's
<v Speaker 4>been I think.
<v Speaker 2>It's been almost thirty years.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>I think with Raw was the last actual stand up
<v Speaker 3>he did, right, and it was only three big show
<v Speaker 3>stand up that he did. The first Eddie Murphy, then
<v Speaker 3>Delirious and then Raw Wow. But he that's where he
<v Speaker 3>got his start. You know, he started off in stand up.
<v Speaker 3>He was the kid who didn't want to go outside
<v Speaker 3>and play. He wants to stay in and watch TV,
<v Speaker 3>which is kind of me too. He started doing stand
<v Speaker 3>up when he was fifteen years old. It's incredible, my
<v Speaker 3>son is fifteen. Yeah, to imagine them up on stage,
<v Speaker 3>although Brock I could actually see him up on stage
<v Speaker 3>delivered some friends.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, get it together, man, he start working.
<v Speaker 4>He's hilarious.
<v Speaker 2>So he starts that and then somebody says, hey.
<v Speaker 3>You know, they're they're looking for a black guy over
<v Speaker 3>Saturday Night Live. You should give audition for that, and
<v Speaker 3>he's he didn't even I mean, he didn't really watch
<v Speaker 3>Saturday Night Live that much and just thought it was whatever, right,
<v Speaker 3>But then he thought, oh, maybe it'll be good for my.
<v Speaker 4>Stand up.
<v Speaker 1>For him.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, get me out there and I'll get some better,
<v Speaker 3>get some better stand up gigs. And then as it
<v Speaker 3>turned out, it was opened a whole lot more doors.
<v Speaker 2>When he was on Saturday Early Live, it was clear
<v Speaker 2>right away that this guy is going to be a.
<v Speaker 4>Star, absolutely well.
<v Speaker 3>And I mean I can understand his reaction to Saturday
<v Speaker 3>Night Live at that point because Lauren Michaels had left
<v Speaker 3>the show and Saturday Night Live sucked, right, I mean,
<v Speaker 3>this is the early eighties and they were awful.
<v Speaker 2>Well, they had lost Chevy Chase, they had lost all
<v Speaker 2>all these people had left.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and so when he comes in to do the audition,
<v Speaker 3>he does the audition is an old bit from the
<v Speaker 3>seventies with Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor where they do
<v Speaker 3>the word association game and you know, we're a family
<v Speaker 3>friendly podcast, so.
<v Speaker 4>He can't do it.
<v Speaker 3>But Chevy Chase is using these racial slurs, and Richard
<v Speaker 3>Pryor is supposed to respond with you know, the word response,
<v Speaker 3>and all he could do is say honky honky and
<v Speaker 3>dead honky. Yes, he throws out the end word Richard
<v Speaker 3>Bridle like a home game. And so Eddie does that
<v Speaker 3>with Joe Piscopo is his audition piece, and he just
<v Speaker 3>he knew the bit because he loved Richard Pryor, and
<v Speaker 3>of course he nailed it and he saved the show.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, yeah, he really wasn't for him. I don't
<v Speaker 3>know that Saturday Night Live would still be a thing.
<v Speaker 2>It definitely got that boost it needed at that early
<v Speaker 2>stage when it could have died.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, yeah, right. It was the reason people started watching again.
<v Speaker 2>I think fun so cool. So we're going to talk
<v Speaker 2>about Trading Places from nineteen eighty three, yes, which is
<v Speaker 2>an Eddie Murphy dan Aykroyd movie, right and coming to America,
<v Speaker 2>which came out in July fourth of nineteen eighty eight.
<v Speaker 4>YEP.
<v Speaker 2>This is interesting because Trading Places is Eddie Murphy's second movie.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, his first movie was forty eight Hours with Nick
<v Speaker 3>Nolty he had gotten that piece because his agent was
<v Speaker 3>dating the guy who was going to make the movie.
<v Speaker 5>Wow.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>So the rumor was that they had just seen him
<v Speaker 3>on Saturday Night Live and got him from that.
<v Speaker 4>But it is actually like he had a really inside.
<v Speaker 2>Nice yeah deal on that one. You know, the scene
<v Speaker 2>that stands out in forty eight hours to me, Eddie
<v Speaker 2>Murphy wise, if you'll remember, he takes the cops badge.
<v Speaker 2>Eddie Murphy is a con, you know. They get him
<v Speaker 2>out of jail for this, right, and he goes and
<v Speaker 2>he said, I'm gonna take care of this problem. He
<v Speaker 2>takes the badge, gets his cowboy hat and goes into
<v Speaker 2>a honky tonk.
<v Speaker 1>You start running a respectable business and I don't have
<v Speaker 1>to come in here and hassle you every.
<v Speaker 2>Night, you know what I mean.
<v Speaker 4>Oh my gosh.
<v Speaker 2>And that scene is unbelievable.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah. Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>At the point that at the point that that scene
<v Speaker 3>finishes up, like people in the audience were standing up
<v Speaker 3>and cheer him because it was a straight I mean
<v Speaker 3>it was it was still funny. You can't be Eddie
<v Speaker 3>Murphy in the early eighties and not be funny, right,
<v Speaker 3>But that was more of a straight piece for him,
<v Speaker 3>right straight.
<v Speaker 4>Actor.
<v Speaker 2>You know who wrote that scene, Our friend Steven Desusa.
<v Speaker 4>Oh, right, from Diehard.
<v Speaker 2>He wrote Diehard. That's right.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I mean a thousand movies, but yeah, that's right, right.
<v Speaker 4>But yeah, that's our course favorite of his movies.
<v Speaker 2>We can get into that a little bit later. Sure, yeah, okay,
<v Speaker 2>So Trading Places are released June eighth, nineteen eighty three.
<v Speaker 2>Just take those old all right. So okay, so current
<v Speaker 2>events right for me, just kind of a little fashion thing.
<v Speaker 2>Swatch introduces their first watches.
<v Speaker 3>Oh, I love I had a Swatch for years years. Really,
<v Speaker 3>I'm still wearing Swatches into the nineties.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you want to hear my Swatch story. I bought
<v Speaker 2>with my own money what I thought was a really
<v Speaker 2>cool Swatch watch. Yeah, I didn't really know. My friends
<v Speaker 2>are like, hey, Swatch is the way to go. I
<v Speaker 2>go to the store, buy a Swatch. I like it
<v Speaker 2>looks cool. Bring it to school the next day, Hey, guys,
<v Speaker 2>check out my Swatch. They're like, why'd you buy a
<v Speaker 2>girls one? Like, what are you talking about? The little
<v Speaker 2>ones where girls? The big ones were boys? You only
<v Speaker 2>do the plot overview of Trading Places, all right? So
<v Speaker 2>Lewis Winthorpe the third is a successful commodity broker in Philadelphia.
<v Speaker 2>He's got a great job, beautiful fiance in a wonderful
<v Speaker 2>home that includes a butler Coleman. Billy Ray Valentine is
<v Speaker 2>a con man and a hustler who pretends to be
<v Speaker 2>a legless Vietnam Vet, begging and bugging people for money.
<v Speaker 2>Winthorpe's employers, the Duke Brothers, make a bet that if
<v Speaker 2>they switched and took Billy Ray Valentine from the streets,
<v Speaker 2>put him in a job, and if they somehow disgraced Winthorpe,
<v Speaker 2>he would turn to a life of crap. And so
<v Speaker 2>they make this bet, and they set it up in
<v Speaker 2>such a way that they bring Billy Ray in for
<v Speaker 2>his job, and they cast out Winthorpe to the streets,
<v Speaker 2>and some hilarity ensues. But Winthorpe and Valentine figure this out.
<v Speaker 2>They join up, and they're going to take down the
<v Speaker 2>Duke Brothers with the help of Ophelia played by Jamie
<v Speaker 2>Lee Curtis, who is the piger with the Heart of Gold,
<v Speaker 2>and they're going to take down the Duke brothers. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>so nineteen eighty eight, that year.
<v Speaker 4>I can remember so clearly. We went.
<v Speaker 3>We were so excited because Mike Tyson was redefining what
<v Speaker 3>it meant to be a boxer.
<v Speaker 4>I mean, he was just unbeatable.
<v Speaker 2>Oh my gosh.
<v Speaker 3>And I played plenty of hours of Mike Tyson's punch.
<v Speaker 4>Out on my name.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, but we went to we had a big event.
<v Speaker 3>It was I think maybe pay per view was coming
<v Speaker 3>out the first time, or maybe this was on HBO
<v Speaker 3>and we didn't get it at the time. But he
<v Speaker 3>had a fight with Michael Spinks. And I can remember
<v Speaker 3>going there where it's a big party.
<v Speaker 4>There are several people.
<v Speaker 3>There were all guys ready to go that I'm going
<v Speaker 3>with my dad, you know, and the fight's about to start.
<v Speaker 4>I'm thinking, okay, I'm gonna grab a coke real quick.
<v Speaker 3>I grab a coke, I see some chips, I come
<v Speaker 3>back in and the fight is over. He had knocked
<v Speaker 3>Michael Spinks out in ninety one seconds.
<v Speaker 2>I remember that too. That was amazing. This is a
<v Speaker 2>time with Mike Tyson. I mean, this was a huge match.
<v Speaker 2>I mean I thought at the time, man, these are
<v Speaker 2>two big boys gonna duke it out.
<v Speaker 4>Yep.
<v Speaker 2>Turns out there's only one big boy. And he was
<v Speaker 2>big and bad.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, he was all right.
<v Speaker 2>So I don't know if you know this, d but
<v Speaker 2>on Christmas Eve was nineteen eighty eight, terrorists take over
<v Speaker 2>the knock Tommy Plaza Tower.
<v Speaker 4>Oh I was. I was get wrenched at that.
<v Speaker 3>I was watching the news, kidding.
<v Speaker 2>Shots fired.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, So the other movie that we're going to talk
<v Speaker 3>is Eddie Murphy's second movie with John Landis. We talked
<v Speaker 3>about big stars of the eighties. Eddie Murphy was one,
<v Speaker 3>but John Landis was also one. I mean, without question,
<v Speaker 3>you had five directors that were killing the eighties. He's
<v Speaker 3>got to be on that list, that's right. So they
<v Speaker 3>do the second movie together. The premise, I'll do the
<v Speaker 3>blot outline for Coming to America, a wealthy African nation
<v Speaker 3>of Zamunda, the crown Prince a Keen Joffer grows weary
<v Speaker 3>of his hampered lifestyle. Whybus and he wakes up on
<v Speaker 3>his twenty first birthday.
<v Speaker 4>I tell you, I want to.
<v Speaker 3>Get I know I'm supposed to be running through the
<v Speaker 3>plot here, but I want to get the music. I
<v Speaker 3>don't need the band. I don't need the orchestra, you know,
<v Speaker 3>because that'd be a little expensive.
<v Speaker 4>But that music.
<v Speaker 3>If I could just wake up to that music every morning,
<v Speaker 3>oh every day would be better.
<v Speaker 2>Good morning, your highness.
<v Speaker 4>So it's his twenty first birthday.
<v Speaker 3>It's the day he is supposed to meet his bride
<v Speaker 3>to be, who he's never met before. But this is
<v Speaker 3>an arranged marriage, and despite the fact that he lives
<v Speaker 3>without any want in the world that goes unmet, he
<v Speaker 3>is unhappy that he has to marry this woman who
<v Speaker 3>he has never met, and then, after meeting her, though
<v Speaker 3>she is beautiful, she is completely complicit to every whim
<v Speaker 3>that he wants. So he decides to go find himself
<v Speaker 3>a bride in a place where people don't know who
<v Speaker 3>he is.
<v Speaker 5>And where to go to do that is America. Where
<v Speaker 5>better than Queen's Queens, And so he and his best
<v Speaker 5>friend Simmy go to Queen's. They pose as poor African students.
<v Speaker 5>They get a job at the local knockoff of McDonald's
<v Speaker 5>called McDowell's. Because Prince Akim has grown enamored with the
<v Speaker 5>McDowell's owner's daughter, Lisa.
<v Speaker 4>Hilarity ensues.
<v Speaker 3>Ultimately, the King comes and tries to put an end
<v Speaker 3>to this crazy idea that he would marry some American
<v Speaker 3>girl and ultimately they are reunited at the end of
<v Speaker 3>the movie.
<v Speaker 2>Great, great movie. Two great movies, very very enjoyable movies.
<v Speaker 2>The budget, let's just talk about that. They were both
<v Speaker 2>big hits, right okay. Trading Places was the fourth highest
<v Speaker 2>grossing film in nineteen eighty three, behind Return of the
<v Speaker 2>Jedi Flash Dance in terms of a dearmant. So it's
<v Speaker 2>a big, big movie. The budget was twenty eight million
<v Speaker 2>and it made ninety million. Similarly, Coming to America a
<v Speaker 2>big hit from nineteen eighty eight. The budget was thirty
<v Speaker 2>nine million and it made worldwide two hundred and eighty
<v Speaker 2>eight million plus. Huge, huge movie for Eddie mun We
<v Speaker 2>want to go through the actors actresses.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, let's start talking about the actors. Obviously, Eddie Murphy
<v Speaker 3>is in both of these movies.
<v Speaker 2>Eddie Murphy for a Moment, he made forty eight hours. Yep,
<v Speaker 2>he made Trading Places. He made Coming to America. Our
<v Speaker 2>younger viewers and listeners may recognize his voice from Shrek,
<v Speaker 2>right he plays Donkey and Shrek.
<v Speaker 1>I like that bold. That is a ninth bold.
<v Speaker 2>He was in The Nutty Professor Norbit, The Adventures of
<v Speaker 2>Pluto Nash. Have you ever seen that.
<v Speaker 4>I have not seen that one. I can tell you
<v Speaker 4>that he received a Golden Globe nomination.
<v Speaker 3>For his work on forty eight Hours, Beverly Hills, Cop
<v Speaker 3>Trading Places, Nutty Professor, and for Dolomite.
<v Speaker 4>He ultimately won the Golden Globe for dream Girls.
<v Speaker 2>Dream Girls, right, you know, the only movie that he
<v Speaker 2>turned down that turned out to be a hit that
<v Speaker 2>he regrets not taking the role. I thought this was
<v Speaker 2>really interesting.
<v Speaker 4>Who Framed Roger rabbits y? You never even knew that.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, the guy who went on to do Shrek had
<v Speaker 3>proposed it to him before and said, hey, you should
<v Speaker 3>do this movie. He's like, hey, cartoons, I don't want
<v Speaker 3>to do that, right, And when Who Framed Roger Rabbit
<v Speaker 3>became the success that it did, he was like, oh
<v Speaker 3>ooop's not going to refuse one of those offers again.
<v Speaker 2>And that's how he got Donkey Nice. Roger Rabbit came
<v Speaker 2>out summer of eight eight as well. All Right. Dan Aykroyd,
<v Speaker 2>who you'll remember from Saturday Night Live, right, Blues Brothers, Yep, Ghostbusters, YEP,
<v Speaker 2>Spies Like Us with John Landis.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, another eighties icon.
<v Speaker 2>He was in Conheads in one of the worst movies
<v Speaker 2>in the nineteen eighties, maybe the worst movie of the
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighties, Ishtar, I don't see his star. He was
<v Speaker 2>in Caddy Shack too.
<v Speaker 4>Oh, I don't think I hated Caddy Shack too. Oh.
<v Speaker 3>It was terrible with the guy from the Jerk in it, right,
<v Speaker 3>Jackie Mason, Thank you Jackie Mason.
<v Speaker 4>It wasn't good.
<v Speaker 2>It was awful, all right. And so Dannikward was in
<v Speaker 2>maybe the worst movie the nineteen eighties. He was also
<v Speaker 2>in maybe the worst movie the nineteen nineties, called Nothing
<v Speaker 2>but Trouble. No.
<v Speaker 4>I liked that one too. Oh my god, No, that's hilarious. Okay, right, No,
<v Speaker 4>that's a great one.
<v Speaker 3>Demmy Moore and Chevy Chack was And if he plays
<v Speaker 3>the judge, doesn't he doesn't with the judge.
<v Speaker 4>Oh my gosh, it's a lot. That's awesome, like.
<v Speaker 2>That movie last time you saw that you were five?
<v Speaker 2>Come on, all right? Also starring this is really cool
<v Speaker 2>Doni Miichi and Ralph Bellamy.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, Duke brothers. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Doni Miichi hadn't done a movie in thirteen years.
<v Speaker 4>Thirteen years.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, here's some interesting thing about this one. You know,
<v Speaker 3>when he started he didn't know who these guys were.
<v Speaker 3>They didn't know who he was. But he comes in
<v Speaker 3>and I mean the eighties are very different than the
<v Speaker 3>movies that Dono Michi was making. I mean, you've, especially
<v Speaker 3>with John Landis, You're gonna have lots of F bombs.
<v Speaker 3>You're gonna have lots of movies.
<v Speaker 2>It's just the way that John Reist did his movies.
<v Speaker 3>And so Donamichi's got two like Big, you know, drops
<v Speaker 3>the F on f him about his brother. And then
<v Speaker 3>I mean in the bathroom I was when rewatching, I was.
<v Speaker 4>Like, whoa, oh, he.
<v Speaker 2>Just dropped the N bomb there, Big, that's right. And
<v Speaker 2>so he was. He was adamantly I mean he's a
<v Speaker 2>conservative religious guy.
<v Speaker 3>He was adamantly opposed. I'm not doing that. And they're like,
<v Speaker 3>you've you've got to do it. I mean, it's just
<v Speaker 3>part of the role. And he was like, Okay, I'm
<v Speaker 3>gonna do it. I'm gonna do it once and you
<v Speaker 3>better get it on the first take. And he went
<v Speaker 3>before this, before the filming, before the scenes started, he
<v Speaker 3>went early to go apologize to everybody about what was
<v Speaker 3>about to happen, but he didn't hold any punches on it.
<v Speaker 4>Man he delivers it hard. He does he just like
<v Speaker 4>holy smokes.
<v Speaker 2>I love that about him, the fact that he's so
<v Speaker 2>gentlemanly to show up and he apologizes to all the
<v Speaker 2>cast and crew. All Right, everyone, guess what I'm getting
<v Speaker 2>ready to drop a major f BO and I'm very
<v Speaker 2>sorry about that.
<v Speaker 3>I realized that you've been listening to Eddie Murphy.
<v Speaker 2>All right everyone. I know that there are young people
<v Speaker 2>who like to cuss, but that is not me, so.
<v Speaker 4>DONOMICI then you know this is this is kind of
<v Speaker 4>a comeback role for him.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>The next movie that he did was Cocoon and he
<v Speaker 3>won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar from the Miss So cool.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah for him.
<v Speaker 2>You know, Ralph Bellmy kind of got a boost off
<v Speaker 2>of this too. He ended up doing Pretty Woman.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>You know he's not related to Bill Bellamy. Thanks to
<v Speaker 3>clear that up for Okay, So here's here's that secret
<v Speaker 3>thing I was going to throw. And if you have
<v Speaker 3>any idea who Bill Bellamy is, which you should tell me,
<v Speaker 3>post a picture of Bill Bellamy on our Twitter feed,
<v Speaker 3>say at Tuirley Podcast on Twitter post a picture of him,
<v Speaker 3>or if you're into Facebook, post a picture of Bill
<v Speaker 3>Bellamy on Facebook, and we'll give you a shout out.
<v Speaker 2>I want to run. That dude has gone away. I
<v Speaker 2>don't know what he's doing.
<v Speaker 4>He was a big thing there for five minutes. Yep.
<v Speaker 1>All right.
<v Speaker 2>And also in trading places, you have Jamie Lee Curtis.
<v Speaker 4>Okay, so you know dan Aykroyd.
<v Speaker 3>They were hesitant about having him come in and do
<v Speaker 3>the show because they weren't sure whether he could be
<v Speaker 3>funny without John Belushi.
<v Speaker 2>That's right, that's right.
<v Speaker 3>And they were also hesitant about Jamie Lee Curtis because
<v Speaker 3>they didn't know that she could be funny at all.
<v Speaker 3>I mean because the only thing that she had really
<v Speaker 3>done at that point were the horror flick she was.
<v Speaker 4>Like with screenplaying.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, she'd done Halloween, she had done Promnite and The
<v Speaker 2>Fog and some of these horror movies. So they didn't
<v Speaker 2>know if she could be funny.
<v Speaker 4>Right.
<v Speaker 2>One thing they did know though, yeah, she was beautiful.
<v Speaker 3>Oh my gosh. Okay, So here's the story. You know,
<v Speaker 3>you've told your Booby story from Airplane. I'm gonna go
<v Speaker 3>ahead and tell this story now. So this movie came
<v Speaker 3>out in nineteen eighty three, the summer of nineteen eighty three. Yes,
<v Speaker 3>my birthday is in October. I was still seven years
<v Speaker 3>old than nineteen when this movie came out. Okay, we're
<v Speaker 3>in California and this is where this is where I
<v Speaker 3>found out that what rated are really ment Okay, so
<v Speaker 3>I had, you know, at that point at seven years old,
<v Speaker 3>I know, I had asked to see the other John
<v Speaker 3>Landis big hit American were Wolf in London.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, and my dad was like, no, you can't say
<v Speaker 4>it's rated R. And I said, what does that mean?
<v Speaker 4>It's too scary? You can't see it because it's too scary, right,
<v Speaker 4>I didn't mention the porn.
<v Speaker 3>Scene, and so and so we you know, we're in California,
<v Speaker 3>were visiting my cousins. My brother and my cousins are
<v Speaker 3>all fifteen years old. I'm seven. The parents are about
<v Speaker 3>to go out and they're going to go see Doctor Detroit.
<v Speaker 4>Detroit.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, that has dan Ekrod in it, which was a
<v Speaker 3>big bomb for him. Fortunately, yeah, fortunately these movies came
<v Speaker 3>out at the same time or he might have been shot.
<v Speaker 3>But the they're going to go see it, and I
<v Speaker 3>was like, oh, I want to go, and you can't go.
<v Speaker 4>It's it's rated R. And I was like I won't
<v Speaker 4>be scared.
<v Speaker 2>It doesn't look scary at all.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure how this movie is scary,
<v Speaker 4>but okay.
<v Speaker 3>And so then a couple of days later, my cousins,
<v Speaker 3>my brother and I go to the big multiplex, the
<v Speaker 3>in California and we buy tickets for Snow White, and
<v Speaker 3>then we proceed to go in and watch Trading Places
<v Speaker 3>when National Lampoon vacation when and risky business. Okay, like
<v Speaker 3>I got no parent put their hand over my eyes,
<v Speaker 3>nobody's saying don't look. And so all of a sudden,
<v Speaker 3>in one day, I am exposed to Jamie Lee Curtis's boobies,
<v Speaker 3>Rebecca de Mornay's boobies, and Beverly DeAngelo's boobies.
<v Speaker 4>And it was quite a day for me.
<v Speaker 2>That's a glorious day.
<v Speaker 4>Oh my gosh.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, dude, those are three big time girls from the
<v Speaker 2>from the eighties.
<v Speaker 4>Man, I was a changed kid.
<v Speaker 2>Wow, that's awesome, all right. So switch over to Coming
<v Speaker 2>to America. Okay, sounds good, all right, So we covered
<v Speaker 2>Eddie Murphy, the co star with him was our sending
<v Speaker 2>a hall right, who really hadn't done a whole lot.
<v Speaker 3>He had been in a little bit of John Landis's
<v Speaker 3>movie Amazon, Women from the Moon.
<v Speaker 4>Have you seen that?
<v Speaker 2>I love this movie and I haven't seen it a
<v Speaker 2>long time, but I know it's a It's like a
<v Speaker 2>Kentucky Fried movie, right, it's different skits, and his skit
<v Speaker 2>opens the movie, Our Senior Hall does and it's hilarious.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, So he and Eddie Murphy come to meet in
<v Speaker 3>kind of a weird way. I haven't gotten a good
<v Speaker 3>story on this, but it's kind of the way Eddie
<v Speaker 3>tells it is he's flipped through the channels and he
<v Speaker 3>sees himself and he's like, well, I don't remember doing that,
<v Speaker 3>and he goes back and it's like, oh, that's not me,
<v Speaker 3>that's our Senial Hall. And in our Senior Hall, not
<v Speaker 3>having done anything. It's really surprising how big his part
<v Speaker 3>was in this movie. I mean, he's he is the
<v Speaker 3>other star of the movie.
<v Speaker 2>All without a doubt. And John Lanis actually commented that
<v Speaker 2>the studio had known how large this part was, they
<v Speaker 2>never would have gone for our Santa Hall.
<v Speaker 3>And so both he and Eddie have this thing where
<v Speaker 3>they play multiple parts in the movie, okay, And so
<v Speaker 3>that actually was a way that Eddie got the studio
<v Speaker 3>to buy in on his script was, Hey, I'm going
<v Speaker 3>to play these multiple parts. He had done all of
<v Speaker 3>these characters when he was on Saturday Night Live, but
<v Speaker 3>all of his movies up until that point had just
<v Speaker 3>been like him playing one character and that was it.
<v Speaker 3>And so he does all these parts, and he and
<v Speaker 3>Landis are tossing around ideas for different parts, and they
<v Speaker 3>come up with the old Jewish Man saw. John Landis
<v Speaker 3>tells it like this, He said, back in the early,
<v Speaker 3>you know, nineteen hundreds, the a lot of Jews did
<v Speaker 3>get their famous by doing blackface. So this would be
<v Speaker 3>like the flip of that that you are going to
<v Speaker 3>go and play this old Jewish man. Eddie Murphy's like, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>except look at me, you know how how am I
<v Speaker 3>going to be a white man?
<v Speaker 1>Right?
<v Speaker 3>And so at that point John Landis says, well, I
<v Speaker 3>know Rick Baker, Rick Baker. So here's a little history
<v Speaker 3>on John Landis and Rick Baker. John Landis was the
<v Speaker 3>first one to use Rick Baker and anything at all.
<v Speaker 3>And for those of you listening who don't know, Rick
<v Speaker 3>Baker is the guy who did all of the makeup
<v Speaker 3>for American, we'reworth in London, for the Star Wars movies.
<v Speaker 3>For I mean, he's the Michael Jordan of Yeah, he dominated.
<v Speaker 3>So John Landis had had worked on Planet of the
<v Speaker 3>Ape stuff first go around back in the sixties, had
<v Speaker 3>worked on it and went to the guy who had
<v Speaker 3>done the stuff for that for this idea he had
<v Speaker 3>for a movie called Schlock. Schlock was supposed to be
<v Speaker 3>like a parody almost of this movie called trog which
<v Speaker 3>had come out a little while which was short for
<v Speaker 3>Trogolodite and which was absolutely terrible. And he wanted an
<v Speaker 3>actual bad ape costume to wear. And so he goes
<v Speaker 3>to his friend who had done Planet of the Apes
<v Speaker 3>and they're like, yeah, I can do one of those
<v Speaker 3>for one hundred thousand dollars for you. Well, okay, the
<v Speaker 3>budget for the movie sixty thousand dollars I don't remember right,
<v Speaker 3>And they're like, oh, okay. We go to Don Pope
<v Speaker 3>and so he got here's another big name, and he
<v Speaker 3>goes to him and he's like, oh, yeah, I could
<v Speaker 3>do it for you for only eighty thousand dollars. I think, okay,
<v Speaker 3>I guess I don't know what to do. I'm going
<v Speaker 3>to have to figure this out on my own. But
<v Speaker 3>as he's walking out the door, the Don Pope Junior
<v Speaker 3>comes to him, hands him a card and said, hey,
<v Speaker 3>this kid was in just a little while ago. He's
<v Speaker 3>really good. Give him a try. And he has this card.
<v Speaker 3>It's Rick Baker's business card and it says Rick Baker,
<v Speaker 3>Monster Maker.
<v Speaker 4>I love it.
<v Speaker 2>Man, that's so cool.
<v Speaker 4>So he's so he.
<v Speaker 3>Calls Rick Baker up to come do the makeup for
<v Speaker 3>Coming to America. And you know, obviously Eddie Murphy plays
<v Speaker 3>several characters, but the one with the most detailed makeup
<v Speaker 3>is Saul, this old man and this old white Jewish man. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>so Eddie can do the voice, right, And so the
<v Speaker 3>thing is, can we sell a look? And Rick Baker
<v Speaker 3>actually models him after his father in law.
<v Speaker 2>Who is a double in the movie. You can actually
<v Speaker 2>see him.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, on the scenes where Eddie Murphy is the barber,
<v Speaker 3>you still have Saul that you can see behind his shoulder.
<v Speaker 3>You can tell it's not the same guy. Well, it's
<v Speaker 3>the guy that they modeled Saul after.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, all right, So other people in coming to America
<v Speaker 2>James Earl Jones, who you may recognized as the voice
<v Speaker 2>of Darth Vader, Yes, who actually has a line in
<v Speaker 2>the movie. Yeah, I'll deal with him myself.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, it's a throwback to leave them to me. I
<v Speaker 4>will be with them myself.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, yeah, I love it. He's been He was in
<v Speaker 2>ConA and The Barbarian and the Sandlot. I mean, he's
<v Speaker 2>been tons of things. But really he's known because he
<v Speaker 2>has this great voice.
<v Speaker 3>Right well, yeah, I mean he's a fantastic actor all around,
<v Speaker 3>but everybody knows that voice.
<v Speaker 4>It's unmistakable for sure.
<v Speaker 3>His dad was actually in Trading Places, Robert Earl Jones what, Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>he was. He has a small role as one of
<v Speaker 3>the attendants in Trading Places.
<v Speaker 2>So James Earl Jones. Then you have John Amos, who
<v Speaker 2>is well known for his role in Good Times, right yeah,
<v Speaker 2>TV show from the seventies. Yeah, and then also really
<v Speaker 2>well known for his role in Roots. Yeah, he plays adult.
<v Speaker 4>You're right, which comes up in the movie of course.
<v Speaker 2>Good du Yeah, it's you know, that's right. He's one
<v Speaker 2>of the best guys in die Hard too.
<v Speaker 4>Oh wow, Yeah, that's right. He was one of the
<v Speaker 4>army guys I Forart. He's the leader of the cuts
<v Speaker 4>Reels Special Forces. Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Interestingly, with John Amos, he had done a bunch of stuff.
<v Speaker 3>He was a Golden Gloves boxer, he was a football player,
<v Speaker 3>had played for the Canadian League and eventually got dismissed
<v Speaker 3>from that. And he's kind of figuring out what to do,
<v Speaker 3>but has an agent and they say, hey, you want
<v Speaker 3>to go do a singing McDonald's commercial, and he's like, sure, whatever,
<v Speaker 3>yeah really, So he goes does this singing dancing, get
<v Speaker 3>your get a Mop, get a Bucket commercial with Potsy
<v Speaker 3>before he's Potsy Happy Days, and it ends up being
<v Speaker 3>one of the best McDonald's commercials ever.
<v Speaker 2>And then of course, you know, he goes on to
<v Speaker 2>own his own mcdonnllas that's so awesome. A year or two,
<v Speaker 2>I make assistant manager and that's where the big bucks
<v Speaker 2>start rolling in, all right. Both of these were directed
<v Speaker 2>by John Landis, who is well known for Uh we
<v Speaker 2>touched on this briefly, but Schlock, Blues Brothers, Animal House,
<v Speaker 2>Spies Like Us, Three Amigos, the Thriller video, which, if
<v Speaker 2>you'll go back to episode one, we talked at length
<v Speaker 2>about the Thriller video and then American WIRELF in London,
<v Speaker 2>and then we need to talk a little bit about
<v Speaker 2>the Twilight.
<v Speaker 3>Zone movie Okay, so just before Trading Places happened. John
<v Speaker 3>Landis was one of a handful of directors that was
<v Speaker 3>involved with the Twilight Zone movie.
<v Speaker 4>His segment was a segment with.
<v Speaker 3>Vic Morrow or Vic Morrow is this racist, bigot who
<v Speaker 3>goes to different places and is in the body of
<v Speaker 3>the people that he's got prejudices against.
<v Speaker 2>That's right.
<v Speaker 4>But in the.
<v Speaker 3>Production of the movie, there's an accident that occurs and
<v Speaker 3>Vic Morrow and two child actors are killed by a
<v Speaker 3>helicopter that crashes after an explosion, kills them both or
<v Speaker 3>kills all three of them, sorry.
<v Speaker 2>Not just kills them, but horribly decascitates them.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, it's true.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, so at that, I mean, he's dealing with that
<v Speaker 3>while he's making some of the best movies.
<v Speaker 4>Anybody seeing this is kind of crazy.
<v Speaker 3>He doesn't end up doing the trial on it until
<v Speaker 3>later on, like nineteen eighty seven, I think, is when
<v Speaker 3>the trial happens, And so I can't imagine going through
<v Speaker 3>the experience itself alone, going for years as you're waiting
<v Speaker 3>and then we're talking about not a civil suit, we're
<v Speaker 3>talking about criminal action. Like he and a few of
<v Speaker 3>the other people who were involved were charged with manslaughter and.
<v Speaker 2>So he was really close to going to jail.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, well, yeah, that had been a long prison term.
<v Speaker 3>And as it turns out, Eddie says, this is the
<v Speaker 3>reason that we didn't get along.
<v Speaker 4>I'm coming to America now.
<v Speaker 3>John Lennis gives a different reason why they didn't get along,
<v Speaker 3>but Eddie says, you know, he was mad because I didn't.
<v Speaker 3>I wasn't there and supporting him during his trial. And
<v Speaker 3>so he tries to, you know, treat me like a
<v Speaker 3>little kid, like I was back in trading places, and
<v Speaker 3>I'm not a little kid anymore. And so eventually comes
<v Speaker 3>down to John land Is saying something and Eddie kind
<v Speaker 3>of angrily but playfully puts him in a choke hold.
<v Speaker 4>And then when John.
<v Speaker 3>Landis tries to playfully you know, grab his crotch, Eddie
<v Speaker 3>titens and cuts off his air and he runs off.
<v Speaker 2>It escalated really quick, right, Yeah, it was.
<v Speaker 4>It was bad and it turned ugly.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah yeah, I mean they were not happy with each
<v Speaker 3>other as human beings. After the show, they're both very
<v Speaker 3>happy with the movie, obviously, but Landis, on the flip
<v Speaker 3>side of that, said, yeah, he went from being this
<v Speaker 3>you know, super kid to this pig headed jerk ahole
<v Speaker 3>is the.
<v Speaker 4>Word that he used. It just wasn't fun to work
<v Speaker 4>with him anymore. But eventually they reconciled.
<v Speaker 2>It did reconcile. But here's the interesting thing to me.
<v Speaker 2>In nineteen ninety, Playboy magazine interviewed Eddie Murphy. Yeah, and
<v Speaker 2>his quote was, this is how harsh this is. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>Vick Morrow has a better shot of working with John
<v Speaker 2>Landis than I do.
<v Speaker 4>Ouch, that's rough.
<v Speaker 2>And then Beverly Hills Cop Three comes out in ninety four,
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, they buried the hatchet apparently.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, maybe it's unfortunate if you've seen Beverly Hillstop three.
<v Speaker 4>Not good. Yeah. Interesting.
<v Speaker 3>You know, we talk about John landisbying this huge rock
<v Speaker 3>star of the eighties. You know, he's got several hits before,
<v Speaker 3>but Trading Place was a huge hit to catapult his career.
<v Speaker 3>Does a bunch of great movies, then does Coming to America.
<v Speaker 2>And then none of anything that he's done after that,
<v Speaker 2>have I thought it's good?
<v Speaker 1>Nothing?
<v Speaker 2>All right? So composers real quick. Trading Places has Elmer Bernstein,
<v Speaker 2>our big buddy Elmer Bernstein, Olmer Bernstein, Kevin Bacon game,
<v Speaker 2>that's exactly right.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, So Olmer Bernstein had done all of these great
<v Speaker 3>movies back in the sixties and had been out of
<v Speaker 3>it for a while, and then John Landis brings it
<v Speaker 3>back in with Animal House, and then he starts doing
<v Speaker 3>all of these other great movies again, including Ghostbusters.
<v Speaker 2>Katy Shack, Spies Like Us, to Kill a Mockingbird, Ten Commandments. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>he's all over, all over the place.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>So the movie Trading Places starts off with this music
<v Speaker 3>from the Marriage of Figure Out Yes, which is fantastic
<v Speaker 3>because it not only does it kind of set the stage,
<v Speaker 3>it's kind of the you know, masterpiece theater type of
<v Speaker 3>sound where you're seeing the regal dan Aykroyd getting ready
<v Speaker 3>and then his butler who's played by m Eliott right
<v Speaker 3>who you'll remember from and there's a lost start another
<v Speaker 3>throwback who by the way on this one, and the
<v Speaker 3>scenes that he's in he's always funny, like he's just
<v Speaker 3>quietly funny. And the second a director on this thing,
<v Speaker 3>you know, they would do a take where he would
<v Speaker 3>have to walk through a door, and he said, every
<v Speaker 3>single time he would do something different, he had some
<v Speaker 3>other business, some other thing that he was doing different,
<v Speaker 3>and it was funny. Every single time. So he goes
<v Speaker 3>to him after the takes and he's he says, mister Elliott,
<v Speaker 3>you know how are you funny? Over and over with
<v Speaker 3>different stuff every time? And he says, my boy, when
<v Speaker 3>you have parts as small as these, you learn to
<v Speaker 3>make something out of them.
<v Speaker 4>That's awesome. He's great, he's great, He's great.
<v Speaker 2>It is Marcus Brodian Raiders.
<v Speaker 3>So I've completely derailed the conversation about the soundtrack.
<v Speaker 2>No, it's fun, it's fun coming to America's composer is
<v Speaker 2>a guy named Nile Rogers. Does that ring a bell
<v Speaker 2>with you? So he's you may recognize his face. He's
<v Speaker 2>kind of a familiar, familiar looking person. But if you
<v Speaker 2>listen to eighties music at all, you know who this
<v Speaker 2>guy is.
<v Speaker 1>Okay.
<v Speaker 2>He did the Reflex by Derandrean Oh Wow, like produced
<v Speaker 2>it right. He produced Let's Dance by David Bowie. He
<v Speaker 2>was in the pop band Chic and their song good
<v Speaker 2>Times Good Times. And he produced Madonna's first album Lucky
<v Speaker 2>Star Borderline Holiday, and he does a fantastic job with
<v Speaker 2>his soundtrack. They wanted a somebody who could do the
<v Speaker 2>African style music, which he does kind of long the
<v Speaker 2>Lions sleep Tonight in the opening credits, which is great, right.
<v Speaker 3>It's by the group Lady Smith Black Mambazo, who you
<v Speaker 3>will remember if you listen to any of the Paul
<v Speaker 3>Simon songs from that era. Grace Land. Yeah, they're they're
<v Speaker 3>a great musical group. And I noticed I don't know
<v Speaker 3>if this is right. I haven't researched at all, but
<v Speaker 3>as you're listening to that opening, the opening version of
<v Speaker 3>The Lions Sleeps Tonight, there's a little part where it
<v Speaker 3>sounds like they've inserted one of Eddie's laughs in there.
<v Speaker 4>I will play it for you here.
<v Speaker 2>Okay.
<v Speaker 4>That's Eddie's laugh. I really do.
<v Speaker 3>And I think a little bit later on you hear
<v Speaker 3>Arsenia Hall's laugh as well. But anyway, all right, cool.
<v Speaker 3>So on the soundtrack side of things, you've got Lady
<v Speaker 3>Smith Black Mumbazo singing moombe. I'm sorry, I don't it's
<v Speaker 3>a Lion sleeps Tonight. But then you've got other songs
<v Speaker 3>that come throughout, a few of them sang by Eddie Murphy.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, oh, the greatest love of all. That's yeah, Randy.
<v Speaker 4>I believe you, children, I thank.
<v Speaker 3>You, okay, And we can't leave the actors and actresses
<v Speaker 3>in Coming to America without mentioning MATG. Sinclair, she was
<v Speaker 3>the Queen of course, and then interestingly later on she
<v Speaker 3>is again the Queen, but the lion Queen to the
<v Speaker 3>Lion King because she again is with James Earl Jones.
<v Speaker 4>In the movie The Lion King. She plays the voice
<v Speaker 4>of Saribe, who is.
<v Speaker 2>Sims mom, Simba's mom.
<v Speaker 4>But what's the name of James Earl Jones.
<v Speaker 2>Is Mufassa Mufassa.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, so Mufasa Saribe. And then also she plays the
<v Speaker 3>wife of Kuntikine in Roots.
<v Speaker 2>Wow.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>And then James Earl Jones was not in the original Roots,
<v Speaker 3>but was in the second version of Roots the couple
<v Speaker 3>of years later. I can't remember what this I thought
<v Speaker 3>it was, but he was in Roots, you know, part two.
<v Speaker 2>Roothe Harder right, Roots with a Vengeance. I do think
<v Speaker 2>it's interesting, as we're diving into these movies that we
<v Speaker 2>find out how many movies are sort of related, right,
<v Speaker 2>trading places and coming to America. We would say they're brothers.
<v Speaker 2>I mean they are Eddie Murphy and John Lands. They're brothers, right,
<v Speaker 2>but sort of cousins to these movies. Are you know
<v Speaker 2>the Blues Brothers or Roots, the Roots, the nutty Professor, right, right?
<v Speaker 2>I do want to mention Sherry Headley plays Lisa from
<v Speaker 2>Coming to America. Yes, and she does a great job.
<v Speaker 2>She's just a sweetheart and has a great smile. She's
<v Speaker 2>very sort of regal, even though she lives in Queen's right.
<v Speaker 2>You know who finished second for the part of Lisa,
<v Speaker 2>tell me Vanessa Williams.
<v Speaker 4>Vanessa Williams who as the singer.
<v Speaker 2>She's a singer, a very successful singer.
<v Speaker 3>She was the one who was stripped of her crown
<v Speaker 3>for mis Samaricans America for this penthouse spread. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>for sure. Yeah, that was an interesting bit there for
<v Speaker 3>the eighties.
<v Speaker 4>I remember that.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, let's dive in. I got some tidbits that I
<v Speaker 2>want to bounce off. Yeah, okay, So Trading Places was
<v Speaker 2>originally to star Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor.
<v Speaker 4>Right, They had done Stir Crazy, which was a huge.
<v Speaker 2>Hit in nineteen eighty. Yeah, and it was originally supposed
<v Speaker 2>to be called Black and White.
<v Speaker 4>It's not very creative.
<v Speaker 2>That name's terrible. Yeah, but Richard Pryor had to back out.
<v Speaker 2>Did you hear why he had to back out. I
<v Speaker 2>heard it had something to do with him setting himself
<v Speaker 2>on fire. He set himself on fire after freebasing cocaine. Oh,
<v Speaker 2>he was freebasing cocaine and went into this dragon deuce psychosist,
<v Speaker 2>poured rum all over himself and.
<v Speaker 4>Tell you how many times I've done the same?
<v Speaker 2>I mean, who hasn't done that? Oh? Man?
<v Speaker 3>So yeah, when when Richard Pryor was out, I mean
<v Speaker 3>he didn't. He didn't, like only a thirty percent shot
<v Speaker 3>of making it through that.
<v Speaker 2>They didn't know if he was gonna live, cause he's
<v Speaker 2>a little twitchy.
<v Speaker 4>After that, I could too, I can remember. I mean,
<v Speaker 4>I don't know if it was the free basing, the
<v Speaker 4>cocaine or the being on fire, but he wasn't the
<v Speaker 4>same guy after that.
<v Speaker 2>No, And but he actually references that in one of
<v Speaker 2>his comedy stand up routines, which oh yeah, make fun
<v Speaker 2>of yourself, and people laughed and they kind of endeared
<v Speaker 2>him to him.
<v Speaker 3>It's one of my favorite lines from Scrooge, where Bill
<v Speaker 3>Murray thinks that the waiter is on fire and he's
<v Speaker 3>not actually on fire, and everybody else is confused, and
<v Speaker 3>he grabs the bucket of water and throws it on
<v Speaker 3>the waiter and the waiters looking at him like what,
<v Speaker 3>and he goes, I'm sorry, I thought you were Richard Pryor.
<v Speaker 2>Oh man, that's awesome. There is a restaurant in Philadelphia
<v Speaker 2>in the Western Hotel called Winthorpe and Valentine Fantastic after
<v Speaker 2>the movie. How cool is that?
<v Speaker 3>So I'm sure you're getting to the you're talking about
<v Speaker 3>them being brothers these two movies.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, you of course have the connection that happens.
<v Speaker 3>Eddie Murphy, in frustration with Simmy making the craphole apartment
<v Speaker 3>look nice, grabs his money and takes it away from
<v Speaker 3>him and sticks it in a McDowell's bag. And then
<v Speaker 3>as he and Lisa are walking, you know, romantically together,
<v Speaker 3>he hands the bag full of money.
<v Speaker 4>To a couple of bums. Well, a couple of bums
<v Speaker 4>turn out to be the Duke brothers.
<v Speaker 2>I love that scene. That is my favorite scene in
<v Speaker 2>coming to America. I and partially because I love trading
<v Speaker 2>places so much. But yeah, Donomichi's like, Randolph, leave me alone,
<v Speaker 2>more of our Randolf. And there he says, we're back.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, brother, thank you. Okay, So I'm gonna again. I'm
<v Speaker 4>going to derail this.
<v Speaker 3>So this is you know, people talk about movies that
<v Speaker 3>are important in black history, and this movie just doesn't
<v Speaker 3>come up, but it should. I mean, this is a
<v Speaker 3>movie that there are only three speaking parts for white actors.
<v Speaker 2>He's coming to America.
<v Speaker 4>I'm talking about coming to America.
<v Speaker 3>Got only three speaking parts in this movie. One is
<v Speaker 3>Randolph Duke, the other one is Mortimer Duke, and those
<v Speaker 3>parts are obviously pretty small. And the other one is
<v Speaker 3>Louie Anderson, who is hysterical in this movie, but he's
<v Speaker 3>also not got to hunt.
<v Speaker 2>They let us now, Yes, pretty soon, I'll be on fries.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, a couple of years, I'll make assistant manager. That's
<v Speaker 4>when the big buck start.
<v Speaker 2>When they were preparing for this movie, and I think
<v Speaker 2>they were in costumes. They're hanging out together anyway. Ralph
<v Speaker 2>Bellamy who had done ninety nine films, Don Amichi had
<v Speaker 2>done forty nine films.
<v Speaker 4>This is trading Places.
<v Speaker 2>I'm sorry, we're back on trade blank, Yes, trading places.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>And Eddie Murphy joked that between the three of them
<v Speaker 2>they had made one hundred and fifty films. One more
<v Speaker 2>thing on trading places before we kind of bounce around
<v Speaker 2>this movie is more than likely based on what's known
<v Speaker 2>as Silver Thursday Day.
<v Speaker 4>Okay.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know if you're familiar with this, but March
<v Speaker 2>twenty seventh, nineteen eighty, the Hunt Brothers from Texas tried
<v Speaker 2>unsuccessfully to corner the market in Silver Oh, okay, And
<v Speaker 2>when the time came and they were they had to
<v Speaker 2>come up with one hundred million to bucks, they didn't have.
<v Speaker 3>It right, kicked off the market. So that's the end
<v Speaker 3>scene of trading places. And so obviously, you know, this
<v Speaker 3>movie is based on a couple of old storylines. The
<v Speaker 3>Pygmalion My Fair Lady storyline where you take somebody from
<v Speaker 3>the gutter, the Cinderella story you take somebody from the
<v Speaker 3>gutter and you pass them off as a sophisticated elite
<v Speaker 3>type of persons done in that one, and that it's
<v Speaker 3>also based on the Mark Twain the Prince and the Popper,
<v Speaker 3>whereas the Prince trades place with the pauper and the
<v Speaker 3>Popper takes over as prince, and it's that whole same storyline,
<v Speaker 3>even a.
<v Speaker 4>Line in the movie.
<v Speaker 3>It's very original, but you know, they do an entirely
<v Speaker 3>different thing with it.
<v Speaker 2>The same story is covered in three stooges. If you've
<v Speaker 2>ever seen Hoi POLOI, Hoi POLOI.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, starts out with a couple of rich guys talking
<v Speaker 3>about how they can take people from the gutter and
<v Speaker 3>pass them off as rich people.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, they turn the stooges into gentlemen or try.
<v Speaker 3>Actually, yes, let's talk real quick before we get into
<v Speaker 3>the plots, you know, get into the details of the movie.
<v Speaker 3>There are a couple of actors that appear in these
<v Speaker 3>movies in very small, non speaking or one or two
<v Speaker 3>line parts in trading places. You get gian Carlo Esposito,
<v Speaker 3>who if you've seen Breaking Bad, he was the guy
<v Speaker 3>from Breaking the bad guy from Breaking Bad. If you've
<v Speaker 3>seen The Mandalorian, he's the guy who shows up at
<v Speaker 3>the end, who's kind of dressed like Darth Vader, who's
<v Speaker 3>the bad guy there. There's been a ton of Spike
<v Speaker 3>Lee movies. Do the Right Thing is all over the
<v Speaker 3>place now, but this was like his first major movie role.
<v Speaker 3>But he's just a guy standing on the leaning against
<v Speaker 3>the bars and the jail spell.
<v Speaker 4>And then also.
<v Speaker 3>In that same scene, next to Eddie Murphy is the
<v Speaker 3>guy they called do Rag Lenny Lay by Clint Smith
<v Speaker 3>who's a friend of Eddie Murphy's. He's been in a
<v Speaker 3>couple of Saturday Night lives.
<v Speaker 2>Really okay?
<v Speaker 3>And then Clint Smith, of course, also appears as the
<v Speaker 3>third barber in Coming to America.
<v Speaker 4>Who's that Boy's good?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah?
<v Speaker 4>Good and terrible.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. That scene in the jail cell is hilarious though,
<v Speaker 2>because Eddie Murphy is blowing all this bs to a
<v Speaker 2>few guys who are listening to him, and a couple
<v Speaker 2>of big guys like, hey, man, if you've been in
<v Speaker 2>all these fights, how come you don't look messed up?
<v Speaker 2>Mandy man brus on the inside, so we don't show
<v Speaker 2>our weaknesses. But you too dumb? Remember?
<v Speaker 4>Yeah? Yeah, finished that line? Family friendly, family.
<v Speaker 2>Friendly scene is so funny. And then that Clint's bed bags.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah you do dumb? Yeah?
<v Speaker 4>Yeah?
<v Speaker 2>You know who was originally supposed to be the King
<v Speaker 2>in Coming to America?
<v Speaker 4>No, I don't know.
<v Speaker 2>I'm trying. I'm bouncing all over. They wanted Sydney Potier
<v Speaker 2>to be the King.
<v Speaker 4>Oh I didn't know that, and that would have been wrong,
<v Speaker 4>that would have been.
<v Speaker 3>He's too serious, like James Earl Jones can pull off
<v Speaker 3>the comedy somehow, but I've never seen Sidney Potier be
<v Speaker 3>funny in my life.
<v Speaker 2>Sydney Pade definitely could do the regal, but not the
<v Speaker 2>funny out.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and James Earl Jones actually wanted the part of McDowell.
<v Speaker 3>He loved the John mcleanal McDowell. He wanted the John
<v Speaker 3>Amos one. So here's an interesting bit. We're just gonna
<v Speaker 3>we're alse this. This scattershot showed at let's do it. So
<v Speaker 3>the interesting bit about McDowell's is, you know, they went
<v Speaker 3>to McDonald's to say, hey, you know, is it okay
<v Speaker 3>if we do this for the movie, because they didn't
<v Speaker 3>want to get sued, of course, and so McDonald's actually said, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>I think this is a good idea.
<v Speaker 4>They were they were like, yeah, go for it, you
<v Speaker 4>can do it.
<v Speaker 3>We actually want you to kind of emphasize how hard
<v Speaker 3>we're going to be on anybody who tries to steal
<v Speaker 3>our trademark ideas. So that was kind of a theme
<v Speaker 3>of the show. But then the corporate office forgot to
<v Speaker 3>tell the local franchisee and so when they show up
<v Speaker 3>to the you know, the old Wendy's that's getting renovated
<v Speaker 3>to make it into McDowell's. The local franchisee shows up
<v Speaker 3>with his lawyer and they're taking pictures, just like the
<v Speaker 3>guy in the movie.
<v Speaker 4>That's right, we're gonna sue your sack off.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Yeah, they got the Golden arches minus the Golden arcs.
<v Speaker 1>I see, they got the big mac, I got the
<v Speaker 1>big make.
<v Speaker 2>We both got two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles,
<v Speaker 2>and onions. But they use a sesame seed punch. My
<v Speaker 2>buns have no seats.
<v Speaker 4>Our bunds have no seeds.
<v Speaker 3>But as he delivers that line, which is already funny,
<v Speaker 3>he smacks the door into Louis Anderson, who spills the
<v Speaker 3>coke all over the floor.
<v Speaker 4>It's hysterical.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, that's super funny. On coming to America. We're bouncing
<v Speaker 2>back now.
<v Speaker 4>But we're still on coming to America.
<v Speaker 2>America. The dance scene at the beginning during the wedding, Yes, okay,
<v Speaker 2>you have this big, magnificent thing the wedding. Here comes cheese. Right.
<v Speaker 2>That had this big dance routine.
<v Speaker 1>You know who.
<v Speaker 2>That was choreographed by I Do Paula Abdul, who had
<v Speaker 2>yet become the big name that she was. In the
<v Speaker 2>later part of the eighties.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, she was. She had not released straight Up.
<v Speaker 2>Straight Up came out after coming to America in eighty eight.
<v Speaker 4>Right, and you know who plays a prominent part in
<v Speaker 4>the straight Up.
<v Speaker 2>Video, Arsenio Hall Right, otherwise known as Semi right Man.
<v Speaker 4>And what a what a career launch. Did you watch
<v Speaker 4>the Arsenial Hall Show when you're a kid?
<v Speaker 3>I watched it all the wah, I watched that all
<v Speaker 3>the time.
<v Speaker 4>I mean that part alone is iconic.
<v Speaker 2>Right, it was a big, big deal in the early nineties. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>there is an interesting Arsenio Hall clip. I'm gonna bring
<v Speaker 2>us down for just a second. Jim Henson was on
<v Speaker 2>the Arsenio Hall Show, interviewed by Arsenio Hall, and he
<v Speaker 2>wasn't feeling good and talking about his career and talking
<v Speaker 2>about some things. But he was on the show and hey,
<v Speaker 2>I'm here, I'm you're feeling a little sick. It's like,
<v Speaker 2>I'm all right. Two days later dead he had pneumonia
<v Speaker 2>or whatever it was, and.
<v Speaker 4>Such a loss. Jim Henson was such a critical part
<v Speaker 4>of our childhood. So you did all these.
<v Speaker 3>Things, and you know, Frank Oz was a big part
<v Speaker 3>of the Jim Henson line. Absolutely, he did the voice
<v Speaker 3>for Miss Piggy.
<v Speaker 2>Fozzie Bear, he did Sam the Eagle, Yeah, he did Yoda.
<v Speaker 3>And frank Oz of course, is also a big player
<v Speaker 3>in all of John Landis's movies. Yes, well almost all.
<v Speaker 3>He's not in coming to America. But if you get
<v Speaker 3>the scene where they just arrive in America and they're
<v Speaker 3>still in the airport, there's an announcement that comes over
<v Speaker 3>the PA system, Frank Oskowitz, please go to the white
<v Speaker 3>courtesy phone. That happens, and that's actually frank Oz's real name.
<v Speaker 3>John land has still found a way to put him.
<v Speaker 2>That's really cool. And he's the cop in Trading Places.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, and the cop and Blues Brothers too. There's another connection.
<v Speaker 3>He's the cop at the beginning of Blues Brothers when
<v Speaker 3>Jake Blues is getting out of prison and he hands
<v Speaker 3>them all of his stuff. By the way, another connection,
<v Speaker 3>the number that Dan Aykroyd holds up whenever he's getting
<v Speaker 3>his mugshots done is the same number that John Belushi
<v Speaker 3>had as his prison number in Blues Brothers.
<v Speaker 2>That's really cool. Yeah, okay, you mentioned the Muppets. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and Frank oz is in Trading Places. Let's put back
<v Speaker 2>to trading place.
<v Speaker 4>Trading places.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he's back to trading place.
<v Speaker 4>He's the police officer, are there.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so he's the one who's like he plants the
<v Speaker 2>He's like this is angel does right BCB you know
<v Speaker 2>what the stuff does to kids?
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>So he's the cop that's sort of in collusion with
<v Speaker 2>Clarence Peaks. Right, but do you know who the trader
<v Speaker 2>is for the Duke brothers when they send him in
<v Speaker 2>and say go buy orange juice? Wilson, Yeah, Wilson By Yeah, No,
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, just get in there. Let us worry
<v Speaker 2>about that, right, you know that is His name is
<v Speaker 2>Richard Hunt.
<v Speaker 4>Okay.
<v Speaker 2>He did the voice of Scooter from the Muppet movie
<v Speaker 2>of the Muppets. Janis Oh girl, Jannas is so cool. Okay, guys,
<v Speaker 2>I told him mom, if I want to run around
<v Speaker 2>the beach naked.
<v Speaker 4>Uh.
<v Speaker 2>He did Baker and he did Statler. So he was
<v Speaker 2>a very prominent muppeteer.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>So pretty cool connection there.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, someday we'll find the Lorraine.
<v Speaker 4>A longer.
<v Speaker 3>And so join us next week four, Part two of
<v Speaker 3>the debate. Thank you so much for your support of
<v Speaker 3>the Shirley. You can't be serious. Podcast, Don't Forget.
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