Transcript
Stunts, Scripts, and Scottish Pride (Hour 1)
Nite Lite with Pete Schwaba and Greg Bach · Wed Jun 18, 2025
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Welcome to Nightlight.
Hope everybody's having a great Wednesday.
It's another rainy day, at least in Northeast Wisconsin.
I hope it's nicer where you are, but this is probably the fifth or sixth day of the last 10 I've been rained on walking to the studio from the parking garage.
And you know what?
It's not so bad.
Little rain never hurt anybody, but it would be nice to see some sunshine.
Welcome to Night Light.
We have a great show tonight, folks.
David Patterson, the film producer and writer of The Bridge to Terabithia will be here tonight.
His mother, Catherine Patterson, wrote the book, the award-winning, Newberry-winning book, The Bridge to Terabithia, which is an outstanding work of art.
We'll talk to David about what he's up to and what films he's working on.
He is one of the busiest guys I know, and I'm very excited to have him back on the show.
And we have to kind of, we get some bad news.
We are, DeLorean Walls was supposed to be here in hour number two.
And he had a family situation.
Is that correct?
Yeah.
Well, I hope everything's okay.
We'll book, we'll get DeLorean rescheduled is June is men's mental health month.
and DeLorean was going to come on to talk about his organization, Brothers Helping Brothers.
He was on Minor in the Mayor last week, and he's a very interesting guy.
So we will book DeLorean back, but more importantly, we hope everything is okay with whatever family situation arose today.
And we'll have a secret surprise guest who's going to talk about the movie Ballerina in hour number two.
Have you, you haven't seen Ballerina, have you?
I have not.
Okay.
Any desire?
All right, fair enough.
I'll probably see that at some point.
I'm excited, but that's our show for tonight.
David Patterson is up at 6.35 and our secret guest who will give us a review at 7.35 of the movie, Ballerina.
I still haven't seen it.
And you know what?
The reason I wanted to talk about it is because I don't think I'm going to... I'm not going to rush to see that movie.
I'm certainly not going to go see it in the theaters.
I am curious, and I hear Andy the Armistice is great, but I also have heard it's like the least exciting or entertaining of the John Wick films.
So I'm not really in any hurry.
Why does downtown Green Bay smell like fish, Conrad?
Is that it?
Yeah.
That is so pungent that the water that's a hundred yards away is permeating the whole everything downtown smells like fish
I don't
And that's heard of the Bay of stinkers regarding fish.
That's what they're talking about or
it
a pungent objectionable smell.
I don't understand that.
This is a question probably for Brittany Merlot.
I really want to believe what you're saying, but I don't know what I'm saying.
I
more old women that don't like you actually was a guy.
It
Younger guy too.
He didn't even want your charity like what God, what are you?
What are you doing wrong?
I don't know your door holding technique.
I hold it
And I'm like waiting for him.
Do you like head fake that you're gonna close it on him or something or freak him out?
No,
See here's what I would do I would next time you do this you got to secretly record it so we can
play it because I would love to know.
the
You're kind of a big guy.
I mean, but I don't think and I mean this in a good way.
I don't think you you probably could look intimidating, but you don't.
You have a friendly face.
You're jovial, but you are kind of stacked, man.
You're maybe people are a little intimidated.
You're doing the old Dwight to Dwight shrewd, which are the Tommy boy.
Which way is the beach?
Boy, that's a run.
That's like a Joe DiMaggio 56 game hitting streak with you holding doors open for people.
Something's
And that was all in Green Bay.
It's just a demographic.
I would have said it's a demographic, but 30, that's close to your age.
Wow, man, that's crazy.
I had a guy follow me around the gym the other night.
I went Monday night after the show and he kept trying to work in with me, but I don't do sets.
I do like this resistance thing where you put as much weight as you can and then you let it, like if you're doing curls, you bring it up and then you let it down really slowly while you count to 25.
Then
This is not a set.
This is the hardest thing I've ever done.
You go down for 25 seconds as slow as you can.
up for 25 seconds as slow as you can and back down.
So it's like a minute and a half for that machine.
And it's fantastic.
You're in and out of there.
I'm in and out in 30 minutes.
But this guy said, work in with you.
No, I do.
I don't really do that, you know, but if you need a spotter, let me know.
Five minutes later, work in with you.
No.
First of all, this is like a Nautilus machine and there's another one just like it right there.
He just
went to the
Well, at that hour, I might be.
There's like four people in there.
I'm rarely the buffest guy, but I'll take it.
That's funny.
I gotta write that down.
So here's the thing.
You're a big Aaron Rodgers fan, and I heard this in the way, and I did not catch this when it first came out.
the package.
When he was here,
He was on Joe Rogan like three weeks ago and he talked about if you get the vaccine you get nanobots in your body that help the government track you.
Like when did this happen with this guy?
I'm sure it's a theory that's out there that he just regurgitated but even Rogan went whoa dude.
Like that's that's you know, there's a problem one Rogan said he's not above spewing a conspiracy theory, but that one was God he had a whole bunch of stuff too I read about it on a pro football talk.
Those guys don't like each other Micah Florio and Aaron Rodgers.
So it's fun It's fun to read but he thought he thought it was like oh my god, I don't know I don't get it.
And who's he playing for Pittsburgh?
He even supposedly bought in a little bit to the Sandy Hook thing, and that's when I was really, like, you can spot whatever you want about vaccines.
I don't think it's right to say stuff that's irresponsible, but the Sandy Hook stuff, like, even if you really thought that, don't make parents listen to that, or people with kids have to, it's just horrible.
heard that.
Apparently, he signed his contract with Pittsburgh with, is he,
Yeah, he
on.
His hand was right in the shot.
Yeah, right.
And
Yeah.
Yeah, he said it.
The guy is definitely interesting.
I'll give him that.
He's fun to read about.
I read about this over the weekend, too.
They had the No Kings March, and then there were the military parade on Trump's birthday, and they played fortunate son.
at this military parade.
And it reminded me of in the 80s in Marinette, they did this thing called celebrate.
It was a hundred year anniversary or it might have been a couple of years after it.
And they, during the fireworks display, they played born in the USA.
I don't think people listen to the lyrics of songs.
Those are kind of protest songs.
And both of them are kind of like, why do poor people only go fight in wars?
That's the gist of the songs.
And I don't understand.
And then there was like,
you know, a theory that maybe they played it because it was in, you know, defiance of the president or something like that.
But born in the USA, you hear that all the time too.
I don't think people have ever really listened to the lyrics.
There are plenty of stuff, plenty of things you can play if you want to celebrate America without any, you know, metaphors or a message about how you're anti-war.
I don't understand.
Those two songs, though, get played a lot.
You know, the other thing I saw today, Khan, was a...
I was talking to this older guy at the store.
He just, he knew my folks and he kind of pulled me aside when we were talking.
He had, I swear to God, this nose hair was like a foot, not a foot, an inch and a half long coming out of his nose.
could not stare.
It was, and it was the only one like, and I get it.
Like he's a well groomed guy.
He takes care of himself.
He's probably in his 80s, but I think it's the eyesight.
I think they just can't see.
Cause that thing, man.
It was terrible and I wanted to tell him I Wasn't gonna reach up and pluck it out myself Or do one of those like look over there and then yank it out, but I felt bad for the guy Because if he goes back to the old folks home And he's got his sights set on you know Dolores or Gloria or someone He's not doing himself any favors.
What do you think I made of money?
Yeah, they're good.
They're good for one nose trimming I would have helped them out if I'd I would have spent the two bucks because he's a nice guy But it made me think I always have to wear your glasses as you get older when you groom yourself and cut your nose hair and your ear hair and all that kind of stuff I Don't know.
Where am I going with this?
It's time
Yeah, go ahead, do it.
Let's talk about the question.
Okay, question.
Question.
Question.
Pregunta.
Question.
Question.
Okay, I have a question.
Questions.
This question.
Domanda.
Question.
Questions.
Oh, it's a good one tonight, folks.
It's National Splurge Day.
What is in your shopping cart?
National Splurge Day.
So our question of the night is, what is in your shopping cart?
You can let us know at 855-752-4842, 855-75 Civic.
You can also text us on the app or if you're watching on the stream on YouTube, Facebook or Twix, Twitter, Twix, Twixster, let us know.
And if you're there, give us a like or a follow.
We always like getting those, but what is in your shopping cart?
What would you do if you could splurge money with no object?
What are you buying?
Oh, golf stuff.
What's a good answer?
Look, the world is your oyster, folks.
Have fun with it.
I'm probably, you know, I'm probably just buying, this sounds so nerdy, but like in cartridges and all those things that you
don't like to have to buy, but you have to buy them.
Maybe some electronics equipment, a new soundbar or something like that for when I watch movies.
87 inch TV.
I don't have the wall space for that actually.
And I got a pretty big TV and I got a couple big ones and I have good soundbars, but probably electronic stuff.
Like I've never done the thing where I've wired my old, my whole house with like music so you could just- Oh yeah.
Yeah, that'd be cool.
Probably do something like that.
But, and then I would probably do
some really good Asian takeout of some sort.
I'm an easy guy.
Let us know what you think, folks.
It's National Splurge Day.
What is in your shopping cart?
Dave Patterson is here at 635.
We've got some funny clips too we gotta use.
I got a great clip of Bill Burr who makes a point about how, this is kind of morbid, but men are always the ones that drop dead immediately when you get to be like in your fifties.
It's never women.
And the way he tells the story is very funny.
We'll play that.
And a lot of other stuff.
We've got a fun night here.
It's great that you're here.
It's raining outside.
Sit inside.
Listen to the radio, folks.
Be part of the show.
It's Pete Chihuahua at Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio
Network.
You're
just too good to be true Can't take my eyes off you
This is a rainy Thursday night edition of Nightlight Folks.
It is great to have you with me.
Our question of the night is, it's actually, it's National Splurge Day.
So I'm asking the question, what is in your shopping cart?
Monica Hale says, a trip to the British Isles.
I didn't think of that.
Like traveling, you could put tickets in there.
I'd probably go to like New Zealand.
It is.
I'd like to go there.
I'd like to go to Italy and France.
And I know you've been to Australia.
I kind of fade.
You do to go back.
I'm tempted just to put like...
It costs go and put chips and guacamole or something in my card too.
That's so simplistic though.
Mike on social media also says I took my $1,000 gift card to the dollar store.
Well, not necessarily.
They're kind of throwing a curveball at you lately.
How much is this?
$3?
That used to be the joke.
A lot of comics.
How much is this?
Just go in there and pester the heck out of the employees.
How much is this?
So I want to play this clip.
I thought this was so funny.
Bill Burr is, I like him overall.
I had the opportunity to work with Bill about 25 years ago.
We did a college together in Colorado.
And he was funny.
He had not developed his act to where it is now, but he was a funny guy and engaging and kind of fun.
We had a couple beers after the show, nice guy, but I do see his stuff pop up a lot on social media and I don't love all of it, but I thought this was funny and I thought it was true.
So let's hear that now Conrad.
Currently I'm getting along with my wife better than I ever have in the 20 years that I've known her
Yeah, I figured something out I figured something out basically what happened was a friend of mine died, right?
I'm of that age, you know it's starting to happen.
I'm 56
Right?
Which, granted, this is too young to die of natural causes, but it's not too young to drop dead, right?
Like, as a man, I am in my drop dead years, which is basically ages 49 to about 61.
You know, anything past that, you're just looking at like a prolonged illness, you know?
With these for the years, the men drop dead.
And dropping dead is, is a uniquely male experience, right?
Women don't drop dead.
Most of the last time you were out to brunch, and there was some woman, hey, I'm getting my mouth done, just grabs her chest and face down into some tapas.
Oh my God, Kathy, right?
They don't.
Men drop dead all the f***ing time.
You're out there on the golf course, some guy, f*** the sun, just f***.
into the shrubs.
Another guy driving at you in a car and his buddy just falls out the side.
What happened?
You know what happened?
He never cried.
That's what happened.
He held onto it.
You know, he was putting his pants on and he just rolled back on the bed.
He never got back up again.
It can happen.
Like, I'll give you a scenario.
Let's say, you know,
I'm upstairs in the bathroom, my wife's downstairs making me breakfast, right?
It's a fantasy, you know?
Let's pretend women still cook for their men.
She's post-mating something and she's heating it up in the microwave.
That's my love language, right?
And I'm upstairs in the bathroom and all of a sudden she just hears a big thud in the floor.
And it's just like, honey?
Honey, was that you?
It's funny, right?
The next thing you know, you're at my funeral.
It happens just like that, and somebody's trying to put a positive spin on it.
You know, he died doing what he loved.
Trimming his pubes in the upstairs bathroom while listening to ACDC.
Ah, that's funny.
You're not laughing, Conrad.
You told me you have a love hate thing with Bill Burr.
You don't like Bill Burr?
He's
alright?
Okay.
What is it?
Is it a political thing or is it just you don't think he's funny or you think he's abrasive?
happen?
You held the door open for him and he didn't thank you.
Tyler from Wisconsin Rapids, he's at the 608 says, the previous driver's shopping list.
Previous driver's shopping list.
I don't want that Give us some explanation there Tyler.
We need to know And Tyler's not being cheeky oftentimes Tyler is cheeky when he's on the text line or he'll put some innuendo up there And they're always funny.
You know what I did last night.
I was craving You know oftentimes when I get back to Marinette at like nine o'clock I told you yesterday.
I went to Taco.
Yeah
And I wasn't gonna do that.
I won't do that.
I'm good for a year now.
We'll talk about maybe six months.
But I wanted something kind of healthy, but not fast food, but I was starving.
So I drove from here to Swamigal, which is kind of on the way home, but you have to take a roundabout way to get there just because I wanted a Jersey Mike's BLT with jalapenos.
Okay.
And I'm eating it on the way home and I'm like, and it cost me about 25 minutes of my drive.
But it was good, but I'm like, is this worth 25 minutes?
Well, they all close at nine, right?
And I get there at like nine.
Well, you could be that guy.
Yeah, walk in at like two minutes, nine.
Hey.
You guys still open.
You're going to have to break all that stuff out.
I know you just got to put away.
Tonight's question, folks.
It is National Splurge Day.
What is in your shopping cart and we've Monica expanded this a little bit she put she bought travel Travel packages the trip to the British Isles you can put that in a shopping cart Mike says a thousand dollar gift card to the dollar store
And Tyler says the previous driver shopping.
I'm probably going to do that too.
I'm going to put traveling stuff in there and a lot of electronic equipment.
So when we come back, folks, Bridge to Terabithia writer and producer David Patterson will be here.
I'm very excited to have Dave back on the show.
He's got new projects in the works.
We'll talk about that with him.
And his career is a stuntman too, which is kind of cool.
And then we're talking John Wick ballerina and hour number two.
It's Peach Wabba and Nightlight on the Civic Media radio network.
This
is Nightlight with Pete Schwab.
Great to have you with us on this rainy Wednesday night.
I'm starting to think I'm like on candid camera or something.
Every time I get here, it starts raining.
I'll get out of my car in the parking garage.
I will walk.
the block and a half.
It'll rain.
I get into the studio and it stops.
He is.
He's got that paranormal stuff happening.
He controls the weather.
DeLorean Walls will not be on the show folks tonight.
In the second hour he had to cancel.
DeLorean founded a group called Brothers Helping Brothers and June is Men's Mental Health Month so we will reschedule DeLorean next week and hope everything is okay.
on the home front.
Right now, I'm very excited to welcome my next guest.
He's been on the show before we've been pals for a long time.
Pardon me, he's a very talented filmmaker and a heck of a nice guy.
He wrote The Bridge to Terabithia and produced films like Love Ludlow and The Great Guilty Hopkins.
And he joins us now on the stream and his name is Dave Patterson.
Hey, buddy.
How are we doing, Pete?
Doing very well.
It's great to see you.
I always love that Casablanca poster you have.
If you're watching on the stream, you know what I'm talking about, folks?
He's got this awesome bogey poster right behind
him.
Yeah, all these things behind me are movies I made except Casablanca because, you know, I was not around.
I thought about it pre-womb, but just had nothing to do with
it.
Maybe time for a reboot.
You know, you got a big credit under your belt.
Come on, you can make it happen.
And yeah, they're remaking everything now.
So.
Yeah.
Castle Blanket 2, Electric Boogaloo.
There you go.
How you been?
Good, good.
You mentioned rain.
It's been raining around New York, I think, for the last three and a half years.
So we're getting a little
tired of it.
I bet you are.
So I have to get this off my chest because we're friends.
But I noticed you cast something recently.
I was not on the cast list A and B, I never even got an audition.
And I am getting a little tired of the fact that when these movies are being cast, apparently nobody wants a guy with developing man boobs in a one and a half pack.
What is going on?
Why can't I get in these doors, Dave?
Well, so in my defense, if you looked a little closer at the casting, it was my son's first movie.
I did not even get a chance to audition.
There was a role perfect for me and I was not allowed to audition.
So it was, it was not my film, it was my son's film.
His first son, his first film, I think you're familiar with that, right?
Having a son's first film.
I have a son.
Yes, absolutely.
Wow.
I didn't notice that.
I saw you posted it.
But now that I look down, it says, Carter Lord Patterson.
No
kidding.
That's
fantastic.
So that's his first film.
And it's called show and tell.
Show and tell.
And he's got, he's got his cast coming together.
Look at that.
Yeah, yeah, listen, it's all on him.
It's all on him I'm Scottish so I even didn't give him any money because I said you have to learn the hard way, you know and so, you know, you got to go beg and Threaten and steal to make your own film.
Well, you must be helping him out Other
than posting on Facebook, you know, I'm
I've told him I've given a list of things not to do okay to make a movie
because you and I do have a couple years on us.
So I think we've made a couple choices, which some people would call mistakes, but others would say, you know, reckless challenges towards the gods above.
And so, you know, we've done okay.
Yeah, we're doing okay.
Pardon me.
I wish him luck.
This is really exciting.
And I'm excited for you, because I'll be honest, as much as I
I have apprehensions about my kids entering in this crazy racket.
It is nice because we have a lot to talk about, but I'm scared for them.
I don't want them.
Sometimes I just wish they would go be plumbers or write code or something.
I know nothing about.
So I could just assume they have it handled.
You know what I mean?
Does that make
sense?
Look, I was devastated when my first son said he wanted to be a writer.
But then he said he wanted to get a real job.
So, you know, I breathed a little, you know, more about that.
My second son.
got a scholarship actually go to college to be an actor so again
i wept
openly but then he changed his mind and he said um i actually want to go in the music business i want to be an agent i'm like that's great because that means you're just stealing money from everyone all the struggling artists but he goes but i know you're concerned about that scholarship so i'm going to continue to minor
in theater so I can keep the scholarship.
And I'm like, that's my boy.
Brilliant.
Yeah.
Learn
how to take money and steal money at the same time in school.
You got a regular William Macy, Felicity Huffman thing going there, scamming the universities like that.
Good for you.
Actually, that was the same school, by the way.
But you didn't hear that from me.
That's great.
Um, well, that's exciting.
I wish him luck.
You are Scottish and you, you mentioned that you sound, you seem very proud to be Scottish because oftentimes when I have you on the show, Dave, you mentioned that you're Scottish, which to me, as I get older, like I'm primarily Irish.
I'm somewhat proud of that.
I'm somewhat proud of my other ethnicities, but it matters less and less to me as I get older.
I just don't care what people's ethnicities are, but tell me why are you proud to be Scottish?
Well, because, you know, as you get older, you get even cheaper, right?
So you really don't want to spend money or anything like that.
So one of the first things I explained to people is my name is Patterson with one T. People always give me an extra T. And I try to explain to them, I'm like, two T's is English, one T is Scottish for Patterson.
We refuse to pay for the extra T. Therefore, you should remember, Patterson with one T is Scottish.
Patterson with two T's is English
What are they what do they say to you when you say that is there what kind of look do they
give you actually?
Some people say I know some Scottish people with two T's in the last name and I say right the traders and They're like what I said well back when Scotland was trying to separate from England and everything like that the Lords who actually you know killed the Braveheart dude whose state were Scottish
when they said, OK, let's make a deal with the British.
The British said, OK, we're going to give you land.
We're going to give you money.
But you can't keep the one T. Scottish Patterson because people get confused.
So we're going to give you an extra T. OK.
And you still stay Patterson, but it's two T's.
It
sounds like they got
hooked.
That's that's why when people get very proud that they're Scottish with two T's, I'm like, well, you're great, great granddad did some pretty bad stuff.
The William Wallace, I just want you to know.
So
have you seen the movie, uh, so I married an axe murderer?
Uh, yes.
Way back when, you know, when he's just yelling at the kid with the big head, is
that
the specific scene or
that scene is great.
And then, you know, just, uh, he'd Pence.
No, like he's making the kid get his pants all the time.
That floored me.
And you don't see a lot of movies with Scottish people featured like that.
I know that's a caricature, but I enjoyed it.
Oh, yeah, it's not Scottish.
I think that's what was the big line in that.
Exactly.
Well, I've got a lot I want to ask you about.
I always love hearing your Bridgette Terabithia stories, but let's talk about how you got your start, Dave.
I find this fascinating because in my life, I've done a few things backwards.
And I remember when I was in my late teens and I was, you know, studying, I was working out and studying martial arts and stuff like that.
And I thought, I'm going to be a stuntman.
That'll be my way into acting.
And then, you know,
A year goes by and someone just basically hits you over the hand and goes, why don't you just be an actor idiot?
If you want to act, act.
You don't have to be a stuntman.
But here I am talking to one of my pals, Dave Patterson.
You are still a stuntman and you've managed to act a little bit and write and do a lot of different things.
So it's led to good things for you.
Right, right.
So I actually was forced into the acting stunt world at a very, very young age.
Really?
I grew up in a very tough neighborhood in Washington, D.C.
And I was always picked on.
I was a small kid bullies.
Just I was a magnet for bullies.
They'd walk around.
I'd be behind them and they knew to turn around and beat up that kid.
So what I learned at a very young age is that bullies don't punch nearly as hard when they're laughing.
So I realized that if they if I'm doing, you know, a shuck and jive kind of dance thing or being funny, they actually didn't want to hit me.
They'd rather sit back and be amused.
And the stump part came in because if I had to take a punch,
I knew how to go down and not get hurt.
So really, my whole performing career was just to stay alive.
And then as I got a little older, I said, hey, maybe I can make some money out of this deal as opposed to just taking a big punch from Brandon Foy or his brother.
So that was the objective.
That's how I started out.
And then even in school, I became a class comedian.
Big difference.
I
was
not a class clown
because
teachers hate class clowns because you're just all over the place.
You're not respecting them.
A comedian knows how to respect the audience, how to read the audience, and also amuse the entire audience.
So I knew when to tell the jokes that would make the teacher laugh, the kids laugh.
And I realized that maybe down the road, I could turn this into some money.
That's
really well said.
And you're right.
The class comedian reads the room.
The class clown is just an idiot, like a dunce almost, you know, yeah.
That's very well said.
What's the worst, like, you know, I saw a mission impossible a couple weeks ago.
I'm in awe of Tom Cruise.
Sean Penn recently said, Tom Cruise might be the best stuntman in Hollywood too.
What's your take on that?
And what have you done that's been really dangerous, Dave?
Like, did you ever do anything that was where you were kind of worried about your life?
You know, the thing about when you're doing stunts, you're not concerned about yourself, your safety, everything like that.
You're afraid of screwing up in front of your boss.
And your boss is the stunt coordinator that hired you because you're like, if I screwed this up, then he's not going to want to hire me again.
So that's the biggest fear is actually embarrassing yourself in front of your boss.
You lose a leg.
Okay, big deal.
But if you embarrass yourself losing your leg in front of your boss, that's a horrible thing.
bad thing.
So as I tell people when they ask me about stunts ago, I've been shot, stabbed, drowned.
I had my throat slit and electrocuted.
And that's actually just in the last five years of marriage.
That's not actually involving with stunts.
Now, I'm hoping you giggled a little bit.
I didn't hear it, but my wife hates that joke.
She hates that joke, but it usually gets a smile at least for all you radio listeners.
I hope you're smiling out there, but probably the most dangerous stunt I ever did was I was Robin Williams stunt double and I had to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge and then drown in the East River What before you go did you jump off the Brooklyn Bridge?
This was after 9-11.
So actually I just got up on the bridge and then I had to do a 40-foot free fall in a studio, but then
I had to drown in the East River for about four hours while we shot it and people were not familiar with the East River in New York.
It's called Hell's Gate for a reason.
It's because there's only a very short period of time where the tide is not coming in or going out because it's a river going out and you have the ocean tides coming in because it's the ocean.
It's a very short period of time where they're just kind of ruffling against each other and that's where you drown and
Just to be safe, they had a line around my ankle, basically a fishing line.
If I disappeared, they could reel me in and keep track of me.
But they also had me holding on to an anchor to try to stay in place, because even at the quietest, you were still moving around.
And of course, with movies, you know how it is, it was supposed to start at like 301.
and it was it was 355 and my stunt coordinator is going the the tides are changing telling the director the tides are changing so that's why they had to put an anchor in for me to hold underwater while i'm face down in the river and the director's like why is he moving why is he moving and my stunt coordinator says because the tide is going about 15 miles an hour and
so we're
actually have him holding on to an anchor underwater but even that is dragging because of the uh of how
quick the tide was going.
And but again, I wasn't concerned about drowning.
I was concerned about not getting the shot correct.
That's crazy.
So you all right.
So you're 40 feet.
You had to do that the fall was like, yes, in a studio.
All right.
They
didn't tell me about it, by the way.
They had me do some CGI where I just stepped off and thing and show Robin Williams how to step off and fall.
And then they started pulling everything away.
And the director goes, OK, now for the high fall.
And my store coordinator looked at me and I looked at him on highball because I actually, he'd taken a break from stunt work to raise my boys.
You knew that.
And this is one of my first gigs, getting back to the business.
Let's pick up right there.
Dave,
let's pick up right there when we come back.
We're coming right back.
Dave Patterson's here.
It's Pete Schwabba, the nightlight on the Civic Media radio network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
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our question of the night.
It's National Splurge Day, folks.
So what is in your shopping cart?
We will catch up on texts in just a little while.
Right now, we have some more time with our pal, Dave Patterson, who is here.
Dave wrote and produced the film, The Bridge to Terabithia.
Dave, The is not in the title.
I found that out.
No, The.
No,
The.
That would cost extra
in the posters.
It's just like the extra tea.
Yeah, you can't have that kind of stuff.
Exactly.
So we were talking before the break about you finding out you have to make this long jump and teaching Robin Williams how to do it or coaching him somehow.
How was that?
Basically I was coaching him on how to step off the bridge facsimile and he had to do I think like a four foot drop onto a nice soft bag.
Then they pulled everything away and put me up in the
Way up in the in the rafters and I had to a 40-foot version of that for the green screen and then they would match it later with me in in the East River and It was unexpected for me and my stunt coordinator and he walks up to me and basically looks at me.
We didn't even speak It's like you're gonna do it right even though we both can expect this you're gonna do it right and not say a thing or complain or anything.
I'm like, yes, so I went ahead and did it and it was
I hadn't done a large free follow-up since I was much younger.
I told you I'd left the business to raise my boys and I just went back to business.
But I made it and I didn't get hurt.
But I had to land mostly on my stomach, chest and face because of the way the fall was.
And it was just on those gym mats that were about 18 inches thick because there wasn't enough room for anything more comfortable.
And so, but one of the great things was Robin insisted on watching the falls, and the first person that got me off the mat was him.
He was like, how's it, how's it chief?
How you doing?
That looked like it hurt.
I go, what didn't tickle?
But I'm doing okay.
So wait,
you had to land on your stomach from 40 feet.
How does it work?
You had a cord where it kind of softens the blow a little bit.
No, there was no cord.
That
was the thing.
It was a free fall, no cord or anything like that.
It was just, just don't hurt yourself, basically.
It was, uh, make sure as you fall, don't hurt yourself.
And, and so, and luckily I just did in two takes.
Um, and I made it, I made it.
And he went and yelled at one of the producers and got me an additional 500 bucks for it because
Robin Williams.
Yes.
That's pretty cool.
Boy, that's a, I don't use the word hero very often, Dave, but you're mine after hearing that story.
Um,
so I need to.
Record that and share that with my wife a little later on if I could what's the what's the movie?
It's called the angriest man in Brooklyn And then the other most dangerous stunt was we had to me and Mila Kunis is stunt double not me and Mila Kunis We had to race a van down Dipmars Boulevard about 80 miles an hour blowing all these different lights The issue was they had only stopped
Six different intersections and the director was yelling us go we went through another four intersections Without protection or the light stopped we got pulled over by cops They were gonna cuff us when the director showed up with everyone and because they saw us roll through some red lights and they're like you could have killed someone and sorry and So we didn't get arrested but the cop did chew out everyone on the set because they should have
taken another three or four flights and protected those.
So I guess that was even more dangerous because we could have just plowed into a bag lady or something like that.
David Patterson is my guest.
He is the writer, producer of The Bridge to Terabithia.
Love Ludlow, the great Gilly Hopkins, and he is a good pal.
I have to tell you, I think cops are hilarious on movie sets.
I love how they sort of, we were shooting, you've seen my film, The Godfather of Green Bay, Lance Barber and I were shooting.
We're just going gorilla style on the strip, driving this little geo.
The camera man's in front of us in a pickup truck with the camera sandbag down and he's filming us and we get pulled over.
And I make up some story about how we're sorry officer, we don't have the permits.
We just needed to grab this one shot.
I gotta get Lance back to LA.
He's on yes, dear.
tomorrow, which was a sitcom back.
Have you seen the show and the cop is looking at us like, he knows I'm full of it.
And he goes, yeah, I like that show.
So he just let us go.
He was like the coolest guy in the world, but like they seem to
want to help.
Am I wrong about that?
Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely.
In New York City, the New York film office, basically
New
York film office, they assign you cops.
if you're shooting and depending on the size of the crew, they assign many different cops.
You don't even have to pay for it.
That's the beauty of it.
It's not rent a cop, it's just give a cop.
And so they give you cops and they're there just to make sure if some homeless guy comes up and starts throwing trash cans, you got a cop there to make sure that he goes away.
But the cops, yes, they are funny.
They always make sure that there's enough donuts at the craft services.
Otherwise, there's going to be a complaint.
But yeah, they are fine.
Another interesting thing about civil servants is there's a lot of firemen that are stuntmen in New York City.
Oh,
that makes sense.
Because it's one of the few jobs, civil servant jobs, where you can have another job.
because firemen work for four days and they're off for three days.
They work for three days or off
for four
days.
So they're allowed to another job.
So I've worked with a lot of New York City firemen who are also stuntmen.
And they're just as crazy, if not more so than regular
stuntmen.
David Patterson is my guest.
All right, here's what I want to do, Dave.
I want to, when we do, we're going to do the news quick as we call it intermission.
I want to ask you about Robin Williams, what you thought of him.
And I want you to explain a little bit.
I love when I meet people who have different backgrounds.
You didn't just go to film school and you're making movies.
You've done it all.
You're also a volunteer fire department.
You're the commissioner of the parks department.
You've been a stuntman, a playwright.
You just have a fascinating story.
So we'll get into that when we come back.
And obviously I'll ask you about Bridge to Terabithia.
And you need to tell us how your most recent film, The Girl Who War Freedom did too.
We'll do all of that after the news.
Dave Patterson is here, ladies and gentlemen, on a Wednesday, a school night.
Do you believe that?
It's Peach Wamba, a nightlight.
We're coming right back on the Civic Media.
radio network.
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