Transcript
Comedy Catapults and Legendary Laughs (Hour 1)
Nite Lite with Pete Schwaba and Greg Bach · Mon Aug 18, 2025
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welcome to nightlight ladies and gentlemen Only gone by catapult a couple times and I was desperate and frankly Very hard to find a catapult that will take you exactly where you want to go.
It's kind of a Just have to roll the dice Welcome to nightlight folks.
It is finally Monday.
We get to talk about all the things we love so much like movies and comedy and music and
TV, color television Conrad.
How can you be color television?
You can't.
I am an inside guy, a proud inside guy.
In fact, this is kind of funny.
We've talked to, we kind of started a thing here with Ed the Diver.
He walked by, we took a picture.
Then I took a picture of my daughter, then you, then a couple of passersby.
It's kind of become a thing, nightlight window love.
And I started talking to Christian Ed a little bit.
Christie jokingly said when are you gonna come with us on a dive or whatever?
I said, I'll do anything as long as it's inside I am not putting on snorkeling equipment and going underwater.
It's just not my thing Conrad.
got four walls still sucks Not to the people who love it look I have a ton of friends ice fish and they absolutely love it in fact
They, they hate it when there's a crappy winter and they can't do these things like storm will be on ice fish.
And I just, uh, I feel bad for them a little bit because in Wisconsin, you're supposed to be able to do those things.
But when we have a mild winter, man, am I happy?
too.
It's great.
So, uh, lots of fun tonight on nightlight.
Great to have you with me.
As I said, it's Monday night, folks, and we are off to the races here.
I got a great show tonight.
Um, David Zucker will be here.
He is a native Wisconsin son who has created several.
Many, actually, iconic legendary comedies, like Airplane, The Naked Gun, Top Secret, he also directed Ruthless People, a couple scary movies, a film called Phone Booth with Colin Farrell years ago, that I remember watching.
I rented that movie at a video store, I remember it was, it was, it was just a video store called The Video Club.
No, my wife and I rented it.
I think it was early 2000s, but it was a good film.
Anyway, David Zucker will be here at 635 talking about some of his legendary films.
I'm going to ask him about the new naked gun as well and a class he's actually teaching.
Do you think you could get funnier, Conrad?
No, I'm already funny enough.
But you're not dangerously funny.
Oh.
You have a nice quip every once in a while.
you.
But I'm just saying, you know, it could benefit you.
I think you should listen up.
And we could all benefit from comedy classes.
So, and we will talk to David.
He's making personal appearances too with, in playing the, and not the unedited version, the director's cut of Airplane.
And he is touring with Robert Hayes from the film.
So that'll be exciting.
We'll have a nice talk with David Zooker, native Wisconsin son at 635.
And then our pal, Nick Wattier from the Green Bay Film Festival joins me in studio at 720.
735, right?
Yeah.
It'd be good to talk to Nick.
We haven't connected in a while.
And I guess I'm doing something at the Green Bay Film Festival.
They might want me to be funny.
In which case, maybe I should take a class.
We'll figure it out.
Great guest tonight though, folks.
We got a great question.
Hope everyone had a great week.
It is really crappy outside.
This
not, I have to tell you, okay, so we had our house stained last week and it is a huge production.
We have a wood.
a sort of chalet style house and when you stain a house, it's thousands of dollars.
And there was no rain forecasted.
And when you stain a house or paint it, I suspect as well, you don't want rain for quite a while.
But we had a big storm and they say it takes like 48 hours for the wood to cure with the stain on it.
Well, after about 14 hours, I wake up and it is pouring rain.
I kind of anticipated so I had the plastic ready.
I'm out there putting it over the steps and our porch.
My wife is helping me.
She leaves.
Then it starts coming down harder.
And I'm running around like a madman.
We have this great porch in the front of the house.
We covered that.
Covered the back porch.
And that's all you can do.
But then the wind kicks in.
I've got heavy rocks on the plastic.
And the wind is blowing the plastic, which is forcing the rocks off.
I was running back and forth to my front and back porches, swearing like I was a merchant marine stuck at sea.
I have no idea what that means, Conrad.
But I assume those guys swear a lot because they're
stuck at
sea.
Anyone, frankly, regardless of vocation, probably swears a lot when they're stuck at sea.
But I would imagine the neighbors heard me and all the property values probably went down because I was such a madman and I was furious.
It's like, seriously?
No rain in the forecast.
Pete spends a few thousand and the house gets rained.
No damage that I can see.
That was not a good way to start my Saturday morning.
and all of a sudden.
If I were God, I would just mess with people like Pete Schwabba all the time.
Stay in your house.
Here's a little rain.
Let's see her run around
let's see you get your steps in Pete all within a half hour to save your precious wood So that was my weekend and then it got worse because I was gonna go see the Denzel Washington Spike Lee movie highest to lowest We talked about that on Friday.
I said that was my weekend viewing assignment that I gave myself It wasn't at my local theater, it's not even in Green Bay
And it's
wide release.
I can't figure out what is happening here.
Denzel Washington, pretty bankable.
Spike Lee, renowned director.
I have to drive to Milwaukee to see it.
That's really weird.
It is.
And I didn't see nobody, too, either.
But I
watch Alien Earth.
Did you watch that?
Milf Manor?
No.
Tacoma FD.
Oh, Tacoma FD.
Yeah.
I meant to watch one of those over the weekend.
I was gonna do that.
I didn't do that.
I gotta write that down.
season now.
How many episodes per season are
12.
That's doable.
That's what I'm doing on Dexter.
It's 12 episodes and you can blow right through it.
It's great.
But I did watch the first two episodes of Alien Earth really well done and it's Noah Hawley who
turned the Fargo movie into a series and I think I talked about this last week.
I like the series Fargo even better than the movie.
That's probably sacrilegious to say because it's the Coen brothers, but pound for pound five seasons of Fargo on TV were outstanding.
So Noah Hawley is the one interpreting or doing the TV show for Alien Earth as well.
Part of that franchise, the newest installment
And it's really good.
I've got about 15 minutes left to watch in the second episode, but I'm really digging it.
And I saw this.
I thought this was funny.
We started talking about this over the weekend.
My weekend did get better, despite the stain and the lack of a movie I wanted to see in our local theater, if you will.
But we started talking about superheroes, and that led me to tonight's question of the night.
Okay, question.
Question.
Pregunta.
Question.
Okay, I have a question.
Questions.
This question.
Question.
Question.
Questions.
Oh, this is a good one, folks.
Your life is at stake.
What action star do you hope is coming to save you?
Your life is on the line.
What action star do you hope is coming to save you?
It could be a superhero.
But I guess I'm going more for like action, Steven Segal, Rambo, Reacher, Wonder Woman, you could say Wonder Woman, John Wick, there's all kinds of good.
I put either one of the Reachers or in honor of our first guest tonight, David Zooker, I said Frank Drebben from Police Squad.
He might not do it, he might not save the day, but I'd laugh.
I'd laugh at his delivery.
So those are my answers.
What do you say Conrad?
are you sure you want to rip your life is on the line?
Are you sure you want to risk that to someone with mediocre reviews?
right
okay?
That's a very well thought out answer.
I will give you that Has the rock have you ever watched a movie?
And listen, I I'm not saying I'm a Have you ever watched a rock movie and been thoroughly entertained red notice Was that the Christmas movie last
Strike two by the way
brandy or whatever the hell he's trying to hawk one of his new products
I'm gonna add that
He's really likable, like the rock is really likable, but every time one of his films comes out, I expect like a 40 unrotten tomatoes and probably a couple good action sequences.
Did you see the San Andreas that he was in?
That
snooze.
I was like, he's flying around in a helicopter.
Los Angeles is in ruins and he sees his daughter.
it?
Alexandra DeDario.
Yeah.
Yeah.
She's talented.
actress.
She's just so stunning.
It's hard.
You know, you say that as a guy and people go, oh, really?
Like, but no, she is a good actor.
Yeah.
Like she's beautiful.
She's no Kate McKinnon, though.
But is Alexandra DeDario funny?
She's just, she's in some good stuff.
She's great.
All right.
So that's our question tonight, folks.
Your life is at stake.
What action hero or action star do you hope is coming to save you?
You got a lot of a lot of great action people to choose from.
You got Jason Bourne, Tom Cruise, Ethan Hunt.
You could take Tom Cruise from a lot of different movies.
Arnold Schwarzenegger.
He was the running man, Terminator.
He's got a long list of
That was the first name my wife said the Terminator I said the Terminator is a killer.
Yeah,
Right, but then she said no in the second one.
He was the hero and I was like, all right You got Jason Statham Keanu Reeves John Wick Nicholas Cage you got all his movies
Adam
sure He's gonna save
sequel you to death Chuck Norris if that's your cup of tea Steve Siegel
You got Van Damme, the whole Van Damme library.
Liam Neeson.
I would probably want either Reacher or Liam Neeson
No, not naked gun Liam Neeson.
The real Liam Neeson.
Wesley Snipes, Jackie Chan, Harrison Ford.
A lot of people to choose from, folks.
Tell us, please.
Your life is at stake.
What action star do you hope is coming to save you?
Let us know your response at 855-7524-842-855.
7.5 Civic or you can text us on the Civic Media app.
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We will read your answer on the radio.
That's pretty exciting stuff.
If you're there on any one of these platforms, please feel free to give us a like or a follow.
Those are always lovely to get.
We'll read your texts and I found this great clip.
of Eric Stone Street talking about Ed O'Neill.
I'm going to play that.
We'll read your text.
David Zucker is here tonight, folks, at 6.35.
Talking airplane, naked gun, and all of his hits.
And then Nick Watt here at 7.35.
Talking Green Bay Film Festival.
All kinds of fun stuff tonight.
It's Peach Wamba at Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.
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I'm Pete Chuala.
This is Night Light.
Great to have you with me on this Monday night.
Coming to you from beautiful downtown, but rainy Green Bay.
Hope you're having a great day wherever you are joining us from tonight.
This is exciting.
Your brewers took it to my cubs again today, Conrad, but I will say that I started thinking about this.
This great documentary that Sean Hannish
and Kelly Call did, called Just A Bit Outside.
We found these guys through our pal Todd Alba.
They were on his show, and then we had them on Nightlight.
We had Sean on a few times.
I'm still trying to get Kelly on, but I started thinking about this.
It's such a great documentary.
I wondered if how many current brewers or manager Pat Murphy or the front office have seen this documentary, because it's so fun.
It is packed with heart.
And I wonder if the current brewers have seen it, and if it inspired them in any way.
So I reached out to Sean yesterday, and I said, hey, I would love to talk to you about this.
And he said, you're not the first person that has hinted that it might have something to do with the current brewers.
Hot streak.
He said, but you are the first cup fan that has mentioned it.
So Sean is going to be on the show tomorrow night.
We're going to have a discussion about the Cubs and the Brewers.
And I thought it'd be fun to do while they're in the middle of this five game series that is already starting to go the Brewers way.
But I am curious about that.
I think, you know, the documentary, it could have that effect.
If people see it and get inspired, you know, they want to win for Milwaukee and the response they got when they were in the World Series in 82.
That'll be a fun discussion.
That's tomorrow night.
Okay, so we've got we have phone call who's on the phone
Kathy from Madison.
Hi Kathy from Madison.
How are you?
Well, hi Pete from wherever you are.
I am just a man of the earth
Yes, well a couple of things.
Yeah, I know that he's not the typical action hero, but if I were in an actual dangerous situation
I would prefer George Clooney to rescue me.
Just because you think he's cute or you think he'd actually rescue you.
He's been in a bunch of different movies, some action movies, and plus the hospital movie anyway, so we would know, you know, some CPR kind of stuff.
But I have to ask you,
Mrs.
Schwabba, if I may,
What nationality is the name Schwabba or you know the origin of country of origin?
Wow
Okay, so in a nutshell, it's too long of a story for the radio, Kathy.
And I do want to say that if George Clooney didn't rescue you, Conrad and I would be there to pull you out of a burning building or
it
is.
Oh, thank you.
I'll tell you what, we're going to hang up and I'll give you my answer.
Thank you so much for the call, Kathy.
Have a great
night.
Well, thank you for your show.
I love your show.
Bye-bye.
I appreciate that.
Thank you.
Schwabba is, growing up, my grandpa always just said it was Polish-German.
I learned later in life that it was actually neither Polish nor German.
It was Kashub, which was, the Kashubes were from the Danzig region.
Between Poland and Germany, they were their own people.
And that's really all I know.
I'm actually mostly Irish, but I'm also Kashub, apparently.
Or just German Polish, if you want to say it that way.
It does.
Kashub sausage.
at Pfizer Forum.
Who did I have this in common with?
Oh, Mike Starr.
The actor Mike Starr was on the show, and Mike is actually Irish and Polish.
You don't, like, in all those mob movies, you always hear about, like, Italian guys, like De Niro or Harvey Keitel or people like that.
And you don't really hear of many tough guys that are Irish-Polish, but Mike Starr, I feel like, is a kindred spirit.
I wonder if Mike has cashew blood.
But either way, oh, there goes our dog walker friend.
Okay, our, getting totally off track here.
Our question of the night, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for the call, Kathy.
I'm happy to answer any question about my nationality.
You're primarily German, right, Conrad?
German and Irish.
Okay, that's
mix.
Yeah.
Tom Hagan from The Godfather.
German and Irish.
Your life is at stake.
What action star do you hope is coming to save you?
That is our question of the night.
Let's go to some of our social media responses.
Conrad says,
With sidekick Kevin hard.
I think you meant
hard unless that's
the porno version I'm not Those are both couple hard guys right there the rock and Kevin hard Daniel Wheeler, this is a great one.
I'm a Thurman as the bride from the Kill Bill movies great one Or Lucy Lou from how it's the movie she was in where she was just kicking butt all over the place Jody hymn, then I said either one of the Jack Reachers.
I like the Tom Cruise
or the Alan Richardson version.
I understand Alan Richardson was more like the Reacher in the books.
But Tom Cruise is a badass and has been a badass in many movies.
And I also said, or Frank Drebben in honor of our guest at 635, David Zucker.
So Matt Harper, rock rap artist from here in Green Bay says, Clint Eastwood, man with no name.
I think that's part of the Trilogy, the Hang'em High Trilogy.
Great one, Matt.
Our pal, Mike Destel, says lassie.
Yeah, you can put an animal on there if you want folks.
Airbud.
Airbud.
Would you want airbud coming to save you or like,
Yeah, airbud can do anything.
Airbud can't do anything, but Turner and hooch is pretty good.
Yeah.
Hooch wouldn't be bad either.
All right, so there you go.
And then our pal, Rich Tellerico says, John McClain, great one.
Bruce Willis, tried and true.
He's proven.
He did it in the skyscraper.
I think he can come and save me in my little town of Marinette.
So there you go.
Do we have time?
Let's go to some of the text lines.
See what we got here, Conrad.
We've got, oh, we got some good, this is a good question.
People having fun with this one.
Nick from Marshall says the rock or Vin Diesel?
Vin Diesel.
I go Vin Diesel on that one.
They're both kind of, they're almost kind of like the same guy in a way.
Although Vin Diesel is not a wrestler.
Rich Lucassio might have issues with that, but I just compared Diesel to,
The Rock.
Monica from Mount Horrib says, John McClain, because who doesn't like Bruce Willis and a little sarcasm when you're having a crappy day?
Well said, Monica.
Outstanding, okay.
In the second hour, Nick Wattier is here from the Green Bay Film Festival.
We'll talk to Nick about a great upcoming event they have.
Should be a fun evening.
They're celebrating comedy.
And then after the news, from the movie Airplane, Top Secret.
And Naked Gun, writer, director, and Wisconsin native son David Zucker joins me.
Don't miss that, folks.
It's Nightlight with Pete Schwabba on the Civic Media Radio
Network.
This is John Gries, also Uncle Rico, and you're listening to Night Light with Pete Schwabba.
Welcome back to Night Light, ladies and gentlemen.
Great to have you with me on this Monday night.
It's finally here, folks.
Monday is here, and we get to talk about the things in life that make us happy, like movies,
and music and comedy, Conrad's beer can collection.
A little late to the party there, but you're getting it done.
Our question of the night is, your life is at stake.
What action star do you hope is coming to save you?
I said either one of the Jack Reachers and Frank Drebben in honor of our first guest tonight.
Conrad said the rock with Kevin.
He said Kevin Hart.
meant
Hart.
typo.
The Freudian typo.
Right now, folks, it is my pleasure to welcome to Nightlight my first guest.
He is a legendary writer, director, producer of some of the biggest comedies certainly in my life, but in the last 50 years, his credits include Airplane, The Naked Gun, Top Secret, Ruthless People, and he directed a couple of the scary movie films as well.
He joins us now over the stream, Wisconsin native son, David Zooker.
David, how are you?
I'm good.
You forgot basketball.
I forgot a lot.
Look, you've done too much.
I can't
I know it's overwhelming you and you deserve it.
It would have cut into our time.
Okay, we can't list all these things.
It's great to have you.
How are you tonight?
I'm good, you know, I'm just I've got a friend visiting from out of town and Guy I wrote another script with about Davey Crockett.
He's a historian and so
go to visit another friend of ours tonight who's also into history.
I'm just a total history buff, I guess.
I read a lot.
Wow.
It keeps me out of the movie business, so that's
good.
Well, you've created some history yourself, so that's kind of exciting.
Hey, before we get started, I want to say thank you on behalf of all your efforts regarding tree people.
My kids were involved through their school in LA up in Coldwater Canyon there, and I understand you're like the longest board member on that organization.
So that's-
I am the longest serving board member in treat people history.
I think I've, you know, for a while, Andy Lipkus, his dad was the longest one.
So, you know, but his dad died and, you know, I was happy about that.
I got to be the longest.
I have the record now.
Yeah.
Did you pull a Tanya Harding with him and make sure that you solidified your legacy?
No, I didn't do anything to help it.
I'm too.
upright for that and I love trees so yeah because I'm from Wisconsin I love trees
yeah let's uh all right for those who don't know your your history like like I might especially since I've been reading about you for the last few days I feel like I could have done this interview in my sleep because I'm so familiar with all your movies but um you started out at Shorewood High School you're a Milwaukee kid and then went to UW Madison
where you founded Kentucky Fried Theater with your brother Jerry and Jim Abraham before moving out to LA.
What was, that's incredible that you guys go back that far.
We, yeah, we started out back in the 60s and, you know, watching Leave it to Beaver and the Untouchables and all this stuff.
You know, Milwaukee was a place where things came to nothing ever came out of Milwaukee.
So, you know, we may have been
a little bit unique in in that in that regard but you know we you know when you when you're from a walkie you know you're not hot you're not l.a.
not new york so it was in our high school was very much of a you know very sharp wit type of place and it wasn't tough physically but you had to it was killer be killed with so we kind of had to learn to be funny.
and to defend ourselves.
Did you guys stay together conscious?
I mean, you're like the U2 of comedy teams, and I know you guys broke off and did different things, but it's kind of a miracle that three creative, hysterically funny people stayed together that long and made it out to LA and founded Kentucky Fried Theater and then Kentucky Fried Movie, all that stuff.
I think a lot of things about our history are kind of a miracle.
I mean, Jerry and I grew up in the same house.
and the Abrams family.
We're my parents closest friends, our dads were business partners it was called Abraham's and Zooker real estate.
And our moms are close, our sisters were high school and college roommates and so we were close and just having Jim there and we recruited this other kid from high school who was world-class funny.
His name was Dick Chudnow.
And then when we got to LA we found Stephen Stucker.
It was, a lot of things were just, we had a lot of luck in addition to being wildly talented.
That's great.
And it's interesting, my son actually lives in Shorewood now and is taking comedy sports and he did sketch at Madison with manhole sketch.
Like Madison has this great legacy between the onion and you guys.
It's a great comedy college, right?
Something in the water there.
And we did the show for a year in Madison right off the campus.
And it was packed.
And so we wanted to go somewhere where we could charge more than a dollar a ticket.
And that was LA where we could get $2.
And the first show, we started a show on Pico Boulevard, which was called, we called it My Nose, so that our listing in the LA Times calendar section every week ran, My Nose runs continuously.
So, you know, that's what passed for humor in the early 70s.
Oh, that's very funny.
Let's talk about the new naked gun.
I know that you were not part of it.
I saw this in an email and I read an article that you said that you had a script, but they chose to go in a different direction.
And you had about the best reaction you said.
You said, I wish them luck, but, you know, I'm sure it hurt a little bit not to be part of that.
It's kind of strange to me that you weren't.
Yeah, well, it's just, you know, I think it's ageism, really.
I mean, they figure.
After 50 you're in a walker and in drooling in a wheelchair and
you
know, I may I'm drooling but I'm not in a wheelchair And so, you know, they just and we had a great script and we were going to Reboot the whole franchise to really renew it and not just copy the old, you know, it was it was 45 years old this idea, you know to have an old guy like Leslie and you know
They just wanted to do it again.
Our concept was to not even do it in an LA cop show format.
We were going to do international spy thriller like Mission Impossible, Born and Bond.
And with a younger actor who would have been the son of Frank Trebin.
And so they just, you know, it's, you know, I hate to use the A word, but, you know, what we do, compared to this,
Junk that they're putting out is so and and we had you know, I wrote it This the new naked gun our naked gun script with Pat profit and Mike McManus for truly brilliantly talented writers and It would have been great.
So it's kind of tragic that I was I aged out so
Yeah, it is and I you know, it's interesting.
I mean that that's what Hollywood does they remake films that were successful, but I don't understand like
As big of a fan as I am of Leslie Nielsen.
What is he like five years younger than Leslie Nielsen was?
I mean the Sun thing didn't really resonate with me in this
no, it was no.
No, he's actually older than Leslie What what what's his name Liam Liam Mason, I mean, it's just it's kind of insulting I mean, I don't know what they were thinking but you know, I heard there were some laughs in it so
you know, good for them.
And I have to say, the director, Akiva Schaefer, came to my house twice.
He's a super nice guy.
And I tried to give him some advice, but I kind of said, you know, we wrote a script, you know, we wrote something.
And but he thought, you know, I think their whole team thought, you know, younger guys, young, let's go young.
Yeah.
My guest is David Zucker.
He is a Wisconsin native son, ladies and gentlemen, one of Shorewood's own.
And he's written hits like Airplane and Naked Gun and Top Secret and been a part of several blockbuster great films.
And he joins me here on Nightlight tonight.
You know, I have to say, what you based the Naked Gun on, David, was the TV show from the Files of Police Squad.
I discovered that.
I think I was in middle school.
It was one of the funniest things I had ever seen, and I was angry when it only lasted six episodes.
And then you couldn't find it anywhere.
When
you
guys... Yeah, when you guys made Naked Gun, and it's this huge hit, was that kind of like sweet revenge?
No,
no.
Actually, there was no revenge.
You know, I wouldn't mind taking revenge against the Paramount executives today and Seth MacFarlane.
who stole my gun franchise.
But when police squad came out, we just thought, I think we thought it would be easier than it turned out to be.
And Jim and Jerry and I wrote and directed the first one.
And then the concept, the plan was to have other writers and other directors take over and do the other.
But that proved a lot harder to do.
And it was so much work.
And we had to be there 24 seven and that you can't keep up the quality in a TV show as well as you can in a film and so you know Thursday night it was well we have to go with this because we start shooting on Monday and We got we got to do it and and so We were relieved when it was canceled.
We you know, it didn't it did not bother us at all.
yeah, it was but then but after we did top secret and ruthless people
Then we thought, you know, we've done these movies.
Now we're ready.
We want to do police squad.
We love police squad.
We want to do that as a movie.
And that's what happened.
You have, uh, you know, we talked about your brother and Jim Abraham's.
You mentioned Pat proff.
And you guys all worked together.
And there are times you shared director credit, um, probably from because you guys were part of this great team from Kentucky fried theater.
But how do you decide?
Who got the directing credit or in some cases you all three of you took it
we always actually We all three of us insisted on number one directing it and number two You know getting director a three-man directing credit which was very difficult because
You know, the director's union opposed it.
It was all Frank Capra, one man, one film.
It's, you know, film.
And so they said, you got to pick one of you.
And we said, no, we're not.
We're taking a three-man director credit.
And so, and we kept going up in front of these kangaroo courts of the director's guild.
And before a committee trying to prove that we were a bona fide team, finally, you know, they kept turning us down.
So Jerry, my brother,
went down to the LA City Hall, had his name legally changed to Abraham's and Zooker's.
And so he applied again for a director's guild card.
And their computer spat out a card saying Abraham's and Zooker's.
And when the guild found out about it, they were furious.
And then they had to cave in because they would have been embarrassed.
who did you guys like you said you grew up one of my questions for you is going to be who are your influences comedically um but you you mentioned leave it to beaver but your style of comedy i i'm not maybe old enough to know this but had we seen that before and if not if you
know kind of created this
who influenced
you to
do
that okay it was the march brothers okay and woody allen and mad magazine so not not necessarily any show
on TV, although we did like some of Get Smart.
But we were really, and the biggest influence on us were straight, serious movies.
So we would always redub.
And when we first saw Zero Hour, we thought this would be a great movie to redub.
And then we thought,
wait a
minute, on Second Thought, why don't we just remake it?
with Robert Stack, Leslie Nielsen, you know, serious actors and and have them act like they didn't know they're in a comedy almost as though they were being lead up.
So that's what
Hey, the airplane, it was a real breakthrough for us.
All right, we're going to talk about that next.
My guest is David Zooker, actor, director, producer, writer.
We're going to talk about airplane next and a course he is teaching.
He's also sort of a professor, I think you'd say.
We're doing that right away when we come back.
A very short break here.
It's Night Light with Pete Schwabba on the Civic Media Radio Network.
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My guest at the moment is the extremely talented, extremely successful David Zoker.
He is behind the creative force behind movies like Airplane, The Naked Gun, Top Secret, Ruthless People, and too many to mention.
David, I have to thank you actually for another thing too.
When I first moved to LA or shortly after,
We had a meeting at your company, my writing partner and I, and that's where I got to meet Chevy Chase riding up in an elevator.
He was on his way to a meeting too.
So that was my first big star sighting where I was trying not to embarrass myself.
So thank you for that as well.
All right.
Anything I can do.
And don't forget baseball.
Baseball.
I know.
Hey, let's.
It's interesting.
I heard a story about you and the Farrelly brothers and how you kind of came to their aid when they were filming Dumb and Dumber and just needed some guidance.
And they called you or you and your brother Jerry.
And then you also mentioned baseball with Trey Parker and Mastone.
Is it nice to know that you've influenced other powerhouse comedy duos?
It is.
It's great.
In fact, I got to know the Farrelly's very early, around 19...
84 I think 85 I I I met them you know I knew Bennett Yellen sister who was was there those those guys writing partner and in fact there's a story we wrote this book called surely can't be serious soul story yeah and they tell the story in the book how they were in Rhode Island and fairly Pete Farrelly's watching TV sees us on Jerry and Jim and I were on Letterman.
And he and he said Bobby come in come quick.
It's like you got to see these are guys who did airplane and top secret and and it's and and they look like like they were surprised they were surprised that we weren't these drugged out maniacs and we're just we're pretty preppy well from Wisconsin right and so and Pete says in the book he said this is.
Right there then and there we decided we'll go out to LA because these guys could do it.
Then then we could do it.
But and we helped them.
I gave them their first job.
I gave Matt Stone and Trey Parker their first job.
You know, doing doing a video for Universal Studios and and and Trey needed a car.
So that's how we bought a car.
Now, of course, those guys
are billionaires and I'm applying to them.
Oh, that is so great.
I guess you could say that's paying it forward.
But let's talk a little bit about that book you just mentioned.
Or should we do your class first?
We got about three minutes before the news.
Oh, let's do the class.
OK,
this is kind of cool.
comedy crash?
Is that what it's called?
Master Crash.
There we go.
And there are some personal interactions with me.
I mean, if anybody wants that, but certainly the Paramount Studios didn't, but the normal people who actually want to learn how to do comedy can join this thing.
It's because I was actually turned down by
Masterclass my manager at the time, I don't know 4 or 5 years ago applied.
Hey, how about David Zucker doing a and they said no.
I'm getting used to being rejected.
Yeah, it's amazing.
So we're doing this this course and it's it centers around 15 rules that we developed when we're doing zaz and doing all our comedies.
And I explain each rule giving.
And their videos, it's all kind of humorously done.
It's not as serious as Masterclass.
And so that's already launched and it's not too much money, so people can join in.
Where can they find out more information if they wanted to do Master Crash?
Just go to Master Crash.
Dot-com.
Dot-com.
Okay.
And then all the information is there.
And so, and it partly inspired because I saw the trailer.
I was starting to see the trailer and how the people who were doing naked gun four were very confident that they knew what they were doing.
And yet in the trailer, you know, a two minute trailer, they broke, you know, 10 rules.
it's it's it's pretty ridiculous how you know it looks easy yeah and and the people who did make a gun for our great fans of our all of our movies airplane naked gun top secret etc all this stuff and uh you know and they so much want to do it they want to join in on the fun yeah and so but they don't know they really don't know how to do it so and and I look
the guy at my dry cleaners is a big fan but I don't know I don't think he can actually do one of these movies.
Terrible comedy writer though.
So it's interesting you mentioned we've got about a minute and a half before we have to do the news then maybe we can get into airplane at the top of the hour but you know
It I'm not gonna say or insinuate it happened easily for you guys because it never does but you were so young when you got Kentucky Fried movie made and then airplane Do you feel like you just mentioned you're getting rejected now?
Did you not have that experience right when you got to LA?
Yes, we were rejected by everyone.
Okay.
I mean we What we did know how to do is You know start out we had our own theater.
It was Kentucky Fried theater
And we did a show.
We could control that.
There was nobody to say no to us, like these idiots at Paramount.
And so we did that.
And then we did that for five years.
We were on national TV shows, but it didn't go anywhere.
So we said, gee, look, Mel Brooks is doing movie, Woody Allen's doing movies.
And we weren't saying automatically we could do better, but we said we could be funny too in movie.
We could be just funny.
So we started writing airplane.
And that's the first movie we wrote, of course, rejected by everybody.
And then, uh, we decided, well, we'll do Kentucky fried movie, which was a much lower budget.
That was about 600,000 and directed by John Landis.
It turned out the best thing that ever.
Cause we learned how to direct.
We're going to jump into all that after the news.
David Zooker is here, the creator of Airplane and the naked gun, among many others.
And when we come back, we're going to tell you where you can see him live, too, at a really cool screen.
This is Pete Schwabba in Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio.
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