Laughs, Legends, and Local Films (Hour 2)

Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.

This is Night Light with Pete Schwabba.

Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.

And now a guy who prefers to travel by catapult, Pete Schwabba.

Welcome to Night Light, ladies and gentlemen.

Only gone by catapults 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 beat 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 Christie and Ed a little bit.

And 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.

You know, you could be an ice shanny.

That's inside.

Is it?

You got four walls.

It still sucks.

Not to the people who love it.

Look, I have a ton of friends at Ice Fish and they absolutely love it.

In fact, they hate it when there's a crappy winter and they can't do these things like Stomobile and Ice Fish.

And I just...

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.

Oh yeah, me too.

It's great.

So 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.

Got a great show tonight.

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's just a video store called the Video Club.

Oh, I thought you were gonna say Blockbuster.

No, my wife and I rented it, like in the, I think it was early 2000s, but.

It's a good film.

Anyway, David Zucker will be here at 6.35 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.

Oh, thank 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 Zucker, 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.

Yeah, maybe can I ask

Dave?

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 was 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.

You know, like last Friday, I think he said, you know, God is doing this to you.

He is.

And it just adds to the story now.

You spend a couple thousand

dollars and all of a sudden.

If I were God, I would just mess with people like Pete Schwabba all the time.

Oh stay in your house.

Here's a little rain.

Let's see her run around Yeah, 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 a wide release.

I can't figure out what is happening here.

I mean, Denzel Washington, pretty bankable.

Spike Lee, renowned director.

I have to drive to Milwaukee to see it.

That's really weird.

Yeah, that's a hike just to see that film.

It is.

And I didn't see nobody, too, either.

But I did watch Alien Earth.

Did you watch that?

You know what I've been watching.

I told you last week.

Milf Manor?

No.

Tacoma FD.

Oh, Tacoma FD.

Yeah.

I meant to watch one of those over the weekend.

It's so good.

I was gonna do that.

I didn't do

that.

I gotta write that

down.

I'm on the last season now.

I've been binging.

How many episodes per season are

there?

I think there's around like 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.

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, 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?

I said the rock.

Oh And in the movie central intelligence With sidekick Kevin Hart,

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?

Because

listen, you know

Kevin Hart's gonna be you know, I'm gonna be held captive sure Kevin Hart's gonna make the guy laugh

right

and then the rocks come out of nowhere and

Then I'm saved and then on the way back you get comedy the whole time,

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 I've Have you ever watched a rock movie and been thoroughly entertained red notice Was that the Christmas movie last year

no red notice was with um

Ryan Reynolds

Strike two by the way

And I'm trying to think if he

did he find a place in the movie to sell his brandy or whatever the hell he's trying to hawk one of his new products

It was it was a great.

It was one of the best Netflix films.

I've seen really okay, red nose

I'm gonna add that

red one was the

yeah the Christmas movie, which was

actually kind of funny Okay

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 was a snooze.

Yeah.

I was like, he's flying around in a helicopter.

Los Angeles is in ruins and he sees his daughter.

Well, I watched that movie and I was I was okay watching it because

My favorite actress, isn't

it?

Alexandra DeDario.

Yeah.

Yeah.

She's talented.

She is.

She's a great

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.

Well, you need

a

different level of comedy for Kate McKinnon, you know.

But is Alexandra DeDario funny?

She's just, she's in some good stuff.

Yeah, she is.

I mean, White Lotus.

She was awesome.

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, you'll probably kill you

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 Sandler Adam Sandler sure

He's gonna save

you as a 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 in all seriousness.

Yeah, I

mean, naked gun 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.

75 Civic or you can text us on the Civic Media app.

So very easy to use and you can take all your Civic Media hosts with you wherever you go.

Or if you're watching on the stream, drop us a stream comment.

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.

Welcome back.

I'm Pete Chihuahua.

This is Nightlight.

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.

The Brewers, your Brewers took it to my Cubs again today, Conrad, but I will say that, you know, 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 the documentary, it could have that effect.

If people see it and get inspired, 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 got Kathy from Madison Kathy from Madison.

Hi Kathy from Madison.

How are you?

Well, I

pee 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 whatever

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.

That sounds like a sausage.

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.

German Irish.

Okay, that's a good mix.

Yeah.

Tom Hagan from the Godfather.

German 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 the rock.

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 him and 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 Hangem High Trilogy.

Great one, Matt.

Our pal, Mike Destel, says, Lassie, 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 will cast you.

I 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.

Hey, this is John Gries, also Uncle Rico, and you're listening to Nightlight of Peach Waba.

Welcome back to Nightlight, 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.

They meant Kevin Hart.

It was a typo.

The Freudian typo.

Right now, folks, it is my pleasure to welcome tonight light, 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 Zucker.

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 we're going to 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.

He 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 L.A.

up in Coldwater Canyon there, and I understand you're like the longest board member on that organization.

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 or in a walker and in drooling in a wheelchair and

you know,

I mean I'm drooling but I'm not 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 that 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, 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 or...?

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 24-7.

And you can't keep up the quality in a TV show as well as you can in a film.

And so, you know, on a Thursday night, it was, well, we have to go with this because we start shooting on Monday and we got to do it.

And so we were relieved when it was canceled.

You know, it did not bother us at all.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, it was.

But then, but after we did Top Secret and Rufeless 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 guys 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.

Okay, although we did like some of get smart.

But but we're really and and the biggest influence on us were straight serious movies.

So we would always read up.

And when we first saw zero hour.

We thought this would be great movie to read up to

wait a

minute on second thought.

Why don't we just remake it.

with Robert Stack, Leslie Hill,

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.

Welcome back.

Great to have you with me on this Monday night, folks.

Hope you're having a great day.

Your life is at stake.

What action star do you hope is coming to save you?

That is tonight's question.

Drop us a stream comment or on the app or if you're listening on the old-fashioned live radio with the family gathered around send us a text and we will read it on the radio.

My guest at the moment is the extremely talented, extremely successful David Zooker.

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 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 that in 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?

What do you want to?

We got about three minutes before the news.

Oh, let's do the class.

OK.

This is kind of cool.

This is a comedy crash.

Is that what it's called?

Master Crash.

Master Crash.

Master Crash dot com.

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, four or five years ago applied, hey, how about David Zucker doing a, and they said, no.

So, I'm getting used to being rejected.

Wow.

Yeah, it's amazing.

So we're doing this course and 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 mastercrash.com.

And

then all the information is there.

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 4

We're very confident that they knew that they what they were doing and yet in the trailer, you know a two-minute trailer they broke, you know 10 rules so 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 the stuff.

And, uh, you know, and they, 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've, 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.

Uh, um, 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, I'm not going to 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.

OK.

I mean.

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, 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 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 happened, because we learned how to direct.

We're going to jump into all that after the news.

David Zucker 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 screening.

This is Pete Schwabba in Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio.

Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.

This is Night Light with Pete Schwabba.

Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.

And now, a guy whose house has an actual wiggle room, Pete Schwabba.

Welcome back to Night Light, ladies and gentlemen.

We are jamming through a Monday night here.

A great night here at Night Light.

We got a great question.

We will get to your texts very soon.

Keep those texts coming.

Our question of the night is, your life is at stake.

What action star do you hope is coming to save you?

We will catch up on texts in just a few minutes.

It's a good question tonight, Conrad.

I

agree.

All right.

Right now, let's get right back to it because we've got a few more minutes with Comedy Legend.

David Zooker he is here over the stream joining us from I assume Los Angeles David are you in

Los Angeles and Brentwood, but I'm soon going to be in Wisconsin I was just gonna ask

you do you

get back here very often all All the time because well my kids were in at UW Madison first They were six years overlapped for two years

and so I would get there

twice a year and then visit my high school friends who now live in Madison and Milwaukee and so I'm coming in

I'm coming in Wednesday night and Thursday night, we're gonna meet in, I think, Delafield at some

restaurant

in halfway between Milwaukee and Madison, so that'll be

fun.

That's fantastic.

Let's, before, I really wanna talk about Airplane with you because that was your first big, huge success for you and your brother Jerry and Jim Abraham's.

How did you guys write this?

You obviously all were on the same page from your sketch days at Kentucky Fried Theatre, but can you take us into the writing room a little bit and how you guys collaborated to come up with this script?

Yeah, it was the same way that we did really most of our movies.

We would play serious scenes from Zero Hour.

I'm assuming everybody knows that's where we got airplane from.

It was a 1957 Black and White movie and in an exact same plot.

with food poisoning on an airliner.

And so we just took that, played it seriously.

We would use a transcript of the scene and then we would add our jokes.

So that's very much how we wrote

it.

Was there a scene in zero hour where pandemonium breaks out on the plane and all of a sudden two boobs are on the screen for a split second and then move off?

Yeah, in black and white and in the 1950s, it's incredible.

Yeah.

Very few people see that copy, but we like that.

That's one of my favorite gags.

It's so funny.

And I remember as a kid going, that is so funny that it just is out of nowhere.

It's so over the top gratuitous and hilarious.

It was probably my favorite.

Well, as a 12 year old, it was my favorite scene for a lot of reasons, but

it was so

funny comedically too.

Such a varied cast in airplane.

You've got Karima Abdul-Jabbar, Julie Hagerty, who's great, lost in America and airplane alone.

She should be in the Hall of Fame.

But what was it like for Peter Graves, Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, these three serious actors?

Can you tell me a little bit about what it was like getting those guys involved?

Did you have to convince them?

Well, they were actually somewhat brave.

to do this with three untested first-time directors.

And I mean, nobody had ever triple-directed a movie.

Peter Graves read the script, evidently, we found out later.

He passed.

And we found out he threw the script across the room and said, this is the worst piece of trash I've ever read.

And, you know, later, I learned that, you know, actors don't read the whole script.

They just read their own parts.

to Peter may have seemed that he was playing a funny pedophile so.

Our producer got him to come in and meet with us and like the feral he's you know.

He thought he's going to read again meet these drug crazed maniacs.

And we were just these you know very innocent guys from Wisconsin who happen to think pedophilia was fun.

He and we convinced him to do it and he and he did and Robert that kept saying.

Who else are coming to the party?

Leslie Nielsen, you know, told his agent, I don't, don't tell those guys this, but I would pay them to do this.

So he was in, you know, right from the get go.

And Lloyd Bridges, you know, I think he thought it was funny, but he tried to make sense of his lines and kept suggesting changes to his lines.

And finally,

You know, I think Robert Stack in one of the rehearsals just said, Lloyd, just keep talking.

They're not looking at us.

They're not listening to us.

You know, the spears going to the wall, watermelons dropping down.

Just keep talking.

Oh, that's so funny.

My guess is David Zucker, the creative force behind airplane, naked gun, basketball, ruthless people, and top secret.

We're talking about airplane, which has been preserved in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

That's pretty cool.

I know, and who knows why, but you know, and you know, my brother still has the original automatic pilot.

Oh, no way.

Yeah.

And we, we heard that.

uh the the the sled from Citizen Kane you know rose but that went for 14 million so you know maybe maybe i maybe i could retire on this you know on on you know i mean more than i'm already retired

you know oh that's of all the of all the actors you've worked with david like in terms of leading men or leading women robert haze leslie nielsen priscilla pressley val kilmer who is the most enjoyable

And if you want to say, who is the most difficult?

You know, Leslie probably was the most enjoyable.

Charlie Sheen was great.

You know, in between setups, you know, we go out outside the studio and we always brought, you know, our baseball gloves and we would toss a baseball around.

And he was good.

I mean, he could throw it fast.

And so I had to struggle to catch some of this stuff.

He on a ferris was a joy to work with and Priscilla Presley.

They were just all so nice every would everybody I really couldn't complain about anybody you know I was threatened with Michael Madsen came out of the set, you know, and he's he said people said oh my God, he's going to give you trouble.

He's he's going to eat you for lunch.

You know and you know so he comes on for the first rehearsal and he seems a little humorless, but I

I started insulting him right from the start, just telling him what a terrible actor he was and he's lucky even to be directed by me.

And he never stopped laughing.

So we just, every actor, you get to actors, everyone's a different way.

Tell us about, you have a couple of personal appearances coming up.

These sound like a lot of fun.

These events are airplane, unreleased, the director's cut screenings.

You'll be there doing a Q&A with Robert Hayes.

How cool is that?

Yeah, Robert Hayes,

I've kept in touch with, we're great friends.

I visited him in Hawaii and he comes to visit me here in LA.

And then we're going, we've done a million.

you know screenings of airplane and then we do a Q&A.

So we have a lot of fun.

The last one was at San Francisco Sketchfest, but these dates are coming up in Seattle and Denver.

You've got October 3rd in Seattle, November 2nd in Denver.

Anything a little close to home here in the Dairy State?

I hope

so.

Well, you know, because these events, these dates have been selling out so well, they're going to

you know, take us further away because I demand a first class seat.

You've earned it.

What can people, the Paramount might not pay for it, but you've earned it.

What can people expect in the director's cut that they haven't seen before?

Oh,

you know, it's probably hyped up more than it really deserves because

our ZAZ director's cut is three minutes shorter than the original.

Yeah,

we actually cut things out because we never give up.

We keep editing and trying to make the movie better.

We also do the same thing with Top Secret.

We just trimmed a lot of stuff, so the new Top Secret cut is a little bit shorter, but there's, in comedies,

you know they have special features that like deleted scenes they're never any good in comedies because if they were funny they would have been in the original right release so it's you know whereas in a drama I'm sure there's

you know

there's great deleted scenes from the godfather or right or other movies but not not in comedies

I just I feel like I haven't

paid homage enough to Leslie Nielsen.

This guy was truly an absolute treasure.

And his whole performance, maybe my favorite moment of his is in Naked Gun when there's a car on fire going down the street.

It's his car.

It caught on fire and then it makes the turn.

I was just thinking of that because then you see on Leslie's face that he's slowly.

Realizes that he shot his own car and it's brilliant.

He just he's like anybody get a look at the driver.

I've got to get inside

Of course somebody had to tell him to do it that way

I

was on the set Pete.

Okay.

Well, I give all the credit to you.

I

was directing it

What is more fulfilling to you as a writer director of comedy getting good reviews

or hearing a packed theater laugh uncontrollably?

You know, I love getting good reviews.

I like having a hit movie more.

Yeah.

And, you know, Baseball got great reviews and so did Top Secret.

But, you know, they didn't perform as well at the box office as, you know, airplane and the naked guns and the scary movies.

So...

There's nothing I like better than a hit.

Yeah.

Well, a hit keeps you working too, which is always nice.

It keeps

me working,

yeah.

Let me ask you this, David.

What is your favorite project you've done with ZAZ, your brother in Jim Abrams or Pat Proff or whomever?

And what is your favorite project you did away from those guys?

Well, my favorite project that I did with them, it has to be airplane because the whole thing of airplane was

You know, it took so long to get it financed and done by a studio.

And the other basic thing about the ZAZ experience with airplane is that you can only come from nowhere once.

And that being the first, it was incredible.

In fact, before it was released, the week before it was released, Jim and Jerry and I flew to Milwaukee.

And my parents and Jim's parents had

rented out the Fox Bay Theater on Silver Spring, and that was the theater where we went to as kids, and we saw the Three Stooges and, you know, Saturday all cartoons.

It was a great experience having everyone we ever knew from Milwaukee there in the audience and seeing that movie for the first time, and then we did a Q&A.

I wish somebody had recorded the Q&A, but...

Actually, it didn't differ too much from the ones we do today.

We get the same questions.

David Zucker, thank you so much.

Check out Master Crash, folks, mastercrash.com, a crash course in spoof comedy, and you will have actual interaction with our guest, David Zucker, the brains behind a lot of, well, so much comedy that has affected and influenced my life, as well as millions of other people.

I can't even, after I saw Airplane, David, I couldn't fly anymore, not because I was scared, just because.

The passengers weren't as funny

as

in your movies.

Yeah.

Or just

don't

eat the food.

Right.

Thank you so much.

This has been a treat.

I really appreciate your time and continued success, my friend.

Sure.

Thanks a lot.

You got it.

All right.

That's David Zooker.

Check out all of his movies.

I'm sure you've seen most of them.

And check out Master Conrad.

Don't rule out Master Crash.

I'm not

saying you're not funny.

I'm just saying you could use a little

bump

up.

Yeah.

It can't hurt, right?

Exactly.

And check out David's book as well.

Surely you can't be serious, The True Story of Airplane, which dropped in 2023.

When we come back, we'll catch up on your texts.

And then Nick Watter is here from the Green Bay Film Festival at 735.

It's Pete Schwabba and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Welcome

back.

Great to have you with me on this Monday night, a rainy Monday night here in Green Bay.

I hope it is sunny and 70 wherever you are in other parts of the state.

Nick Watier is coming up in just a few minutes.

He's actually here.

No, you could say hi.

Hi.

He came in because he wants to be part of reading your texts, folks.

great guy.

Absolutely.

And you set a funny line too when you came in just

now.

Yeah, you did not tell me I was going to have to follow the naked gun guy.

Hey, Nick Watter is following a comedy legend.

No problem.

I mean, I'm here to talk about comedy films, but I'm not a comedian.

I am not a funny person.

We'll get it done.

Don't

worry.

It's great to have you here.

And Conrad, you know, being the huge baseball fan, you're almost as big a baseball fan as David seemed to be.

Yeah, no, I think he's a little bit bigger because he made it.

He kept mentioning it though, and then I'm like, I think he wants me to talk about things.

Because,

I mean, there is Wisconsin ties to it.

It's

the Milwaukee Beards.

The Milwaukee Beards, sir.

That's perfect.

All right, our question of the night, folks, is your life is at stake.

What action hero do you hope is coming to rescue you?

Do you have one,

Nick?

Oh my goodness.

Well, I don't know if this really counts because it's kind of crossing into sci-fi, but I was a huge Terminator 2 fan.

Yeah.

So if Arnold Schwarzenegger as the T-1000 could come for me.

That would be amazing.

Even though the T2000 is the one making your life

in peril.

Well, right.

Sure.

I mean, it's all about programming, right?

Exactly.

It's funny you say that because my wife said that.

She said the Terminator.

She said the Terminator is a killer.

She

goes on

in the second one.

And I was like, oh, yeah, that's right.

Oh, actually, I think I got that wrong.

Arnold might have been the T800.

Oh, I thought he was the T-1000 and then Robert Patrick's character was the T, you know, I haven't seen it in so long.