The New WGBW (Hour 2)

Hey, this is Connor the producer for Night Light.

Pete is on vacation spending time with his family.

But in the meantime, here are some great moments from Night Light over the past couple months.

Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.

This is Night Light with Peach Wabba.

Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.

And now...

A guy who appreciates a nice hot meal at a fair price.

Pete Schwabach.

Welcome to Night Lights, ladies and gentlemen.

We are officially underway here.

Great to have you with me.

It is Wednesday night here in the state of Wisconsin.

Question of the night is what is in your pocket?

Conrad's mom checks in and says mailbox key and phone.

It is a mile walk to the mailbox.

I could be a fart walk.

She times it right.

That is a long walk.

It's funny on that thing too, like on puberty, they had a couple walking together, like that was bringing them closer together, which I suppose it can.

Brian from Milwaukee says, two lens cleaning wipes for my glasses and some blue pocket fuss.

Most people don't have anything too exciting in their pocket, but I appreciate the honesty.

And I'm truly curious.

On the stream, Dave says, a Swiss Army knife, car keys, wallet, phone charger.

Lint.

PJ says, besides my hand, Lint.

And then Craig says, Pete, regarding one of tonight's subjects, most teachers don't pass wind in public that are private tutors.

Oh my God.

Okay.

That's a great show.

I should have read it over first.

Thank you, Craig.

Right now, I'm excited to welcome another mic.

Have we ever had two mics on the show?

at the same on the same night.

I think this is radio history.

We're doing it again.

Mike Schmidt is a comedian, one of my favorites.

And he hosts the 40 year old boy podcast.

And he is just a great dude.

It's great to have him back here on Nightlight.

It's been too long.

He joins us on the stream.

Hey, buddy, how are you?

Two mics, one Pete.

How are you?

That sounds nefarious somehow.

It's fairly

dirty.

It sounds

fairly dirty.

Not as dirty as two Pete's and one Mike.

Well listen,

I've been on hold here for, it seems like an hour, and all I've heard is you talking about farts in the forest, or whatever the hell you're talking about.

I mean, my first, my favorite thing was, hey man, I don't do any bathroom humor, and then forget it.

Katie, bar the fart door, because you went bananas.

I went bananas.

You know, I don't do that.

I said I don't.

I think I've talked about it on one other occasion.

This just was kind of staring me in the face.

It was like something I couldn't deny.

Poor

choice of words.

That's all I do, Mike.

And it's just so silly I had to address it, so.

I see.

All

right.

Well, that's fine.

It's your show.

You handled it earlier than I had, but I enjoyed the disclaimer up top where it's like, I never do this.

And then

the

horses sprinted for the gate.

I rarely tell racist jokes, but

guess what?

Exactly.

Hey, it's good to have you on the show.

How are you doing, Mike?

I'm good, man.

Thank you for having me on the show.

And I will tell you, I didn't know if I was, if people could see me, I couldn't remember because it's been a while since I've been here and I literally just got out of the shower.

It looks like somebody dragged me out of a swimming pool.

So I was like, my camera's off.

It's staying off.

Nobody wants to see this.

It's ridiculous.

Could you not have timed that better where, you know, like you could have put some clothes on or?

No, I'm not naked.

I'm wearing

clothes.

But I'm

just, you know, my hair is a fright.

And, you know, me, I often, I often shower right before a performance.

That's why I like to handle it.

I

only put myself in

gloves that have a shower backstage.

We have a friend.

And since we started off on the wrong foot with the bathroom humor, I'll just keep rolling with it.

But our friend initial, I'm not going to say who it is because that would be unprofessional.

That would be.

I'm a professional, but it names with pitch ground.

So maybe you can figure out who it is, but he always had to go number two before he went on stage.

That was just like a nervous habit he had.

Well, he mistimed it one night and we were at jukebox comedy club in Peoria.

And one of the funniest things I've ever seen was his name being called onto the stage and all I could see were his feet in the stall under the door.

And I was like, there's no way he's making this.

Even if he's extremely talented, it's not happening.

But we all have our routines before we go.

But I

loved, I loved that you said, cause you said, uh, he mistimed it one night, which made me think he was on, you know, instead of going before I went on stage, he got on stage and hell, I, you know, I forgot the order of this.

And if any one of us is going to do that, it's going to be pitch ground.

That's the kind of, and he used to wrestle, right?

I understand he used to wrestle.

I

can't say his joke for that on the air, unfortunately, but it's a beautiful joke.

And he's not above leaving a little pile on the stage if he mistimes things.

All right, let's move on rapidly, because we've got a lot to talk about.

What's in your pocket?

Do you have pockets, Mike, even though you just got out of the shower?

At this moment, I do, because I'm wearing sweats, but there's nothing, an area thing in the pocket.

But during the day, usually,

i'm just as boring as everyone else except for the guy carrying a knife um the correct man i don't care if it's a swiss army knife you have a weapon in your pocket dude no you can try to pretend it's like oh i might run go jar i need to open no sir

We know this is for shipping somebody in a dark alley.

Don't try to get off.

There's an emergency whittling situation But

I I'm just I'm phone wallet keys.

That's why I'm phone wall right

nothing wrong with that appreciate the honesty and it's good to keep clean pockets again

Like I'm gonna ask did you ever carry anything?

What was there anything more than phone wallet keys in your pocket in your life?

What have you carried?

Yeah, I tend to

Probably, I don't like to, like, if I'm trying not to carry like a backpack or something, I'll shove stuff into my pockets, but it's not, it's like the same stuff we've been hearing tonight.

Phone charger, occasionally some bad intentions, that kind of thing, Mike.

Sure,

I

don't know.

Now, are you a handkerchief guy?

Are you ever one of those dudes?

You know what?

Here's the weird thing.

I'm not a handkerchief guy.

I think they're like kind of gross, but I do keep like paper towels in my pockets just in case because all of a sudden,

You never know when you're going to need it.

Nothing wrong with that.

Yeah.

A bounty, carry a pack of bounty with you, that's totally fine.

But a handkerchief, that's a commitment, man.

That's like a piece of clothes that you vomit in.

I mean, it's the craziest thing I've ever heard.

There are times I'll be around like some old school guys and I'll see them pull out a hanky and I'll have like this visceral reaction where I just almost dry heaved.

Um, yeah, and I want to say what's, what do you got against the quicker picker upper?

It's a little more sanitary and you don't have to carry that disgusting thing.

That's

Rosie.

Rosie, I'll tell you.

Um, let me tell you this sixth grade West view, uh, middle school in Romeoville, Illinois, sixth grade.

Uh, our gym teacher was a man named Mr. Nellis and, and he was your prototypical old school.

The baseball hat from the 20s in 1977, baggy blue pants whistled the whole night.

And he had constantly, he would fish into his pocket and pull out a handkerchief that never saw the inside of a washing machine, never saw anything but his pocket and his nose.

That was it, like bang, bang, bang, bang, back and forth.

It was a one-way street, a two-way street.

So then one day he comes in this, you can ask Lenny,

My brother who will totally come tell you this he reaches in he's fishing for the handkerchief one day and we're all like oh Christ here it comes and he reaches in and he pulls out a hot dog And bites it a couple times and shoves it back in the handkerchief pocket Never forgot

that is like

Just a health violation on so many levels, Mike.

Right?

This is the guy teaching me about why hair is growing where it's growing.

And now he's got a pocket full of sausage that I'm not interested in.

What are you doing, man?

He's teaching you about hygiene.

He's pulling a hot dog out of his

pocket.

Right.

Mr. Nellis, man, you had to curb it.

Oh, that's awful.

Great.

It was great.

Great name, though.

I love the name.

It was him and Mr. Krushka.

I gotta tell you a Mr. Krushka story.

Mr. Krushka was also a gym teacher in Westview.

And then when I went to Bowlingburg High School, he was a teacher there.

And he had this cadence the way he would talk, Schmitt, what are you doing?

And he called it by their last name.

So one year, my sophomore year, we had a transfer student.

A kid from probably Vietnam.

I don't know, somewhere over there.

Somewhere where their names end in G's.

We adopt him.

Like my crew adopts this guy because we want it where he's like our guy.

Like he's got super long fingernails and he's just a different cat and his language, his English is bad.

So we're doing archery outside and as a gym experience.

And we're shooting and it's Fong's turn to shoot.

And Fong goes, and we go, Fong, now when you shoot, you got to go get the arrow.

And he's like, he's like, okay, I don't know what he said.

And we're like, uh, no, when you, when you shoot, you got to go out because he was shooting in a hay bales and targets.

So every, you know, and there's like 15 of them lined up and people are shooting.

So Fong shoots his arrow.

And I should tell you, this is in like 1981, I think.

And Fong shoots it and then he goes to run out to the hay pale and grab the arrow and Krushka's down the line.

He just goes, Fong, what are you doing?

You'll wind up like Sadat.

Get back here.

Because a week before this, Anwar Sadat had attended a parade, uh, his last parade, but, but Krushka out of nowhere, out of nowhere drops that on Fong.

Fong, get back here.

You'll wind up like Sadat in front of 13 year old boys.

Gorgeous.

Oh God, that's funny.

Marty Krushka.

That's the dudes.

They were legends.

Oh, that's so great.

Mike, all right.

I don't know when this story happened, but I've heard from a couple of our mutual friends that you have a story about playing basketball against girls.

And I hope this isn't a horribly misogynistic story or something, but it's supposed to be very funny.

Well, first of all, that just sounds horrible the way you framed it.

You played basketball against girls.

Well, it sounded like it was an experiment, the way I heard it the first time, but I've never heard the story.

All right.

First, I'll just tell you, you know, I love sports.

Love playing sports, but I didn't play sports in school.

My grades weren't there.

My mom wouldn't let me, whatever.

It didn't matter.

So I play, but we play sandlot all day baseball.

We play basketball on a nine foot rim and dunk.

It was totally fun.

So me and my friend Mike Scott and Mike Casey, you think you had a lot of mics in the studio tonight.

We got me three mics on this team.

And we wind up having a talk because there's on our on our girls basketball team in the high school And again, this is freshman year.

Yeah,

so there was the three best players were women these girls I don't know if I should say their names, but I won't say their last names, but it was Judy Patty and Nola Mike and they They know Mike's no Mike's on the ladies team and so

It got into a like a like a beef like a war of words where we were talking and Mike could play basketball.

Mike Scott.

He didn't play on the team, but he was okay to good.

Mike Casey was not as bad as me.

I'm gonna, here's how bad, truthfully, here's how bad I am at basketball.

I get a friend named Jimmy O. And Jimmy O's nickname besides Jimmy O is Stool or Stooley.

And the reason he got that was he plays basketball like a word I can't say on your radio show.

So that's why he was nicknamed stool.

So then a couple of years ago, we had the ultimate showdown against me against him to see who was worse and I lost.

So that's how bad I am.

And luckily I didn't get the stool nickname.

He continues to wear it.

Oh, sweet.

Yes, sir.

But I, like on the small rim, forget it.

I was like backing people down and, you know, it was amazing because I was like a combination of Bill Lane Beer, Herding People and Kevin Duckworth with one head of jumpers.

I was amazing.

But regular basketball, 10 foot rim, forget it.

So, Judy is in Mike, having a bit of a thing, and they're like, we could beat you guys in basketball.

And Mike's like, you could never beat us.

There's no way.

He goes, me and Mike and Mike would kill you guys.

And they're like, we play on the team.

We would absolutely destroy you.

And I'm nervous, because I'm like, Mike, now what are you doing, man?

This

is

probably bad.

And they're like, well, then let's play.

And he's like, all right, we'll figure it out.

We'll play.

We'll get together and we'll play.

So the summer comes and Mike tells me hey, we're playing we're playing them this week.

I'm like, what are you talking about?

He's like we're gonna play them.

We're going on a Falcon Ridge and we're gonna plan I'm like, oh Christ.

All right, so me him and Mike and like I don't practice or anything again I don't I don't know what to do.

I'm just I play street basketball,

right?

So and then we get there and they're like they're they're in like almost like matching uniforms and they're doing a layup line They're just like amazing

And, you know, Mike's practically, he didn't, but he smoked that day just for no reason.

He's like, all right, let's do this.

You know, like, that's how to shape in basketball.

So

great.

So

we get there.

Can we, can we, the game is about to start.

Can we wait?

We're going to do a very quick break and we'll come back and find out what happened.

Sure.

And Mike's a pickup basketball game.

I love it.

It's Beach Waba and Nightlight Mike Schmidt is here on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Pete Schwabba, I am Pete Schwabba.

Conrad is back.

He was back last night after a lengthy stay at the draft where he was asked to leave with good reason.

I'm kidding, Conrad.

You know that.

I'm very excited, folks.

My friend Mike Schmidt is on the show, very funny comedian and host of the 40-year-old boy podcast.

Absolutely check it out.

Mike was in the middle of telling a story about how he and two other mics.

We're playing, we're about to square off against three girls who are outstanding basketball players.

They're very good.

Right.

As a matter of fact, when they arrived, like I said, as freshmen, uh, you know, our, our, the girls team was never anything I guess to write home about.

But then when these three arrived, everybody was like, all right, here we go.

Yeah.

It's about time we've got some, some juice with the, with the arrival of Judy, Patty, and so we get there.

And like I said, they're, they're hitting shots.

I'm, I'm looking at, cause again, Mike's good.

Right.

And my other friend, Mike, is just, you know, he's just there.

Mike, he never talked.

I don't know.

I think I heard him talk twice throughout all of high school.

He's one of those guys.

I'll tell you what, Mike, we actually, one time after school, me and Mike went with Mike because Mike had a fight with Maher Allen.

And they had a fight like three o'clock high.

They fought for like 45 minutes.

Oh, wow.

Blood and mud.

It was gorgeous.

And then it was at the end.

At the end, they shook hands and we just went home.

It was crazy.

It was the weirdest thing.

Right.

No guns.

None of that craziness.

Everybody goes home.

Put the guns down and fight like men people.

Yeah.

Or women, whatever.

They went at it.

I mean, I think about it now.

It was like Titanic.

Mike and Mar-Alan.

Yeah.

But then Mike, it was great.

It was it was a spectacle.

I won't soon forget.

So they're practicing.

They're really good.

And I tell Mike, the guy who's good at basketball, I go, Mike, look, man, you got a.

Like you got to score every time.

You got to carry us.

Yeah, yeah, please.

And he's like, well, don't worry about it.

Yeah, we'll be fine.

And so we gave them the ball like to take it out.

And they were like, no, no, no, you guys take it out because, you know, they were they were good basketball players and we were just this motley crew of nobodies.

And and the game started.

And Pete.

We beat the hell out of these

girls.

The story was going the other way.

That's a little

we destroyed them like I don't know if they scored.

I don't remember if they but we I I knew there was trouble when after like the sixth time we scored sweet Georgia Brown came out of I mean it was demoralizing because again we're bad like Mike's Mike's okay to good.

He's not on the team or anything like he's just a guy

And Mike and me and the other Mike are just, we're stone pillars, but Pete, let me tell you this, as good as these women wear basketball, and they continue to be good throughout their entire high school careers, it's very hard to defeat a seven inch height disadvantage.

I

was six foot, I'm six two now, I was six foot in high school, and the tallest one of them was Patty, who was probably five, six.

And she was the center, maybe.

Yeah, yeah, and she's trying to guard me forget about I got one damning on this girl.

Forget it.

Step off Patty on every other day of the year every other day of my life But today I am I am absolutely shakning you to peace

it was uh it was a mess we left them laying in just a smoking ruin

was there was there talking afterwards did you guys all part friends or what happened after

of course we were friends all through school and i mean not you know not hanging out but you'd see well i mean we were again it was four years we were gonna have to be in there but but i know that they knew

every moment they grabbed a basketball, every time they saw us they had to realize that we were the L that would never be erased.

Because they're not getting rematched.

There's no rematch.

I mean, they could call now and I'm like, sorry, it's not happening.

You're taking this to the grave.

You got absolutely dominated by two slobs and a decent guy.

I really thought that was going the other way.

Like they were just dropping bombs and crushed you guys.

That's so funny.

We killed him.

We absolutely killed

him.

Do you remember this, Mike?

One time, you know, we were talking in LA and I, you know, I'm a Jordan guy.

You've always been a Larry Bird guy.

And I always loved when something would set you off in a conversation.

And I said something about Larry Bird that was not, well, Larry Bird's great, but I don't know what I said.

Like he didn't play defense or whatever.

You said, do you want me to come over there right now and hit you?

I was like, well, no.

Well, and don't get it Michael Jordan is the greatest player who ever played I you know, don't don't make me like I'm anti Jordan Jordan's the king, right?

I had a straight I was at a stranger Whatever I was sitting.

I was in a like a restaurant in a ball like a food court and there was a guy behind me He was on the phone and he was he was the LeBron guy and the guy on the other end of the phone was clearly the Jordan guy

But they're having that argument

right

best and he's laying out Well, you know the thing is he's 41.

He's still doing it and you hear the guy on the phone He's like Jordan Baba and they're going back and forth back and forth after like 15 minutes I just turn and turn around I looked at him and I go six and Owen finals Beat Hall of Famers in every finals.

Yeah

six NBA finals MVPs Put the phone away to a total

stranger.

Yeah, and he laughed thankfully

And how do you like that's my argument for the Jordan LeBron thing like nobody ever even took Jordan to a game seven in the finals So it's tough to have I get a look and I give LeBron total credit I mean to do what he's done for as long as he has is incredible But they're different players LeBron is huge, you know, and I mean they both are but LeBron is a different player I think

Yeah, LeBron is 6'9, 250.

I mean, and, and, but also there's something to be said for a 40 year old man at 6'9, 250, still getting 28 and 10.

I mean, he's, he's a miracle.

And if you wanted to tell me he was the second best of all time, I would concede that point.

I would do it.

I like, I like Kareem and all those, you know, there's a lot of guys I can argue for, but from what LeBron's accomplished and done, I mean, and again,

the chase down block against the Warriors is ridiculous.

He has legendary moments that you'll never forget that 25, 25 points in a row in the playoffs for Cleveland.

I mean, it's insane, dude.

He was, he would, but again, you can, everyone has the, like everybody forgot about Isaiah Thomas.

Isaiah Thomas is a, is a amazing Hall of Fame basketball player.

He just, he's incredible because he's a jerk.

I know.

We hated him because he was mean to Jordan and he was a jerk.

I'm glad, Mike, that you and I agree on all three of these points and we didn't have another Larry Bird moment here because that

did frighten me

a lot.

Hey, this is Connor, the producer for Nightlight.

Pete is on vacation, spending time with his family.

But in the meantime, here are some great moments from Nightlight over the past couple

months.

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 this.

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.

He 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 Zooker.

David, how are you?

I'm good, you forgot basketball.

I forgot a lot.

You look you've done too much.

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 gonna

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 when I 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 I am the longest serving board member in tree 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 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 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's 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 that regard.

But, you know, when you're from Milwaukee, you know, you're not hot.

You're not LA.

You're not New York.

So, uh, it was, uh, in our high school, it was very much of a, uh, you know, very sharp wit type of place.

And, uh, it wasn't tough physically, but you had to, it was kill or be killed as far as wit.

So we kind of had to learn to be funny and to defend ourselves.

Um,

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

were my parents closest friends, our dads were business partners, it was called Abraham's and Zooker real estate.

And our moms were 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 my high school who was world-class funny.

His name was Dick Chudnow.

And then when we got to LA, we found Stephen Stucker.

So 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 his 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'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 art.

And we had, you know, I wrote this, the new naked gun, our naked gun script with Pat Proff 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'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

new one.

No, no, no, he's actually older than Leslie Nielsen.

Are you serious?

What's his name?

Liam Neeson.

I mean, it's just, it's kind of insulting to me.

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 Schaeffer, 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 make a 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 McFarland, who stole my naked gun franchise.

But when police squad came out, you know, 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

do the other but that proved a lot harder to do and it was so much work.

And we have to be there 24 7 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 code.

We want to do that as a movie and that's what happened

You have 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

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, all three of us insisted on number one, directing it, and number two, getting 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.

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 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 Fairleigh 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 Matt Stone.

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 Fairleys very early, around 1984, I think, or 85.

I met them.

I knew Bennett Yellen's sister, who was those guys' writing partner.

And in fact, there's a story.

We wrote this book called Surely You Can't Be Serious.

It's the whole story of her playing.

And they tell the story in the book how they were in Rhode Island.

And Pete Farrelly's watching TV.

He sees us on.

Jerry and Jim and I were on Letterman.

And he said, Bobby, come in, come quick.

It's like you got to see these.

These are the guys who did Airplane and Top Secret.

And they looked like they were surprised.

They were surprised that we weren't these drugged out maniacs.

And we were just thinking, we're pretty preppy.

Well, from Wisconsin.

And Pete says in the book, he said, this is right there, that and there.

We decided we'll go out to LA because if these guys could do it, then we could do it.

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, then maybe

we can do it.

Oh, let's do the class, yeah.

Okay,

this is kind of cool.

This is a comedy crash, is that what it's called?

Master Crash, go to mastercrash.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 the the normal people can who actually want to learn how to do comedy can can can join this thing is because I was actually turned down by master class.

My manager at the time I don't know 4 or 5 years ago applied hey how about David Zucker doing a they said no.

So, you know, 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 2 minute trailer they broke you know.

10 rule so it's it's it's pretty ridiculous how you know it looks easy and and the people who did make a gun for a great fans of all of our movies airplane make a gun top secret it said or 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, 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, yeah.

So.

It's interesting.

You mentioned we've got about a minute and a half before we do the news.

Then maybe we could 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 as first movie we wrote 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, 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.

And this is counter the producer for Nightlight.

Pete is on vacation spending time with his family.

But in the meantime, here are some great moments from Nightlight over the past couple months.

Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.

This is Nightlight with Pete Chwaba.

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 Zucker.

He is here over the stream, joining us from, I assume, Los Angeles.

David, are you in LA?

Yes, I'm in Los Angeles in Brentwood, but I'm soon going to be in Wisconsin.

I was just

going to ask you, do you get back here very

often?

All the time, because while my kids were in

at UW Madison for 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 Wednesday night and Thursday night, we're gonna meet.

in, I think, Delafield.

Some

restaurant

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

fun.

That's fantastic.

Let's, before, I really want to 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?

Like,

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 Haggerty, 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 craze 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 Roberts that kept saying.

Who else is 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 spear's going to the wall.

Watermelon's dropping down.

Just keep talking, Lloyd.

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 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 and and 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.

Anna Ferris was a joy to work with and Priscilla Presley.

They were just all so nice.

I really couldn't complain about anybody.

I was threatened with Michael Madsen came out of the set.

People said, oh my God, he's going to give you trouble.

He's going to eat you for lunch.

And so he comes on for the first rehearsal, and he seems a little humorless.

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 and A. So we, we have a lot of fun.

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

Yeah.

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, uh, these dates have been selling out so well, uh, 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 and 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.

I've got to get inside.

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

So

brilliant.

I was on the set Pete.

Okay.

Right.

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 they, 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.

All 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 Zucker.

Check out all of his movies.

I'm sure you've seen most of them, but, uh, 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 never, 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.

You've got Nightlight with Pete Schwabba on the Civic Media Radio Network.

We are jamming through a Thursday night here, the Christmas Eve of weeknights and very exciting.

The band has arrived.

We've got, oh my gosh, this is exciting.

We've got Horace Green in the studio.

They're just getting set up right now.

Our question of the night, if you still want to get in on the fun folks and have us read your text on the radio, what an amazing moment in a listener's life.

Let us know what your favorite Steve Martin movie is, or TV show.

It's Steve Martin's birthday today.

He turns 79.

Jane Mattenare was here earlier, host of Mattenare on air.

She made the popcorn pick of the week and picked, and just like that, that's the first time a TV show has been picked, I think.

Yeah, I think

so.

Which

is totally fine, right?

So it's fun to have Jane on.

And right now, it is my pleasure to introduce, they are fresh off an incredible performance at the Mile of Music Northeast.

Northeast Wisconsin based Horace Green is here.

Hey guys.

Hey.

Hey Pete.

Okay, so we've got Tony Austin I don't want to do with my questions Let's let's have you guys introduce yourselves and you can tell us a little bit about you as individuals and we'll learn about the band and then you're gonna rock us, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right, sweet

Yeah, I'm Tony.

I play guitar and sing

I'm Sam I play bass and sing

and I am Austin and I play the drums

outstanding

It's good to meet you guys.

You too, man.

How long have you been... Well, first of all, I have to ask you, where does the name Horace Green come from?

Yeah, so it's just an old man's name.

Really, like, you know, you get like a dog or a cat, you name the cat, you name the dog, you get a band, you name the band.

I don't know.

Just one of those names.

It happens to coincide with the movie School of Rock, which was not necessarily intentional, but it's a...

More of a happy accident.

Can you grab my questions, Conner, right there?

I don't know if you guys heard of this.

This is a great story about Pearl Jam.

Do you know what the name of Pearl Jam was supposed to be?

No.

They liked the NBA player, Mookie Blalock, and they were going to call their band name.

that we're going to name the band Mookie Blalock.