60 Minutes - 10/5/2025: Vaccine Court, The Tequila Heist, This is Rob Reiner

Episode Date: October 6, 2025

With vaccinations increasingly a point of political tension, correspondent Jon Wertheim reports on the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program – a “no fault” vaccine court that balances the public health benefits of widespread vaccination with rare cases of harm to individuals. Founded in the 1980s, the program has paid out billions of dollars to thousands of Americans. International crime groups are finding new, sophisticated ways to infiltrate the global supply chain online, stealing hundreds of millions of dollars of goods per year. Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi reports on the growing threat of cargo theft and how 24 thousand bottles of Guy Fieri’s tequila vanished on their way to the warehouse. Correspondent Lesley Stahl visits Rob Reiner on the New Orleans set of Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, the long-awaited sequel to his 1984 cult classic, This Is Spinal Tap. Four decades after launching the now-beloved mockumentary genre with a fully improvised classic, the director of When Harry Met Sally, Stand By Me, A Few Good Men, and The Princess Bride reunites the band for an encore. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Right now we are living through some of the most tumultuous political times our country has ever known. I'm David Remnick, and each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, I'll try to make sense of what's happening, alongside politicians and thinkers like Corey Booker, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, Tim Walts, Katanji Brown Jackson, Newt Gingrich, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Charlemagne the God, and so many more. That's all in the New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts. The chances of serious vaccine injury have been likened to lottery odds, lightning strikes. But if you are one of the unlucky few, you can file a case in vaccine court. I represent both vaccine injured children and adults. Most of them will start the conversation by saying, I'm not anti-vax. Why do you think they need to tell you right off the bat they're not anti-vax, but?

There's a lot of public pressure that people think you're some kind of a crazy person or you're out there. And also because most people have never heard of a vaccine injury, they're rare. Tonight's story involves a celebrity chef, a rock star, and a highway heist that even Hollywood couldn't dream up. Well, when the president of your company calls you, he says, you're not going to believe this, but lost two truckloads of Santo Tequila. Lost. I said, well, wait, wait, wait, wait, is this a hijacking? Not quite. International cyber criminals have found new ways to steal hundreds of millions of dollars of goods.

It looks like a Costco in here. You've got everything. Yes. 41 years after the cult classic, This is Final Tap. All right, here we go! Rob Reiner and the band have come back together for a sequel. Close. Yeah. Very close.

He's totally ad-libbing. Half a wheel. It's all improvised. We snadled with each other and whatever comes up. We schnaedle with each other? Yeah, it's like doing schnettling, you know. Are you and I schnaedling right now? We are snadling right now.

We're in the process of schnaedling right now. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Sharon Alphonsey. I'm John Wertheim. I'm Cecilia Vega. I'm Scott Pelly.

Those stories and in our last minute, what viewers thought about last week's broadcast. Tonight on 60 Minutes. Right now, we are living through some of the most tumultuous political times our country has ever known. I'm David Remnick, and each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, I'll try to make sense of what's happening, alongside politicians and thinkers like Corey Booker, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, Tim Walts, Katanji Brown Jackson, Newt Gingrich, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Charlemagne the God, and so many more. That's all in the New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts. If you've never before heard of the National Vaccine Court, you're hardly alone. It sits inconspicuously a few hundred yards from the White House and stands as a model of effective public policy,

balancing the societal good of widespread vaccination with rare individual harm. Founded in the 1980s, the court has, with little fanfare, paid out billions of dollars to Americans who have claimed injury after getting a vaccine. Today, with vaccine's skepticism rising and given voice in the highest ranks of government, we wondered, can this singular court block out the noise, withstand the political winds, and stay true to its mission. You ready to go? Yeah.

All right, say go. Go. Jacob Thompson is 13 years old. Here we go. He loves airplanes, swimming, and chick-fil-a-ma. But Jacob can speak only. a handful of words and needs help walking more than a few yards. Jacob was born in St. Louis on New Year's Eve, 2011, rounding out a family of four with

sister May Lee and parents, John and Wally. He a pilot for FedEx, she a recent immigrant from China. We had this perfectly normal, happy little baby. He would be able to jump up and down on my wife's lap and very alert, recognized who mom and dad was. At his six-month checkup, Jacob received a combination shot that included the recommended childhood vaccinations against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis, or detap, all deemed safe and effective in clinical trials. Hours later, Jacob began to seize. Doctors hoped it was a one-time reaction. It wasn't. Within, I'd say, six months or less, he didn't know that we were mom and dad anymore, and he was slithering on the floor like a snake. Unrecognizable.

from the child you knew. By age two, Jacob could suffer up to 700 seizures in one day. He was diagnosed with a rare and severe form of epilepsy. Is he getting blue? The Thompson's became increasingly convinced that his condition could be traced back to his six-month vaccinations, and they began to seek accountability. They took their case to attorney Renee Gentry.

That's circumstantial evidence, because it's not direct evidence. She's a leading vaccine injury litigator and director of the vaccine injury litigation clinic at George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C. Perfect. I represent both vaccine injured children and adults. All of my clients are vaccinated. Most of them will start the conversation by saying, I'm not anti-vax. Why do you think they need to tell you right off the bat they're not anti-vax, but? There's a lot of public pressure when you say that you have a vaccine injury that people think you're some kind of a crazy person or you're out there.

And also because most people have never heard of a vaccine injury, they're rare. So rare that, while hard to quantify precisely, the chances of serious vaccine injury have been likened to lottery odds, lightning strikes. Bear in mind, in total, global immunization has saved an estimated 154 million lives, six lives each minute. But when an injury does occur, families can come to vaccine court, seen in this informational video. Part of the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, the court was established in response to a public health scare in the 1980s. The health of millions of children may be at stake. When families of injured children went to civil court

and successfully sued the manufacturers of the DTP vaccine, an older version of DTAP, it caused all but one of those drug companies to pull out of the market, resulting in vaccine shortages. Congress acted, crafting a bipartisan bill that partially shielded drug manufacturers from liability, so they would continue to develop life-saving vaccines. And at the same time, Congress acknowledged that vaccines can cause injury. As Bill's sponsor, Senator Ted Kennedy described, when children are, quote,

the victims of an appropriate and rational national policy, a compassionate government will assist them in their hour of need. It was hailed as such a unique accomplishment back in the day because you had these disparate groups. You had the parents of vaccine-injured children together in the room with the manufacturers. And everybody agreed that this was the best-case scenario. Is that fair to the public? They think they have an injury caused by a vaccine,

but they can't sue the vaccine manufacturer directly. You can still opt out of this program and sue a manufacturer. You have to just start in this program. But it's a lower burden of proof in our program, so it's an easier thing for vaccine-injured people to get compensation. Drug companies are not only, not being sued, they're not part of the proceedings. Vaccine court is a no-fault court, meaning in cases like Jacob Thompson's negligence does not need to be proven, just that the

vaccine, more likely than not, cause the injury. Vaccine court is not your typical court. There's no jury. Cases are decided in front of one of a judges called Special Masters. Since the program began in the late 80s, 12,000 Americans have received almost $5 billion in payouts. There are no financial windfalls for lawyers. The court pays them by the hour. Where does all this money come from? A 75-cent tax imposed on recommended childhood vaccines goes into a trust fund, earmarked for vaccine injury compensation.

In July, the Thompsons received a judgment of $2.1 million based on the special master's ruling that it was more probable than not that Jacob's six-month vaccinations aggravated an underlying genetic mutation. Jacob also received a lifetime annuity to cover his future care. Is there any doubt that the vaccine caused Jacob's injury? We can't ever prove scientific certainty on it. Does that not mean, though, that some cases are being compensated when, in fact, the science might not support it? Sure. And that's what Congress intended. There's very clear indication that said it would

be better to compensate somebody that wasn't injured than to miss somebody who was. How do you feel about that? I think that's fine. While vaccines are critically important public health tools, they're not magic. You know, you can have an allergic reaction to aspirin. So it's a lot of different factors come into play to have a person be injured by a vaccine. Their genetics, their immune system, that's why the no-fault part is critical. The vaccine caused it, but there's no bad actor in this case. The program is structured around a vaccine injury table, basically a conversion chart of vaccines and eligible injuries. If your child, for instance, got a Rubella vaccine and developed chronic arthritis

Within 7 and 42 days, you may be eligible for damages. The most common compensation is for shoulder injuries suffered from a misplaced injection. You can file for an injury not on the table. Overall, half of all claims have been dismissed. Today, vaccines on the table have jumped from the original 6 to 16, including the annual flu shot, though notably not COVID. As for the eligible injuries, autism is not one of them. That decision did not come easily, as retired special masters, Denise Vowell and George Hastings explained.

There's been a lot of talk lately about a possible link between vaccines and autism. This has been litigated and decided in your court 15 years ago. You know, I spent many, many years of my life almost full time looking at that issue. In the early 2000s, cases alleging vaccinations caused autism flooded the court. court. Val Hastings and a third special master oversaw what was a class action of sorts, a vaccine court proceeding that spanned almost a decade, incorporating testimony from dozens of medical experts and hundreds of scientific articles. What did you ultimately conclude? Ultimately concluded there simply was not the evidence. I hoped there would be.

Why? Because the parents of children with autism go through something. much. But Val said she could not decide cases based on sentiment. I had to apply the law, and the law was that if there is a preponderance of evidence of vaccine causation, I rule for them. If there isn't, I rule against them. All three special masters concluded there was no link between vaccines and autism. On appeal, eight additional federal judges unanimously upheld the vaccine court decisions. This has not been prepared. persuasive to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. After 30 years of steady rises and autism rates, I don't know we know the answer.

That we should know the answer. We wanted to know RFK Jr.'s views about vaccine court, the court his uncle championed, because today, as Secretary of Health and Human Services, he is imbued with the authority to add or redefine injuries on the vaccine table. He declined our request for an on-camera interview, but said via email that, yes, he will would like to expand the table, which he hopes will create an easier path to compensation. In particular, he wants to broaden definitions for seizures and encephalopathy, two neurological conditions that can be associated with autism.

Although the original intent was idealistic, compassionate, and sensible, the court, RFK Jr. told us, has become a disaster for the families of injured children. Its effective function is delayed denial and systematic cruelty. Yeah, right there. Vaccine court delays are something Ryan Farrell knows only too well. Husband to Angela and father of three, Ryan worked as a lineman for a Boston area power company, hanging electrical wires 100 feet high. On the job in 2017, Ryan cut his hand on rusty metal and got a tennis shot.

A few days later, the pain started. I felt like my back was just like being stabbed. He would take a shower. He was like, I feel like there's razor blades hitting my skin. Over the next few years, Ryan was hospitalized multiple times. Doctors diagnosed him with a rare autoimmune disease. I didn't want to live for a long time. You know, that's how I felt.

When did you make the link that had this vaccine? Maybe there's some correlation here. I made the correlation. Like most Americans, Angela Farrell had never. heard of vaccine court, but she stumbled upon it online and found a lawyer. They filed a case in 2019. And only in July did the special master rule. The tetanus shot, more likely than not, led to Ryan's illness.

Do you feel like you were treated with compassion? I mean, the special master was kind to be and my family when we're in the courtroom. Court was intended to compensate people for vaccine injuries. I want to quote this quickly, easily, and with certainty and generosity. That couldn't be further from the truth. What do you mean? I feel like they made it way too, way too long. Ryan remains unable to work.

Six years in, the court has yet to determine his damages. The court acknowledges the delays. Citing a backlog of more than 3,000 cases, its chief special master has, in documents obtained by 60 minutes, asked Congress for more resources four years running, saying it becomes more difficult each year to resolve the huge number of case filings in the expedient fashion they deserve. Congress has yet to act.

Our reporting suggests that this inaction is in part because vaccination has become such a loaded, heavily politicized issue that legislators are reluctant to wait in. The Thompsons are not invested in the heavily charged vaccine debate. They're invested in their son, Jacob, an anguishing exception harmed by what's otherwise a public health force of good. I do wonder if people aren't going to hear your story and be terrified of giving their kids vaccinations. We're definitely not anti-vaxxers.

We think, I mean, vaccines are great. They've done a lot to help people. But I think that parents need to know what can happen. If what you care about are vaccine-injured people and then being compensated, then you want this court to work and you want this court to be here. I mean, we have this program that incentivizes the manufacturing of vaccines, but also acknowledges that in some rare cases, there are injuries and damages.

Right. It's bipartisan. It takes everyone's views into account, and everybody compromises, which is a dirty word now, but that's the goal of it. And it's helped these people. Jacob will be taken care for the rest of his life because of this program. Stop leaving savings behind at the pump. Get up to 7 cents per liter in value every time you fill up at Petro Canada. That's 3 cents per liter in instant savings plus 20% more points when you link an eligible RBC card to your Petro points. Find out more at RBC.com slash Petro-Dash Canada. Conditions apply.

There's no shortage of unbelievable stories that start with tequila, and this is one of them. It involves a celebrity chef, a rock star, and a highway heist that even Hollywood couldn't dream up. Last November, two semi-trucks carrying more than a million dollars worth of Santo Tequila, a brand founded by Food Network star Guy Fietti and former Van Halen frontman, Sammy Hagar, disappeared on its way to the warehouse. If you're wondering how in the world that much tequila can just vanish, we did too. Turns out, international crime groups have found new ways to infiltrate the global supply chain online to steal hundreds of millions of dollars of goods.

Guy Fietti got a crash course on this sophisticated high-tech theft after a sobering call from the president of his company. Well, when the president of your company calls and says, we have a problem, what's up? And he goes, you're not going to believe this, but we lost two truckloads of Santo Tequila. Lost. I said, elaborate on lost. He says, well, they disappeared. I said, well, wait, wait, wait, is this a hijacking? I said, are the driver's okay?

I said, is this a, because all my mind goes to is good fellas, and, you know, that's what I'm thinking is happening. He said, no, no, no, the trucks, they were appropriated, but we don't know where they are. I'm like, it's not a needle in a haystack. I mean, this is a semi-tractor truck. My mind is swimming in exactly how do you lose, you know, that many thousands of bottles of tequila. 24,000 bottles of tequila, enough alcohol to fuel a lifetime of bad decisions. The tequila started out like every other Santo batch, in western Mexico, where it was distilled and bottled. From there, it was trucked to the U.S.-Mexico border, through customs, and unloaded in Laredo, Texas. The next day, it was moved into two semi-trucks that were supposed to head to the Santo Tequila warehouse in Lansdale, Pennsylvania.

When was the first indication something's not normal here? The product was due on Wednesday to our warehouse in Pennsylvania, and on Thursday morning, the logistics company told us there was a water pump cooler problem with the truck. It's just going to be a slight delay. Dan Butkus is the CEO of Santo Spirits. He told us, like many small businesses, Santo doesn't have their own delivery trucks. So they rely on a logistics company. to hire trucking companies to ship their tequila.

On Friday, two days after the shipment was supposed to arrive, the trucking company started sending more excuses about why it was late. Dan Butkus was informed that the truck was near Washington, D.C., with a water pump issue. The logistics company emailed him a video they received of a broken-down semi with a note. Looks like the issue is bigger than he thought. Mechanics advised the truck will be fixed sound. truck will be fixed Saturday. He says he can deliver Sunday, but I know y'all are closed so he can be there first thing Monday.

So the tequila is late, but you don't think anything's wrong because they're sending emails. Yeah, we don't think anything's wrong. We're a day or two behind delivery. And meanwhile, they track these with GPS. So someone's checking to make sure the truck is where it says it is. And on GPS, it looks like it's in D.C. where they say it is. Then on Monday, we get an email that the truck is close. GPS says it's within a couple miles of our warehouse in Lansdale.

Can you let us know when it arrives? The tequila never arrived in Pennsylvania. Here's what happened. The logistics company that worked for Santo hired a trucking company to move the tequila from Texas to Pennsylvania. But then that trucking company outsource the job to two other trucking companies. who then hired drivers. The problem is those second trucking companies were fake,

with phony letterheads, email addresses, and phone numbers to appear legitimate. It's a bit of a tractor-trailer-shell game called double-brokering. It happens more than you might expect. Santo's CEO Dan Butkus learned it was all part of an elaborate ruse, set up to buy time and steal the tequila. So the email that came to you guys was fake, the picture was fake, the GPS was phony. The GPS signal was spoofed. They called it spoofed or emulated.

The thieves had manipulated the GPS to make it look like the tequila was still on its way to Pennsylvania. This is the essence of real tequila. Making matters worse, Guy Fietti and Sammy Hagar had been heavily promoting a new special tequila ahead of the holiday season that took three and a half years to make and all of it was on those two missing trucks. It's not like we're sitting on huge reserves. So you can't just say turn it up,

we're going to keep making more. That's exactly what we couldn't do. And then you have to go back to the retailer and say, you're not going to believe this. How did this impact the business? Oh, it hurt. It hurt bad. You know, here we are coming right into the fourth quarter. We lose all the tequila.

we can't fill the shelves, we had to lay off players, you know, and that's the hardest thing, knowing how many people are counting on you. So, yeah, it hurt all the way around. Did you think you were being targeted? Well, there's a side of me that still says, yeah, it wasn't a truckload of screwdrivers, you know. It wasn't a truckload of baskets. They were coming across the border. Someone knew what it was, and tequila is a hot commodity.

That's why Keith Lewis was called in. He's a former cop who runs operations for CargoNet, a company that works with law enforcement to solve these kinds of crimes. Lewis says last year, U.S. businesses lost more than $230 million of goods to physical heists and those engineered online. Let's start with the tequila case. How common is something like that? It happens multiple times a day.

How does all of this impact? consumers and the prices they pay. 100% falls back on the consumer shoulders. 100%. We pay at the pump for this. We pay at the grocery store at the point of sale. Lewis started investigating and began to piece together how the tequila heist was pulled off. He says the criminals created fake online profiles of trucking companies, bid on jobs they suspected might be valuable, and hired unsuspecting drivers online.

Then, instead of sending the drivers to the Santo Warehouse in Pennsylvania, the criminals redirected them to deliver the shipment into their hands. And instead of taking it to the destination that was on the bill lading, they told them to take that load to Los Angeles. And the drivers are not in on this. The driver that picked it up has no idea that he's committing a crime. He thinks he's taking a legitimate load to a legitimate place doing his job. Doing his job. and he's being directed instead by criminals. Correct.

Once investigators determined how the tequila was diverted to California, they tried to figure out who did it. But that was tougher because unlike the kind of cargo theft you typically think of, like this, with guys in mass breaking into trucks with bolt cutters, there was no suspect description or fingerprints. Lewis says the tequila heist was orchestrated entirely online. You're saying that these folks don't even need to be in the same country sometimes. No, and we've tracked them to over 40 different countries around the world.

An investigators say the tequila heist had all the characteristics of a criminal gang operating out of Armenia, 7,000 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border where the tequila was last seen. Keith Lewis says that kind of theft where criminals remotely redirect cargo to steal it has spiked 12, 1,200% in the last four years. If you think about online dating, for example, you can be anywhere in the world and set up a date with someone. It's the same thing in the supply chain. You can be anywhere in the world, go online, and book that load.

And we don't do business face-to-face anymore. We don't have the hand-to-hand transactions. We're doing business by PDF file, by rate confirmations. We book that load with this individual. We've never met them. And bam, you have a million-dollar load of electronics going. down the road, hopefully to the right destination, or maybe it's not. It's become a global threat to our supply chain.

Nowhere is that threat higher than California. Last year, California had more goods stolen from trucks, trains, and by cyber criminals than any other states. That's because California's ports and highways make it a favorite target and hiding place for cargo thieves. To respond, the Los Angeles Police Department created a special unit to tackle all kinds of cargo theft. We were allowed to tag along with them one morning in August. Before dawn, officers swarmed this block in southeast Los Angeles, where they suspected a shipment of rifles stolen from a train were being hidden.

They found the rifles, but also stacks of stolen sneakers. piles of power tools and designer clothes. They've also recovered pallets of protein shakes, energy drinks, and vitamins. Typically, it all ends up in an LAPD warehouse until the rifle owner can claim it. It looks like a Costco in here. You've got everything. Yes. This is from a major manufacturer. Alan Hamilton is the chief of detectives at the LAPD. He told us all this had been.

recovered by the cargo theft unit just a week earlier. So we've got beer here that was stolen. We've got washing machines. We've got large appliances. As you see the sub-zero back there. These are high-end appliances. Some of these are very high-end, high-priced computers. The technology would be turned back around and sold for like 30 to 40 percent on the dollar. The LAPD says the stolen swag is typically sold online or in stores, including this one, to unsuspecting customers. August, they busted two hardware stores stocked with stolen goods, $4.5 million worth. What's the value of all the goods that you've recovered over the last year?

So just for instance, in 2024, the Los Angeles Police Department cargo theft unit alone, $42.8 million in recovery just in the city of Los Angeles. And it was that unit that cracked open the case of the missing tequila. detectives tracked down one of the drivers who picked up the tequila in Texas. He moved on to other jobs but told investigators he was directed by what he thought was a legitimate trucking company to leave the shipment at this industrial site in the San Fernando Valley. That information ultimately led police to this warehouse in southeast L.A.

And 11,000 bottles of Santo Tequila. Guy Fieri told us the thieves and that second truck of tequila, were never found. It feels like a movie plot. You know, the celebrity chef, the rock star, the small tequila company, you know, it all comes together, the special shipment. Did you think they were going to find it? Gosh, no.

They found it when? Three weeks after, I'll say. So by then, who knows what's happened to it? Who knows what condition it's in, so forth? I'm just thinking, this is all going to go down the drain. But after an inspection of the recovery. covered bottles, Santa was able to put it back in stores and take a shot at a happy ending. There's a lot of companies that this has happened to, but they don't want to talk about it.

Why do you decide to speak about what happened? It's not a thing I want to go and brag about, like, hey, we got ripped off. That's not fun, but if it can happen to us with what I believe we're pretty strong measures and security and awareness and, you know, communication and, you know, the way we do business. And to get ripped off for two full semi-truckloads of tequila in today's age, then everybody's vulnerable. With the RBC Avion Visa, you can book any airline, any flight, any time. So start ticking off your travel list.

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During the Nissan All-In-Clearout, get zero percent financing plus up to $500 bonus on some of our best-selling models. You have zero reasons to wait. Conditions apply. See your local Nissan dealer today. For many of us, Rob Reiner will forever be Meathead, the liberal-foil, Archie Bunker in CBS's All in the Family. But it's as a director that he's really made his mark, with some of the most memorable movies ever,

when Harry met Sally, Stand By Me, A Few Good Men, and The Princess Bride. But Reiner's first film almost didn't get made. All he had, for This Is Spinal Tap, about a failing, made-up British rock band was a four-page outline, no screen. No script because the movie was totally improvised. Released in 1984, it became a cult classic and is ranked as one of the funniest films of all time.

Now 41 years later, Reiner and the band have come back together for a sequel. We join them on the set in New Orleans. If it looks like a real rock concert, that was the idea. But these are pretend rock fans cheering on the, well, older pretend band, Spinal Tep. The new film reunites frontman David St. Hubbins, played by Michael McKeon. Lead guitarist Nigel, played by Christopher Guest, and bass player Derek Smalls, played by Harry Shearer. Give me all three.

There we go. Okay, tap, tap, tap, tap. And as in the original... My name is Marty DeBergey. I'm a filmmaker. Reiner is both director of the actual film. All right, here we go! And he plays the director in the film.

What do you see next? Ernest but hapless documentary filmmaker Marty DeBergie, straight man to the band members' eccentricities. It doesn't look that rock and roll to have these. I was going to say. So I could do this. Well, that looks even more or less rock and roll. Okay.

Don't walk away right away. All day we watched Reiner go back and forth between the stage. I'm going to have a heart attack. And his director set up behind the stage, always playing one role or the other. You got him right here. You're the director directing yourself and the document. It's crazy. It's crazy.

It's making me nuts. But he still had time for a little schick. little schick. Are you a method actor? We have a good lunch. Is there a good break that I can lie down? That's my method. No, I don't no. Riner trained in theater and improv at UCLA. Then at 23 was cast by producer Norman Lear, a family friend, to play left-wing meathead opposite Carol O'Connor's Archie Bunker. You resent our attitudes, our politics, even a clothes we wear. You know, I don't think there's One thing about us you agree with?

Oh, I agree with that. He thought the show would last 13 weeks. It turned into eight years. Five of them as the number one show in the country. So it's the early 1980s. You've just finished all in the family. The whole country knew who you were. Now nobody knows.

You decide you're going to direct your first feature film. Right. You try to do something really safe. Well, people would say, I can't believe your first feature film. your first movie would be improvised. There'd be no script, and that's scary. And to me, it was the opposite. I wasn't scared.

The film was a fake documentary about a fake band. You must have made a long time. That satirized the antics of real rock musicians. On stage, and in the green room. There's some problems here. I don't even know where to start. Apparently, Van Halen had a rider in their contract. No brown M&M's.

So some roadie had to sit there picking out the brown M&Ms. It's crazy. So we looked at that, we said, there's a scene. Nigel's complaint, the bread's too small. You'd like bigger bread? Exactly. I don't understand how. You could fold this, then.

Well, no, then it's half the size. No, not the bread. It's salt the meat. Yeah, but then it breaks apart like this. On the bread like this, see? But then if you keep folding it, it keeps breaking. Why would you keep folding it? We all love rock and roll.

The four of us, we grew up on rock and roll. So that was the trick is to make fun of it and at the same time, honor it. But it wasn't easy raising money for a film with no script that the audience might think was about a real band. Reiner made a demo reel and gave it to an executive. And he went, no, not this. No, we don't want this. After multiple rejections, Norman Lear and executives at Embassy Pictures agreed to take a meeting.

And I go through this insane pitch about why they should make the movie, and it's going to be successful. It's about rock and roll, the kids will like it. They'll watch it. They'll be repeat business. I'm going crazy. I walk out of the room. Norman tells everybody, you got to let him do it. He's so crazy.

And so passionate. Oh, they said okay. I'll give this kid a shot. Do the Dead Bird. The film featured cameos from Billy Crystal. Mine is money. Let's go. Paul Schaefer, Fran Drescher.

Bobby Prentren. But what Reiner says really made the film was the talent of Christopher Guest, Michael McKeon, and Harry Shearer, who wrote and played all the songs themselves and improvised every scene. Good drama, yeah.

What happened to him? he died. He died in a bizarre gardening accident. It's really one of those things it was, you know, the authorities said, you know, best leave it. It's not sold, really. So when Marty DeBergey, Rob, was interviewing you,

did you ever know what the questions were? Well, after he asked them, yes. The numbers all go to 11. As in perhaps the film's most famous scene. Does that mean it's, like, Is it any louder? Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not 10.

Why don't you just make 10 louder and make 10 be the top number and make that a little louder? These go to 11. What was the first audience reaction? They didn't know what the heck was going on. We went to a screening in Texas and two girls commented, these guys are so stupid. The film did okay in theaters, but became a a sleeper hit on home video, credited with launching the mockumentary genre, and stylistically

inspiring some of the most popular TV shows of the last few decades, and some rave reviews. A sacred rock artifact, the citizen cane of rockumentary. Aye. Well, that's pretty good. What a bar. I mean, what a wood. Are we crazy to do another one? It's crazy.

bar is just way too high. Rob Reiner knows a little something about a high bar. His father, Carl Reiner, was one of the biggest, funniest, and most beloved actors, writers, and directors of his day. What do you suggest I do with all of these now, huh? I heard there was a time in your life that you wanted to change your name. My father thought, oh, my God, this poor kid is worried about being in the shadow of the famous father, and he says, what do you want to change your name?

your name to. And I said, Carl. I just wanted to be like him. You have said, your father didn't get you. No, not when I was little. Norman Lee was the first person that got me. I mean, I was playing Jacks with his daughter. Norman says to my dad, you know, this kid is really funny.

And my dad said, well, that kid, that kid, he's a sullen. He sits quiet. He doesn't, you know, he's not funny. He didn't think I was at anyway. No good. My dad said it, I'm no good. He doesn't know you. Reiner told us this painful scene in his 1986 movie, Stand By Me, was autobiographical.

He hates me. I'm so good. That's a scene I wrote in a hotel room in Oregon, and I'm writing this scene. I'm crying. I actually crying. When I was making it, I knew that he loved me, and he did understand me. But as a little boy, that's what I felt. But I've got to tell you, when I was 16 years old, my dad and Mel were working on a routine,

and I came up with an idea for a joke, and they used it. And it was the greatest validation at age 16. Did people always do that in the old days? Very sophisticated. It was a bit for Reiner and Mel Brooks' 2,000-year-old man routine about the ancient origin of applause. You'd go, whoa, oh, is that good? Wow, wow.

If somebody was great, you could kill yourself. People actually hit themselves in face. Oh, boy. Wow. That hurts, though. Yeah, you'll bet it hurts now. So Bernie was the first guy when nobody was looking. He pulled his head out, and he just went like that.

Don't hurt your faces, folks. Just a simple little clapping will suffice. Thank you. This is the sword that Wesley used in the Princess Bride. Reiner's study is full of mementos from a career that would make any father proud. not to mention a mother. Reiner gave his a star turn in Meg Ryan's famous deli scene in when Harry met Sally.

I'll have what she's having. But it can be awkward having your mom on set as Reiner discovered when Meg Ryan needed a little coaching. First couple of times she didn't do it full out. And finally I sat across from Billy and I said, This is what, and I'm pounding the table. Yes, yes, yes. And I'm realizing I'm having an orgasm in front of my mother.

You know, there's my mother over there. And fun fact. Reiner actually changed the movie's ending to a happy one after he met his now wife, Michelle, with whom he has three grown children and who's now a producer of his films, including the new spinal tap. Start the thing. So why at age 78 make a sequel to his very... first film. Fans clamored for one for years, but neither Reiner nor the actors owned the rights

until Harry Shearer sued and got them back. Now it's 40 years later. We have these rights. What do you do with them? And we started throwing out ideas. As Reiner showed us in his Los Angeles edit room. This is about me tracking down all the band members. They haven't talked to each other in 15 years. He finds Nigel in the north of England running of all things. a cheese and guitar shop. And you sell both? Yes and no. Sometimes people come in with a guitar.

Yeah. And they trade for cheese. Really? Yeah. And sometimes it's the opposite. What I do is I go like this. Yeah. Then I go like this, let's say.

Yeah. Close. Close. He's totally had a limit. So a half a wheel of that cheese would buy you that. We schnaedle with each other and whatever comes up. We schnaedle with each other. Yeah.

doing shtick, you know. Are you and I schnettling? We are snaddling right now. We're in the process of snedling right now. We're on my brain. The new film features some repeat cameos. I became Buddhist. And some new, big ones, Elton John.

Hey, guys. And Paul McCartney. Paul here. Is that the poll? It's one of them. Who also did some shnadling. How concerned are you? You know, sequels can tarnish the reputation.

of an original film. I'm hoping it tarnishes someone else's reputation. Maybe all those aging rockers who, like Spinal Tap, are still at it. Look at McChagger. You know he's a great grandfather. And he has been for... Those kids are not little kids.

No, I think one of them is 70, in fact. You're thinking, oh, the math of that doesn't work. But doesn't it? So will this new film work? I have no idea. Ever. All the films I've made, I never know what's going to work, what's going to know. I try to get something I like. If I like it, then I say, well, at least I like it.

Somebody, hopefully somebody else is going to like it. The Last Minute of 60 Minutes is sponsored by United Healthcare, coverage you can count on for your whole life ahead. In the mail this week, comments about Utah Governor Spencer Cox and his campaign to lower the temperature of political debate. Many were like this. Thank you very much for your episode with Spencer Cox, so refreshing and uplifting in these divisive times. We also received notes about our profile of Dana White, the hard-driving CEO of Ultimate fighting championship. White is planning a cage match next year at the White House to celebrate the nation's 250th birthday. What is next for 300? Gladiators and Lions? And there was this.

How can you feature Utah Governor Cox's decades-long campaign for peaceful disagreement versus UFC glorification of and profit from literal conflict and violence? in the same show. I'm Scott Pelley. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes. Right now, we are living through some of the most tumultuous political times

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