How Did This Get Made? - Crocodile Dundee In Los Angeles w/ Eddie Pepitone & Matthew Berry (Classic)

Episode Date: July 28, 2026

That’s not a podcast, THIS is a podcast! The Bitter Buddha himself, Eddie Pepitone, joins Paul, Jason, and June to cover the 2001 Paul Hogan comedy Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles. They break down the spider in the hat scene, the Beverly Hills Cop-esque part of the plot, the insanity of the skunk in the freeway, and more. Then, co-writer of the movie Matthew Berry pops in to discuss how he first got involved on the project, his public dispute with Paul Hogan over writing credit, and the things he’s proud of and embarrassed by in the movie. Crikey! (Ep. #69 Originally Released 08/13/2013) • Go to hdtgm.com for tour dates, merch, FAQs, and more• Leave us a voicemail at speakpipe.com/hdtgm• Submit your Last Looks theme song here• Join our Discord at discord.gg/hdtgm• Buy merch at howdidthisgetmade.dashery.com/• Order Paul’s book about his childhood: Joyful Recollections of Trauma• Shop our new hat collection at podswag.com• Paul’s Discord: discord.gg/paulscheer• Paul’s YouTube page: youtube.com/paulscheer• Follow Paul on Letterboxd: letterboxd.com/paulscheer• Subscribe The Dark Web w/ Paul & Rob Huebel: youtube.com/@enterthedarkweb• Listen to Unspooled with Paul & Amy Nicholson: unspooledpodcast.com• Listen to The Deep Dive with June & Jessica St. Clair: thedeepdiveacademy.com/podcast• Instagram: @hdtgm, @paulscheer, & @junediane• Twitter: @hdtgm, @paulscheer, & msjunediane  • Jason is not on social media• Episode transcripts available at how-did-this-get-made.simplecast.com/episodesGet access to all the podcasts you love, music channels and radio shows with the SiriusXM App! Get 3 months free using the link: siriusxm.com/hdtgm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

That's not a sequel. This is a sequel. We saw Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles, so you know what that means. Now it's time for How to Discade. We're going to have a good time, celebrate some failure, not just be a hater, because you know you wonder, how did this get made? Let's follow in the mediocrity of sub-bar art. Perhaps we'll find the answer to the question, how did this get made?

Hello, people of Earth, and welcome to How Did This Get Made. I am Paul Shear, joined, as always by my two co-hosts. Jason Manzukas, how are you, Jason? I'm good, Paul. How are you? Very good. And June, Diane, Raphael. How are you, June? I'm great. How are you, Paul? Very good. Very formal. We have two special guests here today.

First off, this guy is a very funny, talented comedian who has a brand new documentary about him out called The Bitter Buddha. Please welcome Eddie Pepitone. Eddie, welcome to the show. Hey, ha ha. That's a very good intro. You know that's Eddie Pepitone's classic, classic salutation. Let's go. so ready for this podcast.

So we actually have a very interesting episode due to some technical difficulties today. This podcast is going to have a lot of moving parts. It's not going to be like the regular podcast. So I'm going to ask you guys to bear with us. We have a very special guest coming up. We have Matthew Berry, the writer of Crocodile Dundee, later in the episode to talk to us a little bit about the movie. He's also here to plug his book, Fantasy Life. And you can go check that out at Fantasy Life, The Book.

But before we bring Matthew Berry in, let's talk about this movie. Cracket Al Dundee 3. This movie, to me, it's so crazy what is going on here. Because the beginning is so kind of slow. I do feel like I got a sense in that beginning part of the movie. They're like, we don't have enough to fill the 88 minutes. Yeah. Like, let's have another shot of these gazelles, another shot of these like elephants going around.

Like, because the whole sequence in Australia, I didn't even understand. Oh, yeah. What you're saying? You think the movie would then take place in Australia and it doesn't. No, I knew it was coming L.A. from the title. Well, from the title. Oh, really? So that's how you figured that out?

I didn't get that. I didn't understand the title. Again, he is moving from one jungle to another. Oh, an urban jungle. The urban jungle. By the way, the urban scene, that scene where the Latin people come up and in a car, how cliched was it? How bad?

Oh, yeah. You're going to give us that money? You remember. Of course, and they were boys. I mean, they were very, very young. Also, what was strange about that scene. I know you did. I know you did.

What was strange about that scene not to jump all around. Oh, yeah, sorry. No, but they're in a convertible. This is when the crock is in L.A. Yes. Is with the crock. The crock. The crock of shit.

That would be better. Krak is in L.A. And these kids come up to him and they try to mug him and then he and his friend disarm them. And then... Very quickly. To seal the deal, they're in a convertible and he lifts up the soft top and then jumps on it. Oh, yeah. That was very odd to me.

That was odd, but I knew the thinking. It's like, what a nice picture this is. they're all beneath the convertible top. And Paul and his friend, John Paul and his friend, Jocco. What is his friend, Jocko? Jocco. Not the Jocco from the Energizer commercials. Not Jacko, Michael Jacks.

Not Jocko. Jocco, yes. There's a lot of Jacko Joccoes, but this is his own jar. Jock was in a famous Italian clown too in Comedia Della. Not the same one. Not that guy. Not that guy. Yeah, so they jump on that convertible route.

Weird. But there is a character in this movie named Arl Aquino. That's another comedian Dillardt takes a good Touloons That would be funny if they've combined Orlikino or Likino And then they put a big garbage pal

To kind of put a butt Just a nice little yeah And I was thinking And this is how bad the movie was You know how bad a movie is When things like When the big garbage pill Goes on top of these kids

You're going Wow that is a very big garbage pill Like those are your thoughts Instead of having anything Interest in the movie You're like My God the giant round

Where did they get that? I had the same thought. I was a very large garbage pail and why is it doing in that alley? It looks so clean

to be in that house. It's not a dumpster. It's neither dumpster nor garbage can. It's some hybrid. It's not a can. It's something other. Can I say this

that the movie also had this incredible street cred that it had the badass from Breaking Bad and then I Iita Toboro

from Sopranos. So they had sopranos and breaking bad strains in this movie. Just to talk about the things that you get confused about in this movie, and this goes to in the terms with the garbage can.

There's a scene early in the movie where him and his wife were talking about going to Los Angeles. By the way, no conflict. No conflict at all. She's like, I want to go to Los Angeles. He's like, okay, great. Yep. Okay, sure. This is while they live, like, in the outback in Australia, basically. He lives a life where

him and an aborigine pick up their sons from school. That guy, I mean, Was that not the weirdest? The aboriginal guy is dressed in his, it would be as if he was in America waiting to pick up his son and there was a Native American person who was there in full feather headdress and loincloth. The aborigine guy is dressed like traditional,

like Australian Indian garb. It's crazy. But didn't he say he was doing it? He was a tourist. He was doing that. as a part of a show. So I assumed it just got not for it. You see, the movie was so dull, though, that was so dull that it's easy to miss that.

Yes. You start operating at that level. When you're watching this movie, you are lulled completely. Yes. I also had a very hard time, as Paul knows, with the accents in the beginning. I had a very tough time. I don't know what it was, it was maybe specific to that accent, but I genuinely could not hear and I could not understand the words. Were you freaking out?

I can't hear it. And we kept on jacking up the volume. But I think you have a problem with accents because you have the same problem with like Downton Abbey. Oh my God. Can you do Cockney? Cockney is hard. Like when you, when a real, like snaps.

Like trainspotting. I think you just have a hard. Just why you do one, Eddie. You know how to do accents like that. I can you get that fork? I'm flying off my feet. What I said was there is a great place to go to college in New Hampshire. See, I didn't get that.

Yeah. You did not get it. I did not get it. Was it Dartmouth? Is it the college Dartmouth? I don't want to talk about it. I will say, though, but again, the things that make no sense in this movie, so as he's, as they're deciding to leave Australia for no real reason, I guess.

Well, it's about her taking, I thought it was about her getting a job. Well, this is the crazy thing. So the setup for her reason to move to L.A. And I'm genuinely asking this because I didn't understand is that somebody worked at Newsday in L.A. Newsday. Her father's paper. Her father owns it. Her father owns the paper. Another person who's not her father got into a car accident. And died and died. And died. And died. And who is that man to her? He is a non-person. He is just the guy that ran that newspaper. And so the dad then turns to her and said, the guy that runs that paper is dead.

Will you come and run it for you? And we never meet her father. Correct. No. Crykey, sweetheart. Why not make that person her dad? because we don't want to make it a sad movie It wouldn't be sad It would have been like more of a reason I agree Why not either make the person that dad Or have the dad be a character

Yes the plot Now here's the thing Now I've been getting into old Hollywood lately Like reading stories about Laurel and Hardy Chaplin Keaton all that stuff And basically their movies Were vehicles for them to do gags So this was kind of

Supposedly like it's a vehicle to see But then I was watching a movie And what were the gags? Well, there was a spider in the hat. Well, this is the one I want to talk about. This is exactly what I was leading to. The spider in the hat. Yeah, I would say that's a gag.

This is the whole thing. Because the spider in the hat to me, I didn't understand what was going on. Like, basically, he's talking to her and he sees a spider out of the corner of his eyes. Not just a spider. A tarantula. In Australia, like a giant venomous tarantia. And by the way, have we set up that she's scared of spiders? Nope.

No. Is he scared? We don't know what's going on. But she's a woman. Right. I'll talk about the women in this movie in a second. But she doesn't, he doesn't, like, so he sees it, and it's acting like something, like, this should have been a scene later on when you establish, like, I don't want to live in this house if there are spiders, you know, and like, so he's covering this spider in such a way that, you know, puts it in his hat, and then he puts it in the spiders in his hat, and then she makes him put on its hat, and then the spider's on his head. His wife and child are both in the kitchen with a poisonous, deadly spider, and he neither reacts, says anything to them, gets them out of harm's way.

He just keeps distracting them from the spider. And wasn't there an energy that was coming off him that it almost, for a second, I thought, did he bring the spider with him? Is this his spider? No. That would have made any sense at all. But the look on his face was like, oh no, like, I've been, I've been. I've been caught. I agree.

It almost is like when the guy brings like his drunk buddy to the house and then it's like, oh shit, my wife is here. Hide over here. It was that except to a spider. So maybe that's because he does talk to animals. Maybe the spider is his friend. And he's like, but then he had to kill us. But here's what I wanted to say because like to Keaton Chaplin, they had amazing gags for their

characters. Yeah. The gags here was so weak. Like the biggest. The cleaning the bear trap? You see him at the kitchen sink cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, and then he's like, bear trap or maybe gator trap. I don't know. I even missed that.

Oh, yeah. He blows a gaiter. What he's doing in the kitchen is washing an animal trap. Like a very archaic kind of like metal snap trap. Like that's the other thing is he's watching a trap that definitely causes huge amounts of harm to animals. Right. Yeah, there was a couple of things like that. There were a few gags that I liked, though.

I liked when he killed the fake snake at the whole world. I liked that too. I laughed out loud. Me too. I liked when he was talking to the two dads who were waiting to pick up their kids about killing a war. I thought that was good. There were some gags. And by the way, Crocodile Dundee won.

Those gags worked. They did. I did not see. The seven-year-old version of these. I was just going to say. Have you seen it since you or seven? That's true. I would wonder if those would hold up for you.

I feel like. It was. I don't know. Because I agree with you. I feel like the gangs here were just sort of like, all right. Well, that's why we were laughing at the snake gag when he stabbed the snake because comparatively, that was funny. It wasn't hilarious.

Well, here's the thing. There's a thing with Crocodile Dundee is sometimes his intelligence level is at an all-time high. Other times, it's at a groundbreaking low on the spectrum side. For me, here's an example of where I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. What is happening right now? Wherein he and his son are driving. And his son says, oh, look, dad, look, there's a dog in the road. So Crocodile Dundee hits the brakes on his Subaru Outback.

Yes, by the way. I love that he was driving outback. But by the way, he was a spokesperson for Outback at that time. So that's why he had to be driving it. He hits the brakes on his Subaru Outback. Comes to a screeching halt, okay? At which point, all of the freeway traffic. They're on the freeway.

They're all of the freeway traffic. They're like on the 405. Basically, the freeway then turns into like a two dozen car boat almost pile up. But Jason, this is like hammering home the point. We are now in L.A. Yeah. The traffic is horrible. And Mr. Australian is stopping to save a dog.

But this is the thing like, he goes like this. He's like, it's like, oh, like an 18 wheeler, blah, everything. And then he just says to his son, where's the dog? Like, he just is, he's not, it's as if he's not aware of the past. And then I'll go, I'll go even one step further. He's so stupid in this scene. Fucking helicopters and police things are surrounding him. And he doesn't know even looking up, nothing.

He's walking around the middle of the freeway holding a skunk, which he thinks is a dog slash cat. What Paul just pointed out was why the movie is so flat is because it just, just exists in this world that he kind of just walks through with no emotion. He has no emotion and we as the audience have absolutely no emotion. So it's just a flat line. Here's a really weird thing about that scene. So he doesn't know what a skunk is. And that is what we're mentioned.

He does make a point to say we don't have those back home, but he's an animal expert. He would know what a skunk. No, I don't think he's an animal expert. I think that he is good with animals that are around him. Right. Because I don't think he's good with the skunk. Well, he's very good. It's also strange, though, about him going to save the dog.

Is that, and maybe I was reading too much into it, but it's like if he's somebody who is used to animals being in the wild, what was he saving that dog from? The car. Who knows? The car. I guess it was just on the highway. Okay, fine. So he was going to save the dog. Here's the other crazy thing about this.

I have a question about this. The police, the LAPD think that it's a bomb. Well, because someone says when they pull out, it's like someone casually just says, I think he has a bomb, and then that was a game of telephone. He said it's a dog, and then it was a game of telephone, as it gets communicated back through traffic. And then somebody says, I think he said that there's a bomb.

And then somebody goes, he's going to blow it up. And then everybody chaos ensues. But my question is, you know, the whole movie is his experience. in L.A. and sort of, they hit a lot of like the Los Angeles, the stereotypical like Los Angeles. Oh my God. I want to talk about the roller skater on Venice Beach. Oh, yeah.

We got that clip, by the way. The crazy thing is, well, what I was wondering is were bomb scares at that time? Yeah. Well, freeway shootings maybe or maybe that. No, I don't think. I don't think it's trading on any kind of cultural, you know, like a situation. What year did it come out? 2001.

It was before September 11th. But the other strange thing, though, is when. when that news footage is playing later on, and he's in the house with his wife, and he's so embarrassed because they're showing it on TV that he caused this thing. But I genuinely don't understand why he was embarrassed because the LAPD should be the ones

who are embarrassed about thinking it was a bomb. No, no, no. He's, I don't think he's embarrassed. He doesn't want his wife to know. He says to the kid on the highway, he goes, best not to tell your mom this happened. Man talk. You know?

Man talk. But why? But can I? I want to bring up the one. thing that we're not talking about, which is I think the more disturbing thing about everything in this scene, which is when it is clearly established, he has

a skunk in his arms and he approaches the cops. The cops pull guns to shoot him. Because they don't want to get sprayed, which is an overreaction. I mean, that's a, that is a heavy overreact. Justifiable self-defense.

If somebody was walking towards you with a skunk, could the LAPD shoot that person? Is there a And get away with it. And get away with it. As far as skunks. He was, he was wearing the skunk like a hoodie. Yeah.

And this is in the age of Rodney, you know, I guess Rodney King, you know, so maybe these costs are a little bit more. Rodney King, 9-11. This is deeper than I thought. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't know there was such overtones and undertones. This is post-Waco. I'm getting a lot of like post-Waco.

I just want to talk about the Beverly Hills cop. part of this movie. Oh, like the art heist like procedural? Yeah. That was so... And it was introduced real late in the game.

Really late. Like the main plot of the movie isn't introduced until like an hour into it. And the movie is like an hour and 28 minutes. Yeah. And I don't even quite understand

what it is. It's like they're... Me neither. So the bad guys, the guy from Dear John and the guy from Breaking Bad. Jerry Burns. Yes, thank you.

They have come across hundreds of millions of dollars worth of art that was in Yugoslavia that was thought destroyed. But did they destroy? Right. Which, by the way, which, by the way, was hilarious to me that all of a sudden there's this serious issue. Like a political. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like all of a sudden we're talking about war crimes in times of war, which was a big.

thing when the U.S. invaded Iraq, there were burnings of fucking museums. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, totally. Heavy-duty stuff. And all of a sudden, in this vanilla-as-hell movie, that's introduced. Yeah, it's war profiteering. It's basically what you're doing. So they find these paintings in Yugoslavia, and their method of

bringing them into the United States was to start a movie studio that makes movies in Yugoslavia and then brings the paintings back as props. It was so confusing to me as well. And here's the thing. And again, this is my problem with the movie. There was not one iota of tension about any of that. No.

So it's sort of like you just have to go in your head, okay, that's the bad guy because you really don't know. But these bad guys are bad news because they killed this newspaper report. They killed someone. Just keep their... But my question is, were they selling this art? Because at one point, like, Jerry Burns goes, yeah, if they don't want to buy it, we'll burn it on screen.

It's like, wait, wait, what does that mean? I know. This is what I couldn't figure out at the end of the movie. So, like, these guys are bad guys who run a movie studio, and it's paramount. The paramount lot, they shoot is their lot. So they shoot on the paramount lot as... I don't think they wouldn't need a lot of money.

As if it's this thing, right? So at the end of the movie, they're like, these paintings are said to... to be worth at least $300 million. Okay. If you have enough money to have the Paramount lot and you're making huge budget action movie, you need way more than $300 million. $300 million is insignificant money to people who are running a studio that big.

It is a giant studio and they were like a micro-budget thing, but I didn't understand. Yeah, I didn't get it. I didn't understand. Also, why did they have to keep on making sequels to unsickensual? successful movies. I think to keep going back to Yugoslavia. Couldn't they just make another movie in Yugoslavia? I don't know.

But by the way, how he, how he, you know. Tornado Chasers too? Yeah, I know. Oh, by the way, when he does his like Peewee Herman running through the sets. Yeah. The sets are so cheapo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, they are terrible.

Really bad. They're really, like, they're cartoon bad. But another horrible thing is when he finally does get the bad guys, you know, he'd be the bad guys at the end with animals. Oh, yeah. And I noticed that a couple of the animals look sickly. I don't know if you did, but I'm a big animal lover. And the lion...

I hate them. A lot of people don't care about them. You know what? I wanted to see them shoot those animals. A lot of people eat them. Anyway, are you a vegetarian? I'm a vegan. You are.

I am fascinated. That is fascinating for me. For how long? For about a year now. Oh, okay. But it's a big deal. for me and like a consciousness that has totally gotten into my life.

And one of the lion that they used. The second one who came out looked very sickly. I was like, this is not a badass lion. This looks like a lion in captivity that's not doing well. Yeah. Well, the lion doesn't roar or anything.

She just keeps moving her head. Moving her head very oddly. As a vegan, I was looking at them. Like probably trying to shake off whatever anesthetic they've given her. Yes. Just like shaking. her head like, why am I so groggy?

Yes. I'm a lion. I mean, and also just the fact that the whole movie is based on the concept that when they're not shooting the scenes with the lions, that they stay on set in cages in the stages, like in the stages. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like, they're just in cages on the stages. Right. That's what we're to presume. Like, all right, we're going to lock up the studio for the night.

Put the lions in the cage that they live in in this studio where there's nobody looking after them. And there's also that thing where Paul Hogan, becomes the animal trainer on the set. And he's given that job so freely. So like, Oh, my God. How about when he's an extra in that movie?

With Paul Rodriguez. Yeah, And they're walking down, their background. They're just walking down the street. And the main guy is running towards them. Yes. And Paul Hogan clotheslines him. And then Paul Rodriguez goes, oh, he tripped.

He tripped. We were just trying to catch him. And the guy who he closedlined, high fives Paul Hogan. He's like, thanks man. That made no sense. That made no sense. Paul Hogan very clearly on film closed lines this guy.

And by the way, that's another example of Paul Hogan being really dumb. He gets that he's in a movie. He gets that he's an extra in a movie. But yet he, oh yeah, but yet he is, but yet he hurts this guy. Yeah, that's a lot. Amazing. Today's podcast is obviously about Crocodile Dundee. Three, Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles.

And we felt that we would be remiss if we did not have someone from this movie, and we have the writer of this movie, Matthew Barry, who you know from ESPN, he has a brand new book called Fantasy Life. It is available right now. You can go to FantasyLife, Thebook.com to pick up the book. Please welcome Matthew Barry. How are you, Matthew? I'm good.

I cannot tell you how excited I am to be talking about this movie. I am blown away, because let's us first get this out. Crocodile Dundee came out in 1986. Crocodile Dundee 3 came out 15. years later, when, now, when you were approached with this project, because I imagine this was not a spec script,

were you like, are people, are people, were you surprised that this is something that people were interested in? How did you get involved in the Crocodile Dundee franchise 15 years later? Well, of course. Of course. My writing partner and I were,

we're busy working on our Gremlin's 4 spec when they called up. But yeah, you know, it's interesting. So we were, I was a sitcom writer, and I'd written on a bunch of sitcoms, my writing partner, and we'd just gotten off, a sitcom had just been canceled. We were on Union Square, which was another, if you ever do a sitcom version of how did this get made, I'll tell you about Union Square. But so anyway, the show, of course, gets canceled. So our agent calls us, we'd been talking about getting into movies, but we hadn't even written a spec or anything yet.

And our agent calls us and he says, you guys want to get in movies, right? Yes. He says, well, you know who Paul Hogan is? Of course. You've ever seen Crocodile and D. Of course. Wait, if you know who Paul Hogan is, you've seen Crocadadadadondie. Of course, right. That's true. How else do you know who he is? Well, I'm a fan of his other word. Right, sir.

He was in show-up. I don't see the Crock movies, but Flipper. I loved him as Flipper. Right, of course. So he says, you know, he's like, well, I'm one of the agents in charge. Paul Hogan, there's a client at the agency, wants to do a third installment of the franchise. I'm one of the agents in charge of putting writers in a room to pitch him ideas for the movie. If you want, I'll throw you in a room with him, and you can, you know, get some practice.

practice. And my writing partner, I like, you know, screw it. Let's meet Paul Hogan. That'll be a funny story. Yeah, of course. This is sort of a backstory here. Paul Hogan owns like 60% of the movie. Oh, wow. Paul Hogan was a TV star. Like, he had a variety show in Australia. So he's a TV star, and with a couple of writers from the variety show, he cobbled, you know, he wrote the first one and cobbled together like $5 million from investors to make the first movie. Made in a shoestring budget, and he owned it. So he owned like 60% of it. And then he won. went around piecemeal to all the different countries and just sold the distribution right. Wow. Whoa.

I mean, he made his billions of, I mean, he's a rich, rich dude. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. And now, yeah, so, but it is still 14 years later, though, you're going into pitch. It's a little, I mean, were you a little bit struck by that? Like, why now? I mean, because it is, it's a long gap.

I honestly think he just, he wanted to be a star again. And frankly, I think he wanted his wife to do something. Oh, right. Because he's married to. He never worked again. That's his wife. Yes. No.

Yes, that's his wife. He's a lot younger. No. And he had... Two. No. Are you okay? Because, okay, Matthew, the one thing I was going to say is they didn't seem to have one ounce of...

Those were the stiffest scenes. Oh, yes. By the way... I am genuinely shocked. Not only is this his wife, but he had a very, very public divorce in Australia, like in the tabloids and everything. With this woman? Because he cheated on him. his wife with Linda Kozwoski or whatever her name is.

Correct. No, his other wife with this woman, you mean? Linda, the one in the movie, yes. Yes, she was his mistress. Yeah, he, yeah, so he, yeah, so he, this is a guy, he went, you know, he went through fire to have this love, this love that could not be contained. Please tell me that's their real son. We never, it's weird in writing the movie, I mean, we're jumping all over the place,

but just as you talk about it, so there were a couple of times where we had, he had a house in Santa Barbara, and when we would go up and, and, and pitch him various things for movies or go over things with him. We never met her. She was always around. It was just weird. You know, we would go to this guy's house. There were like two or three days where we spent like the entire day with him,

pitching him ideas and he'd say yes to some stuff and notice some stuff. I want you to stay out of the picture, sweetheart. Make yourself busy in a kitchen. Now you know why we asked Eddie Pepitone to be on this podcast. A flawless. No one. Well, I was just in Melbourne. So I have the accent.

Hogan and present. So, I mean, it really felt, it honestly felt like there were the only two rules that we had. Okay. The only two, you know, we were told to go pitch and we were like, it had to take place present day. Got it. Which means, you know, we couldn't, like, go back in time and, like, do it, like, you know, two years after the, it had to take place present day, and she had to be in it.

Everything else was up for grabs. Okay. So, so we go in and we, we watched the first two movies. And, you know what? What we realize is they're very simple movies, obviously. it's just him reacting to stuff. Like, that's the whole movie, right? Yeah.

And he's funniest, and he's reacting to stuff. So we're like, and we don't want this job. We don't think we're getting it. So we basically, the premise we come up with is this. We come up with it in maybe half a day. We're just like, we go in and we say, like, look, you did New York in the first two movies. You've never done L.A. Let's say you're moving, you're living in Australia.

You're still with Linda, but let's say you've never been married. and but you've got a little kid. So he's like, he's a little crock. Right. Because there was the other thing is, I don't know if you guys remember when this movie came out, but basically like something about Mary was like the big movie, at least at the time we were pitching it. Something about Mary was like the big movie in Hollywood,

and all the things that were getting sold and made were like these raunchy R-rated comedies. Right. Really sort of over the top, fairly brother type movies, and we were like, there's no way this movie can compete with that. So the only shot it has is to try to go the other way and just be like super family and friends. friendly and, you know, sweet, that the people that enjoyed the first one could take their kids to. Was there any?

So it's, like, made for me. Yes, exactly. We've pitched him that simple story of, like, hey, you go to L.A. You go to L.A. there's some bad guys. You get a job at the studio because you can talk to the animals. Your wife gets a job at, like, you know, Newsday in L.A. And, you know, basically you're going to show your kids never been to America, so you're going to show him around. It's the blind leading the blind because you're telling him you know America, but obviously you don't.

I said, and it's mostly, there's going to be some bad guys at the studio you save the day, but most of the movie is you walking around L.A. Which everybody does. Everybody does, walks around L.A. It is funny at the amount of times that they drive past and then are back out in front of Hollywood Boulevard. They're like, they're always going down Hollywood Boulevard, and they're like they've driven away, and then they're walking around the corner, and they're at, like, the Guinness Book of World Records Museum. Right, exactly, right?

I mean, so you're basically taking the formula. I think they had two days to shoot in L.A. or something like that. Oh, wow. We just said that. We said, that's the movie, and then you end with a wedding because everybody loves a wedding. The L.A. montage was electric, by the way. It made me want to go out on the streets. I just wanted to tell you that.

Of course. You couldn't believe you had it all available to you. So now all three of you were listed as writers. Did he get in the mix and writer? Was he just supervising you too? No, not listed as a writer. That's part of the whole dispute. So anyway, so just to put a bow on this.

So basically, So we give them that pitch And it's like that simple It's just super simple Like you go to LA blah blah blah You get there's bad guys there You walk around LA It's crocodile Dundee will make it funny

You know how tough is it And he's like You guys are the only ones Who get me Oh my god Awesome It's like the producers Are you kidding me?

Like we have no thoughts That we're ever getting this job We're literally going in Because we think it'll be a funny story To tell hey we met Paul Pogan And you know It was practiced to pitch You know

Pitch to a movie star like that. And apparently everyone else, every other writer he met with, pitched him like, Crocodile and he saves the universe from a nuclear explosion, crock three in space, like all these like crazy terrible ideas. And we were the only ones that said like, look you in situations and you react to them. I do want to see Croc three in space, by the way.

By the way, that would be great. I will pay you $500 to write that. That would be the sequel to Shark Nato. That would be amazing. All right, so yeah, so now you're trapped. He's, you're in. Yeah, well, I mean, they basically, so he wants to, it becomes one of these things where he wants to co-write it with us. And so because Paul's writing quote is so insanely high, people don't realize the Academy Award.

He got an Academy Award nomination for writing for the first movie. Paul Hogan got an Academy Award. For writing the first movie? For Rockingdale Dundee won? Yep. Yep. It did not win, but he was not. Him and the two other guys that wrote the first movie, and I don't know who contributed what to that, but the three.

June love. Well, I mean, I do like it, but. Yes. You are blowing my mind. And a Golden Globe winner for Best Actor. That's mind-boggling. Yeah. And a Razzie nominee for Crocodile Denia in Los Angeles, along with me, thank you very much.

We got screwed. I thought we should have won. Who did you lose to in that year's Razies? We lost to. Just a random story. I wanted to. I made my, I was. My writing partner and I were represented at Endeavor at the time.

Right. And we literally asked our agent, you know how like in the trades back then you'd see all these big ads, you know, CAA congratulates its client or Williams and Morris congratulates its client. So and so on his Academy Award nomination. And we were like, hey, Endeavor, we want you to take on an ad. Like, you know, Endeavor, congratulate, you know, Matthew Barry and Eric Abrams on their Razzie nomination. So I thought that would have been hilarious. That's amazing.

They would not do it. They would not do it. Cows. We lost to, we lost to Planet of the Apes for worst. remake or sequel. Yes. Mark Wahlberg, Planet of the Apes. He deserved it.

So anyway, so, but because Paul's writing quote was so high, what Paramount was going to pay us to do this movie was insane amount of money for first-time movie writers. Yeah. So we were like... You must have been happy about that. Yeah. Well, exactly. Like, if you're going to sell out, sell out big.

Yeah. There's all the kids out there. But at that point, I mean, you've got those Union Square dollars. The sweet, sweet square dollars. Yeah, so I mean, listen, so we did it. You know, and listen, bought me a house. God bless Croft for that. Sure. So now you're signed up.

You got a lot of money. You are, you're off to do this movie. So now what is this process like as you embark on the action? Right. So the plan was for us to, quote, write it together. But the last thing my writing partner and I want to do is sit in front of a computer screen with Paul Hogan for three months, right? and we know

we know he doesn't want to do that either so we say to him we say look let us write the first draft we'll run everything by you and everything like that we'll write the first draft and then we'll hand it to you and you can take your pass at it and we'll go from there so we go off and we write our script

and you know there's we pitch him a bunch of stuff and some stuff he likes and some stuff he does in and he gave us notes and whatever and give me an example of give me an example if you remember like Something that he liked, something he didn't like, is there, is there, do you remember anything that you're like, oh, I wish we would have gotten that in like that? Do you remember anything like that? Yeah, I mean, yes. I mean, here's one thing that we pitched that he didn't like that I thought would be funny. And that I thought was a very kind of crocodile Bundy type thing.

Right. I mean, remember, it's all sort of gentle humor, right? Sure. It's all sort of observational, gentle humor that he's reacting. He's a guy from the outback. But, like, you know how like when you're in L.A., everyone valets. Right. Right.

You go, no matter where you're valet, you can't just find any parking. And when you get a valet ticket, it says, read this. You know, it's all the disclaimer stuff on the ticket. That's funny, yeah. So we thought it would be funny if Paul Hogan actually reads it. But, like, you know, there's a long line of cars and everything like that, and he gets there. You know, of course everyone just takes the ticket and walks off and they go.

But, you know, it literally says, read this. It limits your liability. And so he won't give the keys until he's read the whole thing, and he's considering it. and people are honking and everyone's going nuts and he's just, hold on, I'm thinking about this, you know. And so it was just, yeah, it was the whole thing that he just doesn't understand. A funny little, a funny piece. No, I think he was right to deny that one.

There is still a ballet joke in this. There is still a ballet joke where he attacks the valet, yeah. Right, and that's what it turned into. He's a, he's a, sometimes we were talking about this, sometimes Croc, is violent. Sometimes he's very much a pacifist, and sometimes he's very much aware of things, and sometimes he's very much unaware of things.

Like, did he have rules for the Crock character? Because he goes to punch that valet real quick, but then you see that he seems like he's a pacifist most of the time. There were no rules. I think it was just whatever worked for Paul. He never, I mean, he would say sometimes, like, I wouldn't do that. Got it.

But he never seemed to really say, like, oh, Crocolundi does A. but he doesn't do B. He never set down. Right. It was all sort of in his mind. He didn't have the Crocodile Dundee Bible that he passed off. No, we didn't get that.

We didn't get the secret hand-pig. He wasn't that detailed. So you write the first draft, and then what happens here? So we write the, whatever, we write the first draft based on his notes, everything like that. And so basically he then rewrites pretty much the entire script. He throws a couple of new things in there. But generally, this is the example I give.

So let's say we're doing a scene like, we wrote a scene like sort of like interior podcast studio. Right. Matthew's talking to Paul Shear. Matthew Berry is talking to Paul Shear about his movie. Okay? Yes. You know, Paul, Matthew, welcome to the show.

And he would rewrite that. This movie is amazing. TV studio. You know, Nick Kroll is interviewing Eric Abrams. Oh, wow. So he was just going through and just changing names so he can get, like, so he was trying to steal writers credit from you, essentially. Correct.

I mean, so not, there's not one word that's the same. So, like, you know, interior TV. There's two different guys, and they're talking about his book. And so it's, yeah, it's like a college kid, you know, changing his term paper, you know, from Wikipedia or something. Oh, man. That's really, that's like really low-low. So he could justify his writing it, huh? Right, exactly.

And just everything was just sort of like a worse. version of what we had. You know what I mean? It's just like every punchline was just like not nearly as sharp. It wasn't as funny. There you go. There you go. I think it's all fixed.

You know, I think there was like something like, um, like I think, you know, we at least try, I mean, I don't know, like we're starting with a 16 year old sequel, right? Right. It's Croc 3. Um, but like we at least tried to make it at least semi smart sort of things. I think the gay bar scene, I think the gay bar scene that we had was he goes into the gay bar, has a drink, and has a great time. God, I think that would have been funny. But has no idea that would have been funny.

Yeah. Like, we didn't want to make fun of, like, we thought it would be funier if he's just like, I met the greatest group of guys. I think that would have been funny. Yeah. I think that was going on in the scene. We thought that was true to the character. I think Croc, I think Croc works best when he's. sort of joyfully innocent.

Yeah, where he's like truly a fish out of water. Right, right. And has sort of this pot. And the first movie, he has like a super positive outlook, you know, and everything. And it's literally like, and, you know, jokes aside, the most, you know, obviously the most famous scene. It's not even a threatening like, you know, it's like, ah, it's not a nice. This is a nice. Right, right.

And it's not even, it's not like a, it's not an angry thing. It's a bragging thing. Right, right. He's just pushing it aside. By the way, Matthew, you know, in our very. cynical world, I think we need Croc 4. Can I tell you something hilarious? Yeah.

Our agent, we actually have a great agent on this particular deal. Our agent, we actually have a contract when we agree to do it. If there is a Croc 4, he has to offer it to us first. Amazing. Oh, my God. We still have the rights of first refusal on Croc 4. Well, you know, Matthew, you might be getting that because I'm looking at this article on IMDB that says that his money manager stole $34 million from him.

No. Yes. I saw that. He's having some tax problems, too. You know what's amazing is that $34 million probably doesn't mean that much to him. Wow. He's literally that wealthy. Wow.

That is mind-boggling. Which is why the guy could steal it, which is why the guy could steal it. Well, I mean, it says here that, yeah, he allegedly helped him hide money in a Swiss account in order to avoid taxes. Oh, geez. And he made off with $34 million of it. And Australia has a warrant out for Philip Eagle Shaw, who is behind this country's largest tax evasion scheme. Crikey There's the plot

There's a plot He's got a plot Crock in Switzerland Crock in Switzerland That's amazing Can I ask you Matt Can I ask you about

The spider in the hot scene Yes we were curious about The spider in the hat scene Because I honest It's been a long time I should have watched it again In anticipation of this podcast

I've been This book tour And I haven't Well he sees a spider In the room Like a tarantula In his kitchen. And he seems very scared by it, and he doesn't want to show his wife that it's there.

And he kind of scoops it up in his hat. But we don't know why. I think what was confusing to us is it almost seemed like the intention that was coming across was like, oh, the reaction on his face was one of, oh, one of my friends is here and he's not supposed to be here. Or he felt guilt or something that the spider was there. Do you remember the spider? remember anything about that. This might have been a Paul. We didn't do that.

That was all Mr. Hogan's genius. So, let me have to do with that. There is a number of scenes in this movie where a deadly animal is present. Paul Hogan is safe. Somebody else is in harm's way

and he does not warn them. Like, because there's also the scene, there's also the scene where he, the big giant Jaws crock eats Paul Hogan's boat. He gets up in a tree. And then his buddy comes along in a, Jacko comes along.

So Jock comes along in a tiny little canoe and he's like, what are you doing up in the tree? And it's like, oh, don't worry about it. And then it doesn't warn him. Is it like there's a gigantic crock and the crook eats Jock's boat? Jock easily could have gotten eaten in that scene. Was there any effort? Yeah, go ahead. And you would have, I was just going to say you would think in the Australian Outback because that's where Jaka lives that he's aware of this.

Yeah. Well, now you alluded to the fact that he's kind of a jerk. So when did the jerk side pop out besides the fact that the- when the jerk side comes out. So, okay. So we turn in the movie. He rewrites it the way he does, where he just basically makes everything,

like, much more obvious and much more dull and, you know, and whatever, whatever, whatever. It's all fixed now. It's never going to be a great movie, but we were trying to make it at least slightly clever. Right. Right.

And were you writing, and just a, garrady for one, like, were you writing to cameos, too? Because I know, like, Mike Tyson's in this movie and George Hamilton. George Hamilton. Were you guys, was at a mandate in here, too? That just was like,

uh, okay, great. Yes, but he wanted to, mandate. But it was a mandate to write cameos, but you know, it was always like generic because they're like, I'll see who we can get. We actually, we wrote in heff.

Oh, that makes sense. You know, and at one point he gets basically a half lookalike or something like that. Right, right, right. But, yes, so that was one of the ideas. I think that was one of the pitches is that he would run into, that he would run into celebrities and not who any of them were. That was an L.A. thing. That he would run into celebrities.

Just like doing normal celebrity stuff. Like Mike Tyson, everybody always knows. It's always meditating in a park in Beverly Hills. Right, by himself. Exactly. Everybody knows that. Excuse me, mister. What are you doing?

Well, I'm meditating, man. What's meditating? Meditating is a special place I go in my mind where there's no distraction. I receive a great fuss of power. Cool. Can you show us half a place? Sure. Come forward.

Have a seat. My name's Marky. What's yours? Hey, Mikey, I'm Mike. Oh, Mike, I'm Mick. Mike's dead. Mikey, Mick, Mike. You gotta be kidding me, right?

Okay, okay. Hold your legs, like in a Buddha position. Grab your ankles to save yourself from some discomfort. And we're going to take an easy, close our eyes, relax. Inhale, a positivity, exhale and negativity. Inhale a positivity. Exhale, negative. And the Mal Gibson, Mel Gibson stuff, which I actually, I did like the, I mean, that to me was like a perfect example of like a Croc one, like, you know.

Tom Cruise, what does he look like? Yeah, like, I like those jokes. Sorry, so now he, now. Is it true Mel Gibson doesn't like the juice? Right, that would have, that was in the first draft. So, all right, so now you hand in the script, it's watered down and now he becomes a jerk. How is it? Right, because, so whatever, it's fine.

So he does it, but basically, He then takes our name off the script. Wow. We need to have, so he turns it in, and he wants soul writing credit. Wow. Again, this is a guy who is, this is Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles, Croc3, produced by Paul Hogan based on characters created by Paul Hogan, starring Paul Hogan. He's in every frame of the movie, Paul Hogan, but he still needs soul writing credit.

And we would have been fine with us. It's not like we were proud of it. Right. The problem was is that because of the contract we'd signed, and anyone listening that's a member of the writers, go, like, to get residuals and to get, and certain contractual bonuses, we needed to have writing credit. Yeah.

We were going to get a bonus if, you know, if it got made and we had writing credit, or at least partial writing credit. So we needed to have writing credit because, I mean, the whole reason we wrote the damn thing was for money. You know, it was a pure money take, obviously. So once Paul Hogan basically said, I want sole writing credit, the line was drawn on the fan, and it was either us or him for writing credit.

Oh, man. So you had to go against him and fight him for? You had to arbitrate against him. Did you have to go, like, sit there in arbitration with him or you went separate? Yeah. So that's not a pen. This is a pen. That's not a first draft. This is a first step.

Right. So, right. And we go and we go, we turn in our draft to the Writers Guild, and we have to make our presentation to a three-person board. He does the same thing. He turns in his draft of the second version. of the script. Yeah. And then they look at the final shooting script.

And because he's a producer in the movie, he needed to have created 50% of the movie. Like that's the sort of the Writers Guild, at least the time. Yeah. And basically, he loses. He loses three to nothing. They vote for us. Wow. Amazing.

So he then appeals the decision, which is allowed. The appeal goes through. He loses three to nothing again. He could have shut his mouth and shared screenwriting credit and made more money. Of course. He never would have fought it. turned it in, actually, the first draft of the script that we turned in, had all three of our names written by the three of us. So he just was trying to get more money. That's crazy.

So now, and then you... And I don't even think it was money. I think it's literally ego. I think the whole reason you ask, like, why he wanted, he wanted to be a star again. He wanted to, you know, be in a universe where, you know, hey, we're making another crock movie. He's the big star. He's got the big trailer. It's all about him. It's kind of like the Sylvester Stallone. His name is on like every movie as a writer. And I'm looking at Paul. Hogan's IMDB page, and he wrote Lightning Jack, almost an angel. He's listed as a writer on every one of his movies.

Right. So that's sort of his thing or whatever. So now he's lost 9 to nothing. He's lost the appeal. He's lost the appeal of the appeal. So we're like, okay. So then he starts threatening to sue the Writers Guild. And he starts doing all the press.

Whoa. Whoa. And he's basically, he's trashing us in public. Like if you search for Paul, if you Google like Paul Hogan, sues Writers Guild or Paul Hogan you know

Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles WGA or anything like that you'll see he talks about wanting to sue the Writers Guild for writing credit and that he really wrote it and that these two guys Matthew Bear and Eric Abrams don't deserve credit and everything like that

so now we're in like really public battle about this movie that we're not real proud of like you know want to screen credit for the movie but it's like it's one of those things that's like you know like maybe you date somebody that you're not real proud of.

Yeah. You're at a place and you're like, you're like, look, I need some companionship, but really don't want to publicize this too much. Yeah, yeah. Sort of that. We've all been in relationships like that, right? Yeah, yeah, we're dating a horrible person that we want our friends to not know about and we want to keep them secret.

Yeah. So we tell everybody we don't know them. Right. Correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is the thing. Like, we didn't want, like, we didn't want. We're all horrible people, right, Matt?

We're the crock three writers. Yeah, you're right, of course. Yes. We just, we wanted screen credit for, so we could, so we could make the money. Yeah, off that house. So now we're in a big public dispute where we literally have to get up and fight very publicly. Yes, we wrote the movie, not Paul. You know what I mean?

Like, we can't sit there and say we didn't write. You know what I mean? Like, it's this horrible awkward thing where we have to very publicly say, like, no, we're the writers of this horrible, shitty movie. You know what I mean? And we're fighting to be the writers. Right, exactly. We are fighting to get credit for this.

terrible movie. Right. Oh, that's the hilarious thing, too, is when the poster first came out, when it said written by, it said pending. Oh, that's funny. Initially. That's awesome. A lot of people are like, who's pending?

Pending. Who's this pending? I want to read more from this. It's directed by Alan Smithy. It's like a fake name that they put when they don't know. Did you guys ever have a face off at all? Like, did you? Yeah.

Yeah, we sort of. I mean, you know, we went to the premiere, and, you know, they were, like, contractually obligated to give us, like, four tickets to each for the premiere, and, like, they're the last two seats. Like, the rest of the cast and the director and everything, they're all, like, front and center.

We were literally in the last row in the back corner. Like, you go to the premiere, like, they wouldn't let us walk the red carpet, and then it's just, you know, it's just a horrible, horrible experiences. We're just treated like pariahs, and, you know, the guy that was sort of hand, that was, lowest person at Paramount got stuck with handling us.

And he's just like, yeah, sorry, Paul Hogan said, you know, you guys can't be anywhere near him. And, you know, like, really? Wow. Because we want, I don't know, you know, so it's just a horrible experience from start to finish. And he was such a terrible human being to us. And he was such a liar because you wrote the day of the thing.

So he was living this lie. And he knew that he was living a lie. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So do you come face to face with him? at one point we ran into him after the movie um like we sort of like we were exiting at the same time he was or something like yeah and um we're like and i think i said something i was like i literally said hey paul gosh the movie turned out swell like i said something like that and he just he just looked

at me and he didn't say anything he just he walked on wow wow what a dick yeah now do your children with his children these days? Yes. Yes. Yes. We have great friends. We've got great friends. I'm working on Croc for now.

Your children have like a Romeo and Juliet, like Star Cross Lovers scenario happening. So, yeah. But then this is basically what took you from the world of writing TV and film into writing a very successful fantasy football column and giving you all your success now. And you can read about this story and even more in your new book, Fantasy Life. which you can get at Fancy Life of thebook.com. But this is an amazing story and good to get some insight on what is it. So for our last question,

Hilo, one thing you're proud of, one thing you're embarrassed by. One thing I'm proud of, it's a very small moment. It's a very small moment at the beginning of the, at the beginning of the movie, he gets in the limo and the driver hands him a headshot. Yeah, oh, yeah.

Think somehow that they're important and hands him a headshot. And Paul Hogan takes him a headshot. out his wall and hands on a picture of him and his kid, thinking this is what you do in L.A. I like that, too. I did like that joke, too, yeah. I liked that, too.

I thought that was a small moment, and I thought that was very true to the character, and I thought that was kind of funny. So that's one thing that, like, that sort of survived as we wrote it. In terms of what we're embarrassed by, pretty much the rest of the movie. I was hoping you'd say that. Hey, we're pitching family comedy.

That's what we're trying to do. We're literally saying, like, there's not going to be any, like, you know, pee-pee or poo-po jokes. This is a movie you can take your six-year-old. Thank you for keeping it clean, Matthew. Something about Mary was the thing. So we say, so we're saying this, and like, and the whole thing is building towards a wedding. He's actually going to make an honest woman of Sue.

That's the name of the character, of Linda's character, I think. And so, and so he says, ah, he says, what about something where, you know, he says, I think the teachers probably got the hots for me or something like that, likes my, you know, charm. We're like, all right, fine. So we do that. He tells us basically to write a woman hitting on him. Sure. So we're like, okay, fine.

So we do that. And we do that. And we've actually said, well, like, someone should hit on you, but let's do it at the gay bar. And you're not aware that he's hitting on you at all. And you're just getting long. He's like, no way. Again, this is whatever. This is however long was the movie out, like 15 years ago?

Sure. I mean, this is, what sounds old, like kind of old stale jokes now was at least slightly. fresh back then. Yeah. 11 years ago, it was good. It was... Right. So, anyway, so he didn't want to do that, but he wanted the teacher to hit on him.

So we're like, fine. Fine, the teacher. So we write that, we write that scene, you know, and then we, like, we take long, silkboard showers after it. But whatever, we write the scene. And then, and then the movie comes out, we see it, and not only has the teacher hitting on them, but do you remember the rollerblader? Yes, of course.

Oh, yeah. Right. And we're just like, good job. How many women are hitting on this, like, 50-year-old dude? She is not only hitting on him, but, like, she stops short, like, rollerblading on Venice Beach Boulevard there to, like, throw herself at him and then have, like, a mini, like, she has, like, a mini model art to herself, where she's like, I mean, what, what am I doing just talking to a cowboy on the side of the street? I'm sure he's, I'm sure he's gay. I'm sure he's. Not my experience out here.

It's cold, distant eyes. Yeah. Oh, this is too good. I finally bump into a cute cowboy. He's a little more Robert Redford's vintage than Brad Pitt's, but that's okay. Because he's got a mansion in Beverly Hills, and plus he's got custody of his kid. That means he'd be a good dad to my Cindy. And this is...

Oh, there's a cat, tray. He's nothing this good ever happens to me. You're not available. You're gay, right? Um, nice of time. Pretty happy. Yeah? Of course!

Cute cowboy, Venice Beach. How could be gay? What was I thinking? Boy shoes in Shadowbox. Yeah, mate. An American woman. She's got a nice ass. Yeah.

If you want to ask me what's the most embarrassing scene, like for me it's that. Yeah, that's a good, that is a big one, yeah. Well, because it's so out of place in the movie. It makes no sense. No one talks like that. It's not real at all. It's not based in any sort of thing. It's entirely about his ego.

That theme is entirely about his ego, which is sort of emblematic of the whole movie. Well, Matthew, this is awesome to hear from your first-hand account about this movie. Thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, you were great. Thank you. Yeah, you could check out his book, Fantasy Life. You can get at FantasyLife.com. Matthew Berry, thanks so much for joining us. All fun as always. Thanks, guys.

Bye. Bye. Big thanks to Matthew Barry for actually telling us how Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles got made. Unfortunately, Eddie Pepitone and June had to leave. So, Jason, it's you and I right now. Here we go. Obviously, we had an opinion about this movie, but there are some people who had a different opinion. So it's now time for Second Opinions.

These are five-star reviews called from Amazon. I feel like Second Opinions needs its own themes, themes show music. We used to have horns. Bam, bam, bachadigigigoo, back of a bo, bo, bidi-da-da-da-da-da-da-a-dab. Second Opinions. I like that. Somebody make that into a track, and we will play that every single time. Until we hate it.

Which will be three episodes from now. But it will be a glorious three episodes. All right. This was actually a great treasure trove of Amazon reviews here. This is from Go Birds 2, who if you look in the five-star reviews at Amazon, posted the same review at least five times. Just with the nouns changed to other places? Or always for this movie?

Always for this movie. Same review for this movie. Got it. So here it goes. You might say that Paul Hogan has his own brand of sophisticated humor. Sophisticated may sound like an odd word to describe his outback brand of slapstick, but it really is. Crocodile Dundee is a slick character that you don't know that you're really being put on or not.

I think we're all getting tired of the fast-paced, slam-bang, rapid fire, so-called sophisticated humor. This film is a welcome return to good old-fashioned homespun grassroots comedy. There's so many things to unpack in this. Sophisticated is not a word that you want to... Nope. No, not at all. And I guess they're hypothesizing that this is like a Borat kind of character. Is he or is he not this character?

Not that either. It's not Borat style. And we are all getting tired of that fast-paced rapid-fire comedy. Aren't we all just... I'm so tired of laughs coming quickly at me. Slow it down. Slow it down. Slow it down.

Slow it down. Like one laugh per every 15 minutes. Like, that's the thing in this movie. Like, they're in Los Angeles, California, and they walk everywhere. They're walking the equivalent of 25 miles a day. It's crazy. And again, like I said, they never get too far away from Hollywood. No, never.

They're just walking in a constant circle. It was the only thing that was interesting to me. And there's, again, a sign of a bad movie. When you're watching a city that you live in, go, oh, that's interesting. That's what that looked like back then. That's what that looked like. But it is old-timey. There is an old-timey.

element to like him picking his kid up from school and then them walking home like Andy Griffith style. Yeah. I get what that person is saying even though that person is a fucking idiot. Well, listen to what Liz has to say. Liz says Oh, Liz, don't get me started with fucking Liz. Liz loves it. She goes, this is

a great movie. I like the first one, but this is much better. It is very funny. I'm a comedy freak. And I love funny movies. And this is definitely funny. The DVD is better. So rent it today because I'm sure you'll come back and buy it.

The DVD is better. Five stars. I don't know how the DVD is. I guess the DVD is... Maybe the extras. Maybe just going, the process of going to the theater is a pain. So maybe... Maybe it's just the extra features. We're like unstoppable on this. Well, this is the one that I think, uh, oh man, these are, they're, uh, oh man. Okay, I don't know which one. This one is a genuine note here.

The writing on Dundee, L.A. was excellent with some very funny, material. One minor flaw in light of its family movie class would be to change the unwed status of the couple to some sort of Aboriginal outback type of hookup. Maybe with flashbacks to some kind of ceremony before the child was born and use that as the film's beginning marriage status. And then they could have ended it with a traditional Western marriage. That way they wouldn't look like the standard Hollywood shack up type of situation. So common in liberal Hollywood scripts. Yeah.

Wait a second. Five stars. Obviously five stars. Obviously five stars. So like even with that, this person's like love for the movie was undeterred. Yes. I mean, because I mean the liberal, the liberal nature of this film. I mean, that's the thing I don't get like the couple getting married at the end.

That's a liberal agenda. That seems like that. No, the liberal agenda is that it's okay to have a child out of wedlock. Oh, okay. Got it. The agenda is, you know, that being married to have a family isn't important until the end of the movie. Like what he wants is for them to have some sort of marriage, even if it's like an aboriginal. What he's, what this fucking asshole is saying is like give them a pretend wedding like the pretend people in the outback, which is, by the way, a real wedding, you fucking asshole.

And then give them a real wedding at the end. Like, that's this, what is wrong with people? Five stars. Five stars. And here is my favorite one here, the final one. One thing that makes this such a great comedy is a. it doesn't have the feel of trying to be funny. It's not burdened by that need to be funny.

There are some movies where the humor doesn't seem that funny to me, which is kind of embarrassing. What? But in this, every single joke got a laugh out of me. There's even an inside joke where she goes, which I understand. And I don't even live in L.A. where the news broadcaster says one-fourth of an inch of rain was a downpour because the rainfall is so infrequent.

Plus, the comedy is never sleazy or degrading. Such an inside joke. I know, it's such an insight. And he goes, I've seen quite a lot of movies and I would put this among my top five comedies. Wow. Next to, are you ready with these? All right.

This is the best part of the whole review. Top five. Comedies for who? Who is this person? Her name is a customer. Okay. The Disney movie Blackbeard's Ghost. Yep.

Jean Arthur's The Devil and Mrs. Jones. Of course. Danny Kay's The Court Jester. Oh, boy. And Dick Van Dyke's Never a Dull Moment. Okay, this person is in easily in his or her mid-70s. My crocodile Dundee 3 gets put into that pantheon. That's crazy.

My favorites, Paul Hogan, Danny Kay, Dick Van Dyck. Dick Van Dyke. And the Disney movie Blackbeard's Ghost. Oh, my God. And I like Ron Jeremy's pornography. So that they are. Those are the five-star reviews from Amazon. We'll close it up.

As you may or may not realize, our guests, everyone had to leave one by one. So it's just Jason and I in here. But I do want to tell you that Eddie Pepitone is a hilarious, funny stand-up. And this documentary that he did about himself, is awesome. You go to the bitterbuda.com. You can get the documentary. It's on iTunes.

For anyone interested in the world of alternative comedy, it is a must. I say this not only as a fan of Eddie, but this is a true statement. This documentary is very good. You can follow him on Twitter at Eddie Pepitone

and go to Eddie Pepitone.com. For me, you can check out the Arshirio Paul show. We have seven new episodes up. You can check those out. Just type in Arshirio Paul. And it's spelled just like sounds, Arshirio Paul.

Just like it sounds. Archirio Paul. And you can also watch NTSF-S-D-S-UV every Thursday night. And one final plug is in that as well. And Hell Baby is on VOD right now, which is on iTunes. I hope you guys like that. Jason, do you want to plug anything? Oh, I wrote on Children's Hospital this season, so watch that.

Very funny. Very funny show. And then, I don't know. Yeah. You can always follow me at Twitter at, just kidding. I'm not on Twitter. You were on Twitter, though. Oh, yes, for 30 minutes last week, I was on Twitter.

So people can look up Zooks 230. That's what it was. Yeah. And they can follow your tweets. They will never come back. No, no, that account was immediately deleted. Oh, was it? Oh, yeah, yeah.

Okay. I don't know if you can find old tweets. Is that a thing? You probably can find it somewhere. Yeah, yeah. It's very boring what I was doing. But I was on Twitter for 30 minutes for John Daly's. 2.30 show, whatever that's how did you like it?

You know what? It was for half an hour and a large portion of that was me trying to figure it out. You know, like a lot of it was me asking questions like, now how do I do this? But it was like within 20 minutes, I had over 400 followers. Wow. Which was hilarious. That is pretty impressive and you just got rid of them instantly. Yeah, yeah. Then I rejected them.

So you can try to find that. You can actually watch Jason doing that live, the 230 p.m. podcast is actually a video podcast. It's on the video podcast network. So you can see Jason on Twitter. For all of you asking, you can see him on Twitter, even though it doesn't exist anymore. And again, Fantasy Life by Matthew Berry, you can go get that. And a big thanks to everyone that helps run this show.

Our engineer, Brett, thank you so much for doing this. And this is a complicated one today. Our researcher, Nathan Kylie, and, of course, our new clip puller, Averallie. Thank you guys for listening. Thank you.