Page 7 - Pop History: Clueless

Episode Date: March 24, 2020

Jackie, Natalie and Holden explore the making of everyone's favorite 90s movie, "Clueless"Too much Page 7? As if! Support us on Patreon to get weekly bonus episodes and other goodies! Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Page 7 ad-free.Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We'll shine. Creepy. That was very creepy. I love that song. Oh my God, hold it. Oh, my God. I'm so excited to do this. It was so funny because I had to miss an episode last week.

And you guys were like, well, we'll just do Clueless without you. I was like, uh, you are whatever as if not doing Clueless without me. I love Clueless. It is so good. And it did not disappoint upon a more recent viewing. I just absolutely adore this film. Yeah. It's, uh, I'm Natalie Jean.

It is one of my top five, like, comfort movies. Yes. It's so rewashed. Watchable. Yes, I've seen it so many times. And especially right now when everything is so upsetting and putting it on, it's like sitting next to a fire. That you're just like, oh, this is exactly what I needed. I'm in my fucking happy place.

In the colors. Oh, the colors. It's literally our Emma. And the other thing about it is that it's just so damn funny. Like, what I was about to tell you guys before we started and I was like, wait, I want to say it on recording. I went to go look up like on IMDB like the, you know, quotes. It is just, it might as well be the whole script. It is just an endless barrage of quotes.

The Monet and the, you know, rolling with my home. Rolling with my homie. Whenever somebody gets hurt, I always go, can you do this? Rolling with my homies. And they go, fuck you, hold it. I need to go to the hospital. I'm bleeding. I need stitches.

Rolling with my homays. Except for the fact that I honestly didn't realize it until doing this research, that they say the lyrics in. correctly. They say rolling with the homies and it's rolling with my homies. And I've, of all the hundreds of times I've seen this movie, I never realized that it was wrong. I've only ever listened to that song through the lens of Clueless. And then I sat and listened to it. I was like, man, this is such a good fucking song. It's a great song. I will say there's a couple of jokes, too, that I realize now went completely over my head as a kid, that whole part where she's looking for

some herbal remedies. Absolutely. And then they say we have coke. And she's like, no shit. You guys got Coke, too. I had no idea that was in drug. No. None of the drug references, most of the sex references. Yep. I didn't understand any of them. And no. That or when they bring in the kitchen wear when he brings in kitchenware for the

the beach cleanup fund thing. And it's a bunch of bonds. Yeah, the bog. So funny. So funny. Yeah, just the whole and that just gives you a sense of when that movie came out for us. I mean, we were all in the perfect place. We were all like in our early teens. I'm

pretty sure I saw it in the movie theater. I definitely saw it. I did too, but I was a pre-teen, so Jack, you would have been like a kid. I was eight. I was a baby. Yes, I was eight years old when this came out. Right. What year did it come out again? 95. So I was just a teen. I was, right? I was 14. Yeah. So, no, 13. You guys hit right at that sweet spot, because I remember, so I watched this movie when it first came out, because obviously, y'all know I have older siblings. And in watching it, I didn't get a lot of it, but I immediately fell in love with it. And I think that for me, besides anything, was that I wanted to be them so much. But I didn't know why.

And now I realize it's because of the outfits. And that is exactly why that I always wanted to dress in that perfect 90s aesthetic that now, as a woman in her 30s, I am able to do because I don't care as much about what other people think. and maybe some of it doesn't look as good on me as it does on them. But now I got the confidence to try it out. Oh, girl. You rock it. Yeah, it was like a whole other world for me.

And at the same time, I had a little, you know, I went to a private school. I was definitely around a lot of rich kids. They definitely did not have any amount of style that, you know, like in comparison to these L.A. rich kids. But I definitely remember some of the vibes of that. But this film just performed such a magic trick of making you love these Uber. rich on paper I should hate these people characters and instead you were just so charmed by them and you just love to and I think that's why it's such an escape movie because you're just like I just want to

be lost in dumb rich person problems in high school for just a little bit you know and and just take in the sights totally and Amy Heckerling which we'll talk a ton about she really was able to find that balance because the director writer she's amazing she's amazing she's amazing about her yeah and especially it comes off as a chick flick even though it a thousand percent is not. It's super not. I definitely legitimately just enjoyed it. And I was one of those guys where now I'm revisiting movies that came out back then that were for the ladies quote unquote. And this was not one of those for me, even when I was younger and stupid about stuff like that. But did it, I have to ask, did it take you to the bone zone? I was about to say, I think a big reason why

this slip past the goalie in terms of a quote unquote, what it seems like a chick flick is actually not is definitely how smooth, how turned on. When those Aerosmith videos hit, I forget how much of a sexual awakening I had watching those videos. I think for men, women, girls, boys, straight, gay, the Aerosmith videos with Alicia Silverstone woke up a lot in me. So hot. Did you guys ever see the movie Crush? Yeah. With Mark Wahlberg.

The finger bang roller coaster. Finger bang roller coaster. If you really want to experience Alicia Silverstone in a new light, go see the lodge. Oh my God. Yeah. The lodge is so good. That's awesome. The lodge is so fucking good.

But clueless, though, is, I'm so happy that we're doing this. What a great way to take our mind off of everything. And what an awesome way to just celebrate breaking boundaries. Because I never really thought about this before that this was the beginning of kicking off cool, more updated, quote-unquote, chick flicks. And teen movies. And teen movies. Almost more importantly, the era of John Hughes was all but dead. No one was making movies for teens in this way.

And this really opened the doors back up for a bunch of movies that we could trace back to the DNA of Clueless that we got to enjoy during our teen years over summers in the movie theater. So it's just such a weirdly important film for how daffy and silly and just fun and whatever it is. It's also really brought back a genre that I think is really important because who goes to the fucking movie theater the most? I mean, I lived at the movie theater when I was a teenager, so I was so bored I'd know where else to go. Yeah. It was the bowling alley, the movie theater, and like sitting out front of the movie theater trying to get someone to buy a cigarette to the gas station next door. That's true. I did actually have a ton of, I have a ton of memories outside of a movie theater. One, including around this age, I was standing outside by myself and a group of older teenage boys with a video camera rolled up and went,

Hey, we're trying to, we're having a contest for the ugliest girl in the world. Would you like to be a part of it? And I was like 13 years old and I was like, I had no idea what to do. Oh, no, what did you say? I just stood there and let them film me. They were like 18 or 19. They weren't like kids. They were like older.

Oh my God. Did you win though? Was there a prize? I don't know. I never got a present or a prize or anything. Oh, man. I wish that my 13-year-old self was with your 13-year-old self

because I would have beaten the shit out of them. Oh, man, that would have been awesome. Or at least taking a bat to their car. But I mean, come on, it's true. Natalie at that time was a virgin who can't drive. So, I mean, what are you going to drive? It's true. And see, I always really wanted to be Thai a thousand percent,

but down to the fact that I wanted the stoner boy and addressed like a tomboy, and I definitely talked a little bit more like this. And I love, man, RIP, Britney Murphy. She sucks, man. She sucks, man. It's so funny. It's such a bummer.

In preparation for this, I was watching a lot of behind the scene stuff again. And she's just such a sweet angel of a girl talking about the movie during that time period. And then, like, they were doing, like, a 10 year later, whatever retrospective. And she was still just so joyful and that, like, she had a light-up presence about her. Yeah. And it seems like they all really got along. Yeah, they got. And also, this launched so many careers.

It's ridiculous. This ensemble cast is amazing. And even Alicia Silverstone, she was on the rise, but this made her full on a household name. Oh, yeah. She was just the Aerosmith girl before this. Right? And yeah, she needed that one more,

and that was what clueless was. Well, let's take it all the way back. Let's jump into this shit because we have so much to talk about. And really start with Amy Heckerling, who wrote and directed this fantastic film. Amy Hackerling, born in the Bronx in 1954, to a bookkeeper mother and an accountant father. She had a Jewish upbringing, and both of the parents were working full time.

She had to, essentially, she referred to herself as a latchkey kid that sat at home all day watching TV. She said, films were my babysitter. My parents both worked. They'd leave me at one grandparent in Brooklyn and one grandparent upstairs in the Bronx, and I would just watch old movies constantly. my two first loves were James Cagney and Speedy Alka-Seltzer, which I guess was a commercial campaign at that time. So she ends up becoming more financially successful,

or her family does rather, and they moved to Queens where Heckerling felt very out of place at her new high school, which I'm sure is what the Britney Murphy character is kind of based on, to the point where she enrolled in the high school art in the high school of art and design in music. And by the way, I'm going to plan a bunch of seeds, through here that are just all show up in Clueless.

Like there's so many little elements of her getting into the industry, all these little things, you know, I'll go ahead and just say failing her driver's test five times when she moved to L.A. All of these things are in the DNA of Clueless. Heckling said at the time, this is where she discovers the actual concept of making movies. She said there was this small group of boys that were talking about making films like three of them. And I was so insanely jealous. It hit me that I was insanely jealous because who told them they could do that. Movies were these magical things that came from somewhere out of your TV set.

And who said they were allowed to pick up cameras? My family didn't even have a still camera. In other words, just an actual photo camera. This was going back before everybody had cameras with them 100% of the time. I was 14 when these guys were doing that. And she also talks about how there was this shitty kid Sue sat next to her that copied off of her all the time. And they did this project where it was like,

what do you want to be when you grow up? And he wrote film director. and she actually wrote Mad Magazine, I think artist or article writer. And she looked up and she was like, this fucking asshole is going to be a film director. Oh, hell, no. That's another reason why I love Amy Heckerling so much is that she, she's not as in your face about it either,

what you really love is that she is a very feminist film director that while she was growing up, she thought over and over again that there was no way that she could ever really be a film director because she was a woman. Well, there were barely any at that time. At that time, it was still started, which is insane because honestly, it wasn't that long ago. No.

That this was the case. And she says later on that as a female, you can't just say, I think I want to explore. You're always trying to figure out how to just stay in the game. What I may have felt like doing, what I wound up doing, aren't exactly the same thing. You develop a number of projects, and it's not always the right ones that gets made. So this is something that she will struggle with. still she still struggles with it. She talks about how even when she already had a name with Fast Times and all this sort of thing,

it was still hard as a woman to just get her own concepts and ideas over, even with a resume that was undeniable. And I think that was very true probably. And her stamp on Fast Times at Ridgemont High, she's also the director of Fast Times, which we'll talk about. Yes. If you've never seen that movie, please watch it. It is one of the best teen movies of all time.

It was before we were even alive. It was made, I believe. And it's still so funny, so poignant. So it's got, like, it's edgy, but it's like edgy in a fun way. Uh-huh. There's an abortion in it. That movie is nuts. That movie is like, hey, it's so good.

It's this like fun, kooky, high school comedy. And then all of a sudden it's just like abortion and just sexual assault. You're like, what the fuck? The movie really just addresses things that teenagers actually deal with in a lighthearted way. Because it was based on. real shit because it was based on a real series of articles where this grown man went undercover in high school in L.A. and fucking got all this girl and crazy stuff. Well, it was based on the life too of Cameron Crow, right? Yeah, Cameron Crow. Yeah. Yeah. She said after doing as much research

as I could, I realized that I would die if I didn't get into NYU, which is such a comment. I feel like feeling. And I was there. I got, and then I got into it and I still didn't do it. You know why? Because that shit is expensive. It's so expensive. Yeah, that was the whole thing. I auditioned. but my parents were even like, I don't think we're going to be on fucking afford this shit. Speaking of parents, her father definitely opposed for her passion for film, but he did give her a book that really changed things around for her

as a young person with an interest in film. It's called Classics of the Foreign Film, a pictorial legacy by Parker Tyler. It just had a ton of different foreign movies. She would check them off as she watched them. She watched so many different ones. And that's, so that's where we get. And this you see a lot, I think,

with early on film students. She is getting a huge love for bizarre, abstract foreign movies. She said, oh, my God, how is it possible that you could just slit somebody's eyeball and that's a movie? It was just the coolest thing ever. So I wanted to do things like that. Of course, that's a reference to Unchin Angeloo by Salvador Dali. Did you guys like, did you all see that in college?

Yes, I definitely did. I took a class in college. I will never forget that image. No, it's in there. Yeah. And this is, what I dig to is that she is someone that, and we will see this later on, not only with the fashion of Clueless, but also with Clueless, the musical, is that her love of old movies also really infiltrated her idea of what fashion is.

And that is something that she has brought with her to, whether in a large way or in a small way, she's brought it to most of her movies because she has an eye for fashion, but particularly classic fashion that is updated. And that's what's really important. almost in a timeless way. Yes. And you can kind of poo-poo fashion. I'll poo on it.

No, don't poop it. I'm gonna poo on it. A lot of people want to poop on it, but it really does shape the world that you're watching. And even if you don't know it directly, subconsciously, it really can change how you feel about a movie. If the wardrobe and the fashion is kind of bullshit, it's not as an enticing a movie most of the time.

Right, right, right. So going back to this like abstract part-time her life. She's making these bizarre little two-minute movies and at one point decided she said, I don't remember what the movie was, but I was trying to be funny instead of surrealistic. And people laughed instead of looking at me like, you're nuts. That was a very nice feeling. So that's the turning point. She ends up going to NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, but she had to take out a huge loan for it. And I just wanted to throw that tidbit in for all those people out there who are suffering or have suffered through the same thing. She also was stressed.

the fuck out about paying up the off this loan all through her twillers. It's forever. It's a forever stress. Yeah. It's another timeless thing. Right. But while there, she made a musical. And it was apparently because NYU was going broke.

The musical was about kids doing a kind of like, it was like 70s bell bottom kids, but talking and singing like they were out of a 1930s movie. It was really nutty, really weird, but it did win the festival at the college. She was super excited. And that's actually what brought her to the American Film Institute. where she continued to study, along with her friend Martin Brest, of course. Please, Jackie.

And Natalie, you're the one. That's a rough one to grow up. It must have been. It's like John Coffey, though. It's not spelled the same way. No, that doesn't matter. No, it certainly doesn't matter. So Martin Brest directed Beverly Hills Cop,

Midnight Run, sin of a woman, and they were big colleagues for a while, learned a lot from each other. And yeah, they're in L.A., but this is the thing. I loved this quote. I immediately thought of Jackie. I immediately thought of every friend I've ever had who made a big transition, especially when you are born and raised in New York City.

I've talked to people who are born and raised in New York, lived there the whole life, and then they try to move to L.A. after having some success here, and it is always death, at least for the first, like, year or two. She said, I felt so horrible my first couple of years in L.A. I didn't drive. I failed the driver's test five times. I was completely at the mercy of any of my friends who had cars,

which makes you feel like an infant, right, Jackie? Yes. After being a 13-year-old on the subway going any place you want to suddenly being 20 and being like a prisoner, that sucked. Yes. I had no idea that the weather was the way it was. I had two pairs of corduroy pants. I get there and I go, oh my God, I had experienced heat,

but this was like horrible dry, rip your skin off going crazy heat. Well, it's the same thing, too. Talk about fashion. We're coming here. where everything I owned was black. And then you're walking down the street and you stick out like a sore throat. I still wear all black. I mean, I still wear all black.

There's definitely a contingent of Los Angeles goths. Yes. Yes. But it has its own, like you're even wearing Natalie like a cheetah print thing that I feel like still works in L.A. even if it's a little gothie, right? I'm currently wearing a cheetah print onesie and a black fanny pack for anybody's wearing. It's a pretty sick outfit. But that makes that worse.

I have not put on anything about onesies this week. I love it, nice. Joy. I love it. Yeah. And so, yeah, her first studio gig was lip syncing, it was an editing gig, lip syncing dailies for a TV show. Then she makes her first film called Getting It Over With.

I really want to watch this. Have you guys seen this? No, I haven't. It is about a girl trying to lose her virginity before she turns 20. Very much a very autobiographical. Autobiographical, is that right? Yeah, very much autobiographical for her. She definitely dealt with this as well.

and Cher will also deal with this in Clueless. She graduates from AFI with an MFA and shortly after gets into a car crash with a drunk driver that gives her mild amnesia and then she gets fired from her editing drug because she couldn't find some of the footage that she had. This is insane. You know what I will say that at least of things that have updated in our time,

thank God that you can't get fired because you get amnesia and can't find something. Seriously, it's crazy that that has. happened. And a big part of getting it over with is that she, as she was like going through the car crash, one thought in her head, she had literally submitted the final print of that movie right before the car crash. And in her head was like, at least I got that movie in. At least I got it in. Wow, that sucks. Yeah, it's kind of amazing. So she holds a screening of getting it over with, and she refers to this as one of the best days of her life.

It gets a great response, and Warner Brothers and other studios are interested in her. They ask her specifically, though, to write and direct a project that ended up falling apart between different studios. Stop being for this one before, L.A. showbiz people. You know, I'm proud of it is. Oh, I've been there.

I have fucking been there, too. It's so many hours wasted. on 70 scripts. A man named Art Linson though does give her the script for Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which was based on a real account of a guy named Cameron Crow going undercover at a high school to find out what the kids were really like. He was a writer for Rolling Stone. Is this Cameron Crow, Cameron Crow? Cameron Crow? Okay. So she gets the script and she's like, you know what? There's a bunch of bullshit in here and actually goes and reads the Cameron Crow book and then puts her own umph in it, totally like rewrites it makes it so much more real so much more raw and less Hollywood.

It really is. It's just such a genuine movie. Yes. And it's not at all. I think maybe there's a stereotype that like a female director can only make girly movies and it's not girl. So not girly. But it's got it like connects to both boys and girls in the movie and I really really love that movie. I got to show it to Henry for the first time. Oh cool. His first time? Wow. Yeah. Yeah. It is interesting and we of course talk about how it's also in a tonally an anomaly a little bit. It just jumps in these different ways, but it does as a whole feel like high school, feel like real and capturing a thing in a way that reminds you of John Hughes, of an adept who's able to connect with the youngies. But I will say, I'm going to go ahead and say that it's a little less sexist than

some of the John Hughes stuff where the girls are just as fucked up and weird and dirty as the guys on. Although I will say I did originally watch Fast Times because of Phoebe Kate's press and that's because I was upset with Drop Dead Press. I mean, she's fucking hot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right? For sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just deal with it. So, yeah, of course, fast times, much like Clueless, huge launching off point for a bunch of careers of young stars like Phoebe Kates and Jennifer Jason Lee. And then this leads to a slew of comedy hits, National Ampoons Your Fan Vacation. Who Cannot Forget the Look Who's Talking Series? I mean, I love the look who's talking to you personally.

I do, well, the, not the dog ones. Yeah, not the dog one. You know, I got even like the dog ones. I definitely watch the dog one a lot. She did the first two, I believe. Yes, and where she is standing at this point, actually, is, even though you would think that this is at the top of her game, she's hit a lot of ups and downs and ups and downs,

and even in all of this success. You can't get a break in this industry. After the look who's talking films, two women filed a $20 million, lawsuit against TriStar, alleging that Heckerling had plagiarized their student film about a talking baby. The studio eventually settled. Yeah, what an original concept.

No one's ever thought of that before. No, and at the time, even Heckerling was like, no, no, me and I don't know if his husband or partner, but me and my partner were just making sounds as if the baby were talking, which is why she wrote the movie. And so apparently Heckerling is still legally barred from talking about the story.

suit, but still recalls the year and a half long legal battle as a time of deep emotional exhaustion. So this is right before she writes his TV pilot. She says, I was very bummed out. When I should have finally had a moment of feeling good, it immediately turned to crap. I got to say, I don't think she copied them. But I feel as though I would be too embarrassed to take the lawsuit to court going, I wrote a movie about a baby and the baby talks.

The baby makes sounds. The baby makes people sounds. Also, getting into, so now we're getting into the making of Clueless. And it is a windy Hollywood story road of just misses and hits to try to actually get this to be a film called Clueless. Originally, it is Fox hitting up Caccarling to write a TV show about popular kids in a Cali high school. And it was originally ended up being called No Worries. I think that's after she added that layer of positivity. but heckling was just like, she thought,

I'll do it if I can make fun of them because she was kind of sick of doing teen stuff at that point. So we developed this script. It was a pilot for a TV show, and she thought, what have I ever done that seem to have worked? And what kind of characters do I like seeing? I like Spicoli a lot.

Everybody loves Spiccoli for fast time to reach right eye. No, I love Spicoli, is what she said. That optimism fascinated me, and she wanted to write about someone that was the opposite of herself, someone that didn't think about how hard something might be and instead see everything with rose-colored glasses. Of course, Fox passes on it.

But actually, why did Fox pass on it? Heckerling was being encouraged by Fox to focus more heavily on the male characters. Am I right? To do that. Men. And as well, which I do think is kind of fun, is that the whole pseudo-incestuous romance

with Cher's stepbrother Josh also raised some red flags with executives. and Hickrlings says about it, that was so silly. They were going, how can you have sex with your stepbrother? And it's like, they're not related. Their parents were briefly married and Cher's father is still nice to Josh. That's not verboten, you know? It is a funny, it's a funny thing, but it's technically not a crime.

And we'll get into that with the, since it's based on the novel Emma, of why it was that she wrote it as such. And so Vox didn't make the movie, so they moved the script over to Paramount. And she pretty much, I mean, she doesn't pretty much, she says the reason why is because of Scott Rudin. Yes. That's the only way that it got picked up by Paramount is because he was the one that was able to get her into the rooms. If he's connected to something, he, it's like, what is Rudin? I don't have it in front of me, but he has made a million fucking amazing movies.

It's ridiculous. I've done episodes of, where's in the bruiser where I've mentioned him. I think we've done episodes where we've mentioned him. He is just... He's everywhere. He's a great producer. But yeah, I don't know the exact order of Vince. There's another filthy man that was involved in keeping this thing afloat. Because actually, it was a filthy show.

No, we love penises. We love it on the show. We do. There was also, she switched agents. And this one agent was like, I'm gonna, you should, this is great. We got to keep working on this. And I know at one point, I don't know the exact order of Vince, but there is an agent switch that keeps her on the project.

Then I think that's who convinces Foxx. That's what happened at this time. Okay. Fox TV then sells the project to Fox movies, but then it moves over to Paramount when Scott Rudin comes in. Now, I'd like to do a brief aside about the novel Emma, because this is like kind of one-to-one in ways I never realized. I remember seeing, did you guys see the Emma, not the most recent one, but the other one that came out with. With Guinez Palatro. Yeah, I saw that one, I think, in the movie theater.

I remember enjoying it, but I did not realize that they were the same thing. I never saw it. Did you guys read much Jane Austen even? It was not something that was on my rotation, no. I wasn't really into it. I mean, I have definitely read and seen sense and sensibility, but it's not real. Sense and so, I'm more of a Bronte girl.

If you want to fucking get down to it, I'm more of a Bronte bitch. So, so Emma by Jane Austen, this is a protagonist who is also very positive and very rich. And Jane Austen starts the novel writing. is a perfect descriptor of share. I am going to take a heroin whom no one but myself will much like and describes Emma as handsome, clever, and rich

with a comfortable home and a happy disposition and had lived nearly 21 years in the world with very little to distress or vex her. I think that is a perfect description of share. Emma is spoiled, stubborn, self-satisfied, and happily meddles in other people's lives. Definitely loves playing matchmaker. These are the similar plot points

I picked out. Emma persuades a girl Harriet to not marry a poor farmer, the skater boy, in favor of Mr. Elton, even pulls the name. The same name, which is a perfect name for him. Right, and he's a, also though, Elton, Lexi mentioned, you know,

they make the joke that Dion and Cher are both like old pop stars. Yeah. Elton. Elton John. Yes. Yeah. So Mr. Elton is a social client.

who thinks Emma likes him leading to Harriet's heartbreak. And that whole plot point is in there. There's also Emma's... Even down to the fact that you know how he has the photograph in his locker, the one that she took. They do the same thing in the book as well, but with a painting that she did. That's so funny.

So other sim, you also have Emma's sister's brother-in-law. It's a little different in there. His name is Mr. Knightley. He, of course, approves of Emma's choices and doesn't like the new guy in town. Frank Churchill, which of course is... Who's Christian. Yes, Christian. There is also a ball scene with...

Please, guys. Martin Breast. You did it. At the ball, Mr. Knightley asked Harriet to dance after being snubbed by Mr. Elton, which leads Harriet to think that they have a thing going on. Did they have a ska band at the ball?

Yeah, I wish. Oh, my God. I love... I forgot that money, money boss tones. Ew, what Jeff referred to them as, man, I didn't know the tones were in. And I was like, yuck, yuck, get away for me. I was going to never refer to the Mike Monsters as the toes. I was going to text to you guys and ask if we could do a pop history

just on the guy that just dances in the band. Yes. Sure. Yeah, let's do it. I wish I had that job. Right? I need to know where he is. I need to know, I hope he's doing well.

So, yeah, and also, of course, Emma and Mr. Knightley end up together. That is all I have on Emma. Of course, there's a new Emma out, too, if you want to check it out. Yeah, and it's supposed to be good. Pretty good. There's no, in the book, there's no reference to him being gay, right? Well, no, but he is betrothed to another. Yes.

So this is, it is the same as with where she uses the sister's brother-in-law as Mr. Knightley for Josh, is that she was trying to think of updated ways of which that both of them, that one of them didn't and should not have been with her, which is went from someone that was married into a gay man. And then with Josh's character. They change it into her sister's brother-in-law, since that is a little further off that she wanted to make it. But back in the Emma times, that was still too close. It was not something that they should have done.

So she wanted to make it a more updated version of risque without it being, like, without it being completely unconscionable. Is that the word? Or like gross. Yes, yeah. I think it simplifies a little bit, too. There's something about sisters brother-in-law that is a little... And she doesn't have any siblings in it, so it was a way of trying to make it a more updated thing. Because even as a kid, I never thought there was anything wrong with it.

It was a flash-in-the-pan marriage. Well, they intro his character with them talking about how you were barely married to his mom. That was five years ago. Yeah, why are you even still around? Right. But I mean, can we say, I know that gush is usually atop. But can we say, oh, my God, that character, when I was young, young, hachi, machi,

you get me, oh yeah, reading the Nietzsche by the pool, are you kidding me? With the little goatee. Is that, are you to that part? With his complain music, that was, complain rock, that was what was

Complain rock. Oh my God, I can't wait to talk about that with the soundtrack, but we'll get into that. So what I also love is that this, with the novel Emma, as well as in the movie, that when Jane Austen had first written it, this was the beginning of the idea in the literature world of the free indirect discourse,

which is essentially that keeps you, the viewer, and the reader, from knowing all of the character's secrets. So this is a big thing that she also brought over from the book, Emma, is that we are following Sharon her inner monologue the entire time. So we only know, we're not omniscient as the watcher. We only know what the character knows. And that was another huge part of Emma that was brought into Clueless. Hell yeah. So going back to the script, I am jealous of this quote from Amy Heckerling because I don't feel that I've ever felt this way about writing a script.

She says, sometimes you're working on things and you think, oh, I have to write this or I'd better look at my notes. And other times you just want to. That was how I felt writing share. I just wanted to be in that world and in her mindset. I don't know if I've ever been that like a script writing process has been that easy for me. But I get it because she's writing this uber positive character. And I think that that, I mean, I think, we're all dealing with that right now, especially in these times where it's like, we're getting lost in these super positivity things and we're maybe stepping more away from like the more difficult type of mediums, right? It's why Clueless is so perfect. And I think she definitely got lost in that. And as she is writing this part, this character share, she had Alicia Silverstone in mind because

those, oh, those Aerosmith music videos for cry. By the way, all the songs sound the same. Crying, amazing, and crazy. There were three videos that starred her. and Liv Tyler. And the singer's daughter. Yes, which was creepy and weird. Yeah, it's a little, you know, it's not the air. Definitely more creepy than you falling in love with your ex-stepbrother. So she, referring to Silverstone and crying, she says, the one where the guy steals her purse,

I just saw her and went, oh my God, look at her. She is like a kid. She is adorable. You feel for her. She is beautiful. Her performance in the video, I believed everything. I just went crazy for her. So when I handed the script in, by that,

time the crazy video was out and I videotaped it. I gave it to the studio and said think of this girl when you read it and they said oh live Tyler and I went no meanwhile my friend with the casting director was saying you've got to see this girl in the crush well it's the same girl I do I do remember when I saw Clueless in the theater I was it was one of those first times you go with all a parent hell yeah I have a very distinct memory of the trailer for Empire Records playing before Clueless. Hell yeah. We're going to do an episode on that.

Lit Tyler vehicle. Followed by Alicia Silverstone. They weren't really the it girls of those couple years. Oh yeah, and I know why. You know what? It's all in the lips. Oh, yeah. Lushes.

Mamma me. So are you a Livet Tyler type of gal or you Alicia Silverstone type of gal? Or better yet, are you Mighty Mighty Boston's type of gal or are you a Gwar type of gal? More of a live, honestly. I'm definitely more of a live. Of people I wanted to be with.

Yes. People, well, the boys were much cuter to me in Empire Records. I was obsessed with Ethan Embry's family. Yeah, but Donald Faison. See, now as an adult, I'm way more into Donald Faison. Totally. But he definitely had, he needed to get braces, I'm just going to say. Yeah, I mean, he didn't get right, you know, he was young.

He was young. It was cute. We are young. We are FAPE. So for all of the high school kids speak, I loved learning about this because it is so all over the place. And Lexi turns to me while we were watching, he was just like, I learned so many slang words from the bomb, the whatever, the as if. There's so many little buzzwords that you as a kid learned for the very first time.

And she pulled from so many different places. But one thing she pulled from was a slang dictionary because, of course, this is before the internet. There's no urban dictionary. And then also she would ask her quote, I just wrote her fellow teens about things. She said it depends on the context. But at that time, there were a lot of wonderful words. and it wasn't just like, oh, it's teen slang. Because teen slang can have urban slang.

It can have rich kids slang. It can have things that come up out of prison, things that come from the gay community. Any group that wants to separate themselves is going to form a secret language. That's always been the way. Like Cockney, that's an awesome secret language. So I was compiling lists,

and of course, not everybody would use the same words. She was so into it. So you brought up the book that she was so into reading, and apparently that she still has, has it on hand of a 1995 linguistic study that she also uses a reference point for Clueless because she's very into getting the slang, tone, cadence, accents of people. I know that we'll get into the fact that she would actually go to Beverly Hills High School to get into it. And I think what's interesting that I wouldn't even think about, she said that now is an updated thing.

And I'm talking about currently, this is an interview of not that long ago. She realizes that what she did with Clueless, it wouldn't be able to be done. anymore the way that it was back then because teen slang has changed to a point that it's all in how it's written as opposed to how it's spoken and I wouldn't even think about that. Totally and also you'd be put on a

sex offender registry never been kissed which she did also do or no no no Mona May did which is amazing but it makes sense which like BTW and OMG it's fine when it's written but when someone says it out loud it's like why bother when oh my God is the same amount of syllables. I was really, I was certain that they had made some of those slangs up,

because I had never heard them anywhere else. Like the jeepin one. You jeepin? You been jeepin? I love jeepin. I know she got as if from her gay friends. That was like one she pulled from the gay community. So it's just a big melting pot of like amazing. And it does create its own language, but yet you still fully understand it. Also, this is Jackie with the part where we're going to talk about how she wrote the parts of Stacey Dash and Donald Faisant's character. Dianna Maria based on her Jewish parents. Her parents, which is then now in watching it, because they do use Yiddish words and the way that they go at each other like that,

it makes so much more sense now. I'm convelling. She said they fight over nothing. If they're in a car together, they're yelling over how to get some place. And I thought it would be funny if they were using Yiddish words. Also, that's that part where she's like, there are numbers, the top of the map. Like, all I see are letters. He just goes,

ooh. That's funny. So, that scene is also as someone that recently went onto the freeway for the first time. And I, as I was turned, I realized that I was turning onto the freeway. And I was in the car with,

Eddie Larson's fiance, Julie, and I looked over, I was like, I've ever been on the freeway, unfortunately, it's going to be fine, it's going to be fine. I was just, I was literally going, ah, ah, as I got onto the freeway. bunch of bikers drive around.

They may as well have. I definitely got honked at because I was scared to get into the traffic for sure. Lex and I were cackling during that scene and she even said, like, I can't believe, I don't, I didn't remember how funny this was. This is like such a good. So funny. Genuine laughter. A movie I've probably seen at least 10 times and watching it again, I'm like just cracking

up the whole time. Also, I do love is that in an interview, Heckerling was asked what her favorite line that she's the most proud of writing is. And she said, I guess in a goofy way, I've always been proud of, it does not say RSVP on the Statue of Liberty. And I've always loved that. I was like, hell yeah, good for her that she really was like, know what, that's gold.

That's solid. So, of course, you also have another different type of speak with Christians' dialogue because he's based on the way Frank Sinatra spoke in the 50s and the rat pack and all that. She said, I thought we will give him his own language. that even those who speak slang say, what the hell is he talking about? I was just having a lot of fun with that. And of course, the famous,

you're a virgin who can't drive speech, came from her own struggle, feeling like the last American virgin. And also, when she was younger, mixed with her failing her driver's test five different times when she moved to LA. They really should give you guys some alternative way to learn to drive in New York.

Right. I always forget, it's so weird that you guys never really get the opportunity. to drive a car. That or it's a nightmare. Like my sister, who I remember when we were kids, we sat in the back because Henry,

our older sister is 13 and 10 years older than us, respectively of me and Henry. And when she was taking her driver's test in New York, and it's a nightmare to drive in New York. Henry and I both were in the backseat of my mom's caravan, and we had helmets on. And we screamed the entire time as she was trying to practice and something.

That's good practice. It is great practice. And my mom's like, just don't listen to them. Just don't listen to them. Just don't listen to them. Just don't listen. She's like, well, you shut that fuck up. Shut that fuck up.

Which, yeah. That's what I go practice. Yeah, it's practice for you. I also want to throw in this quick anecdote before we get into the casting and whatnot. The this is, what is the name of the brand? Alia. Alea. This is a liar?

During the muggy. When he's like, get on the ground and she complains about the label. We live. Right, by that location. We live very close to that. We pass it every day and it looks exactly the same. By the way. So apparently she was sitting with some agents and they told her a story of another agent they know

who essentially got together with this woman. They married and she started dressing them up and all these fancy suits. And all of a sudden he's kind of like doing the thing where he's like just kind of doing that for her. And he gets robbed a gunpoint at one point and he was told to get in the ground. He actually said, but this is Armani. And it doesn't seem like he was more afraid of his wife's wrath. Then he was a man with a gun. This is also a fun quote about,

this is from Mona May, who's the costume designer. She said, they gave Alicia Silverstone a mark where she could stand, and we stood right around the mark and cleaned the pavement. We were licking it practically.

They weren't going to be any black tar marks on that dress for sure because they borrowed the Alliah dress. And the designer didn't know we were going to do that. It was amazing because we had unknown actors in the film, and you could say you were doing,

a fashion movie, but it doesn't really mean anything. So we were very lucky to get the designer pieces we could. So that was an actual alliah dress that she didn't know was going to get on the ground. So I looked on the ground too, because I had seen this quote before I rewatched it. And it's the cleanest spot of sidewalk that you could probably find in that grows parking lot. Oh yeah, that parking lot's not been cleaned since that shoot. It's yuck. So here we go.

Let's get into the casting. shoutouts first of all to two different casting directors. First you have Carrie Frazier. She was the one over at Fox. She had actually started casting it, but then it got moved over when Scott Rudin signed on and Marsha Ross completed it. Carrie Frazier, she did the 90s little women, which is an incredible cast. She did leaving Las Vegas. Marsha Ross did 10 Things I Hate About You and the Princess Diaries and a bunch of other credits. They're both just really good at filling out like teen ensembles, filling out these like female driven films and things like that, and they just knock it out of the park. One of my biggest things watching the movie, again, was just how fucking

amazing, everything of one of these people are, and almost all of them had no, barely anything behind them. So it's just such a huge, incredible ensemble cast that came out of nowhere. Alicia Soversone, of course, the first one to get involved, she said, I remember when I read the script the first time thinking, oh, she's so materialistic that I was judging Cher, instead of being delighted by her. I remember thinking, this is so funny and I'm not funny. But once I was playing her, I just had so much fun being her. I loved how seriously she took everything. That's essentially how I played it. I felt like that was who Cher was. She was so sincere and so serious and that's what I think makes her so ridiculous and lovely all the time. It's kind of like

the airplane movies and Leslie Nielsen. Like playing it super straight is always way funnier than trying to be goofy and silly. And when they talk about the casting process, they really wanted to bring in an actual teen, which Alicia Silverstone was 17 at the time. And she had, she was right on the cusp of womanhoodish, kind of, but she was still a kid. And she has that really charming innocence about her. And actually in that scene where she's giving the debate speech, where she talks about partying with the Hadesian's. She actually missed it. She just says Haitians naturally. And they were like, oh, my God, nobody tell her. That's not the way to say. Apparently, Heckerling had to like block the script person.

from running up to her and telling her that that was the wrong way to say it so that she would keep the off-fitting moment. So apparently, Heckerling also confirms that Reese Witherspoon was the other closest contender to playing Cher. She said, she had such a strong personality and sense of self, but she would have had to act

share. Alicia was share. Right. See, I bring this up specifically because actually this morning, I saw, because there's that news show out called Little Fires Everywhere, and they had an interview with Reese Witherspoon and Carrie Washington, who are the leads in it. And Reese Witherspoon was talking about this.

And Carrie Washington was like, wait a second, I was also really close to being Dion. And she's like, maybe this is like, maybe we were supposed to work together at some point in our career because Reese Witherspoon had no idea that she was also very close to playing Dion, which I was like, that's kind of a fun revelation. Yes, just a little background on Silverstone before we move on. Born and raised in California, she began modeling when she was just six years old. and got her first acting role in a domino's pizza commercial and her first TV show gig.

I totally remember this. I totally had, I totally fell in love with her in this as a young kid. The Wonder Years as Kevin's high school dream girl. And I do kind of remember that. What? Really? Yeah. She was on the Wonder Years?

Oh, yeah. Oh, shit. We should do Wonder Years, by the way. Okay. That'd be fun. I love this quote from, from Frazier, about the cast, about her approach. Kelsey Grammer?

Yes. Duh. She said, so much of casting a, is about catching the actor or actress at the right time in their life. And even though you end up going, so-and-so can do the role, there was something about Alicia that was a little bit younger and a little bit more naive in a way that we felt was really the right girl.

I brought in Brittany Murphy. She was just so similar again to the character. She was really sweet. Brittany Murphy, Adam Schroeder said, Britney Murphy came in and she was such a standout. She naturally had a funny spirit, which was great, because Alicia had a different kind of comic spirit. She had a much more sardonic thing.

And the chemistry between the two of them was really lovely, referring to her actually in Breckenmeyer. Of course, she also had great chemistry with Alicia Silverstone. Murphy grew up in New Jersey, but moved, she did a T-Swift. Her mother, she got her mother to move her to L.A. to pursue acting during her high school years. And she'd been training and singing, dancing, and acting since she was just four years old. Before Clueless, she did a bunch of TV work on shows like Blossom. I had to write this down because I loved this show and I just want to bring it up.

Parker Lewis can't lose, which is like, do you guys remember that one? I don't know. I don't know that show. I love Parker Lewis. I don't remember the show, but I remember the title. It was like kind of a Ferris Bueller essentially. Ooh, okay. And Heckerling said when I met Brittany, I was like, I love her.

I want to take care of her. She was just so bouncy and giggly and just so young. I mean, when you saw her, you just smiled, which is actually kind of sad in hindsight. So next, they have the role of jubly. Josh, Heckerling had the Beastie Boy Adam Horowitz in mind when she wrote the role. And Marsha Ross, now Marsha Ross has taken over for Carrie Frazier. Carrie Frazier was so sad to have to let go of this project, by the way. It really bummed her out.

But Marsha Ross brings in Paul Rudd. Mostly raised in Kansas, Rudd went to on to study theater at the University of Kansas before moving to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. And then the British American Drama Academy in Oxford. Jackie, calm down. a total like theater smoke show he is if you listen to the behind the scene stuff from that time

he is such a fucking dork yeah he's such a dork he looks like such a dork which is why I let him well apparently too the whole thing was when he first came in and met Amy Heckerling he made like a corny Shakespeare joke about like preparing his monologue and she legitimately laughed at it and that's like how the two of them hit it off so yeah he's a total theater nerd He gets his first acting role in 1992 on the TV drama Sisters

and then on the TV show Wild Oates for six episodes in 94. But that was it! And you're going to see this over and over again. If you've noticed, barely any credits so far for any of these actors. Let's move on to the role of Travis. This one came down actually to Seth Green, which does not surprise me at all. Does make sense. And Brecken Meyer.

Meyer went to the same elementary school as Drew Barrymore, and apparently they shared their first kiss. Oh my God, that's cute. Man, Breck and Meyer and Seth Green are, they've been battling for the short boy in the movie parts. Short stoner boy, yes. Yes. Since they were little kids. Yeah, yeah. I mean, remember Can't Hardly Wait?

That's another one I would love to. Oh, my God. I love that movie. Yeah, for sure. And so Meyer was spotted by Drew Barrymore's agent in elementary school and was signed just mainly to do commercial work throughout his childhood, though he does later start getting typecast in, druggy dude rolls with stuff like Freddy's dead, the final nightmare, and all sorts of things.

Oh my God. Remember, I forgot how funny it was when he looks at his report card and gets up to try and jump out the first story window. And that's again, just another one of those jokes where it's like, that's, that's ridiculous. It's very funny. Chef's Kiss. Stacey Dash, the oldest member of this ensemble cast. She claims she knew the part was hers when she read the sides they sent and went in and

killed it while having great chemistry with Silverstone. Stacey Dash was born in the Bronx and went to high school in New Jersey, got her first TV gig in 1982. It was a failed pilot and a few years later was in an episode of the Cosby Show. Boo! Weird and weirdly booing it in hindsight at 19. She goes on to play parts in various TV and films. It's not the Cosby Show's fault.

Oh, it's in the DNA of it. And she does some TV and films, but this is really her big breakout role. Heckerling said, in my brain, Dianne was like royalty. I love this quote, by the way. I wanted someone that felt like they were part of a royal family in some country somewhere. So they weren't acting snotty. They were just in a different realm. Stacey had that. She didn't have to act like I'm a snotty bitch. She just had that feeling of power and grace as though she was ready to wave the wave to the public. And I think you get that again. Fine line here. Like she could be such a hateable character and she kills

it. No, she's so great. So charming. Stacey dashes a a human, it makes me a little bit sad now. Yeah, I know. Man, she's just so, so beautiful in that movie. Still is. And charming. And just so charming. So, like, she really found that balance between being such like a, a C word.

A corn ball. A corn ball. Yeah, corn ball. It's cornball. Also, she is, yeah, she's in her late 20s when she gets the world. 28. I also love that on her Wikipedia, it's, it's, it's, It's kind of like the Murray-I-Carry thing.

They don't know exactly how old she is. She's either like 56 or 57 at this point. Yeah, they're like, she won't tell it. No, just 49 forever. So actually, Dave Chappelle was super up for the role of Murray, but of course it goes. Oh, that would have been great. I know, right? But Donald Faison is amazing in this movie.

Oh, yeah. I mean, he's perfect. Every moment he is in this movie, he is like stealing the scene. He is making you laugh. So it makes so much sense that he would go on to have a great career, of course, with Sproul. Also, it makes sense because the heckerling had said he was just amazing, talking about Dave Chappelle for the role. He was just amazing. He was such a mensch, but I needed somebody who was a really innocent, goofy kid.

And that is what Donald Faison is a thousand percent. I've heard him talk to about, because he was about 18 when they were shooting this. And just talking about how intimidated he was, he was going to have to make out with this beautiful 28-year-old. He said, I remember when. And they called me and told me I got the part and me telling all my friends that I was going to be kissing Stacey Dash and them chasing me around the complex that I live there. That's so cute. And yeah, he had only done a minor commercial and TV work up to that point. And then you have Jeremy Sisto is next.

He read for a few different parts before getting help. And this makes so much sense because I've been watching six feet under. And I haven't looked up. I haven't looked into him. And I was like, that's why I knew immediately that this motherfucker was going to be a creep azoid. is because of Clueless because he plays a creepy, well, he plays a dude with a very rough

mental illness in 60s. Yeah, he's more dushy and clueless, but still, I think he gravitates more to the villain. He said, I decided to read for Elton because I thought he was funny. It just seemed like more fun to do the more extreme character, like the worst of the bunch, as opposed to the romantic guy. So, yeah, I think

he was originally up for the other. Yeah, he kills him. And he had done, he did some films, he did Grand Canyon starring Calvin Klein and Steve Martin in 1991. Actually, he first appeared, his first appearance is in the Twisted Sister music video. We're not going to take it in 1984.

Whoa. All right. So actually, actually, but actually, motherfucking Sarah Michelle Geller was originally cast as Amber. Unfortunately, and fuck you all my children, all my children wouldn't release her for just two weeks to go do the movie, and they put their

foot down on it, so they dropped her and picked up Alyssa Donovan, who had studied acting at the new school in NYC, then moved to LA in 94 and got her first acting gig on again. Blossom. We also have to do an episode on Blossom, y'all. Adam Schroeder said, I remember she reminded us of Anne Margaret.

It's an old school reference, but she had this kind of sexy ginger beauty. She got the wit and cynicism of Amber. You want her to be one of those characters you love to hate, but you don't really hate her, which I think is a perfect description of that. Yeah, and I'm really, I'm glad they went with a redhead for the weird bitch character, I guess, is what she is.

Yeah, totally. now you have Justin Walker probably the funnest rags to riches story he was in a total rut when he got the role of Christian Marsha Ross said we were having a really tough time casting this and I can understand why off of this quote you had to find a person who kind of was gorgeous that she could have this crush on

but you didn't want oh yeah he's gay he had to be different from the other guys and he was literally working at a bar next to MSG and NYC next to Madison Square Garden in New York City when he had the call with his agent on a fucking pay phone So he was so broke.

And he got the part and he literally just started running down 8th Avenue. That's amazing. And he would have just looked like everyone else around Madison Square Garden because everyone's insane down there.

Yeah, yeah. So they would have just not even noticed him running. I also feel like that was the first instance of a gay character in a comedy that wasn't just like, ha, you know what I mean? Totally. And also, another thing as a child

that I did not pick up on was all the gay reference is like whenever he's not paying attention. Friend of Dorothy? Well, you know, the part, when they're at the club and she's going, look how he's not paying attention to it. All the other girls.

So good. So before we get in, before Jackie takes us on a trip down fashion avenue, I wanted to just end with this very heartwarming quote from Paul Rudd. After the table read, we all went and got a bite to eat. We went to a place not far around the corner

that I used to go to, which was kind of a bar. They probably should not have let some of those kids in. I do remember all of us sitting around saying how cool is it that we're all going to do a movie about kids our own age and having that conversation about the John Hughes movies of our generation. It had been a while since there was one of those. How cool would it be if this thing had legs? Then it kind of did. And I just loved it. Apparently, they all still talk. They sit like, Amy Heckerling had just done an interview last year. Just like, actually, yeah,

I hung out with Paul Rudd a couple weeks ago. We got lunch. It's like, I'd love that they made lifetime connections with each other. Sure. And it makes me really excited. But now, even more exciting, it's time to talk about the fashion. Baja! Oh, clueless. So when Heckerling was writing the clueless script, she knew that the character's clothing would be integral because it would, quote, be one of the areas of comedy,

that the characters would rag on each other's clothing, she had told us. So growing up in New York City, Amy Heckerling, as we know, was not a huge fashionista, but she definitely went to school with some of them. She said, I went to an art and design high school with a lot of people taking fashion. They would get up in the morning and what they put on meant a lot to them.

There was a very creative element to what a young person feels like they can do and wear. I wanted to have fun with it and make it look pretty. So she brought on Mona May, the costume designer, who worked on Clueless as well as never been kissed, the wedding singer, Romeo and Michelle's high school reunion. I mean, the fashion in that marriage. The fashion of these, like this woman knows what she's fucking doing

and she not only worked well with Amy Heckerling, but they had worked together previously on a pilot, which is why Heckerling immediately knew who she wanted to call to work on this movie with her. And that is the mark of a good director. You don't have to be good at every single aspect, but you have to understand when you need other people to fill in those gaps and, like,

I don't know fashion, but I know I need to have this fashion. I need to find the right person. It's exactly like why Tarantino's movie is always like sparkles, because he knows how to get the costume people there, even though he looks like he's been sleeping on a couch. Right. And what's also really cool is that we all know that this is a great,

this is a movie that is great for women. It's great women characters. It's got a female writer and director, but then the costume director, the costume designer is also a woman, and we'll get to it later. The music supervisor is also a woman. And Amy Heckerling knew exactly who she wanted to do

each role in this movie, which what a vision. This is, like, what astounds me about Amy Heckerling is not only is she good at what she does, but she's very good at directing the whole picture, like, as opposed to going in, like, I know what this part's going to look like, but we'll just hire somebody else to do this other shit. It's not my job. Exactly, yeah. But she realizes that all of this is her job.

Right. Exactly. What's cool and what sets Mona Mae apart from some costume designers is that she'd started her career as a fashion designer. So Mona Mae came into this saying I was acting as a fashion designer by trying to create trends. Something very fresh

and new that wasn't really reflected on the streets or in the culture yet. That was so cool because that kind of creativity doesn't usually happen often in a film, especially with fashion. She says, Amy is so into fashion she gets it. The way the film is shot, you see head-to-to-toe outfits

and fuzzy backpacks. We worked it out with the director of photography so you can see the details of the fashion. And she had the idea for the rotating closet. She's just a visionary. Oh, man. And just such a fantasy. And that computer program would be getting.

Yes, the computer program. Which also, now, of course, looks so dated. But when I saw it first, I was like, that's so cool. We'll never get past this technology. This is the end. And just the sheer, watching it again with an eye for it a little bit more, the sheer number of looks in this movie.

is overwhelming. Share has 56 outfit changes in the movie. Insane. Wow. And all of them look so good. Man, I will say, did I want to have a full plaid outfit that would actually make me look good? I don't know if it exists. It might be out there somewhere, but I haven't found it yet.

You can do it. I was completely molded fashion-wise by this movie. And to this day, I still wear clueless. themed clothes. Oh yeah. A lot of thigh high like socks. I wear those still to the day. And we will get into why they are thigh high specifically socks in a minute. Can I just throw into with the Mona May? She, it's strange to me that she's not as synonymous with this movie as say in sex in the city, Patricia Field is part of the storyline. She's like a character in the movie, yeah. She's so well-

known and Mona May isn't really she doesn't even I couldn't find a fucking Wikipedia page she has she has developed the image of so many movies that have been so important in our generation and she doesn't really get recognized the same way for some reason I don't know if it's because she chooses to be more private but it's I think it's a travesty and I don't think she should be hiding and I don't think she should have her privacy no and that's why we are here today celebrating her alongside of even if she doesn't want it no we're We're here. That's what we're doing today. Because both Amy Heckerling and Mona May were at the time horrified by the 90s grunge fashion. And they have a sequence, of course, in the movie that

was perfectly displays why one should be horrified of that fashion. This is what, this quote is great. She says, this is what Amy Heckerling says. I couldn't believe those low riding pants were hanging on as long as they did. You'd look at guys and think, why would I want to see a belt below your tushy and think, ooh, he's cute. I would look at them and go, ugh. Sound familiar? Cue all the young dudes. It was her actual thought of looking at the as if.

Yeah. Because, yeah, your pants are, your pants are falling down. Get away for me. I'm keeping it real. I'm keeping it real. Oh, my God. I love them keeping it real. And apparently...

Holden, please start dressing like that. Please. Oh, my God. Please, please, please. No, I like Christian's looks. Oh, yeah. You want to get a little rat packy with it? Maybe.

Maybe. And I never really thought about this before, but now it makes sense that, so with how they dress, how Cher and Dion would dress, they wanted to incorporate the grunge look into their outfits, but also making it smart, feminine, and flattering, which is why they wore so much plaid. Yeah. Totally. But it was their own style with it.

I never thought about that before because they just assumed since there was no internet at the time that Sharon Dionne would look to runway styles to inform their closets and that they also had the money to fly to European fashion shows to see what was going on overseas. Now this is kind of fun. So it's the over-the-nee socks that are such a huge trend in this movie. So Amy Hackerling said, the one thing that I totally loved and wanted, which was out of style when we did the movie, was over-the-knee socks. Over-the-ksocks remind me of the 1920's silent films. and the stars of the era who wore the rolled down stockings because Amy Hackerling loved classic musicals.

So they sort of referenced that in Cabaret when Liza Minnelli was singing Mine Air. And I love the way she looks in that scene. I guess it's because I hate every other part of my body, but I have thin thugs. And she makes it very clear that chair wears over the knee socks, not knee socks because Hackerling hates knee socks. Well, over the knee socks, they also represent this sort of subtle sexuality where...

Yeah. For sure. I mean, you can obviously just wear thigh highs with, like, lingerie, and it's lingerie. But you can wear over the knee socks and you see... You can be wearing something like relatively conservative on the top, but it's this little, like, image of your thighs and just like... That piece of thigh. You remember the skin under there.

Oh, yeah. And it's such a fun, sexy thing to put an outfit together. Yeah. Although this isn't necessarily closed, but shout-outs to Amber's hair all throughout the movie, which just changes so drastically and amazingly at every shot. I'm like, God, I'm taking eight hours just to give her that hair. And that was their favorite because they knew that Cher and Dion, they wanted them to, for people to be able to watch the movie and be like, I could do that.

I can be them. I can at least have a part of that. But Amber's role was to be a caricature. She was a character of it. And that's where they actually had. the most fun. Hell yeah. It's because she really just let Mona Mae like do whatever the fuck she wanted.

She did a lot of themed outfits. Yes. Because they wanted her, I think, to look a little bit like a cartoon. And she definitely did. Now what I love is that a lot of their, the looks that they had figured out because they didn't have a lot of money for clothing. Which is crazy because they all had a thousand outfits. And that's why.

So they wanted to make each one stand up. stand out. So what Mona Mae did is that they would mix high and low fashion. She said that we had which is still such a rad thing to do. Yes. And so they had high end designers, but they also had mall clothes and they did a lot of thrifting. And then they would alter the clothes to make every outfit seem cohesive and down to the tea that it was organized. You know what I mean? Like she wanted nails to match, the hair to match, the shoes to match, whether you see them in the scene or not. She wanted all of it just in case the DP decided to show all of it. And Mona May does recognize what the movie Clueless did for fashion.

She said it was the first movie really about fashion. And I think what's so amazing is how many women are impacted by that film all over the world. From my friend's daughter who's 17 in Berlin watching Clueless with her friends to women who were in their 40s. One thing that I'm so proud of is that it really touched hearts and it's still being emulated. And there were many others after, like legally blonde. and mean girls, but they never had that same impact because Clueless was the first. No, it's absolutely true.

And what excites me too, and it made me, I've looked at it a lot harder, is that Mona May's favorite outfit in it is the Dulcane-Gabana yellow suit outfit that... The intro one? The intro one, yeah, yeah. Because she wanted Alicia Silverstone to stand out. And what's great, she's like, most people can't pull off yellow the way Alicia could pull off yellow. So it did,

because that's what we all remember. I was even, of course, they did a whole parody for the fancy music video with the, I'm so fancy. Charlie XX and Iggyzalia,

yeah, it's just such an iconic look and vibe. Also, a fun fact about Mona Mae, Clueless was her first feature doing as the costume designer alone, but before that,

she was the assistant costume designer for mom and dad, save the world. Oh, I thought she was. Yeah, Which has some of the craziest wardrobe choices in the entire history of film. You haven't seen that movie. You've got to see it because it's bonkers.

I actually have been watched that in forever and I would like to watch it again. It's on HBO. Hell yeah. And I did want to just bring up real quick, the hats, the hats, the hats. And Amy Hackerling wanted. Have you been shopping with Dr. Seuss lately? I'm having desperately for hats

to be involved in these outfits. She said, I always get hats, but never have the nerve to wear them. Hats are a thing that are really stylish, but you have to have the confidence to pull it off and share in Diyondu. At the time, there was that rave culture where for a brief moment in time,

people were being more creative with their clothing, and you would see a lot of crazy hats at raves, like a top hat or a Dr. Seuss hat, and Mona found a way to make them stylish, which, because that was another thing. I always wanted to wear hats like that. I can't wear hats like that. Holden again, this is up to you.

I need you to change your fashion into this. All right, I'm doing it. You know what you need, you need one of those, the flouncy hats that with the like the little poof in the center that have the little bill on the front? Right. One of the dudes is wearing it.

So are we want to get into the filming let's jump. Get near to the clothes of this app. producers actually sat in on classes at Beverly Hills High School to get a feel for the culture, which I thought was interesting. Also, the drama teacher at that school played a small sort scene as the principal. The campus, including the tennis courts, outdoor cafeteria, quad, and classrooms all were shot at Occidental College in L.A.

Do you guys know where that is? If you want to take a trip, you can revisit all the old scenes. No, but we do definitely go to the Westfield Fashion Square in German Oaks. Hell yeah, all the mall scenes. Yeah, it's like we're close to that And I didn't realize that's where they filmed Until I was researching this And I was like, I go there

I'm like, sure And filming had a 40-day shooting schedule That was supposed to happen in November and December of 1994 However, production was halted Because Silverstone fucking working so hard Developed a bunch of stomach ulcers And she had to take a bunch of time off So they ended up going back to it in January

And it was a weirdly wet January Which is strange in L.A. or in California. And so they had issues with flooding. They actually had to move the Mighty Mighty Bostones scene from outdoors to indoors. Also, the Mighty Bostones totally got super bored on set and just got hammered on vodka, apparently,

which was hilarious. So, yeah, they were apparently difficult to deal with. I think apparently they were only doing it because they had a bunch of like tax debts that they were dealing with at the time. So it was a bit of a reluctant cameo for them. But they weren't even... They hadn't even blown up yet, like hugely.

Breck and Meyer at, was an actual skateboarder, and so he did most of his own skating, which actually led to an injury during the skate competition. He did that half-pipe shit, and he sprained his ankle, doing that half-pipes shit. Yeah, totally. Also, Brittany Murphy was just 17 at the time of the shooting, and so she had to have her mother on set with her at all times. Also, her mother was apparently going through breast cancer through that shoot, and she was being like such a fucking trooper holding it together. Her mother did get better, so at least there's that. But yeah, She was, I think, under a lot of emotional stress and weight during the filming.

So, yeah, this fucking movie was shot on a budget of like $13 million. It comes out in the summer in 1995, becomes this massive sleeper hit. To give you context, it finished opening weekend second just behind Apollo 13. That takes me back. That takes me back hugely. And it grows to over $56 million during its theatrical run, which is just such a huge success. and no one saw it coming. It came out of absolutely nowhere

and just, you know, fucking became this giant iconic hit. And then of course, and years later, everyone's getting it on VHS, DVD, watching it on HBO. And Jackie, now I'm pretty much done here. I just want to finish up by talking about this motherfucking soundtrack. This soundtrack, guys. Why was it so great and memorable? First of all, it was a wonderful mix of pop, alt rock, and hip-hop,

and because Amy Heckerling brought in Karen Rochtman. I believe that's how you say her last name. Rockman was the music supervisor on a bunch of great films in the era. Pulp Fiction, Boogie Knights, Reservoir Dogs. And working with Heckerling, Rockman chose songs that would turn already funny scenes into memorable ones and introduced a lot of American kids to then up-and-coming acts in the process. So in 1995, soundtracks were so crucial as a set. telling point for a film that Capital Records backed Rockman's efforts with a $1 million advance

just for making the soundtrack for it. So what I love it, what I never realized about before, is that they really incorporated what each character's music's taste were into the creation of the character. So you've got Cher. Share likes bubbly, alt-pop, and the occasional happy-go-lucky hip-hop track when she's at a vowel party. But musical typecasting isn't always, presented in the form of a backing track. So this kind of blew my mind a little bit and it made me very excited. Like with Travis when he's in the scene

and he raises his hand, he goes, he asks Mr. Hall, the way I feel about Rolling Stones is the way my kids are going to feel about nine inch nails. So I shouldn't torment my mom, right? Obviously, he listens to nine inch nails. That makes so much sense. And in part

of creating, when actual doing the filming, they talked about what each character music taste would be. Again, never thought about it before when Elton asked to leave the class because he can't find his cranberry CD and then he's playing it and then he's singing it to her in the car. Oh God. Oh God. It's so I love the cranberries but at the time there was a stigma. I think that we should leave rooms more by saying I have to go to the quad and I left my cranberry CD over that. Cranberry CD? I can't find my cranberry CD. And I this is this made me smile as someone I dig radio head but Tom York is a bit of a bumble fuck I'm gonna go ahead and say so you better watch out for them Yorkies I apologize sorry Yorkies I apologize get it it's like a dog now Paul Rudd is

introduced the character Josh is introduced by way of calling him the modeling music of the university station as Cher begrudgingly calls it he she says what is it about college and crybaby music because Josh loves Radiohead. Rockman said that Heckerling considered Radiohead to be a whiny, whiny band. Rockman was initially nervous to ask Radiohead if she could feature

the song in the film, especially since Cher refers to them as Modlin and whiny. So at this point, when Tom York saw that the music was referred to as Crybaby music and Clueless, his response was fuck you. We're for 3D

people. What? Uh, Okay. I feel like Tom York got like less douchey. I feel like as the years went on. But he was in his bullshit back when creep was like that time. There's like a documentary of them. And Tommy York's just on stage like rolling his eyes, holding the microphone out while everyone sings creep just like mad that it's a huge hit.

Like he was one of those. Yeah, he's like resentful that people like his music. I mean, I love radio head. I love radio. Yeah, but he's a little bit of it again, a bumble fuck. Right. And I was always curious. why I'm just a girl.

No Doubt's song is not on the soundtrack. So when Clueless was released, Traged Kingdom hadn't been released yet. Whoa, really? So it was in the movie, but since the release wasn't going to be out until later on that year, and the Tragedy Kingdom was put out by trauma records.

And all of the other musicians on the album were all backed by Capitol records, so they didn't want them on the album. Gotcha. Which does make sense. Man, Traged Kingdom was, such an explosion. Dude, right?

So they didn't even need it. But I mean, what if this could have, I don't know, helped? Even better. And it went gold in its first year and it ends up going platinum after a few years. So this soundtrack is iconic. Yeah. And I had no idea that the song, of course, that we started this episode with, I want to be a supermodel.

I didn't realize that the song was written for the movie. Oh, wow. So Rockman conscripted her collaborators David Kittay, David Bearwold, and Brian McLeod to write Supermodel before enlisting Jill Sobule to record the song. So David Barwild's told Flavor Wire. He said, I remember thinking, I don't know how teenage girls think. So I got an issue

of sassy magazine and I read the letters to the editor. I think I even got lyrics from the letters page. Every demographic has its way of talking and I wanted to capture a sense of the rhythm and the kinds of girls were talking about. I thought Sassy was really cool. But what is fun? So Jill Sobule was the one that originally sang the Katie Perry's song,

I Kissed a Girl. Katie Perry I Kissed a Girl song is a different song than the I Kissed a Girl from the 90s. Oh, okay. So she just was, okay. You know, just always every generation needs their girl kissed a girl song, you know. It tasted like me only better.

So Jill Sobule, Jill's O'Bule was known for singing, I kissed a girl at this point in time, so she was brought on to sing, I want to be a supermodel. She agreed to sing this only if she could add some input, which resulted in a lyric about anorexia. She told Nylaan,

so I thought I'm going to add in the, I didn't eat yesterday, I didn't eat today, and I didn't eat tomorrow, so I'm gonna be a supermodel to bring some social consciousness to it. In the 80s, for three years, I had an eating disorder.

So it came to me, I had my three sense, my kind of sense of humor, but with a purpose. So she thought, she really thought that Clueless was going to be some dumb teenage movie, but changed your tune after seeing the film. She said, I saw the movie and thought it was freaking great. It was feminist, and I thought this was going to be good for girls. I was surprised and hated myself for having a bad attitude at first. So that was, so, you know, it's a great soundtrack. Yeah. And we also, I feel we would be remiss and not bringing up the fact

that Clueless was turned into a television series for three years that was also created and backed by Amy Heckerling. I love how it was a failed TV project that became this giant hit movie that led to a successful TV movie.

And I completely forgot about the television show. I remember kind of watching it. Yeah. I thought the girl played Cher was great, but just it's hard to compete with Alicia Silverstone performance of Cher.

But also they had like some of the same cast. And it's Stacy Dash, at Donald Faison, had Lisa Donovan and Wallace, Sean, and Rachel Blanchard from, but I remember, because I remembered her from,

Are You Afraid of the Dog? Oh, yeah. So she played Cher. Yeah, right? Yeah. Also, the woman who plays Miss Geist. Twinkie.

Twinkletoes. She was also an associate producer, and I think a friend of Amy Hackerling. She was, yes. Oh, cool. She's great. And she also produced on the show and I think she also plays

Twin Kaplan. Twin Kaplan. Hell yeah. Yeah, so I think she was also on the show. I was just going to leave off with this just that I love that it was based on Emma by Jane Austen which is a period piece film. We have a new period piece film coming out and now I watch Clueless as a period piece

from the music to the looks to the dialogue the slang. It is just so a perfect capture of the mid-90s and especially to be a kid in the mid-90s that it will always live in my heart as that. Like, if I just want to go back to that time and place, this is it.

And I just love that we have these period pieces now that we can go to and that it is just such a innocent, fun, not like make you upset period piece, you know? Yeah. And I was a little upset when we were talking about not too long ago that apparently there is a new clueless television show coming out that I was a little upset about it until I read this description, which kind of makes me interested, is written by Jordan Redout and Gus Hickey, who did Will and Grace. The new Clueless is like Mean Girls meets Riverdale meets a Lizzo music video

because it's about Cher going missing and Dion steps up as the Queen Bee of the high school while also dealing with the mysteries of where did the Queen Bee go. Weird. I'm not saying I'm going to love it, but I am saying I'm going to watch. I mean, I'll look at it. I'll give it a look. I would end by saying that I love, Amy Hackerling is amazing. She's one of my, I'm going to say it, she-rose.

Whoa, she-ro! She's a great-sheero. Also, Mona Mae, great-sheero. And if you want to catch a glimpse of her, if you want to watch Clueless again at the very end scene, you see the shares one of the bridesmaids. The other bridesmaid is Amy Hackerling. She does a little cameo.

And then in the scene where they're doing the bouquet-tas, when they're all fighting, Amy Hackerling wanted to be in that scene and help them out because she really wanted them to like get vicious with it. So she's like, she gets in the middle of it and starts pushing everybody. And it's pretty funny. It is a little, I'm going to say almost a little sad.

Oh, yeah. That she has the two teenagers that set her up as her bridesmaids? No, definitely. There's a lot of sad things going on. That's so funny. I love that Amy Heckley makes a little cameo there at the end. Hell yeah. And I love love and I love Clueless.

Hell yeah. And watch it again because it really does. It makes you not think of anything else and just remember. the good times of our and the bad times. Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, no, there's some bad times. So thank you so much for joining us. If you'd like to support us further, go to patreon.com forward

slash page 7 podcast. We've got weekly episodes coming out and much, much more these days. We're going to be putting a lot of content on there for just $5 a month, so please check us out there. Also, you can find me on twitch.tv forward slash holdenators ho. Jackie joins me every Friday night for us to do

shenanigans. Essentially we get drunk and you guys watch it. Which is fun. Thank you guys so much for joining us this week. You can follow me on Instagram at Jack That Worm. We love you guys so much. Please be safe out there and we'll see you next week.

Natalie. I'm sorry. She didn't sign off yet. I'm Natalie Jean. You can follow me at the Natty Jean on Instagram and Twitter and TikTok and all that crap. And you can also follow page 7 LPN on Instagram and on TikTok. Hell yeah. Bye.

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