when hollywood doesn't get the joke

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]You boys like Mexico. [screaming] Yes. If  you've seen Super Troopers, you know that feeling. That [music] specific brand of stupid  smart comedy that shouldn't work. [screaming] But absolutely does. Mother of God. That kind of  comedy is incredibly hard to get [music] right.

[00:00:19]That's why almost every studio either rejected  it or wanted to heavily change the original idea. We just asked everybody in Hollywood and  they all said no. And if Hollywood [music] had gotten their way, we likely wouldn't have the  classic we have today. So what exactly happened?

[00:00:36]We were always trying to be uh the American Monty  Python. That was our goal. Like they, you know, they had five guys and they wrote their own movies  and they were in them. Broken Lizard, the comedy group behind the [music] movie, was formed at  Colgate University in 1989. Five guys who started out doing sketch comedy together [music] and over  time developed the kind of chemistry that's hard to fake. The kind where you don't just know how  to make each [music] other laugh, but you know why something is funny, and more importantly,  how far to push it. You son of a [ __ ] In the '9s, they [music] made two amateur films.  The tinfoil monkey agenda and Puddle Cruiser.

[00:01:13]If you go back and watch them, you can clearly  see their comedic DNA. A bit of Woody Allen, sketchdriven scenes, and that dry satirical  humor. Haha, that's very funny. [music] They were far from masterpieces, but they did something  important. They got them out of comedy clubs and proved at least to themselves that their comedy  could actually work on [music] screen. So, they decided to go further. We we would  find ourselves like five guys in a car driving to somebody's wedding. Realizing that,  you know, you have so much bravado before the cop pulls you over, then once he pulls you over,  you're just such [clears throat] a wimp. Officer, isn't isn't the speed limit 65? The idea came  from a simple question. What would it actually be like to [music] be a local highway patrol cop with  almost nothing to do? Sing it again, rookie [ __ ] It fit perfectly [music] into the spirit of  late '90s cinema films that focused less on big dramatic events and more on the slow, ordinary  working life. All five of them wrote it together and planned to play different cops. At its core,  the concept is really an extension of what they already understood as comedians. On stage, [music]  a comedian has authority. They control the room.

[00:02:19]They set the pace. And the audience has no choice  but to follow. Broken Lizard realized a cop on a highway works in [music] a very similar  way. You smell something, rabbit. [snorts] Fear. When you're pulled over, you're a captive  audience. You have [music] nowhere to go. So in their world, the troopers became performers  and the highway became a stage. And it creates this strange line where the driver never quite  knows whether to laugh or to be nervous because the person doing the bit is still the one with  the badge and the gun littering and smoking the reefer. And that idea became the backbone of the  film. The actual plot is almost secondary to all of that. The premise is that a group of Vermont  state troopers facing the threat of being shut down and absorbed by the local police. [music]  So they start making real arrests to justify their existence. But Broken Lizard didn't really  write a traditional film. They basically wrote a framework for their comedy sketches to  exist on screen. License and registration.

[00:03:17]Chicken [ __ ] What the movie is really  about is the dynamic between these five guys.

[00:03:22]Each scene plays like a standalone bit. A setup  between the troopers. Do you want to do reaping?

[00:03:28]The main joke. Would you mind stepping down from  there with your license and registration? Sure.

[00:03:32]I was just kind of Would you mind stepping down  from there with your license and registration?

[00:03:36]and the final button to close it out. Got a  little distracted by somebody doing the repeater.

[00:03:43]That'll happen. That will happen. It's chaos,  but structured chaos. And ironically, that's exactly why studios didn't want it. We went to  so many different people and they were like, "So, let me get this straight. You guys are the  cops." Everyone said the same thing. Too absurd, too unconventional, too gimmicky, and no  star power. Studios could see the outline of something workable on the page, but the  joke simply didn't land. And in [music] a way, that actually makes sense. Take the meow  scene. All right, ma'am. Arguably the film's most [music] iconic moment, where a trooper  tries to say meow instead of now as many times as possible during a routine stop. Now, what is  so damn funny? I could have swear he said meow.

[00:04:27]Do I look like a cat to you, boy? On paper,  it doesn't really work. It feels strange and almost indulgent. Even in the film, when  Farva has to have the joke explained to him, he's completely baffled. I realize that doesn't  sound funny as I described. Say meow the most.

[00:04:43]You guys are real crazy. Hey, look out for  these guys. And that's probably how a lot of studio executives felt when reading the script  because the jokes didn't really exist on the page.

[00:04:54]They only work when they were performed. Where'd  you learn that? She drug school. Shut up, father.

[00:04:59]And the clearest example of how badly the project  was misunderstood came when one studio offered to greenlight the film on one condition. Ben Affleck  had to play Jay's role, the character he wrote for himself. I mean, could you imagine this guy  and then this failed experiment called existence will cease to be playing this. Damn it. I am all  that is man. Then just when it seemed like the film was dead, Jay got unexpected call from an old  friend. My dad's a banker and he's retiring and he he wants to write movie scripts and I you're the  only guy who's sort of making movies. So I I told him about you and he wants to talk to you. But  before he handed it over, he needed to know he could trust the person reading it. So he asked to  see Jake's work first. I'm like, I hope he doesn't like it cuz I don't want to read his damn script,  right? However, few days later, the investor called back saying, "It's pretty funny." I'm like,  "Yeah, thanks." He goes, "What are you doing with it?" I said, "Well, he's a banker. We're raising  money." He goes, "How much you need?" He ended putting in about $1.1 million, significantly  less than what they've been asking from studios, but enough if they were disciplined about it.  They had 28 days to shoot the entire film, not a day more. Lack Ramadan, kick some tail.  Here's something that might surprise you about Super Troopers. It's actually an extremely tightly  written film. [music] That loose absurd energy, the sense that anything could happen at any moment  of the car. I said now makes it feel improvised, like five [music] friends just goofing around  with a camera. But in reality, only about eight lines in the entire film were improvised.  Everything [music] else was exactly as written across 35 drafts to make sure every joke landed  in the right place. Who wants a mustache ride?

[00:06:48]They simply had no room for mistakes. Most of the  extras were friends, family or local volunteers.

[00:06:55]Among the professional actors was Jim Gaffigan  who played [music] the driver in the meow scene.

[00:07:00]We're all standing on the side of the highway  and at some point he looks at me and says, "You think I can get a coffee?" I was like,  "Coffee?" He's like, "And like a chair to maybe sit down. This guy wants coffee and a chair. Like  where are we going to find that stuff?" Daniel von Baron was cast as the strict uptight police chief.  It's called routine police work. Surprisingly, they even brought in Linda Carter, best known  for playing Wonder Woman in the 70s as a Vermont governor. There will be no more running of  marijuana. And then there was Brian [music] Cox.

[00:07:33]These boys get that syrup in them. They get  all ly. Classically trained Shakespearean and one of the most respected dramatic actors of his  generation. I'll believe that when my ship turns purple and smells like rainbow shopper. He was  actually looking to do something different and actively pursued [music] the role of Captain  O'Hagen. On set, he ended up becoming almost a father figure both in the story [music] and  in real life. And working with those guys 20 odd years ago to start with and seeing how they've  become rather respectical and sort of middle-aged and they're no longer the ptheads that they were.  I think it's fantastic. Like seeing your children grow up. After putting all of this together and  looking beyond the comedic surface, you start to realize just how special this film actually is. It  was the right group of people, the [music] right circumstances, and an uncompromising commitment to  a personal vision all coming together at exactly the right [music] time. The group dynamic on  screen feels so lived in and so specific that it could only come from [music] people who has spent  years together. There are enough layers in these five relationships for a full TV series, [music]  which is probably why sequel exists and why a third film is on the way. But [music] beneath all  the pranks and absurdism, there's something else that often gets overlooked. [music] At some point,  without really noticing it, you start caring about these people, [music] and the film knows this.  When Farva betrays the troopers by feeding information to the police in exchange [music] for  a job, it doesn't feel like just a plot twist. It feels like a personal stab [music] in the back.  And the scene that follows where he breaks down in tears after [music] being confronted for  a second carries an emotional weight that's surprisingly hard to ignore. I'm a cop. Godamn  it. I got my own car now. I get to bust criminals.

[00:09:17]That's what I got to do. [laughter] And the fact  that the film's most affecting moment belongs to its [music] most ridiculous character says  everything about what Super Troopers really is.

[00:09:28]It was never just an absurd comedy. [music]  It just looked like one. I'm all Highway.