The Making of Caddyshack

sudden movement because the tractor had these drooping wings that were all cutters. I can tell she would be like the Titanic hitting the propeller. I think they put it in a TV version of the movie because they had to cut out the chocolate bar and they replaced it with this other sequence and of course we do the scene where I jump up there sliding and grabbing and Billy does this as fast as he can . I had to jump about 15 feet from the tractor so I wouldn't get hit in the The same number of takes you would do in a written script, we would develop a really funny speech for Bill.

Same with Chevy. Chevy would start with the script a little closer. He wasn't trained in Second City, but he was excellent at improvising dialogue and he and It was the beginning of a very good relationship for us. Harold Ramis is a great director who gave me Clark Griswold, he helped me invent that character and with Ty Webb the same gave me the attitude that the Zen philosopher Basho once wrote about. the flute without holes is not a flute without holes it's a Danish type sometimes when I play golf and I really focus on those putts. You know we all do those things were just wings and that's the kind of thing that People remember that's like nananana, they remember those things.

There were scenes outside Chevy's house, in and around Chevy's house. A lot of the things we filmed were improvised. Cindy Morgan when you want to get involved and choose Cindy Morgan, the fantastic ones. Chevy and I had a couple. of scenes I said how would you feel if you were playing this, you know, and without your clothes on she was very reluctant to be naked, she said she'd rather not do it and I said, okay, that's fine with me, I lied. John Peters calls me. She says you have to take your clothes off and I said well you know I'm not going to tell her to do that, you tell her to do it, so John got on the phone with her and he's such a big salesman I don't know what I told him, but five minutes later she came out of the room and said: I'm going to take off my clothes like you do in the naked swimming scene.

It's keeping the water moving. That's the trick. I drank a lot of brandy that night, so I don't know how cold the pool is. I can't tell you honestly, just move your hands a little here and there to give the audience a little idea of ​​what you know, and of course I had to hold it in a strange or even strange way. It's strange, it's his honor, his honor, when I first got there, they were filming a scene with Ted Knight, who I personally think was the best guy in the movie, he was brilliant, the late great Ted Knight judge.

The smells inspired me to play golf later in life, yes. all the representative of him Art Tatum movie with ty Webb when Chevy's character is classic Todd, would you shoot today? Oh, I'm not keeping score, judge. Oh well, how do you measure up against other golfers? Under the hood, Ted was wonderful to work with, he was extremely personable, wonderful. about, you know,

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me feel, I felt like I was his niece for a lot of filming. Ted Knight was really like Ted Baxter's character on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, he carried a comb with him and 20 times a day quickly, you know. combs his hair the first day in Chevy meets him and the first thing I did was rub his hair like well to see him you know, that's enough, he hates that it turns out that he loved that his hair was perfect, nice, beautiful silver gray hair.

How about a fresh one? Oh, I was like trying to stay alive in this thing and you know, and this guy is like Rodney and Ted, they were strong, incredible actors, so you stay in the scene or you end up on the cutting room floor, what? you say? yeah, we gotta put pressure on the judge, cheer up, we're Rodney Dangerfield, he was a guy we'd seen on the Johnny Carson show and she's on TV. He was like a really funny guy and he had never made movies before than we thought. It's fun to bring it and put it in a movie and everyone would love it.

Rodney needed every word, every syllable in its place, every comma, you know, every period, and I was working with him generally the night before he was going to film and we were totally prepared. everything maybe write some new jokes and put everything in order this guy would wake him up in the morning we had put him on a better diet and he was a brilliant brilliant genius and of course rah Billy Chevy all the younger comedians were looking up up this guy phenomenally well, place your bets, place your bets, oh yeah, but you know, here comes the idealism to become a method actor, he took this very, very seriously, which, of course, is questionable, but I think it brought a whole new level of humor. to the set and I was a challenge hey judge give someone else a chance how lucky you are baby come on relax there are a lot of us women you know you want to make $14 the hard way. you're not a gentleman, I'm not a doorknob either, I never want to see that man here after we shot the movie and said we really need another scene with you and Rodney, now you might not be able to film this.

I don't know, but because it's so funny, it was on a golf course and we were talking and I don't remember what the conversation was, but it had been written down, but as I walk away from this scene it almost - it says a tie I said what what what yeah what he says well you know the worst thing about oral sex Rodney said the view I fell and the whole crew did and by then we had already lost the power and the scene never got going. In the picture, someone in the role of a doctor character that they played in the movie was taken after a guy in the emergency room who had sirens on his car went with police escorts and was

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so much noise because Rodney took that character and then He went to the emergency room. roof with that, hey orange balls, I'll have a box of those Mia Fox, those naked ladies tease and give me two of those, give me six of those, oh this is the worst hat I've ever seen in my life, well buy one hat like this.

I bet you'll get a free bowl of soup. Oh, it looks good on you. I guess this was his first film job and I remember one time I was sitting at lunch walking a mile like it was my first film and I'm going to be Rodney. You are stealing what you are escaping. I will never forget the first day Rodney came to work. All the comics were there to watch this guy work because he was the best. TRUE? Rodney gets up and looks at all the comics he receives. The performers get energized and he's delivering his lines and then after a couple of takes he starts sweating and sweating and he's upset and you know he didn't do it.

I'm trying to say what the hell is going on, you know, so the government, Ronnie, what's going on? He says, hey, no one laughs at me. I'm Bob and I'm floating around. I said Friday, you can't laugh. You see, that's true because I'm not good. I suck, he says no, no, it's just all those guys that they. All those come Rodney you don't understand they can't laugh because if they laugh they can't use the soundtrack so it's the other way around he thought he was failing and all these other comics are there because he was the best and we were all watching something very special to see Rodney, that kangaroo stole my ball.

Would Chung call him a groundhog? a groundhog, a groundhog, a beaver, a squirrel, we tried every type of small mammal we could find, at one point I remember a guy with a trained ferret trying to get him to the ferrets for so long and none of it worked and finally He opted for something that looked like a mink puppet. I felt and I think we all felt that the gopher was a wonderful, fun character. I can't stand that gopher. John Peters said you have to create this world of this gopher, you know? Obviously, that was back in the days when special effects didn't exist and we went to meet with George Lucas and ILM and we had the gopher and they were willing to spend the money, so we went to John Dykstra, who had special effects.

A house called Apogee John had worked on Star Wars and all kinds of things and they made the most brilliant creation of this Gophers world. They made these big tunnels and by the way golfers play an important role in golf so one of the biggest problems is keeping these golfers off the course they can't do well on the golf course it all seemed like a lot of fun when they did it. put together and really created this uh, very uh, this wonderfully animated nemesis for Bill Murray when Bill was giving all those speeches that we had filmed without any vision of a gopher suddenly you could see his enemy and it was very funny I have to laugh because I didn't I end up as an enemy, my enemy is an animal and to conquer it I have to think like an animal.

It is never possible to look as if I loved it, attacking that gopher, doing everything possible to reach it by diving. I have that image in my mind of him, you know, and then all of a sudden just diving into the air to try to get that thing. It was always fun, you know, I mean your gopher. Think about how rudimentary the effects were in those days, I mean we worked with John Dykstra, remember and if you really look at the hand puppet, this little gopher that became a legend, they used a long mechanical gopher that just worked and people He loved it, they remember.

When you watch Caddyshack like I'm going to be on TV, you see the mechanical gopher that gives a flying fortress, there were nighttime golf cart races in the total darkness and obviously these golf carts don't have lights one night Hamilton Mitchell Doug Kenny Hal Ramos, they all decided they wanted to recreate Patton Rommel's famous tank battle in Africa on the golf course. We entered the room where they were recharging. All the golf carts were started. We were running and tearing up the green. I was the one who pushed. he went down the hill towards the green started ramming the golf course destroyed the golf carts and then we have these golf cart wars all over the golf course, said John Bartender, who played Spalding, he almost lost his life and one of those Crazy little golf cart wars, huh, the next morning, The gardener would wonder what the hell has happened to our fair road.

You know, it's just tire tracks everywhere. Yeah, I mean, it was my job to make sure that enough chaos happened so that Tony and other people could capture this and, of course, the publicity was a very important part if we wanted to get back to Hollywood, that fun was happening. I mean, it's almost surprising that that was only nineteen years ago. I mean, nineteen is as significant as you pointed out before because people often celebrate the 19th year of everything I'm pretty sure in some country I just drank a bottle of wine that moves I don't know anything about golf I know to use golf shoes with spikes I just call them classics it was great to see Over time it warms up and it gets to everyone's hearts, you know, and I'm very proud of it and you're playing golf, being the ball, won't you let me?