I listened yesterday (could not put it down) to Conan O’Brien’s interview of Ron Howard, Opie, Richie Cunningham, that guy. Just a few highlights:
- Howard’s father was an actor, though not famous. He was also present during filming of the Andy Griffith Show, a 1960s-70s hit show. His son played Opie Taylor, who was five years old at the time. At one time his dad approached the writers and suggested to them that they were writing the Opie character as kind of a smart ass, snarky as we would say today, a future Ferris Buehler. He suggested to them that it would be a better show if Opie was a good kid who admired and respected his father. They changed the writing style for Opie, and it worked.
- Andy Griffith cautioned all the actors not to try to be funny, do not go over the top and for the big laugh. The South, he said, was funny all by itself, and did not need help. All of the humor of the show was the natural tone set by the actors, especially Don Knotts, who played Barney Fife.
- Howard entered film school at USC after graduation from high school. While there, he was offered the part of Richie Cunningham in Happy Days. He was not sure he could manage his class load and the show, but reasoned that the show would probably be canceled after a short run anyway.
- As it turned out, Henry Winkler blossomed as The Fonz, and the show exploded. Richie was no longer front and center, and he was OK with that. Howard has a supportive attitude towards those he has worked with over the years.
- Arrested Development came along, and Howard was asked to be the uncredited narrator. They did a pilot for the show and tested it, and the tests came back that the audience like the show, and especially liked the narrator.
- As any fool can see, even me, Arrested Development was perfectly cast.
- Not mentioned on the podcast. Howard met his life companion, Cheryl Alley, while a junior in high school. They married on June 7, 1975, and in three days will celebrate their 49th anniversary. They have four children, and are said to be “inseparable”. It’s one of those Hollywood marriages, like Paul Newman, Jason Bateman, Jim Garner, Mel Brooks, Jeff Bridges – real people really devoted to one another.
Anyway, much, much more in the podcast. I write because I came away thinking Ron Howard is not only talented, but genuine.
Piece of Mindful 
The biggest laugh I ever got from Ron Howard was the end title card from A Beautiful Mind. After watching a paranoid schizophrenic for two plus hours, we are told that his theories have had a profound influence on global trade, labor relations and evolutionary biology. Globalization galvanized by a global pandemic hoax. The only truth in the movie, as it turns out.
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O’Brien says that his comedy should not have a serious message, that it should only make you laugh. He doesn’t even care if it makes you dumber. Same with movies. My favorite of all time (not RH) was The Fugitive, but never once as I watched it over the years did I think a man could plunge hundreds of feet into water and survive or outrun a locomotive.
Howard was probably chosen for A Perfect Mind because he does not have one. He is only a good movie maker, not a thinker.
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I was a HUGE fan of Arrested Development when it first aired on broadcast TV, back when I had a TV.. Then, much later, I found a DVD set with later seasons I had missed (on a “free bookshelf”!) Well, I don’t know if the show had changed or I had, but while amusing, it no longer really grabbed me.. just started to seem tedious and hectic. Sort of one damn thing after another, and my interest waned episode by episode until I gave up on trying to watch the rest of them.
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I saw Jeff Bridges in an oddity the other night.. Eight(!) Million Ways to Die. Last pic of acclaimed Seventies director Hal Ashby, now struggling under a new regime in Hollywood the Eighties ushered in. He was said to be tortured by lack of creative control and producer interference, and looks like a tortured man in photos from the set. The botched result is a strange blend of his artistic imperatives and the studio’s misguided efforts at their idea of what would make for a commercial hit. He was trying to do both, deliver the commercial side, such as he saw it, while also satisfying his own vision for the film. But had final cut taken away, and editing was one of his major strengths.
As a neo noir LA pic with Bridges as a recovering alcoholic and ex-cop hired to investigate a murder, it has some broad similarities to The Big Lebowski, strangely enough. Here and there his line delivery even reminds me just a little of The Dude..
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I saw Bridges in a film made near Livingston, Montana, called Rancho Deluxe. It’s an OK film, but I remember it for several reasons: One, it was filmed in Paradise Valley, maybe a fifty-mile stretch with the Yellowstone River where it flows out of Yellowstone National Park. The valley has Gallatin Mountain range to the east and the Absaroka Range to the west. It is spectacular scenery. I spent a lot of time in and around there growing up. At one point, maybe during the Reagan years, there was talk of damming Paradise, as there is a natural geological closing at its end. People were up in arms, and I remember (I lived in Billings) that the Livingston newspaper wrote that if the people of Billings were intent on damming the Yellowstone, build it down below Billings, where at least the backed up water would do no damage to anything worthwhile.
Part of Paradise Valley is a restaurant called Chico Hot Springs – a very expensive but very good place to eat, and hot springs to lay back in morning noon and night. They run a swimming pool and a hot tub, and part of the movie was the cast in the hot tub.
Bridges met a young waitress there, and he was taken by her. He asked her out, she turned him down, thinking he was a Hollywood guy and she would be flavor of the week. Her name was Susan Geston, and Bridges persisted, She finally said yes. They’ve been married now 47 years.
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He seems like a good guy, just how he comes across as an actor. This movie had a commentary from a couple film historians, and they mentioned how his personal struggles with, whatever, related to the kinds of film roles he chose.. like this recovering alcoholic. Whether that was his specific issue or not, idk.
He sounded like he took the work seriously though, but was last of the old school, ie not a prima donna method actor.. just did his part for the pic.
Younger he reminds me of some other actor in his face, I think maybe Jason Bateman. Or someone..
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I went on a fishing float in that valley. Gorgeous and lots of fish!
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I love the Big Lebowski, and you’re going to hate me for what I report: last time I saw Jeff Bridges he was shilling for big pharma, specifically Covid mAbs: for those who need “extra” antibody protection, like those who couldn’t get triple vaxxed. It was some stupid TV ad starting in 2022 or so, I won’t look it up unless someone wants to see this tragedy. There is a deep sad irony for those who decided to avoid the vaccine at all costs: those who went all in for the hydroxy compound (i can’t remember the name and I won’t look it up) and ivermectin, those compounds are extremely toxic. I wonder how many ended with massive organ failure and were reported as unvaxxed Covid deaths. For sure, the reported higher death rates of the unvaxxed could have been real, based on taking these poison “substitutes”, massively promoted by nearly every anti-vax shill in town.
Happy 6-6-24(6) day!
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As with Ron Howard, they seem like genuine people, not smart enough for anything else, and having entourages to support, unable to turn down a paycheck. But I have a hard time thinking that they met their sweethearts young, in a Hollywood environment, and stuck it out, stayed the course. I could be wrong about everything, as always. Always must be open to that possibility.
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Yes, and people underestimate how many of these people are dupes. In fact, I can’t say I’ve met anyone at a high level (CEO or colonel level in the military) who aren’t dupes. In fact, my Dads older brother is a retired judge, got very high up in Oregon judicial politics, who is a total conservative dupe, in his mid 80s, and completely clueless as to what is really going on (based on all the emails my dad forwards from him). And yes he is a likely some sort of Mason, he was active in his college fraternity, and according to my cousin had a drinking problem (he would pound beers right after getting out of court and offer then to my cousin who was 16 at the time!)
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That is disappointing to hear, and yeah Lebowski is a gem imo. Gets even better if you rewatch it a year later or whatever.
That may be about ivermectin etc.. it was also fun with statistics that skewed the unvaxxed higher though. I posted a link in a previous post to someone who broke it all down. A big factor was how they labeled people unvaxxed for two weeks after they got the shot.
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Adding.. Lebowski does have some typical propaganda points to push, a little blackwashing of this or that group or thing.. kind of ambiguous stuff, might be excusable as satire of some things I’m sympathetic to satirizing, or genuine Coen Bros views that aren’t just talking points they’re “supposed to” fit in somewhere.. hard to know what the case is exactly. Someone might be able to analyze it as hugely negative messaging overall, for all I know, but I see mostly an entertaining and well crafted film, with just a few hints of “messaging” here and there that don’t detract too much from it.
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AstraZeneca TV Spot, ‘Up the Antibodies’ Featuring Jeff Bridges – iSpot.tv
OK you guys asked for it. It’s really painful to watch, looks kind of like Montana? I’ve never been there seems like a nice place.
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And he’s going some obligatory chemotherapy treatment. Must be in the Hollywood contract that they shill for at least one disease in their lifetime. A great new one is Celine Dion and the “stiff person syndrome”. There must a new drug unveiling behind that one, I predict. Or a presumed fake Covid vaccine injury to keep the Covid anti-vaxxers foaming at the mouth now more than 4 years! after the disease overwhelmed the world (overwhelmed psychologically).
The vaccine obsessed crowd started to really piss me off after a while during Covid. Covid was not about depopulation, that should be very clear to anyone who travels around the country or world. It was primarily a massive resource/land grab and training exercise in submission to authority. This was extremely noticeable in a place like Thailand – the tourism industry was a total wipe out post 2020 lockdowns, the big fish hoovered up the prime vacation properties at bargain basement values, this happens all throughout history. If people had asked their grandfather what actually happened during the great depression (massive wage cuts, mass unnecessary unemployment, rich getting many times richer), instead of playing video games and listening to NPR, maybe we wouldn’t be here now?
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