Yeah, what the hell's Monster Squad?
- It's us, we're the Monster Squad.
- What's a squad? - It's like 'Miami Vice', I think.
- Some people dismiss it as nothing more than a 'Goonies' rip-off.
But there are others, and some of those others are people who work
on this very show, who think it's totally boss and underrated.
So now this is happening.
Here are seven things you didn't know about 'The Monster Squad'.
Probably.
- It's okay you guys.
He's friends with us.
Come on.
Don't be chicken (Bleep).
- First off, we know that it might seem like we're caught in a self indulgent
80s nostalgia here are things you didn't know.
In the past few weeks, we've done Predator, The Lost Boys,
Masters of the Universe, and with this episode yet another 80s favorite.
But you probably didn't realize that all of these movies just hit
the 30th anniversary milestone, which in a way is making us think that the Summer
of 1987 may have been the best summer ever for cult movie classics.
At the very least it was a big summer for
Shane Black, he's in Predator and he co-wrote The Monster Squad.
Anyway, Predator came out in June of 87, The Lost Boys was out in July, and
then Masters of the Universe and Monster Squad both hit in August.
In fact, they came out just a week apart,
with Masters of the Universe on August 7th and The Monster Squad on the 14th
(Music) It was a golden age,
of sorts, when a kid's movie could show a 15-year-old making silver bullets in shop
class because he needed to kill a goddamn werewolf.
- Bang! (Sound)
- Meanwhile, what do we have now?
The (Bleep) Emoji Movie.
- (Sound) Sorry, emoticons!
I hate knocking over the elderly.
Here, let me help, let me help.
My colon.
- That's enough, moving on.
Like we said in our first thing,
Shane Black co-wrote "The Monster Squad" with the film's director, Fred Dekker.
But, despite the fact that their names are literally Black and
Dekker, they weren't actually a team.
Since they weren't a writing team, and
rather they were just two writers on the same project,
they pretty much never worked on the script directly together at all.
In fact, there's only one line in the entire movie that Black and
Decker actually came up with while they were in the same room.
- Maybe we can be like Math Squad instead you know, do math problems, stay home.
- Or Nature Squad.
To look at rocks, collect birds, and not be dead.
- That was it.
Fat kid's riff about looking at rocks and collecting birds.
You know what?
I realize after playing it for you guys, that that was kind of anticlimactic.
Probably would have been a better story if it had been when
the fat kid says Wolfman's got nards.
But you know what?
I can't change the past.
- Wolfman's got nards!
Got nards! (Sound) Freeze!
You move, and I'll kill you!
- Here's a fun thing about this showdown scene between Dracula and Del Crenshaw.
See that house behind Del?
The one that's totally out of focus?
That's Murtaugh's house from Lethal Weapon.
Which, by the way, was also written by Shane Black.
And also came out in 1987.
In March, in case you were curious.
This is starting to turn into seven things you didn't know about Shane Black.
Or 9 things you didn't know about 1987, so let's just move on.
(Music)
(Sound) - Thanks a lot, Pete.
(Sound) Let's talk about the swamp monster "Gillman"
because he was played by "Shane Black".
No, not really.
He was actually played by "Tom Woodruff, Jr.", who truly suffered for
his art in this role.
First off, there's the fact that the eye openings in his costume were
positioned in such a way that it was essentially like trying to look
through two tiny keyholes that were two or three inches off to the side of your eyes.
Basically, he couldn't see anything.
But that's nothing compared to the fact that they would glue him into the costume,
including the head so that there wouldn't be any visible seams on camera.
That meant he couldn't eat drink or use the bathroom or
really even breathe normally and he would have to deal with it for entire shoot day.
FYI a typical shoot day on a movie is about 12 hours.
- So next time you watch the Monster Squad, think about what Tom Woodruff went
through just so you could get your jollies you sick son of a bitch.
- Hey, fat kid, good job.
- My name is Horace.
(Music)
- We've covered earlier that Murtaugh apparently lives across the street from
the Crenshaws but
you probably didn't know that they all apparently live on Wisteria Lane.
At least going by this church, they do.
This is the same church that they use on Desperate Housewives, which also
happens to be the same church used at the end of the original Ocean's Eleven, which
means that that church has been on the studio's back lot for a crazy long time.
By the way, the diner in this scene is also the car dealership
that Charlton Heston goes to in The Omega Man.
It was just sitting around on the Warner Brothers' back lot and
they turned it into a diner for Monster Squad.
Boom, bonus thing you didn't know.
(Music)
Remember how when we first meet Count Dracula he's hanging upside down as a bat
to sleep instead of sleeping in his coffin like a normal Dracula?
Ever wonder why Dracula sleeps this way in The Monster Squad?
- Thank you, Bob.
- Well, so does writer-director Fred Decker.
By his own admission there is no real explanation for
it besides the fact that it simply wouldn't have looked as cool to
introduce Dracula by having him crawl out of his coffin.
The bat thing was obviously way,
way cooler and that was the only explanation they needed.
Last thing.
(Sound).
The Monster Squad is a pretty lean movie, at just 82 minutes.
It was so lean that they actually slowed the crawl of the end credits
to help pad the run time, and to further honor all of the hard working
people who contributed to the film, of course.
Also, bonus thing.
To keep the movie so
short, a lot of things had to be cut, and one of those things was Screech.
(Sound) - (Laugh)
- Dustin Diamond has a small part in
the Monster Squad that was filmed for this scene, but he wound up getting cut
because the film makers somehow knew he'd grow up to be a total douche.
Okay, that might not be totally accurate.
Fact is, the scene just didn't work and wasn't worth trying to save so
it wound up on the cutting room floor.
But you won't find it on any Blu-Ray special features anytime soon because,
and I'm being handed a note no one gives a (Sound).
That's gonna do it for us today, but hit the thumbs up if you've been digging all
of the movie anniversaries we've been celebrating.
- I dig it, man.
- Hell, we might even do a belated Lethal Weapon if you guys would be into it.
Thanks for watching, and subscribe to CineFix for more truish things about
movies and often Shane Black right here on "Things You Didn't Know".
(Music)
- Meeting adjourned.