(Sound) Let's rock!
- It's been 26 years since 'Twin Peaks' aired its final episode on ABC but
the show is coming back this Sunday to Showtime with a limited run series.
Sequel?
I guess.
I mean, it's not a remake or reboot, so we'll just go with that.
Anyway, we hope you guys are into weird shit.
Here are seven things you didn't know about 'Twin Peaks', probably.
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(Sound) - Good Lord, Lord.
(Music)
- "Laura Palmer".
- Even if you've never watched the original series you've probably at least
heard of 'Twin Peak" before.
And you may even have a vague awareness of it being a "David Lynch" thing and
therefore very, very strange.
- Who's the lady with the log?
- We call her the Log Lady.
- But one thing most people don't know is that the initial title of the show was
'NORTHWEST PASSAGE.' - They changed the name later on when they
were sorting out the geography of the show.
'Twin Peaks' was name they came up with,
drawing inspiration from the two mountains nestled on either side of the town.
Which is perhaps,
the only thing about the entire show that was fairly straightforward.
(Sound) 'Twin Peaks' a very unique show,
also has a suitably unique production history.
The pilot was really a made for TV movie created by "David Lynch" and "Mark Frost".
But the pilot got amazing,
almost Super Bowl caliber ratings, which led ABC to pick it up as a series.
Okay, they picked it up for seven episodes because, let's face it,
they were still hedging their bet.
But then the show took off in a way no one had expected,
(Sound) scoring 14 Emmy nominations in its first season, and
even a 'Sesame Street' parody called 'Twin Beaks'.
Unfortunately they only took home two of their potential 14 Emmys,
costume designer and editing.
But hey, personally I'll take cookie monster over a stupid Emmy any day.
- Me special agent, cookie.
- I'm "Finch".
"David", "David Finch".
- "David Finch", good me like bird who knows own name.
(Music)
- 'Twin Peaks' became a cultural phenomenon really fast.
Not just because it came out at a time where there were only three networks.
But because it was unlike any television that had been done before it and
people were captivated by the mystery.
- Mm, mm, this is incredible jam.
What you probably don't know is, co-creators "David Lynch" and "Mark
Frost", never really intended to answer the question of who killed "Laura Palmer".
They knew in their heads who had done it, but
they never told anyone else in the cast or production staff.
It was top secret.
This creative divide went all the way back to the pilot which "Lynch" and
"Frost" also wanted to leave open ended.
But ABC insisted that they reveal "Laura's" killer,
so Lynch slapped on a clumsy ten minute reveal of the killer at
the end of the pilot film, which test audiences hated.
- Welcome to the killer's lair.
- To this day, there's the so-called international version of the pilot
which aired as a standalone movie overseas.
In it, you can see the ending that ABC wisely left off of the U.S. broadcast.
But ongoing pressures from the studio led them to finally reveal the killer in
the second season of 'Twin Peaks',
which is what many consider to be what ruined the show.
Once the creative direction of solving the murder was forced on them,
the show died its own slow, awkward death.
The same way this thing will die if we don't move on.
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Even after agreeing to the ill conceived studio mandate to reveal "Laura Palmer's"
killer, secrecy remained a top priority for "David Lynch" and "Mark Frost".
They had all sorts of measures in place to protect the plot twist as much as
they could.
Including numbering scripts and giving actors only the pages they needed for
their characters.
The actors and crew were so in the dark on what was happening on the show,
they typically had to watch their episodes on TV
to find out what was going on just like anyone else.
Of course, that still didn't stop weirdo super fans from rummaging through
the trash bins behind the studio to try to find discarded script
pages in the hopes of finding out the killer.
Which is why it's a good thing that "Lynch" and
"Frost" took another precaution, writing fake scenes.
They actually shot three endings with three different killers.
That was a rough day on set for actress "Sheryl Lee".
She was getting murdered back to back by 3 different guys for
about 14 hours straight.
(Sound) - Fire
walk with me.
Me.
Aah.
- "Firewalk With Me", the follow up film to "Twin Peaks" that shows us
the final days of 'Laura Palmer', is pretty polarizing.
Kind of like "David Lynch" himself.
But whether you liked it or not,
you probably didn't know that it could have been way longer.
Like, a lot longer.
There are probably more scenes on the cutting room floor than there are in
the final film because they shot 900,000 feet of film in 40 days.
If that doesn't compute for you, let me put it like this.
'Fire Walk with Me' could have been four hours long if it weren't for
all the stuff they cut out of it.
- Holy smoke.
- Even if you loved it, I think we can all agree that none of us,
none of us needed it to be four hours long.
(Sound) Okay, super quick thing about "Agent Cooper" and this llama,
because that moment where he and the llama regard each other is freaking perfect.
(Music)
Believe it or not, they were able to do that in just one take.
They simply had "Kyle McLaughlin" chewing on something so that when the llama came
through it would smell the food in his mouth and then look at him.
- And it totally worked,
"MacLachlan" managed to play the moment totally straight, he didn't laugh at all,
and they nailed it on the first take, unlike this thing.
(Sound) - Damn good food.
Diane, if you ever get up this way, their cherry pie is worth a stop.
- 'Twin Peaks' and cherry pie go together like, well, 'Twin Peaks' and
donuts, I guess.
The series pilot was shot on location in Washington state and
the RR Diner was shot at a local spot called the MarT Cafe.
And on one day of filming they damn near cleared out the diner's entire pie supply.
- Would you like some pie?
- Massive, massive quantities and a glass of water, sweetheart.
My socks are on fire.
They went through 17 slices of pie in just one day.
Following that, the owner learned her lesson and she'd have anywhere from six to
ten pies made for each day, for the five weeks production was in town.
They'd often order banana or chocolate peanut butter pies just for
the production office not even for the show.
Funny enough, they never ordered any cherry pies off camera.
Once the show started airing, the pie demand got even worse because the Martee
diner was inundated with 'Twin Peaks' tourism, especially on the weekends.
It got so out of hand that had to stop selling people whole pies.
Even with just selling by the slice, they'd sell out pretty quickly and
would have people waiting 20 minutes in line just for pie and coffee.
So the Martee Diner's cherry pie was basically like the original cronut.
Those are out things for today, but hopefully you guys learned a thing or
seven about one of TV's most talked about shows of all time.
We'll have to wait and see if the new episodes can rekindle that flame.
But hopefully there will be more season one 'Twin Peaks' than season two
'Twin Peaks'.
You know what I mean.
Thanks for watching, and subscribe to 'Cinefix' for
more truish things about movies.
And sometimes the Mayor of Portland, right here on 'Things you Didn't Know'.
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