Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Super Trooperswas one of the breakout movies of 2001, but you might not have known this in 2001.
In retrospect, this should not have come as a surprise.
Then whenSuper Trooperscame out, I was likeWait, I know these guys!
Theres a huge line out front, and the bouncer was like, Hey, Super Trooper!
Get on in here!
Thats when I knew.
Steve:Thats a good one.
Get inside here, youre drinking for free.
And we went inside and we drank for free.
I think that was my first brush with fame.
Kevin:It was a slow burn, but it worked out all right.
We got free drinks.
Paul:But it was a solid two years after the movie, wouldnt you say?
Erik:I was parachuting in the Himalayas
Paul:Here we go!
And there was the Dalai Lama, and he said, Get in here!
Kevin:And you drank for free!
I mean, it was the age of DVDs.
Remember the age of DVDs?
And they got passed around peoples dorm rooms and whatever, so it was a very slow burn.
We were like, When is this thing gonna hit?
And then it finally did.
Steve:It was the equivalent of a viral video in the aughts.
Erik:It was kind of like Jerky Boys.
Remember the Jerky Boys tape?
We were in college, and that would get passed around on cassette.
I feel likeSuper Trooperswas kind of like that on DVD.
Yeah, butSuper Troopershad a nice festival run.
AndPuddle Cruiserwas actually a success at a couple of festivals.
It was a little soft.
So withSuper Troopers, we were hellbent on making a funny opening.
We watched the whole opening scene and the title comes up and Im like, Stop the film!
and I look at Kevin and Im like, We blew it again!
and he goes, What are you talking about?
And Im like, It sucks!
The opening of the movie sucks!
That opening scene does a great job of establishing the offbeat tone of the movie.
It doesnt start off with you guys; it starts off with these stoners in a car.
We wanted to convey what it was like to get pulled over by these guys.
Like, little Mac is crazy, and little Farvas an asshole …
Which was a terrible idea, and for us a big welcome to the studio system.
The Canadian border patrol stopped us just to say, Hey, what are you guys doing?
We were going to a sex club, a dual sex/strip club over the Canadian border.
And there was a dude in the back holding the mushrooms for the entire bachelor party.
He had like 12 doses of mushrooms, and he ate them all.
Were you gonna be put in international prison?
And they were like Okay, then, youre not allowed back in Canada for seven years.
Get out of here.
And we were like, Thats the fucking punishment?
That was the inspiration for the opening scene.
Lets step back a little bit.
Steve:What do you mean, friends?
You didnt like me at all.
Kevin:I didnt like you.
I fought against Steve Lemme joining our comedy show because I thought he was a little bit shady.
Jay:We had auditions, but there wasnt a big theater scene there.
Paul and Eric were in the theater, but these other two guys werent.
Steve:I was at the tailgate for a football game.
You had the auditions on a Saturday afternoon.
Paul:That really won you over, Kevin.
That broke the ice.
Steve:He fucking hated me.
And my girlfriend was like, You always say you want to be in a play or something.
Well, these guys are holding auditions!
Why dont you go try out?
And so I went and he was like, Okay.
Lets do an improv.
It was me and Ted Griffin, whos a writer.
He wroteMatchstick Men,Oceans Eleven,Tower Heist.
He had us audition as two No.
2 pencils I was one who had been cheating on a test and he was the wholesome one.
And frankly, I crushed it.
Paul:The greaseball, the slimy character.
You need those in sketch comedy!
Kevin:True, and then I gave in.
Jay:Right, but there was another reason you didnt like him.
Erik:He stole a candy bar from you or something, right?
Steve:Okay, heres the deal.
I was a freshman and these guys were sophomores, and I went to rush their fraternity house.
Jay:No, not true at all.
Steve:It was a ritual for me.
Paul:Its called thievery.
Steve:I found this one coat, and it was huge.
It wrapped around me twice.
And I guess I wore it back to the scene of the crime.
Kevin:I didnt have my fucking winter coat for, like, two weeks.
And then one day I walk in and there it is, sitting there, my coats back.
I reach into the pocket the thief had left his college ID inside it!
And I go, Holy fucking shit!
And I found him and I was like, Hey, you stole my coat!
He goes No, I didnt.
I go, I found your ID in it.
He goes Holy shit!
The guy who stole your coat must have been the same guy who stole my ID!
Jay:Good answer.
Steve:I thought it was a good answer, but he didnt go for it.
Paul:Have you ever replaced the Snickers bar in all these years?
Have you ever bought him a fucking Snickers bar?
Steve:You know what, Kevin?
Today, Im going to treat you to a jumbo Snickers bar.
Paul:Let the healing begin!
We have clips that were gonna be showing throughout this eventlets show the first one now.
Its one of the best-known scenes from the film.
Kevin:take a stab at get that scene through a development meeting, man.
You cant do it!
People read it on the page and theyre like, What the fuck is this?
Erik:Two pages of Meow!
Kevin:Theyre saying meow?
What the hell is this shit?
This is not gonna work!
But all of them singled out that scene as to why they werent gonna make the movie.
They were like, Youve got meow …
It might be funny to you guys, but nobody else is going to think this is funny.
Is George gonna act in it?
Erik:Somebody said, If you get Ben Affleck to play Thorny, well greenlight it.
I believe it was Fox.
Jay:We should have done it.
It would have been a good movie.
Paul:Ben Affleck would be sitting there right now,staring out into spaceas we talk.
Jay:Id be sitting in the audience just weeping.
Kevin: At the time, Jim Gaffigan was a relatively unknown guy.
He was in NYC, we were all working in NYC.
Jay:You hated him, too.
Steve:Youre gonna notice a theme here.
Kevin hated Jim Gaffigan.
Erik:Its true.
Steve:And we were like, This guy just killed his audition.
Kevin was like, I dont like this fucking guy.
Kevin:He stole my pants at a party!
I was always up against Jim Gaffigan.
He was the Rolling Rock guy, he was the Saturn guy, he was everything.
And I was like This guy … he is my nemesis!
So then he comes in to read forSuper Troopersand I was like, This is my chance.
Im gonna shoot this guy down!
and these guys loved him.
They loved Jim Gaffigan.
And I was like No way!
Paul:Hes like a funnier Kevin Heffernan!
We love this guy!
And were like Okay, fine, we got you.
In this case we were like, Fuck you, Heffernan.
This guy killed his audition.
Paul:It was four to one.
Steve:And Gaffigan got the job.
You think of Gaffigan as a clean standup comedian, but in real life he was dirty.
He was telling dirty jokes!
I dont think you ever came and spoke to Jim Gaffigan, did you?
Kevin:I did.
He went on to great things and we became friends with him, and we put him inSlammin Salmon.
And then he was super-nice enough to fly his private jet in and shootSuper Troopers 2with us.
Steve:Only in the morning because he had like ten sold-out shows at the Wilbur Theater in Boston.
But he flew out on his PJ and shot in the morning and then flew back to Boston.
Hes come a long way.
Kevin:I love Jim Gaffigan.
Wed all fly out from New York to give a shot to get this movie set up.
And it was always the five of us in one little hotel room.
We took turns screaming meow!
in the next room!
And they said, You remember this joke?
Theres always periods where you go through mean-spirited comedy, you know?
Once you start getting into more mean-spirited stuff, it always seemed to undermine that.
Its not cringe- or humiliation- bang out stuff.Kevin:Fuck that guy!
Nah, youre right.
You seem very good natured about it.Kevin:Thats the dangerous thing about makingSuper Troopers.
You put yourself into this situation by playing police, and its comes with with certain baggage.
Erik:There was one time the five of us were driving and we got pulled over.
Jay was driving, and he was like, Im gonna tell this motherfucker off, all right?
And were like, Okay.
And were like Oh, you totally told him off, didnt you?
And then were like, They have so much power, right?
But what if they had a great sense of humor?
Kevin:Were so young looking, arent we?
Steve:Youre so smooth and creamy, both of you.
Kevin:Yummy mustache in there!
And the mustaches were real, right?All the guys:Oh yeah, definitely.
Where did this gag come from?
Wed roll through this drive-thru and get these large Cokes.
And in the middle of the semester they got a new manager, and the manager was from Canada.
And he just insisted that the large was now called a liter.
And he goes, We dont have that.
He goes, Order a liter!
Im like, Im not ordering a liter!
And it went like that for a while and we got him back.
Paul:We jumped over the counter and kicked his ass.
Kevin:Thats a buddy of ours, Charlie Finn, who played that character.
He has such a punchable face, you know?
It really came to life when he put that uniform on and got back there.
It was fantastic because later on in the scene, I jump the counter and I tackle him.
We did multiple takes of it.
Steve:You cant do that anymore, man.
Kevin:Cant do that anymore.
Steve:Thats exactly how you describe him: dim, sincere, and sarcastic.
Farva is such a great comic creation.
If you dont know who youre going to play, then youll write jokes for everybody.
Erik:We all read for it, right?
Jay:I think thats right, and we named him after Brett Favre.
But I think Erik and Paul created that character first, right?
Steve:I was supposed to read Farva after Kevin, and I declined.
There was no point.
Kevin:Because Im the biggest asshole of us?
Is that what you guys are driving at here?
Paul:You found something deep in your soul.
I wish we taped that.
And he was like, Awesome, great.
Steve:But we werent supposed to see his dick in that scene.
Paul:Nobody was supposed to see his dick.
Erik:Jay invited his whole family, right?
Steve:Jays whole family nephews, nieces, there were like 20 Indians on set that day.
Didnt you ask the DP to dip down and check his dick?
He goes Yeah from behind.
Just dont show my dick.
And Im like, Dont flatter yourself; nobody wants to see that tuna can.
And the cameramans like, Why would anyone want to see his dick?
Im like, Exactly.
And he goes, Pah!
[spitting sounds].
And Im at the monitor like, God, thats one of the funniest things Ive ever seen.
And he goes, Were not showing my dick!
Kevin:It turned into a huge fight in the editing room.
And Im like, Were making a comedy!
Nobody wants to see my dick!
But I lost the argument.
President Obama saw his dick.
Everybody has seen his dick.
Staying on the theme of nudity, Im gonna go to our third clip.
Kevin:We shot that on the grounds of the Fishkill Correctional Facility.
Steve:Maximum-security prison!
Kevin:The prisoners were watching us shoot this scene.
I WANNA LOVE ON YOU!
They were just raining shit down on us.
Steve:I WANNA FUCK YOU!
Every time Id take off the kimono, a cheer would go up from the prison.
Look, in their eyes, theres a cop getting naked and being shot.
It was fucking horrible, actually.
It was a good time.
When we were writing it, Jay was like, Nah, it would never happen.
We should cut the scene.
Wed never do this.
So we had to find a way to make it feel real.
Steve:I think we looked online and saw that bulletproof jock straps really existed.
Tell me about working with Brian Cox.Kevin:Oh, Coxy.
What we tried to do in our early movies was bring someone into the cast that has some gravitas.
We were making a $1 million movie and we didnt have anybody, and Cox came through.
At heart, the guys a comic.
When you watchSuccessionnow and all that kind of stuff, you wouldnt expect that.
Here was a guy whos a real fucking actorand he would remind us about that.
He did Shakespeare in Moscow!
He would tell us that kind of shit.
But he grounded us.
I was happy he remembered my name.
He hadnt done comedy up to that point.
We were thinking about getting heavy hitters in the comedy world, like Bill Murray, to play Capt.
That would be the natural choice, but we didnt really have the money for it.
This was the originalManhunter, the original Hannibal Lecter.
Steve:And inSuper Troopers 2, we discovered he was a stoner.
One day hes like, I love to smoke marijuana!
I got high just last night!
And we were like, What are you smoking?
and he goes, Dank Sinatra.
He didnt understand that hes probably the only person on the planet who would want that kind of edible.
Hes about to take a bite of it and goes, Wait a second, is this white chocolate?
So we almost killed him right off the bat.
I dont know how she did it.
Jay:He bit a real bar of soap.
Erik:He did?
Jay:Yeah, a real bar of soap.
Speaking of diabetes, I want to ask about thesyrup-chugging scene.
Is it true you chugged real syrup for this?
I drank 2 12 full bottles and I made Erik drink 3 12.
I didnt think he had it right yet.
Erik:He was fucking with me.
Youre not meant for that much sugar.
At lunch, we were both feeling pretty bad.
We went and laid in my trailer in the dark and just shook.
But I was not well.
We both tried to throw it up but it was too thick, it wouldnt come up.
and Im like No.
And he goes, Well, theres a reason why maple syrup is part of the master cleanse.
I went in and stuff came out of me fromyears ago!
Like, I shat a fossilized robin fetus!
And when youre finished, youre like, Never again.
Paul:And now thats all anyone wants you to do.
You mentioned there was a love scene that was cut out.
We shot the whole thing.
That was in the Sundance ending.
Thats sitting out there somewhere, that other ending.
Erik:Was Who wants a mustache ride?
a reshoot after Sundance?
Steve:Yeah, that was a reshoot.
We shot that in New York City.
Lets talk aboutSuper Troopers 2.
You had a very successful crowdfunding effort for that film.
It ended up working out really, really well.
Steve:And that actually connected us with the fans the most, ultimately.
Kevin was late and was driving 105 mph down the 5, and he got pulled over.
Kevin:The cop was like, Where you going in such a hurry?
And I said Well, Im going to throw the first pitch out at the Padres game?
And he said, Who are you to throw the first pitch out at the Padres game?
and I said, I made a movie calledSuper Troopers.
And he looked at me and went, Oh.
Playing a cop has its perkssometimes.
Well do another 18 or so and then be ready to go.
