095 Total Consciousness transcript (Harold Ramis)

Listen to the full episode and see show notes at this link.

Amit: [00:00:00] This is Famous and Gravy biographies from a different point of view. To participate in our opening quiz, email us at hello@famousandgravy.com. Now here's the quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity. I.

Michael: This person died 2014, age 69. Growing up in Chicago. He loved television so much that he got up early on Saturday mornings and stared at the screen until the first program began.

Oh, come on. That's impossible that nobody knows that about [00:00:30] anyone. After graduating college, he got a job as an. Orderly in a psychiatric hospital in St. Louis.

Friend: Danny DeVito? No, he's still alive.

This is an actor in training. This is definitely,

uh, I, I don't know.

Michael: In the late sixties, he was hired as a jokes editor at Playboy Magazine where he moved up to associate editor.

He also joined Second City's touring company.

Friend: Not Hugh Hefner.

Okay, so he's a horny [00:01:00] actor,

Michael: aren't they all

Friend: is also into improv. Is it Mike Myers? No,

Michael: not Mike Myers. He is still with us as of this recording. He went on to write Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters two playing the super intellectual Dr. Egon Segler.

Friend: Oh, we Ramis. Oh. Oh. Um, Harold Ramis,

Michael: today's dead celebrity is Harold Ramis.[00:01:30]

Archival: Haven't you had anxieties or, I got a great lesson from a psychology book I read very little, but I try to make the most out of what I do. Read it. The point was that it suggested that maybe a lot of our anxiety is really excitement, that when we feel what we read as fear going into a situation, it's just 'cause we're physically excited.

Our, our breath is short and, uh, we don't know what's gonna happen. And that if you can treat it as excitement and not fear, it has a whole different color. It's the [00:02:00] same feeling, but it's a positive experience and not a negative one. And I've tried to use that. Just to trust that in the moment, uh, you'll be able to figure out what to do in show business.

I think it's probably essential to stay cool in that way.

Michael: Welcome to Famous and Gravy. I'm Michael Osborne.

Amit: And I'm Amit Kapoor.

Michael: And on this show we choose a famous figure who died in the 21st century, and we take a totally different approach to their [00:02:30] biography. What didn't we know? What could we not see clearly? And what does a celebrity's life story teach us about ourselves today?

Harold Ramos died 2014, age 69, category one, grading the first line of their obituary. Harold Ramis, a writer, director and actor whose boisterous but sly silliness helped catapult comedies like Groundhog Day, Ghostbusters [00:03:00] Animal House, and Caddyshack to Commercial and Critical Success died on Monday in his Chicago area home.

He was 69. I kind of like it. I like it a lot. There's a confusing bit here that I think we need to talk about boisterous, but sly silliness. It's ambiguous to me the way this is written, whether that is referring to the man or the comedies. Oh, no doubt. To the comedies,

the public doesn't know anything about the man.

That's our job. That's why we're here doing it. I don't think anybody in [00:03:30] 2014 reading the obituary like had any impression of who Harold Ramis was beyond the acting roll and Ghostbusters.

Okay, so let's pause on that. His fame is worth talking about here. I've been saying Ahed, let's do a Harold Ramis episode for a while, and you've been like, I'm not sure.

I'd be like, let me, let

Amit: me Google

Michael: that. And that's, that's sort of surprising to me in a way. If you had to say, what's the one thing we know him for?

Amit: Mm-hmm.

Michael: Ghostbusters would've been it Egon and Ghost. But that's the reason that was the final clue. Yeah. In [00:04:00] the opening quiz. But I also think his contribution goes well beyond that.

He's more of a guy behind the scenes kind of figure. Very much. Right. I'm sure that'll come out as we go through the episode. But there is enough acting cred. I mean, he's in stripes, he's in Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters too, and then he has like a ton of cameos. He's not totally unknown and I do feel like Ghostbusters was so big that the first line should do.

The guy, you know from Ghostbusters, that's not quite what [00:04:30] they do. No, not at all.

Amit: Because Egon was not boisterous, so this is definitely referring to his works.

Michael: Shouldn't they have drawn more attention? Not necessarily Egon, but I feel like the approach is a little bit off.

Amit: It's too darn

Michael: hard with this

Amit: guy.

Michael: The credits are

Amit: just so all over the place.

Michael: That's true. But I still think that I've come to understand the first line of the obituary as drawing reference to the thing you most know them for. Yeah. The recognition. So. They got Ghostbusters in there. Awesome. Okay. But then they also kind of buried it with Groundhog Day Animal House [00:05:00] and Caddy Shack, Groundhog Day.

Some people say it's his masterpiece, and I kind of agree with that.

Amit: Yeah.

Michael: It's a hard one to do. I guess maybe that's the first point to make that, because he is more important for his behind the scenes work than his onscreen work. You kind of need to say all these things. Writer, director, and actor. Yes.

And then if you're gonna make that case, then you're like. From these four very big movies, of which I think these are the right four. Groundhog Day, Ghostbuster's Animal House. Keach.

Amit: Yeah, they, there was a GQ article that they called it the Big Four, I think [00:05:30] it's worth just 30 seconds here to describe what his role was in each of these Animal House.

He was a writer. I. Caddy Shack, director and writer, Ghostbusters writer and actor, Groundhog Day writer and director. The two not mentioned, I think are National Lampoons vacation, where he was a director on and then analyzed this where he was director and writer

Michael: in terms of commercial success.

Amit: Yeah, I just did that because I wanted to throw it in for people that may not have the name recognition for Harold Ramis.

Archival: There's something very important. I forgot to tell you [00:06:00] what, don't cross the streams, why it would be bad. What do you mean bad? Try to imagine all life as you know it, stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light. Right? That's bad.

Michael: He's in the mix with a lot of people.

I've actually been thinking about, do you remember the basketball player, Robert Orry?

Amit: Vaguely.

Michael: He has seven NBA championships. He won two with the Rockets, three with the Lakers, and then two with the Spurs. He's got the name Big shot Bob. He was [00:06:30] always kind of like a essential role player, but he also had a couple of like buzzer beaten threes in.

Very important. NBA playoff games. Yeah. That's kind of the Harold Ramis story. Like he's on the team. He's not the most important player on the team most of the time. He's making very big contributions and he's kind of like in a lot of different places. He's the Robert Rory of 20th century comedies.

Amit: Okay.

We have not picked apart the obituary well enough so far.

Michael: Well, I mean, you have to understand all this stuff to understand the first line of the obituary.

Amit: [00:07:00] Yes.

Michael: Here's what I like. Sly silliness. I think that's great. Sly silliness is pretty good and kind of cuts across a lot of these movies. Boisterous

Amit: is a weird word to me.

I like boisterous here. To contrast the sly silliness because of what they say below commercial and critical success. It's almost like the boisterous as the commercial and the is the critical. It's that he. Walked this line, which is not very common of both like mainstream, raucous type of comedies as well as the [00:07:30] characters in them, but also had very sly and covert intelligence to it.

Archival: Tell those assholes to shut up. Hey, shut up, you asshole. Don't screw around. They're serious this time. Take it easy. I'm in pre-law, man. Thought you pre-med.

Michael: What's the difference? I think that this contrast boisterous, yet sly silliness applies more to the early work. I think that's true of vacation. I think that's true of Caddyshack.

I think that's true of Animal House. I don't think it's as true in Groundhog [00:08:00] Day and analyze this. I think his movies get smarter as time goes on and trend towards high concept, maybe somewhere in the middle as Ghostbusters. So I feel like it actually. Doesn't characterize the whole body of work. It only really applies to a chapter of his work and maybe not even the most important chapter.

So I kind of like what they're trying to do. I don't think they nailed it. I definitely like sly silliness. He is sly. Yes. That's a nice word, right? He's sort of smirking. [00:08:30] He's devious and he's clever. All of those are captured in the word sly and there's a silliness.

Amit: Yep.

Michael: And I'll also say the last thing, uh, that leapt out to me, Chicago area home.

He was

Amit: all

Michael: Chicago. Such a Chicago guy. I think we'll get into that as we go. Okay. I've got my score. Okay, I'm gonna go eight outta 10. What was the two deduction? It sounds like you were all praise except for boisterous. Hey, boisterous is, is two points off for me. Harold Ramis is not boisterous and only half of his movies are boisterous.

It's a not bad word, applied [00:09:00] to a different person. You'd never say, you know Harold Ram, he played Egon, the boisterous guy. Yeah. It's like so wrong

Amit: that it kind of frustrates me. So that's a two point deduction. Okay. I was pretty close to a 10. I took it down one notch to a nine. I think for the point that you brought up is to whether boisterous but sly silliness refers to the man or the work.

I thought it was obvious referring to the work. Clearly you skipped some days. School.

Michael: Did I skip some days at school? I don't understand that. Dick, where'd I go wrong?

Amit: Just understanding that you can use adjectives [00:09:30] to modify something that isn't necessarily the subject. A sentence

Michael: can be written so that it's clear whether you're referring to the art or the artist.

And this is not clear,

Amit: but implicit is also allowed. We're probably both wrong. We don't wanna invite anybody who actually knows anything about grammar to critique us.

Michael: Well, I mean this is the whole first line of the obituary. There's an art to it. Grammar rules should go out the window to some extent. If it all like makes sense.

My point is it doesn't totally make sense

Amit: and for you, sir, I'm deducting a point and [00:10:00] that's why I'm giving it a nine. Okay. Well I'm glad we agreed to disagree to

Michael: agree. Let's move on. Category two, five things I love about you here. Amit and I develop a list of five things that offer a different angle on who this person was and how they lived.

You kick

Amit: us off. I am gonna go with the path. Harold Ramis was a student of Buddhism. He wasn't a Buddhist, so I'm not referring to the The spiritual path. Yeah, the noble path. I am saying merely the path that led him to his fame and ultimately what we talk about today. [00:10:30] I. Lemme just go through it and let's make this like a dual participatory one because I There's a lot.

Michael: Yeah. It's a little hard to track his timeline, especially as he comes up.

Amit: So, yeah. So he was, as a high school student, was a performer in a way. He was. He started folk bands. He was a great musician. He went to WashU in St. Louis originally pre-med. He was interested in neuroscience of all things,

Michael: which you can see that.

He looks neurosciencey. Yeah. He even worked in that psych ward for a period of time.

Amit: Yes. That was after college. So he ended up being an English [00:11:00] major and then took odd jobs, eventually writing for newspapers, moved up to Chicago, worked for the Chicago Daily Sun, and this is where a lot of the key things happened.

One of his assignments while working for the Chicago Daily Sun was to cover the Second City comedy troupe. Is that how he learned about it?

Michael: Okay.

Amit: Yeah. And so he's hanging around and observing what they're doing and it's like, I, I really like this. And this is like early days of Second City, early. This is in the sixties, right?

Late sixties. Yeah. I mean, it

Michael: was, I don't know how old it was at that point, but like it [00:11:30] had not been around for very long. And actually real quick, I think most people know, but Second City is one of the most important improv troops to this day. It is where a lot of the SNL cast members come from. And a lot of that original SNL cast has Second city roots.

Amit: Exactly. Which we're gonna get into right now. So he ends up joining Second City after attending workshops. He auditions and makes it so he's still writing and touring now with Second City, now he's writing for Playboy. I. As a jokes editor, he takes a break from Second City [00:12:00] to go travel with his wife, which I'm hoping I get to talk about later.

As he's gone away from Second City. John Belushi replaces him in the cast. Yes. And he comes back and rather than John Belushi being sort of his adversary, they become a sort of collaborators. He develops a very close friendship with Belushi. He serves as his foil.

Michael: Yeah. And we should say Bill Murray and his older brother, Brian Doyle Murray, are also part of that Chicago troop at that time.

Amit: Yeah. A lot to say about the Murrays. Yes. Or specifically about Bill as it relates to Harold? Yeah, we'll get there. Yeah. Okay. And then this [00:12:30] is when John Belushi's star is really rising. He goes to the Lampoon, if I understand this correctly, right?

Michael: Yeah, it's a little confusing 'cause there's something called Lemmings, which was sort of related to the Lampoon, but Belushi winds up recruiting a bunch of the second City people into the kind of Lampoon umbrella, including Harold Ramis.

Amit: Yes. Then a lot of those people end up going to Saturday Night Live. Yes. Ramis was

Michael: invited to go to Saturday Night Live. Not at that time. Lauren Michaels hires a bunch of the Lampoon people for [00:13:00] SNL. Harold Ramis is not one of them. He winds up going to SCTV, where Eugene Levy and John Candy and Rick Moranis and all these Canadians are doing a.

A sort of similar thing to Saturday Night Live. Lauren Michaels then offers a job mm-hmm. To Harold Ramis and says, do you wanna come to SML? But at that point, SCTV had some real at Traction and Harold Ramis is like, no, I'm not interested. Also, I'm writing this movie Animal House and I think it's gonna work.

But this is your whole point. The path.

Amit: The path. Right. So as part of the Lampoon, [00:13:30] he got the opportunity to co-write Animal House. That being the gigantic success that it was. He was then recruited to co-write and direct Caddy Shack. So the rest is history after that, as we talk about Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day, analyze this.

Here's what I love about it. There was no formal film school training in this. This was a guy that was writing newspaper articles that stumbled upon a comedy troupe, and he happened to be a good ukulele player. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. And that's how he eventually came to be the king of comedy for the.

The eighties and [00:14:00] nineties, I guess part of the seventies as well is he was not trained on any rules. And one thing that they talk about in a lot of Harold Ram's films is how they don't really follow rules of protagonists. Antagonists. There's a lot of anti-heroes, a lot of indolent people rising to the top.

Archival: I'm a God, you're God, I'm a God. I'm not the God I don't think, why are you telling me this? Because I want you to believe in me. This is Doris, her brother-in-law. Carl owns this diner. She's worked here since she was 17. [00:14:30] More than anything else in her life, she wants to see Paris before she dies. Oh boy, what I, well, who's that?

This is Tom. He worked in the coal mine until they closed it town, and her Alice came over here from Ireland when she was a baby. She lived in Erie most of her life. He's right. This is gonna trick. Well, maybe the real God uses tricks. You know, maybe he's not omnipotent. He's just been around for long. He knows everything.

Amit: He breaks down other things, you know, fourth wall, all sorts of rules that he breaks because he was never formally trained on him. 'cause here's a guy that was an English major and newspaper [00:15:00] writer, and then becomes one of the most successful comedy writers, directors, and actors of our time.

Michael: You know what I really like about this point, Amit, that I called it the path.

Well, yes, actually, because this has actually become a kind of newer theme on the show. We talked about this a little bit in the Jimmy Buffett episode, his creative collaborators. If you are a creative with ambitions and you want to try and do something, sometimes it's not clear. Who your team is. Mm-hmm.

Right? And and who to sign on with, and that there is no, you go to this [00:15:30] school and then this job, and then that school, and then that job, that there is no predetermined path. That's something we can all relate to. Yeah. You add up all those things that Harold Ramis was involved with along his path. Second City, SETV, not quite SNL, but National Lampoon, and then.

Finally Hollywood in these movies, sometimes we've gotta create our own training ground. And that's exactly, I think what you're trying to say as you described the path. And that is an intuitive experience. That is an intuitive process. You have to just kind of go where you feel like the [00:16:00] spark is and where you have a role to play.

Yeah, and I think you didn't quite say this, but the last point I'd make on that is that Harold Ramis, his role changed and evolved with all of those different collaborations.

Amit: Yeah, he was very good at following the scent.

Michael: Yes, exactly. Great. Number one. Okay, for number two, I'm gonna set this up a little bit by reading something that President Obama said in 2014 after Harold Ram's death.

This was a statement that he released. Okay. Michelle and I were saddened to hear of the passing of Harold Ramis, one of [00:16:30] America's greatest sadists. And like so many other comedic geniuses, a proud product of Chicago's second city. When we watched his movies from Animal House and Caddyshack to Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day, we didn't just laugh until it hurt.

We questioned authority. We identified with the outsider. We rooted for the underdog, and through it all, we never lost our faith in happy endings. Our thoughts and prayers are with Harold's wife, Erica, his children and grandchildren, and all those who loved him, who quote his work with abandon and who hope that [00:17:00] he received.

Total consciousness.

Amit: Ah, total consciousness. Okay, now

Michael: I know. Yeah. Okay, so number two, I'm going total consciousness, which you know the reference, right?

Archival: And who do you think they gimme? The Dali Lama himself. And he says, oh, uh, when you die on your deathbed, you'll receive total consciousness. So I got that going for me, which is nice.

Michael: So first of all, I like that phrase. Total consciousness. [00:17:30] But second of all, it's a little hard to pinpoint, but there's definitely some zen master stuff going on with Harold Rabis. People remark on this that he was on a spiritual path and it at times that's sort of made explicit. He's raised Jewish, but he's very, very interested in Buddhism.

Groundhog Day is, I think, a masterpiece. Because so many people, so many religions see themselves in that movie. The fact that it's never explained why Bill Murray's [00:18:00] character is reliving the same day over and over, I think is part of why it can be open to interpretation.

Archival: My producing partner, Trevor Albert, called me and said There, there are pickets outside the, the theater in Santa Monica.

And I said, what are they protesting? He said, they're not protesting. They're Hasidic Jews walking around with signs that say, are you living the same day over and over again? Well, my mother-in-law lived for 35 years in a Zen Buddhist meditation center. [00:18:30] She said they loved it. They thought it expresses a fundamental Buddhist concept.

And then the psychiatric community, uh, chimed in. And said, obviously the movie is a metaphor for psychoanalysis. It's not just something for everybody. It's the same message. The film does not change, but everyone obviously projected something onto the film.

Michael: This is his masterpiece. He is the guy for this moment.

He even has a little laminated card called The Five Minute Buddhist Yes, that he carries in his back pocket.

Amit: He described it as like a taco menu. Yeah, right.

Michael: It's exactly what it is. [00:19:00] And he gave a copy to Judd Apatow, like he never like talks about his rituals or his deeper beliefs, but you don't have to look too hard to see that he's on a spiritual path.

Mm-hmm. And that he is actually after total consciousness on some level. He's not like. A religious figure to be studied or an author who like lays out a view of the world, a view of life that way. But I think it's fascinating that he is on this path and he's this great humorist like what to [00:19:30] make of that.

Right? It's the coupling here that I like so much that. Humor to me is in some ways part of a spiritual experience. Yeah. When we're looking for meaning in our lives, like we should look at who's making us laugh and why.

Amit: Yes.

Michael: And I think he embodies that. It's again, behind the scenes and it's a little fuzzy and a little hard to see, but it's one of the reasons I wanted to do this episode, and it is absolutely one of my favorite things about him.

Amit: Yeah, I was gonna say I had one of mine on there that was like inner philosopher, so [00:20:00] I think that you pretty much covered it.

Michael: Alright,

Amit: so what do you got for number three? Um, okay, here I will. I said to inner philosopher before I had another inner, uh, and that was his inner Jimmy Buffet, Harold Ramis. This is Odo our last episode, but Harold Ramis was a guy that escaped to the islands and you look at him being occasionally pudgy guy from Chicago, not occasionally from Chicago, but he is all Chicago.

Michael: He's occasionally pudgy, I think is your point. Yes. Yeah.

Amit: So he had a reputation for escaping to the islands, specifically the Greek islands. There was two different times in [00:20:30] his life that he talked about it, but I'm sure there was a lot of other instances in between. First was in 1970 with his wife, this is when he left and took a sabbatical from Second City 'cause they were going, she was interested in Leonard Cohen.

She was interested in Leonard Cohen. Exactly.

Michael: Yeah. This is an our episode on Leonard Cohen. We talked about Leonard Cohen's time in the Greek Islands,

Amit: and then he did it again after Caddy Shack. Again, had to clear his mind. Think about where the next path of his career is going. And again, he escapes the [00:21:00] Greek islands.

So there's this image I have now of Harold Ramis in a floral shirt, flip flops, and maybe cargo shorts. I see him as a cargo short guy.

Michael: Yeah. Uh,

Amit: but that kind of escape is not at all what I would've expected from everything else I read and saw about Harold Ramis.

Michael: Why not? Why, why is

Amit: this surprising to you or why is this striking to you?

Because he leaves at opportune times and he leaves, and this, I guess this goes a lot to your total consciousness, is that he goes in a soul cleanse and he goes when [00:21:30] things are going well, this is not a, it doesn't sound like he's vacationing in the islands type of guy. It sounds like he's a resetting in the islands type of guy.

Michael: That's interesting, Ahmed. I hadn't thought of it until just now, but you're absolutely right. Like when to take a vacation. It tends to be the thing that people say, take a vacation, go to the islands so that you can fix what's broken at home. Yeah, or like reset or repair. Not so you can. After a success reflect on where to next.

Amit: Yeah.

Michael: But I like that version [00:22:00] of it more. There's something to that,

Amit: right? It doesn't, and you know, maybe I'm inventing this, but it doesn't sound like it was for the pina coladas.

Michael: Yeah. Right. No, I think it's a fair interpretation. Okay. I think that makes sense. Okay. I'll go number four. I wrote down he's an.

Instigator, and this has a little bit of double meaning for me. This gets a little bit to the sly silliness. There is something anti-institutional, you know, rebelling against authority. Stick it to the man, especially in his earlier movies. The kind of like troublemaking you associate with [00:22:30] somebody who you would call an instigator.

Amit: Yeah,

Michael: I think a different interpretation of the word instigator is more like. Activation energy, like he's the guy who makes things happen. He has this quote that comes up all the time. I wasn't the class clown but I wrote for the class Clown

Archival: Hidden. Somewhere deep inside me is an alter ego. That's a lot like Bill's or Dan's or John Belushi.

I mean, I admire those guys for incredible courage it takes to to be as crazy as they are. I wish I was more like that. And [00:23:00] I think the way I express it is in the things that I write, you know, for them or with them. I think the films reflect the side of me that I don't really get to express. I, I don't get to act out a lot and, uh, I just channel it through the writing.

I think.

Michael: I think when he says that, by the way, I think like a lot of that is referring to Bill Murray. And actually let's pause real quick just to talk about the Harold Ramis. Bill Murray story. 'cause I feel like it's important. It's an interesting one. It is. If you look at the movies that made Bill Murray famous after Saturday Night [00:23:30] Live, I.

Harold Ram is involved in almost all of them, right? He co-writes Stripes. He writes meatballs. He wrote Caddy Shack, Ghostbusters, all the way to Groundhog Date. It's hard to come up with between 1978 and 1993, a Bill Murray movie that does not have Harold Rams involved, and I didn't know this. Mm-hmm. But it sounds like there might have been.

Some resentment from Bill Murray around his attachment. I mean, it was a little bit of a linen in McCartney thing in a way. Really? That's what it sound, I mean, [00:24:00] that's my read of it. It sounds like Bill Murray had some resentment and it all comes to a head on Groundhog Day. So the movie comes out great, but they have a major falling out and Bill Murray's, his first marriage is falling apart, and he wanted the movie to be more philosophical.

Harold Ramis wanted it to be more of a comedy. I feel like they struck the exact right balance. I've thought about this. If you look at each of their careers after it's very divergent, like it's after this, that Bill Murray goes and does movies with Wes Anderson and Jim [00:24:30] Jarmus and Lost in translation.

And with Sophia Kla, like he becomes more of an actor. But the scripts are a lot different and Harold Ramis is still doing goofy comedies with mixed success anyway. They be right before held Ramus dies. They do reconcile, but they go 20 years. Without talking to each other. Yeah. Okay. I've gotten away from the instigator point back to instigator, but that friendship needed to be explained a little bit I think.

So. It's a good story. It's an important story for understanding each of their careers because Harold Ramis is not the guy on camera. He's writing for the class clown. There is something [00:25:00] about lifting somebody else's voice up or seeing the talent that somebody else has. And lowering the activation energy so that the project gets greenlit and becomes a raging success.

Yeah. Over and over again. Whether he is coming up with the idea, punching up the script, working as a director, being a producer, or showing up in cameos, like everywhere he shows up, he's making the thing easier, he's instigating it, and what a wonderful thing. So instigator.

Amit: Okay. I was gonna bring one up [00:25:30] later, but I think I can just tag yours here.

Okay. Was that he was a master of the pep talk. So in certain movies, stripes, but most famously in Animal House, often he's known as the king of the pep talk.

Archival: Did you say over Nothing is over until we decided this was it over when the Germans bomb Pearl Harbor? Hell no. German G's rolling.

Michael: This is gonna come up later because the pep talk thing evolves.

Well, okay. I'll let me, can I take five?

Amit: Yeah. 'cause I just spilled one. I spilled [00:26:00] one or two of mine. So

Michael: yes, I'm gonna keep this pretty simple, but it's something I care about. He's a cool nerd. Cool nerd. Yeah, cool nerd. Aren't we all like he's a geeky guy, are we? I guess maybe, but like I, these are my favorite kinds of people.

I don't know if he's a heartthrob to some. He is, when he is a younger man, he's having a lot of fun and he says he is very clear. I got into comedy and got on stage to meet women, but he, you know, he's also a geeky guy. Like he seems kind of nerdy as, [00:26:30] certainly as he puts on weight as he ages. He's sort of frumpy.

That's actually my very favorite kind of person. Frumpy people, uh, or cool nerds again, cool nerds. Okay. Do you know what I mean though? Like it's a clear personality type. It's somebody who sort of almost code switches one minute, they look like the most popular kid in high school, and the next minute they seem like the biggest geek in high school.

Yes. And, and Harold Ramis kind of embodies those two things. Yeah. So, I don't know. It's simple, but it's a, it's an idea I care about.

Amit: I like it. We [00:27:00] need that t-shirt. Cool nerd.

Michael: Okay, let's recap. So number one, you said the path number two, I said total consciousness number three, you said inner Jimmy Buffett.

Number four. I said instigator. And you amended that with pep talk. Pep talker. And then number five, I said cool nerd. Awesome list. Alright, let's pause. All right. Category three, one love. In this category, we each choose one word or phrase that characterizes this person's loving relationships. First, we will review the family [00:27:30] life data.

Okay, two marriages. The first to Anne in 1967. They were divorced in 1984. Harold was 23 when they married. And 40 when they divorced, they had one child, violet, and it's through Violet that we actually know a lot of the Harold Rams story. She wrote a biography a few years ago called Ghostbuster's Daughter.

Yep. Where she's very forthcoming about a lot of the sort of behind the scenes story, including this important bit of information that. While Harold and Anne were together, [00:28:00] Harold fathered a daughter out of wedlock. Molly Heckerling. So her mother, Amy Heckerling, was known for a lot of movies in the eighties.

Fast Times at Richmont High. Look who's talking? Clueless. Amy and Harold got together. So Violet had a half sister. I'll say a little bit more about this in a second because at first that sounds like a scandalous story and I think it was, it is worth noting that. Ann and Harold had essentially an open marriage.

They had an understanding and relations out of wedlock [00:28:30] that said Amy Hecker's decision to have the child was uh, not easy for Harold. Then Harold's second wife is Erica Mann. Erica worked for Harold for a period of time. Harold was 45 when they got together and they were together until his death at age 69.

They had two boys together. Do I need to say more about the child outta wedlock situation? I don't know. Does that deserve some explanation? No,

Amit: I think you covered it. I feel bad for Mr. Heckerling.

Michael: His name, his name was Neil Israel and he was actually, I looked at this up on [00:29:00] Wikipedia, known for Police Academy Real Genius, which is one of my favorite movies from the eighties, and a bachelor party, the Tom Hanks movie.

Amit: So I feel even more for him. He's a genius. I, I

Michael: look, these four people need to get together and have a lot of. Complicated relations so that we can have great comedies. I do wanna say a little bit more about Molly Harold's second daughter out of wedlock because she and Violet end up like Violet is there when she's born.

Harold goes by the hospital, but Amy Heckerling tries to keep it under wraps. And [00:29:30] Neil, Amy's husband. Always has suspicions, but when that marriage falls apart, he gets a DNA test. It turns out, he realizes he's not the father. Harold Ramis makes some steps to try and reconcile a messy situation as best he can, and one consequence of that is that Molly is brought into the family and it doesn't sound like there's a lot of lingering resentment.

I mean, the way. Violet and Harold Ramis tell the story. It was messy and it was complicated, but as everybody grows up, they figure out a way to sort of be in each other's lives. [00:30:00] So anyway, that was not known until after Violet published this biography, and she did it with Molly's blessing. Okay. Alright.

What do you got for one word? A phrase?

Amit: My phrase is Time for a new life. So in an interview that Harold Ramis gave, he said he wrote that on a placard and put it on like a cabinet door. Like as an

Michael: affirmation.

Amit: Yeah, as an affirmation. At about the time his marriage with Anne was falling apart. So that was kind of his pep talk, rallying cry, if you will.

And he found it [00:30:30] again in Erica, which is a really interesting relationship. Given she had lived something like three, four years in a Buddhist monastery. Her mother had lived like 30 years in a monastery. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like there was a lot of spirituality in his relationship with Anne, but sometimes everybody needs a new life.

Yeah, and that's what I kind of see in Harold Ramis. I think that there's a lot more than meets the eye to this guy because this, again, this happened after Ghostbusters, I believe.

Michael: It's right around Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters too. Like in the late [00:31:00] eighties. The The star is fading a little bit. Yeah. And the work is not as good.

There's also a caddy shack too, which everybody regrets.

Amit: Yeah. And so exactly as you say, like the star is fading. He's not leaving or seeking out a new life because he is on the uprise and he is such a hot commodity. This is a reflective guy. What was working for him previously is no longer working, but ultimately I think that's okay.

I mean,

Michael: I think that the way Violet describes her understanding of her parents' marriage, the first marriage, her mother [00:31:30] loved her, but motherhood did not come easy. Like Harold Ramis is more the caretaker, the nurturer. It's hard to know, like this is where we get into speculation territory. But I do wonder if he's like, I'm just not getting.

The love that I need around the time he has Right on time with a midlife crisis, right? Yeah, exactly. You know, and so, and, and you know, so,

Amit: so maybe my time for new life was just a very pleasant way of saying midlife crisis. Yeah.

Michael: But it doesn't seem coincidental that wife number two actually [00:32:00] has a rich spiritual practice, but so

Amit: did wife number one.

She just had a, maybe a richer or deeper

Michael: or something more that spoke to him. Who knows.

Amit: Yeah.

Michael: Time for a New Life. That in a way like stands in contrast, but also I think compliments what I had. I find Harold Ramis to be a real calm in the storm, comforting presence, and I think this actually shows up in his cameos, which we'll get into in a minute.

I went with waited a blanket. Hmm, you [00:32:30] Ahmed were the first one to tell me about weighted blankets. I went and crashed in your apartment in Dallas a few years ago, and you offered, you were like, would you like a weighted blanket? Yes. And I didn't know what that was, and I don't know how much that thing weighs.

It's like 20 pounds or something.

Amit: Yeah.

Michael: And I remember sleeping like a baby, and here's why I went with that for Harold Ramis. I think that he is, that it's all gonna be okay, guy. I think he communicates that in his interpersonal relationships. I think he also communicates that in his creative [00:33:00] collaborations.

There's also some weight to it, and I'm not just talking about the later in life weight gain, heavy Harold Grayness because he put on some weight. Yeah. But I think that there's some emotional baggage. There's some messiness and emotional complexity, but ultimately comforting. When he describes his relationship with his daughter and when she describes it, I mean, they talked about writing a parenting book together, and when he talks about his kids, there's a thoughtfulness there that is very selfless.

I am actually very impressed [00:33:30] with him as a father, so I wanted to come up with something that was ultimately very comforting weighted blanket. Okay, nice one. Yeah.

Archival: Life doesn't care about your vision. Okay. Stuff happens and you just gotta deal with it. You roll with it. That's, that's the beauty of it all.

Michael: All right, category four net worth. In this category, Amin and I will write down our numbers ahead of time. We'll talk a little bit about our reasoning. We'll then reveal our net worth numbers and look up the actual net worth number in real time to see who's closest. [00:34:00] Lastly, we will place this person on the famous eng gravy net worth leaderboard.

I found this kind of hard. If you track his IMDB, he stops being an actor and moves into being a director and a producer as time goes on. I think he was responsible for producing back to school. For example, the Rodney Dangerfield. I. I'm gonna call that a masterpiece, but there's, I mean, his, his name is attached to a lot of things.

Amit: Yeah.

Michael: And I also saw somewhere that they were trying to get him for a movie and his fee at the time [00:34:30] was like $5 million or something. So

Amit: yeah,

Michael: this guy's not climbing the ladder. Exactly. But he's growing in power in Hollywood. Okay. So that's about as far as I went with my thinking. How did you

Amit: approach this?

Well, first I looked at comps, so who we've done before that's been a director for simple purposes. Both of them are horror directors, but it was George Romero at 35 million and West Craven at 40 million. God, I forgot. Those numbers are so high. Wow. Those are high numbers. And Harold Ram is in a different category than them, so I, so I knew it's gotta be higher than that.

And [00:35:00] I also think that he's sneaky rich. That's my intuition about this guy.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. There's there's some hints around the edges of this. Yeah. Well, it's,

Amit: although he didn't have name recognition, the work name recognition was tremendous. He made one reference to say that he got paid $10,000 to write Animal House, but it ended up being a $9 million scholarship.

To film school. So that's one hint of what he's making out of residuals. You mentioned a $5 million director's fee. That was his standard director's fee. [00:35:30] Obviously that changed over time, but let's say he had 11 movie directing credits, so that's 55 million. We're gonna assume that averages out. That's without the residuals.

And so here's how I'm looking at the residuals. So all the movies that we've talked about of the big ones. Yeah. Right. So this is Caddy Shack, vacation, Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters two, Groundhog Day, analyze this, analyze that I'm leaving out year one and whatever The other ones that, that no one talks about are all those grossed.

A total of $1.1 billion, [00:36:00] $1.1 billion, 1.1 billion, half of which is. Ghostbusters, by the way, and this is just movies, this is not merchandise or anything. So it's just giving you an idea of what his residuals might have been. I think he's secret rich. I think he's not, maybe Jimmy Buffet Rich, but I think he's at least higher than West Craven.

Michael: Okay. Well let's reveal our number. So Amit Kapur wrote down. 45 million. Okay. After all that, I thought you would've gone a little higher.

Amit: I thought 45 was high. It's pretty high. It's higher than West [00:36:30] Craven. Okay. Let me see. Michael Osborne wrote down 25 million. Might as well have gone $1. Okay.

Michael: Actual net worth number for Harold Ramus is 90 million.

Oh, holy ghostbuster. Holy. 90 million. Only Ghostbusters. Uh, wow. Wow. They know. But that, I mean, you know, to hear you reason it out, that makes sense. If he's asking for 5 million to direct a movie, that's a pretty hefty number.

Amit: Well, I, I laid down the [00:37:00] argument for a hefty number. I just didn't think it would be that hefty.

Wow. Good for you,

Michael: Harold. Yeah, well done sir. I mean, you know, one of the things that I think is challenging about this episode, we kind of led off with this. Harold Ramis doesn't have a tremendous amount of name recognition, and I do think he is an important figure, and he is an important figure largely because of his collaborations.

And so you kind of add, put all that together and say what was his slice of the pie is a very large slice of the pie. Well done. And this [00:37:30] kind of validates his stature. On some level, right? I mean, I don't want to equate money and wealth with importance, but there's a correlation often.

Amit: Yeah.

Michael: And in this case, I'm like, I'm a little more comfortable with that correlation that if you wanted to get in somebody's face and say, you should really know who Harold Ramis was.

Did you know his net worth at death was 90 million? Yeah. You might catch their eye.

Amit: So let's look at the leaderboard. 90 million is a lot of money that's gonna. Create a 16th place. Nobody else has hit 90 million [00:38:00] before. However, just above him is Tom Petty at 95 million. Okay. Just below him, Casey Caso at 80 million, and also Muhammad Ali at 80 million.

Casey Caso and Muhammad

Michael: Ali both had 80 million. Yeah, I feel like my importance and stature and net worth correlation argument just fell apart. Yeah. Casey Casim and Muhammad Ali are not equally important. All right. No. Well. Moving on. Category five, little Lebowski Urban Achiever.

Archival: They're the little Lebowski.

Urban achievers. Yeah.

Michael: The

Archival: achievers.

Michael: Yes. And proud. We are of all [00:38:30] of them in this category, we each choose a trophy, an award, a cameo, an impersonation, or any other form of a hat tip that shows a different side of this person. Why don't you lead?

Amit: Okay. Are you familiar with what day February 2nd represents?

February 2nd is Groundhog Day, correct? That was Harold Ram's quote unquote masterpiece. So about a year ago, the City of Chicago proclaimed February 2nd as Harold Ramis Day

Archival: hereby declare the second day of February, [00:39:00] 2024. Groundhog Day now for forevermore in perpetuity over and over again. To be Harold Ramis Day.

Really? Yes. So if you happen, wait a

Michael: sec. Wait a sec. Does that mean Chicago no longer celebrates

Amit: Groundhog Day? I think you're allowed to have two names. I think if you have a designated holiday, it can also be Michael Osborne Day. In addition to it being Sure.

Michael: I think December 25th is both Christmas and Jimmy Buffett's birthday, as I recall.

That is true.

Amit: That is true. That just

Michael: passed.

Amit: Yeah.

Michael: [00:39:30] Wow. Yeah, so February 2nd in Chi Chicago. Oh, that's kind of perfect.

Amit: Yeah, it's, it's perfect. Let me say like why I chose this is that one, it's Chicago, it's not Pennsylvania. So it's a tip to what a, like a Chicago guy he is. And it's also like just how influential that movie was.

Right. To like take a title of a movie a. Appropriated with the day that the plot is associated with it, and then they do a city proclamation out on Navy Pier saying today will forever be known as Groundhog Day, which is kind of tongue [00:40:00] in cheek in itself. It said it's gonna repeat. Every year and so forth.

I

Michael: love

Amit: that.

Michael: Oh, that's awesome. February 2nd, Harold Ramsay. We should go to Chicago February 2nd. There's no way in hell I'm going to Chicago in a couple of weeks and

Amit: it's absolutely freezing.

Michael: That's a good point. Well done. Okay, great one Ahmed. Well, I wanted to pull a cameo and there's kind of a lot, I remember him for some reason, that movie is good as it gets with Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt.

Nah, I didn't like that one. Yeah. I, I liked it at the time. It doesn't, it's not my favorite movie now. He had a cameo and Groundhog [00:40:30] Day. He was the neurosurgeon Walk Hard came up for me, the Dewey Cox story. Oh yes. That movie is hilarious. So

Amit: Johnny Cash parody

Michael: and, and all of those. He is kind of what I was saying earlier about the weighted blanket.

He is the guy who shows up and says it's all gonna be okay. My favorite version of this is actually him in. Knocked up and I'd forgotten that he played Seth Rogan's dad and knocked up. Yeah. And every character in that movie is saying, what are you doing having a kid? Right. And he is the one character who's like, I

Archival: [00:41:00] can't

Michael: wait.

Archival: I'm gonna be a grandfather. You happy about that? Absolutely delighted. This is a disaster. No, this is not a disaster. It is an earthquake is a disaster. This is a good thing. This is a blessing.

Michael: It's such a moment of like unconditional love and life throws you curve balls. And there is something about the kind of, I don't know, Zen Master father figure of Harold Ramis there that is.

So I think really betrays who he is behind the scenes. But this one also speaks a little bit [00:41:30] to your point about the path. You never know the path. Yeah. None of us know the path. Look at, look at the joy where it is.

Amit: Yeah. There was a little Easter egg in there too, when he's talking to Seth Rogan and they're talking about pot.

Yeah. He says, what did I always tell you? No powders, no pills was an actual conversation he had with his daughter.

Michael: With Violet. Yeah. That, that, that's where that, uh, that line came from. Yeah. There's even a story in Violet's book where Seth Rogan writes the Forward and he tells a story about meeting Harold Ramis and he, so, so many times when you meet your [00:42:00] heroes, it's a disappointment.

Totally opposite case with Harold Ramis. He happened to be hanging around LA for a little while and Harold Ramis. Was looking for pot and asked Seth Rogan, can you help me help a brother out? And he ends up like going and smoke up together and have a great time. And that really sounds like what Harold Ram's relationship to pot was as he got older.

Yep. Okay. Let's take another break. All right. Category six words to live by. In this category, we each choose a quote. These are either words that came out of this person's mouth or was said [00:42:30] about them. I'll lay off, I don't exactly know what this means, but I like the way it sounds. Always work from the top of your intelligence.

So this came from a guy named Birdie Lins, who was the founder of Second City. The way I hear that is don't be afraid to be smart. Whatever smart thing you're trying to do, wherever your. Brain power is use that don't dumb things down. Work from the top of your intelligence. Yeah, and that was a prompt for improv work, but I think [00:43:00] that's good direction.

Amit: I think you bring

Michael: the top of your

Amit: intelligence to the show.

Michael: Thanks, man. I feel like that's something useful. I feel like that that next time somebody comes to me and it's like I'm struggling with this thing. You know, saying, are you working from the top of your intelligence is a good way to throw it back to somebody and say, am I doing that?

You know what I mean?

Amit: Yep. Alright. What do you got? Okay. Mine is broad comedy is not necessarily dumb comedy. So this was a motto that he had and his writing partner had on Animal House. So they had said that they knew that it would be the greatest comedy of all time.

Michael: This is Doug [00:43:30] Kenny, I think, who's a who?

Doug Kenny.

Amit: Correct. So they fascinating figure. Yeah, they had, they had two mottos, so they had that, which is the one I've chosen. Broad comedy is not necessarily dumb comedy. They also said just because something's popular doesn't mean it's bad. So I like this as a battle cry for creating good art. Even though you're creating art in a sphere of mega popularity, that it doesn't have to be dumbed down for the masses.

Michael: This really compliments my

Amit: point, I think. Totally. And I think it's anti, at least how we perceive all of these Marvel in DC type of [00:44:00] movies.

Michael: Yeah.

Amit: Here. And it's honestly, personally how I envision, like how I view lots of popular, popular culture. Yeah. But their approach was great because you look at these movies that they've produced and they're both, that they're, as they said in the obituary, commercial and critical successes to be able to see it like dialectically like that, that both are possible for 1980, it was pretty breakthrough.

Michael: I especially like it in comedy. I really like it when comedy is both crass and slapstick as [00:44:30] well as layered and biting. I was thinking, it's a kind of random example, but. Just re-watched The Good Place with My Kids. That show is so smart. You know, George Carlin had incisive interesting commentary, but he also had like a goofy face and was physical at times.

Yeah. Like I, you actually, there's tons of examples of this, of things appealing on a lot of levels, and so the idea that you can work from the top of your intelligence and that broad comedy is not necessarily dumb. Comedy is really true. The, the [00:45:00] challenge is to make it layered and, and that's how. That's how you make it broad,

Amit: I think.

Yeah. They, they compared it to edgy adult Disney films. So actually I'll, I'll read a quote about Doug and Harold as writing partners. They envisioned Animal House and later Caddy Shack as edgy adult Disney films. He understood that if you make it look like Disney and feel like Disney and then inject a much edgier message, you have a way of reaching people without threatening them.

Michael: That's so, I mean, do you watch Animal House and Caddy Shack and see Disney

Amit: in terms of [00:45:30] the popularity level? Yeah.

Michael: Yeah, I guess so. There's ha well there's, and there's happy endings and very

Amit: dated.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. Well, right. I mean, I wonder if those movies will be popular. I hope they are. I think they're hilarious.

But there's some scenes in each of those movies that would not stand up to that. Yeah, I, I don't think either

Amit: of them will be around forever.

Michael: Yeah. Probably not. But Groundhog Day and Ghostbusters, I think will stand the test of time. Nice. Okay. Great words to live by. Let's move on. Okay. Category seven, man in the Mirror.

This category is fairly simple. Did this person like their [00:46:00] reflection? Yes or no? This is not about beauty, but rather a question of self-confidence versus self-judgment. I think this gets back to my thing. Number five. Cool, nerd. I just want, yes, I see a confident man here. I guess he's not conventionally attractive necessarily, but he's not unattractive.

But he did has, he did have his followers. Yeah. Uh, there's also an easy smile. About him and every time I see an easy smile that tells me yes to man in the mirror. So I didn't think too hard about this.

Amit: Yeah. I took the same answer. I saw it more of the niche of fame that he created [00:46:30] that secret. $90 million.

He was in this place of creating legacy work. Yeah. Like incredible, groundbreaking, influential, if not just. Commercial and critical. Yeah. And just very important in the laughter of families type of work, but he didn't have to to be the face guy. I see that as just a very enviable position that you've just gotta be proud of yourself to achieve that much, but not have to deal with as many of the pitfalls of [00:47:00] fame.

Talk about

Michael: that. You know, say like, I was close to Chevy Chase, I was close to Bill Murray. I know some of the Wranglings that come with that level of super stardom. And what I heard in those interviews was him saying, I was glad to not be the guy.

Amit: Yeah. In a way, you know, the other tell he had is he smiled a lot throughout interviews.

Totally. Yeah. He smiled like as questions were being asked. Mm-hmm. And that's, that's a very interesting tale to watch in somebody.

Michael: Totally. Okay, great. We both want yes. All right. Category [00:47:30] eight coffee cocktail, or cannabis. This is where we ask which one would we most want to do with our dead celebrity. So I wrote down, it's not hard to go with Beer from the Man who co-wrote Animal House.

I'd love to sit around a keg with Harold Ramis. Or smoke pot with the guy who co-wrote Ghostbusters. 'cause it's a fun movie. Yes. That's a pot movie. Look, I kind of miss pot. Every movie is a little bit of a pot movie for me. All right. But I'm gonna go with coffee. It's not like super duper compelling in interviews.

Amit: It's not exactly boring, but he [00:48:00] sort of, this goes back to that obit argument is like the guy is not necessarily boisterous, but sly. Right? He creates boisterous but sly. But he himself is not.

Michael: Yeah. And he even talks about that as an alter ego. But I do think he's. Probably an awesome one-on-one hang. I'd wanna get to know him.

I'd wanna push on this question of the spiritual journey. I mean, we haven't used the phrase upward staircase yet, but this is a very upward staircase kind of life. It's even one that seems, I mean, his journey, his path. Has a self-awareness [00:48:30] about it that I want to have in my life. I kind of want to know all other things being equal, where I'm at and how to know where I'm at and what to aim my attention at next.

Amit: Mm-hmm.

Michael: I heard him make reference to Man's Search for Meaning Vitor Frankl's book. Okay. Uh, a number of times and which is on the short list of something I wanna read and haven't yet. You haven't read it? I, I can. I haven't read it yet. No, it's like 150 pages. Look, I I'm gonna pick it up tonight. Okay. Um, you don't make me feel guilty about it.

I'm searching for meaning. I just haven't read the [00:49:00] book about searching for meaning yet. I think he definitely has a little bit of this wiser older man quality to him where I, I want to, I wanna just have an organic conversation that goes wherever. If there's one thing I'd want to kind of push on in that conversation, it is this nexus of spirituality and humor because I feel like that's a rich vein that doesn't get explored enough, and that really more than almost any other entertainer, Harold Ramis is right at that nexus, [00:49:30] right?

Yeah. He seems to be the guy who's like taking both of those things a spiritual path and a sense of humor. Very seriously. And I love that. So that would be my coffee conversation. What'd you go with?

Amit: Okay. Very similar, but I went cocktail. My cocktail of choice though was coffee with Bailey's. Okay. That's a cheat.

It is not a cheat. You keep cheating. Yes.

Michael: That's no, you look And at the category I chose coffee, cocktail. Coffee chose cocktail. I just merely tell you my coffee. That coffee and cocktail. You've done this before. This is, I feel like you wanted, what

Amit: was it? Like a [00:50:00] Fanta or something or a Exactly an orange Fanta with Elizabeth Taylor, who doesn't, who doesn't Not on, not on the menu.

Fine. Okay. Okay. So I chose cocktail. My cocktail happens to be a Bailey's with coffee. I, I'm not gonna rehash 'cause it's honestly, Michael, nearly everything you just said. Yeah. About the wisdom, the path of spirituality. But that's why I'm injecting the Bailey's is for the humor is that, like we said, it doesn't come across in the interviews and all, they're always very straight laced, soft-spoken.

But he is got a brilliant comedic mind. And you know, it comes out [00:50:30] and he is got an eye for talent, you know? That's clear. Yeah. And I think he sees people. Yeah. So perhaps when the cameras are off, he lets it a little looser and rolls out the jokes. And I wanna just leave that wedge open for the opportunity.

But I'm kind of with you and I'm not gonna repeat everything you just said on the wisdom, spirituality and comedy.

Michael: Yeah. One thing we haven't really talked about, but he did have a real reputation for identifying young talent and giving people an opportunity. He sounds like a very generous figure behind the scenes.

Yeah. Okay. I think we've [00:51:00] arrived. The final category, the Vander beak, named after James Vander Beak, who famously said in varsity blues, I don't want your life. In that varsity blue scene, James makes a judgment that he does not want a certain kind of life based on a single characteristic. So here, Ahmed and I will form a rebuttal to anyone skeptical of how Harold Ramis lived.

You and I always approach this by acknowledging the counter argument. I don't see the counter argument here. He, he did die a little young. And, and it does sound like the last four years were rough, [00:51:30] frequent trips to the hospital, and there was a, a, you know, loss of him that, that predated death. But I, I don't know.

I mean, that's not unusual. So maybe that's part of the counter argument. His movies didn't perform well as time went on, I guess, you know?

Amit: Yeah.

Michael: I don't know. Why else would James Vander beak say, I don't want your life, Harold Ramis.

Amit: Well, we talked about the commercial. Success of it all, and that's typically something James Vander beek in that movie was not about the mainstream, if you will.

Yeah. But it's not like [00:52:00] Harold Ramis was like a sellout, you know? I mean, we contrasted it quite a bit with the commercial and critical successes. The whole broad comedy is not dumb comedy. We sort of hit that dead on already.

Michael: Yeah. And I also think that like he wrote a wave of anti-establishment, anti-institutional attitudes.

He's a product of the sixties, counterculture, I'll never trust anybody, over 30 kind of mindset. And he came up in anti mainstream. And the mainstream moved. Closer to him. So much so that, you know, his movies [00:52:30] set the template for every comedy that exists today.

Archival: Is there any validity to critics who say that you are presenting the wrong role?

Models right and wrong are tricky labels, I think to apply. It's sometimes, uh, it's the indolent person who's, who's the real hero. I think Americans particularly have a great love for rebels, and Americans love an underdog, and they love the person who swims against the stream, the non-conformist. I, I think it's really a mainstream American comedy.

I don't find [00:53:00] it, uh, radical at all. And as far as being subversive, I don't think we. L lead our audience so much as, uh, echo what they already feel.

Michael: There was a quote, I saw that from, I think Brian Grazer. He's the father of modern Hollywood comedy Animal House was ripped off by the Porky series, revenge of the Nerds and Old School Caddy Shack was ripped off by Happy Gilmore Ghostbusters by Men in Black, A Groundhog Day by 51st dates.

I mean, he set the kind of template for modern comedy and so it, it became mainstream, [00:53:30] but it didn't start from that place. Yep. So I, what else? Is there anything else to the counter argument? I mean,

Amit: not a whole lot. I mean, there was the disruptive marriage, but I think we talked about that in a way that is not persuasive.

Michael: Yeah. And, and it feels, frankly just kind of normal. Normal in the sense that not all marriages work out and that you hit a point in life where you need to approach the next set of things differently. I mean, I do suspect that there's some, I'll give you one strong counter argument. He is in proximity to some real darkness.

There's no [00:54:00] question about that. Like he was close with John Belushi, who, yeah. OD'ed. I think that the egos of Chevy Chase and Bill Murray were not always easy to deal with. I think Doug Kenny, the guy who started National Lampoon, had a tragic death, and I think that Harold Rams at one point. I think was involved in the party drug scene and cooled off as he aged.

So I don't know, maybe there's a little bit of that. Right. He's, he's not a dark guy and in fact, sort of impressive that he never went to rehab, [00:54:30] but, but he's next to it and I'm sure, I'm sure you saw some stuff. Okay, fair enough. Well, okay, so let's, let's assimilate arguments for like, why should James VanDerBeek want this life?

Amit: Um,

Michael: total consciousness.

Amit: I think total consciousness might be the answer. Yeah. Here is that he blended the spiritual and comedic path.

Michael: I mean, that, that actually is all I need personally. Yes. Like the, the more we've talked about it as this conversation's gone on, the more attracted to that nexus. I am.

There is something about great humor [00:55:00] that feels liberating and actually feels like it touches on a spiritual path, which. When you say that feels contradictory, right? It feels like humor and, and laughing is about, I don't know, silliness or maybe it's about cynicism. Is humor meaningful? Ah, it, I mean, for me it is, right?

I don't know that all humor is necessarily spiritual, but I do think that there is a blend of the two, or a convergence point of the two that is like, what a great convergence point to chase. [00:55:30] Over the course of a lifetime. Yeah, and I guess maybe this is one B to that one an inspiration too, and that is very clear.

Anybody who really got to know this guy came away like Stephen Colbert and Judd Aal or Paul Red talking about him. I like there's something enabling about somebody who goes after it the way he did.

Amit: Yeah, and I, and I think this isn't necessarily the same point, maybe it's a third one, is he was in great partnership.

Michael: Yeah,

Amit: so with the exception of like the Bill Murray [00:56:00] story you told, this is a guy that had collaborators all along the way and maintained most of them as consistent friends well,

Michael: and even the Bill Murray story, I don't know, like sometimes if collaboration runs its course, I doubt he looked back on that and said, time for a new act.

Yeah, I doubt He looked back on that, on his collaboration with Bill Murray and said, I wish I'd never done that. I think he longed for reconciliation, but I, I don't think it's a regret. I think that's something to be proud of regardless of how it concluded. Yeah. All right, well maybe [00:56:30] that's it. So number one's said about this said total consciousness.

Number two. You said, you said influence. Influence and number three, collaborations.

Amit: Yeah. Partnership and collaboration. Partnership and collaborations. So I can go, yeah, take it. So James VanDerBeek. I'm Harold Ramis and you might want my life.

Michael: All right. Speed Round Ahed. What episode does the Harold Ramis story remind

Amit: you

Michael: of?

Amit: So this may be a little too obvious, [00:57:00] but I think Rodney Dangerfield, the episode's called More Respect. Obviously they collaborated in Caddy Shack and we hinted at a little bit. That Harold Rams wrote back to school or directed it?

I

Michael: think he produced it. I'm not even sure he directed it, but he was involved and he and Rodney Dangerfield became friends following County Shack. Okay. Became, yeah.

Amit: So that's my recommendation.

Michael: Okay. I am gonna go ahead and plug Leonard Cohen secret chord episode 54. It's a heavy one, but I do think that the spiritual.

Path shines through, and [00:57:30] I think that there is a story of liberation that's worth exploring. So episode 54, Leonard Cohen, secret chord,

Amit: several crossovers here.

Michael: Yeah, totally. Alright, here's little preview for the next episode of Famous and Gravy, with a blend of science fiction philosophy and jokes he wrote about the banalities of consumer culture and the destruction of the environment.

Amit: Um, Douglas Adams,

Michael: not Douglas

Amit: Adams. Love Douglas Adams. Famous and gravy. Listeners, we love hearing from you. If [00:58:00] you want to reach out with a comment question or to participate in our opening quiz, email us at hello@famousandgravy.com and you will hear back from one of the two of us. In our show notes, we include all kinds of links, including to our website and social channels.

Famous and Gravy is created and co-hosted by Michael Osborne and me, Amit Kaur. This episode was produced by Ali Ola, with Original music by Kevin Strang. Thanks and see you next time.