This month marks the 30th anniversary of the Chris Farley–David Spade road movie “Tommy Boy,” an occasion being marked by a new 4K UHD release from Paramount that acknowledges the film‘s place in the studio’s library as a comedy classic. Although the film is beloved now, the circumstances of its production wouldn’t have indicated to anyone involved that “Tommy Boy” was destined for cinematic immortality.
“I was just treading water, trying not to drown, because we were going so fast,” director Peter Segal told IndieWire. “Tommy Boy” was Segal’s second feature following his successful debut on “The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult,” and he took the job because he wanted to helm Farley’s debut as a leading man. “I had worked with Chris twice before, on an HBO special and when he was a guest star on a sitcom I did called ‘The Jackie Thomas Show.’ I knew that he was one of the funniest people I’d ever met.”
The only problem was that Paramount’s script for Farley, “Billy the Third: A Midwestern,” didn’t really appeal to Segal. Refusing to let another director get Farley’s first major movie, Segal took the assignment and proceeded to spend the entire shoot rewriting with screenwriter Fred Wolf and the cast. At nights and on weekends, Segal and Wolf used every spare moment to come up with new jokes and gags tailored to Farley and Spade that made the most of the partnership they had established on “Saturday Night Live,” where Farley’s explosive physical comedy contrasted with Spade’s dry verbal humor to great effect.
As a writer on “SNL,” Wolf knew Farley’s strengths and played to them, in some cases leading to iconic comedy moments created on the fly. One such case involved the aftermath of Tommy taking his new stepbrother Paul (Rob Lowe) cow tipping. “I remember blocking the scene and it just wasn’t working,” Segal said. He described the scene to Wolf, saying that the water the actors were using to clean each other off was backlit, and Wolf simply responded with one word: the movie title “Flashdance.” That led to one of the film’s classic images, of Farley dancing under the water like Jennifer Beals in Adrian Lyne’s 1983 hit — a scene that echoed some of Farley’s most memorable “SNL” skits, like his Chippendales audition alongside Patrick Swayze.
Although “SNL” producer Lorne Michaels had discouraged cast members from the distractions of filmmaking back in the show’s early days, the massive success of the “Wayne’s World” movies in the early 1990s led to a shift in strategy in which Michaels himself produced a series of films showcasing “SNL” stars and their characters. “Tommy Boy” would follow “Coneheads” (a movie based on sketches from the show’s 1970s iteration but featuring an abundance of current cast members, including Spade) and “It’s Pat” and beat “Stuart Saves His Family” into theaters by a couple weeks.
Unlike those films, “Tommy Boy” wasn’t directly based on any “Saturday Night Live” IP, even if the relationship between Farley’s childlike wrecking ball and Spade’s uptight yuppie built on characters they had played on television — and continued to play every week throughout filming. The fact that Spade and Farley were still working on “SNL” gave Segal an unexpected advantage. “Yes, we were losing David and Chris for a few days each week as they went back to do the show, but that gave us a couple days to write,” Segal said. “We’d shut down because of their travel schedule.” Still, Segal was constantly racing to keep up with the production. “It was like putting down train tracks in front of a running locomotive.”
Segal got an assist from one of the greatest cinematographers who ever lived, Victor J. Kemper. Although Kemper was best known for gritty New York dramas like “Dog Day Afternoon” and John Cassavetes’ “Husbands,” Segal brought him on board because he felt he needed to be supported by “a real pro, someone who had experience.” Along with his more serious work, Kemper had photographed hit comedies like “Slap Shot” and “National Lampoon’s Vacation,” so he presumably helped Paramount relax a little along with Segal.
Kemper brought what Segal described as a “Route 66 kind of vibe” to the visual style, and helped, along with production designer Stephen J. Lineweaver, solve another key problem. “My biggest question was, ‘How can we make Toronto look like Ohio?” Segal said. “Those two guys [Kemper and Lineweaver] gave it such a nice feel that I continue getting compliments from people in Ohio that say, ‘You really captured our state.’” Sandusky, the town in which the story takes place, is even planning a three-day celebration of “Tommy Boy” in August. “I had to remind them that we didn’t shoot a frame of footage in their town. They said, ‘We don’t care, you put us on the map.’”
Segal never dreamed while making the movie that people would even be watching it 30 years later, let alone throwing a local festival in its honor. “I thought it was going to be a disaster,” he said. “I grew my beard nice and thick because I wanted to hide.” Ultimately, Segal attributes a lot of the movie’s charm to Farley and Spade’s friendship. “You can’t teach chemistry. They just really liked each other, and we were all in the same boat because everyone expected that movie to fail. It was an original, not based on ‘SNL’ characters, so we had a lot to prove. And I think that brought us all closer together.”
Paramount’s 30th Anniversary “Tommy Boy” 4K UHD will be available on March 25.
