Cocoon

But you're using the big reference, right? The what? The reference from Big.

The movie? Yes.

I've never seen that movie.

Are you serious? I think the game that he used to make himself wish he was big was called Zoltar.

Well, Zoltars are everywhere.

Yes.

Okay, I didn't realize Zolta was real.

I just assumed you were referring to the movie Big with Tom Hanks.

The only place for trees is in the woods.

Is, uh, Don Ameche playing This storied Bigfoot expert Right off the smash success of Cocoon, he found himself in a He kind of had like a second career in the 80s after that movie.

You know, but also stuff like Trading Places.

I mean He's one of those old school, you know, stars of classic cinema that really carved out a new career for himself in the 80s as just a great character actor.

Brian Dennehy, who passed in 2020, played Ted Montague.

He was in First Blood and Cocoon.

John Leguizamo was Tybalt.

He was in Carlitos Way and Moulin Rouge.

we never would have gotten to work with him if we hadn't been.

I mean, I did a summer tour of How to Succeed in Business with Don Amici, for God's sake, before he had returned to the business in triumph with Trading Places and Cocoon.

And it was, he played Bigley, I played Finch, and we just toured all over Ohio.

Have you ever played the Muni in St. Louis? No, not yet.

And so it starts off as this kind of like gross-out comedy,

but it actually— By the way, do you remember the sex scene from Cocoon?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, a, a lot of them, you know, were in their twilight years when we started seeing them in movies, and then you go back and you watch movies and, with some of these people when they're younger, and it's like, oh, no, you understand how somebody comes out as, like, a matinee idol and all of a sudden is like...

You know, it's like with the exception of, well, I wouldn't say so much, like, either Hume Cronyn or Wilford Brimley, but I think w- when I think of, like, Cocoon, and I think of, like, Dom Amici.

Yeah.

He's another one of those guys.

You know, like-

Mm-hmm

... w- w- Cocoon you mentioned was, like, a huge one.

Uh, on Golden Pond-

Well, it was...

And then I was thinking, "Well, I should put Cocoon in there." There are so many.

Rush.

I mean, there's so many.

Mm-hmm.

And early on, of course, I st- began succeeding making comedies, and the, you know, that's where, that's where the easy yeses were.

But I had enough success early that I could begin to consciously shift so that things like Cocoon and even elements of Parenthood had, had moments of real human complexity and, and difficulty and, uh, and drama.

But again, so I made that decision that I wanted to kinda earn the trust of potential collaborators by, by showing that there was kind of no story that wouldn't be appropriate for me.

Maybe.

Beam says, "Steel Man, you can do water aerobics in the pool like Wilfred Brimley in the movie Cocoon"

That's right, Wilfred Brimley.

What a great movie that was, Cocoon, back in the day.

So good.

Justin in Coweta said, "Pools probably feel like bathtubs right now" Yeah, that water's gotta be hot.