Hal Needham

This is, like, ultimate, you know, old-school Americana macho badass.

And, of course, this also comes out of Hal Needham, one of the great stuntmen, then becoming one of Hollywood's, like, most dependable action directors, too, you know, with, like, Smoking the Bandit and stuff.

Right.

And, you know, Cannonball Run and things like that.

This is a really fascinating time for movies because filmmakers are identifying things that, like, young kids are into.

And you brought up Rad, which is obviously the famous BMX movie directed by Hal Needham of Smokey and the Bandit fame.

Dude, I've got to see

that.

Because we talk about this.

Whenever you get a Burt Reynolds film, especially with Hal Needham, this has sort of a Smokey and the Bandit by way of Tempopo energy too, right? Where it's like everyone got the memo, everyone's on the same page, and everyone's having fun.

Right.

It's just it's so, so fun.

There wasn't anything like this show, like the shows on the air.

And even the other, you know, we had there was Vanishing Sun and, you know, Hal Needham was doing Smoking the Bandit, four of these kind of movies.

And they were all really struggling.

And so the moment we agreed to do it here and then started prepping and everything else, it was clear that we were going to have a really good run of it.

So he was asking about...

So I said I wanna talk about the '70s and '80s and the movies that I grew up on that were very influential in me, and some of them were part of the movies that I was a part of, and, uh, and... or ones that my pops used to talk about, or Hal Needham, that was my dad's best friend, that I got to really talk to him a lot about, you know, the great two movies that I thought he made, Smokey and the Bandit and Hooper.

You know, that were two really fun movies.

Um-

There is such...

Like, me being an ex-stuntman, there's so much truth behind the curtain to being a stuntman that I think majority of the people don't know about.

And Burt and Hal Needham, the director in Hooper, showed this really terrific scene, 'cause it obviously had all these sets and stunts going on on the movies that Burt's character plays.

But there's this scene when Burt's alone.

Yes

... and, uh, was directed by Hal Needham and, uh, co-starred with Sally Field.

He and Sally Field were together for quite a while as well.

Um, and he just continued working.

Oh, yeah.

It's got, like, some Hal Needham level stunts in this movie.

It really does.

Yeah.