John Ashton

He had great chemistry with Dan Aykroyd.

He had great chemistry with Judge Reinhold and John Ashton and Beverly Hills Cop.

He had great chemistry with the Boomerang cast.

He had great chemistry with the Coming to America cast.

There's a lot of old tech in me.

The movie we're talking about, written by George Gallo, directed by Martin Brest, starring Robert De Niro, Charles Grodin, Yafit Kodo, John Ashton, Dennis Farina, Joe Panigliano.

From 1987, here's the trailer for Midnight Rotten.

Robert De Niro is a bounty hunter.

this moron number one? Put moron number two on the phone.

Yeah, that Dennis Farina, who was an actual cop in Chicago before he started acting, made this movie.

And both De Niro and John Ashton, who I love, hung out with bounty hunters before they started making the film so they could understand what they were doing.

And it all works.

They changed that script on the set.

They found the chemistry between Eddie, Judge Reinhold, and the late John Ashton, who I knew.

By the way, I did an interview with him on Unfinished Business Television.

And yeah, it ended up becoming... what they thought would be like a modest little hit number one movie of the year and a global superstar overnight that's another one too where you look at that movie and yes eddie sells that film he elevates the material but this is also the other thing where you have a great soundtrack by harold faultmeyer with that unforgettable axel f theme song and you know glenn fry patty labelle on the soundtrack

Yeah

... uh, John Ashton is great.

John Ashton kills me in this movie.

[laughs]

Yep.

Dun, dun, dun-dun.

Harold Faltermeyer? Nobody? Nothing? Judge Reinhold? Phoebe Cates? John Ashton? Midnight Run? Anybody? There is a major animal in this apartment.

I don't know what I'm gonna do here.

Hold on.

You know, we w- one night, so okay, this had been on my list for a little while.

John Ashton does, um, Anybody Can Cook on some of the longer cruises, right? So he, he goes on the transatlantics and does Anybody Can Cook, and on those longer cruises, they like pack the D Lounge shoulder to shoulder.

Um, uh, like on the Dream Fantasy, the line would be from the e- the entrance to the D Lounge all the way back to like the Evolution or The Tube-

Yep

The fries were even better.

Oh.

So they, they call it the John Ashton Jolly Good Burger.

And-

I was researching so much about this shit, but he was supposed to die in that scene when the mob guys knock him out.

John Ashton.

He's supposed to die, but they realized while they were filming it that they were like, God, everybody loves this guy.

He's still likable even though he's Oh, yeah.

you signed a contract?

they have all that like pet co-worker pattern

it's the thing like that's i mean it's how he got the uh him and judge reinhold and beverly hills cop was they paired them up and were like just do something and then judge reinhold uh made up the you know i read that by the time a man is 50 the the bowel has two pounds of undigested red meat And John Ashton is like, what the hell? And he's like, I'm just saying he's a lot of red meat.

He's like, you don't have to tell me everything.

He had great chemistry with Dan Aykroyd.

He had great chemistry with Judge Reinhold and, uh, John Ashton in Beverly Hills Cop.

He had great chemistry with the Boomerang cast.

Man