Podcasts about cledus

From competing in the World Championships of Hairdressing to contemplating suicide on a bridge in Florida, Cledus T Judd's journey to Nashville stardom defies all expectations. In this deeply vulnerable conversation, the country music parody artist takes us behind the laughter to reveal the demons he battled along the way.Standing in his mother's double-wide trailer, watching Vince Gill win at the CMAs, Cledus made an impossible promise that would change his life forever. With nothing but determination, he slept in walk-in closets, under parking lot lights, and drove through ice storms with frostbitten fingers – all while pursuing his unlikely dream. The turning point came when he heard Tim McGraw's "Indian Outlaw" on the radio and spontaneously created the parody that would launch his career.What makes this episode extraordinary isn't just Cledus's comedic talents, but the surprising kindness he encountered from Nashville's biggest stars. Vince Gill fulfilling a promise to meet his mother. Toby Keith offering a private plane during family emergencies and championing him to arena crowds when he couldn't be there. These aren't just celebrity encounters – they're profound moments of humanity in an often cutthroat business.Most powerful is Cledus's raw account of addiction and redemption. Standing in a hospital bathroom the day his daughter was born, cocaine in hand, he made a choice that would save his life. The quarter he dropped that day still sits in his wallet – a reminder of the moment everything changed. From reconciliation with his estranged father to heart-wrenching final conversations with his mother, Cledus reveals how the deepest pain can become purpose when channeled into helping others find recovery.This conversation will make you laugh, cry, and reconsider what you think you know about the people behind the music. Listen now and discover why humor might be the most powerful survival tool of all.The Try That in a Small Town Podcast is powered by e|spaces! Redefining Coworking - Exceptional Office Space for Every BusinessAt e|spaces, we offer more than just office space - we provide premium private offices designed for focus and growth. Located in the heart of Music Row, our fully furnished offices, private suites, meeting rooms and podcast studio give you the perfect space to work, create and connect. Ready to elevate your business? Book a tour today at espaces.comFrom the Patriot Mobile studios:Don't get fooled by other cellular providers pretending to share your values or have the same coverage. They don't and they can't!Go to PATRIOTMOBILE.COM/SMALLTOWN or call 972-PATRIOTRight now, get a FREE MONTH when you use the offer code SMALLTOWN.Original BrandsOriginal brands is starting a new era and American domestic premium beer, American made, American owned, Original glory.Join the movement at www.drinkoriginalbrands.comFollow/Rate/Share at www.trythatinasmalltown.com -Browse the merch: https://trythatinasmalltown.com/collections/all -For advertising inquiries, email info@trythatinasmalltown.comThe Try That In A Small Town Podcast is produced by Jim McCarthy and www.ItsYourShow.co

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This week, Tracy Lawrence sits down with Cledus T. Judd for an emotional and powerful conversation. Cledus opens up about the struggles he faced growing up, including a pivotal moment when he spent six hours on top of a bridge, contemplating suicide. Choosing life, he later sat watching the CMA Awards with his mom one night, who was moved to tears watching the show. That moment sparked Cledus' mission to help make his mom's dreams come true. Cledus delves into how his journey of perseverance shaped his outlook on life, and how his work with individuals in recovery now brings him more fulfillment than any musical success ever could. Listen today for a moving, candid episode about mental health, family and the power of never giving up with Tracy and Cledus.

Our first episode returning from paternity leave takes us back to 1983, and one of two sequel bombs Universal made with Jackie Gleason that year, Smokey and the Bandit Part 3. ----more----   TRANSCRIPT   From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it's The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today.   On this episode, we'll be covering one of the oddest Part 3 movies to ever be made.   Smokey and the Bandit 3.   But before we do, I owe you, loyal listener an apology and an explanation.   Originally, this episode was supposed to be about the movies of H.B. “Toby” Halicki, who brought car chase films back to life in the mid-70s with his smash hit Gone in 60 Seconds. Part of the reason I wanted to do this episode was to highlight a filmmaker who doesn't get much love from film aficionados anymore, and part because this was the movie that literally made me the person I became. My mom was dating Toby during the making of the movie, a spent a number of days on the set as a five year old, and I even got featured in a scene. And I thought it would be fun to get my mom to open up about a part of her life after my parents' divorce that I don't remember much of.   And it turned into the discussion that made me question everything I became. Much of which I will cover when I find the courage to revisit that topic, hopefully in time for the 50th anniversary this July.   So, for now, and to kind of stick with the car theme this episode was originally going to be about, we're going to do a quick take on one of the most bizarre, and most altered, movies to ever come out of Hollywood.   As you may remember, Smokey and the Bandit was a 1977 hit film from stuntman turned director Hal Needham. Needham and Burt Reynolds has become friends in the early 1960s, and Needham would end up living in Reynolds' pool house for nearly a dozen years in the 60s and 70s. Reynolds would talk director Robert Aldrich into hiring Needham to be the 2nd unit director and stunt coordinator for the car chase scene Aldrich's 1974 classic The Longest Yard, and Reynolds would hire Needham to be his 2nd Unit Director on his own 1976 directorial debut, Gator. While on the set of Gator, the two men would talk about the movie Needham wanted to make his own directorial debut on, a low-budget B movie about a cat and mouse chase between a bootlegger and a sheriff as they tried to outwit each other across several state lines.   As a friend, Reynolds would ask Needham to read the script. The “script” was a series of hand-written notes on a legal pad. He had come up with the idea during the making of Gator, when the Teamster transportation captain brought some Coors beer to the production team. And, believe it or not, in 1975, it was illegal to sell or transport Coors beer out of states West of the Mississippi River, because the beer was not pasteurized and needed constant refrigeration.   Reynolds would read the “script,” which, according to Reynolds' 1994 autobiography My Life, was one of the worst things he had ever read. But Reynolds promised his friend that if he could get a studio involved and get a proper budget and script for the film, he would make it.   Needham would hire a series of writers to try and flesh out the notes from the legal pad into a coherent screenplay, and with a verbal commitment from Reynolds to star in it, he would soon get Universal Studios to to agree to make Smokey and the Bandit, to the tune of $5.3m. After all, Reynolds was still one of the biggest box office stars at the time, and $5.3m was small potatoes at the time, especially when Universal was spending $6.7m on the Super Bowl assassin thriller Two-Minute Warning, $9m on a bio-pic of General Douglas MacArthur, and $22m on William Friedkin's Sorcerer, an English-language version of the 1950 French novel The Wages of Fear.   Reynolds would take the lead as The Bandit, the driver of the chase car meant to distract the authorities from what the truck driver is hauling.    Jerry Reed, a country and western star, would get cast as The Snowman, the truck driver who would be hauling the Coors beer from Texarkana TX to Atlanta. Reed has only co-starred in two movies before, both starring Burt Reynolds, and even if they have almost no scenes together in the final film, their rapport on screen is obvious.   Sally Field, a television star who needed a big movie on her resume, would take the role of Carrie, the runaway bride who joins the Bandit in his chase car. Field had just completed Sybil, the dramatic television movie about a woman with multiple personality disorder, which would break Field out of the sitcom world she had been stuck in for the past decade.   Richard Boone, the star of the long-time television Western Have Gun - Will Travel, would be considered as the sheriff, Buford T. Justice, in pursuit of the Bandit throughout the movie, but Reynolds wanted some who was a bit more crazy, a bit more dangerous, and a heck of a lot funnier. And who wouldn't think of comedy legend Jackie Gleason?   Shooting on the film would begin in Georgia on August 30th, 1976, but not before some pencil pusher from Universal Studios showed up two days before the start of production to inform Needham and Reynolds that they needed to cut $1m from the budget by any means necessary. And the guys did exactly that, reducing the number of shooting locations and speaking roles.   The film would finish shooting eights weeks later, on schedule and on budget… well, on reduced budget, and when it was released in May 1977, just six days before the initial release of Star Wars, it bombed.   For some reason, Universal Studios decided the best way to open a movie about a bunch of good old boys in the South was to give it a big push at the world famous Radio City Music Hall in the heart of Manhattan, along with an hour long Rockets stage spectacular between shows.   The Radio City Music Hall could accommodate 6,000 people per show. Tickets for the whole shebang, movie and stage show, were $5, when the average ticket price in Manhattan at the time was $3.50. And in its first six days, Smokey and the Bandit grossed $125,000, which sounds amazing, until your told the cost of running Radio City Music Hall for a week, stage show and all, was $186,000. And in its second week, the gross would fall to $102,000, and to $90,000 in week three. And Universal would be locked in to Radio City for several more weeks.   But it wouldn't all bad news.   Universal quickly realized its error in opening in New York first, and rushed to book the film into 381 theatres in the South, including 70 in the Charlotte region, 78 in and around Jacksonville, 97 theatres between Oklahoma City and Dallas, another 57 between Memphis and New Orleans, and 79 in Atlanta, near many of the locations the film was shot. And in its first seven days in just those five regions, the film would gross a cool $3.8m. Along with the $102k from Radio City, the film's $3.9m gross would be the second highest in the nation, behind Star Wars. And despite bigger weekends from new openers like The Deep, The Exorcist II and A Bridge Too Far, Smokey and the Bandit would keep going and going and going, sticking around in theatres for more than two years in some areas, grossing more than $126m.   Naturally, there would be a sequel. But here's the funny part. Smokey and the Bandit II, a Universal movie, would be shot back to back with Cannonball Run, produced by the Hong Kong film company Golden Harvest as a vehicle to break their star Jackie Chan into the American market, which would also star Burt Reynolds and be directed by Hal Needham.    Filming on Smokey and the Bandit II was supposed to start in August 1979, but would be delayed until January 1980, because the film Reynolds was working on in the late summer of 1979, Rough Cut, went way over schedule.   While the budget for the sequel would be $10m, more than double the cost of the original film, the overall production was not a very pleasant experience for most involved. Needham was feeling the pressure of trying to finish the film ahead of schedule so he'd have some kind of break before starting on Cannonball Run in May 1980, because several of the other actors, including Roger Moore, were already locked into other movies after shooting completed on that film.   Burt Reynolds and Sally Field had started dating during the making of Smokey and the Bandit in 1976, and both of them signed their contracts to appear in the sequel in 1979, but by the time shooting started in 1980, the pair had broken up, and they were forced to pretend to be in love and be side by side in the Bandit's Trans Am for a couple months.   One of the few things that would go right on the film was a complex chase scene that could only be shot one time, for the end of the sequence would be the destruction of a 64 year old rollercoaster in suburban Atlanta.   They got the shot.   Needham would get a few weeks between the end of shooting Smokey and the Bandit II and the start of Cannonball Run, but the production on the latter film would be put on hold a couple times for a few days each, as Needham would have to go back to Los Angeles to supervise the editing of the former film.   Smokey and the Bandit II would make its planned August 15th, 1980 release, and would have a spectacular opening weekend, $10.8m from 1196 theatres, but would soon drop off, barely grossing half of the first film's box office take. That would still be profitable, but Needham, Reynolds and Field all nixed the idea of teaming up for a third film. Reynolds had been wanting to distance himself from his good old boy 1970s persona, Field was now an Oscar winning dramatic actress, and Needham wanted to try something different. We'll talk about that movie, Megaforce, another time.   But despite losing the interest of the main principles of the first two movies, Universal was still keen on making a third film. The first mention would be a line item in the Los Angeles Times' Calendar section on August 28th, 1981, when, within an article about the number of sequels that were about to gear up, including Grease 2 and Star Wars 3, aka Return of the Jedi, that Universal was considering a third Smokey movie as a cable television movie. In May 1982, Variety noted that the reduced budget of the film, estimated at under $5m, would not accommodate Reynolds' asking price at that time, let alone the cost of the entire production, and that the studio was looking at Dukes of Hazzard star John Schneider as a possible replacement as The Bandit. In the end, it was decided that Jackie Gleason would return not only as Sheriff Buford T. Justice, but that he would also be, in several scenes, playing The Bandit as well.   Thus would begin the wild ride of the third film in the Smokey and the Bandit Cinematic Universe, Smokey IS the Bandit: Part 3.   It would take 11 different versions of the script written over the course of six months to get Gleason to sign off, because, somehow, he was given script approval before filming would begin.   Paul Williams and Pat McCormick would return for a third time as Little Enos and Big Enos, and the storyline would find the Burdette father and son making a bet with Sheriff Justice. Justice and his son Junior must deliver a big stuffed swordfish from Florida to a new seafood restaurant they are opening in Texas. If Justice can get the big stuffed swordfish from Point A to Point B in the time allotted, the Burdettes will give him $250,000, which Justice could use towards his impending retirement. If he doesn't, however, Justice will have to surrender his badge to the Burdettes, and he'd retire in disgrace.   Dick Lowry, who had been directed episodic television and TV movies for several years, including three episodes of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and the TV movie adaptation of Kenny Rogers' hit song The Gambler, would make his feature directing debut on Smokey Is the Bandit Part 3.   Production on the film would begin in Florida on October 25, 1982, and lasted two months, ending two days after Christmas, mostly in Florida.   Lowry and his team would assemble the film over the course of the next three months, before Universal held its first test screening on the studio lot in March 1983.   To say the screening was a disaster would be an understatement.   The audience didn't understand what the hell was going on here. They wondered how Justice, as The Bandit, could bed a character credited only as Blonde Bombshell, who looks at him the way women in 1982 would have looked at Burt Reynolds. They wondered why a plot twist in the very last scene was presented, that Dusty was really Big Enos's daughter, when it affected nothing in the story before or after its reveal. But, mostly, they were confused as to how one actor could play both title characters at the same time. Like, is Justice seeing himself as The Bandit, seeing himself behind the wheel of the Bandit's signature black and gold Pontiac Trans Am, and a beautiful country music DJ played by Colleen Camp as his companion, all while actually driving his signature sheriff's car with his son Junior as his constant companion?   The studio had two choices…   One, pony up a few extra million dollars to rewrite the script, and try to lure Reynolds back to play The Bandit…   Or, two, bury the movie and take the tax write off.   The second choice was quickly ruled out, as a teaser trailer for the film had already been released to theatres several weeks earlier, and there seemed to be some interest in another Smokey and the Bandit movie, even though the trailer was just Gleason, as Justice, standing in a military-style uniform, standing in front of a large America flag, and giving a speech to the camera not unlike the one George C. Scott gave at the start of the 1970 Best Picture winner, Patton. You can find a link to the teaser trailer for Smokey is the Bandit Part 3 on our website, at The80sMoviePodcast.com.   So the studio goes down to Jupiter, FL, where Reynolds had been living for years, and made him a sizable offer to play The Bandit for literally a couple of scenes. Since Gleason as Bandit only had one line in the film, and since most of the shots of Gleason as Bandit were done with wide lenses to hide that it wasn't Gleason doing any of the driving during the number of scenes involving the Trans Am and stunts, they could probably get everything they needed with Reynolds in just a day or two.   Reynolds would say “no” to that offer, but, strangely, he would agree to come back to the film, as The Bandit, for an extended sequence towards the end of the film. We'll get to that in a moment.   So with Reynolds coming back, but not in the capacity they wanted him in, the next thought was to go to Jerry Reed, the country singer and actor who had played Bandit's partner, The Snowman, in the first two films. Reed was amiable to coming aboard, but he wanted to play The Bandit. Or, more specifically, Cledus pretending to be The Bandit.   The film's screenwriters, Stuart Birnbaum and David Dashev, were called back in to do yet another rewrite. They would have only three weeks, as there was only a short window in April for the production team to get back together to do the new scenes with Reed and Colleen Camp. Dusty would go from being a country radio station DJ to a car dealership employee who literally walks off the job and into Cledus as Bandit's Trans Am. Reed's role as Cledus as Bandit was greatly expanded, and Dusty's dialogue would be altered to reflect both her new career and her time in the car with Cledus.   The reshoots would only last a few weeks, and Lowry would have a final cut ready for the film's planned August 12th theatrical release.   It is often stated, on this podcast and other sources, that in the 1980s, August was mostly the dumping ground of the studio's dogs, hoping to get a little bit of ticket sales before Labor Day, when families look at going on a vacation before the kids go back to school.   And the weekend of August 12th through 14th in 1983 was certainly one way to prove this argument.   Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 would be the second highest grossing new release that weekend, which is surprising in part because it would have a smaller percentage of prints out in the market compared to its competition, 498 prints, almost exclusively in the southern US. The bad news is that the film would barely make it into the Top Ten that weekend. Cujo, the adaptation of the 1981 Stephen King novel, would be the highest grossing new opener that weekend, grossing $6.11m, barely missing the top spot, which was held for a third week by the Chevy Chase film Vacation, which had earned $6.16m. Risky Business, which was making its young lead actor Tom Cruise a movie star, would take third place, with $4.58m. Then there was Return of the Jedi, which had been out three months by this point, the Sylvester Stallone-directed Saturday Night Fever sequel Staying Alive, the Eddie Murphy/Dan Aykroyd comedy Trading Places, the god-awful Jaws 3-D, WarGames and Krull, which all had been out for three to eleven weeks by now, all grossing more than Smokey and the Bandit 3, with $1.73m in ticket sales.   Having it much worse was The Curse of the Pink Panther, Blake Edwards' attempt to reboot the Inspector Clouseau series with a new American character who may or may not have been the illegitimate son of Clouseau, which grossed an anemic $1.64m from 812 theatres. And then there was The Man Who Wasn't There, the 3-D comedy featuring Steve Guttenberg that was little more than a jumbled copy of Foul Play and North by Northwest that arrived too late in theatres to ride the now-dead stereoptic movie craze, which took in $1.38m from 980 theatres.   In its second week, Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 would only lose five screens, but lose 52% of its opening weekend audience, bringing in just $830k that weekend.   Week three would see the film lose nearly 300 screens, bringing in just $218k.   Week four was Labor Day weekend itself, with its extra day of ticket sales, and you'd think Universal would just cut and run since the film was not doing great with audiences or critics. Yet, they would expand the film back to 460 theatres, including 47 theatres in the greater Los Angeles metro area. The gambit worked a little bit, with the film bringing in $1.3m during the extended holiday weekend, bringing the film's four week total gross to $5.02m.   And it would slowly limp along for a few more weeks, mostly in dollar houses, but Universal would stop tracking it after its fifth weekend in theatres, giving the film a final box office total of $5,678,950.   Oh, I almost forgot about Burt Reynolds. Burt did film his scene, a four minute or so cameo towards the end of the film, where Justice finally catches up to Cledus as The Bandit, but in Justice's mind's eye, he sees Cledus as Burt as The Bandit, where Burt as The Bandit does nothing more than half-ass read off his lines while sitting behind the wheel of the Trans Am.   I watched the movie on Paramount Plus back in January, when I originally planned on recording this episode. But it's no longer available on Paramount Plus. Nor is it available on Peacock, which is owned and operated by Universal, and where the film was once available. In May 2024, the only way to see Smokey and the Bandit is on long out-of-print low quality DVDs and Blu-Rays. JustWatch.com says the film is available on Apple TVs Showtime channel, but I can't find any Showtime channel on Apple TV, nor can I find the movie doing a simple search on Apple TV. The first two are on Apple TV, as part of the AMC+ channel. It's all so darn complicated.   But like I said, I watched it for the first and probably last time earlier this year. And, truth be told, it's not a totally painful film. It's not a good film in any way, shape or form, but what little good there is in it, it's thanks to Colleen Camp, who was not only gorgeous but had an amazing sense of comic timing. Anyway who saw her as Yvette the Maid in the 1985 comedy Clue already knows that.    Like a handful of film buffs and historians, I am still wildly interested in seeing the original cut of the film after more than forty years. If Universal can put out three different versions of Orson Welles' Touch of Evil, including a preview cut that was taken away from Welles and re-edited without his consent, in the same set, certainly they can release both versions of Smokey and the Bandit Part 3. But let's face facts. Dick Lowry is no Orson Welles, and there is practically zero calls for this kind of special treatment for the film.   I just find it odd that in this day and age, the only thing that's escaped from the original version of the film after all this time is a single image of Gleason as The Bandit, which you can find on this episode's page at our website.   Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again soon.   Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about Smokey and the Bandit Part 3, including links to Smokey and the Bandit fan sites that have their own wealth of materials relating to the movie, and a video on YouTube that shows about 20mins of deleted and alternate scenes used in the television version of the movie, which may include an additional shot from the original movie that shows Dusty riding in the back of Big Enos's red Cadillac convertible.   The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment.   Thank you again.   Good night.

Our first episode returning from paternity leave takes us back to 1983, and one of two sequel bombs Universal made with Jackie Gleason that year, Smokey and the Bandit Part 3. ----more----   TRANSCRIPT   From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it's The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today.   On this episode, we'll be covering one of the oddest Part 3 movies to ever be made.   Smokey and the Bandit 3.   But before we do, I owe you, loyal listener an apology and an explanation.   Originally, this episode was supposed to be about the movies of H.B. “Toby” Halicki, who brought car chase films back to life in the mid-70s with his smash hit Gone in 60 Seconds. Part of the reason I wanted to do this episode was to highlight a filmmaker who doesn't get much love from film aficionados anymore, and part because this was the movie that literally made me the person I became. My mom was dating Toby during the making of the movie, a spent a number of days on the set as a five year old, and I even got featured in a scene. And I thought it would be fun to get my mom to open up about a part of her life after my parents' divorce that I don't remember much of.   And it turned into the discussion that made me question everything I became. Much of which I will cover when I find the courage to revisit that topic, hopefully in time for the 50th anniversary this July.   So, for now, and to kind of stick with the car theme this episode was originally going to be about, we're going to do a quick take on one of the most bizarre, and most altered, movies to ever come out of Hollywood.   As you may remember, Smokey and the Bandit was a 1977 hit film from stuntman turned director Hal Needham. Needham and Burt Reynolds has become friends in the early 1960s, and Needham would end up living in Reynolds' pool house for nearly a dozen years in the 60s and 70s. Reynolds would talk director Robert Aldrich into hiring Needham to be the 2nd unit director and stunt coordinator for the car chase scene Aldrich's 1974 classic The Longest Yard, and Reynolds would hire Needham to be his 2nd Unit Director on his own 1976 directorial debut, Gator. While on the set of Gator, the two men would talk about the movie Needham wanted to make his own directorial debut on, a low-budget B movie about a cat and mouse chase between a bootlegger and a sheriff as they tried to outwit each other across several state lines.   As a friend, Reynolds would ask Needham to read the script. The “script” was a series of hand-written notes on a legal pad. He had come up with the idea during the making of Gator, when the Teamster transportation captain brought some Coors beer to the production team. And, believe it or not, in 1975, it was illegal to sell or transport Coors beer out of states West of the Mississippi River, because the beer was not pasteurized and needed constant refrigeration.   Reynolds would read the “script,” which, according to Reynolds' 1994 autobiography My Life, was one of the worst things he had ever read. But Reynolds promised his friend that if he could get a studio involved and get a proper budget and script for the film, he would make it.   Needham would hire a series of writers to try and flesh out the notes from the legal pad into a coherent screenplay, and with a verbal commitment from Reynolds to star in it, he would soon get Universal Studios to to agree to make Smokey and the Bandit, to the tune of $5.3m. After all, Reynolds was still one of the biggest box office stars at the time, and $5.3m was small potatoes at the time, especially when Universal was spending $6.7m on the Super Bowl assassin thriller Two-Minute Warning, $9m on a bio-pic of General Douglas MacArthur, and $22m on William Friedkin's Sorcerer, an English-language version of the 1950 French novel The Wages of Fear.   Reynolds would take the lead as The Bandit, the driver of the chase car meant to distract the authorities from what the truck driver is hauling.    Jerry Reed, a country and western star, would get cast as The Snowman, the truck driver who would be hauling the Coors beer from Texarkana TX to Atlanta. Reed has only co-starred in two movies before, both starring Burt Reynolds, and even if they have almost no scenes together in the final film, their rapport on screen is obvious.   Sally Field, a television star who needed a big movie on her resume, would take the role of Carrie, the runaway bride who joins the Bandit in his chase car. Field had just completed Sybil, the dramatic television movie about a woman with multiple personality disorder, which would break Field out of the sitcom world she had been stuck in for the past decade.   Richard Boone, the star of the long-time television Western Have Gun - Will Travel, would be considered as the sheriff, Buford T. Justice, in pursuit of the Bandit throughout the movie, but Reynolds wanted some who was a bit more crazy, a bit more dangerous, and a heck of a lot funnier. And who wouldn't think of comedy legend Jackie Gleason?   Shooting on the film would begin in Georgia on August 30th, 1976, but not before some pencil pusher from Universal Studios showed up two days before the start of production to inform Needham and Reynolds that they needed to cut $1m from the budget by any means necessary. And the guys did exactly that, reducing the number of shooting locations and speaking roles.   The film would finish shooting eights weeks later, on schedule and on budget… well, on reduced budget, and when it was released in May 1977, just six days before the initial release of Star Wars, it bombed.   For some reason, Universal Studios decided the best way to open a movie about a bunch of good old boys in the South was to give it a big push at the world famous Radio City Music Hall in the heart of Manhattan, along with an hour long Rockets stage spectacular between shows.   The Radio City Music Hall could accommodate 6,000 people per show. Tickets for the whole shebang, movie and stage show, were $5, when the average ticket price in Manhattan at the time was $3.50. And in its first six days, Smokey and the Bandit grossed $125,000, which sounds amazing, until your told the cost of running Radio City Music Hall for a week, stage show and all, was $186,000. And in its second week, the gross would fall to $102,000, and to $90,000 in week three. And Universal would be locked in to Radio City for several more weeks.   But it wouldn't all bad news.   Universal quickly realized its error in opening in New York first, and rushed to book the film into 381 theatres in the South, including 70 in the Charlotte region, 78 in and around Jacksonville, 97 theatres between Oklahoma City and Dallas, another 57 between Memphis and New Orleans, and 79 in Atlanta, near many of the locations the film was shot. And in its first seven days in just those five regions, the film would gross a cool $3.8m. Along with the $102k from Radio City, the film's $3.9m gross would be the second highest in the nation, behind Star Wars. And despite bigger weekends from new openers like The Deep, The Exorcist II and A Bridge Too Far, Smokey and the Bandit would keep going and going and going, sticking around in theatres for more than two years in some areas, grossing more than $126m.   Naturally, there would be a sequel. But here's the funny part. Smokey and the Bandit II, a Universal movie, would be shot back to back with Cannonball Run, produced by the Hong Kong film company Golden Harvest as a vehicle to break their star Jackie Chan into the American market, which would also star Burt Reynolds and be directed by Hal Needham.    Filming on Smokey and the Bandit II was supposed to start in August 1979, but would be delayed until January 1980, because the film Reynolds was working on in the late summer of 1979, Rough Cut, went way over schedule.   While the budget for the sequel would be $10m, more than double the cost of the original film, the overall production was not a very pleasant experience for most involved. Needham was feeling the pressure of trying to finish the film ahead of schedule so he'd have some kind of break before starting on Cannonball Run in May 1980, because several of the other actors, including Roger Moore, were already locked into other movies after shooting completed on that film.   Burt Reynolds and Sally Field had started dating during the making of Smokey and the Bandit in 1976, and both of them signed their contracts to appear in the sequel in 1979, but by the time shooting started in 1980, the pair had broken up, and they were forced to pretend to be in love and be side by side in the Bandit's Trans Am for a couple months.   One of the few things that would go right on the film was a complex chase scene that could only be shot one time, for the end of the sequence would be the destruction of a 64 year old rollercoaster in suburban Atlanta.   They got the shot.   Needham would get a few weeks between the end of shooting Smokey and the Bandit II and the start of Cannonball Run, but the production on the latter film would be put on hold a couple times for a few days each, as Needham would have to go back to Los Angeles to supervise the editing of the former film.   Smokey and the Bandit II would make its planned August 15th, 1980 release, and would have a spectacular opening weekend, $10.8m from 1196 theatres, but would soon drop off, barely grossing half of the first film's box office take. That would still be profitable, but Needham, Reynolds and Field all nixed the idea of teaming up for a third film. Reynolds had been wanting to distance himself from his good old boy 1970s persona, Field was now an Oscar winning dramatic actress, and Needham wanted to try something different. We'll talk about that movie, Megaforce, another time.   But despite losing the interest of the main principles of the first two movies, Universal was still keen on making a third film. The first mention would be a line item in the Los Angeles Times' Calendar section on August 28th, 1981, when, within an article about the number of sequels that were about to gear up, including Grease 2 and Star Wars 3, aka Return of the Jedi, that Universal was considering a third Smokey movie as a cable television movie. In May 1982, Variety noted that the reduced budget of the film, estimated at under $5m, would not accommodate Reynolds' asking price at that time, let alone the cost of the entire production, and that the studio was looking at Dukes of Hazzard star John Schneider as a possible replacement as The Bandit. In the end, it was decided that Jackie Gleason would return not only as Sheriff Buford T. Justice, but that he would also be, in several scenes, playing The Bandit as well.   Thus would begin the wild ride of the third film in the Smokey and the Bandit Cinematic Universe, Smokey IS the Bandit: Part 3.   It would take 11 different versions of the script written over the course of six months to get Gleason to sign off, because, somehow, he was given script approval before filming would begin.   Paul Williams and Pat McCormick would return for a third time as Little Enos and Big Enos, and the storyline would find the Burdette father and son making a bet with Sheriff Justice. Justice and his son Junior must deliver a big stuffed swordfish from Florida to a new seafood restaurant they are opening in Texas. If Justice can get the big stuffed swordfish from Point A to Point B in the time allotted, the Burdettes will give him $250,000, which Justice could use towards his impending retirement. If he doesn't, however, Justice will have to surrender his badge to the Burdettes, and he'd retire in disgrace.   Dick Lowry, who had been directed episodic television and TV movies for several years, including three episodes of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and the TV movie adaptation of Kenny Rogers' hit song The Gambler, would make his feature directing debut on Smokey Is the Bandit Part 3.   Production on the film would begin in Florida on October 25, 1982, and lasted two months, ending two days after Christmas, mostly in Florida.   Lowry and his team would assemble the film over the course of the next three months, before Universal held its first test screening on the studio lot in March 1983.   To say the screening was a disaster would be an understatement.   The audience didn't understand what the hell was going on here. They wondered how Justice, as The Bandit, could bed a character credited only as Blonde Bombshell, who looks at him the way women in 1982 would have looked at Burt Reynolds. They wondered why a plot twist in the very last scene was presented, that Dusty was really Big Enos's daughter, when it affected nothing in the story before or after its reveal. But, mostly, they were confused as to how one actor could play both title characters at the same time. Like, is Justice seeing himself as The Bandit, seeing himself behind the wheel of the Bandit's signature black and gold Pontiac Trans Am, and a beautiful country music DJ played by Colleen Camp as his companion, all while actually driving his signature sheriff's car with his son Junior as his constant companion?   The studio had two choices…   One, pony up a few extra million dollars to rewrite the script, and try to lure Reynolds back to play The Bandit…   Or, two, bury the movie and take the tax write off.   The second choice was quickly ruled out, as a teaser trailer for the film had already been released to theatres several weeks earlier, and there seemed to be some interest in another Smokey and the Bandit movie, even though the trailer was just Gleason, as Justice, standing in a military-style uniform, standing in front of a large America flag, and giving a speech to the camera not unlike the one George C. Scott gave at the start of the 1970 Best Picture winner, Patton. You can find a link to the teaser trailer for Smokey is the Bandit Part 3 on our website, at The80sMoviePodcast.com.   So the studio goes down to Jupiter, FL, where Reynolds had been living for years, and made him a sizable offer to play The Bandit for literally a couple of scenes. Since Gleason as Bandit only had one line in the film, and since most of the shots of Gleason as Bandit were done with wide lenses to hide that it wasn't Gleason doing any of the driving during the number of scenes involving the Trans Am and stunts, they could probably get everything they needed with Reynolds in just a day or two.   Reynolds would say “no” to that offer, but, strangely, he would agree to come back to the film, as The Bandit, for an extended sequence towards the end of the film. We'll get to that in a moment.   So with Reynolds coming back, but not in the capacity they wanted him in, the next thought was to go to Jerry Reed, the country singer and actor who had played Bandit's partner, The Snowman, in the first two films. Reed was amiable to coming aboard, but he wanted to play The Bandit. Or, more specifically, Cledus pretending to be The Bandit.   The film's screenwriters, Stuart Birnbaum and David Dashev, were called back in to do yet another rewrite. They would have only three weeks, as there was only a short window in April for the production team to get back together to do the new scenes with Reed and Colleen Camp. Dusty would go from being a country radio station DJ to a car dealership employee who literally walks off the job and into Cledus as Bandit's Trans Am. Reed's role as Cledus as Bandit was greatly expanded, and Dusty's dialogue would be altered to reflect both her new career and her time in the car with Cledus.   The reshoots would only last a few weeks, and Lowry would have a final cut ready for the film's planned August 12th theatrical release.   It is often stated, on this podcast and other sources, that in the 1980s, August was mostly the dumping ground of the studio's dogs, hoping to get a little bit of ticket sales before Labor Day, when families look at going on a vacation before the kids go back to school.   And the weekend of August 12th through 14th in 1983 was certainly one way to prove this argument.   Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 would be the second highest grossing new release that weekend, which is surprising in part because it would have a smaller percentage of prints out in the market compared to its competition, 498 prints, almost exclusively in the southern US. The bad news is that the film would barely make it into the Top Ten that weekend. Cujo, the adaptation of the 1981 Stephen King novel, would be the highest grossing new opener that weekend, grossing $6.11m, barely missing the top spot, which was held for a third week by the Chevy Chase film Vacation, which had earned $6.16m. Risky Business, which was making its young lead actor Tom Cruise a movie star, would take third place, with $4.58m. Then there was Return of the Jedi, which had been out three months by this point, the Sylvester Stallone-directed Saturday Night Fever sequel Staying Alive, the Eddie Murphy/Dan Aykroyd comedy Trading Places, the god-awful Jaws 3-D, WarGames and Krull, which all had been out for three to eleven weeks by now, all grossing more than Smokey and the Bandit 3, with $1.73m in ticket sales.   Having it much worse was The Curse of the Pink Panther, Blake Edwards' attempt to reboot the Inspector Clouseau series with a new American character who may or may not have been the illegitimate son of Clouseau, which grossed an anemic $1.64m from 812 theatres. And then there was The Man Who Wasn't There, the 3-D comedy featuring Steve Guttenberg that was little more than a jumbled copy of Foul Play and North by Northwest that arrived too late in theatres to ride the now-dead stereoptic movie craze, which took in $1.38m from 980 theatres.   In its second week, Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 would only lose five screens, but lose 52% of its opening weekend audience, bringing in just $830k that weekend.   Week three would see the film lose nearly 300 screens, bringing in just $218k.   Week four was Labor Day weekend itself, with its extra day of ticket sales, and you'd think Universal would just cut and run since the film was not doing great with audiences or critics. Yet, they would expand the film back to 460 theatres, including 47 theatres in the greater Los Angeles metro area. The gambit worked a little bit, with the film bringing in $1.3m during the extended holiday weekend, bringing the film's four week total gross to $5.02m.   And it would slowly limp along for a few more weeks, mostly in dollar houses, but Universal would stop tracking it after its fifth weekend in theatres, giving the film a final box office total of $5,678,950.   Oh, I almost forgot about Burt Reynolds. Burt did film his scene, a four minute or so cameo towards the end of the film, where Justice finally catches up to Cledus as The Bandit, but in Justice's mind's eye, he sees Cledus as Burt as The Bandit, where Burt as The Bandit does nothing more than half-ass read off his lines while sitting behind the wheel of the Trans Am.   I watched the movie on Paramount Plus back in January, when I originally planned on recording this episode. But it's no longer available on Paramount Plus. Nor is it available on Peacock, which is owned and operated by Universal, and where the film was once available. In May 2024, the only way to see Smokey and the Bandit is on long out-of-print low quality DVDs and Blu-Rays. JustWatch.com says the film is available on Apple TVs Showtime channel, but I can't find any Showtime channel on Apple TV, nor can I find the movie doing a simple search on Apple TV. The first two are on Apple TV, as part of the AMC+ channel. It's all so darn complicated.   But like I said, I watched it for the first and probably last time earlier this year. And, truth be told, it's not a totally painful film. It's not a good film in any way, shape or form, but what little good there is in it, it's thanks to Colleen Camp, who was not only gorgeous but had an amazing sense of comic timing. Anyway who saw her as Yvette the Maid in the 1985 comedy Clue already knows that.    Like a handful of film buffs and historians, I am still wildly interested in seeing the original cut of the film after more than forty years. If Universal can put out three different versions of Orson Welles' Touch of Evil, including a preview cut that was taken away from Welles and re-edited without his consent, in the same set, certainly they can release both versions of Smokey and the Bandit Part 3. But let's face facts. Dick Lowry is no Orson Welles, and there is practically zero calls for this kind of special treatment for the film.   I just find it odd that in this day and age, the only thing that's escaped from the original version of the film after all this time is a single image of Gleason as The Bandit, which you can find on this episode's page at our website.   Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again soon.   Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about Smokey and the Bandit Part 3, including links to Smokey and the Bandit fan sites that have their own wealth of materials relating to the movie, and a video on YouTube that shows about 20mins of deleted and alternate scenes used in the television version of the movie, which may include an additional shot from the original movie that shows Dusty riding in the back of Big Enos's red Cadillac convertible.   The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment.   Thank you again.   Good night.

The Mike Calta Show Featured Cut

Josie Show Special Edition #636 with guests Deborah Allen, Cledus T Judd, and Jimmy Wayne

Chris Stirewalt can be many things—caveman lawyer, Southern fried good old boy, etc.—but today, he's a simple pundit from the backwoods who's back on the Remnant to dispense some rank insights on the state of our parties and how the 2024 election is shaping up. The resulting conversation is exactly what you'd imagine: an onslaught of pop culture references tempered by a modicum of sobering political analysis. How clear is it that Biden can defeat Trump? What do the current Democratic and Republican coalitions look like? And should the Department of Energy move to West Virginia (Chris' answer won't surprise you)? Show Notes: - Chris' page at The Dispatch - Chris: “Five Known Unknowns for 2024” - The Remnant with Tom Nichols - Steven Teles and Robert Saldin: “The Future Is Faction” - Chris' book on populism, Every Man a King - Michael Lind: “America's Woke Elite Monoculture” - The Remnant with Robert P. George - Jonah: “Democrats Are Making a Risky Bet With Biden” - Mike Duncan's The Storm Before the Storm - Kevin Williamson: “The Whited Sepulcher” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matt and Drew discuss " First Redneck on the Internet " by Cledus T. Judd. To listen to the full show, visit ForgottenCountryRadioShow.com.

Per IMDB: Bandit and Cledus are two truck-driving southerners who accept a dare from big-shots Big and Little Enos to pick up a truckload of beer from Texas and return it to them within a specified amount of time. Picking it up is simple enough, but as they are leaving Texas, Bandit unwittingly picks up Carrie, a hitchhiking runaway bride who just left her groom at the altar--her groom being Junior, the son of Buford T. Justice. And when Buford and Junior discover what has happened, they go on a "high-speed pursuit" across the Southeast to catch The Bandit. I've always loved this movie and thought it was so funny and wanted to do an episode on it and that is exactly what we did today! So let's put that hammer down and get this episode a truckin... cause they're about to do what they say can't be done

Oh là là, the movie Smokey and the Bandit, c'est a classic film about a daring car chase through the Southern United States. The main character, Bandit, he's a charming truck driver who accepts a challenge to transport a load of illegal beer from Texas to Georgia within a certain time frame. He enlists the help of his friend, Cledus, also known as the Snowman, to drive the truck while he leads the police on a wild goose chase in his iconic black Trans Am.The chase is led by Sheriff Buford T. Justice, who is determined to catch the Bandit and bring him to justice. The Bandit and the Snowman encounter a variety of obstacles and challenges along the way, including a runaway bride named Carrie, who joins them on their adventure.The movie is filled with action, comedy, and classic cars. It's a true classic of the American cinema, and it's a must-see for anyone who loves high-speed car chases and good ol' fashioned American fun. C'est fantastique!

Actor, Comedian, and Black Card member at Planet Fitness JON REEP has an emasculating, offensive…. but very appreciative show for you today! In BEST TRENDS Bill Murray offended someone on the set of a movie and finds himself in some hot water. It's National Teacher Appreciation Day, so Jon talks about the teachers he appreciated and shares a video recording of him giving a book report in high school dressed as Rosalynn Carter. LARRY THE CABLE GUY drops by again to answer some questions from Jon's Facebook fans. Singer / Songwriter / Comedian, CLEDUS T. JUDD zooms in to talk about how his musical career started, how he was a high school basketball phenom, and his latest song about President Biden. Then it's time to give away some money as Jon plays HOW MUCH IS THAT SCREEN ACTORS GUILD RESIDUAL CHECK? with his audience and chooses three random listeners to play.  How much was this check from an episode of BLACK-ish? And in SMALL TOWN NEWS, a man's penis fell off but he had a new one attached after growing it... on his arm for six years! Talk about a reach around!!  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

James Barry Poole is an American country music artist who records under the name Cledus T. Judd. Known primarily for his parodies of popular country songs, he has been called the "Weird Al" Yankovic of country music, and his albums are usually an equal mix of original comedy songs and parodies. Judd has released 11 studio albums and two EPs, and several singles have entered the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts. His highest chart peak is the number-48 "I Love NASCAR", a parody of Toby Keith's 2003 single "I Love This Bar". --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/dadcastco/support

Cledus T. Judd is known primarily for his parodies of popular country songs, he has been called the “Weird Al” Yankovic of country music, and his albums are usually an equal mix of original comedy songs and parodies. Willie Griswold is a standup comedian and the latest addition to the cast of The Bob & Tom Show.   With hosts Neil Snyder and Kamillion.   _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _   SUBSCRIBE / RATE / REVIEW

Dave, Jenn, & Cledus Go To Breakfast 10/25/2021

In this episode of The Marty Ray Project: Chats, Chris Wallin and Marty Ray chat with the enormously funny Cledus T. Judd. In this episode we talk about everything from Garth Brooks not being a fan to giving up 2 million dollars fro family. Also, we get into the Cledus comeback, life on the tour bus, The Eagles and Michael Jackson not liking his parodies, and how he was one of my heroes when I was growing up. Cledus drops some great wisdom that I know everyone should hear, especially those looking to get into to the music business. Come on and listen! PLEASE Subscribe, Rate & Review, Download, & Share! Love y'all so much and I thank you for being a part of the show! Soon we're going to start shouting out some of the people that Rate & Review the podcast so be sure you get your name on there on Apple Podcast if you want to be one of them. FOLLOW Cledus T. Judd on all social medias and go stream or download all his old music, its awesome! We had Jared Callan sitting in on this episode with us. He has his own podcast called Tourror Stories that you might enjoy. 

The VHS Strikes Back EPS49 This week's review is Chris' favourite movie of all time Smokey and the Bandit starring Burt Reynolds. Nothing that Dave throws at it can turn Chris but he has a good go! Plot Summary: Bandit and Cledus are two truck-driving southerners who accept a dare from big-shots Big and Little Enos to pick up a truckload of beer from Texas and return it to them within a specified amount of time. Picking it up is simple enough, but as they are leaving Texas, Bandit unwittingly picks up Carrie, a hitchhiking bride-to-be who just left her groom, Junior, at the altar. Junior, however, is the son of Sheriff Buford T. Justice. And when Buford and Junior discover what has happened, they go on a "high-speed pursuit" across the Southeast to catch the bandit. IMDB: 7.0/10 Rotten Tomatoes: 80/100% Metacritic: /100% If you want Chris and Dave to review anything from the VHS era then contact us on: www.twitter.com/vhsstrikesback --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thevhsstrikesback/support

My iHeartRadio co-worker, Cledus T. Judd remodeled an old house then gave it to a needy family in the Tri-State as a Christmas gift!

August 24, 2019 | Jaco Booyens, Cledus T. Judd, The Kendrick Brothers | Huckabee by Huckabee

Cledus talks about his latest release, ILLEGALS. The video released yesterday has already gone viral. Although this is a fun video, it also has an important message!

Turd Furguson and the Flying Nun are on the run from a Cajun Nazi sheriff. There’s also a man named Cledus, a pregnant elephant and her Italian gynecologist, and the Pittsburgh Steelers. So grab your shortest shorts and join us for Smokey and the Bandit 2!

Can't tell you how good it was to hear this voice on the other end of the phone tonight when former QYK morning man Cledus T. Judd called in to say hi.  He's been all over CMT this past week with his new music video for his parody of Morgan Wallen's "Up Down" called "(Weight's Goin' Up Down Up Down). Cledus stepped away from a lucrative career on a successful morning show with the late Dave McKay and Veronica.  Being so far away from his young daugther was difficult.  I remember he'd do the drive back to Georgia often to see her.  In our conversation, Cledus shares some very personal information about the decision he had to make. It was also a little heartbreaking to hear Cledus doubting whether or not his fans still wanted to hear his work.  When I posted the music video on my QYK page this past week, the response was instant.  And you can tell it means a lot to Cledus to know his friends and fans still want to hear more. What about a show in Tampa? What does Morgan Wallen think about his parody? What does he have up his sleeve for potential future parodies? He tell us one about Tiger Woods that's going to crack you up.   Enjoy this talk with one of the nicest and funniest guys I know!

Another interview??? That's right, Country music's clown prince of parody, Cledus T. Judd, drops by to talk about Weird Al, and hype his big come-back. Head on over to CMT to vote his new song/video.

SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT The story of a fun-loving, fast-talking trucker who takes on his craziest haul yet - delivering 400 cases of Coors Beer from Texarkana to Atlanta in just 28 hours. With Sheriff Buford T. Justice hot on his trail and eager to teach him some respect for the law, the Bandit joins forces with good ol' boy, Cledus and runaway bride Frog for one of the most charming movies ever made. Craig and Alan talk community, libertarianism, and Super Bowl traffic in Houston on this week's Matinee Heroes. Show Notes 1:04 Craig and Alan whine about the Super Bowl traffic in Houston this weekend. 05:14 Discussion of Smokey and the Bandit 31:18 Recasting 40:58 Double-Feature suggestions 42:49 Final Thoughts 44:56 First impressions of "John Wick"   Next episode we discuss the revenge action instant classic "John Wick"