Steve Oedekerk appeared on:
"Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher"

Steve Oedekerk
Peter Bart
Michelle Phillips
Thad Mumford

[ Cheers and Applause ]

Bill: Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
And boy, have I picked the wrong week to go on a gay crime spree.

[ Laughter ]

No, they are --
This is getting --

[ Laughter ]

This is getting creepier and creepier, this Andrew Cunanan, the alleged killer there.
Now they say that he may have gone back to his hometown of San Diego, which is right down the freeway here, folks.
And they say anybody who is involved in the gay community in San Diego is taking precautions.
In fact, at Sea World today --

[ Laughter ]

Shamu covered his blow hole.

[ Laughter ]

[ Applause ]

Well --
Now the Miami police are still on the case there, because he may still be in the Miami area where, of course, he was last seen.
And they're afraid that the people there, some people in the gay community are not coming forward.
They think they know something about him and they're not coming forward.
So now the police, to try to get them to come forward, they're offering a big cash reward and also a membership in a tanning salon.

[ Laughter ]

I kid the gay community.
Well, speaking of tawdry stories, have you heard about the thing with the deafİmute Mexicans in New York subway?
Is this -- aren't people crap?

[ Laughter ]

These people were keeping -- these awful people were keeping 50 something deaf Mexicans selling -- having them sell trinkets on the subway.
And what horrible thing to think of these poor people, they're in a strange city.
They don't know where they are.
They can't even communicate their plight.
The only bright side is they never had to hear Howard Stern.

[ Laughter ]

[ Applause ]

Well, on the brighter side, here is finally some good news.
The Miss America pageant has announced that for the first time they're breaking with tradition, two-piece suits in this year's pageant.
They've never had this.
This is a big break with tradition.
But never fear, continuing with tradition, the contestants themselves will still be vacuous bimbos made up like old ladies.

[ Light Laughter ]

And -- and finally, now, here's another interesting story in the animal world.
Elephants now have birth control.

[ Light Laughter ]

This is true.
They are giving -- there is a park in South Africa that is giving birth control pills to the elephants to control the elephant population.
And the rangers are very happy with this, because they say this really beats the old system of having to train the female elephants to pretend they have a headache.

[ Laughter and applause ]

Thanks for coming.
It's all been satirized for your protection.

[ Applause ]

Bill: All right.
Welcome to the show.
And let's meet our panel.
He is director of the huge new hit "Nothing to Lose."
And his upcoming TV special is called "Steve Oedekerk.com."
Steve Oedekerk.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Steve.
Nice to see you.
He was senior Vice President of MGM/United Artists.
Now he's a columnist for "GQ" and the editor in chief for "Variety."
Peter Bart.
Yes, sir.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Peter, good to see you again.
Thank you.
A veteran TV producer from "M*A*S*H" to "Alf."
A "New York Times" contributor, on the New York Yankees first black bat boy, Thad Mumford.
What a credit.

[ Applause ]

How you doing?

Thad: Good.
Nice to meet you.

Bill: The star of "Hotel" and "Knot's Landing" and one quarter of the mamas and the papas.
Her new series is HBO's "Spicy City."
Michelle Phillips.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Hey, baby.

Michelle: Hi.

Bill: Thanks for coming.

Michelle: Thank you.

Bill: Okay.
All right.
Well, it's been a week since this tragic shooting of Gianni Versace.
So we should talk about what everybody's talking about.
And of course, it is on the cover of both these magazines, which is part of the problem.
There's one.
This guy, Gianni Versace himself --
sorry, there he is.
He probably could have gotten cover of "Time" just by his --
you know, what he did.
He was a genius.

Michelle: He did get the cover of "Time," actually.

Bill: He did get the cover of "Time" because he got shot.
But this guy got the cover of "Time," too.

Michelle: He did, too.
He has a little picture there.
He got the cover of "Time."
I mean, you know.

Bill: But look, here's the problem.
This guy wanted to steal this guy's fame.

Michelle: And he did it.

Bill: And now he did it.

Michelle: Beautiful.
He must be the happiest mass murderer in town.

[ Laughter ]

Thad: He could well be the richest one, too.

Steve: This is not a bad career plan.
If you think how hard it is to make it in this business.

Michelle: You're right.

[ Laughter ]

It's kind of a one-shot deal, too.
You know, you got to make a splash.
You know, make a big splash.

Bill: You know, when I'm the least cynical one on the panel, that's bad.

[ Laughter ]

Steve: No, it is horrible.
You know, I mean, it is a terrible thing.
You know, you get in a situation where it's so -- when the O.J. trial was happening, similar to that, people would say, "Oh, there's too much O.J. on TV, there's too much O.J. on TV." And I thoroughly disagree.
To me it's like there is not enough of this on TV because it is fascinating. It's not right.
But it is inherently fascinating.

[ Laughter ]

Because you want to know -- I'll tell you what's different, too.
I'll tell you what's different.
He's out there now.
He's out there.
So it is like a really spooky "Where's Waldo."
You know?

[ Laughter ]

[ Applause ]

It like, the guy is out in the world.

[ Applause ]

And not only do I want him on the cover of "Time," I want his face everywhere.

Bill: Yeah.

Steve: I want him to not be able to go anywhere so when I see him I go, "That's the guy!"

Michelle: That's what, that's what --

Thad: Are you going to put him in a movie next year?
Are you going to do a movie with him now?
Would you -- I mean, he'll be with the morse office.
He'll have cologne.
He'll have a book written with Sammy "The Bull" Gravano probably.
He'll be on this show, probably.
Won't he?

[ Laughter ]

Michelle: Oh, you'd have him on the show like that.

Thad: Oh, admit it.
He's hot.

Steve: He's hot.

Thad: He is hot.

[ Laughter ]

Steve: I mean, he is in, man.

Thad: He unfortunately is.

Bill: He's gay.
He's not hot.

[ Laughter ]

Michelle: You know I know a couple of more things about him, too.
He was a big, big -- now, I don't know how this is possible.
How old is he, 20-something?
He's a huge Liberace fan.
I mean, where does that fit into the equation?

[ Laughter ]

You know you --

Bill: A gay man who is a huge Liberace fan.
Wow, where did you find this out?

Michelle: And you know what?

[ Laughter ]

Steve: You find that most serial killers are.

[ Laughter ]

I don't know what that is.
It's some kind of weird --

Peter: The strange twist today that is one of the better known columnists in the East was saying that it was naughty for the priest to call him a gay serial killer.
That's not P.C.
Now I can't quite see that, because after all gay is rather intrinsic to what he's doing and to the victims who are covering up their blow holes.

[ Laughter ]

Thad: Why is it intrinsic?

[ Applause ]

Why is being gay intrinsic to committing murder?

Bill: Well, I think that he means that he's killing other gay people.
It's a gay on gay --

Peter: Precisely.

Michelle: Well, you know, he has a little black book, too.
And he has a list of celebrity crushes.

Steve: You know way too much about him.

[ Laughter ]

Michelle: I have some incredible sources and poll them.

Thad: So there you go.

[ Laughter ]

Bill: We have to take a break.
We'll come back.

[ Applause ]

[ Applause ]

Bill: Okay.
We're talking about the horrible crime spree that's going on in America now.

Michelle: He's also a crack addict.

[ Laughter ]

Bill: Don't point to me when you say that.

Peter: You know, as the token editor here, Bill, and what's strange about this story is that this is a very elitist victim.
I mean, I can't believe everybody walking the streets who wears Versace clothing.
This is a rather specialized clientele.
And this fellow is now basically sort of an international legend, it is a remarkable side aspect of this thing.
Who would expect it?

Michelle: Well, he wasn't going to get on the cover of "Newsweek" if he, you know, murdered mechanics, you know, or --

[ Laughter ]

He has a, he has a target audience.

Thad: Was the grave digger gay?
Do we know that?

Bill: No.
He murdered the grave digger to get a car.

Thad: Is that true?

Bill: Yes, absolutely.

Michelle: That's why they say he's the most interesting type of serial killer because he doesn't have the pattern.
You know, the guy that he murdered, the older industrialist or whatever, he tortured him.

Bill: Yes.

Michelle: And the other guys, he just shot. It is now speculated that the two guys shot, killed the first guy, the other.

Steve: Serial killers rarely --

Michelle: I talk about this now more than I ever --

Steve: -- They rarely cross this line.
They rarely go into celebrities.
And it's fascinating.
It's not -- you just don't hear that bundy is now at Zsa Zsa's house.

[ Laughter]

It just doesn't happen.
So, I think that's inherently fascinating, hence, you know, the big, big press barrage.

Bill: And what bothers me now is that the press is all over this -- the Miami police should have known because he pawned this coin and they had his fingerprints four days before.
They did the same thing with Jeff Dahmer.
You know, whenever there's some tragedy, America thinks that they have to know all the answers.

Steve: Which is insane.
The police always get blamed.
And it's always comes down to, well, they knew he was weird. You know.

Bill: Right.
Yes.
Jeff Dahmer snuck in -- I remember after the Jeff Dahmer thing, they found out that he used to sneak into the honor society photographs.
As if people should have went, "Hey, please, it's an accident waiting to happen."

[ Laughter ]

The guy is sneaking into the honor society photographs --

Steve: He should be locked up now.

Bill: Lock him up now.

Steve: Get him away from society.

Bill: Forget the fact that his victims were running down the street naked, bleeding, and the cops did nothing.
Right.
Exactly.

Michelle: And then they give him back to Jeffrey Dahmer.
They gave this young kid who was obviously in some kind of delusional state, you know.

Bill: But it is sort of like the TWA flight, you know.
I mean, it's been a year.
It was a horrible tragedy, but people are so obsessed with why did it happen.
You know what?
How about fate?
Bad things happen.
I've heard them say about Gianni Versace, that, you know, he should have taken precautions.
Well, how could he predict this?
There's fate in the world.
There's horrible tragedy.

Steve: I can only talk about myself and when I go out killing.

[ Laughter ]

Bill: No, no, you'll be out of camera range.
That's all right.

Thad: That's okay, I know not to kill on camera.
I don't want to be killed on television.

Steve: I go for the low profile.
Yeah.
You know, because I don't want this big stuff to have to live up to.

Bill: Right.

Michelle: You guys all want to be on the cover of "Time."
You know it.

Bill: Well, isn't there something to that that we don't -- a more spiritual society, would accept things that happen of a tragic nature more philosophically as opposed to always having to find an answer.
You know what?
The plane blew up.
Maybe we'll never know.
But whatever it was, they used to say, you know, if you go down in a plane, that was because it was God's will.

Steve: Wouldn't that make the news odd?
Because then with we'd tune in every night and they'd go, "Yeah, a lot more people kind of went away today."

[ Laughter ]

"Some flood thing!
I don't know.
Can't really give you any details on it, you know.
It's just God's way."

Thad: Why is the murder of --

[ Laughter ]

Why is the murder of a wonderful designer, albeit very, very unique and specialized, why is that murder more important than the murder of anybody else?

Bill: Than the grave digger?

Thad: Exactly.
Because people --

[ Applause ]

Yes.

[ Applause ]

Yes.
Because people now have been trained by this thing and by magazines to think that that's important.

Bill: Okay.

Peter: As the token editor here, we do have to sell papers.

Thad: I am the token editor.

Peter: Oh.
That's okay.
We're both token editors.

Thad: That's a good point.

Michelle: But I think if people recognize a name that it makes them feel closer to it, like in more danger.

Thad: But it is all fake.
It is all fake because, you know, people in the news -- I think of the word Nero.
The world is going and people say with a straight face we have a great economy, we have a wonderful economy.
You know, I'm sorry.
What about people whose, you know, whose jobs have been blown up thanks to NAFTA?
So all this stuff becomes like the fiddling.
You know and people -- there are 85,000 entertainment channels now.

Bill: Well, I know I don't want to talk about NAFTA.

[ Laughter ]

But I would like to get --
I would like to get into the celebrity angle, but we have to take a message first.

Michelle: Okay.

[ Applause ]

[ Applause ]

Bill: Okay.
We're talking about the disproportionate importance of show business in the country.
Now, there's an article here.
This guy a few weeks ago, Jamal Finaca, is suing, basically all of show business.
He is suing more than 20 major -- he's suing every studio because he says he's applied for 2,820 writing, directing and production jobs in the last two years and hasn't got a single job offer and he blames it on nepotism.

Thad: Quitter.

[ Laughter ]

I mean, where's your passion?
Where's your --

Bill: Stick-to-itiveness?

Thad: Yeah.

Bill: 2,820 jobs.
That's a lot of trips to Kinkos.
Let me tell you.

[ Laughter ]

And he says it is because of -- he says the whole way this industry is run is basically who you know.
And my question is --

Michelle: He's right, kind of.

Thad: He's totally right.

Michelle: He's totally right.
I mean -- yes to a very large degree.

Steve: Well, some people must break in or it would be just big reunion, you know.

Michelle: I know, but for the most part if you know somebody or if you have a mother or father or sister or brother in the business, it's a lot easier.

Bill: That's true.
I agree.

Michelle: Because, you know, producers and studios want to capitalize on the name.

Thad: And where people usually have the jobs happen to be of a particular view.
You know, my cousin Bill, for example --

[ Laughter ]

Not to demean him.

Steve: Thank God for Uncle Bill.

Bill: You're daughter is in the business.

Michelle: There you go, you see.
I got her every job she -- no.

[ Laughter ]

You know, I think that Wilson Phillips had an opportunity.

Bill: Absolutely.

Michelle: I mean, listen, they came to me.
They were singing eight bars of a song and they, said, you know.
I said, "Well, you got to work up a little material."
They said, "No, no, no, we need a producer."
I called Richard Perry.
And I said, "The girls want to come over and sing for you."
And he says, he called me back and said, "They only sang eight bars."
I said, "Well, I told them they have to --"
He said, "That's okay.
I'm going to sign them anyway."

Peter: But suing is not the best solution.

[ Laughter ]

The problem -- seems to me, the problem --

Bill: I'm sure they're glad mom made this appearance.

[ Laughter ]

Michelle: I had to be there for them, you know.

Peter: The problem with systematically suing everybody in the business, I think, is that it comes back to bite you.
Because no one obviously wants to hire a filmmaker, a black filmmaker or whatever, who is going to turn around and sue you.

[ Talking over each other ]

Steve: It's insanity.
Even if he has a point, you can't be the star of your high school basketball team and sue the Lakers.
"Hey, man, I have the best jump shot," you know.

Michelle: Back in the '70s, I think that I had a pretty good case against show business, against the movie industry in general.
You could not get a job unless you were really ugly --
in the '70s.
I swear to God.
You had to just be a really --

Bill: That is unfair to Elliott Gould.

[ Laughter ]

That's --

[ Laughter ]

Michelle: I mean I had --

Bill: That's silly to begin with.

Michelle: Well, it might be silly, but it was true.

Bill: Ali MacGraw was not ugly.
And I could name 12 other people who were not ugly.
And you're saying you were too pretty to be in show business?

Michelle: Yes.

[ Laughter ]

Thad: You --
There's a larger concern here.
There's a much larger and it is kind of insidious.

Michelle: Oh, you mean -- actually more important?

Thad: Well, I wouldn't go that far, but you know.
But no, I think that, who knows?
I've never seen this guy's work.
I don't know what he's done.

Bill: "Penitentiary" is his biggest movie.

Thad: Okay.

Steve: "Penitentiary."
"Penitentiary."

Thad: I imagine that given the climate in Hollywood now, he's making stuff people don't want to see.
Now, if he was making "Erkel Goes to Hollywood," then he would be a hit. But I'm sure --

Bill: He's not making anything because he can't get a job.
'
r 5 ž
' And he says it's because -- people won't hire him because he's not connected.
But I'm asking --
isn't every business depended on who you know?
And it's hard to get in the door.

Steve: It is -- it's every business.
And Hollywood, the one thing I would say for Hollywood as a whole, having been entrenched the last few years, is Hollywood is inherently too greedy to be biased against anyone.

Thad: That's ridiculous.

Steve: So you could take the antichrist and if he has a the hot sitcom idea, guess what, he's got a development deal.
You know?
I mean, it's really --

Michelle: And guess who has got a development deal next week?

Thad: Cunanan.

Steve: But that's the sad thing, Cunanan, he actually is closer to a movie deal than Jamal.
So that's sad.

Peter: We would all like to see more black directors.
We'd all like to see more women directors.
I'd like to see more talented directors.
I mean, you look at the summer movies --

[ Laughter ]

[ Applause ]

Michelle: It's true, you know.

[ Applause ]

Peter: But there's a pattern.
But there's a pattern of discrimination today.
I think it is against talent.

Steve: Except for that "Nothing to Lose" film.

[ Many talking at once ]

Thad: White director.

Michelle: I heard it opened real well.

Thad: There is a larger problem, though, I think, which is that, you know, I can certainly attest to this in some ways being a black man that people are a little leery when black guys do serious stuff. You know, if you do frothy kind of, you know, jivey stuff, if you act like you went to school at home boy state, people act like it's okay.
But, you know, this guy is doing stuff about prisons and serious stuff.
And I'll I bet, in some way, people think "Well, it might be a little dicey for us."
It might be a little too -- it won't sell.

Michelle: And you know what?
In all the years that I had been doing television, which is a long time --

Thad: 45, I believe, right?

[ Laughter ]

Michelle: I have only --

Thad: Of course they were pretty years, though.

Michelle: -- I have only had one black director and it was a woman.
And the consensus was that they were killing two birds with one stone.

Thad: Right.

Michelle: Because she was a woman and she was black.

Bill: That's how I got my job.

Steve: Thanks, Uncle Bill.

Bill: We'll be right back.

[ Applause ]

[ Applause ]

Bill: All right.
Tomorrow we're going to have Belinda Carlisle, Robert Wuhl, Stanley Crouch and Tavis Smiley.
Now, pretty people in movies in the '70s.
You were saying Jane Fonda.
Okay.
Who else?
Some other --

Thad: Ali MacGraw.

Bill: Ali MacGraw -- very pretty.

Thad: Ryan O'Neal.

Bill: We said her.
James Caan. ---

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