Things You Never Knew From The Set Of Caddyshack

Caddyshack may be the funniest sports film ever made, so naturally there were plenty of antics going on behind the scenes. It’s only natural that when you get a group of comedians together that is as talented as Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, and Rodney Dangerfield.

Cindy Morgan had several issues with the script requirements for her character. While Harold Ramis was willing to allow Morgan to stay covered, Jon Peters told her she would never work in Hollywood again if she didn’t comply.

Both Bill Murray and Chevy Chase had been known for their work as comedic actors on Saturday Night Live throughout the 1970s. However, they hadn’t been on the sketch comedy show at the same time. Murray had been Chase’s replacement on the show after Chase’s resignation, but when Chase suddenly returned, it was not exactly a celebration. Producers decided it would be best to keep the two men away from each other, ensuring that they were rarely in the scenes together.

Pilots passing over the set from the nearby airport were alarmed one day to see a huge fire raging in the midst of the golf field. Fans of the movie will remember the scene at the end of the movie where the 18th hole erupts in Carl Spackler’s final attempt to defeat the gopher. The production team accidentally built a much bigger explosion than planned, causing the passing pilots to alert air traffic control to what they thought was a plane crash.

When producers realized that Chevy Chase and Bill Murray had no scenes together, they asked the director, Harold Ramis to add one at the last minute in order to take advantage of their comedic genius. The three plotted an outline, devising a set up to get Chase’s character in Murray’s little shack of a house. Though the scene is only loosely connected to the plot, it ended up becoming what is considered the funniest scene in the entire film.

One of the funnier scenes in the movie depicts a Baby Ruth candy bar being dropped into a swimming pool, unwrapped. When it’s discovered by someone not in the know, they mistake it for human waste, to hilarious effect. As it turns out, the prank was pulled by Bill Murray and his brother, Brian Doyle-Murray in real life, when they dropped a candy bar in their high school swimming pool before sounding the alarm to school officials.

You remember that famous explosion that serves as the film’s climax? Well, the owners of the golf course had expressly forbidden the production team from filming the scene anywhere near any of the golf courses. Though the producers had built a fake hill to blow up, the owners were still upset about their plans. In order to complete the scene, a producer wined and dined them in thanks as the director hurriedly shot the explosion while they were off the golf course’s grounds.

Bill Murray wasn’t even originally supposed to be in Caddyshack. He was chosen as a last minute replacement for the original, Carl Spackler, who was played by an actual veteran who had what was then referred to as shell shock. The amateur, however, couldn’t actually manage the demands of being on film, such as remembering his lines, nor could he act, but Murray honored him in his performance by basing many of Carl’s characteristics on the previous actors personal ticks.

The inspiration behind the scene where Judge Smails takes a painful below the belt hit from a golf ball was a real incident that happened to director Harold Ramis. Prior to the film, Ramis had only hit the green twice, and seemed a bit scared off by what happened. He was luckily the perpetrator of the hysterical mishap, not the receiver. It was too good of a moment to not include in their movie, and the joke certainly landed well.

After the production managed to sign on the three big name comedians, the roles of the characters they were set to play began to shift. Harold Ramis retooled the story to focus more on their characters, imagining the narrative as if it were a Marx Brothers script. In his mind, Rodney Dangerfield was Groucho Marx, Bill Murray was Harpo Marx, and Chevy Chase filled the role of Chico. The movie was thus redesigned to highlight their jokes, rather than focusing on the coming of age story.

Caddyshack may be the film that made Bill Murray a star, but he was only supposed to be given a cameo performance. The production team found him so hilarious, however, that they quickly worked him into more of the movie. Originally, Carl Spackler wasn’t even supposed to speak, but once Murray signed on, Harold Ramis knew that would need to change. He wanted to take advantage of Murray’s impeccable comedic instincts. Murray’s characterization ended up being integral to the film’s success.

Chevy Chase’s character takes a very “zen” approach to his golf playing, which was mostly characterized by Chase chanting before each of his character’s swings. The idea for that element of the character came from writer Douglas Kenney’s own interests in Buddhist meditation. Brian Doyle-Murray explained,”[Kenney] had an idea for a putter with electromagnetic sensors that would signal you to putt when you’d reach alpha state.” That led the director to ask Chase to make a “zen noise” before each putt.

When Rodney Dangerfield was cast in the role of Al Czervik, he had been a well known comedian, but had never yet appeared on film. Dangerfield appeared quite unhappy at the beginning of the shoot, and when someone finally asked why, he said he felt like he was bombing all of his jokes. Dangerfield was used to performing for an audience, so he didn’t realize his costars couldn’t laugh at him. One of them kindly explained that if they laughed, it would ruin the take.

When Caddyshack was first conceived, several studios passed it up before one agreed to take on the film. The executives had a few stipulations about the cast, however. Namely, the producers need to find a star to fill at least one of the roles. One by one, they cast first Dangerfield, and then Bill Murray, who was then starring on Saturday Night Live. It wasn’t until they managed to nab Chevy Chase for the film too that the studio agreed to make the movie.

When Brian Doyle-Murray and Douglas Kenney sat down to write the script, they had plenty of inspiration to draw on. Most of what ended up on the page was taken straight from Doyle-Murray’s life. The elder of the Murray brothers had caddied himself as a kid in Illinois. He also made sure to depict the feeling of growing up cramped together with eight other siblings. The similarities don’t stop there though. Even the jobs given to characters were inspired by a family member’s real life.

It’s pretty safe to say that Caddyshack never would have been made if it hadn’t been for Animal House, which was co-written by Harold Ramis and Douglas Kenney. Despite Animal House‘s immense popularity–it grossed over $141 million at the box office–the two men still had to struggle to follow up their success. Luckily “Animal House–but on a golf course!” sounded like a real winner to producers, and the men were able to get their second film produced.

There are many tales about Ramis’s fitness as a first time director, though it’s not clear just how many are fact or fiction. In some reports, Ramis was so incompetent that he would look through the viewfinder of the camera, rather than looking at the screen when they first began filming. Others said that in the first few days of the shoot, Ramis would mistakenly yell, “Cut!” when he meant to shout out, “Action!” Luckily, the studios liked what they saw, and Ramis stayed.

Ramis was intent on not filming the movie in Hollywood, fearing that the studio might have too control if they were close by. He managed to get permission to shoot elsewhere by saying they needed a location that looked more like the midwest. It was ironic, therefore, that a golf course in Florida was chosen to stand in as the set, which ended up causing a fair number of problems of unexpected problems for the embattled production.

According to producers, when Rodney Dangerfield showed up for his audition, he put on a bizarre display. For starters, he was driven to the office in a stretch limousine. His choice of wardrobe for the meeting also turned heads, as he was wearing a pastel suit that was covered with a trench suit. Witnesses recall Dangerfield striding into the room, ripping off his pants in front of Peters, before exclaiming, “Let’s eat!” Though producers were baffled, he won the role anyway.

Due to their tropical shooting location, the production had a number of weather phenomena to contend with. For starters, though not wholly weather related, the production had to keep cutting shots because passing airplanes were making too much noise. More disruptive, however, was Hurricane David’s arrival, which caused the production to shut down entirely as it passed over them. The cast and crew were more than happy to throw an Animal House style party while they waited out the storm.

In Cindy Morgan’s well known pool scene, she later shared that it was an extremely difficult scene for her to shoot, as she couldn’t see anything. Though they had a stunt double dive into the pool for her, she had to be lead to the ladder by production assistants since she was unable to wear contact lenses for the scene as they could be ruined by the water. Without anything aiding her vision, Cindy Morgan is considered to be legally blind.

In the scene where Cindy Morgan’s character Lucy gets a massage from Chevy Chase, she had know idea what to expect, since Chase was another actor accustomed to figuring it out as he goes. One of their best unscripted moments happens as Ty pours oil down Lucy’s back. Morgan was surprised to feel the liquid oozing down her back, which prompted the very real reaction which she shouts at Ty, “You’re crazy!” The line ended up making the final cut.

In one of Bill Murray’s more memorable scenes, he improvises an entire monologue for the benefit of Peter Berkrat, who was playing a teenaged Angie D’Annunzio. As Carl expounded on suddenly finding himself the caddy for the Dalai Lama. While he spoke, he was holding a pitchfork in one hand, that would waver perilously towards Berkrat’s face. Making the whole scene even more nerve wracking, the pitchfork was very real and sharp. Berkrat’s discomfort was a genuine reaction to the story.

After Doug Kenney and Brian Doyle-Murry sat down and wrote their script, it clocked in at almost 250 pages. Most standard screenplays are roughly half that length, so the boys and Harold Ramis were tasked with the difficulty of cutting it down. Of course, much of the script ended up becoming obsolete once casting was completed as the core comedians in the film were adept improvisers, meaning the majority of their characters’ dialogue was spurted out off the cuff.

After filming wrapped and the production team began to edit, they find themselves in a bit of a narrative ditch after the editing process began. The film was shaping up to be a series of funny scenes centering around the core comedians, which let the narrative tying the story together fall by the wayside. The team decided to add in scenes of the gopher himself, which they shot completely independently with a puppet on a soundstage, which made a noticeable difference in sound quality between scenes.

Perhaps the most famous scene in the film, Bill Murray’s Cinderella monologue was entirely unscripted. Going off of two stage directions that suggested a kid narrating his own sports achievement, Murray managed to speak for 30 minutes while they were filming. Most was cut, but the line that stuck was, “Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac . . . It’s in the hole! It’s in the hole! It’s in the hole!”

There were many hurdles that the creators of Caddyshack had to overcome in order to get the movie produced. One of them, including the fact that Harold Ramis had never directed a film prior to signing on as the director of Caddyshack. Producers were had so little confidence in his ability to direct that the studio asked the rest of the team to have a back up director lined up just in case Ramis couldn’t uphold expectations.

The movie’s opening credits are set to the song, “I’m Alright” by Kenny Loggins. However, this was not Harold Ramis’s first choice for the. He’d originally envisioned his comedy romp set to a soundtrack provided by the up and coming rock group, Pink Floyd. The group declined Ramis’s request, and he had to find another artist who would lend their voice to the film, which is how they eventually ended up with Kenny Loggins singing on the film.

The scholarship that Danny is attempting to win in Caddyshack is not just a plot device. Many country clubs have programs that offer young caddies the chance to earn money that will go towards paying for their college education. However, just like many of the other scenarios in the film, especially with regards to Danny, Brian Doyle-Murray’s eldest brother, Ed actually was able to afford Northwestern University because he won the Chick Evans Caddie Scholarship when he was a teenager.

The aspects of Brian Doyle-Murrays upbringing go even deeper than the little character details he added from his and his siblings’ lives. For starters, Caddyshack might never have ended up on the golf course if the Murray children hadn’t worked at one when they were younger. One thing he seemed to leave out, however, was that his brother Bill was in charge of running the hot dog stand at the local country club they worked at in Winnetka, Illinois.

According to Golf Digest, a large number of the elements represented in the film are very true to the actual country clubs. Among the many jokes made in the film, some of the funniest are the ones that are served with a side of biting social commentary. Rodney Dangerfield at remarks that another character shouldn’t let the club know he’s Jewish. Golf Digest shares that this was an unfortunate reality at many country clubs around America, though change finally seems to be coming.

Despite Carl’s constant bragging about the different celebrities he’s met on the golf course, many of them can be written off as figments of his imagination. His monologue about caddying for the Dalai Lama is definitely up there with the film’s best moments, but considering the Dalai Lama has said he’s never even played golf means that Carl was definitely spinning a yarn for the younger caddy. The holy religious leader has also said he’s never seen Caddyshack, despite the story about him in it.

The production of the film may have been held up by Hurricane David, but that didn’t stop them from portraying the characters playing through a storm. Gold Digest reports that inclement weather has affected many a famous golf match in the past. Not only that, the lightening strike scene in the movie is not just a figment of fiction. A significant number of people struck by lightening each year were those who continued to play their matches even in the rain.

You may have thought you were going crazy when the sounds of the gopher in Caddyshack reminded you of something. Even if you too were plagued with a gopher or groundhog problem, you probably don’t have a very good idea of what a gopher sounds like. A movie, however, often needs to add sound effects to improve upon scenes, and the gopher was no different. Like many Hollywood productions, you may have heard the gopher sounds before, because they were used in Flipper.

If you ever felt like you needed more Caddyshack in life, the Murray brothers have your back. The first location of their Caddyshack themed restaurant was opened in Florida in 2001. The whole menu is saturated with golf references, from fried potato “golf balls” to naming the salad section, “the greens.” Brother Andy said, “In planning for Murray Bros. Caddyshack, we wanted to create a restaurant that captures our family’s love for the game and present it in a way that appeals to everyday golfers and families.”

Many movies have a character that really grinds your gears, and it’s often by design. Unfortunately though, Spaulding Smails was not just a work of fiction, at least not according to Golf Digest. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that there are many spoiled brats walking around the country club greens, especially given the exclusive air that surrounds entry to most of those clubs. The website reports that such members aren’t usually held in high regard, but they’re still there.

According to the official rules of golf, Danny Noonan shouldn’t have won the competition. The rules state that if the ball is stuck on the lip of the cup and hasn’t fallen in the hole by the time the player walks up to it, then the player must add another swing to get it into the cup. Even falling in after that time means that said player adds an extra point. In the case of Caddyshack, Judge Smails should have been the winner.

During the film, Rodney Dangerfield chose to use an orange ball for his golfing scenes. The color choice may have seemed indicative of the character’s wild flare. As out of place as a bright orange ball may seem in the stuffy atmosphere of a game of golf, the orange ball has appeared in real life matches before. Most notably, Jerry Pate won a championship in 1982, all while playing the game with a Wilson ProStaff ball that happened to be bright orange.

Ted Knight was unimpressed with his wild costars’ composure after hours during the shoot. In general, he had been regarded as quite nice, and was a calming presence while he worked. Nevertheless, the cast and crew’s nearly incessant partying was too much for the older actor. He became quite annoyed given that the partying often meant missed call times. Furthermore, the comedians who were so often indisposed in the mornings were the reason his role in the movie was reduced.

In the original plan for Caddyshack, Director Harold Ramos envisioned Bill Murray’s character, Carl Spackler as being totally silent. Given that in the original script, the character was only set to appear in a small cameo, they never even bothered writing dialogue for him. However, once Murray came aboard, Ramis knew he was working with an improvisational genius and allowed Murray to go to town. Almost all of the character’s dialogue was made up by Murray on the spot.

With all of the extra improvisation that took place during the shoot, the film was clocking in around 4 and a half hours, which is far too long. Another editor had to be brought in to assist Ramis in cutting the movie down to a manageable size because he found it difficult to cut any of the jokes out. Eventually though, something had to be left on the cutting room floor, and the team managed to put together a cohesive movie.