Degrees of Buckaroo Banzai

[Hank Harwell]

We all have heard of the BB connection with Big Trouble in Little China. But did you know that there is a connection between BB and Blazing Saddles?

I was just trying to track down a 'That Guy' my wife and I keep seeing on a car dealership commercial here in the Dallas area. I thought I recognized him as one of the characters in Blazing Saddles. Sure enough, it is Burton Gilliam, who is now semi-retired. I was scrolling through his screen credits trying to see what else he played in (so that I could tell me wife), when I ran across the listing for the TV movie, The Night That Panicked America, about the 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast. There, tucked in amongst the trivia, is the note that it was referenced in Buckaroo Banzai.

How's that?

[Andrew Modro]

We all have heard of the BB connection with Big Trouble in Little China.

Not all of us.

[Vulcan Stev]

Berin tells it so-o-o much better than I.

[Berin Kinsman]

Short version, updated with most recent info:

WD Richter directed The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, and wrote the unproduced script for the sequel. Which featured BB vs an Asian villain named Hanoi Xan. BB didn't do great at the box office so it was never greenlit.

Big Trouble in Little China was originally a western, with the hero riding into San Francisco's Chinatown and mixing it up with tongs and ghosts. John Carpenter loved the premise but hated the script, and wanted it set in the present. So he brought in WD Richter to "script doctor" it. Richter basically cut and pasted large chunks of Buckaroo Banzai vs the World Crime League in, filed the serial numbers off, and renamed some characters. Because of writer's union rules, his name does not appear in the credits and the original screenwriters get credit for a movie that bears very little resemblance to their script.

[Deidzoeb]

In some alternate universe, we could rent the 1975 Hammer "Zeppelin Vs. Pterodactyls," "BB against the World Crime League," and the original Western version of Big Trouble. I'm sure Richter improved on the original script, but a Western comedy fantasy set in Chinatown would be sweet.

[Berin Kinsman]

I agree, I'd love to see how it would work as a Western. It's just not the movie Carpenter wanted to shoot.

[Xose Lucero]

Burton Gilliam. Jack Burton. Think about it...

Also: Burton Gilliam. Terry Gilliam. Probably not worth thinking about...

[Berin Kinsman]

To my knowledge BB does not reference the movie. BB references the 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast. So the only connection is that they both reference the same event.

[Hank Harwell]

It's been a while since I saw BB, so I just went with what the IMDB entry listed. I probably read it wrong.

[Berin Kinsman]

I read it too, that's how they worded it. It's been about a month since I've watched BB, so I'll pop it in today or tomorrow and look for references. It may be there and I just missed it. Need to see if Netflix has The Night That Panicked America.

IMDB frequently suffers from Wikipedia syndrome. There's stuff in there that makes no sense and is frickin' thin. One of the other BB "references" is a movie with a scene in a video store and BB can be seen on a video shelf. I wouldn't really count that as a BB reference.

[Sir Golgotha, KEoPS]

That's a pretty tenuous link. An actor in one movie that also appeared in another describing an historic event that was mentioned in yet another movie does not a connection make. Now if Blazing Saddles was set in Grover's Mill, that would be something.