Laker Jim’s Fletch Cast
Laker Jim’s Fletch Cast
Interview: Tom Scott & the original score to Fletch
EPISODE 39: TOM SCOTT
His name is on the poster. His name is on the trailer. So why isn't his music in the movie?
When Grammy Award-winning musician Tom Scott ventures into Cabana One, located at Fletch Cast Studios, you know you're in for a tapestry of musical tales that threads through the heart of Hollywood's musical scene. Our conversation with this legendary composer unwraps the enigma surrounding the "Fletch" soundtrack, and we're traveling down memory lane with a man whose legacy is as rich as the tunes he's crafted. From the echos of his father's influence to the electric phenomena of performing with the Blues Brothers, Tom's journey is a testament to the soulful symphony of life, underscored by an unwavering passion for jazz.
We're shining a spotlight on the lost original score for "Fletch," which has waited almost four decades of us to discover. His name is on the poster. His name is on the trailer. But his music is not in the movie. This episode is a front-row seat to the unfiltered craft of film score magic and the enduring soundtracks that define an era. The answers to the Tom Scott/Fletch mystery unfolds before your very ears.
We get behind the scenes & discuss Tom's time as the band leader of both The Chevy Chase Show as well as the Pat Sajak Show.
So, settle in, oil up your ball bearings, and let the blend of laughter, music, stories strike a chord while the instant kinship between Tom, Laker Jim, Jake, and Big Bob resonates right up the moment the final note has played on this episode.
FOLLOW our guest TOM SCOTT:
Website: https://www.tomscottmusic.com
Podcast: https://www.tomscottmusic.com/podcast
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tomscottjazzman
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tomscottjazzman/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tomscottjazzman
KJAZZ Radio Show: https://www.tomscottmusic.com/radio
FLETCHCAST VOICEMAIL HOTLINE
Leave us a voicemail with a comment or question: (267) 714-6799 - the voicemail is open & available 24/7
FletchCast is Your Ultimate source for everything Fletch: the books, the movies, & the latest news about our favorite journalistic reporter, Irwin M. Fletcher.
... making sure Fletch Lives forever!
Host: James "Laker Jim" Kanowitz (@webguy911)
Co-Host: Jake Parrish (@jakelparrish)
Co-Host: Robert "Big Bob" West
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Fletch & Fletch Lives are Copyright 1985, 1989 Universal Studios and distributed by MCA/Universal Pictures. The Fletch Soundtrack is Copyright MCA Records. Confess, Fletch is Copyright of Miramax with Paramount distribution. All images and sounds are the intellectual property of Universal Studios. They are used only with the intent of public appreciation of a great film and possible publicity for its place among the great comedies of our time. We imply no rights to the characters or intellectual propert...
Broadcasting live and around the world from Cabana One, the only podcast. That's all ball bearings. Your ultimate source for everything, fletch.
Chevy Chase as Fletch:Thank you, doc. You ever serve time.
Announcer:Laker Jim and his beat reporters will stop at nothing to make sure Fletch lives forever. They don't shower much. This is Fletchcast.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Thank you, sammy, and welcome everybody back to Fletchcast. Sammy, you outdid yourself on that intro. I'm your host, laker Jim. It's a brand new year and, for many, a year of resolutions, a year of reflection, but for Fletchcast it's going to be a year of exclusive revelations. Now, before we get started, let me reintroduce my co-hosts, two men who wear way too much eye makeup Jake and Big Bob boys. It makes you look cheap.
Jake Parrish:We love it Well, thanks very much. You know, the only reason why I wear so much eye makeup is to say it distracts from my bald face.
Big Bob West:So I mean, I mean I'm in prison so much that I need to do something to intimidate everybody else.
Jake Parrish:Well, that's true too. That's true too.
Big Bob West:I'll keep my horse away from you then I definitely moved on from horses. I'm all over the place.
Jake Parrish:Well, you live in Florida, so you're probably more of a reptile guy now. Anyway, right.
Big Bob West:In Florida it's practically state law that you have to do it.
Jake Parrish:Well, I mean the way Florida is going. It does surprise me.
Big Bob West:Yeah, it's like when you go to the voting booth, it's like how many horses are being the last to do it? It's like they're like back in line.
Jake Parrish:Well, you keep me updated on that buddy, because I'm looking for a new hobby.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Well, speaking of getting back on the horse, like I mentioned, fletch cast is back after an extended break and we've returned with a really exciting episode. Legendary jazz man Tom Scott will be joining us in a few minutes and, as many of you know, tom was hired to score the soundtrack with Fletch and, for the first time ever, he's going to give his side of the story, tell us how it fell apart, how Fultomar swooped in. Yeah, honestly, we have so much to talk to Tom about. I just hope we can fit it all in.
Big Bob West:Yeah, I was blown away when I started doing research. This guy is the real deal. Here's just part of the list. He's collaborated with the Beach Boys, michael Jackson, paul McCartney, the Grateful Dead, whitney Houston, carol King, pink Floyd, frank Sinatra, eddie Freaking Money it's about 75, I'm forgetting.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):That's him. I forgot. I picked the hotline to my cell phone.
Announcer:Well, actually he did the theme to Family Ties.
Jake Parrish:Loved Family Ties. I need somebody to help me set up my ringtones. Wait, do people still use ringtones anymore? Is that still a thing?
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):No, they don't. In fairness, I made that his ringtone back in 01. Makes sense, I'm going to grab this before he hangs up. All right, boys ready Joining us today on the podcast, a Grammy Award-winning composer, mr Tom Scott? Tom, welcome to Fletchcast.
Tom Scott:Well, thank you very much, appreciate it.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Now Fletch fans listening at home. I'm sure you're scratching your head and thinking Tom Scott, tom Scott, where have I seen that name? Take a look at your Fletch poster. Re-watch the Fletch trailer. Music by Tom Scott. Now we're going to get to the bottom of the mystery as to why Tom is associated with the music of Fletch. But Tom's connection to Fletch Chevy and this podcast runs much deeper. It's like six degrees of separation, because there's been many times over the course of the first 40 or so episodes where we've turned a corner and run smack dab into Tom Scott.
Jake Parrish:That's very true.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):So we're going to get into those connections in a little bit. Tom, where I wanted to start was how did you get into music in the beginning? Because, as a dad of small kids and owner of a keyboard piano which has been played, by the way, since they were interested in taking lessons how did you get started in music? And when should I give up on creating the next Tom Scott?
Tom Scott:Never give up. Never, ever give up. Damn you. There's always a chance. All right, I won't. No, look, my success was a combination of very fortuitous parents and being in an environment that was very, very friendly to and encouraging. By that I mean music teachers, high school, junior high high school music teachers that were fantastic. But to back up a little bit, my father and mother met when they both worked at NBC Radio on the corner of Sunset and Vine in Hollywood in the 40s.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Your dad, of course, the legendary composer Nathan Scott.
Tom Scott:Yes, my father was a tremendous composer, very talented guy who had gotten a science scholarship to Caltech but a left after a year because, in his words, as he said to me, son, I just couldn't keep away from the piano. So he decided to enroll at Cal Berkeley and got a music degree there, did some writing and composing and stuff. He had a friend who was parking cars at the NBC radio parking lot so he got a job there parking cars and all the time was writing arrangements, hoping for a chance to get them played. And he befriended the chief sound engineer and then managed to get some of his arrangements played and some extra downtime with the NBC Orchestra. In two years he was a music director. Wow, what perseverance. Yeah, he went on to amass over 700 film and television composing and arranging credits which include years.
Tom Scott:He didn't write the theme of Dragnet, that was a guy named Walter Schumann, but he came in. Walter was very ill with a heart problem. My dad came in and did all the underscore for the original, the black and white Dragnet series in the 50s for several years, then went on to become a staff composer at CBS and wrote episodes of raw hide, wagon train, laramie and other shows and then my three sons wrote all the music for the last 12 years of Lassie when it was on the air, and a bunch of other stuff. So there was always, obviously there was always music going on in my house and there was always a rumor which my dad co-opted as a music studio. He had no flair for self promotion whatsoever, he was just a nice guy. He enjoyed being a family guy. He didn't want to become a celeb or anything like that.
Tom Scott:After he passed, which is around 2008, I think I saw John Williams, an acquaintance not a close friend, but an acquaintance and he came up to me and he said he was so humble. First thing he said was Tom, I don't know whether your father remembered me or not, and I said, john, I'm quite sure I didn't ask him, but I will bet money that my father remembered you. He says well, the reason I want to I'm asking you this is because when I was a studio pianist in the 50s, debating whether I wanted to become a film and television composer to dive into that, you know that challenge One of my first assignments was with your father as my supervisor and one of the reasons that I decided to take the plunge into film composing, is that your father was so incredibly kind and encouraging to me. Now, first of all, what a nice thing to say about one's father. But secondly, what if my dad had been an asshole? You know who would have done Jaws or Raiders or anything like that? Indiana Jones, star Wars, superman, you know so. So my dad was. Look, he was a great guy. Everybody adored him. He was all business when he, when he stepped up to the podium and went gentlemen, ladies, gentlemen, can we have an aide from the elbow? Let's go, but anyway.
Tom Scott:So there was always music going on and I took up the clarinet in elementary school and my dad, wanting to, you know, show me the best clarinet player that he knew, he bought me a Benny Goodman record from 10 years before I was born. So I wore that record out and that sort of the bug had bitten me by then. And then, in in junior high school, or what they call middle school now, I took up the saxophone and you know the rest, as they say, is history. I started listening to saxophone players that that my father had recommended and the ones that I just heard and liked in those days. It was people like John Coltrane, cannonball, adderley, stan Getz, Jerry Mulligan and others.
Tom Scott:So by the time I got out of high school I was. I was working, started to work jobs and things that in fact by four I think I was 13 or 14. When I did my first I think it was a bar mitzvah at a country club made 15 bucks. It was the best 15 bucks I'd ever seen in my life. What people are going to pay me for this? Oh my God, this is great.
Jake Parrish:And you worked with your, your father, a few times, didn't you?
Tom Scott:I did yes.
Jake Parrish:Phone projects yeah.
Tom Scott:Yeah, he, I did a movie called Neighbors with John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd. That score was also, by the way, dumped for similar reason well, not similar, but reasons that really had nothing to do with the quality of the music, had to do with outside forces, shall we say. But but yeah, that was really a great experience because he had orchestrated a lot of the my compositions and he conducted while I was in the booth. So we were we were a pretty impressive one to punch there for a while. It was great.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):That's very, very cool. When I look at your career, you have worked with the absolute royalty of the music industry Legends. I can only compare your career really to like an onion as you peel each layer, the next layer is more impressive and as you keep peeling and peeling, you find just the most incredible collaborations that you've done, the most incredible works, the most incredible situations that you've been in. Do you ever just pinch yourself and think like, wow, what a life and what a career I've had up until this point?
Tom Scott:I say to myself how incredibly lucky I have been in my life. Let's face it a lot of opportunities that come to all of us. Some of it may be skill, some of it may be, you know, right place, right time, but it's luck, man. Luck is what really drives so much of it. I just hit at the right time, I think, in terms of my playing.
Tom Scott:Another thing I had as a composer as a film composer I started on Intellivist. Intellivist, of course. What I had going there was, of course, I had my father's blessing and whatever. He didn't teach me or anything. But if I was working on something and was a teenager trying to figure out some chord or something I was listening to, I could always go to him and he'd say what, dad? What is this? He'd show me. So that was great. Having that.
Tom Scott:These opportunities have a lot to do with just being lucky, being at the right place at the right time. So I was going to say what, what? When I first came on as a composer, I had the, also the recommendation of Dave Gruessen, who got me one of my very first television scoring assignments for a television show called Dan August, which was on in the late sixties, with a then unknown actor named Bert Reynolds and it was a typical cop show and I of course had, as a composer, had also embraced the R&B or the world of R&B and jazz and so on. And that was thanks to started with Hank Mancini actually doing Peter Gunn, hank Panther, and jazz kind of came into the fold. And then but I was kind of the young like I had the funk thing going on. So I used to say for those shows like Dan August and later ones, I was, I was the law and order funk composer.
Jake Parrish:Well, storsky and Hutch has that funk. It does. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I love Storsky and Hutch.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):I know it's cool about you and maybe it's just playing the sax, because the sax player is just inherently cool, right, yeah, and all the ladies gravitate towards the sax player, probably that in the singer.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):If anyone hasn't listened, Tom has a podcast, Tom Scott's podcast express. I recommend checking it out. I binged it. I went there looking for information about Tom and this is part of why you're cool, because cool people don't brag about their life and you have every right to brag all day long. I wanted just episodes about you, but when you listen to your episodes and you have guests like Jim Belushi or Vanessa Williams or even Ed Bigley Jr and I was wondering like okay, what does he have to do with jazz or music or Tom's life, Right, and you realize these incredible stories unfold about your life with these guests. You know it's you and Ed, like running around with Belushi and I just I enjoyed the hell out of it. I really did Every episode. I feel like you earn a piece to the puzzle of your amazing life and career and, believe me, it's one of those 10,000 piece puzzles.
Tom Scott:Well, I appreciate that it has been proposed that I do a podcast of myself and maybe I will one of these days Speaking of Jim Belushi, which was my favorite one that you did.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Oh good, we're big Blues Brothers fans. Ah, here you go. Blues Brothers fans. Yes, I mean check this out.
Tom Scott:They even have an L-Word tattoo.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):I don't have one of those to match, but Before we get into Fletch, can you talk to us a little bit about how you got into the Blues Brothers?
Tom Scott:Sure, sure, that's. That's quite a funny story actually. Of course, I happened to see the Saturday Night Live episode. I was a big fan, like everybody else my age I think. Oh, they are their first appearance as a as a bit on Saturday Night Live, when they came out and sang for the first time with what became the Blues Brothers. It wasn't even named that yet, but what I learned later was that the look that Dan and you know, the suits and the ties and the hats and the sunglasses.
Tom Scott:They were actually doing kind of a riff on Roy Orbison who dressed kind of that way. Having seen that, I then read in the paper in line so, of course, that's all in New York. I'm in LA and I read in the paper that the Blues Brothers are coming to Los Angeles to play a week opening for Steve Martin at the Universal Amphitheater. I'm like, oh my God, I got to get into that. I did know two of the musicians from the Saturday Night Live band Lou Marini, lou Lou, or shall I say Blue? Lou Marini, yeah, and and Tom Bones Malone. We're both friends of mine. So I thought, geez, maybe I'll call one of those guys and see if I can. You know, just get backstage. I'd love to. I've been meeting three of the hottest comics in in America. That would be cool. So turns out I didn't have to because Tom Malone calls me one day, I guess a couple of weeks before the engagement, and says look, tom, my wife is scheduled to have a baby right in the middle of that week that we're doing at Universal Amphitheater. Could you sub for me while I, while, while and it all, come in on probably Wednesday. I'll get in Wednesday, but if you could do Monday, tuesday, that'd be great. I say absolutely so.
Tom Scott:So I show up on the Monday for the first, the run through the sound check and rehearsal and, and, and John and Danny were very nice and and you know, the band was great. I especially loved the drumming of Steve Jordan and we have remained friends for all this time where we talk quite frequently. Still, obviously, paul Schaefer, a great, a walking encyclopedia of all things pop music and can rattle them off in a second wallet, which is why he was such a good MD for Letterman all those years and you know, and Cropper and Duck Dunn and all them, and the horn section, fantastic, alan Rueben. Alan Rueben was so funny so it's so dry like sarcastic humor which he just drop it every now and then. No, sir Mayor Daly no longer dying, sir, he's dead. Sir, just kept you in stitches. You know, it's just just a hoot.
Tom Scott:So we get done with rehearsal, I play the gig, have a ball, I come back Tuesday and do the same thing, and then Wednesday I expect to go and just kind of hand it off back to Tom Malone. Oh, one other thing. Oh, no, okay, I'll do this in order. So right, I'm going to hand it off back to Tom Malone at the amphitheater and I walk in and I see John and I said, yeah, I'm here to just, you know, say thanks and everything and hand it back to Malone. And he says, well, listen, let's just make it four horns instead of three. Tom, you're a blues brother. Oh, wow, wow.
Announcer:Originated by the Chips and sung by the Blues Brothers band back in 1979.
Irwin M. Fletcher:Tommy Scott Blues Brother, right here, there he is.
Announcer:Thank you, gentlemen.
Tom Scott:And with that pronouncement what I didn't, what I found out later, is that he'd actually consulted with Bernie Brillstein to make sure the money thing was okay, and that's the other thing I got. So no one had spoken anything about money. You know, and you don't want to ask other band members what they're getting, because who knows what the deal is with each one of them. They may have different deals or the same deal, but you know it's not cool to do that. So I thought that I would have a moment where I could talk about money with John I don't know who else to go to.
Tom Scott:So on that day I guess it was the next day, the Thursday or something he I brought my road manager, my tour manager, jim Root, a great guy who had been with Cheech and Chong, and that's how I met him and he was just a cool guy and a real road rat, you know, perfect. So I show up with him and I thought maybe there's a moment where, where John and Jimmy and I are alone and we and Jimmy, maybe Jimmy can talk about the subject, because it's I don't like doing that. So that moment occurs, there's a lull in our conversation and Jimmy's Jim Root says well, you know, tom usually gets triple scale meaning whatever union scale is for any particular gig like three times that. Now, that was true, sometimes not all the time, but it was a good, you know, opening gambit right. So John immediately goes oh really, that's interesting. And from that moment on I was Tom, triple scale Scott.
Big Bob West:I was wondering if you got a cool nickname being in the blues brother, something they all have, like Bones, Ballon and Blue.
Tom Scott:Yeah, I was triples. I was triple they. They just shortened to triple later, anyway, so that's how that happened, that's how I became a blues brother and we finished out the gig, recorded the album which is called Briefcase Full of Blues. The show we had like a 35 minute opening act for Steve Martin and of course nobody'd heard this band before, live or otherwise. So the reaction of the crowd was what we used to describe as a trout crowd. By that we mean they're like, you know, you want to like hook them and they're like, oh, jaw dropped, you know, just astonishment at this, at this, at this blues machine that was driving towards them. So it was great fun.
Jake Parrish:And how long did that last?
Tom Scott:Well for me. I mean, I did that gig, oh God, oh, you're bringing the stuff back to me. So that gig was over. And then then the next thing was the movie. Right, and I get a script. Yeah, and I've seen where I'm a dishwasher at Aretha Franklin's restaurant.
Jake Parrish:Oh, where Blue Lou was right.
Tom Scott:I think that's where Mac-A-Tar Merchant, of course, exactly. And Blue Lou was great in it. And look, there were three of us blues brothers who, when it came, when it came time to commit to the movie, let me first say, would I have liked to have been in a blues brothers movie? Sure, but at that time I had to weigh the price that it would exact from me in terms of, mostly in terms of time. And I knew about I'd been around movie making and TV shows enough to know that if you're a supporting player in a movie, they may never know when they want to use you. So you end up sitting in a trailer for six months and you may get called at five in the morning or you may get called at one o'clock at night, and it's boring as hell, I don't mind telling you. I mean, you really got to want it bad to be willing to sit through that just to be in a movie. So here was the thing Paul Schaefer, steve Jordan and I all had other things going on that loomed larger, let's say, in terms of our lives, our time and potential success in our careers than being in the blues brothers movie. So I passed and I remember I got a very angry call from John Landis saying what are you doing, tom? You'll regret this all your life, you know, just trying to shame me into coming back. And I said look, I know, no, I'm not doing it. Well, go ahead, damn it. Now here's the irony. So the movie comes out. Of course it's a big hit.
Tom Scott:John was in LA and he opened the door to my studio and I was sitting there and he announced yeah, the Blues Brothers have the number one record and the number one movie. I mean, he was like on top of the world and success had had come to him big time and it was fun. Listen, I love John. His death was very, very tragic and unnecessary, but he was like, he had two sides. He could be a real.
Tom Scott:Danny Ackroyd, in a letter to me after John passed, once, described it as trans and venom. This was the kind of place he would go. But when he wasn't in that state, he was your uncle, johnny. He was a cool, sweet, loving guy and, not to mention, funny. So the movie's a big hit. And now they want to do a tour promoting the movie and I got asked to come back and do the tour for the movie and I get to the, which I did. I don't remember how many dates it was, but it was great fun and it was, you know. Back with the boys again and Atlantic Records presented me with a gold record for the soundtrack from the Blues Brothers movie, which I am not on.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):No, it's a game. You weren't in the movie because you would have performed rawhide in the movie I would have. Yes, yeah, the show you mentioned your dad worked on Rolling rolling, rolling yeah.
Announcer:Dean from the TV show Rye.
Irwin M. Fletcher:Thank you.
Tom Scott:So that was the sum total of my experience with the Blues Brothers. Now let's cut to this year. A guy in New Jersey called me. He gets celebrity guests to participate in an autograph signing festival. That happens in every year in Parcipany, New Jersey, at a place called the Chiller Theater. We know it, it really is the. It really is the Parcipany Hilton which becomes a giant venue for this convention.
Big Bob West:Like again what used to go there every year.
Tom Scott:Oh, really, Okay, so you know. So this venue is houses like a hundred celebrities from all kinds of you know bit players and secondary cast members and a few you know major celebrities. This guy said, listen, let's go as the Blues Brothers, and Paul was in for a minute, Paul Schaefer, then he backed out, Willie Hall, who was the play drums in the movie, was in for a minute and then he was out. So the four of us that were left was me and my two original friends, Blue, Lou, Marini, Tom Bones, Malone and Murphy Dunne, who was the pianist in the movie.
Tom Scott:I had come to know any winner, very nice guy. So the four of us went to this convention and I gotta say we made quite a bit of money that we can't given all the times I've signed albums just for free, Right, but man, they came and drove and they were great and they were, you know, the fans were very, very nice and they wanted to know anything I could tell them about, you know, the Blues Brothers, and I told some of them, I told the stories I just told you and it was great. It was a great kind of reunion for at least the four of us.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):But there was only one fan that asked you about Fletch that weekend, and that was me.
Tom Scott:Oh, that's right, so that's where we met, that's right. I'm sorry, I completely forgot that's where we met.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Well, that's a perfect segue to Fletch, because I know fans listening at home right now are dying to hear this story. Okay Now, as we talked about at the top of the show, tom was hired as the original composer to the score of Fletch and, up until about two weeks or so before the movie was to be released, fultemeyer was not involved at all. So I'm sure there's a lot to unpack here. But, tom, take us back to the beginning of your Fletch story and how it all got started.
Tom Scott:Well, it got started because of my friendship with Chevy Chase, which had nothing to do with the Blues Brothers or Belucey or Dacro or any of them, because of course, as you probably know, chevy only did one season on Saturday Night Live and he left and which caused no end to the consternation from the other cast members and he had burned a few bridges along the way, and that's something he had quite a talent for. I might have. I've heard he was another guy like John. He sort of had two sidestim he could be very nice and just a dear guy, sweet guy, and then this other a-hole, you know, go figure. Anyway. So I don't know whether you know the lady Libby Titus. She actually was a singer on Columbia, had her own solo album in the 70s. She became and is currently Mrs Donald Fagan. She married Steely Dan Right Donald from Steely Dan. So we were friends, just acquaintances. She called me one day and said listen, my French heavy chase would really like to meet you. I know he'd like you because he loves jazz and I'll meet you at his house. And she gave me the address and so I went there and in fact he was.
Tom Scott:Yeah, he loved jazz. He made that very clear and the funny thing is he could play on any given day. He could play recite a famous jazz pianist, bill Evans' tune called Waltz for Debbie. He could play it perfectly and then the next day it was like a child playing, trying to play it. It was just so, and I think this is true of him generally. He has. He had no self, no discipline, you know what I mean. He had to focus and really concentrate on getting a craft, whether it be comedy or piano playing or whatever it is. Just I don't think he had the patience, I think he was just, I don't know. That was In a sense. I think that was his downfall in many ways. But in any case we became buddies, friends.
Tom Scott:And the next thing I know he's doing this movie and he talked the director Michael Ritchie, I think was his name, right, mm-hmm, yep, and I did, I had a few credits. So he talked the director into having me do the score and I don't know whether we discussed this. We probably did. But when you've got a movie like Fletch and the same thing was true with Neighbors, which, as I said, I've also got that score thrown out but the philosophy of a movie that's got the basically a dramatic movie with comedic. You know things happening off to the side, but they aren't the focus of the movie. The focus is the story, whatever it is. I mean, fletch is a detective. I don't even remember what the story was anymore, it's too long. But he's got to solve something right. He's got to file a murder or whatever he really is.
Tom Scott:There's a mystery about both Dancer, it doesn't matter. All right, okay, so I wrote a score that was by its very nature very contemporary but dramatic. Let the, let the comedy play out by itself, and they dubbed the movie, they previewed it for Tom I can't think of his last name at Universal at the time, the president, maybe Tom Pollock Right and what happened was right around that time a little movie called Beverly Hills Cop came out and the composer of that movie, harold Faltermeier, had written a thing which played all through that movie, which went Dan Dan, dan, dan, dan, Dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan Dan. And of course I used to tease, I used to joke about that because you got to chase scene Dan Dan, dan, dan, dan Dan, love theme Dan Dan, dan Dan, stalking criminals, the bad guys Dan Dan Dan.
Tom Scott:You know, whatever one size fits all, but whether that philosophy is correct or not, the point is that that tune became a hit and I think Tom what's his name at Universal saw the movie and said well, there's nothing in here that's going to be a hit, let's get that guy who did Beverly Hills Cop. So my score was thrown out. I don't think, I don't know whether director, I don't know whether any of the actual movie makers that produced or director had any say in it, or whether they what their thoughts were. I never got that far. I never heard from any of them again.
Jake Parrish:How does that conversation go, though, tom? It's like they call you to say, you know, sorry, I mean, that's got to be a big blow.
Tom Scott:Well, the call came, I believe the call, I know the call came from my agent, okay, I believe, who had found it out and told me, and first of my, after, it was a jeez. You know, it was a great score, I really wanted to have it in the movie. And my agent very, very correctly says Tom did the check clear. Well, well, yes, it did. Okay, you know what they can do anything with the music that they want to do. That's their right. So you know, get over it. So I did.
Jake Parrish:But do you own the? You own the rights to that music, though, correct, oh, no, oh no, no, no, no, no, no.
Tom Scott:Unless you're, you know, a Henry Mancini or John Williams or something like that, it is almost universally a prerequisite of of you're getting to compose the music for it A television or a movie that the publishing entity whoever it is usually associated with the, with the film company is the publisher, and what that means is that the publisher actually owns the music, and the publisher and the composer, or composers, share 50, 50 in whatever royalties accrue. So that was the deal and, yeah, they own it. They could do whatever the hell they want.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):So unfortunately, that great score just lives in limbo somewhere because it really can't be used by you and it probably won't be used by them.
Tom Scott:Well it you know what. No one would ever know if I stole it back. Actually, yeah, and if there's not a whole lot of money to be made, it's not worth it for lawyers to go after anybody. I doubt that anyone will come after me because I, you know, I haven't. But I'm saying, if I did, I don't think it'd be a problem.
Big Bob West:Do you think that they back catalog a song or the score that you made and maybe think, maybe in another movie someday they'll use?
Tom Scott:it. Well, it's possible. I've never. Well, I will say not. In that case. I have certainly, on my royalty statements from BMI, have seen that pieces of my music have been inserted in other movies and television shows. That's not uncommon, but not that one. I don't think.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):How much direction do they give you when you're creating a score? I mean, obviously you must see the movie with no music. Do they give you what they're looking for in each scene?
Tom Scott:That varies. Okay, some directors are kind of give you a general idea. See back in the.
Tom Scott:I remember I wrote the music for one of the original Planet of the Apes movies and at that time a guy named Lionel Newman, who was part of the Newman family, which included his nephew, randy Newman, and Alfred Newman, a famous film composer, and others the music supervisor of the studio really was the guy that called the shots. I mean, I saw Lionel Newman throw a producer out of a recording session once because he thought he was being a jerk. Get out of here, let us do our job, leave it. We don't care what you think. So it's not like that anymore, I guarantee you. But in any case it all depends.
Tom Scott:I don't honestly I don't remember the meetings I had with Michael Ritchie. I'm sure I did. I will tell you that my father was briefly involved in some of the composing for the movie the Color Purple, which Quincy Jones was the music music overseer, and there were several composers who we hired to do various scenes, and I managed to obtain a copy of Steven Spielberg's notes as to what the music should do. It scared the hell out of me. I don't mind telling you he was like every detail what he wanted the music to do. Almost second by second, it was like, oh my God, and I found it just stunningly specific.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Would that be easier or harder to follow?
Tom Scott:Well, I just thought if I had to write a music based on this, I'd be like I'm afraid to do anything. The fact that John Williams has thrived with that, with direction like that, is just one more reason why this guy is so great.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):And he's still going. 91 years old, is still going, he's still going strong.
Tom Scott:He's a beautiful guy.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):He certainly is. Ok Fletch fans. It's time we tease the big surprise, and here it is. I asked Tom if he had any idea where the original score to Fletch was. His response I have no idea.
Chevy Chase as Fletch:I did also Some idea.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):But he went home and Tom dug through 40 years of his archives and he found it. I did, and he's going to share it with us today. Ok, tom, is it safe to say that in 40 years no one has heard this music? No, let me ask you who has heard it.
Tom Scott:Well, the people who recorded it my band, other than that, I think that's about it and the people involved with the film had to cut it in, but it hasn't been heard publicly since 1984. That movie, or 85? Yeah 85, yeah.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Now I know I can speak for the three of us as well as probably the Fletch fans listening at home. We feel very special and honored to be joining this unique select group of people that have heard this.
Jake Parrish:Yes.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Because fans just never get to hear this type of stuff. So this is really cool. Now, which one are you playing first? So I guess we'll play the credits.
Jake Parrish:The main title.
Tom Scott:The main, because the main title comes after the opening scene. So if you're going to play this from the start of the movie, it would be that opening, opening cue. Yeah, opening cue.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):And if you're trying to match it up in your head at home, this plays over the title sequence introing the movie. It basically runs through every actor that appears in the movie and, a minute and 24 seconds later, fades into Chevy on the beach. Yeah, I can totally see that playing over the title sequence, which is something that movies don't do anymore, right, yeah?
Big Bob West:Honestly, it's not too far off from what we heard in the opening credits of Fletch Lids. Yes, it's a different variation of the Baltimore theme, but I mean it's there's the same kind of tone there.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Yeah, I definitely agree. I think it shares some innate DNA, Fletch DNA.
Tom Scott:You must have stolen it from me, damn it.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Wait up, let's hear this part. It immediately gives you that mystery vibe.
Jake Parrish:Is that what you're? I assume that's what you were going for. Tom was that kind of mystery because there's a little jazzy and influence in there too. Yeah, yeah.
Tom Scott:Absolutely, absolutely.
Jake Parrish:Maybe a little noirish, a little noir going on there, you know.
Tom Scott:That's right, exactly, that's the way it struck me.
Jake Parrish:So that's what Greg Matola was going for in the new Fletch movie was a. It was a very jazzy soundtrack, Right. So I and he had mentioned more than once that he was really influenced by old noir films and that kind of score, so it sounds like that's where you were going as well, yeah, and I'm a lover of noir too.
Tom Scott:It's great, okay.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Now the next track that Tom was able to find for us is what he calls the title sequence. Now, this immediately follows the credits music and essentially would be where the Fultemeyer Fletch theme sits in the movie where Chevy does the voiceover and sets up what he's doing on the beach. Now listen, we all love the Fultemeyer Fletch theme. We're not going to pretend, just cause Tom's here, that we don't Right, but let's listen to this with an open mind, pretend we've never heard that music and let's try to see what this would sound like as the original Fletch theme. I don't know about you guys, I'm big in it. I'm a big fan of the Fletch theme. I'm a big fan of the Fletch theme. I'm a big fan of the Fletch theme.
Tom Scott:I'm a big fan of the Fletch theme. I'm a big fan of the Fletch theme. I'm a big fan of the Fletch theme.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):As I'm sitting here listening to you talk, I'm kind of fantasizing about the movie and how this music would fit in. Let's take a listen to what that would sound like.
Chevy Chase as Fletch:My name is Irwin Fletcher. I'm an investigative reporter for a Los Angeles paper. You probably read my stuff under the byline of Jane Doe or the Haste Better than Irwin. The last three weeks I've been loitering around the beach trying to pass for an amiable minor league junkie. I'm not out of gruel, it's too obvious. It's like you don't give a crap and you fit right in.
Irwin M. Fletcher:This is really picked up. Huh, it's a good pose.
Chevy Chase as Fletch:What is it? The Columbia National Hall? Yeah, that's awesome.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):It sounds pretty damn good. That fits, that's great. Did you know that was going to fit?
Tom Scott:I did. I knew it would fit. I'd seen it in my head. I mean, that's what's in. You know, if any film composer worth his salt is visualizing the scene and composing, you know you're not trying to like. It's not like fitting a square peg in a round hole. This is what the film says to me musically.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):I'm just thinking about how many places that fits that.
Jake Parrish:I know, I love the beginning, I know.
Tom Scott:I know it's very like oh. Something's happening. Yeah, something's going to happen.
Jake Parrish:Something foreboding, you know.
Tom Scott:Yeah, exactly, right, right. Well, if you get that from it, then mission accomplished.
Jake Parrish:How long is something? I know that we're just talking in generalities. Yeah, how long would something like this take from composing to recording? I mean, what's the timeframe on something like this?
Tom Scott:Well, I don't remember in this particular case exactly, but I would say from the inception of the, for the first meeting where we're, you know, okay. Now the composing begins, from this point forward is probably two to three months, okay. So let me let me back up a little bit and say that there's kind of an inherent, inherent problem in being a composer for films, in the sense that adding in the music is at the very end of the process. The process begins, of course, with a book or a script, and then they got a package to figure out who's going to the studio decides to do it, they've got to decide who's the producer, the director and all the other tech people and so on, and then the movie's filmed. That takes months and months and then they start editing and right around that time they want to like start talking to composers, if they haven't already.
Tom Scott:So I ran into this not in this particular case, but I've run into this before that during this, somewhere, during the shooting, the producer and the director start arguing, having differences. So by the time I brought in, there's a full blown, you know, war going on between two factions, or maybe the studios at odds with the director. You know, there's so much room for for for unpleasantness to happen. You know that you're very lucky if you get all through that. Everybody's like loving it. So I've been caught in the middle of like, what do I do when this guy says this to me? And this guy says this, okay, so initially it's the director, it's supposed to be the director's vision. That's my job, as I would define it to help musically, help the director realize his vision, whatever that is.
Tom Scott:So that one of my, one of my point was like, while I'm composing music to what I have, to the version of the film that I have or that I have been shown, things could change and of course that affects the music greatly if a scene becomes shorter or longer or gets changed or deleted or screwed with in some other way. That obviously because music is about exact timings and so that's that. So you have to deal with that. So you know I would I'd guessed two and a half to three months. It would be this average time from start to finish. Because in a movie like that there's you know that's a that's probably an hour and 15 minute movie, but like 75 minutes, you know there could be as much as 40 minutes, 45 minutes of music and that's. You know, that's like a whole album is worth of music. Yeah, when we used to, when we used to have albums which we don't anymore.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):From what we've heard, fultemeyer only had a few weeks to compose his version. Have you ever been on that side of hey? You don't have two to three months, you have a few weeks and you bang this Well.
Tom Scott:I'm sure I have. I try to remember and you know, look, you just have to crank out something. It may, it may not be your best work, or you may end up like you know, coffee and things to keep you up, you know, beyond your normal schedule to get it, get it done. There is a certain panic that sets in if you're in on a deadline. Which kind of well. I did so much TV and film during that period, the 70s and 80s, that I thought of myself as kind of a deadline composer. Give me the deadline. And because I won't, I can't think of anything until I know that there's like on Wednesday I'm gonna, I gotta show up with some shit, you know.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Okay, so now, if that wasn't awesome enough, tom also found two chase scene tracks. Yes, now he's not 100% sure which scenes these belong to, I don't remember, but let's think about the fledgling movie. Okay, there's two kind of chase scenes that I can think of that have music to them. One is the car chase scene with the kid, and the second one is when Gummi's getting arrested and Fletch and the other junkies are running from the cops. So I'm going to say, because of the length of each track, I think this one that we're about to listen to probably is the car chase scene, okay, when he commandeers the car. So let's lay that dialogue over this one and see if it works. And we're hearing this for the first time, so let's, let's give this a listen. Afternoon Smart patrol.
Chevy Chase as Fletch:How'd your emissions checked? No, sir, lower carbons, oh sir, no sir. Well, let's drag it out, we shall.
Irwin M. Fletcher:Smell's pretty good and this is a straight-viewing, but thick burrs in the out-biter of the woods or in the woods, pinsome In as well. Then piss it off. How do you catch a shut-eye? Just stay back in the door. Oh, oh, oh, oh. By the way, through your nose, I always use a little chewing gum on these rides. They're filters out the pollutants. Oh shit, I wish you got some good drill work there. Keep out the ocean. I gotta get this thing up to 95. Check out the floor. Carbon output.
Chevy Chase as Fletch:Don't worry about the speed limit here. That's why we got the police escort. You're a cop.
Irwin M. Fletcher:As you know, are you gonna take me to jail for car theft? Right, you steal the car. What's your gain? Well, I'm not insured. That's a crime anymore. There's a lot of changes to law. No, I could add a little fame. I play with my buddies, kind of a hide-and-seek kind of thing. I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure. I think it works.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Had we never heard Dan Hartman's get out of town, you know, music like this would definitely fit we wouldn't think anything of it, and I think in a way it almost works better with no vocals in the song, undoubtedly. Kind of allows Chevy's comedy to be the focal point and no audio competition. By the way, a few years later this might have been stolen as the airwolf.
Tom Scott:Yeah, yeah. Well, you know what it was a style of that time. I think there was a group called Tangerine Dream.
Jake Parrish:Oh, yes, I remember them.
Tom Scott:They were repetitive, very, you know, rhythmic. Actually, some of that stuff with groups like Tangerine Dream they did electronically. I wanted to do it acoustically. So I actually had a wonderful jazz musician, one of the great jazz musicians of all time, victor Feldman, playing the marimba. He's doing that Just on a marimba, you know, with mallets. And Richard T played piano, one of the great pianists, a New York based pianist who was one of the great great pianists ever. There'll never be another one like him. And I just had all the you know listen. I, when I listen to that, I just think very fondly of the actual recording process and what a joy it was to be in the room with these great players.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):So almost 40 years ago. That music can still put you in the recording studio that day.
Big Bob West:Hell yeah, great memory, all right.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):We got one more chase track. I'm going to link this up to the gummy police chase under the pier and I'll sprinkle in some movie quotes and sounds so you guys get a feel for kind of what I was thinking. All right, let's give this one a listen.
Chevy Chase as Fletch:Larry, it's me. This is to see if you've got anything on stand where from the time you used to live in Utah. Yeah, and also check out a realtor in Provo. His name is Swarthout.
Irwin M. Fletcher:Hey, what are you doing? Tell me again, it's weird. Hey, what are you doing? Hey, you're really nuts, you okay? Yeah, I feel like a hundred dollars.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Yeah, wow, there's so much soul in this music.
Big Bob West:You got to check your records. I swear to God, that's what I'm going to use in Roadhouse and they might not be following that.
Jake Parrish:I know it was.
Tom Scott:Well, again, it's a style that was very Now. I had programmed that in a sequencer and then let the guys kind of make up parts around it telling them I wanted to do some kind of thing here. I gave it in very general terms, knowing that these guys would just come up with great stuff.
Jake Parrish:That was my question, Tom, is how much of that is improv versus what you wrote?
Tom Scott:Yeah, it's a mix. It's a mix. Yeah, I know it's this long. I know at this bar it's got to change. There was a point where the mood changes and I suggest, maybe to make that mood, why don't you just lay out and just sort of give general direction? I got that from Quincy Quincy Jones.
Tom Scott:Years ago he was writing a score to one of theback in the days when we liked Bill Cosby. He had a show before the one, the famous one. He had one where he was a gym coach. It was sort of a sitcom or whatever the hell it was. Quincy wrote the score and I was in the band playing on some of the things.
Tom Scott:It was always a small band and Quincy didn't write any music. He would just go around with a stopwatch draped around his neck on a chain and he'd go. This scene has to be okay. You do this and you tried something like this and it was just and it was great. It was so fun and it took a lot longer than the score where all the music's written out. So maybe the producers were you know, po, that they that it cost them more than you, but the music was totally unique. Because of that, nobody was doing that at that time Everything was like very traditional film score. You know, we have music and we have these studio musicians, we conduct them. Now Quincy was like no, let's, let's, let's make some stuff up here and it's, it has a sound all its own.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):And so that that lesson was not lost on me, Well, let me tell you what's not lost on us is how uniquely rare and special today has been. Same. What we just listened to is something fans don't get to listen to. Yeah, and us in particular, were a fandom that has never been given deleted scenes. We've always been on the hunt for something. Hearing your music with the movie laid over, it's almost like we were given given some cut scenes. It's almost like we were treated to some cutting room floor fledged stuff.
Big Bob West:Oh yeah.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):And to have it done on our Fledgcast the fact that Tom Scott is no longer just a mysterious name on the trailer or the poster. Your music is now part of the Fletch world. I think that's pretty damn cool. I'm so happy we were able to be a part of it today. This was amazing.
Tom Scott:Awesome.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Tom, you mentioned your friendship with Chevy Chase. Did that help you get the gig on his talk show? Yeah, as his band leader, yes. Now what was that like?
Tom Scott:When he called me and said he wanted to do it because I had just done the Pat Sajak show, which had gone a year and a half. Right, and Pat unfortunately was not either, did not have, he didn't have the real enthusiasm to really really try and make it a hit. And I don't think he had the makeup either, because he was not a stand-up comic. The monologues we did, and the poor writers, they were doing their best, but Pat didn't know how to deliver jokes and he would come out sometimes and when he he would deliver the, do the setup and then deliver the punchline and actually back up a little bit because he was like, are they going to throw us? I don't know what he was thinking, but let's put it this way, he lacked confidence Because you got, if you're going to be good at that thing, you've got to, like, believe in your joke. And the other thing was we had I haven't thought of this in a while we had a sea of blue hair in our audiences.
Tom Scott:They had to go out and actually bust people in from, I guess, senior citizen homes. I don't know where they got them all, maybe the universal tour.
Tom Scott:Yeah, that's right, exactly. I remember one night Harry Shearer you know from, you know Harry from from from the Simpsons Final tap Final tap, of course and a friend of mine. He was on the show and I forget why he was. He was obviously, I don't know, promoting something and the and he did some jokes which just went straight over the heads of the audience and out the door and and I I was a crime across the studio set is set up where the desk and the, you know, and the guest seats are on one side and the band stands on the other. But I could. I could hear enough and read lips enough to know what happened. We went to commercial and Pat, pat Sajak says to Harry Shearer. He says, look, I'm sorry about the audience, and Harry says what audience?
Jake Parrish:Oh, wow, that's awesome Anyway.
Tom Scott:So you're back to Chevy so.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Oh wait, sorry to cut you off, but but Chevy was on the very first episode of the Pat Sajak show and I remember, oh my God, he was there to promote flash lives. Oh, that's why I mentioned earlier There've been several corners that we've turned and run right into you.
Tom Scott:You probably mentioned me, probably Didn't he, or not he?
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):did Probably did. I'll play for you what Chevy said. No, we were talking about.
Chevy Chase as Fletch:Tommy Scott a second ago and I was saying that this is honestly I always say this the best read man in the country.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Yeah, so there we go.
Tom Scott:Cool. I'm sure it's been a while, a while, geez that kid.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Well, I don't know if this will jog your memory, but when Pat Sajak was introducing Chevy, he couldn't remember the name of the Fletch movie that he was bringing Chevy out to promote.
Big Bob West:I'm tickled to death that this guy is here tonight. He is an Emmy Award winner for his work in Saturday Night Live. He's now become a big motion picture star and he has another Fletch movie coming out. I don't know, son of Fletch, or Fletch Returns, or here's your Fletch. He'll tell us in a moment, ladies and gentlemen, chevy Chase.
Tom Scott:Unbelifficable, unbelievable man. How can?
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):you. How can you do that? Did the exact same thing, by the way, at the end of the interview too.
Announcer:Fletch, it's called Fletch Lives, lives. Yeah, I knew that, and that's how the march, as far as you know.
Tom Scott:What are you getting? Oh gosh, I've got another Pat Sajak story I just remembered. So, yes, you know, the most extreme example of disinterest in a guest I have ever seen was it was some soap opera person. And listen, admittedly they're not exactly, you know, geniuses in any sense, or interesting in many, in most senses. So it's if you're going to have them on, you've got to, you've got to do a little work. So this guest came on.
Tom Scott:I don't remember whether it was male or female, I just don't remember. What I do remember is that Pat was borderline rude in his, you know, almost showing contempt for the guest. And we went to commercial and I stepped on the button and I can talk to the director and I said we're doing this over right and he says no, no, we're keeping it. I said really, and at that moment, and we're in commercial, so I, you know we're, I don't know we, sometimes we played during commercials most of the time, but I, all I remember is thinking I came this close to walk, to putting off my take on my headset, walking over to Pat and saying don't ever do that again. That's amazing.
Jake Parrish:I can't believe he lasted as long as he did I mean, that's how, that's how, that's how pissed I was.
Tom Scott:And yeah, lasted longer than Chevy showed.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Oh, much longer yeah.
Tom Scott:Yeah, but see, for actually why I thought it would be good to do the Pat's agent was I had seen him. There's a show, a morning, local morning show called AMLA on ABC, on Channel seven here ABC, and he had he had sub hosted a couple of mornings and I just happened to have the TV on and I thought, geez, he's really good at this and he was funny and glib. He didn't have to do an opening monologue, he's just out there with whoever the co-host, the lady was, I can't remember who was. So when the offer came in I thought, okay, pat, this is what Pat wants to do. This is great, it's going to be a good thing and I liked it. I went and met the producer, nice guy, and I got a great band. I'll say that man, I'm very, very proud of them.
Tom Scott:But Pat's heart really wasn't in it and we came on the same time as just a week from our city hall. So in the press it immediately became our city hall versus Pat's. Say, jack, you know it was like a they, they manufactured a war. Now, when you're doing a show like that five nights a week, it's all you can do to just keep up with each day. At least you know you're not paying attention to what they're doing over there. But of course in the press they got nothing else to do. So why not?
Tom Scott:But we lost the war because I had seen Arsenio Hall enough times to know this guy really wants it bad. And he got he. He got all his friends to, you know, to strong on all his friends to come on and had this enthusiasm and had a, you know, had an audience that was enthusiasm and we got blue haired ladies. I mean, it's just that's not a war, you can win Right, and plus, he just wasn't. You know he had the other, he had the quiz show to fall back on, which is exactly what he did. You get the Lakers. Yeah, I'm lucky if I can get the real first one.
Jake Parrish:That's great, and plus, johnny was still on at the time too. You know Johnny was on.
Tom Scott:So at that time there were like four.
Chevy Chase as Fletch:Yeah.
Tom Scott:Or three, wait us, johnny Arsenio, yeah, three, three major ones, and there's a few other that had come and gone before that. Anyway, in Chevy what Chevy called me and said I'm doing a show for Fox, which, by the way, had just decided to make the move to be the fourth major network, it was just three. And I said I remember this very well. I said, chevy, I appreciate the offer, I just don't think the world is, is is ready for a yet another talk show. And he said, well, and you guys probably won't remember this because you're too young, but he said do you remember the old Steve Allen late night show?
Tom Scott:Now, steve, Allen on a show in black and white and I was a kid and I loved it because he was right on Vine Street there, next to a place called the Hollywood Ranch Market, which was just a little local market, you know, with open air, steve Allen among, and he was so good at just making something out of nothing. He would go across the street with a microphone on a long court, literally across the street and just start talking to customers in the market and it would be fantastic, hysterical. He just makes stuff happen, you know, and be so glib and funny. So Chevy says to me that's the kind of show I want to do. I said well, that that interests me. That sounds good. Another thing with guests and talking their latest products, whatever it is.
Irwin M. Fletcher:Fantastic.
Tom Scott:Well, fox had other ideas, because they were trying to try and so hard to show that we can have the best guests and we can do what Johnny does and what the rest of them do. That that's all they wanted is a show with guests hawking products, and so Chevy wasn't good at that. I never found out whether he would have been good at the other thing Just going out, and I never had a chance. I have a feeling he wouldn't be as good as Steve Allen. Steve Allen was exceptionally good at that kind of thing and you know we were on for what? Six weeks and off.
Jake Parrish:Did you do any test shows, and then I think we did, I hope we did.
Tom Scott:I know we did on the Seijak show, three or four of them, which is great, to kind of get the feel of it. Yeah, we must have done test shows. I don't really remember much and I remember he had a guy, a guy who played, who was a basketball player to shoot hoops, kind of a distraction, and he had oh, he had a piano installed in his desk which again he could be great one night and just suck the next night. It was in a fish tank behind him, just like all this shit. I don't know even why, but the first, what I do remember, the first show where he had Goldie Hawn on was a disaster. It was, the interview was awful and they started. You know, they know what you always hate when you're two people, they start talking about stuff that only they are in on, like, remember when?
Tom Scott:you had the inside jokes like the audience might as well not even be there. I don't know what they're talking about.
Jake Parrish:Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it was. Didn't she start singing to? God, I hope not mistaken, there was a like. I think there was a part where she started probably. Well it was, I don't remember.
Tom Scott:It was her son's birthday and he was there. There was something about a birthday cake, I don't know, it was just not the cake. Into the coming guys laugh, yeah, god, god awful.
Jake Parrish:So how was Chevy during this time?
Big Bob West:I mean, did he seem enthusiastic about it?
Jake Parrish:Did he? Was he like, okay, no, no, here's the thing.
Tom Scott:You know, I don't know what. This happened right away or very shortly, it was only six weeks. It had happened quick, pretty quick. They started calling him in that Lucy, something who was the head of Fox at that time, or little Fox, head of Fox Crime time program, whatever their title was. She was the boss anyway of that of our show for Fox. She would call a meeting after each show. I didn't attend them, but I know that Chevy went in there and he just got, probably got pasted. And you know who asked to do things, that I mean they wanted it to be Johnny Carson. I'm sure he's not Johnny Carson and never was and never.
Tom Scott:Here's the biggest problem. Chetty didn't, didn't really like people that much, he didn't really give a shit about them, and so it makes it difficult to to, to, to seem like you care and do an enthusiastic interview. So those meetings, I know, were just really hard on him. Now, 10 years later, the phone, my phone, rings on my car and I pick it up and he says Hello, ass wipe, which what he would call me from time to time. Maybe he called other people that I don't know. I said oh hi, chevy, how are you? It's a long time. No, you're from. How are you? He, in his way, I think it was an attempt to apologize to me for what he admitted was a lot of self medicating. Now I don't know what that meant, but I knew that. I realized that part of his condition was due to his drug use and and it certainly didn't help he was probably just taking them to numb himself from the pain of having to do something they didn't really want to do.
Big Bob West:Never fallen off of Christmas trees and everything else he did on the original SNL show.
Tom Scott:Yeah maybe, maybe there was some brain damage for a while oh.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):God, Johnny and him didn't like each other because they had they were amping him up to be the replacement for for.
Tom Scott:John. Well, there was a period that's period where that was true. I don't know how Johnny felt about it. I, you know. I mean, I guess, where there's a potentially young gun in town. I suppose to the old guy it's always been intimidating. There'll never be another Johnny Carson. He was. He was unique and great in his way, as was Steve Allen and a few of the other guys, but all in their unique ways. But neither Pat Sejek or Chevy Chase were cut out to be a late night talk show host.
Big Bob West:That's just the bottom line especially with our city, of being so powerful.
Tom Scott:Yeah, that's right, that certainly didn't help, yeah.
Big Bob West:Yeah, I mean, they don't they a lot of people that are listening and worrying around for that, and they'll understand how much of an audience or senior had and how much of a megastar he wasn't that time.
Tom Scott:Right, Well, he just he just exuded enthusiasm and you know, hey, we're going to have a great show tonight and you know you, he meant it.
Big Bob West:Electric audience with the whoop, whoop, whoop and everything you know right, pat was, like you know, just announcing.
Tom Scott:He's like announcing. Did you ever talk to?
Jake Parrish:any other Like did you talk to Doc? Or anybody like that, before going on to maybe.
Tom Scott:Oh, Doc and I may have remained friends to this day.
Jake Parrish:I watch old Johnny Carson clips and and Doc was so talented I mean, he was a huge part of that show.
Tom Scott:And the guy played practice trumpet, you know, three hours a day for every day of his life. I mean, yeah, lord, I don't have that kind of work ethic. I'm sorry, but I don't have a saxophone player. You don't need it. He depends on these lips, so they've got to be. You know, he's got to keep them up. You can. You can get away with not playing that much and still sound pretty good. The sax.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Luckily you didn't get the call for the magic hour, the magic Johnson show. Sheila, you got.
Chevy Chase as Fletch:Oh, that's right, that's right, that last one that lasted about the same as the lake that ours, geez.
Tom Scott:They were throwing anything at the scene, what would I know? And magic was received like a pleasant enough guy, but he had no chops, as I mean that's, you know to do that five nights a week. That is a gig for which you have to be uniquely qualified.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Hey Tom, by any chance, have you seen the new Fletch movie?
Tom Scott:I have not.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Would I like it? Yeah, I think you would. It's called Confessed Fletch. John Ham plays Fletch in this one.
Tom Scott:No, I won't like it because I will say to myself why didn't he call me?
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):And, as we mentioned earlier, the director, reg Mottola, huge fan of jazz, huge fan, huge fan of Fletch. He kind of fantasized that maybe, since Fletch is a LA guy, he's a fan of, maybe West Coast jazz. So he laid his favorite I forget if it's Chet Baker or Chet.
Jake Parrish:Martin, chet Baker, chet Baker, yeah.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Turns over the movie, thinking the studio will never go for it. And when they sort of bit on the jazz theme, yeah, he was able to put together a soundtrack. That sort of like a dream come true of him getting to make a Fletch movie and use jazz as the soundtrack Wow, awesome, I should get to know him.
Tom Scott:I like any director who likes jazz, is good in my book.
Big Bob West:We're hoping for a long string of new Fletch movies from this director, oh, wow.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):What's his name again? Reg Mottola. He's a big supporter of ours. He's a big fan of the show. Oh great, he listens. I'm sure with you as the subject of today's episode, he's definitely listening.
Tom Scott:Okay, hi, greg, I'm still available.
Jake Parrish:What are you working on now, Tom?
Tom Scott:What's you doing? Well, of course I have my own radio show, an Hour a Week on KJazz here in Los Angeles. Just finished show number 110. So I guess it's going to last Congratulations. I plan to do podcasts. I'm doing the Guy who Does that. Another great cop show with jazz in it, michael O'Connelly.
Jake Parrish:Oh yes, bosch, Michael O'Connelly, who does Bosch, and the Lincoln Lawyer and stuff like that, yes.
Tom Scott:I'm doing a podcast with him, oh great. I'm doing Rita Wilson, tom Hanks' wife, who's great. And I'm doing Tim Matheson, barbara Hershey, so I've got a lot of that going on. I found that I discovered that I really loved doing the research. I loved it. Thank you guys. I love to go and interview somebody where I know what the hell I'm talking about, because, god knows, I actually years ago did a radio interview with a guy and I sat down and he said to me now, have you ever played with a band before? But I enjoy it, I do. You know I obviously I use Wikipedia, I use any other sources I can find, and it's fun.
Jake Parrish:I got to ask you more Talk about working with. You mentioned Fagan and Steely Dan and obviously they have a big jazz influence, but that album is just Asia, asia and that band is just. I mean, they're massive.
Tom Scott:I could not agree with you more. There's something like we said that the movie music that I wrote for Fletch it sounds like the 80s. I mean, it's unmistakable. Asia is maybe, maybe the only, certainly one of the very few records I've done. That seems timeless. It could have been done last year or 10 years ago, 20 years ago or in 1976 when we actually did it. It's got this quality. That's just amazing to me. I think largely because it's acoustic. It's very little electronic stuff that puts it in a, you know, in the 70s, 80s synthesizer category and it's just so expertly played and the combination of those amazing, mysterious lyrics of theirs and Fagan's voice and great, great songwriting and great arranging and great recording, that's just a classic.
Tom Scott:And I got that gig because I had a mutual friend I suppose I can say this now. He was a pot dealer and Walter Becker and I used to go to the same guy and one day I met him there a couple of times. I didn't have any association with Steely Dan up to that point. I was acquainted with a couple of their hits, but you know, not really that far into it. But he says to me look, we're, we're making our new record and we're going to need some horn section stuff. You do that stuff, don't you? I said, yeah, I do, in fact I do, and so I met. I went to the village recorders where they were working in West Los Angeles, met with, met Donald and the producer, gary Katz, who I can never figure out what Gary Katz did. I liked him but he was just like Donald Fagan would go. I think this would be good. Be good here. What do you think Gary and Gary would go? Oh yeah, it was just like a yes man, yes man.
Tom Scott:But but obviously he, he was there for whatever reason and he gave those guys comfort in whatever way you know, you never know. Right. So they gave me a real, real tape of the songs and they. The only input they said was we don't like high trumpets, like screaming trumpets. Fine, no problem. So I walked in on a Monday night with these six arrangements they had never heard, and eight guys and lo and behold, I managed to get all six arrangements done in four nights in the same week. Wow, I lucked out there.
Jake Parrish:I'm telling you if I'm not in a good mood. I think Peg is probably one of my favorite songs of all time. I mean, there's there's not a better song out there. It's such a. I agree with you. Everything about it is just a great, great song.
Tom Scott:I know, I know every aspect of their music is like top notch it is. So I was lucky again. I was lucky just to be. I'm lucky to be in the room and share that experience.
Jake Parrish:Lowdown is one of my, you know it's a great song.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):That would be me, and let's not forget that Chevy Chase was in very early drummer in Steely Dan. That's right. See, it all comes full circle. Six degrees of time, that's great. Well, tom, I just want to thank you so much for your time today, for the laughs, for the stories and, most importantly, for letting us hear the music of Fletch.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):To have the original score played on our platform, on our Fletch cast, means the absolute world to us. This will go down in the annals of Fletch history. Yeah, and the score around the original score has finally been answered, and we just want to thank you so much.
Tom Scott:Well, you guys are a pleasure to talk to and I thank you for indulging me.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Everyone. You can follow Tom Scott on social media at Tom Scott jasmine. One word on Instagram and TikTok on there he's got tons of great stories and Michael Jackson and growing pains. Oh, we didn't even get the growing pains. And don't forget to listen to his podcast, the Tom Scott podcast express Great, definitely looking forward to that math lesson episode and head over there, grab a few and you'll be hooked, tom. It's been an absolute pleasure.
Tom Scott:Thank you so much. It's my pleasure.
Laker Jim (James Kanowitz):Thank you guys for Jake Bob and Tom Scott. I'm Lincoln, jim. Thanks for listening. Fletch fans, we'll talk to you next time you got it. Thank you for listening.
