Praising the 80s ... Broadway style

Finding it hard to envision an Adam Sandler movie being made into a Broadway musical? Imagine the shock for the guy who co-wrote the movie and stage version of "The Wedding Singer."

"When I first heard of it, it just seemed like one of those ridiculous things that come across your desk," Tim Herlihy says. "But the more I thought about it, it's sort of a musical movie to begin with."

Herlihy, 41, was Sander's roommate at New York University and has co-written most of the comedies ("Happy Gilmore," "The Waterboy," "Click" among them) that have turned his college buddy into box-office gold. In the mid '90s, he also served as head writer and producer of Saturday Night Live, working with other comedians including Will Ferrell, Chris Farley and Mike Myers.

With the stage version of "The Wedding Singer" playing St. Petersburg's Mahaffey Theater this week, Stuck in the 80s had a chance to interview Herlihy for the podcast. Click here to listen, or click here to subscribe to all our shows for free on iTunes.

Here are some highlights from the interview:

On Sandler's reaction to the stage version: "Somehow the signals got crossed and he came to the very, very first preview thinking this was when you were supposed to show up. But it was the very first time it'd been performed in front of an audience, so it was very rough. ... But he seemed to like it."

On converting the movie to stage: "My favorite moment of the movie is when they're eating ice cream and 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic' by The Police is playing in the background. You can never recapture that on stage. Just the cutting back and forth and the closeups. In the same way, we didn't want to end [the musical] on a plane as it is in the movie because how do you show that on the stage."

On Herlihy's and Sandler's infatuation with the 80s: "It's a generational thing. A lot of people thought the music was ironic in putting it in, but I really love all that music. That's when we grew up. We grew up on Atari and stuff that people look back ironically at now. There's nothing ironic about Atari to me."

Enjoy the podcast.

Comments

[Marissa]

Loved this podcast! I suppose my love of the subject matter could have helped. However, I'm proud that you were able to tame your Adam Sandler man-crush and get a great interview.
For the record, I don't think Sean was sincere in his praise. He sounded shmarmy lol

[Sean Daly]

You know, Marissa, I think you're jealous that I get to spend so much time with that hunk-'o-man Steve Spears. But alas, you can only worship his hairy-knuckled charms from afar.

Am I right?

By the way, feel free to come over to Pop Life. I'm not "snobby" today. I'm a regular chatterbox.

[Marissa]

::gigglesnort:: Worship is a strong word.

[Douglas Arthur]

Is it just me or does this guy look like Andy Richter's older brother?

Can I vote to have Marissa be the new female co-host? I think she could kick your butt Sean, which I would love to hear, even though I like you (but I am not sure why...)