‘Tommy Boy’ Succeeded Because Everyone Left Chris Farley and David Spade Alone

“You guys were magic together,” explained Melissa McCarthy on the latest Fly on the Wall podcast. She’s referring to the chemistry between host David Spade and Chris Farley in their first hit comedy, Tommy Boy. “It’s a perfect movie. And you two together, you could see how much you loved each other. And then it was still so funny.”

The key, responded Spade, was nobody was watching. “That was one where it was low expectations, lower budget, throw Farley and Spade out there and let’s see what happens. And no one really was visiting the set,” he said. If either of the comedians had a funny idea they wanted to try? “Pete Siegel was the director, and he was like, ‘Let’s try it.’”

Things weren’t nearly as relaxed on the Spade/Farley follow-up, Black Sheep. “They go, ‘Oh, we got something here,’ even though it wasn’t like a huge, hundred million dollar movie,” remembered Spade. “But then they all come in and a director comes in and they’re like, ‘We know how to do this.’ And then millions of notes and cutting scenes — it just got harder.” And the movie got worse.

McCarthy experienced a similar phenomenon with her hit, Bridesmaids. “We were all in Groundlings together,” she said. “We couldn’t believe when Annie (Mumolo) and Kristen (Wiig) were like, ‘We’re writing a movie for Judd (Apatow)!’ I just remember all of us being like, ‘Is that possible?’ We were so happy for them.”

Wiig (Saturday Night Live) and McCarthy (Gilmore Girls, Mike and Molly) had proven themselves on the small screen, just as Farley and Spade had on SNL. But like the Tommy Boy stars, no one had huge expectations for their film careers prior to Bridesmaids. McCarthy wasn’t even sure she wanted to audition.

McCarthy knew Wiig and Mumolo from their improv days and didn’t want to screw up their big chance. But when she auditioned with Wiig, “because we knew each other so well, we went off the rails. We did the audition, but also we were improvising. And I got back in the car, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God. I think I said something about hand play with a dolphin.’” 

McCarthy got the part — and an Oscar nomination. The filming process sounds a lot like Farley and Spade’s experience on Tommy Boy. “Paul (Feig) and Kristen and Annie were just like, ‘Yeah, do it! Go, go go — try it, try it. Do whatever. We have it the way it’s written, now do whatever you want.’ They’re rooting for you to be a total jackass.”

Once again, studio executives proved they don’t know much about comedy, with market research indicating Bridesmaids wouldn’t score at the box office. “I was like, ‘But I think it’s really funny.’ And they were like, ‘We know the metrics on these things, it’s not gonna go well.’ And I was like, ‘I think you’re wrong...’” 

Spade knows from his Tommy Boy experience that “let’s try it” improvisations make movie comedy work: “As long as you get an extra take, in my experience, those are the ones that people remember over time. The throwaways and the weirdest shit.” 

McCarthy agreed. “I just think that’s the magic.”