TIM ALLEN ON "THE TONIGHT SHOW"
Show: The Tonight Show
Host: Jay Leno
Air date: March 6, 1997
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| Jay: | Folks, we have a great show tonight, actually a terrific show. A huge Thursday show, My first guest, er, one of the most successful shows in the history of television, "Home Improvement." A new movie coming out tomorrow, a very funny movie called "Jungle 2 Jungle," Tim Allen! |
| [Audience cheers] | |
| [Segment cut] | |
| Jay: | And welcome back. Ah, Tim Allen is on his way out, NBA superstar Houston Rocket's Charles Barkley. I like Charles. He's, he's a great guest, he's a fascinating guy. |
| Band Leader: | Very cool. You got it, very cool. |
| Jay: | And, world champion hog-caller, 74 year old Imogene. Most people say "i-mogene." This is "eye, eye-moe-, as in stooge, -gene" "Eye-moe-gene." Wonderful. My first guest, one of the most popular actors on television, a big shot movie star as well, and a fellow motor-head car guy. His show "Home Improvement" airs Tuesday nights on ABC. His latest film called "Jungle 2 Jungle," very funny comedy, opens tomorrow. The one, the only, Tim Allen! |
| [Audience cheers. Tim Allen walks on] | |
| Tim: | What a great band! Hah! These guys just cook it! I could hear them over in my, it's funny, I, my studio is, not my studio... |
| Jay: | Well, it's a lot like this is mine. Well, you can say that. |
| Tim: | My studio, it's just a hop, skip and a jump. |
| Jay: | That's right. |
| Tim: | Over this way, right. |
| Jay: | That's right. |
| Tim: | Just get outta the car, boom, I'm here. This is just os weird, like we're neighbors. |
| Jay: | We are neighbors! |
| Tim: | I can hear the band from over there. So, so quieten it down, we've got a show to do! |
| Jay: | Let me, I've been watching these ads all week for "Jungle 2 Jungle," and, and I think people have the impression this is, like, a kid's movie. But it's not, is it? |
| Tim: | Well, it's safe enough to take your kids, coz there's no, um, overt sexuality, y'know Lolita Davidovichhas, y'know, we didn't put her in the film because she's got a terrific figure... yes we did. Um. |
| Jay: | It helps. |
| Tim: | She's, she's, I'm trying to get married. That's the deal. |
| Jay: | Right. |
| Tim: | It's about a guy trying to get married and everything comes unglued. But it's safe enough to take the kids coz it's a Disney film. |
| Jay: | Well, let me ask you something. Coz a lot of times, I know sometimes, they shoot a movie here, like, over in Johnny Carson park and they throw some weeds in and they go this is the Amazon, but this is really... |
| Tim: | Oh no. |
| Jay: | This is the real thing. Were you really down there? |
| Tim: | They sent me down to Kanimetz. It's north of Caracas or east of Caracas. Someplace near Caracas. Nice place. But, the, the Disney nurse, Ratchet I think her name is... |
| Jay: | There's a Disney nurse? |
| Tim: | Yeah. They send, there's a jungle scenario, you have, they have a list of diseases you can get. It's like frrrfrrrr. Aaah. And every parasite is worse than the last one. And all she warned me about, it's like 31 shots, shots, shots, shots, shots. |
| Jay: | It's really just shots all the time? |
| Tim: | All shots and it's, I called the Center for Disease Control on my computer on the net, on the net y'know, and I go, I was looking at this area and it said there's a, there's a parasite that makes its home in your, in your groin areas and won't come out for, like, a year, and I went, "I don't want this one." |
| Jay: | No. It sounds expensive! |
| Tim: | Well, it's the onpy parasite they don't give a vaccine for, and she says just avoid any standing pools of water. Avoid standing pools of water. |
| Jay: | Makes sense, |
| Tim: | CDC says avoid standing pools of water. I show up in the jungle, I'm standing there. What's the first shot? You're gonna stand in that pool of water over there! Then I realized after being up to here in parasites, I live in L.A., I'm used to it! |
| Jay: | That's right. Yeah! Let me ask you now. Like, when you go and you shoot in the Amazon, I, I know they're very, er, like they guard the Amazon, and so on, and protect it. Do you fly everything in? Like, what d'you do in terms of bathrooms? |
| Tim: | I wish I could think of the name. They're called Heinz, they're a helicopter, these big Soviet helicopters, that's what the Venezualan Army let us use. |
| Jay: | Soviet helicopters? So you know they're well made. |
| Tim: | Yes. Flying right over you. But they're like, there's this one guy goes by with lights, then generators, and the last one had 12 porta-potties on it. We're taking porta-potties into the jungle. Now the indians, the Benarians who live there, the jungle pretty much is their toilet. They don't have bathrooms, they're, they're great people, and all this.. |
| Jay: | Just standing pools of water! [Tim and Jay laugh] They're going... |
| Tim: | Look at them over there! They're not as smart as they look! |
| Jay: | Yeah, American guy, yeah, go stand over there! Pfff! |
| Tim: | They put us in, they put us in these porta-potties in the middle of the jungle, and then the indians would log on as day-workers and they had to clean them out. So they had EPA drums, so, whenever we were finished with our business, they'd pump out this pine-smelling blue liquid, coz it turns it into something, put it in these drums, and we seal it, helicopter it back out of town. And I know these indians were thinkng, "Hmm. It must be pretty valuable. I don't care what this is, I'm taking some of this stuff home!" |
| Jay: | Yeah, so you've got guys stealing it! |
| Tim: | Guys stealing it. "I mean, they package it up, it smells like pine, I don't know what these guys are made of, but..." |
| Jay: | It's an air freshner! Now, now when, when you shoot, what is the humidity? It's like 100% every day. |
| Tim: | Well, we were down there for the annual humidity festival. |
| Jay: | Oh, that's right, they have that. |
| Tim: | Yeah. Well this is, we're in the middle of, middle of the rain forest, now, the rain forest. Now we're all L.A. crew, grumbling, the food is horrible, we're in the tent... |
| Jay: | The food is horrible. What're you gonna eat? |
| Tim: | Well, we have lizard. And they're sitting there and it's raing. |
| Jay: | Yeah. |
| Tim: | It's raining in the rain forest and everyone's really upset. Director, "We've gotta get this shot." Everyone's screaming. It rains for, like, 8 hours. And now the Venezualans run around being really quiet. I don't wanna be rude, but you shot the film in the rain forest. Now we gave it a name like that because generally it rains in the forest. And in the middle of this tent, I got bug bites, I got bugs in my, ants in my pants. And these ants are, like, the size of a quarter. And they don't die; you can squeeze them. |
| Jay: | Everything seems to go for your pants: parasites, ants. There must be something about your pants that attracts these animals. |
| Tim: | Well, if you want to move that thing back, I'll show you what! |
| Jay: | Flying things and... |
| Tim: | Insects... |
| jay: | Insects, parasites. |
| Tim: | Hideous thing, but it's lovely, baby, that's right. |
| Jay: | Now, did you ever, did you have any problems with camera? I mean, coz like, film deteriorates, things get lost. |
| Tim: | Well, we lost, er in New York, of course. The jungle was fine, but in New York we lost, er, 6 rolls of film. And, and it was a big scene, 40 storeys up on a, a skyscraper. I'm with, er, Marty Shorty and with me Lolita Davidovich, my wife. We're in a big scene in this fashion center, and the kid I bring back with me's running along outside this building. Big scene, lot of problmes wiht special effects, coz you fall off a building that high, you might hurt yourself. So the film disappears. They sent, they sent a kid to take the film to the lab, goes in and gets a packet of smokes, comes out and the cab's gone. |
| Jay: | Well, you don't think of it. You don't look at it like a hundred grand. |
| Tim: | About 165 and change. |
| Jay: | Yeah. |
| Tim: | Kid comes out, cab's gone. They find the guy at home, doesn't remember what he did with it. Nah, it's just 6 or 7 tins, 800 pounds. But a week later, Yellow Cab Productions in New York had a very short film they were doing with Tim Allen in it! Very interesting, baby. |
| Jay: | Did you get it back? |
| Tim: | No. Reshot. |
| Jay: | So you had to reshoot the whole thing? |
| Tim: | That's right. |
| Jay: | Oh man. I imagine that kid's still working on the... |
| Tim: | [Laughing] Yeah! No. |
| Jay: | He's, he's got parasites in his groin now. |
| Tim: | He's back in the jungle now. |
| Jay: | Now, what is the clip we're gonna see here? |
| Tim: | Well, I, I, I, I've got to set this up. They out Marty Short with me, and this is the first, when we met. |
| Jay: | He's nuts, isn't he? |
| Tim: | This, Marty Short is an actor that the director never has to say this to: Can you, can you be a little more broad? [Jay laughs] |
| Jay: | Can you bring it up a little? |
| Tim: | Can you bring it up a little bit, Marty? You seem a little down in this moment. Marty Short, getting out of a chair, most guys, the extras, and action. [Tim stands up normally and then sits down again] Marty Short has to get out of a chair like this: [Imitating Marty's voice. Tim stands up again, but like Marty] Ohhh! Marty, no-one's pulling you, just getting out of the damn chair. So his daughter, in, in a, in a secondary story, I'm in love with thsi one woman, my kid that I bring back from the jungle's in love with Marty's daughter. He thinks they're having... things. |
| Jay: | Right. |
| Tim: | They're not, it's a Disney film. |
| Jay: | So our son, now this son is a jungle boy, right? |
| Tim: | Jungle boy. |
| Jay: | You had... |
| Tim: | Well, jungle boy, his name is Sam. |
| Jay: | But I mean, he grew up in the Amazon. |
| Tim: | Yes. |
| Jay: | He doesn't know "our ways." |
| Tim: | He doesn't know our, well, he thinks giving a pot to, a pot, that's like flowers. So he's giving this girl a pot, and, and Marty thinks, he thinks shananigans are happening. She's locked herself in the room and Marty and I are trying to get him out. |
| Jay: | Right. Let's take a look, here we go. "Jungle 2 Jungle." |
| [Clip from "Jungle 2 Jungle"] | |
| Jay: | There we go, "Jungle 2 Jungle," very funny. D'you know Charles, d'you know Charles Barkley? |
| Tim: | Chaz? |
| Jay: | [Laughing] Chaz! |
| Tim: | Yeah! Chuckie and I, we went to play hoops together when we were kids, oh yeah everyday. |
| Jay: | So you grew up in the same neighborhood. |
| Tim: | Same neighborhood, yeah. |
| Jay: | Fascinating. |
| Tim: | I'm the comic formerly known a Tim. |
| Jay: | Really? |
| Tim: | That's what they called me. Timbo. Yeah, yeah, he and I, whoo... |
| Jay: | Go way back. |
| Tim: | Go way back. |
| Jay: | Alright. He'll be out here in just a sec. Anyway, the film is "Jungle 2 Jungle," opens tomorrow, very funny. Tim, always a pleasure to have you. Be right back. Charles Barkley right after this. |
| [Rest of show cut] | |
Segments transcribed by Duncan Taylor
