FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL

Guy is jilted and goes on vacation to tropical paradise. Once there, guy finds the woman who jilted him is staying right next door. Guy hooks up with another woman. Awkward scene as the two couples have dinner together. Guy fakes having loud wild sex to make the jilt-ee jealous.

These are scenes from FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL now playing in a theater near you.

They are also scenes from the two-part FRASIER episode “Adventures in Paradise” written by David Isaacs and me fourteen years ago (now playing on a cable channel near you).

That said, FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL had several funny Judd Apatow moments and even though the story was paper-thin and it looked like they filmed this “Hawaii” movie in Oxnard I still found it to be a very serviceable romcom (which by today's romcom yardstick is a rave).

The TV spoofs and the “opera” scenes alone are worth the price of (first-showing matinee) admission.

But one thing we didn’t do on FRASIER was have Kelsey Grammer show his willy.

Jason Segal showed his though in FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL. Several times. There are many euphemisms for penis. You can add one more -- Nakamora (regulars to this blog know what that means).

According to fifteen interviews I’ve read, producer Judd Apatow has taken it upon himself to shatter this long-standing taboo of full-frontal nudity. I guess every man’s gotta have his own sacred crusade. And that’s fine except in FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL I didn’t find it funny. Apatow said that during test screenings the audiences just howled during those scenes. Huh? No one in my audience even laughed.

Now don’t get me wrong – I’m all for a good penis joke. The drawings in SUPERBAD were hilarious and how could comedy writing rooms generate humor and self loathing without them? But something happens when you actually see the Full Monty on the screen. The initial reaction tends to be jarring and often times that’s just enough to kill the funny. And when it comes to laughs, size really does matter.

In the movie we wrote, VOLUNTEERS, there’s a scene where Peace Corps supervisor/boy scout/CIA agent John (Tim Thomerson) gives volunteer Beth (Rita Wilson) a small gift to show his affection. We wanted the gift to be a little off-kilter to signal to her that this guy may be a little weird. We discovered that there were these small Burmese statues that had huge penises. The perfect gift from any psychopath.

My partner and I were on hand for some of the editing, watching on a small movieola. There’s a point in that scene where the director had inserted a close-up of the statue. We questioned the wisdom of that. He argued that the audience wouldn’t get the joke if they only saw the statue in a master. Later that week we had a test screening. When this GIANT close-up of a penis filled the entire screen the women in the audience gasped and shrieked. David and I had to leave the theatre we were laughing so hard. Needless to say, the close-up came out.

Did they need to be so explicit in FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL? I don't know. Maybe I saw it with an audience of Quakers. For all I know Jason Segal's penis tested better than he did. (I'm sure it tested better than Kristen Bell.) What did you think?

If you loved it, maybe there's time to get Kelsey to do some re-shoots for the DVD re-release.