Will Farrell shoots Rick Barry style as Woody Harrelson and the ball girls watch
Harrelson's "Semi-Pro"
Hollywood Invades Anaheim
As Woody “Takes it to the Hoop”
By James Rodrigues
I recently had the honor of being an extra at the production of the upcoming film “Semi-Pro.” This fictional sports comedy is set in the red, white and blue "globe" of the American Basketball Association, circa 1976.
Woody Harrelson joins Will Farrell as they co-star in this raucous timepiece. Harrelson handles the role of Moxin (as in toxin), a guard for the now defunct Kentucky Colonels. Moxin, as far as any ‘lucky to be there,’ two-day extra could tell, is the “bad guy.”
I “play” one of the myriad psychotic Anaheim Amigo fans. In one shot in the film, I have the sore throat causing opportunity to yell my lungs out at Woody as he departs the court after causing more slapstick damage than Ron Artest with a thorn in his paw. I don’t want to give away any of Woody’s mischief, but I had to admire writer Scot Armstrong’s funny bone.
As Harrelson returned to the court for another ‘take’ after being called everything imaginable by the insanely irate Amigo fans, Woody put his hands together and bowed slightly to the now loudly applauding extras. It was a charming gesture from the recently verbally abused actor/athlete.
What surprised me was his ability to REALLY play the game of basketball. At the age of 45, Woody shot one stretch of 25 practice free throws at an 80% efficiency level (an accomplishment most NBA players would envy). He also played ball against young, top-level hoopsters as if he were a kid half his age.
In a rather heated five-on-five, half-court game held during a break in the filming, Harrelson not only scored frequently, but he battled through NBA-size screens and set a few dangerous looking picks himself. At one point during the fray, I overheard the director warn him about the possibility of getting hurt or worn out before the long day’s shoot was in the can.
I saw one tall and muscular athlete who had, what we used to call, “blood in his eye,” actually go after Harrelson.
With no referees in sight for this off-the-wall, all’s fair in love and war, break in the shoot mayhem, the ball was knocked loose from Harrelson and it rolled to the floor. Woody and his opponent went to the deck after it. The sound of fist or elbow colliding with flesh and bone came from the battle and Harrelson came out of the pile-up with a very pissed-off expression on his face. For a moment it looked as if he was going to go after his on-court opponent. But the “Pro” apparently overcame the “Kid” in the crab/lion cusp from Midland, Texas. Peace, once again reigned supreme.
During a hastily inhaled breakfast in the chow hall of The Anaheim Convention Center, a man I assumed to be Director Kent Alterman, gave the extras a brief orientation talk as we stuffed down donuts and Apple Jacks and strained to hear our boss over the “snap, crackle and pop” of the Rice Crispies. (I never got there early enough to experience more than the sight and smell of those scrambled eggs and sausages).
The first thing our fearless leader said was, “Be nice to each other!” The tone of his words carried both kindness and authority. Maybe Woodie remembered them just in the nick of time. I know I did.
At one point I almost got into it with a fellow extra. He was indicating to the group that he would like to punch me in the nose. My first reaction was to quote Clark Gable from “It Happened One Night.” In a similar honker-threatening situation, Gable tells obnoxious bus driver Ward Bond, “I always wear my nose right out front, just in case somebody wants to take a poke at it!”
Instead, like something out of a Looney Tunes cartoon, a harp-toting miniature version of the director plopped-down on my left shoulder with The First Commandment; “Be nice to each other!” So the Pro overcame the Kid in me, too.
As far as the women in this film are concerned, “Semi-Pro” has got some of the best. They have a group of four super foxes in the role of “ball girls.” They’d be “cheerleaders,” but you can’t really dance in those sexily glowing, best of the seventies, big-heeled boots. Their legs seemed to be gifts emanating from heaven. Those shapely ‘gams’ appeared to be long enough to make a quick trip down to earth by themselves.
Their rose colored blouses were the perfect compliments to faces that were both beautiful and profound. (You could feel their I.Q. points from across the arena.)
Their black hot pants had a fit that went well beyond outstanding. If a man ever needed a reason to live, he could readily locate it in that view. As an openly drooling, donut admiring Homer Simpson might have put it, “Gawww…”
One of the incredible brunettes demonstrated a bit of shyness about her perfection by wrapping a sweater around her waist during a brief break in the filming. A bronze-skinned beauty caught the eye of the guy sitting next to me. He didn’t want to talk. He just wanted to stare. How does The Commodores', “Brick House” go? “36-24-36, what a winning hand!”
Someone asked me, “Which one do you like the best?” After I managed to pull my tongue up off the floor, I instinctively answered, “I Want All of Them!”
The situation reminded me of a line a 90-year old George Burns once spilled. “I still look at the pretty girls,” he said. “I’ve just forgotten why.”
These girls would make him remember.
The slightly shy brunette (now sans the upper-thigh hiding sweater) glided toward a door through which I was passing. I held it for her and involuntarily semi-groaned and semi-prayed, “You look wonderful!” She politely thanked me as she sailed into the arena
If the publicists of “Semi-Pro” don’t posterize these girls, they are very clearly out of their minds.
As I’ve been writing this memoir of my 25 hours as an Anaheim Amigo fan, I’ve been debating with myself whether I should include the following funkily risqué, ball girl anecdote. Since it has already become one of my favorite tales ever, I feel a journalistic responsibility to share it with you. As Lou Costello might have said, “If I dood it, I get a whippin’…I dood it!”
Between takes “The Blonde” member of “Legs R Us" was intelligently chatting with someone near where I was sitting. She suddenly put up her right hand to deflect an intense but nonetheless cute sounding sneeze. With an adorably embarrassed giggle in her slightly groaning tone, she began my favorite comedy routine-ever by shouting, “Oh! No! I just goobered myself!” She opened her right hand in my immediate vicinity. “Look at this! I can’t believe I just goobered myself!”
Note: The following observations might have been effected by my blatant admiration for these young ladies combined with the bright production lights shining down on The Blonde’s Hand.
One look into her gracefully shaped palm and I saw what appeared to be a glowing, liquid, silver and blue, 3D mother-of-pearl design. Once again she shouted, “I can’t believe, in front of all these people, I just goobered myself!
I had no choice but to sincerely say to her, “And you even make that look good!”
Speaking of great female creations, in one scene from the Anaheim-Kentucky game there’s a lady in an under-the-hoop-seat who is riding Woody Harrelson’s “bad guy” character with language from under the gutter. In a voice half “Wicked Witch of the West” and half “Little Orphan Annie” she manages to, take after take, crack-up a “tough crowd” of mostly hard-boiled S.A.G. veterans.
For all you folks who aren’t big witch fans, let me titillate you a bit. This good-looking, screaming hag may just wind up on her backside in “Semi-Pro.” You’ll just have to see the movie to see how this happens, if it happens.
To wrap-up this tome on female talent, I would be mucho remiss if I did not mention the greatest terrorizing performance I have ever personally witnessed. This year’s jimmyrod.com Scariest of the Scary nomination goes to one of the women who was working in the wardrobe department for Central Casting. (In my desperate urge toward flight from her, I failed to catch her name. But I’d bet dollars to red, white and blue basketballs that everyone in the crew knows of the individual I speak).
Now don’t get me wrong! The crew handling the extras was about as nice a bunch of “operating under deadline” workers as you could possibly expect to meet. They did everything they could to make the role of “extra” a pleasant experience. The lunches reminded me of the way Mom and Dad cooked up Sunday dinner at the, for a while there, nine-strong Rodrigues abode. (The Tuesday Chicken was sensational!)
Having said the above, I must describe Central Casting’s very own jimmyrod.com Scariest of the Scary nominee. I ran into her in a real life, backstage scene that, days later, has still got the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. In ice hockey they might describe her as “the home team’s enforcer.”
At the end of a “Semi-Pro,” 15-hour filming day, I found myself in a ‘if I don’t hustle, no ride home, potentially homeless for the night’ situation. I went to one of the yeoman-like assistant directors and explained my dire quagmire. He led me to the front of the nearly infinite “return your wardrobe and get your pay voucher line.” He explained my situation to the young lady checking-in the shirts and caps. She agreed to handle it. (That was when the ghost of some bored “I Love Lucy” plot writer took, what I truly hope was temporary, possession of my soul).
The heroic assistant director disappeared, the lady who had agreed to "handle it" went to another assignment and all of a sudden I found myself facing a unique terror.
She was a cross between the 1960’s T.V. maid “Hazel” and the “I don’t care if you are “King Kong,” you’re just a bigger meal to me,” "Alien." I’m not as young as I used to be, but like my chief role model, Al Bundy, "I played high school football!" I’m no certified wuss or anything like that. But her sci-fi performance of a ‘line-cutter terminator’ left me starkly speechless.
I more or less survived my Hazel/Alien confrontation, but deep down inside I still find myself, like Richard Kimball in "The Fugitive", glancing over my left shoulder as I flee into the psychically framed night.
As the great Rod Serling might have described it as he hunched over and sucked on that inevitable coffin nail, “Presented for your consideration. What still scares the hell out of this former offensive guard is the strong possibility that, that woman, may not have been acting at all. And always keep in mind this one simple and forever-haunting fact: She’s still out there!”
Kudos must also go to the cast of basketball players. If I were promoting this
film, I would put together a real basketball program—ads and all.
This magazine would have pictures and funny thumbnail sketches of all the players
and the ball girls, too. Tuck in a poster of the incredible "legs from
heaven girls" and sell them for five bucks apiece. (Not the girls!
The magazines!)
Some of the players were quite memorable. Number 13 for the Kentucky Colonels was not only about 6’10” tall, but he could knock down ‘a three’ with his eyes closed. Number 55 for the white, red and black clad Amigos looked like he could 'shoot it' in a phone booth or an airport. One of the taller Anaheim hatchet-men looked like the ex-NFL star/head case turned survivalist in the woods of the John Belushi/Blair Brown film, “Continental Divide.”
But other than Woody the guy that had to catch your attention was the kid with the colorfully fictional name “Hurlbut” stamped to the back of his hoop jersey. This young man wore the proud name of “Hurlbut” with a surprising majesty. He glided toward the basket like the ball girls floated over the floors. And speaking of “Hurlbut and the Foxes,” it appeared he was doing pretty well with them, too.
All jealousy aside, it is difficult to describe “Hurlbut.” His immaculate afro and excellent hoop game, implied African-American. Yet his relatively light complexion argued that white men can indeed jump. Whatever the case, “Hurlbut” was my pick as the jock most likely to (golldang him!) walk off hand-in-hand with one or more of “my ball girls.”
I guess he decided to show-off his prowess with the ladies one time too often. During a between the scenes, entertain the crowd, shoot-around, he pretended to lose his balance and fell between two of the super foxes. Instead of jumping on him, “my girls” recoiled in feigned disgust. He may have still “got the girl.” (I know I didn’t). But the innocent attitudes I inferred from the parting of the Red Sea actions of "Legs-R-Us," made me feel a little bit better, anyway.
With a slight bit of jealousy rasping through my well-worn vocal chords, I punned, “Hey, Hurlbut! It looks like My Girls are going to hurl your butt out of there, Hurlbut!”
As Woody Harrelson completed the ‘final take’ of the “walk off the court and be degraded by the psycho fans” scene, he came back to the basketball court, turned and returned our applause. It was a touching moment.
Because I was only present for a pair of fun-filled but exhausting days, I don’t know how "Semi-Pro" comes out. But I hope Woody’s story turns out to be like that of “Scrooge” and his ultimately joyous smile. Any superstar nice enough to take a real punch and then heartily cheer for a recently cursing peanut-gallery, deserves to be able to ride off into a red and gold sunset at The End.