How The Whoopee Boys Poster Ended Up In The Lonely Island's Hot Rod

"Hot Rod" is one of those movies that really has come into its own since its original release. The movie served as the cinematic coming out party for The Lonely Island, aka Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer. Unfortunately, it was something of a flop when Paramount Pictures released it in the summer of 2007. But audiences have since allowed it to achieve cult status, embracing its many outlandish jokes, elaborate comedic set pieces, and hidden gags. The story of one of those hidden gags is, as it turns out, infinitely better than the gag itself.

On a recent two-part episode of "The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast," the gang broke down "Hot Rod" in great detail. It's the perfect example of why "SNL" fans should be listening to this podcast. On the episode, the gang explained how on Earth a poster for an obscure, real comedy called "The Whoopee Boys" appeared in Kevin's bedroom in the film. The scene in question takes place when Kevin (Taccone) shows Rod (Samberg) the video he's been editing of Rod's stunts. In the background is the ridiculous poster in question.

"The Whoopee Boys I only know because I worked in a video store," Meyers said, illustrating that it was, indeed, an obscure reference to make. Schaffer described the movie as "a screwball, dirty, R-rated, 'Animal House' style comedy." The poster is of two men mooning the audience with their boxers and their pants around their ankles. It's right at home in Kevin's room. So how did it wind up in the movie? As Schaffer revealed:

"We had never seen it, but when we were saying Kevin's character is someone who edits film and always has his video camera and that's his thing, he's into movies, he should have some movie posters up in his room, Paramount was like, 'We'll get some that we can approve.' The ones that were coming were like, 'Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.' We were like, 'No, no.'"

Paramount eventually brought the guys one they liked, and it became a whole lot more than just some prop in the background of a movie full of random, hilarious detals. "The one was The Whoopee Boys, and we were like, 'What is this?' Because we had never even heard of it," Schaffer explained. "We just knew it was this incredible poster. So we put it up in the room and talked about it a lot."

While "Hot Rod" might have been originally written with Will Ferrell in mind, it was Sandberg who played the wannabe stuntman Rod Kimble, who ends up trying to save the life of his stepfather, played by Ian McShane, only so that he can finally kick his ass. It's a ridiculous premise and the commitment to that is what makes it work — right down to filling the background with ridiculous stuff, like this poster.

"There was also a lot of improvisation based around the poster that didn't make it into the movie," Schaffer also added, saying that some of the riffing was about "The Whoopee Boys." Even though there was much to distract themselves with on set, this poster became something they focused on. That's when producer John Goldwyn came into play, as he was able to turn this into more than an obscure reference for the cast and crew.

"We talked about it so much, John Goldwyn, who was Lorne's [Michaels] producing partner at the time, kind of the head of Lorne's Paramount movie making company — he was on set the whole time — and we kept bringing it up to him. He is from Samuel Goldwyn, like MGM Goldwyn, so he knows everything. and he used to work at Paramount as an exec, and he knew a lot about the movie. We were like, 'Could you get us a screening of it?'"

Goldwyn is a well-connected man in Hollywood, and he came through for The Lonely Island boys with this request. But it's not as though he just got a DVD that they screened in a rented out theater — Goldwyn pulled out all the stops and got an actual film print of this obscure 1986 comedy that the cast and crew had only heard of because of this silly poster. Schaffer revealed that they went all-out for the screening:

"He got a 35mm print shipped to Vancouver and on a Saturday night, we rented out a movie theater, and invited anybody from the crew who wanted to come to a real movie screening of The Whoopee Boys 20 something years after it had come out. We treated it like a premiere. We got a limousine. We all got limos, and we all did Jager bomb shots, I believe."

Even though they invited everyone, only about 20 people showed up to the screening, including Danny McBride, but they gave it the "Mystery Science Theater" treatment, providing commentary as they watched. They certainly made the most of it.

It's somewhat remarkable that a mere background prop provided such a robust element to the making of this movie. Not only did they have to sort through a bunch of bad posters to arrive at this one, but it became a running joke that led to a rowdy screening, which sounds like a memorable experience for them all around. It just goes to show that so much more goes into the making of the movies we all love than we often realize.