We had both sides of the 45 single recorded and I had passed the master recording on to the record company for pressing and distribution. We did the cover artwork and promo photos ourselves with the assistance of a real pro, John Harrell.

Now we needed a “rock video”

Mind you, this was 1983. God help us… the crap that was out there…and we were going to add to it.

Butch was parking cars for his dad at a poker palace in Gardena, CA. He was certainly down on his luck…and prime for molding. I owned a recording studio and a mutual friend introduced us. It became a project.

The film crew was run by famed cinematographer, Marvin Rush. He filmed most of the Star Trek series and movies….as well as TV shows: “Bob Newhart” and “TAXI.” And he was mine for free because he was intrigued about the project. At this time, Butch wasn’t doing promotional overkill with signing conventions and the such like he does today. He had just disappeared.

We were a day away from filming at our first location: a mortuary, and I hadn’t written the shooting script yet. There was no story. So, at some point in the evening, I sat on the recording studio couch with a legal pad and pen. In 25 minutes, the script was done. I tweaked it a bit, but it pretty much was canonized. I’ve always been good at being lazy and then pulling it together in a panic when there is no time left. Read my reviews.

I catered the shoot at the mortuary. The mortuary was part of the biggest chain in Southern California and a friend that worked there gave us permission to shoot late in the evening. Except, as it turned out, he didn’t have the authorization to allow us to do so.

Marvin, his crew, and film truck, showed up on time. I had arranged to have about 50 extras sitting in the chapel, with a coffin with Butch in it, for our first shot. We had already scoped out the place and I jotted down notes for the angles, etc.

Three days before the mortuary shoot, we spent a few minutes picking the coffin from the display room that Butch would use. Talk about being creeped out.

As Howard sat up a nice buffet, the extras rolled in. It was a full-on Jewish deli. Everyone was excited. So was I. Until I noticed that children were coming in. I blew my lid. I screamed at the crowd, “Who brought children into this mortuary?”

Hands raised. I took them aside and asked them if they were fucking crazy? I told them to leave…and they did, unhappily. We had the first shot set up, the extras in the pews, the smell of brisket and corned beef wafting in the air and the “Monsters” in full make up.

Turns out, there was a body lying on a stainless-steel table. What? How could that be? Aren’t they supposed to be kept refrigerated. Turned out that the body had been prepped so it wasn’t necessary. I doubled down on yelling at the parents.

Just before I yelled, “Action,” a bunch of goons stormed the mortuary, with baseball bats, threatening to beat the hell out of me and everyone else if we didn’t get our asses out immediately. I grabbed the kid who gave us approval and he admitted that he didn’t ask his betters if it would be OK? So, instead, he bragged about it at the mortuary to his co-workers and they formed a scheme to bush whack us.

One of the goons asked who was in charge? I stepped forward and as I did, I felt something hard trying to crush the back of my skull. A fight broke out. The goons were outnumbered. They threatened to call the cops. We managed to get everyone out, the film crew packed up and burned rubber, and we were all gone before the cops showed up later. Howard was the only one still there, trying to pack up his delicious food and miscellaneous shit. The cops tried to arrest him, but he talked his way out of it, made them brisket sandwiches, and he split.

We were in big trouble. I ended up at the E.R, and got some stitches. All the while trying to figure an alternate plan. I assured Marvin we would get this right and begged him not to bail on me. He was a great guy and said he would follow me to San Quentin, if necessary, to get this done.

Marvin Rush getting angles for the shoot:

The next day, I took a ride to the Princess Louise, docked at San Pedro Harbor. It was an old, 3 deck private yacht, that had been transformed into a tourist attraction. Two restaurants and a chapel on top. I met with the chaplain and negotiated a fee of $200 ($700 in 2026 dollars). It was a lock. We shook hands and moved to the next step. The filming on the boat would take place about 4 days later. I used that time to do another dangerous shot.

Hollywood High School:

There is a line in the song that Eddie sings that says, “I got up and split from school.” So we headed to Hollywood High on Hollywood Blvd. Butch managed to borrow John Travolta’s Trans Am that George Barris was doing some customization on. The only way we could have the car was if George provided the driver. I agreed in a heartbeat.

We had no permit for filming. No permit. Let me say that again: NO PERMIT!!

I did this shot without extras. But still, my crew was large….maybe 25 people. 4 of us had walkie-talkies and were positioned strategically around the shoot. It was 7PM. Night school was in session.

The shot had Butch run down the steps of this ancient school wearing a graduation gown and cap and jump into the Trans Am. He then peeled rubber, did a couple of fish tails, and headed down Hollywood Blvd. Cut.

The steps were at the front of the main entrance. It was lighted nicely. A huge class was going on just above on the second floor. It looked like a hundred people had moved to the windows to see what was happening. The streets started to flood with onlookers.

I was the director. I was in charge. Huge klieg lights lit the area to be shot.

“ACTION!!”

We did several takes. And then one of the guys, on a walkie talkie, called me and said cops were driving up to check things out. I put a temp hold on production while I watched 3 squad cars slowly drive to where I stood in the middle of Hollywood Blvd.

They got out of their cruisers and stood beside their cars. Not a word. Obviously, they assumed we had a permit because no one would have the balls to shut down this heavily trafficked area. I approached them and explained it was Eddie fucking Munster! They were thrilled and asked if they could meet him. I said, “As soon as we finish the shot.” They nodded excitedly.

I said “Action” for the last time…the shot went without a hitch, and then I yelled “Cut and… Print!!”

Everything went perfectly. We quickly packed up. Applause came from everywhere. It was deafening. Even the cops were clapping.

We got into our vehicles and headed over to the Brown Derby where I treated everyone for dinner.

We would be ready for the Princess Louise. I just needed to find caskets for rent.

I got the L.A. Yellow Pages out and searched. There she was. Casandra the Casket Queen. Butch and I took a ride to her beat-up Hollywood home. No furniture except in the bedroom. The place was laden with real caskets but painted in psychedelic colors. Wild. Crazy. Nuts! Cool! Perfect.

We negotiated a rate for renting 5 of them for one night. Butch called George Barris, the car customizer to the Stars, and asked to borrow 2 hearses. We managed to shove all of the caskets inside.

We parked it at my house in Long Beach. The shoot at the Princess Louise in San Pedro was set for that night. Everything was lined up. People were paid off. Marvin Rush, the cinematographer, was set to meet us there at 6PM. Our makeup artist would be there on time, or so she promised.

Even my financial backer would be there. He was an ex-San Quentin con that was a big dealer of cocaine and professional poker player. He and I became good friends because I wasn’t a mooch. Everyone around him constantly hung on the hope of hand-outs. I never asked. And for the most part, I turned his offers of a toot down. One little snort and I was good for hours…whereas his hangers on needed a toot every 10 minutes. And I just didn’t like the shakes it gave you if you did too much. I was the only one in his life like that. And more importantly, we liked each other. Rick was a big bear of a man who you wanted on your side. I bounced things off Rick, and he was always the voice of reason.

We stood outside the boat waiting for everyone to assemble. Rick had driven his Rolls Royce. So that was our focal point for assembly.

Once everyone was there, around 100 people including extras, I went up to the chapel to finalize and make sure we were set….I met with the chaplain and he was sweating bullets. He was dressed in his captain’s clothes. Looked very cool.

Standing next to him was a dapper man that I had never seen. He owned the boat and told me we could not use it because the chaplain had no authority.

Fuck! Shit! Piss! Cunt! Cock! Screw! Motherfucker! Motherfucker!

NOT AGAIN!!

He told me to calm down and told me that for $4000 we could use his chapel for filming. In 2026 dollars, it is over $13,000.

$4000. If I fucked this up, Marvin would bail on me and the whole project would go up in smoke. I ran down to Rick and told him. Rick, at first, offered to tune this guy up. I told him no. I asked Rick for $2000 in cash. I would go home and get my $2000. Rick did not like this one bit but got into his Rolls and headed for Torrance to get his dough. I headed to Long Beach.

An hour later, Rick and I handed the guy his $4000. Then…. he said, “I’ve changed my mind. I want $6000. And in a blur of fists, the owner of the Princess Louise lay on the floor moaning, bleeding, and probably wondering what happened to him? The wild west of SoCal in the ’80’s.

Rick had no truck for cheats. A person’s word is everything and this guy was a hustler. He tried to hustle us so Rick spanked him. We all helped the owner up to a chair and Rick whispered in his ear. I could not hear what he said… And Rick never told me what he whispered to the owner. I think it was better that way.

We started loading the equipment up a ramp and 3 decks to the top of the boat and into the chapel.

The last thing we took upstairs was the outrageous caskets..

This had to be the funniest thing I had ever seen…worthy of a Mel Brooks movie….The second deck had a swanky restaurant on it and the only stairs to the chapel were inside the eatery. We held 5 caskets like pall bearers through a crowded restaurant…”Oh. Excuse me…. sorry…may I get through there please?” You could hear utensils drop to the plates. You could hear 50 people inhaling but not exhaling. No one blinked. I wish I had filmed, or at least taken photos, of that. It was priceless.

I handed Marvin the latest shooting script. One of his guys looked at it and said, “No way. 31 scenes???” Marvin immediately chastised him for questioning the director, me. I gulped as no one had referred to me as The Director. This better go right.

Our song was exactly 2 minutes long. We had already filmed the high school which accounted for 2 edits that lasted 5 seconds each. In all, the script had 33 scenes. That was an average of 4 seconds per edit.

And I had to do it that night. I would not have Marvin again because of his schedule.

We started filming around 8PM and finished at 6AM. I got every scene I wanted and got them in no more than two takes. I improvised on the fly as situations presented themselves.

The last scene has Butch sitting by a lagoon with the moon reflecting on the water. We had only minutes before the sun rose. We ran down to the shore by the boat mooring. Butch sat next to a small body of sea water…pebbles and rocks. There was no moon that night but the Cosmic Muffin smiled on me that night. There was a light standard on the boat dock and the light from it was reflected in the water looking exactly like the moon.

“Action!” Cut!” “Print!”

We were done. Marvin took me aside…the man that went on to become the cinematographer of many Star Trek series and some of the movies….and told me that he thought that it would be impossible to get all the shots I had written down, but we did it and he patted me on the back and hugged me. I broke down. The stress of this shoot had finally hit home.

My adrenaline was running high. The night started with a hundred people. At 6AM, there was maybe 15 left. I offered breakfast but we were so tired that we just wanted to sleep.

Oh no. I had to take the caskets back. So we loaded them into the 2 hearses and I drove it to Cassandra’s with a few guys. We unloaded them, I dropped people off, and headed home. The hearse stayed parked in my driveway all day while I slept with a smile.

The next part will be the torturous editing of the video, the fight with Rocshire Records, and the illegal bribing of radio stations and distributors. Then the fall of Rocshire Records to the F.B.I.

To be continued….

Categories: CIGAR REVIEWS