[0:00]See the guy in the yellow jacket over there by the budget son? He's going to ran us a nice big van, and we're going to drive to Milwaukee.
[0:20]Welcome, Mike, to the amazing Milwaukee movie location extravaganza. In fact, isn't Milwaukee an Indian name? Yes, Peter, it is. when a movie either takes place in Milwaukee or has scenes in Milwaukee, that what is the reason behind that? I mean, the Dahmer products that are out there have an obvious answer. But when you say something like, like Dawn of the Dead, Milwaukee. Like like you when Hollywood makes a movie, they they say, what's the location? New York, Los Angeles, or a city that has something like a Chicago or Seattle or something that has like some sort of character or purpose for it to be there. And I think they pick Milwaukee, it's either small town USA with a little Main Street. And they say, oh, small town USA. Or we need a big city, but a city that's not too big that people know nothing about that kind of is like the big city version of small town USA. Yes. See, my my experience comes from uh, whenever I travel anywhere and someone says, where are you from? You know, and I say Milwaukee, they go, Oh. And you say, it's a little north of Chicago. Oh, I know Chicago. Right right, or you see, I'm from New York. They go, oh, New York. I'm from Los Angeles. Oh, Los Angeles. Yeah yeah. I'm from Florida, even Florida, you say Florida. Oh, I know Florida, Disney, Disney World, yeah. And it's like Milwaukee, it's kind of like saying Cleveland. Cleveland? Cleveland. Uh-huh. That that's also small big small city, but um Milwaukee people go, oh, okay, um beer brought worst, the Fons. But one of the big ones is on my list in terms of like movies that people know Milwaukee from. One of the most famous ones and it's not even a Milwaukee movie, but the scene in Wayne's World where they go to Milwaukee. Should be pretty close to Milwaukee, but now. They see the Alice Cooper concert in Milwaukee and so that's the thing that people always bring up. They quote Wayne's World. Actually, it's pronounced Milwaukee, which is Algonquin for the Good Land. Does this guy know how to party or what? So that that's kind of what kickstarted this was thinking about things like that where it's like if you say you're from Milwaukee, uh if people are like associated with pop culture, there's a couple specific things they'd bring up. And that Wayne's World scene is probably the most famous Milwaukee movie scene. Although Wayne's World is that that takes place in um in what's the city? Aurora.
[3:16]Aurora. Um, which is, you know, not far from Milwaukee, so um I would also like to mention, I don't know if this is brought up, but this is spinal tap. Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They go to Milwaukee to play Shank Hall, which is a fictional in in that movie, it's a fictional venue, but then has become a real venue. Uh, the Shank Hall and the in the movie is bigger. Yeah. And then someone at some point after that movie came out, made a Shank Hall on the East side. It's very small, yeah, but they do have musical performances there. Yeah, oh, it's it's a working venue and that's where we saw um Tim Hecker perform after he did our half in the bag episode about 40 years ago now. Excuse me, good. Woo!
[4:12]We saw him and Neil Hamburger and uh DJ Doug Pound. DJ Doug Pound in the mix. It was a great night. Yeah yeah. But that's that's sort of like a a I don't know, a connection, I don't know. Well that's yeah, that's on my list that falls into that category of of things that are set in Milwaukee but not shot in Milwaukee. Right. So, but the most famous, if we want to start the list with the most famous Milwaukee scene that nobody associates with Milwaukee, the most famous movie, I would say arguably uh shot in Milwaukee is probably The Blues Brothers. And that's of course the Chicago movie. Not not a movie shot in Chicago, that is the Chicago movie. Right. Uh but they did have a little sequence that they shot here in Milwaukee. And and that sequence is the famous Hone Bridge. It's one of the most famous scenes in the movie. No no one knows it was shot here. Yeah, at the if you don't if you've never seen Blues Brothers, uh they're in the car chase at the end and they've run out of freeway in Chicago and um so they hit the brakes. The Blues mobile hangs off the edge and uh the the Illinois Nazis, they their car flies up into the sky. Somehow it ends up taller than the Sears Tower. Right, right, and it flies back down. And then falls down. Uh what a film. I've always loved you. I've always wondered and maybe you know this, if they shot that here, if they said we need to find a road that's unfinished. Yeah. Or if they knew that was being built and they said, hey, let's incorporate that into the movie. Oh, which first? I've always wondered which one first. Chicken and the egg situation. I I don't know. I know that they I would imagine it was written into the script. That's a big sequence just to add on a whim. That's true. You got to drop a a car for so high. And I I think I remember hearing that they looked around at nearby places to try and find the perfect piece of road that ended. Oh, okay. So um, but I I'm not sure 100%, so. It is funny, yeah, because you watch it. I know who we could ask. Oh, who?
[6:20]The production designer uh for the film. Mort Solomon. Marvin Solomon. Okay. Yeah, who did you think I was talking about? I I didn't know. That's why I was asking. Oh, okay. I always wondered and maybe you know this if they shot that here, if they said, we need to find a road that's unfinished.
[7:22]We utilized the US Bank building in our movie Space Cop, we flew a plane into it. So yeah, that that was a filmed here out of necessity. Uh and then there's like I thought you were going to mention Transformers 3. But it was a flight over the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Calatrava that really caught Hollywood's eye. This is something the director felt he couldn't get anywhere else, and so the crew will shoot a major part of Transformers 3 here. Here we are in Milwaukee's Lake front in front of the world famous Milwaukee Art Museum. This particular building was featured in the film Transformers 3, Rise of the diapers. It's unique design was created by world famous architect as of Chu Chu Cabra. They cleaned out the inside of it or whatever. They threw all the art out. That little that little guy with the chair on his head. They just threw that thing right in the garbage. Right, yeah, they just we need to make room for a bunch of like exotic automobiles. And it's this famous rich guy's lair or office. I didn't see the movie. You didn't see that part of the movie? Oh yeah, that's right. We we each watched half of the film. I didn't see that part, but clearly that that this billionaire guy with this extravagant office or whatever that was, did not have that office in Milwaukee. It was probably supposed to be Los Angeles or Well, no, most of the movie's in Chicago. So that is convenient where they're filming most of the movie in Chicago, come up here for a couple days to film that scene. So that's very similar uh in concept where's a Chicago location is a Milwaukee location is doubling for somewhere in Chicago. Yeah. The building looks like a bird or something. Uh, Wayne's World is more that's story convenience because Ralph Lowe's character is trying to get Wayne and Garth out of the picture so he can steal Wayne's girlfriend. So he gives them tickets to go see Alice Cooper in Milwaukee. Look, they're shots during.
[9:42]Which they are in the suburbs of Chicago, that's uh realistic for them to drive up here. Well that that's a plot driven thing, and so as Public Enemies. All the floor now. Public Enemies is an interesting one because I was in researching this, I was looking that up. And uh there's very little actually shot in Milwaukee. It was shot all over Wisconsin and all over like uh Northern Illinois. Yeah, yeah. But there's only like two little bits that are actually shot in Milwaukee. The Milwaukee County Historical Center. Yeah. And various downtown locations.
[10:19]Behind me is the building they used for the exterior of Kristen Wiig's apartment in the movie Bridesmaids. Years later, they recycled that exact same shot for the movie The Legend of Foggy Mountain by the comedy troop, please don't destroy. They're hilarious. Again, now that is Kristen Wig's character is is a Rube, uh who goes down to a more enlightened high society, elegant wedding in Chicago and she's just a Rube that lives off uh Kinnikinnick Avenue. As we call KK, up here in a filthy apartment building. I always wondered why they picked that apartment building. It's just like a random ass building. That's probably why. Because they they said they didn't film any of the movie in Milwaukee except for like a second unit crew clearly. The opening credits, there's a couple like uh helicopter shots of the city. She works at a jewelry store and they did get an actual establishing shot of a store. That was shot in Milwaukee, that establishing shot somewhere south of downtown. And then yeah, some random apartment building. They just picked it like why did why even bother? That's there's one of the Dahmer movies, the Jeremy Renner Dahmer movie, I had that same thought because that was also they didn't shoot any of it in Milwaukee except for a couple of establishing shots. And famously, of course, the Dahmer apartment building was torn down after everything happened. So they just found like some other dumpy apartment building up of Wisconsin Avenue and like 29th Street. Yeah, well, just shoot that. And it's like, why even come here to shoot that? Just shoot a dumpy apartment building in L.A. where you shot the rest of the movie. The Dahmer case, he he killed a lot of people and a lot of their family members still live here. And it's still even though, you know, it happened in the 90s, it's still a very sore spot for a lot of people, so, um, you know, a big Hollywood production coming here and just filming non-stop for weeks and weeks and weeks, filming buildings and Uh yeah, just uh You film a Transformers movie here, everybody gets excited. You have a guy walking around downtown just as Dahmer. Probably not. Because it it it is uh a black eye on the city. My friend Dahmer is only playing here in Milwaukee at the Time Cinema. Marcus Theaters was scheduled to show it, but changed their mind. We are a family-friendly environment and there are lots of great movies out this holiday season. We did not feel it was necessary to revisit this time in Milwaukee's history. For some reason in the early 2000s, there was a handful of like independent movies that were shot in Milwaukee. I don't know why, some of them weren't made by like Milwaukee locals. I don't know how they ended up being shot here. There's a movie called Lady in the Box that was primarily shot at uh Barnacle Buds, a little seafood place uh right on the river, just south of downtown. Uh there was a movie called Chump Change, which that guy was from Milwaukee. So they go to like the domes, they go to It's mostly just a montage of like Milwaukee bars. Uh but then there was a movie called Milwaukee, Minnesota, where I think the conceit is that people keep confusing Milwaukee, they think it's in Minnesota. And that was shot primarily in like Bay View, like the Southern just south of downtown. But uh yeah, they shot a bunch of Milwaukee, Minnesota at the the Palomino. Famous Palomino Bar, they used to shoot shot a little bit of feeding frenzy there. But yeah, just like a couple a handful of like indie movies that were shot here in the early 2000s and now nothing shoots here.
[13:58]Uh another mostly forgotten movie, but one that was kind of a big deal at the time it was being made is the Bernie Mac vehicle Mr. 3000. Uh and in that he plays for the Brewers. And so it's like I'm assuming they ended up having him it was probably written in a way where it could be any team in any city. And somehow they landed on shooting it in Milwaukee and having them play for the Brewers. He I don't I've never seen the film but from what I understand the promise is he's retired, but he wants to come back to hit his 3000th home run. He thought he did and immediately after he hit his 3000s he was at the top of his game, but he retired. He's like, I made it, I got my 3000s, I'm out. And then like nine years later, they discovered that it was miscounted. So he's like three short. So he has to start playing again to to hit his final three, but now he's old and out of shape. Uh the only thing even though it takes place in Milwaukee, the only thing shot here are the stadium scenes. Uh and there's a part because early on he retires, he makes his 3,000 home runs. And he just starts opening up businesses that are all tied in with him being Mr. 3000. But wait, there's more. And at one point they mention, he mentions that they're opening a new location in Waukesha County. Mmm. Which of course, anyone doesn't know, it's pronounced Waukesha. Located on peacock Street in Wakisha County. If you're making a movie set in Milwaukee, you think someone would bother to check the the pronunciation of the the nearby area, but he just calls it Wakisha and it's just in the movie. Bernie Max says that? Bernie Max says that. Bernie Max is a Chicago man. Yeah, he he would know. I know. He's a he's a Chicago native. Uh everybody that is in Milwaukee that has any interest in working on productions, worked on that film. As an extra, because they have all the scenes in the uh I still call it Miller Park, but now it's like the what is it? Family. Am Fam. The the Am Fam, The American Family Field. And they just needed to fill those stadiums. So they got tons and tons of locals.
[15:59]So anytime you would hold an audition for anything we would work on, people would show up with their resume and they always had Mr. 3000 on their resume. It's like person in crowd. Had he played for the Dodgers or uh the the Yankees. You know, those teams that always win. And uh then you you pick like a a heartwarming mid-western town that has character and soul and heart. And it's cheaper to get Bob Uecker. Bob Uecker's not in that movie. What? Bob Uecker is in the movie that was shot in Milwaukee but not set in Milwaukee. Uh the other famous sports movie, Major League. Just a bit outside. He tried the corner and missed. They're shitty. That was one I I hadn't seen it since it came out, I couldn't I knew that they shot it in Milwaukee, but I couldn't remember if it was based in Milwaukee, what the team was. It's funny you were talking earlier about Cleveland. That's the team in the movie is the Cleveland Indians. Set in Cleveland, shot in the old Milwaukee County Stadium. But they shot all the this must have been, they got a good deal on it before they tore down the old County Stadium, now where the uh Miller Park/Am Fam Stadium is. 1988 was the summer of movie magic in Milwaukee, and a chance for thousands of locals to pack the stadium and cheer for a team that didn't exist. I always wanted to say that I I've been an extra in a movie. They shot all the the home games, the Cleveland games at the Milwaukee Stadium. You can see County Stadium preserved on film forever in the seminal arthouse film Surviving Edged Weapons. Yes, yes. What the fuck do you want? I want to see your driver's license. What for? I was only a block from home, why don't you let me go? Speaking of sports movies, the classic comedy Baseketball takes place in Milwaukee. But they didn't film a single fucking frame of it here.
[18:19]They shot it all in Canada. Fuck you, Canada. Were now at the entrance to the Wisconsin State Fair Park. We're in the movie Song Sung Blue, we see Hugh Jackman performing. You think they filmed it in here? Yes. What are you stupid? Of course they didn't.
[18:55]Hello sailors, here we are on the shores of Lake Michigan, which does not have a large tropical island in the middle of it as Zack Snyder would have you think. No, this lake is just filled with human waste and Cryptosporidium.
[19:16]What is the most Milwaukee movie, as far as is like shot here, takes place here, has lots of uh memorable Milwaukee locations in it? American movie. Uh American movie was the big one for me until this recent discovery that we'll get into, but we can talk about American movie first, because that is probably the biggest one. Do you think this is a little bit cathartic for you? Uh, very cathartic, Mark. You know cathartic means? No. Uh and I look at it a little bit different because it's a documentary, it's not like a fictional thing that they had to scout locations. They just filmed Mark Borchart running around, making his movie. But that is, yeah, that's like the classic Milwaukee movie. In terms of the characters, the mindsets, the accents, the culture. America movie has the most Milwaukee flavor to it. Flavor. Yes, yes. Does he go to a fish fry? He doesn't go to a fish fry, no, but he drinks a whole lot.
[20:10]It's pronounced Kevin, man. What else could it be pronounced? Uh Coven. That's the proper pronunciation. No no. Coven sounds like oven, man and that's just it doesn't work.
[20:23]Here we are outside of Mitchell Hall on the UW Milwaukee campus. This is where the entirety of Mark Borchart's Coven was edited inside this building on very very outdated equipment. They're making a mockery out of my words, man. This whole thing has turned into a theatrical mockery. Do you understand that, Mike? No. Well, you will. I'm going to go in there flying, man, and read this fucker like it's supposed to be red because I've had it.
[20:54]I'll tell my American movie story. I think American movie is a great documentary, even like disconnecting our association to Milwaukee or whatever. It's just a really good documentary. Uh and it came out in like '99, it was like shortly after I moved to Milwaukee. And I don't know how I heard about it, someone said, hey, there's a premiere of this movie that was shot in Milwaukee at the Oriental Theater. So I went to the premiere of American movie. And before it started, uh Mike Shank, the his friend that helps him through out the film, comes and sits down next to me, but this is before the movie started, so I don't know who he was. He just sat next to me. And then the movie starts and I see Mike Shank on the screen. And I did like a double take, it's like, oh, hey. But then like 10 minutes into the movie, 15 minutes into the movie, Mike Shank got up and he left, and I assume he was like going to the bathroom or something, but then he just never came back. They did the Q&A after the movie, Mark Borchart was up there. Mike Shank was just nowhere to be seen. I don't know what happened to him. I know what happened to him. I know what happened to him. Who knows? We used to uh do a lot of partying together, but I don't party anymore. I have to mention the biggest surprise in all of this. Not including American movie, which is a documentary, the most Milwaukee movie I've ever seen. And I didn't even know it existed until doing my research for this. And it's a made for CBS TV movie from the mid-90s called Family of Cops. I thought I looked at it, I was like, this has to be written by someone from Milwaukee, because not just the locations, but it's crammed with so many references. For the last 20 years, I've been asking you if we can make you a birthday party and you say, well, maybe when the Brewers win the pendant, so what did I miss a parade down Wisconsin Avenue? When did you move to the Third Ward? You don't miss Milwaukee even a little. We get that weekend in the Wisconsin Dells. That's a great idea. Then maybe we can go to Summerfest. No. It didn't ever most represent Jeffrey Dahmer. No. There was a murder the other night on Wisconsin Avenue. What do you think you are, hanging out in bathrooms? The Fons.
[23:36]So this wins. This wins the most Milwaukee movie, not in terms of flavor like we were talking about American movie, like those are very Milwaukee characters in that film. But as far as locations, uh lots of downtown stuff. The uh the precinct that they're at, the cop I don't think it's ever explained in the movie, but they keep calling it the brewery. Call the brewery. Tell them there's been a homicide. That's like the nickname for their precinct. And it wouldn't make sense to anyone that doesn't know the area, but they they shot it. They show the exteriors of the precinct and it's it's one of the Pap's buildings on like the Pap's brewery kind of area. Yeah yeah yeah. So that's why they call it the brewery, but if you didn't know that, if you're not in the Milwaukee area, you just wonder why do they keep calling their precinct the brewery? It's just like their nickname for it, and it's never explained. I hate Milwaukee.
[24:29]Every like eight to 10 years, we'll get a big production like with the Transformers movie or Mr. 3000. And whenever that happens, there's always every like local newspaper is the same headline, which is like, will Milwaukee be the next Hollywood of the Midwest? Sad. And it never happens. I do see in my in my searches, I I I have come across many Wisconsin Milwaukee themed like movies, usually they're like heartwarming, like dramas or you know, movies like that. The the the major Hollywood big budget movies are are kind of shrinking and then the the indie Fandango wasteland is expanding. Yeah. So it's like if a movie movie is filmed here, you know, for a a low budget under a million dollars, it's some say it's not as big of a deal as if Transformers shows up here. But there also used to be a thing that doesn't exist anymore where it's like wherever a movie takes place, they would just shoot it there. I I I saw an interview with uh Anthony Michael Hall and he was talking about the original Vacation.
[25:53]You literally went on the road. Yeah, literally the whole crew went on that well half of vacation across the country, it was incredible. So we did three shots, three stops rather in Colorado. Then we went to Arizona and then we made our way back to L.A. So you see all these like different locations throughout the movie, they're in the desert, they start in Chicago. And that and productions used to just do that. And now like something like Bridesmaids, like they didn't actually film any of that in Milwaukee. You know, you film all of it in L.A. or you film it in Toronto. Sound stages. Sound stages and then you just get like a a barebones crew to get some establishing shots of buildings. So like the the way productions work and it makes sense because that is expensive to travel everybody around like that. But they used to do it, and now that doesn't happen anymore.
