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Until watching this movie last night, I did not realize that Stone used an SMU basketball game and Moody as a backdrop of one of his few location scenes of the movie. A lot of SMU fans and players making cameo appearances. Scene where Barry (the Howard Stern Shock Jock Character) is helping to announce the new SMU head football coach post death penalty (movie filmed in 1987).

Anyone who was around at the time of the filming who knows more about this?

I have read a lot about the Born on 4th of July movie, which Stone filmed two years later at SMU, but never knew about the SMU / Talk Radio connection.

And - Dallas historians - was there really a local Dallas late night Shock Jock that this movie was based on?

BTW - movie was pretty weak and boring. Watched as it was one of the only Oliver Stone flicks I had not seen before.

A friend did some (maybe intern?) work with the production of Talk Radio, and got a handful of us a spot in the crowd at the basketball game in Moody. The only direction we got was the occasional request to "look this direction and yell." We spent a few hours at Moody and were convinced we all were headed toward careers as Hollywood stars. We were wrong.

When Born on the Fourth of July was filmed, many of the scenes presented in the movie as being at Syracuse were shot at SMU. The Daily Campus ran a big story about a Tom Cruise movie being shot on campus, and at least one of the local TV stations did a piece on it. When walking back to my dorm one night, someone approached me and asked if I'd walk back and forth a few times to be "one of the students in the background." I did, and saw myself in the theater. Years later, a friend was watching it at home and I assured him "my scene was coming up" ... but apparently I got edited out of the video (or TV?) version. I can only assume it was because Cruise felt overshadowed and his ego couldn't take the inevitable comparisons.

PonyPride wrote:I can only assume it was because Cruise felt overshadowed and his ego couldn't take the inevitable comparisons.

Apparently PonyPride was aptly named.

I don't know what you're talking about.

I just meant I'm taller than he is.

So is our Golden Retriever.

Ha!

I would have dunked on Cruise. I looked it up: he's listed at 5'7" ... which means he's really what ... 5'4"?

No way you can dunk.

It was a long day of shooting at Moody. They had a cattle call for extras to be fans that I think they advertised on the radio. I think they promised them lunch which ended up being hot dogs in the Dedman Center garage. They had a pretty good turn out.

They used actual uniforms, but not actual players. I think both SMU & NTSU were SMU intramural teams.

They also hired the Mustang Band and spirit squads to be on hand. We stood around a lot and didn’t do much except be in the background for a few shots. Several times during breaks, the band played just to break the boredom and the crowd really loved that.

As the human Peruna, I was actually in one scene and received direction from the great Oliver Stone. He said he saw me working the crowd and wanted to get it into a scene, but it didn’t make it into the final cut.

Fun story - they told the crowd (and the cheer squad) to go eat in the garage. We saw that line & said no way. They had a catering truck parked outside what is now the entrance to the Miller Center & we walked up there in uniform like we knew what we were doing & had steak for lunch.

Peruna88 wrote:Fun story - they told the crowd (and the cheer squad) to go eat in the garage. We saw that line & said no way. They had a catering truck parked outside what is now the entrance to the Miller Center & we walked up there in uniform like we knew what we were doing & had steak for lunch.

Brilliant. Well done, 88.

I was so sure I saw Peruna88 in the movie, I went back to check...

Right there - behind our fake AD (who may have been a better choice for AD than our real one). If you blink you would have missed it though...

Also loved the guy with the SMU Football '87 tee shirt..
.

Ha! I'd forgotten about that shirt.

PonyTime wrote:I was so sure I saw Peruna88 in the movie, I went back to check...

Right there - behind our fake AD (who may have been a better choice for AD than our real one). If you blink you would have missed it though...

Haha! Yes, I did make the background. But they had a scene where I actively went up and shook hands with the Eric Bogosian character. That was cut.