When Bill Murray’s Brother Played The Bill Murray Part In A Forgotten ‘80s Comedy

John Murray in the 1985 comedy MOVING VIOLATIONS

International superstar, and the most beloved SNL veteran ever, Bill Murray has five brothers, some of whom you may know of. Firstly, there’s Brian Doyle Murray, who also had a stint on SNL, and appeared with his brother in several movies including CADDYSHACK, SCROOGED, and GROUNDHOG DAY. Then there’s Joel Murray, who has appeared on many TV shows including Mad Men, Shameless, and Dharma & Greg, and in many films including ONE CRAZY SUMMER, GOD BLESS AMERICA, and THE ARTIST.

Thirdly, there’s the late Ed Murray, who while not an actor is cited as the inspiration for CADDYSHACK, and appeared in a 2009 documentary about the classic film. Fourth, there’s Andy Murray, a chef who co-founded and runs Murray Brothers Caddyshack sports bar and grill, which has locations in St. Augustine and Rosemount.

But while his siblings have ridden on Bill’s coattails to varying degrees, only one brother has imitated the comic actor’s presence so blatantly. That would be his fifth brother, John Murray, who in 1985 starred in a long forgotten comedy entitled MOVING VIOLATIONS, in which he aped nearly all of his older brothers’ moves.

The film was directed by Neal Israel, who has the given the world such crappy comedies as AMERICATHON, BACHELOR PARTY, and COMBAT ACADEMY. Israel co-wrote it with Pat Proft, also a beacon of quality, who co-wrote POLICE ACADEMY, HIGH SCHOOL HIGH, MR. MAGOO, and WRONGFULLY ACCUSED (his lone directorial effort), but at least did contribute to some decent comic work such as the NAKED GUN series.

The premise of MOVING VIOLATIONS is pretty typical for an ‘80s us-versus-them scenario in which a group of misfits go up against the evil establishment, or more accurately one particular individual, in this case a cold, corrupt cop played by James Keach (acting legend Stacy’s brother – hmm, a theme?). 

Keach presides over a Los Angeles traffic school classroom of goofballs, who’ve all had their licenses revoked, led by John Murray’s (will just call him John from now on) wisecracking character, whose every single utterance, facial expression, and display of physical energy summons the spirit of his brother, Bill.

I can imagine Director Israel saying “That last take was great, John, but can you really Bill it up on the next one?”

Many scenes feel like slight re-writes of scenes from MEATBALLS, STRIPES, and GHOSTBUSTERS, which came out the previous year, most likely when MOVING VIOLATIONS was in production. John’s co-opting of his brothers’ showbiz speak, his smarmy charm, and penchant for mock inspirational speeches is shameless, but what’s funny (even if the film largely isn’t) is that often his shtick works. John does look and sound a lot like Bill, and when he says such lines like “You guys are nutty!” one can almost buy the conceit. Almost.

MOVING VIOLATIONS, which also featured Jennifer Tilly, Sally Kellerman, Fred Willard, Wendi Jo Sperber, and a cameo by Clara Peller (at the height of “Where’s the Beef” mania!), unsurprisingly flopped, and after a brief run on cable (that’s where I first saw it) disappeared and was never mentioned again until this blog post. Okay, that’s not true - I’m sure Bill brings it up to needle his brother at family gatherings.

John never headlined a movie again. He has a fair amount of credits on his IMDb page, but they are mostly small parts with no character names – for example, he appears in ELF as “Man in Elevator” (he doesn't even have his own Wikipedia page!) 

His first role after MOVING VIOLATIONS was in SCROOGED, which, in a primo case of typecasting, he played his brother Bill’s brother (John also had a miniscule part in CADDYSHACK, so it wasn’t the first time his brother threw him a bone).

Putting aside all this brotherly love, the icing on the cake that is MOVING VIOLATIONS is that it features the big screen debut of Don Cheadle, credited as “Juicy Burgers Worker.”

Or maybe that was his brother.

BTW: MOVING VIOLATIONS isn’t available streaming (that I could find anyway), but the whole movie is on YouTube for free. You’re welcome.

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Fred Willard: A Film Babble Blog Tribute

Last weekend, comedy great, and lovable goofball, Fred Willard passed away at the age of 86.

Willard, who specialized in playing characters that were oblivious doofuses, was a reliably hilarious presence in many TV shows and movies including Fernwood 2 Night, Real People, The History of White People in America, ROXANNE, Roseanne, King of the Hill, Everybody Loves Raymond (three Emmy nominations), ANCHORMAN, Modern Family (one Emmy nomination), WALL-E and, oddly, The Bold and the Beautiful (a Daytime Emmy win).

That is an extremely incomplete overview of his rich career (go to IMDb for his complete credits and you’ll scroll on and on), especially since I was saving for now his wonderful run in the seminal series of Christopher Guest comedies WAITING FOR GUFFMAN (1996), BEST IN SHOW (2000), A MIGHTY WIND (2003), and FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION (2003), and MASCOTS (2016).

Although it was a Rob Reiner film, I consider THIS IS SPINAL TAP (1984) to be the first of these largely improvised films as it features a number of the cast members that would appear in one of more of the later movies - Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Ed Begley Jr., Paul Benedict, and Willard.

From his role as Jerry Hubbard (his doltish Ed McMahon to Martin Mull’s Johnny Carson – the smarmy AF Barth Gimble) on the ‘70s talk show spoof Fernwood 2 Night (later changed to America 2-Night), in would be easy to assume that Willard was a straight man in these films. This is untrue as you can see in this clip from SPINAL TAP in which he steals the movie from its stars as Lt. Bob Hookstratten:

Willard has less than two minutes of screen-time in the comedy classic, but that was just enough for him to make a mark while Spinal Tap themselves fall into the background. In a way, despite that they said very little, his co-stars in that scene are his straight men.

Willard had a much larger role in WAITING FOR GUFFMAN as Ron Albertson, a travel agent who’s never left his hometown of Blaine. Willard’s Ron is an aspiring entertainer along with his wife Sheila, and in a great scene they encounter Eugene Levy as Dr. Allen Pearl, also an amateur performer in line to audition for a show put on by director Corky St. Clair (Guest).

Showing off his improv skills, Willard quickly fires off a string of wisecracks aimed at Levy’s dental profession: “Give it your best shot. It won’t be the first shot you ever gave - hope it doesn’t leave Corky numb like most of us - it’s like pulling teeth to get a discount from him - hey, why don’t you give some caramels to the little girl - future customers, Doc!” During this bit on the DVD commentary, Guest and Levy talk about being very impressed with this run. 

“I had no choice but to let go and surrender to Fred’s will - to the point of letting him talk me into wearing those sad, unattractive track suits in our audition scene when I just wanted to look good for one second in the movie. I couldn’t say no.” - Catherine O’Hara 

Willard’s next performance in a Guest film is one of his most memorable, dog show announcer Buck Laughlin in BEST IN SHOW.

Buck doesn’t appear until 45 minutes into the film, but once he appears he all but takes over the movie with such screwy color commentary as “I went to one of those obedience places once... it was all going well until they spilled hot candle wax on my private parts,” and “to think that in some countries these dogs are eaten.”

Even though Willard’s part in A MIGHTY WIND was much smaller, but again he stole the show. He played the bleached blond manager of The New Main Street Singers, who once appeared in a sitcom called Wha’ Happened? I’ll let him tell you the story: 

Not being a regular viewer, I was unaware the Willard made a lot of appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. Kimmel paid homage to the man earlier this week and presented a montage of Willard’s work on the program which you can watch here, and a second segment in which Willard’s celebrity friends share memories of working with him.

To get a great sense of Willard’s comic talent and as just a friendly guy you would want to hang with, I highly recommend this compilation of his guest shots on Late Night with Letterman, and The Late Show with David Letterman from 1982-2007: 

There are way too many great moments in the career of Mr. Willard to recount here – these are just a few of my favorites. I’ll leave you with this achievement that I haven’t seen mentioned in many obits: Willard was the one and only live action actor to appear in a Pixar movie. He played Shelby Forthright, the CEO of the Buy-N-Large Corporation, in WALL-E (2008). 

That’s pretty damn cool. 

R.I.P. Fred Willard 

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