By JAKE COYLE AP Film Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — A quarter of a century is a long time for mustache rides and syrup binges, but “Super Troopers” has gotten a lot of mileage out of the simple joys of friends goofing around.
The comedy troupe Broken Lizard, a group of college buddies who began performing together at Colgate University, broke through with 2001’s “Super Troopers.” Made for less than $3 million, the movie cast Jay Chandrasekhar (who directed), Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter and Erik Stolhanske as a group of juvenile Vermont state troopers. A then-Emmy-less Brian Cox played their cantankerous chief.
The movie became an unlikely cult hit, making many times over what it made in theaters ($23 million) on VHS and DVD. Roger Ebert begrudgingly called it “the kind of movie that makes you want to like it.”
Not all movies look like they were fun to make, but “Super Troopers” did. For Broken Lizard, the difference between the movie and the blooper reel is almost nonexistent. It’s like they’re living out the dream of every group of funny college pals.
“We talk about that being almost like the special sauce in the movies. You can’t fake 30 years of friendship. Even the best actors can’t do it,” Soter says before his fellow members make him question that declaration.
“OK, maybe Al Pacino could fake it.”
Broken Lizard has kept at it, making half a dozen other movies. In the intervening years, big-screen comedy has grown all but dead, so it hasn’t always been easy. They resorted to crowdfunding to help finance 2018’s “Super Troopers 2.”
But with “Super Troopers 3,” which Searchlight Pictures will release Aug. 7, they’re back again in aviator sunglasses, broad-brimmed hats and, of course, mustaches. Alongside big-budget blockbusters like “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” and “The Odyssey,” “Super Troopers 3” will try to hold onto its narrow stretch of highway.
“It’s kind of a show-business miracle to be able to make eight or nine movies with your friends from college,” says Chandrasekhar. “We certainly never thought it could get this far.”
A comedy franchise built on speeding tickets
“Super Troopers” wasn’t the first movie Broken Lizard made. In 1996, they released “Puddle Cruiser,” a comedy shot entirely on Colgate’s campus. It didn’t get distribution, so their only real hope for “Super Troopers” was that it play somewhere, anywhere. Around then, the quintet was performing in New York and touring college campuses. Road trips inspired the movie.
“We were getting pulled over a lot. You talk a lot of smack when you see the cops,” Lemme says. “But the second they pull up to the car, you’re immediately in butt-kissing mode. We always wondered what the cops were thinking, if they knew how much power they had over us and how much they could screw with us.”
One of the movie’s most famous scenes featured two patrolmen (Lemme and Soter) pulling over a then-little-known Jim Gaffigan. During the course of giving him a ticket, they play a game where one has to say “meow” 10 times in place of “now.” Over the years, they’ve heard countless stories of everyone from police officers to pilots doing the same.
“My friend is a pilot for United Airlines and he said the aviation radio communication system is just drowning in meows,” Chandrasekhar says.
“Super Troopers,” the group has come to realize, has filtered into culture as much through traffic stops as streaming services. Sometimes, it’s been to their benefit.
“I once got pulled over doing 120 miles per hour. The cop looked in the window. He said, ‘Mister, do you have any idea how fast you … Super Troopers?!'” recalls Lemme, laughing. “At the end, he brought over his ticket book and asked me for a photo and an autograph. His hands were trembling. I signed the ticket book, and made sure I didn’t sign on the dotted line. We took selfies by the side of the road.”
Maple syrup and mustaches
The guys of Broken Lizard are all now in their late 50s, but little of their dynamic has changed. In character, they playfully rag on each other — especially Heffernan’s loud-mouthed Rodney Farva — but with an affection immediately recognizable to a certain kind of acerbic friend group.
That was true, too, over a recent interview by Zoom. Broken Lizard was in the middle of a cross-country promotional tour. (One stop included interrupting a Limp Bizkit concert, to register a noise complaint.)
“We have families and our own lives and stuff, and when we come together it’s like summer camp,” Heffernan says.
Twenty-five years of “Super Troopers” has meant a lot of months in mustaches. They usually shave them right away but have to grow them back for marketing the release. “The studio,” says Heffernan, “thinks the mustaches are the stars of the movie.”
Living with “Super Troopers” has other, stranger legacies. The first film memorably included a maple syrup chugging race. That, they all agree, they’re too old for now.
“We’ve only done it once since,” says Chandrasekhar, shaking his head. “It’s not a good idea. It’s not a healthy choice.”
“We’ll go and do things like interviews or talk shows,” Lemme adds. “You walk in the room and every now and then you see a few bottles of maple syrup and your heart starts to sink.”
Turning a cult hit into a trilogy
In “Super Troopers 3,” times have also changed. The station gets their first electric police car, a development that figures surprisingly centrally to the plot. Capt. John O’Hagen (Cox) is struggling with retirement. Cox is returning to “Super Troopers” — one of his most randomly delightful screen credits — after his acclaimed run on HBO’s “Succession.”
“He brings gravitas, and what’s great about that is it makes us more absurd and silly because we’ve got a real actor in the room,” says Soter. “We feel like idiots because we can barely hit our marks, and he’s super professional. It makes us end up being like goofy kids.”
But the main storyline is, for Chandrasekhar’s Arcot “Thorny” Ramathorn, a diabolical development: His sister, Sarita (Hannah Simone), falls in love with Farva. As the two begin to plan a wedding, Thorny does whatever he can to sabotage the relationship.
“There’s love all over this movie,” says Lemme. “This is the most loving movie we’ve ever made.”
But it remains endlessly surprising to the Broken Lizard gang that “Super Troopers” has had the kind of life it has.
“George Lucas didn’t conceive of making a trilogy when he made ‘Star Wars,’ but it did very well, as did ‘Super Troopers,'” Lemme says. “So here we are making a trilogy.”
“We’re trying to bring back good old-fashioned R-rated American theatrical comedy. That’s sort of the mission here,” Chandrasekhar says.
Broken Lizard has sometimes mocked Hollywood’s sequel baiting. At the end of 2006’s “Beerfest,” they teased a fake follow-up, “Potfest,” that fans have continually asked about. Similarly, “Super Troopers 3” ends with a tag for a fourth movie.
“We’re kind of kidding, but maybe we’re not?” Lemme says.
“‘NYPD Blue’ made 250 episodes of their show, so we can do at least four or five of these little cop shows,” says Chandrasekhar, smiling.
“Yeah, and the ‘One Piece’ manga, they’ve done a thousand episodes,” Lemme says. “We’re going to do a thousand ‘Super Troopers’ movies.”