I put Bernie behind me when I moved to LA. I'd been out here a few months, when I met Dave, read his book, and I realized Dave's book was written by Bernie. Not only did Bernie exist in reality, but he was far more funny and more imaginative than anything I could have thought of. Because I did Bernie for something like 500 shows, I knew Dave's beats.

I went down to Alabama where Dave lived, met his wife, to you know, present myself. Dave liked my journalism credentials and we got along, so he agreed to do the movie, even though they'd done a million of them, but he was into it.

I knew I had to meet Dan, but from Dave's book, his business partner Dan seemed like a really nasty son of a bitch. I was really scared to meet him. I knew he was in LA somewhere, I just didn't know where.

A few months after I went to Alabama, a very dear friend of mine from radio back east had moved out west and lived 3 blocks down from me called me up and said "Hey you know that guy you went to meet in Alabama, in the exploitation business? Well, my landlord was in that business. His name's Dan Sonney." I said, "Dan Sonney's your landlord?" She said "Yes, and I told him about you, he lives down the street and he wants to meet you." He found me. I walked down my street, knocked on the door, and Dan was waiting for me.

I immediately fell in love with him. He was just like the grandfather I don't have anymore. He was so cool. Where you going to meet an 86 year old guy who's funny and cool? And he was a rascal. I just loved him.

We became very dear friends in the last couple of years. We played cards every week. He went out owing me about $25. About two weeks before he died, I said "Well, damn what if I get ahead here?" He said, "give it to my wife." He was the luckiest guy. He always got what he wanted.

Once I had the two guys, it was like "oh man I gotta do this." They were quintessentially the odd couple. Then I was really on the spot. I had it, and then I had to figure out how to shoot it. It was another year before I figured out how to shoot it with DV cams finally emerging and taking a chance against everybody's advice, to shoot with it. Nobody was doing it yet. And that's how I did it in 1998.

I went ahead and took a shot, and did it before I negotiated the rights to the films. I thought if I got held up on the movies, I could get them on camera, and become friends with them, and then say "look guys, I need a deal. There's no money in this business. I'm not NBC." It was all serendipity. It was all "Just believe, just go for it, give it a shot," and it all worked out.