We somehow missed it, but last Sunday was Kevin Heffernan’s 46th birthday. (I wrote this with a bar of soap in my mouth out of shame.) The occasion really just gave me a reason to spend the afternoon watching “best of Farva” clips online and reading up on the — fingers crossed — soon-to-be Super Troopers sequel.
So in honor of our favorite psycho Statey, here are 10 facts you might not know about the Broken Lizard cult classic, Super Troopers. (Feel free to chug some syrup as you read along.)
1. The couple that Farva cursed at were his parents. Kevin Heffernan’s parents were aware their son was going to curse at them, but they didn’t know the insult would be “chicken f*cker.”
2. That’s actual syrup that the guys chugged. As told by Erik Stolhanske to Reddit, it was indeed actual syrup that they chugged for the famous scene:
“Originally the prop woman had iced tea in the bottles, but it didn’t have that glug, glug, glug thick look when we chugged it… so Jay and I said ‘we gotta do the real thing’ – then went into a diabetic coma on a dark floor while everyone else enjoyed their lunch.”
3. The bar of soap was sugar-free white chocolate. The props master had originally used a bar of white chocolate for the soap look-a-like. A new bar of sugar-free white chocolate had to be secured when Brian Cox revealed he was diabetic just before biting into the original.
4. Steve Lemme was verbally abused by actual convicts. The “bullet-proof cup” scene was filmed outside an actual prison with Steve Lemme wearing just a cup. Off-camera the prisoners had gathered in the yard to watch the filming and began yelling at Lemme.
5. The film idea came about after Jay Chandrasekhar was pulled over for speeding. As told to Reddit and the A.V. Club by Erik Stolhanske and Paul Stoler, the idea behind the movie happened after witnessing Jay Chandrasekhar’s metamorphosis into a wimp after being pulled over by a trooper:
“After college, we went to a lot of our friends’ weddings, so we were spending a lot of time in cars together, and naturally getting pulled over. We all thought it was funny how we would all pretend to be bad-asses, talking trash and all the braggadocio, and then you get pulled over and the cop comes up to the car, and your demeanor immediately changes to that of a pussy. You’re like, “Oh, sure, yes, officer. I’ll do that. Right away.” We just thought it’d be funny how easily cops could fuck with people if they had a sense of humor.”
6. Erik Stolhanske was originally supposed to play the character of Rod Farva. Stolhanske was originally in the Farva role, but had already played the “outrageous guy” in Broken Lizard’s previous film, Puddle Cruiser. Stolhanske wanted to play a character that was the opposite from his previous role and gave the part over to Kevin Heffernan.
7. The troopers bloodshot eyes weren’t due to smoking marijuana. In order to achieve the red-eyed look of the troopers while they were smoking and watching the Johnny Chimpo cartoon, the makeup artist smoked a menthol cigarette and blew the smoke in their faces.
8. Brian Cox asked Broken Lizard if he could be in the film. You don’t normally associate dramatic actors like Brian Cox with indie stoner comedies, but according to Jay Chandrasekhar, Cox wanted a change from the heavier roles he was taking and reached out to them:
“He actually called us. He’s always playing parts like pedophiles and Nazi generals and nasty people, and he’s a big Jerry Lewis fan, and thinks he’s got that bone in him. He’s been looking for a comedy to do, and he kept contacting us and contacting us, and he turned out to be amazing.”
9. The snow cone that Foster took on the head was nearly a solid chunk of ice. There was supposed to be a mid-scene switch to replace the hardened snow cone with a much softer one, but on several takes this did not happen and Paul Soter took the hardened piece of ice directly on the head.
10. Super Troopers 2 will hopefully begin filming later this year. Rumors of the highly anticipated sequel have been floating around for a couple years now, and it looks like the production wheels will finally start spinning later this year. Kevin Heffernan and Steve Lemme told the Nerdist back in April that everything was in its place, they just needed to raise the financing:
“The script is written, the deal has been agreed on with the studio, we are in the stage though where we need to raise the financing,” said Lemme. “We’re probably talking about shooting later this year is what the plan is,” added Heffernan. “It’s a matter of people’s schedules and getting the financing rolling where it needs to roll to.”