Wine and Music: THE RETURN OF BRUNO by Bruce Willis (1987)

WINE TRIVIA QUESTION OF THE WEEK

What does the word "dry" mean in terms of wine? When Someone says "This wine is dry," they are referring to:

• A) The dry feeling it leaves in your mouth
• B) The level of bitterness or astringency in the wine
• C) The level of sugar in the wine
• D) The level of alcohol in the wine

Answer by "Sending us a Text" (above, and put your name in the text!) or leave a comment on this episode, or send us an email at vintertainmentstudios[at]gmail[dot]com

We will reveal the answer at the top of next week's episode!

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In this week's episode we cover one of the ultimate vanity projects to ever come out of Hollywood and the music industry: Bruce Willis 1987 THE RETURN OF BRUNO.

This was one year prior to Willis starring in DIE HARD and become an action icon. At the time, he was known for playing his harmonica in the TV show MOONLIGHTING and not much else!

Music Producer Robert Kraft who assembled a murderer's row of talent to backup Willis including The Pinter Sisters and The Temptations! You can read the DIFFUSER article mentioned in the pod HERE.

HBO release a 1 hour Mockumentary Special showing "Bruno" as a long-lost legend of the musical scene, making his comeback in the new album. 

You can watch the HBO Special HERE.

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THE WINES (AI-free search links!)

Vermut Flores Rose Vermouth, 100% Tannat, Uruguay

Graham's 20 Year Tawny Port

Chapters

• 2:27 Wine Trivia Question of the Week
• 4:36 Bruce Willis Had an Album in 1987?
• 8:41 Bruce Willis Pre-DIE HARD
• 11:08 Graham's 20 Year Tawny Port - What is "Tawny" Port, Specifically??
• 21:53 Vermut Flores Rose Vermouth, 100% Tannat, Uruguay - VermVut!
• 30:08 Let's Talk About This Album
• 45:33 The HBO Mockumentary Special (link in Episode Description)
• 1:00:05 Outtakes

Transcript

0:00

I'm Bruce with us. uh That's how sound. That's right. It really is actually. It's like I'm doing the old black man voice. I'm doing the blues He's Dave and I'm Dallas and this is Ventertainment. We have opinions on just about everything. Sometimes those opinions are spot on. Sometimes they go down easier with a glass of wine. This is Ventertainment, the wine and entertainment pairing podcast. Welcome back to another wine and entertainment pairing for your entertainment. This is the podcast where we delude ourselves into thinking you want to hear what we have to say about different pieces of pop culture and art. But we know for a fact that you need to hear what we have to say about wine, because man, wine is complicated. We know what we like, but we rarely know why. So what better way to learn about that than by comparing different wines to different types of entertainment and comparing how they both hit us and affect us the way that they do. I'm Dave, a WSET Level 3 certified one, a professional. And I'm Dallas, a professional writer and world builder. And together we discuss wine in terms of structure, flavor profile, and the stories behind them, all couched in terms of how well they may or may not go with certain kinds of entertainment. And we also discuss creative works in terms of mood, theme, artistic intention, and poetic notion all couched in terms of how well they may or may not pair with specific wines. Because whether you're talking about wine or entertainment, you get the most out of either when you have an adventurous spirit, an open mind, explore different corners of what an art form has to offer. Wine itself is an art form, its history and culture in a glass, and in most cases, a winemaker's passion. Just as entertainment is history, culture, and an artist's passion on a page, screen, or record, which is why they go so goddamn well together. Now. New thing, everybody, wine trivia question of the week. We're going to ask this up front here this week. We will not reveal the answer until next week. And everyone can try and answer this question in between. And we will answer this question at the top of the next episode. But wine trivia question of the week. What does the term dry mean in terms of wine? When someone says this wine is dry, What are they referring to? Is it A, the dry feeling it leaves in your mouth, B, the level of bitterness in a wine, C, the level of sugar in a wine, or D, the level of alcohol in a wine? Now we will have this written down in the description of this episode below, whatever podcast platform you're listening to this on. So you can, if you need to hear that again or read that again, you can look down below and leave a comment on wherever you are consuming this, or you can use the send us a text link, which will be down below as well on most platforms. We release this, distribute this podcast through Buzzsprout that allows us to put the send us a text link. It doesn't work on every single platform under the sun, but most of them it seems to. So you can send us a text directly from your phone. It does not give us your phone number, never fear. It just sends us a text to our Buzzsprout through your phone texting app. It will send a message to our Buzzsprout inbox and we can see that. um And we will call it, or you can send us an email at entertainmentstudios.com. Use any of those methods, send us a message. guess which of these four possible answers is the correct answer. And we will let everyone know what the correct answer is at the top of next week. If there are only a few people that get this correct, we will even shout you out, hey, hey, hey. um If there's like 100 people to get this answer right, no. We're just gonna edit that out and we're just gonna move on. Now, let's get to the work of... quote unquote entertainment that we're discussing here today. Dallas. oh So today you say you wanted a vanity project to go with your of entertainment. Well, sit back and settle in for a doozy. This year, Bruce Willis turned 70 and it's also May, which happens to be his most frequent film release month with Die Hard with the Vengeance, The Fifth Element, Hudson Hawk, Survive the Night and Vendetta all being released within the fifth month of the calendar year. And so today to honor one of the silver screen's most charismatic performers, we are shining a spotlight. on the one and only Bruce Willis, the musician. Every evolving performer, Willis got his musical start on stage in high school theatrical performance and eventually joined a band called Loose Goose, great name by the way, as the harmonica player. All of that and a little well-timed mid-80s stardom would eventually result in the release of Bruce Willis' 1987 album, The Return of Bruno. Why Bruno? We're gonna discuss that. Why not the return of Bruce? That's a question, right? We will discuss that. No, I did want to say two things. One, the fifth element coming out on the fifth month of the calendar year. Clever. I like that. And there is actually a band now called Goose, which is an excellent band. Everyone should go listen to them. Loose Goose? No idea. I'm gonna have to Spotify that now. R &B band. played harmonica for him. Who knows, right? Interesting, interesting. But before we get started, as always, please be sure to hit that follow or subscribe button if you have not done so already. That sincerely helps this podcast grow. Also, especially if you're already a subscriber and so completely useless to us in that regard, do this instead. Recommend us to a friend or family member, anyone you think who will like deep dives into movies, TV, books, comics and or music all matched with wine and wine education. And hey, don't just follow this podcast. Also follow us and interact with us on Shubstack. Just head to entertainmentstudios.com where you'll find all our podcast episodes broken down by subject matter, articles on wine and entertainment, bonus pairings, interactive polls, chats, and pairing directories covering all the wine and entertainment pairings we've ever done. Once again, broken down by subject matter and updated weekly. Now some of this is only available to paid subscribers. of our sub stack. that's a great segue to mention that you can support this podcast by heading over to sub stack and going paid. That is just two bucks a month, which gets you access to everything that is less than a co-fi or co-fi, however you pronounce that coffee. And they're like, buy me a coffee. That's three bucks. This is two bucks, just two bucks a month. And you can quote unquote, buy us a coffee, whatever you want, however you want to think about it, two bucks a month or $19 and 60 cents per year. And for the big spenders out there, you can also become a founding member for 50 bucks per year. That is a brand new offering we've switched on, which gets you a shout out on every single episode going forward and even allows you to commission an episode, one episode per year, telling us which movie, TV show, book, album or comic you want us to cover. That is $50 a month on Substack. Go check it out if that sounds interesting. That is VentertainmentStudios.com. We hope to see you there, even if you don't want to throw money at us like the cheap hookers that we are. All right, Dallas, tell our listeners about this music album, the first of only two ever released by the one and only Bruce freaking Willis. Speaking at number 14 on the US Billboard 200 charts and with the lead single duet featuring the one and only June Pointer, entitled Respect Yourself, today's focus for pairing is Bruce Willis' 1987 debut album, The Return of Bruno. Recorded on Motown Records and including a solid team of collaborators, it was released in January and would go on to perform modestly in both the US and the UK. This was 1987, so this was a year before Willis would break out big as an action star in the movie Die Hard. Up to this point, Willis was mostly known for starring in the TV show Moonlighting, a show that ran a full five seasons, by the way, something I don't think I ever quite realized before landing the lead role in the rom-com Blind Date in 1987, the same year as when this album dropped. So Willis. was in fact a very late consideration for the role of John McClane in Die Hard. He was known as a rom-com star, and a comedy star, not an action hero. I think most people realize that, but it's funny because 1987, late into the 80s, I forget that Die Hard was 88 all the time. I forget it was that late into the 80s. I always think it was more formative than that. And nope, it was 88. It was late into the 80s. So in fact, The role of John McClane originally called for an older man in his 60s. That's right. We have Brewing coming up in the future, a book versus movie episode about Die Hard. Did you even know it was based on a book? And not just any book, a sequel book. So first, we will actually be tackling the first novel, which was adapted into its own movie called The Detective starring Frank Sinatra. So that's gonna be its own book versus movie episode. And then later we're gonna jump into the sequel novel and compare it to the Die Hard movie, which fun fact they wanted Frank Sinatra to come back and play the role of the character was not named John McClane. They changed that name for the Die Hard movie, but the character that became John McClane, Sinatra was going to play him in the movie that eventually they had a script and it eventually became Die Hard. um because they wanted him to come back and play the same character he had played in the detective movie. So look for both those book versus movie episodes coming in the near future as we now call them ventrification episodes. We just dropped our six feet under ventrification where we compared the script of the pilot versus the actual aired pilot. And then the book versus movie will be another version of that where it's not the script versus movie, but the book versus movie. That'll be one of our ventrification uh fun times. Now, Before we jump any further into this album, The Return of Bruno, what are we drinking to go with this album? Let's talk about it. Let's tell you about these wines, what they are. So then we can tell you why as we talk about the album um and keep matching it back to the wines and why we decided to pair what we did. So Dallas, what do you got for us? What are you pairing with Return of Bruno? for those of you who don't know, and we will actually get into this a bit in the episode. uh Bruce Willis, because of the success of moonlighting, which again, we will touch bases on later, he uh got a great brand sponsorship deal with Seagrams. If you guys familiar Seagrams gin brand well, in the 80s malt liquor became king. uh But next to that was the wine cooler. wine coolers had their heyday in the 1980s. Your mom definitely drank wine coolers. uh And the brand again, Seagrams, they buy well, I don't think box one was that big then in the 80s. But maybe uh I think I think I don't think that came around to the night. Frenzy, frenzy. yeah, I don't think that's until the 90s. Maybe maybe maybe prior to that. I'm not sure. But if you remember Ernest and Giulio Gallo, that was a the heyday of just sort of volume wine, you could get the massive jug of wine. And so Seagrams dropped their golden wine coolers. And their spokesperson, of course, was Bruce Willis. And the commercials are legendary. Go back, go to YouTube and check out these fucking commercials because they're fantastic. That's wild, I have not seen those. Want to know where Bruno comes from and where Bruno this sort of ethos of Bruno not necessarily where it comes from but maybe sort of the nexus of He was Bruno sewing the winecord. Okay. Okay. Okay. he is kind of playing a version of the Bruno character in the commercials. uh desperately to pair Seagram's Golden Wine Cooler, is very popular. was a malt beverage from the 90s, 80s and 90s. But unfortunately, Seagram's no longer Wait, they called it a wine cooler, but it was a malt beverage? Ding ding ding, my friend! uh and we complain about what people call wine now, huh? huh. Which actually it made the way researching this because I was very aware of wine coolers as a child. My mom enjoyed having one on a Sunday, only one and only on Sunday. ah And uh it made me think about all this sort of wine and wine adjacent products that have sprung up, you know, through the years, and have, you know, gone on to that great big bin in the sky and Seagrams, uh escapades, and malt liquor wine cooler beverages is one of those. So Anyway, uh I wanted desperately to find one of these and I did look, I looked man, but I couldn't find one. So if anyone out there has one sitting in their fridge or in some vault and you'd like to share it with the boys at Venture Entertainment, let us know. We will get that from you and probably die in the process because it would be like 40 years old now. But instead, I this is not Good Mythical Morning for anyone who watches this show. We ain't doing it. We ain't doing it. Right, But I instead went with what I, I imagine myself being on the set when this uh film was made and also when this, uh specifically when this album was made, being in the studio, sitting in a corner, uh just probably in a state of shock at what I was watching uh unfold before me. And I would need something that had some had a little age on it had some dynamic in on it. I needed something that would probably sweeten the experience and pull me back down to earth. So I went with a port a tawny port a grams 20 year. um It is amber of course. It is it is an excellent bouquet. It's nutty. It's almondy. um It's it's all the things. It's kind of it's not decadent. don't find ports decadent, so to speak, but it definitely gets close. I think I need a rat. I would probably need a blanket of near decadence to uh keep me from a seizure while sitting in the audience watching the record your palette is weird to me. Temporaneos are rough and robust and aggressive and ports are not decadent. I'm like, I do not understand. Decalin adjacent for sure they're decadent. But so I went with the tawny port. For those of you who don't know it, you it's made by aging the red grapes, wooden barrels, usually get that oxidation, you get that tawny color. So let's actually pause there. Let's a little deeper into that because the Tawny, like what's the difference between most of you who buy port out there, you've probably heard Ruby port and then there's Tawny port. And they are usually, they're both proper ports. ah If it is actually not a port style but it's from Porto, ah if it says it's port, to be a proper port like Champagne has to come from Champagne, port actually has to come from the city of Porto in Portugal. That's why it is a port. So people make port style wine, dessert wines elsewhere, but to be a proper port, gotta come from Portugal, gotta come from Portugal. And, but a lot of it, it still comes from that. Like this is a proper port, knowing this brand and whatnot. a tawny port, so a ruby port is going to be made in these much larger barrels. So there's, when you have a larger barrel, there's much more wine in the center of the barrel and only some touching all the sides of the barrel and the stuff touching the sides is going to take on some of that brown color take on and then it's also going to get slightly oxidized because oak is a little porous, a little bit of micro oxygenation happens. But when they're big barrels, most of the wine is protected in the middle and it's not touching the oak. And so the wine stays very red. It stays very Ruby. Tawny port. is aged in much smaller barrels, usually called barriques. they, so then you have much more surface area touching the oak and much less in the middle. And you wind up at the end of the day with a browner tawny colored wine. I've had a few tawny ports that still look surprisingly red at the end of the day. Like I would almost, if you would pour that in a glass, I'd be like, that looks like a Ruby port. I don't know what you're talking about. But then you taste it and smell it. and you get a lot more oak influence, a lot more oak flavors. And in port, this is different than a a fresh younger wine. ah In port, you're going to get this is a sweet wine. And it's also fortified, right? There's brandy or dumped into port. So you have the brandy flavor. Thank God for whoever decided to add Brandy to this configuration. So brandy is already adding all these nutty flavors, all these oxidized flavors, floral flavors. So it doesn't taste like a wine wine. It already tastes like something distinct. then oak influence there, a lot of people are like, I don't want too much oak on my red or white fresh younger wine. Right, right, right. We get that. But in port, you have the brandy flavors. That oak is just going to add extra almondy, uh butterscotch-y, raisin-y to- tobacco and leathery flavors all. And then you get the sugar from the sweetness and then the high alcohol from the brandy. And so the tawny, you're going to get much more of the caramel and the nuts and the tobacco. Whereas Ruby port, because of that less oak influence, you're still sticking to more fruity flavor, more red fruity flavors. So get a lot of like raspberry, blackberry and cherry notes in there. um Yes, you get the brandy. Yes, you get the sweetness. Yes, you get the higher alcohol, but still stays quote unquote fruitier and tawny port. It's like it looks it's brown. It's tawny. And so you get all the brown flavors at that point. You're getting all the butterscotch and the and the and the leather and the tobacco and the nuts and it's good. It's fantastic. That is that is the difference between tawny and Ruby. It's also one of those one of those drinks I and I guess that may be why I don't think of it as decadent but I don't need a lot of port. I don't need more than like three sips of a good port. You know I've seen guys I know a guy who does that one it's absolutely dessert one but I know a guy who God bless him Captain Harry he was like a was an old sailor but his drink was Tommy port and he would drink it by the mug and I would just stare at this guy. How are you doing this? Granted, he was like 70, he'd been drinking for 70 years. Those liver may have been checked out. anyway. Fun fact, you were talking about Seagrams and gin, and I just uh listened to a podcast on Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, which, hey, there's a song in this album called The Return of James Bond, so we'll talk about that. But Ian Fleming drank a bottle of gin a day. Every day, and 70 cigarettes. Every day. Until his 50s, at which point he went down to, I think, cigarettes a day. you cut that. You gotta cut that. And a full bottle of gin he never stopped that and he complained he's like things are so much harder in my 50s and in my 40s I'm like motherfucker right. That's why. Relatively. But yeah, so my choice was originally the Seagrams wine coolers that Bruce Willis starred in the commercials that he starred in, but I couldn't find them because they no longer make them. And I went with the grams. 20 year Tommy port Dave, what is your parent, my friend? not Perrin, my friend. So it's funny that Dallas picked a port because I, which is a fortified with a brandy dumped into it, right? I picked a fortified sweet wine as well. And I picked a Uruguayan Rose Vermouth. Oh, nice. Aramada. Yeah, vermouth, right? Vermouth. So vermouth, which a lot of people don't realize. A lot of people think of vermouth like the thing you put in martinis and things like that. Like it's a mixer. But all vermouth is actually a wine. It is grape based and it is a proper wine. So if you do have a vermouth that you use in mixed drinks at home, that shit goes bad fast. Don't treat it like a liquor. It's not whiskey. You can't just leave it open on your table, on your counter. Once you open it, you gotta refrigerate it. And even then, fucking get rid of it after a couple of weeks. You gotta replace it. Vermouth is a wine. It does not last. You know, people do treat vermouth like they treat bitters. I'm here to tell you guys that jar of bitters, you can keep it for fucking 17 years, but your vermouth, please finish it in like a month, two, three, or seal it somehow. And even then make sure it's refrigerated in between uses. cannot leave it room temperature. Think about a bottle of wine. If you open that bottle of wine, you got what two, three days tops before it's kind of junk at that point. And a month later, it's vinegar. That is vermouth. You can't keep using it that way. So PSA vermouth is wine. Make sure you refrigerate it in between. Now, this is a fortified. wine. this is 16 % alcohol. So it's going to last a little bit longer. That is helpful. And it's got sugar in it. So that is also a sweet vermouth. It's going to last longer than a dry vermouth because sugar does help wine last longer, age longer. And this is Uruguayan. So Uruguay is really well known for the grape Tanat, which is a French grape originally. But Uruguay is one of the new places like the French. There's only one area in France, Madeirane. that makes Tanat and most Madeiran is predominantly Tanat, if not entirely Tanat and nowhere else. Like literally nowhere else. It is the only fucking place that grows it. But Uruguay is one of the countries that has picked up Tanat and made it its own. I do believe it is the country's grape at this point. Like that is their national grape is Tanat. So if you ever Uruguay, if you ever find an Uruguayan wine, it's probably going to be Tanat. This Rose Vermouth is made with predominantly Tanat. Tenard is not what they use to make the spirits that they dump inside of it, but it is used to make the wine base. uh And then vermouth, the reason it's called vermouth, which was the German word for it, and that is wormwood, right? Wormwood, um as they would pronounce it. So wormwood is always one of the primary ingredients where it's soaked in bark. So uh vermouth is an aromatic and a medicinal uh wine where it is steeped and soaked. in plenty of barks and flowers and like, you know, orange peels and things of that nature. This one in particular now, this is 27 different things it is soaked in. They do not reveal all of it, but they do reveal it is wormwood, genetian root, uh quina bark, Q-U-I-N-A. INA? Queena, yeah, yeah, So Queenabarque, Rosemary and Coriander. And then it also has uh four flowers, which is Rose, Chamomile, Hop and Elderflower to spice up the elixir. And then there will of course be that was only four and four that was eight. So there's still 19 other things in here, which they do not tell you they're like is proprietary. By the way guys, Wyrmwood is the active ingredient in absinthe, if you're familiar with Green Fairy. Yes, yes as pure out as almost pure out. Yeah Right, but wormwood as just a medicinal like you just soak it on the on the bark, right? That is known to be a digestif It's known to be very have a lot of health benefits. Don't forget that absinthe is like they are um Fermenting the wormwood like they are making it almost, you know sheer like very very high level Which is why it's so bad for you, but wormwood itself is not bad for you. think at one point they thought it was a psychotropic drug. It is not. They've now done proper tests on it and they're like, okay, no, it doesn't do anything to you. It is properly just helpful. So there's nothing wrong there. ah Vermouth is German and Italian. both, those two countries kind of made, I'm sorry, German, Italian, Italy and France. Those are the three places that all kind of made their own version of Vermouth. um And then these days you can basically get either French, Italian or German vermouth. This was my first Uruguayan vermouth that I never, didn't even know it was a thing, but it's very fun. ah This one, Vermouth Flores from, and this is, I believe the company that makes this is Vermouth Flores. Okay, there you go. So this is, they make a rose, they make a white and they make a red vermouth. The white vermouth is made out of albariño. The rosé and the red are both all to not for the grape that's in there. um And this rosé vermouth, it got 94 points on wine enthusiast in a score. It is very well made. And the reason I did something of this nature, and it is sweet as well. It's a sweet vermouth. So it is fortified and sweet, just like a port in that way. Probably a little less sweet than a port on the palate. It's a little gentler. just a rose. So there isn't that mud there. You don't get as much skin extraction. You don't get tannins. Tannins only come from the grape skin. So like white wine doesn't have tannins. But rose has just a teeny bit. And then red wine has a lot. Tannins tend to be bitter. But in this case, the vermouth, it's going to be all that bark and flowers like that's going to give you the bitterness as well as all these aromatics and all these additional flavors. And then you put the sugar in there to balance out the bitterness with sweetness. So it is a bittersweet type of aperitif. And honestly, this just on the rocks over a little bit of ice, refrigerate it, put it over an ice cube or two. Delicious. Goes down easy. But, you know, this album is kind of just it's an actor just doing a jam session um and doing like all his favorite hits and doing covers. It's like karaoke night. Yeah. except not not karaoke singing. He's actually doing it and he's having a blast and it's a fun album. It's just a good time. It's not deep. It's not serious. It's not blowing anyone's minds. This so I liked and it's it's bluesy. It's rocky. It's poppy. It's folksy. He does a couple of classic hits that he does covers of, which are kind of the best thing on the album. We'll get to that in just a moment. And The Vermouth Flores, like this rose Vermouth, it's light, it's gentle, it's a party in the glass. That little bit of bitterness is just the right edge. And that 27 botanical uh proprietary blend gives it a complexity the album lacks, which I think is also kind of necessary. I feel like a tawny port has that complexity because of the tawny side of things. Ruby port. Yeah. Ruby Port is just a party in a glass, whereas Tawny Port gives you a little bit of something extra to chew on. And similarly, a Vermouth with all those botanicals, like that's a lot for your palate to decipher and chew on. And I loved it. It gives you what the album is lacking while still being that party in the glass to match what the album is doing. that's your wine education for the day. That's why we paired it with this album. Let's talk about this album. Dallas back to you. where did this album come from? This is something. It was Moonlighting, a series about the Blue Moon Detective Agency and its two partners, Madeline Maddy Hayes and David Addison, that would relaunch Cybill Shepherd's career and create Bruce Willis'. With this rise in fame came branding deals like we discussed, Seagrams, and Quirkier character arcs, which included an increase in the character's numerous Motown breaks. And with harmonica in hand and dark shades on his nose, Willis could often be seen warbling bad renditions of Motown and blues classics throughout the early seasons. It was precisely these bad musical scenes that led Motown Records execs to say, that in order for someone to perform Motown classics so badly, he must actually have some artistic talent. And the contract for two albums, absolutely not, right? Two albums came into fruition. And I wanted to give a little more context. wanted to read a few bits from this diffuser article that was, this thing came out in 2017, but there's a couple of, and this is a diffuser article written by Jeff Giles. And he says, Willis hooked up with producer Robert Kraft, a songwriter and recording artist who'd put out a soft rock album in the early eighties. If that seemed like an inauspicious beginning to a project many felt was already doomed to fail. Kraft quickly proved to understand how to assemble a high-profile vanity project, rounding up a lengthy list of session ringers and famous guest stars to buttress Willis' vocals, and help add a little credibility. By association, absolutely. The end result was the return of Bruno, which arrived in stores January 20, 1987. Alongside, we will talk a little bit more about this in just a moment, an HBO special that acted as a mock biopic for Willis's singing alter ego, Bruno Radalini. Kraft's glossy production didn't really have much to do with classic Motown. In his defense, that's just what albums sounded like in 1987. And holy shit, yes, this album sounds so 1987. It's a little much, honestly. I love the 80s sound. Wow, this is, if someone was like, well, I don't like the eighties and played me this album, I'd be like, oh yeah, okay, I understand. Even though I love the eighties, because this was just, it was too quintessentially that sound without being anything else, right? And so you're just like, okay, this is just a lot of that sound. Getting back to the article, quote, but it was also apparent even after a cursory listen that he'd listened to a few handfuls of studio fairy dust to distract from Willis's vocals. That being said, amidst all the synths and digital reverb, the return of Bruno was obviously made from a fan's earnest perspective. While it would be hard to argue Willis truly did them justice, he surrounded his sole co-write in a couple of new songs from outside writers with covers of an eclectic array of classic hits and deep cuts that ranged from the obvious under the boardwalk. featuring backing vocals from The Temptations, Respect Yourself featuring a vocal assist from The Pointer Sisters, to the surprising Down in Hollywood, originally recorded by Ry Cooder, and Joe Cocker's Alan Toussaint-penned Fun Time. A listener could also hardly find fault with the personnel. With Craft at the Helm, the 10-song set featured ubiquitous 80s liner note mainstays like Dan Huff and Anne. Pasqua, as well as respected artists in their own rights, such as the Temptations of the Pointer Sisters and Billy Preston. It all added up to an album that, while hardly transcendent and occasionally downright corny, was rarely less than proficient, a sort of spiritual cousin to the Blues Brothers that also managed to honor its influences, albeit in a less compelling way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Reading that reading when I was reading his art of that article, I was like, yes, spot on every every line spot on. This album is, you listen to this album, first off I want to say that sound wise in terms of what they were going for and Willis as a vocalist, he does lack, he has some, like he's one of those guys where like at karaoke night he's one of the best people in the a good character. We call that having good character in the song. Right. Yeah. Right. And good personality. And he's got a range in terms of like, he's got a growl, right? He's got a really natural, like easy growl that he can slip into. But and then his cover of Under the Boardwalk actually somewhat surprised me. That was the one where I was like, you're actually doing well on this song. I think there was another critic that I think said, quote, surprisingly OK as a cover. So. Under the Boardwalk, I think that's the best song on the album. His voice is actually really, you could put that in an animated Disney musical of Under the Boardwalk and it would fit seamlessly in. It would work as like a male lead, like kind of a, you know, the rock singing. What is his song in Moana again? What can I say? You're welcome, you're welcome. You're welcome. The Rock in Moana. Like he has that level where it's like, He does okay. He does okay. He stays on tune and he's good and a little bit of range. He's got a better growl than the rock. He's even more range a little bit. But as you're listening to this album, it lies somewhere in between Huey Lewis and the News. Almost half the songs sound like something Huey Lewis and the News would do. But again, with a less virtuosic vocalist and more by the numbers, right? They're just not pushing anything. um And then... There's a little bit of Billy Joel in there as well. He's definitely trying to be a Billy Joel style musician. It's great dead rock. It's it's no shit. Great dead rock. It's textbook dead rock. Yes Well, especially for 1987, this wouldn't have quite been dad rock yet. But it would become dad rock very quickly by the 90s because this stuff aged quickly. This stuff aged out of the 80s very, quickly. I would say the songs he's covering are essentially 60s vibe songs. And at that time, yeah, but at that time, they're all they've already been around for 20 some odd years. So at this point, these songs are, you know, they're they've got age on them. So I think it's already they're already as they hit the airwaves, their dad rock, they just become even more crystallized versions of dad rock. I mean again that 80s sound though, he's not playing them straight outside of under the boardwalk He's not playing them straight like under the boardwalk is a very straight relative rendition of it But then everything else he they're they're adding all these horns all the sacks all the everything which is not 60s style either like very 80s style the drums so ridiculously 80s If you told me Phil Collins did the drums on this song I would have been like, yep. Sure got it ah I love Phil Collins by the way. he shows up in the HBO. That's right, he does. He does. I have it listed here. That's right. No, this HBO, you know what, talk about, well actually we'll get to that in just a Actually, just a minute, just a minute, a few more things about the album, because I wanted to ask you a couple questions Dallas. One, on a scale of one to 10, where would you rate this album? What are we ranking? What do mean? Would you listen to this album again once we're done with this episode? I would listen to this album in effort to watch someone else's reaction to this album on my own. Absolutely not. There's no second. I don't need a second listen for the return of Bruno, but I do enjoy that. It's so random that it probably elicits a very similar reaction from people on the first listen once they realize number one, that it's Bruce Willis uh and You know, so I probably sit in the room while someone else watched it, would you? No. Not at all. um This is an album that, you know, as I'm listening through the first couple songs, I'm like, OK, not bad. They're fun, you know, kind of thing. Again, I I even kind of like the first song I was like, it's a good opener because all those horns are coming in. It's got a good little thing, a little guitar hook going on with it. I'm like, it's fun. It's fun. It's good. But then by like song three, I'm like, they're all the same. All the shit. they're all the same. And there's like 10 of them. And I'm like, it's 40 minutes worth of the same song, essentially, with slight derivations that I'm like, okay, he needed the reason I think I liked his cover of by the boardwalk is because it's the one song that sounds demonstrably different. It's different tempo. It's different speed. It's different, you know, aesthetic. And I'm like, Thank God we needed one song that wasn't a jam session on stage. You know, of everyone. And when I say jam session, I don't even mean like fish jam session where it's a lot of instrumentals or anything. No, it's like it's just a jam session, though. It's like we're it's like a wedding band or a birthday party band. They're just there to get you. Yeah, yeah. Like, come on, dance. But it's like it's such a mockumentary version of a real band. That was hence we're about to talk about the mockumentary. It is it's a problem. So by the Boardwalk was definitely my favorite song and it was the one it actually became a chart topper. Well, it's not the only one. There was another one. Respect yourself. It became a chart topper in the US, but by the Boardwalk became number two hit in the UK. It was a hugely popular song for years in the UK actually. Yes. what was it? Youngblood was the other one they tried to make a single. I feel like that was such a mistake. That was I think that might be my least favorite song on the album. And I'm like, no, not this one. What are you thinking? And then they finally at the very end tried to release their track number one. Yeah. I'm forgetting the title of it, but that was the one. Does anyone remember? Does anyone remember what the hell that's called? Doesn't matter. Hold Doesn't matter. I don't I gotta look it up. All right. That's right. I actually don't remember them trying to remove this so this whole yeah, my mind Exactly. but that one they finally released as the last single. I feel like it was too little too late. It didn't track either. But I feel like that was the one that could have been especially for 1987. I'm like, that one's going to get people going young blood. I'm like, it doesn't even that's the one that even feels out of place for 1980s. I'm like, this is old. This is that rock in 1987. I'm like, do not make the try to make this a single that is such a bad idea. your favorite song on the song. Right Up was the name of the song, by the way. My favorites. man, I don't have a favorite, but Under the Boardwalk definitely. You know, I think it's so. It is so comparatively pleasing to the ear because the song is so familiar. It is such a familiar song. is a song in its scan. It's just uplifting. It puts a smile on your face. Doesn't matter who's actually singing the song ah because the song just has a natural kind of bounce to it, a sort of But his voice also was the one song where I'm like, he's got a nice voice. Son of a bitch. Alright, calm down. No, he does. It's got range and that song does require range. He does not growl once through the whole thing to like, you know, take the range, which is what a lot of what you have to do. So the qualification for range with his voice is he doesn't growl. I'll agree with that. I'll agree with that. I mean, no, the song itself does require range and in that he doesn't growl to fake the range therefore he has range uh I don't think he has range. is some... They say... Calm down, this is Bruce Willis' album. We're not using logic. ah Now, I do think you never see him perform that song live. And so it probably was a stretch for him. When we watch the mockumentary, a lot of these songs feature, it's almost a little bit of a concert show as well. It's like half concert show, half mockumentary. Full marketing exhibition. Yes. ah And you never see from the down by the boardwalk as one of them. And I'm like, I wonder if he had a hard time pulling that off live because that was tough for him to do. But he pulled it off in the studio. Cool. It is it is the one where I was like, if you worked hard, if you devoted yourself, got vocal training, learned how to do this, I can see you actually going somewhere with this. But you would he would have had to not just shown up. think this was very much a, just want to have fun with music and not really try too hard. And so that's why you feel like, and that's why after this album, he did one more in 1989. And then never again, all he would do was the impromptu live performances, mostly at Planet Hollywood restaurants throughout the nineties, no Os, because I think that's all he really liked to do. That's all he wanted to He liked the experience. of jamming out with the band for sure. And you can tell that's kind of his vibe in everything he does, you know? um Lee's, man, Lee's favorite song, let's see. Probably down there. You think about that while I say one more thing. Down in Hollywood, yeah. That one, you know, I appreciate it. Down in Hollywood was one of the only other ones that felt a little different than all the others. Outside of Down uh by the Boardwalk, Under the Boardwalk. Got it, I can't remember the actual title of that song. Under the Boardwalk. um Down in Hollywood is the one that sounds a little bit different, but it doesn't work very well. So it's like, okay, that was an experiment. Oopsie. And then the only other thing I wanted to say is, know, there is a track secret agent man slash James Bond is back. Yeah, don't know. It's really just to cover a secret agent man. There is like what? 15 seconds of a James Bondy thing at the very end. But it was such why is it not called James Bruno is back or Bruno Bond Bruno Bond is back because it's the return of Bruno. I'm like, what a missed opportunity, son of a bitch. OK, now let's get to the HBO special. Now for a very related detour about one of the greatest Vanity projects in the history of Vanity projects, and that is the accompanying mockumentary film for this album, also entitled The Return of Bruno, released by HBO the same year as this album. This, of course, was way back when HBO was the go-to place for what the absolute fuck TV. And what the absolute fuck is right, as the film stars Bruce Willis. as his fictitious alter ego, Bruno Radolini. Yes, you heard that right. Bruno Radolini, a legendary blues singer musician who influenced, as the story goes, a number of other famous musicians and nearly every important musical moment of the 1960s. The film chronicles Bruno, who, like Chameleon, changes style and genre through the ages from performing on a soul train parallel with the Temptations to a disco Devo to the Metropolitan Opera in search of commercial success. The last half of the film features Bruno on stage, 1980s dad rock iteration, which artistically land someplace between Don Johnson, who if you are familiar, had a burgeoning performance career at this time, and Bruce Springsteen. And in my estimation, it is a lot closer to Don Johnson. And let me say on the Don Johnson thing, there was another critic, I'm going to paraphrase what they said when they were criticizing this album. They were like, yeah, he doesn't scream as good. And yeah, yeah, yeah. And doesn't sing as good as blah, blah. So they're like, yeah, it's just like it's not even Don Johnson blows him out of the water kind of a thing. And I also wanted to mention you mentioned the Metropolitan Opera moment in the the mockumentary. And what a missed opportunity. I wish Bruce Willis would have just been like And just like we heard that instead they actually get a tenor singing opera and that's supposed to be him. And I'm like, no, it's funny. It's a mockumentary. Just have him be like, I'm the guy in the opera. I will say, agreed. will say, had they leaned into the comedy a bit more, this would have been unbelievably funny. It's a little lazy in the mockumentary style, but actually leaned into all because what they end up doing is outlying all these really potentially hilarious moments that they kind of just surface level kind of drop by and move on from and. Right. Yeah. The is just, it's Bruce Willis. That's it. That is the joke. And you're like, um, okay. And he's like, he's so important. And yeah. And here are all these actual figureheads of music that are saying how important and interesting. But then that's all there is. And then Bruce Willis, of course, is just... Right. And can I also say like the Coming Right Up song, which sounds so stupidly 80s. He's in this like black and white Beatles-esque, you know, TV thing that they used to do. Was that Soul Train? Was that even in the black and white days when they did Soul Train? No, uh Dick Clark. Yeah, American Bandstand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm like, yeah, but this doesn't sound like it's from that era, guys. This sounds like it's from the 80s. I don't know what's happening. And he's got one of those cuts like the Beatles had back in the day or the Monkeys or whoever. And he's just like. then I think the problem is, is again, Bruce Willis always had to look cool in everything in this show. And I'm like, Bruce, God damn it, man. He couldn't really make fun of himself. could not do it. He had to look cool. Even while making fun of himself, he had to look cool for making fun of himself. So, without question, the film does shine in two ways. First, the cameos. It is filled with a mind-blowing list of cameos that drive its central thesis that there would likely be very little popular music without the existence of the fictional Bruno Radellini. Ringel's star even claims in the prologue of the film that if it hadn't been for Bruno, there'd be no fucking Beatles. I added the pumpkin, by the way. ah Cameos include Phil Collins, Elton John, Ringo Starr, John Monjovey, Freddie Garrity, Brian Wilson, Grace Slick, Joan Baez, Graham Nash, Stephen Stills, Melvin Franklin, the Bee Gees, Paul Stanley, Bobby Comely. It's just an endless, endless, endless list. And it's narrated by Dick fucking Clark. I've said fucking like five times this episode. I'm going to stick to it. By Dick fucking Clark. Secondly, the film shines. There you go. Secondly, the film shines as a testament to vanity projects caused by sudden wealth and fame. it, Willis is doing what any 15-year-old boy would do if he suddenly became famous, cool, and wealthy. He'd make a film about how cool he is by creating an alter ego and dropping that character right into the center of a fantasy in which he was the coolest guy around. The film was nominated for a 1988 ACE Award, Award for Cable. Which is... to show you what the bar was in 1988. And a final note about the film. I have rarely come across vanity projects that are as vain as this. If you are a fan of these projects of actors turned musicians of documentaries of what the fuck brand of HBO's 1980s content, then I personally and wholeheartedly recommend this little movie. It is a time capsule. uh a tribute to all the things we've already listed. You should not expect great things, but you should expect to be entertained by how cheeky and absurd it is. And I will finally say I do appreciate though the marketing of this, the creation of this film as a marketing tool. oh pretty wild because of the people involved. Like HBO kind of like called in fucking favors to like everyone. um Like this was literally like their Rolodex. Yeah. And they were just like, and HBO, don't know who they were owned by at the time. And if they were connected to a music label, I assume they must have been already even then. Yeah. And that's why they were involved in this. actually a note about that. So curiously enough, the guys who directed and co wrote this, if you go and look at their IMDb, just when I tell you they are the crown princes of music video and music documentaries, they have done every documentary, every film, music movie. since the late 70s. So I'm assuming that had a lot to do with it. It's kind of fascinating when you go in and peruse their IMDB pages. It is a I've never seen an IMDB page like the guy who I was blown away by. It's just a who's who of music and music videos and music documentaries of the past 50 years. Fascinating. So maybe that has something to do with it as well. But either way, it is a top notch little thumbnail of how to market a random album in middle of the 1980s. In I will go even further than that. And I will say, guys, don't listen to the album. Go watch one hour documentary. Right. It's just called The Return of Bruno Internet Archive has it. YouTube has it. You can find it pretty much no matter where you are. Just Google it. You can even if you Google the return of Bruno, Google HBO special, something like that instead of album. But honestly, it came up on page one of the results. Just doing return of Bruno. It comes up pretty fast. And the album is available on Spotify and other streaming platforms. So you if you want to listen to the whole thing, feel free. But you will hear at half the album in the documentary. They perform the songs and you won't. And then maybe go check out the album on streaming just to listen to is under the boardwalk. I it's hearing. Dallas does not, but I do. It's like the one and only that is kind of really worth hearing. But yeah, I think Bruce Willis, you know, I heard when Die Hard was being made as well, like he had makeup like he was coloring in. He was coloring in his hairline. that because he was already thinning so much up there. And you can see even in this was 1987. And yeah, he's already got the Bruce Willis hairline like well and truly like established and going on there, which is why he looks it looks like he has more hair and die hard. He doesn't. He was just kind of he was like, this is my action star moment. And then, of course, you know, by the sequel was already starting. He was letting it go. And by the third die hard, you went bald. Give up the dream, buddy. Yeah, gave up the dream. like, there's no coloring this line in anymore. is is a, this is like, could stab someone with his widow's peak, like through their whole body. And it's like that sharp at this point. Okay, one note about that. Sorry, one second. ah So in the research, the casting process for the series Moonlighting, so many mentions of literally that of how he is just not even remotely what anyone thought of as a leading man for television or film at the time. They actually had to pass to bring him back 11 times. And it was just fascinating that he finally, finally got it. Yeah. And he's so, and the thing is, he is cool. He's got charisma. You see, there's actually kind of an outtake moment at the end during the credits of the Bruno HBO special, where he's still playing the character, but he's also talking a little more, you can tell, just like he actually is in real life. And that's why I almost, feel the Billy Joel vibe too, is like, you can tell he's just this sort of New Yorker, Long Island-y type of guy. He's just got that accent. He's just lounging on the couch. He's not really in shape at this point in his life either. He's just sort of he's kind of svelte. He's thin-ish, but he's also, but like his arms have no muscles. He worked out for Die Hard. Like he got in shape just for that movie to be an action star. And he had never really done it before then. So it's like, he's kind of charming. He's kind of manly. He's got a masculinity to him that reads for that time especially. And he's got a charisma. But it's very down to earth, which is why he works so well as John McClane. It's this very everyman charisma where it's like, you got something going on there. It's not what you expect. And when he tries to be super cool, it kind of is funny more than works because he's just cool. He's not super cool. He's just cool. Cool. At his core, just cool. He's cool. Just cool. And when he plays a character that is just cool and he just goes with it and he's not trying to be more than that, it really works. I think it's also one of the reasons why the diehard movies work less and less the more superhuman they try to make him because that's not the point. Right. Right. Is it sort of like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. He survives, by the skin of his fucking teeth and not because he's good at it. per se, but just because he is dogged, determined, he's got that coolness, he's got that charisma, he is that guy that will surprise you, but he's not just whipping it out, he's not a super cop, he's not actually a super cop. That's when things start to read slightly wrong. think also one of the comedies he did later in life, Hudson Hawk, I'm so sorry, Dan Waters, I know Dan, he wrote that, he loves that, he feels that this movie is unfairly blemished. I cannot agree. I feel like this movie was a misfire. And again, this is Willis doing comedy, but he's got to be super cool throughout the entire comedy. And there is something that doesn't read about that entirely. He needs to be able to take himself less seriously on these things. All right. and really maybe we will come back and cover the five seasons of moonlighting because that is some legendary Hollywood nonsense with the egos on that show and a lot of it had to do with Willis's uh need to remain cool anyway. Anyway, once again, wine trivia question. can read it down below in the description again. Make sure to reach out to us either at the email of entertainmentstudios.gmail.com. Click the Send Us a Text link or comment. If you're on Spotify, Apple, iTunes, what have you, you can do that. What does the term dry mean in terms of wine? Answer that question. We will have a link down below to go check out at the Internet Archive that Bruno HBO special as well if you just want a nice clickable link. The grams W and J grams 20 tonne port toe. Beautiful. Lovely. have the Vermouth Flores that is V E R U T no H Vermouth Vermouth Flores so floral Vermouth Rosé Vermouth from Uruguay I highly recommend it especially try and grab yourself a bottle of that it's out there it's about you can find it pretty easily or get yourself that grams tawny then watch that HBO special that's gonna go over well Stick your feet up and watch that. for sure.% Alright folks, ciao for now, we will be back in another week with another wine and entertainment pairing for YOLV Entertainment! Ciao for When the streets get so hot, wish your tired feet were fireproof. Under the boat. oh you adorable though. It's just, it's it's amazing the stories of him getting cast in this fantastic just they brought him back in. No, sorry, no moonlighting. Okay, yeah, I'm like, I'm pretty sure it was his idea. Okay. And now don't go too deep into that just because we're not here to talk about moonlighting. So we won't go. Okay, yeah, don't go. Again, let's try this because we want to stick to an hour and we have so much to say and so many sections. So m We've got to get better at like actually picking what's important to this conversation. The fact that he was known for moonlighting is really all we need to know about moonlighting. And then we can do moonlighting someday if you want to. Okay. It's five seasons worth. uh All right. You're editing it and it can't be more than enough. I know right? kitty is like attached to my hip right now because we had workers here. It's like on my bed. His head is resting on like a cold hard weight and I'm like, okay. He's like, is it okay? You're not gonna get what's happening. I'm fully traumatized by anything and everything. Alright, actually hold on one second here Dave, my mouse is now being a cunt. See you next Tuesday. Indeed. Let's see. That might be when we're picking up this recording. see what happens. All right. All right. Daddy... Daddy... uh All of Dallas's singing, by the way, will be an outtake at the end of this episode. Wait, what did you say? I heard my name. Not saying it again. If you missed it, you missed it. you today. Very, very, very, very, very unprepared. So very unprepared. Nobody telling him what I'm planning to do. to the whole episode, which I know he never does. Okay, and we're back. What were you narrating? were giving some outtakes, huh? Some outtake narration. Anyway.