The first time I saw Ralph Zavadil, he was moments away from getting stopped by the police. He had parked his circa 1970s era VW van (with HIPPY BUS vanity plates) on a crowded street where he was unloading one of his greatest creations: a flame shooting motorized scooter with a glass blown visage of Ralph’s alter ego Cap’n Video on a pole in the front of the scooter. Within moments an officer stopped Ralph and told him that he couldn’t operate such a vehicle on a public street.
“I just said, you know, show me the part where it says I need a permit. Blah, blah, blah. You know, it’s like Charlie Brown listening to his teachers. Womp womp womp womp womp womp womp. Gimme a f**kin’ break.”
By this point I had still not been formally introduced to the subject of Jay Cheel’s film Beauty Day. I heard about this all after the incident had happened. I went inside the press and media area at the Hot Docs festival where the interview was to take place to meet Jay. When Jay arrived five minutes later he asked if we might be able to do the interview outside since it took a lot out of Ralph to getting the massive scooter out of the van and he didn’t want to leave it on the street for anyone to mess with it.
When Jay and I reached the front of the building, Ralph was already parked in front of the building with the scooter and was holding court for a group of passerby and onlookers who seemed drawn to the man with the crazy grey hair and his even crazier vehicle. He had the flames in the back going and was in the process of broiling a piece of pepperoni on a fork that had been electrical-taped to the tail pipe. Ralph proceeded to gently flirt with a couple of young ladies who happened to be walking by at the moment. He bit a chunk of the pepperoni straight off the tail pipe and asked the ladies if they wanted a taste by taking the giant hunk of meat out of his mouth. The ladies giggled but were clearly grossed out and promptly left. Cheel, acting bemused and used to this behavior by now after having documented Ralph for so long and having grown up watching his Cap’n Video antics, seized the opportunity to introduce me to Ralph, who promptly spit out everything in his mouth into a nearby bush before shaking my hand.
What you see on screen in Cheel’s debut feature is exactly what you get from Ralph in real life. Zavadil is a realist who is firmly in on his own joke. His greatest failed stunt for his late 90s Niagara region cable access show ended up with Ralph breaking his neck. While that clip earned him a decent amount of money from the wealth of “caught on tape” shows that were in vogue at the time, he understands that people either “get” his brand of off the wall humour or they don’t. To those who do get it, Ralph is extremely humbled and appreciative. He did, after all, put a lot of time and effort into looking pretty silly and stupid.
During the course of their joint interview with Criticize This!, Jay and Ralph talked about the bonds of friendship, blending humour with hardship, laughing in the face of death, and how sometimes the things that make you famous are not necessarily what you want to be famous for. Then again, as Ralph states early in the film, “fame means f**k all.”
Andrew Parker: So, Jay, what made you take notice that you had a feature length movie here?
Jay Cheel: Well, it started as a short at first. So it was going to be maybe a 15 minute short to put online about Cap’n Video just to introduce people to the show and then as I got to know Ralph and we were doing interviews, stuff started to come out that looked like there was more to the story. I could fill out a feature. Then the 20th anniversary of the Captain thing popped up and now we’re here.
Ralph Zavadil: I introduced him to my mother and my great friend Robert, who built this work of art you see before you here with me, this Cap’n Video cruiser if you will, and Jay just took the ball and just rolled. He interviewed me and found more facets of my life to make it roll. I had no idea what he was doing with this so as I am being interviewed I was thinking it was to go online where 50 people were going to see it. Not 300 sitting in a theatre. I’m sure I would have been just as candid and honest and open with him if I had known it was coming to this.
JC: Robert wouldn’t have.
RZ: [laughs] No. Robert wouldn’t have. He’s kind of a closed and quiet guy when a camera is around. When the camera’s not around he’s, like, LOUD.
AP: You just saw the film for the first time here at Hot Docs. What was it like having to see it for the first time with an audience?
RZ: It was incredible. It was humbling because I am sitting there in the centre of the theatre and there’s a whole balcony of people above me. Jay, for a purpose, kept us from seeing it, plus I didn’t want to before it was on the big screen. It was mind boggling watching my life unfold on screen. All the warts and blemishes. It’s like having your proverbial raincoat pop open. Here I am to the world, you know? It was scary, but the way he put it together was brilliant. I didn’t want people to see me crying, but I sure felt like it.
It was funny because they laughed at all the weird spots. Like when I was doing the intro for (ex-girlfriend) Nancy’s video resume, which I shot at Cable 10, and I’m just saying blahbitty blah, blabbity blah, and then I turn my head and face another camera and it’s got this weird cut. People started laughing there and I didn’t quite get it, but that was just how those things looked back then. I was just being me!
One of the things that I couldn’t believe is there’s this one part, and I don’t want to spoil anything, where people started clapping in the middle of the film and it reminded me of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest where the big Indian throws the water cooler through the f**king window, you know? Talk about f**king goosebumps up my spine.
AP: Beauty Day had it’s world premiere at MoMa in New York. How did that come about?
JC: You know, I don’t even know how it came about. It got passed to them somehow, I think through Telefilm, and it was picked as one of the eight films for the Canadian Front screenings and it went well. I think it was actually pretty appropriate. It’s the kind of film where people might say it’s an odd choice for MoMa, but the movie is about art and filmmaking and creativity so it’s a perfect fit for the museum. There were some older folks in the crowd and there were only two walkouts. [laughs] One was a very slow walkout by a man with a cane, but everyone else seemed to like it, so that was good.
AP: Do you still feel the same way about your old videos now and can you personally see them as art now?
RZ: Honestly, I didn’t really see it as art at the time. I was doing what I thought needed to be done. I was goofing around and playing. Just playing. Not for anyone else’s sake. Not for the adulation because I was anonymous doing it. In hindsight, I still think it’s just a big wank and people want to see it. People want to see someone else being a moron so they can live vicariously through my stupidity, which is something I welcome with open arms and open legs. Charlie Chaplin kinda did the same thing and he was pretty much my hero.
JC: There is really no pretentious element to his whole thing. It just is what it is and this film hopefully just documents the process and a little but of the mindset behind it. His show informs Beauty Day and we play off each other in that way. Ralph did all his own stuff for the 20th anniversary thing, but there are also shots going on during that where we are specifically just filming scenes for the movie. In those moments it was like we were all making a Cap’n Video moment.
AP: Were you tempted at all during the making of the anniversary special in the final part of the film to shoot some of it for Ralph.
JC: No. [laughs] I mean, there are moments, but I was sure to keep away from that.
RZ: I wouldn’t have let him, anyway. [laughs] That’s my baby! Letting my best friend Robert come into my world of filming was hard enough, but he was bugging me for, like, the last 10 years of the past 15 years we’ve been hanging out. I couldn’t make him understand for the longest time that it was just my own personal wank. When I was inspired I could spontaneously set it up, do it, and then go off to whatever else it was that I was doing. I didn’t have to phone up 18 people. I didn’t have to phone up a sound person or ask someone what I had to wear, but having Robert come in and help me make some real art and have him play with me was refreshing. It was a whole new outlook on it and it makes me look back and wonder if I had done the original show with someone if it would have been easier. Then I kick myself in the teeth and I realize that, no, people enjoyed it as is. I don’t need 9 camera angles and an audio crew.
AP: Was there ever a point where you just turned to Ralph and just asked him what the hell he was doing?
JC: [laughs] No, actually. It was mostly Robert that would do that. I think Robert kind of takes the role of the mediator for the audience, really.
RZ: He’s like my mummy in the film. He’s, like, “Don’t do that or you won’t come home for dinner on time!” He’s Mr. Positivity. He’s the one who goes “You’re positively going to f**k up.”
JC: I mean, that’s an element that I really like. In real life, Ralph and Robert aren’t all that different. In the film, Robert comes across as being a lot more normal than he really is. He’s a wild guy, but when the camera turns on, he’s a lot more reserved. But he’s always boisterous and excited. The dynamic between them works great as an on-screen duo, like Sherlock Holmes and Watson [laughs].
RZ: Beanie and Cecil is more like what I was thinking.
AP: Now with the movie out of the way and the anniversary special done, how easy will it be for you to get back into Cap’n Video mode?
RZ: [puts on sunglasses and messes up his hair] Takes me about 12 seconds to put on my glasses, [adopts the high pitched Cap'n Video voice)] I cam make the Cookie Monster on acid voice and here we go! YEEEEEEOOOOOWWW! You got an egg? I will snort it right now!
But seriously, when we started this, the Cap’n was in his cocoon and put away, but as Jay wanted to see more of my footage and was asking me repeatedly to bring him back I went from a flat no, to maybe, to “YEAH! YEAH! I miss him!” It’s fun! How could it not be? And if I can make people laugh in the process? Touchdown.
AP: The film is really funny, but there is also some really serious and really touching stuff, as well. How do you, Jay, balance the funny and the sad, and Ralph, were there moments that were tough to sit through or relive?
JC: That was the hardest part of it all when I got to the editing room. There are some pretty extreme tonal shifts. When I watch it with an audience I can see exactly where those moments fall. The first 15 minutes are almost all laughter and then the section where Ralph loses his job at GM comes up. Then after a serious moment like that I can sense having to win that laughter back. It’s not in a bad way, but this is the territory of the film. That’s just how it lays out and watching it with an audience and hearing that laughter I now understand why so many filmmakers go right into comedy because it’s such an instant gratification to watch an audience respond vocally to a film.
That’s one of those things that I love about documentaries. Every time I think of a fictional film, I always think it would be better if that could happen in a documentary. That’s why I’m interested in getting into fictional filmmaking, but it’s all genre stuff like monster movies and horror movies, the kind of stuff you can’t really make documentaries of.
RZ: The hardest thing too look back on is obviously watching myself break my neck. That wasn’t cool. I couldn’t watch it for the first few years after I did it because I saw it from a different angle and that angle wasn’t cool either. My personal stuff I can kind of look back and move on, like the stuff with my battle with cancer when I was a kid and just say, “Whatever. Where’s the next pile of pony shit?” Then I go look for the pony. I don’t sit there and pontificate about bullshit and stuff that went on. I live in the moment. It was hard because you wonder about who these strangers are that get to peer into your life, but it’s also cathartic. But here I am. All of me. Right there. Bippity Bop. Chop, chop. Raincoat’s popped open. Which way do you want it? Clockwise or counterclockwise?
Beauty Day opens in Toronto, Ottawa, and St. Catherine’s on June 10. For more upcoming screenings, visit filmswelike.com.
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