‘Revenge of the Nerds’ Stars Curtis Armstrong and Robert Carradine Stop By the Show

“Revenge of the Nerds” stars Robert Carradine and Curtis Armstrong stopped by to promote their new TBS reality series “King of the Nerds.”

Robert said their iconic comedy was made start-to-finish in less than five months. “It was a studio picture,” he said. “Something opened up and they just said, ‘Let’s do the nerd movie.'” Production was apparently such a rush-job the studio forgot to include sequels in the casts’ contractual obligations: “It was really not considered to be even on the boards.”

So, Robert negotiated for profit participation in the second film, which started at $5 million and ended at $20 million.

This was apparently nose to Curtis, a.k.a. Booger in “Revenge of the Nerds.” “I knew nothing of any of this,” he said. “I was just showing up and picking my nose.”

Robert said the loss of a key cast member nearly derailed the third movie: “Anthony Edwards steadfastly removed himself from the whole gang. He cost us the third movie. And the third movie would’ve been a seven-figure payday for him and me. But he was already ‘ER’-bound at that point.”

Asked if he was jealous, Robert deadpanned: “Pretty much ever since.”

ROBERT CARRADINE ON HIS FAMOUS FAMILY

Howard noted that Robert came from a famous family, including his father, legendary actor John Carradine, and his brother, “Kung Fu” and “Kill Bill” star David Carradine.

Robert said he struggled with their fame as a young actor. “I always downplayed it unless I was trying to get in somewhere,” he said, explaining it was hard to grow up in his dad’s shadow. “He was in 10 of the greatest films of all time.”

Regarding David’s mysterious death, Robert suspected foul play. “We know for a fact he was murdered because the situation–we found out subsequently he couldn’t have gotten into the rig by himself. He needed help, and there were footprints and shit. And the Thai police did not help one bit. You can buy somebody’s death for 10 bucks [in Thailand].”

CURTIS ARMSTRONG IS A HARRY NILSSON EXPERT

During his Stern Show visit, Curtis Armstrong told Howard he was a huge Harry Nilsson fan and had even written the liner notes for seven of the musician’s reissues. Howard wanted to put Curtis to the test and see if he could correctly identify some of Nilsson’s hits after only hearing one second of each track.

To the amazement of everyone in studio, Curtis nailed every single one: “Everybody’s Talkin’,” “I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City,” “Coconut,” “You’re Breakin’ My Heart,” and “Jump Into the Fire.”

At one point, he was even able to guess Howard was about to play “Without You” before he played it. Curtis explained his connection to Nilsson went back 35 years.

“I wrote him a fan letter in about ’76 and he wrote me back,” Curtis said.