Steve Martin Talks About THE JERK 

I used to wonder why everyone went on about Steve Martin. Then I saw The Jerk. One of the funniest film I've ever seen.

This movie has become such a classic. A week and half ago, my son who 20 and I'm 53, we're coming home and saw a guy delivering the new phone directories and he and I looked at each other and without missing a beat:"The new phone books are here, the new phone books, are here."

my favorite gag was when rob reiner picks him outside his house and he says "how far you going" reiner says "to the end of this fence" he says "ok" gets in says "my names navin" reiner hits the brake and says "here we are" he gets out and is yelling "goodbye,i hope i can repay u someday!" as reiner drives away and they can still here him inside the house.that shit was hilarious.

The "You Belong to Me" scene was so sweet. I don't know why anyone would have gone for popcorn. I didn't. Loved it and still do!

Best line from the movie: Damm these glasses - "Glasses I damm thee"

The first time I saw the movie, I laughed the hardest at the "St. Louis? No, Navin Johnson" line and it's still my favorite. A few years ago, I won tickets to a Q&A show That Steve did in Worcester, MA and he mentioned that it was his favorite joke. So I figure that's the one thing that I will have in common with Steve Martin.

Still one of the best comedies of all time. This and Young Frankenstein. Hands down. Tonight you belong to me is one of the best moments in film history. "I didn't want to get spit on me..." "He hates these cans! Stay away from the cans!!!"

When a scene you saw as a child comes to mind every time you see new phone books delivered in people's driveways, you realize that Steve Martin owns just a tiny piece of your soul.

Best movie ever made... What people tend to miss are all the life lessons in the movie and how much his family loved him regardless of his color.

My mother passed away at 88 last April. One thing I'll always remember is watching The Jerk with her and laughing our butts off. I loved the movie, but I think my mom liked it better than me. Great memories, Thanks!

I’m picking out a thermos for you!! 🎼🎼

Martin is simply one of the most genuinely funniest people I've ever seen. He never begs for a laugh. He just earns it.

It was 1980, I believe, when I saw The Jerk for the first time. I was 10. About 2 years before this I had snuck my dad's copy of Steve Martin's, Let's Get Small, album and had listened to it so many times, I had it memorized. It got me through some tough times in my childhood. So I was very excited when The Jerk premiered. I have seen it at least 50 times. But after that first time, every year when my Birthday comes around, I always have a Twinkie and a Tab. I have done that for nearly 40 years. Last year, the only store I had known to still sell Tab, stopped selling it. So for the first time, since I was 10 years old, I was not able to have that Tab with my Twinkie. Probably never will again. Wow...that was long.

It really is one of the best comedies of all-time. Definitely Top 5.

The Jerk educated me the difference between shit and shinola. I didn't know what shinola was.

Pay to the Order of Iron Balls McGinty, One Dollar and NINE CENTS!!!

I honestly think it's one of his best performances.

My mom braided my hair to this movie we love Steve Martin!! The Jerk is our movie ♥

It is definitely one of the best movies ever made. It's the kind of movie that makes me wish I could erase my memory of it so I could enjoy watching it for the first time again.

I discovered 'the Jerk' around 1990...loved it.....where are these movies nowadays??? 70/ 80s were great :)

Classic, classic film Steve. I still love it, and recite lines from it but I get strange looks from the younger generation. I was one of the 3 journalists invited to the opening press conference of "The Jerk" from Santa Ana College. I was the guy with the camera. It was a great time, got a lot of fantastic shots of you and Carl.

these matches,remote control and paddle ball game. is all i need

“Ahhhhh... It’s a PROFIT deal...” 🤣

I was a kid in the 70's-80's when the Not Ready For Prime Time Players were on SNL. Which lead to my appreciation of movies like The Jerk, The Blues Brothers, and many more of that era. SNL has changed and so has that style of quirky comedy with such an interesting brew of comedic actors. As young as I was, I understood the humor of the Jerk and along with Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is still one of my favorite Steve Martin films.

He hates these cans!

The Jerk & Roxanne are two of my favorite movies. Steve Martin once said about creating comedy, “you’ll do everything you’ve ever known”. What a talent.

A visionary film that deserves preservation regardless of the times ahead.

Such a sweet hearted film, and chock-full of silliness. One of my favorite comedy movies. Anyone who would walk out on Bernadette and Steve’s touching rendition of “You Belong to Me” is devoid of humanity!

"The new phone book is here! The new phone book is here!" We would shout that every year when it came...LOL The whole scene with him leaving and "not needing anything"...just classic. My whole family loves this film and we quote from it often. :)

All I need is this one thing….it remains my favorite scene of all time, because there is something so human, and so funny about that scene. ❤️

The Jerk was one of Steve Martin's best. He's a great actor / comedian and a rare talent.

Steve Martin is a genius and a doggone good banjo player!!

This movie along with Monty Python and the Three Stooges formed the basis of humor. Shout out to The Marx Brothers and movies like Airplane and Johnny Dangerously. Thank you Steve Martin. By the way I'm old enough to remember him as a writer and bit cast member on The Carol Burnett Show.

I grew up watching The Jerk & The Man with Two Brains almost on repeat. Never got old.

There are so many favorite scenes and favorite lines in this movie, just like Airplane and Caddyshack

this place has the best pizza in a cup ever ......ran the old pizza in a cup guy out of business. cat juggling. my special purpose!

Navin: How did you guys find me? Dad: I don't know... this is the first place we looked!

Cried with laughter the first time I saw this film - in an empty cinema. It was so unexpected. There is an innocence to the humour. Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid is another gem of a movie.

Really underrated movie

This movie still makes me laugh hard I've seen it at least 100 times

Dear Steve Martin, You have made the world laugh many, many times.! I wanted to say, "Thank you for the wonderful memories, and all of your hard work."

I just returned to college this year. It was so funny to hear the instructor quote that line from the movie. Too bad the young students did not get it :)

This is one of my top 10 movies of all time. My family still quotes it. Often. We give each other daisy stems rather than roses! But I particurlarly love the scene where he's trying to read the note that got water on it in the bathtub.

Favorite film of all time, bar none.

Best thing is, it’s a funny gag, but the image of Steve Martin and Carl Reiner laughing at it all the way to work is even funnier.

And now I have to go watch it for the thirtieth time to see if I can hear the crunch of an expensive Ukelele. I liked the movie a lot when it came out and for awhile since then. But when I introduced it to my now 20 year old son when he was eleven he thought it was the greatest movie ever. He has pulled gags from that movie ever since and it still makes us laugh together today. "He really hates these cans."

Still his best movie. Just a brilliant farce with a ton of heart.

A classic!! Steve Martin is a national treasure and seems like a genuinely nice person.

I love this movie.

It is a classic Comedy. Love it as one of my all time favs.

My favorite movie of all time. First saw it before I shipped out for Korea as an Army officer. Have probably watched it thirty times. It never gets old.

Thankfully I had good parents who showed me The Jerk when I was growing up & it remains one of my favorite movies of all time

Such an awesome comedian! I love Steve Martin! 😁❤️

The Jerk has been one of my favorite movies ever since I saw it for the first time so many years ago. I fell in love with Steve Martin when he was a regular on SNL. (Now I have to go look up King Tut and Wild and Crazy Guys skits.) Many times just watching his facial expressions is enough to make crack me up.

I can suddenly think of a scene from this film and start laughing out loud. Not a good look when you're on your own on the street. The part where he starts planning the layout of the garage toilet because he thinks he's moving in "I couldn't afford this, anyway" Classic!

I think it's absolutely hilarious that nobody seems to get the joke he tells at the beginning, about how this would be a record night if it weren't for his fee. That's almost as funny as the joke itself.

One of the greatest films.....yes. It actually is very significant and has a certain charm that is timeless.

I was chatting with John Mayall (great Blues musician) one day describing how I got into Blues and referred to this movie. I had grown up with mainly classical (my mother was a professional concert pianist) and big band music (my father's favorite). I said, "Remember in the movie 'The Jerk" where Navin hears this white bread music on the radio and says 'There must be more of this out there.' Well, I went to a friend's house and he played your album 'The Blues Alone' and also a Butterfield Blues album and I thought, 'There must be more of this out there.'"

This and Blazing Saddles are two of the funniest movies ever.

So many great comedies. Blazing Saddles, Harlem Nights,, Coming to America,, Arthur, My Cousin Vinny, Caddyshack, Airplane, and of course The Jerk are all classics. I've loved Steve Martin since his arrow-thru-the-head days.

Steve has always made me laugh . Two wild and crazy guy's was the first time I saw him . The Jerk is amazing.

Classic Steve Martin

My favourite movie of all time

Carl Gottlieb is absolutely brilliant, so good that Spielberg brought him in to save the original Jaws script. So many of the little humorous scenes that made Jaws such a human story came from Gottlieb's mind.

"I'm in the phonebook!!" I love that.

One of my faves of all time and I also loved “the man with two brains”

I think he forgot to mention that the buffalo counter was on rodeo drive. Makes it a little funnier.

that scene was one of my favorites as well, a beautiful scene amist all that hilarious madness.

This was brilliant. Around 2008 I ended up going with an older friend to his friends house - Carl. There was a huge poster of "Jaws". Shit. I knew who this was. I immediately said, "F Jaws - you co-wrote THE JERK!". He lit up and signed his own old copy of "The Jerk" Novelization book (all he had that he could find at home at the moment! He was much happier to hear I knew him from "The Jerk" than "Jaws" like everyone else. And I got to hear so much of this stuff from him! Yes, that opening line DID come from his stand-up, and when they first sat together, they had no idea what the story would be so they did exactly as Steve described. Carl was a gentlemen, Steve was a gentlemen (I worked with him on a film and he wrote me an unsolicited personal thank you note - a true class act). And Carl REINER - well, he's just brilliant and a world treasure. Anyway, I'm glad to have found Steve talking about the Reiner films - especially this one. As Lorne Michaels knows, "Steve hung up his white suit years ago". So it was wonderful to see SM talk about it. Thanks AFI! P.S. Only thing is, it was Lyle Ritz who played the final track you actually hear on "You Belong to Me" - Steve may have learned to play the uke (you can tune it like a banjo so it shouldn't have been too hard for him to learn to strum), but the actual final ukulele track is by the professional Lyle Ritz. I just hoped Steve gave a shout out since he should have known that...

I have always loved Steve. I bought his stand-up vinyl LP's as a kid.

I've always suspected Steve Martin... besides being one of the funniest and all around most talented comedians/musicians... may also be, by far, the most intelligent. Listening to him talk over the years, I think this man is brilliant.

I have wathced the Jerk so many times that I've worn out 2 VHS tapes and had to finally buy it on dvd. I know Steve Martin says jokingly in this clip that it's one of the greatest movies of all time but I really think it IS! It certainly has been one of my families favorite movies of all time. and second on that list is another Steve Martin influenced gem the 3 amigos. :)

i do believe that the jerk, is most likely the best thing ever produced by this industry. how that happened must be a pure stroke of luck. ...... and of course the best performance by a black man ever. thanks Steve. and everyone else involved

I have loved this movie all it's years.....

Patty: "I got your name tattooed on my ass." Navin: "Hot dog! I bet more people have seen that than the lousy ol phone book! I really am somebody!"

one of my favs

Every year when it shows up.... The New Phone Books Here, The New phone Books Here

My favorite movie of all time! Love 'you belong to me" and 'i dont need anything..."

Still one of my all time favorites....

That song still makes me cry.

It gets censored like crazy these days. It IS one of the greatest pieces of cinema today that reflects a very innocent time when you could make jokes without people's arses tightening up. I love it and so do millions of others.

STAY AWAY FROM THE CANS! LOVE LOVE LOVE this movie! Watched for the first time when I was 14 and have seen it thousands of times since.

love steve matin the jerk was amazing

I so love this movie.

My favorite joke that no one ever seemed to pick up on was, "Have you seen a little boy wearing a shirt that says, 'Bullshit' on it?" "No but I saw some other kid wearing a shirt that says, 'Life Sucks' on it earlier."

CLASSIC! His address in the phone book always cracks me up.

Bravo (I'm standinig in applause at the laptop keyboard on the inside)!

one of the all time funniest movies ever!

A true comedy classic! It doesn’t get the recognition that it deserves.

It finally came up on Netflix and I think tonight is the perfect night to watch it 😁

Comedy masterpiece

The man never ages! The Jerk was so damned funny, and only gets better with age!

#1 Comedy of all time I'd say. Pure genius!

Awesome writing. Five years ago I moved across the country. All my music? Gone. Most books? Charity. Movies… I kept The Jerk. Hits all the right notes.

Steve Martin just gets better with every movie he makes. I actaully thing his straight roles are pretty fantastic. LA story is a classic.

i always love the film

Thank you Steve!!!!!

My favorite movie

I haven't seen The Jerk in years. I'm going to watch it soon. One of my favorite movies.

Love Steve