Anyone get the joke about Mel Gibson not doing television. Dustin Hoffman asks John Travolta which actor he would want to portray him in a made for tv movie, and John Travolta says Mel Gibson. And Dustin Hoffman goes "Mel Gibson doesn't do tv", and John Travolta goes "why not?", and Hoffman goes "Good question, why not? Sorry, bad joke" I'm guessing it must be funny but not really sure why.
shareThat whole exchange smacked of an inside joke between the writers, the director, and I smelled Hoffman's hand in it too. Whatever it was, it fell flat because it was a little too "inside."
shareMel Gibson did some crap TV ('Prisoner' and other piss poor soaps) in Australia before he made Mad Max and got his ticket out but I doubt that Americans would know that so I presume it is a fairly covert writer's in-joke. As far as I know Hoffman and Gibson have not worked together so one of life's little mysteries.
shareI did think it was a refrence to Gibson's early Aussie tv show, Punishment, it was called, but now I think the gag was that Mel was, at the time, a huge movie star and so the thought of him doing tv was ridiculous, so saying "You're right, why not?" to him doing tv was supposed to be ironic, or something. But like Hoffman said, bad joke.
Could it have been a jab at Mel Gibson? Like he's not as good as he thinks he is or something. Or maybe because they were on TV, they didn't think anyone could be too good for TV. I don't know. I think they just needed something for them to say to each other at the end, and making another reference to Mel Gibson was easy.
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