The second week The Fly (1986) was in theatres, 20th Century Fox ran newspaper ads that noted "The Fly has everything!" — including a lot of humor, and not just Black Comedy...
The film
- It's poignant in hindsight given what becomes of him, but Seth welcoming Veronica to his loft/lab with some piano playing shows he's well aware of what he comes off as.Veronica: Listen...maybe this was a bad idea.
Seth: No, it's too late. You've already seen them. (glissando) Can't let you leave here alive. (dun-dun-dun!) - Veronica dismisses Seth's invention as "designer phone booths". Seth points out that he calls them "telepods", which just sounds like a fancy name for "phone booths".
- "I've come here to say one magic word to you." "Yeah?" "Cheeseburger!" (Bonus points for working as this trope in universe, as it gets a laugh from Veronica. She even calls back to it later.)
- Veronica discovers that the reason Seth always seems to wear the same clothes is because he has five identical suits. As Seth explains how he was inspired by Albert Einstein, she looks down at the floor of his closet and sees that he also owns five identical pairs of shoes!
- After gagging on the "synthetic" steak, when Seth goes to work on fixing the problem, Veronica pulls the real cooked steak with a greedy smile and starts eating it.
- Before that, when he instructs her to try the teleported steak — even cutting a piece for her and lifting the fork to her mouth — she asks "Oh, are you serious? A monkey just came apart in there." He calmly responds "Baboon. Eat."
- The exchange between Veronica and Stathis in the clothing store. The look of absolute incredulity on Stathis' face makes it even funnier:Veronica: Don't you get it? I'm finally onto something big, huge!
Stathis: Yeah? What? His cock?- Followed by this dialogue:Veronica: Crude, Stathis. Very crude. (Stathis shoves the jacket at her)
Stathis: Too perfect to believe. You're a goddess! Thank you for making my most paranoid fantasies come true! (gets down on his knees and bows mock reverently)
- Followed by this dialogue:
- This line from Stathis to Brundle before he leaves:"If you plan to make anything disappear, please, let me know. I've got an assistant editor who's outlived his usefulness."
- After Seth fatefully teleports himself and emerges from Telepod 2 in a slightly stunned manner, the baboon who watched the whole business jumps right up into his arms, snapping his mind back into focus. "How you doing? Now you tell me — am I different somehow? Is it live or is it Memorex?"
- Some of the dialogue during the first and second stages of Brundlefly's transformation (first being the scene where his ear falls off, second when he records his eating habits). Most of it is probably him trying to cope with the situation with humor, but some highlights include:Brundlefly: It [the telepod] mated us, me and the fly. We hadn't even been properly introduced. (Later when he vomits on a donut and Veronica gasps) Oh... That's disgusting.
Brundlefly: (While climbing the wall, randomly pulls up shirt to show some sort of growth) Oh, look at this. What's this? I dunno. (A few seconds later when Veronica asks what he's changing into) What do you think, a fly? Am I becoming a 185-pound fly? - It's the way Jeff Goldblum performs during the scene where he demonstrates how he eats in front of a camera. It makes you think he really is a charming TV host and that the situation isn't so bad.Brundlefly: At the very least, it should make a fabulous children's book. [...] Ready for a demonstration, kids?
- If you can handle the Mood Whiplash, that is...
- Even funnier? Back when Seth wasn't a mutant, he was a lot less comfortable before a camera. It's just another sign of how much he's changed as a person thanks to his experiences!
- The actual video footage of this is an Easter Egg on non-Vanilla Edition DVD/Blu-Ray releases — happy hunting!
- Veronica flushing the toilet when Stathis is taking a shower is amusing to watch.
- Stathis, when Veronica sees him after Seth’s month-long isolation: "I'm sure Typhoid Mary was a very nice person too when you saw her socially."
- Seth telling Tawny that Veronica is his mom.
- Though the scene is otherwise tense and suspenseful, there's one rather funny moment when Seth first finds out that there was a "secondary element" in the teleporter during his ill-fated teleportation:Seth Brundle: [Typing] If primary element is Brundle, what is secondary element?
Computer: Secondary element is Not-Brundle. - In his penultimate stage, Seth reacts to parts of himself falling off without so much as a gasp. When his enzyme-worn teeth come out, he places them in his bathroom cabinet alongside several specimen jars containing other bits and pieces of his old self.Brundlefly: My teeth have begun to fall out. The medicine cabinet's now the Brundle Museum of Natural History. You wanna see what else is in it?
Behind the Scenes
- During the DVD Commentary, David Cronenberg talks about Jeff Goldblum learning how to talk with various dental appliances in his mouth throughout the transformation sequences. He does this at the point where Veronica rips Seth's jaw off. Cronenberg even lampshades it:"Of course, now he stops talking..."
- From the retrospective documentary Fear of the Flesh:
- John Getz had a rotten headache when he read for the part of Stathis Borans. The resultant pained attitude was pretty much what won him the role — Cronenberg asked him to recreate it once filming began.
- Geena Davis admits that until she saw the finished film she didn't realize that when they shot the scene in which Veronica hugs Seth after his ear molts away, she pressed her head right up against where the ear once was. What alerted her to this little detail? The audience screamed at the sight. Producer Stuart Cornfeld recalls that he and Cronenberg were surprised by this reaction too, Cornfeld turning to Cronenberg and noting that they hadn't realized they had a "moment" there.
- Jeff Goldblum recalling the days spent shooting an ultimately Deleted Scene involving Seth sliding down a brick wall, during which he (all along wearing full-body makeup/prosthetics, mind) was constantly being slathered in lubricant between takes and thinking of the old punchline "Gee, what — and quit show business?"
- Getz was gifted a certain prop by the crew as a souvenir: his character's severed foot. He kept this for a few years afterward, and became a legend among the preteen boys in his neighborhood who would come around to his place to see it for themselves.
- As with The Elephant Man, producer Mel Brooks took great pains to keep his involvement secret so people wouldn't go in expecting a comedy. Except this time it didn't work, and reportedly quite a few people on the film's initial release went in with a very wrong idea of what they'd get from comedy maestro Brooks producing a remake of a cheesy '50s sci-fi film, some even wearing their own neon fly antennae.
